The Missionary Review of the World — June 1900
OPENING SESSION OF THE GREAT ECUMENICAL
At this session Gen. Benjamin Harrison presided, and among others on the platform who made addresses were Dr. Judson Smith, Rev. Wardlaw Thompson, of London, Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, of India, Dr. Schreiber, of Germany, and Dr. Joseph King, of Australia. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
Old Series. t JUNE. J New Series. VOL. XXIII. No.6. f 1 VOL. XIII. No.6.
THE GREAT ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE ON FOREIGN MISSIONS IN NEW YORK CITY.* BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
How awe-inspiring is the perpetual recession of events toward the past eternity lOne of the greatest assemblies of history is now locked in its chambers of silence and darkness, never again to emerge into the busy world of active life; and the Ecumenical Conference of Missions is no longer a reality of the present, but a memory of the past.
It is both natural and needful, however, to review what has passed before us. Happily there is little to regret or repair, while the grounds of gratitude and gladness are countless. The weather, rainless, and almost cloudless, was a symbol of the smile which beamed upon us from a higher heaven and a greater Sun. The audiences are estimated to have reached a grand aggregate of about 170,000, and the visitors at the exhibit over 50,000. The total number of meetings held from April 21st to May 1st, was seventy-five, exclusive of those outside the conference proper, but which were also addressed by delegates.
The constituency of any gathering is what gives it character, since it constitutes the very assembly, and this conference was great, first of all, by reason of the men and women who composed it.
There were missionaries from all parts of the world field, to .the number of 600, and fifty cOllntries were represented; but the most impressive sight was that of the veterans fror ''far-off lands. They reminded one of the first great Ecumenical Con'ttcil, at Nice, nearly sixteen centuries ago, "the great and holy synod," the older and major part of whose members had passed through'the last and worst of the persecutions, and came up to the council like a remnant from some fearful fight or siege, their ranks decimated, their bodies mutilated by the hardships of the campaign and the cruelties of their foes, bearing the scars of sufferings under torture as well as of wounds * The photographs which illustrate this article were kindly loaned by the New York Tribune, which has gathered together its excellent reports of the conference in an Extra edition of 16 full pages, illustrated with numerous views and portraits, Copies may be had at 10 cents each, Address The Tribune, New York City,-EDITORS,
in battle. Seldom have a score of men and women been fou nd in one gathering, who have given to the work of missions snch a length of life and snch a depth of love. There was John C. Hepburn, M.D., who sixty years ago went as a medical missionary to Singapore, thence to Amoy, and afterward to Japan, where, after flfteen years of medical work as a pioneer, he entered the educational field and gave the Sunrise Kingdom a grammar, a lexicon, and a vernacular Bible. There was Cyrus Hamlin, the grand old hero of Turkey; John G. Paton, the white-haired" St. John" of the New Hebrides. There were three missionary bishops-Ridley, of Caledonia, B. C., Penick, of Cape Palmas, South Africa, and Thoburn, of India and Malaysia. There were the two Chamberlains-Jacob, of India, and George W., of Brazil. There were William Ashmore and D. Z. Sheffield and J. Hudson Taylor, of China; Joseph King, of Australia; Robert Laws, of Livingstonia; William E. Cousins, of Madagascar; George Washburn, of Robert College, at the Golden Horn: and such women as Isabella Thoburn, Mrs. Armstrong, Mrs. Howard Taylor, Dr. Mary P. Eddy, and Corinna Shattuck. In the persons of such as these we felt that we were in touch with the great fields of the world, and with the major part of the mission century.
What a contrast was suggested with that feeble few who, a century ago, began to kindle the fires of missionary zeal on the altars of an apathetic and even antagonistic Church! Here a hundred and fifteen mission boards and societies were represented by fifteen hundred delegates, besides the missionaries themselves, and vast multitudes for ten days thronged the places of assembly eager to hear every word spoken. Could William Carey have sat on that platform, and glanced over those enthusiastic and intelligent crowds, he would have seen the strange folly of the conservatism that bade the" young man sit down, and leave God to convert the heathen!" And could Sydney Smith have been there, he would have found Carey's schemes something more than" the dreams of a dreamer who dreams that he has been dreaming," and have seen how vain it was to attempt to "rout out" a "nest of consecrated cobblers" when God's Spirit brooded over the nest!
The conference was memorable for the presence and cooperation of distinguished Christian laymen, who were friends, supporters, and advocates of missions. When before has a missionary meeting had for its honorary chairman an ex-president of the United States, who sounded such bugle blasts for missions as Benjamin Harrison, and been addressed at the same time by the actual president of the republic and the governor of the state? But the merchant princes, the men of affairs, were there, such as Morris K. Jesnp, William E. Dodge, William T. Harris, Samuel B. Capen, James B. Angell, Dr. Henry Foster, John Wanamaker, Eugene Stock, of the Church Missionary
GREAT ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE ON FOREIGN MISSIONS
Society, Duncan McLaren, of Edinburgh, and many more of like capacity and sagacity. The kings of the mercantile, educational.• and professional world thus gave sanction and aid to missions as an enter- prise and an investment. Ex-President Harrison, at the reception given at the Hotel Savoy to Lilivati Singh, of India, said that, had he been rich enough to have given a million dollars to missions and got no returns beyond that one educated native woman, he would have reckoned it a good investment! And, as the same distinguished speaker remarked, the great commercial metropolis halted in iLs march of greed, to consider the meaning of this convention, and there was not a great mercantile house in the city in which it was not a theme of interested discussion.
And well might it be so, for a glance at the program will show that the subjects covered were universal in scope and ecumenical in interest. That program was not hastily prepared. It cost months of studious and prayerful preparation. The whole bearing of m!ssions, the conditions of success in evangelistic, educational, medical, and literary work on the field, and of intelligent, prayerful, be'1evolent cooperation at home, with all the mutual relation and interaction of these apposite forms of activity, found a place in the wide range of treatment. Not always, perhaps, in the proportion some would desire, for to every delegate there would be some one or more special phases of the general subject, which seem to need and deserve ampler consideration; but it was easy to see that those who conducted the conference to its actual consummation, had songht to give a just hearing to all that had a claim to a hearing; and the permanent preservation and wide dissemination of this valuable matter in the reports, which will fill two large volumes, and be published at the nominal price of one dollar, will make the conference in a new sense ecumenical, making a vast host of readers virtually delegates who heal' through the eye and attend the sessions at a trifling cost.
Very notable in this conference was the prominence of women, both as delegates and as speakers. Hundreds of the best and most able of the Ohristian sisterhood of all lands took part, admitted to an undisputed equality of privilege; and the manner in which they bore themselves more than justified the prominence accorded them. The epiphany of woman has come-her emergence out of the obscurity of the ages into her true and rightful sphere of influence. Ever since, sixty-six years ago, David AbeeI's trumpet appeal roused British women to plan work for the secluded women of the Orient, Christian womanhood has been moving to the front in missions. All denominations have now their female boards and auxiliaries, and every alive church has its band of earnest women spreading information, gathering offerings, and offering prayers for missions. The papers and addresses of the women ranked with the best of the convention, and
there were at least three of them-and one by a native of India-that few men on the floor of the assembly could have equaled.
Equally notable was the presence and prominence of the younger disciples. The fact compels recognition that the Church army knows no longer any distinction of age, as well as none of sex. Since 1844, when George Williams gave crystalline form to the idea of a Young Men's Christian Association in London, the youth of the Ohurch have been organizing as a department of the Church's working force. '1'he Young Women's Christian Association naturally followed the young men's, and then came the Yonng People's Society of Chris- tian Endeavor, and the Student Volunteer Union, the growth of all of which has been both rapid and gigantic. Fifty years ago who would have thought of putting on such a platform, and even into the chair, such young men as Messrs. Speer, Mott, Duncan, and Guinness, or asking addresses from such young women as Miss Price, Miss Shat- tuck, and Miss Singh? Yet there seemed to be nothing unfitting or unseemly in all this. The utterances of these younger members of the conference were wise, spiritual, mature, and helpful.
It was a cause of devout thanks that, throughout these ten days, uninterrupted harmony prevailed, representatives of all branches of Christ's Church dwelling together in unity, no discordant note or bitter controversial word being heard, tho candor prevailed and existing methods were sharply criticized. Charity and catholicity rose above all preferences, and even prejudices, and there was, from first to last, no offense taken, nor any spirit provocative of it. If, once or twice, the attitude of a speaker seemed almost belligerent, it was seen to be only the earuestness of conviction. Truth was felt to be entitled to a hearing at all costs. All seemed intent on discovering the mind of the Master, and getting at the best working basis for all departments of missions. Hence even Dr. Nevius' "methods," so long held in esteem, were subjected to a heavy fire of criticism, and hindrances of every sort to effective prosecution of missions were fearlessly attacked, even tho sheltered behind the sanction of established custom.
The committees having in charge the various matters of the conference, all received, as they deserved, unstinted praise. The whole vast machinery was complete and worked without friction. Nothing seemed to have been forgotten. A map of the world, gigantic in dimensions, fifty feet long by twenty-five feet high, completely filled the space at the rear of the stage, and was an inspiration. It was made for the conference at the cost of four hundred dollars, and was a specimen of the pains taken to make the occasion fruitful of good. _ The conference compels an outlook, and the view is inspiring. One thing needs no statement: the prejudice against missions can find root only where it grows side by side with ignorance, and ignorance nowadays must be wilful, for the days of darkness are past. Indifference
PIoulcf!ropA,d/or ;4, N … YorR Trihu
W.IIlIlillY GRANT. J. T. GRACXY, D.D. JOHN B. DEVINS, D.D. MISS E. TnXODORA CROSBY.
IN THE SECRETARIES' ROOM AT CARNEGIE HALL.
THE TURKISH COURT AT THE MISSIONARY EXHIBIT. This court contained a model of a Turkish minaret from which the Moslems are called to prayer; Turkish rugs and other articles of interest from the Ottomall Empire. The exhibitors wore Turkish costumes.
can survive only where there is a feeble church life or individual life. The work of missions has conquered not only a peace but a praise; it has won the unhesitating confidence and cooperation of the intelligent and genuine disciple. Not only is the whole Church enlisted but its whole membership feels the claim as never before. We have never heard positions so emphatic and advanced taken at a missionary gathering before, but the more emphatic the assertion of their rightful claims the more demonstrative the applause. Instead of making apologies for missions, it was those who t,ake no part in them that were driven to the wall to find an excuse for apathy. In that atmosphere antagonism and even indifference must have been stifled. Dr. Greer referred to the common excuse for neglecting the heathen abroad that" we have heathen enough at home," and well added tha~ this is proven to be true by the fact that the excuse is itself a heathen one! Charity is like a circle which begins anywhere and ends nowhere. It was a bold advocacy of missions which through ten days admitted no room even for a question as to either their authority or efficacy. No pastor was allowed to be well trained or equipped for his work who has not the missionary spirit, who is not able to lead his people, instructing them in the needs of the world and inspiring them with zeal for its evangelization. The common conviction gradually found expression, with more and more abundant ground as its justification, that with missionary facts well known, and praying and giving well used as God's helpers to preaching of the Word, one decade of years will show more progress than th~ century Boon to be left behind us.
'rhe rich things provided at this feast will be spread in abundance before our readers as far as space permits, and we shall hope to give a choice collection of nuggets of wit and wisdom hom the mines of suggestive thought opened in the conference, even when it may be impracticable to reproduce all the addresses in their completeness. Meanwhile again we recommend to our readers not only to buy the forthcoming reports for themselves but to send quantities of them to those who may thus be made partakers of the wealth of instruction, information, and suggestion which they contain.
'['his conference had an immense" apologetic" value. It was itself an evidence of Christianity, and a proof of a superintending God in history. Those ten days made more than ever gigantic the folly of the atheistic fool who says in his heart "there is no God," and the rationality of the devout believer who sees in everything God present and presiding: The universe is well named (uni-vertens), turning about one center. God is a threefold Creator, and not only the worlds of life which are called beings, and the worlds of space which we call spheres, but the worlds of time which we call ages or cycles or centuries, are products of His creative power. If "the undevout
THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO DELEGATES
astronomer is mad" because, while he sees the rolling orbs, he sees not the divine Sun which is the center of their measureless orbits; if the unbelieving biologist is mad because, while he watches life's vital stream, he neither traces it back to its divine fountain nor forward to its divine ocean; surely the faithless historian is also a fool, for he studies the cycles but does not see that all time is but one arc of God's eternity, and that it can be understood only in its relation to an eternal purpose.
The missionary century must be viewed as a cycle of God. We must tread softly along its paths, for everywhere and from all directions they lead to the burning bush where His presence becomes visible and vocal. He is everywhere to be found controlling the worlds of space and of time, !!O as to fit them to the purposes of the worlds of being and all together to His final end as the Redeemer of man. And, in its incentives to such devout study of the past and such reverent watching of the future, lies the main value of the great Ecumenical Oonference of 1900.
THE ADDRESS OF WELOOME TO DELEGATES.* BY GENERAL BENJAMIN HARRISON, LL.D. President of the Conference, former President of the United States.
I count it a great honor-a call to preside over the deliberations of this great body. It is to associate oneself with the most influential and enduring work that is being done in this day of great enterprises.
The gigantic engines that are driving forward a material development, are being speeded as never before. 'rhe din of the hammer and the ax, and the hum of wheels have penetrated the abodes of solitude-the world has now few quiet places. Life is strenuous-the boy is started in his school upon the rUll, and the pace is not often slackened until the panting man falls into his grave.
It is to a generation thus intent-to a generation that has wrought wondrously in the realms of applied science-that God in His Word and by the preacher says: All these are worthy only and in proportion as they contribute to the regeneration of mankiud. Every invention, every work, every man, every nation, must one day come to this weighing platform and be appraised.
To what other end is all this stir among men-this increase of knowledge? That these great agencies may be put in livery and lined up in the halls of wealth to make life brilliant and soft; or become the docile messengers of a counting-house or a stock exchange; or • Condensed from the opening address at the conference, delivered in Carnegie Hall, New York, Saturday afternoon, April 21,1900.
the swift couriers of contending armies; or the conriers who wait in the halls of science to give glory to the man into whose hand God has given the key to one of His mysteries? Do all the great inven- tions, these rushing intellectual developments, exhaust their ministry in the making of men rich, and the reenforcing of armies and fleets? No. These are servants, prophets, forerunners. They will find a herald's voice; there will be an annunciation and a coronation.
The first results seem to be the stimulation of a material produc- tion and a fiercer struggle for markets. Cabinets, as well as trade chambers, are thinking of the world chiefly as a market-house, and of the men as "producers" and "consumers." 'Ve now seldom have wars of succession or for mere political dominion. Places are stra- tegic primarily from the commercial standpoint. Oolonies are corner stalls in the world's market-place. If the product tarries too long in the warehouse, the mill must shut down and discontent will walk the streets.
The propulsion of this commercial force upon cabinets and nations was never so strong as now. The battle of the markets is at its fiercest. The great quest of nations is for "consumers." The voice of commerce is: "And my hand shall find as a nest the riches of the people, and as one gathereth eggs that are left, will I gather all the earth."
But with the increase of commerce and wealth the stress of social difficulties is not relieved, but increases in all of the great nations. The tendency is not to one brotherhood, but to many. Work for the willing at a wage that will save the spirit as well as the body, is a problem of increasing tangle and intricacy. Oompetition forces economical devices, and names wages that are, in some cases, insufficient to renew the streugth expended. It suggests, if it does not compel, aggregations of capital, and these in turn present many threatening aspects. Agencies of man's devising may alleviate, but they can not cure this tendency to division and strife, and substitute a drift to peace and unity. Ohrist in the heart, and His Gospel of love and ministry in all the activities of life, is the only cure.
The highest conception that has ever entered the mind of man is that of God and the Father of all men-the one blood-the universal brotherhood. It was not evolved, but revealed. The natnral man lives to be ministered unto-he lays his imposts upon others. He buys slaves that they may fan him to sleep, bring him the jeweled cup, dance before him, and die in the arena for his sport.. Into such a world there came a King "not to be ministered unto, but to minister." The rough winds fanned His sleep; He drank of the mountain brook, and made not the water wine for Himself; would not use His power to stay His own hunger, but had compassion on the multitude. He called them He had bought with a great price no more servants,
but friends. He entered the bloody arena alone, and, dying, broke all chains, and brought life and immortality to light.
Here is the perfect altruism; here the true appraisal of men. Ornaments of gold and gems, silken robes, houses, lands, stocks, and bonds-these are tare when men are weighed. Where else is there a scale so true? Where a brotherhood so wide and perfect? Labor is made noble-the King credits the smallest service. His values are relative; He takes account of the per cent. when tribute is brought into His treasury. No coin of love is base or small to Him. The widow's mite He sets in His crown. Life is sweetened; the poor man becomes of account. Where else is found a philosophy of life so sweet and adaptable-a philosophy of death so comforting?
The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the message" we seek not yours but. you," have been hindered by those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civilization, and the feeble races wither before the hot breath of the white man's vices.
The great nations have combined to suppress the slave trade. Is it too much to ask that they shall combine to prevent the sale of spirits to men who, less than our children, have acquired the habits of self-restraint? If we must have "consumers," let us give them an innocent diet.
The enemies of foreign missions have spoken tauntingly of the slowness of the work, and of its great and disproportionate cost, and we have too exclusively consoled ourselves and answered the criticism by the suggestion that with God a thousand years is as one day. We should not lose sight of the other side of that truth-one day with Him is as a thousand years. God has not set a uniform pace for Himself in the work of bringing in the Kingdom of His Son. He will hasten it in His day. The stride of His Church shall be so quickened that commerce will be the laggard. Love shall outrun greed. He exacts faith. He will not answer the demand to show a COUfRe of stone in His great cathedral for every thousand dollars given.
But it may be justly asked that the administrators of our mission treasuries justify their accounts; that they use a business wisdom and economy; that there is no waste; that the workmen do not hinder each other. The plowing and the sowing must be well done. These may be aud should be judged; that is men's part of the work. But the care of well-planted seed is with God. We shall have reports from the harvesters showing that He has given the promised increase-some thirty and some an hundred fold. Gifts to education are increasingly munificent. University endowments have been swelled by vast single gift s in the United States during the last few years. We rejoice in this. But may we not hope that in the exposition of the greater neens of the educational work in the mission fields, to be presented in this conference, some
men of wealth may find the suggestion to endow great schools in mission lands? It is a great work to increase the candle-power of our educational arc-lights, but to give to cave-dwellers an incandescent may be a better one.
Not the least beneficent aspect and influence of this great gathering will be found in the Christian union that it evidences. The value of this is great at home, but tenfold greater in the mission field, where ecclesiastical divisions suggest diverse prophets. The Bible does not draw its illustrations wholly from the home or the fields, but uses also the strenuous things of life, the race, the fight, the girded soldier, the assault. There are many fields; there are diverse arms; the battle is in the bush, and the comrades that arc seen are few.
A view of the whole army is a good thing; the heart is strengthened by an enlarged comradeship. It gives promise that the flanks will be covered and a reserve organized. After days in the brush the sense of numbers is lost. It greatly strengthens the soldier and quickens his pace when he advances to battle, if a glance to right or left reveals many pennons, and a marshaled host moving under one great leader to execute a single battle plan.
During the Atlanta campaign of our civil war the marching and fighting had been largely in the brush. Sometimes in an ad vance the commander of a regiment conld see no more than half of his own line, while the supports to his right and ieft were wholly hidden. To him it seemed as if his battalion was making an unsupported assault. '1'he extended line, the reserve, were matters of faith.
But one day the advancing army broke suddenly from the brush into a savannah-a long, narrow. natural meadow, and the army was revealed. From the centre, far to the right and left, the distinctive corps, di vision, brigade, and regimental colors appeared, and associated with each of these was the one flag that made the army one. A mighty spontaneous cheer burst from the whole line, and every soldier tightened his grip upon his rifle and quickened his step. What the savannah did for that army this World's Conference of Missions should do for the Church.
THE WELCOME FROM THE NATION.* BY WILLIAM MCKINLEY. President of the United States.
The story of Christian missions is one of thrilling interest and marvelous results. '1'he sacrifices of the missionaries for their fellowmen constitute one of the most glorious pages of the world's history. The missionary, of whatever church or ecclesiastical body, who devotes his life to the service of the Master and of man, carrying the torch of truth and enlightenment, deserves the gratitude and homage of man- * Extracts from President McKinJey's address, on Saturday evening, April 21, in Carnegie Hall.
SOME EXPECTATIONS OF THE lIUSStONAltIES
kind. The noble, self-effacing, willing ministers of peace and goodwill should be classed with the world's heroes. vVielding the sword of the Spirit, they have conquered ignorance and prejudice. They have been the pioneers of civilization. They have illumined the darkness of idolatry and superstition with the light of intelligence and truth. They have been messengers of righteousness and love. They have braved disease and danger and death, and in their exile have suffered unspeakable hardships, bnt their noble spirits have never wavered. They count their labor no saerifice. "Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought," says David Livingstone; "it is emphatically no ~acrifice, say rather it is a pri rilege." They furnish us examples of forbearance and fortitude, of patience and unyielding purpose, and of a spirit which triumphs not by the force of might, but by the majesty of right. They are placing in the hands of their brothers, less fortunate than themselves, the keys which unlock the treasures of knowledge and open the mind to noble aspirations for better conditions. Education is one of the indispensable steps of mission enterprise, and in some form must precede all successful work.
Who can estimate the value of foreign missions to the progress of the nations? Their contribution to the onward and upward march of humanity is beyond all calculation. They have inculcated industry and taught the various trades. They have promoted concord and amity and brought nations closer together. They have made men better. They have increased the regard for home, have strengthened the sacred ties of family, have made the community well ordered, and their work has been a potent influence in the development of law and the establishment of government.
May this great meeting rekindle the spirit of missionary ardor and enthusiasm to go and" teach all nations;" may the field never lack "a succession of heralds who shall carryon the task-the continuous proclamation of His Gospel to the end of time."
SOME EXPEOTATIONS OF THE MISSIONARIES.* BY HEV. JACOB CHAMBEHLAIN, )I.D., D.D., MADANAPELLE, INDIA.
It is with earnest longing and ardent expectation that we missionaries on the distant forefront of the conflict have been looking to this gathering of Immanuel's followers. Shall I voice a few of the helps to ourselves, to our work at the front, to our home churches as well, for which your missionaries are thus looking?
The first is the impetus of enthusiasm. We look for an enthusiasm that shall nerve your soldiers at the front, whether veterans or * Condensed from a response to the address of welcome, on behalf of the missionaries, delivered in Carnegie Hall, Saturday afternoon, April 21, 1900.
raw recruits, officers or native levies on the field, nerve them to a more impetuous assault on the enemy's entrenchments; a cheer that will smite as with an ague the courage of the foe; a cheer that will cause their Jericho walls to fall flat before the victorious Ohurch of our Joshua Jesus.
Second, we look for help in tactics and strategy. We mission- aries on our various battlefields in the actual conflict are indeed trying diligently to study the situation, planning ever for new aggressive movements, while to the utmost using the forces we have; here utili- zing secular education in the way of siege operations, to cause their ancient faiths and beliefs to crumble; there with girls' schools and zenana work, quietly, unobserved, undermining in the family the bastions of their ancestral superstitions; here with our medical work making a flank attack, getting within the lines of their softened hearts by the merciful power of the healing art; there making a direct assalilt on their strongholds, by the oral proclamation, in their own tongue, of our one Savior and King, in their markets and their fairs, in their city streets and under the shadow of their hoary temples, seeking to win back the adult classes and masses to their allegiance to the King of kings; there, as in an artillery duel, engaging their chosen champions in close discussion, to show. that our God-given system alone can meet the needs of man; yet we know that engrossed and hampered as we are with each day's conflict, we may fail to discover even more available tactics, and that others not in the thick of the battle, viewing the field as from a captive balloon, may perchance discover 9penings for more effective strategy, may discover better measures for sooner planting a self-supporting, self-governing, selfpropagating native church in each new country or part of country won.
We also earnestly hope for more ltJlity, cOlllit.1f, and cooperation, and less of unholy rivalries concerning and on the fields of conflict. Among the missionary forces on the field facing the common enemy there is probably less of denominational jealousies than anywhere else in Ohristendom. Fronting one foe we cannot afford to fight one another, and, as a rule, we stand shoulder to shoulder and lock arms for the conflict. Yet there are sometimes rivalries and interferences, two or three rival bodies elbowing one another in a circumscribed territory, while beyond are unoccupied regions in which one of the rival organizations, removing thereto by direction of its home board, might do far more effective work, reap a far richer harvest. For this greater unity of counsel at home, greater harI1lony of action abroad, do we look and pray.
Again, we believe that the time has come for the world-wide Ohurch in council to recognize, and declare in unmistakable terms, that this conquest of the world for Ohrist is the fundamental object
THOUGHTS ON THE MISSIONARY CENTURY
of the Church's existence,. that the command given to the Ohurch, " Go, evangelize all nations," was not to a subsidiary work, bu t that that was the divine object for which the Ohurch was constituted; that only to the extent in which she fulfils this God-appointed destiny will she be blessed of God; that the time has now come for each church to support two pastors, one for the thousands at home, another for the myriads abroad.
We hope, however, that from this conference will emanate such an influence as shall rivet in the heart of each Christiall, hoping for salvation through Jesus Christ, a new conviction dominating his whole life, a conviction that it is his privilege, his high honor, his exalted duty, to become a junior partner with that Ohrist in the salvation 'of the world. Oh, the glory of the thought that, when Christ might have chosen to accomplish the work without us, He in the infinity of His condescension offered us each, small or great, a working partnership with Him in the establishment of His Kingdom, bidding each believer to go, or send and offer pardon to every creature! Oan we ever again, anyone of us great or small, pray" Thy Kingdom come," without taking hold in some way to help make it come? For such an influence do we look to this conference.
We missionaries on the distant watch towers, at the forefront, planning the attack, seeing the myriads of the enemy, seeing the massive bulwarks of their ancient systems, seeing the paucity of the invading armies, yet believing, for God has said it, that the battle will be won, seem to hear again the voice that Zerubbabel heard saying: "Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." And our eyes and yours are longingly, believingly resting npon this Jerusalem council here assembled, as we mightily pray for such a Pentecostal pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon it, and upon the work here represented in all the world, as has not been witnessed since that Pentecost of old.
THOUGHTS ON 'l'HE MISSlONARY OENTURY.* PROF. WARNECK, D.D., HALLE, GERMANY.
Looking back upon the very small beginnings of the mIssIOnary activity of the nineteenth century, which to-day has assumed truly vast dimensions among the ancient Ohristian churches and in the non- Christian world, the Ecumenical Mission Oonference can not but have the character of a jubilee centenary celebration in the most specific * Condensed from a communication to the Ecumenical Conference on Foreign Missions, which Dr. Warneck expected to attend personally, but was prevented by illness. Prof, Warneck has made the historical and theoretical study of missions his special work for over thirty years, embracing more and more the fuU extent of the field. This work has become his very life, so that as a veteran in mission service, his thoughts and hopes here expressed are especial1y worthy of notice. They are drawn from missionary experience of the past and are of importance for the mission work of the future.-EDITORS,
sense of the word. We can not render sufficient praise to God, that He has opened the door of faith for the heathen in this century as never before. Let our praise be a sincere and humble Soli Deo Gloria, and let us avoid even the appearance of any praise of men. The success of mission work hitherto achieved may be called great or small, according to the light in which it is viewed. In making our estimate let us endeavor to be both careful and sober. Sophrosyne is also a great mission virtue, likely in the long run to win more friends for the mission work at home, and to be of greater service abroad than pious rhetoric endeavoring to startle by exaggeratiou.
The nineteenth century is rightly called a missionary century. In the number of mission workers, the total of mission expenditure, the extent of mission enterprise, and the organization of mission activity, this century has no equal in forming missionary periods. rrhrough God's grace much has been done; but we ought to have the humility and the courage to examine honestly whether everything has been done well. Only a self-righteous adherence to preconceived theories shuts the eyes against the teachings of experience which shows us our mistakes.
The mission century behind us has accomplished great things, but greater things are expected from the one before us. The longer we study them the more clearly should we not only understand theoretically the special mission problems, but also be better able to sol ve them practically. This, however, can not be done by catchwords. Rhetorically dazzling, these catchwords are more apt to confuse than to enlighten, and not seldom they are romantic will 0' the wisps, showing a wrong road on which much generous energy is lavished almost uselessly, and to return from which requires rare courage. Solid work is the only road by which to arrive at an intelligent understanding of the mission problems, and wisdom and discretion alone will help to solve them.
What we need, besides expert mission directors, is above all missionaries really equal to their great work. The general cry is more missionaries-and let me add emphatically, more men. But the petition that the Lord of the harvest should send workers into His harvest also has reference to their q1lality. Missionaries must be weighed, not only counted. Spiritual equipment is of course the chief consideration. But the teaching of more than a hundred years of missionary experience should prevent us from again falling into the mistake of thinking that this alone suffices without a thorough training. More than enough male and female missionaries have been sent out who were not even capable of learning to speak the foreign language fluently.
It is a hopeful sign of the increase in missionary interest that a growing enthusiasm for mission work is spreading among young men
and students. May God raise up from among them large-minded men with real insight into the mission problems, determined to make mission service their calling for l1fe, and not willing to turn aside after the first few years have barely completed their apprenticeship.
Very energetically are the watchwords promulgated nowadays: "expansion," "diffusion," "evangelization of the world in this generation." I will not deny that in view of the present openings all the world over such mottoes are entitled to consideration, and so far as this is the case, I certainly have no wish to weaken their force. But without due limitation and completion I consider them dangerous.
The mission command bids us " go" into all the world, not "fty." FesNna lente also applies to missionary undertakings. The kingdom of God is not like a hothouse, but like a field in which the crop is to be healthily grown at a normal rate. Impatient pressing forward has led to the waste of most patient toil, and more than one old mission field has been unwarrantably neglected in the haste to begin work in a new field. Patience fills a large space in the missionary program, and to patience must be added faithfulness in steadily contimting the great task of building up in the old mission fields. Here are ripening harvests calling for reapers The non-Christian world is not to be carried by storm. Mission history should also teach us not to specify a time within which the evangelization of the world is to be completed. It is not for us to determine the times or the seasons, but to do in this our time what we can and to do it wisely and discreetly. 'I'he watchword "diffusion" is really a caricature of evangelical missions, if its antithesis" not concentration" leads to the destruction of organization. If evangelical missions are suffering from one lack more than another, it is the want of organization, in which the Roman Catholic missions are so much their own superiors. Nor will the great spiritual war, which the missions are waging, be decided by hosts of francs-tireurs, but by organized concentration. The many so-called free-lance missionaries are not an addition of strength to the evangelical missions, but a waste of strength. Neither is it well to go on establishing new missionary societies; rather let the watchword be join and support the old and experienced ones. Nothing is more painful than for old-established societies to be obliged to reduce their work, because new undertakings are absorbing men and means without making up for their losses by their own successes.
Perhaps the greatest of all mission problems is the implantation of Christianity into the foreign soil of heathen nations in such a way that it takes root like a native plant and grows to be a native tree. No doubt the first object of mission work is to bring the individual heathen to the faith, and through faith to salvation. But the object of mission work must also be national and social, to permeate whole heathen nations with the truth and the power of the Gospel? to gather
in them a Christianity, and to sanctify their social and natural relations. If the native Uhristians become estranged from their national and popular customs, Christianity will never become a national and social power. There is a great danger of confounding the spread of the Gospel with the spread of European and American culture, and as far as I can see this danger has by no means been avoided everywhere. If I am not greatly mistaken, a chief reason why the success of missions is not greater is to be found in the fact that the national character is lacking to-day in so large part of the Christianity of mission lands. A not inconsiderable percentage of native helpers, Chinese perhaps excepted, and of the young people who have passed through the higher schools, is more or less denationalized and miseducated. Hardly any mission has been saved from this experience, but it is chiefly noticeable in many English and American mission fields. We must have the courage to see this, if there is to be an improvement. Where the evil is not even seen, how can it be corrected?
While a proper position as regards the customs of the natives has in many cases not yet been fonnd, another side of the problem in question claims particular attention, viz: the fostering of their own languages. Without doubt evangelical missions of all nationalities and denominations, have in the course of this century produced excel- lent results as regards native languages; there are among evangelical missionaries linguists to whom is due a position of honor in the science of languages. Also the principle is generally accepted: each nation has a right to hear the Gospel in its mother tongue. But on the other hand the fact can not be denied that this principle is not always put into practise in our preaching and teaching. There are plenty of missionaries who never become independent of the help of the interpreter, nay more, who had scarcely understood the language problem at its real root. This problem is the difficulty of becoming so completely acquainted with the spirit, the whole mode of thinking and reasoning of the foreign people, as to be able to render Scripture terms into the native language so correctly that the truth of the Gospel, natnrally foreign to them, shall be fnlly understood by the natives. This is perhaps the greatest intellectual task demanded of the missionary. As a foreigner to them, he must himself understand the natives before they can understand him. English has become the language of intercourse throughout the wide world, but that must not . tempt us to make it the language of missions. The missionary com- mand does not say: Go ye and teach English to all nations. Not more, but less English in the missions; that should be the watchword of the great missionary problem to be solved.
In conclusion one more point. It is now generally acknowledged among exangelical missions that the aim of the work is the formation of independent churches of native Ohristians. This has only been
UNIQUE ASPECTS OF MISSIONS TO WEST AFRICA
perceived in the course of the work; the beginning of missionary activity seldom took the roads to reach this goal. And to this day there is, in mallY missions, a neglect in this respect which should be remedied. On the other hand too much haste and 1£nwl:se impa#ence have been shown in placing native churches on an independent footing, especially where republicanism has joined hands with ultraindependent theories. The result has been unsatisfactory everywhere, it has even damaged the young churches, because they were not yet ripe for full independence. 'fhe latest experiment of this kind, the so-called Ethiopian Church in South Africa, is generally admitted to be a danger actually threatening Christianity there. Here we have another great mission problem toward the solution of which catchwords will not help. It can only be solved by slow and solid work carried on with patient wisdom, and keeping the end aimed at always in view. The great majority of those upon whom our missionary efforts of to-day are exercised can not be treated as Englishmen or as Americans, nor as the Greeks were treated in Apostolic times; differences of race, of education, and weakness of character forbid it. Let us pray for both patience and wisdom, that we may under the guidance of the Holy Spirit become in every respect true educators and not spoilers of the nations to whom by the will of God we are permitted to bring the Gospel.
UNIQUE ASPEUTS 0}1' MISSIONS TO WEST AFIUCA.
BY REV. ROBERT HA!ULL NASSAU, D.D., GABUN, WEST APRICA. Missionary of the Presbyterian Board.
There are some respects in which missions to Africa are unique. First.-As to health, their conditions are the most insalubrious, not excepting those of Siam. It is with no satisfaction that, in the effort to be a truthful recorder, I admit this bad eminence. Other countries have each their special causes of ill-health.. For instance, lower and middle India, their fearful heats and their liability to scourges of cholera. But for general prevalence of malarial conditions, with the certainty that foreigners will, all of them, suffer from intermittent fever, and the expectation that many will sicken with bilious remittent (otherwise called pernicious or malignant) fever, and the probability that some will die of the globo-hematuric fever, the African missions, eastern and western, both on the coasts and up the rivers, have had a sad record. When, forty years ago, I offered myself for foreign service, with an expressed preference for Africa, I was accepted, partly because of that preference. So much had the fear of Africa's fatality to white life impressed the public, that few parents were willing to allow
their children to go. The foreign board itself was so far influenced by this public opinion that it rarely took the responsibility of asking the theological seminarians to go to Africa, much less of turning their thoughts thither from other fields. In the case of other missions, candidates for foreign missionary service were turned aside from one field at the call of special necessity in another, e. g., for China as against India, or for India as against Syria, or for Syria as against Persia, etc. But rarely from anyone of these countries for Africa. She got only those who offered for her. If they succeeded in escaping, overcomiug, or disregarding the opposition of relatives and acquaintances, they themselves assumed all responsibility of taking A NATIVE CANOE ON TRE OGAWAI RIVER, WEST AFRICA.
In these canoes the missionaries travel thousands of miles on preaching tours, and traders journey in search of ivory and india-rubber.
their lives in their hands. That responsibility was not shared by the board.
It was at that time also currently believed by the public, and by many missionaries themselves, that white maternity was necessarily' fatal in Africa. That idea sent me to Africa a celibate. Oelibacy, for the kingdom's sake, is not a possibility for all men. Some gave up the mission. Others, whose wives survived, were faced with another then universally-accepted belief, that white infant life could not be preserved in Africa. They, therefore, returned with their families to America. In all cases the recorded reason for return, and for resignation from service, was African" ill heal th." Poor malarious Africa had a terrible record run up against her account.
I have admitted the charge of preeminence in bad malarial condi-
UNIQUE ASPECTS OF MISSIONS TO WEST AFRICA
tions, but I wish to minimize some of the specifications. It is not true (myself have proved it untrue) that white maternity is necessarily fatal, or that continued missionary infant existence is impracticable in Africa. Only there are needed, as they are needed ill healthful America, and as provided by the considerate forethought of attentive husbands and fathers, certain comfortable, restful prenatal surroundings of nurse, companionship, special foods, and appropriate medicines.
For the safety of foreign lives in Africa, my experience of thirtyeight years there shows me that it is important to have 11 reasonable knowledge of physiology (not necessarily of Il]edicine), and of the fUllctions of our chief organs-stomach, liver, kidney, bowels, and skin. A careful daily observation to see that these organs, like parts of an engine, are each uncongested and in harmonic exercise of their offices, goes far to prevent the development of malarial germs, or furuishes good ground for effective operation when the need for the employment of medicine is actually indicated.
It is also just to Africa that the foreigner shall not eat, drink, dress, work, and live exactly as and how he does in his own country. In all these matters he should make modifications and limitations. I have had occasion to see reason for criticism on these points, even in the lives of fellow-missionaries. As to the other foreigners, traders, and government officials, so utterly unhygienic, not to say reckless, are the lives of most of them, that, friendly as are my business and social relations with many of them, I wonder, not at their death, but at their existence at all.
A DESPISED RACE.
Second.-Africa and its people are outside of public sympathy. This quiet, if not expressed, contempt for a race, unconsciously extends itself to the men and women who go with the Gospel to that race. 'J'hey may be respected for their devotion, but they are pitied for their" folly." Shortly after I had been accepted by the Loard for Africa, in making a good-by call on the home of some friend, I met ladies visiting, and I joined them in a summer evening stroll. I mentioned my expected departure for Africa, and, considering its insalubrity, the probability that I could not live to return. I remember, as yesterday, the scorn of the thin curved lips that tllrned on me with, " And you ought to die for being fool enough to go to such a country!" The acme of the folly being that I was going to " niggers" and "darkies." (May my negro friends forgive me for writing those two words. I never speak them. I feel hurt when they are spoken, sometimes by lips that should not utter them. "Black,"" African," "colored," and "negro," are all of them good, kind, respectable, Ohristian words; leaving neither right or duty for the use of the two above-named offensive ones.)
HEATHEN DANCERS OF THE FANG TRIBE, GABUN, WEST AFRICA…
These men and women are cannibals arranged Jor an immoral heathen dance. Thefr musical instruments are two drums, which are also used as signal drums in time of war. The dancers hold sticks In their hands, with which they beat time.
Had I gone to proud philosophic India, or to Syria redolent of sacred story, or to esthetic Japan, or to celestial China, or even to American Indians, noble under the glamor of romance, I should have been given at least sentimental sympathy. There would be no "disgrace" in acknowledging acquaintanceship with a missionary to those countries and their pp,oples. Even to-day, observe the distinction that would be held against a negro from Africa, as compared with mission pupils from other countries. Let a missionary, to please a pupil, or for foreign missionary interest, or under family necessity for a servant to assist in care of young children in returning on furlough to this country, bring a young man or young woman, a Hindu, or Syrian, or Japanese; or of other nationality. He has little difficulty in finding transport for them on railroads, or entertainment at hotels. Even in private houses, most patrons of foreign missions are willing to give them food and lodging, the house servants do not rebel at serving them, and the family is pleased to exhibit their foreign curiosity, albeit there be Japarrese and Chinese on the street galore. But, when I returned in 1891 with my six-year-old motherless daughter, accompanied by the educated native African Christian woman, who with rare skill and utter devotion had nursed, saved, trained, and guarded my child, and whose aid I needed on the 6,000
UNIQUE ASPECTS OF MISSIONS TO WEST AFRICA
miles from Gabun to Liverpool, on her pleading still to be allowed to care for my little one in America, I refused to bring her hither, knowing that a negro would not be kindly treated. Unkindness to one wljose incomparable service has made me always her debtor, would have hurt me more than unkindness to myself.
White missionary men, for reasons good and sufficient to themselves, have married a yellow Ohinese, a dark Armenian, a bronze Hindu, and a half-breed red Indian, and their names and work are held in special praise, and honors are heaped on them.
There are instances of French, German, and English missionaries marrying negro women who had grown up in their mission schools to be refined lady-like companions. These marriages were eminently useful, the women furnishing their husbands intimate information, counsel, advice, and warning about and even against their native peoples, which gave those men special knowledge and power. But, if an American missionary should contract such a negro marriage, he would be condemned to perpetual exile; and probably a petition would come to the board, requesting that he be dropped from the service.
Third.-Missionaries in Africa are off the line of the world's travel, and thus fail to obtain the interest and cooperation which arise from intelligent acquaintanceship. Only four classes of persons go to the east and west coast of Africa. (The northllrn and southern ends, A CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE IN LIBREVILLK, GABUN, WEST AFRICA.
The bride and groom are In the center and belong to the better class of the native community, The bride Is a native of Dr. Nassau's church, and the groom Is a member of the congregation.
being in healthy temperate zones, are constantly visited by all classes of tourists.) Those four are: (1) Missionaries, for sake of the Gospel; (2) traders, for sake of wealth; (3) government officials, for political position, and (4) travelers, for science. Men, and even women, come to search in the almost untrodden paths of African zoology, botany, geology, and entomology. Miss Mary II. Kingsley, a niece of the late Canon Charles Kingsley, was sent out to investigate the single branch of fresh-water fishes. Along with that she gratified her own literary interest in ethnology and comparative religion by a research into fetishism, in the pursuit of which she exposed herself to all the usual and possible risks under which men so often sink, of heat, storm, swamp-malaria, hunger, thirst, dangers of all kinds, isolation, travel, robbery, and wild heathen nature. In this she experienced most of the adventures met by any of our missionaries, came successfully through, and all for science. She has told a most graphic story in her "Travels in West Africa," a book that repays reading, however much most Christians will differ from her conclusions on some points of African sociology.
The government officials, most of them, with no love for, little understanding of, or slight interest in the negro as a person, or Africa as a place, are willing to come and worry through their two specified years of what they, with profane expletive, call an "exile," for the sake of promotion on the civil list, these years in Africa counting almost double £01' service elsewhere.
The young white clerk of eighteen years of age comes, at a small salary, on a two or three years' contract, at the end of which he has a six months' furlough and goes home, sometimes in debt, rarely with much money to his credit. What could have been saved by economy, has gone in drinks and dissolute revelry. If he has not followed the majority in death by the way, he returns again at a better salary~his experience in trade commanding a higher figure-and he is on the road to an agency with its power and wealth.
But rarely a visitor, Christian or otherwise, visits any of the mission stations on the entire eastern or western African coasts. Visitors-Christian gentlemen and ladies of means and literary tastes-frequently tour to China, they constantly go to India, they throng Japan, they overrun Syria. 'l'hey personally inspect, and some are entertained at the mission stations in those countries. It is a recreation and a social blessing for the missionary to have their intellectuallife to vary and brighten the routine of his life. The missionary is pleased to go to some unus(lal expense at table in order to entertain his guests. And the guests come back to their country with glowing missionary interest, and tell a story that helps to swell the next annual collection.
I am sincerely glad those countries have that benefit. But in all
UNIQUE ASPECTS OF MISSIONS TO WEST AFRICA
my thirty-eight years-tho we frequently have visits of passengers spend ing a few hours ash ore from the steamer in port, members of adjacent missions going to and from their furlough s, newly-arrived traders or scientists-there has been bu t one Christian visitor who came solely for friendship ancl without any personal ax to grind. The late Rev. Dr. Pinn ey, formerly of Liberia, after many years of retirement, wished, in the closing years of his life, to look on t he land where had been spent the strength of his manhood. H e revisited Liberia, and coutinned his journey as far south as the Equator, giving the Gabun and Corisco mission, for a few days, the benison of his presen ce, counsel, and patriarchal prayer.
Why East and West Africa are avoided by tourists, I do not know. Perhaps because we can show no gems in architecture, no magic of music, no grace of art, no monuments of the past; perhaps because THK MISSJON B OUS E, LIBREVILLE, GABUN, WEST AFRICA.
The ho use Is built of Imported timber aDd thatcbed wi tb palm leaves. The trees In froy ' are coco-palms a.nd those in the rear are breadfruit and mango plum trees. Nearby are tbe l1agstali aDd tbe ch urch bell.
the negro is not by most persons regard ed as a thing of beauty; perhaps because of the dreaded malaria. Whatever the reason, the enormous fact stands that the missionary, in going to East or West Africa, is left severely alone there by all the world, exeept the board's secretaries and treasurers, and his few loving friends, who write him the monthly letter that is one of the ropes by which they help to keep him from sinking in the depths of obscurity and often depression. His song is often a De Profundis; the Te DeU111S come just in time to save him.
Fourth.-Something is noticeable about our mission finance. Our payments to natives are mostly in barter. To only It few of the more educated, or only in part to others, do we pay wages in hard
cash. 'l'hus the salaries and expenses of our African missions (except in ~uch civilized cities as Freetown, Sierra Leone, with its 20,000 inhabitants, and Lagos, with its 40,000, and other cities) are less than in any other country. The preposterous slander that "it takes a dollar to send a dollar," if it could possibly be true of any mission, is expressly untrue in Africa. That it is true nowhere, any candid mind that desires to know the truth can easily find by reading the annual audit of the treasurer's accounts of foreign missionary boards. It is true, indeed, that five per cent. is retained at the Presbyterian Board office, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. The remaining ninetyfive cents go out in bills of exchange on London or Paris, and are cashed at Hongkong, Beirut, Bombay, and other cities, and in the missions in the countries of those cities native employees are paid 1Il actual cash.
At the financial center of our mission in the Gabun, these bills of exchange are thp.~ accepted for us by the English, German, Portuguese, and French merchants of the town of Libreville, the headquarters of the French colonial government of the Kongo FranQais. But instead of cash, we take, in part payment, large amounts of trade goods, calico prints, hardware of all kinds, crockery, utensils, and haberdashery. 'rhese require for each of our stations a little shop; the missionary in charge of each station is, at least for an hour a day, a shopkeeper who buys native food and supplies, and pays native workmen and evangelistic assistants. Just as do all business men all over the world, we add to the invoice price of these goods a per cent. of from forty to sixty. No injustice works to the native. He prefers to have the goods. The gain does not redound to the pecuniary benefit of the missionary personally. It reverts to the mission treasury, and, in our actual operations makes the church's ninety-five cents equal one hundred and forty cents. Only in the case of the missionary purchasing his daily food, or paying a personal employee, silCh as cook or laundress, does the pel' cent. assist him pecuniarily. Because of that assistance he is able to live on a salary less than is given to any other foreign missionary.
A PLEASANT COMPENSATING FACTOR.
Fifth.-It is worth while to point out as a pleasant compensating factor in this unique life of the missionary to Africa, the ease with which the native language can be acquired. 'rhis is especially true of the mission located below the 4th degree of north latitude. All Africa below that line is covered by the Bantu negro stock, the grammatical structure of whose language is the same, however the dialectic variations may differ, among the thousands of tribes, from the Benga on the west to the Ki-Suahili on the east, and down to the Zulu in the south. These variations are only of vocabulary; a simple exercise of memory acquires them. Any missionary living in any part of that
UNIQUE ASPECTS OF MISSIONS TO WEST AFRICA
entire southern third of Africa., and speaking the dialect of anyone of its tribes, could, in a few months after removal to any other tribe, speak the dialect of that tribe. Any missionary of university education and of ordinary diligence, can, within a week after his arrival at his station, read (of course, in a parrot fashion) the native language, and thus be ahle to conduct a religious service with Bible and hymnbook. If he does not do that within one month, I would regard him, if not incapable, as open at least to the charge of unfaithfulness and lack of diligence. One who will promptly on arrival, and with A CIVILIZED FAMILY IN WEST AFRICA. This Is a well-to-do Impongwe family of Libreville, Gabun_ They are dressed In tbe best African style, the children are In European clothes_ ordinary daily zeal, take up the practise of the language by actual attempt of conversation with the village natives, can be preaching in a twelvemonth. No new characters have to be learned, as in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and other languages. The pioneer of our Gabun and Corisco mission, the Rev. J. L. Wilson, D.D., found that the Roman letters would express almost all the sounds found in Bantu. The spelling is phonetic, with the signs for vowels the same as in continental Latin. Every vowel sound has its own separate sign. There are only two or three rules for pronunciation. The formations of verbs and of other parts of speech are wonderfully regular. There are few
strange or unusual sounds. No" tones" to mislead by their shadowy differences. Everything is distinct, clear, indisputable, and regular.
The Bantu is Semitic in its structure; the negro ancestors may have derived it from Semitic sources. If themselves evolved it, they must have been a cultivated race, to have formed a language so full in its verb forms. No less wonderful is the preservation of that same unwritten language in its beau tiflll regularity by the tribes in their gradual dispersion, subdivisions, and descent to their present low stage in which civilization and Christianity have found them.
ASIA'S GHEAT NEED.* BY Mm;. ISABELLA BUW BISHOP, LONDON, ENGLAND. Author of" Korea and Her Neighbors," "The Yangtze Valley and Beyond," etc.
The great creeds of Asia and their founders undoubtedly started with much that was noble in their teachings, and with ethical standards higher than the world then knew. But the good has been lost out of them ill their passage down the ages, and even Buddhism, the noblest of ali, in its eastern IIlarch of triumph, has incorporated so much of the gross idolatry, .mperstition, nature-worship, and demonism of the nations which it subordinated, that in the crowds of idols in its temples, in the childish superstitions of its votaries, in its alliance with sorcery and demonolatry, and in the corruption and gross immorality of its priesthood, it is now little raised above the cults of the inferior races.
The study of these Oriental crecds and their fruits compels me to the conclusion that there is no resurrection power in any of them, and that the sole hope for the religious, political, and moral future of the countries of Asia lies in the acceptance of that other and later Oriental creed which is centered in that Divine Person, to whom, in spite of her divisions, Christendom bows trle adoring knee.
Among the prominent and outstanding fruits of these religions, which have fallen so low, are shameless corruption, and infamies of practise past belief in the administration of government, which have obtained the sanction of custom. Law is simply an engine of oppressiDn, and justice a commodity to be bought and sold like any other, and which the poor have no means of buying. Lying is universal, and no shame attends the discovered falsehood. There are polygamy and polyandry, with their infinite degradation, and the enthronement and deification of vice, many of the deities of India being the incar- • Condensed from a paper by Mrs. Bishop, read at the Ecumenical Conference by Mrs. Joseph Cook, in Carnegie Hall on Thursday evening, April 26, 1900.
ASIA'S GREAT NEED
nations of unthinkable wickedness. There are unbridled immoralities and corruptions, and no public opinion to condemn them or to sustain men in doing right. Infanticide is openly practised. '1'here is no truth and no trust between man and man, and no man trusts any woman. Every system of medicine in the East is allied with witchcraft, sorcery, and demonolatry; immorality prevails universally. Some of the nations are given up to unmentionable infamies, and nearly always the priests and monks are in advance of the 'people in immoral practises. Superstitions, childish or debasing, linked with every circumstance in life, enslave whole populations, and piteous terrors of malignant demons or offended ancestral spirits shadow this life, while a continual dread of being exposed hereafter to their full malignity darkens the prospect :of the next. Speech, the index of thought, is foul with a foulness of which, thank God, we have no conception, and each generation from the cradle is saturated with an atmosphere of pollution. The distinction between right and wrong is usually lost, and conscience is deposed and destroyed. '1'he corrupt tree of the dead and degenerate faiths of Asia brings forth corrupt fruit from the Black to the Yellow Sea, and from Siberian snows to the Equator. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint, and for the grievous hurt there is no balm in Gilead, and no physician there.
Let us bear in mind that to-day, nineteen centuries after the birth of our Lord, one thousand and fifty millions of our race are un-Christianized, and eight hundred millions have never even heard His name. Let us also steadily bear in mind the fact, that tho during this century nearly four million persons won by missionary effort, have been baptized into the Christian Church, there are now more than one hundred million more heathen and Moslems in the world than when the century began. We must face the truth. Much as we congratulate ourselves, missionary effort has but touched the fringe of the darkness of this world-the 10 pffians of victory are not for us to sing.
Of the ChristIess popnlation O'f the world over five hundred million are women. Throughout Asia, the natural distrust of women by men, and of the degrading views held concerning women is seclusion behind high walls, in separate houses, known to us as the harem, the zenana, and the and ron. I have seen much of tbe inmates of all, owing to detentions in traveling, which have "'made me frequently their un willing guest, and have unveiled for me the mysteries of their secluded lives. Such contact has banished from my mind, so far as Asiatic countries are concerned, all belief in purity in women and innocence in childhood. We know what Christianity has done for us. We know, or rather guess, but that only in part, what Islam and heathenism have done for our sisters. May God give us sympathetic instincts, by which alone we may realize their contrasting lives.
I have been a storm or peril-bound guest in more than fifty women's houses, including the women's tents of the large nomadic population of Persia. In all the arrangements, so far as means allow, a~e the same. '1'he women's rooms are built around a yard and have no windows to the front; a room near the entrance is tenanted by eunuchs, or by an old woman who acts as custodian or spy in the husband's interests. Such secluded women can never stir outside except in rigidly closed chairs, by day, or in some cities on foot at night, properly attended, along streets from which men are excluded. In many countries it is a crime or folly to teach a woman to read; in some, a lady loses caste by employing her fingers even in embroidery. They know nothing; they have no ideals. Dress, personal adornment, and subjects connected with sex, are their sole interests. They are regarded as possessing neither soul nor immortality; except as mothers of some they are absolutely despised, and are spoken of in China as "the mean ones within the gate."
With dwarfed and childish intellect, is combined a precocity on a gigantic scale in the evil passions of adults-hatred, envy, jealousy, sensuality, greed, and malignity. The system of polygamy, the facility for divorce and the dread of it, the fiendish hate, the vacuity and apathy, and the tortures inflicted by the ignorance of the native female doctors, specially at the time of "the great pain and peril of childbirth," produce a condition which makes a piteous appeal to every woman here.
In a rich man's harem there are women of all ages and colors, girl children and very young boys. There are the favorite and other legitimate wives; concubines, who have recognized but very slender rights; discarded wives, who have been favorites in their day, and who have passed into practical slavery to their snccessors; numbers of domestic slaves and old women; daughters-in-law, and child or girl widows, whose lot is deplorable, and many others.
I have seen as many as two hundred in one house, a great crowd, privacy beiug unknown, grossly ignorant, with intolerable curiosity, forcing on a stranger abominable or frivolous questions, then relapsing into apathy but .rarely broken but by outbreaks of hate and the results of successful intrigue. It may be said that there are worse evils than apathy. There are worse evils, and they prevail to a great extent in upper-class houses. On more than fifty occasions I have been asked by women for drugs which would kill the reigning favorite, or her boy, or make her ugly or odious. In the house of the Turkish governor of an important vilayet, where I was storm-bound for a week, the favorite wife was ill, and the husband besought me to stay in her room lest some of the other women should make away with her. My presence was no restraint on the scenes of fiendishness which were enacted. Scandal, intrigue, -fierce and cruel jealousies, counting
jewels, painting the face, staining the hair, quarrels, eating to excess, getting rid of time by sleeping, listening to impure stories by professional reciters, and watching small dramas played by slaves, occupy the unbounded leisure of Eastern upper-class women. Of these plays, one of which was produced for my entertainment, I can only say that nothing more diabolically vicious could enter the polluted imagination of man, and it was truly piteons to see the keen, precocious interest with which young girl children, brought up amid the polluting talk of their elders, gloated over scenes from which I was compelled to avert my eyes.
Yet these illiterate, ignorant women, steeped in superstition, despised as they are in theory, wield an enormous influence, and that against Ohristianity. They bring up their children in the superstitions and customs which enslave themselves. They make the marriages of their sons and rule. their danghters-in-law. 'rhey have a genius for intrigue, and many a man, in the confidence of a ruler or another, loses his position owing to their intrigues. 'rhey conserve idolatries, and keep fetish and demon-worship alive in their homes. They drag the men back to heathen customs, and their influence accounts, perhaps, for the larger number of the lapses from Ohristianity. It is impossible to raise the men of the East unless the women are raised, and real converts among Asiatic women, especially among the Ohinese, make admirable Ohristians.
But owing to social customs, mission work among Eastern women can only be done by women. The medical woman finds ready access into their houses; for the non-medical woman the entrance into snch a mixed crowd as I have described is a matter of difficulty, and requires not only the love of onr sisters for Christ's sake, bnt for their own, much, very much, of what has been 'well named" the enthusiasm of humanity." Everywhere I have seen that it is the woman richest ill love who is the most successful missionary, and that for the unloving, the half-hearted, and the indolent there is no call and no room.
The magnitude of the task, not only of conquest but of reconquest, which lies before the Ohristian Ohurch, is one that demands our most serious consideration. To bring five hundred millions of our fellowwomen to the knowledge of a Savior is the work especially given to women. I will not make any plea either for funds or workers. The Master, whom we all desire to honor, ~as made a distinct declaration: "He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal," a promise of a reward for work which can never fail. Yet, far away, on a thousand harvest fields, earth's whitened harvests, ungarnered, die!
THE PRESENT SITuATION IN CHINA.
REY. ARTHUR H. S!lIITH, D.D., TIENTSIN, CHINA.
Author of "Chinese Characteristics" and'" Village Life in China."
The second month of this last year of the century marks the opening of what is known as the XXVIth year of Kuang HSil, a term which denotes" Continuance of Glory," in allusion to the title of the third emperor preceding, whose reign was designated by the title "Glory of Reason" ('fao Kuang). So far as the present emperor is concerned, it would be difficult to fix upon a style for a reign which should embody more satire in compact compass. lIis majesty, despite the highly unfavorable conditions under which he was brought up, proved to have an active mind with a high degree of intelligence. There is no dOll bt that it was his sincere desire to extricate China from the slough of humiliation into which she had fallen, and that the general line of policy which he had outlined was based upon real patriotism, animated by considerable acquaintance with the actual condition of his realm, and the nature of the obstacles which he would have to front. Principal among them was his dowager aunt, and in the twinkling of an eye she proved too much for him, and the emperor wa~ instantly snuffed out.
In the long annals of this great empire there is no parallel to the situation of the past year and six months. The emperor has not been made way with, he has not been deposed, there is no sign of a definite plan to name a successor. He has simply been caged and put under effective guard, his name used when it happened to be convenient, and ignored at all other timeR.
The reaction against the causes which led the emperor to desire reform began nearly a year and a half ago. It is idle to speCUlate what would have happened had it not crystallized. China is a country hard to understand. Movements, which in China are propagated from above downward, do not necessarily spread like" wild fire," as in some 'Western lands under the same conditiolls. They do not even advance with the slow motion of water on a slightly sloping plain. They may mther be compared to the progress of lava after it has lost something of its original propulsive force, yet retains enough to give it some of the properties of solids and some of liquids, making it practically irresistible.
The Germans had two Shantung missionaries killed in 1897, and they pounced upon Chiao Chou. The Russians had not anyone killed, so they pounced upon Port Arthur. The British for a similarly cogent reason pounced upon Wei Hai Wei. The French merely wished "the earth." 1'he Italians, ashamed not to be "in it," asked for a bay that nobody ever heard of, and which to this day we can not find on the map. It is called simply San Men (" South Side "). At
THE PRESENT SITUATION IN CHINA
this point the Chinese government (of the dowager section of it) drew a line. It is said that" one has to draw a line somewhere," and she drew it at "San Men," altho the Peking authorities knew no more where it is than the rest of us. For the first time in the series of aggressions, the Chinese refused to grant anything. This made matters serious. The" face" of Italy as well as that of China was at stake. Reports have been somewhat contradictory as to what Italy intends to do. 'fhere is little doubt that China means to resist. There have been wild rnmors that the Italian fleet was off this coast and off that, and the mass of the Chinese people seem to have got an idea that at last a firm resistance is to bc made to somebody about something, and in their sluggish lava-like way, they have resolved to bear a hand.
More than two hundred and fifty years ago, when the Manchus first got into the Chinese saddle, there were phenomena like this. A swarm of "sects" originated then, which have survived ever since,' and have adopted the "practise of virtue" as their motto and aim. The shrewd Manchus know "virtue" when they see it (from descriptions of it in the classics) and forbade all these societies with rigid impartiality. Potential treason lurked in them all. Within one hundred and fifty years past there have been uprisings of what were styled" Fists of Just (or Public) Harmony," meaning societies to do something pro bono publico (in theory), by extensive cooperation. As a rule the Chinese are as ignorant of the" public good" as of fluxions, and the government took pains to wipe out these risings, which had their origin in a superstitious belief that the laws of nature can be repealed in favor of spirits when adroitly worshiped, so that the worshipers can be made impenetrable to bullets and sword-proof. To the Chinese this program has an ever fresh attraction. The belief in it has one of the peculiarities which we are accustomed to associate with" kind words "-it "can never die." Last year it came to the front with amazing power, and strange to say, in the face of an hundred defeats remains there still.
There is no doubt that the behavior of the Romanists throughout China has been smoke to the Chinese eyes, and vinegar to the Chinese teeth, and not without reason. After all allow:mce has been made, it is certain that the Roman Catholic Church in China is almost everywhere an irritant in a sense not true of any species of Protestantism. There is no space here to present the overwhelming evidence for this fact, but the fact itself must be borne well in mind in order to understand the courRe of current events. Within a few months the Chinese government has conceded to the hierarchy of the Homan Church the right to interview the high Chinese officials upon equal terms, in cases appertaining to church interests. By way of balance to this, a like privilege was offered to Protestants. The latter have no head center,
but there is a certainty that as a body the Protestants would not take the privilege under any conditions, altho not altogether at ease as to the advantages which the Roman Church will thus gain. The concession thus made must have been a potent ingredient in the active hostility of the government to foreigners in general, and apparently to missions in particular. A little more than a year ago the empress was issuing stern decrees denouncing attacks UPO!l missionaries and mission~, declaring that they" must cease." This seems to have really meant that no more excuse for Chiao Chou aggressions must be given. But it would not be strange if it should eventually prove to have been an understood thing that altho missions could not be openly assailed, yet they could be got rid of otherwise. If an animal will not leave his den, smoke him out. If an undesirable lodger will not vacate his apartments, set the house on fire and he will be glad to go.
THE « FIST" ORGANIZATION.
The" Fist" organization (called for brevity" Boxers") began their attacks upon Chinese Christians in the province of Chihli last June, and in Sept.ember they began to be heard from in Shantung. They have been antagonized by troops and shot down by hundreds, yet the rising is not stopped, even if it is seriously checked. The Manchu governor of Shantung fostered the Boxers by his removal of all officials who actively operated against them, and by his release of those who were captured, with the exception of three, who, after long delay, were beheaded. It became known later that this governor has sent a secret memorial to the throne, saying that the Boxer movement was too strong to be put down, and should. rather be utilized to drive out foreigners withal. Soon after this governor was removed, but he was ordered to Peking, where, instead of being impeached and degraded, as he deserves, he has been loaded with honors, recommended to the throne as an exceptionally trustworthy official by another favorite of the empress, who has been exalted to a new and important post; and unless he is punished at the imperative demand of foreign powers is likely to have a long and a dangerous lease of obstructive opportunity.
The appointment in his place of the phenomenally able and energetic Gen. Yuan Shih-k'ai led to strong hopes of the prompt disappearance of the Boxer rebellion as a factor in current history, Events have shown that the web is too tangled to be so easily unraveled. He had scarcely taken over the seals of office and set himself to his work, before the new governor began to have orders not to be too rash or too impetuous, not to confound. harmless militia with rebels and the like. As a matter of fact, rebels under guise of militia constitute one of the greatest dangers of the government in China, because the most formidable opposition to law may thus be secretly fomented and perfected without detection, much less prevention. As a rule, the
government has wisely forbidden militia organizations, except under strict surveillance. The relaxation of its restrictions must have a settled purpose. .
The barest recapitulation of the injury done to Christians in Chihli and Shantung would occupy far more space than we could afford at this time. Suffice it to say that throughout distances of hundreds of miles there do not seem to be any Roman Catholic fami- lies who have not been pillaged or else heavily fined, and scarcely a chapel which has not been either looted or demolished, unless it had been turned into a species of fortress and defended. In the region under the care of a single Italian priest, he reports that between five hundred and six hundred families had thus been plun- dered, ten persons killed, and fully five thousand persons rendered homeless refugees.
Three Protestant missions have also suffered, that of thc London Mission in Chihli, which has had ahout one hundred families robbed· or fined; the American Presbyterian Mission in Chi Nan Fu, whose sufferers, scattered over a large territory, are almost or quite as numerous; and two stations of the American Board, one in the village of P'ang Chuang, the other in the city of Lin Ch'ing, who have had forty or fifty families plundered and fined. These three missions have also had, perhaps, a score of chapels looted or wrecked, and in one case a building intended as a temporary home for missionaries when tour- ing to a great degree was also destroyed. An English missionary was murdered barbarously, which brought Great Britain to the forefront.
The sufferings of the poor Christians have been severe, not only from the most inclement winter ever known in North China, but from the still greater bitterness of neighbors and relatives who have turned to fierce foes, adding insults to reduplicated injuries. It would not be strange if under such treatment, often long continued, some of the weaker Christians fell away, as has been in some cases the resnlt. But for the most part they have been surprisingly loyal in the face of tests to which it might not be safe to subject many churches in" nominally Christian lands."
The beginning of the Chinese New Year finds large districts occu- pied by troops for the restoration of order. Mission stations are guarded by companies of soldiers for the first time in thirty years'
experience. Many Christian communities are yet in imminent peril, and there are still bold threats that in the spring there will be a for- ward movement, when the Boxers will advance upon Tiflntsin,cooper- ating with the foreign-hating Gen. Tung Fu-hsiang, and drive all foreigners into the sea. Such an extended program is probably beyond their powers, but the situation is full of serious peril. The government studiously refrains from doing the only thing which could put an end to the rising at once-arrest the main leaders and
hold them to a strict responsibility through influential bondsmen, who are strong enough to take the risks involved. Long before these lines can get into print something decisive must be done, but the existing conditions ought to be comprehended by all who wish well to China.
It is not in the north only that these ominous risings take place. 'rhe empire is so large, and so loosely interrelated, that there may be extensive rebellions, of which even well-informed foreigners in China never hear, owing to the lack of any means for diffusing intelligence. The causes which have produced this state of unrest being general, the results might naturally be exp.ected to be so also. In the northern part of the empire there is in addition an unexampled failure of rain in the autumn, and for the first time in the remembrance of most Chinese, no winter wheat of any consequence is to be seen, and grain is high. Fortunately the superabundant supplies elsewhere will prevent a famine, but the cold has been intense beyond example, and the sufferings of the poor everywhere have been greater than usual.
Mission work of almost all varieties has been suspended. Schools have been disbanded, and school-buildings and hospitals turned into barracks. The incidental expenses of this anomalous state of things have been heavy, and the strain upon the nerves of sympathetic men and women has been such as without the manifold grace of God giving strength according to the day, must have been insupportable.
All friends of China who are students of Christian history will feel sure that out of this apparently chaotic welter of wild forces, the Lord intends to bring some greater good. "The future is the present of God, and to that future He sacrifices the human present. Therefore it is that He work& by earthquakes. Therefore it is that He works by grief. O! deep is the plowing of earthquakes! O! deep is the plowing of grief. But oftentimes less would not suffice for the agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake He builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an infant He raises ofttimes for human intellects glorious vantages that could not else have been. Less than these fierce plowshares would not heve stirred the stubborn soil."
THE VALUE OF MEDICAL MISSIONS.* BY GEORGE E. POST, M.D., BEIRUT, SYRIA.
If the Good Samaritan had sat down by the side of the wounded man who fell among thieves, and preached the law and the prophets, our matchless parable would never have been told, and the lawyer would have been as uncertain as ever as to who was his neighbor. But when the Samaritan bound up the wounds and poured over the bandages oil and wine, the best antiseptic dressing in his power, and • Condensed from a paper read at the Ecumenical Conference, in Carnegie Hall, Monday morning, April 30, 1900.
THE VALUE OF MEDICAL MISSIONS
then made an ambulance of his ass, and took the injured man to the nearest inn, and made provision for his nourishment and nursing until his return, he became a true medical missionary, and gave to our Savior a luminous illustration of His own Golden Rule.
Nothing is clearer in the story of Ohrist's life than the fact that human suffering appealed to His sympathy and stimulated Him to the exercise of His power. He healed from the instinct of kindness, and made no previous conditi~ns as to whether or not his sick folk would hear the Gospel. We believe that medical missions will have their full and legitimate influence only when they follow the same order, and show forth the same spirit, heal the sick, and preach the Gospel to them by the act of healing a suffering brother, then tell him that Christ sent you because He loved him and yearned for the salvation of his body and his soul. _ Medical missions are the natural and inevitable expression of Ohristianity; that is, of the Golden Rule. It is the glory of Ohristianity that its author and finisher is the" Son of Man," and that he lost no opportunity of showing his regard for the welfare of the bodies of men as well as their souls. He fed them, healed them, raised them from the dead. He took their form, bore their pain, and shared their temptations. His principles have emancipated man and woman, abolished polygamy and slavery, built innumerable hospitals, asylums, orphanages; reclaimed the vicious and restored them to virtue. The humanity of Ohristianity, as much as its godliness, is capturing the hearts of men.
Medical missions are the pioneers of evangelism. They can be planted where no other branch of evangelical work is possible. They are founded on a need which is universal. The doctor, therefore, has welcome access to vast numbers who neither wish nor will have any intercourse with other missionaries. Some savages can not be per- suaded by a lifetime of effort to be decently clothed. Many can never be induced to sit on a stool. The desire for education, especially of girls, is often a very slow growth. Above all, a yearning for the higher spiritual life usually comes after long and patient training, and then only to a comparatively small number of those who hear the saving message of the Gospel. But from the moment that the doctor pitches his tent in an Arab encampment, or by an African kraal, or opens a dispensary in a Hindu village, or itinerates among the teeming multitudes in Ohina, or open;; a hospital in any of the cities of heathendom or Islam, he is besieged by applicants for his healing skill. Often those who have for their lifetime scoffed at Christ and spit upon his followers, will beg in the name, and for the sake of Jesus, that the doctor would take pity on them, or their father or brother or child. A doctor may live in security among rob- bers and thugs. He can visit districts closed to all else. He is called
to the inmost recesses of the harem and the zenana. He is a welcome guest in the hOllses of Jewish rabbis, of Mohammedan ulema, of Druse 'akkals, of Hindu and Buddhist priests. He is regarded as a guardian angel by the poor, and he stands as an equal before rulers and kings.
Medical missions are permanent agencies of evangelism. Were the offices of the doctor merely a bribe to induce men to listen to the Gospel, they would soon lose their power to draw men to Christ. Long after the work of preaching, printing, teaching, and civilizing has been firmly established, medical work should be continued. In many instances its form may advantageously be changed. Instead of being pushed through the country by foreign doctors, schools of medicine may better be established by means of which native men and women may be trained to carry forward the good work. Model hospitals and dispensaries are required to make possible the ripest results of modern science, and to give opportunity for prolonged instruction both in medical treatment and medical evangelism.
MEDICINE VS. QUACKERY.
Medical missions are the only efficient opponents of the quackery which is so intimately associated with religious superstition. Those living in Christian lands can have little mmception of the extent and power of quackery in the unevangelized world.
Among the lower types of humanity in Africa, Polynesia, and aboriginal America, religion is quackery. The abject fear of the unknown on the part of the people, and the devilish cunning and malice of the sorcerers and the medicine men or witch doctors, have given to the latter an incredible power for evil. The people believe that woods, fountains, caves, rivers, are inhabited by malignant spirits, or the ghosts of dead men. They believe that disease is produced by such spirits, and that wizards and witches have the power to afflict their victims with all sorts of complaints. The witch doctors diligently foster these superstitions, and pretend to be able to find out by their incantations who the wizards and witches are. If the witch doctor can not exorcise the sick person, the friends usually torture and kill the alleged wizard or witch. These somber beliefs beget a contempt for human life and for suffering. In proportion to the rank and power of the afflicted parties is the number of victims saOl'ificed to promote recovery, or revenge death, or provide for the repose of the dead. Human beings, sometimes by the hundred, are hacked to pieces, pierced by spears and javelins, poisoned, drowned, burned, or buried alive, during the sickness, or at the burial of the chief. This compound of medical and spiritual quackery destroys the sentiment of human brotherhood, and annihilates sympathy for suffering, prevents the sick man and his friends from attributing disease to its
true causes, and seeking rational means of relief. By fostering suspicion, cruelty, and revenge, it developes the worst qualities of the soul, and urges it more and more into the path of sin.
Medical missions break the power and destroy the prestige of the medicine men and witch doctors. They teach the true nature of disease and death, and their independence of the malignant spirits which are supposed to be their cause. They urge the use of the means which God has given to men to cure the one and ward off the other. The care aud tenderness of the missionary doctor and nurse for the sick enhance the value of human life, and teach sympathy with suffering. Thus through beneficence to the body the doctor undermines the quackery which has so long crushed the soul, and unveils the face of a merciful God, who seeks to save body and soul together from suffering and sin.
H is not only among barbarians, however, that quackery prevails in intimate association with superstition. The masses of Asia, notwithstanding the ethical principles of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and the other ethical religions, are sunk in a quagmire of bodily and spiritual quackery. The belief in the transmigration of human spirits into the bodies of animals, emphasizes the kinship of man with the brutes, and tends to lower man to their level. If a child sickens in China, at first the parents may go to much trouble and expense to treat it. The quacks prescribe disgusting mixtures of ordure, pnnctures with hot needles into the joints and cavities of the body, searing with hot irons, the use of amulets and charms. If the child gets well, the quack assumes all the credit. If he becomes worse, the parents are assured that he never was their child, and they lay him on the floor near the door, and pay no more attention to him llntil death relieves him of his sufferings. They then throw him iuto the street to be devoured by dogs, or picked up by the scavenger, and thrown out on the garbage heap outside the town, to be carrion for hyenas, jackals, and vultures. How different is it with the missionary physician! His potent medicines soothe pain, cool fever, assuage thirst, remove weakness, bring back health and vigor. His surgical operations restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, make the lame to walk, remove all manner of tumors, and repair all sorts of lllJuries. The power which works such wonders seems little short of miraculous to those accustomed to the crudities and cruelties of the native charlatans.
Medical missions are peculiarly adapted to work iu Moslem lands. The intense fanaticism of Mohammedan men makes direct evangelism well nigh impossible. Street preaching is wholly out of the question. The death penalty always impends over a com-ert from Islam. The mere fact that a Moslem is reading the Scriptures, or couferring with a Christian, exposes him to most serious peril. But Moslems sicken
and suffer pain like other men, and, notwithstanding the fatalism which leads them to attribute disease to direct divine appointment, they have a traditional respect for doctors. The missionary physician is a privileged person among them, and when his healing work is done, he can fearlessly explain to them the person and doctrines of Christ.
Mohammedan women are no less fanatical and far more difficult of access than men. Medical missions, however, have broken down this barrier. Under the stress of pain and danger the doctor is called, or the sick woman comes to him, and so hears the Gospel of Christ. Nothing is more encouraging ill all our labors than the eagerness with which,Mohammedan and Druse men and women listen to the story of Christ from the lips of their doctor in our mission hospitals and dispensaries.
All the influence of medical work should be diligently utilized for the winning of souls to Christ. The ministry of healing has a motive and an end in itself, and to be effective as an evangelistic agency it must be unencumbered by any conditions as to religious teaching. But the ministry of healing has also a motive and an end above itself, which raises it to the highest plane of Christian service. This motive and end are the saving of the soul from sin and death. There is a peculiar appropriateness in the association of bodily and spiritual healing. During sickness the soul is usually open to conviction of sin, and after the restoration to health, is often strongly moved by gratitude to God. The physician who has given his knowledge and strength to the sick man, has a special right to speak to him on the state of his sonl, and the patient will listen to him with a confidence and affection which he can have for no other man. If the doctor is filled with love for souls, and has the gift of utterance, he can never fail for illustrations to enforce his appeal. Even if he has the gift of healing, but not of teaching, his brother missionary stands npon the vantage ground won by the doctor's skill and devotion, from which to reach and capture the healed man for Christ. It may be safely said that no opportunity is more carefully used in mission work than that growing out of medical relief.
Missions of every Christian nation and of all denominations have, by a common consent and an unerring instinct, established and developed medical work, and every year sees a wider extension of its sphere and usefulness. WorldlJ people, who look askance at other forms of mission work, applaud medical missions, and give of their substance to sustain them. Kings and rulers in Mohammedan and heathen lands have built hospitals, and given means for their endowment. Far out on the picket line of evangelism heroic men and women gather around them such crowds as collected on the pathways where Christ was wont to walk. Fearless of death, they grapple with cholera,
SOME ASPECTS OF MISSION COMITY
plague, leprosy, smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and other contagious diseases. In the tainted atmosphere of the dispensary they toil on hour after hour to relieve the mass of misery. 'l'hey go late to sleep, and often rise a great while before day, to watch the crisis of disease and operations. They remain in sultry, fever-stricken cities of the coast during the long tropical summer, if haply they save some of God's poor. They travel under the burning snn, or through blinding storms to reach new centers, and open up the way for a farther extension of the work. 'rhe church which sends them knows the value of that work. The sick whom they cure have given proof of it. He who maintains them in all their arduous labors will say to them: " I was sick, and ye visited Me. . . . Forasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, My brethren, ye did it unto Me."
SOME ASPECTS OF MISSION COMITY.* BY REV. A. SUTHERLAND, D.D., TORONTO, CANADA. General Secretary of Missions, Methodist Church of Canada.
In discussing the subject of mission comity it is not to be assumed that there is any friction between the boards at home, or any conspicuous lack of brotherliness among missionaries abroad. There are no breaches to be healed-no quarrels to be made up. But in the rapid development of missionary enterprise now taking place, and the still more rapid development that may be expected in the near future, it is quite possible that mistakes made in the home fields may be repeated on a larger scale abroad, resnlting in waste of money, waste of effort, the retarding of self-support, and the creation of jealousies and antagonisms among missionaries of different boards. The conviction is evidently growing that a time has come when these possibilities shonld be honestly faced, and such mutual understanding reached, as will obviate the overlapping of work, and the unnecessary multiplication of agencies in fields that are fairly well supplied, so that destitute fields may be more quickly reached and occupied.
It should also be understood that the advocates of an enlarged measure of comity in foreign mission work are not aiming at a comprehensive organic union of Protestant churches at home, or even abroad, but only at such mutual adjustment of plans, and distribution of territory, as will result in efficient work, rapid extension, and economical administratioll. However much we may seek to minify the differences which separate the great divisions of Protestantism, it still remains true that each division stands forth as the exponent of certain aspects of truth which it regards as fundamental; and it would not be reasonable, nor in accord with Christian charity, to expect men to * Condensed from an address delivered at the Ecumenical Conference, Carnegie Hall, New York, Thursday morning, April 26th, 1900.
surrender, at a word, even methods which they deem important, much less principles which they hold sacred. It is believed, however, that without the surrender of principle it is quite practicable to substitute cooperation for competition in the foreign field, if not in directly evangelistic work, at least in those undertakings in which concentration tends to efficiency, such as printing and publishing, hospitals, and higher education.
At the same time we should not forget that there has always been a tendency in human nature to exalt opinion into dogma, and to mistake prejudice for principle; and this tendency is responsible for not a few of the divisions so characteristic, alas! of Protestant Christianity. When closely and impartially investigated, the causes which keep evangelical Christians apart shrink into small proportions, too small to plead as a justification of rivalry, wasted resources, and vast proportions of the vineyard left untilled. And altho the time may not be opportune to introduce the large and complicated question of the organic union of Protestant Christendom, yet in presence of the colossal problem of the world's evangelization there are strong reasons why at least churches holding the same general system of doctrine and church order should consider whether a closer or even an organic union would not be in the interest of the work of God among the heathen. The comparatively recent union of five Methodist bodies in Canada and of the Presbyterian churches in both Canada and Japan are illustrations of what may be accomplished in this direction, if only there be first of all a willing mind.
As to the desirableness of comity and cooperation in foreign mission work there is now a remarkable consensus of opinion among missionaries, and also among leading members of the home boards. This indicates not so much a change of opinion as a growth of conviction. A quarter of a century ago it was only an occasional voice that could be heard echoing the sentiment of Dr. Duff denouncing rivalry and pleading for comity; but this was not because the missionaries were opposed to a policy of comity and mutual helpfulness, but because few of them had come as yet into personal contact with the evils arising from the undue multiplication of agencies and the organization of rival churches. Until recently there has been a strange misapprehension as between boards and missionaries on the question of comity. Boards seemed to think that cooperation was desirable but impracticable because of opposition on the mission field, while missionaries thought it quite feasible if only the boards would consent. At the present time there need be no doubt as to the attitude of these two parts of the missionary force. The almost unanimous approval given to the report of the committee on comity and unoccupied fields by the conference of mission board representatives in New York, in 1899, shows clearly that the principal boards, on this con-
tinent at least, are prepared to consider practical proposals; the pronounced utterances at the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in London, in 1888, show that the trend of thought across the sea is in the same direction, while the desire of the missionaries finds expres- sion in numerous letters and addresses, and also in tho action of such assemblies as the mission conferenoes at Bombay, Shanghai, and Chungking. Assuming thon that comity and cooperation in the foreign field at least is both desirable and praotioable, the way would seem to be open for a consideration of underlying principles, of the direction and limits of praotical oomity, and of the methods to be pursued to accom- plish the best results. Among the prinoiples to be kept in view are: the following: 1. That the supreme aim of all missionary effort is the establishment and extension of the kingdom of God among the heathen; hence, every-· thing which does not contribute to this end should be studiously avoided.
2. That in prosecuting this aim each mission has rights which every other mission is bound to respect, and the measure of that respect is: indicated by the precept, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do, unto you, even so do ye also unto them."
3. That rivalry in the Lord's work, or striving against each other, is. altogether foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. " For one is your Master,. even the Christ, and all ye are brethren."
4. That wasting resources is as much to be deprecated as hoarding' them; hence all unnecessary expenditure is to be avoided if we would escape. the guilt of the unrighteous steward who was accused of wasting his: Lord's goods.
If these principles are valid, the application of them will go far toward solving the problem of mission oomity. They also indicate to some extent the soope and limits of the problem. But in what direc- tion and to what extent is practioal comity possible? In direotly evangelistic work, perhaps only to a limited extent-at least at the present .time. Missionaries of different boards have their own methods of working, and may not be disposed to change them; and each mis- sionary, as things now stand, will feel an obligation to gather his con- verts into his own denominational fold; but this need not hinder- has not hindered-meetings for mutual consultation and prayer, nor need it hinder united efforts in evangelistic services, and a frequent interchange of preaching between missionaries of different boards.
These are measnres well calculated to promote the spirit of oomity, and would probably bring before native converts a wider range of truth than under the labors of a single missionary.
But there are other direotions in which practioal comity may be worked out in a more definite way. Among these may be reckoned: 1. Printing and Publishing Inte1'ests. On the very face of it, it is vastly cheaper to equip and maintain one printing and publishing house than two or three, and where one mission has established a press sufficiently equipped to do all the work required by the various missions, it should be an understood principle that no other mission should enter the same field.
2. Hospitals and Dispensary Work. Even in large, populous centers, one commodious hospital, well equipped and weI! manned, with outlying dispensaries where really needed, would be far better and would do far more efficient work than several half equipped institutions could possibly do.
3. Higher education. Here, if anywhere, the principle of cooperation should not be difficult of application. There is no sectarianism in mathematics, and it would be difficult to import denominational pecu- liarities into the classics or the sciences.
4. The Division of Territory. It should be an understood principle that where a town or village is so occupied that the religious needs of the people are fairly well provided for, other missionaries shall refrain from entering; and even where there is room and need for additional workers there should be consultation as to the ability of the existing mission to provide reenforcements; and only in case of its inability to do so should another mission feel justified in planting a station. There might also be a readjustment of boundaries, or even exchange of stations, when, by so doing the work of God will be promoted; and when by the union of several weak congregations, belonging to different missions, a strong selfsupporting church can be formed, there should be no hesitation in taking steps to that end. The policy of several missions competing for a foothold in communities where agents of one society can reach all the people, is utterly without excuse, either at home or abroad.
5. The Employment and Rernnneration of Native Helpel's. Comity demands that the agent.s of one mission shall not offer inducements to the native helpers of another mission to change their church relations, either by promise of preferment or higher pay. An approximately uniform scale of remuneration would hinder native workers from seeking transfers from mercenary motives, and in any case transfers should not take place without the consent of the mission directly concerned.
What has been said is sufficient to indicate the principal directions in which practical comity is desirable in the foreign mission field. A word or two in regard to the best methods of achieving the desired results will now be in place.
Methods like the following would be found helpful: (1) Instructions from the home boards to their missionaries.
(2) Conference between representatives of the home boards as to the lines on which comity and cooperation are especially desirable.
(3) Instructions from the home boards to their missionaries not only to cultivate assiduously the spirit of comity, but by conferences with other missionaries to promote the policy or cooperation 1Il mIS- sion work.
(4) The formation in each foreign field of a committee of con- sultation and reference, composed of representatives from each mis- sion willing to cooperate, such committee to consider the larger questions of practical comity, The judgment and recommendation of said committee to be embodied in a report, and sent to the home boards for approval or otherwise, A universal acceptance of such suggestions as I have made is hardly to be expected in the immediate future. Indeed, some may consider the whole thing as visionary and impracticable, but I submit that nothing has been suggested beyond what ought to be done, and I cherish the unwavering belief that what ought to be done can be done, and in the not distant future will be done. If in this way we can
1900.J AN OBJECT-LESSON IN SELF-sUPPORT
reduce to a minimum the evils of rivalry and competition, guard against the sin of wasting our Lord's money, give increased efficiency to existing agencies, spread the Gospel more swiftly in the regions beyond, unify the aims and efforts of the native churches, and demonstrate before the world the essential oneness of Protestant Christianity, such results will justify a far larger sacrifice of denominatioual preferences and prejudices than we have yet been asked to make, and will do much to hasten the fulfilment of the Savior's dying prayer, "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that Thou didst send me."
AN OBJECT-LESSON IN SELF-SUPPORT.* BY REV. HORACE G. UNDERWOOD, D.D., SEOUL, KOREA.
Every church in its mission work is desirous of establishing in the fields in which they have missionaries a self-supporting, self-propa- gating, and self-governing church. The question is, whether self- support can be most satisfactorily accomplished by the granting of generous aid at the beginning, or by pushing the idea of self-support from the very opening of the work. This paper presents an object- lesson of a field and mission where the self-support principle was strenuously pushe9, from the very first. The Koreans are not rich, but extremely poor. There are no large guilds of wealthy merchants, and a small sum of money is a fortune in Korea. A man with a capital of one or two hundred dollars, would be considered well-to-do, and almost a gentleman of leisure. The poorer classes, from whom in the main our church members come, live largely in low, thatched mud huts with one or perhaps two small rooms, eight feet square each, . with a hole in one side covered with paper, in lieu of a window, and a small rough lattice door. As we sailed down the Yalu River, with China on the one side and Korea on the other, the contrast was most marked. On that side the Chinaman with his stone-built and well- tiled house, strongly made, expensive boats, his well-built wagons, the wheels of which were studded with iron nails, his fur clothing and ,.:every aspegt of substantial means, while on our own side we saw the Korean with his thatched mud huts, and their little paper windows, '. his poor rickety boats, his cotton clothing, and every appearance of poverty. It cet·tainly can not be said that the measure of success that has been meted to our work is due to Korea's wealth.
The general principle on which we work is, that the missionary is a leader who has to gather his workers from among the people-that each missionary shall be allowed one paid personal helper, but no one • Condensed from a paper read at the Ecumenical Conference, Carnegie Hall, New York, Friday morning, April 27, 1900.
shall be used as a paid helper unless he has proved himself qualified for the position. When a man's work becomes so large, that with thirty or forty churches to oversee he is unable to superintend the work: with only one helper, he may, by vote of the mission, be granted an extra paid helper. No evangelist or pastor is paid with foreign funds-i. e., with the board's money, funds provided by friends at home or drawn from the missionary's own pocket. The missionary needs his helper to keep in touch with his field and to properly over- see his work, but the real evangelistic work and the paying of evan- gelists, and the carrying of the Gospel into new districts, we place on the shoulders of the native church. The building of their churches and chapels, as well as their primary schools, is borne by the natives, and during the last few years we have asked the natives to carryon the native church schools, altho in the beginning assistance may be rendered to the extent of one-half their expenses. We have tried from the start to put the burden of propagating the Gospel on the natives. We have striven to make every Korean realize that the Gospel has been given to him not for himself alone, but in order thai he might carry it to his neighbor, and that it was his p1'ivUege to become a coworker with God.
When we started out with this plan we were almost startled, and tempted to think that we would have to wait a long while before we could see any great results, but I believe the progress of the work here is very largely due to God blessing the meiltod that we have adopted. The very fact that the burden of preaching the Gospel is put upon the natives has given to us a church of earnest Christian workers, who are fast carrying the Gospel throughout the whole land. To-day we have in Korea, out of 188 imperfectly organized Presbyte. rian churches (last September's figures), 186 that are entl:rely self- . supporting. In them we have an adult membership of 2,873, of whom 865 were added during the year. They contributed for Congregational expenses……. Yen 2,525.90 Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411.89 Church buildings and repairs …… 3,099.53 Home and Foreign Mission.. . . . . . . . 237.11 A total for the year of ……… Yen 6,274.43 (about $3.200).
These do not represent a large amount given in grain, eggs, products of various kinds, and a great deal of voluntary labor, not only in preaching, but in the building of churches, etc.
It should be noticed that in the capital, and in the open ports, where labor commands a higher wage than anywhere else, the wages of an artisan will be about fifty sen (about 25 cents), and of a laborer not more than 30 sen a day. Thus, in a place where the laborer gets $1.50 a day, the above amount would represent 62,744 yen and 30 sen ($32,000).
AN OBJECT-LESSON IN SELF-SUPPORT
THE SORAl OR CHANG YUN CHURCH.
Some ten or more years ago, when this church had a membership of ten or a dozen, they sent a delegation to Seoul, to let me know that they were desirous of securing a church building for their neighbor- hood. I expressed joy at their decision, but when I found that they were expecting the mission to provide them with a church, I soon disabused their minds, and informed them that they must put up their own building. When in reply they said it would be impossible, I pointed to the fact that they had wood on their hills, axes and tools in their homes, God-given muscles in their arms, and told them that if they had decided to build a church, and would let me know when they were going to begin, I would come down and lend a hand in cut- ting down the trees, and in erecting the chapel.
A few years later the Rev. Mr. McKenzie, from Canada, arrived in Korea, and settled in the little village of Sorai. His earnest Christian life there soon brought a change among the villagers; Christians that had become cold in the Lord's service soon had their faith rekindled as they saw his devotion, and it was not long before they decided to build a church. One gave the trees as they stood, others offered to go and cut them down, others volunteered the use of their ox carts to haul them to the site, a poor widow woman gave the lot on which the church stands, others gave grain to feed the men who volunteered their labor, a few gave money. Brother McKenzie did not live to see the completion of the work; the same messenger from Sorai brought me a letter from him asking me to go there to dedicate the church on the first Sunday in July, 1895, and a notification of his decease.
This church, the result of so much native labor, the proof of so much zealous love for the Master, W3S dedicated July 7th. It was a substautially built chapel, 35 by 20 feet, with a tiled roof. It was in the center of a farm village of about sixty houses. Before a month was passed, under the unpaid ministrations of Brother So Kyeng Jo, the building was too small, and steps were taken for its enlargement. Before a year was out its capacity was doubled, and two neat class- 'rooms were added.
'rhe church to-day is one of the strongest that we have in Korea. It has become the center for the whole of the Chang Yun circuit, and from it has grown twelve other churches. This church, in addition to paying all its own expenses, supports an evangelist, who, under the direction of the elder and deacons, travels from church to church, and from village to village, and for whom they have built a house. It supports its own church school, which, through the generosity of the church members, has from time to time received endowments in fields which now almost meet the entire school expense. In addition to this, they are very liberal in assisting other churches and chapels, from time to time send out companies of Christians to preach Ohrist
in villages where He is not known, and they take up collections for mission work, and on two occasions, that of the Indian famine and the 'rurkish atrocities among the Armenians, collections were voluntarily taken up. When it is remembered that the people are largely paid in kind, and that their wage is not ten cents a day, the above voluntary contribution alone represents no small deprivation. Brother So Kyeng Jo, the elder in this section, has informed me that if the native convert would but be as generous in the worship of the true God as he was formerly zealous for the heathen deities, the Korean Ohristians would have more than enough money to build their own churches, carryon their own native schools, pay for their own books, and when all this was done, they would have quite a sum left over toward the salaries of the missionaries whom they need as leaders.
THE SAl MUN AN CHURCH.
About the same time that Mr. McKenzie began planning for his church, the little building on the mission compound in Seoul became too small, and it was necessary to enlarge it. In a city like Seoul, where everything was so dear, and where all our members were poor, we thought that we might make an exception to the general rule, so we called the church together, and told them that we were planning for a building that would cost ill the neighborhood of one thousand yen. We asked them what they could do. After considerable discussion, our hearts were very much cheered when the latter told us that they had raised a little over twenty yen. We thought that the little handful of people in our Seoul church had done nobly, and the missionaries took steps toward raising the balance of the money for the new building among themselves. A site was secured, and we were getting ready to begin work, when one day, at a little prayer-meeting, our deacon, Yi Chun Ho, startled the Koreans, as well as the missionary, by the suggestion that the natives should put up the new church without foreign aid. I at once said: "You have raised twenty yen, and believed that you had done all you could; it will take almost one thousand yen to put up the church. Can you do it?" I felt strongly rebuked by his quiet reply: " We ask such questions as 'can you do it' about men's work, but not about God's work." The following Sunday one or two members made the proposition to the people, and, in several strong speeches, proposed that they put their shoulders to the wheel, that those who could not give money, should give labor; and those who could not give labor or money, should gather the materials, and that all of them should unite and make up their minds that they could put lip a church for themselves.
The proposition was enthusiastically accepted, and they determined to see what could be done. The women, of their own accord, agreed to have in the kitchen a Lord's basket, and of everything that
they cooked or made they set aside a small portion, which was to be sold for the church. Boys, who had no means at all, gathered up stones that could be used in the building. Men who had never done a stroke of work volunteered to do what they could. It was decided to begin operations just as soon as there were any funds to commence with, and to go as fast as the funds would allow. Some Ohristian carpenters, men who are simply day laborers, said, as. their families were dependent upon them, they could not do so every day, but they would gladly work for nothing every alternate day. The mission gave nothing but the site, tiles, and a few timbers from an old building. The missionaries threw off their coats and assisted in the work, and on Ohristmas day of the same year we wer.e privileged to dedicate the Sai Mun An church that had been put up entirely by the natives. at the cost of seven hundred and fifty yen. It is only thirty. five by twenty-five feet, but the natives look upou it as their own church. From the very start we have been crowded, and, did the lot allow it, we would have ere this commenced the erection of a more commodious building. The example set by the Ohang Yun and Sai Mun An churches, and almost at the same time by one or two congregations in the province of Yeng Yang, has been followed all over the land wherever Presbyterian work is starting, and it is not an uncommon experience, and certainly a pleasant one, for the missionary, on his visiting a station, to find that the natives have ready a church or chapel for him to dedicate. These are but samples of what is being done in Korea, and the way in which the Koreans are helping on the work of the Lord. The above instances were chosen simply because they were best known to the writer, but they are by no means exceptions.
SOME PLANS FOLLOWED IN OUR WORK.
First.-We do not foist a completely organized church upon the native infant church. '1'he organization is as simple as possible, and the leader may be one of the deacons or an elder, if they have them.
Second.-We endeavor to plan our church architecture in accordance with the ability of the natives to build, and the styles of houses generally used. This is a very important feature in the successful carrying out of this plan of self-support.
Th£rd.-We try to place the responsibility of giving the Gospel to the heathen upon the Ohristians. Our aim is that every Ohristian shall become an active worker. We try to make everyone feel that it is his privilege to tell to others of Ohrist, and in fact, we refuse to receive into church membership a man or woman who tells us that he has never tried to lead others to Ohrist. As a result, from a num~ ber of congregations the most intelligent Ohristiana win be seI;1t Qut
to other places; in some cases the expenses are paid by the natives, in some cases they pay their own expenses.
Fourth.-Wherever congregations warrant it, there are church schools supported by the church, and under the supervision of the missionary in charge, stewards, deacons, or elders, as the case may be. It is the aim of the mission to make all its church schools entirely self-supporting. They are for the sons and daughters of the Christians, but they are also patronized by outsiders, and thus are becoming a valuable evangelistic agency.
Fifth.-The mission has now a number of church primary schools, which are largely supported by the natives, and from which there are coming out young men and boys who have a strong desire for further instruction, who are ready to work to obtain it. It is the aim of the mission to provide high schools or academies at its larger stations; the mission must provide the foreign teacher, the salaries of most of the native teachers, the beginning of an educational plant, but from the start the current expenses, the lighting and heating, janitor's wages, and the board of the pupils, will be entirely borne by the natives.
Si:cth.-In the training of our workers we meet with the most serious problem and the one as yet unsolved, but we believe as we go on step by step, God will solve it for us. We see no reason to believe that in the early church there was a regular stated pastorate, and we are not yet urging this upon the Koreans. However, some few years ago the Sai Mun An church did issue a call to one of our most able workers to come up and take charge of its work, and the little Chan Dari church has now for the past two years told the young man who started the work thcre to give most of his time to preaching of the Word, and has promised to supply whatever he or his family may lack.
Once or twice a year the leaders in our country and city work are gathered together in Bible and training classes. These classes generally last about a month, and with the Bible as text-book, we try to direct the studies of our leaders and to fit and prepare them for their work. One or more missionaries are usually associated in these classes, and church history, outlines of systematic theology, and Bible exegesis are taught. The practical is never lost sight of and these class meetings are always made times of special evangelistic activity in the cities in which they are held.
In addition, on our evangelistic tours, a number of these men accompany us, sometimes at their own expense, sometimes at the expense of the church to which they belong, and sometimes the expense is borne by the missionary. In this way, these men receive a practical training in preaching and organization, that they could get in no other way.. The foreign missionary with such a company has
MISSION WORK AMONG LEPERS
his peripatetic school, and generally finds himself forced to be prepared to answer questions on almost every subject and in almost every SCIence.
At the present time it is our aim to take the picked leaders, and by means of this summer and winter training and Bible classes, supplemented by the practical training that we can give them by associating them with us in our work, and having them accompany us in onr itinerating evangelistic tours and assist us in the organization of churches, to train up a class of thoroughly equipped leaders, well grounded in the faith, who know their Bible and are able to give a reason for the faith that is in them.
Seventlt.-A decidedly new departure in mission work has been made in the matter of books and. pu blications for the natives. They not only pay for them, but pay a price that very nearly approximates to the cost of production.
Eigldh.-The same element is mad.e to appear largely ill our medical work. Medicine is given to the poor, but the rich are expected to pay full price for medicine and for visits to their homes.
After fifteen years of work in Korea, the Presbyterian churches who have followed this system are able to report one hundred and eighty-six out of one hundred and eighty-eight self-supporting nati ve churches with a baptized membership of over three thousand, contributing during the year nearly seven thousand yen, and almost entirely supporting and carrying on their own work.
MISSION WORK AMONG LEPERS.* BY WELLESLEY C. BAILEY, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND. Secretary and Superintendent of the ~ission to Lepers in India and the East.
Lepers abound in the world in the present day; there is scarcely a country where the disease is not to be found. Even in Great Britain a few lepers are always to be discovcred if one takes the trouble to look for them. India is said to have half a million lepers, Ohina has probably a like number. In the former country the disease is more evenly distributed than in the latter, being found from the Himalayas to Oape Oomorin, in the mountains and in the plains, inland and on the sea coast, in dry arid regions as well as in the damp and swampy places, tho it must be allowed that the damp regions seem to favor the disease. In Ohina leprosy is more prevalent in the south and southeast than in the north and northweHt. Japan has two hundred thousand officially registered cases of leprosy, and it is known to abound in the Malay Peninsula, Siam, the Malay Archipelago, and the Philippines, also in Korea; so that, speaking of India and the East, *'.C9,ndensejl from a paper read at tile Ecumenicl,t! Cooference, May 1, 1900.
we are well within the mark if we place the leper population at one million and a half.
The disease is found to a large extent in Africa and Madagascar; more or less in North and South America; in the West Indies and in the Hawaiian Islands. In Hawaii and the Philippines, the United States will find themselves face to face with a very serious leper problem.
Without going into any further statistics, it will be seen that here is a vast field for missionary effort if we are to reach the lepers with the Gospe1.
It is now generally admitted that the leprosy of the present day is the same disease as that of which we read so much in the Word of God, tho from the Old Testament records it is quite evident that there was a good deal of confusion in the minds of the pcople as to what constituted true leprosy. But may not the same be said of the ideas prevalent in the present day? Many people are still of opinion that a leper is of a sickly white color, while there are some who believe that there is a special mark upon his upper lip.
The fact that at no time in the world's history from the first mention of the disease, have we been without leprosy, also goes to show that ancient leprosy and present day leprosy are one and the same disease.
Leprosy is undoubtedly contagious, tho not infectious. It is conveyed from the diseased to the healthy by actual contact; but it can not be highly contagious, for very few of those who have been ministering to lepers have ever contracted the disease, so few indeed, that we may almost say that all workers among lepers are exempt.
The nature of the contact necessary to produce risk, and the manner in which the bacillus lepra is received into the system are matters still hotly debated in the medical world. A very popular mistake about leprosy is that it is hereditary. And yet in the report of the commissioners appointed by the National Leprosy Fund, under the presidency of H. R. H., the Prince of Wales, K. G., we find the following: 1. No authentic, congenital case has ever been put on record, nor was one seen in this country (India).
2. Many instances occur of children being affected while their parents remain perfectly healthy.
3. The percentage of children, the result of leper marriages, who become lepers, is too small to warrant the belief in the hereditary transmission of the disease.
4. The facts obtained from the Orphanage of the Almora Asylum (a home for the untainted children of lepers) disprove the existence of a specific hereditary predisposition.
5. Only five or six per cent. of the children, born after manifestation of the disease in the parents, become subsequently affected.
MISSION WORK AMONG LEPERS
The histories of the brothers and sisters of leper p·trents with a true or false hereditary taint seem to show that little importance can be attached to inheritance in the perpetuation of the disease.
The disease may certainly be regarded as incurable. 'fhe Berlin Conference in October, 1897, says on this point: "The disease has hitherto resisted all efforts to cure it."
The condition of lepers in the present day is scarcely less terrible than at the most barbarous age of the world's history. Certainly, while one can not but acknowledge that comparatively speaking, a great deal is being done to ameliorate the unhappy lot of the leper, there are yet instances occurring from time to time in different parts of the world which go to show that the unfortunate leper is still treated with as great barbarity as ever he was. In China, a missionary tells us: "Many years ago a mandarin determined to stamp it out, and took the following manner of doing so. He invited all the lepers to a great feast, set fire to the building, and all who escaped the fire perished by the swords of the troops surrounding the building." While within the last few months a terrible story has reached us from one of the missionaries of the Rhenish Missionary Society of the burning alive of at least four lepers in Sumatra.
We are told by lepers from Nepal in the Himalayas that to be a leper there is to incur the death penalty, and in order to avoid this fate they sometimes flee into British territory. Even in many places where the leper is not allowed to be put to death he is treated with great barbarity. In Japan they are called" hinim," which means "not human." In India they are often driven out of house and home, sometimes being" stoned away" from their villages.
The writer has himself come across them in different parts of India, in a Il}ost helpless and hopeless condition, wandering about without a friend in the world. After they are driven away from their village they will wander away into the jungle, where they build themselves a little mat or reed hut, and eke out a terrible existence, living on roots or on whatever may chance to be thrown to them by passers-by. They will sometimes take up their abode in a cave or in a hole under some great rock. It must be borne in mind, too, that these pitiable objects are sometimes women and children of tender years. Sometimes a mother will be hunted from her home with a babe at her breast. In many instances the victims of the disease are absolutely helpless, having lost fingers and toes, or even hands and feet, leaving nothing but useless stumps, which continue to waste and slough, and the disease will sometimes have robbed them of sight and almost of the power of speech.
Then consider that these people are not only without hope of bodily relief in this life, but that the unknown future upon which they are to enter is without one ray of light, and I think we have
established this fact that there is no class in all the world more needing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was specially tender in His dealings with the leper. He not only relieved the poor body of the victim, but also led the sufferer to Himself. Surely, with this example before us, we are bound to follow in the Master's footsteps. As of old, the leper cried to Jesus, " Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean," so to-day they seem to cry to His followers, " Christians, if you will, you can make ns clean. You, in the name of your Master, and in the power of His Holy Spirit, can cleanse us with a better cleansing than any mere bodily healing." Missionary work among lepers naturally falls, like medical mission work, into two grooves, the physical and the spiritual.
Mission work has been carried on among lepers for many years. Roman Catholics in olden times were very devoted in their attention to lepers, and all the lazar houses were looked after by priests or nuns. Roman Catholics still have institutions for lepers in different parts of the world.
Among Protestants the Moravians were probably the first to take up this work, as far back as 1819, when they began their noble work at Hemel-en-Aarde (Heaven and Earth) in South Africa. Their first regular missionary was Leitner, who, with his English wife.. entered the leper settlement. For six years did Brother Leitner continue his arduous and Christ-like work in that terrible abode of living death, a work that resembled in most respects that of Damien; and, like him, he fell at his post, tho, happily, not a leper.
At present, as is pretty generally known, the Moravians have an interesting leper home near Jerusalem, where there are men and women who, for Christ's sake, are in hourly attendance on the suffering inmates of that institution.
In India and Ohina, individual missionaries and others have for many years been ministering to lepers as they found opportunity, and have done noble service in this direction. Such names as Ramsay, Budden, of the L. M. S. ; John Newton, American Presbyterian; Vaughan, C. M. S., were well known in India fOl' their devotion to the leper; and in the present day one might mention among many others working in connection with the mission to lepers, Hahn and Uffmann, of Gossner's Mission; Nottrott, of the German Evangelical Missionary Society of the United States; Bulloch, of the L. N. S.; Cullen, Guilford, and Main, of the C. M. S.; Herron, of the Reformed Presbyterian; Bestall, of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and Byers and Mary Reed, of the Methodist Episcopal Society, whose pathetic story has sent a thrill of sympathy through the world. These are just a few of the outstanding workers, but they by no means exhaust the list.
It remained, however, for the" Mission to Lepers in India and the
MISSION WORK AMONG LEPERS
East" to be the first to enter this field as a society, founded wholly and solely for the benefit, physical and spiritual, of lepers. This society, founded in Dublin in the year 1874, was origiually aimed at reaching lepers in India only, but as time went on, the work extended to Ohina and Japan, and so the title of the society was enlarged from that of the Mission to Lepers in India to its present one-Mission to Lepers in India and the East.
The society is now at work in fifty-six centers: in India, Burma, Oeylon.• Ohina, and Japan, and is about to extend its operations to the Korea and Sumatra. It has twenty-four asylums or homes of its own, fourteen homes for the untainted children of lepers, and aids fifteen other institutions.
It is interdenominational and international in its constitution, and in its working. It carries on its work in cooperation with the missionaries of twenty-two different societies, among which are several American and German societies. Its principal offices are in Edinburgh, ScotlanJ; London, England; and Dublin, Ireland; while it has auxiliaries, not only in Great Britain and Ireland, but also in the United States and Oanada.
The most effective way of reaching lepers has been found to be by gathering the helpless of them into asylums or homes, and there ministering to their wants, spiritual and temporal, and where this is being done the results are truly marvelous.
The writer has recently been making up some statistics of the work for the year 1899, and finds some remarkable facts. Of a total of one thousand, three hundred and twenty lepers, and one hundred and eighty-eight untainted children of lepers, gathered into nineteen Ohristian institutions, watched over by missionaries, there are one thousand, one hundred and forty-seven professing Ohristians, of whom three hundred and sixty-five have been baptized during the year!
In other nineteen institutions aided by the society, many of which are government 01' municipal, and in some of which there are only occasional visits from missionaries, the results are very different. Of one thousand, one hundred and thirty inmates, only foul' hundred and thirty-four are professing Ohristians, while the baptisms were only thirty for the year. This clearly shows the immense advantage of having such institutions completely under Ohristian control.
DEPARTMENTS AND METHODS OF WORK.
'fhe two main departments in the work of this mission are: (1.) That of ministering to those actually afflicted with the disease, Hnd (2.) That of saving the as yet untainted children from falling victims to the disease. For the former we can do but little, from the physical point of view, at least, so far as any hope of cure is concerned. At the
same time, we can do a great deal to relieve suffering, and to improve their general health; and then we have for them the great consolations of the Gospel. For them, of all people, surely it is sweet music to hear: « Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" or, "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty and the inhabitant shall not say, 'I am sick.'" But for the latter we have, thank God, a double salvation.
If the children of lepers, who are as yet untainted with the disease, can be separated from their leprous relatives, and can be taken out of all leprous surroundings, there is every reason to hope that such children may be saved. Acting on that idea, the mission to lepers has for some years been making efforts to save the children. The method adopted is to build, in connection with asylums for lepers, homes for their untainted offspring, and to invite the lepers to give up their children into the charge of the missionaries. 'rhis has been carried on now for a considerable time with very marked success; with one or two exceptions, nOne of the children thus separated having since developed the disease. Many of them are now in the world doing for themselves; some of them are married and have children of their own. Not only are these children saved from the physical taint of leprosy, but, through the grace of God, many of them are being saved from a far worse moral taint. This work for children, therefore, is most hopeful, for not only are we saving the children for their own sake, but we are assisting largely in putting an end to one of earth's greatest scourges.
A third and very important branch of the operations of this society is that of providing religious instruction for the inmates of government and municipal asylums, where otherwise they would have no opportunity of hearing the Gospel.
From every point of view, the results of this leper work are most striking. It is a work upon which God seems to have set a special seal. As a class the lepers are easily reached, and as a class they readily respond to the Gospel invitation. Many splendid trophies of Divine grace have been won from among them. To this almost every one who works among them bears testimony. In a word, this work gives quick returns of a good quality. Not only are the results good as regards the poor sufferers themselves, but they are good in their effect upon others. This work has a wonderful effect upon the surrounding heathen, and influences them in favor of Christianity. A Christian leper asylum is a sermon in itself. To see a European or American lady binding np the sores of a poor leper. or a medical missionary operating on a deceased limb, in order to give even temporary relief, is an object lesson not easily forgotten by the heathen. Many missionaries bear testimony to the fact that this leper work has been an effective agency in opening the way to heathen hearts and homes.
WHY DO NOT MORE HINDUS ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST
The results of this work upon the Christian converts too are very good, for when they see their missionaries ministering with their own hands to the poor outcast leper, it teaches them a wonderful lesson in self-sacrifice, and helps to make them willing to deny themselves for others.
We have tried to give some idea of "the little done" and of the marvelous results that have followed; bu t how are we to give even the very least conception of the" undone vast! " Who can tabulate that! Wh€l1 one thinks of the terrible agony, mental and physical, in which many hundreds of thousands of these unfortunate sufferers drag out their miserable existence, and realizes that a great amount of that might be relieved and is not, when 011e knows that there are hundreds of thousands of these people who might be trophies of Divine grace and are not, who might have the comforts of the Gospel and have not, but are dying unrelieved and absolutely hopeless; when one thinks of the hundreds of thousands of little children living in leper haunts of vice and misery, in surroundings that appal us even to think of. in hourly danger of contracting this loathsome disease, and realizes that these, His little ones, might be rescued and are not, one wonders how long it will be before the Church of Christ fully realizes the importance of Christ's command to his apostles, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers."
WHY DO NOT MORE HINDUS ACCEP'l' JESUS CHRIST?
BY DR. WILBERT W. WHITE.
More than once during my recent tour in India, I addressed Hindus on this topic. In the introduction, I stated that my purpose was not controversial, but that as a fellow-student I desired to inquire earnestly and faithfully into the actual situation for the benefit of myself and my hearers. I stated my belief that human nature is the same in every country, and that many of the reasons to be given in India why Jesus Ohrist was rejected would be the same as those assigned in other countries. I intimated that in a little while the meeting would be thrown open for anyone to give reasons why more Hindus do not accept Jesus Christ. Thus I songht to make my hearers feel as much at home as possible, so that they might speak frankly· and freely on the subject.
The first two considerations which I stated were those that would not likely be cited. (1) It is not because Jesus Christ is not willing to receive all Hindus who would come to him. He included members of every race when he said, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden." "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself." (2) It is not because He is not able to save Hindus. Thousands of
THE MISSI0NAltY ltEVIEW OF 'rItE WOltLlJ
lIindus who have experienced His saving power, testIfy that He does not lack ability to save. " even to the uttermost."
When the meeting Was opened for responses, the following reasons were given: (1) The Hindu mind is inclined to study into the phil- osophy of religion, and is not disposed to be practical.
(2) National pride, caste pride, and personal pride are in the way of accepting Jesus Christ.
(3) Inconsistent lives of Christians.
(4) Fear of persecution.
(5) Lack of historical sense.
(6) Disposition to emphasize objections, and to ignore positive evidence.
(7) No deep sense of sin.
These are the chief reasons given, and from them the reader may be able to understand something of the religious situation among the educated Indians.
In going among the college students of various lands, I have been struck by the fact, – that the needs and difficulties are, in the main, everywhere the same. A successful personal worker in India needs the same qualifications which are required in Canada or in the United States.
After drawing out the hearers, I proceeded to give reasons which the Gospel by John presents why the Jews of Christ's time did not accept Jesus Christ. I verily believe that, in that Gospel, every case of unbelief of the present day can be explained. Let me mention a few of the reasons there found. (1) Merely superficial and intellectual knowledge of the Scriptures: John vii: 41, 42; v: 38. (2) Because few of the great believe: vii: 48. (3) Fear of losing position and influence: ix:21, 22. (4) National pride: xi:47. (5) They sought the glory of one another, and not the glory of God: v: 44. (6) They had no deep sense of sin: see passages in the eighth chapter. (7) They lacked a sincere desire to know the truth: v: 42. (8) Inability to explain processes: iii: 9; vi: 42, 52. (9) A bad life: iii: 19- 21. (10) Unwillingness to do the will of God in the face of ample evidence: v: 40; viii: 31.
AWAKENING GREEKS.
BY REV. GEO. E. WHITE, MARSOVAN, TURKEY.
If a church sleep shall it wake again? -'rhis is 011e of the most important questions in the East, where the Greek and other Oriental churches exhibit so beautifully the form of Christianity with oftell so little of its power. Awakening must begin with individuals, alld there are hopeful cases.
A few years ago a new priest came to the Greek community in one of the cities of Asia Minor, occupied as a station of the American Board. He soon became a frequent attendant at the Protestant church, and his striking figure with the long hair and beard, the solemn robe and cap of the Orthodox Church, was often seen in the
AWAKENING GREEKS
devotional or other exercises of the missionary p,chools. Indeed he might be called the chief patron of a primary department, opened to prepare pupils who mostly came from his congregation for the regular classes.
Some of his congregation advised him not to attend such services, urging that it did not look well for him, the priest of the Orthodox, to frequent places of Protestant worship and educ!),tion. He answered them in effect: "Friends, you know that I am a villager, and have always been a village priest until the opening here brought me to this city. At home I have my own house, and field, and vineyard. I was glad to come here, chiefly because I hoped in the city to learn something. I want to learn enough to save my own soul, if I can not save anyone else. And where in this city can one learn anything except at the Protestant church and the schools of the missionaries? I am not dependent upon the support that you give me. I can return to my village, and live in my own house on the produce of my field and vineyard. But while I remain here, I can not neglect my opportunities to learn of God, His Word, and the way of salvation."
He has now tasted theological instrnction, and firtds it good. He is in the habit of daily attendance on the expository exercises in Isaiah and Romans, and is drinking in the truth they convey. He is a simple-minded, simple-hearted man, apparently led by the Divine Spirit.
There are others. At the other end of the same plain is another Greek community, which was visited some time ago by a theological student. A friendly priest invited him to preach in his church. He did so, and subsequently met with a storm of threats and opposition. They lay in wait for him with stones and clubs. But he was not harmed and he did not fear. He stayed some time in the town, preaching in another place, and spending most of his evenings with the teacher of the Orthodox school. They talked of God and prayed together. The teacher is now engaged to preach this year, as he did last, every Sabbath day in the Greek church. The priests perform the prescribed ceremonies; the teacher has the mind and heart that fit him to preach. He is believed by those who know him best to be a regenerate man, prepared by his own spiritual experience to be a spiritual guide to t)thers.
A Greek Protestant preacher on the Black Sea coast has recently left his little congregation to preach to each other, while he made a fifty days' evangelistic tour to towns not often hearing the Gospel. In one of these, the most spiritually alert person, except the one Protestant brother of the place, was the Greek priest. His congregation declined to allow the visitor to address them.
These are, of course, the scattered Greeks of Asia Minor, who have been left, as it were a Christian seed, among Mohammedans. So far, most of them who have accepted evangelical truth, have come out, or been driven out, of the old churches into the Protestant organizations. Hopes of the old churches becoming reformed and revivified from within, vary according to the nature of the observer. '['he great Greek Church is a standing challenge to the prayers of evangelical Christians that God may breathe through its venerable forms the breath of divine life an~ activity.
From a Plwtograp!, by Molinari.
A VIEW FROM A HOUSETOP IN TANGlb;RS.
SELECTED ARTICLES.
MOROCCO AS A MISSION FIELD.* BY BUDGETT MEAKIN, LONDON, ENGLAND.
Author of "The Moorish Empire," "The Land of the Moors," etc.
Protestant mission work in Morocco is of altogether recent introduction. The first society to enter the field was the" London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews," which established its only station in Mogador in 1875, under the Rev. J. B. Ginsburg, who fitted up, at his own expense, a large room as an English church. This still continues to be used, and is the only permanent church hall in the country, except one in Tangier, where, in 1885, a temporary iron structure was erected by subscription as the pro-church of St. Andrew. Recently thilj was sold to the- North African Mission for the Spanish Protestant congregation, and a building of stone was begun in the later morisco style. The chaplaincy, maintained by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, assisted by local contributions, is usually only occupied in winter, and is inclllded in the diocese of Gibraltat·.
For definite work among the Moors the British and Foreign Bible Society was first in the field, appointing an agent to Tangier, in 1883. Next year the mission to the Kabyles and other Berber races of North Africa-now known as the North Africa Mission-acquired a valuable property on the Marshim plateau outside Tangier, which has since been its headquarters for Morocco. The work later extended to Azeelah, under the most capable direction of Miss Emma Herdman, who, in 1888, took two other ladies to Fez. There, in the face of every obstacle and * From" The Moorish Empire." By Budgett Meakin. The Macmillan Co.
MOROCCO AS A MISSION FIELD
discouragement, they bravely settled and established a medical mission, which they still carryon, having since been reenforced by others.
Medical work from the first formed part of the operations in Tangier, and in 1867 the Tulloch Memorial Hospital was erected beside the mission house there. Laraiche, Tetuan, and Casablanca were made stations during the next few years, and at present the mission supports in Morocco ten male, and twenty-seven female workers, three of the former, and one of the latter, being doctors. In Tangier they have a second hospital for women only, supported by the Countess of Meath, and a general one in Casablanca. In Tangier there are also elementary schools for children, and an incipient boys' industrial home, and a shelter for beggars at the market. One branch of the labors of this mission lies among the Spaniards in Tangier, and it is here that visible results are greatest.
In 1886 the Presbyterian Church of England established a mission at Rabat, directed by Dr. Robert Kerr', who in 1894 resigned his connection with that body, and has continued his work as the" Central Morocco Mission," which is steadily making practical Christianity known among the Berber tribesmen who crowd in to the good doctor's dispensary, and bid him welcome to their homes. In 1888 the Southern Morocco Mission came into existence as a result of the interest in the country of Mr. John Anderson, of Ardrossan, whose sturdy Scotch friends have earned an excellent name for themselves and their Master in Mogador, Saffi, Mazagan, and Marrakesh, their headquarters, where they have a small hospital. Spasmodic efforts have been made from time to time by the Mildmay Mission to the Jews, the efforts of which are, as its name implies, restricted to one race, tho their representatives have always lent assistance to the others. Finally, in 1895, the Gospel Union of Kansas City, U. S. A., sent missionaries to Morocco, under the direction of Mr.
From a P……..p4 br Dr. Ruddock.
HOMES OF' THE MIXED RACE OF CENTRAL MOROCCO.
Nathan, a Christian Jew, who, from Tangier, supervises stations in Mequinez and EI Kasal'.
Only the first-named society is denominational, and all work together in harmony, their only object being to set forth Christ, and not to spread sectarianism. Altho from the nature of the ground they occupy speedy results are not to be anticipated, numbers of conversions have taken place, and there can be no doubt that only the fear of the powers that be keeps many more from confessing Christ. The prejudice and misconception in the native mind as to the facts and aims of Christianity are so great that it is not till they have long and closely watched the lives of those who come to teach it that they can be influenced by their message. If nothing else had been achieved during these years beyond raising the Moorish ideas of Christians, a good work would have been accomplished. That this has been the case wherever they have gone, and often far beyond the limits of their journeys, I am abundantly able to testify from personal experience, and I am always proud to count among my friends the emissaries of the Christan Church among the Moors.
The methods employed by all the agencies at work in Morocco are identical, consisting chiefly, in addition to the medical work, in visitation of the women by their Christian sisters, who are able to enter doors closed to men, and all having some practical acquaintance with medicines and nursing, are made heartily welcome where there is suffering; invariably in itinerating through the villages, which affords the best of opportunities for personal dealing and the dissemination of the Scriptures; in tending beggars and providing for orphans, and in elementary schools, tho educational work meets with most opposition. Sometimes the missionaries wear the garb of the country, especially in the interior, where "Christian clothes" excite more curiosity than is convenient, and more prejudice than is desirable. Most Moors appreciate the brotherly feeling shown by adopting their dress, and those who find themselves at home in it experience a wonderful bridging over of the gulf between east and west.
Some years ago, when stations were first opened up country, and there were signs of an increased activity, effort.3 were made by the Moors, with the support of France and Germany, to prevent a further extension of mission work. It was alleged that it seriously menaced the peace of Morocl"o, and that European lives and property were threatened; but experience has thus far proved the fallacy of these alarms, political rather than genuine, and no trouble need be feared till there comes a Pentecostal wave of conversion, for which the missionaries would be willing to lose everything.
THE DECAY OF JUDAISM. * There can be no more effective witness to the hopeless decay of Judaism than Professor Marks, the Nestor of Jewish reform in this country. He was the soul of that movement, when it was started some fifty years ago, with the object of lifting the synagog out of the old rut of Rabbinism, and putting a new, purified life into it. And now, as he looks back upon the fruits of his labors during this long period, he cries out, in the bitterness of his heart: "Alas! the sanctuary is nowadays almost deserted. As for the Sabbath of the Decalogue-that outward and * From Jewish Missionary Intelligencer.
THE DECAY OF JUDAISM
visible sign of the inner spirit of Judaism-its observance threatens to become almost obsolete. A large and increasing number of Jews do not hesitate, on the one hand, to sacrifice to the pursuit of materinl gain, and on the other hand to regard its observance as a pure matter of con- venience. ,,* So far has the neglect of the Sahbath gone that even Truth, which is not noted for its religious zeal, says" that it is time public attention were directed to the ignoring of all religious and moral laws by Jews who open their warehouses, especially in Houndsditch, seven days in the week. It is a scandal and disgrace that they can not be made to close at least one day in the week. From early morning till late at night these shops are open for trade all the year round. On the Kippur (Atonement) day alone. do they close."
Still more emphatic, if possible, is the orthodox rabbi of the Hempstead synagog, who says: "With exceptions, of course, but with appalling generality, there is sweeping over modern Judaism such a strong wave of callous, contemptuous indifference, that we are beginning to wonder, how much of that religious tenacity that we praise in the past may have been due to religious persecution from without, rather than to religious conviction from within. It is impossible to find anything more degrading than the attitude of the modern Israelite in this country to what is called-poetically or sarcastically, as you please-the faith of his fathers. The rabbi administers a synagog service that he knows to be replete with incongruities. He preaches the word of God in synagogs, where the only response he is encouraged to feel is the echo of his own voice out of the hollowness of an empty building. He sees the most cherished institutions of Judaism flagrantly violated, all of them growing into desuetude, some almost forgotten. The membership of the Jewish community in London threatens to degenerate into a merely superstitious tie to the Burial Society of tlie United Synagogue; (i. e., its one and only object is to secure interments among Jewish rela- tives); the United Synagog itself is wholly absorbed by its balance sheets, with no soul above pounds, shillings, and pence."t To what extent religious worship is neglected in the provinces may be seen at Card:ff. There, according to a report in the Jewish World (August 11), a synagog has been built at a cost of £8,000, in which a service, held once a week, is attended by fifteen worshipers all told, out of a population of 1,000 Jews.
And these services are generally debased by the indecorous behavior of the few who do attend. "On the great Day of Atonement," writes one,::: "when the building was crowded, the scene was at times painful in the extreme. Groups of three and four men were to be seen in all parts of the building, holding converse with each other in such a loud tone as to interfere with and annoy those whose thoughts were centered on the solemnity and importance of the great day. And this was carried on during the entire twelve hours over which the service extended." The reason he assigns for "this deplorable state of affairs, which prevails in many of the metropolitan and provincial places of worship, is the utter ignorance of the great bulk of the worshipers-shall I say nine-tenths? -of the sacred tongue in which the prayers are offered up. Personally, I know scores of young men who attend a place of worship only on one * * Jewish Chronicle, September 8, 1899. t Ibid, February 3. Ibid, October 6.
day in the year, but who are unable to read a line of Hebrew, while a great many others who can, with difficulty, read that tongue, do not in the least understand the meaning of what they read." * The ignorance, however, of the Hebrew language, tho a powerful, is not the primary cause of the rapid decay of Judaism. It is itself the result of another factor which all thoughtful Jews perceive, tho none dare, or care, to say so explicitly. The study of Hebrew is abandoned, because the belief in the supernatural origin of Judaism is almost gone; and what remains of that creed are the wornout rags of the old religious habits. Orthodox and Reform Jews, whom secular education has taught to think for themselves, are alike told that they can obtain favor with God by their own unaided efforts, without the help of any medium whatever. All they have to do is to resist evil and do that which is good. And if wrong has been committed, which one would think is the more unpardonable, as it can be easily avoided, provided it is not an indictable offense, for somehow human law will exact its penalties, if it is not to be mere advice-repentance and amendment, and, where possible, restitution will set the offender right again. In other words, religion is confounded with ordinary bocial morality. vVhat need, then, is there for creeds or supernatural religion? If it is for the sake of a deterrent or an operative sanction, is not this abundantly supplied by the police courts and the dread of social disgrace? And if there is no need for creeds, there is none for the study of Hebrew, except for archeological purpos6s, and none also for religious ordinances and observances.
THE BOERS AND CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTH AFRICA.t BY NINE MINISTERS OF THE DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH IN SOUTH AFRICA.::: I. Misunderstandings.-History proves too clearly that reforms can never be forced upon nations, states, or individuals. In every free country political, social, municipal reform has had to proceed slowly from precedent to precedent. To expect from a young republic in a few months what has cost European nations years of constitutional struggle, is certainly unreasonable. The massing of troops on the borders of the republics was naturally considered by their respective governments as a menace to their independence and the admitted right of internal selfgovernment. vVe can not but regret that the suggestion made by the Transvaal government to submit the questions at issue to arbitration in the spirit and on the lines suggested by the Peace Convention, recently held in Hague, was rejected; more especially, as all parties are now fairly agreed, that the proposals of the Bloemfontein Conference had been virtually accepted by the Transvaal.
• Jewish Chronicle, October 8, 1899. t Condensed from The South African News, Wednesday, February 28,1900. :j: The authors of this paper are ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church, occupying influential positions in South Africa, who consider it their duty to give public expression to their views regarding the present war between Her Majesty's government and the two republics. Their names are: J. H. Hofmeyl', A. Moorrees, J. P. Van Heerden, Andrew Murray, J. H. Neethling, N. J. Hofmeyr, J. 1. Marais, P. G. J. De Vos, C. F. J. Muller. They are members of the Moderamen of the Synodical Mission Board, and professors of the Theololl'ical Seminary.
1900.J THE BOERS AND CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Mr. Chamberla:n is reported to have said before the war: "To go to war with President Krueger in order to force upon him reforms in the internal affairs of his state, with which successive secretaries of state standing in this place have repudiated all right of interference, that would have been a course of action as immoral as it would have been unwise."
Had these principles been acted upon by the British government, the war would have been prevented. We put on record our solemn conviction, that war might have been prevented by a little more patience or a little more consideration for the rights and privileges of the two free and independent republics on the part of the British authorities.
II. Accusations have been freely made against the Colonial and Republican Dutch, which, in our opinion, can not be borne out by fact.
1. It has been said that before the outbreak of hostilities, a combination against Her Majesty's government existed among the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the queen's dominion. No proof for such an assertion has been forthcoming; not a trace of such conspiracy has been found to exist. Knowing South Africa intimately, coming into daily contact with its people, speaking on behalf of thousands and tens of thousands of our church members, we maintain, without fear of contradiction, that the paramountcy of Great Britain was unchallenged and undisputed by Her Majesty's subjects of Dutch extraction before the war.
2. To aggravate the difficulties of the present situation, the Republican Boers have been represented as "barbarians," "vermin to be exterminated," "slave-drivers," and "slave-owners," or prospective slave-owners, eagerly watching their opportunity to enthrall the natives dwelling in their midst_ Stories of Boer atrocity, as outrageous as they were imaginary, have been the order of. the day. Perhaps a few facts and considerations coming from ourselves as men well acquainted with the Boer's character and with the Boer history, may not be out of place: (1) British soldiers wounded on the battlefield have met with every consideration at the hands of their foes_ Prisoners of war at Pretoria have been treated with uniform kindness. Those who know them and have won their confidence, have learned to respect the Boers_ (2) Slavery is not tolerated in the Transvaal. It is as contrary to Republican as it is to British law.
(3) Even the so-called "apprentice-system," tolerated in the colony under the British flag, was shorn of many of its abuses by the moderation and watchfulness of ecclesiastical and political authorities.
(4) The late Rev. Lion Cachet, for many years a prominent member of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Transvaal, remarked: * "Sometimes Kafir children were removed by Boer commandos after a war, and apprenticed. The Kafirs do not wage war like civilized nations; women fall as well as men; the weak and the children are left behind in sudden flight. The Boers had frequently to choose between leaving them to die of hunger, or else removing them. According to existing laws, such children are apprenticed in the Republic till their majority. This system was certainly liable to abuse. On the borders, Kafir children were • exchanged' by traders. It is true, also, that a Boer here and there did exchange 01' accept in exchange such children. But this happened in direct transgression of the law of the land_ The Boers themselves have • Worsteistrijd der Transvaiers.
made an end to this practise. It is, therefore, unreasonable and immoral to rake up the past, and bring this accusation against the present generation."
(5) More recent still is the testimony borne to the Boers by the " Aborigines Protection Society "-an organization by no means predisposed to faVOl' the Transvaal. Its official journal, the Aborigine8' Friend, for November, says: "The treatment of blacks on Boer farms, and also on the' Dutch' farms in Cape Colony, contrasts favorably with that of the blacks in the employment of many English and other settlers in South Africa. Cases of cruelty are far more frequent than on the farms of easy-going and more or less lethargic 'Dutchmen,' whether in our own colonies or in the Boer Republics."
(6) That the wars of the Boers were not wars of extermination, nor mere marauding raids for securing cattle, even men by no means partial to the Boer methods of government, have freely testified. '!'hese testimonies are borne out by Boer traditions. When the emigrant farmers left the colony and sought a home in the desert, they published a manifesto, of which the following clauses have more than ordinary significance: We are resolved, wherever we go, that we will uphold the just principles of liberty; but, whilst we will take care that no one is brought by us into a condition of slavery, we will establish such regulations as may suppress crime and preserve proper relations between master and servant.
We solemnly declare that we leave this colony with a desire to enjoy a quieter life than we have hitherto had. We will not molest any people, nor deprive them of the smallest property; but. if attacked. we shall consider ourselves fully justified in defending our persons and effects to the utmost of our ability against every enemy.
That this purpose was carried into effect, as far as possible, is borne out by historical testimony. Indirectly by their kindness and humanity, the Boers were instrumental in introducing the Gospel into Basutoland. At any rate, they prepared the barbarians for looking with favor upon the European missionaries who came shortly afterward to minister in Basutoland.
Bearing all this in mind, we, as ministers of the Gospel of Salvation, which knows no distinction between barbarian and Scythian, bond and free, solemnly declare that the fear of slavery and oppression of the natives by the Boers is chimerical. We are devoutly thankful to God that a better spirit is being extensively manifested, and that Boer and black have been drawn more closely together in the bonds of the Gospel.
III. Boer and Mi88ionary.-It has been said that the advancement of God's Kingdom, the salvation of the heathen, the extension of mission work, necessitate th~ prosecution of this war to its bitter end, because the Boers are intensely hostile to the missionary and the Gospel he preaches. This accusation is frequently made in ignorance of the real facts, and has its origin in a one-sided view of the relationship between Boer and black, or is based on events which have happened in a distant and forgotten past. In other cases it rests on flagrant. culpable, and malignant misrepresentation and distortion of facts.
We deny most emphatically that the Boers resist the spread of Christianity among the heathen, or display an indiscriminate hostility to the missionary as such. They have sometimes come into collision with individuals, but not with the cause they represented. A careful examination of all the facts will sh.ow that the fault did. uot. always li~
THE BOERS AND CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTH AFRICA
with the Boers, but often with the missionaries themselves. And yet instances are by no means rare of missionaries commanding the highest respect of the early Dutch settlers.
Full liberty to minister to the heathen is granted in both Free State and Transvaal. The Berlin and Hermannsburg societies are largely represented there. At the end of sixty years the stations of the former in South Africa numbered fifty-five, half of them in the Transvaal.
The colonial branch of the Dutch Reformed Church is represented in the Transvaal by several stations and out-stations; their missionaries are honored and respected by the neighboring Dutch farmers.
Among the Natal Dutch the same spirit prevails. Many of them are emigrants from the colony or descendants of emigrants who had escaped the dreadful assegai of the Zulu. Not long ago the Natal Boer Mission was started for the evangelization of the natives in the Umvoti district. A congregation of Kafirs exists as a fruit of the labors of these Dutch Boers.
In the Orange Free State mission work has been fairly organized. In almost every village or township either the pastor of the Boer congregation, or an ordained missionary with a number of native evangelists, labors among the blacks. Lately that church has gone further afield, and is now supporting two missionaries in Central Africa.
The history of missions in South Africa is in many respects a sad one. But for the last sixty or seventy yea,rs this country has been in a state of political turmoil. Racial problems are still unsolved among us, prejudice and suspicion are strong forces of disintegration; patience and conciliation are sadly needed. Good and earnest men sit in judgment upon the Boer, ignorant of his history, his language, and his political, social, and religious institutions; ready to find fault, and to magnify abuses which time will and must efface; censuring harshly where the blame is not rightly apportioned. The Boer again, smarting under constant misrepresentation, is equally liable to give way to prejudice, not distinguishing between the cause advocated and the advocate of the cause. In the missionary he sometimes discovered the political pamphleteer, who appealed by his writings to a European court, where the Boer's voice is never heard.
We are thankful to God that Boer and black have come to llnderstand each other better than ever before. It is sad to think that Boer and Briton are at dreadful feud.
IV. The Dutch Reformed Church and Missions.-The attitude of the Dutch Reformed Church toward mission work has been strangelymisunstood, and sometimes ignorantly or wilfully misrepresented. Perhaps we ourselves are to blame in the matter, inasmuch as we have never courted publication or advertisement in foreign periodicals or religious journals. We stand alone, receiving no support from any European organization, and responsible to no religious body across the sea. Our missionaries have to be found within our own domain; have to be trained in our own institutions; are supported by our own church members. They have to be sought in our own homes, to be gathered from our own farmsteads. With increasing gratitude to God we have found our congregations responding to our call, awaking to their responsibilities; while their sons and daughters are yielding themselves to the work of the Lord among the heathen at our doors, and further away in the heart of this continent.
No church in South Africa takes a keener interest and is more heartily in mission work than ours. Our church clerk reports that the colonial branch of our church, with 98,144 communicant members and 223,000 souls under its charge, contributed to missions in the past year £10,150, i. e., at the rate of more than two shillings per communicant.
The number of missionaries supported by onr church throughout South Africa is about sixty, with an equal number of evangelists and lay helpers. These numbers do not include the work done by the Transvaal, Free State, and Natal.
From this it will appear that there is a measure of missionaryactivity in the church for which it has hitherto received little credit. 'Ve have. not gone very far afield, but OUi' work has been carefully organized. The Colonial Church has two committees, appointed by its synod: a Foreign and a Home Mission Committee. The foreign field lies in the Transvaal, in Mashonaland, Bechuanaland, and the Lake country of Central Africa, with some thirty-five missionaries and lay assistants, and a number of native evangelists. This work is gradually extending, and embracing an increasingly wide area. The home mission includes all that is done by us among the Dutch-speaking colored natives in the colony. Thirty-five of these congregations have been formed into a "Mission Church," embracing a number of parishes, having its own synod, its own presbyteries, administering its own affairs, subject, however, to the control of the Home Mission Committee of the Dutch Reformed Church. Several congregations have not as yet been organized, and therefore are not affiliated to the General Assembly of the Mission Church. Year by year this are::1 also increases, as the Mission Church enlarges its borders.
The example set by the colony has been followed by the republics and Natal. There, too, the church as such undertakes mission work, and tho the area of its operations is by no means large. yet the missionary spirit is by no means absent, missionary enthusiasm is by no means lacking. The same process of gradual extension and organization, so characteristic of our colonial work, is met with in the Transvaal and the Free State; and the day, we hope, is not far distant when the republican " Mission Church" will show itself equal to the task of organizing and consolidating the work within its own special domain.
Various agencies within the church contribute their share toward extending our operations. A" 'Voman's Mission Bond" was started in 1889, with the special object of supporting lay teachers and native evangelists. The" rheological Students' Missionary Society" has its field in Natal, where a school for training evangelists has been started. Our Young Men's Christian Associations have a mission branch among their various agencies, and support a missionary in our foreign field. A Children's Missionary Society has been organized, whose contributions are not to be despised. The Societies for Christian Endeavor, which have their representatives even in the Transvaal, are actively engaged in Christian work, and take their share in building up the missions of the church. The Christian Students' Union, with its branch of missionary volunteers, has taken strong hold of the hearts of our, young men and young women, with the gladdening result, that more than one department of the work in the foreign field has been strengthened by accessions from their rank,S.
As long as the Dutch Reformed Church was unable to fill her own
A JAPANESE VIEW OF JAPANESE CHRISTIANITY
pulpits she had to cooperate with European societies in their labors among the natives beyond the borders of the colony. Up to 1852 her own mission work had been confined to the colored classes in the colony. Attention was now turned to the heathen world beyond. But how to obtain laborers for that field was the perplexing question; for the supply had to be obtained from Holland, where Dutch colonists had to be prepared for the ministry of the Vord. Hence, when in 1857 the committee entrusted with the mission work of the church reported that the time had not yet come for extending our missionary operations beyond the boundaries of the colony, the synod appointed a new committee to take the matter in hand, and determined upon establishing its own theological college at Stellenbosch. The college was opened in 1858, and not long after the Rev. Dr. Robertson was sent to Holland and Scotland to obtain ministers and missionaries to inaugurate the new departure undertaken by the church. Rev. H. Gonin, from Switzerland, was sent to the Rustenburg district in the Transvaal, where he still labors with great acceptance; and the Rev. McKidd, from Scotland, who had married a Dutch lady, went north to the Zoutpansberg district, where he died not long afterward, and was succeeded by the Rev. S. Hofmeyr, whose labors have been eminently blessed to white and black alike. This was the beginning of a work which has since extended in all directions.
Prejudice against mission work still exists; but it is not confined to the republics, nor to the Dutch Boer. As our own sons and daughters are entering the mission field that prejudice dies awny. Outside of the Dutch Ohurch the.number of colonial-born missionaries is small; within our church the number of such missionaries is increasing year by year.
These are dark days for South Africa; the century closes in deepest gloom. There are ruined homes, shattered lives, and broken hearts among us. Our sons, our brothers, our relatives have settled down in the republics; many of them have been called to the front. Some have already laid down their lives in fighting for their adopted country. How long is this to last? It rests with the Ohristians of England to make themselves heard. If they persist in fanning the flames of race-hatred and national pride, if they echo the cry for vengea,nce which is heard everywhere, the war will be pursued to its bitter end. But it will leave behind a long track of wo and of sorrow which years will not efface.
A JAPANESE VIEW OF JAPANESE CHRISTIANITY."
AN INTERVIEW WITH REY. T. MIYAGA WA, KOBE, JAPAN.t PaRtor of one of the leading Congregational churches h Japan.
Globe-trotting Englishmen frequently give us their hasty impressions of Eastern lands and peoples, but it is not often that we learn how the Occident strikes an intellectual Oriental. Japan is the enigma of the nine- * Condensed from The (ffiristian World.
t Mr. Miyagawa. is now on a grand tour round the world, upon which he has been sent by his church. SIt a celebration of its silver jubilee. A splendid snecimen of Japallese intellectualism is this keenly observant traveler. His face is an index to his mental alertness and reeeptifity. He speaks excellent English, and tho his accent is distinctly foreign, the scope of his vocabulary and his faculty for using, not appropriate words, but exactly the right words to express his meaning, prove his grasp of our language. He attended the recent International Congregational Council in Boston.
teenth century, and the Japanese are the most fascinatingly mysterious people of our time. The civilization of Japan is scarcely half a century old, and yet Japan is the England of the Pacific Ocean, and the Japanese the most progressive and strenuous people of the Orient. Mr. Miyagawa is but forty-three years of age, but his memory carries him back to what we Europeans call the Japan of barbarism. Mr. Miyagawa resents that idea. "Europeans," he says, "are surprised to see that Japan has become a civilized nation; but they ought not to be surprised. They forget that for the last 300 years Japan has had a civilization of its own. We retain the best of our old Oriental civilization and have adopted the best of your Occidental civilization. Ve took our public school system from America, founded our military system upon those of Germany and France-but improved on both, and now have a system peculiarly our own; we planned our navy on the British model and constructed our railways on the English plan, but introduced German and American methods. We have now 4,000 miles of railways, of which 1,000 belong to the state. We have our telegraph system, which is state property; our mail system, with the penny post in operation; and our police system, which, I think, is ahead of anything I have seen in Europe or America. We have adopted your Vestern civilization while retaining what is hest in our old Japanese civilization. "
Is Christianity making great strides in Japan? Mr. Miyagawa answered the question by recalling a little of recent Japanese history. "Ten years ago," he said, "there was a great opening in Japan for the Christian missionary. The government wanted the coutltry Europeanized, and the growth of European influence which resulted from that policy acted favorably toward the spread of Christianity in Japan. A large numbel' of Japanese came into the Christian churches, but, unfortunately, a great many of them were merely nominal Christians, with no real faith in Christianity. Then a reactionary movement set in. The Buddhists, – Shintoists, and educators worked againRt the European influence and against Christianity. The nominal Christians then dropped out of the churches. So the Japanese Christian churches have been sifted like wheat. We have been going through a stern discipline and trial for the laRt eight years, but what we lost in quantity we gained in quality. But las~ year another change of policy was made. The extra-territorial law was abolished, and the whole country was opened to foreigners who are willing to conform to Japanese law. The immediate consequence has been an alteration in the official attitude toward Christianity. Up to that time Christianity was considered to be an illegal religion; the govern- ment did not recognize it. Last year, however, the government reversed that policy, publicly recognized Christianity as one of the religions of Japan, and declared the Christian pastors entitled to all the privileges enjoyed by the priest of other churches-Buddhist and Shintoists."
Has the new policy affected the outlook of Christianity in Japan? "Unquestionably. It has made a great difference in the attitude of the people toward the Christian religion. But, unfortunately, the educators are still opposed to Christianity, and the minister of education has issued instructions that no religious teaching shall be given, or religious ceremony performed in the schools. Buddhists, Shintoists, and Chris- tians alike are forbidden to teach their religions to the school children. Our system of education is consequently severely secular. The education minister's instruction has had a most damaging effect on the mission
CONVERAION OF A CHINESE JAILER
schools, which were started to teach Christianity, and are now unable to fulfil the object of their foundation. Personally, I am in favor of the education minister's instruction, so far as government and public schools are concerned, but I hold that the private schools ought to have the privilege of teaching any religion they wish. Of course, the private schools can teach religion if they forego the privileges given to the national schopls, i. e., the exemption of their scholars from compulsory military service for certain years, and the opportunity of passing to the higher grade schools and state university. If the mission schools want to teach Christianity they must forego these privileges; but if they do that they get no good students. So, practically, the mission schools are being ruined."
Is it true that the Congregational churches of Japan are rationalistic in their theology? "We have a very broad theology in our churches, and for the last seven or eight years we had a great deal of difficulty, because some of our pastors read German theological books-Strauss, Bauer, Kine, and Pfleiderer-and their preaching became rationalistic. The missionaries raised a hue and cry, and the Congregational churches were said to be going to pieces on the rocks of rationalistic tendencies; but there are still thousands of faithful Israel who do not bow down to Baal, and faithful pastors who try to build up their converts in good Christian faith."
Can you give me an outline of the Christian theology generally taught in the Japanese churches? "We do not care to teach theological views, but we do endeavor to teach the fundamental truths and principles of Christianity, such as the existence of a personal God, the Sonship of Jesus Christ, the sinfulness of sin, the way of salvation by belief and trust in Christ, the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and the infinite love of Jesus Christ as the motive power for ethical training. We do not spcak of the Atonement. There are so many stories and theories of the Atonement that we do not care to use the word, but we teach 'the way of salvation,' which really includes the Atonement. Our teaching is religious, moral, and ethical, not dogmatic and theological."
Do you teach the doctrine of the Trinity? "Oh, we do not say much about the Trinity, but we say that in the Bible we find the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we teach the Fatherhood of God, the Sonship of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. We emphasize Bible facts first; but we hope that in some future time great Japanese theologians will arise, who will teach theological doctrines."
Japan presents many difficulties to the missionary, but the outlook for Christianity in the islands was, :Mr. :Miyagawa says, never more hopeful.
CONVERSION OF A CHINESE JAILER. * The Philippian jailer has lately had a colleague in China, who also, tho not by the shock of an earthquake, found the same Savior with his :Macedonian mate. Like him, tho in another way, he came out of heathenism to a life and death in the faith of Jesus.
This Chinese, named Ti En, had been anything else than a pleasant and considerate custodian. He used to maltreat and half starve his * Translated from Dansk Missions Blad.
prisoners in order to extort money from them or' their friends. Mean- while he had become more and more given up to opiulll, and thereby excessively weakened, so that he himself saw that the habit must be checked, or that it would end in madness. He, therefore, entered the missionary hospital at Pao-Ring, in Si-Chuen. He looked wretchedly emaciated. The physician and other missionaries said to him that he could not by his own strength be raised up and delivered from the yoke of opium, but must seek strength of God. He answered that he would gladly hear and read what the foreigners said and wrote about God, received a book called" The Way of Salvation" to read, and read it attentively. 'l'he first Sunday he was at the hospital he spent in hearing God's 'Vord. The next Friday evening he was again at the meeting, and there the 'Vord took hold of him with power and might. He looked into his own heart, saw his sinfulness and wretchedness, sought out a Chris- tian Chinese, and said to him: "My sins are too many to be forgiven; it is too late for me to turn and serve the Lord." But the Christian to whom he was speaking told him of Peter's fall and Peter's restoration, of the laborers in the vineyards, and exclaimed that we can never come too late to the Lord Jesus, the gracious and long-suffering Savior, if we only mean what we say. The jailer took courage, believed in Jesus' grace, and the next day he came to the missionaries with beaming countenance. Now, also, he had power to strive victoriously against the miserable and destructive opium habit.
Ti En came also to resemble the Philippian jailer in this, that not only he himself believed, but also witnessed before others, before the prisoners in the prison. A number of these were persuaded by him, when their time was out, to listen to the words of the foreigners. The change they could see in the men once so brutal and merciless, supported his testimony, and made a strong impression on those that were in his power. The year after, 1896, both Ti En and his wife were baptized. For awhile he gave up his place and opened a business, but at the solicitation of the missionaries he resumed his former calling, as the new jailer proved incompetent, and there was always an uproar, while the Christian Ti En had known how to keep order and maintain peace. He held on the way of which the Psalm says (in the Danish version): "Believe and confess until the end of the days: this is the way of salvation."
His work, however, was not to continue very long. There broke out an epidemic of typhus in the town, and Ti En too was attacked. When his wife asked him whether he was afraid to die, he answered: "'Vhy should I be afraid to follow Jesus? He comes to take me to Him." And so he died. The Lord, who had called the husband, comforted his widow, so that she could confidently" wait on the Lord's time."
The prisoners contributed money to buy a coffin for the jailer who had been so kind to them, and who had become so dear to them all. The day when he was buried was a general day of mourning in the town. On one side of the coffin was inscribed: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin; " and on the other: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake in Thy likeness." Two banners were carried, one before the coffin, and one behind. On the one was to be read: "Peace in the faith of Jesus;" on the other: "I shall rise again."
EDITORIALS
EDITORIALS.
The Ecumenical Conference. ..head over all to the Church which is His body. The Ecumenical Conference of Missions was opened, according to It was good for us to be there, the announcement, on the after- but we can not even on such heights noon of Saturday, April 21st, at make our tabernacles. From the half past two, at Carnegie Hall; mount of privilege we must go the audience completely filling that down to the common level of serv- great auditorium. ice a,nd suffering for His sake.
The opening prayer was offered This thought of serving and s~~j' by Dr. Henry C. Mabie, of Boston, fering is the keynote of every con- and was uplifting, and compre- secrated life. They are vitally and hensive, and spiritual. Ex-Presi- inseparably linked.' As Dr. Judson dent Harrison's address was every has reminded us, if we succeed way worthy of the occasion, and without suffering it is because some met with a warm reception from one else has suffered before liS; and the vast audience. It was terse, if we suffer without succeeding, it sagacious, and inspiring. Many of is in order that some one else may its sentences were full of meaning succeed after us. Christ's law and and deserve to be recorded as max- Christ's life both teach us that to ims. He showed a firm grasp of lose life is to save it, as to bury the fundamental principles and a wise seed is to insure the crop. Every comprehension of the vital rela- oak stands in the grave of the tions of Church life to missionary acorn, and every harvest-field has activity. It struck a keynote for its roots in the furrows where the the conference and worthily grain of wheat falls in the ground opened the sessions. It was whole- to die that it might bring forth some and strengthening to have much fruit. But life is not measthe Honorary President remind us ured by length of days, but hy love, in such well chosen and emphatic and love is also the measure of its words of the one greatest need reward, and sets the jewels in its in all work for God-the need of crown. prayer; and to hear him ascribe all permanent power in missions to Our Lord bids us "have faith in the Spirit of God. There was no God," or, as those four words douhtdoubtful theology in the address- less mean, count on God's good no uncertain sound as to the need faith. The prayer that trusts His of mankind or the sufficiency of the word of promise, the faith that Gospel; neither was there any low dares to will what He wills, and to conception of the duty and privi- go where He leads and to do what lege of the Church in relation to the He hids-these are the secrets of great commission. The whole triumph over even impossibilities. address was vigorous. It had behind it brain power and deep spiri- A Committee on Cooperation. tual conviction, and the noble keynote for the conference struck in At a post conference meeting, that address proved a prevailing held at the Central Presbyterian one throughout all its deliberations. church, Wednesday morning, May 2, about two hundred delegates, This great assembly broke up missionaries, and missionary secre- Tuesday night, never again to reas- taries, met. Dr. Ellinwood offered semble until the greater final gath- the following: ering together unto Him who is Resolved, That it be the sense of the meet-
ing, composed of missionaries and repre- H. Greer, Robert E, Speer, Theo- sentatives of missionary boards and societies dore Monod. James E. Mathieson, in Europe, America, Germany, and Scandi.. D. Stuart Dodge, ex-President Har- navia, that the e;xecutive committee of the rison would inspire universal confi- Ecumenical Conference in New York, and dence. the corresponding committee in London, Germany, and Scandinavia, should be re- The Oonference Machinery. quested to consider the question of appointing an international committee, who by cor- Those who have not borne the respondence or conference, or both, shall burden of organizing and carrying deal with certain practical questions of co- to a successful conclusion a great operative work on mission fields, and shall conference, can have no idea of make known the results of their deliberations the amount of thought and labor to the societies which have been represented involved in the executive part of in this conference_ the great missionary gathering, which has recently closed in New This resolution, after debate, was York City. The thanks of deleunanimously adopted. Of course, gates and, indeed, of all Christenit is not of the nature of a legisla- dom, is due to the various comtion, but of recommendation only, mittees and secretaries, who labored meant to promote cooperation and night and day to make the machindecrease friction by eliminating un- ery run smoothly and successfully. wise and ungeneFous competition, The power and wisdom came from which easily degenerates from above, but men and women were wholesome emulation into a carnal the willing instruments by means rivalry. of which the success was attained. Many who labored most untiringly For some years we have advo- received no recognition or word of cated publicly and privately the thanks from the public who benecreation of a sort of interdenomi- fited by their self-sacrifice; but national and international board work well done does not lack for and bureau combined. which shall reward. be composed of twenty-one representatives-ten on this side the sea Twenty-eight hundred delegates and the other eleven on the other- were present, the majority of them to whom all matters needing wise being entertained through the and impartial adjustment shall be Hospitality Committee. Hundreds referred as a sort of committee of of churches were supplied with arbitration, the two committees to speakers on two Sabbaths through confer by correspondence ih all or- the Pulpit Supply Committee. dinary cases, coming together when Daily bulletins' were issued and great issues seem to demand, either hundreds of daily and weekly newsas a whole or by subcommittees. papers supplied with information We have suggested the large num- by the Press Committee. One hunber of twenty-one that all denomi- dred and fifty thousand tickets of nations and interests might be various kinds were issued and disrepresented. And we believe that tributed by the Executive Comsome such arrangement might com- mittee in addition to its other endmand such confidence as to remove less labors. A splendid missionary all occasions of overlapping, inter- exhibit was arranged and kept open ference, alienation between breth- day and night, and freely and fully ren working on the same or con- explained to the public by the Extiguous fields. Such wise and hibit Committee and its helpers. generous men as Eugene Stock, Stereopticon lectures were also Walter B. Sloan, Duncan McLaren, given twice daily. The finances of Wardlaw Thompson, Judson Smith, S. L. Baldwin, Matteo Prochet, Gustave Warneck, David
1900.J EDITORIALS
the conference were largely the Church of Zion and St. Timothy, managed by New York business its parish house, No. 333 West 56th men, who also contributed very street, was offered without charge. largely in other respects to the suc- The three floors of this spacious cess of the conference. The busi- building were well adapted for ex- ness men's meeting was one of the hibit purposes; and as it was less most inspiring of the series. The than two blocks west of Carnegie women's meetings were also of Hall, the location was convenient great interest and value, and the and accessible. women were among the most effi- cient members on many of the com- There were two classes of ex- mittees. hibits: the first including articles: which have to do with the home Many others of the most able activities of the various boards, and addresses and papers we publish in missionary literature not published this number of the REVIEW. The by missionary organizations; the very able paper by Canon Ed- other class being made up of curios, munds, and others of equal value, photographs, models, etc., illuswill appear later. trating the life, surroundings, and work on the mission fields. A col- We wish to express our hearty lection of articles and pictures thanks to the officers of the confer- bearing upon medical missions, ence for their many courtesies. and the methods of nursing, etc., in Christian lands, in contrast The Missionary Exhibit. with those found in non-Christian countries, had special interest for The missionary exhibit in con- physicians. nection with the great conference was a very creditable one, albeit The aim of the Exhibit Comthe accommodations, tho the best mittee was to reproduce in each available, were inadequate. A build- court the environment of the couning of five times the capacity could try to which it is devoted. Its easily have been utilized. The form and ornamentation, as well abundance of material far outran as the curios and pictures, made the amplitude of the space for each of these like a portion of a them. The effort was made to pre- foreign land. The courts were as sent to the eye, by models, maps, follows: Alaska and the North photographs, curios, costumes, American Indians; Latin America; idols, decorations, etc., the actual Oceania; Japan and Formosa; surroundings of the missionary on Korea;' China and dependencies; the various fields of missions; and Siam, Laos, and the Malay Archias far as possible, to present the pelago; Burma and Assam; India contrast between the old and the and Ceylon; Turkey and Persia; new. The Exhibit Committee had Syria, Egypt, and Arabia; Africa entered into correspondence with and Madagascar; medical missions, about 800 missionaries and 500 and the Library and Missionary societies and boards. Many con- Literature Court. tributions that did not arrive in time for this temporary exhibit, To make the exhibits intelligible. will be of use in the permanent they were clearly labeled, and a missionary museum and library, to large corps of helpers were on hand be located in the fine fire-proof build- to answer questions, each court ings of the American Museum of being under charge of a responsible Natural History, on West 77th head. Brief talks were given by street, near Central Park. missionaries at various times in the chapel of the parish house, and, in By the kindness of the rector of
the illustration of the life and work God, for truth, for man's salvation, and for unselfish sacrifice. Withof mission lands, there was a series out going back beyond Carey, it would be easy to name five hunof lectures illustrated by stereop- dred men and women in the mission field of whom the world is ticon views. * not worthy; the uncrowned and untitled heroes of humanity. The London Student Oonference. Man may build them no temple of fame, but they are already pillars A Norwegian has given his im- in the temple of God.
pressions of the recent London Papal and Protestant Missions.
Conference of the Student VOltlll- There seems to have been all through the century an inevitable teer Missionary Union, at which and persistent antagonism between Romish and Protestant missions. some twenty of his countrymen The record is a humiliating and shameful one. No sooner have miswere present. sion stations been established by any Protestant organizations than The strongest and best of these counter-movements have been be- gun in almost every field by repreimpressions was that they met sentatives of the Papacy, and this not in a spirit of emulation or gen- Christ there. He was especially erous rivalry, but of Jesuitical in- terference and opposition, as in moved by the hearty and united Africa, Japan, China, India, and the islands of the sea. singing, which seemed a realization During the closing months of the of the Latin motto on the great year 1899 the Cardinal Archbishop (Moran) of Sydney has been puborgan, "Ut O1nnes unum 8int," lishing a series of letters as to the history of Protestant missions in and a prophecy of the speedy union Oceanica. He has declared it to be his aim to "unmask the humbug of all nations in the coronation of of Protestant missions in the is- lands of the Pacific, and to stop the Jesus as Lord of all. contributions" toward their sup- port and further prosecution. He There are now seven Volunteers has assaulted both the work and the person of the missionaries in in Norway, and all the delegates the Samoan, Fiji, and Hawaiian Islands, etc., in a recklessly abusive received impressions that will never spirit. If Cardinal Moran is to be trusted, they have been carrying be effaced; and one result is a very on a system of trading, and a worse course of habitual drunkenness, strong "misElions-study class," in and their so-called successes have been only an empty shell of prewhich twelve Norwegian students tense. Chiefs have been persuaded nominally to embrace Christianity, are studying Africa. * and their influence has naturally A Missionary Hall of Fame.
Miss Helen Miller Gould has offered $100,000 for the "Hall of Fame" connected with the New York University. It will take one hundred years to fill up the hundred and fifty tablets. 'Ve recall Dr. Bell's famous qualifications of the ideal Esculnpius-that he must combine the brain of an Apollo with the eagle eye, the lion heart, and the woman's hand. 'Ve felt as the great conference was in progress that mission history is itself a temple of fame reared by no human hands, and it has already thousands of immortal pillars inscribed with names that neither God nor man will let die. They have sought no human crowns, or honors, or awards. They have had the four master passions: the passion for
been used to secure a following wide missions. If these false from the natives whom the mission- aries have degraded into practical charges shall only compel a more serfs. The American Board, which has been prominent in this quarter, thorough and intelligent scrutiny has come in for a special fusillade. Their agents have been abused as of mission work, the ultimate outtyrants and usurpers, who have seized the bestlands, enriched them- come will be rather a more enthusiselves at the expense of the poor natives, and used them as beasts of astic support. burden, and one instance is cited in which the "cruel missionaries im- Meanwhile another aspect of posed as a penance the dragging of a heavy wagon by fifteen harnessed Roman Catholicism is claiming pubfemales." lic attention in the trial of the Rev. James D. Murray, writing of this abusive attack, says that Catholic order of the Assumptiontho these charges have been shown to be unfounded or unjust, and to ist Fathers by the Correctional have originally emanated from hostile writers and travelers, there has Tribunal of Paris for sympathy and neither been a word of apology or retraction. Samoan Protestant aid in the recent royalist conspirmissionaries have been by this same cardinal accused of seeking to in- acy. These clericals used their duce British naval commanders to shell Catholic houses of worship, organ, La Croix, to appeal to the which again has been officially de·· nied, but not recalled. The effect army to curse" Jews, Protestants, has naturally been not only to discredit Cardinal Moran with intelli- and traitors," and secure military gent and fair-minded people, but to stir up enmity between Protestants ascendency. The premier has proand Catholics. ceeded against these clericals, and The careful student of missions is not unaware that, mistakes have the outcome is likely to be a serioU:l been committed, and in some cases power has been abused even by the blow to their supremacy and that missionaries ofProtestant societies. There is no work done by the of the Catholic Church in France. ". Church in which serious flaws and blemishes may not be detected. The Service of Holiness. Unworthy men find their way even to the mission field, and so the The following words from Mark vices of the human heart reappear even there. But the student of Hopkins, one of the wisest and best missions also knows that these are the rare exceptions in a long his- men of the century, should be tory of unselfish and Christlike labor. If anywhere on earth the written in letters of light on all spirit of the Master has been reproduced, it is in the field of world- missionary movements.
Vhat should hinder our going forward with increased momentum to the conquest of the world? The obstacles appear to be many. There is but one: The 1'el'Uctance of men to serve the holy God by being holy. The holy God can be served only by being holy. Now Christianity is itself holiness, providing a method for sinners to be holy. But the aversion to this is so great that men either deny the necessity of it, or they substitute for it something which they call religion; something which, substituted for holiness, has been and is one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of Chris- tianity. So it was at its beginning. The Pharisees were religious-spe- cially so-but they crucified Christ when he was on the earth, and have been doing it ever since. Instead of seeking to be what they ought to be inwardly, they sought-and the Pharisees of all times have been doing it-to appear well outwardly, thus substituting formality for holiness. Asceticism, heathen and Christian, is religious. The ascetic
will endure anything, but he sub- owe to Ohrist,ianity-our eternal hope, our knowledge of the Divine stitutes gratuitous suffering for Fatherhood, our Ohristian ideals of manhood and womanhood, and repentance and the love of God. a thousand things besides-is un- doubtedly our bounden duty. It is The merely emotional are religious. surely the height of unchristian selfishness to sit down contentedly They groan and shout in the meet- among our OWH good things, and practically to regard Ohina merely ings, and steal chickens on the as an arena for trade. Is it not also the height of disloyalty and disway home. The true orthodox obedience to our Master, whose last command we have been satisfied to are religious. Their belief is right; leave unfulfilled? "
they will abide by it at all hazards, Christian Journalism.
but they drive sharp bargains and There have been two experiments in Ohristian journalism, by Mr. rent buildings to be used for im- Sheldon and Dr. Joseph Parker, trying to float a daily newspaper moral and infamous purposes. The notwithstanding the supposed too heavy cargo of religious truth and brigand is religious; he will not eat moral reforms. It might be well meat on Friday, hut he will rob you and hold you for ransom. And so it is the world over. Men will do anything and be anything rather than accept Ohrist, fully and wholly as the ground of their salvation, and serve the holy God by being holy. Here, then, is our one ob- stacle. If this is not overcome, no missionary work is done. If indi- viduals are not brought to serve a holy God by being holy, and thus fitting for an eternal life of holiness and joy and higher service, no dis- tinctive and proper missionary work is done. ..
Mrs. 13ishop's Testimony. to remembel that, as another says, M. Eugene Reveillaud has been We have elsewhere referred to doing a work of this sort success- the remarkable confession of Mrs. fully in France for years. His Bishop, in her last book, The paper, Le Signal, is a Protestant Yangtze Valley and Beyond. She daily journal, literary, political, says that during the earlier eight religious. It is the organ of French years of Asiatic travel, the subject Protestantism, defensive as to the of missions had little or no interest faith, aggressive as against -all for her. "I may even," she adds, "immorality, alcoholism, and "have enjoyed the cheap sneers at licentious art and literature." It missions and missionaries which is safe reading for even the young, often pass for wit in Anglo-Asiatic and yet it is full of interesting communities, among persons who J.Ilatter. On the last page is a have never given the work and its standing column, " Our Propa- methods one-half hour of serious ganda," which announces a series of attention and investigation; and in brief tracts on subjects vitally con- traveling, wherever possible, I gave nected with morals and faith, and mission stations a wide berth. On appeals for volunteers to aid in their my last journey, however, which distribution. The paper has no brought me often for months at a Sunday issue. It is outspoken and time into touch with the daily lives fearless, boldly Protestant and of the peoples, their condition, even evangelical, not simply anti-cleri- at the best, impressed me as being cal like M. Bouchard and Gambetta, so deplorable all round, that I be- but dealing in positions rather than came a convert to the duty of using negations, "Pro-testant and not the great means by which it can be merely contra-testant," as Bishop elevated. To pass on to these- Doane says. M. Reveillaud has nations, the blessings which we been a power in the Evangelical
EDITORIALS
Protestant community of France 'Varren Olark, at Shid-zuoka for t.wenty years and more, with plantation. Another party, Mr_ his uplifting daily journal; and the Thomas Hall, has offered a thou- movement known as the decatho- sand dollars' worth of hotel fittings.
lization of France is largely due The climate and the gulf are so like to his leadership. During the year Japan, and the fisheries so inex- past forty-five villages have asked haustible, that it is thought the for Protestant teaching and Japanese, who are great fishermen preaching. and farmers, will eagerly embrace Rev. Mr. Myers writes: "In some the opportunity of colonizing here.
instances practically the whole Should this dream materialize, we community has abandoned Roman- shall watch its progress with deep ism and placed itself under the interest; but we have some doubts preaching of the Gospel. A nota- as to its practibility, partly from its ble example of this kind is the remoteness of location from the village of Madranges, in the de- great seaports. * partment of Oorreze."
There is no more hopeful or fruit- Indian Famine Fund.
ful missionary field in the world No. 156. Indian Famine Sufferers …… $ .50 than France. The Franco-Ameri- " 157. . ….. 22.00 can Oommittee of Evangelization " 158. .60 (of which the Rev. David J. " 159. 5.00 Burrell, D.D., of New York, is " 160. 5.00 president) collects money and sends " 162. 7'.00 " 163. it to the united committee of several " 164. 3.00 " 165. 5.00 missionary societies, and so helps " 166. 5.00 " 167. …… 16.50 the descendants of the old Hugue- " 168. …… 20.00 nots to give the Gospel to their …… 6.75 own countrymen. And when the " 169. 6.01 " 170. Reformed Ohurch of France sends " 171. …… 10.00 " 172. a missionary to a place, the preach- " 173. …… 1.00 " 174. ing of the Gospel usually results in " 175. …… 25.00 " 176. …… 9.00 the organizing of a church. which " 177. …… 10.00 becomes a permanent lighthouse " 178. …… 12.15 " 179. for all the region in which it " 180. …… 6.60 " 181. stands. * …… 1.00 Japanese Immigration. …… 10.00 A correspondent writes that, since the treaty of last July in …… 10.00 Japan, there is a marked trend in the direction of immigration to …… 8.00 America. One Japanese, Ko-mori, went from Portland, Oregon, …… 20.00 to Lake Jackson in Tallahassee, Florida, walking two hundred miles Since January 1st we have received and of the way, hoping to further a despatched to India $389 76, which has been plan for a Japanese Ohristian distributed as follows: colony in the United States. He has a consuming desire and prayer To Rev. J. S. Stevenson, Gujerat ……$162.15 for this, and land and buildings " Rev. C. S. Thompson, Rajputana … 60.00 have been offered him free on the " Dr. Colin Valentine, Agra………. 53.00 thousand acres of Prof. Edward " G. S. Eddy, Calcutta……………. 37.01 " Presbyterian Board Missionaries. .. 27.60 " Bishop Thoburn Fund………….. 23.25 " American Relief Committee…….. 20.00 This money has been contributed by many of our readers and has often meant real sacrifice to them. The recipients have written lett.ers of warmest appreciation, which tell of the suffering relieved and the lives saved by t.his timely aid. Some of these letters we will print later.
RECENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS.
JAPAN: COUNTRY. COURT, AND PEOPLE. By STUDENTS AND MISSIONARY PROBLEMS. 8vo, J. C. Calhoun Newton, D.D, Published 591 pp. 88. Student Volunteer Mission- at Nashville, 1'enn , by the M. E. Church, ary Union, London. South. Price $1.00. This is a volume of addresses This book is written by a man given at the students' late conferresident in Japan and engaged in ence in London, January, 1900, missionary and educational work, published at 22 Warwick Lane, in and its aim is to help readers to London. It is a noble volume of understand that Sunrise Kingdom, 550 pages, and contains much notaits needs and iis risks, and the great ble matter. We have found special opportunity it offers for evangel- help and inspiration in Dr. Maule's ization. The author traces its his- address on the Presence of the Evertory from its mythical beginnings, living Christ, and Rev. R. J. Campits governmental changes, its arts, bell's on the Inadequacy of the nonsciences, costumes, and customs, its Christian Religions. Dr. George popular life and religions, and gives Smith is always inspiring and helppart third to the new Japan. The ful, so is Rev. E. A. Stuart, who last chapter is occupied with the spoke on giving. Dr. J. H. Bernard outlook. Ve might not agree with treated of the advance in missionall the author's views as to the ary education, etc. The appendix outlook, but the book is entitled to is very valuable, with its biblia careful reading, and is full of ography, diagrams, etc. information. He makes Joseph Neesima the greatest of Christian PIONEERING ON THE CONGO. Rev. W. Holman Japanese, and prophesies that Bentley. Map and Illustrations. 2 vols. Japan will be the first great Oriental 8"0. 168. Religious Tract Society, Lonnation of modern times to embrace don. $500. Fleming H. Revell Co, the religion of Jesus, and will have New York a tremendous influence on China and Korea. Many books have been written on the Kongo region of Africa, and MARY REED, MISSIONARY TO THE LEPERS IN the opportunities and progress in Christian missions to the heathen INDIA. John Jackson. Illustrated. 12mo, of that 'dark territory, but none of 128 pp. 75c. Fleming H. Revell Co., them is as complete as that by New York. Mr. Bentley, and few are as authori- tative, especially from a mission- This pathetic story is one of ary standpoint.
heroism in doing and enduring. It In the last twenty years the Kongo basin has been wonderfully is already familiar to the women of opened up to civilization and to Christianity. Unfortunately these our churches especially, and to all terms are not always synonymous, since so-called civilized nations are who take any special interest in responsible for many evils which prevail in West Africa, notably, missionary service and sacrifice.. bloodshed and the liquor traffic. Mr. Bentley has known the Kongo Miss Reed during a visit home dis- for over twenty years, and while he views things from a Christian covered that she had lepr·osy. She standpoint, this only enables him to see them more clearly in their kept the secret to herself until she true relations and proportions.
was once more on her way to the East, and went to the very home of the lepers, henceforth to identify herself with them. Ample refer- ence has been made in these pages to this romantic life story. (See vol. XI., p. 337.) *
1900.J RECENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS
This book is historical and de- five years of labor in China, was an scriptive, beginning with the able and devoted IDissionary of the ancient history, so far as it is L. M. S. in Hong Kong. The sketch known, and narrating the impor- of his life portrays a man of modest tant events down to the present but noble character, who served year. The country, people, and Christ in China amid many perils religions, and the progress of polit- and hardships, and after a brief ical and missionary movements are furlough in England returned to all described in a graphic and China at the age of 84 to continue interesting style. The illustrations his work. He was, however, called are very numerous, and many of home while on a visit to his son in them are unique. Korea.
No missionary library, and no ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE REPORTS. 16 pp. library on Africa, is complete with- 10 cents. New York Tribune. out this book, and all will be repaid in reading it. This Tribune" Extra" gives an excellent idea of the greatest mis- W,NTER ADVENTURES OF THREE Boys IN sionary conference ever held. Full THE GREAT LONELAND. Rev. Equeston reports of many of the addresses R. Young. Illustrated. 8vo, 377 pp. $1.50. are included, with extracts from Eaton & Mains, lew York. others, and descriptions of all the numerous meetings held. One of Mr. Young;s books are always in the valuable features, which will demand for old and young. He not be contained in the bound volhas already a reputation in Britain ume. is the large number of porand America for his thrilling stories traits of speakers and officers, views of life and adventures in Northwest of the sessions, the places of meet- Canada. This volume is a sequel to ing, and the missionary exhibit. "Three Boys in the Great Northland," and is quite equal to its pred- Monthly Missionary Bibliography. ecessor. The interest never flags, and incidentally a great deal of in- ARABIA: The Cradle of Islam. Rev. S. M. formation is given on the mission- Zwemer, F.R.G.S. Illustrated. 8vo, 400 ary work among the Indians of that pp. $2.00. Fleming H. Revell Co. vast territory. It is a book which brings the p€Ople and the work HISTORY OF THE MELANESIAN MISSION. E. S. closer home to our hearts. Armstrong. Illustrated. 8vo, 372 pp. lOs. 6d. Isbister & Co., London. THE SKY PILOT. "Ralph Connor." $1.25. Fleming H. Revell Co. JAPAN: The Country, Court, and People. J. C. Calhoun Newton, M.D. Illustrated. This tale of the foot-hills is very 8vo, 43:) pp. $1.00. Publishing House of nearly as strong and fascinating as M. E. Church, Nashville, Tenn. "Black Rock." It gives a picture of life in Western lumber camps LIFE IN JAPAN. Miss Gardner. Illustrated. which will not be forgotten. The Quarto, 187 pp. $1.50. Cumberland Presneed for Christian men to preach byterian Publishing House, Nashville. Christ among these rough, often hard but manly workers, is power- MODERN SPAIN. Martin A. S. Hume. illusfully shown. One chapter, "Gwen's trated. 12mo. $1.50. G. P. Putnam's Canyon" would make it worth Sons while to read the book. The conception and description are ex- liODERN ITALY: 1748-1898. Pietro Orsi. Illustremely beautiful and inspiring. trated. 12mo. $1.50. G. P. Putnam's Sons. A LIFE FOR CHINA. Memorial Sketch of Rev. John Chalmers, LL.D. By George Cou- THE COBRA'S DEN. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., sins. 18. L. M. S. London. D.D. Illustrated. 12mo, 270 pp. $1.00. Fleming H. Revell Co. Dr. Chalmers, who died last year at the age of 84 after over forty- ADDRESSES ON FOREIGN MISSIONS. Richard S. Storrs, D.D. 12mo, 187 pp. A. B. C. F. M. Boston.
THE C,TY FOR THE PEOPLE. Frank Parsons. 8vo, 597 pp. C F. Taylor, Philadelphia.
OUTLINES OF PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGY. Carroll D. Wright, LL.D. 8vo, 431 pp. Long- mans, Green & Co.
HEAVENLY SUNLIGHT. 113 Sacred Songs and Hymns. 12c. ellch. $9.50 per hundred. MacCalla & Co., Philadelphia.
ABOUT lly FATHER'S BUSINESS. Austin Miles, $1.50. The Mershon CQ., N~w ¥ork:,
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
AMERICA. of the benevolent gifts of the year, which that va.luable annual of late Ecumenical These statistics are has compiled and published sys- Conference only approximate, tematically and carefully. The Statistics. but they will serve table shows a total of nearly $62,- 750,000 given to educational, philan- to show something thropic and religious institutions of the magnitude of the great during the. year 1899, in sums of Ecumenical Conference which met $5,000 or more, which added to the during the last ten days of April gifts similarly contributed during in New York City: the years 1893–98 gives a total of $266,550,000. Boards and Societies represented …•…… 115 Countries represented …………………. 48 Union Social Union Theological Delegates …………………………… 1,500 Settlement. Seminary' of New Missionaries…………………………… 600 Number of meetings held ……………….75 York City has a Estimated attendance ……………… 163,000 flourishing social settlement located Attendance at Exhibit………………. 50,000 at 237 East 104th St., in which are combined more than a score of such A Good Word Albert Shaw, in his forms of service as these: Settlefor Hampton. article on Hampton ment houses, fresh air work, kindergarten, mothers' meetings, Ins tit ute in the sewing school, Sunshine Club, April Review of Reviews, says that cooking class, athletic club, Sun- "if he paid $10,000 a year for it he day-school, Sunday afternoon could not possibly give his small preaching service, library, fresh boy anywhere in or about New air home, etc. About a dozen men York City the advantages of as and women are residents, and had good a school as tl1e raggedestlittle 140 friends as assistants during the negro child of Phcebus, Va., freely last year. enjoys whose education is under the care of the Hampton Insti- Missionary The Union Missiontute," and he affirms unhesitatingly Training ary Training Instithat "by all odds the finest, Institute. tute of Brooklyn is soundest, and most effective educa- designed to supply tional methods in use in the United States are to be found in certain those wishing to be missionaries schools for negroes and Indians, with opportunities for Bible, misand in others for young criminals sionary, medical, and linguistic in reformatory prisons." And this instruction to fit them for work in because they give what he calls foreign lands. There are 24 instruc- "integral education." He saw no tors, and 76 students have already evidence at Hampton of that gone to 16 countries under 12 mis- "pressure or anxiety, or that piti- sionary societies. The expenses are able condition that results in only $100 per year. schools where learning is merely based on books, and where the " Missionary The Christian and supreme test of knowledge is the Standpoints of Missionary All isuccessful passing of examina- the Alliance. " ance in a recent tions." issue gives' these as Large Gifts The New York the peculiar features of the evanfor Education. Times has procured gelizing work it represents: The obligation of missions is para- froIp. the publishers of Appleton's Annual Encyclopedia advance sheets of the estimate
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
mount and constitutes the princi- lished in 1870, and now includ- pal work of the church. This ing 22 churches, with 518 mem- work is looked at from the pre- bers; Mexico, begun in 1880, and millennial standpoint, and the now returning 26 churches, with object is to gather out of the na- 1,091 members; Brazil, begun in tions a people for His name. It 1882, the series of 23 churches and believes only in "Holy Ghost mis- 30 out-stations being planted along sions," the Spirit calling, and quali- a distance of more than 3,000 miles, fying for the work, and being the and recording 1,524 members; and divine administrator therein. The Japan, where the mission is ten principle of faith is recognized in a years old. The board has in its very direct way, the society trust- service 82 missionaries and 122 ing to God to send its resources. native workers, supplying 100 The principal of economy is rigidly churches and 140 out-stations, with followed. Its missions are evan- which are connected 5,347 church gelistic rather than educational, members and 2,446 members of aiming to give the message speedily Sunday-schools. to all men than to establish perma- nent institutions. "The spirit of Growth of Southern Presbyterian sacrifice is the deepest element of Missions.-The following tabular power." statement shows the growth of the work and its cost per missionary Disadvantage A Catholic tem- for the past ten years: of Teetotalism. perance apostle of …: ~ .w.., «~.o..o, Q«)>~. Buffalo, N. Y., ina 000 dispute with Archbiship Corrigan '"Q) ·~·c .!2- "",oQ) P..-.<,0" quotes a communication regarding ~'ffi the letter published in The Catholic ~ )ii'" Q) .;!i S News, of New York City, last Sep- Q)ii tember: "His grace, the Archbishop "Q) A of New York, told us that the — clergy of his diocese did not propa . ~ $111,795 gate temperance societies because 121,225 $1.817 it was found that when a man — — —– 143,165 1,188 became a teetotaler and began to 1891 85 $112,795 140,500 save up money, he did not con- 133,710 1,350 tribute as liberally to church pur- 1892 102 133,015 141,235 1,080 poses." Probably that is due to 154,405 the fact that they are not made to 1893 106 133,900 146,841 990 "do penance" as much as formerly. 145,343 1,000 The intervention of the priest is not 1894 180 143,775 1,029 thought to be as urgent as before. 1895 135 133,330 947 Southern The Southern Bap- Baptist Mis- tist Board of Foreign 1896 141 142,100 937 sions. Missions has mis- 1897 150 143,710 sions in China, estab- 189S 155 146.478 lished in 1845, with centers at lS9!} 155 Canton, Shanghai, and Pintu, 22 145,236 churches, 33 out-stations, and 1,892 members; the Y oruba coun- 1900 163 161,162 try, Africa, begun in 1850, with 6 churches, several out-stations, It will be seen from this stateand 341 Ill(llI).bersj Italy, estl).b- ment that within this period the missionary force has increased from 85 to 163 and the annual receipts from $112,795 to $161,162.
Presbyterian The Presbyterian Work forthe Church was among Negro. the first to begin ed llcational and evangelistic work among the Freed- men. The Committee on Missions for Freedmen, which afterward became the Board of Missions for Freedmen, with headquarters in Pittsburg, Pa., has been working for thirty-five years in estab- lishing schools and organizing cbl.lrches among these people.
There are now about 330 churches Bible women in Madura, the instiand missions under the care of tutions for educating Negroes and 200 colored Presbyterian ministers. Indians in Hampton and Carlisle, These churches have a member- and the work of Bishop Hare in ship of about 20,000. Schools are North Dakota. These classes have being supported to the number of heard addresses from a number of 70, in which are gathered nearly well-known experts in missionary work, such as Robert E. Speer and 10,000 pupils. " Henry van Dyke. Five mission classes for mission study in Welles- A Hudson Bay According to the ley College meet weekly with Miss Woolley, and number about 80. Bishopric. G rea t e r Britain They have been studying Japan with text-books published in con- Messenger, Arch- nection with the Student Volunte6r movement, which is this yearrepredeacon Lofthou.3e recently stated sented by 5 members in the college. Bost-on University has classes for that the new diccese of Keewatin similar studies, and supports work in missionary fields. These exam· takes in the wh. ;e of the country pIes might be multiplied, and we believe the time is corning when it on the west side of Hudson Bay, will be considered an essential part of a liberal, education to know what and also a great pl rt of the Indian is being done in the name of Christ to uplift humanity in every part of work in Rupert's . ~lld. His own the world.-The Congregationalist.
little parish COVel ''VI square EUROPE.
miles. The nearest .~ outlying Education and That our system of Crime, government is not parishes to which he has to minis- perfect may be free- ter, is just 200 miles away. He ly conceded. We are even accused by our Continental neighbors of thinks nothing of sno ·~l,oe tramps being as greedily aggressive as Russia. But this at least can be of 500 or 600 miles, sle•.mg at night said, that we do not absolutely shut our eyes to the wants of the in the woods, with th thermome- horne population. Among other things, we have given some attenter all the time fron. twenty to tion to their education. And we have had our reward. Sir George forty, or even fifty, ,)elow zero. Kekewich, the Secretary of the Education Department, is reported The fal' north is entirely barren, to have said a little while ago: " Every time I hear of a new school and can never be opened for settle- being opened, I say to myself, , There goes another prison.'" The ment, unless minerals are found. exclamation sounds a little over- sanguine. But the following re- Food has to be brought from Win- markable table, prepared by The Schoolmaster, shows it to be justinipeg. costing four dollars per hun- fied: dred pounds for freight. Never- theless they have some flourishing mission stations.
World-wide Probably never be- Interests of fore have students College Stu- in New England dents. Christian colleges been so well in- formed as now concerning the per- sonal life of men and women in foreign countries, nor so interested in promoting their highest welfare.
In all these institutions are defidtL, efforts to instruct students in ChI is- tian missions. In Smith College 2 well-attended mission study classes meet weekly, studying the work not only in well-known lands but in regions less known. Among their beneficiaries are a medical mission- ary in China, a scholar in Calcutta,
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Years. Scholars. Prisoners. Scotch United The statistical re- 1870……….. 1,690,000……….. 20,050 Presbyterian turns received from 1880……….. 2,893,000……….. 29,719 Mission Work foreign m iss ion 1890……….. 4,804,000 ……….. 19,806 1899 .•.•……. 8,901,000 ……….. 17,087 fields again show a If the ratio of prisoners had kept gratifying increase in the number pace with the population, there of communicants. The total mem- would have been 40,000 in prison bership is returned as 30,330, or to-day, in place of 17,000. In 1870 3,359 more members than were re- one in fifteen was at school, and ported for 1898, the increase being one in 775 was in prison; now one more than double that reported by in six is at school, and one in 1,833 the congregations and stations of is in prison.-Free Church Monthly. the home church. In everyone of the fields (except Japan, whose re- Drinking in Dr. Cun n i n g ham turn is not yet to haIled) an increase Great Britain. Geikie gives the fol- of communicants is i'eported; Man- lowing saddening report of the prevalence of drink- churia, however, contributing more ing habits in England: "Temperance has done much in the last geri- than two-thirds ofJthe total addieration to oppose this mad passion, but even in America victory is still tion, and now pl.." ving nearly as far ahead. Here in England the woes of intemperance may be large a m'v,'" is reported by judged by its sad commonness, for the consumption of strong drink in the Jamaica';;". i. There are 22,- the States is not much more than half, per head, of that with us. 189 scholars in the Sabbath-schools Were our outlay on alcohol no higher than yours, it would save of the 6 fields reporting, an increase us no less than $285,000,000 a year -and how many woes would that for the year -" "119; and there are heal? Our drink bill for 1898 was nearly $772,500,000, which comes to 6,923 inquirers; . nearly $33 for every living creature old enough to crave such drink. In Church Union'The leading quesmy parish I found many workmen in Germany. J tion in evangelical who drank over $7.00 a week out of a wage of $10.00. Workingmen circles in Germany are three-fourths of our population, is that of union among the various and it is believed that they spend national churches. All the pro- $500,000,000 yearly on worse than vincial synods of Prussia are to useless drink. An American in my consider the matter. A paper of congregation told me he had to Professor Beyschlag, of Halle, on close a factory opened by him at the subject has been spread through Wolverhampton. from his work- all Germany, and many are talking men never making a whole week, of a " Church of the Empire." Assome coming to work only on Wed- sociations of "volunteers" are to nesday, and even then they would be formed first, then a national get boys to smuggle beer into the conference is to be called of all factory. No wonder we have 126,- Protestants; and the resolutions of 000 public houses in the United this conference are to be presented Kingdom, with a capital of $1,150,- to the church authorities for their 000,0001 " action. An article in the Decem- bez: number of the N. Kirch. Ztjt., h0w~ver, argues that "the forma- tion.of a legal union among the Ger- man evangelical national churches is r,ot an urgent necessity of the times, but rather a threatening danger or the times. The danger consists in sacrificing evangelical truth to unity of church organiza- tion. Such union is urged (1) to
better provide for Germans in for- The total number of Christians coneign lands; (2) to better present nected with the missions runs up to church matters to the imperial and 11,000. The mission work is supother governments; and (3) to de- ported by well-wishers from the velop uniformity of procedure in various countries in the proportion church work." The statemelitseems shown by last year's income: Norincredible, and the fact approaches way contributing £1,215; Denmark, perilously near to the scandalous, £1.230; Sweden, £345; Scandinathat" at present there is no bond vians in America, £825; friends in of union, official or recognized, be- this country, £170. The income tween the four dozen state churches from all sources amounted to nearly of Protestant Germany, nor do they £4,OOO.-Missionary Record. cooperate in any work or enterprise!" And yet the Redeemer's Berlin Society The Mission Semiprayer was, that they may be one. J11bilee and nary of the Berlin Scandinavian One of the most in- Santa) teresting of all the John Janicke. Society (I) has late- Mission. Scandinavian mis- ly celebrated its sions is the Scandi- semi-centennial jubilee. It has navian Santal Mission, or, as it is sent out in all 230 missionaries. known in this country, the Indian About 100 are still working for the Home Mission to the Santals. The society. The founder, John mission is supported not by one Janicke, was the son of a Bohemian country alone, but by Norwegians, brother, banished for his faith. At Danes, Swedes, at home, and Scan- the time of his death (July 21, 1827) dinavians in America. Santalistan an English sheet remarked that is a region some 250 miles north of Berlin had never known what she Calcutta, occupied by a race 3,000,- possessed in this man. However, 000 in number, belonging to one of at his funeral it did not look as if the original Indian peoples of low Berlin was unconscious whom they grade, but interesting because they were burying. For on Tuesday, have retained their independence July 24th, one could not see to the and ancestral customs. They differ end of the multitude of people who from the Hindus in being st>:,ongly had gathered before the door of the built, almost black, with low brows, Bohemian manse in the Wilhelmsmooth black hair, dark eyes, thick strasse. Before the coffin went lips. They are semi-naked, dull, maidens. three and three, strewing lazy, given to drink, but not dis- flowers. A choir of boys followed. honest or deceitful. The women A band played chorals. Just beare on a higher stage than most fore the body, went a missionary heathen people. In 1867 work was carrying the Bible; twelve pupils begun among them by Skrefsrud of the Seminary, twelve University and Borressen, and a Baptist mis- students, and twel ve Bohemians sionary, Johnson. The mission acted as relays in beaJ:'ing the coffin. employs 10 Scandinavian mission- Then a number of clergymen in anes, 5 native pastors, 13 catechists, their robes-among them Schleiersome 20 deaconesses, and about 150 macher, whom the deceased had so native preachers. Nearly 500 young often publicly attacked as an heresimen and women are being trained arch – then a long train of mourners, as teachers. Work is being carried followed by 30 or 40 coaches. The on at 30 stations; and last year up- head of the procession had already ward of 220 baptisms took place. arrived at the distant cemetery, when the rear was yet before the manse. Thus did ~erl!n honor that
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
man in death whom she had mocked occurred in that land within the and contt'mned while alive. Here present century, and that it is the was one of those " prophets, " most severe of the entire number. stoned in their lifetime, but It thus appears that almost every honored with monumental sepul- second year the scourge has come, chers in after times.-Der Miswions- and that its coming instead of Freund. growing less frequent is occurring oftener as the years go by. There Swedish Sweden has a popu- have been 16 famines, affecting Missions at lation of only 5,000,- more or less of the country, in the Home and 000 or something last twenty-one years. This in- creasing affiiction, too, has been Abroad. over, but mission- occurring under the beneficent ary interest and ac- British government, and notwith- standing all its efforts to improve tivity are fast increasing there, the condition of the country. Had from Queen Sophia and the Prince it not been for the expenditures and Princess Bernadotte down. We of the government in the line take the following from the Nol'- of irrigation, and the employing of disk Missions – Tidskrift : "The tens of thousands of people in ac- Evangeliska Fosterlands Stiftelse complishing this, the suffering from (Evangelical National Institute), the famines in late years would during the years of its existence have been much greater than has (from 1856), has advanced to a truly been experienced. many – sided and comprehensive activity. Within its first and Giving for Touching incidents original field of effort, the Inner Famine Relief. of self-sacrifice, in Mission, there are now laboring about 160 traveling agents and col- orderthatthestarvporteurs, whose business is to pro- ing millions in India may be fed, claim and diffuse God's Word, to continue to come to hand. The visit the sick and poor, and also to list of acknowledgments this week endeavor to wOl'k for living Chris- includes one gift of $30 from a tianity and love to missions. More- laboring man whose daily earnings over, the Stiftelse acts as a Bible are $1.50. Another man is sending and tract society of no mean ex- each week as much as his board tent; its depositol.'yof religious costs him. A father forwards cerbooks is, indeed, the next largest tain sums of money which had after that of the Bdtish and of the been given his little son, who died American Tract Society. Thirdly, nine months ago, and writes that the Stiftelse has in hand the 'Outer he knows of no better use to which Mission,' as it is called froIll of old. to put them. A similar spirit In this is to be reckoned the sea- prompts a mother to send what men's mission, from 1869, with 8 had been put in the bank for her stations in foreign ports; also its little girl, who also has passed mission in East Afdca, resolved on away recently. Certainly the chiland prepared for from 1861, begun dren in one way and another are 1865; its mission in India, open~d having a splendid share in this in 1898." relief work.-The Congregation- alist. ASIA. The Horrors Famine rep 0 r t s The Greatest By statistics lately Increasing. from India are more Famine of the compiled in Lon- gloomy every week, Century, don, it is shown that more than 4,500,000 people are now the present famine in India is the forty-fifth that has
subsisting on government relief. study. The punishment entailed is "No such number of persons," that he and his wife shall not enter says Lord Ourzon, "has ever be- any temple nor touch a tank or well, fore been simultaneously relieved and their families even are pro- by any government in the world's hibited the temples, until the case history." It is becoming very evi- is disposed of. dent that many missions which at first seemed outside the famine Not " Rice-Christians." "From area, are threatened with serious first to last during my sojourn distress. in India I saw many native Ohris- tians. Those that I saw are a re- The Curse When it was pro- markable and impressive body of of Caste. posed, at Ahmed- men and women. I was always saying to myself, • They are like nagar, to open an the people of the Bible."'-Julian industrial school, it was a great Hawthorne. surprise to me to find strong opposition to it amung the native Ohris- Some Hindu Christians were once tians. They considered manual holding an evening prayer-meeting labor a mark of servitude, or at in a dimly lighted room. They least of poverty. About fifteen were reading the Bible together, years ago, an English officer visiting choosing especially those texts Ahmednagar, offered to teach a which treat of the love of God trade to any native Ohristian boy as impelling to the love of all that I might send to him. In a men. All at once they were starfew days I sent a young man, the tled by a rushing noise, and out of brother-in-law of the pastor, to a dark corner sprang up a heathen learn blacksmithing. Imagine my man and burst out into the night, surprise when, a week later, I was flinging behind him as he weBt told by this pastor, with sobs, that the words: "This stands written I had ruined his influence forf'ver. in your book; but you do it not." " What," said he, "will my congre- -Evangelisch-Lutherisches Misgation think of me when they learn sionsblatt. that my own brother-in-law is a blacksmith, and what respect can A Sacrifice to An Indian news- I look for from Hindus after this? a Steam- paper reports a case If you had made him a preacher or Engine. of a Hindu laborer a teacher, I would have thanked who lodged a comyou as long as I live; but a blacksmith I Oh I Oh I What shall I plaint at the police office at Hingoli. do?" This pastor reflected the pre- He was horribly burned about the vailing sentiments of the time and head, arms, and chest, parts being place regarding manual labor. He absolutely charred. He complained echoed merely what he had been that as he was passing a cottonhearing all his life. We mission- ginning mill, some men (natives) aries felt that the opposition of the asked him to enter the compound, native Ohristians was another and and then seized him and forced him an overwhelming reason for found- into the furnace. He managed to ing an industrial school.-Rev. free himself, and got back to his James Smith. house and to the police station, but eventually died of te~anus. The A Crime to Learn. The Rajah unanimous opinion among all the of Oochin issued a proclamation natives is that the wretched man against a Madras gentleman be- was offered as a sacrifice to the cause he had been to England for steam-engine, which had not been working satisfactorily.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIG:::NCE
The Christian But tho difficult founded ten years ago, the results of its work have been remarkable. Conquest of the task and slow Viceroy Chang Cheh-tung in 1894 sent 1,000 taels ($800), and other in- China. the progress, the :f]uental Chinamen, unasked, have sent smaller sums to aid the so- faithful effort to ciety's work. 'Vith its headquarters at Shanghai, the society has come arouse the Chinese to their need into contact with many Chinese of high standing, including Li Hung for the Gospel can have but one re- Chang and many of the doctors of Chinese literature. The province sult. When we recall that modern of Hunan has been for many years the hotbed of anti-Christian literamissions in China began less than ture, but after two years perusal of the society's books, the chancellor a century ago, and that it was not of education for the whole province has invited the society's Chinese till18d0 that the country became in editor to become professor in the chief college of the provincial any general sense open to outside capital.
influence, while now there are more The Growth of These statistics re- One Year. late to communithan 80,000 native Christians, there cants received in need be no discouragement. " It Kwang-tung and· Kwong-sai dur- ing 1899: took eight centuries," says Dr. Ar· Presbyterian Mission. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 575 thur Smith, "to develop the Roman Baptist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .. 546 Berlin 1. ……………………… 373 Empire. It has taken about as Congregationalist. ……………. 265 'Vesleyan…………………….. 143 long to mold Saxon, Danish, and London (L. M. S.) …………….. 113 Church (C. iVI. S.)……………… 87 Norman elements into the England United Brethren……………… 24 Christian Alliance. … ………… 20 of to-day. Each of these race- American Scandinavian……… .. 17 stocks was at the start barbarous. Total.. …………………… 2,163 The Chinese are an ancient, and a Manchuria In the Missionary for Christ. Record (U nit e d highly civilized race, a fact which Presbyterian) Rev. may be in some respects a help in Mr. Douglas reports a wonderful readiness to listen to the Gospel. th€;ir Christianization, and in oth- On his tours he finds the people not merely ready to receive him, . hut ers a hindrance. Taking into ac- forward in their preparations for Christian work. Of one place he count the intensity of Chinese pre- says he was met at the door of a blacksmith's forge by a company of judices, the strength of Chinese men who, Jed by the blacksmith, took him to a neighboring house conservatism, the vast numbers in- which had been beautifully fitted up as a place of worship. There volved, and their compact, patriar- were no baptized persons there and no preacher, but there were 20 or challife, we should expect the first steps to be very slow. . . . Put- ting aside all consideration of the time element, what Chris- tianity has done for us it will do for the Chinese, and under condi- tions far more favorable, by reason of the high vitalization of the age in which we live, its unfettered communication, and the rapid transfusion of intellectual and spir- itual forces. The forecast of re- sults like these is no longer the iri- descent dream which it once ap- peared. It is sober history, ration- ally interpreted."
The Opening The Chinese Re- of Hunan to corder states that the Gospel. tho the Society for the D i ff us ion of Christian and General Knowledge among the Chinese was only
30 young converts who were wait- the Y. M. C. .A. in Tokyo. In the ing for the missionary. It was a faculty of the imperial university surprise to find that the women there are 3 or 4 Christian professors, came fot'ward with the same eager- and in the agricUltural college the ness as the men. .At another place president and a large part of the where 5 persons had been previously teachers accept the GospeI.-Rev.
baptized, there was a company H. Loomis.
waiting his arrival at the door of a church of their own providing, and A Shogun on Says a Japanese along with them some 50 new can- a Bicycle. paper:" One of the didates whom they had gathered sights of Tokyo is round them. .At another place, Prince Tokugawa Keiki, the last of where Mr. Douglas was once the Shoguns, riding on a bicycle.
mobbed, he had a reception which The prince is some sixty-four years he speaks of as "more like that of of age, but time has dealt lightly a high-grade official than of a with him. He can do his twenty humble missionary." .At this place, miles on a bicycle or tramp by too, they had provided a church at the covert's side from dawn to their own expense. Many of these darkness, gun in hand, without people have suffered much persecu- giving any indication that his years tion. In one place a man was found have become heavy to carry.
unable to leave his bed, having There are, happily, many veterans been beaten nigh to death because as hale and hearty as the prince, he had followed the new faith. But but there is only one last of the he said to Mr. Douglas, "Is it not Shoguns who rides a bicycle; and enough for the di~ciple, pastor, that to us who remember what the Sho- he be as his Master?" One of this gun's court was thirty-two years man's daughters came forward for ago, how sacred was his person, baptism. She was a girl of fifteen how inviolable the seclusion in and was asked, "What if you which he lived, how austere and should have to suffer like your elaborate the ceremony that at- father?" and her quick answer tended his least important goings was, "Has not our Lord said, 'Re- and comings, this spectacle of the joice and be exceeding glad, for once magnificent ruler bestriding great is your reward in Heaven?'" a vulgar bicycle almost crowns the When converts are made of such pinnacle of Japan's radicalism."
stuff as this, it is not strange that the kingdom advances. Will Japan The Jiji Shimbo, Capture China? a Japanese paper, Some Japanese In the present Jap- states that a num- Christians anese Diet there are ber of influential men, tugether in High Posi- 13 or 14 Christians. with leading physicians and medi- tions. The pre sid e n t of cal societies, have arranged to send the lower house is doctors and nurses to China.
a devoted elder in the Presbyterian "Just as Europeans send mission- Church, and the recent chief justice aries, we send these, because the is a member of the Congregational • Chinese are more susceptible to Church. The minister of foreign bodily benefits than to spiritual."
affairs and the secretary of the The Japanese believe that they will prime minister are Christians. The thus gain a greater influence over captain of the largest vessel in all classes, especially the manda- the navy is a Presbyterian elder, rins, than Christian missionaries who was also for a time president of have done.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Impressions of Prince Konoye, of of the Lord." Twenty-one years a Japanese Japan, has recently ago there was hardly a mile of good Prince. made an extended wagon-road in Egypt. Within visit to Europe. On seven years England has built more than 1,000 miles of good roads and his return to Japan he gave an ac- 1,400 miles of railroad. She has count of his impressions. It is changed the oppressive taxation particularly interesting to note which has reduced the peasantry that he made one discovery that to the most wretched poverty to a has led him to serious reflection. moderate amount, and the Egyp- He "found," says the Japan Mail, tian farmers are now thriving anti "that when people in Europe spoke contented. Egypt is again export- of a 'gentleman' they referred to ing surplus grain to the neighbol'- a man's moral qualifications rather ing lands. But the evangelistic than to his material condition. A effort which is to change the char- , gentleman' was a man of honor acter of the country is still more who scrupulously fulfilled all his remarkable. A great preparatory engagements, and who forfeited work has been done by the Unite'] his right to the title at once if he Presbyterians of America, and committed any of the acts which there are now evangelical schoob in Japan are condoned or over- in everyone of the 180 provinces, looked. The prince thinks that an with 12,800 pupils. Of these, i!l immense reform is needed in this 1898, over 2,000 were Moslems, and country. He disclaims any advo- nearly 4,003 were girl8! There are cacy of the introduction of Chris- 83 chief towns, and Christian work tianity, but he had no hesitation is going on in 55 of them. Nearly whatever in asserting that the 19,000 Bibles were distributed in , gentleman' of the Occident is a Egypt last year. product of Ohristianity, Christianity taught in the nursery and Heathen It is amusing to permeating the atmosphere of the Fetishes. note the varying schools and universities, as well as of society in general." degrees of confi- dence or mistrust with which the Episcopal Missions in Japan.-An heathen regard their fetishes. article in the Japan Mail says that Thus in 'Vest Africa a man who of all the missionary work carried had a piece of paper inscribed with on in the empire, that of the Epis- Arabic characters, and sewed up in copalians stands first as regards a bag, declared that it rendered rapid development. The number him invulnerable to bullets, and of baptisms for the past year was that experience had confirmed its 518. This includes baptisms in the value. He was asked if he would Church of England mission as well wear it and let himself be shot at, as those in the American Episcopal but declined. However, he hung Church mission. it up on a tree and defied the chal- lenger to hit it. Unluckily for AFRICA. him, the first shot struck it and went through the tree. The second Light in While all eyes are knocked it to pieces, and brought Egypt. now turned upon down a good piece of the tree. Such repeated ordeals at last des- the unhappy strife troy superstition, provided there is in South Africa, there are peaceful a positive faith to offer, and prorevolutions going on in the North. vided there is not, as in Christen- Egypt is being evangelized. During her suzerainty there, England has literally been "preparing the way
dam before the corning of Anti- Portuguese This province of christ, the wide-spread love of a Evangelizers Angola is a large lie, ready to believe the most driv- in Angola. field, and has been eling imposture rather than to rest in the Son of God. under Portuguese control for more than 400 years. Payment The temptations Rev. E. C. Withey, who has spent Made in put before Chris- sixteen years in Angola, says; Slaves. tian converts in "Portuguese rule has put an end to many barbarities practised un- mission fields are der the old native regime, and in often very great, and the wonder the present day at least it is not in is that they are so often resisted. Africa intolerant of Protestant Mr. Stover, of Bailundu, West missionary work. On the other Africa, writes that one of their hand, the Portuguese policy has young men has become so skilful never been to study the good of the in the building of houses that the conquered country, and many Portuguese and the" half-breeds" cruelties have been inflicted by are presenting to him all sorts of them in the prosecution of the inducements to give up the Chris- slave trade, which still exists, tho tian work and build houses for carried on covertly under guise of them. One man offered Keto three the 'contract system.' The govslaves if he would build his house ernment has been and continues t9 for him, to which offer the reply be one of oppression and extortion, was made: "The servants of the and is corrupt. Almost no im- Americans do not deal in slaves." provements in the line of roads, The incident illustrates the charac- bridges, etc., have been made in ter both of the converts and the the country during all these years, Portuguese. so that for transportation, people in the interior are still dependent A Prosperous About fourteen upon the primitive mode of carry- German years ago, when ing things on the head." Mission. the German gov- ernment took pos- The White Population of German East Africa, in 1899, was found to session of Kamerun, the mission be 1,058, of whom 842 were Gerwork of the English Baptists there mans. There were 164 male, 33 was taken over by the Basle So- female missionaries, 29 wives of ciety. The work was only in the missionaries, 15 female nurses. pioneer stage, and the methods of The negro population is reckoned English missionaries seemed to at seven or eight million. their successors too democratic and casual; but they acknowledge that Missionary While the cry of in all the stations there were good " Luxury" in missionary luxury Christian elements, and that the reputation of the English stood Uganda. is sometimes raised, them in good stead when the work the opposite charge was extended into the interior. The last ten years have been full of of neglect of our missionaries' comprogress. There are now three fort is also made now and then. times as many European mission- One illustration of the reasonable aries and head stations. The sub- care which the committee take of stations have increased to 129, the the missionaries will be interesting 160 church members to 2,025, the to our readers. It is well known 233 children in schools to 3,278. that on the journey up to Uganda it has been difficult, if not im- possible, to employ beasts of burden
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
successfully. The committee, feel- passes had to be made out to men ing that the lady missionarips who were going out of the territory ought to be saved the strain of to look for work in the villages or marching some hundreds of miles mining towns of the neighboring under an African sun, have hit colonies. This means that a fifth upon the ex"pedient of supplying of all the men went abroad to seek them with one or two fim'ikishas- work. in reality a form of light wheel chair-elch to be drawn by one News from A recent comer to man. The experiment has been Wellington, this famous educarendered feasible by the construc- South Africa. t i on al ce n ter tion of a good path to Mengo, which 'replaces the narrow and writes: "Mr. Murwinding tracks of old time.-C. M. ray's schools here are nlOre numer- S. Gleaner. ous than I knew. First, there is the girls' seminary, started twenty- From Night to One of the mission- six years ago by Miss Ferguson and Day in Africa. aries of the Basle Miss Bliss, with five or six buildings as dormitories and class-rooms, in- Society at Coomas- cluding Goodnow Hall, a fine recisie gives a pretty account of an ex- tation building with a large audicursion – half school treat, half ence room. Then the college in preaching tour-made in what was Cummings Hall; the Institute, over a few years ago one of the blackest .which Mr. Clinton Wood presides and bloodiest districts in Africa. -a real 'Bible Institute;' a For two days this man marched normal training school for teachwith his school children, two and ers; a large boys' boarding school; two, clad in white garments, and and what is called an industrial singing as they went, from village .school, where poor girls get a little to village, visiting sixteen in a schooling, and also training in short circuit. Everywhere there housework, sewing, etc., such as was a welcome, a brief. talk about will make them good servants or the Gospel, and the children were house mothers. All these schools, regaled with fruit and other native including over 700 students, are delicacies. Order and peace seem under Mr. Murray's sbpervision, now to reign in this once savage and are for the white population. region. Eighteen young men and 6 young women are training for mission The Blacks in Bas u t 0 I and, in work in the institute, and 50 have Basutoland. which the French already gone into the mission field. Besides that number there are Protestants are the multitudes going from the college chief missionary influence, is. as and seminary who carry the miswe know, nnder British supremacy, sion spirit into their home towns, indeed, but perfectly free in its and are doing beautiful service for inner affairs. The official reports- the Master. The strong tempernot merely those of the mission- ance spirit emanating from the aries-show, as is remarked by the schools here is a great blessing in Missions-Freund, that the blacks this wine-producing land." develop better under white influence but without compulsion Anniversary of the Hereroland from the whites, than where-as in Mission.-The station of the Rhenthe Transvaal-they are under ish Missionary Society at Ujimcoercion. Agriculture is increasing, bingue, Hereroland (German S. W. many Basutos are learning trades, Africa), has celebrated its fiftieth and during the last year 30,274
anniversary. During the half cen- the neighboring Boer farms. The tury it has been more than a dozen schools are prosperous, often having times attacked, plundered, burned. 200 to 300 children. Besides the More than once it has seemed to missionaries the teaching is done have perished. Yet, by God's by colored teachers, male and mercy, it not only survives, but is female, who have passed exami- the center of a Christian congre- nation before the government ingation of 752 souls.-Rheinische M. spectors. They accomplish as much G. Ber'ichte. as our county schools. The pupils are well-behaved, courteous, obe- The admirable German governor, dient, and fond of their teachers. LieutenaI,t Leutwein, we are glad I have stayed in the schools whole to see, is still in the colony. days, enjoying the scholars' an- swers. Bible -history, catechism, Christians of Pastor Dietrich, of proverbs, psalms, hymns, sit fast in South Africa. B re i tun g e n, in their memory, and in answering _Bible questions the children show Thuringia, a mem- much justness of apprehension." ber of the committee of the Berlin -Calwer Monatsblatter. Society, gives a pleasant account of a visit to the native congregations MISCELLANEOUS. in the Cape Colony. Says he: "God, in myoId age, has fulfilled Business Men If as business men a wish of my youth: I see and am and Missions. we can not serve journeying through the land in ,yhich our Berlin Society since 1834, Christ as direct along with other societies, has been ambassadors, we can serve Him working for the kingdom of God. by sending others, and promoting The brown and black people, among His work. When interest in whom I and my wife are daily missions is sincere, when the obpassing to and fro, are for the ligation is fully realized and met, greater part baptized Christians, and when business men apply our evangelical brethren. I have to the work of missions, the same already preached twelve times in energy and intelligence which govtheir ha~dsome and pleasant ern in their commercial ventures, churches. then the proposition to evangelize the world in this generation will "I have visited a good deal be no longer a dream.-John H. from house to house. Their rooms Converse. look neat and cleanly; the table is aJways decked with nosegays, pro- The World's Mulhall, the most cured from their pleasant gardens. Wealth. noted of statisti- The favorite flowers are roses, cians, has recently geraniums, mignonette, narcissus, pomegranate blossoms, and callas. revised his figures representing the They show much pleasure that one wealth of the leading nations in of the 'Fathers' (of the society) is the world, with the following revisiting them. Church attendance sult: United States, $81,750,000,000; on the Sunday and in the week may G rea t Britain, $59,030,000,000; be said to be very good; the houses France, $47,950,000,000; Germany, of worship are filled, and the con- $40,260,000,000; Russia, $32,125,000,- gregations very attentive to the 000; Austria, $22,560,000,000; Italy, sermons. Many have to travel two $15,800,000,000; Spain, $11,300,000,- or even three hours to reach church. 000. The foregoing computations are based upon values shown by "The people are diligent workers, real estate record>:, buildings, mereither on their own land or on chandise, railways, and the circu-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
lating medium of each nation. He Christianity vs. Heathenism.-We notes the fact that, while most must never forget the great European nations have attained contrast, already expressed: In their growth, the United States is heathenism man seeks God; in the apparently at the threshold of an Gospel, God seeks man. And industrial development which it only thus can man find Him. has never dreamed of before. Ac- cording to Mr. Mulhall, the wealth Christianity The Christian relig- of the United States in 1850 was the Only Re- ion is the only $7,136,000,000; in 1860, $16.160,000,- ligion of Song. religion of joy in 000; in 1870, $25,982,000,000; in 1880, $43,642,000,000; in 1888, $61,600,000,- the world, and 000; in 1898, $81,750,000,000. The in- hence t~e only religion of song. crease of wealth during the past No hymns are sung in Hindu tem- ten years is nearly half as much as ples, Buddhist pagodas, or Moham- the total in 1880. medan mosques. Even in Jewish synagogues the tendency of the The Papacy Why is it that lllUsic, as I have observed, is to and Foreign Protestants display drop into the minor. It was a Christian apostle who said: "Be Missions. greater zeal for the filled with the Holy Ghost, sing- world's evangeliza- ing." Real Christian praise is the beginning of celestial and eternal tion than Catholics do? While from psalmody. Such was the song of Protestant sources missions re- Paul and Silas in the prison at ceived la:;t year nearly $15,000,000, Philippi, when, as their biographer the great Propaganda was able tells us, "the prisoners heard to gather from all Catholic them," the poor captives, loaded peoples together only a paltry with chains, raising themselves up $1,338,311, which is less by $500,000 from the cold ground to listen with than the income of the Church wonder to the unwonted sound Missionary Society alone, is not of those two voices pealing forth much more than the Methodist and the praises of Christ in the midthe Presbyterian churchel;l in this night darkness of the dungeon. country give, and only about twice Heaven, too, listened to that song, the receipts of the American Board. and answered with the earthquake, The giving of Catholics by countries which opened every door and S3t is in this order: France, $818,417; every captive free, as tho to teach Germany, $79,516; Belgium, $72,- the lesson that the liberation of 779: Italy, 56,936; United States, the soul which finds its expression $53,642; South America, $32,894; in joyful Christian praise is the Spain, 27,202; British Isles, $25,860; prelude of every other form of Holland, $19,485; Austria, $12,578; liberty.-Henry Grattan Guinness. Mexico, $12,253; Portugal, $5,056, etc. Bible Socie- There are 73 Bible The Samaritan Hospital of Stock- ties. societies in the holm has been notified that it is to receive a $30,000 legacy by Jennie world, chiefly, of Lind-Goldsmidt. Otto Goldsmidt, one of the executors of his late course, in Europe and America. wife's will, writes from London that the executors have selected The most prominent of these are the Samaritan as the institution coming within the terms of the the British and Foreign Bible Solegacy. ciety and our own American Bible Society. The former was organ- ized in 1804 and has since that time printed and circulated 160,000,000 copies. The American Society wa~
founded in 1817. Its output has dependent development. On the been 66,000,000 volumes. It is whole, missions seek to spare and estimated that the combined circu- strengthen national peculiarities, lation of all Bible societies is about so far as they are not evil. It has no 280,000,000 copies. And trustworthy interest in bringing about a uniauthorities say that adding to that formity in which they shall perish, of the Bible societies the output of but much interest in the various private firms, 500,000,000 copies of and manifold riches which God has the Sacred Scriptures have likely deposited in the one nature of been circulated in the world during m!Lnkind, and in which the riches the present (entury. To-day indi- of the one Gospel are variously recations are that in the coming flected. Altho missions well know century the spread of the Bible will how to value the culture which for astound even the most hopeful. many centuries back has grown up on Christian grounds, yet they Missions and Missions have an in- do not cling superstitiously to the Nationality. born sense for the special European culture. The Savior of the world was, after the articulations of flesh, not of European stock, but mankind for nationalities. . Go of Semitic; He means that other hence and make all nations my races and other peoples shall also disciples, saith the Lord. And have somewhat to accomplish, and Pentecost lays on the Church the shall have their contribution also charge of proclaiming the mighty to make, and that, perhaps, by no works of God before all the races means an insignificant one, to the under heaven in the tongue wherein collective life of mankind.-Gusthey were born. A predominant TAV JENSEN, Nordisk Missionsrace, as now the European, will Tidskrift. always be inclined to impose its culture and its speech oppressively Missions and Missions give an upon the subordinate peoples, and Idealism. important addiso to bring about a uniformity, tional influence to which is not of the nature of mankind. 'Vhen missions come to a the intellectual and spiritual life of heathen people their first business our age by their ideal character. is to learn that people's own tongue, There is no surer death for all into speak its own tongue, to render tellectual life than the materialistic this its tongue capable-often with way of thinking, which only asks great labor-of giving expression how one can best enjoy the world to the lofty maxims of the Gospel, that now is, and get the most satisand to seek out the points of con- faction out of it. Missions are in nection within this people's human thorough antagonism to materialtraditions, from which the Gospel ism, inasmuch as they induce men can most easily and naturally be to give up many or all the advanproclaimed before it. And mis- tages involved in civilization and sions proceed to give the people easy circumstances, in order to the Holy Scripture translated carry ont the high aims of God's into its own tongue, and thereby, Kingdom. In the circle of home when the necessary conditions they have force to lift men above of vital energy and of a measure the often very narrow bounds of previous culture exist, mis- which close in upon their life, and sions supply the basis on which to bring them to serve the highest there may arise a new Christian interests of universal mankind. people, with its comparatively in- Business enterprises, tho legiti-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
mate, nevertheless aim at reaping missionary work is not retroceding gain among the non-Christian peo- within the Christian Church, but ples, with whom they corne in con- is, as we hope, vigorously advanc- nection. The great European states ing. Let me mention a sign from are appropriating to themselves as the world of science. The well- much as they can of these peoples' known German missionary theo- territories, in order to give an out- logian, Dr. Warneck, demands let to their overflowing population, that missions shall not be put on a and to secure and extend their level with any single branch of position in the clash of interests. church work here at home, but Even the famous discoverers, whose shall, as representing advancing names we mention with admiration and conquering Christianity, have and gratitude, are seeking some- a right to an equal sum of energy thing, namely, knowledge, which and means with the whole of the urges them forward, amid toil and upbuilding forces of Christianity self-sacrifice, through the unknown within Christendom. There is also regions. They have little to give another feature to be noted out of those to whom they come. practical church life: the now Missions alone come not to take familiar movement among the anything, but to give. They come, student youth of the Christian as was said of old, without money nations, which largely bears the and without price, to give that missionary imprint, and even venwhich is greatest: a part in the tures to speak and work for the kingdom of heaven. It is super- fullest development of missionary fluous to speak of the privations action within a nearer future than and sacrifices which missionary is commonly accounted possible. laborers have to go through for Yet a greater thing will it be than the sake of the cause; in some of any particular signs if the whole their places of labor there is now Christian Church, with voluntary a reasonable measure of security, devotion, will, with growing in others, little or none. Yet it energy, raise up missions among must be 'acknowledged, that mis- the nations as her second grand sions as a whole, in their compre- concern alongside of herupbuilding hensive work over the whole earth, work at home. For this we hope are a very especial witness to un- in God. Then will missions have a, selfish devotion for ideal interests. firmer position, and enter more They are thus a distinct protest deeply into the spiritual life of the against all materialistic, soul-kill- twentieth century than they have ing, ways of thinking, and a quick- yet been able to do in the century ening leaven of all noble human which is hastening to its end.- life and aims.-GuSTAV JENSEN, Ibidem. Nordisk Missions-Tidskrift. Missions and The two words- Missions in It must be acknowl- Civilization. . Civilization and Church Life. edged that missions Missions-wh i ch in church life are are here conjoined, most commonly as yet far from having secured the call up the image of an antagonism, position which appertains to them, a conflict, between rivals, not to and, therefore, the position which say enemies. But however strong belongs to them in the intellectual a warrant present facts may seem and spiritual life of our time as a to lend to this apprehension, we whole. Yet there are signs that must not forget that these are facts the sense of missionary duty and which ought not to be, and that
their mutual relations offer other zation we are thinking of in bring- aspects, other possibilities. It is ing together the two words civiliza- an opposition between near kin- tion and missions. It is that dred, indeed, you might almost say civilization which has become the between the child and its mother, possession of the white race and at least its foster-mother. The civ- the Christian peoples, and which ilization of which we are here now, with this imprint upon it, is speaking, and which is now making journeying out among the other the circuit of the heathen world, races. This civilization has not whose missions are doing their grown up on heathen, but on work, is itself the child, or at least Christian soil. It may, indeed, the foster-child, of missions. We derive its descent from the ancient have not here in mind the original Greco-Roman culture, but it has heathen civilization, which has its only reached us after having been home in the great communities of adopted, cleansed, and transformed South and East Asia. This also is in the crucible of the Church. It a mighty antagonist to missions, has been brought to us along with an antagonist whose strength and Christianity, and is among us only power of resistance are decidedly as its child, or, at least, as its pupil, undervalued by most friends of even tho it may in part have formissions. These talk much too saken its mother and learned to airily about Christianizing India despise her. And now it is roamor evangelizing China, as if it could ing around in strange parts of the be accomplished all at once. They world, largely like a truant and do not consider, that these are degenerate child, that has forgotten lands, or rather grand di visions of his Christian training and learned the world, whose population makes evil Lhings of the street boys. up half mankind. They confront With all its disorders it too is, in missions, not in a state of barbar- its way, a missionary force in the ism, not with a feeling of deep des- heathen world, only its missionary titution and longing for the gifts influence is not for Christianity, of the Christian world, but with but for the culture of the Christhe proud consciousness of an an- tianized whites. This culture it cient culture, deeply rooted in the displays to the heathen not in its hearts, and in the social develop- nobler form, as raised and cleansed ment of each people. This culture by the Gospel, but largely in its they are not in the least minded to degenerate distortion, its apostasy exchange for the new foreign doc- from Christianity. This is that trine. Missions have thus far missionary work of culture, which hardly taken a true aim against in the outposts of civilization, this antagonist. Still less have abroad in the heathen world, enthey dealt it a mortal wound. It counters the missions of Christianwill be the great question for the ity. And this encounter is often missionary history of the next cen- antagonism and conflict. One tury to answer, whether missions must be blind not to see that civilwill then win or merely approach, ization in this form raises up great the decisive victory over this cul- obstacles to missions and hampers tivated paganism, while the now their work. But we should none expiring century has only been the less be blind not to see that witness to the partial victory of this is not the normal, divinely missions over uncultivated pagan- intended relation between civilizaism. tion and missions.-V. S. Nordil$k !311t it if:! not this heathen civili- jJfissions-'.fidskriff•
The Missionary Review of the World — September 1897
PA'I)lTA HA:lIASAl
lIER (O-WORKER.
WORK FOR TIlE WIDOWS OF T:DIA. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: VOL. xx. No. S.-Old SerieB.-SEPTEMBER-VoL. X. No. S.-N81lJ&rieB.
THE SPIRiTUAL MovEMENTS OF THE CENTURY- WOMAN'S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD.
BY THE EDITOR-[N-CHIEF.
The" Diamond Jubilee" ofthe accession of Queen Victoria affords a most fitting occasion for the review of the marvellous development of Christian womanhood during the half century which has been so markt by manifold forms and phases of missionary activity. AmOllg all the achievements of the Victorian era, none is perhaps more C011spicuous than what may be truly called The Epiphany of Womanher emergence out of the obscurity of centuries into something like her true position and relation as to the work of God. And how curious is the coincidence that such emergence should so exactly correspond with the period during which a woman has occupied the throne of the most prominent of Protestant kingdoms, and, during sixty yearsthe longest reign of a woman on record-has challenged admiration by her unblemished personal character and Ohristian influence 1 Victoria may well stand as the historic type of the era of woman's development as a. distinct and separate factor in the Kingdom of God.
In the Old Testament there are seven women that stand out with singular and unique distinctness, Eve, the universal mother; Sarah, the mother of the faithful; Miriam, the minstrel prophetess; Deborah, the ruler and judge; Esther, the interceding Persian Queen; the Queen of Sheba, and the Queen of Massa, who seems to have been the mother of Agur and Lemuel whose wise words are attributed to her teaching (Prov. xxx, xxxi). These seven women seem typical of the new era which Ohristianity was to inaugurate, when womanhood was to be associated 'with holy minstrelsy and teaching, with Christian government and counsel, with consecrated courage and intercession in critical emergencies, with adoring gifts to the King of Kings, and with the imperial power of home influence whereby to train a household of princely characters to wield the scepter of social life.
Surely, among the most remarkable movements, guided by God's • Thia periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Aesoclation and the Philological Society of England :-{)hange d or Old lIDal to , when so pronounced. except wbeb the e aBects a preceding 1IOlIIId.-PuBLIaIIua.
SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS OF THE HALF CENTURY
hand, in our times, has been this singular and steady forward march of Christian womanhood towards the front rank of consecrated service. While God was opening new doors and removing old barriers to heathen peoples, He was preparing new workers and agencies to enter the doors and occupy the accessible fields. The story of the organization of women, in boards of missions, especially in zenana work, and in every other form of Ohristian service, to promote total abstinence, social purity, systematic giving and united prayer, to disseminate intelligence and educate a new generation of givers and workers,- this is one of the greatest of the modern chapters in the new acts of the apostles. The importance and significance of this series of developments, and the obvious leadership of a divine hand in them all, entitle them to a special and permanent memorial among the markt spiritual movements of our time.
We mnst go back to the beginning. It is just about sixty years ago since Mr. Abeel was returning to Ohina, having told the women of Britain about the women of the far East, who, shut up in zenanas, harems, seraglios, were inaccessible to all holy influences, unless their own sex could be induced to undertake work in their behalf. That moving, melting plea was the parent of zenana missions. How strange that this first woman's mission should so marvellously synchronize with the accession of this Christian Queen to the British throne! that God should have chosen, at the very time when He was lifting to the seat of an empire that reaches round the world, a young Ohristian woman, He should be revealing to woman throughout the world the throne of her predestined influence, and put in her hands a hitherto undreamed of scepter for a more than imperial sway! The Victorian era is woman's era. When Victoria was crowned, the diadem was placed upon the head of her sex, and woman's true epoch began to be inaugurated, as we behold it in our day. We can do no more than briefly trace the outlines in this sixty-year history.
The project of carrying the Gospel to women in their oriental seclusion and exclusion, seemed at first the wild visionary scheme of unbalanced enthusiasts; and wise men and even sagacious women shook their heads in doubt, if not derision. How impracticable, nay how impossible! It was like forcing gates of steel in walls of stone, to seek to get access to the harems of Turkey and the zenanas of India. But something mnst be done. The condition of womankind in the East was so destitute and desolate that it had long drawn toward the wives, mothers, daughters of the Orient the attention and sympathy of the whole civilized world. And there seemed to be neither hope nor help for woman, unless it should come through woman herself. No activity or generosity in sending and supporting male missionaries would solve the problem; for no man could without risk to life enter these sealed doors even in the capacity of a physiciano And this fact seemed to compel woman's ministry. God appeared· to be saying to woman as from heaven: "Thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this; " and to those who had ears to hear and heart to heed and respond, there seemed no alternative. The women of England resolved to undertake the work of carrying the Gospel within zenana gates.
How little we, even yet, grasp the facts. In India alone it is estimated that there are one hundred and forty millions of women and girls. These were found sunk in such depths of degraded ignorance, that one-third of them could neither read nor write; one-twelfth of them were widows, and of these widows fourteen thousand were under four years of age, eight thousand were under ten and one hundred and seventy-five thousand under fourteen. Think of such a host of women, twelve million of girls under fourteen, and half of them wives! Absolutely unreacht and unreachable by any existing influence that could elevate, educate, or evangelize them I What words could fitly portray sO Iowan estate for nearly half the popUlation of oriental empires!
The work was undertaken. 'Reason opposed, but faith proposed and disposed. It is an old familiar, pathetic story, how in the days of Rev. Dr. Thomas Smith, then of Rev. John Fordyce and Alexander Duff, the first systematic efforts were made to get access to the zenanas of India.* Then how the deft needle of a missionary's wife, Mrs.
Mullens, was used to unlock the doors. A simple piece of embroidery, wrought by her skillful fingers, attracted the attention of the secluded inmates of one of these household prisons; they argued, that if a woman could do such work as that, other women might learn how to do it, and so with the cordial consent of the lord of the zenana, this Christian woman was welcomed within the veiled chamber, and encouraged to teach his wives the woman's art of embroidery, and as she wrought on a pair of slippers the beautiful pattern, she was quietly working into the very fabric of their hearts and lives the scarlet threads dyed in the blood, and the golden threads shining with the glory of the Lamb.
*This history has been carefully outlined elsewhere (" Crisis of Missions," Chap. XIX, "New Acts of Apostles," PartII.,Chap. 8) but we here rehearse the main facts. Rev. Dr. Thos. Smith March, 1840, urged on the Oalcutta Missiona!71 Observer, the question of zenana teaching. But it was fifteen years later before his sensible plans took such root as to have practical and lasting growth. Rev. Jno. Fordyce and others secured the services of two or three lady vlsi- ~ors, and got access to some native families. Then Mrs. Mullens, Mrs. Eliz. Sale, Miss Briton and others enlarged the work. But in 1851 the work had as yet no Imporlance sufficient to give It any statistics.. In 1871, twenty years after, 1,800 houses were found to be under visitation and there were about 2,000 pupils, and twenty years later, the homes found accessible had multiplied more than three-fold, to over 40,500. In 1896 the following are the figures for the work outside this fleW ofIndia.
Foreign and European female teachers……………………… 711 Native teachers………… •••••••••••••••• …………………… 8,661 Day-schools………………………………………… ….••.• 1,507 Scholars…………………………………………………… 62,414 See MIssIONARY RKVIB'W, April 1897, p. 278-279. We can scarcely credit the fact that, under so gentle a touch as that of a woman's hand, the long-locked gates have flown wid" open, and that the barriers of ages are no more! Christian women go, almost without restraint, sometimes with urgent entreaty, into the homes of women in Turkey, Syria, China, India, and the Orient generally. The girls are gathered by hundreds of thousands into Christian schools; and the increase in the number of female pupils has been so rapid, that it doubled in ten years between 1876 and 1886, and has multiplied much more rapidly in the last decade. As long ago as 1884, one hundred and sixty women missionaries had been enrolled in the work of that one I ..ondon mission; pupils numbered thousands within the zenanas, and tens of thousands in their day-schools. Ten years later, Bible women entered the richest homes freely, and Hindu husbands actually clamored to have their wives and daughters taught. l!'ourteen years ago, the Church of England society alone had under visitation eighteen hundred zenanas with four thousand pupils; and both visitors and schools have steadily grown in numbers and influence.
Thus suddenly the women of Christendom had "discovered a new world" with limitless possibilities of work for the Master. Leupolt, contempJating the fact that, not only to the houses of the lower classes of natives, but to the zenanas in cities like Benares, Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, Amritsi, Lahore, etc., European women with their native assistants were admitted freely, to teach the word of God, exclaims: "If anyone had hinted twenty-five years before that this would be, I would have replied, 'All things are possible to God, but I do not expect such a glorious event in my day.' But what has God wrought! more than we askt or thought, expected or prayed for! His name be praised." And when Leupolt thus wrote, already to more than twelve hundred such seraglios the agents of the Female Normal School and Instruction Society had access; and this was many years ago, when the work was at its inception comparatively, aud this was only as to the success of one organization! and an intelligent Hindu says: "If these women rmch the hearts of the women of our country, they will soon get at the heads of the men."
It was about thirteen years since, when the Indian Education Commission officially reported to the government that the most successful efforts at woman's education, after leaving school, had been conducted by missionaries; that in every province of India, Christian women had devoted themselves to teaching in native homes; and recommended grants for zenana work to be recognized as a proper charge on public funds, etc. .Soon after, a Mohammedan paper of Lahore urged those who would propagate Islam, to see to it that zenana women were taught the Koran, lest by the Christian teaching that was making such inroads the very foundations of Allah's empire should be demolished. Shaftesbury, at the jubilee of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, in 1884, said: " The time is at hand when you will see the great dimensions of the work you are now doing, not Qnly in rr.<1ia but throughout the East. Great changes are in the future." His words were prophetic of what is already taking place. Ten years ago this society had missions not only in India and Oeylon, but in Japan, Persia, and Africa, etc. One instance may be cited as a representative example of how in individual cases this zenana movement proves far-reaching and mighty. At the girls' central school in the capital of Madagascar, Miss Bliss taught the young princess who at the crisis came to the throne in that great island.
While God was thus opening the door of approach and access to Gentile women, behold Him moving Christian women to organize for the great Woman's Orusad~ of modern history! And so we come to that new chapter of missions which records the rapid growth of Women's Boards of Missions, which mark the next grand epoch of woman's epiphany and activity.
Much pains have been taken to find the facts, for the early records were destroyed by fire, and hence a general misapprehension as to the origin of the parent society.. Rev. L. A. Gould, in a letter to the writer, says: "The exact facts are as follows: Mrs. Ellen B. Mason, wife of Rev. Francis Mason, D.D., a Baptist missionary from Burmah, stopt in Oalcutta on her way to America, and learned the story of Mrs. :Mullens' zenana slippers. Mrs. Mason, with two ladies, still living, Mrs. J. D. Richardson and Mrs. H. O. Gould, my mother, visited influential families in Boston; and the first society, consisting of nine ladies, whose names I have, was formed in Boston, November, 1860, Miss M. V. Ball, President. Subsequently, in 1861, societies were formed in New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia; and the New York society, by reason of its strength, was allowed to become the general society. These facts are not vital, only advantageous for accuracy."
Thus, then, was organized, thirty-seven years ago, in America, the Woman's Union Missionary Society, which, under the leadership of the loved and lamented Mrs. T. O. Doremus, became the pioneer society of America, with The Missionary Link as its organ. This was an undenominational society, and led the way as the parent of the various denominational Women's Boards now found connected with all the great Ohristian bodies. Of all these societies the one originating cause was the inaccessibility of heathen women save to their own sex; and the one aim was to organize women, in cooperation with the existing foreign missionary societies, for sending out and supporting unmarried women as missionaries and teachers to their neglected heathen sisters.
The rallying cry, heard in Britain sixty years ago, and loudly echoed in America about twenty years later, brought Ohristian women boldly to the front in all the leading denominations. Early in 1868, there was formed in Boston the New England Women's Foreign Missionary Society, with Mrs. Albert Bowker for President, and Mrs. Homer Bartlett for Treasurer. The previous year the American Board had sent into the field ten single women, appropriating for this end $25,000. We can readily understand why Ohristian women felt called of God to this special work. We mention the following dominant reasons: 1. Women abroad were inaccessible except to women. 2. Ohristian womanhood would naturally both prompt and help work for woman. 3. Woman owes a special debt to Ohrist for what He has done to uplift her socially and domestically. 4. Woman naturally sympathizes with her own sex, and can appre- ciate woman's degradation and elevation. 5. Woman abroad needs the practical illustration of what the Gos- pel can do, and has done, for women. 6. In all education woman is God's ordained pioneer. As wife, mother, sister, daughter, she is the heart of the home and sways its scepter. 7. This work provides a legitimate sphere in which all that is best in woman can thus be amply exercised and developt.
The results are correspondent with what might be expected. Ohris- tian women became, for the first time in all history, thoroughly united in organized work for souls. Their interest in the spiritual uplifting of their own sex was quickened; larger means for supporting women as missionaries and teachers were forthcoming; intelli- gence was more widely spread, and in cheap mission leaflets and booklets; offerings were systematically gathered iu small sums, like "Oarey's weekly pennies"; direct correspondence with women workers, stated meetings for prayer, and hearing of news from the field- these were the results, which became in turn causes of new and larger results. The collections of the first month enabled this early New England society to assume the support of a missionary to South Africa. At the end of three months, three women became living links with the foreign field, Miss Edwards in Africa and Miss Andrews and Miss Parmelee in Turkey; and ten native Bible women were to be main- tained by the society. By October 8th, 1868, at Norwich, Oonn., this society was already the parent of auxiliaries everywhere forminK. and was now called "The Women's Board of Missions."
The same month, of the same year, a similar society was formed in the great West, " The Women's Board of Missions for the Interior," and the next year this new society assumed the support of Mrs. Tyler of the Madura mission, and Miss Dean of Oroomiah, and issued its quarterly, Life and Light for Heathen Women. During its first year about *4,000 were gathered. So rapidly grew the women's societies, that in 1884 there were twenty-two Women's Boards, representing twelve denominations, and aD. aggregate of about $1,000,000 receiptsl In 1897, the total number of women's societies has reacht upwards of one hundred.
One example of the rapid increase of gifts ought to be added to show the power of many little sums, systematically gathered. One Board, the Presbyterian, that reported in 1871 $7,000, reported $224,- 000 in 1886-thirty-two fold increase in fifteen years 1 And the incre80/3e still goes on.
No wonder Thos. Chalmers should have declared that he had found in benevolent work, that one woman was equal to seven and a half men!
This has not been the only direction in which Christian women have organized for holy activity during this Victorian era. Zenana work was but the first trumpet-blast that rallied this vast reserve force of the Lord's army. Then came the Women's Boards, both of Home aud Foreign Missions. But since then, behold the various forms of holy enterprize upon which the Christian sisterhood have entered. Four or five may be mentioned as conspicuous, tho far from exhausting the long list.
The Women's Temperance Orusade is one of the most memorable for its desperate daring. Maddened by the cruelties inflicted by strong drink, and hopeless of human intervention, Christian women in the United States took the kingdom of Satan by violence, and went into the drink-shops to protest with dram-sellers; they knelt on the floors of bar-rooms, and with prayers and tears besought God to curse the drink traffic and stop its awful ravages. When turned into the street, they knelt on the pavements and interposed their bodies between the door of gin palaces an9- those who would enter. They saw the haunts of the drunkard turned into places of prayer, rumsellers changed to evangelists, and sots into saints. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was baptized in tears and prayers and blood. It has a holy history.
The Woman's League for Social Pnrity attempted to do with the brothel and all its accessories what the Temperance Crusade undertook with the drink-shop. Obscene books, prints, exhibitions, houses of iII-fame, the uses of the post for all immoral purposes, and the perversion of law to impure ends,-these and other helpers and abettors of prostitution and corruption occupied their attention. It was a mighty movement, and has still an increasing momentum, directed toward the purity of our homes, as its sister movement toward their sobriety. And it ought to be said that it required great heroism and courage of conviction, for women to cast off the trammels of a mock modesty and a refined sensibility, and call things by their right names, and in public as well as in private, before men as well as women, and sometimes in courts and legislatures, grapple with an evil that even men had found it difficult to discuss. But they have done it, and challenged universal admiration for their intrepid fidelity.
The Young Women's Ohristian Association has done grand work for young women, as the Y. M. C. A. has for young men. It is making itself felt in all our great cities, in throwing a loving shelter about young girls who come to the great centers of population to find employment, and have no proper home-life. These associations have erected magnificent buildings where young women find board, lodging, companionship, employment, libraries, prayer-meetings, Bible classes, and every aid to temporal and spiritual advancement. If there is any more beneficial institution of its sort in existence, we do not know of such, and can speak with confidence and from personal knowledge of the immense benefit accruing, the writer having a daughter who is the secretary of one of these city organizations. And just now this work is expanding and becoming a power in foreign lands, gathering young women, as in India, into the embrace of a consecrated Christian sisterhood.
The women's medical mission work is one of the latest born ofthe organized movements of women in Christian lands. To have women going forth into all parts of the world, not simply as nurses, but as fully qualified physicians; and to have them commending themselves even to imperial governments as competent to practice medicine and surgery side by'side with the most skillful male practitioners, is certainly a very markt advance. Here is especially a new feature of the zenana movement, which led all the rest in point of time. Women penetrate the seclusion of oriental homes to-day, with the balm of Gilead in one hand and the balm of the apothecary in the other; they go to heal the body and to heal the soul, to preach and to cure; and in true apostolic fashion to commend themselves to the heart, by skill in ministering to the bodily ills and ailments. There is an eminent fitness in woman's medical ministry to woman, and upon it God is setting II. very markt seal and sanction.
No reference has yet been made to the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, nor to the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, iIi both of which women are perhaps as prominent leaders, if not as numerous members as men. But our object has been to call attention mainly to organizations solely composed of and officered by women, and these, selected out of many, may suffice to illustrate how in every direction the female factor in the Churcp. of Christ is making itself felt as never before in the various forms of Christian activity. There is, in fact, not one department of service to Christ and a lost humanity, in which women's gentle hand is not found conspicuous, not in association with m'en, but in independent methods of organized action. What the church and the world has gained thereby, it would be difficult to estimate. One example might be given out of many thousands as a typical instance. Nearly forty years ago, Mrs. Murrilla B. Ingalls, widow of Rev. Lovell Ingalls, a missionary to Arakan, after a visit to America, returned to Burma, and went at once to Thongze, where she remained and had entire control, without help from any male missionary, except a native ordained preacher and a few other native assistants. Often ,alone, she has with markt capacity and sagacity carried on the mission with conspicuous blessing. Without transgressing the limits of propriety, or assuming ecclesiastical functions, she has been a sort of acknowledged bishop of a vast diocese. +n all that has to do with Christian doctrine and church organization and administration she has taught both women and men. She chooses and then trains native evangelists, oversees the schools and discovers the aptitude in pupils for teachers, and then trains them for educational work. She maintains strict discipline, guides the church in appointing pastors, and then humbly trains pastors in Bible truth, homiletic studies, and pastoral theology. She has establisht Zayat preaching, organized a circulating library, and distributed Bibles and tracts over a wide district. Seeing the great destitution about her, she went with her Bible women on tours into the country, and her tent became the resort of multitudes who sought instruction. Being accused of "preaching" by those who were jealous of her influence, and defending her course as justifiable from New Testamen texamples, she was askt, "Were you ever ordained?" " No," she answered, "but I was Joreorda·tned." Mrs. Ingalls is a bright example of what woman has done and is doing in all lands, and those who would pursue the study of the theme have only to read the story of such heroic women .as the three wives of Dr. Judson, the second Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Krapf, Mrs. Judith Grant, Fidelia Fiske, Eliza Agnew, Mrs. McAll, Mrs. Moffat, and Mrs. Livingstone, Mary Whately, Matilda Rankin, Mary Graybell, Clara Cushman, Hannah Mullens, Rebecca Wakefield, Sarah B. Capron, Mary Williams, Dorothy Jones, Anna Hinderer, and a host of others who have adorned the annals of missions. And who needs to be'told that the names of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton are inseparable from the ministry to wounded and sick soldiers and victims of famine and persecution Bnd pestilence the world over?
Surely, when God lifted a Christian woman to the British throne sixty years ago, He was saying to her whole sisterhood in all Christian lands, "Ye are come to the Kingdom for such a time as this." Let woman appreciate her opportunity, for it is the golden age of her reign, and she holds a scepter that ·sways empires. Let her prove herself to be a power ordained of God to fulfil a holy mission!
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. [t;eptemoer
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN.
BY WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., AUTHOR OF "THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE."
Japan is the most interesting country in Asia, perhaps in the whole missionary field. The reason is plain. Despite their boasting and self-conceit, the Japanese are not satisfied with themselves. Despite many foreign flatterers, they know that their civilization is very far ·from being finisht, and that their character lacks much. In this dissatisfaction lies the best hope of their salvation. When a nation ceases its restlessness and becomes self-contented, it is hopelessly senile. The people who say that they are rich and have need of nothing, and that they see clearly, when others know that they are poor and blind, are already in the numbness of paralysis. Japan now sees herself as others see her. By sudden contact with many nations, she is in a panopticon, and is disturbed at the too numerous reflections. Her people are an interesting study to themselves, like a man thoroughly awakened to himself, through some searching sermon or book which has revealed himself to himself.
Modesty is not a shining characteristic of the modern Japanese; but, tho their books and newspapers are painfully, even disgustingly, full of boasting and national vanity, yet in reality there is a deepseated self-disgust, a realization that something is not only wroug, but radically so. The most thoughtful men feel that, despite victorious armies or foreign models, steel and steam navies, and the miscellaneous borrowed furniture of modern civilization, somethiug still is lacking. "More moral oil to run the machinery," is a native editor's cry. To put on sealskins, diamonds, and what anyone can buy in the shops does not make a lady. Even one's private palace car and steam yacht will not produce a gentleman of culture; for "vindictive circumstances" of speech, spelling, and grammar will betray early deficiencies. To-day, probably more than ever before, there are deep searchings of heart in that country, where it is not yet safe to openly challenge the mythology on which the popular and political religion rests. There is much earnest talking and writing about a "moral crisis." There is yearning after a religion that will satisfy the awakened man in the Sunrise Land. The old foundations are slipping away, even while Japan hopes to build a national superstructure that will dazzle the world. The old stone-weighted wooden anchor, with its wisteria-vine rope, will no longer hold the ship of state. Millions of human beings, heretofore political ciphers, each one lost in a mass of similar ciphers, and made into expressional value only by the integer of the throne, are slowly rising into consciousness of rights and. individuality. It may be that each individual may become a giant. Then how hold the strong ones together? Let us inquire and see what the matter with Japan is. Whether we derive religion from the same idea that is in the word ligament~ and regard it a vinculum to bind the individual man and all his powers in unity, and to hold society together; or, whether we derive it from the idea of reading and reflection, making it the choicest product of thought, or of inspiration through revelation, it is what the Japanese want; and it is that which they know they want. At what they have had thus far, let us look, and then apply those words of her Master, which Christianity continually and unsparingly applies to herself,-" By their fruits ye shall know them."
Japan has three definite religious systems, thoroughly acclimated, naturalized, and active for over a thousand years, with only two intervals of labor by Christian missionaries–one of seventy years, from 1540 to 1620, by Portuguese and Spaniards, and the second in our day; which, whether we reckon from 1860 or 1870, we shall call a full generation of sporadic missionary effort by teachers from Roman, Greek,. and Reformed Churches,-those of the English-speaking nations outnumbering all others.
The oldest of all religions in the archipelago is Shinto, or the godway, which, briefly comprehended, has no distinct idea of God or of a Creator. It is a crude form of merely natural evolution, in which matter blossomed into mind and beings arose from mud to man. The men were the conquering few, and they conquered many; for Shinto is, first of all, a political machine, and will die the moment the ligature is cut which biuds it to the throne. Personifying the powers of nature, the islanders made apotheosis of the wise, the heroic, and especially the chief of one clan which, conquering other clans, became paramount in the archipelago. The core of Shinto is Mikadoism, and it has neither ethics nor religion, apart from the imperial decrees. It is bald of either rational morals or dogma, but yet is a joyous and pleas!mt cult, fitted for the infancy of a people liviIig off on an island by themselves. It inculcates personal cleanliness and gentle manners,. and nurses a narrow sort of patriotism. It is also the fountain and supply of a senseless conceit which, pardonable and even pretty in the minds of children and rustics, is simply absurd in a people who wish to be collectively considered as a great world-power, and even a teacher and giver of civilization to mankind.
Shinto goes back of history, and even well-founded tradition, tho its ancestor worship may possibly be borrowed from China. Confucianism, or the Chinese system of ethics and etiquette, has had a foothold in Japan for probably fourteen hundred years. Whatever the primitive faith of the first settlers of the Middle Kingdom may have been, it is certain that when Confucianism came into Japan it was already nearly a thousand years old, having scarcely the rudiments of a religion in it-nothing of prayer, aspiration, idea of personality, or suggestions of exalted soul-consciousness. Ignoring God and the soul, it taught a low routine ofl human duty, gave rules of conduct, and prescribed the ceremonies to be used in propitiating the unknown, and for the most part, politely ignored spirits that vaguely have something to do with the universe and its order. Whereas, in China filial piety was the center of the system, in Japan loyalty was made the basis. For in Mikado-land everything is sub- ordinate to the throne. No freedom of thought or of action was or is allowed in any way likely to disturb this subordination of every- . thing in the whole empire to the emperor and his ancestors.
As in China, so in Japan, but still more so. The agnosticism and etiquette of Confucius lent themselves aumirably to despotism and arbitrary government, whether of the central suzerain or the local lords. Over a thousand years' active use oi the sword, of oppression, of grinding down the masses, have made the Japanese that submissive and demure people, which we find all over the empire, below that sub- I merged tenth that have ruled the country for ages, and who, despite all pretense and profession of modern constitutionalism, rule them yet. Now, thousands of this hereditary ruling class see their mythology melting into empty air. They have discovered that their feudal ethics rest as does a mass of iron rails and wooden tif)s which, after an awful washout, still holds a thin shell of earth. They wonder how the heavy engine of modern life can be run over the foundation- less old tracks. Having bought or made all sorts of new machinery, but with mighty problems unsolved, they ask, Where is the new type of man· to stand on deck and order at once the steersman above and the engineer below?
Buddhism entered Japan fourteen hundred years ago. Then, for the first time, the Japanese were brought in contact with a distinct product of the Aryan mind. The ultimate result was a chapter of decay for Buddhism. In the first centuries the tremendous zeal of the new missionaries, their positive works of benevolence, their intro- duction of a great train of civilizing influences with art, ethical codes, sutras and shastras, a ,great apparatus of devotion, with idealistic philosophy, with a splendid architecture and symbolism which beauti- fied the landscape of Japan, and teachings which made the law of kindness the rule of life, they educated the whole nation. The suc- . cess of Buddhism in winning all, from the nobles at court to the humblest fisherman and farmer, to gentle virtues, appreciation of natural beauty and of art and literature, has been vastly more than that of all other influences put together, including Shinto, Confu- cianism, and whatever has drifted to Japau from the continental nations of Asia. Buddhism has been the mother of Japanese civiliza- tioll. Nevertheless, Japanese Buddhism, when once become domesticated, won its final victories by compromises and transmutations that not only changed its own character, but ministered to the conceit of the Japanese people; for it proclaimed the gods of Shinto as nothing more than previous avatars or manifestations of Buddha. Thus it not only swallowed up the older indigenous cult, making it practically invisible for many centuries, but itself entered upon a wild reversionary and degraded form of pantheism which still further swampt any gleams of the personality of God or of real individuality in man. Thus the Japanese people could not, morally and religiously, be anything else than a nation still bound in the lower forms of invertebrate and nerveless life, remiuding one of a jelly fish rather than of the splendid creatures of nerve and brain, which we find in the higher ranges of life.
So, applying the test that "by their fruits ye shall know them," most linguists, historians, and the students of philosophy and literature, and of religion, agree in their general appraisement of the outcome of the Japanese mind and heart. While gladly and warmly acknowledging much pleasing fruit and many beautiful products, critics can not, if honest and truthful, but point out the defects which, indeed, seem appalling when we consider the ambition of the Japanese to claim an equal place among the nations of the world. For these islanders at this end of the nineteenth century claim to have aci;ually inaugurated a new career of civilization, which neither as to religion, nor ethics, nor philosophy, nor literature, nor politics, nor social life, nor material products and inventions shall pe second to anything which the nations in Christendom have produced or can produce. Yet what is the outcome of the Japanese religions? How stand, not the rare specimen, but the average Japanese man, and the masses to.day?
As one who has for thirty years been before the English-speaking and American public as a writer on Japan, one will not accuse me of lack of appreciation. Yet the truth must be told. Using words in their highest and therefore their true sense, we declare that the average Japanese lacks the fundamental ideas that go to make up a religion. He not only does not know of God but he ignores the very idea. He has scarcely a conception of the sonl as perdnring and individual. His idea of duty, nobly as he fulfils it, is a childish one. Once again, remember, that I nse the ideas of " God," " soul," and "duty" in the highest sense and that I do not refer to the few thousand Christians or a few hundred sincere thinkers who are not agnostics or slaves of Mr. Herbert Spencer,-the philosopher, whose name and work I honor.
Using the word with the same value, weight, and color that we nse it when talking of the Hebrew prophets, the Greek sages, the English poets, Dante, Milton, or Shakespeare, or of the nations which have produced these men, I believe that the Japanese, in spite of all their religions, are not a religious, certainly not a spiritual people. I have tried to make myself reasonably familiar with Japanese history, but I find in it no overmastering spiritual ideals such as have moved and do move the great men of the continents; no consciousness of personal individuality such as filled and exalted the soul of teachers, heroes, and martyrs in lands where Christ reigns; no vision and realization of a presence filling heaven and earth. Tho the term Creator is not unknown in the language of the Japanese, yet they have never reachtany idea of God higher than that of a bundle of abstract principles and forces. Their notion of God is such a sort of entity as may be found inside of a book like Ganot's physics. Their most holy men remind one more of Benjamin Franklin on the one hand or of Saint Simeon Stylites on the other, than of Paul or Augustine, Anselm or Bernard, David Brainerd or Abraham Lincoln. In studying Japanese Buddhist's books, or, the only work which might, by a tremendous stretch of fancy and charity, be called the Japanese Bible,-the Kojijione feels that he is in a fog, or a mist that rolls over and covers everything sharp and definite. Indeed, in that kind of painting which depicts cloud and haze, as well as in philosophy, the Japanese delight; but, whether this misty vagueness be the product of the brush or the brain, such art, philosophy or religion, will never produce men like William the Silent, Raphael or Rembrandt, Kant or Bacon, or Oliver Cromwell, John Huss or Guido de Bres, William Penn or Peter Cooper. Indeed the whole idea of Buddhism is to ignore man's soulconsciousness and that infinite Presence,-that "one simple and spiritual Being which we call God, who is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good." Indeed, what could we expect, with a rudimentary system founded on the idea of the mere evolution of matter and force which, after rising into the personification of the forces of nature, became a political engine for the subjugation of the people, centering everything to the will of the emperor?
After the boldness of Shinto comes the agnosticism of Confucius, t'eaching only etiquette and ceremony, bidding men to "honor the gods but keep them far from you." After this extinguisher of all faith in personality divine or human, Buddhism enters to ignore and ridicule the idea of a Creator, teaching flat atheism and a new cycle of ideas founded on agnosticism, evolution without any previous divine involution, and finding the whole basis of its philosophy in a succession of cause and effect, even while ignoring the First Cause. '
Is it any wonder then, since the Japanese have, roughly speaking, never had anything else but a protean agnosticism, and being throughout their whole history, swampt and mired in the philosophy of ignorance, that they should never know God, or the soul, or duty in any high sense P Is it any wonder that to-day the gospel of Herbed Spencer-a J apanized gospel of Herbert Spencer at that-is the favorite creed of the average educated (heaven save the mark!) Japanese? Without then, the idea of a personal God as a living, self- conscious, free intelligence; without the idea of personality of man, as of a real individual surviving as a spiritual entity the di~solving of his fleshly frame-work; without any moral character apart from per- sonal interest and social necessity, or the will of the emperor; how, in the name of any philosophy known under heaven, are the Japanese to face the perils which now beset them and solve the problems await- ing them? How can Japan, undoubtedly yearning for the fullrecog- nition of all the world, reach that level which the proud nations in Ohristendom require in one who claims to be an equal? The very fact that under the searching word of God, and under that travail and questioning which Ohristian nations feel, because of their God-con- sciousness and soul-consciousness, they ever challenge themselves unto ever nobler ideals, makes them all the more rigid ill demanding of a still pagan nation stern moral tests, and not only a high religion but the frnits of it. It is certain that the nations of Ohristendom will never admit as their equal one in which Buddhism is the popular creed. Oertainly Shinto, the last shadowy relic of an ethnic religion, gives no card of introduction. A mere code of ceremonies like Oon- fucianism begets neither confidence or recognition.
The Japanese boast of their ethics or "spirituality" is a sham.
They may be perfectly certain that a country in which one divorce to every three marriages is the rule, where polygamy and private harems, -with children born in a herd instead of a home, the emperor him- self setting the example, and this being the general custom from the court noble to the betta, is reckoned distinctly inferior and will be.
The hazy view which mercantile and other folk take of the sacredness of a contract, the low value put on the letter of one's bond and of truth generally, the lack of general understanding of the value of a promise, -these things, which better religion will vastly improve, are paving the Japanese future pathway with failures both humiliating and con- tinuous.
He who dwells in the country of the little captain Miles Standish, and familiar with the story of David and Goliath, will not willingly twit the Japanese for their smallness, either in personal stature, the area of their country, the dimiuutiveness of their rice and wheat stalks, compared with those of South Oarolina and Dakota, the little- ness of their rivers, their low percentage of arable area, nor with the grade of their heroes, literature, art, or poetry, all of which seem miniatures rather than mature or imposing products. And this we .'. say, in spite of a whole school of American and European uncritical admirers. But, when we see the Japanese persisting in their love for things petty, and clan-like in regions sublime, cosmical, eternal, demanding" Japanese ethics," a religion of their own making, or "Ohristianity adapted to the needs of Japan," we behol<1 either a merely splenetic reaction against what they deem foreign, or insanity with which God has afflicted them in order to hum.ble them, and we trust afterwards to raise them up.
When the whole truth is told about the Japanese armies in Ohina and Formosa, and the behavior of civilian officers in the newly con- quered island, one is not favorably imprest with the fruits of their ethical training. Tho the nation is to-day ground down under the awful load of taxes that keeps the mass of the people poor and ignorant, tho, no doubt, many are made rich, one in Tokio, Osaka, or Kioto looks almost in vain for great schemes of benevolence, hospitals, asylums for the insane, for the blind, and for diseased and suffering humanity. One does indeed find a few hospitals maintained by the government, but even these are ridiculously few compared with the number in Ohristian countries; while for the special classes, for orphans, the blind, the dumb, the insane, the lying-in-mothers, one is appalled to find that, ~)Utside of those under Ohristian or foreign auspices, and one blind and dumb school of the government, such things hardly exist. The finest buildings in Japan are the government offices, the houses of the high officials, and the military barracks, but a Girard Oollege or Oooper Institute, or those institutions which even in colonial America were hopefully common, are practically unknown in boasting Japan. Large-minded philanthropists are as rare as white crows.
Even the idea of prosperity in religion is apt to mean the approval of eminent statesmen or the applause of the secular newspapers. The Japanese are not yet educated to the idea of ethics, religion, practical benevolence existing apart from politics. It is also true that they are too sadly encouraged by the examples of those despotisms in Europe which they so delightfully follow.
Perhaps it is not possible for a foreigner to divest himself wholly of prejudices, but the writer has not often been accused of prejudices against Japan. 'fhis question of religion must be and can be ponderated apart from subjective prepossessions, when we apply the test ~~~~~~~I~~~~~~~~~ continue in these old paths or to rest in their interpretation of the gospel of Herbert Spencer, will result not only failure to win a place of equality among the nations of Ohristendom, but means utter collapse of the nation. They have planted the acorn in the bottle, but their honest men know the power of growth and the thinness and rigidity of the glass, and therefore dwell in impotent fear. Theyneed ~ become a religious nation and to have that sense and apprehension' .of one living and true God who is "the overflowing fountain of all good." They need to know the reality and therefore the worth of the individual human soul. They need to know of duty done" as in the great Task-Master's eye." They need to get over that frightful conceit which makes them still look on the fundamental principles of Christianity-the world-educating and the world-conquering religion -as inferior to their insular hereditary traditions. Their notions about the desertion of even father and mother for Ohrist's sake as "uprooting Japanese society," seems puerile or dotard-like. It reminds us of Marshal.McMahon who would govern France solely by the advice of his family clergyman. It resembles that of those "mouutain whites" in Kentucky, whose preferenoe for home-distilled corn whiskey leads them to think United States law inferior to local ideals. It is this narrow, childish spirit which has led to Bome of those grotesque reactions and those picturesque anachronisms which have recently illustrated Japanese history during this decade, and which are to be classt with those manias which for twenty-five years have kept them in a succession of wasteful crazes for rabbits, cockfighting, whist, waltzing, big funerals, planchette, wrestling, and the revival of obsolete costumes and sports. Even the Japanese writers now make themselves merry over these revivals of "New Shintoism," "Neo-Buddhism," and over the (now past) spectacle of old-fashioned Oonfucianists, spectacled and top-knotted, lecturing on ethics to classes of bright-faced boys sitting in school-rooms with seats, desks, apparatus and text books of latest pattern; and over that variegated Ohauvinism in politics, literature, dress, and behavior which shows, we trust, the last flickerings of a dying flame. By and by the Japauese will see clearly that God Almighty is greater even than their Mikado. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that, after two thousand years inoculation in the idea that Japan is the center of the universe, the disease is not easily curable.
Will not the Japanese, even those who "swallow Herbert Spencer whole," understand that even the philosopher of the unknowable does not deny the existence and activity of a personal God, that even those destructive critics on the European continent who have deserted the old Calvinism and other traditional forms of Ohristian faith, believe none the less in a great determining Power, personal and intelligent? The Japanese must learn that the very "evolution" in which they so delight is, with thousands of Ohristian thinkers, supremely loyal to Jesus, only another way of describing and of seeing plaiply God's method of continuous creation. Oertain it is that, without the faith of theism, it will be impossible to grasp that which not only binds the nations of the west in unity, but which gives them their law of progress,-that is, the fatherhood of God ani! the brotherhood of man. Nor can any hope for the welfare of the great mass of the Japanese people be based on anything else than on Ohrist's law of love. Following out this law, the leaders of Ohristendom have been able under
ABOUT THE AINU 01f JAPAN
God to lift up the whole body of their fellow men. For the Japanese intellect-after three different systems, all agnostic, pantheistic, and corrosive of the great fundamental truths which have uplifted Europe and America-to adopt a new one-that of Spencer, but with SFencer's ultimate idea left out-seems rather the freak of the insane than the choice of intelligent men. Possibly, however, they are playing a game to deceive the world, and once more practicing their old trick of taking on the material forces and bastard philosophy of Christendom, in order, really, to guard their isolation amI insulate themselves from the shock of vital change.
The editor of this magazine has askt me for an article on "The Religions of Japan," leaving me free to deal with some special phrase of the subject, or with the subject in general. I have chosen to point out the failure of the three religions of Japan (and, like failure in all, because of the same defect in each), to elevate and save the Japanese. I believe they can be elevated and saved, when they come to God, believing that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; when they realize human personality in the highest sense, and when the,r notions of duty become something more than a local, insular, and familyaffa,ir. So I close this article with words written in March, 1875 (after having lived four years among them, and known them for seven years), and now all the more deeply felt after thirty years' acquaintance with them.
"Unless a mightier spiritual force than either Shinto or Buddhism is allowed unimpeded operation, we see little prospect of aught better than the gain of a glittering veneer of material civilization, and the corroding foreign vices under which, in the presence of the superior aggressive races of the west, Japan must fall as the doomed races of America. or Hawaii."
SOMETHING ABOUT THE AINU* OF JAPAN.
BY THE REV. JOHN BATCHELOR, SAPPORO, YEZO, JAPAN.
It will be found that, as a rule, writers of certain classes of nOTels make their stories center round some one or more heroes. It is also a rule,- a very natural, and therefore most important rule it may be added,-that the remarks made concerning these heroes shall be in conformity with the character it has already been determined to portray. Unless this principle is maintained the story will certainly be pronounced bad. Nevertheless, in a large majority of cases it turns out that such conformity is found to be of a highly embellisht nature, * The word Ainu means" man " or " men," This people therefore knows itself as the race of U men." SOMETHING A.BOUT THE AINU OF JAPAN.
and is often so exaggerated as to amount to moral untruth, for the writer dwells almost exclusively on one or two characteristics at the expense of all others.
So does it also appear to be a general rule that any person undertaking to write about the Ainu residing in far off Japan, must, to lend interest to his book, by all means produce this phenomenon. Intending travelers and writers will have already heard beforehand that the Ainu are a very filthy and very hairy race, and so before they appear upon the scene and commence their task, they have already got their own clean cut ideas as to what the people ought to be like. Their phenomena, therefore, invariably figure as particularly filthy, hairy, and for this reason abject specimens, more like brute beasts than human beings. And, the cue being taken from that, the race is described very much according to the writer's notion of what they consider it ought to be, rather than what it is in reality. Moreover, the phenomena are made to serve various purposes. They are either used as subjects upon which to base a few interesting remarks, or from which to give a far-fetcht back-handed hit at the Christian faith iu the creation of man by the Supreme Being, or as texts from which to draw some peculiar, if not impossible conclusions; or else they are made to do duty as pegs, upon which to hang some long cherisht opinion of persons or things in general which the writer wishes to air by some pretense or other. And we find that the interesting remarks made are often so exaggerated and the facts so over-stated as to give the reader quite a wrong impression of the people, while the peculiar conclusions drawn and sentiments exprest are, if not unscientific, at least such as reflect credit neither on the intelligent discrimination, fairness of mind, aud kindness of heart in the writer, nor moral character, intellectual status, and common human nature of the Ainu. Indeed, unless great care is exercised, there is a danger of being led by writers to look upon this people as partaking more of the outward appearance and inward nature of the lower animals than of human beings,-of being led to expect to find them wild savages rather than as the civilized, quiet and good-natured men and women they are. Many a traTeler has said to me: "Why these people are nothing like as hairy and wild as I expected to find them I " And such indeed is the fact; the whole matter has been greatly over-stated.
That most indefatigable and brave lady traveler, who, whenever she puts pen to paper, always writes so honestly and vividly, intereetingly and impartially (I mean Mrs. Isabella Bird-Bishop), found her filthy and hairy specimen at Repungepin Volcano Bay. She writes very graphically of him, and in a pleasant, good-humored way calls him the MISSING LINK. Futhermore, to give greater perspicuity to her description she speaks of him in the neuter gender. In writing about him she says: "I was startled when I first saw it. It was-shall I say-a man, and the mate, I can not write hUsbQ.ud,of the ugly woman. The arms and legs were unnaturally long and thin, and the creature sat with the knees tuckt into the armpits. The limbs and body, with the exception of a patch on each side, were thinly covered with fine black hair, more than an inch long, which was slightly curly on the shoulders. It showed no other signs of intelligence than that evi- denced by boiling water for my tea." * Bnt Miss Bird is very fair to this people (and I wish, indeed, I could say all were like her in this matter), and would not have the careful reader be led astray by this or any other exceptional phenome- non, for, in another place which she likewise intended to be read, she most trnly says: "The Volcano Bay Ainos t are far more hairy than the mountain Ainos, but even among them it is qnite common to see men not more so than vigorous Enropeans, and I think that the hair- iness of the race, as a distinctive feature, has been much exaggerated, partly by the smooth-skinned Japanese."! Thus, then, by comparing these two passages together, we find that Miss Bird gives a very good description of the hairiness of the Ainu, and in it she speaks the trnth. When, therefore, we hear her speaking about the MISSING LINK as existing at Repungep, we must take her words, not as conveying assent to the doctrine 'of human evolution, but rather as an expression of surprise at seeing a man who was, even for an Ainu, beyond donbt exceptionally hairy. And we must ever remember that the Ainu is not altogether made up of hair, and is a biped.
But all writers on the Ainu are by no means as fair as Miss Bird, for, while she describes her phenomenon as above quoted, and, tho not / in an unkind manner, yet perhaps a little thoughtlessly for a serious writer, calls him the MISSING LINK, Mr. Savage Landor gOE)s a long step further, and seems to seriously look upon the Ainu as the genuine article referred to in the above terms, as if, forsooth, the doctrine of the MISSING LINK was a proved and already accepted article of general belief! This gentleman writes at the end of the 27th Ohapter of his book as follows: "Resuming these few remarks 'on the characteristic points of Ainn senses, my readers will probably have noticed certain facts which strongly support Darwin's theory of evolution and the hairy arboreal ancestor with pointed ears, from which the races of men are descended." Mr. Landor has very highly colored his Ainu, and in his" remarks on characteristic points of Ainu senses," has sadly dis- torted the facts of the case. He is uttel'ly unreliable when writing of the Ainu. Indeed, from a perusal of his account and illustration of them, I should hardly have known, unless from some of the names he gives and from his having told us, that he was writing of the race I …. Unbeaten Tracts In Japan." Vol. Ii., page 1"1.
t It should be written Ainu, not .. Alnos. " ; .. Unbeaten Tracts In Japan." Vol. Ii., page 189.
BATCHELOR AND CHRISTIAN AINU
~v. J OH N BATC HELOR AND NO~-C H KL!!i 'l' l AN Al NU MEN.
AMONG THE AINU OF JAPAN.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE .&.IlIIll' OJ!' JUIJr
and my wife have been for so many years most intimately connected with and working among. Whatever Mr. Landor may consider to be his own ancestry, I, for my part, prefer .to accept the account revealed and set forth in Genesis i-iii. Whatever that gentleman's illustra- tions may be, upon these I make no comment here, his writing can, in no sense, be relied on, particularly so when he touches upon matters connected with any department whatever of psychology or theology.
Dr. Howard also found his hairy specimen to write about, but in this case it happened to be a woman. He found her in a Russian hospital on the Island of Sakhalin. Of her he says: "The most astounding feature of all in this remarkable phenomenon, and that which at first caused me to inquire why the doctor allowed it the privileges of the female ward, was that the neck, chest, arms, and, as I afterwards found, the whole body was more hairy than the most hairy man I ever saw.
It Despite the atrocious appearance, this phenomenon was taciturn, shy, and docile, with an evident wish, were it possible, to be even friendly and amiable." '"
The inference, I suppose, the doctor desires the reader to draw is not only that the Ainu, both men and women alike, resemble the lower animals as regards quantity of hair, but also that they are no more capable of intelligent friendship and expression of amiability than those creatures are. But in this he is altogether mistaken, for not only is it possible for the Ainu to be friendly, but they are indeed so. They are just as much human as Doctor Howard himself, and neither more nor less so. According to Dr. Howard and another writer one would be led to conclude that the Ainu have not as much sense and capacity. for affection as a common Scotch collie. Furthermore, the doctor has informed us that the Yezo Ainu are descended from those of Sakhalin; the Ainu themselves, however, know nothing of this, and the Yezo Ainu scornfully repUdiate the idea. It is a purely gratuitous guess on the part of the doctor. Thus we find that almost all statements made by the passing stranger and ordinary traveler on these and kindred matters should be received with caution, and ought to be taken very much cum grano salis.. A few weeks or months is not sufficient time in which to learn all about a race of people and write a good, reliable book on them, especially so when the writers know nothing of the lauguage of the subjects of their remarks.
So much then for Messrs. Landor and Howard. But, it may be askt, does not one of the greatest Japanese scholars and writers on things Japanese speak somewhat in the same strain as these gentlemen? Well, yes I Professor Basil Hall Ohamberlain does appear in one place to be rather hard on the poor Ainn, but his writings may not, for a moment, be compared with those of the writers just men- … Trans·Siberian Savaies," paie 9. tioned. Whatever he says about the Ainu is reliable, and may not be lightly questioned. However, there is just one place in his writing with which I cannot agree. In concluding an essay on the Ainu, he finishes with the following remarks:* "By some European travelers this Japanization of the present generation (of Ainu), and the probable speedy extinction of the race, are mourned over. The present writer can not share these regrets. . • . But so little have they profited by the opportunities offered to them during the past thousand or two thousand years, that there is no longer room for them in the world. It (i. 6., this race) has no future, because it has no root in the past. . . . The existence of this race has been as aimless, as fruitless as the perpetual dashing of the breakers on the shore of Horo- betsu. t It leaves behind it nothing but a few names."
No one would ever suspect me of being one of those who think with the professor on this point. We might inquire as to what the so-called opportunities of the last one or two thousand years he speaks of have been. There is, perhaps, another side to this question upon which a great deal might be said, but a discussion of which would be outside the scope of this article. And as to saying that the race has 'been as aimless, as fruitless, as the perpetual dashing of the breakers on the shores of the sea, can it be demonstrated, indeed, that the dashing of these same breakers is aimless and fruitless? Is the least vibration of the earth or the smallest movement of air aimless and fruitless? Unless a man is infinite in knowledge and perception he surely has no right to say that this is so. Perhaps at the time when all mysteries are laid open before us, we shall see that the existence of the Ainu race has not been in vain. No; surely there can be nothing in the whole universe that is or has been absolutely useless. We believe that" God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." This being so, the Ainu existence may not lightly be called aimless and fruitless.
And when we remember that Christ, like the merchantman in the parable, sold all that He had, as it were, i. 6., laid aside His great and eternal glory for a time and became man, that He might come to this earth and seek after the goodly pearl of the human soul-when we remember Him as the good Shepherd seeking till he found the sheep that was lost-then, in some. degree, do we learn to look upon these friendless Ainu in the way that the Great Master of all looks upon them; then do we learn to see through the rugged exterior and understand something of what is contained beneath. And looking beyond • "lIIemoirlof the IJterature College, Imperial University of Japan." No.1. Pages 74,15.
t Horobetsu is a mixt village of Japanese and Ainu ou the East coast of Yazo, and Is open to the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Prof. Chamberlain spent a few weeka with the present writer and his wife at this place in 1888 for the study of the Ainu laqtIaie, hence the illustration. this present world to that which is to come, we see, with the eye of faith, men "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and natiou" (and surely this includes the Ainu race), standing round the throne of God and the Lamb. Thus we believe that when the Ainu race has served the purpose for which it was sent into the world, and not before, it shall pass away as other races have done before it and shall do after it. And so we go on working in faith.
That the Ainu is a disappearing race is a fact which can not be denied, for while thirty years ago the population numbered some thirty thousand souls, there are now no more than sixteen thousand of them left. And the fewer they become the faster they will die out. What with the rapid immigration of the Japanese, who come by thousands every year, and not only reside in and about the Ainu villages, but also take up the lands and the fishing grounds along the seacoast and rivers, thus pushing the Ainu out; what with the strong passion for alcoholic drink there is among the men; the poor food they have to subsist on; the inroads of disease and utter ignorance and disregard of the most elementary hygienic rules, together with other causes, it seems to be inevitable that the race should. become qnite extinct within a very few years. One or two Japanese philanthropists, indeed, have spoken about preserving the Ainu by placing them in :reserves, and the matter has been even mentioned in the diet, but so far it has all ended in talk. The doctor who attends to the Ainu who come to our" rest-house" in Sapporo, has examined and prescribed for some four hundred of them, and his opinion is that the race is worn out; its energy and vitality have disappeared. It would appear to be too late now to do anything effectually for the physical salvation of the people by way of placing them in reserves. The Japanese nation has missed a grand opportunity in suffering this poor people to be thus driven to the wall when it was in their power to help them.
Mission work has been carried on ft.mong those Ainu under Russian rule for many years and there are quite a number of Greek Christians, I understand, on the Island of Sakhalin. How many I have no means of finding out. I also hear that laws have been made and are rigidly enforced, by which it is forbidden to sell alcoholic liquors to them. I am sure the people are happier and better for this wise regulation. I wish I could say as much for the Japanese treatment of the Ainu in their dominions. So far from forbidding the sale of Sake* to them, there is now a distillery in full work right among the Ainu of the old capital of Piratori I It was built about twelve months ago, and has already done much harm to the people and the cause of Christ about there. I notice a great di1Jerence between the people to-day and what they were before this distillery was built. It is very distressini to * Sake is whiskey distilled from rice.
September
see ~he downward grade of many a promising youth, and the sad, tearful faces of what were but a short time since bright and happy wives.
So far as I am aware, I happen to be the first missionary of any denomination to preach the Gospel to the Ainu of Yezo in their native tongue. Speaking of the communion to which I belong, the Rev. W. Dening was originally sent in the year 1874 by the C. M. S. to take up work in Yezo with the special object of reaching the Ainu race, but he gave the most af his time to the study of Japanese in Hakodate, and tho he 'made one or two trips to some of the Ainn villages, notably those of Usu and Piratori for the purpose of studying the language, he was not able to spare enough time from the Japanese work to make himself proficient in the Ainu tongue. I was sent to Hakodate in the year 1877, having been obliged to leave Hongkong, to which place I was originally appointed, through malarial fever. For the space of two years I gave almost the whole of my time to studying the Japanese language, occasionally, however, making a short trip to the Ainu near at hand and while among them devoted myself to stUdying their language, religion, and customs, as a kind of rest and recreation from the difficulties of the Japanese tongue. These trips became more frequent till in the year 1882, having by this time gained some little knowledge of the language and people, I was appointed by the C. M. S. Committee to make the matter of evangelizing the Ainu my special work and first care. Hence the Ainu have for many yeam been my chief study while preaohing, the Gospel to them. Mrs. Batchelor has of course assisted me in no small degree in the work, and the Lord has been pleased to bless the labors of our hands abundantly.
But we are nOw no longer alone in this work. All the O. M. S. missionaries on the island have their share of Ainu to evangelize. The majority of the people, however, are still under my charge, for out of the total of 16,000, nearly 10,000 are in my district. A lady also has now been sent to help us in this cause, and there are three Ainu and two Japanese helpers laboring especially among the people. There is also a school for boys at Hakodate, and a "Rest-House" for the sick at Sapporo.
The first Ainu Christian admitted into our section of the Church of Christ was baptized on Christmas day in 1885, and he past away on January the 19th of the present year. In the following year three others were added to the church. In 1887 two more were baptized, and so on till the year 1893 the people came out by ones and twos· But in that year the seed which had been steadily sown during so long' a time'suddenly sprang to life, so that up to the present time more than seven hundred have been admitted into the Ohurch by baptism, while there are many others coming out. There are, in fact, more
TBB nu.a IN UPU
than a hundred catechumens uuder instruction at the present moment. Thus does the Lord add to His churches daily such as are being saved. Moreover, it has been my blessed privilege to give the Ainu the New Tt*itament in their own language. May the Lord continue His good work in the hearts of this poor downtrodden people.
THE YEAR IN JAPAN.
BY REV. GEORGE Wlf. KNOX, D.D• .As we closed our survey of the year in Japan, in July, 1896, came the news of the terrible disaster in the North. It was described in the October number of this REVIEW, by one who visited the scene on an errand of mercy. During the months following, there were terrible floods, and, later, a long continued epidemic of smallpox. But terrible catastrophies occur so often in Japan that they are accepted as natural and to be expected. So has it been from the dawn of history and so is it likely to be for ages to come. The only unusual thing is the bleSBed charity which hastens now to alleviate the suffering, a charity taught by our Lord but learned by multitudes who do not profess his name.
The Death of the Empress Dowager occurred in January, 1897, and her funeral gave opportunity for the Japanese to show that in some things at least they still are lovers of the past. The funeral ceremonies were prolonged, expensive, inexpressibly tedious (to impatient occidentals at least), exaggerated, antiquated. The empire was searched for oxeu of just the right ritual color to draw the cart that bore the coffin, the cart itself was of a peculiar pattern and its wheels emitted a monrnful sound as they revolved. After careful search oue ancient carpenter was found who knew how to construct the vehicle. The interment at last was at night, and an hour was consumed in lowering the coffin into its place. Everything belonged to the old, old Japan of elaborate ceremony, and endless time, and exhaustless patience.
Amnesty to prisoners was proclaimed. Sixty thousand were benefitted by a reduction in their sentences, and 16,000 were released outright. It was in vain that some of the newspapers protested that this ancient custom was more honored in the breach than in the observance. In the ancient times the presumption was all against the prisoner and he was often kept for years, sometimes for life, without his guilt .being establisht, even without formal trial. Many, too, were condemned for ceremonial or unintentional or some relative's transgressions implying no real guilt. For such the death of a ruler offered an opportu-
TlIB Y]U,B IN JAPAlf
nity for redress, and the prison doors were opened that innocent sufferers might go free. But now, it was argued, with the modern system of law men get only what they deserve, and such release of prisoners is at 'the expense of justice. They also prophesied an increase of crime as the result, a prophecy that has seemed to be fulfilled in the months past.
More in accordance with modern notions was the gift of 400,000 en from the Imperial purse to charitable institutions, though it is doubtful if even so royal a gift could make up for the sufferings caused dancing girls, actors, and musicians, who for fifteen days were forbidden to follow their means of livelihood. And after all the Empress Dowager was not the mother of the Emperor. But in family relationships, as in funeral ceremonies, Imperial Japan is still wholly archaic and unreformed.
With Foreign Powers.-Some of the very patriotic folks sharply reproved the government for not insisting on mourning by foreign courts. But European powers have never thus recognized Asiatic courts, and it is not yet clear that Christian usages can be extended to non-Christian states. In any case, some at least of the Japanese felt that a slight was put upon their idolized land.
A more serious matter was the reported Russian military mission to Korea, a mission seemingly in contravention of the treaty recently concluded between the two empires concerning the troublesome little kingdom. But this is now reported as arranged satisfactOl·ily. None the less does Korea remain a thorn in the patriotic flesh of Japan. None can pretend that she achieved peace with honor there.
Nor yet in Formosa. That remains a white elephant. Insurrections, epidemics, dissatisfaction, and worst of all, the conduct of the Japanese themselves appear as causes of the misfortunes and disgrace. The newspapers are keenly alive to the situation and loud in their demands for reforms, and in that is perhaps the brightest gleam of hope.
With Hawaii, too, there hits been trouble; the Japanese being at least technically right. This little cloud shows how all the world is one, since the Japanese protest against the exclusion of its laborers has hastened the action of our own executive in making its new treaty for the incorporation of the Sandwich Islands in our domain. 'rhe Japanese protest again as they already felt themselves aggrieved by our proposed new tariff with its increased duties on silks and matting, and its tax on tea. Perhaps the cutting off the latter tax may appease the cl~mor raised against the new" unfriendly" policy of the United States.
Politics at Home.-There has been the usual strife, but less acute, and the customary change of ministry. No ministry seems able to endure a twelve months. Perhaps the last may have a more kindly fate. Two measures of importance it has already with the willing help of Parliament accomplished. There is now greater freedom of speech and of the press. Indeed, Japan is now far in advance in this of some European powers that count themselves at the very top; Germany for example. Nor has there yet been undue license, though there have been occasions for excited debate. But freedom in Japan we venture to prophesy will prove to be conservative and not revolutionary.
But whether because of greater freedom or because of greater cause there are plain charges of serious corruption in the government. It is openly charged that the change of ministry was rendered possible by the bribery of Parliament. Certain it is that a hostile majority was converted mysteriously into one subservient, and certain also is it that a change is passing rapidly over Japanese society; a change ominous in many ways.
The Money Power.-Japan has still retained socially its feudal ideals and standards. In old Japan luxury, wealth, and display were despised. The poorest samurai counted himself superior to the richest merchant. In the great clans young gentlemen were trained as soldiers, and by precept and example were taught that wealth was not to be sought by gentlemen. Boys grew to manhood with no knowledge of trade and without a dollar they could call their own. In the old representative samurai families a puritan simplicity reigned. And after feudalism past the old standard remained. The smallest official felt himself of the governing caste and superior to common folks. The petty officials were poor but beyond suspicion. One could not fee even a policeman, not even for extraordinary service. The deference accorded them and the powers exercised by them, by men paid the merest pittance, was astonishing. Within a few years to be in the government service was the ambition of the brightest youth.
But with the new civilization comes a. change, most markt since the termination of the war. The old ambition that Japan be the equal" of the great Powers seems attainable ouly through a vast increase of wealth. The nation has never thought itself poor. It has had enough, but now with new ~ays of life come new needs. Civilization of the modern style is endlessly costly. Compared with Europe and America Japan is poor indeed, but it must maintain itself in the new society into which it has been forced. Expenditures increase apace, and taxation is in proportion. A clear example of the new influence is in the substitution of gold as money standard in place of silver. The change was effected in the briefest space of time, with the minimum of discussion and almost no dissent. The nation felt it another change advancing it towards equality with the favored nations of the West. The rapid adoption of the measure markt, possibly, the new influence of the money power. But the
Sept~~
nation agreed. So does it agree to the new social position accorded wealth. It is now said to be the ambition of young men to become rich, and the relative position of poor officials and rich merohants is suddenly reverst. There comes to be a scramble for money. New enterprises are planned, new resources sought, and new characteristics displayed. With all the vast extension of commerce and of manufacturing industry of recent years the nation still feels poor and st.ill craves wealth. One can not look upon this feature in new Japan without grave disquietude. Inevitable it doubtless is, but what shall become of the old charm of the old life, so restful, so full of grace, so far removed from the sordid strife of the modern world? One does not like to think that~' Christian" civilization taught Japan first how in most approved style to kill, and then introduced the scramble for more and more and ever more of this world's goods. It is not pleasant to be told that money makes and unmakes parliamentary majorities, and that a ministry can endure only if in alliance with millionaires. When shall we be able to say that not only Western modes of warfare, and of commerce, and of sordid politics, but that the Christ's teaching of love and truth has won Japan? Not at once we fear.
The Work of the Okurck.-Not yet does there seem to be a turn of the tide that has so checkt the advance. Indee'd, some of the keenest observers think this new strife for wealth the most antagonistic force which has yet appeared. Whatever be the cause the result is manifest.
Again the table of statistics of all mission work shows a net 1088. At the close of the year 1896 there were 349 fewer communicants in Protestant churches than were reported at the close of 1895, and 879 less than those reported at the close of 1894. Let us face the facts at their worst. Not counting the wives of missionaries, many of whom do most valiant and effective service, there are 472 foreign missionaries, with 281 ordained Japanese ministers, and 610 unol'dained preachers and helpers, and 204 Bible women, a total of 1,567 professionallaborers, and the net result for two years of work has been a loss in the number of communicants of 879. In the long list of columns the list of laborers almost alone show increase. More laborers and less results, that seems to be the story for years. And even the number of ordained Japanese shows a large falling off.
It is true that there is a pretty large number of adult baptisms reported (2,513), but this is less than in the year preceding, and that less than in the year before, and that also showed a decrease.
The largest diminution is in the work of the American Board, and the exceptional causes for its decrease are well known. For the first time, we judge, it falls to third place in the number of converts, and its native ministry is less than half, only 25 now against 60 a year before, while its students for the ministry are reported as only six. But tho special causes have affected this work long the most promising of all, still, at best, the other missions have only held their own.
It is much that they have held their own, and much that in that mission that has suffered so grievously so many stand fast and maintain the faith. In total result they are second, and in benevolence still leli.d all the rest.
The Hope jor the Future.-So far 3S we know none is discouraged. In the days of success many, as in the days of the early Church with apostolic leadership, profest the faith who did not know its power. And many flourisht for a time but had no root and by and by withered away. But many endure, and from them shall come the Church that shall endure. The work no longer occupies its old place in the public eye, it no longer comes with observation, but it endure~, and it will still possess the land.
In many places interest is manifested, and faithful work brings forth fruit. Missionaries and converts are in greater harmony than in times past. There is less unrest, less curiosity abont the latest novelty, anef a truer and more sober estimate of the work that must be done.
The experience in Japan is not exceptional. It is from such experiences that the Chnrch learns patience, faith, and its absolute dependence upon God's power. To learn that is to learn all, and at last to win all.
PANDITA RAMABAI AND HER WORK.
BY MISS GRACE E. WILDER, KOLHAPUR, INDIA.
The name of Pandita Ramabai isfamiliarto many. We American women are glad to recall the fact that when this young widow came to our shores, she received the sympathy and aid for which her heart was longing. Ramabai's efforts for the widows of western India, and more especially her present connection with famine widows, has 80 brought her into prominence that some may be glad to have a short review of a life so signally molded and used by God.
In the famine of 1876 Ramabai was a little Hindu girl living in, the jungles of India. Her father being a pundit, he chose So solitary abode-a custom not uncommon among the religious people of India. Both parents were anxions to have Rama become learned; so, from So child, she was taught the Hindu shastras. I have been told that she committed to memory 23,000 verses of the Hindu scriptures.
. Among others, her own people fell victims to the terrible famine. Of this time she says: "Eleven days and nights, in which we sub-
PANDITA. ,RAHABA.I AND DEB WOBlI
sisted on water and leaves, were spent in great mental and bodily pain. At last our dear father could hold out no longer. He determined to drown himself in the sacred tank neal' by. ' Remember, my child,' he said, 'you are my youngest, my most beloved child. I have. given you into the hands of our God; you are His, and to Him alone you must belong and serve all your life.' He could speak no more. My father's prayers for me were no doubt heard by the Almighty, the all merciful heavenly Father, whom the old Hindu did not know. The God of all flesh did not find it impossible to bring me, a great sinner and an unworthy child of His, out of heathen darkness into the saving light of His love and salvation."
Happily the resolve of suicide was not carried out, for later this father was attacked by fever, from which he did not recover. Ramabai touchingly tells of how fellow-villagers, being doubtful as to the caste of the family, offered no assistance, and her brother carried the lifeless form alone over two miles to its last resting-place.
The story of helplessness and starvation continued until mother and sister both died. She and her brother visited the large cities of India. She advocated female education, and after a time this young lecturer and Sanscrit scholar created a sensation by her views and scholarship. The pundits of Calcutta conferred upon her the distinguisht title ()f Sarasvati. Soon after this her brother died. "His great thought during his illness," she writes, " was for me." When he spoke of his anxiety, I answered: "There is no one but God to care for you and me." " Ah," he answered, "then if God cares for UB, I am afraid of nothing! and indeed in my loneliness it seemed as if God was near me, I felt his presence."
After the death of her brother, Ramabai married a Bengali gentleman. After nineteen months of married life she was left a widow with a baby daughter Manorama (Heart's Joy). She resumed her former work as a lecturer, going from city to city to plead for the education of native women and the discouragement of child marriage.
It was not long before her restless desire to go to England was real. ized. She writes: "It seems to me now very strange how I could have started as I did with my friend and little child, throwing ,myself on God's protection. When I reacht England, the sisters in St. Mary's Home at Wantage kindly received me. There I gradually learned to feel the truth of Christianity, and to see that it is a philosophy teaching truths higher than I had ever known in all our systems; to see that it gives not only precepts but a perfect example; that it does not give us precepts and an example only, but assures us a divine grace to follow that example." Here she and her daughter were baptized, and thus before reaching America she had profest an outward adherence to Christianity.
She was received into the home of Dean Bodley, of Philadelphia, and there received the encouragement and counsel and love of a truly great woman. In preparing an introduction to one of Ramaba.i's boo~s, Dean Bodley writes: "I askt her as she arose to depart if she had a last message for the readers of her book. 'Remind them,' she • replied, with animated countenance and rapid speech, as she claspt my hand, 'that it was out of Nazareth that the blessed Redeemer of mankind came; that great reforms have again and again been wrought by instrumentalities that the world despised. Tell them to help me educate the high caste child widows, for I solemnly believe that this hated and despised class of women, educated and enlightened, are by God's grace to redeem India.''' In remarkable ways God is causing Ramabai to realize the gradual fulfillment of this prophetic desire.
Her'home for widows is located at Poona, amid pleasant natural surroundings. The inmates-numbering at the close of last year between fifty and sixty-receive here not alone superior educational advantages, but a home-life which is a constant protest against the awful customs of Hindu widowhood.
During the last two years Ramabai has herself experienced a deeper knowledge of the life of Christ and of the possibilities of that life being manifested in her. Through the blessing of God on the efforts of an English evangelist, she was shown that the Holy Spirit is a living person. Her acceptance of Him and obedience to Him have had a markt influence on the girls in her home. Ramabai has always held the position that every pupil is free to join her at the time of morning and evening prayer. As the spirit of God has been manifested in this home, the attendance at prayers has increast, and last year twelve girls profest faith in Christ by baptism.
Six months ago-as fearful facts of famine su:ffering reachtRama- bai-her heart could not rest without making efforts to save the widows of Central India. "We shall be quite contented," she writes, "to have only one meal of common coarse food daily, if necessary, and so long as we have a little room or a seed of grain left in this' house, we shall try and help our sisters who are starving."
After a rail journey of many miles, Ramabai hired a bullock-cart, and visited some of the villages of the Central Provinces. She found that not only were young widows and deserted wives starving, but their lives were in great moral danger from wicked Mohammedans, who were taking advantage of this time of their dis- tress and helplessness.
Before we left India, Ramabai's jourlley had added 125 to Sarada Sadhan-her home in Poona. I saw many of these young widows, with skeleton forms and gaunt looks, which said more than their words. They were under a temporary inclosure of Bamboo poles, covered with clo.th and matting. When I said, "Ramabai, you now need bui,ldings," she replied, "Yes, and the Father must send the money." News has reacht me that the number of widows or deserted wives taken by Ramabai from famine districts has risen to 149, and preparations are being made to receive more.
We, who live in Western India, recognize God's gracious love and power in this chosen life. . We see that Ramabai is now gathering in the girls who will, with God's blessing, be teachers and missionaries to their own people. Will you help her by prayer, and by undertaking the support of one or more of the members of her increasing family?
We add the following account of the terrible condition of affairs in India, where the distress brought about by plague and famine is unspeakably augmented by the unprincipled use which evil men make to gratify their own lust. Pandita Ramabai is doing her utmost to rescue the young girls and child-widows who would otherwise fall into the hands of these human vultures.
At Sohagpur Ramabai first began the work of rescuing these starving girls. Sbe says: We found that we could not get the orphan children without the permission of the government, so our first business was to see the physician in charge of the hospital, and the tahsildar in charge of the poor-house. Before that hospital were walking three little famished skeleton-like forms, and this first sight of- their distress I shall never forget. The three children were of the Ohamar caste, their father had died some time ago, and the mother died only the day before. The eldest was a girl of about seven, the second a boy of five, and the youngest a baby boy three years of age. The girl was protecting herself from the intense cold with a covering of rags, and the two boys had nothing on their bodies. Their wrinkled faces and the ghastly, death-like expression told the story of the terrible suffering they were in. All of them were crying for food. The youngest had sore eyes, and could scarcely open them. The poor babe was suffering from dysentery, so much so that his intestines were almost falling out. T{) add to hIS misery, he had fallen down and hurt his back. The blood flowed freely from the injured part, which was already so sore and painful, but there was no one to care for him. He was crying, but tears were not to be seen in his eyes. The children were right before the hospital, but no one showed any sign of pity. It took us so long to find the officer in charge of the poor-house that when we returned they had gone, and though I went searching all over the town, I could not find them. Perhaps they died of hunger.
The poor-house was only a grove in the outskirts of the town. Groups of famisht people lying down in heaps, or sittin~ or lying in ashes on the dirty ground. Some had rags to cover theu bodies, and some had none. There were old and young men, and women, and children, most of the ill, too weak to move about, and many suffering from leprosy and other unmentionable diseases. Bad men, immoral wqmen, pure young girls, innocent children and old people, good, bad, and indifferent, were freely mixing and conversing with each other. They slept in the open air, or under the trees at night, and ate the scanty and coarse food provided by the government. The food was nothing but dry flour and some salt. Many of the so-called poor-houses are open grounds with a lIort of fence all round them. Some are nothing but sheds temporarily erected to shelter the people. The miserable men, women, and children, who find shelter in these places, are baked in the sun in the day and freeze in cold at night. In some places there is a thin fencing, where men and women are placed separately. But this arrangelllent is not much of a protection to the women. The devil is at work, even in these poor-houses and relief camps, and they are not fit places for young women and girls to be in. The European and native officers employed to look after the interests of the dying thousands are hard at work, and try to do as much as they can. But it is impossible for them to find out what goes on behind their backs; they are obliged to leave the work in the hands of the Mukadams, who can do whatever they like. They pull and push the working coolies, even women. Young men can be seen everywhere talking to girls and women under the pretense of doing the Mukadam's work. Wicked men and women are everywhere ou the lookout for young women and girls; they entice them by offering sweetmeats and other kind of food, clothing, and fair promises to take them to nice places and make them happy. So hundreds of girls, young widows, and deserted wives are waylaid as they go to the relief camps and poor-houses in search of food and work, and taken away before they place themselves in the custody of the governmeut. The wicked are not afraid of the judgment of God, they are sinning away their lives in the midst of the fearful scene of famine and pestilence. They are carrying on a wholesale trade in young girls who have been obliged to leave their families and wander away from home in quest of food. In many cases parents have fallen a prey to the famine, and left their young girls to the tender mercies of their neighbors, or fellow travelers, or other wayfarers. Such girls easily fall into the hands of wicked people.
Here is an instance: A young girl of fourteen, and a little sister of about eight years of a~e, were left orphans and taken possession of by a wicked man at !tarsI. I happened to see her in the streets and askt her who she was. She told me her whole story and said she would let me have her sister, who was not wanted by her cruel master, and that she could not come away for the fear of that man. I wanted to rescue the poor child but was at that time unable to do so. I prayed to the Lord to show me the way-and in the next week He sent help. A young missionary gentleman came to help me. He went to the police station and took her away from the "man who had kept her in his possession against her will. She was sent to the mission bungalow with a servant, but the former master carried her away by force. A~ain the missionary went to the town and fetcht her, and that very mght 1 took her to Jabalpur, and now she and her sister are placed with some good missionary ladies who will take care of them. The elder girl, poor child, is rumed for life, and.is suffering from horrible disease.
May the merciful Father help these children! Another young girl of about fifteen was some time ago wandering away from home, when a res~ectable looking man told her to go home with him and help his wife m the household work. She consented, and went with him. He gave her nice clothes and food, and for a few days all went on nicely with her, but the devil was at work in his heart. Other demands were made on her, but the girl said she had gone to his house to work and not for any other purpose. He then said that she should nDt get sari and fDDd, unless she cDnsented to fDllo.W his wishes.
" Very well," she said, and put Dn her DId rags, threw away the gDDd sari, and went Dut Dn the street again to beg her fODd. She was pickt up the same day by a kind lady and is safe with me now.
There are not many such girls who. will resist the devil in the face of starvatio.n and death. Go.d be thanked fo.r prDtecting the virtue of these innocents. But it has been my sad lot to see many little girls ruined for life.
My sympathies are excited by the needs of young girl widDws, especially at this time. To let them go. to the relief camps and pDor- hDuses, or allDW them to' wander in the streets and Dn the highways ,means their eternal destructiDn. Ever since I have seen these girls in the famine districts-some fallen into. the hauds o.f wicked people; some ruined fQr life and turned Qut by their cruel masters Qwing to.
bad diseases, to. die a miserable death in a ho.peless, helpless manner, SDme being treated in the hQspitals Qnly to' be taken back into the pits Df sin there to await a cruel death; some bearing the burdens of sin utterly lost to. the sense of shame and humanity-hell has become a horrible reality to me, and my heart is bleeding for those daughters of fond parents who have died leaving them orphans. Who. with a mother's heart and a sister's love can rest without doing everything in her power to save at least a few of the girls who can yet be saved from the hands of the evil ones I So, regardless Df the trying financial state Df my SChODl, I went to work in the Central Provinces to get a few of the helpless young widows.
The Father, who is a very present help in trouble, has enabled me to get SDme sixty widows, forty· seven Df whDm will go to SChDOI to study, and others will work. Over eight hundred and fifty rupees were spent in fetching them here. The Lord has put it into. my mind to save three hundred girls out of the famine districts, and I shall go to work in His name. The fundI! sent to me by my friends in Amer- ica. are barely enough to feed and educate fifty girls, and several peo-'
pIe are asking me how lam going to suppDrt all these girls who may come from Central India. Besides their food and clothing. new dor- mitories and dining-roo.ms must be built. Our present school-house is not large enough to hold more than one hundred girls at the most.
And how are these emergencies to be met?
I do. not know, but the Lord knows what I need. I can say with the Psalmist," I am Po.or and needy, but the Lord thinketh upon me." My girls and I are quite ready to fDregD all Dur cDmfDrts, give up luxuries, and live as plainly as we can. We shall be quite CDn- tented to' have Dnly Dne meal of CDmmDn CDarse fDOd daily, if neces- sary, and so. long as we have a little room or a seed Df grain left in this hDuse, we shall try and help our sisters who. are starving. It seems a sin to live in this go.Dd house and eat plenty of gODd fDod and be warmly clDthed, while thousands of Dur fellow creatures are dying of hunger, and are without shelter. If all of us do our part faithfully, GDd is faithful to. fulfil His prDmises. and will send uil the help we need at this time.
r humbly request you to pray for me and mine that we may be made strong in the Lord, and walk by faith and not by sight. Believe me, yours in the Lord's service, R.uLBAI.
MILITARY RULB IN MADAGASCAR
MILITARY RULE IN MADAGASCAR.
The past eight months have been a time of darkness and horror to many of the natives, upon which they will long 100Js back as upon a terrible nightmare. General Gallieni is a man of immense energy and a prompt striker. "With him," said one of his compatriots, "it is a word and a blow, and usually the blow comes first." He is said to have acquired the name of the "fusilier," and in Madagascar he has fully maintained his reputation. The shooting of rebels and others has been an almost daily occurrence. Many of those shot have, doubtless, been guilty of rebellion, or, as they would themselves perhaps say, of a determination not to be ruled by foreigners; but some of those so hastily shot down have been, in the judgment of many, absolutely guiltless of the charges laid against them. During a state of siege it often happens that young and inexperienced officers have great powers entrusted to them, and evidence is not very carefully sifted. Everything, too, has to be done through interpreters, whose knowledge of French is neither extensive nor accurate, and there is thus but small probability that a trial will be fairly conducted. Some of these officers seem to think it highly to their credit to shoot down natives. One of these said recently to one of his compatriots, " I am just going to shoot a native rebel-my seventy-third. Come and ~ee it done." All this may be a natural consequence of military rule; but it is none the less deplorable, and we long for the time when civil rule will be restored, and every accused person may at least have a fair opportunity of defense.
Madagascar is now a French colony, and the Queen has been banisht to Rennideo. This was a logical result of the steps already taken by the authorities. The hybrid form of government that existed for a few months after General GaIIi€mi's arrival could not last long, and the situation has been simplified by the removal of the Queen: Her power had already been taken from her, and she was of no service to the French rulers. Indeed, without any "fault of her own, she may have been an indirect hindrance to them in their efforts to pacify the country. The general has not charged her with any act of disloyalty, tho, perhaps, she did not show enough gaiety to satisfy Frenchmen. She remained a Protestant to the end, notwithstanding many attempts to induce her to change her religion.
The general results of French rule in Madagascar are becoming more and more apparent. Great labor is being expended on roadmaking, and the general appearance of the capital is rapidly changing. Not many new public buildings are being erected; but great activity is shown in altering and adapting the many native houses that have fallen into the hands of the government. The central parts of the city will soon become entirely French. During this month of May hundreds of workmen are busy in Adohalo, a fine open space in the very heart of the city, and it is said that by the Fete of the Republic, on July 14th, the place will have undergone a complete transformation, and will have become a public garden, with a band- stand in the center.
The French rulers are gradually perfecting their system of com- mercial government and of taxation, and also the regulation of the corvee. It was said at the beginning of the occupation that the covee was dead-an evil system that would never be revived. The natives, however, are finding that such hopes were an illusion. Every able-bodied man is required to spend fifty days a year in roadmaking, or in certain privileged cases he pays five dollars. In addition to this there are military requisitions of different kind and various taxes, and many are beginning to feel the hand of the conquerer press' heavily upon them.
But the bearing of French rule on the cause of Protestant mis- sions is the topic possessing most interest for the readers of~ this RE- VIEW, and to that we address ourselves.
General Gallieni reflects the feelings of thousands of his fellow , countrymen in showing himself strongly opposed to English influ- ence. He was sent, it is said, to fulfill a two-fold mission: to destroy the rule of the Hova and the English supremacy. "English suprem- acy" with him and with many others simply means the influence of the London Missionary Society. It is strange to those actually en- gaged in the work of that society to find their influence regarded as an important factor in the political situation. In carrying ·out this policy, General Galli€mi is simply following out the lines laid down by M. Ie Myre di Vilers, who said the two irreconcilable enemies of France in Madagascar were the Hova Government and the London Missionary Society. The latter, he said, has always cherisht the se- cret design of securing the annexation of Madagascar by England.
A series of events has shown how strong the anti-Protestant (or anti-English) feeliug is among the French officers. From the begin- ning of the occupation Protestant churches have been requisitioned for the use of the soldiers, but, so far as I know, not a single Roman Catholic church has been so taken. This has been a great trial to the . Protestant Ohristians, who have been grieved to see their houses of prayer become scenes of debauchery and immorality. In the com- pound of a mission house in the country, on property belonging to the London Missionary Society, huts have been erected for the native women who follow the soldiers.
The seizure of the large hospital at Goavinandriana, and more recently the purchase of the principal educational establishments of the London Society, have been regarded by the people generally as a blow dealt at the work of that society. That this was the real motive that led General Gallieni to enforce the sa.le of these buildings, is shown by the naive confession of the correspondent of the Temps. This gentleman, evidently well informed, after stating the sum paid for the buildings, says, "This sum, which at first appears very considerable, is relatively slight, considering the injury done to the prestige of the society, for it is thereby deprived of its most powerful means of propaganda."
An illustration that throws much light upon the French policy is found in the action of the administration in regard to the Normal School building. When arrangements were being made last February for the purchase of its buildings named above, it was said by General Galli€mi's intermediary, that they were absolutely required by the exigencies of the public service. Within a few hours, however, of the arrival of the Paris missionaries last month, the Normal School building was offered them on condition that no Englishman should take any part in the work to be carried on in it. The building and the whole work connected with it was accordingly handed over to Mr. Mondain, of the Paris Society, a few days ago; and Mr. Richardson, who has had charge of the school 25 years, is leaving the island.
Another instance illustrating the same point is that of the church at Andohalo. This is a building of burnt brick, built after designs prepared by the late Mr. William Johnson. The people have spent a large sum on the building, but they also gave much labor, especially in digging very deep foundations. The site is one of the best in the town, and we attacht a special value to it, because from its fine central position it would have been so convenient for united meetings of various kinds. The congregation was founded by missionaries of the London Missionary Society more than 30 years ago, and the former building was erected almost entirely at the expense of friends of that society. The building was required by the government, and the people have sold it (according to Mr. Peake's estimate) for about half its value. Their defense is that they had no option in the matter. We are greatly disappointed to lose this building, and the more so, as we had a written promise from the General, that none of our church buildings should be taken by the administration, unless we ourselves agreed to treat in a friendly manner. This we have not done, but have urged strong reasons why the building should not be taken. All the material claims of the London Missionary Society are fairly met by the French government; but this is no compensation for the loss of such a well-situated and well-built church. Rumors are common both among the natives and among Frenchmen that this church is to be turned into a theater. Let us hope this is one of the cases in which rumors may prove false.
In the Betsileo province the French president, Dr. Besson, has shown a bitter animus against the work of tbe London Missionary Society. The people have been terrorized by the agents of the Jesuits in the most shameless fashion. Many of the agents of the London Missionary Society have been banisht from the province on the plea that they were Hovas, whilst other Hovas are not interfered with, and stranger still any of these agents who are willing to become Roman Catholics, are also permitted to remain. The latest news from this district is that twelve leading men from Ambohimandroso have been imprisoned or put in chains, the only charge against them being (so far as our friends can learn) that they have been friendly with the English and have spoken against France. No opportunity has been given them of rebutting these charges.
It should in fairness be stated, however, that this intolerance is by no means universal among the French administrators. There are large sections of the country in which the proclamations guaranteeing religious liberty are faithfully adhered to, and where much kindness has been shown by French officers to the native Protestant Christians. Everything seems to depend upon the character of the officer in charge, and on the greater or smaller influence the Jesuits have over him. The districts in which the Protestants have suffered most are those of Betsileo, already mentioned, and of Ambatomanga. Of the latter district the missionary in charge could tell a sad story. More than twenty Protestants were shot in a small circle of villages a few weeks since" with scarcely the shadow of a trial. It is quite enough if some overzealous native governor calls them fahavalo (or rebels), and in a few hours they may be dead.
Dark as recent experiences have been, however, there seems some reason to hope that the worst is past, and that the fierceness of this intolerance is abating. Since March there has been no more church stealing, and some few of the buildings have been restored. Some of the churches requisitioned by the military authorities (as Imahamasina and Isoavina) have also been recently restored to ns. Mr. Leban, the Colonial Minister, has also promist that compensation shall be paid for the hospital. We trust these indications of fair treatment may soon be followed by the restoration of religious freedom, such as was enjoyed before the war. The French might in regard to this matter well learn a lesson from the despised Hovas. During the war of 1883- 1886, tho all the French were expelled, their native congregations suffered no persecution, nor were their buildings taken from them by the powerful Protestant majority.
Our main ground of hopefulness as to the future lies in the action of the Paris Missionary Society. A year ago it was thought that some slight help may be rendered by that society to the Protestant cause. The severe troubles of the native Protestants and the stirring appeals of Messrs. Kruger and Langa throughout France, have deeply stirred the heart of the Protestant churches there, and already they are enter- ing with much zeal and earnestness into this work. Five new mis- sionaries arrived a month ago, and a few days after their arrival a large meeting attended by 1,200 or 1,400 Protestant Christians of Antananarivo was held in the Amparibe Church to bid them welcome. At the present moment their position is this: They have taken charge 'of all primary schools, nearly 500 in number, with more than 30,000 scholars. They will also train teachers in the Normal School, and take charge of "the Palace School." They will also settle in distrest districts, and undertake general visitations for the encouragement of the native Protestants. Reenforcements are expected, and it seems probable that the bulk of the London Missionary Society's work will gradually pass into their hands. It is possible the Swiss Society will also take some share in the work; as recent events make it abundantly clear that it will be much to the advantage of the native churches to be placed under the superintendence of French-speaking missionaries.
How soon this transfer of work may take place can not, of course, be foreseen; but events have been marching rapidly of late, and the work of the London Missionary Society in this land may come to an end much sooner than some of us anticipated. Still there remains the hope, that if the larger portion of the work is taken over by the French-speaking missionaries, some few of the English workers may remain for a few years, so as to preserve the continuity of the mission, and to give to the Frenchmen the benefit of their knowledge of the language aud of the people. Whatever the final issue of event;s may be, the foundations, laid broad and deep by the English society, will not be destroyed. The written language, the translated Bible, the spread of elementary education, the developmeut of higher education and of medical study, the general principles of church order, and the native missionary society-these are things that will abide; and those who follow us in this land will gladly acknowledge that other men labored, and that they had entered into their labor.- • Since the aboTe was written we haTe had a tragic illustration of how much anti-foreign feeling may still be smoldering under the apparent calm. On Monday, May 17th, the Revs. B. Escande and P. Minault, of the Paris Society, left the capital tor Betsileo. Mr. H. F. Standing, of the Friends' Mi88lon, went with them part of the way, and lett them on Thursday morning. 'On the Friday morning, when nearing a large market, they were suddenlyattackt by a party of SO armed rebels and killed. Details have not yet reacht us. But the bodies, we hear, haTe been recovered by the Rev. E. O. McMahon, of the Angelican Mission, and buried at his station of Ramainandro. A gloom has been cast over the Protestants ot AntananariTo by his sad news. Six victims have now tallen since the outbreak of' the rebellion. Mr. and Hi'll. Willism Johnson and little Blo88om at Arivonlmamo; Father Berties near AmbohlbemaMI&Ildro, and now Messrs. Escande and Mlnault near Ramainandro.
A.LLlA.NCE }fi1!1I10NARY OFFERlNGII
THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE MISSIONARY OFFERINGS.* BY REV. H. WILSON, D.D., NEW YORK.
Nearly a quarter of a million dollalrs were subscribed at five meetings during the summer and autumn of 1896, in one day at Old Orchard meeting, August 9, 1896, .101,500 being obtained without special effort, and October 11, at Carnegie Hall, New York City, *122,000 more so freely given, that those on the platform could hardly keep pace with the tide of pledges and money poured in upon them. Beginning at Old Orchard with a one dollar bill, given by a very poor woman, and followed by a nickel brought up by a little boy, the offerings rose steadily to the amount given above. While at Carnegie Hall a washerwo~an handed in $25 as the first contribution, followed by others, thus varying from 10 cents to $10,000, till the total reacht the sum which has startled so many by its size, and the perfect ease with which it was obtained, and this in a year of great financial depression. . Let me try to answer the question so often askt us and from so many quarters: "What is the secret of this spontaneous and magnificent giving at the conventions of the Christian Alliance? How is it. that a body of people so poor, can be led not only to pledge but to pay so much to the cause of Foreign Missions, and in times of such financial pressure? They do it.
I. Because they have caught God's Tlw1tght for the world. By years of truthful teaching they have learned God's idea of missions, viz., the rapid evangelization of the heathen world in preparation for the speedy coming of our Lord to this earth again.
Not the conversion of every soul on the earth, but the preaching of the Gospel for a witness to those who have never heard it, giving at least one chance to know Ohrist and be saved to those millions in heathen lands who have never had one chance in contrast to those in Christendom, who have been preacht to till they are Gospel hardened.
II. The second reason for the extraordinary liberality shown at the close of these conventions is the gradual and solemn preparation for the offering.
These extraordinary gifts for missions are not spasmodic or hypnotic in their character. They are not the result of any labored appeal to the feelings, or of playing upon the emotions of the audience. A stranger dropping in and sitting on the outskirts of the vast multitude at Old Orchard, or any similar meeting, would perhaps be • We have asked Rev. H. Wilson, D.D., who has been familiar with the whole history of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, to give a succinct account of the missionary olferings at Its conventions, which may at once Inform the public and correct erroneous statements. puzzled to account for the result of a simple Gospel sermon of perhaps 45 minutes in length. But if our stranger or critic friend had been present from the beginning of the convention, and observed that for 14 days-beginning each morning at 6 :30, and going on almost c9n- tinuously ti1110 :30 or 11 at night, comprising from 12 to 15 different meetings-the people were under the direct and continuous influence of the Holy Spirit, he might catch the secret of the closing day. For two weeks the great themes of our life in Ohrist and His life in us, for salvation, sanctification. Healing and the second coming of the Lord, and their practical outcome in the salvation of sinners and the evangelization of the heathen are presented and dwelt upon by speakers filled with the Holy Spirit, and listened to by thousands of equally baptized people. Added to this comes the mighty influence of men and women, lately returned from their missionary fields among the heathens, and speaking with the freshness and power of a living experience. With the eloquence of facts backed up by aims of deepest consecration, the Holy Ghost himself speaks through these to the hearts of the people, and keeps speaking until all prejudice is removed, false views dissipated, eyes are opened, vision cleared, minds enlightened, and hearts are melted into one mighty stream of tenderness and love for the 100,000 souls a day that are passing to their doom.
In.fact, the outpouring on the closing Sabbath is but the natural, or rather supernatural result of the inpouring of right, truth, and life throngh the Holy Spirit during the days preceding it.
III. A third reason for this liberal aLd continuous giving on the part of onr people is their confidence in the simplicity and economy of administration of the funds they so freely give.
Without any invidious comparison with the system and methods. of other societies, it is simple justice to state that every dollar subscribed at these great meetings goes directly to the object for which it was given. With the exception of about $2,000 spent on the rent of one or two very plain offices, printing and stationery, the whole of the large sums pledged and paid goes straight to the field for the spread of the Gospel.
Excepting a bookkeeper, who receives a very modest sum, there is not a paid officer in connection with our Board and committees, while the 200 missionaries are sent out and supported on the fields for a year for an average sum of $500. The missionaries abroad and the people at home know these things. Oonfidence is begotten and enthusiasm awakened by the lives of those sent, and the sympathy of those who send them. And when the simplicity of the system is justified by the results attained; when, from one missionary on the field eight years ago, the number 11as grown to over 300 now at work in various parts of Japan, Ohina, Thibet, India, Africa, Palestine, Bulgaria, Hayti, Brazil, Venezuela, aud the income of our society has risen steadily from *5,000 in 1888 to $140,000 last year, the offerings of the past summer are not so hard to understand. The secret is an open one to those who have seen the vision of Jesus, heard His commission, and breathed in His Spirit.
THE MADRAS CHRISTIAN A880CIATiOJl'
THE MADRAS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
BY DAVID MCCONAUGHHY, M. A.
The success of the experiment which the Young Men's Christian Association of America entered upon, when, in 1889, they sent out their first representatives, one to India and the other to Japan, is no longer questioned. There had previously been a few associations in India, but the character of the new organization, which was establisht in Madras early in 1890, was distinctly different from these. In that land where caste is so rife amongst Europeans, as well as Hindus, it resolutely refused to recognize any distinction whatsoever of race, rank, or religion. Any young men of good character were admitted as associate members, while the management was retained in the hands of active members who must be in the communion of some Protestant Christian Church. The Madras Association was also establisht upon a self-supporting basis, refusing to be subsidized from outside, altho its work might easily have been doubled or quadrupled at any time, if this principle had not been adbered to. Tbe board of directors has from the outset insisted that the growth, tho slower, would be surer and more permanent, if not dependent upon outside sources. During the first seven year!! about $10,000 had been contributed by the members and friends of the association in Madras. Every expense except the salary of the General Secretary has thus been provided. The principle of supporting Indian agents solely by funds raised in India has now been adopted for the National Union, as well as for the local associations, and all surplus is now applied toward this end. Amongst the subscribers to theassociation are His Excellency, Sir Arthur E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, and each of the members of his Executive Council, as well as the Lord Bishop of Madras, the Venerable, the Arch-Deacon, the Bishop's Chaplain, and a hundred others prominent in Church and State, in government and commercial circles. Perhaps no better proof than this can be given of the seal of divine approval which has been put upon the work of this association in reward for its adherence to the principle of the real brotherhood of man. Of the more than four hundred members of the Madras Association, nearly one half are non-Christians. Tho without any voice in the management, they enjoy all the varied privileges which the association affords, including that of being brought into living contact with Christ in the persons of the active members in the rooms, socials, lectures, educational classes, and on the athletic field day by day.
As long ago as 1892 the need of a building began to be felt, and the members of Madras have since contributed more than $1,600 toward the building fund. In 1894 Dr. Pentecost proposed at a drawing. room meeting in Kent House, London, that a building be provided on international lines, India to provide the cost of the foundations, Great Britain the site, and America the superstructure. That suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, and within a few weeks some *6,000 was raised in England. At the end of more than two years of patient negotiations, the site was secured which His Excellency Sir Arthur E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, when laying the corrierstone in January, described as "really magnificent." It faces the Esplanade-the open green of the city-just opposite the handsome buildings of the high court and law college, with the electric tramway passing in front and a great Union railway station about to be built near bv. Within a stone's throw, on the east, is the Madras Christian College, and on the west the principal Hindu college of South India, while just across the China Bazaar road stands the splendid new building of the law college. Facing on three streets, the site has a frontage of 151 feet and a depth of 126, covering an area of 19,000 feet. The story of the purchase of this ground is in itself a fascinat- ing chapter in the growing volume of answers to prayer. It was in I 1893 that an amateur photographer focused his camera upon the block of old tin bazaars which then covered this piece of land. That photograph, though not even shown to the board of directors for . many months, like Hezekiah's letter, was spread before the Lord. In spite of obstacles, which all who were at all acquainted with the cir- cumstances pronounced insurmountable, the conviction had been begotten that that ground had been given of God for the purposes of this association. It was not until November 27, 1896, that the last obstacle to the purchase was removed, and it has been only within the past month that the collector's certificate has been obtained, giving an indisputable title to the entire property. There were more than a sC,.ore of different signatories (all non-Christians) requisit in order to complete the transaction, and the consent of more than twice this nnmber of Hindus was required. In the midst of the eighteen tin bazaars, which formed the front of the lot, were two, the revenue of which went to support an Hindu temple, and these were h~ld by trustees. After all the other owners had come to terms, two, whose holdings measured about six by eight feet each, still held out for an exorbitant price-five times the amount they had paid only a few years ago. Every effort to bring them to terms had been exhausted, and as they believed that their ground was absolutely indispensable to the purpose of the association, they believed they could get what- ever they demanded. On the last morning before the last monsoon ended, the building committee of the Madras Association met for con- ference and prayer over this matter. In the course of the two hours thus spent, the committee pleaded with God to once more cast out the heathen to give place to His people. Within an hour after adjourn- ment these bazaars were a crumbling mass of ruins, a cyclone having swept across the town while the committee was still in session. As the Hindu owners stood wringing their hands in front of the ruins a little later that morning, they were overheard lamenting that this calamity had overtaken them in retribution for their having refused to sell the ground to the association for a reasonable price. Next day the ground was bought for less than half what they had been demanding.
Meanwhile, friends in America have come forward and contributed the full amount required both for the superstructure and for furnish- ing, the Hon. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, personally assum- ing the cost of the former, which is estimated at $30,000. The site cost about $12,000, of which two-thirds has now been contributed. The building is now in course of erection, and it is expected that it will be ready for occupancy next year.
INTlIBlU.T10NAL DBPABTK:IIlfT. [Septemb&t
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Anglo-Ohinese College, Foochow, dred .dollars, the Missionary Society Ohina. added twenty-five hundred, and the property mentioned was bought. The REV. GEO. B. SllYTH, D.D., PRESIDENT. school was opened, and has ever since been conducted on the lines then laid The Bok LiDg Anglo·Chinese Col- down. The College therefore had its lege, to give it its full name, was birth in the brain and heart of a gener· founded sixteen years ago, by Diong ous Chinese, not in the treasury of the Hok Ling, a Chinese merchant at FOG- Missionary Society of New York, and chow. Unhappily for himself, as he this fact alone should plead eloquently regarded it, he was a gentleman wholly with those who are interested in educaunlearned in the knowledge of books, tional work in connection with missions for when young he could not afford to in China. go to school, and so grew up without those educational advantages the lack I am well aware that compared with of which he never ceast to mourn. some American gifts toward the found· But he had energy and faithfulness, ing of colleges, the one of which I am and after working for a time for others, writing is small indeed. but it must be he came from Amoy, his native city, thought of in connection with the cirand opened a small shop at Foochow, cumstances. It was given toward the which finally grew into the larger founding of a Christian school by a store so well known to both Chinese Chinese who was not a Christian, and and foreigners at this port. Increasing it is, so far as I know, the largMt gift wealth did not make him less sensible for such a purpose yet made in China. of what he always considered his great Again, the founder was not a rich man misfortune, and he resolved that when in the American sense, indeed. in west· the opportunity offered he would found ern countries he would have been con· a school where young men, who wisht sidered poor. If his business had con. it, might acquire a thorough education. tinued to prosper he would have added Be made careful observations as to the to the first sum, but he met with rebest way in which to realize his gener- verses, and left but little at his death. ous purpose, and give permanence to Christians will be glad to know that the work when it should be once beguu. soon after founding the college, he He finally decided to place his gift at entered the Methodist Church, of the disposal of a Board of Trustees which he remained a faithful member who should control it for the Mission. until his death in 1890. ary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This Board was composed of In the following numbered parathe United States and British Consuls, graphs I would invite attention to the agent of the Hong Kong and Shang- some special points in the character and hai Bank,several members of the Meth- position of the college. odist Mission, and, one each, from the American Board and English Missions. 1. The purpose of the college is to The donor then handed over ten thous- prepare young men for the work of life and doUars toward the purchase of a by giving them a sound education, fine building, other Chinese, stimulated both moral and intellectual, in the Chi- ' by his example, subscribed fifteen hun· nese and English languages. The English course is very much like that of the smaller colleges in America.
INTERllfATION.A.L DEPARTMENT
omitting Latin and Greek. The spe- foreign gentleman in the compilation cial study of English is kept up of an Anglo-Chinese dictionary, and through the students' whole course, is now a :aritish government interand there are the usual courses in preter in Singapore. He is a consistent mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Christian, and superintendent of the In addition there Is a systematic pro- Methodist Sunday-school there. gram of Bible study, including Scripture history and the history of the 3. So far as the students are con- Church. cerned, the college Is sclf-supporting, not one of them receiving pecuniary 2. It is a Christian college. Cinis- aid of any sort from the college or the tianity is the basis of its teaching. mission. They pay in full for board, This is announced in our catalogs and in addition, the current expenses, and every father who sends his son such 8S salaries of Chinese teachers, here knows to what he is sending him. Chinese tutors in English, repairs, fur- Nevertheless, no compulsion is ever niture, and other items, amounting last employed, we deal with perfect good year to about $2,500, were met by their faith with the parents of the students, fees. Besides the salaries of the forallowing perfect freedom of conscience, eign teachers, of whom there are three, o1fering no allurements or inducements the Missionary Society makes an annu_ of any sort, yet enjoying the right to al grant of *260, and this sum has-to present the truth in fulness to all. Re- be used entirely in the purchase of ligious services are held every morn- necessary apparatus. ing, and all are required to attend one service at the church on Sunday. The attendance is larger than that of There is a Young Men's Christian As- any other college in China; this year it sociation, the first of its kind in China, is 237. This represents a great advance which conducts a weekly prayer-meet- since 1887, when we had but fifty-four. ing. The president of the Association For some years the higher classes lookt is also president of the local Epworth at the college with suspicion, but their League. Tho the majority of the fears have been removed, and now we students who go out from us do not en- have the large number given above, gage in direct Christian work, some of many of whom arc the sons of men, our graduates are prominently con- who, a few years ago, would not have nected with the Church. One of them allowed them to enter a school conis the principal teacher in the Theolog- nected, however remotely, with a ical Seminary of the Church of Eng- Christian church. The students reland Missionary Society, a second, who present every class eligible for admisis a member of the Foochow Confer- sion to the government literary examience, has recently gone to America to nations. Some are the sons of poor men pursue a. theological course, while who are obliged to work hard to give still another, a graduate of the class of them an education, while others are the 1896, was elected last November by the sons of merchants and officials. Rich National Council of the College Young and poor, Christian and non-Christian, :Men's Christian Associations of China all alike are represented, the only reas the Chinese delcgate to the conven- quirements being that they be of suittion of the WorId's Christian Students' able age, be properly recommended, Federation, at Williamstown, Massa- pass the examinations, study diligently, chusetts. There are others engaged in and conduct themselves as gentlemen. direct Christian service, though not so They are, therefore, with a few excepprominently as thcse. tions such as are met with in every school, a body of self-respecting young One young man deserves special students, who come here to learn, who mention. He workt his way through have something at stake both financollege against great odds, helped a cially and in reputation, and who are intent upon making the most of oppor- spring term in 1896, the numbers who tunities which it costs them something desired to be in residence were so great to get. that I was compelled to borrow one of I'i. The college is situated at one of the mission residences for a temporary the treaty ports, and one of the great- dormitory, tho the one we had would est literary centers in China. As the accommodate 104. I promised, however, chief center of the tea trade of southern to have a new dormitory by the open- China, it has a large number of mer- ing of the present term on the 23rd of ,chants of enterprise and wealth, and February, and resolved to raise the the influence which such men natural- money here. I am happy to say that ly possess. None of these have en- I have been able to keep that promise, tered the Vhurch, or look upon its and when the new students came in purely evangelistic work with any sort last week the building was ready for of sympathy. But the advantages of a their reception. It is three stories high, school like this are so apparent that seventy· five feet long, and has rooms some of them send their sons here to for sixty-six students, a monitor's room, be educated. One result is the estab- servant's room, office, reception-room, lishment of friendly relations with men and two school-roOlps. The cost is whose friendship is valuable, and the nearly three thousand Mexican dollars, gradual revealing to them what Chris- and not a dollar has been askt or re- tianity is. ceived from foreigners. The whole Thus, to that extent at least, is reacht work was done by Chinese subscrip- a class of men who are for the present tions. The money came from different as far beyond the reach of all the other sources. The officials of the city sub- agencies of the Church as if they were scribed $600, a Cantonese merchant, inhabitants of another planet. who gave $200 himself, raised $500 Again, Foochow is the literary center more among his friends; a former stu- of the province, the focus of all its dent here $150 as a thank-offering for most powerful influences, the meeting- what the college had done for him, the place of those whose teaching and ex- Foochow Mint gave $100 and promised ample count for most with their fellow to give regularly $100 a year; various provincials. Surely it is no small thing sums ranging from $5 to a $100 were to have an institution here on which given by others, and so the amount many of this class look with favor and grew. The new dormitory is therefore to which they send their sons. They a striking testimony to the confidence do not hesitate to be known as its in the work of the college, which is felt friends, to visit it, and to recommend its by those who know it best.
work to others. The college thus be- A pleasing evidence of interest of an- comes leaven, which, tho working slow- other kind was shown by His Excel- ly, works surely, toward the establish- lency, Lo Fu Luh, the new minister to ment of a better understanding between England, in sending fans and scrolls these men and the Church; it is a plat- with complimentary sentences in his form on which men of both sides may own handwriting to the heads of our meet and discuss together the great various classes at our last Commence- theme which brought us here, the re- ment. This gentleman will be remem- generation of China through the vital- bered in America as Li Hung Chang's izing power of Christianity. interpreter on his tour around the 6. Last year the Chinese of this city world. His nephew, who has just been gave striking proof of this confidence appointed Chinese Consul-General at in the college, by their ready response Singapore, was present, and made an to my request for subscriptions for a address of much encouragement to new dormitory. At the opening of the the students. A ffigh Oaste Woman's Oonversion. making an offering to the shrine at- tacht to the tree. She was so devoted MRS. J. T. GRACEY, ROCHESTER, :N. Y. that nothing would satisfy her but the building of a temple, and now near the The conversion recently of a high- city of Madras, where the Methodist caste Brahman lady, in the city of Mad- church has lately commenced work, ras, India, and her public baptism in stands a temple, a monument to her the Methodist church, has attracted idolatry and devotion. Every week considerable attention throughout that she visited this place, and often spent country. While the great ingathering many days, feeding and sustaining the in the churches has come from the people connected with the tem~le, and lower classes, there is now a movement decorating the idol with some of her among the higher classes of women, tinest jewels. Her own house was who have been receiving instruction in tilled with idols, in her own room she the 2;enanas. The experience in the had twenty-five pictures of idols and a present case is one of many who have dozen images. As the holy child in grown weary of their false religion, the household she decorated the idols and long for something higher and with flowers, drank the sacred water better. The story as told by the after placing it before the idol, and for one instrumental in her conversion is hours would sit with a wet cloth about of thrilling interest. She was a strict her, counting the beads that were given Brahman, and from the day of her for this office, offering a prayer over birth had all the lites of her sect per- each bead, until a thousand were acformed for her, and in the seclusion of complisht. Every day she lighted beher ancestral home, amid all its wealth fore shrines and idols two or three and luxury, was devoted to her gods. hundred little oil lamps, excluding Her father was a man of great wealth, from her mind everything else, but mediand exerted a powerful influence, and tated upon the Vedas, thus performing was of the strictest Bl'ahmanical sect, the ceremony called, .. the million and many of his friends, who are lights," to insure a pathway of light among the leading citizens, express when she should come to die. astonishment that the daughter of such a cultured man should embrace Chris- This was the woman, with intellect tianity. The daughter was the young- bright, and with a religious devotio~ est child, and was taught early to live scarcely surpast, when the Methodist an idolatrous life. According to Hindu missionary found her about two years custom, she married at the age of ten, ago. It is now no longer necessary to and at her wedding thousands of rupees hide the true object in teaching the were spent. As is the custom with woman in 'the zenanas. They have Hindu wives, she divided her time be- been taught various things in the way tween her mother's and her husband's of fancy work that an opportunity home. She was of a thoughtful and might be afforded for presenting religious turn of mind, and from her Christian truths. Now the study of early years there was no ceremony in the Scriptures is required. This womwhich she did not take part. She an desired to be taught, and accepted went to eight sacred rivers, and bathed the conditions, against all the remonin the sea, visited fifty temples, and strances of her family. She did not the bread she ate was from a certain want the Scliptures, she wanted other temple. At one time she fasted for things, and was willing to take the one forty days to appease the gods, taking for the purpose of securing the other. only a little milk. She performed many Sometimes she would take a lesson, at penances,chlef of which was making the other times she was too much engaged circuit of a certain tree forty-two times with fasting, prayer, and idol-worship Tery early in the morning, each time to pay any attention to her teacher, and without a word would wave her hand ran. I was so frightened, I would not for her to leave, as there were often stop to take my breath, but at every days when she had to keep silence, not step I took I felt as if some one were a word escaping her lips. behind me. The swifter I ran, the But then came a Change. The quiet, swifter seemed the step. If I am persistent presentation of the truth and caught what will become of me, I reading of the Word had its influence, thought, but I ran on and on, and at her zeal for idol-worship began to flag, your gate I stopt. I felt that if I were and she failed to visit her temple. caught, I would scream, and you She had contemplated having a golden would all run out, and help and protect image of herself in the act of prostra- me. When I stopt, I turned around.
tion before the idol, but that was given There was nobody. Then and there I up. She neglected many of her relig- offered a prayer. I told God I might ious duties, and her family became be dragged back on the streets (about greatly concerned. half a mile) on which I ran, I might The mother and ever vigilant priests have to endure persecution, trial, and were on the alert, and she was ordered hardships, but I askt him to keep me to dismiss the teacher, which she did, faithful to him."
tho this caused her great sorrow. Soon Reaching the home of the missionary after she wrote a letter to her teacher, who had been instrumental in her con- in which she opened her heart, and version, who was busily engaged in told how her people hated the Christ- Christmas festivity, she ran almost ian religion, but that she loved it, and breathless up the stairway, and falling askt for the prayers of her teacher, into the arms of the missionary said, that she might be willing to leave all "I am come; I am God's Christmas her former associations. This was fol- gift to you."
lowed by another letter saying she was She wore no jewels nor costly very unhappy, but that in her heart clothes, but was clad in the coarsest she had abandoned idol-worship and cloth. She took from her person a depended on Christ alone for salvation. little metal box, containing the sacred Preparations were made by her family powder that had been given her by the to send her away from the city, but priests as a sign that she had been she set her face against all their ar- sealed by them, and which she had to rangements and determined to cast in wear about her person, and in doing her lot with the Christians. She was this, she renounced caste, heathenism, willing to leave her family, and even idolatry, everything. This was all be- exprest a wish that she might become hind her. Before her she knew not a zenana worker. She offered to do what. In a few days persecutions the work at her own expense. At last commenced. Relatives accompanied the crisis came, she counted the cost, by native policemen visited the house, made her preparations, packt her insinuating that she had been unlaw- boxes, put away her jewels, and when fully detained. They had an inter- the evening came, and all the family view, pleading with her to return to were engaged in their evening worship, her home, her mother and her old asso- she quietly embraced the opportunity ciations; but none of these things to slip out. moved her, Quietly, but flrmly, she She said afterward: H I went out in- said, "I can not go back; I am & to the darkness with only the stars Christian." They used every argu- above me. It was to me like taking a ment, assuring her that if she persisted, long journey, and I did not know as orthodox Brahmans they would be where or how it was going to be. under the necessity of performing the There was nothing before me, but a funeral ceremony over her, and that voice in my heart told me to run, and I she would be dead to them and to the whole Brahman community. She only perience exprest fears in regard to the replied, ., 1 know it-I shall be dead to course to be taken, and advised that all, but tell them 1 yet live, and will the baptism be done in the Home, or tell of Christ's love to my people." the church doors closed. When the hour arrived, the missionary accom- Upon another occasion came the panied by her protege, found the mother and relatives accompanied by church crowded with Europeans, na- an angry mob, with threats and impre- tive Christians, Hindus and Mohamcations which could be heard all over medans. Every window and door was the house. They predicted the down- crowded so they could not be closed, fall of the mission and threatened to and police were on all sides of the spend thousands to take the case into churcb, tho their protection had not the courts, and denounced her in the been askt. The services were convilest language. When they found she ducted in Tamil and English. When could not be infiuenced, the mother the candidate was presented at the altar called on all the gods to curse her to take ber part in the service, there child, and with bitter cries lamented was a murmur of voices 'aU over the she had not dragged her dead from a house, many of bem saying, .. What! a well. It became necessary to call Brahman lady baptized!" At the close the police, and the people unwill- of the service she sang in a clear sweet ingly retreated with cries of venge. voice the hymn she had learnt. ance, shouting that if tbey could tbey would kill ber, and declaring she acted .. Jesus 1 my cross have taken, thus because she was intoxicated. All to leave and follow thee; " etc.
It was suggested that she be taken and then in great simplicity and tenaway from Madras, but it was decided derness gave her testimony before the that it was better to stay and give her crowded audience. The whole exerpeople every opportunity of seeing her. cises made a great impression. Many And so her relatives came and went. Hindus and some of her relatives who Several weeks past and the mattcr of had attended to give trouble went away a public baptism was agitated. This deeply imprest, confessing the woman woman lIad made such a noble confes- was sincere, and they would not intersion, had been so brave in the midst of fere with her. sucb opposition, bad been so clear in her Christian testimony, that it was This baptism made such a stir that thought a public baptism would convince people that the missionaries de- a for several Sabbaths, more than three sired to hide nothing from them, and it would probably be an encouragement thousand Hindus assembled in large to other women to take the same step. hall to discuss the work of the mission- So the decision was made, but not aries in their midst, and to devise without grave apprehension on the part plans to end all missionary work. Then of many Christian friends, both Euro- the Hindu papers took up and discust pean and native. The service was ap- the matter, expressing surprise that a pointed for an evening in the week and woman of such social standing among Christians and missionaries of other the Hindus should embrace Christiandenominations were invited to be pre- ity. One month after the baptism, sent. During the day there was con- funeral ceremonies were held for her siderable excitement and the mission- by relatives, as she was considered ary was told that the event was the talk dead to them. These lasted three days. of the city bazaars, and that evil·dis- and were attended by large numbers of posed persons would make trouble at Brahmans who had been invited. the church in the evening, and even a Special bathing was performed by.her missionary of twenty-four years' ex- husband, money spent liberally to feast Brahmans and costly presents were made to the multitude. .All the crock- ery belonging to the woman in her home was broken and everything de- kind of things he wants aI'e sold. Some stroyed that would remind them of needs will have been already antici- her. Then an effigy was made of her pated, and supplies brought, but these of reeds from the banks of the Ganges, run out, and so many unlookt for re- and the form was thrown into the fire quirements come to light, and keep on and the priests shouted, "Dead! Dead! presenting themselves, so that recourse Burnt out I" has to be had to the friendly missionary brother, at the nearest point where The bond or "Execution Bill" was such supplies may be purchased. While signed by the family priests and four such aid may do in the early stages of Brahman gentlemen, the sacred ashes missionary openings, and the" friendwere gathered and taken at night to the ly brother" be willing to leave hls own burying ground, where other cere- work, and go about his needy brother's monies were performed. business, it will not answer when there are many who have such needs, She is now living with the mission- and the number of workers scattered ary, happy and cheerful. The once about interior parts become numerous. proud, petted, wealthy Brahman wom- Thus, an agency which will undertake an has broken all her alabaster boxes all such matters, and meet the needs as and laid all upon the altar, and is now they arise, becomes a necessity. The teaching a low-caste Sunday-school and qualitieations of such an agent, however, aiding in the Christian Orphanage, and for the work have to be manysided. her one longing is to go to the villages One always to be depended upon and tell the women the story of God's to be there when applied to, to be great love. ready to go about the matter entrusted to him, promptly, attentively, to use Missionary Agencies. skill, taste, judgment, care, and econ- omy in selecting, ordering, purchas- MR. EDWARD EVANS, S3ANGHAI, ing and packing, is a desideratum. Such an agent is called upon to take CHINA.* such a variety of matters in hand. The selecting of stores, food, drugs, The missionary, entering upon life in clothing, books. etc., hardware and a heathen land, aforeigner in the midst other necessities for the house and of a large population of natives, whose other buildings, which often have to be habits of living, clothing, eating, etc., undertaken. Then, packages are being are entirely different to his, is at once sent from home, which must be reconfronted with some very practical ceived, past the customs -and forquestions entirely apart from his spirit- warded on. ual vocation. Himself and family, to be housed, closed, fed, and all their New arriving missionaries require accustomed needs supplied, how is it to outfits for residence in the interior; 80 be done? No shops there, where the furniture adapted to the new condi- tions has to be obtained, experienced • It is now nearly two years since we re- counsel in such respect being all esquested Mr. Edward Evans to collate infor- sential. Dressmakers are not! where mation concerning missionary agencies in clothing is so different, what is to be the far East, and to prepare a paper on the done? The wife and the children as entire topic. Our thought was to provoke well as the poor man himself mURt liave discussion of the subject. We had known of such things done for them; so the agent the efficiency of such agency in Constantino- is called upon to buy, match, alter and ple aL~ elsewhere, and believed that much get made the wardrobe of the family. greater etteciency might be reacht by com- Who can do for others, with all the parison of experiences among missionaries. different ideas and tastes which are The Sanitarium was not in our thought, but Dr. Beebe of the hospital at Nanking and Dr. Main of the Hongchow hospital, both write endorsing Mr. Evan's article in its reference to SanItarium. J. T. G. suggested in such a presentation of Home and Supply Depot JJ for its the case as the foregoing? And with members, that is a model of excellency. it all, there must be economy, or the This mission is noted for its thrifty bills will get beyond the resources. methods in these matters. A depart- And what means for remunerating ment for the storing of all kinds of such agency? Many of these calls are supplies is kept, the articles having for items of trifling value, tho most been purchased at wholesale prices necessary, and therefore anycommi8sion and imported, and then retailed out at to really be commensurate with the bare cost to its members. Distributing service would probably be equal to or branches are establisht through the more than the amount to be expended. land at various points. One such" agency" described in its report this branch of the work as A number of the members of the "the un·remunerative branch." In mission have been delegated to attend his case the Board paid his salary and to this work. Some give their whole all the expenses of the "agency." But time, and others a part. Clerks, acvery few Boards have made this pro- countants, housekeepers, etc., are occuvision, and the larger part of the mis- pied thus, as their share of the work, sionary body in China [for the writer who gave themselves to the missionhas this field in mind] are without any field, expecting to be preaching to the provision thus made for them by their "heathen;" but it has to be "indi- Board, and have consequently to man- rectly .. in their cases, and the blessing age these things themselves. shared as to those who "tarry by the stuff." In connection with such agency there has been made evident that another The writer has been askt by the Edineed has to be met. The arrival and tor of this periodical to give some acdeparture of the missionary family, and count of "Missionary Agencies, his the occasional visit to the ports, have own included," and may therefore be led to the establishing of a " Missionary permitted to add to this sketch the in- Home," where all the conveniences of formation that he, with his wife, some " llome" may be had, rather than the eight years ago, having gone to China, expense and discomforts of a hotel with the intention of laboring among while so sojourning. It would be ren- the heathen, was led quite unexpectdered more trying to the heads of the edly into undertaking the organization family if, as they necessarily have to of a work such as has been herein inmake many excursions around the port dicated. "The Missionary Home and to select and purchase the outfit, and Agency" in Shanghai was in existnece these things are accumulating and being before, but has expanded in its scope prepared for transport to their station, in the last seven years so that now they felt themselves intruding on the it has for its correspondents a very " Hotel" and their children meantime large part of the missionaries in China, having been left in the care of servants, numbering upwards of 2,000, not mothers on returning finding the chil- counting wives and children, and exdren and their nurses alike voted an cluding the C. I. M. already mentioned, intolerable nuisance to the other guests. as well as many in Korea, Formosa, Thus a "Home" where no sense of and Japan. The office·work to attend restraint will be felt, where the circum- to the Agency Department employs stances they are in are understood and several native assistants, bookkeeper, sympathized with, the help rendered in etc., as well as keeping perpetually every needed way, is appreciated. busy the writer and his wife the year round. The China Inland Mission, which has now some 700 workers in the field, The "home" as its name implies, is has provided at Shanghai a "Receiving necessarily a place made as convenient as possible for the circumstances of those who come to it. It is confined to the work. Not seldom wo:uld such exclusively to missionaries. There are expense have been avoided, and the dif- times when it will be crowded to its ftcultymet, if a .. Home," combining utmost capacity, tho the question. the advantages of a .' Sanitarium"
sometimes askt has not yet been an- were available here to be a little swered, "How many can it accommo- while in a restful home, away from date?" It meeting emergencies, so that the sighs and sounds (and smells) of when there is a great congregating, as the native land, and in the midst of at time!! of some mission assembling, or Christian friends of one's own kind, at the season of arrivals from the would often rehabilitate such an one, home-lands, it is in much demand. without the necessity of traveling fur- At other times but a very few may be ther. Owing to recent appreciation in found in it, but it is always ready for the value of property in Shanghai, rent· whatever call may be made on it, how- als have greatly increast, and altho the ever unexpected, as in the times of present Home is an old dilapidated "Riots," when a whole province of place in a poor locality, the rent has workers was emptied into it at once. been so increast that with the advanced It has been appreciated, too, because cost of everything else, rates of accom- of the opportunity given for meeting modation have had to be advanced, in workers from different points with order to meet the expenses, so much, whom comparison is made of methods that only a short stay in Shanghai is of work, etc.; and to the new arrival it practicable owing to the expense. An is an inspiration thus to come at once institution, erected as a permanent in contact with veterans whose names Home ava1lable to all missionaries of are familiar, and find a warm welcome every denomination, or of no connec- to the land. tion with any society, would be a great The Christian atmosphere, too, is blessing. If the only expense that had helpful, where all have a common in- to be covered were the food and ser- terest, so that tired workers are cheered vice, it would bring its advantages by a few days' stay there, and little within the reach of the poorest, and meetings may be held of an im- there are "poor" missionaries, where promptu character, for stimulating the large families and frequent sickness spiritual life, and bearing mutually the has taken all the resources. Tene- burdens of others. Of all .the other ments, of two or more rooms, partially needs that it is sought to meet, this is furnisht, connected with it, would be ever regarded as of the greatest im- desirable, so that a family could use it, portance. and live as economically as they de- And now ere concluding the writer sired.
after relating the actual, would like to In the present state of things, with give his thoughts of the t'deal in some many of the societies in debt, and of these matters. unable to carry on all their present What one individual, on his own re- undertakings, it would be out of the sources, has been able to accomplish in question, if for no other reason, that meeting the needs that have been indi- such an institution should be incepted'
cated, comes very far short of what either by one or a combination of sev- might and should be provided for the eral societies. Their funds-even if Lord's servants, laboring in trying con- they had a surplus-are not available . ditions in this wonderful land. One for such a thing. Our only hope for might go on to speak of times, not in- one, therefore, would be that some of frequent, when one of the heads of a those entrusted of the Lord with a family becoming invalided, the entire stewardship for him, should take it in family has to be transported away to hand. Mention has been made of that the home land, at great cost and loss ·of the China Inland Mission, and it is known that this splendid Home was the work, just as much as preaching the gift of one of its own members, who, gospel to the heathen. At any rate the out of his ample means has mainly writer feels this, and is grateful to God provilied the cost of several such places for putting him in such a place. for the mission at different points, including a SCHOOL now being erected Still beyond there is more Ideal planfor the children of its missionaries. ning. This suggests another Ideal. The need of education for the children of mis- Why should there not be a supply sionaries is a pressing one that has been depot establisht, where staple articles ill met so far. One of the trials and of food, clothing, drugs, etc., could be hardships of a missionary life is this. laid in at first cost, and retailed at low- To see their children growing up est rates to all the missionaries in the around them without school advan- land? Here is a grand opening for a tages, and dependent upon what they firm of consecrated business men. personally can teach them, with the ine"vitable necessity to look forward The writer has, too, some pet ideas to, of having to send them to the about a central bank for missionaries home-land soon, for years of separation, in the East, in charge of a responsible to get them educated, this is indeed a financier, who would consolidate the trial. Recently one has made a start local treasureship of the several socIe. in connection with the " Home" here, ties operating in the East. At present, to undertake the education of such in each station, and in each district, one children, and if such an institute as has of the missionaries of each society is been suggested, should have attacht to given the work of local treasurer, it a children's home and school, where whose duties are, to draw upon the families could send their children to be home Board for needed funds, selling trained for later entering on college life exchange on it for what the banks will in the home lands, it would be a great give him. Much time is necessarily boon to many. Yes a misssionary spent in keeping accounts, by those " Home," including a sanitarium and a who would so gladly be more congeniboarding and day.school for mission- ally occupied, unaccustomed as many aries' children is a need in Shanghai. are to business accounts and bookkeep- It may not be known 1;0 every reader ing. A general treasurer could econom· that Shanghai is practically the port of icallyadminister the funds of a number entrance to China. Almost all have to of societies, experience enabling him to pass through it, going and coming, and obtain the best terms in disposing of it is the metropolis of western civiliza- exchange at the most favorable times tion in this East. The writer would for operating. Instead of each society like to include in his scheme a resident having to hold a margin on deposit at dentist, who could be sent to convenient various points, losing interest on it, such points in the land, as well as several a manager would be able to meet any trained nurses to go to the relief of sick exigency promptly without such being families; one or two teachers; as well required. The clerical work would be as a good dressmaker to take in hand doue by native help in large measure the women's and children's supply de- and methodically, regular reports made partment. But enough has been said to Boards, an experienced audit also to show what a work can be done in certifying to the correctness of all the aid of the missionary worker. To thus details recorded. Business men will help in economic supply of necessities, appreciate these suggestions, and it and provide ameliorating service of would not be difficult to believe that various kinds, is surely a missionary the expense of such a general treas- ury, would be largely, if not wholly covered by the saving effected in ex- change.
FIELD OJ' MONTHLY IURT1I:T. (l?eptember
lII.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Ja.pan,* Korea.,t Medioal Missions.
BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
KOREA FOR CHRIST. become a recognized and indispensable factor in the national life. In former Korea has nearly ninety thousand days the king's birthday was a time of square miles of territory, twelve mil- festivity to the official and noble classes lions of people, and is extraordinarily only, the common people having no rich in natural resources. These natu- part in its observance. Last year when ral resources consist in a soil of great the auspicious day came around the fertility, vast mineral deposits, untold Korean Christians suggested that spewealth in sea products, which Korea's cial prayer and thanksgiving services unusually extensive seaboard brings to be held in the different churches in its doors, and a population capable of behalf of his majesty. On the aftergreat industrial activity. Until 1883 noon of the day a grand Christian mass- Korea had no relations with foreign meeting was held in the open air outcountries, and, therefore, there has side the city wall, and over three thoubeen a total absence of that commercial sand Koreans were present. Addresses exploitation, which would have made were made by high noblemen as well the people rich. As a nation they are as by Christian missionaries, and great poverty·stricken, but a brighter day enthusiasm was manifested. Coming seeIDS to be approaching, for the total spontaneously, it impressed the Korean volume of foreign trade for the ten government in a most pleasant manner, years ending 1894 was about thirty-five and his majesty was especially demillion dollars, aDd this seems to point lighted. to dawning commercial-linterprise. This is but a hint of the power which At present the Protestant missionary the Christian community possesses in force in Korea numbers about ninety modeling the national life. Korea workers, representing six different mise must, and will be. won for the Lord sions. Since the work began in the Jesus Christ.-REV. G. H. JONES. fall of 1884 the Korean Church has had a marvelous growth. The total num- From every hand come cheering tidber of converts to the various missions ings of the progress of the Gospel in is about two thousand, and regular Korea. Bishop Joyce writes that all preaching is maintained at fifty differ- Korea is open to receive the Gospel. ent places throughout the peninsula. Towns and villages are constantly ask- A Holy Ghost native ministry is being ing for missionaries, and the need for raised up, and the outlook is of the reinforcements is rapidly increasing. brightest possible nature. lIrs. Bishop's call has already -been sounded in these pages (May, p. 363). Under God, Christian missions have Rev. Malcolm C. Fenwick. of Wonsan, writes that missionaries are now gladly • See also pp. 47, 48, 55 (Jan); 110 (Feb· received all over the country, and that ruary); 650, 658, 665 (present issue)_ there are multitudes of earnest seekers after the Light. Rev. D. L. Gifford NEW BOOKS: "The Gist of Japan," R. P. tells of churches whose membel'lhip has Peeryj .. Religion in Japan," G. A_ Cobboldj increast three-fold in the past year .. Japan, Its People and Missions," JeS88 &tid of congregations far too large fo; Page; .. Dragons and Cherry Blossoms," Mrs. any of their church buildings. Dr. Morris. Underwood. of Seoul, says that it migh'
t See also pp. 863, 871 (May). NEW BooJtS: "Korea, The Hennit Natlon" (new edition), W. E. GrIftls; .. A For· ward Movement in North Korea," D. L. Gif· ford. almost be said of his report as was said of Christian friends, the prayera and in a certain war record, "There is the exhortations and comforts of Christian usual monotony of success and victory." ministers, and even where the sufferer Churches have been increasing rapidly, may have been impenitent to the last, members have been growing in num- we .have Him who was ever ready to bers and in grace, and almost the only save, standing by the sickbed, ready to drawback has been that due to the the very uttermost to cleanse and rechurches at home. Surely God is mov- ceive the parting soul. ing marvelously in Korea, and is calling us to an "advance upon our knees" to But what does'sickness mean among claim the country for Him. the thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of millions of our un- The Need for Medical Missions. christianized brothers and sisters? We must remember that sickness among BY MRS. BISHOP, F.R.G.S. them is usually, if not always, supposed to be the work of demons, especially It is not as a worker, but as a traveler in Asia and Africa. In many parts of Bolely, that my journeys in .Asia have .Asia a sick person is looked upon as given me some knowledge of the un- being possest of demons, and bechristianized Asiatic world. In those comes an object of loathing and terror. years I have become a convert to the He is put into a large house with food necessity of missions, not by seeing the and water beside him, and is absolutely success of missions, but by seeing the avoided, owing to the terrible fear lest misery of the unchristianized world. the demon in him go into the one attend- From the seaboard of Japan to those ing him. In other cases the medicine shady streams by which the Jewish men, priests, and astrologers aresentfor. exiles wept when they remembered They light huge fires, and bring gongs Zion, and from the icy plateaux of and drums and six feet high horns, and Northern Asia down to the Equator, I dance round the fire, blowing the horns have seen nothing but sorrow, sin, and round the sufferer; and if this does not shame, of which we have not the re- drive out the demon, they lay the motest conception. sufferer before a roaring fire until his skin is blistered allover, and then We all know what sickness means plunge him into cold water. If this among ourselves, and even in such an does not succeed, they lay him on epidemic as influenza. The sufferings his back and beat him with heavy of surgical operations, weary nights, clubs in order to drive out the demon_ fever, pain, and much distress are all If the case is chronic, and he does not connected with illness among ourselves, succumb to these remedies, in some but this illness has its bright side. It countries he is carried to the mountain brings out kindness and temlerness in top, a few barley balls and a little those about us; it brings delicacies and water are put teside him, and he is left flowers into the sick·room. Everything there to die alone. In all these circumthat might bring distress into the sick- stances of misery and solitude, thouroom is kept out of it, and everything sands and hundreds of thousands are that might cheer the sufferer is brought passing away in heathen lands, where in. We have the skill and kindness the Gospel of Christ, the Good Physiand self-sacrifice of men of the very cian, has never produced its healing noblest profession about us, and the infiuence. There is no hope. There is skill of trained nurses; we have magnifi- only the looking forward with terror cent hospitals, where the appliances of to something going to happen of a medical skill and the most skilful nurs- terrible kind, launched at the diseming are at the disposal of the very bodied spirit from some quarter they poorest of the community. We have, know not. besides that, the tender ministrations Medical missions put an end to these views about the heathen world. barbaric systems of native treatment, We imagine that the heathen world which are 'IlJ0'1'8e in the case of women is not so much worse than our own. secluded in their zenanas. In the hour After living amongst the heathen in of women's greatest peril and pain, many mission stations, I would say these barbaritie& are multiplied to such that the awful and fearful wickedness an extent, that in many places women of our own slums, and of our own die in legions, or are rendered invalids lapst masses, can not be named in the for life. We are bound, as humanita- same day with the wickedness which is rians as well as Christians, to make an part of the daily life of these people. end to those systems of treatment that Scenes of vice are witnessed not only exist in Asia and Africa, and to carry inside their temples but outside. in the first place the unspeakable bless- There is no public opinion, prompted ing of European treatment at the hands by Christ, to condemn any single act. of skilful and gentle doctors, combined From the sole of the foot to the crown with the knowledge of the Gospel of of the head there is not one sound part. the Lord Jesus Christ as the Healer of It is one mass of wounds and of putrithe soul as well as of the body. fying sores, and there is nothing left on which to build any superstructure of People go to missionary meetings truth. There is nothing left to tell of and hear much that excites enthusiasm that creation of God in the beginning. about the work done, but we have While the intellect of women of 20 and only touched the outskirts of the work 25 is not on a level with girls here of that is to be done, altho it is nineteen 10, yet the worst passions exist as if centuries since our Lord was on the grown on a hotbed. I have counted earth. We should set ourfaces towards up about 200 times that I have been that wilderness in which two-thirds of askt what drugs would takeaway a the human race are, at this moment, favorite wife, or a favorite wife's son. wandering without hope. We have This is the state of women in the East 1,000,000,000 at this time on the earth -huddled together and exposed in illabsolutely unchristianized, of which ness to the barbarities of native doctors. number, it is said, that 800,000,000 have There are now a few hundred medical never even heard the name of our Lord missionaries, many of whom are womand Savior. We have 3,000 languages en, but we need them in thousands. in which not even a fragment of the Bible has been translated. If the popu- There is spent every year in this lation ofthe world, estimated at 1,500,- country fifteen dollal's a head on alco- 000,000, could pass before us, two out holic drink, and eigUeen cents a head of every three would have no knowl- on converting the heathen. When we edge, even in name, of the Lord Jesus; remember that every minute five souls and this is after the voice of our Lord pass into eternity-1,400 dying every has been ringing through the Church for hour in India aud 1,600 every hour in nearly 1,900 years. It seems to me that China-it seems to me the time has instead of congratulation in speaking come when we should readjust our exof what has been done, and imagining penditures at the foot of Christ's Cross. that the kingdoms of this world are on We must choose whether we will spend t~ verge of becoming kingdoms of our upon ourselves or give to Him. We Lord, we should look these awful facts speak of the claims of the heathen, but in the face, and be covered with shame I should rather speak of the claims of and confusion, when we are content to Christ. Blessed indeed are those who take the blessings that come to us from have heard His voice, and who are the death of Christ, without passing giving their lives to Him, trying to them on to those who know Him not. lighten that great darkness. And we must do the same. How will they We are getting milk and water preach unless they be sent? and as to The Church is on a better basis. The sending them, we. can do it if we will. impression seems to be general that We can do it by expending our means, Japan is about to witness another great and in other ways. Silver and gold spiritual movement, provided, .the we may have none, but we have influ- Church sizes the present opportumty, ence in our own sphere, and we can About thirty years ago the drst two use that influence upon those about us Christians were baptized, now there are in favor of Christian missions. By over forty thousand. God has doubtprayer, by influence, by conversation, less great things in store for Japan. Let us advance to the place of duty and of privilege.
by cheerful giving, we may advance Rev. Dr. J. D. Davis, of Kyoto, authe work of Christ. The self-denial thor of a "Life of Neesima," has reof Christ was not confined to the cently made an extended evangelistic week of His passion, but the whole tour in Japan, and thus sums up his of His life was one long sedes of impressions: incomprehensible self-denials, and He 1. Japan is more ready for the Gospel than ever before. The official classes has left us an example that we should are more favorably disposed, and the follow in His steps. masses are more ready to hear than at any time before or since Japan was The Situation in Japan. opened. 2. The era of doubt and rationalistic Mr John R. Mott who has recently discussion has past its zenith. Many of the pastors and workers, and most of completed his world-tour in the inter- the Christians who have held on to their ests of the student movement, gives us faith, realize their need of a positive faith, and are hungering for spiritual some very lucid and suggestive "Im- food. '
pressions of Japan" in his account of 3. Wherever earnest men are preachhis visits in the various Asiastic coun- inl! a positive gospel, churches are alive tries.* He says in part: and souls are being gathered into the kingdom. 1. The work of the missionary in 4. The great lack of workers. That Japan is not dnisht. What was seen great rich Aidzu valley, with its 800 and heard in Japan created the convic- square miles of villages, has no missiontion that the present missionary force ary and only three Japanese evangelists is not only needed but should be wisely at work. Echigo, over 100 miles long increast. Three-fourths, or 30,000,000, and half as wide, has two missionaries of the Japanese have not yet heard of and only eight to ten Japanese workers, Christ. Missionaries are needed to all told. reach these unevangelized_ They are 5. Now is the time to pray for Janeeded to help solve the problem which pan. Pray that its force of workers confrot the Church in Japan, to pro- may not be further depleted, but rather mote the development of the Japanese restored to its former strength; that the church and to train the native ministry. rising spiritual tide may sweep over the 2. Japan calls for missionaries of land, filling the hearts of all the Chrisunusual strength, mentslly, and sphit- tian workers here, and bringing the uaall.yT. he greatest peril to Japan is the Doshisha University and every band of Christians back to their former earnest secular character of her institutions of faith and active service for Christ and higher learning. 4. Buddhism as a religion is doomed for these millions who wait. in t.he land where it has greatest vigor. It is rent with internal dissensions, and Dr. H. Loomis says: The one thing needed at this time is shows man;r signs of decay. the work of the Holy Spirit. There 5. The SIgnS indicate that the cause are men and means enough now em- ployed to work a great change in the of Christ in Japan is entering upon a country, if only accompanied by power new and remarkable era. The rational- from on high. Meetings have been istic wave is receding. The Japanese held in Tokyo to pray for this. A are more friendly toward Christianity. '. deep interest has been awakened, and services are being held in the churches • Strategic points In the World'S Conquest, to arouse and stimulate the believers, as well as gather in the unconverted. by John R. lIlott. Fleming H. Revell Co.
l&DITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Vic- In gold and silver designs. On the left toria's accession was, of course, a great of the Archbishops were the clergy of occasion. The interest of a great em- the various churches, and other invited pire, in the longest and best reign gues,ts, in all about five hundred. After known in its history, found its highest the Te Deum, and a special prayer preflood mark in the celebration of June pared for the occasion, the Hundredth 22d. By the courtesy of Sir George Psalm was sung, the whole of the vast Williams, we had the opportunity to company that filled and surrounded the witness a pageant unsurpast in its way church-yard taking up the holy strain in modem times, from one of the win- of praise; it was as the sound of many dows overlooking the very steps of St. waters, and the 3upreme moment of the Paul's where the main ceremony was Jubilee celebration. Then, of course, performed. followed " God save the Queen," after which the Queen's carriage resumed its The procession occupied about two onward progress. Millions of people and a half hours in passing, and the lined the route of the procession, and whole Empire was represented, and all the moral order of the whole pageant its colonial dependencies. Five conti- was something to evoke thanksgiving nents, the isles of the sea, and every and was a fine proof of the self-regreat nation from sunrise to sunset, and straint of the British people. from pole to pole, had their representatives. The costumes were brilliant and On the Thursday of the following costly, beyond description, and the eye week, at Albert Hall, we saw a sight seldom looks on any scene so magnifi- even more significant in its way, for it cently grand and imposing as was wit- was an exhibit of the work of woman nest that day in the semicircle that for her own sex, as represented by the fronts the great master-work of Sir Y. W. C. A. Lord Kinnaird presided, Christopher Wren. and Canon Fleming, the Dean of Nor. wich, the Archdeacon of St. Paul's, the When the Queen's carriage entered Bishop of Sierra Leone, Lord Overtoun, the inclosure and halted before the and myself made addresses, or took other steps of St. Paul's, the attendant royal parts of the service. The hall, which is carriages, with the highest dignitaries vast, held probably 10,000. Dr. Barof the various royal families, stood out- nardo, who has a genius for such specside the railing, drawn up in line side tacular displays, organized a procession by side, and the Prince of Wales and in which we should judge a thousand others on horseback, within the railing, young women may have taken part, all facing the Queen's carriage; in front representing by detachments with banof1hem and likewise facing her Majesty ners all the departments of the work were the primates of Canterbury and carried on by the Young Women's York with the Bishop of London, all Christian Association in this and other in the most superb vestments, with their lands, each detachment wearing coscroziers, etc., and the lesser clergy tumes appropriate to, and indicative of about and behind them with the grand their work. The" Flower Girls " orchestra and choir. On their right the lookt like a procession of moving high civil dignitaries of the Empire, flower-beds, and the "Foreign workwith the various Ambassadors from ers" were drest in the costumes of foreign lands, and all in robes of office the various lands among whose women of the most elaborate and gorgeous they are carrying on their work. The material and decoration, including the procession moved up the middie aisle, Hindus in cloth of gold, and the Chi- mounting the stage, and then filing to nese in sumptuous silk heavily wrought right and left, past through the corridors held in July, in San Francisco, and and took their seats in the center of the was attended by immense crowds. The hall. But anyone who witnessed that reports of it would more than engross score of bannered regiments, each repre- all the pages of this REVl1tW, and all senting a different department of we can do is to call attention to some woman's work for woman, must have of the salient points in this history. felt as never before how much the Vic Five thousand new societies within the torian Era had done to develop woman, year, with a world enrollment of 50,- to bringher out of comparative obscurity 747 local societies and 3,000,000 mem- into her true, normal sphere of organ- bers; in sixteen years, a multiplication ized and independent service for her of the original single society into over Master and for human souls. It is 50,000, and the members nearly 60,000 probable that no one occasion has ever fold. hitherto presented so effectively the wide work of Christian women. It was Dr. Clark, in a masterly address, or in the highest sense a great success, and " message," luminously sets forth the left impressions not easily effaced. The following propositions as to this world- Queen, had she been present, must have wide movement: been greatly gratified at the exhibit of the multiplied spheres of usefulness in· 1. It must be true to Its fundamental to which God has ushered her sex since Idea, raising the standard among the she began to reign. young of outspoken devotion and con- secrated service. The first convention of the Federation of Ohristian Students, recently or- 2. It must be a unifying movement. ganized, met at Williamstown, under 3. It must be a pervasive force the shadow of the famous •• Haystack" 4. It must be essentially sacrificial, monument, July 6-9, and was repre- and missionary. sented by twenty-seven nationalities- 5. It must listen to and continually China, Japan, India, Syria, South obey God's voice. Africa, and Scandinavia, Holland and He gives a four· fold motto: Germany, France, etc., as well as the British Isles. This latest development The world for Christ, of the Christian College movement will The nation for Christ, receive ample reference in these pages The family for Christ, hereafter; but we can not but wonder, Myself for Christ. as we watch the Providential interposi- And we can only add, may this holy tions of our day, what is to be the next message prove a message from God, of God's great movements in connection heard and heeded. with organizing the forces of the Christian Church for the last grcat We had the pleasure of meeting Miss onset against the powers of darkness. Annie R. Taylor at Keswick, with But what united prayer should now Puntso, her faithful Tibetan servant, rise from millions of holy hearts, lest and Siggue, his wife, who are now with we be found unready for the combined her in Britain. The sight of a Tibetan advance. man and woman will, as Miss Taylor says, better enable friends to pray for The" World Encircling ~Iovement " the Hermit nation, and claim for Christ of the Y. P. S. C. E. excites more and the followers of the grand Lama. l'Iiss more amazement at the rapidity of its Taylor was expecting to stay in England progress and the almost wild enthusiasm some three months. She hopes to pick it evokes. The sixteenth international up volunteers for the work of occupyconvention of the Y. P. S. C. E. was ing this long shut up land. All eyes are now turned toward Tibet.
Our friend, WellesleyC. Bailey, Esq., of Edinburgh, who is superintendent of the Mission to Lepers in India and the East, sends from Edinburgh a copy of the address from the lepers of the Almora L~per Asylum to Her Majesty and to honor the principle of faith the Queen, Empress of India, on the wherever dominant in His people; occasion of the diamond jubilee, by H. second, to evangelize the Continent of H. Raja Harnan Suiha Ahluwalia, who Africa directly by the missionaries, IWd was also bearer of an address from the indirectly through the training of native native Christian community of India: preachers, who shall be able to live and work in those interior districts where " We, the lepers of the Almora the climate is fatal to the white man.
Asylum, having heard that our fellow- Three qualifications are to be empha- sized as absolutely essential: a passion- Christians are uniting in presenting an ate love for the Lord Jesus Christ; a firm belief in the plenary inspiration, address to her Most Gracious Majesty infallibility, and divine authoritr. of the Holy Scriptures; and a recogmtion of the Queen Empress of India, wish to the supremacy of the Holy Spirit in the life of the individual, and in the be allowed to join in expressing our conduct of the assembly. No one will be askt to join the movement, the same gratitude to God for having given us Spirit by whom the plan was originally conceived, being trusted to call out such a beneficent sovereign. Perhaps laborers into His service, whether preachers, teachers, doctors, nurses, or in no time during the history of the humbler tradesmen. Only such simple organization will be formed as seems world has the sad lot of the poor leper really necessary to the effectual and harmonious cooperation of a body of been so sympathetically considered as people spiritually united. Finally, it is assumed that if the movement be during the reign of our beloved Queen born of God, He will supply such funds as are needed for the inauguration of Empress, whose ears have always been the work without His servants solicit- ing or borrowing the money, or incuropen to the cry of the poo.r and t~e ring debt in any way whatever.
afflicted. We thank God WIth all our Jared H. Randall, '97 Brown, ex- pects to leave about the middle of heart that He has so long spared her, September, under the auspices of the Brown Young Men's Christian Associaand we pray Him to continue her reign tion, to begin work in Natal.
and make it still more prosperous. We The Utility of Missionary Effort.
are poor and helpless, and can do The following appeared in the Mie- sionary Herald: nothing to add to her royal mag- Among the recent contributions to the nificence, but we can and do pray London MansionHouseFund ,for famine relief in India, is one of a little over for her. May our humble prayers be $4,000 (.£844) from the Fiji Islands. In connection with this gift, the English accepted. . magazine Work and Workers may well call attention to the fact that when "We beg to subscribe ourselves the Queen Victoria ascended the throne, sixty years ago, the Fiji Islands were grateful tho helpless subjects of our inhabited by pagan cannibals, to whom not one ray of light from the Christian beloved Queen Empress. world had come. These people were peculiarly ferocious. The Wesleyan "The inmates (120) of the Almora Society, which in 1838 had planned to commence work within the group, de- Leper Asylum. N. W. P., India." clared in its report of that year that the missionary must prosecute his work A Twentieth Century Mission. " before the sailor and the merchant will dare to frequent those now inhos- A few young men met in a room in pitable shores." And now we have an Brown University, April 24th, to dis- illustration of what the missionary has cuss a new plan for missionary work in accomplisht. The Fiji Islands are the coming century. Most of them had christianized, for out of a population felt the practical failure of the present of 125,000 about 100,000 arc reported in business methods used in carrying out the Lord's world·wide purpose, and were persuaded that the nations can be successfully evangelized only by a revival of the 8pirit oj faith and prayer. A new movement, if the Lord will, will be inaugurated in the spring of 1900, and with respect to Africa. The key to the Dark Continent is undoubtedly its southern end, and here a missionary colony is to be establisht, interdenominational and self·supporting. South Africa is extremely fertile, and the sheep-raising industry is attended with fair profit. There the colony of missionaries may undertake self-support, and thus be independent of all mission boards and like agencies.
The purpose of the mission is to be twofold: first to exalt the name of God by furnishing a living witness of His power IWd willingness to answer prayer the government statistics as Wesleyans. art. A few specimens might be here The whole face of societr has changed. In place of brutal orgtes there is an exhibited from this Museum of the orderly and thriving community, and now the grandchildren of the cannibals, Inferno. whom it was seriously feared would slay and eat the first missionaries, have A victim's hands and arms were cut sent $4,000 to feed the poor of India. off, and the eyes gouged out; a slash across the breast, and another across A Missionary's Striking Operation. that, making a cross, with the taunt, ,. Where now is your Christ I " One The Rev. R. Swallow, M.D. (China), man at Malatia riddled with bullets in related at the sixth anniversary of the form of a cross, that ., Christ might U. M F. C. Deaconesses' Institute, at find him if He wanted him." Exeter Hall, London, on May 17, some instances of his work in the mission A house took :fire, and when help hospital at Ningpo, China. "On one was needed, instead of a water barrel, occasion a girl was brought to our hos· the hose was maliciously attacht to a pital with her leg doubled up. The petroleum cask that the :fire might be father askt me whether I could do any· more inextinguishable. Wives were thing for her. After carefully examin· compelled to witness the slaughter of ing the limb, I said I thought the husbands and sons, and a deliberate deformity could be cured in about two attempt was made throughout Armenia months. He said I would have to doit to slay every male over ten years, that quicker than that, or not at all. In a the Armenian families might hence· fortnight he came again, and seemed forth be impossible. disappointed. I askt him if he would allow me to take a piece of flesh out of The slau~hters were by wholesale, his arm to put it in his daughter's leg. 100,000 havmg perisht. In one church , Oh, no,' said he, and he went off. I at Ourfa from 2,000 to 3,000 were slain askt the mother the same question, and or burned, 1,500 killed were dra~ged she replied, ' No; I would rather she to a long trench and piled in prOlruscustayed a little longer.' Then I called ously and buried in one grave. In the man, and told him to take my in- Malatia, that natural paradise, between strument and cut a piece of flesh out of 2,000 and 4,000 Christians suffered my arm. He took the scissors lip, but martyrdom. The flesh of the chief stammered, 'I can't do it.' I then men was carried round the market pickt up the instrument, cut out a piece place for sale at less than a farthing a of flesh from my arm, and planted it in pound. There alone are over 1,500 orthe girl's leg. In a few weeks she went phans and 500 widows. home cured." Of course, some outrages were worse The horrors of Armenia have never than death, and to avoid them, a short distance from Harpoot, 32 women, led yet been adequately told, nor so far as by one of peculiar nobility and intelli· gence, drowned themselves in the Eutold, have they reacht the knowledge phrates. 600 ~irls and brides were in one case carrIed off to Kurdish and of even the intelligent and conscientious Turkish homes. Mothers in despera- tion first flung their children and then body of Christians. Professor J. Ren· themselves into the flames which con- sumed their dwellings or churches. del Harris and his wife, Helen B. Har· . After orders had come to stop the massacre one of the noblest men of ris, have pUblisht a volume of letters, Eghin, venturing out of his hiding- place was assailed by stones. He prodescriptive of their experiences, while tested, "You may not kill me now;" but the brutal answer was, "No, not traveling through Armenia and dis· with guns-we are forbidden to shoot; hut stoning is a different thing and so tributing relief. Those letters ought they crusht hi,s head with heavy stones.
to be read and pondered by every dis- Not one village is yet rebuilt out of over 150 pulled down or burned round ciple of Christ, by every lover of hu- Harpoot. 'fhe women's eyes are always full of tears and the men's voices seem manity, as should also Prof. Lepsiua' to have a tearful quality. "We can't sing," they say; .. we have not sung book. since the massacre." At Biredjik not one Christian is left-all dead or turned The enormities they chronicle exceed over to Islam's tender mercies.
for hellish cruelty and refinement of The needs of Armenia are corre- torture anything known to modem history. Outrage, rapine, malice, murder are reduced to a science and an spondingly great. Here are 60,000 ing in the old Gregorian churches and orphans to be fed, and 5 cents a week in the midst of the long and tedious will keep them. Twenty-five dollars a Gregorian Ritual. year will not only provide for any 0-':- phan, but leave a margin for the For every missionary who fell in widow. It is possible to provide for China in the massacre of 1895, God has 400 boys and 300 girls and supply 10 already given at least 1,000 converts, teachers at less than 400 dollars a year and there are many more inquirers. (school year of 10 months). If not So in Armenia. Already the divine provided for these orphan children harvest from the seed sown in this will inevitably get under control either bloody soil begins to appear. Will not of Romanists or Mohammedans. Christians hasten to the help of the 60,000 orphans that need immediate The animU8 of this massacre; is not provision for their food, and shelter, hard to trace. The civilization of Asia and instruction? When was there a ~Iinor is American. The missionaries like opportunity and obligation? have spread over the whole conntry a network of religious and philanthropic TluJ Oentral Sudan Mi88ion, whose institutions and influences. The Armenians have been getting wealthy, headquarters are in London, t calls thrifty, skillful, intelligent, and influential, and this has provokt the hos· attention to the open door into this tility of the Turks. There has been a secret plan, prompted by the Sultan, long closed country. They are much without doubt, for the extermination of this whole people, and it still moves in need of financial aid to take adon towards its accomplishment, with the Turk as the upper and the Kurd as vantage of this opportunity to preach the nether millstone. Christ where He has not been known. There are off-setting and relieving lights even amid this horror of deep Mr. Hermann Harris, the director of darkness. What heroism I Who will ever forget those heroines of the mas- the mission, is at present in Gabes, sacre, Miss Shattuck, of Ourfa, and Dr. Grace Kimball, at Van, not to mention Tunis, Africa, from whence he writes Dr. Barnum and his associates in the American mission at Harpoot? Every as follows: one of this mission band faced death without fear or flinching. Dr. Barnum We have a hall for Gospel meetings, showed Professor Harris the remnants of the shell that burst in his little study. with good shop front on the main road. Professor Harris askt some of them what were their feelings just then. The Overthe entrance we have written in answers sound like primitive martyrs. " All fear was taken away, and death large Arabic characters the words, seemed nothing." Others said-" We had no fear. We expected to be directly "House of the Gospel of Jesus, the with Jesus, tho the flesh trembled a little. " Messiah, the Crucified;" and on the There are other compensations. A side wall in French is written, .. Maison religious awakening at Aintab has been the result. Various bodies of Chris· de l'Evangile." tians have been drawn together as never before. Protestants are preach- In the windows we display Scrip- tures, Tracts, and text·cards in several languages, and many people come in- side to read more, and to hear the Gospel; to some we give Scriptures and Tracts. Many of the natives, however, can not read, and even those who can, do not easily understand the standard version of the Arabic Bible, which is in high.class Syriac Arabic, well suited to the native Christians of Syria and Asia Minor, but not adapted to the Moslems of North Africa. We long to have a revised version of at least one Gospel in simpler language suited to the people of this province.
• Address Miss Mary W. Ranney, lM5 Masonic Temple, Chicago.
tMr. R. Caldwell, r eFe.Rt,.LGo,Sna'JoSn,t.E.MCa. rt i n' . House, 1 Gresham St Our work may be well described and return to their regular ways of life. under two distinct headings: 1st, the The t woman' of the dead man changes French or European work. This con- masters often before the funeral. Every sists of meetings held three times a imaginable vice exists among the white week, conducted chiefly by Mrs. Harris. people who are the exemplars of the na- On Sundays, at 6.30 P. M_, the hall is tives. The immoral lives of the Euroalways well filled by soldiers. Many pean merchants and officials make hard have been brightly converted, and ale work for the missionaries. To say that bravely standing the test of persecution the missionaries are hated by the white in barracks. On Wednesdo.y evenings a people is putting it mildly. To be sure, Converts' meeting is well attended, they turn to us when there is sickness and the men give bright testimonies. among them, or their dead must be On Thursday8, at 3.30, dlere is a Chil- buried, but at other times they hinder dren's Class, when illustrated Bible our work wherever they can. lessons are given on the black-board. t t Protestant missionaries seldom get 2nd, Arabic or native work. This consists of (1) reading, conversation, credit for the work they do. At least, and personal dealing every morning officials and explorers hardly ever give with visitors at our hall, individually them their just dues, altho they often or in groups. (2) Four or five after- praise the Catholic missions_ It is true noons every week are spent in visiting the surrounding villages, and the popu- that the Catholic missions, in most lation scattered in the oasis_ The more places, have nice buildings and a large distant places I reach on my bicycle. school, and these outside appearances Sometimes I have a group of from ten give rise to glowing reports. The exto twenty or more men and lads (Arabs) plorers remain only a few days at a to hear the Gospel. (3) Twice a week station, and have not time to find out a service in Arabic is held in our hall, the inside workings of the different consisting of singing, prayer, reading missions, nor the treatment which the of the Bible, and preaching. These children receive. The whip of hippo meetings are attended by both Jews hide which is the means of persuasion and Arabs; at some the numbers have in the Catholic missions and is frequentbeen very encoural,>ing, and the atten- ly used on the natives disappears when tion and behavior of the audience ex- vi~itors are present. More than half of cellent. the children hardly learn to read, but have to work hard on the farm. The The evident sign of God's presence brighter ones are exhibited in the schooland blessing with us have been accom- room to the passin~ stranger. The panied by strong opposition from the natives are not slow In finding this out, authorities against our work. In November last we were forbidden to and the Catholics can not &,et freeborn sell or to give away any Scriptures or native children in their neIghborhood. Tracts either inside our own hall or So they carryon a slave trade with the elsewhere, and for continuing to do so, interior. The slave children are comwe were summoned and prosecuted pelled to stay in the mISSIOn until of both in January and February, and age, and in most cases even longer. fined sums varying from one to three These things can not be learned during dollars. We have committed the mat- a short visit, and since the hospitality ter to God in prayer, trusting that these of the Catholic missions and the quality things may turn out rather to the fur- of their wines are famous all along the therance of the Gospel. coast, explorers and others sound the praises of these establishments. A lady, recently returned from West- "Explorers carrr black girls with ern Africa, writes concerning the life them into the interIOr and bring them back with them, if convenient. I know of European settlers there: whereof I speak and can confirm it at any time. Civilized nations would "Nearly all the traders, officials, and have stricter laws if they only knew, explorers rule the natives with a rod of but it seems as if they did not want to iron and commit the greatest cruelties, know, about the true state of affairs, especially upon the girls and women. and if the real facts reach the ears of It is no wonder that death often cuts them off in one of their sprees, and European Governments they are quickaltho this happens often, it has no effect ly husht up, and the public at large upon those who remain. They are a knows nothing about them. The only little subdued until the funeral is over, remedy for these outrages seems to be but even when returning from the for white men to take their wives with grave they joke about their dead friend them, and through the influence of educated women a different atmosphere will be found in African society."
GENERA.L MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLI(i:ENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D., OBERLIN, omo.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign apt to be divinatory, not reasoned. Periodicals. 'l'herefore it fiashes out first here, then there. Like themselves, it is genial, BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, but not stable. First they are national- MASS. ists, then idealists, always inclining, JAPAN. however, to materialism, not coarse, but decided. They do not worship Mam- -Pastor Karl Munzinger, has a pro· mon, they rather despise him. Fame, foundly instructive article in the Zeit- lligh position, are their idols. The 8d~riltfilr MissWnskunde (xii. J ahrgang, world of invisible truth and good has Heft 2), on the intellectual and spirit- scarcely any meaning to them; even uallife of the Japanese. It ought to Christianity is viewed by them largely be studied by every Japanese mission- as a mere refined substitute for Con- ary. fucianism, a simple support to social Theauthor remarks that accommoda- and national life. The author says he tion to the inner life of a people is has been repeatedly told by Christians, much more important for missionaries of whose perfect orthodoxy he had than accommodation to their ways of never doubted, that they did not and living. The latter, in Japan, is not could not believe in immortality, and expected. and would not be well re- moreover saw no use for it. They ceived. But it is of the utmost import- could be' good parents and citizens ance that the missionary should learn, without it, and they seemed to have no for it is only by slow experience that further use for it. That they were he can come to know, the inner temper citizens of eternity as well as of Japan of a people, and their fundamental way seemed to them unintelligible and of thinking. Are they idealistic or ineredible.
materialistic, religious or merely ethi- Nor do they regard themselves as cal, patriotic or merely domestic, in- citizens of mankind. Japan is the be- dividualistic or gregarious, patient or ginning and end of things to them. It fiighty and impulsive. A very differ- is what Athens or Sparta was to an ent way of dealing is requisite accord- ancient Athenian or Lacedremonian.
ing as these questions are differently Whatever aggrandizes it is good, from answered. an aggressive war to an assassinated The fundamental intellectual trait of statesman. Macchiavelli's maxims have the Japanese character, says Herr become flesh and blood in Japan. They Munzinger, is impatience of thorough do not even say, like our heathenish research. They want results, they statesmen in the Mexican war. .. Our want to be spared processes. They are country right or wrong." Their coun- extraordinarily quick and keen in the try can not be wrong. Christianity it- apprehension and application of knowl- self gives way too much to this pro- edge, especially technical and physical pensity. Romanism is antinational.
knowledge. They have done wonders Protestantism is national, but Chris- in this. Nowhere are processes and tianity, in no form, has a right to be- methods, from the working of the come absorbed in politics. Its first steam engine to that of the State, more WOl'k is Personal Regeneration; its sec~ skillfully appropriated. But a deep. ond, Universal Brotherhood. So far intellectual assimilation of knowledge, as nationalism will not minister to hu- step by step, genetically, is something manity, the Gospel must be against it. '
they do not l!'ve. Their knowledge is Much of the late brilliant patriotism of
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Japanese Christians has been much generacy by confining marriage within more Japanese than Christian. narrow circles.
Should Christianity, by a sudden 5. It has been a source of conserva- lurch, become the national religion tism in everything.
of Japan, Herr Munzinger thinks it 6. It has supprest the development would fare with it as with Buddhism. of individuality and independence of Japanese Buddhism, he says, is not the character.
true Buddhism at all. Its metaphysics 7. It has helpt in developillg other and mysticism have almost disappeared. injurious customs, such as early mar- Its atheism has become idolatry. Its riage, the charging of heavy matri- nirvana has become a sensuous heaven monial fees, etc.
and hell. A suddenly adopted Japanese 8. It has successfully restrained the Christianity, the author says, would growth and development of national simply be the Gospel dechristianized. worth; whilst allowing opportunity of Happily this danger seems past. A mental and spiritual culture only to a "holy seed," of elect souls, spiritual, limited number of privileged people, it steadfast, patriotic, indeed, but refus- has denied those opportunities to the ing to let the Church, like Shintoism, majo~ity of the lower classes, conse- become the mere handmaid of tile quently it has made the country neg- Mikado. and owning fellowship 'only atively a loser.
with those who are striving after that 9. It has made the country fit for .. true fount of life, our native land on foreign slavery by previously .enslaving high," would slowly but steadily re- the people by the most abject" spiritual generate Japan. All other successes tyranny."-O. M. Intelligencer.
are illusive.
The Japanese are so easily carried -Oscar Flax, in the Allgemeine Mia- about, that they have an instinctive 8wns Zet"tschrij't, gives a pleasing de- craving for organization. Nowhere is scription of the famous Indian lotus, a thoroughly constituted congregation which, from of old, the Hindus have more beneficent, and more indispens- so enthusiastically admired. that they able. The pastor must to them, far esteem it the embodiment of a goddess.
more, than to us, represent Christ. A " On a slender shaft, four or five feet thoroughly constituted national Church, long, sways gently on the surface of not afraid of a strong government, the pond a half-opened bud, whose would be a tower of strength against outer leaves yet cover over mysterious- the winds of misbelief and unbelief. ly the inner cup, whose dark rose color The author thinks, and with good rea- already becomes visible through the son, that the exaggerated American clefts of the leaves. The fully opened notions of democracy need to be very blossoms reveal the complete enchant- essentially tempered in Japan, if they ment of this wonderwork, which stands are not to work anarchically. unique in God's creation. The petals, INDIA. at the tip of a radiant rose color, grad_ ually paling below, and melting by the -" The following are the heads of a most delicate gradations into the purest lecture by Pundit Siva Nath Gastri, white, gird in the unveiled magnificence on ' Caste,' viz :- of the cup, in the midst of which, like 1. It has promoted disunion and an inverted obelisk, rises the velvety discord. flower gently touched with yellow 2. It has made honest manual labor and red, whose upper rounding is contemptible in this country. strewn with violet, rose-colored, white S. It has checked internal and exter- and gilded points as with stars. Around nal commerce. it wave in a circle the barriers of the t It has brought on physical de- stamens, which, white beneath, golden
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
yellow above, balance snow-white pol- -" The Hindu people is a poo~ 'peo- len-cases. Upborne by dark-green ple, and poorer, seemingly, it becomes sepals, and profused with the magic every day," says Herr Jensen. The charm of interblending colors, there it great reason, probably, is the enormous rests, the pearl of Hindustan, the moot and unmanageable increase of the popu- imposing, most delicate, fairy-like im- lation.
age of absolute beauty that our earth -Mr. Jensen says also: "The mis- has to show. What wonder that the sionary, having come to bring India Hindu honors it as a flower of heaven, Jesus and the Dible, is apt to give hirp.- that in his glowing phantasy he makes self very little concern about what he it to have grown out of the bodies of regards as all her trumpery literature. his divinities of love, lind when he Yet he is pl'obablynot without pride in seeks an image of utmost beauty and his acquaintance with the Greek and gloriousness, finds it in the Kamal, the Latin authors. And yet all this is dead Lotus! and gone, and has only historical worth, while our Indian Iliad and Odyssey "The Hindu Temples, there they still live upon the tongue of every rise before our view, the mighty Hindu child and every Hindu woman. colossal fabrics, with their pillared The missionary often fails to underhalls and balconies, pyramid cones with stand that what culture he brings with their decorations of uncanny idols and him from home does not at all pass curcobolds, the little gloomy filthy 'tika- rent here, but should be regarded only nas,' in the midst of the city throngs, as increasing his facility of appropriatthe mysterious shrines in the midst of ing the Indian culture. The ultimate the pathless wilderness, bathed in the truth may well be. that the Hindu depurple of the setting sun, the beautiful spises us, because we both openly and and noble Sikh temples, and the king tacitly have made it so thoroughly eviamong them, the golden temple in dent, that we despise him. What does Armitszar, the sight of which trans- it signify to ft. common man what we ports us into 'The Thousand and may have learnt in Europe? All he One Nights: Yes, interesting and ro- inquires about is, whether we know mantic are they to him who only knows anything about India, whether he can the outside, but devilish and accursed feel, in any measure, that we would to him who has gained a deeper view. gladly adapt ourselves to him, whether Jesus must conquer. In Bombay, be- we are willing to become Hindus to tween two temples you see a handsome save the Hindus, or whether we think house, inscribed 'Wesleyan Chapel. ' it enough for this that we are Euro- It is not yet true that wherever Satan peans and believers." builds a temple, the Christians build a church alongside, but we may say that the Standard of the Cross now rises -The Damk MiBBions Blad, for everywhere, and that Christianity b,- March, 1897, reports some statements of gina to be a power in India." the president of the Indian Natio~al Congress at its last meeting, which sug- -We notice that Herman Jensen, in gest the question whether England is the Danak MiBswns Blad, gives the pro- governing India in the interest of India, portion of the casteless to the Hindus, or in the interest of the younger sons of the various castes, as being, in South of the English gentry. For instance: India about one to six. In North In- .. Poverty ,is increasing, and a third dia, he remarks, the proportion is much part of our husbandmen are in debt; less. So long, therefore, as missions the land is pregnant with wealth, and work chiefly among the casteless, they every seventh' man has to fight with can not be said to be taking hold of the famine.
Indian people. .. The government, in view of the
ENGLISH NOTES
depreciation of silver, advances the pay long been in weak and failing health, of the high-paid English officers, but was called home on December 6. The not of the poorly. paid native non-com- bishop, in a long, touching letter of her missioned officers, although the prices last few days on earth, writes: 'She of provisions are rising daily-this was taken to church the Sunday before makes bad blood. in Mr. Hogan's strong arms, when it was noticed that she lookt much .. The larger the foreign element is, changcd. In the afternoon of that day which, of course, must have larger pay she was taken into the chapel, and she to be able to serve in a foreign land, took hcr women's class as usual. . . . the deeper and wider does this dig the For a long time she has been unable to channel through which wealth and stand alone or walk, but she never re- prosperity flow out of the land. mitted any duty, or missed pnblic wor- ship. Four races at the same moment "I can not refrain from mentioning held her in their hands and mingled the lack of justice which our tribunals their tears as she blest them all. Beoften show, as between Englishmen sides all the mission party kneeling and natives, where Englishmen are de- around, the room, a very large and airy fendants and natives the plaintiffs. one, was covered with silently-praying Such partial judgments awaken discon- crowds of Indians. For the three days tent among the masses, and weaken and nights when she lay a-dying, often confldence in the government. nearly choked, the prayer-meeting in the chapel adjoininu; ~ur house never .. The crushing poverty under which once flagged. It was always full, and our land sighs, and which nothing is the overflow in other rooms. Every done to mitigate, is the mother of many ten minutes messengers past from the public aberrations from morality; for a bedside to the supplicating crowds, repeople which gro~ns under the heavy porting her actual condition. They yoke of want, and for whom existence had changed their pctition when they is a suffering, has no interest in main- saw that it was God's will to take her, taining morality." and prayed that she might have a peaceful, painless end, and that I might MISCELLANEOUS. be upheld by the everlasting arms. Itfany souls found the light during the The O. M. Intelligencer, referring to death-struggle. In her death she, by the cordial letter written by Archbishop her beautiful and tender work, and Wake, Jan. 1, 1719, to the missionaries patient endurance of agony at times of Denmark (themselves Germans), through choking, drew more souls to Ziegenbalg, and Grundler, remarks that Jesus than ever. It was victory on while then the primate, tho most victory, triumph on triumph. Quite cordial in his recognition of these two hundred souls shrored in the blessbrethren's labors, does not seem to ing.'''-Ohild1·en's World. have a thought of any similar responsibility of the Church of England. English Notes. Archbishop Temple and Bishop Browne, in similar letters or speeches, BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M. A. "address themselves to the home clergy, and seek with all earnestness to T1U! Ohurch Mi88ionary Soczety.-The arouse in them a realization of their Rev. C. H. Gill writes with reference own duty in the matter." to the Indian famine: Since my arrival home from Jabalpur, I have Little Denmark has since been over- frequently been askt, "How long will past, perhaps even relatively, by the the famine last?" With regard to those mighty England, yet she remains, districts where it is acute, one may among Protestant nations, one of the pioneers in missions.
"The wife of Bishop Ridley, of the British Columbia Mission, who has
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
!lIl.fely assert that the famine mU8t CQn- Eaatern Equatorial ..Vrica.-The Rev.
tinue till next &ptember 0'1' October, F. Rowling, of Busoga, has just sent because there can not be any harvest home a copy of the Gospel of St.
tm then. The success of the harvest Matthew, printed in the mission in the depends on many conditions, but if language of the people. He is hoping these be fulfilled, and the famine in its soon to start the Gospel of St. Luke, acuteness be ended, it will even then and by degrees the whole of the New take years to wipe out the disastrous Testament will be in the common traces, and set things right again. The tongue of the people of Busoga.
fund raised at the Mansion House is Presbyterian Ohurch of England.- being used to supplement efforts made Conferences for studying the Word and by the government in trying to cope instructing native teachers, are being with the misery caused by lack of food. organized at Siong si, a large fishing A large number of orphans and waifs village at the mouth of the Chinchew are left on the missionaries' hands who River. Mr. Campbell Brown superinwill require continual provision and tends these gatherings, and the occamaintenance until they are grown up, sions are employed both for the systemand it is for this that funds are urgently atic study of Scripture and evangelistic needed. Surely the maintenance of work in the district. famine-orphans, rescued by Christian missionaries from certain starvation, Medical Mi8sions in Formosa and and brought up and trained in the China are prospering. Dr. Maxwell nurture and admonition of the Lord is writes hopefully concerning them, tella most fit and appropriate object for ing of many instances where closed Famine Relief Funds to be expended doors have been opened to the medical on, and one on which our Savior will missionary, which would have resmile. mained closed but for the healing art Hang-OllOw Medical Mi,sion.-The practised. work done during the past year in this He concludes his letter to the Monthquarter has been fully maintained, advance being made as far as circum- ly Messenger by saying, "The pioneerstances would permit in every direction. ing power of the medical mission is The work is now very great and daily unquestionable. Its abiding power for on the increase, the double nature of strengthening, extending and consolithe mission providing for the whole dating a Christian mission is also a being of man. Many times opportunies great fact. The medical missions of the occur for speaking the Word while Presbyterian Church of England have ministering to the physical needs, both done much to bring to the front and to in the dispensary and hospital of this commend to the whole Church of Christ center of work. the manifold value and power of this agency."
The native missionaries in Western -Baptist Missionary &czetll.-The Africa are being much blest in their Rev. T. Richards, of Shanghai, in work. In the station of W orawora, speaking of mission work in China, on the Gold Coast, the king has been states that what is most needed by won to Christianity by native agency, Christian missions in order that they and consults and largely acts on the may prosecute their work most effectu- advice given by the native Christian ally is;- teacher. Several of the distinctly 1. That the Christian Church should heathen observances are no longer re- send out the best men of her colleges as garded in this district, and Christianity missionaries.
,in its ,essence of love is being felt and 2. That the natives may be helpt to realized. provide suitable institutions for training the Chinese themselves to become London, E. C. Two Harley students missionaries. are preparing to proceed to :Madeira, Mr. A. Robson and Mr. C. Pike. Miss He fnrther states, that the cbief dif- Meyer has also been accepted for the ficulty in working In China is the fact same :tield and will accompany the that foreigners have no right to settle mission party. In the int(lrior of the country, and are only legally allowed to travel. No THE KINGDOM. missionary can settle down in a district without :tirst having gained the good -The editor of this department of will of the people 01 that district. the MISSIONARY REvmw will esteem it a special favor if secretaries of mission- Mr. Richards is one of the oldest ary societies, whether in this or other missionaries of the Baptist Society, hav- lands, will send him copies of their aning workt in China during twenty- nual reports, and any items of intelliseven years. He purposes returning gence from the world-field. very shortly to his much-loved sphere of labor in Shanghai. -Not a little embarrassment and perplexity come to the editorial mind -Gospel Mission to Madeira and and heart in connection with obituary Porto Santo.-Among the modern sur- notices. Not a month passes without prises in missions, is the attempt now on intelligence arriving of the departure foot to evangelize the Madeira Islands. from life of a half dozen or half score For almost two years Mr. and Mrs. of Christian toilers in far off lands, Jefferd llave been spreading the glad whose names are precious. It would tidings in those parts, and have found be easy to cover the entire space at the work, notwithstanding the malig- command with the story of their lives, nity of the priests, delightful. Mr. and an estimate of their character. But Jefferd has told his story in vivid such a task can very easily be overdone. words. Speaking of the people he Whoever considers the matter, and resays: "Many of them are tired of Rome calls the fact that there are some 15,000 and her deceptions, and to them the men and women at work abroad, can words of a free salvation that can be easily see that only a very few of the known and enjoyed here on earth, are most eminent names can be mentioned especially welcome. You can tell them when the Master gives them their final a Bible story without t1leir knowing discharge. whence it comes. How astonisht they are to find that it comes from a book – How painful almost to the shocking which is forbidden them; and when is the contrast between the tidings they become further acquainted with which come from the" foreign" dethe Gospel, and know by experience partments of our societies, and those how exactly it suits their needs as sin- from the "home" department. In ners, great Is their indignation as they well·nigh every case, while the former realize they have been robbed of the tells continually of deep interest, very words of life by those who pose as growth through conversions and need of the representatives of God." Mr. Jef- enlargement, in the latter the main ferd has reluctantly left Madeira for a mention relates to lack of funds and season, that he might get the help the like. That is, tho among the needed for the thorough evangelization heathen the outlook is most cheering, of the island. A council has been where Christians abound the prospect formed in London to assist him, and is gloomy. 0 Lord, how long! among others who will gladly receive gifts for the work is W. Roger Jones, -There is no evidence of a crisis in Esq., Secretary of the )fissionary Pence missions. All movements, religious as Association, 186 Aldersgate Street, well as commercial and industrial, have their periods of enthusiastic ad ranee and of conservative delay. The cause Indian printers.- Woman's Work for of missions, not merely foreign but Woman. home, is at present in the latter, but It will not remain there. It is as firmly -The Rev. R. W. Gurd, of Kitkatla, seated as ever in the conscience of the British Columbia, writes to the Church Church, and it has as strong a hold as Missionary Society: "No annual letter ever upon its affection and dcvotion. would be complete without a reference There is need for work, but none for to Chief Sheuksh. The change in him discouragement.-~he Independent. is really remarkable. His very looks and features indicate what he is-a -The trained statistician, F. W. whole-hearted believer in the Lord Hewcs, contributes to the Outlook a Jesus Christ. Those who knew him in valuable article showing what 14 of the days of darkness-Skeuksh the the leading denominations have been autocrat, the severe, the proud, the lion contributing to missionary work by ten- -ean not but extol the power which year periods, beginning as far back as has transformed him into Skeuksh the 1815 The object of his study was to gentle, the true, the lamb. find out whether the present generation is giving as liberally to missions as our -As a beautiful standing illustration fathers did. The conclusion is estab- of Christian unity, Benito Station, lisht by outline maps that the decade Africa, bears off the palm. Three wo- 1885-1894 greatly surpast its predeces- men missionaries and 1 man, a teacher, sors-not only in the absolute amount constitute its membership. Among given, but relatively as compared with them there is 1 American, 1 Germanthe incr.ease both of property and of Swiss, 1 Norwegian, 1 French-Swiss; 1 population. His maps show a steadily is Baptist, 1 Lutheran, 2 are Reformed. increasing growth of contributions, All are one in heart and aim and cheer- ($40,000 in 1820, $860,000 in 1840, $2,- ful adoption of the Presbyterian forms. 481,000 in 1860, $7,780,000 in 1880, to No wonder their school-children from $13,887,000 in 18ll0); with a decline, antagonistic tribes, the KomM, Mabeya. sharp, tho temporary, in 1857, during and Fang, are learning to dwell together the Civil War, the panic 1872-9, and the in unity.- Woman'8 Workfor Woman. current one 1893-7. The per capita contributions have also increast from $0.04 -Thirty-two years from the landing to $0.22 for each man, woman and child. of the first missionaries in the Sandwich .And in like manner, the giving of the Islands 15,000 were found in the schools churches has grown much faster than and 21,000 in the churches, a foreign their wealth. missionary society was contributing more than $6,100 annually, a limited -When Rev. John Newton went to monarchy had been set up, and a legis- India in 1835, he took out an old-fash- lature with two houses. ioned wooden printing-press. It was the foundation of a publishing estab- -The ignorance of missions which lishment which, in the course of fifty prevails in seafaring circles generally is years, issued 267,000,000 pages in 10 amusingly illustrated in the following different languages. The earliest relig- anecdote: The sailing ship, &ottish ious literature in Punjabi was the fruit Dale, was wreckt on the Batoa, or Turof Dr. Newton's labors, and of Rev. L. tle Island. The crew took refuge in Janvier, afterwards associated in the the boats, but saw, to their terror, that same. The works produced included a native boat with a brown matting sail the New Testament, a Punjabi gram- was bearing towards them. They rowed mar, dictionary, and numerous tracts. with all their might to escape these That press at Lodiana. as well as another supposed bloodthirsty savages, and in Allahabad, were long ago rented to thought themselves lucky when they distanced them. After a course of 240 miles they reacht the haven of Suva, -The gifts to foreign missions during where there is a British governor; but the past year in the Presbyterian they were astonisht to find that when Church, North, which .came from the they related their narrow escape from churches, were $270,497. The Women's the cannibal Batoans, it was received Boards and societies contributed $299,· with bursts of laughter! and they were 115. The women have beaten the men told that they would have been safer in by nearly $30.000. Batoa than in any civilized European State. The Batoans are Christians, and -The managers of Woman's Work have saved many shipwreckt crews and for Woman (Presbyterian) have made given them food and lodging free, and that magazine such a splendid success, have preserved stranded goods and re- that out of a surplus in its treasury they stored them faithfully to their owners. have been able recently to contribute to -Allgemeine ~l[i8siom Zeit8chrijt. the Assembly's Board more than $3,000, of which $578 was to pay for the type WOMAN'S WORK. for the Bangkok Press, and $2,500 was to reduce the deficit in the year's re- -The W. C. T. U's. of Cape Colony ceipts. have been very much in evidence lately. Port Elizabeth, as usual, supplied tem· -Mrs. George S. Hays, formerly a perance refreshments at the agricultural missionary in China, says: "The religshow, and 801d thousands of cups of tea ious feelings of Chinese women vary and coffee, taking £l1i8. From all over greatly in different localities. In some the country reports came in of other places they are distinctly religious, visit· Unions in the smaller up-country towns ing temples, worshiping daily at a having taken up the same work, while private shrine in the home, fasting. the number of permanent ,booths on praying. and endeavoring by good sports' grounds is increasing. The works to lay up for themselves a regard Unions of Kimberley arranged and in the future world. In the eastern part carried through an industrial exhibition of Shantung province this is not the on a large scale in April. The exhibi- case. The women, as a rule, never visit tion lasted two days, and was an all· the temples, and worship no private round success. £100 profit was made, gods. They are, of course, filled with part of which was devoted towards many vague and dark superstitions. erecting an Inebriate Home in Cape Hard-workt,improperly nourisht, easily Town. Mrs. Fehr, of Britain, is tour· distracted, and excited by the little de· ing the Colony and holding meetings, tails of daily life, they seem to give little and Miss Moody, the Colonial organizer, if any thought to their future after has given several successful lectures in death." various towns. YOUNG PEOPLE. -Over $8,000 has been sent in to the -Foreign Mail, representing the In- W. C. T. U. national treasurer for the ternational Committee of the Young Armenian relief, and it is still coming Men's Christian Association, for June; in, $26.54 having been received from has most impressive articles upon "An Tasmania. The India relief fund has Appeal for Reinforcements in Japan," also been increast by W. C. T. U. sub- " The Present Situation in China," and scriptions. Through the influence of " The Indian Conferences of 1807." No the national officers the national India phase of missions just now is more relief fund committee has voted and worthy of serious attention than this sent $500 to Pundita Ramabai, to be which relates so largely to students. used at her discretion for the relief of TIM Student Volunteer for the same the women in her school, and those month finishes volume 5 of the maga· under her personal direction. zine, which chronicles the progress of that thrilling movement. ~The great conventions of the cur- UNITED STATES. rent year indicate that the young people are still "marching on " in their united -Alaska cost $7,000,000 when pureffort to do great things for Christ and chased 30 years ago. Its gold mines the Church. First come the Christian are expected to yield $10,000,000 the Endeavorers, 24,000 strong to San Fran- present year, and the values of furs and cisco in July, one-half from outside of of fish are expected to bring up the California, and representing 3,000,000. yield to twice the original cost of that A few days later Toronto was fairly country. A heterogeneous American ftooded by theEpworth Leaguers stand- popUlation are fiocking up to that land ing for half as many more, and the of varied climate and wealth, increas- Baptist Young People's Union gathered ing its importance as a mission field. In Chattanooga. -"You must not be discouraged," -In opening his address at San said a Kiowa, "if we Indians come Francisco, Rev. F. E. Clark said: slow. It is a long road for us to leave "During the past year I have been our old Indian ways, and we have to journeying in many lands, among peo- think a great deal; but I am sure that ple who speak many tongues. One all the Indian people will come into the factor I have found constant in all these Jesus road, for I see that these white limds. I have found Christian En- Jesus people are here to help up, and I deavor principles everywhere the same. thank them for coming. Tell the Chris- The same pledb"ll, the same consecration tian people to pray for us. Weare meeting, the same general lines of ignorant, but we want to be led aright effort for the Master. Societies that are that we may come into the Jesus road." as widely separated in miles and manners as the Bengalis who live in the -It is a tribute well deserved, but swamps of the Ganges, and the Kaffirs one not always rendered, when the of the up-lands of Africa, from the Ohristian Advocate says: "If we were Endeavorers of the Golden Gate, called on to specify the institution now have subscribed to the same cov- at work in the United States that has enant pledge, and better still, are keep- done the most for the promotion of ing it." Christianity in the world, we should without hesitation name the American -A "missionary roll of honor" was Bible Society; and were we personunrolled in one of the meetings. Upon ally reduced by some insurmountable it were the names of 10,468 Christian force to contributing to but two in- Endeavor Societies that have given stitutions designed to benefit mankind nearly $200,000 to missions through and to promote Protestant Christianity. their own denominational missionary the American Bible Society would be boards. And these same societies have one of them." given an equal amount for other benevolences. The largest gift to missions -The Baptists, South, are doing misreported by anyone society is the sion work in Africa, China, Japan, $1437 of the Clarendon Street Society Brazil, Italy and Mexico, have 80 misof Boston. The Calvary Presbyterian sionaries in the field with 110 native Society of Buffalo is second, with assistants, 75 churches with 4,324 mem- $1017; and a Chinese society in San bers, and baptized 660 last year. Francisco, in he Chinese Congregational mission, stands third, having -The American Board has medical given nearly $700 to its own denomi- missionaries in almost all of its 20 mis- 'national missionary board, and is sup- sions, and a total of 39, of whom 11 are porting 6 missionaries in the field. women and 15 are ordained. It also has 10 hospitals and 30 dispensaries.
-The Presbyterians, South, rejoice that 6 individuals and nearly 50 churches are each supporting mission- Scripture were circulated by the society aries of their own, and are able to say: in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Nothing "It means a great deal that one-third could be done in Austria.N ow the of our foreign missionaries are support- society has an agent in each of these ed either as • substitutes for service' or countries, and they reported an aggreas the foreign counterpart to the home gate issue in 1895 of nearly 400,000 pastor." copies, chiefiy through the labors of 102 colporteurs. -F. W. Hewes, mentioned on an earlier page, finds that the rate of giving, -Naturally at the present time in according to the financial ability of Great Britain reference is constantly each, in 14 denominations l'anges from made to Queen Victoria's reign of sixty $6.87 among the Congregationalists years, and the Church Missionary Soto $1.04 among the Disciples (" Camp- ciety recalls the fact that when she bellites"). The 4 which follow the came to the throne there were in conbest are these: United Presbyterians, nection with the society only 3 natives $5.98; Presbyterians, North, $4.84; ordained to the ministry, while during Reformed (Dutch), $3.44; and Presby- these sixty years 540 have been ordained. terians, South, $2.67. Ascending from Ten years ago, at the time of the the lowest we have, Cumberland Pres- Queen's Jubilee, the society had sent byterians, $1.33; Free Baptists, $1.35; Ollt 900 missionaries, while during this Reformed (German), $1.70; aild Epis- last decade nearly 700 have been added copalians, $1.72 to the roll. It was in that year, 1887, that the committee definitely adopted EUROPE. the policy of refusing no candidate on financial grounds. The past year has Great Britain.-The British and witnessed the lurgest number of adult Foreign Bible Society, at its recent an- baptisms on its records, namely, 7,700, nual meeting, reported its receipts as a fact accounted for by the great innearly $11,000 in excess of those of the gathering in Uganda, where 3,751 present year, amounting to $642,000. adults have been admitted to the The total issues of the society since its church. organization in 1804 amount to 151,- 142,802. The committee report that The Continent.-Some weeks since they have "thus far taken up with a party of French Protestants left Marglad alacrity every item of translation seilles for Madagascar, consisting of 3 and revision work that has been brought _pastors, 2 professors, 3 women, and 6 before them with sufficient evidence as children. Four Malagasy students were to its excellence and missionary useful- present, and .. one of them exprest their nes8." gratitude and confidence in a French speech which won the sympathies of -When Queen Victoria began her the whole audience. No one would reign, the British and Foreign Bible have believed that his stay in France Society had only 9 agents working out- had lasted only four months, so easily side England and Wales. Two of does he manage the language." these were located in the West Indies and 1 in Canada. The others were in -The mission schools in the German Frnnce, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, colonies have become a great power. Greece, and China. There are now 20 At the beginning of last year there were foreign agents, besides 6 secretaries of in these colonies 279 schools, all but 53 auxiliaries in India and South Africa, of them sllstained by the gifts of evanwhose salaries are provided by the gelical German Christians. Since 1884 parent society. In the year before the more than $1,125,000 have been spent Queen's accession it was with difficulty upon them. They are of four grades, that probably less than 3,000 copies 0 the lowest, in which reading and writing with religion are taught, elementary -The British Weekly tells of a schools, intermediate schools, in which " quiet but remarkable work in France in addition to what are termed common in the provision of an asylum for train- branches at least one European lan- ing priests who are leaving the Roman guage is taught, and high schools, or Catholic Church." Of 40 who applied the seminary, in which natives are last year, after very careful investiga- trained for the best work of which thcy tion, 12 were accepted. Some are pre- are capable These schools have been paring to be teachers, and a few arc of untold benefit to the colonies. Inas- already at work as Protestant ministers much as the government has as yet and missionaries. In most cases the done nothing for education in them, it change was "attributed simply to the is quite natural that it should now be study of the New Testament." There askt to make Bome provision for their is a clearer, freer religious atmosphere support in the way of grants, as Eng- than 25 years ago.
land Holland, and even Spain have ASIA. done for schools in their colonies. The policy of the German government has Islam.-We have often been forced been to follow the settlers rather than to observe that the whole Mohamme- to lead and to do no morc for them than dan world is connected by' secret is necessary for their protection. But threads, and that a defeat which Islam the managers of missionary work think suffers in any part of the world, or a the time has come when government triumph which she can claim either may reasonably be askt to share in the really or :fictitiously, has its retIex expense of educating children born in action even on the work of our misthe colonies.-Oongregationatist. sionaries in the Mohammedan part of Sumatra. Thus the recent massacres -The McAll Mission was begun a in Armenia have filled the Mohamme quarter of a century ago, and now it dans in this part of Sumatra with pride. can be written: In 25 years the one They say to the Christians, "You see room in a shop at Belleville has been now that the Rajah of Stamboul" multiplied until there are 35 places of (that is, the Sultan of Constantinople) meeting in Paris and its environs, and "is the one whom none can withstand; nearly 50 scattered throughout France and he will soon come and set Sumatra and in Corsica. From the :first tiny free, and then we shall do with the plant have brancht out Sunday and Christians as the Turks did with the Thursday schools, Young People's Armenians." And it is a fact that a Meetings, Christian Endeavor Societies, considerable number of Mohammedans Mission Churches, the Mission Boat, who were receiving instruction as can- Mothers' Meetings, dispensaries, tem- didates for baptism have gone back perance work, reading-rooms, work for since the receipt of this news.-Bericl,t soldiers, house·to-house visiting, a der Rheinischen MisaionsQf!8el18chajt.
monthly paper, that has proved a sec· -Considerable surprise will be felt ond "Bon Messager," with its glad at the news that a steamer has been motto, "The Gospel for All," a hymn- placed on the Jordan, to run between book, from which children learn to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
sing wor9s that, long afterwards, may It is said that the voyage can be ac- cheer their dying hours, a book that has complisht in 5 hours. The current come to Ameriea, and is used by the idea has been that the river is too rapid French from Canada to New Orleans, to allow of such a feat. But if it is and has been welcomed by French true that the two seas arc now con- soldiers in Madagascar. There seems nected in this way, there should be an no end to the possible shoots from the added attraction to traveling in the seed sown a generation ago. Holy Land. Another thing is mentioned in this connection-that 4 Jew- open door and immense need for It ish families have settled in Jericho, greater work.
and have rented for 5 years from the -India.-Sixty years ago the govern- Sultan a large area of fruitful land for ment of India forbade its officials to cultivation, the land to be irrigated employ native Christians in the public from the Jordan.–Jiree OhurchMonthly. service. Brahmins and :M:oslems were preferred. This year a Bengal Chris- -Miss Mattie R. Wylie, of the mis- tian, a pupil of Dr. Duff, was appointed sion of the Reformed Presbyterian chief justice at Raepore, in Central Church, at Latakia, Syria, writes: India. "Perhaps an outsider would say, there is no longer work among the Ansairyeh.
Last spring the Government ordered -The Bombay Guardian says: "We the parents of those who had children could mention several Christian women in the boarding-sehool here to take who are receiving starving widows or them out, and threatened them with orphans by the dozen on their ,own re- imprisonment if they refused. But we sponsibility, without any guaranteed do not know how much seed is being means for their support, but in faith in sown in a quiet way. There is 1 evan- Him whose book says, "Pure religion gelist, and iu villages where there are and undefiled before God and the Protestants they meet on Sabbath for Father is this, To visit the fatherless prayer and praise and the study of the – and widows in tlleir affiietion, and to Word, and the members make an effort keep himself unspotted from the to attend communion scrvices at Latakia. world.' One of these heroines is clear- The schools arc full. There are preach- ing her drawing-room to increase her ing services twice every Sabbath, and a accommodation for those who are Sabbath-school with an cnrollment of 'ready to perish,' and is selling its 380. There is a weekly prayer-meeting furniture to help support them."
and also a mothers' meetiug. A Bible -Rev. J. E. Robinson, of Calcutta, reader visits from house to house. There is well assured that grell,t accessions to are 2 Christian Endeavor societies, 1 the Christian population will be made for the young men of the church and as a result of the famine, basing his extlle other for the schoolgirls. Dr. pectation upon experience. He says: Balph has also commenced hospital Out of the great distress of 1857 in work on a small scale. We also hold Northern India, and in Southern India clinics 3 times a weck, in which there in 1877, a host of valuable mission is an average attendance of over 60. A agents were gathered in process of Bible woman is employed to read and time. One large, well-establisht mission talk to the patients, both in the clinics has drawn the greater portion of its helpand in the hospital, and to visit the ers, teachers and preachers, from the sick in their homes." orphans gathered in during famine. Christian communities are formed -Mr. Robert E. Speer, of the Pres- byterian Board, writing to the Inde- more rapidly during famine times than pendent from Persia, speaks of 5 dis- under ordinary circumstances-in some tinct impressions he has received in instances formed where efforts, under that land: the general decadence of all ordinary circumstances, would prob- things from forces inherent in the ably prove unfruitful through a long Persian character and the religion of term of years. Indeed, there are Islam, the power of the ecclesiastics of strong missions in India to-day whose Islam; the influence and fanaticism of foundations were laid in the troublous the officials, the increase of religious times of famine, consisting largely of feeling against Christians, the power orphans and rescued victims. In this and hold of the missionaries and the connection nothing can be more instmctive than the experience of sundry missionaries, 192 laborers in all, 18,000 missions in South India after the Christians, and 3,400 pupils; the Herfamine of 1876-7. With much hesita- mannsburg mission among the Telugus, tion, and many misgivings, not less, I with 10 missionaries, 1,000 members, think, than 60,000 persons were received and an increasing number of baptisms; by five or six missions as a direct result the Leipsic Society's mission among of the famine-persons who, in all hu- the Tamil people at Old Tranquebar, man probability, would never other- with 27 missionaries, 76 other ministers wise have become Christians. After a and helpers, 353 teachers, 5,400 pupils, few years Bishop Caldwell publicly and 15,000 confirmed native Lutherans, stated that this famine element, which and branch missions to Tamils in Burhad been incorporated into his mission, mah and Ceylon; the Schleswig-Holdeveloped more satisfactorily than the stein or Brecklum Society'S mission, old "hand-picked" section. in northern Teluguland and J eypore, with 10 missionaries and not more than The Rev, J. Parson, of Jabalpore, 500 converts; the Basel Society's misfurnishes an apposite illustration of sions in Malabar and among the Canarthis point. He says: "We havc not ese, Marathis, and Kurgs, with 75 only taken compassion on orphans and missionalies, 152 native pastors and widows, but when strengthless, help- catechists, 265 teachers and 12,500 less men, in a few cases with their 'adherents; the Gossner mission among wives, occasionally with a surviving the Kols, with 23 ordained missionarmotherless child or two, came begging ies, 20 native pastors, and 40,000 conus to take compassion on them, I felt verts; and the Scandinavian Santhal that I could not say no and leave them mission in South Bengal and Assam, to perish. Between 30 and 40 such are with more than 10,000 converts. now with us. They came ignorant of Smaller missions are those of the Danthe way of salvation, but now rejoice ish Society among the Tamils, with 8 in God through Jesus Christ. Where missionaries and 1,000 adherents; the there were only a few preachers and Swedish Fatherland Institution's Misteachers less than ten months ago, we sion among the Ghonds in Central have now a rapidly increasing Christian India, and the Missouri Synod's mission community. They have utterly aban- in the Tamil country. In all there are doned idolatry, and so broken the bonds 170 European and American missionarof caste in pieces, that people from at ies, 50 native pastors, nearly 1,200 naleast 25 castes of Hinduism, from the tive teachers and catechists, and more Brahman and Rajput down to the than 100,000 confirmed church mem- Chamar and Basor, with J'rlohamme- bers and 7,000 children in the mission dans and Gonds and Kols, have all schools. become one in Christ Jesus. Caste questions give us no difficulty what- China.-A Chinese typewrit'er, with ever. And, in almost all cases, they 4,000 characters, has been designed by are living a simple, straightforward, Rev. Mr. Sheffield, a Presbyterian misupright life, growing week by week in sionary at Tung-Chow, and constmcted, the knowledge of Christ." at his order, by an American factory. The characters are cslTied on the edges -The Lutherans have 8 missions in of thirty wheels, each of which is a foot India: that of the General Council in diameter. Two keys must be struck among the Telugns at Rajahmundry, to make un impression, one to turn the with 6 married missionaries, 162 work- wheel, the other to bring down the leters in all, 4,500 Christians, and 1,000 ter or sign required upon the paper. children in the mission schools; that of the General Synod, also among the -Smoking seems almost universal Telugus, at Guntur, with 7 American with the Chinese. They smoke only a very small quantity at the time, but other •foreign devil' will be able to go they indulge so frequently that they by rail from the seashore to the gates of must consume ii considerable amount of the mysterious capital. Thi~ will add their poorly cured wecd. When work- about 90 miles to the 124 miles of the men are hired to build a house it is road from Tientsin to the Kaiping coal customary in fixing the amount of the mines, which now constitutes the railwages to stipulate the number of way system of China. The spell of smokes they are to be allowed per day. prejudice has been broken, and several For unless there is something to regulate other railway enterprises are now on the number of smokes, the work is apt foot. The chief of these, a great trunk to progress very slowly. It is quite liue from Peking southwesterly to Hancommon to see the workmen percht on kow on the coast, a distance of some their heels indulging in a "smoke so- 1,400 miles, has already been started, cial" during working hours.-" Hadji," with a small government subsidy, but in North and West. its rapid construction is not to be ex- pected. A short road from Shanghai -Although in theory the Buddhists, to Woosung is also in progress. If may Confucianists, and Taoists hold differ- be well, however, to anticipate many ent views with regard to the future, yet inquiries by assuring our readers that there is a general impression thnt the there is not at present, noris there likely next world will be very much the same to be for a long time to come, any deas this, that is to say, there will be mand for American railway men in magistrates, law courts, etc., etc. Every China." Chinaman knows that the man who can get to the magistrate first, by a judici- -Rev. James Carson, of Newchwang, ous use of dollars, can generally make reports the remarkable spread of evansure of winning his case. As in this gelical truth in the province in which world, so in the next it is important, he is laboring. Not long since a retherefore, that if a man wishes to injure spectable man from the market town of another he should get to the magistrate Tien-Chwaug-Tai came to Newchwang as soon as possible. Among English to ask that some one might be sent to people angry words lead to blows, and instruct a number of inquirers. The sometimes to murder. In China angry application was backt up, in a most words often lead to one of the men remarkable way, by the proposal to committing suicide, that he may go into pay all the traveling expenses of the the other world and lay a charge against person who should come. This man his enemy there. In the year 1872. was the proprietor of an inn. Later a when Mr. Elwin was staying on the second and special messenger arrived Island of Pootoo with a friend, they to say that a small house had been were called in to save the lives of two prepared and was to be at the disposal Buddhist priests who had taken opium. of the teacher, affording a place in These men had quarrelled, and one of which to meet inquirers. Mr. Carson them took poison in order to go into the says: "Such urgency and such an unother world to lay a charge against his precedented offer it has never been my enemy. When the enemy heard what lot to receive." A similar request came had been done, he took a larger dose in from the city of I:lhuing Yan. These order to get there first.-North Ohina are new cases. Daily News. Korea.-A notable event is the -"The Chinese Government," says arrival in this country of the heir appar- The Railway Age, "is slowly but surely ent of Korea, Prince Eui Wha, who, pushing forward the railway from by the wish of his royal father, comes Tientsin to Peking, and it is expected to remain some years in America and that in the near future the traveler or pursue his education under the special guardianship of Dr. Ellinwood, secre- chumens. In no other mission of that tary of the Presbyterian Board. The Board is the harvest so ripe for the Prince is only twenty years old. reaper_ -During the political excitement in -In Korea butchers have been hith- Korea, a company of Christian students, erto degraded and despised, forbidden chiefly from the country, started out to wear the ordinary costume-virtually one dny to do sight-seeing in the city; serfs; but the Korean Government, a but the appearance of such a body of few months ago, issued a proclamation countrymen moving in company ex- granting them the right to dress like cited suspicion among the military other people, and enjoining that they authorities, and the whole class were be treated everywhere 'Yith respect. An arrested and taken to the barracks_ As interesting evangelistic work is now a confirmation to their claim of being being carried on amongst these men, students, a Sunday-school lesson paper 30,000 in number. A Christian of their was produced by one, and served as the own guild is traveling through the basis of a practical talk about Christ to country accompanied by a colporteur the officer in charge. He soon dis- preaching to them, and distributing missed them all. the Bible and other Christian books. The expenses of the tour are being met -Dr. J. Hunter Wells, PyengYang, by Christian butchers. Korea, in the last year, cut off an arm in the dining-room, performed an AFRICA. operation for cataract of the eye in the bedroom, cut off a leg in the shed. made -From every side the locomotive is use of the kitchen for many minor making slow but sure advances upon operations, and had patients lying all the Dark Continent, and hastening the over the neighborhood in every avail- day of her redemption. England is laying able shed or room. Notwithstanding rails up the Nile, far northward from the lack of accommodations, he treated Cape Town, with two lines westward some 4,000 patients, contributing much from Beira and lIombasa on the East to the advancement of the growing Coast, the latter aiming for Lake Vicwork of that station. Friends Iiving in toria Nyanza; France is pushing Indiana have provided the funds, and a towards the interior from Algeria, Belnew dispensary and hospital on a small gium up past the cataracts of the Kongo, scale have just been completed.- aud Portugal slowly from Benguella in Ol.urch at Home and Abroad. Angola.
-Rev. J. S. Gale, of Gensan, speaks -Including what has heretofore been thus of the difficulty of translating the known as Bishop Taylor's Self-support- Bible into Korean: " 'I am the bread of ing Mission, the American ~Iethodists life,' would seem one of the easiest sen- labpr in 4 districts of Africa: (1) Liberia; tences to translate, but the Korean has (2) The Kongo; (3) Angola; (4) The no bread. ' I am the good shepherd East African Coast Mission. The and know my sheep,' seems simple lan- statistical summary of the work in guage, but there are no sheep in Korea, these districts is as follows: Stations, so it takes much thought. to discover 28; missionaries, 40; native teachers the best way to show the truth to minds and preachers, 2S; membership, 581; whose modes of reasoning and whose children in mission homes, 588; value associations are so entirely unlike our of property, $73,122. own." -Rev. John Howell writes thus of -The Presbyterian churches in traveling in the Kongo country: "So Korea received during the past year away we went, and next day found us some 200 into their membership. and on tramp. I was quite at home at this, have besides enrolled a thousand cate- but my wife, in the hammock, with a black man at either end, found thi'ngs rather strange. Very often she was Christianity is popular. No; but with some distancc in front of me, alone with deep, downright earnestness and child· her new col.ored friends. Once I caught like faith they desire to know and love her up. They were just fording a river the Lord. There is no. excitement. We with her, she being just a few inches are most careful in our examinations above the water; a slip and it would before receiving them into the church, have been a free bath. On the far side sometimes putting them off for months. the bank was at least six feet above the We have 1 station, 3 preaching places, water's edge. The porter at the foot of 9 missionaries on the field, 1 Sabbaththe hammock climbed up; the head- school, 1 church, with 126 communiend remaining down, you can imagine cants, and a day·school with 45 pupils. the position; she was standing on her Mr. Verner left two days ago to open a head, hanging on with all her might to new station at Wissman Falls. My the hammock, or she would have slid- magic lantern has been of great use to den head first into the water. At night me. u our beds were put in a rough shed, with our mosquito net over, to keep off -A remarkable revival of the Amer· ants, spiders, rats, and other abounding ican Board ofMission is now progressing live stock." at all the stations in NataL Such a work of grace as has never been wit- -Not a few will watch the career of nessed in the Colony is now going on, Heli Chatelain and some co·workers, leading to conviction of sin and converwho have just started for Afdca to sion to Christ, with every evidence that inaugurate the work of the Phil-African it is a work of the divine Spirit. The League. The object of this league is year 1897 will hereafter be as memorato bring relief to the large number of ble among the churches of Natal as is slaves in Central Africa and to endeavor the year 1857 among the churches of to break up the slave trade, especially America. among the Moslem tribes, by establishing a series of colonies. The section -It is gratifying to learn that in selected Is the high tableland between Bechuanaland, especially in the terri· BengueIls and Lake Nyassa. '1'he plan tory occupied by Chief Khama, the of work is to acquire fertile lands by distress caused by drought, locusts, and concession from European governments the rinderpest is somewhat relieved. and by purchase from the natives, the Aid has been forwarded from England, adoption and settlement in model Chris· chiefly through the agency of the Lontian villages of freed slaves and natives don Missionary Society. There was an to be educated in farming and handi- absolute dearth of grain, but food was crafts. The station work is to be di· supplied, and especially seed, so that vided into these main departments- now a harvest is being gathered which agricultural, industrial, educational and promises to save the district from further medical or charitable, each in charge of famine. a competent specialist. Mr. Chatelain has had wide experience in Africa, and ISLANDS OF THE SEA. is thoroughly acquainted with the situ· ation. -The French Protestant Church has received a terrible blow in the death of -lIr. Sheppard, a colored mission· two of her devoted and efficient pasary of the Presbyterian Church, South, teurs, M. Escande and 11. lIIinault, writes from Luebo, March 20: .. The cruelly massacred on the road from Gospel Is being wonderfully blest by Antananarivo to Fianarantsoa, the post the Holy Spirit. The people are seek· which the latter was about to occupy ing the Lord, not for what they may as missionary in the disturbed district receive at our hands, and not because of Betsileo. M. Escande had already been establisht in the island as pasteur and missionary for nearly a year. justice note the markt divisions which When, on PlIsteur Laugs's return to prevail among the Chinese. Those France from Madagascar, the French born at the Straits differ from the SocieHi des Missions appealed for some- Chinamen at home quite as much as one to take his place, M. Escande, the Americans do from the English, altho he had but just arrived from Sen- while the various tribes of Chinamen egal with his wife and children in order differ among themselves both in lang- to recruit their health, without hesita- uage and race·feeling quite as much tion offered himself for the difficult and and probably more, than do the differ- responsible po~t.-London Ohristian. ent nationalities of Europe. I was told by one who lookt over the assembly -Police-Inspector Fitzgerald, for- and made a count of the different lang- merly an enemy of missions, reports uages and races represented there, that thus to his superior upon the work of no less than 18 nationalities could be the Herrnhut missionaries at liapoon found in a company of people which on the east coast of the Gulf of Car- perhaps did not much exceed 200 pentaria, Australia. ., As the result of persons.-Bi8hop 2hoburn. personal observation of the manage- ment of the mission station of lIapoon, -The Bremen Mission in New Gui- I can bear witness with great pleasure nea (Kaiser Wilhelm's Land), is still that this mission is in my opinion a sorely tried by the unhealthy climate. perfect success; a proof of what sound To this, according to the latest news, common sense, courage, and goodwill is now added the even worse trial of a can accomplish with savages. It was Romish eruption right into the portion quite a new experience for me when I of the field which the Bremen missioncompared this station with others. . aries have for six years occupied. "The last steamer," write the brethren, . The results obtained here ex- "brought 4 padres and 8 lay brothers ceed all my experience among the to begin operations where our mission aborigines during more than thirty is already at work." Missionary Helyears. I recommend that the Govern- mich writes: "The Romish mission ment should supply the station with a presses itself like a wedge into the good boat and with 400 woollen blank- midst of our field. And, however sure ets yearly. I am glad to have had the we are that no might of this world can privilege of seeing a station which is stop the truth of the Gospel, we can conducted in so excellent a manner." scarcely repress some slight concern for – Allgemeine Mis8ion~zeit8cltrift. our work. Shame on them that they sllOuld plant themselves where our -Malyasia. Missionary work in mission has poured out its blood and Malaysia is interesting for many reasons, its tears, and made many a sore sacriand at Singapore for the special reason lice." that so many nationalities are represented there. Our good friends ten- -The missionary steam yacht, John dered us a reception during our stay, William8, on leaving Sydney, carried and among the many kind people who out 50 tons of building materials for II were present at the Deaconess Home, Jubilee Hall, to be erected at Malua were persons who had come from Su- in Samoa, at a cost of £1,000, all sub: matra, Java, Borneo, Bangkok, Saigon. scribed by the Samoan native Chris- China, and Japan, besides lIalays from tians; 40 cases of Bibles for Savage this region, Singhalese and Tamils from Island, and a large consign:nent of India, and Europeans of various nation- books for New Guinea, in the Motu alities in Europe and America In- language, printed in Sydney under the deed, if I begin to make mention of supervision of Rev. Dr. Laws. In condiffcrent nationalities from Europe, we nection with the Samoan Mission there may with equal and even greater are now 600 members of the Christian Endeavor Societies.
The Missionary Review of the World — March 1895
CHA.RLES HADDOX SPL'ROEON. JAMES ARCHER SPL'RGEOX
THJll REV. A. J. GORDON, D.D., of Boston, one of our editorial statI, died February 2d, at 12.5 A.M. Fuller notice of this great loss must be reserved for the next issue.
THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVill. No. S.-Old Serie8.-MAROH.-VoL. VIII. No. S.-NetO &riel•.
THE WORLD-WIDE MINISTRY AND MISSION OF CHARLES H. SPURGEON.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-OHIEF.
Some great events, like vast mountains which seem to defy the ordinary law of perspective, scarcely diminish in importance as they recede into. the distance; they still loom up, in grand proportions, when years have passed.
The death of Charles Haddon Spurgeon is one of those momentous losses to the Church and the world which appear rather the. more deplorable after the lapse of years. In fact, it took time to get the true measure of the meaning of this disaster. Like the giant redwoods of Cali10rnia, which are seen to best advantage after they have fallen and lie in colossal grandeur upon the ground, Spurgeon was best measured after he fell ; and thus far the loss is, humanly speaking, absolutely uncompensated by any adequate results of good wrought through it, and the disaster seems, to our limited vision; wholly irreparable.
That God, being both wise and good, wisely meant this unto good, is to a true believer beyond dispute ; but the goodness of this particular dealing and discipline is not yet apparent. In common with many others, we have asked ourselves, again and again, whether there be a single beneficial outcome which can be traced to this strange providence; but we can only fall back blindly upon the assurance that" all things work together for good," and remember our Lord's mysterious words, " What I do thou knowest ~ot now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
Meanwhile, it may be well to look backward and scan this man's service to his generation, and learn under what a debt one consecrated life may lay the whole world.
I. As a preacher of the Gospel, Charles H. Spurgeon had a world-wide mission and ministry.
It would seem as though the pulpit of our day could ill spare him. Among all the modern preachers he stood, facile princeps, without superior, if not without rival, in the apostolic simplicity and unadulterated purity of the Gospel he preached. He felt that somehow and manyhow the message
Tlm WORLD-WIDE KINISTRY 01' CHARLES H. SPURGEOlf. , [¥arch
of salvation had come to be corrupted with so much of man's invention that the chaff was hopelessly mixed with the wheat. Practically, his whole ministry was a sieve, by which he sought to separate man's traditions and fashions from God's teachings and practices. In this respect he seems to us to have had no competitor for tlie peculiar crown that must ever rest on his brow. For forty years he preached, on an average, probably more sermons, without repetition, than any other man of his generation; his published sermons already reach more than two thousand, and yet it would be difficult to find one that does not contain, somewhere or in some form, the essential, vital seed of the saving message. In fact, he early formed the deliberate purpose that such should be the law of his ministry.
He was, in the pulpit, a preacher rather more conspicuously than a teacher-that is, he magnified his double office as herald and witness rather than the quite different province of expositor and instructor. The Divine Master preached" with authority, and not as the scribes," who systematically expounded the Scriptures, but made no direct, authoritative appeals. Spurgeon had a lofty conception of his office as an ambassador, who, while he acts within the limits of his instructions, carries all the authority of the Royal Master whom he re'presents.
He was a born preacher. He had the genius homiletical, if ever a man had it. Such crystallization of thought into striking and radiant analytic forms; 'such piercing insight into spiritual truth; such facility and felicity, both of diction and of illustration ; snch homely thrusts at practical errors and needs; such natural action and effective gesticulation; such memory, imagination, logic and love, an on fire with passion for souls I-has there been any like combination since the days of Wesley and Whitefield? and did he not largely unite in himself much of the power of both these two men?
Spurgeon had the genius of soul-saving, which outranks all mere homiletical faculty. He was withal so sound in the faith, such an apostolic believer, holding. by a grasp so firm and sure all the facts and truths of redemption, that, like a great steamer, he swept smaller craft in his wake. Serenely calm in his conviction, he soared into the lofty realms of unclouded assurance, like an eagle, resting on sublime wing in high altitudes, while the storm of " higher criticism" and scientific irreverence was waging far below. You heard him and you said, "That man believes something." Like Goethe, men feel the need of convictions; as for doubts, they have enough already. Spurgeon gave utterance not to negations, or even mere opinions, but to unalterable positions and convictions; and there was something marvellously refreshing in the experimental vigor and vitality of his preaching. It was a testimony: the whole man was behind it, aitd in the man, as in Burke, there was something finer than he ever said; his very manner bore conviction to the hearer, who felt himself to be in the presence of one who knew God face to face as a. friend, I The preacher at the Metropolitan Tabernacle had no doubt of the fact or of the guilt of sin. Human depravity was to him no inversion of brain cells, or abnormality of nerve ganglia, no mere misfortune or "fall for- ward." To him man represented a revolted pr-ovince with all its functionaries involved in the ruin j as Robert Vaughan suggests in his " Hours with the Mystics," reason, conscience, imagination, will, understanding, desire, all at the service of a usurper, sin: the ermine of the judge, the verdict of the court, the song of the poet, the books of the student, the vessels of the merchant, the sceptre of the will, all perverted to the purposes of Satan. Spurgeon saw the awful arm of treason lifted against God, with the very weapons He had forged turned against His rule j and to him the preacher'S office was to lead back to allegiance, so that the decisions of the court of conscience should be in accord with the Divine common and statute law, so that the understanding should burn its magic books and renounce its magic arts, and the imagination become the aid to faith, the aspiration fix its gaze on the future, and the will use its golden sceptre as God's viceregent! This generation has not known, in any other pulpit, forty years of such plain dealing with sin and salvation, such undeviating, unfaltering testimony to the truth. What shall we do without him!
II. Spurgeon had a world-wide witness as to simplicity of worship. The service which he rendered was in this respect also an invaluable one. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians represent permanent sects in the Church of God j the ritualists, the rationalists, and the secularists we have always with us j and, of them all, the ritualists are not least to be feared. Formalism substitutes rites for righteousness and ceremony for sanctity. It is a suggestive historic fact that, whenever the glory of the Shekinah gets dim, the wax tapers of formalism begin to make the darkness visible, and a multitude of outward symbols and ceremonies becomes the substitute for spirituality and devoutness. It was but a few years since that an aged and venerable clergyman of the old school, whose deep attachment to evangelical truth revolted against the encroachments of a Romanist ritual in the Jnglican body, was importuned by his son, who had joined the extreme wing of the ritualists, to preach in his " chapel of ease." He did so after much urging, but caused no little consternation when he announced his text, " Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is a lunatic /" and then proceeded to show the utter, hopeless lunacy of modern ritualism and ceremonialism. The Metropolitan Tabernacle, with its simple, apostolic worship, is, after forty years, the standing monument to apostolic practice. There is nothing to interfere with the pure worship of God and the impression of gospel truth. No attempt at art, even in the architecture j everything severely but not repulsively plain j no choir nor organ, not even responsive reading j no pictures nor statues, nor even startling colors in furniture or garniture, to draw off the mind through the eye. God alone is exalted there. This is another form of missionary service which the departed pastor of the Tabernacle rendered to the whole Church. It is a witness that the largest church auditorium in the world may be kept full during forty years, without any meretricious secular or questionable aids, aecessories or attractions, by simply holding up Christ as the· Saviour of sinners, and worshipping God in the spirit.
Who does not bless God, in these degenerate days of decaying faith in the perfect trustworthiness of the,Word of God, and in the supernatural working of God by His providence and Spirit in human affairs, for one man whose faith in a fully inspired Bible and a miracle-working Spirit never once flagged, and who thus dared to trust himself to a simple inspired message and a plain spiritual worship! When he fell, it wAs not only as when a standard-bearer falls, and another'strong, brave arm is needful to carry the flag onward, but as when a vessel loses her anchorage, and all anxiously look as the anchor drags to see whether there be some other secure holding for the fluke lest the ship dash against the rocks! How few had, like him, so firm and immovable a basis of conviction and confidence, that from it others might swing, assured of something certain, in days of general doubt and denial ! With what a trumpet-tongue he. echoed what " God hath spoken," as one who, like Elijah, stood before his Master and received His message from His mouth! He was a modern seer, and' in him the spirit of prophecy revived and the days of the open vision returned. He was also, like Elijah, a reformer of abuses, by vehement protest and unsparing ridicule shaming Baal-worship, and repairing the altar of the Lord which had fallen down.
III. Spurgeon fulfilled a world-wide mini,~try by the product8 of hi8 pen.
Thus he indefinitely widened his pulpit and enlarged his audience. That pen was a sword of the Lord and of Gideon, so mighty, keen-edged, sharp-pointed. Thus, while, from the pulpit and platform in Britain during forty years he is believed to have reached by his voice an aggregate of twenty million hearers, by his pen he addressed ten times that number. It became a sort of omnipresent and immortal preacher, for it went into all lands and told to every creature the story of the cross, and its voice is still heard in thirty languages and dialects from the sunrise to sunset. Being dead he yet speaketh. His printed sermons, commentaries, books, and tracts command the most cosmopolitan congregation in the world, numbering millions. The master work of his authorial career is "The Treasury of David," which is to-day instructing hundreds of thousands in their study of the Psalms. How it was possible for a man who was so constantly preaching as he was, and preaching new sermons, to be making books without end, and books of such quality as well as quantity, is still a mystery even to those who know the achievements possible to the genius of Industry. His book notices and reviews in the" Sword and Trowel" were, in the writer's judgment, the most briefly comprehensive, acute and accurate~ witty and wise, judicious and telling, that this generation has afforded. They revealed a capacity and a sagacity that in thiS line haVE)
PASTORS'
(Founded by C. II. Spurgeon, 1856.) PULPIT OF METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, ON OCCASION OF THE FUNERAL OF C. H. SPURGEON. CASKET OF OLIVE-WOOD.
(From Phooograph. Copyright in Great Britain by G. M. Miller. 13 Cambridge Terrace. Belgravia. London. England.)
THE WORLD-WIDE MINISTRY OP CHABLEB H. SPURGEON
no rival It was no wonder that they became to thousands an authoritative oracle.
IV. This world-wide mission of Spurgeon is seen also in the benevolent institutions which he founded and fostered.
Probably the most conspicuous contribution to missions at home and abroad, of any man of this generation, unless it be George Miiller, is to be seen in the general work of this" Kelvedon lad." He was the originator and inspiration of the Pastor's Oollege, which has sent forth nearly one thousand students, one hundred of whom have gone to their reward, while seven hundred and thirty are still actively busy in God's work, six hundred and fifty of them being Baptist pastors, evangelists, or missionariefJ., who for the past quarter century have instrumentally added to the Church over one hundred and eighty thousand souls! The Stockwell Orphanage has five hundred boys and girls in training for Christian lives of service, and has been sending out thousands whom it has prepared for society j and the Almshous68 provide homes for the old and needy, while missionary enterprises at home and abroad, whose name is legion, attest the broad sympathies of the aggressive man of God, who, as Macaulay said of Goldsmith, left nothing untouched and adorned whatever he touched.
Nowhere did Charles H. Spurgeon prove a failure. AB is promised to the man who is planted by the river of God, and takes into the very roots of his being the Word of God, whatsoever he did, prospered. His success in every sphere was so marked that he seemed specially fitted for everything he undertook. He was evidently in league with God.
How long and how vigorously his work will survive him is yet a problem. As to the Orphanage, it seems established on permanent foundations j it is always full, and has thus far always been supplied with needed funds from its strong hold upon popular confidence and sympathy.. It is painful to see it stated that the Pastor's College has had to reduce its number of students by three eighths, and that the Sunday offerings applied to its support are not nearly iIp to the former standard. It is to be hoped that this, if true, is but a temporary decline. After enjoying weekly contact with the students in that Institution, for two college years, and lecturing to them every Friday,' the writer can bear witness that, for average ability, soundness of doctrine, and aggressive spirit, he has never known any equal number of young men in any other theological seminary. They do not wait to grad. uate before they engage in work j they are a power for God even during their period of training, and Britain, not to say the church everywhere, owes to them a debt that is incalculable, for their persistent advocacy of sound doctrine and apostolic church life.
Mr. Spurgeon found necessary, in the multitude of his arduous labors, to commit in part, to other hands, much of the administrative duties con. nected with these institutions. A quarter of a century ago he called to his aid his only brother, James Archer Sp:rrgeon, who, until the very death of Charles, largely relieved him of these cares; and with characteristic generosity Charles, both in conversation and correspondence, always did ample justice to his brother's administration. In fact, one of his best friends thinks that he so unduly magnified the services and influence of others that he minimized his own. Certainly he remarked to the writer more than once, that his brother JaLles had sacrificed himself to his usefulness, and that the public did not know how largely he had thns been laid under obligation, both by his brother's capacity and sagacity. Without attempting to recall his exact words, he left upon me the impression' that many of the plans and measures of which he was the public exponent and expression were really due to the careful thought of that younger brother, hinting, half playfully perhaps, that there was more than one case in history where" Aaron" had acted as the spokesman and mouthpiece of " Moses," and got credit which was due to him. But, when all allowance is made for James Spurgeon's efficient help, it is transparently plain to all who were intimately linked with Charles Spurgeon and his work, that his own "mind" was behind his own" mouth" in all that implies actual origination of benevolent work. He was not a man who could ever be servilely dependent upon any other person for guidance or control. He bore the popular title of the " governor," and he earned it. He was by nature an autocrat, bnt in no offensive sense, and shaped the policy of the institutions which he founded. If, like Pharaoh with Joseph, he made any other, ruler, he still remained on the throne, and greater than all his helpers, always chief, never subordinate.
Such was the man whose death at Mentone, three years ago, January 31st, 1892, set millions mourning. Great as he was, he was at the same time so genuine, simple, humble, childlike, unpretending, gracious, urbane, sympathetic, that we know not which most to admire, his public ministry or his personal manhood. How few have been in the home so winningly good who have been in th~ world so influentially great! combining such an imperial sceptre of influence with such private and domestic virtue! He showed what one man can do to make the whole world better; and no arithmetic can do justice to the colossal dimensions of his actual achievement. The children trained in the Orphanage, and the preachers trained in the College, have been widely scattered seed which has greatly multiplied the harvest of his sowing; and the evangelistic and colportage work, whose inspiring source he was, added indefinitely to the sphere which belongs to his life and work. Nor must we forget, in estimating his immense service, that book fund, jointly administered by himself and his wife, which dis· tributed so many thousands of volumes among needy clergymen and other readers.
In heaven, says Swedenborg, "instruction is committed not to memo ory, but to life. " Here we have an example of such a principle without waiting for the heavenly sphere. We look from this man to the timid apologists for Christianity, the half.hearted servitors of a secular religious. ness, the sensational pulpit declaimers of the day, and we wonder whether,
AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIA'l'ION
like Lucius in the "Golden Ass," they have not got hold of the wrong witch-salve. When Fotis gave him the mistaken unguent he extended his arms, swayed to_and fro, expecting to be metamorphosed into a bird and soar aloft j but, instead, he found his hands and feet growing horny. hairs shooting from his thickening skin, and the suspiciously long ears appearing, which betray the ass. Have modern preachers got hold of the devil's magic ointment instead of the Spirit's" eye salve" and Divine chrism 1 Are they looking for a metamorphosis which will never come, because they have mistaken human learning, oratorical graces, worldly popularity, for the true anointing which is from above? and are they really moving on a terrestriallevel, like four-footed beasts and creeping things, while professing to discourse of celestial things like soaring and singing larks?
Who shall enable us to learn the lesson that every man may be a missionary, if he knows the missionary Spirit as his indwelling guide 1 Whether in the heart of China or Africa or India, or in the pulpit of a great city of Christendom, or in the humblest workshop of a tradesman, every God-sent man does the God-appointed work. :FrolU the outset every such man is, like his Master, about his Father's business, and 'can say at the end, "I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." The Church and the world need missionaries, and the need is imperative and immediate j but no need so great exists as that of men and women who in the calling wherein they are found therein abide with God, and whose life is, like John the Baptist, a perpetual voice of witness, a living epistle of the power and grace of God, read and known of all men.
THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.
The American Missionary Association has for nearly a half century been engaged in evangelistic and educational work among the negroes and poor whites of the South and the Indians and Chinese of the West. This Association has 42 common schools and 36 graded aiJ.d normal schools in the South. In New England the illiterate population over ten years of age is less than 6 per cent j in the South it is 27 per cent. The illiterate element of the colored population is 60 per cent, and over one third of the population of the South is of colored blood. The industrial, intellectual, and spiritual training of the negro is the hope of the race which is waiting to prove either a terrible curse or a great blessing to the land in which we live.
The number of Indians in the United States (exclusive of Alaska) is now only about 225,000. The red man is coming to appreciate and desire the benefits that flow from Christianity. In spite of the bright outlook, the Association has been compelled, by lack of funds, to cut down by one half their work among these, the "nation's wards." Two new churches have been established among the Indians during the past year, and Christian Endeavor work is especially successful. Chinese converts returning to China are preaching the Gospel largely under the auspices of the " Chinese Missionary Society" of the Pacific coast. There are 21 schools on the Pacific coast, carried on by the American Missionary Association, in' which schools 34 teachers have taught 1201 Chinese pupils, leading 197 of these pupils to tUi'll from the worship of idols, and 173 of them to profess faith in Christ. THE GROWTH OF THE LEADING AMERICAN MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.
BY ROBERT E. SPEER.
The last few years have witnessed a large advance in the comprehensive, comparative, and exact study of missionary administration, both at home and abroad. Questions which were deemed suborrlinate at first are assigned now a more prominent place. In the desire to establish as soon as possible a native church in each land, there is no longer among wise missionaries the inclination to sacrifice the independence and virility of the people by the use of methods which will secure the desired result at the expense of this sacrifice; while at home by closer correspondence and annual conference those charged with the administration of the missionary organizations are comparing experience, studying and classifying facts, and endeavoring to settle at least some general lines of definite policy, which shall secure the more spei)dily in each mission field the establishment of a self-supporting, self-propagating native church. The hope is entertained by some that the settlement of such general lines of policy or of principle would set free time, men, and means for a wider and more purposeful attempt to evangelize the great populations as yet untouched.
The difficulty in such a study as that suggested, the necessity for which is obvious, is that the material for it has been inaccessible. Each missionary society has published reports, but they have been designed to give general information and to arouse interest rather than to throw light on more or less technical questions. Moreover, the modern missionary enterprise is still young, and it lIas required some years to develop its problems. Besides, the missionary work is to so large an extent simply the influence of individuals upou individuals, that the existence of the wider questions of method amI policy has been often naturally overlooked. The conferences of the missionaries of China, at Shanghai, in 1877 and 1890, and of India, at Bombay, in 1892-93, and elsewhere at less striking meetings, have helped and are helping to settle some general principles upon the field, while the meetings in New York, the last two winters, of representatives of the missionary societies at home have both encouraged the study of the relation of the control of the appropriations to the determination of policy and method, and furnished some material for the stud; of this and other questions.
At one of these conferences it was desired to present a summary of the growth of the leading missionary organizations of America, showing by decades the development of the work of each organization. It was not possible to gather the material in time, and it has not been possible to secure complete accuracy at all. What it has been possible to secure is of sufficient value to present to the readers of the REVIEW, as giving the most complete available statement of the growth of our missionary work. The tables, at the end of this article, are made out for eight of the ten missionary organizations of our country which have annual incomes of over $100,000. They have been furnished by the societies themselves, with additions in some cases from tlie printed reports. These statistics are probably less trustworthy, as they are less complete, than those obtainable regarding the home churches. Especially in the early years the figures are not to be too confidently relied upon. For the sake of comparison, however, they can probably be trusted. Aside from the picture of prog- ress presented in these tables, they are valuable as throwing light on scores of subordinate questions.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was for- mally constituted September 5th, 1810, at Farmington, Conn., and was incorporated by the Legislature of Massachusetts on June 20th, 1812. Its original plan probably contemplated association only with the New Eng. land Congregational Churches, but in 1812 eight commissioners were added from the Presbyterian Church, in 1814 one from the Associate Reformed Church, in 1816 one from the Reformed (Dutch) Church, and subse- quently one from the Reformed German Church. In 1838 the "Old School" Presbyterians withdrew; in ] 857 the Reformed Church withdrew, taking the Amoy and Arcot missions, and in 1870 the" New School" Presbyterians withdrew, with whom the Persia, Syria, Gaboon and several Indian missions were handed over to the Presbyterian Church. These facts must be borne in mind in studying the accompanying tables. (See Table I. at end of article.)- The decrease in the number of missions and stations not already ac_ counted for, between 1852-72, was due to the transfer or cessation of missions to the Indians, and the removal of the Sandwich Islands from the category of foreign missions in 1871. From 1872 to 1882 the number of ministers in the Congregational Church increased nearly 20 per cent, while the number of ordained foreign missionaries ~ncreased about 14 per cent. From 1882 to 1892 the number of ministers increased nearly 33t per cent, while the number of ordained foreign missionaries increased only about 14 per cent. During the last two decades the numbers of women missionaries have increased, respectively, 33i per cent and 25 per cent; ordained native helpers, over 50 per cent and 33t per cent; other native helpers, 125 per cent and more than 33t per cent j schools, 116 per cent and 24 per cent; scholars, 120 per cent and less than 50 per cent; contributions from home Church, 8 per cent and 77 per cent; while the communicants increased at home 23 per cent and 65 per cent, and the communicants abroad 120 per cent and 105 per cent. The large number of women native helpers is most striking. The present missions of the American Board are in Africa, Turkey, India, Ceylon, China, Japan, Micronesia, Mexico, Spain, and Austria. The report for 1892 includes a medical man and his wife and ten theological students in the Sandwich Islands. The missionary work of the Methodist Episcopal Church grew out of the efforts in 1816 of John Stewart, a negro, among the Wyandotte Indians. The Missionary Society was organized April 5th, 1819, "to diffuse more generally the blessings of education and Christianity, and to support and promote missionary schools and Christian missions throughout the United States and territories, and also in foreign countries." In 1844 the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) separated from the Church North, and established its own missionary society. Dr. Baldwin says of the tabular statement that it does not include the work of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, though the missionaries of that society are included in the column headed " Women." "Stations" are not reported in the same way as by other societies. The number given is Dr. Baldwin's estimate. The home and foreign missionary operations of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North) are not separated, but the table gives only the foreign work. No small part of this work, however, is in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Bulgaria, and Italy. Accordingly a line has been added giving the statistics for the foreign work with European countries excluded. (See Table II.) One is impressed at once with the large number of native helpers reported here, 4325 in all, or 2919, excluding Europe, an increase of over 300 per cent since 1882, while the figures of 1882 are an increase of nearly 250 per cent over those for 1872. Of these helpers 1391, or nearly one half of those from non-European fields, are reported from North India. Schools show an increase of 130 per cent from 1882 to 1892, and of 166 per cent from 1872 to 1882. Scholars increased about 190 per cent from 1882 to 1892, and about 150 per cent during the preceding decade. Of the 35,616 scholars in non-European fields in 1892, 19,571, more than one half, in 697 schools-6 of them high schools-were reported from North India. The Sabbath-school reports are the most complete presented by any society, and show a steady and remarkable increase. It is interesting, again, to note that of the 59,748 scholars, 32,133 are in North India. Under communicants are reported both members and probationers. In the fields outside of Europe 23,753 members were reported in 1892, 8820 in North India, where there were also 16,203 probationers. In this column the increase has been over 300 per cent from 1862 to 1872, about 150 per cent from 1872 to 1882, and less than 133 per cent from 1882 to 1892. Another striking feature of this table is the large amount reported in 1892 as contributed by the native church, $339,318 or *157,159 excluding Europe. This is reported as collected for benevolent and missionary societies, self-support, building, repairing, and local purposes; *62,680 of this amount having been given by the non-European fields for self-support, $23,642 by South America, $6429 by Mexico, and *31,363 by North and South India.
The missionary work of the Presbyterian Church began in 1741, with the appointment of Azariah Horton, a member of the Presbytery of New York, to work among the Indians on Long Island. David Brainerd was the second missionary. In 1763 the Synod of New York assumed the responsibility for the Indian work, and in 1800 the General Assembly took up the work systematically and carried it on till 1818, when the United Foreign Missionary Society was formed, consisting of the Presbyterian, Reformed Dutch, and Associate Reformed churches, "to spread the Gospel among the Indians of North America, the inhabitants of Mexico and South America, and other portions of the heathen and anti-Christian world. " In 1826 all this work was transferred to the American Board. In 1831 the Western Foreign Missionary Society was formed by the Synod of Pittsburgh, which surrendered its work to the Board of Foreign Missions established by the General Assembly in 1837. From 1838 to 1870 the Old School churches worked through this Board, and the New School churches through the A. B. C. F. M. The Southern Presbyterian Church withdrew from the Old School in 1861 and began at once its own missions. (See Table III.) It is interesting to note that in 1852 one Presbyterian minister out of 28 was a missionary; in 1862, one out of 36 jin 1872, one out of 37 ; in 1882, one out of 35 ; in 1892, one out of 28. One Presbyterian out of 1512 went to the field in 1852 ; one out of 1779 in 1872 j one out of 1314 in 1892. The number of medical missionaries is much larger and of more steady and rapid growth than that of any other society. The last two decades native helpers have increased 80 per cent and 87 per cent. The small number of schools in comparison with the reports of the other larger societies is significant. The earlier statistics of Sabbath-school scholars are unreliable, as are also the reports of native contributions. Communicants have increased during the five decades since 1842, 900 per cent, 55 per cent, 500 per cent, 300 per cent, 75 per cent. Between 1882 and 1892 a number of missions among the Indians was transferred to the Board of Home Missions. It. will be noticed how far short the annual expenditure upon mission work has come of keeping pace in its increase with the amount expended by the Church upon herself and at home. These figures, telling the growth of the work of the Presbyterian Board, can be better appreciated by noticing that its missions are located in the main in the most difficult and unresponsive fields, and that its report is not helped by anyone field of phenomenal fruitfulness.
On May 18th, 1814, in consequence largely of the missionary cam~ paign of Luther Rice, Judson's companion on the voyage to India, a convention of 26 clergymen and seven laymen, representing the Baptists of 11 different States and the District of Columbia, met in Philadelphia. This meeting resulted in the formation of a Triennial Convention. Mrs. Judson's visit to the home land in 1823 gave this movement its greatest impulse. In 1845 the Baptists of. the Southern States withdrew in consequence of the reply made to the demand of the Alabama Baptists, by the Acting Board, "that if anyone should offer himself as a missionary, having slaves, and should insist upon retaining them as his property, the Bo~rd could not appoint him." As a result of this separation the Baptists of the Northern States formed, in 1846, the American Baptist Missionary Union. (See Table IV.) Mr. Merriam, Editorial Secretary, in sending this table, states that " the statistics of the society in former years were not gathered in such a manner as to allow of all the columns being filled out. " The figures giving the number of communicants and the amount of native offerings, and the Sabbath-school scholars, include the European fields of the Union, as the published report for 1892 gives the members of the churches in the non-European fields as 83,597, the contributions of the native churches as $59,921. 82, and the Sabbath-school scholars as 15,347 in 615 schools. The missions of the Union are in Burma, Assam, among the Telegus in India, in China, Japan, and Africa. The success among the Burmans and Telegus has been wonderful, and the report can be understood only in the light of the facts regarding those two missions. All but $4602.45 of the amount given by native churches was given by the Burman churches, which numbered 30,253 members. In these churches were more than one half of all the scholars reported as in schools. 47,458 members were reported from the Telegu Mission, with 7190 pupils in schools, but only $2468.28 in contributions; 21,329 communicants were reported from Ongole alone, while of the 10,971 baptisms in 1891, nearly half, 5379, were reported from Ongole and Cumbum, two Telegu stations. The Assam, Chinese, Japanese, and African missions reported in 1892, 182 foreign missionaries, 5886 communicants, 1130 additions during the year, and native contributions amounting to $2134.27. $197,371.15 was expended on these missions, and $276,159.05 on the Burman and Telegu fields.
The Methodist Episcopal Church (South) organized a home and foreign missionary society in 1846 at its first General Conference. In 1866 the home work was separated from the foreign and given to a separate board. In 1870 the two were again united, but separated in 1874. At present, however, they are united. There are five missions-one in China, two in Mexico, one in Japan, and one in Brazil. In 1870 the colored members of the Church were organized into an independent Church. In the following table the returns for 1862 are the samA as those for 1860, as the work was interrupted during the Civil War. (See Table V.) The small number of ordained missionaries in proportion to the large home ministry will be noticed at once, one out of every 242. In the past ten years ordained natives have increased 600 per cent, and women helpers even more; communicants over 200 per cent; Sabbath-school scholars over 400 per cent; pupils in day-schools about 200 per cent, while the gifts of the home Church have more than doubled. From the report for 1892 it would seem that about one fourth of the amount stated as given by the Church for the cause was expended in home missions.
The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church was formed in 1820, and in 1835 was reorganized so as to " comprehend all persons who are members of this Church." There are now five missions-China, Japan, Haiti, Africa, and Greece. In the table the figures for 1882 alone contain the statistics of the work in Mexico. (See Table VI.) The first most striking fact is the slow increase of ordained missionaries. The number was in 1872 the same as in 1842, and increased only 25 per cent the last decade. Native helpers and schools show a steady increase; schools a larger proportionate increase than scholars. The increase of missionary offerings has not equalled the increase of expenditures upon the Church at home.
The Board of Foreign Missions of the United Presbyterian Church was the product of the combination of the Boards of Foreign Missions of the Associate and Associate Reformed churches, which were united in 1858. The Board was formally incorporated in 1866. For a number of years it had missions in Trinidad, Syria, and China, as well as in Egypt and India. These last two are its only missions now. (See Table VII.) It will be noticed at once how greatly the growth of the last decade has exceeded the growth of the two preceding decades. Missionaries have increased 100 per cent, native helpers 300 per cent, Sabbath-school scholars nearly 300 per cent, communicants 600 per cent, native contributions only 34 per cent. Two facts stand out with special clearness : one the concentration of work of this Board; the other the emphasis upon schools, which increased 233t per cent the last decade, scholars increasing 130 per cent. More schools are reported than those of the two preceding societies combined j but there are also as many communicants and 50 per cent more native contributions, while the annual expenditure is less than half that of either of the others.
From 1818 to 1826, as has been already intimated, the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America was associated with the Presbyterian Church in the United Foreign Missionary Society. In 1832 the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was chosen by the General Synod, but it operated through the A. B. C. F. M. until 1857, when the Arcot and Amoy missions were transferred to it and it began its independent work. The Japan Mission was established in 1859. These three are the only missions of the Board. (See Table VIII.) One minister out of 22 is a foreign missionary in the Dutch Reformed Church. Communicants have doubled during each of the reported decades. Native contributions show a proportionate increase.
It is to be regretted that because of sickness or lack of needed help the officers of the Southern Baptist Convention and of the Executive Committee of the Southern Presbyterian Church were unable to have table'.! prepared of their work. In 1891 their receipts were respectively $113,522 and $112,951 ; missionaries, 97 and 100; native laborers, 66 and 50; communic3Ilts, 2377 and 2072 ; native contributions, $2157 and $2850. The origin of the separate work of these two bodies has been already indi- cated.
The comments offered upon these tables are merely suggestive. The statistics are not accurate enough for purposes of close argument or inference. They are important as paving the way for more reliahle reports by showing their value, and they are of utility for comparative study, their inaccuracy being of such a general character as not to disqualify them for this use. It is needless to say that they are not a statement of missionary success or failure. Obedience and obligation cannot be stated in terms of mathematics. The tables do, however, suggest some interesting consider- ations.
1. Schools are not inconsistent with evangelistic results. Whether as partial cause or as effect, the missions from which the largest numbers of communicants and baptisms are reported report also most schools. Of the 1188 schools reported by the A. B. M. U., 491 are among the Burmans and 533 among the Telegus. In Northern India where the Methodists report one third of' their members, excluding Europe, there are more than one half of their schools. The United Presbyterian missions show from 1882 to 1892 the largest increase of schools, and much the largest pro- portionate increase of communicants. There is a large number of mis- sions, however, where a large increase of communicants has not accom- panied a strong educational emphasis.
2. There has evidently been great absence of uniformity and agreement in pushing self-support. The altogether inadequate statistics given by some, and the small amounts often where the reports are accurate, indi- cate the need of a thorough study of this subject and a more vigorous policy at home and abroad. Great harm has been done by wrong begin- nings. Is it certain that in the many new missions right beginnings are making now ¥ It is striking that the United Presbyterian missions report nearly as large native contributions as all the missions of the Presbyterian Church (North). The American Board and the Methodi!>t Church have apparently adhered most closely to wise policy and attained the best gen- eral results. The Karen Bassein Mission of the Baptists, with 116 self- supporting churches and only 2 non-self-supporting, needs to be held up before all other missions.
3. Taking the figures as given in these tables for 1892, in the Congre- gational Church one member.in 1183 was a foreign missionary; in the Presbyterian, one in 1314; in the Reformed Church, one in 1426; in the United Presbyterian, one in 1843 ; in the Baptist, one in 2190 ; in the Methodist (North), one in 4614 ; in the Protestant Episcopal, one in 8970 j in the Methodist (South), one in 13,477. One minister out of 22 was a foreign missionary in the Dutch Reformed Church; one out of 26t in the United Presbyterian; one out of 27 in the Congregational j one out of 28 in the Presbyterian; one out of 55 in the Baptist (North) ; one out of '11 in the Methodist (North) ; one out of 176 in the Protestant . Episcopal; one out of 242 in the Methodist (South). Upon all these figures the action of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1866 is a startling commentary. The General Assembly " beli~ves that no good reason can be shown for so unequal a division of the ministerial force as exists at present, 2484 ministers remaining here among a population of only five or six millions, nearly all whom already know what they should do to be saved, while we give 83 ministers, 17 of whom are natives, to the many hundreds of millions who have never yet heard of Jesus and His salvation. The Assembly therefore recommends to all its young ministers, as well as candidates for the ministry, to give a new hearing to the calls which are coming in for laborers for this wide- spread harvest-field." The amount expended at home in 1892 by the Baptists and the South- ern Methodists is not given, but of the other churches the United Presbyterians gave one dollar to the work abroad for each ten dollars spent at home ; the Dutch Reformed, one for each eleven dollars; the Presbyterians, one for each fourteen dollars ; the Congregationalists, one for each sixteen dollars; the Methodists (North), one for each twenty-one dollars; the Episcopalians, one for each forty-eight dollars.
The average gift per member of each Church was as follows: Congregationalist, $l.27 ; Dutch Reformed, $l.19 ; Presbyterian, $l.13; Baptist, $0.67; Protestant Episcopal, $0.50; Methodist (North), $0.28; Methodist (South), $0.22.
In 1891 the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (North) gave $263,660.69. This should be added to the $622,912 given by the Misbionary Society of the Church. On this basis, the average gift of each member was $0.39, and the Chnrch gave one dollar to the work abroad for each fifteen dollars expended at home. The figures for the Baptist Church (North) are on the basis of a membership of 850,- 000, given as the constituency of the A. B. M. U.
4. It will be observed that no women medical missionaries are reported prior to 1882. In 1892 the A. B. M. U. reports men and women together. The other boards report 30 women. 123 medical missionaries in all were reported, nearly two fifths of them by the Presbyterian Board. 2172 missionaries are reported, excluding medical and ~uropean Methodist missionaries, 841 of whom are men and 1331 women. In the last decade medical missionaries increased in number 200 per cent; in the preceding decade 100 per cent. Missionaries of all classes have increased in the last four decades 75 per cent, 54 per cent, 34 per cent, and 29 per cent. In 1852 they had decreased 14 per cent as compared with 1842. In 1862 there were 352 women to 376 men. In 1892 there were 1331 women to 841 men. Which of the twain loves most ~ It is desired that the purpose of setting forth these statistics should not he misunderstood. They arc not intended to show missionary results for the purpose of vindicating the work of the missionary agencies. No such statement can be properly or adequately made in this form. They are not meant to stimulate the passion for results statable arithmetically-a passion already responsible for no little detriment to the real interests of the work. "If we were to attack missionary bodies," says the London Spectator, "it would be for their attention to results, for their sordid counting of converts, and for their consequent disposition to attack perishing races like the Polynesians, and their reluctance to concentrate effort on a race like the Arab, which might furnish us with teachers acceptable throughout the whole continent of Africa." The tables are offered for the consideration of the intelligent friends and students of missions.
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS. ~ ~ :j
~l ~i~r~ c~~~- ~~~~':s. SCHOOLS. SCHOLARS. J i~ ~~ —- — ~,,' g tl t)j ._~s~.=::~ i i ~'&! __ I J_! I ~ ! ~, nJq ]} ~ J l~ JJ .a '0 .; -rn !~ :8::1'a3 . '3l .. BOARDING. D.I.~. .~&::I :§;j~] ~.a …. 00.<:1 li ~~ i 1842.. …. ~ .. …. 26 85 166 179 151,i …….· 4[ 30 61S1 738 386 ~ !………. ………….. 21,26111 …….. $318.396 $27,548 1852.. …. . ….. 26 111 184 2111 43 202 27 783 485 484 22,595 …… …….. 22,061…………….. 301,727 35,386 :~;;; ~~;.;;:'~ ~~:: :1:::: :: : :1 ::::: ~ ::::::: ~::I:::::: :::::1 :::~ ::: 1882.. 3,713 881,697 20 82 155 261 8 2 148 488 1,OM 104 8069821 2,210 1,688 ~ …… ……. 19'7551 …….. $4,024,720 454,Oil 34,961 1892.. 4.886 625,97520 95 *183 329 18 4 200. 624 1,380 141 4,259 2,832 35,715 12,020 …… 5O,805, 40,338 $104,566 8,445,000 794,R75, 55.981 • Of whom 11 are medical men.
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (NORTH.) 1842. . 4,186 1,C68,525 1 1 23 4'1" …. …. …….. 1 ………………….:..:.:,…… 1 20 731 1,257 …….. ………. $27,755' ….. ..
1852.. 4..';13 728.700 4 18 29 20 1……. 26 … 1 18….. …… 517 …. 3;753'" ………….. 1~:~ :::::::: :dI62. e,655 ~42,906 7… 63 60 2 …….. 152 20 2 31…… 987266 31 544 16,127 …. , … ……… 373,825 …… .
1872.. 10,242 1,458,441 12 … ' 2(J'{ –"- 39.979 $182,997 ………. 327.327 ….. ..
~ 1882.. 11,028 1,710,204 15 .. 103 5,329 9,125 339,318 13,146.975 622,912 about5% 49,395 157,159.. ……. .. ………. .. . m =: .: ~:: :~.9~~ ~,~:~~ ~Il~ 1201 II. .. 810 …. ~12.'9i3 . 4 180 …… …… 426 18,971 1,151 54,097 112 2 5 504 291 .. 498 ;,:,,:,:,,:,_.._• ~~ ~Ig 3,~~ ~~~ !~ t~.~ ~:~~~ I ~:~ l~k~ BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
1842.. …. .. …. 10 12 31 80 1 . . . . 9 …. 5 13 174 27 475 2 …… 44 ……….. …, $58,185 $11.291 >-3 1852.. 2,0l~ 210,199 19 80 71 64 4 .. 2 25: 1 17 33 348 211 2,067 69 …… 80 487 S350 1,108,277 144,923 14,178 ~ 595 1.600.733 176,911 16.801/ ~ 1862.. 2.807 302,706 21 58 77 65 7 .. 2 821…. 18 82 327 192 4,025 248 …… 486 681 1872.. 4.341 466,14728 64 116 136 10 33 409 7 12 81 258 447 8,750 1,221 …… 965 4.208 2,575 9,738,5611457.21,2 81,542 • 1882.. 5,022 585.29128 91 142 238 16 2 84 683 52 47 224 636 1,247 12.743 5,438 …… 4,834 16.484 6,199 8,782,535 576.798 24.836 .~ -=189=2.;..;……:6"',04:.:l)~.,–'81)!,258 27 11~2'~"-_350='–'34'-"-..::1=2:…::165::::..-=1!;c.234=..::1=29::.:……:..70"'-~686=-=-..::1:c::.826=..;1:..c,8:::2::.6……:1::,:7:;:.82'7::.:..:_=S,!.:.109;:::.::.:,•:.:..;.:,•:.:.J'–=26=,393=~80~,=479~-.:::;38~,73=1c..:l~3.'.:,4::.;73,zO~I::..7~98~1!::.~::::92::……:::56::!.:::305~ …
BAPTIST MISSIONARY
., MBDI- ~ ., CAL MIS- Z .c IONA· RIllS. '0 1>,- —- — ] i i~trl ~…. 1jE ~ ~ FORBIGN NATIVE SCHOOLS. SCHOLARS. .]ooS:=o~~.c' ,00:= .~~ MISSION- HELPERS. ._0 ~.ll~ ARIES. ai '0 b §~ oai Oil +>0:= .0c . § ~~ llo il'~ .8.d 'C 0 -<~ .$~".~,..,ocg=, ''i"0Ei:=i g "<ll ~:8 Sli! 8j ,.~£,.~=c ai ai a 'tl oj: BOARDING. DAY. '§ ,., >l 0:= ~ :§0);1 .c a — — – – – – – – -~- ~ – – – -~ -1- – – – ._—- a — — — — – – – – ~o§."~ .S ';j gQ3 +>0:= '0' ~ .S a ~ .c ~~ 8 ~ ~ '0"" !Xl ~ ~ .!l ~ "'OIl r;; ~ ~ 0 1;;.-q li! !! ~ ~ A 0 .~ ;":' ~~ -I<I ~ <ll <ll 0 0 <ll ~ _. !Xl C!l 0 – _ _1_- 1842.. . ……•..••… …. ………
1852 . . . . . • . . . • • . . • . . . . . • —-'- ~~I:::: .::., ::::I···~95 ::::::1··· ..~:1~~·····1:::::::: :::::. :::::::. 1862.. .•…. ….•••..• 6 18 38566 30,129 $5,000 ..•••..••. 885,192 $14,052 216,000 38,785 1872.. ..•… .•…..•.. 9 21 46 57,512 ….••• 1…….. .. 30,235 1882……………… 6 33 73 94,879 .•.•…..••••••… 30'~,584 108 •.•• 91 421 …. 190 473……. •.•.••••••.•••..•…. •.• …….. …… ….. ..
I …..A-. .-….J.- …….. .••••• 78,187 163,881 244,360 $6,518,388 569,173 49,125 1892.. 8,000 850,000 7 73 144 229 15'" 243 1,023 180 1,188 …•.. 22,284 BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (SOUTH.) t~~:: 6:800 .. oili:ssi "i .. OJ "'2 :::::: :::: :::: :::: …..j :::: :: .. ·····2 :::::" :::::" ······37 ······ii '0 "1 ……4;; …. •..2 :::::::: :.:::::::: :::::::: "$2,652 1il62.. 8,137 U9,068 1 1 5……. … …. …. 1…. …. …… … .. ….. .. . .. . .. . .. … . a. 1872.. 8,366 645,793 1 2 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , 323 1 21 8 1 20 11 …….. ………. … …. 2,266 9 2 40 79 ….. .. .. .. . … $8,010. 11,538 1882.. 9,914 867.385 3 18 18 6 2 1 9 42 3 8 84 128 105 528 388 43 1,288 1,856 $911 .. ……. 129,754 7,132 1892 .. 11.849 1,293,866 6 111 49 43 2 2 59 81 34 20 1'9 846 355 1,721 974 225 6,561 6,709 12,123 $2,286,791 289,869 20,811 DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
-1842 .. 1,107 ………. 6 10 11 14 …. …. a 5 …… …………. ……………. …… …….. 26 …….. ………. $29,279 $8,476 "3 1852.. 1,605 67,200 3 5 10 ~ 11 …. …. 9 21 52 -'- …….. ……. …….. $330,533 41,048 3,462 1862•• 2,079 ……… 5 10 13 102 r;; 15 13 5,364 1872.• 2,952 224,995 5 52 11 11 1 …….. 4 34 17 -'-"- -"- 421 ……. 22,015 ~ 1882.. 3,496 842,590 6 149 19 12 …. 14 184 65 4 8 150 405 13.060 ~ 1892 •. 4,229 556,140 5 223 24 260 75 ……, 285 50,576 19.613 1,240 940 724 ……. 5,544,574 110,7a~ 26 3 …. 44 11 29 80 2,129 :::::: 572 2,551 1.756 33 4 1 57 26 44 4,082 2,297 $5,212 11,749,043 173.848 33 80 836 3,567 8,496 13,218.919 275,600
OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN
FMOlR~~E~IGNN- ~M:R~DiI~C~A-L NAT1VR SCHOLARS. '" … .; 1>1.l; '~ . Il HELPJ:RS., SCHOOLS. ~ +gai.al Q;I Q) 0 5 -~"O. . o"'-C,,S~ .~.0r_5. ~§ -.,… rdca _ -.5~~ t~l ~ • -~ ,.fl,," -8~ ) " :.530~ 1 –1– aa ~.<:IQ,);:::fQ,)::r ~lO<lj ",.<:I .~~~ oi!l. —- —- B~~:~. S ~z'O:::::l o&o!::,.1a1·l s~….~;~ "<:l d ro.,,a~1.~. ~ DAY. .sttl 1l0P d i ~ :s"o '~§ " ":g 'E il l ~:_E I ~oS .a<5:I ~o ~o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ (3~)i1~ £ l ~ __ ]!"'" l~'" 0:1 : _ iEL187:.l.. :~~~ ::~~:5i~:~ :::6 ::i~ ::.::~ :::: :::::: :::~ :::: :::: :::: :::::~ .:.::.:T1:':":::0:0 :::::: :::::: :::: :::::: :::::: :::::::: ::~~~:~~~ :ii~:~i~~i~i~~:: 72,896 4 12 7 2 8~…… 18 789:.:: 494 $2,123 789,436 51,694 i% 584 19 2 …… ooT' 75 • 1,464 2,214 1882. 719 84,573 1 2 77 15 13 . . 00 00 00 00 8 189 00 00 3,42611,351…. 2,555 1,565 23,272 852,253 77,872 2% 1892.. 796 109,0181 2 207 30 26 2 24, 494 253 •••. ",., •. 7,8221 3,061i 241 9,751 10,445 30,511 1,171,652 114,636 2% BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE REFORMED (DUTCH) CHURCH.
MISSIONS IN THE WEST INDI.!
MISSIONS IN THE WEST H:DIES.
BY REV. W. J. MORNAN, JAMAICA.
THE FIELD.
The term West Indies is used to designate the several groups of islands scattered over the Caribbean Sea between North and South America. The largest islands are Cuba, with an area of 43,000 square miles, and about 2,000,000 inhabitants; Haiti, or San Domingo, with a population of 1,500,000, and somewhat smalIer in size than Cuba; Jamaica, having an area of 4300 square miles, and a population of 600,000. Then come Puerto Rico and a multitude of small islands and cays, making up about 100,000 square miles of area and about 5,900,000 inhabitants. At the time of their discovery, in 1492, most of these islands, and particularly the larger ones, were densely peopled by the Carib Indians. They were soon, however, exterminated by the fearful cruelties inflicted on them by the bloodthirsty Spaniards. The horrible details of this wholesale butchery are recorded in the works of the famous Las Casas and other contemporary writers. By the end of the eighteenth century, chiefly as the result of the different wars between England, France, and Spain, the latter had lost all her West Indian possessions except Cuba and Puerto Rico. The island of San Domingo had become independent, one part forming the Spanish-speaking republic of San Domingo, and the other the Frenchspeaking republic of Haiti. The rest of the islands now belong to various European governments, England having the lion's share. She possesses Jarp.aica, Barbadoes, Trinidad, St. Lucia, the Bahamas, etc. The extermination of the aborigines in the way already mentioned led to the necessity for bringing other laborers into these islands. Hence, the origin of the horrible slave trade between the West Coast of Africa and these fair isles of the sea. As one traces the history of that bloody and accursed system, he feels devoutly thankful that so far at .least as this part of the world is concerned, it is a thing of the past. The population of these islands now consists chiefly of black and colored people, the descendants of the African slaves, with a fair proportion of whites, both creole and European. In the year 1838 slavery was abolished in all the dominions of the English Crown, but still existed in the Spanish colonies until about twenty years ago. The glorious act of 1838 was, however, the direct result of ~issionary operations, and thus leads us to consider very briefly THE HISTORY OF MISSION WORK.
The first direct mission work attempted in the West Indies was by the Moravians, who in 1732 began work in the Danish islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix. Their work extended in a short time to Barbadoes and other islands. In 1754 Jamaica was reached. '.!.'he first efforts of this liociity were rendered almost fruitless, from the bct that they settled their stations on the slave-owning estates and fens, and thus they were really under the power of the cruel planter. This society has, however, made great progress and done really useful work in later years, and nowhere is it prospering more than in Jamaica. The next work attempted was by the Wesleyans. Dr. Coke began work in Kingston in the year 1792, where a chapel was opened, but after a short time was closed until the year 1815. Since that time if progress has been slow, it has been sure. Some of their mission workers stood boldly by the side of brethren of other denominations as the champions of negro liberty. This society is to-day doing a blessed work. Its churches and chapels are found all over the island. The same is true of its schools. They are also doing good work in the Bahamas, Turk's Island, Haiti, Trinidad, St. Vincent, etc. The Baptist Missionary Society commenced work in Jamaica in 1814, and has stations in San Domingo, the Bahamas, Turk's Island, and Trinidad. The missionaries found the people in slavery, and from the first took the side of the oppressed. The battle of freedom was stern and cruel, but it was fearlessly fought out and won. We can do no more than mention in this connection such names as Knibb, Burchell, and Phillips, who when they failed in the fight in Jamaica returned to England, and by voice and pen helped to rouse the English people until the House of Commons passed the Act of Emancipation. From that day to this the Baptist churches have passed through many struggles, but they are to-day among the foremost leaders in all that tends to the true, moral, and social advancement of the people. The principles for which the missionaries contended are now being recognized by the government, the press, and the people generally as wise and right. In the year 1842 the Baptist churches in Jamaica became independent of the English society, and have since then supported their own pastors and founded a missionary society of their own, the object of which is to preach the Gospel in needy parts of Jamaica, in Haiti, Cuba, Central America, besides helping the parent society to some small extent in its work in Africa. The Baptists took the lead in the work of raising up a native ministry, and for the last fifty years their Calabar College has been educating their ministers and teachers. Nearly every other society is now following their example. The London Missionary Society also has a few stations in Jamaica, but they have never developed nor extended their work. The United Presbyterian Church of Scotland is also laboring in the West Indies, its missions being confined to Jamaica, Trinidad and Grand Cayman. All these different denominations have an interesting history of their own in the West Indies, but this brief notice must suffice. We now pass to consider PRESENT MISSIONARY EFFORT.
The unevangelized fields in the West Indies are Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. The first and last are Spanish colonies, and the second consists of two republics, one French and the other Spanish. The prevailing religion is Roman Catholic, but there are, especially in Haiti, many forms of Mrican superstition, while many among the more educated classes have embraced atheistIc views. As the direct result of Romish influence the people are corrupt and demoralized. Sin can be paid for, and the hope of heaven purchased for a gold piece. The writer knows whereof he affirms when he declares it as his solemn conviction-a conviction forced upon his mind by an intimate knowledge of the people, both in Cuba and Haiti, that the people in these lands have " no hope" and are " without God in the world." The population of Cuba and Haiti is about 3,500,000, who are for the most part slaves to a cruel, avaricious, and immoral priesthood. Several missionary societies are at work in these islands. In Haiti the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society has stations at Jacmel, Cape Haiti, Port de Pais, St. Mar-c, Port Liberti, besides some out-stations. The church at St. Marc is now self-supporting, and therefore independent of the missionary society. There is also an independent Baptist church at Port au Prince, under the care of Rev. Lucius Hippolyte, M.A., who is a graduate of Colgate University. The work has been carried on for many years under great difficulties and with very little apparent success. Still the brethren have labored on, and there are many hopeful signs which give promise of the future reaping of a good harvest. The Baptist brethren in the island have lately met and formed a Haitian Baptist Union, and it is hoped that the union will prove useful in strengthening the Lord's work. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society has several flourishing stations on the island. At J acmel, Port au Prince, and Cape Haiti they have labored with zeal and success for many years. It seems a pity that the work should now be at a standstill by the home society gradually withdrawing help from the West India Conference. The English Baptists have a station at Puerto Plata, in the Republic of San Domingo, the Mrican Methodist Episcopal Church has some stations, and work is also being done by the Episcopal Church of the United States j but with regard to these last-named missions the writer has no information as to their present position and prospects.
The people of Haiti are warm-hearted, kind, and hospitable, passionately fond of liberty, and very jealous of their free, republican institutions. They are, however, deep down in the mire of superstition and sin. Political and religious liberty do not exist in anything but in name. The mass of the people are grossly ignorant, and are thus easily imposed upon by the few who are to some extent educated. The present ruler of Haiti has many qualities which might have made him a wise and liberal ruler, but the strong opposition of the Romish Church, and the many plots against his government, have so acted on him as to make him suspicious, stern, and cruel to a terrible degree. With all his faults, however, he favors Protestant missions, and though himself a Roman Catholic, sees in the spread of our principles the only hope of his country's political and social regeneration. In the neglected country places the people are devotees of Vaudoism, fetichism, and other heathenish beliefs and practices. Cuba, the largest of the West India Islands, was up to a few years ago entirely without the Gospel, and a large part of it is stilI unevangelized. The people are crushed and oppressed by the Church and government, and are thus dissatisfied and anxious to throw off the Spanish yoke, yet have neither the unity, courage, nor resolution to do so. The Church is supported by the State, and until about the year 1875-a remarkable year in the history of missions-was the only creed allowed to be preached in the country. In that year religious toleration was proclaimed, and since that time various societies have done work in Cuba. At first there seemed very little hope of success. The interesting story of the conversion and subsequent call of Rev. A. J. Diaz to labor in his native land has already been told in the pages of this REVIEW. He and his staff of workers are doing a noble work in Hava.na and other cities and towns in the north of Cuba, and the work is making rapid progress under the fostering care of the Southern Baptist Convention. Several churches have been formed, with which are connected large and flourishing day and Sunday-scho:>ls. The Episcopal Church also has stations at Matanzas and in Havana, and their work has been attended by much of the Divine blessing.
About four years a.go the Southern Presbyterians began work in Havana, but after a time removed to Santa Clara, an inland town of 15,000 inhabitants. Here a congregation has been gathered under the Rev. E. P. Collazo, and good work is being done in the day and Sundayschools. The Methodist Episcopal Church, also about four years ago, began work in Havana, but the writer does not know what amount of success has attended their efforts. In the year 1886 work was commenced by the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society at Cienfuegos, on the south side of the island, but after several years' work the mission has been temporarily abandoned. The society, however, has the satisfaction of knowing that its agents have preached the Gospel to large numbers in Cienfuegos, and numbers of Bibles and Testaments as well as Gospel tracts have been distributed. At the last meeting of the General Committee of the Society, in February, 1894, the following resolution was unanimously passed: "That it be an instruction to the Managing Committee to seek to secure a. suitable agent for work in Cuba, and if such an agent can be secured and the funds of the society permit, to resume missionary work in that island during this year." For lack of funds nothing has been done. There are stilI many large cities and towns in Cuba without a single Protestant missionary, and if Cuba is to be evangelized to any great extent, the number of workers must be multiplied fully fifty times.
A WORD ABOUT THE DIFFICULTIES.
The difficulties of the work are many and great. Haiti is a much more ready and inviting field than Cuba. The chief difficulty in Haiti is the frequent OCCUI'l'el!Y6 of bloody wars, which, while they continue, throw everything out of order, and if Cuba were to become independent in her present moral and intellectual state, the same bitter strife and bloodshed would be snre to prevail. In Haiti the people are more liberal in their ideas and institutions. They are kind and hospitable, and the stranger is readily welcomed. This is not the case in Cuba. The men are easily reached in the restaurants, cates, and clubs, where they idle away much of their time, b~t foreigners especially find it hard to get into the homes of the people. Their own priests are not allowed to visit them, except when dying to administer the last ordinance of the Church, and the foreign missionary is not expected to visit either. If he is a single man, it will be impossible for him to do much of this work. He stands a better chance if he is married.
The expense of mission work is very great, both in Cuba and in Haiti. Living is expensive, and rent is very high. To do effective work a chapel of some kind must be provided. The people with the ideas about worship which they have been taught do not believe in going to the parlor of a private house to hear the Gospel. It must be in some consecrated building. Then burial of the dead is another difficulty. All the cemeteries are in the hands of the Church, which will allow no heretic to be buried in consecrated ground. The law provides for the erection of public cemeteries in connection with every town, but as most of the town councils are controlled by the Church, they find various means of evading the law. In Haiti this difficulty does not exist, as all the cemeteries are public.
The missionary has also to contend with the enormous power of the Church of Rome. She is rich and crafty, and does not fail to employ all the powers at her command to prevent the spread of the Gospel. The priest, although despised, is feared, and has very much more power than would at first sight appear.
The greatest difficulty, however, is indifference. We have often heard it said that people in these islands are crying out for the Gospel. This is not the case. The people have no appetite for a spiritual religion which demands a" repentance toward God" and" faith which worketh by love." The great majority are perfectly satisfied with Romanism, which panders to their depraved nature and carnal appetites. They flock to mass on the Sabbath morning, to the cockpit or bull-ring in the afternoon, and to the theatre at night. These difficulties are no plea or excuse for neglecting these mission fields. The Divine command is not, " Go where it is easy," or " Go where the people want you and where converts can be easily won," but" Go ye"-oh ! that the Church would hear it-" into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." This is our business with regard to Cuba and Haiti, as well as anywhere else, and we earnestly pray that it may be speedily done.
THE CENTENARY OF A GREAT MISSIONARY SOCIETY
THE CENTENARY OF A GREAT MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
One hundred years ago there were but two missionary societies in England: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, founded in 1701, and the Baptist Missionary Society, in 1792; but the missionary spirit had been slowly awaking, and this led to the desire for the formation of a society on a basis sufficiently broad to include earnest men of all denominations holding the principles usually called evangelical.
A small group of such persons had, in 1793, established the Evangelical Magazine, and in the number for September, 1794, there apPelJ,red a long and able letter, written by Dr. Bogne, a Presbyterian minister at Gosport, calling attention to the subject. It produced a profound impression and led to various private conferences, and on November 4th the first concerted meeting, with a view to the formation of a society, took place in the city of London. Eight ministers were present, and at that gathering the Society really had its birth, though at a later period it was formally inaugurated. It Was resolved to issue in the following month an appeal inviting practical co-operation and aid.
Among other statements it said: "That something may be done with effect, it is hoped that not only evangelical Dissenters and Methodists will be disposed to unite in instituting a society, but that members of the Established Church will also favor us with their kind c-:l-operation."
This circular discovered the affectionate willingness of a considerable number to stand forth in this work, "and after various meetings of a deliberative character a letter was issued, signcd by ten leading ministers, calling a series of meetings to found the Society. The preparatory meeting was held on September 21st, 1795, at the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate Street, when there appeared a very numerous and respectable assembly of ministers and others whose aspect indicated seriousness, ardor, and harmony worthy of so great an occasion." 'it " On the three following days six sermons were preached in some of the largest chapels in London, followed by several business meetings, and a general meeting on Friday the 25th, at which the Society was definitely inaugurated by the election of a treasurer, two secretaries, and 32 directors, and the 'plan' of it adopted. Of this it is only necessary to say that it was called simply the Missionary Society, and its sole object defined to be ' to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations.'" CongregatlOnalists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and members of the Countess of Huntingdon's connection united in this movement. The leaders were influential and eminent in the churches to • .. An Introductory Memorial Respecting the Formation of the Missionary Society ;" .leo, .. A Blatory of the London Missionary Society." By the Rev. W. Ellis. Vol. I. This hlatory. unfortu. utely. Wile never completed. which they belonged; great harmony prevailed in all their deliberations, the meetings were crowded, and the impression produced extended far and wide.
The sphere for the first mission had previously been considered, and " it was unanimously resolved that the first attempt of this Society shall be to send missionaries to Otaheite or some other islands of the South Sea; and also that missions may be as early as possible attempted to the Coast of Africa, or to Tartary, or to Surat, on the Malabar Coast of India, or to Bengal, or the Coromandel Coast of India, or to the Island of Sumatra, or to the Pelew Islands."
The first mission was soon commenced. On July 27th, 1796, thirty missionaries-four ordained ministers, the others artisans-were designated for this work, in the presence of a large congregation, ten ministers of different denominations engaging in the service. The missionaries sailed for Tahiti in the ship .Duff on August 10th, and reached their destination on March 6th, 1797, the first evangelists ever sent to any of the numerous islands of Polynesia.
The Society had many influential, united, zealous friends, and as these passed away, others like-minded were found to carry on the work so well begun. This will be seen from the foIIowing statement of the missions it successively established. In 1797 missionaries were sent to the Foulahs near Sierra Leone; in 1798 to Bengal and to the Cape of Good Hope; in the following year to Newfoundland; in 1804 to Surat, on the West Coast of India, to the South and East coasts, and to Ceylon; in 1808 to British Guiana and the West Indies, and the first Protestant missionary 1.0 China in 1811 ; in 1813 to Java and the Mauritius; in 1815 to Malacca, and in 1816 to one of the Greek islands; to Madagascar in 1818 and Siberia in 1819. New Guinea was occupied in 1871, and Lake Tanganyika, in Central Africa, in 1877.
Some of these misbions were small and isolated, and for one reason or another were in time abandoned, but the foIIowing great spheres are now occupied by the Society, and have in every instance expanded from single stations to groups, usually of extended influence.
After more than fourteen years of toil and alternate hope, disappointment and danger, the Gospel triumphed in TAHITI AND THE ADJOINING ISLANDS, and after a few years of quiet, successful toil, a great extension of the missions was caused by the splendid zeal of John Williams, who between 1822 and 1839, when he met a martyr's death on Erromanga, placed missionaries and native evangelists on a number of islands, some of them far separated from each other. The Society now occupies the Harvey, Samoan, and Loyalty groups of islands, and a number of isolated ones, like Nine or Savage Island. Most of these are so entirely Christian that no remains of idolatry are to be seen, save. as memorials of a dark and barbarous past; but the influence of the Society has extended far beyond its own spheres. Its romantic and remarkable successes drew attention to the Pacific, and led to the occupation of many islands by other societies, and with such marked results as are seen in Fiji, the Sandwich, and other islands.
One most satisfactory issue of the Polynesian mission was the com. mencement of the NEW GUINEA MISSION in 1871.
Christianity had so triumphed in many islands, and converts had approved themselves such reliable pastors and evangelists, that two experienced missionaries and a number of native volunteers were appointed to begin a new mission, or rather a series of missions on the southeast coast of New Guinea, the largest island in the world with the exception of Australia. The climate is unhealthy and the people are degraded and treacherous, and a large number of the Polynesian evangelists have been invalided, died of disease, or been slain, but volunteers have been found to occupy even positions of peril, and now one hundred and eleven native agents, with seven European missionaries, are spreading light and truth from many stations and with marked success.
The four or five small stations in INDIA at the beginning of the century have grown into twenty-five, with a yet larger number of out-stations.
Nearly two thousand miles intervene between Almora, in the Himalaya, and Travancore, near Cape Comorin. In the latter little kingdom is the most flourishing of the Society's Indian missions, with its fifty-three thousand converts, a number found only in four other parts of India within the same area.
In CHINA, as in India, it has been hitherto a time of sowing rather than of reaping.
The evangelization of by far the two greatest empires in the world, each dominated by intricate and specious systems of superstition, the outgrowth of remarkable race idiosyncrasies, and therefore congenial to the genius and character of the people, is inevitably a slow and stupendous task. Nor have Christian people yet grasped the conception of what the conversion of a vast empire means, either in its arduousness. duration. or splendor. The London Missionary Society, in both these supremely important fields, alike through education, literature, and preaching, has all through the century borne a most conspicuous part. It has missions in some of the most important cities of China, as Canton, Shanghai, Amoy, Hankow, Tientsin, and Peking; and it has had an exceptionally large number of eminent and learned missionaries, but with all other societies it has to regret the small number of converts and of reliable native helpers.
In MADAGASCAR the Society has had its greatest trials and triumphs, if fidelity in suffering even unto death and the number of its converts alone be considered. The mission began with disaster. * Then followed some eleven years of steady work; then years of repression and persecution, * Mr. Be'f8n and Mr. Jones were the pioneer missionaries. Within a few weeks the former, With hill wife and child, and lIlrs. Jones and her child, died. even unto death, and then a glorious outburst of Christian fruitfulness and of freedom to worship God. The Society has now more than 346,000 converts there who form 1200 Christian congregations, and are ministered to by 1061 native ordained ministers and a yet more numerous company of preachers; but great as these results seem, the wonder is justified that after such zeal and propagandism, as the long years of persecution revealed, the results have not been greater.
In AFRICA the early promise has not been realized. The missions have had such men as Vanderkemp, Phillips, Moffat, and Livingstone, and at one time were more numerous in South Africa than now. The Society set ~ fine example by sending some of its missionaries far into the interior, but the churches, the communities, and the native ministry have not grown in strength and number as much as might have been expected. CENTRAL AFRICA has cost some precious lives, and many difficulties have occurred in the prosecution of the mission, as indeed has been the case with all the missions in that vast region; but the worst apparently has been surmounted and the signs of coming blessing seem clear.
In the WEST INDIES during the middle half of the century the Society had several important stations throughout Demerara, Berbice, and Jamaica. Some years since these were supposed to be qualified for self-support and were left with but partial aid, so that now only one missionary represents the Society in the West Indies.
The only missionary in MONGOLIA belongs to this Society. It has been prosecuted with singular devotion for twenty-five years by one missionary chiefly, with but partial results, and now has but two.
Gertainfeaturelof the Society's history and of its present position, as indicated in the table with which this paper closes, are noteworthy.
The first event of importance in its history was the conversion of King Pomara and a considerable number of his subjects in Tahiti and one or two neighboring islands. For some years the missionaries saw no fruit to their labors ; opposition threatened; some of the missionaries withdrew from the islands ; the directors at home became discouraged ; the abandonment of the mission was suggested. This led to a time of special prayer. There came tidings of great joy, of victory for the Christian party and of many conversions. It was a great crisis in the Society's history, and the issues were very remarkable in the increase of enthusiasm at home and the extension of missions in Polynesia and elsewhere.
The visits of John Williams to England from 1834 to 1838, after eighteen years' splendid service in Polynesia, and of Robert Moffat, from 1839 to the close of 1842, after twenty-three years of African romance, did more to kindle missionary enthusiasm than the visits of any two men have ever done. Both were remarkable men in pCl'Sonality, power of speech, and resourcefulness. Their lives abroad had been romantic, perilous, enterprising, and successful. They had thrilling stories to tell, and told them well. Heroes they were without knowing it, for they were simple and humble, but inspired by missionary enthusiasm, and they inspired others. Wherever they went there were crowded audiences, and the impressions they produced were profound and enduring. From that time the position and reputation of the Society were distinctly raised.
Another marked event was the resumption of the Madagascar Mission. After ten years of successful seed-sowing the protecting King Radama died. His queen succeeded him. Then for nearly thirty years, more systematic and severe methods were used to extinguish Christianity than has been seen anywhere else during this century. For more than twenty years the missionaries were exiled; but when the queen died it was seen that the five or six score Christians there were at the beginning of her reign had grown to many thousands! The Society which had begun the work and watched over it all through the dark days sent at once a large band of missionaries, and has ever since made Madagascar one of its principal fields. The story of that long persecution through fine, imprisonment, slavery, and death in its most terrible forms, endured with wonderful fortitude and ending so gloriously, ranks as the greatest triumph of this Society.
It was a marked advance in its policy when in 1871 it commenced the New Guinea Mission, and in 1877 the one in Central Africa. It is sufficient here to point out that both were pioneer missions on a large scale, among races far removed from all Christian influences, in most unhealthy regions, and entailing a permanent heavy annual expenditure. Since both these movements were undertaken in obedience to public desire, it was expected that they would elicit a corresponding enthusiasm and liberality; these, though considerable, have not equalled expectations, and this has caused some of the most important missions in India and China to be inadequately sustained for some time.
It was in some degree a consciousness of this neglect which led three years ago to the initiation of what has been well called theforward movement. It was resolved to increase the European staff of agents by one hundred before the centenary was complete.
This meant an increase of one third in agency and about one fourth in annual outlay. Almost one half the missionaries have been sent out, and some advance in the income has been made, but not to the extent hoped for and needed. To the deep disappointment, therefore, of many this movement is suspended, not without hope that it will be resumed and completed before the close of next year.
The Society has been fortunate in its foreign secretaries. Only one can here be referred to, though Dr. Mullens, as missionary, author, and secretary, is worthy of high honor, but Dr. Tidman was in the latter position for twenty-seven years. He was called" the prince of secretaries," nor was he unworthy of the name. In bearing he was a courtly gentleman. His power to influence others was great. He had large administrative ability and insight. His reports and speeches were ~models of explicitness, force, and persuasive eloquence, and his devotion to the Society undoubted.
The general features and policy of the Society are worthy of notice. It has remained faithful to its original principle of undenominationalism.
In the course of time Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and others have drawn off from it, not through strife or controversy-for of these there has been singularly little throughout its history-but from a belief that organizations on a denominational basis would gain a largcr amount of sympathy and support. The Congregationalists have not had such a desire, and remaining loyal to the Society, it has largely come into their hands. It is to their honor that they have never desired to make it exclusively their own, or to call it by some new name. Hence it is that, being wishful to maintain the undenominational, and, as they jndge, nobler feature of the Society, they have been at pains to associate Presbyterians and others with themselves in the management of its affairs, and never decline to send a non-Congregationalist into the mission field if he is judged to be suitably qualified. Such there now are and always have been.
It has been honored by the services of an unusually large number of eminent missionaries. It has sent out more than one thousand agents, and an unmmal number of them have been men of more than average ability as scholars, evangelists, and organizers, and not a few have attained to the first rank in the missionary band of worthies.
It will be admitted by almost all acquainted with th~ history of missions during this century that Vanderkemp, Morrison, Phillips, Williams, Moffat, Ellis, Mullens were eminent missionaries, and that few societies can present an equal number of men so distinguished.
And it may be claimed for the Society that it has faithfully and efficiently carried out the purposes for which it was formed.
It has had its difficulties. The missionary cause is nowhere so popular as it should be. Christian people for the most part give it but a lukewarm support. Affairs are keenly watched and unkindly criticised continually, questions of extreme delicacy and difficulty have to be dealt with.
The directors at home and the missionaries abroad are not invariably wise or good-natured or companionable. Disaster comes, success does not. To sustain missionaries in unhealthy countries and among savage and unfriendly men, decade after decade, is no light task. Popularity is desirable, but its demands are not always reasonable, and societies, like individuals, are tempted to enter on courses that promise much, but end in embarrassment, perhaps disaster.
This Society has passed through these various experiences, and it speaks well for its leaders, and suggests that it has been guided by God, that its course has been so free from disaster, and so generally distinguished by able management, nobility of policy, and aim and great success. To prosecute the missionary enterprise in countries so wide apart as the West and East Indies, China and Africa, Polynesia, New Guinea, and Madagascar, and among races differing widely from one another and from ourselves, for periods extending over twenty years almost to one hundred, without any great breach or mistake or failure at home or abroad-not without struggles and discouragement, indeed, but with a history marked at each decade by progress upward and onward-is ample evidence of the administrative powers of the secretaries generally, the sagacity and high character of the directorate, the ability, consideration, and zeal of the missionaries, and, above all, the presence and blessing of God. The following summary will show the high position of success and efficiency it has attained, though it leaves unrecorded much that has been accomplished. There are, for instance, several churches and congregations in the West Indies and South Africa which were planted and mustered by the Society, and then-too hastily-left to themselves. So, too, there are many more in Polynesia, Madagascar, India, and China, related to it, but receiving no aid, or if they do, giving in return as much or more than they receive.
The total income for the year 1893-94 was £141,369, but of this amount £26,903 was raised at the mission stations. It will be seen that while the foreign missionary number 258, the ordained native ministers are 1476, and the other native preachers 6758. Is there any other society that derives so large a proportion of its income from its own mission stations, or has so large a number of native agents, in comparison with the number of its European missionaries 1 GENERAL SUMMARY FOR THE YEARS 1893-94.
DAY SCHOOLS.
s§ STATIONS~.~a).a "'- ~ iii~'5alz!'" ",,,,m '" ~"~,f"- SUNDAY I Boys. GIRLS. LOCAL ~.~ '~fl SCHOOLS. CONTRI- AND OUT-:=~ 'Es ~~'~" :rs."""", Z":'"§ STATIONS. ~ .; .;, BUTIONB. ~.2 o.~ ~~ -< '0 ~ ~.~ '0'" ~~ j~ .0g 0 – – – – – – – – – – No. Schol- '0 ." .'0g – – – ars. w. – ." w" . w. — — w" . – — — I £ s. d.
1. China …… 45 21 8 9; 5,017 3,370 11 605 57 1,691 28 1,225 3.116 19 8 2. North India 20 17 9 39 701 2,381 36 1,661 58 4,279 50 2,442 1,620 3 0 3. South India 34 15 15 121 2,036 15,822 1,858 161 6,501 37 3,061 577 12 2 4. Travancore. 11 3 22 28:1 6,730 53,147 …6.2 374 13,000 38 4,552 1,942 19 4 1,061 5,879 63,020 283,738 119 16;368 441 36,931 7,3;l6 12 8 23 1,211 227 7 1…. …. …. …. … … ………………. n 5. MadagaScar 326…. …. '37,497 o 2 …. 6. Africa ….. 25 . … •. W~""'… , …..•.. 2,421 4.291 3 230 ~j34'045 8. Polynesia… 22 4 361 266 14,267 42,046 280 13,323 302 8,156 221 5,438 4,246 1 0 Totals… 190 -;- 1,476 6,758 94,192 404,795 1,416 71,769 37554,215119,067-;-; Local Contributions * …………………………………………. £19,067 8 5 School Fees. …… ……………. …….. …….. …….. ……….. 7,635 12 9 Totalraised at Mission Stations ………………….. ,…………. … £26,903 1 2 – – – – N.H.-These statistics are necessarily incomplete owing to insnfficient returns, … ).IIultipl;r b;r jive to jUlcertain approximately the n1ll11ber of dollara,
A. MODEL WORKING CHURCH IN THE WORLD'S C.A.PITAL
A MODEL WORKING CHURCH IN THE WORLD'S CAPITAL.
BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M.A.., BRIXTON, LONDON, ENGLAND.
The recent celebration of Pastor A. G. Brown's fiftieth birthday is a seasonable occasion to put in brief form a record of his East End labors j and, if possible, supply a graphic sketch not only of the man, but of the church over which he presides, and which we have ventured to designate a model working church in the world's capital. It is given to few men to do such a work as the East End Tabernacle monuments, and to do it in face of conditions which tax to the utmost not only the frailness of the flesh, but the willingness of the spirit. No man can be insensible to his environment j and when the environment lacks lustre, when year in and year out it is one unvarying round of monotony and of care, when the scene does not change and there is no poetic gleam to relieve the dull prose of prevailing existence, when the tide of poverty and distress seems rather to rise than to sink despite the inflow of liberality and the increase of social schemes, it is no wonder if at times the hrave worker grows weary, and the temptation to faint be well-nigh insupportable. With such an environment as this, which we have only sketched with a light hand, Pastor A. G. Brown has for twenty-eight years labored for God. During that period he has known many a juniper-tree, and though a man of strong physique has more than once all but touched breaking point. His fiftieth year, however, finds him strong, sanguine, and jubilant. "Never," said he to us, "have I had so much to encourage me in my work as now. My wife's health causes me constant anxiety, but the work flourishes, and our meetings were never so fruitful as of late. The jubilee year is the best that has yet been. "
With the exception of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Mr. Brown's church has a larger membership than any in London. But it is not the size of this work, great though it be, which most impresses us, as the manifestly live description of it. Drawn mainly from the dreary work.a-day world -the pleasure grounds of the" sweater"-and from strata more deeply sunken still, the church which meets in the East End Tabernacle exhibits all the features of a corporate body. This church is cohesive. It is a unit. There is the charm, the felt presence of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. These people have come in their multitude for worship, fellowship, and testimony as partakers together of the same grace and heirs of the same glory. They are not there because magnetized by some sensation or befooled by some flaming poster. Mr. Brown abhors the arts of sensationalism, and has held on his way, employing no means to reach the masses save those which the simplicity there is in Christ and sworn fidelity to the Gospel justify. And not only has he reached them in a way which sensationalists might envy, but he has held them when reached, and raised vast numbers of them, throuih the operation of the Spirit, into newness of life, so that the church itself is become a hive of Christian activity-a model working church in the world's capital.
One of the assumptions of the times is that the power to draw is the be-all and end·aIl of ministry. This power certainly may, on the best of grounds, be made the subject of definite petition and endeavor; but if it stands alone-and the case is by no means hypothetical-it only serves the more to mirror forth the poverty that is there. In such a case the pulpit is only another form and expression of the performer's art. The show of numbers is but a show, and only in a complimentary sense may the aggregate be reckoned a church. Strictly construed, no church exists which is worthy of the name where there are no uniting bonds of the Spirit, no mystic tie of love, no oneness of soul, no responsibility mutually shared, and making all hearts pulsate with a common aim. But Mr. Brown's success is not of a nominal description. It is not a mere instance of drawing ability, but of edifying force, and of the cumulative effect that is ever the mark of the Spirit's infused grace and life. How much greater than mere attraction is assimilation; and how much superior to the art of massing diverse units is the sacred science which, by the magnetism of Christ's cross, supersedes the nominal in Christianity and makes the living oneness of professed believers to be declared !
In many respects Mr. Brown reminds us of the late C. H. Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, by whom he was baptized on June 21st, 1861, and in whose college he was subsequently trained for the Gospel ministry. The affection uniting these two eminent servants of Christ was one of the closest description-a point to which we have made feeling reference elsewhere. Like Mr. Spurgeon, Mr. Brown has the faculty of incisive utterance. He can be and is aphoristic. There is not with him, indeed, the same varied flow and many-sidedness of touch, for he is not, to the same extent, an all-round man; but there is quite as quick sympathy; there is the like readiness to see a good point and state it with as keen a relish; there is as strong passion and noble-minded scorn, the same play of genial humor when the fit is on, and that wondrous power so effectual in crushing souls into the depths of concern-we refer to the power which some preachers have in solemnizing the conscience, as if the last trump were being sounded in the ear. The likeness between the two men is all the more patent to those who have known both intimately, in that it is founded on individuality. It would be ,absurd to speak of Mr. Brown-and, indeed, we have never heard the allegation made-as an imitator of Spurgeon. A lover of him he was. As he observed to the writer of this sketch on the great funeral week: "The world can never be the same to us again, now that he is gone-never quite." But imitation of any man has never been Mr. Brown's role, any more than it ever was Spurgeon's. 'The individuality, in this case, is far too strong, and clearly cut, and impetuous to admit of any form of imitation's falsification. Like the illustrious departed, Mr. Brown is large.souled; and having the blend of the lion and the eagle, combined with a warm human heart, touched with Christ's compassions, he needed scope. In the populous East End of London, which we can hardly think of without a shudder, he has found it; and there in the fulness of his powers he labors still, the hand of the Lord being with him, and only the marks on head and feature to tell of the deep fellowship with Christ's sufferings he has had.
Within the limits of the British Isles we know of no man who has had such success, we will not say in winning souls, although that, perchat;tce, is true, but in that more arduous and difficult work still, their unification in church life and action. He certainly has obtained the gift of wisdom, so as to compact the converts won into a fellowship and make them coherent in spirit and service. 'What are his methods ~ With what lever is this result attained ~ The inquiry may be answered in one word, PRAYER. His Saturday evening prayer-meeting is not the least of London sights, and is one of the most instructive of them all. Into this weekly gathering of over a thousand on an average, the pastor throws himself heart and soul; and like pastor, like people. Together they meet to pray as if it were (which, indeed, it is to them) the most serious and influential business of life. Hence, were the leader questioned as to the secret of the blessing given, he would doubtless reply: "Prayer is the secret of it–prayer as embodied in a praying church. There is no getting on without prayer. I cannot myself get on without it; and how can I preside over a living church unless I can get them to feel the vital need of prayer. It is useless preaching, unless such Christians as I have around me hold up my hands in prayer. And so with all our machinery. What is machinery but dead incumbrance unless impelled by Holy Ghost power ~ Far better throw up our many works of service and attempt nothing at all, if we are not minded, from a sense of utter incapacity, to pray every agency in the field in'to instruments of power."
" Restraining prayer we cease to fight, Prayer makes the Christian's armor bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees."
Such an answer, however, always implies more than lies on the snrface. The prayer of power never stands alone, and is seldom found in company with the invertebrate in doctrine, or the dim in spiritnal insight. In considering the work achieved in this case, we have to remember that the flock are fed with the strong meat of doctrine-Calvinistic dogma some would call it-and that thc utmost care is exercised to increase their stamina for walk and service. Doctrinally Mr. Brown stands where C. H. Spurgeon stood, combining with a solicitude to save that never wavers a recognition of the elective purpose of the Father that never falters. He cedes nothing to modern thought, and is a vigilant censor and unsparing opponent of downgradism in every form. A few sentences may here be cited from this year's letter to his many helpers within and without his immediate fold: "Darkness and sin abound, and a grievous apostasy from the truth is spreading over the land. The Word of God is being assailed from every quarter, and the Holy Writings that Jesus loved and believed are being degraded to a mere human literature. We want no one to help us under any false impression, and therefore we think it only honest to avow that to us the Bible is the Word of God from beginning to end. Jesus Christ is to us the highest of all critics. He has stamped the Old Testament Scriptures as true, and declared them to be all they claim to be. If He was mistaken, a13 some tell us, we elect to be mistaken with Him. The very supposition is blasphemous. Within sight of where we sit is the window of the room in which dear Spurgeon breathed his last. He has gone, but his witness against the ' down grade' still lives. In all parts there are faithful souls that sigh and cry, as he did, because of the apostasy of the age. Pray God that they may be multiplied, and that England may once again honor the Bible, that has been the secret of her prosperity in the past."
The principal, as it is certainly the most difficult part of the work attempted by this church, concerns the systematic effort made to reach and win over the masses of lapsed population lying at their doors. It is quite certain that the spirit of hearing, in London generally, is not what it was a· generation or two ago. Supineness, indifference, and positive aversion have more than kept step with the aggressive tactics of late years. But there is an importunity in practice, as in prayer, that is not to be denied ; and it is by unweariedness in well-doing this church has sought, and still seeks, to compass her ends. In addition to nine missionaries, who do curates' work under their leader, and systematically visit all the houses of the adjoining streets within a given area, there are many volunteers, who contribute in similar ways, so that no one, even though he be, to use Whitefield's expression, "a devil's castaway," need remain in the dark or perish from lack of knowledge. We subjoin the figures as regards one street, which may be taken as a specimen of many more: Number of houses …..••••………… … 27 " " families…. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 " "adults ……………………. 412728} 600 " " children .•••.•……………….
Six hunared persons in twenty-seven small houses, and out of this number twelve make profession of Christ. The only comment made in connection with this enumeration is that the street in question" is decidedly better than many in the neighborhood."
All the year round this visitation work goes on, and is regarded by pastor and people as the very framework of their life. During 1893, 18,587 visits were paid, each visit being made a business of, a distinct form of Christian enileayor, colloquially known as "button-holeing." Relief, which is largely called for, is strictly based on the knowledge that accrues from a visitation that is in daily process and that searches into the darkest corners. The verdict of experience is that promiscuous relief " results only in good things being squandered, and lying and vice being rewarded." In other words, it is " a curse rather than a blessing." The Benevolent Account, under the head of "Mission Fund Expenditure for 1893," amounted in all to £2301 Os. lId. The varied items constitute a miscellaneous and lengthy assortment. Let it suffice to state that in addition to what is required for homes (Sea-side and Girls'), mission chapels, and mission halls, salaries of missionaries, boarding out children in country, medical attendance, and midwifery, etc., there were given in relief during the past year 3908 garments of various kinds, comprising all sorts of male and female apparel and baby clothes j 7432 loaves of bread j 3390 Ibs. of meat j 34 cwt. of rice j 157! Ibs. of tea j 2096 tickets for groceries j and 25,755 free tickets for soup and puddings.
As a specimen of the rich return that is sometimes given in recompense for a little help to one of the least of these-His brethrim-we may cite Mr. Brown's story of a half-crown bedstead: "One chair, one low box for table, two little stools, two large pieces of sacking laid on the floor for beds. No mattress, no pillow, no blanket. Nothing.
" The place, however, was beautifully clean. There were husband, wife, four children, and another daily expected. The husband was formerly in business for himself, and once a member of a Congregational Church. For twelve years, however, he had not been inside any place of worship. He said, • I got out of communion, and I've never been in since.' A little help has done wonders. We began with the half-crown bedstead, purchased at this nominal price from a friend. Some one gave a mattress, another gave some chairs. The last gift was a table, a great treasure. They have also been helped with clothes and in other ways. The husband now has work, and in company with his wife attends regu. larly at the Tabernacle. The half-crown bedstead was a blessed invest· ment. "
Of a more pathetic character is the incident inscribed ., Two Little Coffins: " It was November 9th that, hearing ofthe trouble of Mr. Ilond Mrs. D., I ran in. What a contrast to the festivities going on in the city! (Lord Mayor'S Day.) The youngest, aged one year, was just laid out, and another child of four was dying. Father was out of work, mother bewildered, and four other children in the room. The child of four died almost directly, and two little coffins were placed side by side. On the day of the funeral I went in. There stood the father, and the two little eoffins were before him on the table. He remarked, 'I feel stupefied, six children already in llford Oemetery, and these two will make eight. Five still left, one a soldier in foreign parts j I'm crumpled up.' I took up my Bible and read from 2 Sam. 12 : 16-23, reminding him that God had made it gloriously possible for him to see his children again. We knelt by the side of the two little coffins, and poured out our souls in prayer. The mother has since been ill, but finds comfort in the Lord. They now attend the sanctuary and are happy in God."
What "Darkest England" is like is not unknown to this church, whose aim is to bear the torch of Gospel light into the interior of the heathenism at her own doors. The following extract from the diary of one of the female missionaries speaks for itself : " Are you a Christian ~" Mrs. E.: "Oh, yes, Miss j I hope so." " Then you mean that when you die you know you will be safe ~" " Oh, no, Miss j I wouldn't like to say that j I ain't fit for heaven." " How do you hope to get fit ~" " I am sure I don't know." " Are you a sinner ~" " Oh, yes, we are all sinners j at least not all, I should say that three out offour was a sinner. " Richard Baxter confessed that as he grew older his views of what constituted the Christian's chief duty underwent a change, and that the call to rejoice in the Lord, to live in the Divine sunshine, and to reflect. it, became the foremost requirement of all. We trace much to the influence of Divine sunshine in this East End work. Without an abounding flow of spirits, through the realized grace of God, it would be impossible for pastor or people to hold on, hemmed in, as they are, by life's struggle in its bitterest form, and saddened by sights to which there is no getting used. But the grace of joy, like Atlas, can bear earth's pillars up. What is done by this church is done cheerily. Little is attempted in the minor key. The major key of assurance is struck. Public houses are stormed, loafers importuned to come to the house of God, the sinfnl and despondent reanimated by those who have ceased to tremble for personal safety or to ask with quavering voice: "Am I His? or, am I not ?" This feature of gladsomeness is not without its effect on the sad and wretched world around. The spiritually starved get the impression that a feast awaits them. It is the language of the heart that can best persuade j and when joy prompts the utterance, chords long dead vibrate once more. Prayer must be lived as well as spoken j and to the degree that faith inspires it, will it prove aggressive in action. The work in the East End Tabernacle is a present-day witness to this fact. It is by no means a question altogether of the preacher's drawing power. There are many co-operant units whose object it is to help into the sanctuary those who, apart from tho persuasive zeal of the loving-hearted, would never find the way. Thus every Sunday evening a large contingent is withdrawn from the gin palaces and the street corners to hear the Gospel's joyful sound, and from this class numbers are taken to sample forth afresh the greatness of redeeming love. We close this sketch with a brief reference to the pastor's jubilee, which was held on his fiftieth birthday, July 18th, 1894, and took the form of an open-air festival in the spacious grounds of Harley House, Bow Road. Some sixteen hundred had tea in the open air, the day being everything that could be desired. Among the crowd were many men of note whose service in the Gospel has obtained for them a place in the line of apostolical succession. America was represented by Dr. Chase, of Philadelphia, and Dr. Lorimer, of Boston, and England, by Christian workers in various fields of enterprise. Mr. Thomas Spurgeon was the first speaker, who, having to leave early, anticipated, in a few words of hearty greeting, the meeting that was timed to begin at 6.30 P.M. Mr. John Marnham, of Boxmoor, having been voted to the chair, alluded to the special tie which bound himself and family to the brother whose jubilee they had met to celebrate. Many years ago Mr. Brown had come unknown and unexpectedly as a guest into his family, and as a result of his visit four of his children had been brought to make an open confession of Christ. It was no wonder, then, that no name was more honored and welcomed in his household than that of Archibald G. Brown. Haying called for three hearty cheers for the pastor, the chairman then asked him to speak. Mr. Brown's words were full of references touching and quaint. All day long letters and telegrams of congratulation had been pouring in upon him. His two daughters, missionaries in China, Mrs. Woodward and Miss Gracie Brown, of Shanghai, had not forgotten their father. Of these, one sent word that she would have liked to have sent a telegram, " only it would look so unlike a poor missionary." (We may mention here that Mr. Brown's third daughter, Miss Lucie, is destined for China also, being engaged to Dr. James Bennett, missionary-elect of the L. M. S.) Mrs. Spurgeon did not fail to send her best greetings by telegram from 'Westwood, while a deacon had shown his leanings in the wish, " May your translation to the golden city be delayed as long as possible." The letter, however, which had touched him most was from the first he had ever baptized, when, but nineteen years of age, he began his work at Bromley, in Kent. Since then it had been his joy to baptize between five and six thousand. Mr. Brown's address concluded in these words: " I cannot tell you how much I joy and rejoice over all the goodness of God. All day long it has been my one thought, what a glorious God I have, what a marvellous Master, what a splendid Saviour! Oh, the mysteryof love that He has let me stay so long in His service!" Many took part in the subsequent proceedings, including the Rev. J. T. Wigner, the Rev. E. H. Brown (the pastor's brother), Mr. Pinney, who represented the church, and told of the harmony that prevailed and the friendship binding the deacons and the pastor-a tangible expression of affection being shown in the gift of £250, the acceptance of which by the pastor was now asked-the Rev. Henry Bone, of Hackney, a Wesleyan minister, and Dr. John C. Lorimer, of Tremont Temple, Boston. The evening
MEXICO AS A MISSION FIELD
shadows were lengthening ere the meeting closed, but the gathering was slow to break up, for it was a day of days, an Ebenezer which bore this inscription : " Grace all the work shall crown Through everlasting days, It lays in heaven the topmost stone, And well deserves the praise."
MEXICO AS A MISSION FIELD.
BY REV. SAMUEL P. CRA.VER, D.D., PUEBLA, MEXICO.
It happens not unfrequentIy that we become so interested in distant affairs that we quite overlook those that are near at hand. This seems to be especially true in the work of missions. Undoubtedly the Church at large, in the United States, knows vastly more about the great mission fields of Asia and of the South Sea Islands than about Mexico, the nearest foreign field. Indeed, with a large element in the Protestant churches of to-day, who see nothing but bigotry and fanaticism in those who labor for the overthrow of Romanism, there is a question as to the need, or the right, of establishing Christian missions in a country that for centuries has professed the Roman Catholic religion. Scarcely ever does one hear Mexico, South America, or Italy named in the pnblic prayers for foreign missions, except it be at missionary concerts, when these countries furnish the theme. The reason for this manifestly consists in the fact that the Church does not fully realize the appalling need of Roman Catholic lands.
For the purpose of throwing a few rays of light on the claims of Mexico as a mission field, let us observe some of the salient features of the case.
1. The religious condition of the people. As is well known, the Roman Catholic religion had an absolute and undisturbed hold upon the Mexicans from the time of the conquest in the sixteenth century till the middle of the present one. It was imposed upon the people largely by force, partly by fraud, and in part through the earnest efforts of zealous missionaries; but by whatever means introduced it gained a powerful hold upon the hearts of the people, and for three centuries they were moulded by the priesthood with all the pliability of the clay upon the potter's wheel. No other country better represents the fruits of Romanism. But the Romanism of Mexico differs quite widely in its external manifestations from that seen in the United States. This is not because the Mexican article is a counterfeit or a corruption, but because the American type has been changed and largely Protestantized outwardly. With all the Pope's increasing interest in the United States as' his" favorite country," he addresses the members of the Mexican Church as his" predilect children. " They are true Roman Catholics.
However, the influence of Protestant thought, and especially of scepti- cism, began to make inroads into this country some fifty years ago. The Bible, without note or comment, was introduced in the wake of the American Army in 1846-48. As a consequence of various influences a strong reaction against sacerdotal tyranny set in, affecting favorably the political life of the nation and resulting in religious toleration, but not directly favorable to an improved moral state. On the contrary, it is quite possible that the general moral condition of Mexico is even worse than it was under the complete domination of the clergy, though there has been great advancement in the intellectual life.
But the masses of the people are still in a lamentable state of ignorance. In the cities and larger towns probably from 30 to 50 per cent can read and write, but in the rural districts and small villages the proportion of readers is exceedingly small. In some parts of the country there are large villages where only one or two persons in the whole population can read 'and write.
Of course such a condition of intellectual stagnation affords a splendid field for the growth of superstition. Rome has maintained this condition, and has pandered to the appetite for the marvellous and silpernatural, until a wonderful mass of childish superstitions exist among the people. One of the most recent manifestations of this is seen in the frequent appari- tions U) of the Virgin Mary. Within the last eighteen months there have been several such in different parts of the country, some of them on the broad, thick leaves of the maguey plant, from which the national beverage, pulque, is extracted. Presumably the Virgin has made these apparitions in the interest of the liquor traffic, thus consecrating this drink.
Naturally enough a people so steeped in superstition would also be idolatrous, not merely in the sense of a refined and elevated form of saintworship, but also in a gross and sensuous devotion to material idols. Certainly it would be difficult to find a country not semi-barbarous where idol-worship is more common than in Mexico. Intelligent Catholics confess that the masses worship the material image.
The writer once had a conversation with a well-educated young priest on this subject, and in answer to the question if it were not true that the people worshipped images, he said: "Oh, of course they do. I have the proof of that right here in my church. We had an ugly, dirty, black, old Christ [referring to the image]; and I had it replaced by a new one, white, handsome, and well-painted; but the old women are not satisfied. They want the dirty, black, old Christ they have always had. Oh, certainly they worship the material image." When asked if he did not know that that was idolatry, he said: "Most certainly it is." "Then," said I, "why do you not labor to destroy it, for you know that idolatry is wrong ~" "Oh," he replied, " I am doing all I can to break it up. I say mass in the morning with the new, white Christ, and in the afte~ noon we have the rosary with the old, black Christ. I do this so that the people may not think either of the white or the black, but only of Christ / /" This is a practical illustration of the kind of efforts generally made by the priests to destroy error-a multiplication of the evil in question, both by precept and example.
In this city, one of the most pious in the country, I recently witnessed an exhibition of the trust in images that was new to me, -and was certainly quite novel. A fire broke out in the corner grocery just across the street from our mission property, near midnight. The professors and students from our school joined actively with the neighbors and the fire department to extinguish the blaze. Before much had been accomplished, however, and while the flames in all their fury were bursting out of the doors, I saw a man run up several times and throw some little objects in the fire. My first thought was that they were little bombs or firecrackers that he was playing with, though they made no report. What was my surprise to learn that they were fragments of a family saint, which the wife of the shopkeeper was breaking in pieces and having thrown into the flames in order to extinguish the fire / / This blind devotion to images has filled the churches and the houses of the people with objects of worship of every variety, from the six-cent, horribly printed wood-cut, to the chaste and beautiful, life-size sculpture, clad in silk and velvet, with diamonds and precious stones to the value of a million dollars.
While the Laws of Reform vigorously forbid all forms of public worship outside of places dedicated to that purpose, where the authorities are not vigilant, images are carried about the streets in procession, and are taken from house to house to receive special homage, or to lend their aid in soliciting funds for the Church.
Among many of the ignorant people there is found the strange belief that they can oblige the saints to grant their prayers by inflicting punishment upon them. This is practised in numerous ways, such as locking the image up in a box, turning its face to the wall, or hanging it, head downward, in a jar of water.
But, perhaps, the idolatrous character of the religion of Mexico is not its-worst feature. The exaltation of the priesthood seems to me to be even worse. While image-worship simply places an inoffensive block of wood in the place of the Creator, this elevates a wicked, corrupt man, often a black-hearted criminal, to the position that only God should occupy. Indeed, it goes to the extreme of making the priest superior to God, inasmuch as he commands, in the celebration of the Eucharist, and God is obliged to obey. This doctrine is clearly and unequivocally set forth by Liguori in his instructions to the priesthood. Furthermore, the priest is supposed to have power, not only to pardon and save in this life, but his authority extends to the world of spirits, so that he can obtain release for souls in the flames of purgatory. To be sure he cannot accom- plish this last feat without being paid for it. There are many ways of obtaining the necessary funds for this purpose, one of the most novel that I have seen being that of a "raffle for souls." In this city one can fre- quently see on the church doors large posters announcing the result of the last raffle for souls, giving the names of the lucky ones who drew prizes in the spiritual lottery. The plan is simple. Tickets are sold for twentyfive cents each by number. People buy the tickets, specifying at the time the name of the deceased for whom it is purchased. The drawing takes place, and the souls holding the winning numbers receive the benefit of the masses for the dead during a specified period.
The religion of Rome so sets the priest between the soul and God, that, in the general belief of the people, the salvation of the sinner is completely in the priest's hands. No matter how wicked and corrupt he may be as a man, his sacerdotal acts are holy and efficacious. His bless- .ing and absolution open the door of heaven; his curse and excommunication turn even earth into a hell. The blind confidence in the power of the priest is shown in a thousand ways. One instance will serve to illustrate. A young man, given to the usual vices of such in this country, was shot down in the street. Before the priest could reach him to hear his confession, the dying youth had lost the power of speech, but his friends found great comfort in the fact that at the last moment he had pressed the priest's hand. To such people, of course, the Bible is an unknown book, and even when told that God's Word prohibits certain acts, they will answer by saying, " But the curate says they are right," and to the devout Romanist the curate's word has greater weight than God's. The expression " priest-ridden" has a terrible significance as applied to Mexico, and one that no American Protestant can fully comprehend unless he has lived in a papal country.
2. The moral state of Mexico. The moral condition of a people holding and practising such a religion may be imagined; to be known in its fulness one must live for years among the people. There is a varnish of politeness that is very attractive, there are traits of character and some customs that are very beautiful; indeed, there is much to admire in the Mexican people, even under the full influence of Rome. But beneath all the attractiveness, affability, politeness, and other excellent qualities that many have, there is found a lack of moral principle, a rottenness in the moral conceptions, and generally a looseness in practice, that must be personally known to be appreciated. Between the strict Roman Catholicism that makes marriage a sacrament and yet declares concubinage a preferable state for the priest, condoning it in all ranks of the clergy, and the loose ideas of the family tie, engendered by the modern French scepticism which abounds among the educated classes, the pz:actice of the sterner virtues is exceedingly rare. A corrupt and vicious priesthood sets the example of uncleanness, and the people, unrestrained by their religious convictions and living under a southern sky, follow madly the unholy example of their spiritual leaders.
Indecency in the ordinary habits of life and vileness in speech and manner are general characteristics of the masses. The sanctity of the Christian Sabbath is utterly unknown. The Lord's Day is observed as a "feast day," in which the ordinary labors of the farm and shop are largely suspended, though very many work on without regard to it. But the markets, groceries, saloons, and in many places dry good stores, do their most thriving business on that day; while every form of amusement, such as theatres, circuses, bull-fights, cock-fights, balls, etc., find it frequently better than all the rest of the week combined. Indeed, buH-fights seldom occur except on Sunday.
Liquor-drinking is almost universal, and there is an alarming amount of drunkenness. The Church is utterly powerless to restrain this vice, since very many of the priests are sadly addicted to it. Sundays and religious feast-days are specially notorious as times for drunken carousals. There exists no public sentiment in favor of temperance, except such as is the outgrowth of Protestantism.
This brief outline of the religious and moral state of the Mexican people will suffice to show their great need of the Gospel in its purity and with its purifying effects. Surely no unprejudiced observer could doubt the necessity of giving such a people a different religion from the one they have had for centuries, inasmuch as it has completely failed of accomplishing the great object for which true religion exists. Truth mixed with error is often more damaging than error pure and simple; and Romanism, though holding in her possession all essential truth, has so buried it beneath error and superstition, that she doubtless constitutes a greater barrier to the evangelization of Mexico than would pure paganism. She has demonstrated her utter inability to lift the people to a higher moral plane than that they occupied in the days of their old pagan religion. Indeed, it is doubtful if they are as moral now as they were at the time of the conquest, if we may trust the Catholic historians of that period.
Mexico, then, has claims as a mission field on the purely humanitarian principle that would lead to the evangelization of any other country, because of the social and moral benefits that result from the introduction of the Gospel. This claim is reinforced by the fact that, though very religious, her people do not possess the true religion of Christ, and are confiding in rites and ceremonies that cannot save. Furthermore, in the midst of her millions of superstitious souls, there are multitudes who yearn for a purer faith and a more consoling religion than that which leads through purgatorial fires. These waiting, thirsting souls stretch out their hands to receive the water of life by our help.
More than any other field Mcxico has claims upon the Christians of the United States; because of proximity of territory, similarity of governmental forms, the practical import of the Monroe Doctrine, and the absence of organized effort on the part of English and European Chpistians in behalf of Mexico's evangelization. The missionary societies of the Old W orId give all their attention to the mission fields on that side of the globe, while Mexico and the other Spanish-speaking countries on this continent are left to be evangelized by Americans alone. Surely this noteworthy fact shoulu appeal urgently to the Church in the United States, since, in the Providence of God, this seems to be a field peculiarly and exclusively our own.
lNTERNATtoNAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GBACE~ D.D.
The Barrows :Leotureship in Oaloutta. influence" of the Chicago University, and to secure "the promotion of the [J. T. G.] highest interests of humanity, " and "the enlargement of the kingdom of Mrs. Caroline E. Haskell has present- truth and love on earth." ed to the University of Chicago the sum of $20,0:)0 for the founding of a "Lec- We have endeavored to make the ex- tureship on the Relations of Christianity actest summary of the benevolent intent and the Other Religions." The pro- of the generous donor, setting down posal is that six or more of these lectures naught that might color or mar the be delivered in Calcutta, India, and, if purpose or the benevolence. The exe- deemed best, in Bombay, Madras, or cution of the plan is guarded with a some other of the chief cities of Hin. suggestion that correspondence be first . dustan where large numbers of educat. had with the leaders of thought in India, ed Hindus are familiar with the English to secure "helpful suggestions" in its language. These lectures are to be de- scope and conduct. livered annually or biennially by leading Christian scholars of Europe, Asia, The Ad'/Jance says this lectureship will and America, "in a friendly, temperate, demand consummate fitness and ability conciliatory way." The management in the lecturer among a generation of of the lectureship is to be in the hands non-Christian educated men as familiar of Drs. Harper, John Henry Barrows. with the English language and literature and George S. Goodspeed and their suc. as with their own, but thinks the previous cessors in official relation in the Chicago experiences of President Seelye, Joseph University. She names Archdeacon Cook, and Dr. Pentecost show what Farrar, Dr. Fairbairn, Professors Henry kind of hearing will be accorded to such Drummond, A. B. Bruce, George P. lecturers. It says the editor of the Fisher, Francis G. Peabody, Bishop Potter, and Dr. Lyman Abbott as the ]J}vangelwal Review, for thirty years a. type of lecturers it would be desirable to secure. She intimates, without typi- missionary, has thanked Mrs. Haskell cal names, that representatives of other for her noble gift, and that a leading religions might be selected in Asia, be- Christian lawyer of Calcutta writes that cause "Europe and America wish to he believes such a course of lectures hear and ponder the best that Asia can will be highly appreciated in India. give them." As she acknowledges the earnest wish" expressed by Mr. P. C. On the other hand, Rev. James H. Mozoomdar" that a lectureship similar Messmore, D.D., editor of the Indian to the one Mrs. Haskell founded in the Witness, doubts if any good will come Chicago University should be founded of it. Dr. Messmore is noted for his in Calcutta had more or less influence disregard of conventionalisms which in inducing her to found this lecture- cannot stand the test of the seve~est ship in Calcutta, named in honor of Dr. common sense. He has a wide ac- John Henry Barrows, presumably it quaintance with all shades of Oriental would be that class of Asiatic lecturers thought, language, and literature ; his that might be selected. Her hope is sympathies and mental grasp are alike that thus " a new golden bond between broad. He has had more than a third the East and the West" may be estab- of a century's experience in every phase lished, and ., the extension of the benign of missionary labor in widely separat- ed parts of India, among the most learn- ed and the most illiterate, the richest and the poorest, and with people of all castes and of no caste. Dr. Messmore recognizes the noble cial and appreciative, and we quote the generosity which impelled the founder of this lectureship to this proposal, but whole article: hopes she may be induced to withdraw the gift and turn the money into « SIR: Mrs. Haskell's gift is certainanother channel. He expresses fear lest IV a very generous one, and as such is unwise lecturers be sent, who will do worthy of all praise. But I am inclined mischief. He dreads any attempt to to think that her generosity might have repeat on a small scale the Parliament been better directed. The object of the of Religions, and affirms that the mis· lectures is to present the great questions sionaries of Bengal" are almost unani- of the truths of Christianity, its harmomous in declaring that the Parliament nies with the truths of other religions, did great harm," and says he has seen its rightful claims and the best methods on the pages of almost every religious of setting them forth. The presentation paper in India within a year some refer· of the truths of Christianity and its ence to the injury it has done and is rightful claims is just whatIndia needs. likely to do in India to thc cause of The people of India are perishing for Christ. His suspicions of the possible lack of knowledge of these things. And tenor of the lectureship are based on its the discussion, at fitting opportunities, being an outgrowth of that Parliament. of the best methods of setting these He gives several reasons why such a truths and claims forth is very instruc· lectureship must fail of success as a tive ; but it seems to me the fitting opcourse of apologetics. An attempt to portunity will hardly be found when magnify the good in the heathen relig- the lecturer stands before a large body ions would be made in the presence of of educated Hindus. The discussion of their debasing and demoralizing rites, the best methods is rather a subject for and of the vices which these engender; lecturers and preachers than for such an while an attempt to set a heathen relig- audience. ion in its true light before a heathen audience would inevitably antagonize " But Mrs. Haskell seems to lay spe· the hearers. Missionaries, he says, have cial stress on the harmonies between not found it wise to do either. Besides, Christianity and other systems of religafter being asked to meet Hindus and ion, as the third paragraph of her let- Mohammedans in a friendly way to as· ter indicates ; and I presume that the certain what they and we have in com- lecturer also would' in a friendly, temmon, he wants to know what we are to perate, and conciliatory way' lay much do with that portion of Christian doc- stress upon these harmomes. As the trine which is essentially antagonistic Hindu religion prevails in this country, to all other faiths. Shall we say the the lecturer for India would attempt differences are small and unimportant? chiefly to set forth the harmony between All honest attempt at comparison be· Christianity and Hinduism. It may be tween Christianity and other religions, that I am slow in perceiving analogies, he declares, only serves to bring out the or that I need more study, thought, snd essential antagonism between Christian- experience, but during thirteen years ofity and all other faiths. close contact with Hindu thought I have failed to find many striking resem· As editor of the Indian Witness, Dr. blances between these two religions. I Messmore invites an expression of the have found a few superficial resemviews of any of the older and more ex- blances; but when a system has several perienced missionaries in India in his philosophies to start with, and has such columns, that they may be forwarded to flexibility, plasticity, and power of ab- Dr. Barrows. sorption that it is able to borrow some- thing from every religion with which it Rev. J. Parson, of Lucknow, makes comes in contact, and able to incorthe first contribution. The tone is judi. porate with itself the worship of every kind of god, idol, hero and demon, and every form of superstition, it would be strange indeed if in such an ' encyclo- predia of religions' some superficial re- semblances to Christianity were not found. But, while its teachin&, with regard to God, man, responslbility, duty, sin, righteousness and the way of salvation differs in almost every part from Christian teaching, the real har- monies must be very few. And the more philosophic the form of Hinduism, the fewer the harmonies seem to be.
Yet this would be, I suppose, the form ~ in which lecturers to the educated by means of which this end is to be classes would seek for harmonies. I secured. The agency is twofold, a scarcely think that much good will be committee consisting of the president done by lectures which chiefly set forth or principal of the Chicago (Baptist) the harmonies between Christianity and University, and its two Professors of Hinduism. The effect would be to Comparative Religion. The duty of magnify the superficial resemblances this committee will be to administer the and to confirm the Hindus in their con- funds and to appoint the lecturers, Who viction of the truth of their own relig. constitute the second part of the agency. ion. If they dealt with the many "These lecturers are described as sharp contrasts between the two sys- 'leading Christian scholars of Europe, tems as well as the few slight harmo- Asia, and America.' 'Such Christian nies, and demonstrated the superiority scholars as Archdeacon Farrar, Dr.
of Christianity, more might be accom- Fairbairn, Professor Henry Drummond, plished ; but this would lead to contro- Professor A. B. Bruce, Professor Fisher versy, which is generally to be depre- of Yale, Professor Peabody of Harvard, cated. The Christian lecturer or preach- Bishop Potter, and Dr. Lyman Abbott er, as a part of his equipment for his of New York.' Of these eight, the first work, needs to study and understand four are men in good ecclesiastical the doctrines and practices of Hindu- standing in British churches, and all ism, not in order that he may in his pub- four are able evangelical Christians, poslic work compare the two systems and sessed of popular gifts. 0 f the remain- point out the few slight similarities and ing four I cannot write with the author- the many great differences, but that he ity of personal knowledge or indeed to better understand the Hindu mind and any great extent of their work or of mode of thought and know what truths their reputation.
to emphasize. I believe that the less he " I have no doubt the professors of compares the two systems publicly the Congregational Yale and undenominamore successful his work is likely to tional Harvard are good and able men. be. 'rhe prospect of these lectures does Professor Fisher has done yeoman sernot awaken in me much enthusiasm." vice in the defence of Christianity ; and I have read only what is good of the Rev. K. S. Macdonald, the editor of labors of Bishop Potter and Dr. Lyman the lffDangelica~ Review, to whom the Abbott. What we want are men of Advance refers, held a very much more ability, who know their Bibles and who will make an honest, diligent effort to favorable opinion of " The Parliament study the other religions, and who will of Religions" than did Dr. lIIIessmore. faithfully represent in their lectures He contributed, in response to the call their mutual relations' in a friendly, for expert opinions, an article which temperate, conciliatory way,' and in a , fraternal spirit,' so as to win the hearwe quote in part, the omissions having ers to a favorable interest in spiritual no necessary rele vancy to the imme- truth. diate issue. Dr. Macdonald said: " I believe these men and men of their " SIR: I am asked to supply 'sug- stamp will do all this. I therefore gestions with regard to the importance of this effort to bring about a better heartily welcome the scheme, and say God-speed to it. I also express my urtderstanding between our Western hearty thanks to Mrs. Haskell for her Christian civilization on the one side, splendid gift to the young men of India. I like the scheme specially for the promiand the representatives of the various nence it gives to religion, and more esfaiths of India on the other.' pecially to tke Christian religion; the " 'The effort' here referred to has beginning, middle, and end of it is taken the form, in the words of the Christianity-the interests of Christian- donor, of ' $20,000 for the founding of ity advanced in connection with the a lectureship on the rdations of Ohris· study of the science of c.>mparative retiamty and the otfter re~igions.' This is ligion.
to be the subject-matter of the lec*ures. " Science, true science, must always , The object is equally clear-' So pre· be the handmaid of true religion. senting Ohristianity to others as to win Neither the Bible nor Christians are their faTJorabw interest in its truths.' afraid of the study of any science, still Here we have the means and the end so less of the study of comparative relig- described that there ought to be no mis· ion.
understanding as to either. "However vile the superstition or " There is a third point of undoubted idolatry may be, we need not hesitate importance in the scheme which must to take any truth of God, wherever not be forgotten. That is the agency found, and use it in God's service and for the extension of His kingdom, as ed to most thorough, scholarly pres- Paul did the words of a heathen poet (used in a hymn to Jupiter) or the in- entation of this entire field. Missionascription of a heathen used on an idola- ries have forged the very weapons trous shrine. which these lecturers must wield, and " I hope and fondly believe that Mrs. they have not neglected to test the util- IIaskell's very liberal gift to India may ity of this entire line of approach. Sir be greatly blessed in bringing about the William Muir's" Testimony Borne by ends and objects she has in view. His the Quran to the Christian Scriptures" own Brahmo co-religionists have not very great faith in Mr. P. C. Mozoom- is but a single illustration of attempts dar, but he is infinitely superior, I be- to reach the people from the standpoint lieve, to Prophet Balaam; and as God of similarities, and in that case, even greatly blessed the vaticinations of the from that of obligation imposed by their latter, I have no doubt He may greatly bless that uttered wish of the former to own Scriptures. Dr. Ballantyne was which Mrs. Haskell refers. I am told principal of the Government College at with some emphasis that Dr. John Benares when he published his" Chris- Henry Barrows was greatly taken in tianity Contrasted with Hindu Philosoby both Mr. Mozoomdar and Viveka- nanda, who told his audience that he phy," bilingual (Sanskrit and English), honored the Hindu Rishls as • perfected with plactical suggestions to missionabeings,' and that some of,the very best ries, in which he advises them to do of them were women I I Does he dare just what is now hinted at-" cast about tell us what the Vedas say of these!
"I cannot say that I am very sorry for points of agreement, with a view to conciliation." Yet he himself did not that Dr. Barrows believed the delegates confine himself to the correspondencies. from Bengal. It proved Dr. Barrows but in a masterly way deals with the has something of the love of which the apostle writes-the love that' believeth all things and hopeth all things.' " contrasts" in his" Exposition," ., Evi- " I shall cordially welcome Dr. John dences," "Natural theology," "Myste- rious points in Christianity," and in the Henry Barrows as the first of the Bar- " Analogy of religion to the constitution rows lecturers, and I hope the missionaries of Bengal will join in that welcome."
It is not certain that either of these and course of nature." He held, withal, writers have apprehended the scope of that no man was fit to make the con- these lectures, nor Is it clear that the ciliatory approach who was not thor- founder or Dr. Barrows have themselves oughly furnished for the ai1tagonisms any definite concept of what they would of controversy.
realize. It may be time enough to dis- When Mr. Banerjea was professor in cuss it when the proposal can give an Bishop's College, Calcutta, he published account of itself. If it were intended his" Hindu Philosophy," with a view simply to found a department or chair to suggest such modes of dealing with of Comparative Religion In the Calcutta it "as may prove most effective to the University, similar to that in the colleges Hindu mind." Has that book been at home, the proposition would not con- equalled, not to say surpassed, by any cern us. But it is apparently designed modern treatise or Jecture from that to be an auxiliary missionary agency, standpoint? .Tohn Brande Morris pub.
and that brings it within our purview. lished as long ago as 1843 a volume to There is underlying the proposal the which the University of Oxford award- idea that something new is to be tried. ed the prize offered by the Lord Bishop But Banerjea in Calcutta, Dr. Ballantyne of Calcutta, treating of the best mode in Benares, Dr. Wilson in Bombay, and and best arguments with which to deal Dr. Mitchell all over India, have not with" learned and philosophical Hin- left the people inexpert in these com- dus." This author omitted the evi- parisons, to say nothing of the Bengal dences of Christianity, or H how far it Asiatic Society's Journal, the Calcutta might accommodate itself in the re- Review, the Friend of India, and other moulding existing heathen rites," be- abJe periodical literature largely devot- cause there would be" want of delicacy in treating them before heathen." Is However delicate the task, we venthat not conciliatory enough? ture to say that there is incongruity be- tween the task set the lecturers and the Where can one learn so much of what typical names mentioned. Dr. Ballanthere Is to compare or to contrast be- tyne was right when he said that no tween Christianity and Hinduism as in man was furnished for making advances Nilakantha Sastri Gore's" Exposition in the way of conciliation but he who of the Hindu Philosophical Systems," understands both the errors of oppowritten in the same broad, frank spirit? nents and the means of confuting them; It can scarcely be said that the results " for," as Bacon says, "there is no use of magnifying harmonies have been en- of confutations when we differ about tirely satisfactory. principles and notions themselves, and even about the forms of proof." Hindu- India affords the greatest museum of ism may not always call for confutation, religions on the globe. Its people are while conciliation is essentially based experts at discriminating variations, on knowledge of contrasts and the ave· similarities or contrasts of religious nues to harmony. It seems that therethought. Brahmoism, which Mr. Mo· fore a class of lecturers might be selected zoomdar represents, is itself the result who had given large attention and proof an attempt to formulate the Absolute found study to the subject. Dr. Hoopin religion by compounding the good er, of Allahabad; Dr. Miller, of Madfound in the several faiths of mankind. ras; Dr. Kellogg, of the Punjab; But India has gone about as far in that Monier Williams, George Smith, or John line as it cares to go. and a modification Muir would symbolize the class of able has set in, as is seen in the differentia- scholars who would know how to contions of the various Samajas. Where ciliate Brahmans; and Dr. Washburn, Rammohun Roy and Mr. Chunder Sen of Constantinople; Dr. Jessup, of Sycould not lead Hindus in a revolt against ria; or Dr. Wherry, of Chicago, might Hinduism, Dr. Barrows is sure to fail. at least" know what they were talking about," to Moslems. He who dreams of making converts to Christianity by pointing out similari- But what about the Asiatic lecturers ties and harmonies reckons without his hinted at, who are to give us what '. Euhost, whether among literate or illiterate rope and America wish to hear and ponpeoples. Buddhists of Japan have der," and from whom we are to readopted almost all forms of Christian ceive "the best that Asia can give" 1 usages, such as Young Men's Christian .Mr. Mozoomdar would not be admitted Associations and Christian marriage to represent Brahmanism, but Absolutservice-ring and all. A native gentle- ism like that of Theodore Parker; and man has just contributed some hundreds we have little to add to our facilities of dollars to erect a "Young Men's Buddhist Association Hall" in Madras. for evolving that. The best that Mr. A sort of neo·theosophic :Buddhism in Ceylon has established a Buddhist Vivekananda would have to give would .. Christmas," with early morning be barred out by Brahmans, who decarols, in the evening carrying trans- clare him an impostor, and whose moral parencies lettered " Glory to Buddha in character is openly assailed in the press the highest, on earth peace and good of India. The genuine Jain Buddhist, will toward men." They have a Bud- Virchand A. Gandhi, has already given dhiat catechism, Buddhist Sunday- the" best" he has. The writer listened schools, and, in one centre, Buddhist to him in a church on a Sunday evenclasB meetings! The fact is, that these ing "preach" (save the mark I) to an communities will take any amount of audience which fortunately knew little correspondencies and make a metemp- or nothing of the esoteric meaning of sychosis of heathenism, but not Chris- the words he used any more than they tianity, nor any respectable substitute did of the prayer ill which he said he for Christianity. did not want anything, and had no petition whatever to make, having nothing such a course would synchronize with to do but meditate on the Divine. That the Winter-mission movement in Great was consistent Buddhist philosophy, Britain, which provides for sending lec- based on the belief that the only way to turers and evangelists to work during reach Nirvana was by training one's the cold weather of India among the self to believe that personality was English-speaking natives, Christian and Maya, never to be got quit of but by non-Christian. Mr. McNeal is now in quenching every desire. India, reaching audiences similar to those It is not merely esoteric philosophy, which greeted Dr. Pentecost. There is however, that should be comprised in a large field for learned lecturers in uni- these comparative studies; we would versity and other cities, and for skilled need to know their sacred Scriptures. evangelists of renown, among the ever- But when Dr. Ballantyne commenced increasing English-speaking communi- this line of comparative study there ties of India. A strong Christian lec- were no Vedas in the hands of Brah- tureship pronouncedly expository and mans, nor are there to·day, except in the apologetic of Christianity, conducted by translations of Western Orientalists. It able men like Dr. Barrows and other is difficult to suggest what department eminent divines of the class whom Mrs.
of the" best" they have that is not ac- Haskell names" in a friendly, temper- cessible to us far and away beyond what ate, conciliatory way," would command we could acquire from any Orientallec- the utmost attention and respect of all turer in any series of lectures. Will classes in India, and exert a powerful anybody name a solitary contribution to influence for the "promotion of the the thought or literature of Brahmanism higbest interests of humanity and the not well known and understood before enlargement of the kingdom of truth by scholars, or by any who choose to and love."
seek the knowledge in anyone of the hundreds of libraries in the land, that The Need of a Medical Missionary is to be found in the ponderous volumes Oollege. of the Parliament of Religions? As the source of contribution to our stock BY REV. A. P. HAPPER, M.D., D.D.* of knowledge of Oriental faiths, com- All persons praying and laboring for mend us to the vast stores of literatures the conversion of the world to Christ already extant, rather than to the ex· have rejoiced in the great increase in the pedient of a necessarily limited com- number of missionaries who have gone pass of a few lectures, even by the apos- to non-Christian countries during the tles of those faiths of whatever renown, last twenty-nve years. The most mark- delivered on the other side of the globe. ed increase has been in the number of If the generous founder of this lec. medical missionaries who have gone out tureship and those who administer it in connection with the leading mission- could, on the other hand, see their way ary societies of the various churches.
clear to provide for the strongest possi- This increase is made manifest in vari- ble, straight-out course of apologetic ous ways. In 1849 there were 39 medi- lectures, avowedly intended to present cal missionaries in all lands, of whom Christianity as the ultimate truth, then not one was a lady physician. In 1894 they have named ideal lecturers, and the number of medical missionaries is there is no room for doubt about the stated to be 400, of whom 80 ale lady generous reception they will receive, pbysicians. At the Volunteer Conven- and the influence they may exert. Then tion at Cleveland, 0., in 1891 the num- they will be on the platform occupied, * A melancholy interest attaches to this paper, when in India, by Dr. Joseph Cook, Professor Seelye, and. others of the class as it was the subject of correspondence with Dr. alluded to by thfl Advance. Be~ides, Happer and ourselves only a few days before his death.-J. T. G. ber present who were studying medi- Some $400,000 were subscribed toward cine preparatory to going as medical the funds of the association, largely by missionaries was 25. At the Volunteer the princes and men of wealth in India.
Convention at Detroit in 1894 the num- As the lady physicians connected with ber of volunteers who are studying this association cannot teach the Gospel medicine for missionary service was 72, of Christ to their patients, they can- which is nearly a threefold increase in not meet the spiritual needs of the suf- three years. Beside these, 100 dele- fering multitudes. In Africa and the gates at the Conference, still in their isles of the sea the need of the people collegiate course, expressed their pur- for relief .from bodily ailments is the pose to study medicine in order to be same, or even greater, than in China medical missionaries. During 1893, 160 and India.
persons, young men and women, applied 2. The second reason is that now all to Dr. Dowkontt, medical director of the missionary societies are willing to the International Medical Missionary employ medical missionaries, whereas Institute of New York, for information but a few years ago only a few societies and aid to obtain medical knowledge wished to employ them. Those who for mission service. Only 16 of the have gone from the International Med- number could be received into the insti- ical Missionary Institute have gone out tute for lack of pecuniary means. in connection with some fourteen differ- In the continued enlargement of mis- ent societies. During the last ten years sion work in non·Christian countries, 78 of those who have been with the the number of those who will study Institute for a longer or shorter period medicine with the view of mission ser- have gone to the foreign field. Of vice will rapidly increase with each suc- these 20 have gone out in connection cessive year. The reasons for this in- with the Presbyterian Board of Foreign crease are these : Missions, 14 in connection with Baptist 1. The need for medical missionaries societies, 13 in connection with Congre- is much better understood now than gational societies, 10 in connection with ever before. The character of the medi- Methodist societies, 5 in connection with cal practice in non·Christian lands and Presbyterian societies in Canada, and the consequent sufferings of women the other 16 in connection with the and children are now widely known Episcopal, the Reformed, the Southern among Christian people. In China Presbyterian, the China Inland, and there is only one missionary physician other missionary societies. A few years to each 2,500,000 of the population. In ago the medical missionaries were near- the United States there is one physician lyall from Great Britain and the United to every 600 people. In China there are States. Now they are of many nationali- 100 missionary physicians to 300,000,000 ties. Those who have gone out from of the population; and in the United the Medical Missionary Institute were States 118,453 physicians to 65,000,000 born in twenty different countries.
of people. But the strong reason for the belief In India the readiness with which the that there will be a still greater increase women came to the lady missionary of medical missionaries In the near fu- physicians for medical treatment led to ture is this: There is a growing convic- the organization in 1886 of the National tion among the special promoter.10f for- Association by Countess Dufferin, wife eign missions that, in order to secure of the then Viceroy of India, for supply- the best results of efforts to spread the ing medical aid to the women of India. Gospel, it is necessary to follow more The association is composed of the high- carefully the example and commands of est dignitaries of Church and State in our Lord and Saviour. Our Lord went Great Britain and India, with Her Maj- everywhere healing the sick. And His esty the Queen Empress as patron. command, when He sent forth the twelve apostles and the sennty diseiplee, was: senice can pursue medical studies at a " As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom moderate pecuniary expense. Most of of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, those purposing to study medicine for cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast this service are possessed of small out devils: freely ye have received, means. In the performance of missionfreely give" (Matt. 10 : 7, 8). It is ob- ary duties they will receive simply a vious that in order to heal the sick the support. This fact precludes any of missionaries must study medicine. It them from borrowing money to meet is, in connection with this subject, a the expenses of their medical education, most important fact that it is only in expecting to refund it from subsequent Christian lands that a rational and bene- income. There is not a single medical ficial treatment for the diseases of the missionary college in the United States human system is known. In all non- where missionary students can pursue Christian countries the treatment of the medical studies and obtain a diploma. sick and suffering, and especially of There are many medical colleges in this women and Infants, is useless and bar- country, but the fees for lectures and barous. tuition are very high. They vary from $100 to $200 in different institutions for In order to carry out the command of each year of the four years' course for our Lord more efficiently, ~nd to com- each student. In the best colleges they municate the blessings of salvation and are $200 a year, which makes $800 for a of healing to the 1,000,000,000 of the course of four ye,ars. This sum is pronon·Christian nations, missionary socie- ldbitory to many young men and womties need to increase their medical mis- en who are desirous to obtain a medical slonariesfou1fold. This increase is not education for missionary service in forimpracticable. The number of medical eign lands. missionaries has been increased during the last forty.five years te1lfold without The facilities provided for those wishany special effort. With the increased ing to engage in medical missionary interest in the cause, and when men and work to obtain the requisite preparation tDOIM1l. physicians are both so greatly are in strange contrast with the facilineeded, the present number can by spe- ties which are provided for those precial effort be increased jivefold. The paring for other kinds of Christian need of this increase of medical mis- work. Every Christian denomination sionaries was expressed in 1890 by the has theological seminaries in which Shanghai General Missionary Confer- ministers are trained for their life work ence, composed of 432 missionaries in without any expense for tuition, and China. as follows: where facilities are provided forlodging and boarding at moderate expense. .. On behalf of these destitute masses, Similar facilities Bre provided for young therefore, we earnestly plead with the men and women who are preparing for men of wealth in the home churches, Christian work in connection with that they will c:msider the claims of Young Men's and Young Women's these suffering ones, and will largely Christian Associations. There are quite aid the reinforcement of the noble staff a number of mission institutes for trainof medical missionaries already in the ing young men and women for evanfield" (Records of the Shanghai Confer- gelistic work in home and foreign lands; ence, page 54). in Bome of them tuition is without charge, and in some a nominal sum is It is a most obvious and important in- charged, and in all of them facilities for quiry, How can the churches best facili- lodging and boarding are provided at tate this increase of medical missiona- reduced charges. Thus for all classes riel! ? This increase can be most easily of Christian workers ample provision effected by the endowment of a medical has been made for their instruction and missionary college. at which those who desire to study medicine for missionary training without tuition fees. and with cal college. As the money is to be colfacilities :for lodging and boarding, eJJ- lected from all churches, it will not come cepe for those preparing for medical mis- heavily upon anyone denomination. sionary service. These same facilities And this is not a great sum for the are provided for a large number of stu- whole Christian community of America dents in many colleges and academies to raise for so necessary and important without regard to the question whether a purpose. It can be made clear to all they are preparing for Christian work who will give the subject a few minor not. utes' consideration, that the money saved in the education of the young The query naturally arises, Why and men and women who will attend the how is it that no provision has been college will, in the course of a few years, made for assisting medical missionary amount to more than the whole sum of students to get the necessary education? $500,000. It is so simply because the need for such provision has been but recently From the facts stated above and other felt. and because the attention of the indications it is a most probable surmise Christian community has not been es- that, if there was a medical missionary pecially called to this need. This urgent college endowed and fully equipped to need, arising out of the increasing num- give first· class instruction to missionary ber of medical missionary students, has students, the number of students who only be~n felt within the last few years. would attend its classes would be from The need is jivefold greater now than it .two hundred and fifty to three hunwas fi ve years ago; and it will be dred. greater every successive year. We conclude with the words of the There is a purpose now to provide Shanghai General Missionary Conferfor this urgent need by raising money ence, already quoted. They say: "We to endow a medical missionary college, earnestly plead with the men of wealth and thus secure a charter of incorpora- in the home churches that they will tion from the State of New York which consider the claims of these suffering will enable the trustees of the college masses, and la1'Uely aid the reinforceto hold property for the college, pro- ment of the noble staff of medical misvide the necessary lecture-rooms, labora- sionaries already on the field." tories. and dissecting-rooms; to engage professors, build dormitories, and secure The World's Woman's Ohristian Temall the facilities and appliances neces- perance Union, sary to afford a first-class four years' course of instruction to the students for Mrs. E. W. Greenwood, the superinmedical mission service at the smallest tendent of this organization, has issued expense compatible with a proper re- a circular to which Miss Frances E. gard to health and efficiency. It is the Willard asks us to call special attention, purpose of those that are laboring to announcing the third biennial conveneffect it that the college shall be inter- tion of the World's Christian Temperdenominational and decidedly evangeli- ance Union, to be held in connection cal and evangelistic. The trustees are with the annual meeting of the British to be composeil of men chosen from Woman's Temperance Union in Londifferent denominations. As the doors don, June 14th-21st. May 18th and of the institution will be open to the 19th are specially set apart as days of students of all evangelical denomina- praise and prayer for this work. As tions, application will be made to the this movement has a distinctly missionmembcrs of all these denominations for ary feature in heathen lands, we cheercontributions to provide the $500,000 fully make this mention. Perhaps we endowment. This is the sum necessary can make no comment so good in any to secure the incorporation of a mediother way as by quoting the following search.light of this noble army of wom: from the address of welcome to Lady en! We, who are more directly en- Henry Somerset by Mrs. Joseph Cook gaged in the education and evangelizaat the meeting of the Woman's Board tion of the non-Christian races, know of Missions in January in Boston. what it is to have our work hindered by just the vices which our sisters of .. It is often said that the English- the Woman's Christian Temperance speaking race has become the missIon- Union are fighting to overthrow." ary army of the world: but while, in some small measure, we have carried We are grateful to Rev. Henry D. the Gospel to non-Christian lands, we Porter, M.D., Pang Chuang, North have also carried other gifts, for which China, for the "Records of the First the native races owe us anything but Shantung Missionary Conference at gratitude. Ching-Chow Fu, 1893" (Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, 1894). The .. Commerce has gone with Christian- photographs of the pe1"BOnnel of the ity, sometimes in advance, and has Conference quite surprises us with the taught nations of practical total abstain- number of missionaries in Chinese dress. ers the Anglo·Saxon vice of strong This Conference grew out of the recomdrink, and, for purposes of gain, has mendation of the Committee on Union pushed the opium traffic, with an in- appointed by the General Conference at difference to the bodily and spiritual Shanghai, 1890, urging missionaries to ruin of their victims which seems posi- unite in local conference or as!lociatively fiendish. tions. The object was to secure a better comprehension of the several methods .. In view of these facts, it is not sur- of work and mutual encouragement. prising that rum-cursed Africa and Forty-one delegates, representing nine opium·cursed India and China, not dis- missionary enterprises in Shantung and criminating between Christianity and one in Honan, were present. They commerce, for both are represented by were Presbyterians, Baptists, Methowhite men wearing European dress, dists, and China Inland folk from Great should in the bitterness of their souls Britain, Canada, and the United States, cry out to us, , Is this your Jesus way? representing a Chinese membership of Then we want none of it ! ' 8354, with 184 clerical and medical mis- sionaries, men and women. Thirty "You know what two of our brave pages are given to the" Causes of Pov- American women did in India in un- erty in China;" eighteen pages are veiling the secret haunts of vice in con· given to an essay by Dr. Porter on nection with the British army. Lord "Physical Healing as a Means of General Roberts, Commander-in-chief Grace." of Her Majesty's forces, claimed to be ignorant of this defiance of British law; CHINA. but these American women, under the auspices of the World's Union of Chris- The Rev. John Ross publishes in tian Women, and proceeding with the the Chinese Recorder a very interesting skill of practised detectives brought communication of the chief Taoist priest forward abundant proof of the exist- of Mantchuria. The priest is intimateence of legalized vice in the army, and ly acquainted with the Christian Scrip- Lord General Roberts, who had doubt- tures, and is, therefore, qualified to ed their word, was obliged to make bring out points of doctrinal coinci· them a public apology! dence. As Victor von Strauss has shown, Taoism, sadly degenerate as it .. Thank God that we have lived to is in practice, is in doctrine, unlike Consee the day when the world is so open fucianism, strongly theistic. and Christian women are so alert that it can now be said that there is no closet so remote that the skeleton of any wom· an's wrongs can be hidden from the
J!'lELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
I1I.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Mexioo,* Oentral Amerioa,t West Indies,t Oity Missions.§ BY D. L. PIEliSON.
MISSIONS IN MEXICO. distribution at Brownsville, Tex. In 1866 she opened a school at Monterey, The republic of Mexico has an area of and finally, in 1869, Rev. Henry Riley 767,000 square miles and a population of opened a mission in the City of Mexico about twelve millions, of whom about itself. It was in 1872 and 1873 that the 19 per cent are pure white, 38 per cent missionary societies of the Presbyterian, are Indians, and 43 per cent are of mixed Methodist, and Congregational churches blood. Of the two latter classes only a finally entered the field.
small percentage can be called civilized. The States of Tabasco, with a popu- The country is divided into twenty· lation of 104,747, and Camp@che, with seven States, two territories, and one 94,000, and the territories of Lower federal district. The republic was California and Tepic, with populations founded in 1857, but was not in full of 31,167 anrl131,019 respectively, have power, and religious freedom was not as yet no Protestant missionaries sta- enjoyed until 1867. The Bible was first tioned among them. Presbyterians introduced into Mexico in the wake of alone are stationed in Yucatan, Guerre- the army of General Scott in the war of ro, and Chiapas ; in Queretaro,Tlaxcala, 1845, but it was not until fifteen years and Oaxaca only the Northern Meth- later that any persistent attempt was odists; in Sonora and Sinalao only the made to carry the pure Gospel to our American Board; and in Coleina only next-door neighbors, enshrouded in the the Southern Methodists. The other darkness of a corrupt Romanism which States are occupied by two or more so- was practically paganism. Miss Melinda cieties.
Rankin began a work for the Mexicans The statistics of the work in Mexico in 1854, establishing a centre for Bible are as follows: i'" J]gI~_! -. -~- ~ . I"'l~ .; 1 .. j'~ !~ ~ ,,- m ~ .5l11 ","'<1 .~ 0> 'E:: ';3 <:l ..0… .~ ~ 1! "0 " -C~5 "8 §.~ Z 8- .0…. !:i SOCIETIES. ;j.; al~ ::;;: . ai .~ 0 <1. ..>t:0I ='0.a<1:~I' o S ~It.! ~'ij .~~…"~. rd ~ <:l 0 .t:I. ~~ '~; -tE =~= ~.: ..2:!J:r"n ~~ e§ll ~ ~:a ~ § , "<'1".>''"' .Eo> ~!l -e".t:I o § ..;s::>!-0! ~ s<1.> ~o 0 .~= !eln.!le<n1.> OE-<O 0 ~ "".t:I 0 <",<:1l."> ~o en 8 ——- A. B. C. F. 111.. …….. 1872 5 21 7 .. 7 7 1 9 i413 578 108 415 …2.5 168 $843 Baptists (South) …….. 1880 11 39 10 .• 9 6 5 .. 1487 1,163 277 375 182 2,600 Church of Jesus (lnde· l?endent EpiBcopal)… 1873 4 29 1 3 …….. 4 6 …. BOO …….. ………… -'- . ….. 3 •. …. 4 61413 ., 465 Frlends ………•. ,., … 1871 2 26 ….189 350 M . E. (North) ………. 1873 9 32 10 2 10 1015 26 72 28 2,430 349 1,648 120 2,725 9,012 M. E. (South)……….. 187314 115 18 1 12 7181 .• 2087 8,808 277 3,25415 1,327 4,7(y{ 3,495 Presbyterian (North)…. 187211 44 10 .• -'- ~ –'"- 1,168 12 30 150 85 4,512 271 ……
P resbyterian (South) … …. 1 51 2 .. 1 … 3 8 .• S ., 450 …. . 250 2 •• 2 79 146 1 1 •• 1 2 •••• ….. PrQsbyterian (Cumber.). 24 …4..1.8 .. .6.8.5 Reformed Synod…….. …. 2 11 2 .. 1 1 2 .• 2 6 226 32 159 . … 27 106 * Literature: "Mexico," by H. H. Bandelier; "Moravian MI8Iions," Andrew Thompson, D.D . "Mexico iu Transition," William Butler, D.O.; .. The 'Native Religions of Mexico and Peru," :j: .. Story of.Diaz, the Apostle of Cuba," George W. Lasher, D.D. See also p. 179 (present issue). Albert Reville; "Twenty Years Among the Mexicans," Miss Melinda Rankin. See also p. § '" Encyclopredia of 'Missions," L, 294; ~ Municipal Reform Movements," W. 11. Tol- 198 (present issue). man. See alBo p. 191 (present laBue). t .. Central America," H. H. Bancroft; We do not give the totals under this ized Indians. There"are at present fears table because of the incompleteness of of a war between this republic and the record. There are, however, at Mexico, owing to a disputed boundary.
present 10 Protestant societies laboring It is hoped, however, that the question in 87 8epamte stations in Mexico, besides will be settled by arbitration, and thus which there are colporteurs of the Ameri- prevent bloodshed and the interruption can Bible Society. The number of for- to the work of God which would eign missionaries is 184 and of native necessarily accompany the war.
workers, 542 : churches number 388 and Honduras is controlled by Roman ~ongregations, 489: there are 16,860 Catholics, and only a few of the Mos- communicants and over 50,000 adherents kito Indians on the eastern coast are 10,668 Sunday-school scholars, and 7455 reached by the Moravian missionaries.
pupils in day schools; 12 Christian In British Honduras the Wesleyan papers are published in the Spauish Methodists have 6 stations, 24 chapels, language. 6 missionaries, 240 native agents, and Missionary work in Mexico is carried 2040 communicants. The American on in the face of many and great diffi- Bible Society also has agents here.
culties, among which are the ignorance, Salvador tolerates all religions; but indifference and immorality of the there are at present no Protestant mi8- people, the opposition of the Romish sionaries laboring there. The popUla- priests, and the spread of infidelity. tion is composed of aboriginal Indians Much has been accomplished, however, and those of mixed Spanish and Indian besides the actual conversion of souls blood.
to God. (1) Congregations have been Nicaragua is also untouched by mis- established where the Gospel is preached sionary effort except by the Moravians, weekly to over twenty-five thousand who labor among the Moskito Indians people; (2) nearly two hundred schools on the eastern coast, where they have have been established where pupils are 15 foreign ordained missionaries, 4 or- enlightened in things temporal and spir- dained and 66 other native helpers, and itual, and men and women are given a 5573 members (of whom 900 are com- theological and normal training ; (3) a municants), at 12 stations. There is large amount of evangelical literature also a church at Greytown, south of the in the form of papers, tracts. Bibles, Moskito Reserve. The work of the Mo- and books are scattered throughout the ravians has also lately extended into land. Nicaragua proper, where religious free- CENTRAL AMERICA. dom has been declared. The work has, however, been greatly hindered by the The statistics of the countries of Cen- political complications between Nicatral America are" as follows: ragua and the Moskito Reserve. The Area. Population. Nicaraguans, contrary to treaty, still Guatemala…. " •••46,800 sq. m. 1,460,017 occupy the Reserve, and the Moskito HonduraS ••••.•.••.46,400 .. 431,917 Indians look to England for protection. British Honduras•• 7,562 81,471 The presence of the soldiers at Blue- Salvador. . . . ••• . •. 7,225 777,895 fields causes unrest and disorder. Many Nicaragua •••••.•. .49,500 282,845 of the Christians have left, and some Costa Rica ……..37,000 245,780 In Guatemala the Presbyterian Board churches are on the verge of ruin.
(North) is the only society at work, and Lamplight services have been aban- has in Guatemala City two ordained mis- doned, as no decent woman cares to sionaries and their wives, one native walk the streets after dark. All this in teacher, one church with 49 communi- what was lately the most orderly and cants, and one school with 45 pupils Christian community in Central Amer- (boys). Nearly half of the population ica.
of this republic is composed of uncivil- In Costa Rica Rev. J. H. Lobez, of the Jamaica Baptist lIIissionary Union, cemetery has been pnrchased, a girls'
is doing a good work at Port Limon, high-school established, and a free hos- where he has gathered 80 communi- pital started. There are now 24 mis- cants. The Central American Mission- sionaries, Gchurches and stations, 2582 ary Society of Dallas, Tex:., has 2 mis· members, 7 Sunday-schools, 1000 schol- sionaries with their wives and 1 unmar- ars. Persecutions innumerable have ried lady missionary in this republic, followed Diaz all the way, but last year and the American Bible Society has 2 there were 150 baptisms. This work is agents at work. in connection with the Baptist Church In all there are in Central America 6 (South). The Jamaica Baptists,and the societies at work in 22 stations manned American Bible Society also carryon by 28 ordained missionaries, with over work in this island.
7f5 native helpers and over 3000 com- In the republic of Hayti* there is an municants. estimated population of 800,000, mostly negroes. The moral and intellectual THE WEST INDIES. condition is low in the extreme. Work is being carried on in Hayti and San These islands were first visited by Domingo by the Jamaica Baptists, the missionaries in 1734, when two Mora- English Baptists, the Consolidated vians landed in St. Thomas to preach American Baptists, the Protestant Epis- Jesus to the wretched slaves. Accord- copal, the African !!ethodlst Episcopal, ing to the latest reports, these heroic and and the Wesleyan Methodists 01 Eng- indefatigable evangelizers are repre- land. These societies have gathered sented by 50 European toilers of both about 2400 converts.
sexes, and have now in their churches Puerto Rico, a Spanish colony with 17,336 communicants and over 40,000 an area of 3550 square miles and 806,- adherents, with about 16,000 children in 708 negroes and mulattoes, is largely the schools. In British West Indies, dominated by Roman Catholics, but the with over 1,000,000 inhabitants, 248,000 Colonial and Continental Church S0- are regular attendants at Protestant ciety has one clergyman laboring there.
worship, about 85,000 are communi- One is wont to think of Jamaica as a cants, and 78,600 children are receiving thoroughly Christian country, at least In instruction in 1123 day schools. the ordinary sense of the word. But it Cuba, the largest of the West India is not so.t The island has about 650,000 Islands, is 790 miles long, 28 to 127 miles wide. Of its 2009 miles of sea-coast, only * War against Hayti II now threatened by one third is accessible. Snow is never Spain, owing to the removal of funda by tbe seen, but it rains every month,so that the President from a bank In which Spanlah capitalheat is never extreme. Rivers run ists are interested. across the island. north and south. In the six provinces is a population of t Pastor Warneck Bays, on the other hand, in 1,631,687. The Spaniards hold all the theAllgemdns1&aloM Zdtachrift, that "Jaoffices, the Creoles are planters, and the maica, with its 610,579 negroes and mnlattoes, negroes are the laborers. Over 10,000 maybe termed a trnly Protestant Island, although foreigners live there. The work in Cuba there are st!1l200,OOO uot converted. The Church of England has 116,224 adherents, the Baptists 115,000, the l[ethodlats about 70,000, the Presby- teri8IlS about 30,000, the Moravians 17,300, and under Rev. A. J. Diaz has grown to other denominations, together, about IlO,OOO to wondrous proportions. In two years 60,000. All the evangelical miBSions are seeking after the organization of the first church to traiu an educated native ministry, and to make 1100 were baptized. In a single year the congregations, as far as possible, financially independent. The people are making steady they contributed $4610. In 1889 a advance In Christian knowledge and life. handsome theatre was bought and U In the Bahama Islands, the 47,500 inhabitants turned into a church, and the lower parts rented for stores and offices. A may be regarded as all connected with the Evan- gelist Protestant Church. Some are Anglica.nll, lIome Baptillts, and IOlae WeileY&nil. Thouah "" all I t j ~i ~ ~§il•l…~9.l8'l ui g I !.; '0 0 03 11 1 1l~ ..8 o:ll«.!: r~'L"l .;.lugi~ .g i ~ ai3 rLl~ SOOIlilTIlilS. .; 'E·g ~ 0; Fields Occupied. ~o:l$:;:l'g'; ~ ,;;'i.0e; ~ 0 Ill, $rLl o:l" 2a1 ~ en 0 ~ 3g~ d 0 w A 0 – – – – – – – – —– …….. …. .. –"- …….. Jamaica, Barbadoes, S.P.G…………. 28 85 oo. …. 4,715 Triuidad, etc.
Consolidated Ameri· …. …. . …….. C8U Baptist…….. …. Af r i c a n M . E . . . . . . . . 1 '6 '5 1 …. ….. …….. Haiti. 7 4 5 149 131 190 Haiti sud SlID Domin· go. Protestant Episcopal 23 1 .0 •••• 13 34 11 405 150 218 Haiti. Presbyterian (Can' …. … ada) ………….. 5 6 •• 4 2 48 …. 573 23 4,324, Trinidad. BaptistM. S …….. 99 3 3 …. 116 5,168 3,920 loo'Trinidad, San Domin· go, Bahamas, Ja· maica. west!:ian Methodist. …. 1015 .. …….. ;.2 512 3,130 80 Bahamas. 10 :: "iii 29 3,432 2,176 Jamaica. Uni Methodist.. ' 9 10 ioo 26 3,470 9,083 … 9;i99 Jamaica, Trinidad. Scotch LT. Poo ……. 69 11,647 )(oravians ………. 55 59 .. "" 34 789 53 17,540 14,924 16,731 J amalea, TrInidad, . J St. Thomas, etc. ……. . ft:D1alca Baptist Un· …. …. – '.0. 441 …. 177 39,005 …….. …….. Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, lon …… Costa Rica.
inhabitants, of whom 650,000 are col- of England, the English Baptists, Wes· ored people. There are also some 12,000 ,leyan Methodists, United Presbyterians, or 18,000 coolies and Chinese. But and Moravians. Roman Catholics num- the total baptized membership of all the ber 12,500.
Christian churches, including the Catho- Of the total popUlation of 5,500,000 lics, falls under 150,000. Where are in the West Indies, there are about 600,- the remaining 400,000 souls, and what 000 Protestant adherents.
are they? They belong to no church Other societies laboring in the West and own no minister. They are sunk Indies are the Religious Tract Society, in vice and dirt, in ignorance and super. the S. P. C. K., Ladies' Negro Educa- stition. They stand little higher in the tional Society, Jamaica Church Ladies'
mental and moral scale than their ances- Association, besides 13 "home mil:sion- tors in darkest Africa. Truly here is a ary" societies in the islands themselves.
mission field in the fullest sense of the word. There is a Jamaica Baptist CITY :MISSIONS, Union, with 177 churches, 39,065 mem- One third of our ;population dwells bers, and 21,709 children in the schools. in our cities. They are the peril and The other denominations are the Church hope of our country, for in them an- poor, they In great part maintain their own archy, riot, and corruption breed, and in c1lUrches ; the Baptists do so entirely. them also our religious, intellectual, and .. The little Antilles are also in great part Chris· political life and work find their centres of operation. tianlzed. In the Danish Islands of St. Thomas, at. Jan, and St. Croix, with a population, to· In New York are nearly 400 philangether, of 32,700, there are 18,000 Protestants and 12,000 Roman Catholics, the former belong- thropic societies (besides churches), ing chiedy to the Church of England and the including five distinctive missionary Moravian brethren. The northern part of the societies, employing 100 missionaries. little Antilles-Antigua, Guadaloupe, Martinique, etc.-has about 100,000, aud the eastern part-St. In London there are over 100,000 Lucia, Barbadoes, Tobago, etc,-about 215,000 paupers, 38,000 homeless adults, 80,000 Protestant Christians. and in Trinidad there are wandering children, and 80,000 faIlen 10,000. In Tobago there has been instituted,ln women. Over 1000 benevolent institurecent years, by the Roman Catholics, a bitter tions are at work, including 39 missionopposItion mission to that of the Moravian ary societies. brethren."
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Maroh of Events. hundred cars remained for two weeks tied up in a city of a million people. THE TROLLEY STRIKE IN BROOKLYN. Brooklyn is not alone in the risks run. which began on January 14th. and was scarcely" broken" for two weeks, was It is reported that the President of Peru, interesting and alarming, not in itself General Caceres, planned to use dyna- mite cartridges instead of powder, and, only, but most ot all as the indication had not the scheme been disclosed in and type of that deep-seated, widespread time, a fearful panic would have resultpopular unrest and readiness for riotous ed among the revolutionary forces. outbreak, which is one of the most start- The revolutionary committee test all ling signs of the times. Without any their munitions before use, as a necesdisposition now to discuss, or, above all, to decide the merits of the case, there sary safeguard. But what has science is a TENDENCY TOWARD ANARCHY done in making possible such uses of which demands prompt repression, and giant explosives I which must receive from all statesmen Ilnd philanthropists, all Christian lead- We think well to add a description of ers and patriotic citizens, the most conditions in Paris, as furnished by the earnest and patient and humane con- correspondents of the New York Times: sideration. When multitudes of men not only paralyze the commerce of a " People who saw the vast crowd gathnation by refusing to work its locomo- ered in the early morning to be near tive system, but forcibly resist any the walled·off scene of the Dreyfus attempt to get others to work it, and degradation, say with a shiver that they deliberately proceed to destroy the very never comprehended before what a means of locomotion, to break up cars Paris mob in the Reign of Terror must and cut motor wires; when both police have been like. Last year's new press and soldiers are called out, and clubs laws seem onl, to have aggravated the and rifles are brought into requisition abuses at whlCh they were aimed. It almost in vain, it is time to consider is impossible for the courts to take cogwhither we are tending. nizance of a hundredth part of the in- suIts and libels, daily hurled at the Presi- Last autumn the republic narrowly dent, the Premier, and everybody else escaped a civil outbreak which threat- in authority. The old era of denuncia· ened to become a revolution, in the com- tion is in full swing again. When the plications of the Pullman car employes Chamber decides that a certain ignorant with the public interests. And we have blackguard, who is in prison for abuse just been, again, in the tbroes of another of the President, and who has been electdisturbance – thus far local- which ed a deputy meanwhile by the Gobelins might have involved a much wider terri- district of Paris merely as a contemptutory. General Master Workman Sov- ous affront to the Chamber, shall not ereign, of the Knights of Labor, sent be released, this fellow is allowed to out word to the strikers: " Stay out till write and send out from prison a violent victory comes," and had only to say attack on the Government, and the the word to merge the local strike into papers are permitted to say that the maa sympathetic movement of all allied jority in the Chamber voted as they did, labor organizations. under ministerial threats to prosecute them for blackmail and embezzlement. No little complaint was made, and Unhappily, every fresh step of the justly, because the Brooklyn Board of prosecutors breaks into some new sewer Aldermen virtually joined the strikers of political or journalistic corruption, so by attempting to hinder the companies that these wholesale denunciations seem in engaging new employes, and so fifteen to the masses to be true enough, and the turbulent wing of socialism goes on doubling and trebling its hold on the Parisian proletariat."
At the same time, in Italy, where political parties were' preparing for a general election, the socialists boldly selected as candidates a number of those who as rioters in Sicily had been scn- arm ammunition, 16,957 koku of rice, tenced to imprisonment. specie and coin to the amount of 1,000,- 000 yen, 3326 tents, 18 sailing ships and THE JAPANESE-CHINESE WAR still steamers, and a quautity of other things, continues, and attracts universal atten- the value of the whole, including the tion and interest. fortresses and dockyard, being about 80,000,000 yen." In January, Japanese newspapers reported the King of Corea assassinated, As TO MADAGASCAR, a despatch from while others asserted that he had been Port Louis, Mauritius, January 11th, prostrated with epilepsy. A despatch reported the French bombardment of from Yokohama said that the new Co- Fort Farafatra, four miles inland from rean administration failed to raise an internal loan, the native capitalists re- Tamatave, on December 28th. The fusing to take part in the movement. Hovas defended the fort, replying to the French fire with well-directed shots The N()'/)oe Vremya, of St. Petersburg, says, in a leader on the Eastern from the seven guns comprising the war: "If the friendly and peaceful armament of the fort. But they were representations of Russia's 'diplomacy eventually defeated, and retired with be not considered she will be compelled heavy loss. to support her claims on Corea with force of arms. " SLAVE TRADE IN TRlPOLI.-TheBrit- ish and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society The Japanese movement on Wei-haiwei is said to have caused a panic in has received intelligence that under Tientsin and Pekin, and the Chinese Turkish rule the buying and selling of peace envoys were ordered to expedite young boys and girls-chiefly the latter the negotiations with the Japanese Gov- -is still regularly but secretly carried on, ernment. the Turkish officers of the Army of Oc- cupation being involved in it with the Simultaneously with the departure of the Oharl68ton, January 21st, from Na- wealthier Arabs. gasaki for Chemulpo, the flagship Baltimore lett for Chifu to support the ABYSSINIAN WAR. -General Baratieri YorktO'l/Jn, which has become the asy- has telegraphed that on Sunday, Jannlum for all the American missionaries ary 13th, he made an attack upon the on account of the Japanese bombardment of Teng Chow Eu and theoccupa- Abyssinians under Ras !langascia, and tion of the Shantung promontory. after severe fighting, the Italian troops were victorious. A large number of The capture of Wei-hai-wei would destroy the last refuge of the Chinese Abyssinians were killed and many taken fleet, and in all probability the fleet it- prisoners. The prisoners attribute the self, and the last chance of China again acting on the offensive. The United victory of the Italians to their use of Press correspondent at Tokyo wrote, the explosive, ballistite. January 8th: There were 10,000 Abyssinians en- "In addition to two first-class for- gaged in the fight, while the Italians, tresses and a dockyard with all appli- with their native allies, numbered only ances, as well as a great tract of terri- 4000. Ras MQngascia, who had expecttory, China has lost in the present war ed his dervish allies to make a simulflghting ships aggregating 13,346 tons, taneous attack, crossed the river Belesa and valued at 11,000,000 yen ($5,500,- in the face of the Italians at eight o'clock 000 in gold). in the morning. Under the fire of the Italian machine guns, the Abyssinians "Of these vessels three were cap- suffered heavily, and soon retired. T~ey tured by the Japanese; the rest sunk or renewed the attack later, concentratmg burned. Among other spoils taken by their efforts on the Italian .tiank. At the Japanese are 607 cannon, 7400 stand this juncture the Italians were joined of rifles, 2,601,741 rounds of cannon by 3800 men under General Arimonde, ammunition, 77,458,785 rounds of small- who had made a forced march of fifteen mileR. The Abyssinians then tIed in disorder. Two days later General Bara- tieri telegraphed to the War Office from Massowah that the necessity for the fm-
'1895·1 2Hl
mediate reinforcement of the Italian tions of the sins of !ydney society, and troops in Africa is most urgent. It was that the voice of this nineteenth-century decided to despatch several battalions of prophet has been heard thundering troops to Africa without delay. against selfishness, snobbery, swindling, swilling, slandering, sensuality, Sad- REPORTS FROM SUM.-News came duceeism, sweepstakes and other sports from Bangkok, Siam, January 10th, that ruin the soul; and that, along with that a meeting of nobles took place at these thrilling diatribes, there haS been the palace the night previous, when:a the fullest presentation of Jesus as the petition was signed requesting the king Saviour and helper of men." to appoint a crown prince. It was rumored that the son of the second queen Next he appears in Calcutta, where would be appointed, he bein~ the eldest special services were arranged in Febof the blood royal. He is now in Eng- ruary, beginning with the 6th of that land, receiving his education. month, and to continue for three weeks. The plan was to have a large tent on As TO THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES, the maidan, in which the services will on January 11th, the Speaker of the be held. The pastors of the English House of Commons published in Lon- churches in the city invited him. It don a letter from a correspondent in will be a rich treat to missionaries and others to hear the original and q uicken- ing expositions and illustrations of this Scottish Spurgeon.
Constantinople, who claims to have seen CHINA. -The presentation of the copy the reports from the consuls in Vau, _of the New Testament to the Empress Erzeroum, Sivas, and Diarkebir, and Dowager by the Christian women of they confirm the most horrible accounts the empire has been followed by an already received. He adds: order from the Emperor for a copy of "Concurrent reports came from both the Old and New Testaments. The Catholic and Protestant missionaries Bible has at least gained an entrance into in the Sassoun district. The troops the palace; may this not be the means called out against the Armenians have of the Word of God gaining an entrance returned from the scenes of conflict to into the heart of the heathen emperor? permanent quarters. They boast of their deeds publicly. Their statements A personal note from a friend in have been forwarded to Constantinople. Shanghai says the Society for the Diffu- One soldier declared that with his own sion of Christian and General Knowlhand lie ripped up twenty married edge among the Chinese is beginning to women. Another boasted that he took make an impression on the upper classes part in a massacre in a church, and that of China. A few weeks ago the Vicethe blood flowed in a large stream from roy of Oentral China, Chang Chih Tung, the door. The soldiers believe that the sent a donation of 1000 taels to help in Sultan ordered the massacre, and ap- this work, which equals about 1500 proves of it." Mexican dollars.
Meanwhile it is rumored that the Porte THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL is considering administrative reforms to MEETING of the Woman's Board of be introduced in all the provinces con- Missions was held in Boston, January cerned in the recent massacre; among 16th, and the programme was brilliant them, the recruiting of the gendarmerie with talent. Miss A.bbie B. Child prefrom the Christian as well as the Mus- sented the report of the Home Departsulman population, the appointment of a Mussulman governor for the first three-year term and Christian governors for all subsequent terms, which would be five years each.
JOHN McNEIL, THE EVANGELIST, ment; Miss Ellen Caruth, the report of the treasury; Mrs. E. E. Strong, the has been in Sydney, New South Wales. survey of missions in European, Cen- tral, and Eastern Turkey, and the Of his visit, a correspondent in the Syd- Marathi Mission, India; Mrs. John O. Means, the missions in Western Turney P1'tUloyte1'ian says: key, Mexico, Austria, and the Madura Mission in India; Miss Lucy M. Fay, " It is a matter of profound thankfulness that Mr. McNeill has been able to attract audiences of such dimensions to listen to the most scathing denuncia-
EDIT.oRIAL DEPARTMENT
the missions in Africa, Micronesia, and ' required. The grandest of these·is the Ceylon; and Mrs. Joseph Cook, the Emperor Wilhelm Memorial Church, missions in China, Japan, and Spain. costing 2,340,000 marks, .of whiCh sum In addition to this fourfold survey, Miss the royal family had contributed 23,000, Blakely, .of Marash, in Central Turkey, and the Emperor has recently again and Miss Noyes, of Madura, and Mrs. added 30,000.
Logan, of Micronesia, and Mrs. De For- THE BIBLE IN UGANDA.-In Uganda, est, of Japan, made missionary addresses, a cOUl).try where nothing was known of and Lady Henry Somerset also added Ohristianity twenty years ago, the work the attraction of her presence and a spe- of the missionaries has produced the cial addr.ess. The morning and after- most pleasing results. The demand for noon were thus profitably occupied Bibles and New Testaments is most exwith a variety of exercises which made traordinary. According to the Presbyweariness impossible. This women's or- terianer, Chicago, 10,000 copies .of the ganization has probably accomplished Gospels have been sold there within five as much to promote missions, by prayer, months, besides 25,000 .other books percirculation of cheap literature, system- taining to Christian literature. Curiousatic giving in small amounts, and gen- ly enough, the Catholics evince the same eral cultivation .of a holy enthusiasm, desire to read the Bible as the Protesas any missionary .organization in the tants. Bishop Hirsh, the chief of the world. May God give it a new year of Catholic mission at Uganda, writes: increased prosperity and efficiency I " I am compelled to acknowledge that DR. CYRUS HAMLIN corrects, in the we will be forced to print a translation of the New Testament, which is being interest.of history, the statements attri- spread by the Protestants all .over the country. We cannot prevent .our peo· buted to Dr. Jessup in .our December pIe from reading it, for everyone, with the exception of the women and issue, page 942 : aged people, wishes to learn how to read before being baptized. We are " The first evangelical church in Syria therefore busy with an edition of the was not the first in the Turkish Empire. New Testament, with commentaries by The setting up of the first printing- the Fathers of the Church." presses in the Turkish Empire is incorrect by more than a century. If the first WHAT A CONTRAST, it has been said, missionary presses are meant, it is again between 1792 and 1892 I-a contrast incorrect. The first were at Smyrna. which proves the splendid progress of The founding of the first day and board- the missionary enterprise, and which ing-schools, and the first college in the should inspire all its friends with elation Turkish Empire, should read simply in and confidence. In 1792 not 190 mis- Syria. The mission in Syria is limited si.onaries-4 .only in all Africa, 12 only in by the Arabic language, and has no con- India, but not one in China, or Japan, or nection with other parts of the empire. Burma, or all Central and Western Asia; In all the above particulars, as well as in m.ost others, they labored for themselves alone, and Syria should take the place of the Turkish Empire, in which, entirely unknown to them, various institutions had come into existence. "
THE BERLIN CHURCH BUILDING S.o- with not 50,000 reliable converts around CIETY, .organized five years ago to pro- them, or 50 of these converts to give vide places of worship for the churchless them efficient aid. Now there are 3000 thousands of the German capital, start· ordained missionaries, with 2500 lay and ing out with 20,000 marks, has expend- lady coadjutors, with no fewer than ed 10,000,000 marks in the erection of 30,000 native evangelists, one sixth .of churches. Thirty new churches have them .ordained, and for the most part been erected by the German Protestants well tried and trained. Around them in the city of Berlin during the past five have been gathered a native Christian years. It is estimated that fully 50 are population of 3,000,000, far in advance of their heathen neighbors in intelli· ly in West Africa. His death is a severe gence, morals, and enterprise. blow to African missions. He was less REv. WILLIAM CAREY, grandson of than forty years old, and married about the historic leader of the same name, twelve years ago the daughter of the wrote to the editor a very gratifying Rev. Peter Walker, formerly of the letter. He says: "I have watched Gaboon, West Africa. The workmen with great interest and the deepest ap- fall. .We believe that the Lord carries preciation your splendid advocacy of on His work.
the claims of foreign missions, and I We learn also that Mrs. George Mul- have long coveted that best of maga- ler is dead. The particulars we have zines, the MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE not learned, but it must be a very heavy WORLD." blow to her venerable husband.
Mr. Carey expresses a desire to pos- THE tenth anniversary of the Young sess the back volumes, and hints that, Men's Institute of the Y. M. C. A. of like his illustrious grandsire, he is" mis- New York City was held January erably poor," and so keeps up the apos- 15th. William M. Kingsley, Esq., pretolic succession. The editor is glad to sided. Cleveland H. Dodge, Esq., Presiadd that the publishers felt, that if any dent New York City Y. M. C. A., and. man should have a free grant, it is Wil- William Dulles, Jr., Esq., Treasurer of liam Carey's grandson and namesake, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Misand accordingly the request was grant~ sions, made short remarks, and the aded, and the bound volumes furnished. dress of the evening was delivered by JAPAN.-A recent letter in the OlvriB- Edward M. Shepard, Esq.
tian InteUigencer, describing the three The annual report made by the Sec- religions-Buddhism, Shintoism, and retary, Dr. D. E. Yarnell, showed that Confucianism-says it is reported that the Institute work had made consider- there are about 72,000 Buddhist temples able progress during the past year, the and 56,000 priests and monks who, in membership, enrolment in classes, etc., spite of dissensions among them and being larger than ever before.
exposures of their immorality by news- The following are part of the statistics papers, they still hold the confidence of contained in the report, which may in- the people. Shintoism is of native terest many readers: origin, and its chief doctrine is that the 1893. 1894'
gods made Japan, and that the emperors Membership, December 31st… 656 662 are their lineal descendants, all of whom Average Attendance at Rooms. 180 183 are therefore objects of Divine rever- No. Volumes in Library…… 1,701 1,790 Membership In Gymnasium …. 327 345 ence ; it urges, with great emphasis. Average Attendance, Bible loyalty and patriotism as the foremost Class…………………… 17 28 duties of the Japanese. There arei9i,- Average Attendance, Prayer ao 000 Shinto shrines, with 14,500 officiat- Meeting .. _.. .. .. .. .. .. …. . 26 Average Attendance, Men's ing Shinkano. Meeting.. .. •.. .. … .. .. .. … 80 78 PRESIDENT WARREN, of Boston Uni- Depositors' Savings Fund….. 189 181 versity, has proposed the foundation in his city of a museum of all religions. Amount Deposited.•••……..$8,185.95 $7,418.90 Di1Ierent Men in Evening Clas.e8. ……………….. 425 463 In it would be collected religious books, Total Enrolment………….. 617 665 examples of the furnishings of altars Current Expenses ………..,11,827.45 811.779.79 .'lind shrines, religious relics, em blems, IT is a new proof of the expediency idols, and other objects illustrating the and desirability of every man becoming character or history of the different re- the administrator of his own gifts by ligions of the world. bestowing money in his own lifetime, THE REv. A. C. GOOD has died recent- that so many legacies are ultimately perverted from their original purpose. the waste places of the earth; and it is What are known as the Gifford Lec- suggested that in connection with such tures, as provided for by the will of a a season of prayer there be previous Scotch judge, were to be upon the sub- instruction, especially as to the nature ject of Natural Religion; but the lec- of prayer, its privilege, its necessity, ture course has been so perverted as and the place which it holus in God's to antagonize Revealed Religion. For plans for world-wide blessing. We example, the last incumbent of the lec- believe that the one great dependence tureship, Dr. Pfliederer, of Berlin, a of the Church of God for all success in well-known theologian of the rational- our missionary work is an increased istic school, assailed the orthodox beliefs spirit of united prayer. of the Scottish people, and repudiated as .. pale negations" the modified state- AMONG BOOKS to which we desire to ments of modern Scotch professors. call attention are the following: Men of all shades of opinions have, like Dr. Rainey, raised the question, whether "James Gilmour and His Boys," by the university at Edinburgh, in accept- Richard Lovett, published by the F. ing the administration of the lecture- H. Revell Company. The book is ship, anticipated that the deed would partly biographical, partly a series of prove susceptible of such interpreta- adventures, and partly a story of toils tion. Dr. Charteris, of the Established and trials endured for Christ. It con Church, objects to the university giv- tains Mr. Gilmour's charming letters to ing the lecturer a chance to attack the his boys, James a!'d Willie, respectively Bible, and even the liberal Dr. Dods nine years old and seven years old. It comes forward to attack the rational- is sufficient to say that it is as fascinatism of the lecturer. It is to be regret- ing a book as might be expected from ted that a like perversion has even its lamented author. characterized the Bampton Lectures, which for 110 many years have been an Another book, "Kin-Da-Shon's Wife," invaluable series of apologetics. an Alaskan story, by Mrs. Eugene S. Willard, also published by F. H. Revell, HAYTI.-It is probably unknown to is a presentation of the condition of most people that in that island horrible society and missionary effort in Alaska, cannibalism still prevails. Spenser St. surrounding practical facts with the ro- John in his book, "Hayti; or, the Black mantic drapery of fiction. Republic," published in 1884, says that families actually celebrate family feasts, Dr. Henry C. Mabie's record of Eastat which they devour some of their own ern travel, under the name of "In Brightoffspring or the members of the family est Asia," has already reached l!o sixth circle. edition, and it is not surprising. The home secretary of the American Baptist WE have long been suspicious that Missionary Union is a man of winning the week of united prayer observed in manners and great intellectual force, January hall not only been perverted as well as an observing eye. It was a from its original purpose-namely, for- blessing to missions to have such a man eign missions-but has declined in spir- visit Oriental stations; and this book, itual power and effectiveness even as to of less than two hundred pages, fully the church life at home; and we have and beautifully illustrated, is the familmany intimations, through correspond- iar but fascinating story of Dr. Mabie's ence with brethren, that there is a desire, tour. No one will read it, without feelsuch as was expressed at the late De- ing a deeper interest in the mission work cennial Conference in Bombay, for a of God throughout the world; and it season of united prayer specifically for will be found as interesting as a work the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon of fiction.
Miss Annie W. Marston has written a plea for Thibet, under the name of •• The Great Closed Land." It is published superstitions, and religious condition.
by S. W. Partridge, of London, and is Probably no other European was so strikingly like Dr. Mabie's book, though well fitted to write this book as the au- not so large. It is indispensable t;) those thor, and it is the result of first·hand who wish to obtain an accurate account knowledge and observation.
of that hermit nation which seems just " Among the l'[aoris," by Jesse Page, is also from the press of:F. H. Revell, emerging from long seclusion.
" Woman in Missions" is a book pub- and tells of the daybreak in New Zea- lished by the American Tract Society, land, with the labors of Marsden, Sel- containing the papers and addresses wynn, and others. Revell is publish- presented at the Woman's Congress of ing a Missionary Library of small books Missions in Chicago, 1893. Dr. E. M. which present in a brief and very at- Wherry has lovingly compiled and edit- tractive form thc great subject of mis- ed it. It contains seventeen papers or sions.
addresses on various forms and phases "A Dispensational History of Re- of woman's condition and work. It is demption," by Dr. E. P. Marvin, of one of the few valuable contributions Lockport, who appears to be both au- to the subject of woman's mission and thor and publisher, is a new and tren- ministry for Christ, a subject that yet . chant exhibition of biblical teachings as dcmands a much larger and nobler treat- to the true relations of the Church and ment than it has ever yet received. the world. Though not professedly a Akin to this is "The New Woman- missionary treatise, it indirectly teaches hood," by James C. Fernald, published much truth with regard to the way and by l!'unk & Wagnall.3, which, though not spirit in which missions must be car- specifically upon the subject of mis- ried forward, especially in that portion sions, is another helpful discussion of which treats of the Christian dispensa- woman's condition, and adaptation to tion, which has already extended over service in the kingdom of God. nineteen hundred years.
"Our Work," by C. B. Ward, for PALESTINE.-It is difficult to get at eighteen years a Methodist missionary in India, published by E. J. Decker the exact truth, as to the state of the Company,Chicago, outlines fifteen years of devoted service among the Hindus, Holy Land. One who ought to know in dependence upon God both for grace and for material support. It will quick- assured us lately that the incoming of en the faith of any reader. Jews to the country is now strictly pro· We are glad to see that the Revell Company have issued an illustrated edi- hibited, and yet here is what the Lontion of Dr. Davis's" Biography of the Rev. Joseph Hardy Neesima." Hav- don Spectator recently published: ing already called attention to the life of this remarkable pioneer in Japanese " The Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, education, it only remains to say that in a letter to Friday's Times, gives some this American edition is a great im- facts which show that the Jews are provement in every respect upon the pouring into Palestine. About one hunprevious edition, and another of the dred thousand Jews have entered the indispensable books in a complete mis- Holy Land during the last few rears, sionary library. and' the arrival of a vaster host is Immi- nent. ' 'Noone,' he goes on, ' can pos- "Among the Matabele," by David sibly forecast the next seven years of Carnegie, published by the London Re- Jewish immigration.' If the bishop's ligious Tract Society, gives a brief but view of what is going on is correct, we very satisfactory account of the Mata- are face to face with a fact that may bel, tribe, their arts, crafts, weapons, revolutionize the politics of Mediter- ranean Asia. Already the railways are opening up the countr.v between the coast and Jerusalem and Damascus, and if a Jewish immigration onalargesca1e is added to this, Syria may become once more one of the most important places in the East. The idea of the Jews again possessing a country is a very curious one."
GENERAL MISSIONARY lNTEI,LIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extracts and Translations from Foreign ing of the systems for which they are Periodicals. content to abjure Christianity. For in- stance, in the neighborhood of the mis- BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, sion station at Cotta. Colonel Olcott suc- ceeded in stirring up the Buddhist priests MASS. to such hostility that for awhile the at· tendance at the Christian schools was INDIA. sensibly diminished. In the village of Udumulla, under this influence the -The Ohurch Mi8sionary InteUigencer priests opened a rival school, and proremarks: "Miss Gordon Cumming ex- nounced a very singular form of expresses surprise at the curious craze"in communication against all who should favor of Buddhism which has broken persist in sending their children to the out of late years in Europe, and criti- mission schools. Such offenders were cises the attractive pictures drawn by to be fined a rupee and a half, and were !esthetic dreamers in their English or ,further admonished that "the dhobie German studies of the realities of Bud- shall not wash their clothes; the native dhist life and worship. She remarks doctors shall not attend any of them in in one chapter : sickness; the devil dancer8 8hall not per- form demon ceremonies for them (l), and " 'There is, unfortunately, no doubt the astrologer8 shall not con8ult the planet8 that Buddhism has received a real im- for them on the birth of their c7tildren, or petus from the example of certain fool- concerning marriages andother important ish Europeans, who (most assuredly events I"~ lacking any personal knowledge of THE MASTER whom they so dishonor) have " 'We need scarcely wonder that thrown in their lot with the teachers of those who have escaped from this deso-called theosophy and esoteric Bud- based system are proof against a.ll argudhism; systems which those who un- ments of the theosophists. Colonel Olderstand them best classify as " Bedlam- cott did his utmost to persuade a Budite balderdash," "blatant humbug," dhist priest who had become a Chrisand" impudent imposture." tian to resume the yellow robe. When he had exhausted his arguments, the " , I would shrink from quoting such ex-priest replied, with more force than expressions regarding any phase of true polish, "I am not a dog, that I should theosophy or " Divine knowledge," but return to my vomit. Pray spare your the leaders of this society in Ceylon pity. If you can believe that there is (well aware that there could be no fel- no right, no wrong, no soul, no conlowship between seekers after knowl- science, no responsibility, no God, no edge of God and the atheistic system of judgment, you need for yourself all the Buddhism, which does not acknowledge pity you possess, and more." any God) were wise in their generation, and adopted as their title the Parama- " 'Yet it is to this system that so wignanartha, or Supreme Knowledge great an impetus has been given even in Society. Consequently it embraces Europe and America by the agency of whatever may be the individual ideal so beautiful a writer as Sir Edwin Arof highest good, whether it be how nold, who, in his passionate admiration best to enjoy this world and how to get for the good and noble, depicts things on in it and get wealth, or how best to not as they really are, but as he would attain to Nirvana and the extinction of have them to be; for truly what he calls all desire. the "Light of Asia" has most practi- " , I think the European disciples of these schools would be rather startled were they to realize the practical work-
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
cally proved to be only bewildering (long missionary of the Basel Society in darkness. South India) has gone home has deeply " , Surely such an ovation as was ac- moved the hearts of those to whom he corded to him by the Buddhists when had become dear in India, and ours he visited Ceylon in 1886 was doubtful among them. What a rich and fruitful honor for a Christian. At one Buddhist tree! How far abroad this tree extend- college near Colombo well-nigh three ed the refreshing shadows of its boughs, thousand assembled to testify their laden with fruit! A tree planted by gratitude to the poet who has painted the water brooks of everlasting life I their leader in colors all borrowed from Deeply as he is missed, keen as is the the life and teaching of Him who is the pain felt at his loss, yet both are miti- true LIGHT OF THE WORLD. The hon- gated by the remembrance of a life so ored guest was placed on a raised plat- full and rich; indeed, in view of the form beneath an honorific canopy, while eternity into which he has passed over Buddhist ecclesiastics robed in yellow in blessed slumber, the joyful conscious- satin chanted chorals, litanies, and an- ness that this full, rich life is not con- thems in Pali and Singhalese, Sir Edwin cluded, but has entered upon the stage replying in Sanskrit. of glorious perfection, disposes us rather " , One of those best acquainted with to a sense of thankfulness. God be practical Buddhism in Ceylon describes praised for all that he, in Christ, was it as " the most cunningly devised sys- permitted to offer and to be to so tem of atheism and negation, of idol many !"-Oalwe·r jUissionsbZatt.
worship, tree and serpent worship, and -" Hinduism no longer has a really pessimism which has ever held the sure hold on many, as it is easy to dishuman mind in bondage;" a system cover from repeated expressions of the exactly answering to the awful scrip- people to us, and I believe that, in stilltural summary" having no hope, and ness, God is preparing a transition of without God in the world." the masses into Christianity. "-Mission- ary CHRISTIAN SCHLESCH, in Dansk Mis- " , Can anything more pitiful be con- aiona-Btad. ceived than that human beings born within the pale of the Christian Church can deliberately sacrifice the privilege – " If God taught the Old Testa- of individual personal communication ment mi5sionary compassion, by calling with the ever-present Almighty Friend, to his attention that in ' Nineveh, that who cares for each one of us, in ex- great city.' there were' more than six· change for an utterly irrespongive nega- score thOl:sand persons that cannot dis- tion-a theory of perfection only to cern between their right hand and their be attained through self·conquest, at left hand,' what thoughts mnst the which poor weak human beings are ad- census of India inspire, which shows vised to aim through ages of lonely us living within its range almost as lifelong struggles extending over many many children under five years of age transmigrations, without one prayerful (45,000,000) as there are men, women, look to the Divine Helper who alone and children in the whole German Em- can keep our wayward wills from wan- pire!
dering after all manner of evil? And " This vast population of 287,000,000, all this in order to gain the cessation of among which the British power is so their individual life.' " firmly established as to be able to take -" The Moravian Mission in Leh, a census that offends so many deeply Tibet, has borne its first fruits in the rooted prejudices, is not held in obedibaptism of a young man last Good Fri- ence by numbers. In all India there day. "-Ohurch Missionary Intelligenccr. are only 247,790 Europeans and Eura- sians. The whole army amounts only – " The news that dear Papa Gundert to 218,230 men; the police to 143,524.
GlllNEKAL MISSIONAl'tT INTELLIGENCE
" India is not a land of cities, but of independently of thtit there is a Chris· villages. Only 27,200,000 dwell in tian profession which, in spite of much cities. shortcoming and of our miserable di- visions, does lay hold of the heart and " The late census of India gives the mind of England, and the red cross in number of Animists as 9,000,000. This our banner which we still hold is not is simply the worship of spirits, con- merely a symbol, but a great and ceived as localized or ubiquitous, a re- blessed reality. But if this is true of ligion mainly of superstitious terror. the society we call the nation, how The religious condition of the lower much more is it true of the society we castes of Brahmanism or Hinduism dif- call the Church, which is humanity fers but slightly from this. Grouping centred in God in the Lord Jesus the two classes together, we have an Christ lOur Church can never be sat- aggregate of about 50,000,000. This isfied with enjoying God's blessings at mass, relatively inert, will become the home, and diffusing them over human- prey of the Brahmanist revival or of ity here, unless we take hold of the Islam, unless the Christian mission lays blessed opportunities which God has hold of these elements. It ought to do given us, and diffuse them all over the this, without neglecting any of the world, which is a coudition of the other elements of Hindu society; but strength and vitality of the Church at alas 1 how little the Christian Church home.-Bishop BARRY, in Olmrcl. Misyet comprehends the grandeur of the sionary Intelli,qerwer. task which Jesus has confided to her as her true reason of being l"-Professor MISCELLANEOUS. F. HERlIIAN KRUGER, in Journal des Mi88ions. -" A.lmost all French writers have exalted the Renaissance at the expense -A. Christian preacher having lately of the Reformation, maintaining that discovered a cobra nearly paralyzed by the former was broader in its views a flood in which it had been caught, than the latter, and that it brought to asked leave to kill it, but the people mankind a completer liberty. The facts would not consent. The Bombay Guar- do not sustain this view, The nations dian suggests that the cobra will do which embraced the Reformation are well to guard itself against possible evidently in advance of those which redangers in the future from intrusive mained satisfied with the Renaissance. Christians by taking out a government This is because the Reformation inlicense to poison people. In that case volved a moral force which was lacking the interests of the revenue will secure to the Renaissance. And moral force it not only against being attacked, but united with education is the enduring even against being spoken of dispar- foundation of national prosperity. Thc agingly. Reformation was a return to the Gos- pel, and the Gospel, being superior to THL UNITED KINGDOM. the traditions of classic antiquity, can- not fail to bring forth better fruit."- -" I say that England is truly a EMILE LAVELEYE, quoted in El AbQgado Christian nation, independently alto- Cristiano Ilustrado (Mexico). gether of the national profession of Christianity, which is embodied in the -" The Allgemeine Missions·Zeitconnection of the national Church with schrijt for September contains an inthe State-of which I hope it is not ir- teresting and very learned article on relevant to ask you-it has been bound the attitude of the Lutheran Church in up with some of the most glorious Germany toward missions to the hea- . things in the life of England in the past then in the seventeenth century. It ap· -to ask you to pray that the bond pears that in the first half of that cenwhich God has so blest may not be broken in our time. I say that quite
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
tury it was seriously maintained by viewed as SOUls destined for immortal- German divines that the command to ity and needing the illumination of go into all the world was only given to faith, but as so many strong arms to be the apostles, and that the diffusion of trained to work, not for themselves, but the Gospel among all nations was no es- for their German masters, and princi- sential aim of the Christian Church. pally through the mediation of the mis- This naturally exposed the Lutheran sionaries. The negroes or other natives Church to sharp attacks from the side are to be virtually, though not for- of the Church of Rome, which was then mally, slaves, and the missionaries are beginning her career of missionary required to serve as the chief slaveactivity. It is interesting to learn that drivers. Of course there is no objecan Englishman, John Drury, was the tion to their throwing in a little religion first to endeavor to awaken the mission- by way of amusement at odd times. ary zeal of Germany in the year 1650. Indeed, this is allowed to be necessary, He was followed in 1663 by the great in order to give them a hold upon the German advocate of missions, the Baron people. Justinian von Welz. Welz was treated So far as we have observed, the Geras a dreamer and a fanatic by the ortho- man missionary societies have set themdox divines of his day, and during the selves firmly against all these claims of rest of the century a sharp struggle exaggerated Germanism; but Superinwent on between the advocates and the tendent Merensky appears to be rather enemies of missions, ending at last in carried away with them. Of course he the victory of the missionary idea. The abhors all slave-holding proposals, and whole story is an additional proof how would have the spiritual good of the indifference to foreign missions belongs people uuhesitatingly put first; but he to an order of things which must pass seems to insist that German missionaries away when a church or an individual shall bend themselves to promote among awakes to full consciousness of the their converts German ways, in society supremacy of Christ. "-The Ohronicle. and in religion, and apparently in every- thing else. The appeal which he makes -The Moravian Church, with its to our Lord's action in Israel ought, as usual mild wisdom, raises a firm pro- the Moravian brethren remark, to show test against Superintendent Merensky's him the contrary. Christ confined Himstrange position, that missions ought self personally, for obvious reasons, more and more to put off their inter- within Israel; but under the Jewish national and put on a strictly national envelope this Gospel is addressed to aspect, and that only when this change universal man. The Missionsblatt well is thoroughly accomplished will mis- remarks that Herr Merensky has nothsiims be perfect I A more absolute re- ing to say of His death for the world, versal of the hands upon the dial of nor of His last command. Christ mentime, a completer contradiction of the tions the nations, thereby implying that advancing history of mankind, and His messengers are to respect their above all of the kingdom of God, it peculiarities, but not that they are stubseems as if it would be difficult to find. bornly to adhere to their own. If the The truth is, that the Germans seem as missionaries cannot, for this end, lay yet to be fairly intoxicated with their aside much of What is very dear to, new colonial ambitions. Every German them, they seem to have forgotten what abroad, traveller, scientist, or mission- their Master laid aside when IIe came ary, is clamorously required to make on earth. himself an instrument for the propaga- As the Blatt remarks, to impose on a tion of Germanism; that first, Chris· newly converted people, of a race widetianity and everything else apparently ly removed from that of the missionaafter that. The natives are not to be ries, the peculiarities of a long national
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELJ.IGENCE
and religious development, largely un· youths cheer the missionaries by their intelligible to them and often incongru- constancy.
ous, seems a strange way of settiqg home the Gospel of all nations. Let -A visit has been paid to the Sesse this be carried out, and soon the mis- Islands by Mr. G. L. Pilkington and sionaries of each nation would become the Rev. E. Millar, who left Mengo in incapable of working outside of the July last for that purpose. On 14 of dominions of their own country. How the 27 islands there arc churches;' one then about China and Japan and other each on 10, two on three, and three on one-19 churches altogether, The popugreat independent governments'! The Brethren remark that their own lation on these islands is estimated as Church has never denied her German 75,000, of Whom 5450 afe returned as origin and her prevailingly German readers, 76 as baptized, and 161 as cate· character. The remembrances of the· chumens. There are 21 native teachers lands of Luther and Huss are dear to working on these islands, sel'.t by the her, and she conveys them into the vari- Church Council.
ous lands into which she has spread. -About the same time that Messrs. But this is spontaneously, and only so Pilkington and Millar went southward far as is consistent with the national to the Sesse Islands, Mr. R. H. Leakey character and remembrances of converts went northward to the province of and members. Whatever German flavor Bulemezi, and after spending six weeks may adhere to the Gospel which she there, he writes of having visited nine preaches she is not ashamed of, but it places in that province where there is the Gospel and not the particular local were churches, and he knew of several flavor of it which she has at heart, and others. which she thinks that all Christian mis- sionaries ought to have at heart. She -At Namukozi, in Tingo, 22 adult does not go forth to convert men to Mo- converts have been baptized. The Rev.
ravianism or Germanism, but to con- H. R. Sugden says: "The Church was vert them to God. full" and there were great rejoicings.
In matters concerning missionary -The success in Kikabya, a district principle we might do worse than to in Kyagwe, is most marked. This distake Herrnhut for our Oathedra Petri. trict is under a Christian chicf named Tomasi. The Rev. G. K. Baskerville British Notes. found at the chief's country place 32 candidates for baptism whom the chief J'lY JAMES DOUGLAS. himself had instructed. The district under this chief is about 50 miles long. Olturch Mi8sionary Society. – The Mr. Baskerville spent 34 days in the news concerning Eastern Equatorial disl,rict visiting the towns, which were Africa is particularly full. The re- " all gardens," walking 80 miles, and motest station at Nassa, on Speke Gulf, each day delivering two addresses. At is a very isolated one, being 600 miles Namiliti 10 persons professed to yield from Mpwapwa, with no mission sta- their hearts to the Saviour. There is tion between, and about 280 miles from every prospect of a glorious reaping Uganda, on the opposite coast of the time in this region. Victoria lake. Two missionaries, the Rev. E. H. Hubbard and Mr. J. P. Nickis- Society for the Propagation of the Gos- son, labor in this dark region, and see on pd.-We have not hitherto noticed the all sides trust in charms, thc practice of work of the Society for the Propaga- witchcraft, cases of robbery and even tion of the Gospel, which, in addition murder. A congregation of over 200 to the Church Missionary Society, is sus· has been gathered, and several native tained by the Churc. of England. A
BRITISH NOTES
brief notice of the work of the Society puzzling out. In particular the pres- for the Propagation of the Gospel in ence or absence of the article was very Ramnad, South India, may serve to hard to understand, but some forty- sample the doings of this society. For three rules clear it all up.
the purposes of administration the mis- -The work on the Upper Congo is sion is divided into six pastorates or dis· making .strides, but chiefly thus far tricts, all of which are under the charge among the women and children. There of native pastors. These districts are: are now six dialects reduced to writing Ramnad, Keelakarai. Pamban, Raja· by the missionaries on the field belongsingamangalam, KiJanjani, and Parama· ing to our various societies. gudy. In the Ramnad district the Chris- tians are mostly members of the Valyar -The Baptist Union of Backergunge caste, a tribe of hunters who live to a and Furidpore, Eastern Bengal, have great extent in the jungle, earning their just celebrated their fifteenth annual Iivelihuod by hunting, fishing in streams, gathering. The proceedings were of an and cutting down firewood. The Keela· enthusiastic description, and large and kal"ai district is the largest in the mis- representative audiences heard the Gos- sion, containing 1500 Christians aDd pel forcibly preached for three evenings catechumens. In Rajasingamangalam with unabated interest.
there are 448 Christians and 81 catechu- -At Turki, the Rev. Robert Spurmens. Of these the majority came geon, of Barisal, reports the baptism of from the Roman Church, which has two men, the first·fruits of the Gospel in been at work in this district from the that place. One was eighty years of sixteenth century with only nominal re- age, a Boigaree, and, therefore, a begsults. It is found that the most unsatis· gar. He came to beg, but found the factory of all Christians are those who pearl of great price, and discontinued have joined the Society for the Propa- his old life. Often he spends the night gation of the Gospel mission from the saying over the texts or hymns he has Roman communion, and that it is.better learned, and is much in prayer. to reap directly from heathenism than from Rome's half·way houile. The Wealeyan Mi88ionaru Society.-At Kilanjani district numbers 940 baptized Yemkapalli, near Kundi, some earnest Christians and 200 catechumens. TheEe Christians were baptized some- months are made up of Idaiyars and Maravas. ago. They have let their light shine, The Idaiyars follow the calling of shep- and have sought the evangelization of herds. but the Maravas, until changed the villagers. As the result the mis- by grace, are robbers and thieves and sionary and a party of workers visited given up to devil-worship. In the mis- the village to enroll those who had re- sion district of Paramagudy there is but solved to become Christians. The peo- little success save among the pariahs in ple quickly gathered, and clamored for the villages. The systematic working permission to attend the meeting. The of this entire mission dates from Mr. Rev. A. S. Dharmiah preached, setting Billings's arrival in 1873, who, under forth the way of salvation through a God, has done grand work. System, crucified and incarnate Saviour, and faith, perseverance, and achievement showing the uselessness of bathing in are conspicuous features of the last sacred rivers for the remission of sins.
twenty years' labor. At the close, 11 persons of the Mala community came forward as candidates Bapti8t Misaionaru Society.-On the for baptism, and boldly gave their testi- Lower Congo the Rev. W. Bentley re- mony before the people. One said he ports that he has just completed the ap- had prayed to Siva, but got no answer pendix to the Congo grammar and syn· to his prayers. He was glad that he tax, a work which has required much had found Jesus had died to save him.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTEJ.LIGENCE
Another, a man of sixiy years, said he power to get wealth." Let us pay God had worshipped Siva according to the His due. traditions of his fathers, but the visits of the preachers had enlightened him. -There.is no better proof, says the After hearing these and other testimo- Journal of Education, of the essential nies, 1.1 persons were received into the barbarism of even the most civilized Ohurch of Ohrist by the rite of baptism. nations of the world than is afforded by a comparison of the money they expend The Ohristian Literature Society for for the maintenance of physical sulndia.-Tbe report of this society, of premacy as against the expenditme for which the Rev. James Johnston is the mental improvement. In some tables enthusiastic secretary, shows much recently compiled, the amount per capprogress in the diffusion of Ohristian ita expended by various governments books and tracts throughout the great for military and educational purposes is peninsula. "India is now the best set down as follows: educated of the non-Christian countries of the world." Among its 300,000,000 Military. Education. there 14,000,000 or 16,000,000 of readers France…………………. $4 00 taught in most modern methods of Eu- England……………….. 372 S 70 rope, with all the impulses which mod- Holland ……………….. 358 ern science and literature are fitted to Germany ………………. 2 30 62 impart to the mind. In the interests of Russia ………………… 204 64 this class, 1,133,115 volumes were print- Denmark ………………. 1 76 42 c;j ed last year. The Rev. G. H. Rouse, Italy…………………… 152 03 of Caicutta, cites an interesting case of Belgium……………….. 1 38 94 conversion through one of the tracts Austria …………. ~ …… 1 36 36 published in Bengali by this society and Switzerland……… …….. 82 4 written by himself. United States…. ……….. 30 32 46 THE KINGDOM. 185 -" Millions come from the millions." The millionaires are few in number. and II milliQn dollars from a million people is better than a million from one man.
-The total wealth of the richest -The Rev. F. B. Meyer, of London, family in the world, the Rothschilds, tells of one whose income is $10,000 per is said to amount to more than $2,000,- annum, who lives on $1000 and gives 000,000. This great mass of property the remaining $9000 to the cause of fordoubles itself every fifteen years. eign missions. Another, whose income is $10,000, Who lives on $1200, and -Let us call things by their right gives away the remainder. A governnames, especially when they relate to ess who earns $500 gives $250. An. the kingdom of God. Therefore, well other, who has a comfo·table compedoes Rev. J. B. Donaldson suggest: tence, remains in business, all the profits " Weare accustomed to talk of giving of which he gives. to the Lord's work. That is a great mistake. The giving is from the other -Says the Nashville Ohri8tian Adparty. The silver and gold are the '!locate: " A woman in Florida, recent- Lord's. We only dig it up. Thecattle ly deceased, bequeathed the Board of upon a thousand hills are His. We only Missions a ten-acre orange grove, twelve herd thcm. The wheat does not germi- acres of rich hummock land, and two nate by our power. The sun does not town lots. Two women give $800 towshine at our bidding. The rains do not ard building a church in Osaka, Japan. fall at our word. The soil is not fertile A local preacher sends us $200 for misthrough our wisdom. Our opportuni- sions, and a little child ten cents. A ties and faculties to make money are all missionary returns $250 to the treasury, gifts from God. He giveth thee the proposing to meet her own expenses… -The Bishop of Carlisle, speaking at -Our missionaries perform a double the farewell meeting of three mission· service, since they not only introduce ary bishops in Exeter Hall, referring to Christianity, but also compel false faiths the death of Bishop Hill and so many of to decency and the performance of good his party, said: " Are we tempted to works. Therefore Mr. Ford, of the say of lives laid down like this, To what Syria Mission, spoke wisely when he purpose is this waste? Let us not take once said that he was going up the up words from the mouth of Judas.'·- mountain to open two schools at a cer- The Gleane1'. tain point. "How is that f" .. I shall -The superintendent of the Life Sav- open one, and the priest will open aning Service reports that in the last year other."
380 vessels in distress were aided; on. -For some reason the missionary board. these vessels were 4054 persons, periodicals for January are especially of whom 3933 were saved and only 61 full of interesting matter. Among them lost: 658 persons were succored at the is the Ohronicle of the London Missionstations, and 83 persons were saved who ary Society, which gives an account of had fallen from wharves and piers. a tour through some of the Samoan Islands. and of the jubilee of the Malua -" There is no near and no far, but Institution for Training Teachers. The just one r<Jund world of lost and perish- Presbyterian Assembly Herald must also ing souls to be rescued and saved be mentioned, which is a paper rather through the world's Christ." than a magazine, published by Rev.
-In ref"rence to the missionaryen- R. S. Green. at Syracuse, N. Y., at a terprise, there are at least three kinds price merely nominal; is only in the of Christians-those who are merely midst of its first year, and each month parochial in their sympathies, those who serves up a large amount of excellent are narrowly patriotic, and those who reading relating to the work both abroad are really recumenical. The parochially and at home.
minded limit their regards to what they -According to the newspapers, there can actually see around them. For is a proposition on foot in Chicago to them even England has no existence make use of the phonograph in familreligiously. Only a little less limited in iarizing candidates for the missionary view are those patriotically minded souls field with foreign languages. The idea to whom all foreign work is " outland· is to do away with the necessity obligish." God wants us recumenically mind- ing young missionaries to spend three ed, and as English Christians belonging years in learning the language of the to a world-wide empire it is specially people among whom they are to work. our duty so to be.-The Oltlroniele. Foreigners will talk into the phono- -True heroism was displayed by the graph, and then students will use it to soldiers at Hong Kong at the time of become familiar with the sound and ac· the recent plague. They voluntarily cent of the strange tongue. The first assisted the authorities in disinfecting machines will be placed in the Young the houses of the people who had per- Men's Christian Association building, ished, with the result that one officer and others will be distributed among and one man fell victims to the disease. prominent churches.
They died to save men's lives.- U. P. -Says the Independent: "It is an In- Magazine. teresting fact that the wife of Field- -On the corner-stone of the London Marshal Oyama, Japanese Secretary of Temperance Hospital, laid by Sir Wil. War and Commander of the Second frid Lawson, is this inscription: "In Army in China, is that lovely and Chris- humble dependence on Almighty God tian lady known lnber girlhood in New for cure in the treatment of disease." Haven, where she was a member of the family of the late Dr. Leonard Bacon, and but at the beginning of her term of and at Vassar College, where she was service, she was left a widow. Since president of her class, as Miss Stemats 1858 she has been stationed at Thongze Yamakawa. We can testify from our as a quasi pastor of the church and own remembrance of her that she was superintendent of cvangelistic labors in an extremely lovely girl." all the region around, with divers col- porteurs, Bible women, teachers, etc., WOMAN'S WORK. looking to her for counsel.
-Life and Light has been examining -Though woman's work in connecthe records of the American Board, and tion with the London Missionary Sofinds that women began to organize for ciety began a full century since, and missionary giving as early as 1812 ; finds was carried on by such as Mrs. Moffat, also that during the first ten years about Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Mullens, 11rs. Mault, Mrs. one tenth of the receipts are acknowl- Kennedy, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Wardedged as from women. A.mong the vari- law, it was not organized and pushed ous items are such as these: "The Fe- until since 1875, and even ten years later male of Color, $5 ; the Indigent Fe- only 27 had been sent out. But now male, $3; the Aged Widow, $5; the the number in the field is 72, and no less Pious Lady, $10; the Unknown Fe- than 103 have borne a part. Says the male, $1; Lucy, $1; the Little Girl, Quarterly New8: " Our present actual .06; the Poor Woman, .50; the Elder- band of workers is distributed over the ly Lady, .75; the Pious Females, $2 ; ficld, which is the world, in the followthe Two Children and Hired Girl, $3 ; ingproportions: 35inindia(17inNorth the Servant Girl, .40; the Two Widows, India, 15 in South India, and 3 in Tra- $1.25, and many other ' Female Friends vancore), 22 in China, 6 in Madagascar, of l'Yfissions,' whose names are written 2 in South Africa, and 4 in the South in heaven. We have a glimpse of sac- Sea Islands. There has been a propor- Tifice~ in the gift of a gold watch, in the tionate increase in the number of our avails of gold beads, a bracelet, a neck- nati'OO female agents during the past ten lace, and other jewelry, of a chaise, years. Our girls' schools now number and of 10 cents, a premium obtained in 375, with some 56,753 scholars." Sunday-school. " -In a recent Pacijic Advocate Mrs. -Mrs. Capron's history illustrates Sue H. Cousland gives a graphic dehow a foreign missionary is made by scription of "our mission compound" home missionary prayers. Her father, in Swatow, China, ineluding the schools, Dr. Hooker, a saintly man, said to his the hospitals, and the printing estabdaughter, about to be married to Mr. lishment. We can almost see and hear Capron, to go with him to India: what is going on in that busy hive. " How came you ever to think of going abroad as a foreign missionary~" feel- YOUNG PEOPLE. ing the bitterness of the separation. " Why, father," she replied, "I do not -The Y. M. C. A. has 42 organizacount it strange. I have heard you tions among colored young men, of pray for missions all my life, and now which 26 are in colleges. 1 am going to answer your prayers."- Life and Light. -Says the Young Men'lI Bra: "Dr. Charles A. Eastman, the Indian secre- -A recent Helping Hand contains an tary of the International Committee, inspiring account of "one woman's was born in Minnesota, in 1858, of threework" in Burma, relating to the forty- quarter Indian blood, of a notable famfour years' heroic endurance and most ily of the Sioux tribe. At the time of fruitful endeavor of Mrs. Murilla B. In- the Minnesota massacre (1862) he was galls. While scarcely out of youth, carried off by an uncle and grandmother into Manitoba. Until sixteen he lived zeal rises higher and they have had a wild life, and never saw the inside of more experience they will do far better.
a house. Then he attended Indian mis- -The last year closed with 37,002 sion schools for three years, later sev- societies of Christian Endeavor, of eral preparatory schools, finally entering which 30,662 are in the United States, Dartmouth College in 1883, and gradu- 2347 are in Canada, and 3993 in foreign ating in 1887. In the same year he en- lands. During the last quarter 1293 tered the Boston University School of had been forme4. The members aglIedicine, from which he graduated in gregate 2,223,800. 1890, and was immediately appointed government physician at Pine Ridge -On Christmas Day everyone of the Agency, South Dakota, and remained 1200 convicts in the Kentucky penitenthere until his resignation in 1893 to tiary recei ved a letter from the Christian enter upon the practice of medicine in Endeavor societies of Louisville. 'l'hese St. Paul, Minn." letters were of a religious nature, quite long, very interesting, and no two were -A. Young Men's Hindu Association worded alike. Many of the prisoners has been started in Madras to rival the have signified their intention of answer- Y. M. C. A.., and one of the local rajahs ing the letters. is said to have proIl}ised 5000 rupees for a building. -The Young People's societies in the German Baptist churches of the East- -The students of Knox College, To- ern States organized a Union last Sep- ronto, have a missionary society which tember at Buffalo, which now contains sent out 29 of their number last summer 1405 members. They raised $1818 for to do pioneer work in various sections current expenses last year, and $1013 for of the Dominion, and raised $2115 of benevolence.
the $5935 require.1. -Rev. A.. A. Fulton (Presbyterian) -A. Methodist Christian Eudeavor writes from Canton, Ohina: "Four Society in Oshkosh, Wis., has issued a Christian Endeavor_ societies in three programme for the current year, with years, by use of two cents per week these as the topics of missionary meet- plan, have reached 27,000 patients and ings: preached to more than 100,000 persons January-New Year's Day in Heathen in 1114 villages. If every society in Lands. our Church used this plan, we should February-An India Social. have $250,000 per year."
March- Thank-offering Service. UNITED STATES. April-Our Pioneer Missionaries.
1tlay-A China Social. -According to Dr. Dorchester: June-Young People, or Light-Bear- " The growth of New England during ers in Mission Lands. the last fifty years has been largely by July-A. Journey to Korea. the foreign immigration. The Roman August-A. Japan Social. Catholic population amounts to 1,004,- September-Korea and Missions. 605. The actual membership in all non- October-Missionary Heroes. Catholic bodies is 764,722. To find the November-Social. population of the Protestant bodies, he December-A Conversation: Mission- multiplies the membership by three and ary Heroines. a half, which giTeS 2,676,527 as the -Though the Epworth Leagues fell non-Catholic adherents. The Protestant far IIhort of the large sum called for in and Catholic populations make 4,943,- their Thanksgiving offering for mis- 527 in a total population of 4,700,745.
sions, the total is yet something more -A.s the year was closing the J!Jvan- than $30,000. When their evangelizing geli8t gave a long article to the public charities of New York City, including at Martin's Creek, near the spot where the Out-Door-Poor Department, the stood the cabin built by him, and occu- various hospitals, the idiot asylum, pied two years from 1774. It was here almshouses, workhouse, morgue, etc. that much of his memorable journal Last year the Commissioners of Chari- was written.
ties and Corrections were allowed -In California there are 4 Japanese $2,295,675, and ask $3,397,551 for this churches, with 316 members. Thirtyyear. But besides, $888,519 were grant- four were added during last year. ed to 98 other institutions of a private There are 822 pupils in school and 544 or sectarian character. in the Sunday-school. The contribu- -In connection with Hospital Sun- tions were $3323. The church and the day it was stated that this same city Young Men's Christian Association contained about 10,000 hospital beds for have contributed $500, the church payall kinds of bodily ills, about one half ing the regular assessment to the Synod of them supported by public funds, and and the General Assembly's Fund, supso rapidly have these institutions mul- porting in part an evangelist, and givtiplied within ten years that the annual ing aid in charitable work in this councost has risen from $274,035 to $840,831 try and in Japan. The Christian Assolast year. ciation numbers about 100 members, and it gave $100 to furnish accommo- -The Children's Aid Society main- dations for a branch mission of their tains 21 industrial schools; 7 night countrymen near Chinatown. schools; 1 farm school; 7 lodging- houses; 4 summer charities; a laun- -The American Board has 36 physi- dry; iii dress-making, sewing-machine, cians in the field, of whom 15 are or- and type-writing school; a boys' print- dained and 8 are women. In all, from ing s~op; free reading-rooms at all the the first 89 have been sent out, and 34 lodging-houses, and at 219 Sullivan were graduates in theology as well as Street and 247 East Forty-fourth Street. in medicine.
the total number of children under the -The Disciples (Christians) have decharge of the society during 1894 was cided to extend their foreign missionary 38,811, and the receipts were $402,234. work by establishing a mission in some In all, from the beginning nearly 100,- part of Africa. 000 have been supplied with homes in the country. -The Presbyterian Church has 1622 -This notice and exhortation is taken communicants in Africa; 6476 in China; from the Sailor's Magazine: "New 1795 in India; 4826 in Japan; 141 in York Christian! Do you want to at- Korea ; 4512 in Mexico; 2697 in Pertend earnest religious meetings? Go sia; 1907 in Siam; 1972 in Syria; 4109 to the Sailors' Home, 190 Cherry Street, in South America; 553 in Canada, and on Saturday night; to the Mariners' 49 in Guatemala. Over 31,000 mem- Church, 46 Catharine Street, on Sun- bers abroad makes this quite a cosmoday night; or, not to mention others, to politan body. Library Hall, Cob Dock, Brooklyn Navy Yard, on Thursday night, at half past -In December last the United Brethseven o'clock. The secretary was glad ren sent forth 6 missionaries to help on to see about 200 naval seamen present the work of evangelization and educa- tion upon the West Coast of Africa.
at the Navy Yard meeting on Novem- -The Presbyterians have two homes ber 8th." for the children of missionaries in -December 5th a monument to David Wooster, 0., the Livingstone, with 19 Brainerd was dedicated by the Y. M. rooms, and the Westminster, with 23.
C. A. of Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. The chilrlren of 5 families were found in them last year, and already 8 chil- -The society last named is fortunate dren have made application to entel' above most in having an editorial secre- during 1895. tary possessed of the rare and royal gift EUROPE. of speaking the solemn truth, of a sort which is disagreeable to not a few, with Great Britain.-The Rev. W. all courage and plainness, but always Hughes, Colwyn Bay, North Wales, in love and tenderness' (suaviter in modo, is director of the Congo Training Insti- fortiter in re). As, for example, in the tute, whose object is " to give religious December InteUigenCf!r to the laggard and industrial education to the most givers who would have the society repromising of the African converts in the trench.
, United Kingdom, and to establish sim- -The East London Institute, since ilar institutions as branches in Africa." its founding in 1872, has trained and Of the latter 5 are already founded. sent out 821 men and women, who are For this work £5000 are required. now toiling in 40 different countries.
-The Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society The number of departures last year was in London is something quite unique. 60, divided among a half score of mis- Founded in 1807, it aims to give pen- sionary societies.
sions of 5, 7, and 10 guineas each to the -The members of the Salvation Army needy of both sexes who are not under do not wear their ~niform in foreign sixty years of age. Several homes are fields; they enter into the life of the provided for these veterans. Some 6000 people, wear their clothes, eat their in all have been ministered to, and 1315 food, live in such houses as those innames are now on the books. The an- habit whom they would reach, and in nual cost is about £10,000, and the ag- all possible ways renounce their old gregate of expenditures is upwad of national identity and assume that of £240,000. natives of the land in which they work.
-The China Inland Mission has -In the January Central Africa (Uni- " urgent need for 100 consecrated men. versities' Mission) Rev. W. H. Wood- Existing stations are calling for rein- ard has a paper of admirable tone forcements, and God is opening new npon " Associate Missions and Family doors which there are no workers to Life." As is known to most, the soenter." ciety which he represents appoints only celibates to service, and all " stand so- -Eugene Stock, editorial secretary cially on the same level, receive the of the Church Missionary Society, has same allowances, live in the same house, been giving in two carefully prepared eat at the same table." Having no famarticles in the InteUigenCfJr some of the ily ties to fetter, all may move at once results of his research into the sources " at the bidding of the bishop." "The of missionary income. He finds that, climate alone, perhaps, might make in England at least, it is not poverty married life almost impossible." Therewhich hinders giving, nor is it affluence fore" it was not economy alone which which prompts to the exercise of this determined the system. " However, grace. Instead, it is well·nigh the rule though the ad vantages are so great. he that the most able bestow the least, does not claim that this is the only while the least able make large offer- legitimate or excellent way of carrying ings. He concludes that in almost on evan¥elizing work. every case it is not wealth but work which tells, vigorous, persistent effort on the part of clergymen or laymen, or -The Children's Fresh-air Fortnight both in co-operation, and supplies fig- scheme, directed by Mr. MacKeith, of ures in abundance to SUbstantiate his Glasgow, has received a second gift of conclusion .. £2000 to purchase and furnish a home for scrofulous children. Although not measures, the Turkish Government is distinctly evangelistic, the scheme is in- the greatest Mrs. Partington on record. "
cluded in the operations of the Glasgow -" Converts" from the Oriental United Evangelistic Association, and churches must needs be examined most sprung out of the work for the children carefully as to motive and aim before carried on in the Tent Hall on Sunday being received. For not a few are afternoons. prompted to become Protestants from merely selfish impulses, or to spite some· ASIA.
Islam.-Last year was for Robert body. Thus Rev. W. S. Nelson, of College" one of the most trying through 'l'ripoli, Syria, tells, in the Independent, which it has ever passed, through the of a man who was eager to turn Presby- prevalence of cholera, the great earth- terian, though grossly given to strong quake with its destruction of life and drink, and ready to withstand the property, and the serious political Maronite Church with" guns and pis- troubles in Asia Minor. Nevertheless, tols."
the work was in many respects more -Dr. Jessup is able to make a de· satisfactory than ever before. The total lightful setting forth of the Christian number of students was 200, represent- comity which prevails, whereby the ing 10 nationalities, among them 68 Presbyterians are left to themselves in Armenians, 65 Greeks, and 44 Bulga- Syria, and the Church Missionary Sorians. Improvements have been made ciety has exclusive possession in Pales· in all departments, and the preparatory tine, and neither will receive disaffected department has been entirely reorgan- members belonging to the other. ized. Funds are needed for a separate building for the latter. India.-Miss Phillips, of Balasore, Orissa, says: ., I am sure you will think -Tbemission press in Turkeyis kept I have abundant reason for making a in constant embarrassment by the ab- thank offering when I tell you the Lord surd fears of the government. "All has permitted us as a family to give the manuscripts must be submitted to 166 years of service to India. This in- examination at Constantinople before cludes the time given by father, mother, being printed. Some are rejected or brother, and 5 sisters, and when added returned in a mutilated condition, while to the time of 2 brothers-in·law and 1 those accepted are kept a long time and sister·in-law makes a total of 206 the printing delayed. Books that have years."
received the sanction of the government -A.n interesting sign of changing may be seized and destroyed at any time times in India was furnished in a Mo· upon a foolish pretence, as the coloring hammedan educational and social conof a map in a geography. Two men ference, held at Ahmedabad in OctOber. were imprisoned and their books con- The fact was brought home that if they fiscated, not for selling their geogra- are even to hold their own in the fuphies, but for procuring them for the ture, the education of their children governors at their request." must go beyond the mere learning of -The petition of 300,000 Christian the Koran by heart. A result of their women has brought to light a new ex· present defective education is that, out ample of Turkish justice. A Mr. Mah- of 1000 subordinate clerks in the collecdissian has been banished for life to an torate of Ahmedabad, only 2 are Mooasis in the desert of Sahara for trans. hammedans. A. notable feature of the lating into Turkish a portion of Scrip· conference was that Mullahs and Moulture referring to the coming of the king- vies advocated female education.
dom of Christ. " In attempting to stem -Anna Thompson writes to the the tide of Christianity by such petty Ohri8tian Advocate: "The Maharajah of Baroda has issued a notification to than 500 villages and mohallas, with 6 the effect that within his territories no Conference members and probationers, new liquor shops shall henceforth be 4 local elders and deacons, 14 local opened without the sanction of the min- preachers, and 60 exhorters; with 8 ister. .Ai3 for the existing shops, if five churches and chapels, 4 boarding- sixths of the house-owners and inhab- schools, 3 training-schools, 3 mission itants of any village or town would homes, 1 deaconness home, 1 hospital represent to the minister their wishes and dispensary, book shops, reading- that the liquor shops be closed, the min- rooms, prayer-rooms, and almost every ister, if he sees no objection, will give form of mission work in constant prog- the necessary sanction. " This same ress. There is a Christian community Hindu ruler" has schools for the low of nearly 4000, a membership of 2752; castes as well as high, and for zenana nearly 4000 are in Sunday-schools, and women and widows. Board, clothing, 1400 in the day schools.
books, etc., are furnished the low castes -Mr. Goodwin writes from the Gond free of charge. Industries of all sorts Itinerancy of the confirmation of 6 men and farming are taught to the boys. and 3 women, the latter being the first Sewing, fancy work, and cooking are of their sex to join the Church. One taught to the girls and women. He of them walked 45 miles to be present, also has fine libraries for his people. " another 60, and the third 63 miles, while -Near Calcutta there is a school some of the men travelled even further.
which is taught by a Brahman, and -The Darjeeling Newareports 78 bapthough neither teacher nor scholars are tisms at that station (Church of Scotoutwardly Christians, a Christian visitor land) last year, and a roll of 706 baphad an address presented to him by the ized persons, and in Kampilong 1243 school, in which" Our dear Lord .Tesus native Christians, of whom 113 were Christ" was spoken of. The school has baptized in 1894. a banner for use on festival days, bearing the device "The Brahmanical -At a recent conference in Calcutta Hehool, ' •and bearing beneath thc words, one of the members pointed out the ex- "Looking unto Jesus." The teacher pensiveness of wine; and that in native has invited one of the Calcutta missiona- congregations either cow's milk or the ries to come and address the pupils milk of the cocoanut should be used at every Sunday, on which day this Brah- the Lord's Supper. We know of the man patsltula is turned into a veritable celebration of this sacrament not long Sunday-school. ago where a fresh cocoanut was broken and the liquid used, and it was a season -The Jntelligence,,·(C. M. S.) has this of refreshing, where the presence of God appreciative word: "We are sincerely was manifest. The point is certainly rejoiced to notice the evidence of bless- well made that we should not teach our ing which has lately attended the work native church expensive habits in con- of higher education in India of the Free nection with worship. It must be taught Church of Scotland. We thank God to support itself; and we should not especially that the work of Dr. Miller burden ourselves in our efforts to force and his colleagues at the Madras Chris- it up to that goal.-Indian Witne88.
tian College has been fruitful in two im- -Another Hindu temple has been portant baptisms, Mr. Chethar, an M.D. " captured" by the Salvation Army at and B. L., and a Vakil in the High Court, Cape Comorin. The people of Checkad, and the other in Bombay, Mr. Narayen after removing their idols. handed over G. Velinkar, M.A., LL.B., one of the the building to be converted into a barprofessors in the college." racks. This makes the fourteenth -The Methodist Agra district has 8 which has been given up in like man- large circuits, with Christians in more ner -Can it be that our ever-staid and ful field for mission work?" He said: decorous brethren of the Canada Pres- "The most hopeful of all, I think. byterian and (Dutch) Reformed churches There are no caste prejudices, none of are actually stealing the thunder of the secret hostility which is so formid- General Booth? For we read in their able a barrier to Christian progress in papers of a "Christian mela" at Rut- India. The Chinaman is an open lam, Central India, where "we had a enemy or an open friend. He does not band composed largely of native instru- belong, like the Hindu, to a subject ments, besides a bass drum, cymbals, race, obliged to cringe to the conqueror, concertinas, etc. ; we also had banners While all the time he nurses a hidden inscribed with mottoes in Hindi, mount- enmity. The Chinese hates all foreigned on bullock carts in which also were ers, and is not afraid to say so. When our Christian boys. Thus equipped we he is gained to Christianity, he makes a marched through the streets, stopping stanch and loyal convert. The rate of at each street corner to proclaim the progress in China within the last twenty Gospel message that Jesus died to save." years has been amazing." Also in the Arcot mission, "the musical processions, station by station as -Surely missionaries in Mongolia are they arrived, were very grand with not carried to the skies on flowery beds banners and ribbons, and in vain did of ease. Thus 1I'lrs. Parker writes in they attempt to excel each other in sing- Ohina'8 Millions of a journey: .. We ing ; to an unprejudiced ear they were left Chao-Yang for a visit to Lan-Pei all equally rnstched and well sustained Tze-Fu, where we had reason to hope throughout. Each station was con- that there might be an opening for misspicuous by its own flags, the big greet- sion work. Our party consisted of the ing banner indicating the name of the old preacher, two boys, my husband, station. The prettiest flag was carried and myself. We had two carts, and by the members of the Immanuel's Mr. Parker rode his horse. No little Bajanai of Palmaner. " Well, if the preparation is required for such a jour- Name shall be honored thereby, and ney, and on the backs of the carts were souls shall be saved, who shall "for- strapped our provision box, medicines, bid" them? books for sale, magic lantern and slides and a tin of oil, a box containing kitch- China.-Rev. Henry Blodgett, re- en utensils, a small earthenware cookcently returned from Peking, says of Li ing stove and a quantity of charcoal; Hung Chang: "He believes in the While the insides of the carts were Western world civilization without the packed with onr boxes of clothes, the Christian religion, and, had he had his provender for the mules, a bag of cash, way, the Chinese would have been edu- a basket, teapot, etc., and over all these cated in the arts of modern warfare. our bedding. I was stowed away in The defeat of China, he says, came one cart packed in with pillows and from a supercilious disregard of the bedding, while the old preacher followed advance of the world in warfare. Rev. in the second, and the boys and drivers Charles Fenney, an American mission- occupied the shafts," etc. ary, teaches the English branches to the children of Li Hung Chang, who be- -The case of blind Ch'ang, of Manlieves that in the arts and sciences the churia, is the subject of an interesting rest of the world long ago passed article by C. F. Gordon-Cumming. China." Mr. Webster, of Moukden, says of this man's itinerary labors: " Blind Ch'ang. -The Rev. T. G. Selby, who has with little knowledge, but with a heart spent twelve years as a missionary in thrilled to the core with the truth which China, was asked: "From your ex" he knew, had in three months done perience, do you consider China a hope- more and better work: for the kingdom of heaven than half a dozen foreign from the infant Church who are go~g missionaries would have done in as out as evangelists support themselves many years. And this is only one of in part by their own earnings, and it is the many proofs that China must be expected that by next year one or more evangelized by the Chinese." young men will be supported in this -Miss F. M. Williams, of the China form of service by the Church, which Inland Mission, writes of " three Christ- is not a year old. Some members give mas days," beginning with 1891, and nearly one fourth of their earnings, behow, with but 8 souls redeemed at first, sides doing something for their parents the number rose to 38, and finally to 86. and friends."
-Mr. Currie, of the West Afri- AFRICA. can Mission of the American Board, -There are 3743 members and proba- writes: "About a week ago a man tioners in the Methodist Episcopal was brought here by night in a mis- Church in Africa. In Liberia there are erable state. He told a story of hav- 3260. In Bishop Taylor's missions there ing been poisoned with a glass of rum are 483, of which 86 are in Angola, 14 given him at the ombala of Kepoko, on the Congo, and 383 in Liberia. The and there was abudant reason to believe 383 are distributed as follows: Beaboo, his story true. Another trader has 22; Barraka, 29; Brooks, 29; Garra- begun to build within three hours' jour. way, 28 ; Grand Sess, 75; Sass Town, ney from here. He plans to put up a still, we hear, and that will make the 200. fourth place within a radius of four -The report comes that erelong the hours' journey from this place where Congo Free State is to become in full rum is distilled. What the harvest of form, what from the first it has been in all this civilization (1) will be God only fact, a colony of Belgium. That is, the knows."
little kingdom of 11,400 square miles and -From henceforth, it appears from something over· 6,000,000 inhabitants is late intelligence, British South Africa, to rule and undertake to civilize the with Cecil Rhodes as the ruling spirit, Congo Basin, containing 1,000,noo is to include the entire vast region exsquare miles and a population, say, of tending from the states already estab- 25,000,000. Though the right to do lished in the south northward across this may be hard to define, yet the re- . the Zambesi, and including Nyassala.nd suIt is almost certain to be for the bene- and the west shores of Lake Tanfit of mankind. ganyika, or from about 25" south lati- -Mr. Dorsey Mohun, United States tude almost to the equator. Fort Salis- commercial agent to the Congo Free bury, nearly in the centre, will be the State, who has recently returned to ca.pital of this empire, and British Cen- Washington after two years in Africa, tral Africa will disappear from the map.
declares that 20,000,000 people in that -M. Coillard, the veteran missionary region are eaters of human flesh. He of the Paris Society on the Zambesi, retells a horrible story about surprising a fuses to take the furlough which has village one day when a big cannibal been earnestly pressed upon him by the feast was in progress, and also describes directors. " Your invitation, " he writes, how he saw 14 persons buried alive in " did not cause me a moment's hesitaa grave with the dead body of a great tion, so clearly did I see the path of chief. duty. Thanks to God, I have enjoyed -The Baptist Miaaiona1'1J Magazirw excellent health since my last illness.
says: "Some young Christians in our In a few days I shall complete my six- West African Mission are examples in tieth year. To return to Europe would the matter of benevolence. The two be to close my career finally, and it is natural that I should feel the need of on his shoulder, a miscellaneous assortavoiding this contingency. And then ment fastened to either end of it-viz., let me tell you that when I look on our a lantern, saucepan, frying-pan, and small band and the needs of our work; small kettle, a galvanized pail, to serve when I think of all our losses and all the double pUrpose of water-can and our rebuffs, of the little we have done, wash-hand basin, and a picnic basket, and of all there is yet to do ; of the im- containing two plates, cup and saucer, mensity of our field of work, which we knife, fork, and spoon, and a small ourselves scarcely know as yet, I feel quantity of pepper, salt, tea, sugar, that to leave would have been a deser- butter, bread, and cake. The third tion, and I would willingly have an- luggage ·carrier had a tin box on his swered the committee in the words of head, containing' school prizes; for, the the hero of Ugands: 'You call me annual examinations being recently conback to Europe! Send us first ten cluded, I was going to give the prizes workers, and then I will come to help to the boys and girls of eight schools." you to find ten others.'" -JournaZ des ~Vi88ionB Jl}vangeZiques. -The Australasian Methodist Mis- sionary Society has fallen fortunate -In Uganda, a field entered only a heir to the English Wesleyan work in few years since, so rapid and widespread Fiji and Samoa, and besides has carried is the enlargement of the work that al- the Gospel to New Guinea, New Britready 100 native laborers are in the ain, and to the Chinese in Victoria and field, all supported by natif!/J contribu- New South Wales. The last report tells tions. And the plan is to secure as of 974 churches (buildings) and 568 many more, and then let each company other preaching places; 26 missionaalternate between three months of evan- ries ;76 native ministers; 80'catechists ; gelizing work and three months of 10,095 local preachers, teachers, class stlldy. leaders, etc.; 33,376 native members and 6205 on trial; 2018 schools, with -In keeping with the experiment 40,875 pupils: and 118,817 attendants mentioned above is the fact that Mr. on public worship. JQhnston, the British Commissioner for Central Africa. looks for the salvation -The Malua Institution, Samoa, held of that .region by the introduction of its jubilee last September, and the Lonfarmers and traders from India. His don ahri.~tian sums up thus the etory conviction is due to the success of a of fifty years: "Here is a school which colony established on the Shire River. did not cost the missionary society a Again, Indian soldiers are better fitted penny to build, which has supplied by nature and environment for the labor nearly every village in Samoa with a of keeping order than are either pure teacher who has had a careful training Europeans or pure Africans themselves. for four years, so that he can either Thirdly, in minor official posts they preach or teach. Some 1200 students will work for less wages and will stand have been trained for pastors and schoolthe climate far better than the whites. masters, and some 700 women have been trained by the missionaries' wives. ISLANDS OF THE SEA. Moreover, many of these went as mis- sionaries to the New Hebrides and the -According to Miss Bliss, a mission- Loyalty Islands, and some died a marary, modes of travel in the interior of tyr's death. To the northwest of Madagascar are still in a primitive state. Samoa there are 11,000 people who She says: "Six bearers were carrying have been won from heathenism by me in my palanquin, and three people Samoan teachers. The jubilee is to be followed with my luggage: u woman marked by the building of a hall to aewith my stretcher and box of bedding commooate 1000 persons." on her head, and a man with a bamboo
The Missionary Review of the World — June 1891
HUGUENOT FEMALE SEMINARY. WELLINGTON, CAPE COLONY, SOUTH
MISSIONARY REVIEW. OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIV. No. 6.-0Zd Serie.~.–JUNE.–VOL. IV. No. 6.-New Series.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-XO. XVIII.
J [EDITORIAL, A. T. P.
THE LIGHT AT THE CAPE OF GOOD ·HOPE.
" IF you want most to serve your race," said Mary Lyon, " go where no one else will go, and do what no one else will do."
We propose to draw· in profile the outline of one of the most wonderful and fascinating stories of modern missions-the narrative of the founding of the Huguenot Seminary at Wellington, Cape Colony.
Wellington, about forty miles from Cape Town, is a gem set in a ring ~f mountains-the Drakenstein and Paarl ranges. It is now more' than two centuries since some three hundred Huguenots, who had fled from France to Holland after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, accepted the invitation of the Dutch East India Company, and settled at the Cape. What the Puritans were to America, these devoted refugees became to the Dark Continent.
·By law Dutch was the language of the colony; and so, in a few generations, the French ceased to be their language, and almost the nationality of these refugees was lost. Early in this century the colony passed into the hands of Great Britain, and the Dutch Reformed churches. already established, became largely supplied with Scotch Presbyterian pastors. .
One of these was Rev. Andrew Murray, who was settled over the congregation at GraafI Reinet. He married a Germano-Huguenot lady, and five of their sons now preach in the colony, while four of their daughters are wives of ministers. The second son, also called Andrew, is the pastor of the church at Wellington, and the now famous author of the most pr«>ciolls devotional books which perhaps during the past half century have been issued from the English press.
This man of God, Andrew Murray, nearly twenty years ago, buried two young children at his African home; and, as Mrs. Murray expressed it, " their hands seemed emptied and ready for some work with which the Lord was waiting to fill them." The bereaved husband and wife went in December, 1872, to the seaside to rest, and there they read together the
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
marvellous life of Mary Lyon. So thrilled were they by that story of heroism, that they sought to obtain everything that could further info}m them of the subsequent history of the Holyoke Seminary and its pupils, and eagerly devoured the story of Fidelia Fiske, the Mary J~yon of Persia.
Just at this time the descendants of those Huguenot refugees living at Wellington were proposing to build some monument or memorial.to their ancestors; and Mr. Murray was strangely and strongly impressed that the best memorial they could rear was just such a school for their daughters. The schools scattered through South Africa were neither such as the mind nor morals of the girls needed; few of them were fitted to train immortal souls for service here or glory hereafter. Every indication of human need and Divine Providence seemed to point to this as the time and place for a new Holyoke. And, after much thought, consultation, and prayer, letters were written to the Massachusetts Holyoke, asking for a graduate to found a similar school at the Cape of Good Hope.
These letters awakened unusual interest at the parent seminary, and were put into the hands of Miss Abbie P. Ferguson, a graduate of the class of 1856, who was at that time conducting a very successful work in New Haven, Conn. Her mind was 80 deeply impressed that God was calling her to Africa, that she could not rest until she had laid herself at the Lord's feet, to go wherever He might lead. She breathed a prayer that, if He was indeed calling her to Wellington, another might be found to share the work; and just then Miss Anna E. Bliss, of the class of 1862, offered herself as a companion in labor. Just at this time, across the Atlantic, special prayer was arising that Jehovah Jireh would provide a teacher, and so once more prayer and its answer joined, in a blessed harmony, man's performance and God's purpose. Before the letter~ reached Wellington, telling of the decision of these teachers, Mr. Murray, with characteristic faith, had sent passage-money to America; and when the news of the decision of Miss Ferguson and Miss Bliss reached the colonists, the open letters were bedewed with the tears of thanksgiving. They had asked one teacher, and God had given two.
Mr. Murray rehearsed the whole story of this marked leading of God, commended the proposed work to the Lord in prayer, and pledges were given on the spot to insure the support of the new school. Though not a rich people, in a few weeks $6,000 had been given by the Wellingtonians alone, one widow giving one sixteenth of the whole amount-all her little patrimony.
Miss Ferguson and her companion sailed for Africa in September, 1873, and arriven at Cape Town in about eight weeks. They found that a large building with grounds had been bought for the school, the life of Mary Lyon had been translated into Dutch, and many young people were ready to enter as pupils into the new Huguenot Seminary, or as teachers, to seek higher fitness for their calling. The seminary was formally opened, January 19th, 1874, anq the large assemblage which that day prayerfully committed the work to the – Lord will never be forgotten. During the first term there were forty Rtudents from fifteen to forty years of age; and the Bible and prayer were from the first the characteristic features of the school life, the first hour of each day being given to instruction in the Holy Word, and a half hour in the day beibg reserved for the quiet of personal communion with God.
The devout and earnest purpose of these teachers was to educate Christian character. God honors those who honor Him. One morning the Scrip~ ture lesson was on the new birth, and before that day had gone thirteen had taken their place on the Lord's side. Even those whom candor compelled to confess that they were unsaved, could not rest content without salvation, and when another meeting was called for those who felt that they were Christ's, everyone in the school came. And after all these years have put the confession to the test, nearly everyone has remained faithful, and not a few have been filling positions of singular usefulness.
Our space will not permit more than an outline of a history now covering nearly a score of yearil. But, as might be expected, the saved became saviours. Children were gathered from the street, and 8 Sunday-school was formed ; through the children access was obtained to their parents; cottage meetings-as many as fourteen, in or near the village-were conducted by the young ladies j the navvies and their families were reached by the same consecrated workers, and Wellington Seminary became a fountain of living waters.
The seminary building became too strait for the growth of the institution, and a new building became a necessity j its corner-stone was laid November 19th, 1874, the two buildings together costing $40,000. Two more teachers were sent for, and Miss Wells and Miss Bailey came from America, Noyember, 1874, and soon after, Miss Spijker, from Holland, to teach Dutch and French.
In July, 1875, the new building was ready for use j the pupils increased from forty to ninety, and the school was divided into two departmentsone preparatory. In December, 1875, Miss Landfear came from New Haven to share the growing burden of work, and still later Miss Brewer, of Stockbridge, Mass. j in 1877, Miss Cummings and Miss Knapp were added to the corps of instructors, and the standard of the school kept rising higher and higher both intellectually and spiritually.
During 1878, stimulated by the reports of the Ten Y-ears' Work of the Woman's Board of Missions in America, the Huguenot Missionary Society was organized, and became speedily the parent of many mission circles. Missionary offerings had been the habit at the weekly devotional meetings, and had been sent to Mrs. Schauffier, in Austria, to Dr. Bernardo and Miss Annie Macpherson in London, and to the Basuto, Natal, and East Indian missions. But now the work took organized form, and before the year closed a member of the school offered herself as a missionary, and subsequently went as their representative to the heathen in the Trans~ vaal. That same year-1878-the first graduating class left the Huguenot Seminary. To trace the after-careers of these four graduates may give some hint of the streams which flow from this fountain. One of the four (Miss Malherbe) was next year a teacher in her Alma Mater, and then took the principlllship of Prospect Seminary at Prretoria in the Transvaal ; Mi~s De Leeuw and Miss Mader started a boardiug-school at Bethlehem, in the Orange Free .State,similar to the Wellington Seminary; and during the first year had five more pupils than Wellington at the corresponding period of its history ; Miss Wilson went to teach in the Rockland Seminary at Cradock. In December, 1879, seven more young ladies received diplomas, and all became teachers. Meanwhile God continued to bestow His grace. and again in 1879 nearly all the inmates of the school became disciples of Christ. These nearly twenty years have been marked by a constant growth. In 1882 there was opened a model school, and a normal department was organized. Rooks, and chemical and philosophical apparatus, a Williston observatory and telescope, etc., were furnished by generous friends; and far and wide the" daughters" of Miss Ferguson and her fellow teachers scattered to diffuse new blessings.
In April, 1880, Miss Ferguson left for rest and change, and visited her native land, returning the next year. And in 1882 another building was erected, to accommodate .about forty more pupils-boarders; and during the same year, as already intimated, another building was opened for a model school for the training of the younger children of the village j and the pupils of the normal class have practice in the art of teaching, and can learn the most approved methods-kindergarten, etc.
The pressure of pupils and too little room made it necessary again to enlarge, and a cottage adjoining the school grounds was purchased. In i885 Miss Cummings, of Strafford, Vermont, one of the teachers, came home for a year's visit, and secured from Mr. Goodnow, of Worcester, a building costing some £3,000. The upper story, to be used as a chapel, will seat five hundred, and the lower floor is devoted to art-room and scientific class-rooms.
Last year the applications were so many it was again necessary to provide more room, and while hesitating whether to build or rent rooms near the seminary, the principal of a girls' school at the PaarL a village some eight miles distant, applied to the trustees to purchase' his building, failing health making it necessary that he and his wife should give up the work. Some of the village people were very anxious the school should come under the influence of the Huguenot Seminary, and after much thought and prayer the purchase was made. This school takes the younger pupils, 'making it a preparatory department, and one of the American teachers superintends it. This gives more room at Wellington for advanced pupils. The schools are called Huguenot Seminary, Paarl, and Huguenot Seminary, Wellington. There are now in the two schools over four hundred pupils. They have the same board of trustees, and are under the same principlll, The expense of buildings and grounds has outrun their income, and they have felt keenly the pressure of debt. But the friends of Christian education in the colony have responded nobly to the call for aid, and at different times Parliament has granted them appropriations amounting to £2,000, so that during the last year they had much rejoicing in Wellington over the accom- plishment of the long-desired freedom from debt. There is some indebted· ness on the Paarl school yet; but Dr: Dale, or Sir Langham Dale, the Superintendent of Education for the colony, gives them encouragement to hope that Government will give them help by and by.
In 1888 Mrs. H. B. Allen, of Meriden, Conn., a sister of Miss Ferguson, sent a circular letter to her sister's classmates asking for help to reduce their indebtedness, it being her sister's" jubilee year," and the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the Huguenots in South Africa. They were making a special effort ~o " go free" that year. Mrs. Allen secured about $200 in money, but interest and prayer which were, perhaps, worth more. And then faith was rewarded, for early in 1889 the grant from Government came.
The writer does not know just the number of missionaries who have gone out from the school, but there have been hundreds of .teachers.
Miss Ferguson made a famous journey in 1887-8. In October, 1887, she left the seminary for her year's vacation. The first three months of it she spent in visiting the missionary stations in the Midland and Eastern provinces of the colony, where some of the pupils are located as missionaries and teachers. She returned to Wellington in December, and met two of her pupils from Basutoland, who had just graduated, and returned with them to their home. They are the danghters of French missionaries who are in charge of the Protestant mission of Basutoland. They went by train from Wellington to Kimberley (where the diamond mines are), spent several days with school daughters there. A bullock wagon, drawn by fourteen oxen belonging to the missionaries, was sent from Moujah to meet them. Leaving Kimberley on the 28th of December, they reached Morijah on the lOth of January, outspanning in the heat of the day, and travelling often by moonlight. Two Christian natives, who had long been in the mission family, had charge of the party-Eleazer and Nkloroso.
I have before me the plan of. the journey as Miss Ferguson sent it from Morijah. Here are extracts from her journal: " February 5th at Hermon (Basutoland) ;. February 12th at Mofukas for the baptism of a sister of the old chief Mosesh, over eighty years old, and others. February 19th, Leribe, Mr. Colliard's old station. February 27th, Bethlehem, Orange Free State, with Mrs. Theron, one of our Huguenot teachers. March 3d, Heilbron, Orange Free State, where four of my Huguenot daughters liye. March 8th, Freeport. Orange Free State, the minister and wife from Wellington. March 12th, Potchefstroom, Transvaal, where I have several daughters. Here Mrs. Gonin, wife of the missionary at Saul's Poort, meets me with her bullock wagon, and we go on to Rustenberg, where one of my daughters is in the school. Her father is the principal. March 19th to April 20th, Saul's Poort, Mabie's Kraal, ~nd l1ochuli ; in all these places we have girls who ~re missionaries. The last of April I go to Prretoria (Transvaal), where we have girls teaching j then on to Wakkustroom and Utrecht with Mr. Murray's sister. The last of May to Rorke's Drift, where my friend, the Baroness Posse has a little mission work of her own. June and July I expect to spend in Natal with the American missionaries."
Miss Ferguson was detained by rains and full rivers, so that she did not leave Mochuli (which is half-way between the parallel 24° S. and the tropic of Capricorn, and half-way between meridian 26° and 27° E. just north of the Natwane River, almost in the torrid zone. It is not on the map) until May. Pietermaritzberg, the capital of the Transvaal, was the only place where she spent a night at a hotel. She arrived Saturday night, and her letter to friends had not been received; but she was found on the Sabbath and carried away to the home of Christian friends.
Early in August she sailed from Durban to Port Elizabeth, went to King William's Town, and on up to Graat! Reinet; then to Kimberley again in the interest of the mission work so near her heart, which has resulted in the Mission House, cared for by three of the Huguenot daughters; and back to Wellington the last of September.
Every letter speaks of the marvellous kindness everywhere received, and the wonderful openings for work. We have not spoken of the " Chautauqua circles" that have been formed all through South Africa. Miss Landfear, one of the Huguenot teachers, is the secretary for South Africa, and is introducing a class of reading that it! educating and elevating those who have left school. A circle has been formed among the native boys at Morijah.
If any of our readers will, on the map, follow this remarkable journey of Miss Ferguson through Southern Africa, they will see how many hundreds of miles she went; and let it be remembered tbat only one night in all tbat journey was spent at a hotel; in every other case she was the guest of "her daugbters"-the young ladies wbo had graduated from Wellington and gone into all that dark land to become teachers, missionaries, wives of godly men and ministers of the Gospel, an~ who are thus turning many a " Valley of Desolation" and barren waste of paganism into the Lord's garden! Are we not right in calling Wellington's Huguenot Seminary" the Light at the CapeY" To-day Miss Ferguson has under her care four hundred pupils.
We must add a word as to the progress of education in other parts of the land, which is largely due to the influence of Wellington.
In 1874, the year when the Huguenot Seminary began its work, Rev. J.
Neethling, of Stellenbosch, asked for a teacher from America, on behalf of the school committee, and Miss Gilsou came in response to the call in November of tbe same year. Beforethe year 1875 closed a boarding department was opened ; and the large and flourishing seminary now does for the Lord most excellent and efficient work both in training intellects and educating Christian hearts for the service of the Kingdom.
During 1875 a request for two teachers was sent from Worcester by Rev. William Murray, the minister there, to America. And, as at Wellington, the spirit of faith and prayer anticipated the arrival of the teachers in preparing for the school and sending forward the passage-money. The Misses Smith (two sisters), of Sunderland, Mass., responded. In April, 1876, the the seminary building at Worcester was completed. At the opening, Rev. Andrew Murray spoke on the great need of multiplying such Christian schools in Africa, and it was determined to ask for six more teachers from over the seas.
At the same time. Miss Helen Murray began work at Graaff Reinet, taking charge of the Midland Seminary, with twenty-five boarders and as many day scholars, until Miss Thayer and Miss Ayres arrived six months Jater. A reVival during the first term put the significant seal of God's approval on the work at its very inception, and nearly all the pupils rejoiced in Jesus. In 1876 Miss Lester left Woodstock, Conn., for the Bloemhof Seminary at Stellenbosch, and in April, four years after, was transferred to a similar work in Standerton, in the Transvaal.
During 1877 Messrs. Andrew and Charles Murray visited America, and in answer to their appeal for teachers, thirteen more went to Africa that year, one of whom went eventually to Swellendam. And when, in September, 1877, the Messrs. Murray returned, Rev. George R. Ferguson, brother to the founder of the Huguenot Seminary at Wellington, came with them, to take in charge a new school or institute for training of young men as evangelists and missionaries ; and has since been engaged in that work at Wellington.
When this noble band of workers arrived in 1877 to reinforce the educational mission work in Africa, a feast of rejoicing and thanksgiving filled an " eight days" like the feasts of ancient Israel. The windows were illumined, the flowers hung in festoons or bloomed in bouquets as on an Easter morning, and the Lord was magnified in the praises of His own. One day twenty-seven Americans dined together in the building where, four years before, two teachers began their pioneer work. The teachers at Graaf Reinet, too far away to participate in person, flashed greetings over the electric wires.
After a few days the new teachers began to disperse to Worcester, Graaf Reinet, Stellenbosch, Beaufort West, Swellendam, etc. Miss Clary chose Prretoria, because the work there was most difficult and discouraging; and Miss Ruggles undertook with her the journey to this field fifteen hundred miles beyond Cape Town.
We can follow no further this fascinating story. In 1880 eleven schools had already been established in South Africa under the care of these American teachers; eight in Cape Colony, two in the Transvaal, and one in the Orange Free State. Thirty-eight ladies had, previous to 1881, gone out from America to take charge of this work of education ; and the devoted man of God, Rev Andrew Murray, has generally had the privilege of applying for teachers, while Mrs. H. B. Allen, of Meriden, Conn. (sister of Miss Ferguson), has co-operated in the selection of those who should go.
No words can expr/ilss the blessing which has come through this period of almost twenty years to the whole of Africa through these grand Christian schools. They are building light houses, not at the Cape only, but all through the southern half of the Dark Continent. We doubt whether any work ever done for God has had, from the inception, more signal tokens of His approbation and blessing.
. Those who have visited Graaf Reinet have remarked that it stands close by the" Valley of Desolation," so called from its absolute barrenness and the absence of life. In fact, Graaf Reinet is itself simply a section of that barren waste reclaimed by culture and irrigation. How completely the whole aspect of this. part of the valley has been transfigured may be inferred from the fact that in the garden of Rev. Charles Murray eighty different species or varieties of roses may be ·found in bloom. May thiR not be a precious symbol and type of what the Huguenot Seminary and its companion schools are doing for the wild wastes of the Dark Continent, flashing out rays to illumine the midnight, and sending forth streams to irrigate the barrenness, until where darkness and dearth abounded there shall be a radiance as of a morning without clouds, and a fertility as of an earthly Eden !
" The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom like the garden of the Lord."
[Apropos of the foregoing, we gladly publish a letter from Rev. George S. Malan, of Montagu, Cape Colony, giving additional information about the work in South Africa.-EDIToR.] The Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape Colony counts upward of 100 congregations, with an aggregate membership of about 90,000 ; the number of souls being about 200,00'0. Our ministers are trained at the Theological College * of our church at Stellenbosch. Some four years ago one of the settled ministers of our church (Rev. Helm) was led by the Lord to give up his congregation in the colony and devote himself to mission work. Our church had already at the time five mission stations outside the borders of the colony. These were each under the superintendence of a resident white missionary, assisted by several lady workers as teachers, and by evangelists (native) for the work among the outlying kraals. To one of these stations, situated in the north of the Transvaal, our brother minister went as assistant to our veteran missionary there, who after nearly twenty * It was fouuded in 1859, and has since then supplied the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa with upward of 120 ministers. years of ,unceasing toil in the mission field, had grown weak and aged in the Master's service.
Our people were never adverse to mission work; and as a whole our church contributed well for the cause.
This was, however, a new departure. A minister giving up his congre- gation to go to the heathen was something unknown before. A new im- pulse seemed to be given in that way to the good cause. More liberal con- tributions followed, and greater interest. This was the result also of a visit to the colony, and of addresses given everywhere by our veteran mis- sionary (Mr. Hofmeyer), who was enabled to leave his work for a short time through the assistance afforded him by Brother Helm.
At the same time, or thereabout, a society was started among the theo!
logical students of the theological college, known as the Students' Mis- sionary Society, with the object of getting contributions for the cause, but most of all to create a love for mission work among the future m~isters of the church. '
Not long after the ministers of the church formed among themselves a Ministers' Missionary Society.' This society has since sent out a~d is now supporting two missionaries in Nyassaland, in the vicinity of the sta- tions of the Scotch church. One of these missionaries is a son of one of the ministers of our ,Church, a young Ulan of ability and promise, who passed through his full theological course here, and after that had a few years' training in medicine, etc., at the Edinburgh University. Last year -especiaI1y through the influence of some American teachers from Mt.
Holyoke, engaged as such at the lIuguenot Seminary, Wellington, a large and flourishing educational institute for young ladies-a Woman's Mis- sionary Society was formed, with several branches throughout the colony, for the purpose specially of sending out and supporting lady helpers to the missionaries at our various mi~sion stations.
Toward the end of last year the session of our Synod took place.
Brother Helm from the Transvaal mission field (Zoutpausberg) was present.
lie earnestly advocated the claims of the Banyai. This tribe of Kaffirs in- habit a very healthy and fertile country north ot' the Transvaal and east of Matabeleland. The king of the latter country, a savage despot, con- siders the Banyai as his slaves, and has hitherto, for obvious reasons, re- fused evangelists the right of settling and laboring there. Attempts made by our church in previous years to send evangelists there proved vain, and even fatal to the life of one of them. But what hath the Lord wrought!
The British Soutb African Chartered Company obtains from the imperial Government a ~harter to settle in and develop those 'regions, especially Mashonaland, which lies more or less in between Matabeleland and Banyai- land. This company goes there with an armed police force, several hun- dreds strong, for the protection of its chartered rights, builds forts, etc., in short, colonizes the country, and in this way forms an effectual barrier for the Banyai against the oppressions and despotism of the Matabele. All at once the Lord has opened Banyailand. Brother Helm had just returned from a visit to that country when he appeared in the Synod. And now the Synod has decided, on his urgent appeals, to send, as soon as possible, three or four more ordained missionaries, men fully trained at the theological college, to occupy the open field-some in Banyailand, and others to stay at Zoutpausberg, and so enable the church to establish there a Training Institute for native evangelists, who by the side of the white mis. sionaries can do the great work waiting for us to be done there. Surely the Lord reigneth among the heathen! His blessed Kingdom must and will come also in those dark regions of South Africa. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly !
MONTAGU, CAPE COLONY, SOUTH AFRICA, January 26, 1891.
Dr. Arthur Mitchell, of New York, says of the rise and progress of woman's work for woman: "Great was the surprise of the entire Presbyterian Church when the first year the women sent to the Board *27,000, their greater snrprise when the next year it was $67,000, the third year, $87,000, the fourth year, $96,000, increasing the amount each year of the fifteen, except in one instance, until it has reached $250,000." Dr. Mitchell told of a good old doctor of divinity who, being on a committee on missions in the General Assembly, told in the report of what the women had done, gracefully Ilnd kindly giving them all due credit, but adding in humorous fashion, " You know the women are good collectors." "Can it be possible," thought Dr. Mitchell, who sat there listening, "that the good doctor does not know more of the sources from whence these women have their strength. I' They have three never-failing fountains from which to draw. The first, Organization. The work has been done systematically, until nearly all our churches have Woman's Foreign Missionary Societies, and even the children have their mission bands. Second, Information. They are far in advance of the men's Board in the number and character of their publications. They have, among other things, given to the world one of the best books on missions ever written, the " Historical Sketches of Missions." Influenced by Woman's Work, the Board improved the Foreign Missionary, until it seemed to have taken on a new life. Third, is the Sympathy existing between the women at home, who are interested in missions, and the missionaries in the field.
Dr. Smith, of Baltimore, says that he has, closely observed, from its be. ginning, this work of woman for woman, and at the close of fifteen years of trial and triumph, rejoiced to say that woman had found her tl'lle sphere in work for the Master, which leads her to the foot of the cross. The cross has always had a strange attraction for woman. Yes, even that plain wooden cross on Calvary drew all the Marys about it. This society has proved its right to a new name, Esther, the morning star, which shines brightly just hefore the dawning, and ushers in the glorious Sun of Rillhteousness.
TIlEl D1VINE AND SUPERNATUltAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
THE DIVINE AND SUPERNATURAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
IF anywhere we might expect to see Divine and providential manifesta- tions rising toward the supernatural, it is in the spbere of foreign missions, because they, in a pre-eminent degree, seek to honor God, express the mind and purposes of Christ, have their spheres of operation amid perils and dangers. encountered only that error and evil may be overthrown and God have the glory, which is His supreme righ~.
The missionary enterprise bears two features distinctly expressive of the Divine presence and blessing. First, these only can explain the origin, his- tory, and progress of the enterprise. Then there occur in its affairs a series of incidents which more than point at personal and supernatural intervention.
1. God must have put it into the hearts of His servants to form these societies. They are not after the manner of men, since they involve out- lay, trouble, responsibility, yet forbid any of the usual incentives of a return in money, honor, or personal aggrandizement.
2. These enterprises were all begun after much prayer. They not only were born and cradled in an atmosphere of prayer, but have lived in such an atmosphere.
3. There are manifold evidences of Divine interposition and guidance in the manner in which obstacles have been removed, openings made for their efforts, and snitable agencies for the most varied spheres provided.
4. In many instances the agents to begin the work and to nurture it into strength, both at home and abroad, have evidently been called of God and prepared for the spheres they have filled. So was it with Count Zinzendorf, the father and founder of the Christian Knowledge Society j the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel j the Baptist and London Societies j the American Board j the first Danish mission, and Mr. Hudson Taylor's. So was it with the pioneers: Hans Engedi, in Greenland j Zeigenbalg, Plutschan, Schultze, and Schwartz, in South India; Carey, ifarchman, Ward, and Duff, in Bengal ; Mor~ison, in China; Judson, in .Burmah j Moffat, in South Africa, and many others.
5. The manner in which, now for some three generations, this work has been sustained, and with steadily growing liberality, has nothing in the history of human effort to compare with it for disinterestedness, persistence, and widespread self-denial. It has come to pass that after years of detraction, some millions of people, unusually thoughtful and considerate of their expenditllre-most.ly belonging to the lower middle class of society -contribute spontaneously for th~ love of Christ, almost all in small sums. an aggregate amount of two and one half millions a year. (2 Chron. 5: 11-14.) 6. A Divine gnidance and control is surely seen in the direction Of tlJese ·societies. Considering that they h:l'1." had to originate policies; to enter on spheres but little known; to discover the best methods of opera- tion; to meet all manner of difficulties; to conduct their operations in countries most diverse, ·among all classes and conditions of non-Christian 'people, and to disburse annually an aggregate sum which has grown from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, one may marvel at the few great mistakes that have been made, the general good sense and practica- bility of their policies, and the honor and integrity with which their affairs have been conducted. No class of commercial, financial, or national under- takings can show a record as free from stain.
7. Equally noteworthy is the integrity of missionaries. Thousands of them have lived for years away from the rJstraints of civilized society, where the inducements to live loosely, to become mercenary, and to misuse power are strong. But how few have made shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience! Contrast the lives and conduct of missionaries in every quarter of the globe with those of adventurers, travellers, traders, where the two classes come into contact with barbarous or semi-barbarous races!
8. The success of missions. Their results prove them to be of Divine origin and to have the Divine blessing. Here it can only be pointed out, (1) that no doubt it always has been a most arduous task to make anyone a true Christian, or to overthrow the superstitions of any race in favor of Christianity. (2) That considering all the conditions of the stupendous problr-m, the marvel is that missions have been as successful as they are proved to be by the Divine change that has passed over the natures and the lives of hundreds of thousands of heathen people; by the change from heathenism to Christianity on the part of at least four million persons, and by many changes tending toward Christianity in the opinions, sentiments, customs, and condition of many races.
The only adequate explanation of all these facts and phenomena is, that connected with Christianity there is a personal God who interposes in human affairs, a Divine King who rules all things, and is guiding the affairs of the Christian Church (Matt. 28: 18-20; Eph. 1 :.15-23; Col. 1 : 9-20), and a Holy Spirit who potentially affects the thoughts, feelings, opinions, lives, and even moral·and spiritual natures of men (John 16 : 7-15 ; Gal. 5: 13-26; 2 Cor. 2 : 14-17.) Second, these great truths, assumed everywhere in Scripture, embodied in their history and the lives of saintly persons they record, find a plMe in the experience of the sen'ants of God now, and especially of those who have strong and simple faith, and choose their fields of action in heathen lands. (Ps. 35; 91; Mark 16 : 15-20; 2 Tim. 3: 10-13; 2 Cor. 11 : 16-33; 12 : 1-13.) 1. They are singularly preserved from the perils of the sea. The Moravian missionary ship, for instance, has sailed to and from Labrador for 120 years without any serious accident, though the voyage is an unusually precarious one. The case is so exceptional that the experienced Lord Gambier declared that he considered the continued preservation of this ship the most remarkable occurrence in maritime history that had corne to hi8 knowledge. * And this is but a small part of the MOr1lvian testimony. During 158 years, 2300 of their missionaries have sailed to foreign lands, hut only eleven times has shipwreck resulted in the loss of life. Of all the children of missionaries sent home to Europe in charge of friends, not one has per- ished at sea. And so it is with missions generally. A careful investiga- tion of the nautical affairs of any society will show how few missionary vessels have been lost, and how few missionaries or missionary families have perished by shipwreck.
2. Missionaries in some parts of Africa, India, and the Indian Archipelago have to live and travel where deadly reptiles and beasts of prey are numerous, but i.~ there an instance of one of them thus dying?
3. Their protection from violent men is very marked. The escape of five Malagasy refugees to England was a series of providential interventions. Three of them were chiefly sustained for six months in a forest by food brought by a friend a distance of fifty miles. One of them would have been apprehended by soldiers in a house where she was hiding had not the noise made by cr()w~ given warning of their approach. On another occasion she only escaped by lying in a bog with her head concealed in rushes. She was recognized by a slave, who told her master, but he would not believe her. A house in which she was hidden was searched, but she was not found. On their flight to the coast they had to travel by night, often lost their way, had to avoid villages, soldiers, and spies, to be ferried across a river swarming with alligators, where the boatmen were on the watch for fugitives. H~w they escaped was a marvel to their enemies, to themselves, and to their friends. t On one occasion Livingstone had to pass through a dense· forest along a narrow path. In one pIneo the path was obstructed, and men stationed to kill him. A large spear hurlcc1. past almost grazed his back. "As," he writes, "they IJ,re expert with the spear, I don't know how it missed, except that he was too sure of his aim, and the good hand of God was upon me." All his party were allowed to pass a certain place when another spear was thrown at him by an unseen assailant, and it missed him by about a foot in front.
Further on he saw a gigantic tree on fire, but felt no alarm until he saw it .come straight toward him and fall a yard behind him. Had the branches not previously been rotted off, he could scarcely have escaped. "Thus, three times in one day," he says, " was I delivered from impending death.
The first missionaries to the Fegeans were exposed to great perils, for not only were they threatened with death, but stood again and again before mfuriated men, who avowed their purpose to kill them, as repeatedly, and.
* "Brief Account of the Moravian Missionary Ships Employed for Labrador."
t "Madagascar: its Missions aud its Martyrs." without compunction they killed and ate their own people. "On one occa- sion they were told that they too would soon be killed. The king's Bon in a fury came for this purpose, and only with great difficulty was restrained. The peoplo seemed bent on mischief and murder. One night they assem- bled near the house of the missionaries, giving unmistakable signs of their intent. The missionaries and their wives resolved to die praying. But &S they prayed a ringing shout outside announced that the murderous purpose of the multitude was abandoned. * The autobiography of J. G. Paton abounds with providential occur- rences. These are some of them: Some of his converts resolved to visit an inland village much opposed to Christianity. They were told, "If you come you will be killed." They went, nevertheless, unarmed. Many spears were thrown at them. Some they evaded, others they caught or turned aside in an incredible ·manner. The heathen, amazed at these men coming unarmed, and instead of throwing back the spears, still pressing on in a calm and cheerful manner, desisted, perfectly overawed. The chief and all his tribe came into the school of Christ, and, Mr. Paton adds: " There is, perhaps, not an island in these Southern seas, among all those won for Christ, where similar acts of heroism on the part of converts can· not be recited by every missionary to the honor of our poor natives and to the glory of Christ."
For months, almost years, he lived through repeated outbreaks of sav- age hostility. Of one of these occasions he writes: "The inhabitants for miles around united in seeking our destruction, but God put it into strange hearts to save us." " My enemies seldom slackened their hateful designs. against my life, however calmed or baffled for the moment. When natives in large numbers were at my house, a man furiously rushed on me with his axe; but a chief snatched a spade, with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus. I knew not for one brief hour when or how attack might be made; and yet with my ~rembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, calmness and peace and resigna- tion reigned in my soul" (Col. 1 : 19).
"A wild chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded mus- ket, and though often direCted against me, God restrained his hand.
" One evening I awoke three times to hear a chief and his men trying to force the door of my houso. God restrained them again; and next – m"orning the report went all round the harbor that those who tried to shoot me were smitten weak with fear, and that' shooting would not do. ' A plan was therefore set on foot to fire the premises and club us if we attempted to escape."
"One day, while toiling away at my house, a war chief, his brother, and a large party of armed men surrounded the plot where I was working.
* "Fege and the Fegeans." By Thomas Williams. They watched. me for some time in silence, and then every man levelled a musket straight at my head."
After a strange, terrible journey in the night through an unknown region, dangerous to strangers, and abounding with enemies, the natives who heard of his escape, exclaimed: "Surely any of us would have been killed. Your Jehovah God alone thus protects you and brings you home. "
On his final flight with a few friends, they lIaw, as far as the eye could reach, the shore covered with armed men, and, overwhelmed with fear, his native friends hopelessly exclaimed: "Missa, it's of no use, we shall all be killed and eaten to-day I" Nowar, a friendly chief, said to Paton: " Misse, sit down and pray to our Jehovah God, for if He does not send deliverance now we are all dead men. " Presently he said: " Missa, Jehovah is hearing. They are all standing still." So it was, though there was nothing whatever to oppose their advance; and presently the host turned and marched back in great silence.
Instances like the following have been by no means rare : Kapaio, a native of one of the New Hebrides, confessed, after he became a Christian, that for many months he was on the watch to take Mr. Geddie's life. He was a strong and powerful man, familiar with violence and bloodshed, and one blow from his club would have caused death. One night, as he was on the watch, Mr. Geddie went out of his house alone and passed close by the bush which concealed Kapaio. Now was the opportunity for which he had long waited. He grasped his club, but he was powerless to strike; a strange sensation came over him, and he could not hurt the man who was entirely in his power, whom he hated and came to kill.
4. The manner in which the temporal wants of missionaries are supplied is remarkable. No class of civilized men going among the uncivili2ed are really so dependent, or have as few material resources as missionaries, and yet in a manner which is extraordinary, their daily wants are met. Is there an instance on record of a missionary or his family dying of want excepting through folly or imprudence 1 And in many cases of exigency supplies have come evidently from God.
Dr. Fisher writes from the Garenganze Mission, South-East Africa, December 8th, 1889 : "Yesterday two circumstances occurred which we cannot doubt, were ordered by our blessed Lord. In the morning our meal bag which supplied us for three weeks was empty. We had told the nati,.es for five days that we wanted meal, but none came. In the afternoon meal was brought by five different women, which was all freshly pounded, the whole just filling our bag. Then six carriers came yesterday wanting their pay. I had no cloth with me, and wanted three different varieties in order to pay them. As it happened, three of the six loads which they brought were bales, and to my surprise each a different kind of cloth, so I was able to pay the men off. I took both these circumstances as the manifest and loving care of the Lord for us. "
S~me of the Moravian missions in the North of Europe and America supply a continuous series of such instances, since they are placed where almost all their supplies must be drawn from other countries, and the sup- plies, though often interrupted, hardly ever fail.
So it is with large numbers of missionaries who cast themselves directly on the providence of God. He honors their trust.
5. God answer8 prayer. Here is an instance: Two years ago the lo()al secretary of a branch of the Gleaner's Union obtained some African curi- osities from the C. M. House t,o exhibit at a Mother's Meeting. She was instructed to forward them next day to a clergyman in a distant town. She sent them off j and the same night, being sleepless, it occurred to her to pray that the clergyman, of whom she only knew the name, might use them effeotively, and that his influence might be instrumental in sending forth some young missionary from his parish. This she did, by the space of two hours j and from that day, every month for two year8, she looked in The Gleaner to see if anyone had been accepted from that town. In a recent number she found, to her intense joy, that the clergyman him8elf was going out! The world would call this a striking coincidence j what do we call it ?
So, when some of the friends of the China Inland Mission, moved by the wants of that great empire, united in definite prayer that the Lord would enable them to lIelid 100 more missionaries, the prayer was heard, and the 100 were sent.
The "Lone Star" Mission among the Telugus was saved from extinction and nurtured into extraordinary success by prayer. When it was very low, a missionary; his wife, and three native helpers on the first day of the year ascended a hill overlooking Ongole. They saw the large town and some fifty villages wholly given to idolatry, and, moved by the sight, each one in turn prayed that God would send a missionary to Ongole. The prayer was heard, though it was not answered for twelve years; but in little more than twelve other years the little church of eight souls had become 12,000 tried converts with a yet greater number of general adherents.
When the church numbered 143 members, they made it a special request, during the week of prayer early in 1869, that God would convert and add to the church during the year 500 souls. The number baptized into the Ongole church was 573, as well as 53 into the neighb,oring church at Nellore. And that was but the beginning of blessing.
At a special missioMry service, Dr. Ryland, And!:,ew Fuller, and others, solemnly agreed to pray for the immediate conversion of J abez, the son of Dr. Carey, then in India. Some time after a letter was received from Dr. Carey, giving details of the time and manner of his son's conversion, from which it appeared that he was converted at the precise time they had united in prayer.
The Rev. James Calvert, * acting on the idea that prayer and effort for 1he conversion of selected individuals would be honored by God, thus • The Life of James Calvert. prayed for the conversion of Thakumbau King of Fege. His prayers were heard, ~nd this greatly tended to bring about the man-ellous spiritual revo- lution witnessed in these il!lands.
6. The evidence is ample of Divine interposition and guidance. For instance, the chief of Fallungia, West Africa, prayed for twenty years for a missionary, and one was found in an unexpected manner. * So Barnabas Shaw was thus directed to his important sphere. He was not all~wed to settle near Cape Town, so he relilolved to seek a sphere in the interior. For a month he travelled on, not knowing whither he went; but as be halted, the chief of Little Namagualand, with four attendants, halted beside him. They were on their way to Cape Town in search of a missionary, now greatly desired by their tribe. They and he thought they saw in this unexpected meeting the finger of God; and Shaw's great success in subsequent years proved that they were not mistaken.
Hundreds of missionaries, looking back on their past careers, have been conscious that they were guided to their scenes of labor by God, and have noted numerous events in their history which neither chance, nor coincidence, nor human aid adequately explain.
So, too, of events. Our belief in a personal God and an overruling Providence justifies us in believing that He sent Carey to India to give so many versions of the Scriptures to the people. That He sent that copy of the Pushtoo Bible to the Afghan, who kept it " from fire and from water" for thirty years, so that when it was resolved to reprint this Serampore version, this copy was the only one that could be found in India; who guided that copy of the Japanese New Testament, floating in one of the harbors of that empire, into lands where it was greatly blessed by God; who sent through shipwreck and heavy loss the ruined merchant to Mr. Ross, of Manchuria, when he was at a loss to find anyone competent to assist him to translate the New Testament into Corean. Surely the God of Israel still guides His people, going before them in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.
And He avenges and punishes as well as guides. Listen! In January, 1878, the Day-Spring, the mission ship of the New Hebrides, was wrecked on a coral reef. She was bought at an auction sale by a French slaving company, who managed to get her off the reef, and intended to use her in the Kanaka traffic-a euphemism for South Sea slavery. This filled the missionaries and native converts with horror and alarm, for they knew that, deceived by the name, many simple natives would be allowed on board only to find, instead of a mission vessel, that they were entrapped for the most brutal, unjust, and cruel of purposes, and that revenge would perhaps be taken for the wrong done on the missionaries, as in the case of Bishop Patterson. What could be done 1 Nothing but cry to God, which all the friends of the mission did night and day, not without tears. Listen! The French slavers, anchoring their prize in the * "Remarklble Pl'ovidences, " p. 205. By the Rev. J. R. Phillips. bay, and greatly rejoicing, went on shore to celebrate the event. They drank and feasted and revelled. But that night a mighty storm arose. The old Day-Spring dragged her anchor, and at daybreak she was seen again on the reef, this time with her back broken in two, and forever unfit for service either fair or foul !
Speaking of the Europeans who trade in unrighteousness, Mr. Paton says: " Thousands upon thousands of pounds were made in the sandalwood trade, but it was a trade steeped in blood and indescribable vice. Nor could God's blessing rest on them or their ill-gotten gains. I have scarcelyknown one of the traders who did not come to ruin and poverty.
" The money that came in to the ship-owners was a conspicuous curse. Fools made a mock at sin, thinking that no one cared for these poor savages; but their sin did find them out."
So of the enemies and friends of the worship, as it was called on Tanna, Mr. Paton says: "This Miaki and his followers were a scourge and terror to the whole island of Tanna. They intensely hated Nowar because he would not join in their cruelties. Yet he and Manumauaud, Sirawia, and Taimungo continued to live long after war and death had swept all the others away. The first three lived to be very old men, and to the last they made a profession of being Christians." (Ps. 7 : 8-17 j Ps. 58 j Eccles. 8: 11-13 j Rom. 11 : 2-16 j Rev. 18: 4-8.) THE MISSIONARY CALL.
TUNE: "Still There's More to Follow."
Hark, the bugle call of God ! Down the ages sounding, " Go ye, and proclaim abroad News of grace abounding !"
CHORus.-Tell the news! Tell the news! Let the farthest nation Hear the sound, the world around, Tidings of salvation!
Let the sacred heralds go, Through the vales and mountains j Steady streams of trensure flow From the golden fountains! [CHORUS.
Go to woman, now enslaved [CHORUS. In her household prison, Tell her, you whom Jesus saved, He was dead-is risen J Hosts of God, march round the wall !
While the trumpet's pealing j Satan's mighty towers will fall, God's own power revealing! CHORUS.
A.T. P.
THE PENTECOST ON THE CONGO
THE PENTECOST ON THE CONGO.
BY J. R. MILLER, D.D., PHILADELPHIA.
THE Acts of the Apostles closes like an unfinished book. The truth is, it is an unfinished book, and new chapters are continually being added to it. The wonderful stories of modern missions belong really to the samevolume.
Few narratives of missionary experience in all this century surpass in thrilling interest the account of the work of the past twelve years at Banza Manteke, in Africa. In 1879 the Rev. Henry Richards went from Eng. land to Africa as a missionary of the Livingstone Inland Mission. He established a station at Banza Manteke, one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the Congo, and ten miles south of that great river. In its earlier years the mission was transferred to the American Baptist Missionary Union, and now there is a large Baptist church there, in the midst of a great heathen population, upon which it is pouring the light of the Gospel.
Mr. Richards came to this country last year to tell the wonderful story of the Lord's work on the Congo. This story is so full of interest that it is here condensed from the missionary's own accounts into a simple narrative.
Stanley travelled from Zanzibar around the lakes and down the Congo for a thousand days, and though many thousands of people passed before him each day, he did not find one that knew the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1879 two missionaries were sent out to penetrate this trackless region. They succeeded in getting some distance into the country to a place called Palabala. Mr. Richards, with some others, was sent to try to get, if possible, to Stanley Pool. But the difficulties were very great–insurmountable for men of any but intrepid courage and indomitable persistence. At length the missionaries reached Banza Manteke, and being unable to go any farther, they decided to stay there and establish a station. There were many villages near by, and the people were inclined to be friendly.
They had only one tent, and they built a hut of the long grass that grew all about them. There, in . September, 1879, Mr. Richards fonnd himself alone among people who were entirely unknown to him. He knew nothing either of their customs or of their language. He at once began to study the people, tut, not knowing a word of their language, found it very difficult. Some things, however, he soon learned. For one, they all seemed to be thieves. They would take everything on which they could lay their hands. He would look into their faces and accuse them of stealing his things, but they would deny it without the slightest hesitation.
Mr. Richards gives a most interesting description of his experience in learning their language. They had no dictionaries, no grammars, no books, no literature of any kind. No white man had ever learned the language. He took a note-book and determined to write down pbonetically everything he could hear, with the meaning that he supposed belonged to the word. In this way he soon had a number of words, phrases, and sentences, and at once began to use them. Although the people would laugh at his pronunciations and at the way he put his words together, he did not mind it, but persisted in his effort.
Some words he found it very hard to get. He noticed that the affection between the mothers and their children was very strong, and he wished to get the word for mother. At last he thought he had succeeded, but afterward he learned that the word which he supposed meant mother really stood for a full-grown man. He was three months in finding out the word for yesterday.
At length he began to try to get hold of the grammar of the language. He began with the nouns, and sought for the way of forming plurals. He expected to discover some modification at the end of the words, but could not detect any such change. After much experimenting he learned that there were sixteen classes of nouns, with as many modes of forming the plural. In like manner he discovered that there were seventeen different classes of verbs, with very many tenses besides the ordinary present, past, and future, each having its specific form. The shades of meaning in these variations are often very delicate and beautiful.
The language is not, as one would suppose, a mere jargon, but is really very beautiful, euphonious and flowing, with numerous inflections. When one has acquired it it is very easy to preach in it and to translate the Scriptures into it. Says Mr. Richards: "I think if some of our best linguists were to try to form a perfect language, they could not do better than to follow the Congo. It seems to be altogether superior to the people; and there must have been a time when they were in a high state of civilization, from which in some way they have degenerated."
After learning in this patient way enough of the language to use it a little, he" began to try to find out the customs, superstitions, and religiou of the people. He found that they believed in a great Creator, who made all things. He asked them why they did not worship this Nzambi, and they said they did not think He was a good God and they did not thank Him. He did not concern Himself about them j He was too far away. They had little images cut out of wood-some like themselves, with birds' heads, beaks, and claws; others like animals. These are their gods. They trust in them for protection from harm, sickness, death, or misfortune, hut never expect to receive any blessings from them. They arc believers in witchcraft, to which they attribute all evils and misfortunes. They have charms to counteract witchcraft. They have witch-doctors, for whom they send if anyone is sick. 'The doctor comes, and with a great many incantations tries to drive the demon out. Sometimes the doctor points out some person as the witch, and this person then has to take the test by poison. If he ejects it, they say he is innocent i but if it kiJll~ him they say he was ~uilty. The missionary at length began to show them that sickness and death, and all misfortunes, were due not to witchcraft, but to sin. He gave them the Bible account of the creation and the fall. Then he began to try to show them th/!-t God is not only a great Creator, all-powerful, but that He is also kind and loving. They would ask many questions, some of which Mr. Richards found it hard to answer to their satisfaction. He continued, however, for four years, teaching them about the creation, the fall, the flood, and the history of the Israelites, thinking it necessary to give them some idea of the Old Testament before beginning with the New. But the people were just as much heathen at the end of this time as when he first went among them. There was no evidence of any change. They did not feel themselves to be sinners.
About this time Mr. Richards was at home for a season of rest, and while there he spoke to one who had had much experience in mission work, saying he did not see how he could preach a Saviour until the people felt themselves to be sinners. He was advised to go back and preach the law -for it is the law that convinces of sin. So, on reaching Banza Manteke again, the first thing he did was to translate the Ten Commandments, and then he began to read and expound them to the people. They said the com- mandments were very good, and claimed that they had kept them. The most plain and personal applications of the law made no impression on them. So two years more passed with no result; the people were no better than when he first went to them. He began to grow hopeless of any good from preaching among them. He had gained their respect, and they were kind to him, but that was all.
At last, in his discouragement, Mr. Richards began to study the Scrip- tures anew for himself, feeling that there was some mistake in his preacb~ ing. In the early days souls were converted; why not now ~ Had the Gospel lost any of its power ~ If heathen then turned from their idols to serve the living God, why should not these people in Banza Manteke do the same? He studied the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and began to see his mistake. The commission is not, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Law," but" Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." .
It was the turning-point in the work of this lonely missionary. He determined to preach the Gospel. Five times in four chapters Peter ac.- cuses the people of the crucifixion of Jesus. Another thing that struck him was that the disciples were bidden to wait until they were clothed with power from on high. He felt that he had not this power. He went again to his work, determined to preach the Gospel, and cry to God for the promised power.
Then he had to decide precisely what the Gospel was. If he preached Jesus and Him crucified, the people would want to know who Jesus was.
He decided to take Luke's gospel, as this seemed the most complete and the most suitable for Gentiles. He began tran~lating ten or twelve verses a day, and then read and expounded them, asking God to bless His qwn Word. At once the people were more interested in the Gospel than they had been when he preached the law. As he went on he was greatly encouraged.
When he came to the sixth chapter of Luke, thirtieth verse, a difficulty arose. The people were notorious beggars. They would ask for anything they saw that pleased their eye-his blanket, his knife, his plate ~and whIm he would say he could not give the things to them, they would reply," You can get more." Here now were the words of the Gospel: "Give to every man that asketh of thee." The missionary was greatly perplexed as to what to do with that verse. He let his helper in translation go away, and went to his room to pray over the matter. The time for the daily serviM was drawing near. What should he do 1 Why not pass over that verse? But his conscience told him that would not be honest dealing with the Scripture. Time for service came j but, instead of advancing he went back to the beginning of the Gospel, reviewing the earlier part. Thus he would gain time for fuller consideration of the text. Still he could not find that it meant anything but just what it said. He consulted a commentary, and it said Jesus was giving general principles, and that we must use com::non sense in interpreting His words. But this did not satisfy the missionary. If we are allowed to interpret oue Scripture in this way, why not others? Leaving the meaning to be decided by " common sense" seemed a very unsafe course.
After a fortnight of prayer and consideration he concluded that our Lord meant just what He said j and he went and read it to the people. He told them that this was a very high standard, and it would probably take him a lifetime to live up to it j but he meant to live what he preached to them. After the address the natives began to ask him for things, and he gave them what they wanted. He wondered whereunto this thing would grow i but he told the Lord he could not see any other meaning in His words. However, the people were evidently deeply impressed by his course. One day he overheard one say: " I got this from the white man." Then another said: "I am going to ask him for such a thing. " But a third said: " No i buy it if you want it." The leaven of grace was working in their hearts. After that they rarely ever asked him for anything.
Mr. Richards then went on translating and expounding Luke's gospel, and the interest continually increased. The climax was reached when he came to the account of the crucifixion of Christ. There was a large congregation the day he read this passage. He reminded the people of the kindness and goodness of Jesus and of His works of mercy, and then pointed to Him nailed upon the cross between two thieves, and said: " Jesus never would have died if we had not been sinners j H was because of your sins and mine that He died." The impression was very deep. It seemed that indeed the Holy Ghost had fallcn~upon the people. He continued preaching. One day, as they were returning from a ser- vice, Lutale, the man who had helped him in translating, began to sing one of the Congo hymns. His face shone with joy, and he said: "I do be- lieve those words; I do believe Jesus has taken away my sin~; I do believe He has saved me." After seven years of toil and weary waiting and suffering here was the first convert at Banza Manteke. At once Lutale began testifying what the Lord had done for him. But the people became his enemies and tried to poison him. He had' to leave his town and live with Mr. Richards for safety. For a time there were no more converts. However, the people were stirred. By and by the king's son became a Christian. Shortly after this another man came wit,h his idols, and placing them on a table, said, savagely, that he wanted to become a Christian. He soon began to preach. So the work went on until ten were converted. These all had to leave their own homes, however, as they were threatened with death. The missionary now shut up his house, and taking these men with him, went from town to town preaching the Gospel. The people were greatly moved, and one after another came over to Christ's side. Two daily meetings were held, and inquirers were numerous. The work continued and was blessed, until all the people immediately around Banza Manteke had abandoned their heathenism. More than one thousand names were enrolled in a book of those who gave ~vidence of real conversion.
Four years have now passed, and Mr. Richards has carefully noted the results of the work. Most of the converts are holding on their way. About three hundred have been baptized. The Church is earnest and spiritual. There has been much persecution, but the Christians have not been intimidated by this. Many examples of earnestness are reported. Materials for a chapel (provided through the liberality of Dr.· Gordon's church in Boston) were brought to a point fifty or sixty miles distant, and the people carried them all the way to Banza Manteke, over rough roads. Some of them went four or five times, each trip requiring a week. In all there were about seven hundred loads, of sixty pounds each, and the whole thapel was thus carried, and without charge.
The people, thieves before, became honest. Liars before, they now became truthful. They have also become industrious and cleanly. The women want to dress better. The men are more energetic and industrious. Witchcraft, poison-giving, and all such heathen practices were put away by those who confessed Christ. Many brought their idols, and at the first baptism they had a bonfire of images, destroying thus every vestige of Idolatry.
This sketch of the work at Banza Manteke, given almost in, the words of Mr. Richards, though greatly condensed, is' sufficiently full to indicate the method pursued and the different stages of progress. The story is of intense interest, and is also full of instruction not only for missionaries in heathen lands, but for Christian workers in any field.
AN AFRICAN DEVIL'S BUSINESS AliD ITS ARAB AGENTS
AN AFRICAN DEVIL'S BUSINESS AND ITS ARAB AGENTS; OR, THE SLAVE TRADE OF THE PRESENT DAY: WHO CARRIES IT ON, WHERE ARE THE SLAVES USED, AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP THE BUSINESS?
BY FREDERIC PERRY NUBLE, NEWBERRY LIBRARY, CHICAGO, ILL.
I.-THE FIELD AND THE HUNTERS.
Draw a line from Cape Verde to Cape Guardafui. Coast southward along Somauliland until you strike the equator. Run inland to Lake Vic- toria. Prolong an eastern boundary from its south-eastern corner to Lake Nyassa, and down the Shire River. Follow up the Zambesi to its source in Lake Dilolo ; then draw a line to Stanley Pool on the Congo, and fol- low the curve of the Gulf of Guinea, but at an average distance from the sea of about one hundred miles, until we come back to our starting.point in Senegambia. Thus, generaJly speaking, the Sahara, the Indian Ocean, the great lakes, the Zambesi, and the coast lands of the Atlantic constitute the boundaries within which the devil's-business of man-hcnting is pur- sued. With the exception of the Guinea coast and the west half of the Congo State, there is scarcely a recess into which the Arab has not pene- • trated. His hunting-grounds comprise, (1) the independent Soudan, (2) the for-mer Egyptian Soudan, (3) the heart of Central Africa, i.e., between the Congo and the lakes, and the Zambesi countries.
1. First and foremost among slave-stealers stand people from the east coast. These consist of shore tribes called Swahili, of half-caste Arabs, of resident Hindus called Banians, and of Portuguese in Mozambique, or up the Zambesi. Their boundaries of action lie between the Aruwimi, Lakes Albert-Edward and Victoria, Lake Nyassa and Shire River, the Zambesi as far as Victoria Falls, thence to Lake Bangweolo, where only yesterday , the Arabs instigated the Awamba negroes to pursue a most destructive sys- tem of slaving among the inhabitants of its northern and western shores; down the Lualaba-Congo to Nyangwe, whence they swing 100 miles west to Lumami River. Not more than 400 Arabs operate here; but they employ armed negroes in such numbers-Tippu Tib alone being reportfld to have 2000 men in his pay-that perhaps] 0,000 bandits wage war upon the blacks in this section. Until now the Free State post at Stanley Falls, even under Tippu Tib's governorship, kept the Arabs east of that point. But now that Tippu Tib is at Zanzibar, impotent with paralysis, his hotblooded kinsfolk are swarming over the barrier, and are fulfilling the prediction that they must yet be battled with. In March, 1891, seeing that the Free State's forces stop their passage across the Aruwimi, the slaveraiders turned north, reached the Welle, and threatened the Free State's port on that stream. The situation is alarming in the extreme, for the Congo State has no adequate revenue for military purposes, and America has robbed it of the means to secure itself. Its principal stations have
R .A
T SLAVE TRADE MAP OF ocEA EQUATORIAL, REPRINTE 0 FROM "T'HE ARABS IN CENTRAL ArRICA AND ATLAlo<E NYASSA IJ BY J,STEVENSON,F:R.S.E ..
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-Tracl<s ofSlaveCaravan.r and S love-Hunter.r.
["//lPJ~rjP~~e~~;::~ ~r;:;;:z~ -1~~~~~~~~~~·~~~~7~At~-~::~–~-·J~~ti.;(~~~~~~~~~~~<r~~~~ tit", Coast or Districts near it.
AN AFRICAN DEVn!S BUSINESS AND ITS ARAB AGENTS
been Zanzibar, Bagamoyo, Kilwa, and Quilimane (all on the coast), U-nyanyembe, U-jiji, and Kazembe's toward the lakes, with Nyangwe and Stanley Falls on the Congo. The main lines of travel were three: (1) Erom Manyuema via Tanganika Lake, U-jiji, and U-nyanyembe to Bagamoyo, Kilwa, and Zanzibar; (2) from Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, with a branch across Lake Nyassa to Mozambique; (3) from Lake Victoria to coast towns.
2. Next in power for evil come the slavers of the Egyptian Soudan, with Khartum as their centre. This territory comprises the Nile basin of 2,000,000 square miles, reaching from the Blue Nile to Lake Victoria 1500 miles south,and to the Welle River in the northeast quarter of the Congo State. There the Mabdist and the Zanzibaris lock hands. When Baker was appointed governor in 1869, he fuund 15,000 Egyptians, or Turks, engaged in slaving; and the number cannot now be less. Emin's former province of Equatoria and West Abyssinia are their .latest victims- Khartum, Fashoda, Sennaar, Gondokoro, and (formerly) Massowah the depots. The export route is the Nile, or overland through Darfur and Kordofan. In 1873 these fellows annually smuggled 50,000 slaves into Egypt, Tripoli, Arabia, Turkey, Persia, and eyen Turkestan. There are reasons for fearing the number to be as large to-day. The power and organization of the Khartum slavers may be inferred from the fact that during the Brussels Anti-slavery Conference, 200 delegates assembled at Khartum to devise measures for suppressiug Europe and America's rum traffic with Africa. They resolved to girdle Africa with dhows, confiscate every vessel containing liquor, and sell the crews into slavery. May the worst men lose !
3. The third principal source of supply is the native Soudan. This is about 2500 miles long by 500 wide, and forms one vast hunting ground, with Arabs from Morocco, Tripoli, or Kabylia as Nimrods. From Wadai these marauders penetrate to a point among the cannibal Nyams and dwarfs as far south as the Congo. Captives are transported to the market of Kuka, on Lake Tc,had, where about 10,000 are annually bought by Barbary dealers, and marched across the Sahara to the Fezzan, an oasis south of Tripoli. There they are sold to the south and east coasts of the Mediterranean. The sufferings en route have been so dreadful that very many succumb; and travellers unacquainted with the road need only follow the bones lying right and left. From the West Soudan, via Sok6to and Timbuktu, slaves are also sent to Morocco, where almost every town has its market. Throughout Africa nearly all Mohammedan towns arc receiving and distributing centres for the" black beasts." Morocco owns 50,000 slaves, and annually imports about 4000.
4. There are also minor sources; these, however, being less only by contrast. (1) In Congo State a domestic slave trade is fiercely pursued by large, powerful tribes between Stanley Pool and Stanley Falls. In this western half, as in general through the central belt extending from Senegambia to Uganda, the possession of many slaves is indispensable to tho dignity and power of head men, both in this life and after death. Their. decease is the signal for human sacrifices on a huge scale. Near the mouth of the Mobangi-Welle the inhabitants sell their war captives to the cannibals of its upper reaches expressly for food, and the latter even wage wars for the one object of capturing" long pig." (2) In Lunda, between Angola and the southwest of Congo State, Portuguese subjects enslave its people than dose around the sources of Zambesi River. Cameron was, in 18'75, informed that slaves (at least a few) were still exported from the Portuguese west coast. On the east coast the Portuguese (African and European) ship" black ivory" from Mozambique and Sofalaland. In 1880 the British Consul at Mozambique City rated the annual export at 3000 louIs; but an increased demand for ivory afterward gave the business fresh impulse, the two trades being hand and glove. In 1888 a Portuguese officer, reporting from his post in the interior, said of its commerce ,: " The lole trade of this district at present consists in slaves." Thus Portuguese authorities demonstrate that under their flag the slave trade has so increased and strengthened that to-day there is a yearly export of 10,000 slaves to Madagascar and the Comoros. (3) At the Gulf of Aden slaving is very active in Somauliland, where the slaves are bought or stolen from the Gallas inland, from Guragwe, and the Shillooks or Denkas. Abyssinia has many markets; and former Mahdists have swept thousands of its native Christians into slavery in Arabia. (4) Across the continent the natives of French Loanga, the German Cameroons, and Ashantee and Dahomey hunt their fellow-men relentlessly. (5) Uganda seems to link the Soudan and Zanzibar trades, since M'wanga formerly stole and sold 80,000 people each year, while one competent authority rated that export at 180,000 slaves. Central Africa contains 41 slave routes, varying from 100 to 1'000 miles in length; 16 slave-producing areas of less or larger extent, and 6 regions (several larger than Ireland) which have been all but depopulated, if not utterly unpeopled.
H.-THE METHODS.
The methods of slaving involve the commission of every crime. Before 18'70 slaving was generally commerce j to-day it is murder and robbery. Invasion of peaceful communities, not seldom prosperous or semi-civilized, firing villages at midnight, massacring terror-stricken men as they start from sleep to fall amid burning huts into sleep that knows no waking; kidnapping women and children, or holding them as hostages for a ransom of ivory from yet surviving fathers and husbands j and gratifying every instinct of lust and cruelty-all constitute its ways and means.
We wish, however, to scan the inner workings of the system, and must, therefore, concentrate attention upon Zanzibar as being fairly enough typical.
Among its commercial classes, none before 1890 exercised so much influence on the trade of East Africa as did the Banian, who number thousands. The Arabs are nearly all in their debt j and if a trader planned to journey to Uganda or Nyangwe or Nyassa for slaves or ivory, gum-copal or orchilla, he would borrow $5000 at fifty, sixty, or even seventy per cent interest, and purchase goods. At his journey's end they would have more than trebled in purchasing power. Leaving Bagamoyo or Kilwa with a caravan numbering 100, 300, or 500 pcople, our half-caste, who is mer- chant or murderer, as circumstances permit, takes several months to reach U -nyanyembe. In the maritime district kidnapping is seldom attempted, for the natives stand ready to avenge the slightest affront with bloody hands, and to use firearms whenever opportunity presents itself. From U-nyanyembe (Tabora) routes diverge to U-jiji and Uganda. Passing to U -jiji, he might either purchase slaves at its market or push into Manyema, 150 miles beyond Tanganika Lake (so Stanley pronounces and writes). At U-jji 5 dotti of cloth worth $7.50 would purchase a slave worth $30 at Zanzibar, while $6 would purchase ordinary males, whose value at U-nyanyembe would equal $25. Leaving $3500 as capital, this secured 464 slaves who, if surviving the march to Bagamoyo, realized $13,920 there-a net profit of $10,420. Nor is there reason to !luppose that their value in 1890 was less at marine marts, whence they could still be exported; and often the traders did better still, almost always returning with an enormous margin of gain.
Manyema, in 1865 an unknown country to these Arabs, has for twenty years been an El Dorado of ivory. When the first slaver returned in 1867 with a wealth of tusks and with tales of fabulous quantities of the precious article, the beaten tracks of Uganda and of Tanganika's coasts to east and south became comparatively deserted. Nevertheless, in the long band of country extending from Lake Victoria to Zambesi's wave the slaver has since ravaged and ruined so ruthlessly, that many populous, fertile districts have been reduced to deserts, and in every village around the great lakes no woman or child wandering ten minutes away has any likelihood of ever seeing home again. In Manyema firearms made even small parties of Arabs invincible. This helplessness and the ridiculously low price of ivory led to the new era in slaving, to the methods of the present day, and the rise of the Tagamoyos Tippu Tibs, and Ugarrowall.
Ivory cost, in copper wire or in beads, from one half to one and one quarter cents a pound in 1870-its value in Zanzibar being from $50 to $60 the 35 pounds. To-day that amount is worth $105, and is bought with bullets and blood. The new-comers, urged on by greed and ferocity, began the practice of wholesale massacre. They would accumulate tusk upon tusk for years, till great piles were buried beneath their huts. Suddenly they would "one day pick a quarrel, seize herds and goods, and shoot the men, sparing only enough to carry ivory. They fired the village, and the march worse than death had begun. Multitudes perish merely as beasts of burden; but ·for every slave-porter escaping or succumbing, a man is stolen or bought from the nearest tribe. This supplies its losses by seizure from Beighbors, and thus the caravan, even on the road, Cfl'ates a constant circu- lation of human cl1rrency in every local centre traversed. The Arab wreaks a ruin even greater than the annihilation of tribes outright. He keeps the region in a perpetual ferment, pits chief against chief to prevent com- bination, and either makes tools of tribes likely to become dominant, or shatters them by instigating rebellion among their dependants.
It is in the Congo forest that the frightful atrocities of the Arab slavers reach the depths of hellishness. Within an area equal to France and the Iberian peninsula, Tagamoyo, Tippu Tib, and Kilonga.Longa have suc- ce8sively harried, kidnapped, and murdered, till exaggeration by the nar- rator is. sheer impossibility. The sailor was right who said, on seeing slavers, " If the devil don't catch those fellows, we might as well have no devil at all."
November 27th, 1883, when founding establishments in the :Congo State, Stanley met with the Arabs of Nyangwe. He discovered that this horde of banditti-for in reality and without disguise they were nothing else-had started in July, 1882, from a village half way from Nyangwe to Stanley Falls. The ban 1 numbered 300 fighting men armed with flint- locks, double-barrelled percussion guns, and a few breech-loaders; their domestic slaves and the women doubled the numbers. For 11 months they had raided the left bank of the Congo for 100 miles, and as far north as Aruwimi-mouth ; then they had spent 5 'months on Congo's east shore in the same cruel work. This territory comprises 34,570 square miles- exactly 2000 more than Ireland-and had possessed nearly 1,000,000 peo- ple. One hundred and eighteen villages, comprising 43 districts, had , been devastated to gain the scant profit of 2300 women and children, and about 2000 tusks. Stanley calculated that if those 118 towns had only 1000 inhabitants each, the Arabs had a profit of merely two per cent, and that after these captives had undergone the voyage to Nyangwe, camp life, and the pests which miseries breed, there would remain only a scant one per cent on the bloody venture.
Horrible as are these facts from slavery's charnel-house of horrors, they do not begin to be the worst. Five expeditions, each as great as the pres- ent one, had already come and gone with their booty, and had completely weeded the region. If each expedition was as successful as Stanley's acquaintances, the slavers got 5000 people safely to Nyangwe j but 5000 out of 1,000,000 is one half of one per cent, or 5 slaves out of 1000 per- sons-the poorest possible profit. The 2300 slaves had cost 2500 souls shot, and 1300 dying by the way j and at this rate the 5000 slaves surviv- ing at Nyangwe (of the 10,000 originally obtained) had cost 33,000 lives. Each of the very smallest infants Stanley graphically estimates to have cost the life of a father, and perhaps his 3 stout brothers and 3 grown-up daughters': "An entire family of 6 souls has Leen done to death to obtain that small, feeblc, helpless, useless child !"
" What," he asks, " was the cause of all this vast sacrifice of human life, this unspeakable misery? Nothing but the indulgence of an DId Arab's wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous instinct&. He wished to obtain slaves to barter profitably with other Arabs. Having weapons—guns and powder-enough, he placed them in the hands of 300 slaves, and de- spatched them to commit murder wholesale, as an English nobleman would put guns in the hands of his guests and permit them to slaughter the game on his estate. If we calculate three quarts of blood to each person who fell during the campaign of murder, this one Arab caused to be shed 2850 gallons of blood-sufficient to fill a tank of 460 cubic feet-quite large enough to drown him and all his kin."
Stanley's pen-picture of this camp is as vivid as if taken by instantaneous photography. "It was surrounded with a fence made 'of the hut-walls of the native town, which lay in ruins outside, square plots of raised tamped earth, with a few uprights alone indicating where it had stood. The banana groves had been levelled, and their stalks employed to form the fence. Within the enclosure was a series of low sheds, many lines deep, extending 100 yards inland from the immediate edge of the bank In length the camp was about 300 yards. At the landing-place were 54 canoes, varying in capacity from 10 to 100 people. The camp is much too densely peopled for comfort. There are rows upon rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of the captors. There are lines or groups of naked forms upright, moving listlessly, or standing; naked bodies are stretched under the sheds in all positions; naked legs innumerable are seen in the perspective of prostrate sleepers; there are countless naked children, many mere infants, forms of boyhood and girlhood, and occasionally a drove of absolutely naked old women bending under a basket of fuel or cassava tubers or bananas, who are driven through the moving groups by two or three musketeers. Mostly all are fettered; youths with iron rings round their necks, through which is riven a chain like our boat anchor-chains, securing the captives by twenties. The children over ten are secured by three copper rings, each ringed leg brought together by the central ring. The mothers are secured by shorter chains; around are grouped their respective progeny of infants hiding the cruel iron links that fall in loops or festoons over their mothers' breasts. There is not one adult man captive. Beside the shaded ground so thickly strewn with prostrate and upright bodies lie scattered or heaped in profusion everywhere the relics of the many raids. There is scarcely a square foot of ground not littered with something. All these littering the ground, or in stacks and heaps, with piles of banana and cassava peelings, flour of cassava, and sliced tubers drying, make untidy pictures and details, through which prominently gleam .the eyes of the captives in supreme and utter wretchedness. Every second during which I regard them, the clank of fetters and chains strikes my ear. My eyes catch sight of that continual lifting of the hand to ease the neck in the collar, or as it displays, exposed, a manacle through fl mllscle bein~ irritated b, its wei¥,ht or want of fitnilss. 130lllld or riveted by twenties, they wallow in filth. . Only the old women are t"ken to forage; they dig the cassava and search for the banana, while the guard, with ready musket, watches keenly for the coming of the vengeful native. Not much food can be obtained. What is procured is flung in a heap be- fore each gang, to cause at once an unseemly scramble. Many of the poor things have been fettered for months already, and their bones stand out in bold relief on the attenuated skin which hangs down in wrinkles and puckers. Who can withstand the feeling of pity so powerfully pleaded for by those large eyes and sunken cheeks ~"
As we listen to this eye-witness, it appears unthinkable that wicked- ness can go lower. Yet it is Stanley himself, who from Darkest Africa brought tidingS and tales of deeds of darkness befitting depths beneath the lowest depths of hell. He says: "In 1887 a half-caste Arab slaver and his Manyema banditti launched out on one of the most sanguinary and de- structive careerl, to which even Tippu Tib's and Tagamoyo's offer poor comparison. Toward the Lenda and Ihuru rivers they had levelled every settlement into black ashes, had even vented their rage for destruction on the plantain groves, had split every canoe into pi~ces, had searched every , island, and had penetrated into the darkest recesses whither a slight track ( could be traced, with only one dominating passion, which was to kill as many men and capture as many children and women as craft and cruelty would enable them. However far north or east these people had gone .they had done precisely as we had seen, and had reduced the forest to a howling wilderness. Through all the immense area they had left scarcely a hut standing. Assuming that their ravages had extended east, north, and south 105 miles from Ipoto, we have something like 44,000 square miles. Once we know where the slaving centres are, we may, with a pair of compasses, draw great circles round each, and park off areas of 40,000 square miles into which a half dozen resolute men, aided by their hundreds 'of (negro) bandits have divided three-quarters of the Congo forest for the sole purpose of murder, and of becoming heirs to a few hundred tusks of ivory. • •• There were Manyema headmen responsible to the chiefs for followers and operations entrusted to their charge. At alternate periods each sets out for his own special sub-district. The fighters con- sist of Congoans trained by the Manyema as raiders, as in 1876 Arabs and East Coast natives had trained Manyema. This extraordinary increase in the number of raiders on the Upper Congo is the fruit of the policy of kill~ ing the adults, but preserving the children. The girls are distributed among the Arab, Swahili, and Manyema harems, the boys are trained to carry arms, and are drilled. Grown tall and strong; they are rewarded .with wives from the female servants of the harem, and are admitted as partnera in the bloody ventures. So many shares of the profits are due the great proprietor; a less number becomes the due of the headman, and the remainder is the property of the bandits. . . . At other times all ivory over 35 pounds goes to the chief i that between 35 and 20 pounds belongs to the headman, while young ivory, or scraps or pieces, fall to the lucky finders. This intlpires every man to do his best. The caravan is well manned and armed by the great proprietor, who stays in his harem on the Lualaba. The headmen, inspired by greed, grow ferocious. The bandits fling themselves upon a settlement mercilessly to obtain the largest share of loot.- children, flocks, poultry, and ivory. • •• All this would be clearly beyond' their power if they possessed no powder. Not a mile beyond home would the Arab and his followers dare venture. It is more than probable that if gunpowder were prohibited entry into Africa, there would be a general and quick migration of all Arabs from inner Africa to the sea, as the native chiefs would be immeasurably stro~ger than any combination of Arabs armed with spears. Of ivory there is not a single piece nowadays which has been gained lawfully. Every tusk, piece, and scrap in the possession of an Arab has been steeped and dyed in blood. Every pound has cost a life. For every five pounds a hut has been burned ; for every two tusks' a whole village destroyed; every twenty tusks have been obtained at the price of a district with all its people, villages, and plantations. It is simply incredible that because ivory is required for ornaments or billiards, the rich heart of Africa should be laid waste at this late hour of the nineteenth century, signalized as it has been by so many achievements; incredible that populations, tribes, and nations should be utterly destroyed. Whom, after all, does this bloody seizure of ivory enrich' Only a few dozens of half-castes, who, if due justice were dealt them, would sweat out the remainder of their piratical1ives in the severest penal servitude."
IlL-THE RESULTS.
How many slaves are captured; how many lives lost annually! In Nyassaland and Zambesi, according to Cameron's latest (1889) statements, 525,600 each year become slaves. In the equatorial tableland, from the data furnished by Papal missioners, the figures mount even higher. Thill brings the total of Africans who annually lose freedom at the hand of tho Arab hell hounds between the Soudan and the Zambesi up to 1,050,000. Including the Soudan, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, Ashanti, Dah6- mey, Loanga, the Cameroons, Lunda, the native slaving on the Congo, Somauliland, and Uganda, it appears certain that the grand total equals at least 2,000,000. It is as if a Georgiaj or Iowa, or Michigan were annually enslaved. The worst of it is, that Christendom has a real though ,indirect responsibility for those astounding figures, because the relaxation of the English blockade, the troubles in the Soudan and on the East coast, the connivance of Portugal, and French bulldozing in Madagascar enabled the slave trade since 1885 to increase fourfold.
Yet this host, moving every twelve months into the house of bondage, does not represent one half of man's inhumanity in the land of death shades. The mortality of the caravans varies from one-half to three- quarters, and even nine~tenths. We wonder that one slave in ten ever reaches his destination, when we hear the accounts of Cameron, Baker, Livingstone, Lavigerie, and Stanley. Lavigerie says: "When all that are captured are hurried off, a series of unspeakable miseries commences. The men who appear strongest, and whose escape is to be feared, have hands and feet so tied that moving becomes torture, and on their necks are placed yokes attaching several together. All day they march ; at night a few handfuls of raw sorgho are distributed ; this is all their food. Next morning they must start again; but fatigue, suffering, and privations have weakened very many. The women and the aged are the first to halt; then, to strike terror into the miserable mass, their conductors, armed with a wooden bar-to economile powder-approach those most exhausted, and deal a terrific blow on the nape of the neck. The victims utter a cry, and fall in convulsions of death. The terrified troop immediately resumes its march. Terror has imbued even the weakest with fresh strength. Each time one breaks down the scene is repeated. At night, on arriving at their halting-place, after the first days of such life, a not less frightful scene awaits them. The traffickers in human flesh know how much their victims can endure. A glance shows who will soon sink from weariness j so, to economize food, they pass behind these wretched beings and fell them with a single blow. The corpses, when not suspended on neighboring trees, remain where they fall, and close to them must their companions eat and sleep as well as they can. In this manner the weary march is continued, sometimes for months. Daily the number diminishes. If, goaded by their cruel sufferings, some attempt to escape or rebel, thl! masters cut them down, and leave them as they lie, attached by yokes. "
Baker shall be our next witness, describing a slave-dhow and its cargo. He ordered one searched, and the captain was astonished that search was considered necessary. Besides crew and soldiers, the skipper averred, there was not a soul on board, while the vessel had only com in the hold, and ivory beneath. "But," says Baker, " she appeared suspiciously full of corn"for a boat homeward bound. There was an awkward smell about the closely-boarded forecaStle that resembled that of unwashed negroes. . . . Abd-el-Kader drew a ramrod from a soldier's rifle and sharply probed that corn. A smothered cry from beneath, and a wriggling among the corn were succeeded by a woolly head, as Abd-el-Kader, having thrust in his long arm, dragged a negress forth. At once the planks boarding forecastle and stern were broken, the corn was removed, and there was a mass of humanity exposed-boys, girls, and women close packed like herrings in a barrel, who, under threats, had remained silent. The mainsail appeared full and heavy in its lower part. Upon unpacking, it yielded a young woman thus sewn up. We discovered about 150 slaves stowed away in a most inconceivably small area. The stench was horrible when they began to move. Many were lD Irons. I ordered the agent and the captain to be put in irons."
Yet the captives and human exports are far and away the slightest sectiOl~ of thf;J sufferers. Every slave, on the average, represents 100 victims. T.he populations blighted by the simoom of slaving number 150,000,000as many as the German and Rm!sian Empires together.
IV.-THE REMEDIES.
1. As the Zanzibar slave trade has so long been sustained by the capital of British Hindoos, England has moral respousibility for that traffic. Now she is mistress of Zanzibar and Pemba, and her East Africa Company controls the coast north, and has brought Uganda under English lordship. 'With Zanzibar as the maritime key of the situation, and with Cairo a future . centre of Saxon government over an area greater than India, England can lock this export traffic into the interior. Moreover, Germany is conquering lands between Zanzibar and the lakes, the Reichstag has forbidden marine export.ation of slaves, and domestic sl~very will be abolished from its African possessions as speedily as circumstances permit.
2. Again, it began to look, last February, as if the Great Powers would fulfil their solemn pledges for the welfare of Africa, which they have shamefully failed t<? live up to. In 1884 they declared the Congo State should not be used for the slave trade, and each. bound itself to employ all means at its disposal to end the traffic and punish the slavers. Had they enforced their prohibitions, the slave trade could not have attained its present proportions. They <leclared that " these regions shall not be used as markets or as routes of transit for the slave trade, no matter of what race j each of these powers binds itself to use all the means at its disposal to put an end to this trade, and to punish all engaged in it." In 1889 they met in Anti-Slavery Conference (It Bru!:lsels, and agreed that the following measures are directly and generally practicable: (1) Tribes concerned in raiding shall be held responsible. (2) Any tribe through whose territory slave caravans pass shall be held to account, and such chiefs or organizers of caravans as have been once convicted of slavetrade offences shall render security on starting from the seaboard. (3) Chiefs ou whose coast slave shipments occur shall be dealt with. (4) The police of the sea is to be maintained by joint European effort, maritime transportation being the point where force and united action can be made most effective. Vessels of 500 tons and under, unless slavers of larger tonnage be hereafter discovered, shall, on the high seas, be subject to supervision and detention. (5) Disarmament of the slaver is nigh. From 20° North to 22° South, and from 100 miles out in each ocean" the sale of firearms to Arabs or natives is prohibited. Arms must be deposited in Government warehouses, taken· out only on permission, and not in sale include the most improved weapons. Stanley has said: "for wholesale massacres of African aborigines there is only one remedy -the solemn combination, of England, Germany, France, Portugal, South Africa, East Africa, and the Congo State against the introduction of powder into any part of the continent, except for the use of their agents j and seizing every tusk of ivory." Now Christian sentiment must compel civilization to redeem itself by grappling immediately with the slaver of the Congo, for the Free State offers the most advantageous means of attacking these Manyuemans and Soudanese in the rear, while Stanley Falls is the West Point of the Upper Congo. The United States itself took part in this Conference, and the refusal of our Federal Senate to ratify the decree of humanity is a damning diegrace to America. How the country that shattered the shackles of 4,000,000 bondmen could shirk its duty and fasten fetters on the black man in Africa, passes comprehension. EYen Holland played the man and shames us.
3. Cardinal Lavigerie has awakened even papal peoples to their duty in suppressing slavery, and proposes to stop man-hunting at its source by the sword. The campaign to realize this object may take place, since several thousand young meu have foluTJteered and are preparing. In the Sahara these youth~ and the Peres Blancs are already proving themselves true knights of labor, as diggers of wells and planters of trees.· It is objected that these crusaders would merely destroy a few slavers and divert the trade to other routes. But Lavigerie's real idea is that every European Power should maintain sufficient military forces wherever in its possessions the black is hunted j but, if finances forbade, he would revive the medireval soldiers of the Church, its Knights of Alcantara, Lazarus, or Malta, adapt them to modern methods and needs, put them under the Pope, and at the call of any government remove them from place to place requiring their services. Small, inexpensive squadrons can achieve great results.
Whether or not we agree with Lavigerie on the means of employing force, it is absolutely certain that force is now an indispensable necessity in suppressing slave-stealing. The case admits no alternative to-day, for Africa is bleeding out her life-blood at every pore: the population is far too scanty, and va~t areas are relapsing into uninhabited wilds, impenetrable to missionary or merchant. The Arabs are bitterly hostile to European influences, mean to practice slaving as their right, wage wanton war against missions, and demonstrate that in Central Africa European and Arab cannot live together. Turkey intends to send Mohammedan missionaries into her African possessions.
What, then, are the warlike measures inevitable against the Arab? Simply this: protection of Arric's dusky, helpless children. This comprises the introduction of armed bodies into the interior as shepherds of the people, continental blockades against caravans, and as police patrol. At their head will be Europeans, in the ranks natives, as militia, or Sepoys, picked men and masters of gun-drill. As on the Congo, so on the East Coast, the Zambesi, the Niger, the Nile and the lakes, lines of military posts or commercial depots three days' journey apart, are opening. These will absolutely forbid slaving, abolish local markets, prevent the transporting of slaves, except domestics duly registered, and sweep away customs or duties levied on slave sales. Swift armed launches are to be put on all navigable waters, with a garrison or tWQ on the high, healthr platealls of ~a<?h llik~ and on the main traffic lines. Such a chain of fortified posts we may soon see from Suakim along the Nile and the lakes to Quilimane. This will cut the roots of the cancer, and constitute bulwarks behind which missions may advance-missions, which alone can work lasting good.
4. When the export over-sea, indispensable to the continuance of Mos- lem slavery, is destroyed, serfage cannot long continue. Closure of ship- ping ports must therefore be effected, though a tremendous 3000 miles task. The status of slavery must be denied further recognition by inter- national law, the traffic be banned as piracy, and the maritime routes be made so utterly unsafe that no Arab will dm'e risk his life.
5. Mohammedan slavery keeps Africo.Arab slaving alive. So the Brussels Conference brought public opinion to bear on Persia and Turkey, the sole independent slave powers there, and deprecated the influence of their domestic bondage. They should persuade the heads of all Mohammedan States to discourage the purchase of negro slaves, and hold Moslem rulers accountable for future slaving infamies. Zanzibar's new sultan has prohibited slave selling, and instituted measures that will steadily wipe out the whole institution. The British Anti.Slavery Society has pledged itself to suppress Mohammedan slavery, and very many facts prove that the prospect for slavery dying out from the Moslem East is better than that possibility of mediooval Christendom.
6. Colonization, commerce, and railroads afford Christianity the underhold in this death grapple. The prejudices of the natives against colonization, never very strong, will yield to fair and judicious treatment.' But tropical Africa cannot be colonized. by " Caucasians," and it may well be in the Divine statesmanship that the American freedman and none other is to save the brother in black and teach him to save himself. Liberia and its noteworthy success, despite every disadvantage, prove negro colonization to be no Utopian scheme, and with regard to the Congo State, Stanley assures us that if " American negroes form the majority of its citizenship, it would, with proper encouragement, make remarkable development, and in time become a great nation. If these civilized blacks are developed morally, their contact with the savages would be happy." Signs are not wanting that among the negroes of our New Soutb not a few consider. African evangelization their race duty; and that the wonder-working Providence of American history anoints them as apostles to Ethiopia. The task would require comparatively few of the 7,000,000 black Americans, for if less than ten per cent return, 500,000 chosen people would, within one century, accomplish the regeneration of tbeir mother country. Such colonies will swiftly develop legitimate commerce and native industries among the fairly active and workable populations.
Commerce strangles slaving by making its profits less tban those of lawful trade, though it needs to be protected by physical force before it can produce its effects. On the Congo commerce checks the slave trade, since Boma and Matadi are drawing the ivory trade of Stanley Falls away from Zanzibar. Grenfell avers that if once the railway, now rapidly building between tidewater and Stanley Pool, is completed, the Arab will find his occupation gone. On the East Coast the African Lakes Company was organized as a lay auxiliary of Nyassa Missions, and accomplished this by buying ivory at higher prices than slavers can pay. It also built Murchison Road round the Shire Cataracts, and Stevenson Road between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganika. These mend the breaks in the water route from Quilimane to Ruanda, and are for humanitarian purposes the most im- portant thoroughfares to Central Africa, as this line cuts the principfll routes to the coast, and several garrisons on it could throttle the slavers in transit. As to Uganda and Masailand, Mackay and Emin have affirmed that a safe road to the coast must unquestionably be opened. The British East Afric:m Company is building a railroad from Mombasa to Lake Vic- toria. The English, at Stanley's request, devote their Stanley fund to placing a steamer on that lake, and Germany is doing the same thing. Emin has established a fortified post on its south shore, after whipping Arab slavers in many encounters. U-nyanyemhe is his central station, but he will found four large commercial stations and several smaller ones on the Tanganika and elsewhere. An ivory tribute will, within three years, repay the expenses-$400,000. That does not appear unreasonable when we remember that since 1885 Tippu Tib has exported $500,000 worth of ivory, and that this includes the cnormous stock just brought to market by his 7000 porters. A Swedish expedition intends to plant stations from Lake Victoria to Tanganika for co-opcration in suppressing ~laving. The Germans will, of course, push roads to the latter lake. The British Company bas effected the emancipation of 5000 slaves since 1888, made compacts against slaving with tribes inhabiting 50,000 square miles, compels Arabs themselves to recognize that no native is to be held in servitude, releases slaves in caravans, and enables domestics to buy their freedom. On the Juba 30,000 runaway slaves recently asked to be taken under its protection. In Uganda, Mwanga pledges himself to assist, in the abolition of slaving. Thus the outlook for the speedy suppression of East African sla1Jing, and the march of Christianity even to the Great Forest, is full of promise.
The greatest efficiency of the iron horse in destroying the slave trade will occur on transcontinental lines bisecting the slave-belt~. A railroad from Congo mouth to Zanzibar, Stanley says, can be eatiily constructed, and would pay from the start. Another, 1000 miles long, runs from Cape Town to Kimberley, and the South African Company, which is to govern all lands between the Orange River and the Tanganika will prolong it to the Zambesi. (A railroad from the South already reaches Yryburgh in Bechuanaland.) The Niger Company controls the Low.er Niger, where it bas suppressed human sacrifines and checked slaving j before 1900 it wm control the independent Soudan as far as the Egyptian Soudan. There .it will be met hy English -agents, either by Anglo-Egyptian officials, who will have recovered. the Khartum country, or by the East African Company from Equatoria itself. Since tltat is their ultimate goal, then we shall see the proposed railway from Monrovia to the Red Sea, a French line from Algeria to Lake Tchad, aud the Nile made, by skilful engineering at its modest cataracts, a broad waterway from the Midland Sea to the inland seas. Such roads will accomplish far more than armies; and if Europe will Europe can within a decade shatter the Arab slave trade to atoms. God grant that the negro who talked with Jephson about railways prove a prophet of good, and" that when the railroad is made, Jesus Christ may go up with it."
James H. Richardson, M.D., of Toronto, writes a letter to the editor, expressing emphatic dissent from the article in the January issue on " Livingstone and Stanley." We perhaps owe it to fairness to quote portions of this letter. Dr. Richardson questions the propriety of coupling these two men as we have done, and thinks the aims, characters, and methods of the two are dissimilar and antagonistic. Dr. Richardson thinks Mr. Stanley has given sanction to practices which humanity and Christianity must deplore, and cites the Emin relief expedition as an instance. We give his words: " Think of the very first step-the investing, of that fiend, Tippu Tib, with the authority and pay of an officer of the Congo Free State in the very heart of the country where he had been pursuing his most nefarious deeds of rapine, plunder, and slavery j and in the appointment recognizing his authority for carrying them on above the Stanley Falls. Think of the contract with this miscreant to furnish 600 slave carriers. Mr. Stanley denied, in his lecture at Montreal, that slave labor was employed; hut his book (' In Darkest Africa,' vol. i1., p. 3) records, ' The utter unruliness of this mob of slaves which had maddened tne officers of the rear column.' In vol. i., p. 26], he describes the la~hings on these poor slaves, and says 'awful oaths of vengeance were uttered for all the indignities they suffered j' on pages 212 and 213 we have the record of the hanging of a , slave of Fayilla,' and the condemnation to death of two other slaves-one the slave of a man in Zanzibar, thc other a slave of an artisan in U-nyanyembe, both of whom must have been brought with the expedition all the way from Zanzibar.
" Think of the 357 rifles and the Maxim gun which poured out a deadly stream of 300 bullets a minute! Think of the invariable practice' of driving the poor natives out of their villages and taking occupation. The very first landing at Yambuya was of this character. Read the account (vol. i., pp. 113, 114) after parleying uusucce~s£ully for an hour, ' for leave to reside in their village,' the signal was given, the whistles wl:lre blown" the, boats were moored to the shore, and the horde of about 700, armed to the teeth, rushed up the bank, ' and when the summit was gained not a villager was in sight.' For ten or eleven months these poor villagers were kept out of their homes; no wonder that two days afterward, when Stanley
43i .A. CRITICISM OF STANLEY
started with his advance force, the poor natives drew themselves up at the entrance to their village to prevent it from being taken possession of, and no wonder they never tried the defence again, as they were mowed down by the bullets from the 357 rifles and the deadly Maxim gun. They seem to have vacated village after village in terror, as if the demon of destruction was let loose on them. See also vol. i., p. 152. On July 10th the expedition occupied one of seven large villages at Gwengwere, out of which' all the population had fled ;' on tho 11 tIl, he writes, ' as we were disappearing from view of Gwengwere, the population was seen scurrying back to their homes, which they had temp'orarily vacated for our convenience. It saved trouble of speech, exerted, possibly, in. useless efforts for peace, i.e., if they had not left peaceably they would have been driven out!
" Think of every village being raided for food, and provisions for ten days carried off without remuneration, and this not once. but every day. It may be said that these robberies, this occupation of their homes, this employment of slave labor, this authority conferred on Tippu Tib, were necessary to the success of the expediti.on ; if so, then the expedition was an unholy one. To do evil that good may come is as wrong in this case as in any other. " Dr. Richardson adds that, in his opinion, the sad story of the rear colJlmn " would not have been written if Stanley had done his duty. In 1'0. t, pp. 337, 338, 362, and 364, it is recorded that after a council on Lake Albert, not having found Emin, they concluded to retrace their steps and to ' hurry' on to find Barttelot and the rear column before it was a , wreck' as 'the only sensible course which was left to them,' and how he abandoned this' only sensible course' and left Barttelot to his fate because the headmen and officers wanted to go back to find Emin, and so lost four months and a half before going to Barttelot's relief. As to the abuse heaped on Barttelot because he did not advance without getting the carriers promised by Tippu Tib, one short sentence (vol. ii., p. 13) settles the question: ' Without Tippu Tib, or one of his nephews, such a column' (as the rear column) 'could not be taken through the broad extents of wilderness ahead.' "
The Australian Ballot System is a striking illustration of the benefits which Christian lands may receive from their efforts in carrying civilization and Christianity to heathen countries. Australia was formerly wholly heathen, but has become a Christian land by colonization and missionary effort. The conditions of life there rendered possible the trial of a system of balloting which it would have been very difficult to experiment with in any country of more established institutions. But after having proved successful in Australia it is now adopted in nearly all the United States to the great satisfaction of every intelligent voter. It pays for Christian countries. to send missionaries and colonists to lift heathen lands out of their ignorance and degradation. Every nation so raised to an enlightened religious condition will have some peculiar contribution to the welfare of the whole world which could come from no other people.-Baptist Missionary Magazine.
MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP AND LAWS OF THE BANTU LANGUAGES
THE MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP AND LAWS OF THE BANTU LANGUAGES, AS SEEN IN THE KIMBUNDU AND ISI- ZULU.
BY REV. l"EWIS·GROUT, WEST BRATTLEBORO, VT.
The elementary grammar of the Mbundu language, by Mr. Heli Cha~ lain, is a very valuable and timely contribution to a better knowledge of that great family of Bantu languages, which is now known to extend all through South Africa, or, in general terms, East and West from ocean to ocean, aud from the Orange River to some five degrees North of the equator. The grammar is pnmarily designed for the missionaries, the natives, and the colonists of Angola and neighboring dist.ricts; and, for this reason, is written in Portuguese, which prevails to a large extent in that field. Otherwise it would seem to have been better had it been written in a language more widely known. The author of the grammar was well qualified for the work he has done, and has done it well. A native of Switzerland, having acquired a knowledge of six or eight languages aside from the French and German which were his mother tongues, he went out some seven or eight years ago to Loanda, in the Portuguese colony on the West Coast of Africa, as linguist of Bishop Taylor's self-supporting mission. Studying the Portuguese Oil his voyage out, he was well fitted for his work among tribes that spoke dialects of which comparatively little was known as yet in other lands, though they are spoken of by Dr. Cust as constituting the lingua franca of all Western Africa. Indeed, Livingstone speaks of a resemblance between this language and that spoken at Tete, on the Zambezi in Eastern Africa; and the inhabitants of Angola have always found the Mbundu language of great service to them in their travels far to the East.
Mr. Chatelain, giving himself to the study and development of the Bantu languages, has prepared a primer and a translation of John's gospel for his mission, a short vocabulary of the Mbamba, and another of the Umbangala. He is now completing a work on the legends and fables of Angola, and several new vocabularies of neighboring dialects. A more extended work is that of a dictiona~y of the Mbundu language, now in preparation, to be enriched by a comparative study of the Swahili of East Africa, of the Kongo on the West Coast, and by the fruits of the labors of the American missionaries in the Benguela district, together with the fruits of German missionary labors in the Herero of Damara-land. Dr. Cust, the learned and able author of "Modern Languages of Africa," a work published in 1883, speaks of the Mbundu as one of the most important in all West Africa; and, having given a sketch of what the Portuguese have done during the last two and one half centuries to master and make this language known, concludes by saying: "It must be admitted that a new grammar of it is still required." But now, a year since, writing an " Introduction" to Mr. Chatelain's" Kimbundu Grammar," he expresses himself as much pleased .that the matter had fallen into the hands of a scholar 80 well qualified to undertake it, and commends the work to the favorable consideration of African scholars. It will help to give some idea of both the Zulu and Mbundu languages, their general character, forms, laws; also Fome idea of the relationship, or points of similarity that prevail throughout the ('ntire family of South African or Bantn language~, of which Dr. Cust finds 168, aside from 55 dialects, if we institute a brief comparison between the Kimbundll of Angola, in the northwest of the field, and the Isizulu of Natal and Zululand, in the southeast-a geographical distance which puts the two languages nearly two thousand miles apart.
One of the minuter points of resemblance is, that both languages make open syllables; that is, each word and syllable ends in a vowel; and, at< a general rule, the accent falls on the penult. Each abounds in certain consonantal combinations, such as mb, mv, ml, mp, nd, ng and nz; but clicks and gutturals are found only in the Zulu. The vowel signs used in writing have in each the Italian value, and the abundance of these makes the flow of pronunciation in each easy and musical. In their radical element many of the words are the same, or nearly the same, and quite the same in respect to the principle and use of the incipient elements or prefixes of words, though in the forms of their several prefixes they generally differ. Thus, nouns: ENGLISH. ZUI,U. MBUNDU.
Person. s. umuntu. S. mutu. Mother. P. atu. Snake. P. abantu. S. mama. Death. P. jimama. s. umame. S. nioka. P. jinioka. P.omame. S. kufua. P. makufua. s. inyoka.
P. izinyoka.
s. ukufa.
P. ukufa.
So in verbs: ZULU. MBUNDU.
ENGLISH. uku tunga. ku tunga. uku luma. ku lumata. to sew. uku shinga. ku shinga. uku beta. ku beta. to bite. uku lima. ku rima. to insult. uku sala. ku sha:la. to beat. to till. to remain.
For" three" we find tutu in both languages; for" five" we find Manu in the Zulu and tunu in Mbundu. In the former uleu lamba means" to hunger," in the latter leu lamba means" to cook."
In each language the nouns are divided into classes according to their prefix or preformative, and according to the way in which the plural is generally made from the singular by some change in the prefix. Zulu nouns are divided, in this way, into eight classes, the last two of which are without distinction as to number; and, in the same way, Mbundu nouns are divided into ten classes. In the former, the prefix u, um, or umu, of the first class, is changed to 0 or aba to form the plural; as um/ana, " boy," abafana, "boys." So, again, ili or i is changed to ama; im or in to izim, izin, orama; isi to izi, izim, or izin; and um or umu (impersonal) to imi ; though nouns of the seventh and eighth classes have the same pre- fix, ubu or uku, in both numbers: thus, ubuso may mean either" face" or " faces." Nouns in uku are of a verbal character, being the same as the verb in the infinitive mode. In the Mbundu the prefix mu, of the first class, is changed to a, to form the plural; as, mutu, " person," aiu, "persong;" m'}', of the second class, is changed to mi, as mulundu, " mQlmtain," milundu, ,-' mountains. " So, again, ki is changed to i; ri to ma; u to mau; lu to malu,. tu to matu,. ku to maku,. ka to iu; and other forms to ji.
IIi both languages alike f'ach class of nouns has a fragmentary or genitive pronoun of a preformative character, which corresponds to the noun's ptefix ; one for the singular, and one for the plural, which, with the genitive particle a, denotes possession, or the relation of a subject to an attribute; thus, in Zulu, ilizwi lom/ana (loa-um/ana), " word of the boy," or " boy's word;" ~baniu benkosi (b-a-inkosi) "people of the king," or "king's people. " So in the Mbundu, muiue ua mutu, " head of man," or " man's head;" mitue ia atu, " heads of men."
In both languageR alike the adjective takes a prefix corresponding to the prefix of the noun with which it agrees; thus, in Zulu, um/ana umkulu, "the boy (is) great;" um/ana omkulu (a-umkulu) , "the boy (which is) great," i.e., "great boy;" abantu bakulu, "people (are) great ;" abantu abakulu, "great people." So in Mbundu; thus, muiu uonene, "great person;" kim~ kionene, "great thing;" ima- ionene, "great things ;" r'ital'i l'ionene, "great stone;" mata;'i monene, "great stones. " So, too, in respect to numerals. In the Zulu we have umuntu omunye, "one person;" abantu ababili, " two persons ;" izinkomo ezintatu, "three cows." In the Mbundu we ha-e mutu umoshi, " one person ;" kima kimoshi, " one thing;" ima itatu, "three things ;" matubia matanu, "five fires."
The grammar of the verb is essentially the same in the Mbundu language as in the Zulu. In the latter the infinitive has the sign uku, " to ;" as uku landa, "to love;" uku bona, "to see;" in the former, ku; as ku zola, "to love ;" ku longa, "to teach;" ku banga, "to make, do." In both languages alike the pronominal subject of the verb in the third person corresponds to the prefix of the noun for which the pronoun stands. Thus, in Zulu (um/ana, "boy") u bona, "he see~;" (aba/ana, "boys"), ba bona, "they see;" (inkomo, "cow"), i bona, " it sees;" (izinkomo, " cows"), zi bona, "they see." In the Mbundu we have (mutu, "person"), u banga, "h~ (or she) makes;" (atu, "persons"), a bar.ga, " they make ;" (kima," thing"), ki banga, " it makes ;" ' (ima, "things"), i banga, "they make." 'For the first, second, and third persons, preient tense, we have: IN ENGLISH. IN liIZULU. IN KIMBUNDU.
S. I love. S. Ngi tanda. S. Ngi zola. thou Iovest. u tanda. u zola. he (or she, etc.) lovt's. u (i, or Ii, etc.), tanda. u (or a, etc.), zola.
P. we love. P. si tanda. P. tu zola. ye love. ni tanda. nu zola. they love. ba. (or zi, etc.), tanda. a (or i, etc.), zola.
In the few following forms we have a comparative view of some of the modes in the two lan~ua~es : IN ENGLISH. IN ISIZULU. IN KIMBUNDU. '
Love, or love thou. tanda, or ma u tande. zola. Love yeo I love, or I do love. tandani. zolenu. I may love. I should love. ngi tanda, or ngi y a tanda. ngi zola.
ngi nga tanda. ngi zole.
nga ngi tanda. ngojo zola.
In the following we have a comparative view of a few tenses.
IN ENGLISH. IN ISIZULU. IN KIMBUNDU.
I love. ngi tanda. ngi zola. I loved. nga tanda. nga zolo. I have loved. ngi tandile. nga zolele. I had loved. ngi be ngi tandile. nga. zolele kia. I shall love. ngi y8 ku tanda. ngondo zola, or nganda ku zola.
IB respect to species of verbs, we find much of likeness between the Zulu and the Mbundu, as also between these and the Hebrew, in what is there called " conjugations." In the former from tanda, ,. love," we get the causative, tandisa, .. cause to love j" the relative, tandela, " love for j" the reciprocal, tandana, "love one another j" the reflective, zitanda, " love self j" the subjective, tandeka, " be lovely or lovable j" also other species. In the Mbundu we have from zola, ,. love," zolesa, " cause to love j" zolela, "love for j" rizola, " love self." We sometimes find two or more species combined j as, in Zulu, the causative and relative, tandisela, "cause to love for j" in Mbundu, zolesela, " cause to love for."
The mutual relationship and laws, or kinds of resemblance and difference that prevail in the great family of Bantu languages are seen, to some extent, in the goodly number of words that are found to be substantially the same in many of its members, though such words are often found in greatly differing forms. "Ve take two words, or, rather, one word in its two numbers, umunt!l, " person," abantu, " persons or people," as a good example of the unity in variety in some of the corresponding words in the cognate lauguages of which we speak. This word consIsts of two elements, one radical, the other preformative, which is also called "prefix." In Zulu the ,root is ntu; the prefix, singular, umu, plural, aba. And, of all the numerous forms which this word may take, whether in root or prefix, doubtlelOs the Zulu, as above, i.e., um'l1ntu, abantu, are alike most original and complete., For these Zulu words we find the corresponding words, in the cognate languages, to be, on the South, in the Kafir, umntu, abant'l ; on the West, in the Sesutu, motu, batu,. in the Sethlapi and Sechuana, mothu, bathu. Going northward and eastward, and coming into the Delagoa region, we find, in the Southern Tekeza, munu, banu or vanu,. in Northern Tekeza, amuno, vano,. coming to the Tete and Sena on the Zambe~ii, we find munttu, vanttu,. in the Quilimane, muntu, antu,. in the Maravi, muntu, wanthu. In the Makua, latitude 15° South, we find muttu, attu. In the Yao, on the eastern bank of Lake Nyassa, we have mundu, vandu or wandu; in Kiswahili, latitude from 5° to 6° South, mtu, watu,. then, in the Kinika, mutu, atu,. in the Kikamba, mundu, andu,. and in the Kisambala and Kipokomo, on the Pokomo, Dana or Tana River, near the equator, we have muntu, wantu.
Passing now to the southwest of the Bantu field, and moving northward along the West Coast of the c'ontinent, we find, in the Otyiherero or Damara language, omundu, ovandu j in the Sindonga, the language of the Ovambo, umtu, oantu,. in the Nano of Benguela, omuno, amana j in the Kimbundu or Angola, mutu, atu,. in the Kongo, omuntu, oantu j in the Benga, as spoken on the Corisco Islands, North of the equator, moto, bato,. and in the Dualla and Isubu or Cameroons language, motu, batu.
From what is already known of the many other Bantu languages, we have every reason to believe that the points of agreement and difference which we have. now passed in review are a good specimen of what prevail among the scores that still remain to he reduced to order in the great inland region that stretches through the interior, from four or five degrees North of the equator to the Orange River on the South.
Of how great advantage this relationship must be to the hosts of missioll9.ries, whose great work it shall yet be to reduce the still unwritten multitude of these Bantu languages each to its own grammatically exact order, and translate the Scriptures into them, it is hardly pOl)sible to give any adequate idea. If the writer, while preparing to go abroad, could have, had the means of getting even such a knowledge of these languages as may be gathered from this article, it would have been of more aid and saving of time to him than he can now tell.
We reprint from the African News a brief article on " The Spelling of African Names," by Heli Chatelain, which is appropriate to follow Mr.
Grout's paper: " Every reader of African publications and student of African maps must have been struck with the orthographic chaos which prevails throughout African nomenclature. The same town, country, people, mountain, or river is designated in different maps and b?oks, sometimes in the same periodical, with a variety of names which, to the uninitiated, present but few or no traces of similarity, much less of identity.
" This lamentable fact is due mainly to two causes: (1) to the hetero-
THE SPELLING OF AFRICAN NAMES
geneous spelling of European languages, from which the information is culled; (2) to the prefixes and suffixes of African languages, whose secret is understood by few African linguists, and even then imperfectly.
" ]. The nature of the first difficulty will be understood at a glance, on comparing the following table, giving the principal European ways of rendering the same sounds : English. Frencli. German. Portuguese. Spani87i. u 00 ou u u e e a e,(! tl x, eh nh Ii 8h eh seh eh nj dj ny gn tach, tj ao au dsch, dj ai, ae ai, ay elt teh all j dj ei ow (as in how) aou i a"i Thus the Magadoxo of the Portuguese becomes Magado~ho in English, and MagadoKcho in German, unless the Arabic form Mukhdishu, with its own national transliterations, be preferred by a traveller or map-maker.
" The British Government and the Royal Geographical Society have recently taken an important step toward bringing some order into the hitherto arbitrary nomenclature, by agreeing on a systcm of geographical speIling and transliteration which shall be followed in all official documents, and is sme to be adopted by the public at large. The value of the letters according to the new system is given on page 466 (October, 1890), of the African News j but one important article was omitted.
" In the names of places belonging to the German, French, or Portuguese spheres of influence, and, in the case of a few old names, the German, French, or Portuguese spellings are to be left unchanged. So, the readers will still be supposed to know all those langllage~, if they want to pronounce correctly. It follows, therefore, that the new spelling will be principally applied to the tranBliteration of native names in eOllntries controlled by England. It may be interesting for many to learn that the system recently made official is simply the one used by Krapf and his colaborers in Ea~t Africa, for the transliteration of Ki-swahili and other East Afril)an languages.
" The United States have just been favored with a Board on Geographic Names, whose duty it is to give the standard, to which all official publications will have to, and the unofficial will choose to, conform. It is much to be desired that our Board will, as far as possible, concur with the decisions of their colleagues across the water.
"2. The second cause of pnzzling spellings, the peculiar construction of African tongues, cannot be as snmmarily dealt with as the first. Only as our knowledge of the hundreds of dialects advance~, can the correct names be settled on, and the only rightful judge on the question is the acknowledged master-linguist of each separate language. Many of the names now generally accepted will have to yield to new ones, because they are not the names used by the natives of the 'place, but those given to travellers or missionarie~ by their native guides or carriers belonging to other tribeft, who adapt all the names they hear to their own national taste. Though quite insufficient for the scientist, a few points will be very useful to the general reader.
" Thus, in most Bantu languages, whose area covers the immense triangle between the Cameroons (now Kamerun), the Kilimanjaro and the Cape of Good Hope, the different prefixes, which puzzle so much the stranger, can easily be learned: Mu- mo- m- * mean man, e.g., Mu-ganda signifies a G"nda-man. Ba- wa- a- ma- t mean mtn. e..q., Ba-gar,da signifies Ganda-men. u- Ki- tlki- si- mean language. e.g., Ki-swaltili signifies Swahili language. Bu- mean country, e.g., Bu-ganda, U-gogo signifies Ganda Oountry, Gogo Oountry.
" When, therefore, an African name occurs, the prefix will tell you whether the name indicates a single man, a people, a country, or a lan- guage, and our table will tell you approximately, in case of doubt, which prefix you have to use. Never use Wa- or Ba- for the country, nor Bu- or U- for the people. Tbough less gross, mistakes are even then unavoid- able, alii a comparison of the prefixes used (1) by the Ba-ganda, and (2) the Ba-sutu will show: .
Man. Men. Country. Languap:e.
(1) Mu-ganda Ba-ganda Bu-ganda Lu-ganda (2) Mu-autu Ba-8utut Le-8utu Se-&utu " In Angola two neighboring nations are distinguished solely by prefixes, which were modified to avoid the confusion. Thus, in the language of Angola proper, ki-mbundu means the language of the a-mbundu (people), while ki-mbundu, applied to a person, signifies a native of Bailundo or Bihe j as to the language of the latter it is called u-mbundu, which is also used to express the negro color and natnre.
" Dr. R. N. Cust. in his excellent' Modern Languages of Africa,' cut the Gordian knot of prefixes and suffixes in Alexandrine fashion by ignoring them completely aud using the bare radical to indicate language. Ignoring them, however, docs not remove the difficulties for a long time j the specialists keep on clinging to their distinctive prefixes. The splendid language map, which accompanies Dr. Cust's book, has passed into the hands of many students of Africa, and has led them to use the radicals, which there designate the languages, for either countries or people.
"A treatise on the subject by a speciaJiRt in each of the few great. families of African languages would be timely and helpful to geograp}:lers and the reading public." ——————– The religion of the people of Syria is usually called by the Government Moslem and non-Moslem. The first includes Orthodox and Persian Moham- medans (Moslems and Metawalies), Druzes, Nusaireeyehs and Ismaileyehs and all Bedawee Arabs. Non-Moslems are Jews, nominal Christians (Or- thodox Greek, Papal Greek, Maronite [Papall, Jacobite, Syrian, Armenian and Latin Papists) and Evangelical Christians. The principal accessions to the church have been from the non-Moslem sects. Work among these is important. It aims to give them a pure Gospel and to remove all ground for the well-merited contempt in which nominal Christians are held by Mos- lems. This has been so far successful that, first, the religion of Evangeli- cal Christiant! is looked upon as a new religion and is respected by the non- Christian sects j second, the old sects are beginning decided reforms in their churches j and, third, the leaven of the Gospel is working in a most interesting and marked manner among the Moslems, giving the confident hope that the day is not far distant when a large number of them may be brought to Christ. Earnest prayer is asked that freedom of conscie'lce may be fully granted to all. – Ohurch at Home and Abroad.
• In nicknamee eometime. KOr and t TIl·.
t The French spell BOrBOuto, the English, ~Or8'ttu, the Germano, BOrBOto. The correct woulq be Ba-eOtO. the accented vowels sounded like u inj'ult, but long. THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA lIY W. A. I'lTANTON, EI'lQ., HAMILTON, :N. Y.
Now that 110 much interest centres in the Dark C0I1tinent; we seek for some comprehensive view of the great people wbo inha;bitjt. We hear· much of individual tribes, but very little of general races. 'Ve :rnow something of the Negro and the Congoese, but very little of the African man, in his diverse life and multitudinous types, from the M:editerranean to Cape Colony. Our view is 1>artial and one-sidlld, rather than complete 'and comprehensive. It will be the purpose of this paper to gather up the results of recent investigation, and present, as far ·as possible; a broad general view of the people of Africa. We will accomplish this be·stby considering, first, the ethnology, and second, the gener:;tl condition of the people j or, in other words, by seeking to discover who -the people are, and what they are.
I. Who are the people of Africa! 'Ve must remember at the outset t~at the population· of Africa is composed of two elements; the native and the foreign.. Thl'! foreign element consists of Europeans, Arabs, Moors, Turks, a~d Jews. With these we will not deal, as they are well known both as to race chamcteristics and general manner of living. We must not, however, classify 'the Arabs and Moors in exactly the same rank with the Europeans or. even the Turks. For the Arabs have been in Africa ever since 300 B. c., and· have thus become almost indigenous, in many cases amalgamating with the native races. But it is not this foreign element, however long it may have cxisted in the land, of which we wish to speak, but of the great undefined and unclassified native population. Any true classification of the people is almost an impossibility. The ethnology of Africa is in the utmost confusion. Every new explorer brings to light great and hitherto unknown races, as well as· establishing new facts in regard to old ones. As the case now stands, in the light of Stanley's most recent discoveries, the native population of Africa consists of six great races-B·erber, Coptic, Nilotic, Negro, Bantu, and Goriepine.. Mr. Stanley, in his most recent work, criticises the term " Bautu" as unscientific, on the ground that it simply means "men j" but, as all the best authorities employ it, and as it has become asseciated by constant use with the race to which it is usually applied, we think it best to retain it. All these six races are allied to a greater or less degree. They all spring from the great Indo-African or Indo-Ethiopic family. They are thus a mixture of the pure African type with the Asiatic. and differ in race characteristics according as the one type or the other predominates. Though thus allied, they present strong race distinctions, and hence deserve a separate classification. 1. The Berber. The Berbers are a race of great antiquity. They are descendants of the primitiv~ ~to{:k of the land. They vary in color from a black to a dark bronze or copper. They have hig~ cheek-bone!!, the nose sometimes flat, like that of the Nf>gro, and sometimes aquiline; lips formed like those of Europeans; eye!! expressive, and hair curled, but not woolly. They are without the slightest trace of what is generally recognized as the negro physiognomy. They are an athletic, strong-featured people, accustomed to hardship and fatigue. Though the various tribes differ much, they are all fine men, tall, straight, and handsome. The home of the Berbers is in North Africa. They extend from Morocco to Egypt, and from tho Mediterranean to the Soudan. The Shuluh of the Atlas district, the Kobyles of Tunis, the Tuaneks of Western and Central Sahara, and the Tibbus of Eastern Sahara all belong to the Berber genus, and speak the Berber language.
2. The Coptic. The Copts are descendants of the an~ient Egyptian… They are a mixed race, their ancestors h!1ving intermarried with Greeks, Nubians, and AbYRsinians. Their complexion is similar to that of the Arab-a brownish yellow; foreheads flat, hair soft and woolly, noses flattened like the Negro's, lips thin and straight, cheek-bones high, beards thin, eyes large, and bent upward like the Chinaman's. They represent all that is left of the proud blood of the Pharaohs. Their home is in Northern Egypt.
3. The Nilotic. There are three main divisions of this race-the Nubians, Abyssinians, and Gollos.
The Nubians are of a reddish brown complexion; their color in some cases approximating a black, but not like the ebony hue of the Negro. They are described as a handsome people, with beautiful features, fine expressive eyes, and of slender and elegant forms. They inhabit Nubia.
The Abys~inians are a IItrong and vigorolls race, of a copper hue, more or less dark, with straight noses, eyes clear yet languishing, hair black and crisp, but not woolly. They are a mixed race, and inhabit Abyssinia.
The Gollos are the strongest tribe of the Nilotic race. They are a large, vigorous, almost bulky people. Their color varies between black and brownish, some of the women being remarkably fair. As to type, they stand between the Negro of Guinea and the Arab or Berber. Their countenances are rounder than those of the Arab, their eyes small, deeply set, but lively. They occupy a large district in East Africa directly South of Abyssinia.
4. The Negro. The general physical characteristics of the Negro are too well known to need description. It is a mistake to suppose all Africans are Negroes. The Negroes form but one of the six great races. Their home is in the Soudan, stretching from Senegambia on the West, to the highlands of Abyssinia on the East. The Mandiogoes are one of the most powerful of Negro races. They inhabit Senegambia, are very numerous, and partially civilized.
The W olofs occupy the region between the Senegal and the Gambia. They are the blackest and handsomest of all Negroes, and are a mild and social pe>ple. Central Soudan is occupied by the FOlllahs. They are one of the most remarkable races in Africa, distinguished for their intelligence and friendliness, are fairly industrious and civilized, and speak a rich and harmonious language. Our knowledge of Negro races is confined, in the main, to those of the coast, who are of the lowest type. Of the vast inland tribes of the Soudan ah:~ost nothing is known. The heart of this great country has scarcely been penetrated, and is now the least known of any part of Mrica.
5. The Bantu. The Bantu race is the most marked and characteristic race in Africa. The Bantu is of a far nobler type than the Negro. Though there are many tribes and nations, they all have the same general characteristics, and belong to one great family.' They are thus described by a recent traveller: "The Bantu is a fine, tall, upright man, with delicately small hands and well-shaped feet, a fine face, high, thin nose, beard and mustache.
" The further you go into the interior the finer the type becomes, and two points about them contrast yery favorably with most of the coast racesnamely, their lighter color, generally a warm chocolate, and their freedom from that offensive smell which is supposed wrongly to characterize most of the Africans. Some of them are perfect Greek statues as regards the splendid development and poise of figure. " They occupy a greater extent of cOllntry than any other one race in Africa, stretching from the SO North of the equator to the Tropic of Capricorn; or by countIies, from the 'Soudan nearly to Cape Colony. Thus nearly the whole Southern half of Africa is the home of the Bantu race.
6. The Goriepine. The Goriepine race is composed of Hottentots, Korannas, and Bushmen. A description of the Hottentot will suffice for all. Where they originated is a mystery. The only people to whom they are thought to bear a resemblance are the Chinese or Malays. Like these they have the broad forehead, the high cheek-bones, the oblique eye. the thin beard, and the dull yellow tint of complexion; but there is a difference in regard to their hair, which grows in small tufts, harsh, and lather wiry, and in the formation of the bones of the pelvis. They are a race of dwarfs, rarely exceeding four feet six inches in height. They are lively, cheerful, good-hnmored, and by no means wanting in intellect.
These six races form the native population of Africa. The entire population, both native and foreign, is variously estimated from 200,000,000 to 350,000,0.00. Mr. Guinness estimates it at 350,000,000. Stanley places it at 250,000,000. A conservative estimate would place it between 250,000,000 and 300,000,000.
II. We ask, in the second place, what is the social and moral condition of this great people 1 As to civilization and social status, Africa may be divided into two .great sections. The division is marked by passing a line froni the mouth of the Senegal Rh-er on the West to Cape Guardafui on the East. The Northern half includes aU the States of the Mediterranean, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Sahara. The Southern half embraces the Soudan, and Central and Southern Africa; or, as to races in the North, the Berber, Coptic, and Nilotic, in the South the Negro, Bantu, and Goriepine.
The Northern half has the characteristics of the Arabic civilization. The people are largely pastoral and nomadic. They have all the genius of the Arab, both for war and for trade. The Tuoricks and Tibbus of the Sahara are purely nomadic, living by means of predatory incursions and by tribute exacted from passing caravans. The Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis are the most industrious of Berber tribes. They till the land and work the mines in the mountains. The Copts of Egypt are an extremely bigoted people, of a sullen temper, very avaricious,. great dissemblers, ignorant, and faithless. They form the middle class, working chiefly as tradesmen and mechanics. The Abyssinians are, on the whole, barbarous and addicted to the grossest sensual pleasures. Their priests, among whom marriage is common, are but little better than the mass of the people. They are fierce and warlike, and have little regard for human life. In general, we may say of the Norj:.h African people, they are restless and nomadic for the most part, fierce and warlike, yet in some cases peaceable and industrious, proud; haughty, arrogant, energetic, and aggressive; in trade keen and versatile, with a strong native instinct for acquisition; in morals grossly sensual as the Abyssinians, or markedly abstemious as the Tuoricks of the desert or the Nubians of the Nile. In fine, they are characterized by both the virtues and the vices of the Arabic civilization and the Moslem faith. The stamp of the Arab and of Islamism is impressed on every race from the Mediterranean to the Soudan.
The Southern half of Africa is utterly destitute of any civilization worthy of the name. 'fhe people are for the most part in Ii primitive condition, not strictly savages, yet not civilized. As to social status, the people live mostly in independent groups under the command of a chief or king, whose domain may comprise only a few villages, or it may be a large extent of territory. In the Congo valley every village is independent, while in the South is the great Gorongange kingdom of Msidi, who is a most absolute despot, and rules by means of 2000 fusileers. In general the king or chief is tyrant and the people his slaves.
As to intelligence, there is a vast difference in different tribes. The best representatives, perhaps, of intelligence are the Bololo people, in the bend of the Congo. They clear away the tangled growth of t.he forest in their settlements, and sow the fertile soil with maize and mandroca. They are expert in the working and smelting of brass. They understand division of labor, and have divided themselves into farmers, gardeners, smiths, weavers, cabinet-makers, warriors, and speakers. They are intelligent, industrious, and friendly. The streets of their villages are straight and regular, running at right angles. Their houses are large and commodious. Far in the interior, however, we find a different state of things. Professor Drummond gives this description of the people in the Nyassa district: THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA.
" Hidden away in the endless forests, like birds' nests in a wood, in terror of one another, and of their common foe, the slaver, are small native vil- lages ; and here in his virgin simplicity dwells primeval man, without clothes, without civilization, without learning, without religion, the genuine child of nature-thoughtless, careless, and contented. This man is ap- parently quite happy ; he has practically no wants. One stick pointed makes him a spear j two sticks rubbed together make him a fire; fifty sticks tied together make him a house. The bark he peels from them, makes his clothes; the fruits which hang on them make his food."
There is one common characteristic of the Central African people. They are bom traders, and therein lies the hope of a future civilization for Africa. The commercial instinct is all-powerful.· They have actually created among themselves a true currency, though not a money one. " In the management of a bargain," says Stanley, " I should back the Congoese native against Jew or Christian, Parsee or Bonyan, in all the round world. Unsophisticated is the very last term I should ever apply to an African child or man in connection with the knowledge of how to trade. I have seen a child of eight do more tricks of trade in an hour than the cleverest European trader on the Congo could do in a month. Therefore, when I write of a Congo native, whether he is of the Bakongo, Bayanzi, or Bakete tribes, remember to associate with him an almost unconceivable amount of natural shrewdness and power of indomitable and untiring chaffer." As to morals, the picture is not so fair. The degradation is extreme and well- IJigh universal. Polygamy is everywhere practised. In the empire of Kasongo, 'Vest of Lake Tanganyika, the ruler is regarded as the husband of all his female subjects, except his mother. The idea of chastity seems to have been entirely lost. The value of a human life, especially of a slave, is unknown. Mutilation and death are the only punishments in vogue, even for the slightest offences. The slaughter of men, women, and children that accompanies the death of a chief is so revolting as to be almost incredible, had it not been attested by eye-witnesses. Human sac- rifices are common. The walls which surround. the palace of the King of Dahomy, on the West African Coast, are decorated with the heads of war- captives stuck on stakes. Cannibalism is not universal, but is prevalent among the tribes of the Upper Congo and about the Mobangi River, where the paths are marked by rows of human skulls, and the people wear neck- laces of human teeth. We shudder at the very mention of atrocities which ~ are of every-day occurrence among this people. From the dwarfs of the Great Forest of Upper Congo to the half-human inhabitants of the Kolohori Desert, and from the besotted Negro of Old Calabar to the degenerate Hot- tentot of Momagna land, the same blackness of moral degradation prevails with ever-deepening shades. All are not as atrocious or as degraded, but the few faint and s~attered gleams of light only serve to deepen and in- tensify the dense darkness that covers like a pall this truly benighted land. Africa has been likened, from her geographical form, to a woman with a
CONFUCIUS AND CHRIST COMPARED
huge burden on her back. Need I ask what that burden is! It is the crushing weight of a bondage more cruel and relentless than that of the Arab slaver, more deadly and destructive than that of the white man's rum -the bondage of a thousand years of ever-deepening sin.
CONFUCIUS AND CHRIST COMPARED.
In a recent issue of the American Missionary we find the vast difference between the power of the moral teachings of Confucius to affect the conduct, and that of the teachings of Christ, very clearly put by a converted Chinaman, as the following item will show: Hing Sing is a helper in the Chinese mission at Petaluma, Cal. He • reports in a letter to Dr. Pond, the superintendent, an interview with a pagan friend. Though his English is in dialect form, he makes it express very clearly his idea of the universality of the religion of Jesus, and its superiority to that of Confucius.
In the course of the interview his friend had acknowledged that it. was a wrong way to do to smoke and to gamble, and that it wasted money. " But," he said, to quote Hing Sing's own words, " you should not believe Jesus, for we have our own Confucius doctrine, which also taught us to be good. You should not believe Jesus, and should not imitate foreign doctrine.' , I answer him: " Gold have no limit, no matter from what country or nation, but pure and true, so that we call precious, for everybody can use it. Also the Jesus doctrine have no limit, from whateTer nation, but is the true, for we to imitate and believe.
" We loand Jesus was the Son of God, came down to saTe our soul, if we real trust in His name. I found our Confucius, he was virtue and good man. lIe can teach us to be good and honor, but he cannot save our soul. But we found J csus was the Son of God, for lie can give His Spirit to melt our wicked hearts into righteous and faithful and good man; our Confucius only can tell us between good and bad, but not able to melt our evil heart. How many our Chinese people understand our Confucius doctrine! Why should they not imitate and obedience his teaching? Smoke opium, gamble, swear, and other evil things, they know very well that was unrighteous, for why should they not imitate our Confucius what he has done, the good work, and obey his teaching 1 Ah, for he can only indicate to you the way of good, but he cannot inspire your spirit, but Jesus only can! Nothing impossible. When I was not a Christian I was gamble and I was swear, but since I became a Christian, never smoke opium, never gamble or swearing, and many of my friends was the same.
So it was illustrated, Jesus was the Son of God, can give ot His Spirit to inspire our spirit, to turn away from bad to the good."
A. WONDERFUL LIFE·BOAT
A WONDERFUL LIFE·BOAT.
BY CAPTAIN E. C. HORE, F.R.G.B.
If you turn to the map of Africa you will see, toward its centre, several large pieces of water known as the Central African lakes, and, in a central position among them, a long. shaped one called Tanganyika j its surface is 2700 feet above sea-level, and it is hemmed in nearly all round by high land crowned witb forests. Around the shores of that lake twelve different tribes of Africans have their homes j there may be seen market places where hundreds of natives bring their produce, such as mats, baskets, skins, bark cloth, woven cotton cloth, pottery, iron, both as hoes and axes, weapons and wire j copper, botb in pigs and manufactured into bracelets and otber ornaments, sugar-cane, ground nuts, palm oil, salt, honey, and butter, besides goats, fowls, fisb, and corn and vegetables of 'many kinds. , These are spread out for sale in the early morning in the market-places, which become busy scenes of barter and exchange.
For such busy and industrious people the lake forms a ready means of getting about; and much of the produce to be seen in those markets is brought there in canoes. These are wbat are known to us as dugouts– hewn out of solid trunks of trees from the great forests on the lake shores; they are clumsy-looking craft, following rather the model of the hippo- potamus than that of the swan, but strong and safe for all that j and tbe natives are very clever in managing them. These canoes are also largely used for fishing. I have seen more than 200 little canoes at one time out at nigbt catching whitebait. In each canoe a long faggot of dried reeds, witb one end alight and pushed over the bow of the canoe, served to attract the little fish in immense shoals. The fisherman, standing erect in his tiny-craft, and using a large hand-net, literally shovels them in. Tbe fish are then taken on shore, baked quite dry in the hot sun, and made up into little bolster-shaped loads wrapped round with leaves, and thus form,ing portable packages of preserved provisions, which are sent far and wide over the country. Other large canoes, some of them over forty feet long, are engaged in all kinds of trading enterprises between the different countries round the lake, and, especially, in the slave trade between tribe and tribe. For, although these fine people are so enterprising and industrious, there is everything with them that we think of as heathen and savage, the horrible curse of the slave trade having always kept them down, and no light of Christianity brightened their life into liberty and civilization.
But, a few years ago, there appeared on those waters a boat of most strange appearance and character for that remote region.. The Morning Star was her name, coming, let us hope, as the harbinger of the light and glory of a true daylight. She is a boat built of the best modern materials, and of handsome appearance, like a large sea-going life-boat, with three sails and eight oars, and flying at her masthead the peaceful device of the dove and olive branch-the flag of the London Missionary Society, to whom she belongs, and whose missionaries she conveys from place to place with a message of Jove and light to those natives.
And this is how the Morning Star got to 'l'anganyika : I went home from England to Central Africa in 1881 with a survey of Lake Tanganyika, and a report of the kind of vessel necessary for missionary work on that inland s~a. In due time the Good News, auxiliary steam yacht, was placed in hand for that purpose ; but, as it would be some time before she was ready for service, and a large reinforcement of missionaries were starting for Tanganyika, another smaller vessel was required, both for immediate use, 'and, afterward, to complete the efficiency of the boat service on the lake as tender for the Good News, or independently.
For this purpose I designed the Morning Star, 32 feet long and 8 feet beam. She was built from my design, by Forrestt & Sons, of London, in six complete sections, and ele'en smaller pieces, to be jointed together with bolts and nuts, each section and piece separately galvanized, and t:) form, when put together, a strong, sea-going life-boat. Each end section formed a complete air-tight tank, and two intermediate little cabins formed each of two sections, also being water-tight compartments.
To convey these sections overland six small carts or barrows, consisting of light wooden frames exactly to fit the sections, and wrought iron wheels and fittings, were made, also conveniently taken to pieces. All these sections and pieces and their carts, were conveyed in the ordinary way as cargo in a steamer from London to Zanzibar, where the strange enterprise commenced of conveying them overland to the centre of Africa.
From the East Coast of Africa, opposite Zanzibar to Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, following the windings and zig-zags of the only possible paths, is a distance of 836 miles, without railways, vehicles of any kind, or even beasts of burden. On the heads and shoulders of Africans, or on carts drawn and pushed by them, the Morning Star was conveyed to the lake. Carried over first in small Arab dhows from Zanzibar to the coast (a distance of 25 miles), the sections, and carts, and loads were landed at Saadani, a native settlement or town under the rule of the Sultan of Zanzibar. There the carts were fitted together ,and the sections secured npon them, and, after a great deal of work and preparation (for the boat and its fittings formed part of a large caravan, consisting altogether of over 900 Africans, ten of our missionaries, and all their stores, besides African moneys in the shape of many bale~ of calico and other cloth and barter goods) started on their long journey.
For three and one half months the faithful African porters cut their way through broad belts of jungle, dragged the carts ankle deep through miry swamps, threaded patiently the winding forest tracks, slowly clambered over mountain barriers-often hungry, thirsty, and excessively tired, but never giving in or yielding to others the" honor," as they considered it, of .managing the cart, or carrying the piece of boat which formed their part of the work. In camp. gossiping over the fire at night, they would argue with one another as to how the boat would be put together, and to strangers along the road they would boast that they were ,,'partners" in the enterprise of conveying it to Tanganyika; and this, often, while they were hungry and thirsty by reason of the hard work it had cau~ed them.
At last Ujiji was reached, the carts causing a great sensation there, and great wonderment was expressed at the boat sections. I soon got settled in myoid quarters, and the boat-building was commenced. Day after day she grew in size and beauty as the various parts were joined together, until, all being finished, she was one day launched into the lake, a thing of beauty and strength, and a joy to us for years of work, during which she proved to us safety and comfort and speed.
As the Morning Star was being built, some of myoid boat'll crew (natives of Ujiji), who were. eager to go again with me voyaging on Lake Tanganyika, came, day by day, to look at the new craft; day by day, too, some cloud or doubt seemed to damp their ardor about the coming voyage, until at last, one day, they came along to have a special talk with me, and the difficulty was explained. They had beguu to wonder, and then to doubt as they saw the metal sides of the boat, and had finally determined to tell me that, although they would" go anywhere" and" do anything" for me, they really could not go " to sea in a saucepan." I told them to wait; and while I was preparing to depart from Ujiji and give up our house to its owner, the boat lay quietly afloat at anchor. Several times I took So~lC of these Wajiji sailors off with me to the boat to have a look, and in this way seeing her buoyancy and perfect tightness, they at last became convinced of her seaworthiness.
Our beautiful boat was complete, and her loyal crew ready for work; the new Morning Star shone forth upon the lake, and now, for more than five years (having become well known as the harbinger of peace and goodwill) has been afloat there, welcomed wherever she goes, conveying backward and forward, between our stations, our missionaries and their stores, proving herself to be a stanch and good vessel, and in her life and history fully entitled to the name of " a wonderful life-boat."
There she still remains (together with her larger companion, the steamer Good News, afterward built there) on Lake Tanganyika, 2700 feet above the sea, and 800 miles from the sea-coast, a remarkable evidence of the very practical nature of missionary work in that country, and a means by which our young people may, by contributing to her support, help in giving to Dark Africa the Light of the Gospel.
Any of our readers who wish to study African missions will find, we are sure, great help in Tlte African News, published by T. B. Welch & Son. While this admirable periodical especially reports Bishop William Taylor's work, we have found it full of information, and have taken the liberty to copy a short article in these pages.-EDITOR.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVl'i:R, MASS.
-The Calwer Monatsbliitie1·, referring to David's ordinance, that" as his part is that goeth down to the battle, RO shall his part be that remaineth by the stuff, ,., remarks: "This is the word of a king, and is in force even to this dar. The cause is the Lord's. His are the laborers. His is the result. And He apportions the reward as He will. His truth finds application in a thousand ways. The simple Christian, who imagineR himself so far behind the missionary, and the missionary, who is tempted to imagine himself of special dignity in the kingdom of God, will one day find the Judge using another standard than that of either. Those .who look upon home .missions as an inferior work, and they whose sense of their country's need" makefl them jealous of everyone that is penetrated with the thought that ' the field is the world,' will both find at last that the question is not: ' Where have ye wrought l' but, 'How have ye wrought where ye were called to work~' 'If it is only good, then it is good. ' " Or, as the youthful Malcolm says: ., This, and what needful else That :Jalls upon us by the Grace of grace We will perform in measure, time, and place. "
" Inner missions," says the Monatsbliitter, referring to George Miiller's definition of himself, "are a Handlanger of foreign missions." A hand- Zanger is one who hands the materials which the craftsman uses. In Germany the mutual inosculation of the two interests is even more distinctly evident than here. It is no wonder,. then, that George Miiller has brought with him to England in the most eminent degree the instinct that refuses to separate them either in thought or act.
-The different departments of evangelistic work are corning so rapidly into intercommunication that we are as likely as not to find the fullest account of what is going on near us in some publication at the ends of the earth. This is illustrated by the following paragraph from the Bombay Guardian of November 22d, 1890. Even when it states facts already known, they seem to have a new meaning when they reverberate from hoary India: " We have frequently noted with thankfulness the progress of the McAH Mission in Paris. Now we learn that a large missionary boat, in connection with the mission, is to be anchored in the Seine. Daily services will be conducted in the cabin, which will contain nearly two hundred persons. The authorities have given every facility and protection. The Parisian prefect of police testifies to the good work which the mission is doing. He says: ' Every new McAll station means a reduction of po1ic~ force. Sixty persons now give their whole time to the missions, and froIl). 600 to 700 co-operate. There was an aggregate attendance last year of 1,200,000 persons in the 130 salles in all parts of France. In connection with this we may mention that in a paragraph in our last issue, on page 11, entitled' A Noble Giver,' alluding to this Rubject, the name of the writer-Dr. Pierson–was omitted. There is a holy emulation between the McAll Mission, the Salvation Army, aud the Belleville Mission of Mademoiselle de Broen as to which shall have the largest share in the leavening of the slums of Paris with Christian truth. They form an heroic trio. Things arc greatly altered for the better in Paris since the terrible record of 1871, with its petroleuses and communistic horrors." At least an elect remnant is being saved. The insurgents of 1871, as Mr. Hamerton remarks, should be called communards, not communists. The privileges which they claimed for the Commune, or Municipality of Paris, had no connection with any theories of communism.
-The Heidenbode informs us that the province-or as it is called there -the Presidency of Kedol, the newest field of evangelization in Java, now numbers 1000 professed believers, lately Mohammedans. This has been almost wholly the work of Javanese Christians, who show a remarkable zeal and successfulness in diffusing the Gospel which they have received. Everywhere, however, in the Dutch East Indies, Islam is advancing by natural increase, and by a steady reduction of the heathen populations under its sway. The Netherlands Government, which long directly encouraged the spread of Mohammedanism, is now beginning to be afraid of it, and is looking to its meani of suppressi.ng a very possible Moslem outburst of rebellion.
-The first re-marriage of a widow has taken place in the Pokarna callte of Brahmins.
-The (Jhronicle for November, 1890, speaking of the work ofthe London Missionary Society in Hankow, China, refers to the Hanyang Hill a8 being" so situated as to ghoe anyone who ascends it a bird's-eye view of the whole neighborhood. When our former foreign secretary, Dr. Mullens, came here many years ago, Dr. John took him to this spot as to one of the principal sights of the neighborhood, and he declared that in all his travels in India and elsewhere he had not seen any sight that impressed him more. Not that the view here presented to the eye is one remarkable for the beauty or grandeur of its physical ,scenery. A few low hills, a few lakes in the distance, the' great yellow Yang· tsze-here a mile wide-stretching away as far as the eye can reach in a north-easterly and a south-westerly direction, while from the northwest the tributary Han winds in and out till at last it empties itself here at Hankow (i.e., Hanmouth) into the larger river j these are the chief natural objects to be seen here. But it shows us one of the largest centres of human life and activity in the whole of Asia. To men and women who in any part of the world are carrying on the work of Christ, excellence of outward surroundings must always be estimated with reference to the presence or absence of their fellow-men. The first paradise of which we read was indeed a garden, the garden of the Lord, full of exquisite scenery, and of everything in nature that could delight the eye, but almost entirely devoid of living, sentient, thinking human beings. The last paradise is to be a city-the city of God. The difference is most significant. The Son of God rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of men j and when once His call has been heard by any of His followers to devote their lives and strength to the one work of saving men, then every large hive of human beings, every city-even if only full of fallen, sinful, heathen human,ity, and not, as the New Jerusalem, full of saints redeemed from the earth-must always have a strong attraction and fascination sl1ch as no solitary region, however grand or picturesque its scenery, can ever have." The population of Hankow, on ship and shore, the Rev. Arnold Foster, who writes this, estimates at a million and a quarter, besides the throngs passing and repassing from other provinces.
-The Missions-Blatt of the Moravian Church, for JailUary, gives a New Year's benediction, which, coming from that centre, extends over all that are concerned for the work of the Lord throughout the world: "Th9 Saviour's rich blessing for the New Year. May Himself, the King of HiA Kingdom, greet thee, beloved Church of missions, with the greeting of His peace! May His grace and His truth 'permeate thy ranks anew, and deeply illumine thy innermost heart. Into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hast thou also been translated through the love of the Father j and thou dost daily experience that He who, born of the line of David after the flesh, has been manifested in power as the Son of God after the Spirit, hallows more and more them that come believil1gly to Him as a people of possession, being now risen from the dead. Be He then in the New Year also, as well the heart of our preaching, as also He for whom we adventure and surrender all that we have-life and limb, goods and blood. For who but He is it that hath redeemed and won us over from all our sins and from the dominion of death, and from whom alone we have received grace and apostleship to establish among all the Gentiles the obedience of faith in His name."
-The Brethren's Church hall decided to take up a new mission in North Queensland, among the aborigines, and another on Lake Nyassa, within the German " sphere of influence. " .
-The Moravian Mission in Greenland consists of 6 stations, in 2 gro~ps, and of 9 missionaries. Under their charge are 1608 persons. The rest of the Greenlanders are cared for by Lutheran brethren of the Church of Denmark.
-The death, by a fall from his horse, of the hereditary High Chief of the Mosquito State-a young man of twenty-live-suggests to the Moravian. brethren that, in the event of the extinction of the reigning family (happily not imminent), this little Protelltant State would be, by treaty with England, absorbed by the Catholic State of Nicaraugua. This, however, is showing itself ftiendly to the brethren, and now allows them to instruct their converts on both sider; of the line.
-The Missionary Record for December, 1880, gives statistics (thoroughly corrected) of the advance of the missionary work of the United Presbyterian Church in Scotland in thirty years. The term" missionary" includes ordained native pastors, Zenana misI'ionaries, and European teachers, but excludes all native evangelists and teachers: Missionaries. Home Contribntions for Foreign Work.
1859…………………….. 30 1840…………………… £3,300 1869….. , ………………. 63 1849…………………….. 12,800 1879…………………… 81 1859…………………….. 16,900 1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 1869…………………….. 29,100 1879 ……………………. 32,300 1889……………………… .40,500 No. Native Congregations. Members in Full Communion.
1859 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 1859……………………. 4,552 1869 •……………… ~. " …48 1869 ……………………. 5,740 1.879……….. " ., ……….. 63 1879……………………. 9,187 1889…………………….. 96 1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,899 Native Pastors. Native ContributiollS.
1859……… 1 (Rev. Tiyo Boga.) 1859…………………… £2,090 1869……… 7 1869……………………. 3,020 1879 . . . . . . . . . 12 1879……………………. 6,500 1889. . . . . . . . . 23 1889 …………………….10,470 "The missionary sympathy of the Church has been widening and deepening j the liberality of the Church has been expanding j the lands in which our operations are carried on are being more completely taken possession of in the name of the Master; while a native church in each of those lands is rapidly gathering around itself the love and devotion of the native population, and promises to become, in course of time, so vigorous that it will be able to manage its own affairs, and allow our missionaries to enter into new regions where they may still further extend the blessed work."
What is said here about the Jamaican Church, connected with the United Presbyterian Church, ought to be laid to heart universally: "Our Church in Jamaica is looking forward to such independence, and endeavoring to prepare for it. But this independence ought not to be sought in the near future. It is a distinct advantage, to the cause of Christ in Jamaica that our Church there continues to be in dependent union with a church life ~f wider horizon and riper experience. Its own church life gains through this union, possibly a firmer fibre, but certainly a richer tone and a greater influence upon public opinion. To force our Jamaican Church into a position of independence by any mechanical arrangement would be a mischievous policy. It would mean the undoing of results that have been gained, and might require a reconstruction of the agency at work after an inferior pattern."
The present writer, two of whose former charges have been happily incorporated into the Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, can wish nothing better for them than that the United Presbyterian brethren in Scotland may keep an eye on them for a number of years to come.
-The following paragraph from Central Africa, the organ of the Universities' Mission, gives, in a few lines, the whole African heathenismperhaps the darkest form of heathenism, the most utterly dismal and comfortless in the world: "Only gradually does the deadly atmosphere of heathenism dawn upon one. Lust, as strong, perhaps in some ways stronger than with ourselves, has nothing to check it. There broods oppression on a petty scale, with tragic burnings and poisonings, fear of lions, or sudden night attacks, and murders of a mother or ,near relative who has been half the little world of life-things that leave the child an old man in heart, cut off from our comfortable security."
-The Indian Witness of December 6th, 1890, says ~ ., The death of Sir Rivers Thompson, late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, calls for a notice from the Christian press of the country. Respected even more than he was loved by all who came within the reach of his personal influence, he has left behind him a reputltion which any Indian civilian may envy. What he was in the dawn of his wider influence he was consistently in its meridian and at its close. An open worshipper of the living God, a friend of all agencies that sought to make Him known to dying men-a Christian in his conscienee, an Englishman to the backbone."
-The Mission Field, the organ of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, says: "Both by countenancing heathenism and by ignoring the missions, Christians in India retard the work. They do it doubtless unintentionally. Then they in some cases eomplete the mischief by depreciating the missions when they come home. It is an unfortunate fact that there is injury to the cause of missions, and to the zeal of the Church at home by those who, by having been in India, claim to be able to speak with authority, while as far as any actual knowledge is concerned, they are as ignorant about missions in India as they were before they left England. They take upon themselves the responsibility of repeating indiscriminate slander on the work of God, although they may be living close to strong evidences of God's grace and power." -The late Daniel Adolf Cracau, of Breslau, left, in 1887, a bequest of about £4,0,000 to the Moravian Church. The custodians of the trust are the German Emperor and the King of Saxony. Half the income is to be used for the conversion of the heathen, half for the ransom of slaves.
-The Moravian brethren, in their Periodical Accounts, cordially echo the wish expressed by the Rev. S. D. Fulton, in this REVIEW, that Protestant missions may soon be established in Nicaraugua, which, they truly say, bids fair to be just such a mission centre as the Apostle Paul • would h,.ve delighted in.
– The following reminds one of the suggestions of Gregory the Great to the Abbot Augustine, when sending him on his mission to con- vert our English forefathers. As Gregory was a man of deep practical in ight, his suggestions are always worth heeding. Speaking of the Melas, or religious fairs of India, the Mission Field says: "It is beginning to be generally felt that it would be well to have Christian Melas. The Mela is, in fact, valued by the great mass of the Hindus and Mohammedans merely as a holiday. It is the only holiday there is for the mass of the people.
Where the Hindu cannot attend one of his own he betakes himself to the Mohammedan, and vice versa. So will it be for the ordinary native Chris- tian. If he have none of his own he will be strongly tempted to attend those of his Hindu or Mohammedan neighbors. Accordingly there is a strong feeling that Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide should be treated as times for Christian Melas, and that the largest and nearest Christian station should be the centre to which the surrounding Christians should resort." The writer remarks that such gatherings may easily be kept free from all leaven of heathenism.
-The charges of " unscriptural optimism" and" unscriptural pessim- ism" are freely bandied back and forth in the Church between Christians.
The Bombay Guardian seems to hit the nail on the head in the following: " Every well.established Christian should be intenRely pessimistic and intensely optimistic. He should be intensely pessimistic of what he or any other man can do of himself, and intensely optimistic of what God can do through any child of His who fully surrenders to Him." .
-Henry Augustus J aeschke, late Moravian missionary iq the Himalayr.s, a lineal descendant of the first Moravian emigrants to Herrnhut, besides German was master of Polish, Danish, Swedish, and was acquainted with English, Hungarian, Bohemian, Latin, Greek, and after going to the East, already knowing Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic (and doubtless Hebrew), he learned Hindustani, and Urdu, and lastly Thibetan. He was likewise an enthusiastic student of mathematics and natural science, especially of botany. But he obeyed. the call of his Church, to go to the dreary Thibetan regions, as unquestioningly as if he had been an unlearned artisan. "While at Ladak he lived at Stok, near Leh, in the most frugal and primitive fashion. His food consisted of oatmeal and porridge, and the woman of the house faithfully kept for him the egg which her one hen laid every day. From his curiously.shaped bedroom he had to climb to his study by a stair composed of five unequal blocks of stone, and his furniture consisted of a tottering table and a still more defective stool." He had no notion of being too valuable in Europe to be hidden away in the inaccessible uplands of Asia. In other words, he was a true Moravian.
-The Periodical Accounts for September says: "THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD holds on its way with growing interest and power. Dr. Pierson continues his graphic and informing missionary letters from abroad, and we join with many in gratefully acknowledging his manifold labors on behalf of' missions by pen and word of mouth." The editors also express a kind senljle of the value of the extracts from foreign magazines.
-The .Macedonier brings the same accusation against the Dutch Govern- ment that English Christians bring against the British, with the further aggravation, that whereas England is ready to ruin a foreign race with opium for the sake of gain, Holland is destroying her own subjects.. In a notice of a Dutch book on the opium question, it says: "It supplies con- , vincing proof that the Netherlands are every day heaping new guilt upon themselves and murdering, body and soul, the Javanese who are under their jurisdiction. Yet it gathers nothing but facts, and for every statement is careful to give its authority."
-Missionary Lazarus, in the ])ansk .Missions-Blad, gives a pleasant instance of how the seeds of truth blow about in India: "Yesterday afternoon we preached before a Telugu village called Karapet, which we had already visited two or three times. Just as we arrived, the people, who are all lapidaries, came out to bid us welcome. They then begged us to sit down, and began to sing a Christian hymn, ' Come quickly, flinner, come to the Saviour.' The hymn was in Telugu, and many of them sang it well. I asked thelll where they had learned it,. and found that they had picked it out of a tract I had left there, and had set it to one of their own melodies. I then addressed them, and taking advantage of their calling, depicted to them Jesus as the Great Lapidary, who deals with our nature as they deal with rough rubiefl, to cause it to gleam forth in the glory of a pure gladness. Thus we find that the leaves of healing are not spread abroad to no purpose."
-We find in the Bombay Guardian of November 8th, 1890, the most particular account we have seen yet of the happy development of missionary activity among the English Friend@. It says: "Any Church which tries to exist without a missionary spirit will inevitably perish. Aggression is the soul of life. About twenty years ago the Society of Friends awoke to this fact, and in England turned its attention to the lapsed masses at its doors. Now nearly all its meeting-houses have a mission attached, seeking to help the poor in soul and body. Mothers' meetings, clothing clubs, adult and juvenile schools, and other similar agencies, are vigorously prosecuted. A marvellous increase of spiritual life in the Church itself has resulted. Its foreign mission work has likewise developed almost entirely during the past twent.y years. Up to 1875 only 1 missionary was in the field in India, now there are 14. Madagascar has 22 j China, 4 j Syria, 10 j Armenian Turkey, 9 j Zululand, 3. American Friends are also carrying on mission work among. the North American Indians, and in Mexico, Jamaica, Japan, China, Alaska,. and Ramallah in Palestine. Thursday of this week was to be observed at the headquarters of the society in London, as a day of united prayer for missions, including a Bible study on the spirit of missions, and then a survey of the needs of both the foreign and home work." Thousands of the children of this venerable society, now found in other denominations, will rejoice at this sudden outburst of life after long apparent decay. May she renew her youth, and while coming to this greater distinctness of evangelical apprehension and activity. long abide as a witness to essential, over against all the overvaluations of ceremonial, righteousness.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEY. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Black Fellows of Australia. colonist said to them: .. The few blacks will ultimately accept the Gospel of a FrnST PAPEB-MOBA.VIAN MISSIONS. crucified Saviour and be blessed there- • by, but the whites will hinder your BY~EV. A. HARTMANN, MOBAVIANTOWN, ONT. work, as they did the mission work of other societies." The first hindrance (Continued from page 217.) arose from the discovery of the gold nelds at Mount Alexander; the gold dig- I. FIRST ATTEMPT AT MISSIO:ti WORK. gers, coming from Adelaide, passing the mission station, damaging them in many Being repeatedly pressed to com- ways., This might have been borne mence mission work among the blacks with, but.the vulgar and disgusting in- of Australia, the Brethren's Church trigues of unprincipled whites greatly (Moravian) sent out two missionaries, hindered the missionaries in their efforts Tl1ger and Spieseke, educated laymen, to attract the natives to the place and to commence the work. In 1850 they to gain their confidence. Then, after arrived at Melbourne. They were very the exhaustion of the gold, many of the kindly received by the Governor, Joseph European immigrants took up land in La Trobe ; and the Bishop of the Angli- the colony, and also about Lake Bogs. can Church, as well as many ministers The missionaries were given to under. of other denominations, met them with stand that if they did not voluntarily true Christian love, and encouraged leave the land (on which they had set- them to do the Lord's work. tled by permission of the Government) steps would be taken to drive them After a long search in the northern away. districts of Victoria for a suitable place, they came at last to Boga Lake, which Meanwhile the missionaries went on had been recommended to them as the in their work, being strengthened by very best place, because it was a favor- another brother (Hansen) sent out in ite resort of the blacks. This Boga January, 1854. They also succeeded in Lake is about 200 miles northwest of gaining the confidence of a number of Melbourne, close to the boundary of the natives: Spieseke wrote: .. We have Victoria and New South Wales, and not not yet enjoyed the happiness of ob- far from the mouth of the Loddon serving the work of grace and of the river, emptying itself into the Murray. Holy Spirit in the hearts of the blaoks. Brethren, have patience with us, and The missionaries went back to Mel- believe with us, for we have reason to bourne, buying all that was necessary to be thankful for what the Lord has done carryon the work, and were permitted for us. When we oonsider how the ene- and authorized by the Government to mies of the Gospel have exerted them- make use of a certain portion of land selves to keep the blacks away from us, facing the lake, to build up a settle- we must confess that it is a wonder we ment. They little thought at the time have so many gathered about us, and that attempts would be made by some notice how they begin to trust us." whites to claim the land they had set- tled on. Much less did they think that We put it down as a fact that the mis- by their attempt to hring the natives sionaries would have succeeded if the under the blessed influence of the Gos. Prince of this world had not been per- pel, they would stir up the hatred and mitted to frighten them away. ill-will of white neighbors. ., There is no space allotted us in your columns to go into detail, and so we Heavy rains, followed by large 1I.00ds, made it impossible for them to arrive at Boga Lake before October 21st, 1851. They commenced their work in fear • and hope, and they experienced what a '< must sum up the diRastrous retreat of the missionaries now bitterly regret the Moravian missionaries very briefly. that they acted upon the impulse of the moment, and thus cut short a work In 1855 a neighboring settler, Imp- which was sure to bear fruit to God's ported by the District Court, claimed to glory, as the sequel will show. have a right to the land granted to the miRsionaries by the Government. Mr. II. Tager, the leader, being in ill health, had no inclination to enter on a legal RENEWAL OF THE MISSION WORK. process, as. he was advised to do. When, therefore, he found that he was For want of space we shall have to not righted after he had lodged his com- make just a mere sketch of the very plaint with the Government, he grew blessed and very successful issue of this impatient, and declared that on July second attempt. The two brethren ap- 1st, 1856, he would dissolve the mis- pointed (Hagenauer and Spieseke) have sion, as the authorities had failed to in every respect justified the confidence support him, and he had no mind to go placed in them by the Church. (Brother to law. A private individual has a right Spieseke was not to blame for leaving to actin this manner, but not a re- .Lake Boga ; he was subordinate, and spor:sible agent of a Mission Cburch did not agree with the move.) On May like the Moravian, for it was a breach 7th, 1858, they landed in Melbourne, of confidence. and were well received by the Gover- nor, Sir Henry Barklay, and numerous We quote the words of the Mission Christian friends. They were directed Board of the Moravian Church as laid to the Wimmera district, as most suitbefore the Christian public: •• It is true able for work aDlong the natives, and, that our mission work in Australia has after much travelling, a site for the for the time come to an end, an occur- establishment of a mission was found rence well calculated to humble us.. on the river Wimmera, not far from the How often, and not without reason, has sheep station Antwerp, belonging to the perseverance of our missionaries Mr. Ellerman, by whom they were reo been lauded when they were laboring ceived with open arms and helped. under various trials and difficulties, Here they obtained a grant of land of and under apparently hopeless pros- three square miles. The place was pects of success. How they kept to called Ebenezer. On January 10th, 1859, their post in a simple faith! Think of after humbly imploring the Lord's blessthe work in Greenland; think of the ing on the undertaking, the two mis- West Indies, where many brethren and sionaries started for the chosen spot, sisters went willingly into the jaws of and commenced clearing. Two natives death, and then think of the work here at first, and more afterward, assisted in in Australia, commenced with much the work, and by this means became aclabor and outlay, and carried on £or a quainted with the brethren. Soon the number of years; think of the giving natives gave the missionaries to underup of this mission, the necessity of stand that a carroboree–a kind of rewhich we are not able to prove. Think ligious dance-would be given in their that the missionaries left their post be- honor, which the missionaries could not fore every hope. was vanished to main- prevent. Mr. Ellerman provided the tain their position ; and then that they workers with food and lodging at his returned home without, and contrary home in Antwerp, twenty.two miles to, the permission of the Board. This distant, till they had built a home for is a painful confession, but we do make themselves. After eight :lays, Hageit before our dear Christian friends, and nauer commenced a school for the bow at the same time before the Lord, young men, and several made pleasing that He may again be gracious unto us progress. The women and girls were and exalt us in due time. We add that not forgotten. Clothing material had benches ; they made bedsteads, and a been provided by friends in Germany, box, etc. The youth Corney joined and Brother Hagenauer, though quite them. When the missionaries gave inexperienced, cut out and directed the them some kitchen utensils they were sewing of the dresses and pants. Later as proud and happy as kings. The rest. some ready-made clothing arrived from of the blacks looked on with astonish- Melbourne, which was a real boon to ment and pleasure, and after a time the missionaries. At the Sunday service sought to follow their example. For a the audience presented a remarkable as- whole year the missionaries had to fight pect. All had washed, and, so to say, against the difficulties which Brose from dressedthemselvegtoo-thatis, one had the heathen rites and dances, and the on a shirt, another a pair of pants, a superstition and degraded habits of the third a coat, and so on. .They had people, with no appearance of life from divided their clothes among themselves, God among them. But at last, in Januso that they might all appear at church. ary, 1860, the light sprung up and chased Amid all the work and anxiety of estab- away th.e darkness in the heart of Peplishing a home in the wilderness, the per (before mentioned), and he became missionaries never lost sight of their a new creature in Christ Jesus, though proper errand. But at first tbe only not without much conflict and many answer to the heavenly message was; slips and falls. One day Brother "Give me something to eat; give me Spieseke showed some Scripture prints; clothes; or, as when old Charley, after among others, one of the flood, and ana long, earnest talk and prayer, which other of our Saviour on His knees in Hagenauer had with him, pointed to agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. A heaven and asked if there were many day or two later Pepper came to him sheep and oxen there. Another time in the evening, saying, .. I want to came Diggy, and asked Spieseke for speak with you about my state. I don't flour. ,. What for?" said Spieseke, .. you know what is the matter with me. I have have done no work." "No," said Diggy, wept over my sins; last night I cried .. but I will go to prayers to-morrow." aloud. Just now I went to the river for The blacks showed a willingness to do water, and I thought, and thought, and all that was required of them. Their thought how our Saviour went that behavior at the meetings surprised night into the garden, and prayed till Spieseke, who knew their restless He sweat drops of blood, and that for habits, and looked upon it as a hopeful me." These words he spoke with much sign for the future. At times the wan- feeling. From that time a great change dering spirit came upon the natives, and was observed in Pepper, and be.came they vanished almQBt to a man. But two evident also to his brethren, for out of of their number (young Bony and Pep- the fulness of his heart he spoke to per) began to understand some of the them of the way of salvation, and of benefits of the coming of the mission- the Saviour whom he had found. His aries, and stayed with them, in spite of joy in God's Word, and his loving and the entreaties of their wandering com- tractable behavior showed that the panions. After the mission house was Spirit of God was at work in his heart. finished and the missionaries took up One Sunday evening, as the missionaries their abode in Ebenezer, these two young were returning from a neighboring stamen expressed a desire to give up their tion, where they had preached, they wandering life and build a house of found Pepper, surrounded by fifty of their own, which they did, with the his people, preaching to them the glad help of the missionaries-building it of tidings of the Gospel. Great was the bark, and finishing it off with I/, brick joy of the missionaries, who begged chimney, as the missionaries had done him to proceed, and afterward thanked their own. Inside were table, stool, or and praised the Lord for His grace thul! bestowed. After a time the request of mony. Even old people and little chil- Pepper to be especially instructed, with dren gave pleasing proofs of their be- a view to baptism, was acceded to, as it lief in and love of the Saviour, and became more and more clear that the many of them are now, we fully believe, work in him was of God. The 12th of rejoicing before the throne of God, .. hav- August, 1860, was the day of his bap. ing washed their robes and made them tism, and also that of the consecration white in the blood of the Lamb." Al- of the small church which had been ready in 1868 the number of converts in erected, and for which a new bell had Ebenezer had reached twenty. But be- been sent from Germany. Rev. Chase fore this time other laborers had arrived took the long journey from Melbourne; -two brides for the .brethren Spieseke from Horsham came friends, and the and Hagenauer, in May, 1861, who found neighboring sheep farmers came to· plenty of work among the women and gether to celebrate the event. That day the sick, besides caring for their own will not soon be forgotten by those who households. In November of the same were present. Pepper received, at his year, Brother Francis came from Engown request, the name Nathaniel. land,and when he left, after two years, Hagenauer says: " We felt that the Brother Hartmann and his wife entered blessing of the Lord was with us on that day." Of Nathaniel's further on the ~or1r, in which they continueCl course we will here say that though a true s!3rvant of Christ, he was Ii very for eight years. weak one; and though at times his light burned brightly, to the joy of his RAMAH-YUCK. teachers, at others he triell their pa· tience and grieved them by inconsisten- In the mean time a new work had been cies, which indeed was scarcely to be commenced in Gippsland by Brother wondered at in one so recently a hea. Ha.genauer at the request of the Presthen. He was the first of a great num- byterian Church of Victoria, who promber of converts who received the Gos- ised to provide the means if the Morapel with joy, and turned with repent- vian Church would send the men. It ance and faith to the Saviour, proving was proposed to name it .. Ramah," to by their lives, and often by their preach- which the natives added" yuck," " our ip.g; theirlove to Christ and the breth- home," thus showing their joy and apren: '~ 'these many names could be preciation. In Ramah-yuck the faithgiven.. Young Bony (baptized Daniel) ful efforts of Brother Hagenauer and was, at his earnest request, accepted as his wife met with success 8.Il in Ebeneassistant to the brethren who went to zer. In 1866 the first convert was bapcommence a mission at Cooper's Creek, tized, and received the name of " James in the interior (of which a hrief men- Matthew," and five months later Tomtion will be made later), but died on the my and Jack. In 1868 the number had ;way thither. Philip and Rebecca were increased to seventeen, and by the end placed in charge of the orphanage at of 1869 had risen to twenty-six. Ebenezer, and were most useful and consistent Christians. Philip also as- But these missions are not remarksisted in preaching, and often accom_ able for numbers, nor for the shining p~nied the missionaries on their evan_ lights among their converts, though, as geliziug tours among the still wander- was said before, some of these put to ing tribes. Dick-a-Dick 'was baptized shame many white Christians by their on what proved his death-bed. His consistency. Moreover, as sad diseases childlike and strong faith rejoiced the -particularly consumption-carried off hearts of the missionaries, and aston- many of their number, and others left ished all who heard his dying testi- the mission station to obtain employ- ment, it is easy to see that the work done was in many cases lost to slght, and, indeed, we shall only know when we see them in glory, how many of thll8e poor lost ones were rescued and saved. mankind, and that some will certainly The schools at both stations reached a be among the multitude surrounding high standard, that in Ramah.yuck the throne of God and the Lamb. having gained the highest marks for fOllr successive years, the only school in All the glory be to His name. Amen. Victoria which could show such results. So much for the general opinion that -The African Times says that a stam. the blacks could not learn. An attempt pede is reported among the" traders on was made to found a mission in the in. the Congo from the right to the left terior, at Cooper's Creek, which was bank of the river, except one Dutch given up on account of cost, and be- house, to escape the impediments and cause Lutheran missionaries had en· taxations of the Free State. The traders tered the same field, probably not know- say that this heavy taxation not only ing that our brethren were already there. applies to liquor, but to land tax, and Spieseke, after faithfully serving in even to canoes and surf-boats, and to the mission at Ebenezer for twenty white and black employes. years, died happily in the midst of his people, and was honored by them in his -Rev. Dr. E. W. BIyden, at a public burial. His place was supplied by dinner tendered him down at Lagos, Brother Kramer and wife, and Brother said, recently, that the Mohammedan Bogish. population of ,Lagos has increased with astounding rapidity during the last The natives are dying out fast, and thirty years. In 1863, Captain Burton the half breeds are not allowed to stay estimated the Moslem population at from on tj:le stations, so there is a fear that 700 to 800. In 1889 Sir Alfred Moloney our work in Victoria will soon be over. put them down at 15,000, and he de- scribes them as " the most orderly, in· But other fields are opening in tellectual, and respectable class of citi. Queensland; the latest news being that zens, composed of all the tribes of three brethren have been appointed by Yoruba. 'l'his is tb e official testimony our Mission Board. The country has borne of this people in all the settlebeen explored by Hagenauer with a view ments. They have spread over the to a speedy commencement of a mission whole of our fatherland north of the to the degraded cannibals of Queens. Equator from the Atlantic to the Red land. If we understand rightly, the Sea, from Lagos to Morocco, and from Presbyterians will supply the funds, Sierra Leone to Egypt." and the Moravian Church the men. Two other missions-one at Lake Con. Release of Mr, Penzot.ti dah, supported by the Church of England. and one at York Peninsula, sup- We have at last the satisfaction of reported by Friends-are carried on by cording the fact, which has already be· Moravian missionaries with much pros- come widely known through the daily perity and success. Lack of time and and weekly newspapers, that the long space forbids our entering into details and wearisome imprisonment of Mr. in regard to the blessed results of this Penzotti in Callao has been terminated mission among the aborigines of Aus- by decree of the Supreme Court of Peru. tralia; but enough has been said to The terms of the decision are not yet show that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus reported; but a telegram, dated Lima, Christ is "the power of God unto sal· April 3d, and addressed to a gentleman vation to everyone that believeth;" to in New York who has taken great inter. show that there is no respect of persons est in the case, announces in a single before Him, but that the Holy Spirit is word that he has been liberated. 1m. " given to all that obey Him;" to show prisoned for more than eight months, that the blacks of Australia are also in- on an accusation presented and urged cluded in the plan of God's salvation of , by a Roman Catholio priest, the Rev. of the terms offered the natives by the Jose M. Castro; charged with the offence Spanish Governor. He says the specifi- of violating the law in holding unauthor- cations of the Governor's trumped-up ized religious services; kept in a dun- charges against him were of three sorts : geon after he had once and again been (1) that I had been harboring the re- adjudged guiltless by the tribunals be- bellious Metalamin chiefs, feasting them fore which his adversary had summoned and buildingthem a house at Kiti. Also, him; denied the privilege of bail; (2) that I had been having meetings shrinking with inexpressible loathing with them and the Kiti king to influ- from the filth and impurity of the cell ence them against the Spanish rule. He in which he spent two hundred and also said, (3) that he had positive proof fifty nights with thirty or forty crim- that I was one of the principal leaders inals ; refusing to listen to the whis- in planning the breastworks at Oua.
pered suggestion that proceedings might And (4) as the mission was responsible be discontinued if he would agree to for the present outbreak of the Metala- leave Peru; constrained to send his min tribe, he did not think that we daughters out of the country, lest with- would be permitted to carryon our out a father's protection they might be_ work much longer.
comlt"victims of a foul consph:acy ; and ever hopeful that his sufferings would -Bishop A. W. Wilson, of the Meth- eventually lead to the promulgation of odist Episcopal Church, South, says religious liberty in Peru-he is now " that the agitation in Japan of the revi- vindicated and set free. Eight months sion treaty has affected foreigners in of imprisonment and the exp~nse of general, and missiona.ries to some ex- defending himself in three courts is tent along with the rest." Missionaries, what the administration of justice in he says, " have to be very careful about Peru awards to an innocent man! One their political positions.
cannot but ask What penalty would "This treaty agitation has raised up an have been in:tlicted upon him if the anti-foreign party, who want the Chris- outer door of the warehouse in which ti:l.n missions conducted only by native he talked to a small company of men Christians. 'I'hey want the natives to about the Gospel of Christ had not been formulate Christian creeds for them- locked, and if admission had been grant- selves. They do not want Christian ed to people without a ticket.-Bible creeds formulated for them by the West- &ciety Record. ern nations. They are fully able "to -Sir Edwin Arnold says, in the Daily understand Christianity and to formu- Telegraph: .. A new Japan is definitely late from the Bible creeds to suit themborn-constitutional, progressive, ener- selves. The idea of a representative getic, resourceful, sure to become great, government, as we have it, is not comand, perhaps, almost again as happy as prehended ; it is not in the mind of the she was of yore. Let the nations of the Japanese people. West receive and welcome as she de· serves this immeasurably ancient em- .. For 2500 years they have taken all pire which thus renews her youth in law from the Mikado, and I doubt not if the fountain cf constitutional liberties the Mikado would to-morrow withdraw and institutions." the Constitution, which gives repre- sentation to the people, the great mass of the people would quietly accept it as -The Daily Pacific Commercial Ad- coming from the source of all law-the vertiser of Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, Mikado. There would probably be a of March 14th, contains along letter from few murders among the student class, Rev. F. E. Rand, written at Ponape, to who would resist it, and there it would friends at Honolulu, giving an account end."
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
III.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Among other Alliances for Prayers for "Even so, come, Lord Jesus (Rev. Missions, we call attention to the xxii: 20). Prayer Alliance, of whi6h Miss Mabel B. Atwater, 334 Lexington Avenue, New " And this Gospel of the kingdom shall York City, is Secretary. It reads as be preached in all the world for a witfollows: ness unto all nations; and then shall the end come (Matt. xxiv: 14). Walch " In the Year of our Lord 1891. Shall and pray." the generation now upon the face of the earth hear the Gospel? Likewise we call attention to the Prayer Union for Arabia and the Ara- "First. It is our Lord's last command bian Mission. Gen. xvii : 18. (Mark 16 : 15). 'Every creature' cannot possibly mean only those on one Aden, Arabia, January 1, 1890. third of the globe. It is our Saviour's will (1 Tim. 2 : 4, 6). The Arabian Mission, begun in an- "Second. This generation will be lost swer to prayer and sustained by conunless they hear the Gospel (Rom. 1 : 20, 21, 28, and Ps. 9 : 17). stant appeals to the Throne of Grace, " Third. If this generation hear the comes to its friends with a New Year's Gospel, IDe must carry it to them, for to us the work has been committed (2 Cor. request. 5 : 19 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 11). On the threshold of Arabia, face to " Fourth. We cannot serve the next generation. Are we with David serving face with the greatness and difficulties our own generation (Acts xiii: 36)? of the work, and deeply conscious of " In the heathen world there are about 1,000,000,000 souls; 30,000,000 a year our own weakness, we ask you, who go into eternity without God. Our Lord said: ' Go ye into all the world have already shown your sympathy for and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Out of 35,000,000 Protes- the cause of Christ in Arabia, to join tant church-members only about 6000 have obeyed this command, one in us in stated, fervent prayer: every 5800. Evangelized, 116,000,000 ; unevangelized, 1,000,000,000. The field 1. That God's promise in regard to is the world. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.' the children of Ishmael may speedily " And whatsoever ye shall ask in My be fulfilled, and that His blessing may name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John xiv :13). rest upon every effort put forth to give " Pray ye therefore the Lord of the them the Gospel. I harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest (Matt. ix : 38). 2. That many may be led to choose PRAYER ALLIANCE. for their field of labor this neglected .. , Depending upon the Holy Ghost to portion of the Lord's vineyard. bring it to my remembrance, I pledge myself to pray daily, IN FAITH, for the 3. For a special blessing upon the evangelization of the whole world during the present century; and the speedy missionaries of the Arabian. Mission: coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.' that they may live very close to the Master; that t.heir lives and words may ever point men to Christ; that God may be pleased to use their efforts in bring- ing many of the children of Ishmael unto Himself.
Will you join us in making these ob- jects a special burden of prayer at your Sabbath morning devotions throughout the year?
"The wilderness and the solitary plllce shall be glad for them, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."
" He is faithful who hath promised."
.TAMES CANTINE, S. M. ZWEMER. " Speed on, ye heralds, bringing The latest phase of the Uganda revolu- Life to the desert slain ; tion-the flight of Mwanga, his appeal Till in its mighty winging, to the Church he persecuted, the vic- God's Spirit comes to reign. tory of the Christians. the J:eturn of From death to new·begetting, Mwanga, and his re·establishment in God shall the power give; the kingdom surrounded by chiefs and Shall choose them for crown.setting councillors professing the Christian And Ishmael shall live. faith-is a chapter in praise of meekness and mercy. In Uganda to.day the .. So speaks the promise, bringing , meek inherit the earth' and Iorgive. The age of Jubilee ness is proved to be the noblest re- To every home and tenting, venge." From Tadmor to the sea. The dead to life are risen; Goodness is sometimes better than The glory spreads abroad ; greatness. A missionary in India was The desert answers heaven, so feeble mentally that he could not Hosannas to the Lord !" learn the language. After some years -J.G.L. he asked to be recalled, frankly saying that he had not sufficient intellect for The St, Paul of Uganda. the work. A dozen missionaries, how- ever, petitioned his Board not to grant When Stanley urged Christendom to his request, saying that his goodness send missionaries to Mtesa's kingdom,' gave him a wider influence among the Mackay joined a party of eight to found heathen than any other missionary at an industrial mission to the Victoria the station. A convert when asked, Nyanza. In three years he alone sur- " What is it to be a Christian ?" replied, vived. For fourteen years, in jeopardy "It is to be like Mr. –" naming the every hour, he was yet the soul, the good missionary. He was kept in In- hand, the head of this great and model dia. He never preached a sermon; movement. The London Times called but when he died hundreds of heathen him ".The St. Paul of Uganda" : as well as many Christians mourned him and testified to his holy life and char· " He built, cut type, translated, print- acter. ed, engineered, navigated, diploma- tized; he de~ounced crime, preached It causes sorrow to many to learn that .the Gospel, acted as schoolmaster and Mrs. Phraner, wife of Rev. Stanley K. doctor; he befriended Emin Pasha, Phraner, died at Chang Mi Laos, in Junker and Stanley, and strove, alas Northern Siam, one month after their in vain! to save Hannington from the arrival. Mr. Phraner graduated last results of unconscious but heroic folly; spring at Princeton Theological Semi. he controlled the court so far as it could nary, was ordained by the Presbytery of be controlled; protected the brave Westchester, was married, and imme- Christian boys, and, in a word, through diately set out as a missionary to Siam. baptisms of blood and fire, won a He is a son of Rev. Wilson Phraner, church in the wilderness for the dear D.D., for many years pastor at Sing Lord and Master whom he served with Sing, N. Y. an absolutely single eye. No such story of Christian heroism has ever teen told Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn, the President in our day. The boys of Uganda who of the American Board, referring to died in horrible tortures rather than whiskey in Africa, is said to have used deny their faith will rank with the this terse but telling sentence recently: noblest martyrs of Christian history. ., Every dollar gained in the Congo rum Every line in our Lord's Sermon on the trade ought to burn in the palm of a Mount finds its illustration and con- firmation in this extraordinary history. man who gains it, as if it were a part Proposed Colony on the Bellamy Plan. of the blazing asphalt that makes the pavement of the infernal regions." A ,despatch from Hutchinson, Kan., says: "John Caplieg, of Buffalo, N. Y., Baptist Missionary Centenary in passed through this city, March 26th, on 1892.-Next year the Baptists will cele- his way home from Beaver City, in No. brate the centenary of the formation of MlLn's-LlLnd, where it is proposed to lotheir Missionary Society. It is the old- cate IL co-operative colony to be organest organization of the kind in existence, ized on the Bellamy plan. He said that excluding, of course, the Society for the he expected the colony would be formed Propagation of the Gospel, founded this spring in time to put in crops, if nearly a century previously. William possible. The colony, he thinks, will Carey, of Leicester, Baptist minister, comprise about 500 people to start with, schoolmaster, and shoemaker, first raised and it is to be strictly co-operative." the question of modern missions in 1786. but not until 1792 was the Society Attempts similar to this have been launched. Historic dates and places made from time to time, but the bottom linked with the So.ciety·s inauguration has dropped out of them all Booner or will determine the time and centres of later. The only perfect state is that the forthcoming services. Carey built on Christianity. kindled the flame by a missionary sermon preached on May 31st at Notting- The revival among the Telugus in ham; on October 2d the Society was the last few months has been the notable formed at Kettering; and, on March event of the year. Four thousand con- 20th following, he was ordained for mis- verts in that mission have put on Christ sionary work at Leicester. At the open- in baptism. Upon one Lord's day 1671 ing meeting of the Society £13 28. 6d. was were baptized in a little over six hours, subscribed, which .seems trifling com- two men only at a time administering pared with the current average annual the ordinance. It must have been a income, between seventy and eighty grand sight to witness on the forenoon thousand pounds. The Society has a of that dllY the thousands of thirsty inbright record of labor in the East and quirers, many of whom had travelled West Indies, and latterly, since 1878, miles, sitting upon the ground in the on the Congo, where it employs over broad commons drinking in with rapt twenty mISSIOnaries. A centenary attention every word that fell from Dr. thanksgiving of £100,000 has been Clough's lips, as he expounded from proposed, and the increase of the Soci- the text, ., Come unto Me, all ye that ety's yearly income to £100,000. The labor and are heavy laden, and I will young folks connected with the Baptist give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, chapels and Sunday-schools are invited and learn of Me ; for I am meek and to raise one fourth of the form€r sum. lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest To the 120 missionaries and 306 evan- unto your souls." The words given of gelists at present in the field it is con- the Spirit to the speaker were indeed templated by the Society to send forth .words of eternal life to the hearers, and a hundred additional men and women. brought rest to many souls whose bodies The Baptist Union of New Zealand has were wearied by the long journey to this resolved to hold simultaneous centenary " Bethel" of their souIs. Thirty of Dr. gatherings. Once more I notice that Clough's co-workers assisted him in the "A Frii'md" has sent £1000 to the examination of the candidates for baptreasurer of the Baptist Missionary So- tism, and none were baptized of whose ciety. a similar amount having been conversion they did not find good evisent by the same person at the begin- dences. ning of several recent years. In this Ongole station the revival has been continuous now since 1877, and it may be doubted whether in all mission- sticks, and objects used in their idola- ary history another such case is to be try, and made a great bonfire of them. found. Mr. Mackay says that over 500 houses were cleansed of idolatry in his pres. The Right Heir, e:nce."
When the excellent Christian Schwartz Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, it may be re- was about to end his long and devoted membered, were to join Mr. Pentecost missionary life in India, he said, in view and assist him in his evangelistic work of all the Lord's goodness to him, "I in India with their singing. In are. make Christ my heir"- and then by his cent letter to the Hartford ReligiCYU8 will made provision as far as his world- Herald a member of the family writes as ly means would go, for carrying on the follows: work of Christ among the heathen after he would be gone. We can think of but " On the 17th of November we reached one addition to this plan: to make Calcutta. Here we stayed until the 1st Christ first of all the partner of our daily of January, 18111, helping Dr. Pentecost toils and profits. in his meetings, and doing a great deal of singing for the missionaries. We We are so crowded with matter of were entertained by Bishop Thoburn, great importance that we omit this the Methodist Bishop of India, and by month any distinct Department of the pastor of the M. E.church there. Monthly Concert. Our readers will not The Methodists are by far the strongest miss this, inasmuch as the whole num- in India of any of the denominations, ber is maiuly given to Africa, and is and they are ce~tainly doing a great and unusually rich in material from various grand work. About Christmas time Dr. valuable sources upon different phases Pentecost decided to turn his attention of the languages, customs, oppressions, to the educated natives, and as they and needs of the Dark Continent. were not appreciative of Christian song, he·advised us to make a tour of the cities Says the Ewminer: "The Rev. Mr. of India, helping the missionaries as Mackay has been in the Island of For- we go. So we left Calcutta, January mosa for a great many years. About ,a 1st, and next day arrived at Benares, dozen years ago he planned to visit a the seat of Hinduism. We sawall their district containing a number of villages vile worship, and the great ruins of bearing the name of Ka-le-oan. Not Buddha's first preaching places.••• being able to go he sent II native preach- We visited Cawnpore, the scene of the er. Mr. Mackay was enabled a few worst atrocities of the mutiny of 1857. weeks ago to visit the region. He Then up to Noradabad, where was being found the people having a wonderfully held the North India Conference. We clear conception of the Gospel and had some fine meetings, and got a peep wearied with their idol worship. They at the executive missionary body. told him that the Mandarin would not let them throw up idolatry, declaring "We have held a song service and that they would be rebels against Chi- sometimes two or three in every city we nese authority if they did so. Mr. have been in except Delhi, where we Mackay saw that official and gained his were not entertained. We ha"e helped consent to let the people do as they in the conferences and in every place liked. 'fhe people held a council, and have sung to large audiences of Euroat once determined to forsake idolatry. peans." Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins planned A temple recently built was turned over to sail for home on February 28th, and to the missionary, and became a Chris- stop in Egypt, Palestine, Italy, Gertian meeting:house. Parties went about many, and England, reaching home by the villages gathering up idols, incense midsummer.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
BY MRS. 1. T. GRACEY.
Woman's Foreign Missionary 22,156 subscribers, a children's paper, Union of Friends in America. Cor- the King's Messenger, is also published, responding Secretary, Eliza C. Arm- with 20,315 subscribers, Boston, Mass. strong, Centre Valley, Ind. A large amount of miscellaneous litera- ture is issued by the society. The consolidation of the various branches of the woman's societies un- Woman's Baptist Foreign Misder one board has been accomplished, sionary Society of the West.-Orwith a department of missionary litera- ganized 1871. Corresponding Secretary, ture, one of junior and juvenile work, Mrs. A. M. Bacon, 3032 South Park another of systematic Christian giving, Avenue, Chicago, TIl. and another of interest and organization. Home report of this society: Number Number of auxiliary societies 224, of circles 1243, number of guilds and with 3376 members, and 2140 members young people's societies 233, mission of children's bands (number of bands not bands 309. The fields occupied are the given). Amount of money received dur- same as those occupied by the society of ing year, $23,164. the East. The same periodicals also are circulated. The board supports 18 missionaries, 8 native evangelists and Bible readers, Foreign work: Twenty-eight mission- 51 children in homes or boarding- aries are supported, 3 of whom are medschools, 7 day schools with 304 pupils. ical; 79 schools, in whole or in part, with an aggregate of 1759 pupils; and 31 Work is carried on or aided in Mexi- native teachers and 49 Bible women co, Japan, India, Syria, China, Indian have also been supported. Territory, and in Alaska. During the year the Carpenter Memo- Friend's Missionary .Advocate is the rial Hospital, at Bassein, has been official organ. This paper has been opened. Receipts for the year, $34,674. owned by Mrs. Esther Tuttle Pritchard since its establishment, in 1886, until Woman's Baptist Foreign Misthe past year, when a centralorganiza- sionary Society of California.-Corretion was effected, she presented the sponding Secretary, Mrs. L. P. Huntspaper to the union. man, 1264 Eleventh Avenue, East Oak- land, Cal. BAPTIST WOMAN'S BOARDS. This society has been organized 16 Woman's Baptist Foreign Mission- years. Previous to 1889 only one misary Society.-Organi~ed 1871. Cor- sionary was supported, who was staresponding Secretary, Mrs. O. W. Gates, tioned on the Congo. Now they sup- Newton Centre, Mass. port 4 missionaries, 2 to Hakkas, of China, 1 at Seudai, Japan, and 1 at The home work of this society is rep- Swatow, China. resented by 1440 circles, or contributing churches, 702 mission bands, and 15,578 Receipts for past year, $2214. No re" members. Amount of money raised for port of home work.
year ending March, 1890, $99,007. Woman's Baptist Missionary So- The society has work among the Bur- ciety of Oregon. -Corresponding Sec- retary, Mrs. Clinton Latourette, Oregon mese, Karens, Shans, Chins, Kachins, City. Eurasians, Telugus ; missions in China, Assam, Japan; Congo Mission, Africa, This society reports 31 circles, with a and Europe. membership of about 500, 7 children's bands, with 220 members, and 11 young Fifty-one missionaries are supported; people's societies, with 345 members. 9 sent past year; 171 schools with 6119 Amount of money raised from October, pupils, and 67 Bible women. 1889 to October, 1890, $1730.
Official organ, the Helping Rand, with One missionary is supported in Now- its Church Board. It helps to support gong, Assam. and contributions made work in Shanghai, China. Has 2 misto support Bible readers in Burma and sionaries-I a physician-and 3 assist. in, China. ant teachers. Has 1 boarding.school with 12 pupils. Work is also carried on Woman's Missionary Union Aux- in Holland in addition to home work. iliary to Southern Baptist Conven- Receipts for year, $3216. tion.-Organized 1888. Corresponding Secretary, Miss Annie W. Armstrong, 10 Christian Woman's Board of Mis- East Fayette Street, Baltimore, Md. sions.-Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Lois A. White, No. 160 North Delaware Prior to 1888 the Baptist women of Street, Indianapolis, Ind. the South had been working for missions, but without a general organiza- Twenty·nine States report 882 auxtion. Auxiliary societies 1469. iliary societies connected with this bo.ard-156 organized the past year. The society contributes to the work Present number of members 15,086, of the board in Brazil, Japan, China, young people's circles 49, children's Cuba, Italy, Mexico, Africa, besides bands 380. work at home among the Indians and colored people of the South. Official organ,' Missionary Tidings, with 4459 subscribers. A children's The society has a general depot for paper, Little Builders at Work, has a submissionary literature in the city of Bal- scription of. 2000. Amount of money timore, where can possibly be found the raised for the year, $45,166. largest variety of missionary le!,fiets in the country. Literature has been sent The society has work in India, out to 14 States, and over 100,000 Jamaica West Indies, and in Montana leaflets and pamphlets have been dis- in the home field. An orphanage is tributed during the year. supported at Bilaspur, India, with 19 orphans, and a school with 27 pupils, Amount of money raised, $21,398 for and a hospital has been established in foreign missions, and $10,161 for home India. Number of missionaries or formlSSlons. Official organ, the Baptist eign workers not given in report. Basket, Louisville, Ky. Woman's Auxiliary to the Board Free Baptist Woman's Missionary of Missions of the Protestant Epis- Society. – Corresponding Secretary, copal Church.-Corresponding Secre- Mrs. J. A. Lowell, Danville, New Hamp- tary, Miss Julia. C. Emery, 21 Bible shire. House, New York.
The home work of this society is rep- During the past year a junior auxiliary, resented by about 250 auxiliary societies modelled upon the woman's auxiliary, and 57 children's bands. Amount of has been formed, and a paper called the money raised during year, $7694. Peri- Young Ohristian Soldier started. The odical, the Missionary Helper, with 1250 woman's auxiliary has its workers in 51 subscribers. dioceses and nine missionary jurisdic- tions. Besides their domestic missions, The main work of the society is in the auxiliary aids the work in China, India. The principal stations are Mid- Japan, Africa, Mexico, and Alaska. napore and Balasore, where zenana, Six missionaries have been sent to the school, and medical work are success- :field the past year. fully carried on. Twenty teachers, 5 Bible women, 13 male teachers, in all 49 The aggregates are all given for parish persons, have been supported. An Of- ladies' aid work and other mission work phanage at Balasore has 35 children, and combined. It appears that of an aggre 7 day schools with 270 pupils. gate collection of $542,197, about $36, 838 is spent in foreign work. But the Woman's Board of the Seventh- North American Indian work is includ- Day Baptists.-Corresponding Secre- tary, Miss Mary F. Bailey, Milton. Wis.
This society works in connection with ed in domestio missions. It is impos- eties, 437 auxiliaries, 176 mission bands; sible to follow here the classification members in auxiliaries 10,443, members which is made where the home and in bands 4869; total membership 15,- foreign work are in separated societies. 312. Amount of money raised from April, 1889 to April, 1890, $32,117. 'Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety of the Reformed Episcopal This board has work among the Ind- Church.-Organized May, 1889. Corre- ians of the Northwest, missions in sponding Secretary, Mrs. William H. China, Formosa, Central India, Island Allen, Philadelphia, Pa. of Trinidad, the New Hebrides, and British Guiana. Foreign statistics not This society, so recently organized, given in report. Periodical, Monthly raised during the year $4077. One mis- Letter Leaflet, with a circulation of 5500. sionary is supported in Cawnpore, India, and another went to Calcutta under the Woman's Foreign Missionary So- auspices of the Woman's Union Mission- ciety of the Presbyterian Church in ary Society. Money has been sent to Canada (Eastern Section}.-Organized Sierra Leone, Africa, to open a training- 1876. Secretary, Mrs. J. T. Thompson, school, and some aid given to Japan. 111 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, N. S.
Oa.nadia.n Societies. This society is represented by 6 Pres- byterian societies, 112 auxiliaries, 5 Woman's Missionary Society of young people's branches, 46 mission the Methodist Church (Canada).- bands. Work is supported in the same Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. E. S. fields as those of Western Division. Strachan, 163 Hughson Street, North Receipts for year $5340. Hamilton, Canada. Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- This society, territorially, is divided sionary Society of Ontario.-Corre. into 5 branches, viz., Eastern, Western, sponding Secretary, Miss Buchan, 165 Central, Nova Scotia, and New Bruns- Bloor Street, East Toronto, Canada. wick, and Prince Edward Island branches. Number of contributing circles 173, number of bands 81. Money received Home force: Auxiliaries 358, memo for the year $7471. bers 8020, mission bands 153, members 4462. Amount of money received for ,Work is carried on in India at Akidu, year $25,560-an advance of over $3254 Cocanada, Tuni, and Samulcotta. At over preceding year. Cocanada a flourishing boarding·school is supported, with 26 pupils. The society has a prosperous work in Japan, a boarding.school at Tokyo, and Woman's Baptist Foreign Misseveral day schools. Also a large work sionary Society of Eastern Ontario among the French in Canada, and dur- and Quebec.-Corresponding Secretary, ing the year a French institute has been Miss Greene, 478 St. Urbain Street, established in Montreal with 43 pupils. Montreal, Canada.
Theyhave a work also among the Ind- This society has work the same as the ians and Chinese on the Pacific Coast; society in Western Ontario. It has support 18 missionaries, 12 in Japan about 50 circles. Money raised during and 6 at home. Periodical, Missionary year $1530. Other statistics not given Outlook, Toronto. in report.
Woman's Foreign Missionary So- Woman's Auxiliary to Diocesan, ciety of the Presbyterian Church in Domestic, and Foreign Missions of Canada (Western Division). – Or- the Church of England, Diocese of ganized 1876. Foreign Secretary, Mrs. Toronto.-Secretary, Mrs. W. Cum- L. J. Harvie, 80 Bedford Road, Toronto, mings, 321 Markham Street, Toronto, Canada. Canada.
This society has 25 Presbyterian soci- Number of adult branches 51, number of junior branches 17, members 1407. Periodical department in The Canadian Ohnrch Magazine and M'i,Ssion News. The human family living to-day con- Total amount of money raised for sists of about 1,500,0'00.000 individuals. 1890, including value boxes of clothing In Asia there are now approximately to needy missions, $12,236. about 800,000,000, densely crowded; on an average 120 to the square mile. In General Statistics, Europe there are 350,000,000, averaging 100 to the square mile-not so crowd- BY BEV. D. L. LEONARD. ed, but everywhere dense, and at all points over- populated. In Africa there Missionary Ammunition. – Every are 210,000,000. In America, North and pastor ought to see that every pew is South, there are 110,000,000 relatively supplied with the diagram first pub- thinly scattered. In the islands, large lished by the Church Missionary Society and small, probably 10,000,000. The of London, which pictures to the eye at extremes of the white and black are as a glance, and most effectively, the 5 to 3 ; the remaining 700,000,000 interspiritual condition of humankind by mediate brown and tawny. Of the race, means of a rectangle 4 by 6 inches, 500,000,000 are well clothed, that is, printed in various colors, to distinguish wear garments of some kind to cover the principal religions and divisions of their nakedness; 700,000,000 are semithe Christian Church, and divided into clothed, covering inferior parts of the some 1500 squares, each one represent- body; 250,000,000 are practically naked. ing a million souls. Thus the Jews oc- Of the race, 500,000,000 live in houses cupy but 8 squares, the Greek Church partly furnished with the appointments 84 squares, Protestants 125, Roman of civilization; 800,000,000 in huts or Catholics 190, Mohammedans 170, but caves with no furnishing; 260,000,000 the heathen 856, the latter and most have nothing that can be called a home, palpable fact being properly emphasized are barbarous and savage. The range by so many squares in jet black. And is from the topmost round-the Anglothen, to show what slight impression Saxon civilization, which is the highest has been made, what a tremendous task known-down to naked savagery. The remains to be performed after 19 centu- portion of the race lying below the line ries of Christian history, after 100 years of human condition is at the very least of Protestant modern (playing at) mis- three-fifths of the whole-900,000,000. sions, those awful 856 inky squares contain 2-only 2-near the centre that are -The various Protestant churches of snow white-standing, of course, for the Canada sustain 6 missionary societies, handful of converts made from heathen- and contribute to the foreign work an ism. What Christian heart can gaze aggregate of $165,000 annually (of unmoved upon such a lamentable de- which $100,106 is expended through the lineation? Presbyterian Board), have Ill3 missiona- ries in the fiela: and 380 native laborers, Then add to this another set of fig- and have gathered 8172 members into ures, which portray the physical, intel- their churches. lectual, and social status of mankind, and we have a working basis for an –The indications are unmistakable overwhelming appeal for a general and that the Huguenots in France, after sublime outburst of evangelizing faith centuries of extreme depression, and and zeal. And without doubt never after even lad apostasy from faith and were the facts relating to the condition fervor, are at length awakening to new of the race upon the material side set spiritual life. This fact appears espeforth so adequately in such brief space cially in the aggressive work undertaken as in the statement which follows. It to spread a pure gospel both at home has been before the public for some and abroad. They number some 600,000, years, and may therefore be quite famil- and are gathered into about 650 iar to many; and yet it cannot be reviewed and pondered too often: churches, though 30,000 or more are the seat of the IIiission. The work acsCdttered, and destitute of pastors and complished is made palpable in part oy places of worship. They sustain 3 Bible 125 chapels and prayer· houses, 341 consocieties, 3 book and tract societies, gregations, 6367 communicants, 223 many Young Men's Christian Associa- Sunday-schools, with 8151 scholars, and tions, 2 theological seminaries, 2 schools 194 day-schools, with 236 teachers and for evangelists, 4 societies for carrying 4423 scholars. Of these schools 171 are on evangelistic work, and a host of col- primary, 15 are high caste Hindu girls' porteurs. The annual contributions schools, 3 are Mohammedan, 3 boardfor home missions amount to $100,000, ing, and 1 industrial. In addition a and for foreign missions, $80,000. But college was opened in 1885, which now so limited are their resources and so has a teaching force of 19 and 361 stuheavy their burdens, they have sent one dents, and having as its chief object the of their number-Professor L. J. Ber- training of teachers and gospel workers rand-to America to raise here, if pos- of every kind. Money has also been sible, $20,000. raised ($15,000) for a hospital in Guntur.
Methodist Protestant Church.- -The Moravian Church, the pioneer Secretary, Rev. F. T. Tagg, Easton, missionary body in modern times, I!nte. Md. dating Carey and the Baptist Missionary Society by 60 years, with its" home .. Report for eight months ending De- membership of but 21,360, has in its cember 31st, 1890 : missions 30,591 communicants, and 87,263 in its congregations. Ten coun. RECEIPTS. tries are occupied, with 135 stations; 36 men and women were sent out last yelll, Foreign Fund..•..••.••…………• $3,452.12 making 355 Europeans and native as. Children'S Day…………..•……. 5,718.74 sistants in the field, with 1663 other Album F'und . . . . . . . . .• . . . . . . . . .. .. . 142.71 native helpers. In 113 Sunday-schools SpeciaL ……….•………………• 1,319.06 15,362 scholars are taught, and in 235 day-schools 20,629. The receipts for Balance, May 1 …… _. . ••• .. ….•. . 1,250.03 1889 were $100,115, of which upward of $40,000 came from non – Moravian Total. ……•…••…•••.•…….. $11,882.66 sources. Expenditnre•..•..•••…•..••.•.••… 11,371.15 The lal'gest mission is found in the Balance, Dec. 31…….. ..•. ………. $511.51 British and Danish West Indies, with 49 stations and 39,420 in the congrega. This society has 2 stations in Japan; 2 tions. Next come Surinam and Deme- churches, with 205 members; 15 mission· rara, South America, with 27,534 adaries and teacher/!; 3 Sunday.schools, herents, and South Africa, with 13,084. with 350 scholars; a college with 50 stu· Gnadenthal, the oldest station in South dents; an Anglo.Japanese school, with Africa, is to celebrate its centennial an attendance of 152, and a school for next year by the erection of a new women with 90 pupils, in all 292 under church, to cost £2000, of which the peo. instruction. A kindergarten will soon pIe on the spot hope to raise £1500. be opened, and the first native Japanese preacher has been chosen and will -The Syria mission of the Presbysoon be ordained. terian Board, North-especially with its large and thoroughly furnished printing General SynGd of the Lutheran establishment, and its Bible house at Church.-Secretary, Rev. George Scholl, Beirut-is one of the most important in D.D., Baltimore, Md. the entire foreign field. Besides Beirut, stations are maintained at Sidon, Trip- This society has 1 mission in Africa and 1 in India, and sustains in all 13 representatives from America, and 171 native assistants. The India field is in the Madras Presidency, upon the Bay of Bengal, and among the Telugus, covers about 5000 square miles, and contains 1,000,000 of inhabitants. Guntur is ali, Abeih, and Zahleh. This tahle progress has been for nearly fifteen will show how steady and general the years: STATISTICS OF THE SYRIA MISSION.
1876. 1885. 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889.
– – – – — – – – – – – American Missionaries .. _. .. _… . .. . …….. . 28 38 37 34 35 42 Native Laborers . ….. ' ………………….. . 120 Stations and Out-Stations ……………….. . 65 189 179 171 201 201 95 91 96 94 94 Church-Members ……………………….. . 573 1,301 1,440 1,493 1,534 1,615 Added on Profession…. .. . ……………… . 75 130 153 104 63 98 Average Congregations ………………….. . 2,642 3,891 4,293 4,289 4,522 4,640 Sabbath-Schools ••.•.. . ………•••……… 40 S. S. Scholars …………•……………….. 1,540 73 68 66 81 88 Total Schools. . ………… .. . ………… . 80 3,804 3.746 3,732 4,620 4,966 136 121 125 141 142 Total Pupils …………………………… . 3,509 5,665 5,344 5,391 6,299 6,172 This table of statistics, and the one summary covering eighteen others, which follows, though in a condensed while from four, the Free Methodform, are taken from the very valuable ists, the African Methodists, the Bap- American Board Almanac of Missions. tist Convention of the United States, Facts are set forth in detail concerning and the Friends, no report was reten of the principal societies, with a ceived : 'FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED STATES, 1889-90.
~ .; AMERICAN ~ ~ ci ]"o'" ~. .~'c"~.; LABORERS. '<""3 0 '~" 00 :og.~a SOCIETIES. rn.; ".8 "03 w "~ .:i 0""3,8" .;J .S ""..~- .co $ "03 S ."c 0 ""… ~" ~ 'c:3~ ….:I 'C E,,"~ rn ;:;I I'""< ~ 0 'C … ~" .":: "'C ,,~ 8~ ~ .c p~…. z" -;; 'C 0 Z 0 -<j —— — — —— — —— Meth. Epis.,North 52 :1 159 135 3,018 559 42,632! 5,563 30,049 $282,997 $885,197 Presb. Bd., North. 99 240 336 1,302 320 26,794' 2,753 23,935 Am. Board(Cong ) 96 200 333 2,417 387 36.256 4,554 47,319 lii,494 794,066 762,947 Bapt.. Miss. Union 64 1,382 131 200 1,343 712 81,072 7,099 20,615 54,844 440,788 Meth.Epis., South 4,014 244,176 Ref. Ch. (Dutch).. 18 . i4i 34 "35 97 "in 5,336 552 '4',i56 . fi,D03 117,000 15 26 364 Protestant Epis .. 52 168 74 39 210 38 2,631 264 3,876 5,527 189,183 ~aPt. South. Conv 37 124 33 45 86 62 2.213 409 675 4,681 109,174 resb.Bd.. South. 18 98 37 41 50 31 1,207 360 1,207 4,317 107,627 Unit. Presb Bds. 16 198 26 44 459 391 9,568 1,722 10,687 7,167 100,539 E ili~te:sn ~.t~~~ ~~: 113 151 ~ ~ –.: -.-: ~.495 3,351 –.:,871 ~,187 _278,914 1 Totals . . . . . . . . 580 3,474 1,054 1,296 10,020 2,721 236,187 25,963 174.891 $524,21J $3,977,701 PRINCIPAL FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF GREAT BRITAIN.
MISSIONARIES. zi ~ "" '" 'C.; " °8 ~.2 – – – – – – Ol SOCIETIES. w~ "03 ~=">= S" ~ "ol~o~~ oJ S Z S 0 03 – "rno );l "I'"< 0 =">-< 0 —– – —— Church Missionary Society. . . . . . . . . .. . …. 315 338 59 4,121 49,016 $1,145,240 Wesleyan Missionary Society. ….. . …. 363 343 6,284 34,086 703,115 Society for Propagation of Gospel ………. 499 2,447 66,593 625,190 London Missionary Society…..••………. 1)33 155 154 5,419 68.805 505,765 Free Church of Scotland…… .. ……… 209 80 35 660 6,620 480,535 Ba{,tist Missionary Society……………… 515 126 986 48.646 , 398,045 Chma Iuland Mission ……. .. ……….. 158 180 180 232 2,839 257,420 United Presbyterian, Scotch …………… 251 491 14,899 202,455 69 25 Established Church, Scotland. .. … … .. 30 17'9 825 156,805 Church of England Zenana MIss. Society .• Gl 113 639 135,000 – – – – Twelve other societies. .. ……………… 348 347 232 3,059 55;752 540,803 — Totals ………….. ……….. …. 3,353 2,167 – – – – —- 798 24,517 '348,081 $5,150,373 The second table of figures on the pre- so heroically founded by the late Mr. ceding page gives certain details con- Mackay before the waves of successive cerning 22 British societies, of which 12 revolutions swept over Uganda. In May are presented only in a summary. But next another mission party depart for the total of receipts is not to be taken as Uganda, under the tried leadership of showing the entire gifts of British Prot- the Rev. R. P. Ashe. 'lile Rev. G. H. estant Christians to foreign missions, for, V. Greaves, and also Dr. G. Wright, have according to Canon Robertson, their con- been appointed to it. "Six or eight more tributions in1889 amounted to $6,056,530. are at least required," says the Church Missionary Society, "in view of the -The Methodist Episcopal Church, wonderful openings for Christian work South, publishes a very complete table of all kinds in Uganda, in Usoga, at the of statistics of its Chinese Mission Con- south of the Victoria Nyanza, not to ference for the year ending September speak of the nearer territories of the 30th, 1890, and showing the results of British East Africa Company." five years' work. Two dist~icts are occupied, and 10 circuits, with 30 mis- Except the Scottish m~ionary camsionaries, male and female, and 6 nati ve paign of the Free Church of Scotland to helpers. Into the churches 345 mem- raise a sum of £20,000 for the fourth bers have been gathered; 22 Sunday- period of five years in the history of the Bchools are sustained, with 742 scholars; glorious Livingstonia Mission, no sim.iand 47 schools of all grades (including lar undertaking can be compared with an Anglo-Chinese college, with 146 stu- the remarkable endeavor of the Church dents), with a total attendance of 100l. Missionary Society to send forth 1000 In the 2 hospitals 2494 patients were missionaries during 1891 into the mis. treated last year. sion field. Partaking of the nature of a missionary revival, it is being achieved Foreign Mission Notes, with almost incomparable enthusi8Rm. Men and means are flowing into the BY REV. JAlIlES JOHNSTON, BOLTON, ENG- treasury of God. LAND. Mr. A. M. Mackay's Father. -The Africa – Bishop Tucker. – Clouds readers of the :MISSIONARY REVIEW in all continue to hang over Uganda. Bishop lands will welcome a glimpse of the Tucker had a rough journey inland, not- father of the late distinguished mission. withstanding the kindness of German ary, which the writer, favored with an officials en route. On reaching the con- intimate friendship, can supply. At fines of his new diocese he was seized the foot of Boniface Downs, east of with fever. By the attacks of this Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, overlook. dreaded foe two of his ardent fellow ing the wide-stretching blue waters of missionaries were fatally struck down the English Channel, lies the charming at Usambiro. Their loss to the cause is home of this dear old man. It has been greatly regretted. Through the jealousy opened to receive many weary African of the French Roman Catholic mission- traveilers, who have left behind them aries, and the ever-threatening attitude souvenirs of the Dark Continent, or of the Mohammedans on Mwanga's ter· gifts from the gallant Mackay himself. ritory, the bishop finds the situation in From this spot were sent for yearll Uganda exceedingly perplexing. It is newspapers, books, etc., to Alexander not improbable that as soon as an inter- Mackay, who in turn despatched porview has been granted by Mwanga he tions bf them to his friend Emin Pasha, may make a hurried journey to England, in Equatorial Africa, when caravans to take council with the committee as to were.permitted to pass through the inthe future policy. Should the journey tervening hostile countries. The father be made, he will leave a small band of of Mr. Mackay is a native of Thurso, in men in Uganda to re-establish the work Caithness, originally, in all probability, as well as the export of slaves in his of Scandinavian stock, and his mother, territories, to the best of his power. of Banffshire. In his quiet Ventnor The following is the translation of the home, which he occupied on retiring from the Presbyterian ministry in Scot- copy Oll" TREATY: land, he has watched with practical solicitude the course of the missionary " I, Mwanga, King of Buganda, here- enterprise. Though bearing the silvery by declare, in the presence of Dr. Carl locks of age, it is a veritable inspiration Peters and Pere Simeon Lourdel (since to listen to his eloquent utterances on dead), that I prohibit the slave-trade in the redemption of the heathen world Buganda and the territories belonging from the yoke of idolatry. thereto, and that I will do my utmost to prevent the exportation of slaves from As Mr. Stanley promised Dr. Mackay, all countries under my jurisdiction. prior to departing for Africa, in 1887, to bring his son home "safe and "MwANGA, KA13AKA sound," it is not easy to imagine his disappointment when he learned that of Buganda. his long-absent "Alick," declined to leave his post. Greater and irreparable " SIMEON LOURDEL was the blow on the arrival, last year, of the tidings of Mr. Mackay's death. of the AlgerilJn Missions. Of this calamity the doctor has written, under date of February 7th, 1891, to the " CARL PETERS. writer: "The news of my dear son's death at Usambiro gave me a stunning " MENGO, May 16, 1890." blow. It came so unexpectedly that, for a time, I could hardly realize it, es- The arrival of this information, topecially as I half.expected him home gether wUh the adherence of all the some time during the summer. I have, European powers (now that Holland has however, learned to say, 'the will of the consented) to the General Act of the re- Lord be done,' and I have no doubt this cent Brussels Conference, will gi"e a event, like all others, has been wisely strong impetus in every quarter of the ordained by the Divine Disposer." He globe to the anti·slave·trade movement. alludes to the success of his son's memoir written by his sister, of which 8000 More African Missionaries.-Dr. copies have been sold. "Its perusal," George Smith says that he knows noth. he says, ., has led to the self-consecra- ing at all in history which equals the tion of some young men to the Lord, rapidity with which the civilizing, Chrisand to the evangelization of poor be- tianizing organizations had spread over nighted Africa." Mr. Mackay's trans- Africa during these fifty years. Although lation of the Scriptures is being dili- he has spent the greater part of his life in gently completed by three of his most India, where there has been great misintelligent converts and pupils in sionary enterPrise, "still, before Africa, Uganda. India paled. " I understand that the Mo- ravian Mission and the Lutheran Society King Mwanga and Siavery.- in Berlin were in communication with Though one is naturally sceptical of the doctor last January, asking his adany real change in the heathen passion vice and assistance respecting the des· of this African monarch, it is gratifying patch of missionaries to the German to report that Prince Hohenlohe Lan- African territory. It is remarkable to genberg, President of the Deutschen learn that instead of entering their own Kolonial-gesellschaft, writes of Mwan- " sphere of influence" from Bagamoyo, ga's resolve to forbid slave-dealing, they preferred the Scottish route via the Zambesi, the Shire, and Nyassa. Very shortly the Livingstonia Mission pur· pose sending a party of six men, two of whom are medical missionaries, to the north end of Lake Nyassa. The Mora- vians propose to send in their compnny four missionaries for work in Ge.rman territory, and the Lutheran Society will send three, or probably five, by the same that they have a right to cook or sell in missionary expedition. them, and turn them into shambles, or set up open.air theatres on the sideways. A Congo Missionary Heroine.- They cannot endure the institutiou of a Friends of the Congo Missions will re- pound. Dogs, donkeys, and troops of gret to hear that Mrs. Percy Comber, goats from time immemorial wandered who only went out in May last year, and where they pleased. Who was the worse was married to Mr. Comber in the for their liberty? The dogs never went August following, has fallen a victim to mad; they were the auxiliaries of the the malarious climate. Great sympathy hymns in devouring corpses scarcely cov- is expressed for her suddenly bereaved ered with earth. Why trouble about the husband. The name of Comber will be registration of births, deaths, and mar_ always honorably associated with Afri- riages ? Tunis, nevertheless, is making can missions and African exploration. steady headway in the path of progress. Their martyr roll on African soil in- cludes the names of Dr. Sidney Com- In this unevangelized region seven ber, Thomas Comber; Mrs. Hay, her missionaries of the North Africa M'tssion sister, Mrs. Thomas J. Comber, and are laboring. The darkness of the land now, Mrs. Percy Comber. By these, is appalling. Tunis is spiritually dead. truly heroic breath has been offered for Alcohol is the chief foe of the mission Africa's perishing millions on the Con- workers. Mohammedan insobriety is go watershed. notorious. A missionary writes of the Regency: " The longer I live in Tunis, The Niger Troubles.-A long doc- the more I see and hear of its awful ument has been issued by the Commit· wickedness, and the burden of souls is tee of the Church Missionary Society, very real to us. " It is pleasant to learn appointed to inquire into the charges that the Roman Catholic Italians in made by the English secretary on the Tunis are moved with the simplicity of west coast of Africa against the native the Gospel. mIssIOnaries. Briefly summarized, the report practically acquits of guiltiness Uzbek Turki Gospel Translations. the principal native clergy whom the -Thanks to the enterprise of the Brit· Rev. F. N. Eden took upon himself to ish and Foreign Bible Society, a part suspend, yet in two instances his de. of one of the most important biblical cision is confirmed. An English Church translations undertaken of late years, dignitary will possibly embark for the consisting of the four Gospels, is now Niger on a mission of reconciliation. passing through the press. It is esti- To the credit of the society, it should mated that Uzbek is the' language of be known that, promptly and exhaus· nearly 2,250,000 people scattered over tively, it invariably deals with the diffi· Russia ;r;. Asia, Bokhara, Afghanistan, culties whieh arise on its fields of labor. Khokhano, and Khiva, and is spoken by almost all the agricultural population of Tunis.-Of this J!'rench Protectorate these territories. The language is hard in North Africa, with a population of to acquire, as it is spoken in an exceed- 2,000,000 souls, the great majority of ingly rapid, shrill utterance. The transwhom are Mohammedans, a book of lation, reported to be quite worthy of considerable interest has just been pub- the society's repute for scholarly acculished, entitled" La Politique FranQaise racy, was commenced in 1884, by M. en Tunisie," whose author hides his Ostroumoff, a learned Russian gentle. identity under the signature of P. H. X. man who had lived many years in Cen- He speaks of the administrative diffi. tral Asia. His rendering has been most culties of the French resident as being caretully revised and, where advisable, very trying. The Tunisians like their amended by Dr. Radloff, Professor Sale. picturesque, old·world ways, and aro man~, Dr. Sauerwein, and M. Amischanot to be meddled with. Their idea is sisantz. that the streets belong to everyone, and Jewish Colonization in Palestine.- Government circles cause serious mis· "Yeax by year," remaxks Lieutenant· givings regarding the nation's welfare. Colonel Goldsmid, "the state of the Thus fax French influence has not raised Jews all over the world is becoming less the moral standard. The habits of life satisfactory instead of better. As the and non·Christian principles of Frenchresult of the persecutions in Russia and men are unmistakably introducing a Roumania Jewish colonies are being false civilization. In developing the refounded everywhere. They are even in sources of Madagascar, or promoting an initiatory stage in South America, commercial enterprise and colonization, and may likely be commenced in Cen- the French are utterly unfitted. The tral Africa. These schemes, Mr. Gold- export and import trade is nearly all smid thinks, are only deferring the evil done by English and American traders. day. He holds firmly that the Jewish Religiously, the work continues to prosquestion will never be settled until there per. In face of the disappointments is a Jewish state in the Holy Land. with respect to the action of the Govern- " In some countries," he says, " we are ment, the missionaries maintain a pow. persecuted. In others we are barely erful hold on the native communities. tolerated. I am not at all surprised at The London Missionary Society and the this. What other race with 80 glorious Society of Friends sta,nd on almosj; sima history as ours would tamely sit down ilar platforms, and attempt much in comand see the land of their ancestors in mon. It is regretted that the advanced the hands of a foreigner? Italy has re- sacerdotal teachings of the agents of the gained Rome, why should we not regain Society for the Propagation of the Gos. Palestine, instead of being contented to pel prevent co-operation with this body. remain tolerated by the peoples among Despite the energy of Roman Catholic whom we live ?" missionaries and their numbers, they are singularly weak and unable to gather Madagascar.-Political affairs are congregations. taking an erratic course on the island. The determined attitude of the more India-" Age of Consent" Bill.-Naenlightened and patriotic Malagassies tive papers are full of letters and distoward the French Protectorate, to cussions relating to the proposed measwhich I referred in the January issue of ure for raising" marriage consent" from the MISSIONARY REVIEW, is being neu- the age of ten to twelve. The bill is in tralized by the Malagasy Court. Either committee, and should reappear before by adroit negutiations, or intrigue, the the Legislat.ive Council next March, French are already on growingly cordial meanwhile, local goveTnments are colterms with the Government. The Eng- lecting native opinion in all parts of the lish adviser, the Protestant missiona. country. By the Mohammedans exries, and other tried counsellors, are to- pressing themselves favorable and, to day set aside for the French, while the a laxge extent, the Brahmo-Somaj, there queen, the prime minister, and the . is great anticipation of eventual sucladies·in-waiting affect French customs, cess. Orthodox Hindus in Upper· and and eagerly show their regard for the Western India are apparently unconofficials of the French Republic. As a cerned. The National Congress is neucorrespondent says: "The French rep- tral, according to its resolution not to resentative has but to go ahead cau- agitate on social questions. From Bengal tiouslyand circumspectly to obtain for comes the most pronounced opposition, his country all she can possibly wish though it is generally believed the meas· for." What the future will bring re- ure will be carried when it is universally mains to be seen. At present the coun- known that the bill does not interfere try, administratively, is in a lamentable with religious customs, or form a pre-. condition. .The increasing selfishness, Iude to corresponding acts of legislation. despotism, and lax morality noticed in