The Missionary Review of the World — September 1890
THE MISSION IN BASUTO LAND
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIII. No.9.-0Id Series·–SEPTEMBER.–voL. III. No. 9.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
THE MISSION IN BASUTO LAND.
BY REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.
The Christian Church owes this singularly interesting mission in South Africa to the Paris Missionary Society, which was founded in 1822 by some of the most prominent men in the French Reformed Church, whose names are yet fragrant in the memory of multitudes in other lands besides their own. Those men of God appear to have inherited much of the holy intrepidity and zeal of their Huguenot ancestors, for, in the midst of conscious weakness, one of their earliest acts after emerging from the fires of persecution and the tempests of revolution, was to unite in forming themselves into a missionary society and to claim an honorable share in that grandest of all enter- prises, the bringing about of the conquest of the world for Christ.
Basnto Land is a native territory lying between Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal. The Orange river is the southern boundary, and the less important Caledon flows through its centre. It is a mountain land with deep valleys, many of which are gladdened and fertilized by refreshing streams which shed verdure and floml beauty upon their banks. In later times it has been placed under a British protectorate, which affords greater liberty and safety to the missionary, and gives to those mission churches which owe theil' birth and maintenance to French Protestants some claim upon British liberality. An eadier mission had already been established in another part of South Africa by the Paris Missionary Society, and had gatlwred its first fruits in converts and churches; but even this mission to Basnto Land dates back to a period many years before the names of Moffat and Livingstone had become household words in all the languages of Christendom and in all the churches of the saints.
The founder of the Basuto Mission was Eugene Casalis, who had associated with him from the beginning two fellow-workers of congenial spirit and of varied gifts, which greatly increased their usefulness. He who had been the honored founder of the mission has also lived to be its historian in a volume which has recently been translated into the English tongue, and which, in its picturesque descriptions, its narratives of thrilling adventures, and its style sparkling with vivacity, as well as in its more solid qualities of devout thought and burning zeal, and "common sense which is not common," tracin!; all the while the growth of one of the most successful Christian mis! sions in modern times, keeps the reader under a pleasing fascination to its close. ,,y e intend in this paper to present some notices of ):lis earlier years, prior as well as preparatory to his entering on his consecrated and greatly honored missionary life. Our facts shall, of course, be principally gathered from his own souvenirs.
Eugene Casalis was born November 21, 1812, at Orthes, a town in' the Department of the Lower Pyrenees, about thirty miles from Bayonne. His parents wet'e pious Protestants, of good social position, who could look back through generations of Huguenot ancestors, some of whom had bravely suffered for the faith. The boy thus received the priceless benefit of a godly upbringing, even those cherished ancestral traditions of faithful suffering for Christ mingling with and favorably influencing his thoughts. Weare led to conclude that there was something rather stiffened and stereotyped about the religions life of the worthy parents, and that it was in some measure deficient in warmth and joy. This made the youth welcome with keen relish the hymns of the saintly Cresar Malan, with their gladsome notes of faith and hope, which had begun to find their way from Geneva to those parts of France in which the faith of the Reformed Church prevailed. This good influence was increased by the appearance in that staid Protestant community of M. Pyt from Bayonne, a pastor and evangelist of much fervor and eloquence, who was received at the first with some suspicion by the sterner natures, but whose warmth and zeal in no long time overoome all opposition, while great numbers were attracted towards him who were passing from youth into early manhood. Eugene was among the first to sit at his feet and drink in his words of holy wisdom. It was natural that such an eager listener should soon attract the notice of the earnest evangelist, who was interested by his promising gifts and apparent buddings of grace, and at length, with the consent of his parents, he returned with the young pastor to Bayonne, where, under his daily supervisiOl" he was to receive a higher education in which the Christian element should be supreme. Gradually, under the evangelist's watchful eye, Eugene's hopeful symptoms ripened into decision; he not only embraced him. as a Christian brother, but discovered in his conversation and action qualities and desires which seemed to mark him as a missionary to the heathen. The finger of Providence had begun to point to the far off land.
This led to another important step, in the transference of Eugene to the Mission House of the Paris Missionary Society in Paris, where hopeful young men, while undergoing a period of probation, were meanwhile under systematic training for the work of a missionary to some dark region of heathendom. It was a wise and happy arrangement for youths, in whose hearts the Spirit of God had kindled a holy ·enthusiasm for the missionary enterprise, to be placed, for a series of years, under the direction and superintend~nce of such master spirits as Grandpierre and Audeber and Frederick Monod, of more than one .of whom we can write with the recollection of personal friendship, who combined, in a remarkable degree, the gift of eloquence with glowing zeal, geniality of spirit, and practical wisdom. There was labor in the mission house without weariness. Every hour had its a prescribed work. Exegetical theology held large place in the ·curriculum of study, for men such as Monod had sat at the feet of Robert Haldane at Geneva, and had learned from his instruction and example the divine art of bringing out the mind of God from a pas- sage of scripture, and to regard this as the highest function of a min- ister of Christ.
The young neophytes were also introduced to some knowledge of those sciences which might be turned to practical account on the mission field. Some of their hours were also spent outside the mis- 'sion house, in visiting the sick and the poor, in experiments in evangelism-as birds learning. the use of their wings-and in acting as hands and helps in the distribution of charity. As months and years rolled on in these congenial services, the thoughts of Eugene Casalis wandered more and more to Africa and its dark millions; he became impatient to go forth and share the toils and conflicts of the mission field. It is possible for the mower to spend too much time in sharp- ening his scythe. The unanimous voice of the directorate in the mission house at length said to him, "Go." It was a welcome sound,' as that of the trumpet to the war horse. On October 18, 1832, he was solemnly ordained by assembled presbyters to the office of a minister and missionary of Jesus Christ, his friend and pastor, M. Pyt, who had foreseen and foretold his destiny, and left on him the ·deep impress of his own noble character, fitly presiding at the laying ·on of hands.
A few weeks were spent by him in a visit to his parents in the old home at Orthes, there being a wise aITangement, however, that their intercourse should not be darkened by allusions to his departure till the hour for farewell was near at hand, for so strong was the impres- .sion in those earlier days that the separation would be for life, that the "A1( ;evoir" was usually pronounced with the finger pointed to heaven, as if there must be the next place of meeting. We give a few :sentences of the young missionary's own account of his parting, in which the self-denial and bravery of his venerable mother shines nobly out: "The horses were brought before the door of our house at four o'clock in the morning. After a prayer, mingled with sobs, there began a scene which I can only compare to that of the supreme separation at the moment of death. My father, my brother, my sisters were overwhelmed. My mother alone had power to speak. Seeing I was overcome, she cried, 'Courage, my son, it is for yonI' God. Go without regret; commit yourself to Him. I know that He will take care of you.' "
On November 11, 1832, Eugene Casalis sailed from London for South Africa, the appointed scene of his mission, having associated with him M. Arbousset, a young minister like-minded with himself in his French vivacity and spirit of perseveringendllrance, and Gosselin, a Christian artizan without culture, but to whom educated men delighted to listen because of his practical sagacity and openhearted piety, and who was to prove himself a priceless· acquisition. After a few days of sickness, these young heralds sought to increase thcir equipment for their sacred work by reading and study, mingled with much prayer and with hymn-singing, in which they remembered the example of Christian David and his two Moravian brethren, a. century before, sailing to Greenland and standing at nightfall on the stern of the vessel and singing those hymns which once had echoed on Moravian hills. But these congenial exercises were disturbed by more than rude adventure-a great deal more pleasa~t in the retro, spect than in the experience. For several days their too small and overladen schooner was visited by a tremendous storm, which swept the deck of its hencoops and bulwarks and every other movable thing, and drove thA vessel far out of its course. At a later period in their voyage, when they were away out of the usual sea-path and in unkuown waters, a pirate ship hovered near them and its ruffian crew were only at length scared away by the bustle of preparation and the signs of defiance which they saw in their coveted prize. And even when they were within sight of the harbor of Cape Town, and could hear the sonnd of the lowing of oxen and the crowing of cocks, and the vessel had begun to graze on some sunken rocks, it was only as if by a hair's-breadth they escaped shipwreck. It was with hearts overflowing with thankfulness that they trod at length on the soil of Africa, and saw the noble form and heard the cheering welcome of Dr. Philip, the superintendent of the missions of the London Missionary Society in the Cape Coiony, whose heart and home were open to missionaries of every name alld from every land, whether going forth to work or returning after years of earnest. toil to a season of wellmerited and needed r('~t.
But what was the astonishment of Casalis and his associates to be told, when the unwelcome news could no longer be withheld from them, that the misRion which they had come to reinforce and enlarge had, during the very time when they were at sea, been broken up and ruined! A period of despondency followed, in which everything seemed to be covered with mystery and gloom. Table Mountain, with its dark summit rising before them 5,000 feet high, appeared to represent the impassable barrier which rose between them and the enterprise about which they had been dreaming such fond dreams. They did not all at once see that God had another plan for them which was betttr than theirs, and that, instead of building on another man's foundation, they were destined to found a new mission in a region whose very name was yet unknown to them-where the foot of European had never trodden; and that within little more than one generation hundreds of thousands would be gathered by them and their fellow-workers into the fold of Christ. But their depression of SpIrIt was temporary. Even their youth and sanguine temperament, with the counsel and good cheer of the Christian circle which surrounded them, did much to lighten their burden, while believing prayer was the most powerful factor of all, and in no very long time they were able to say, "'Vho art thou, 0 great mountain? Before our Zerubbabel-a plain." Short visits to some of the mission stations which were within convenient reach of Cape Town strengthened their missionary impulses, and within a few weeks they were busy with preparations for a long journey into the interior, not doubting that an unseen heavenly guide would make their way plain before them, and in due time point out to them the chosen sphere of their life work. Large wagons were provided, especially one which for weeks to come was to be the habitation and conveyance of the missionaries. There were many teams of oxen which were to draw the lumbering vehicles along the desert path, with skilled teamsters and a band of Christian Hottentots for servants, and every necessary thing in the form of food and clothing, and guns and powder, and corn and flower seeds, and medicine and books, was stored in the wagons' capacious folds. We imagine them ploughing their way, sometimes through loose sand, and at other times over solid ground carpeted by the beautiful mimosa flower and heaths. The farmsteads of colonists, widely separated from each other, were at rare intervals seen in the distance; and startled flocks of antelopes and ostriches fled at their approach. There was a strong Christian element in this mingled company, so that the teamsters and Hottentot servants most willingly joined in the never-failing evening worship. M. Casalis mentions again and again the remarkable gift of singing possessed by the Hot… tentots: "The women have voices of an incomparable range of flexibility, and in the tenor or bass, which the men render in perfect harmony, there is an element of veiled emotion which profoundly moves the heart." This, no doubt, added to the attraction of the family worship in the desert with which the evenings were closed. Another custom of those dark-hued attendants greatly interested the good missionaTies: two hours before daybreak it was their uniform practice to rise and each one for himRelf to pray, and then to return to rest-all this for the purpose of securing themselves against hurry or disturbance in their simple devotions. 'Within twelve days they reached the Orange river, which at the place of crossing was a thous- and feet broad and at least five feet deep. It was with almost in- credible difficulty, and only after doubling the number of their teams of oxen, that they succeeded in crossing the great river. Here was another landmark which they had reached, for they were now outside the boundaries of civilized government, and had entered upon the region of heathenism, whose thick darkness was scarcely mitigated by one ray of Christian light.
A few hours' travel from the river's brink brought the missionar- ies and their company to Philippolis, a little embryo town which was to be prominent in their recollection ever afterwards, because it was the place where Providence would begin to unveil to them their future, and, as it were, lead them visibly by the hand to the seene of their life-ministry which he had chosen for them. The sealed letters were now to be opened. It happened in this wise. They had not been many hours in Philippolis when they were accosted by a mulatto, farmer, Adam Krotz, who eked out his regular income, and at the same time gratified his passion for adventure, by the hunting of antelopes, taking long detours over hundreds of miles. On learning who these strangers were, and what was their errand, his countenance brightened with a new interest. He told them of Basuto Land, of its king, whom he had met with not long before in one of his hunting excursions, who had a strong desire to have missionaries sent into his country, and had even drawn from Krotz a promise that if ever such men came in his way he would use all his influence and persuasion to induce them to choose his country as the scene of their sacred toils. Krotz added that he was truly glad to fulfil his engagement to the great Basuto chief, and promised that, on condition of their accompanying him on the hunting expedition on which he was about to enter, he would both be their guide and protector on the journey, and prepare their way by sending friendly messengers before them. The astonished missionaries distinctly read in all this the finger of God, and were ready to say with Eliezer of Damascus, "I being in the way,. the Lord led me," and though the time of their journeyings was ·likely to be lengthened by such an arrangement, they yielded to this. inconvenience for the sake of the greater benefit they would derive from this man's knowledge, friendship and guidance.
Certainly, if the patience of these devoted missionaries was sorely tried before their guide and counseller had secured his complement of meat, dried skins and horns, they had abundant opportunity of improving their knowledge of natural history; for, in additiop to the gentle antelope, the whole hunting ground which they were traversing abounded with baboons and panthers and lions and other beasts of prey. At length deliverance came, and at the end of four weeks of waiting they had crossed the boundaries of Basuto Land. The good men could not help smiling as they. remembered how, in the maps which they had bought in Paris, the whole of this region had been marked as sandy and level, for they had not travelled many miles inward when they found themselves standing at the foot of a moun- tain several thousand feet in height. As. they journeyed onward, a local chief having been apprised of their approach sent theIl down from his mountain fastness a present of milk and boiled maize, which they hailed as a token for good. Meanwhile, messengers were sent forward by the indefatigable Krotz, to inform the king of their movements and to bespeak his royal welcome. As they proceeded on their journey, they were struck with the unmistakable signs of recent battles which appeared in many places-in broken walls, and ruined villages, and desolated gardens, and battle-fields strewn with remnants of the dead. Already we may imagine the prayer to have ascended from their full hearts that their mission might be blessed as the messengers of the Prince of Peace.
On reaching the foot of the mountain on which stood the palace of King Moshesh,they scarcely had time to unyoke their wearied oxen and to pitch their tent, when the king's sons appeared scampering on horses at full speed to convey the salutations of their royal father. Early on the following day the missionaries ascended the mountain by a precipitous and winding path to return the monarch's s!1lutations. 'l'hey were received in a spacious court, enclosed by lofty palisades, into which Moshesh descended from his palace accompanied by his queen and their one little boy, whom they both fondly caressed. We give M. Casali's first impressions of the Basuto king in ~is own words: "The chief bent upon me a look at once majestic and benevolent. His profile, much more aquiline than that of the generality of his subjects, his well-developed forehead, the fulness and regularity of his features, his eyes a little weary, as it se~med, but full of intelligence and softness, made a deep impression on me. I felt at once that I had to do with a superior man, trained to think, to command others, and, above all, to 'command himself. After we had looked an instant at each other in sitence, he rose and said, 'Lumela, lilchoa' (Welcome, white man), and I replied by holding out my hand to him, which he took without hesitation." The king's looks expressed even more kindness than his words.
On the next day the king, attended by some of his chiefs, came down from his mountain to dine with the strangers. It must be acknowledged that the contents of their larder did not supply "a dainty dish to set before a king." But the time was 'urgent, and nothing could be done or even attempted until they knew more of the ruler's mind. With Krotz as his interpreter, the missionary explained to. the king the end of their mission, in promoting the religious as well as the material good of his people, and asked for his protection and help in
WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN
their enterprise of love. The answer was, in some respects, wonderful, as coming from a heathen king who knew nothing of Christianity except what he had vaguely heard of its beneficent effects, and would have graced the lips even of a Christian monarch: "~ly heart is white with joy," replied the chief. "Your words are great ~nd good. It is enough for me to see your clothing, your arms, and the rolling houses in which you travel, to understand how much intelligence and strength you have. You see our desolation. The country was full of inhabitants. 'Val's have devastated it. Multitudes have perished; others are refugees in foreign lands. I remain almost alone on this rock. I have been told that you can help us. You promise to do it. That is enough. It is all I want to know. Remain with us. You will instruct us. 'Ve will do all you wish. The country is at your disposal. 'Ve can go through it together and you shall choose the place 'which will best suit you."
Here was the charter of their liberty and privilege given without parchment, or signature, or seal, but never violated in one iota by the king'..:; acts. A great and effectual door was opened before those men of God, and they were not slow to enter in. But we must reserve for another paper some notices of the first years of these devoted laborers, of their principles and methods of actions, and of the glorious and ever-increasing fruits which crowned their ministries of faith and love and patience during the next fifty years.
WOMAN'S 'YORK FOR WOMAN.
BY 1<'. I". ELI~I~WOOD, D.D., NE'V YORK.
The New Testament sounded the key-note of woman's emancipation from the tyranny of old custom!';, and welcomed her to a share in the active service of redemption. The old dispensation had given a promise which cheered evelT Hebrew mother's heart with hope, and llere and there, as in the sto~ies ~f Hannah and Ruth and Esther, appeared beautiful illustrations of what woman's influence might accomplish in the world. But outside of the Jewish Church, the worst elemcnt in the darkness of heathenism was the oppression of the female sex.
The very fact that woman was specially honored in the advent of the Messiah seemed to presage a new and more ample sphere for her influence. The two sisters at Bethany, instead of being hidden away like the inmates of a lHoslem harem and forbidden to share the blessings of the Saviour's visits, seem to havc had the same intimate acquaintan~e and friendship with their brother's guest that would be accorded to the wives or sisters of a modern Christian home. Dorcas was as free and as efficient iIi her Christian aetivities as any modern president of an orphan asylum or a woman's home. Priscilla taught theology when crude and uninstructed young missionaries needed further training; and of all the men and women in the church in Cenchrea, Phrebe alone was immortalized by her Chris- tian service.
It must have been a matter of disappointment to Paul, when he crossed the Hellespont and entered Philippi, that he did not receive a welcome from that "man of Macedonia" whom he had seen in his VISIOn. But the only welcome he found was in a woman's prayer- meeting by the river side, and Lydia, a woman of affairs and of ag- gressive Christian influence, became his hostess and his chief patron.
As for the men of Macedonia, his first encounter was with a sordid syndicate who were making merchandise of the wild vagaries of a de- mented girl. She had been restored ana cOllverted and their business was ruined, and in consequence Paul was mobbed. The last chapter ·of the Epistle to the Romans shows how extensive and how free was woman's work in the church at Rome.
In the days of martyrdom woman bore her part in heroic courage and in suffering unto death. In Carthage and in Rome, in far off France, and wherever the long struggle of Christianity with heathen- ism was waged, the delicate forms of women and of girls were tor- tured and mangled for their faith. In hundreds of instances also woman, who in the bloody invasions of savage tribes was spared from carnage only to be borne into slavery, became a herald of the Cross. Even in the courts of savage kings we find her the centre and source of gospel light. The conversion of Vladimir of Russia through his Byzantine wife was a case in point.
In no country has woman's early influence in the propagation of the faith been more remarkable than in France and Britain. Clovis on the eve of. battle vowed that if victory should be given him he would thereafter worship the God of his Christian wife, Clotilda. Tl~e victory was won and in pursuance of his vow he was baptized with three thousand of his court and his army. It has been truly said that not merely Clovis and his army were baptized, but a great empire and the whole civilization and destiny of Western Europe.
When the rude Saxons of Britain were to be reclaimed, and that Christianity which their savagery had well-nigh trodden out on the shores of Kent was to be restored, the way was opened by a Chris- tian princess of Burgundy, who in her marriage to the King of Kent had stipulated that she should be free to worship the true God and His Christ. Canterbury was really founded by Queen Bertha, who prepared the way for Augustine and his monks.
In the modern movement of Christian benevolence the women of the Roman Catholic Church were earlier in the field than those of the Protestant churches, but they worked under the rules and restrictions of conventual orders. It is quite to the credit of Rornanism that its ,sisterhoods have in modern times been mobilized for active service at home and abroad. Though the missionary idea in the Roman Catholic Church is that of a celibate priest, yet the Sisters of Charity go in groups to all lands, and their hospitals and orphanages rise up as- by magic wherever human suffering is found. Only praise and com- mendation can be given to the self.denying devotion with which this' noble work is done.
But a far better development of woman's work in missions and in all benevolence is that which has been shown in Protestant Christen- dom within the last quarter of a century-better, first, because it is freeer; second, because it aims at the subsidizing, not of a professional class, but of all Christian womanhood for the work of Christ; and third, because the example and influence of the married and unmar- ried women of Protestant missions are more positive than that of iso- lated sistel'hoods. 'fhey illustrate the home-of which China and India know nothing-instead of the convent, which Buddhism already has; and they give stronger emphasis to the freedom which all women should claim.
It may be said that on the home side the woman's work of Pro- testantism does not in fact subsidize all the talent and moral power of Christian womanhood in the Church. This is, indeed, too true, but its tendency is in that direction; that is its ideal and its aim, and in no other one enterprise has so large a portion of its membership, male or female, been enlisted as in woman's missionary work. We have observed the growth and operations of women's foreign missionary societies. for the last twenty years, and have been more and more impressed by their stability in organization and their advance in efficiency and power.
In all Protestant churches the impulse is one and universal. Sus- picions, doubts, and fears which conservative men entertained at the outset have disappeared. No denomination would think of dispensing with this potent auxiliary force. It were difficult ~o say whether its success abroad, great as it is, or its reflex power at home, has been the greater.
The late Dr. Mullens, of the I,ondon Missionary Society, main- tained that, as a uniform law, home charities of every kind had grown out of the broader and deeper movements that had been stirred by . the spectacle of woman's debasement in heathen lands. He traced nearly all the societies for evangelization in Great Britain to the antecedent impulse which arose about the beginning of the century to give the gospel to distant lands.
'Vhatever may have been the facts in England, it is certain that the great tide of sympathy which first sprang up in the hearts. of American women for their enslaved sisters in the zenanas of India has inured to the good of our own frontier settlements and of the freedmen in the South. The women of the churches never before so fully realized their power or were so disposed to use it in all earnest service for Christ and humanity.
The movement was timely for more reasons than one. (1.) It arose at a time when the zenana system had begun to be questioned, and teachers were demanded to instruct ignorant and neglected wives. The door opened just as the messengers arose-as in the case of Cornelius and Peter. (2.) The movement was called for at a time when the women of America had just learned something of their united strength in their efforts for the relief of our wounded soldiers. (3.) This work in foreign missions came forward at a time when there were many bereft and bleeding hearts which needed the care, and through care the solace, which the service of the Great Sympathizer so often presents. From its very beginning it has proved a resource to many a widowed soul who in deep sorrow was wondering for what object her life was still prolonged. (4.) The movement came at a time when, in the North at least, American womanhood was beginning to feel the influence of an unexampled reign of wealth and luxury. Steadily for the last twenty-five years money has been growing in social power, and more and more asserting itself as an aim in life. Old standards of estimate-knowledge, culture, characterhave lost ground before the influence of the" gold basis," and the temptation to worldliness and display has been greater than in any previous period of our history, or, perhaps, any history. The" social c,olumns" of the secular press have fed the flame of this craze for wealth, and certain classes of magftzines have made it a special aim to cater to the unwomanly ambition for money. Some months ago one of our popular montl)lies gave the public an article on "The Rich Women of America." Several portraits were given, with the names. Some were marriageable young heiresses! It is vulgar enough for men to parade their money-bags or have others do it for them, but to drag down woman from the purity and dignity of her true character and place her in the arena for such a show, and especially to advertise heiresses, is demoralizing alike to womanhood and to manhood, and seems to point already to social and national decay.
Fortunately the counter-movement in behalf of missions and other forms of Christian benevolence has in many cases interposed a wholesome check to this unhallowed ambition. Side by side with this rush of worldliness and display, and often across its current, there has gone forth an influence that was elevating and ennobling. There are multitudes, even among the wealthy, who have learned that there is something higher than empty display, and who have instilled into the minds 6f their daughters aspirations for practical sympathy with the wants and woes of the world. In many a family of wealth the counterbalancing influence of the missionary interest has been welcomed as a safeguard. With it has come a wide range of information concerning lands and peoples and institutions which would not otherwise have been gained. If nothing else had resulted from woman's work in missions, its educational influence in families, the better impulses with which it has enriched and ennobled womanhood, the widespread altru- istic spirit which now shows itself in Zenana bands, Christian Endeavor Societies, or among the Daughters of the King, would repay a hundred fold all that has been expended.
N or has its influence been confined to the female sex. The prayers which have been offered for nearly a generation in Christian homes, the increased intelligence, the glow of ennobling enthusiasm, have affected sons as well as daughters. What wonder that there are thousands of young men now rising up and offering themselves for the mission fields! Recently, when the brave and dauntless Mackay fell at his post in the Uganda lVIission, and the sudden call came to England for others to take his place, nine volunteers at once presented themselves.
On the foreign field t.he supplement of this home interest is found in hundreds and even thousands of women, married or unmarried, who in school or .zenana work, in the hospital and the dispensary, are exerting a quiet but N,tent influence which no computation can measure. It comes not" with observation." The change wrought in the surrounding community is one thing accomplished. It gradually refutes and destroys the Oriental theories of woman's sphere. The conscious dignity of woman appearing in utmost freedom in the home, in the school, or worshipping in the mixed assembly, breaks down old prejudice, and rebukes the blind cOllceit of men who, in enslaving woman, have blighted their own happiness and destroyed the welfare of their families.
But the most important factor in this regeneration is the training of thousands of the young to ideas and usages and degrees of inte1ligence which are at war with the' old customs and superstitions. The simple truth is that in countries like India and Japan the sentiment of the best classes is already revolutionized, the miraculous victory is already won. The only difficulty is that those who are convinced are loth to acknowledge the sources of the new influence. They are jealous of the foreigner and of his foreign creed. They are slow to acknowledge the defeat of their ancient faith and customs. They would like to adopt the new cult, but with their own ancient labels. But intelligence in woman they are beginning to prize.
Two or three years ago, when four Hindu girls graduated with full honors at Calcutta University, they were publicly applauded by high Goyernment officials, and the fact was pointed out that the upper strata of Hindu society were being transformed by the influence of just such events. This is precisely the meaning of the ready and eager patronage which is given by high Brahman families to the 8cho010f
1890.j THE SUPERNATURAL FACTOR IN MISSIONS
Ramabai in Bombay. And the same thing is illustrated in the female seminary with four hundred high caste girls, which is carried on under the patronage of the Maha Rani of Mysore. India, in her pride, is not yet ready to acknowledge that the new order of things has sprung from the influence of missionaries and of other Christian women, but God knoweth His own, and the benign influences which have been exerted quietly, as the falling of the raindrop and the snow-flake shall not return unto Him void, but shall accomplish' that whereunto He hath sent them.
'l'HE SUPERNATURAL FACTOR IN MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] Eliminate God from missions and yon have nothing left but a llUman enterprise; all the grandeur and glory are gone; for the one supreme charm and fascination of this work is that, in idea and plan, in origin and progress, it is divine.
Nothing is more noticeable than the peculiar emphasis laid upon the supernatural factor in worId-wide missions thi'oughout the scripture. We say throughout, for, in Old Testament and New 'l'estament alike, the conception of world-wide missions may be found. The idea was not novel, even at the outset of Christian history. In the prophe- Cies and prayers of holy men of old,whether in the.De Profundis and Miserere of pathetic lamentation and warning, or the In Excelsis of exultant praise and promise, like the deep undertone of mighty waters, we hear the wondrons intimation of a coming day when the kingdoms of the world shall become the one kingdom of the Messiah. As far back as the opening of Genesis, the first promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, is generic. It is a promise for the race of man as such. Satan had bruised the heel of the Adamic race and in the person of the second Adam that race was to bruise the serpent's head. Abraham was the great father of an elect family, yet, as the second great period of Messianic promise opens in his call and separation, we hear again the prophecy of a universal blessillg: "In Thee shall all the families ofthe earth be blessed." Further on, as we pass from one epoch to another, we never fail to find this world-wide blessing emphasized. The Psalmist, breathing a prayer of profounder meaning than he knew, pleads that the whole earth may be filled with God's glory, and predicts that all nations shall call Him blessed. Prophets tal{e up the strain, and foretell a day when "in every place incense shall be offered unto His name, and a pure offering;" when Messianic blessings shall be as widespread as the wings of the day, which touch, as those of the cherubim touched the walls of the Holy of Holies in the Temple, the remotest east and west, from the rising to the setting of the SUIl.
In that great Messianic and missionary Psalm (lxxii.), whose full radiance is only manifest, like a jeweled cavern, when the "Light of the World" is set in it to interpret its hidden beauties, there occurs a most significant doxology: "Blessed be Jehovah God, The God of Israel, WHO ONLY DOETH WONDROU,S TIDNGS!"
The connection associates .this doxology, by an obvious link, with the body of the Psalm, as though the inspired singer, who foretells this supernal glory of the Messiah's coming and world-wide reign, foresees that all this can be brought about only by the wonder-working God to whom nothing is impossible. The Holy Ghost, moving in the soul, inspires this outburst of adoring praise as a tribute to the grand truth and fact that no future historic development is to display God's power so unmistakably as the history of Christian missions. And so it is. Looking back now over a century of modern missions, the century of organized effort to spread the good tidings everywhere, we can only exclaim, "What hath GOD wrought !" Even sceptical disciples have been c9nstrained to say, like Pharaoh's magicians, "Truly this is the finger of God!"
It may be profitable to trace this supernaturalisn;t a little in detail. The thirteenth chapter of the Acts opens with a divine call to the laborers. As the prophets and teachers in the Antiochan Church were leading the church in holy ministrations and fasting, the Holy Ghost said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." This is the first step in organized foreign missions. Let us remember that the initial foreign mission tour'was undertaken at the special command of the Holy Spirit. However the Church may have separated these two original foreign missionaries and sent them forth, they are expressly declared to have been separated and sent forth by the Holy Ghost. Here, then, is the supernatural factor as the basis of mission work. God, by the Holy Ghost, calls, appoints, anoints and thrusts forth into the harvest field His chosen workmen.
Now observe that, when from this tour which begins and ends at Antioch, they returned, they "gathered the church together," and "rehearsed all that GOD had done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles" (xiv. 27). Subsequently, Paul and Barnabas go up to Jerusalem to the first Church council. Being brought on their way by the Church, they pass through Phenicia and Samaria, "declaring the conversion of the Gentiles," magnifying the divine power and grace. Then when they are at J erusalem they declare unto the Church with the apostles and elders "all that God had done with them." Peter, in his address, magnifies God. It is He who .made choice of Peter as the apostle of the keys to open -the doors of the Kingdom to Jew and Gentile. It is He who chose disciples from among the Gentiles, granted them repentance, and put no -difference between them and Jews, purifying their hearts by faith. And when Barnabas and Paul again address the people, a deep hush of silence shuts the multitude in like a canopy, as with awe they give audience, while these missionaries deelare "what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them."
How could there be any more express, explicit, emphatic recognition of the supernatural factor of missions? Here is no parading of .church life, of organization, method, human power, gifts, learning, tact, or even devotion and self-sacrifice. God alone is put before us. He fills the whole horizon. If, in the course of this mission tour, any man has been visible or prominent, now that they have "come down from the mountain," they see "no man save Jesus only." The Holy Spirit calls, separates, sends forth the workers; God opens the door of access to the nations, and then opens the door of their hearts to faith. He bears them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, and purifying their hearts; and, in a word, the whole story of this mission tour is one of miracles and wonders which God has wrought. "They _went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."
That short history is the perpetual type and prophecy of worldwide missions. They are to be carried on solely in dependence on God. We are to depend on Him to select and separate unto the work His chosen servants. We are to depend on Him to open the doors of access and approach to the nations. Weare to rely on Him to attend the word spoken with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. We must depend on Him to convert men. We may evangelize, but we cannot by all our ~fforts secure one convert. From fil:st to last the whole work must be of God, and only as He is in it and through it can it be saved from disastrous failure.
vVhen we open the New Testament, and read the last command of Christ, we find the commision of the Church prefaced and followed by a remarkable and significant declaration and an equally remarkable and significant promise: "All power is given unto Me In Heaven and in earth.
Go YE THEREFORE AND DISCIPLE ALL NATIONS.
And lof I am with you alway, Even unto the end of the world."
Is it any accident that this command is buttressed, front and rear, by such divine endouragements? First our Lord declares His own omnipotence; then His omnipresence; and between these He puts the great commission of the Church. What means this but that His righteousness shall go before us, and His glory shall be our rere-ward when we dare in His name to do our duty to a dying world, and march forth to subdue that world unto Him! 'fhe Acts of the Apostles is the historic illustration of the duty undertaken and of the promise enjoyed. Here the philosophy of missions teaches by examples. From first to last this book is the record of His working who only doeth wondrous things. Here is a period of history covering about thirty or forty yean;, the average lifetime of a generation, as if to show us what one generation of disciples can do toward a world's evangelization when the all-powerful captain oJ the Lord's host leads, and His "everywhere" and" alway" presence is their confidence and support.
The book opens with Pentecost-a miraculous outpouring of the Holy Spirit which in a moment removes the impassable barrier of unknown languages and enable!:! each man to hear in his own tongue the wonderful works of God. If Babel's confusion of tongues was a miracle, surely the reversal of Babel-the resolving of that confusion into order-is a counter miracle, and the record of that wonder working of God at the very beginning of that book is highly significant. The book of the Acts stands in the New Testament as the book of Joshua does in the Old. The latter is the account of the wars of Israel against the Canaanites; the former of the wars of the Church against the enemies of God; and in both the introduction is the record of a stupendous miracle. Jericho's walls fall without a blow struck or an engine of war employed; on the day of Pentecost the walls of strange speech instantaneously fall, and make representatives of the farthest cardinal points at once open to the message of the gospel. Can any thoughtful reader overlook the purport and purpose of that miracle? It stands at the very door of the history, like a sentinel at a gate, or a signal flag flying from a turret. It is the interpreter of the whole Book. The Acts of t,he Apostles are the acts of the Holy Ghost-of Jesus by the Holy Ghost. He is displaying that omnipotence and exhibiting that omnipresence, and the perpetuity of that power and presence is to be the warrant for the perpetuity of Christian missions and the inspiration and encouragement of them.
With profound and solemn conviction we record once more our testimony, after more than a quarter of a century of the study of missionary history and biography, that only from a divine point of view can the mystery of missions be interpreted 01' the significance of missions be appreciated. Higher up than the level of the most selfdenying heroism must we get to command this true horizon; and our constant effort with tongue and pen is to awaken and arouse sluggish believers to behold this march of God and fall into line under His leadership and take up the march with Him.
What He did in the times of the Acts He has been doing in later years. How did modern missions begin as a general movement in the Church? God separated and sent forth such men as Pluts,hau and John Eliot, Schwartz and Kiernander, Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf~ William Carey and John Williams. Take William Carey as an example. That man can be accounted for only as a miracle of grace. No figure in missions more prominently stands out as the product of divine power. In the eighteenth century evangelical religion in America and in Europe lay dying, like a famished traveler. In France the Huguenots had been either massacred or driven out; in Germany and Holland the Reformed Church was already deformed by Rational- ism; in Britain Ritualism and Moderatism, Arianism and Socinianism, Antinomianism and hyper-Calvinism reduced religious life to a name. In some parts piety was an organized hypocrisy or an empty pretense. Just at this time, 1761, a humble weaver of Paulerspury, who with the loom united the offices of schoolmaster and parish clerk, had a son born to him. ;His boyhood was without special promise. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a Hackleton shoemaker, and entered upon the career of a simple tradesman. But God had chosen that "cobbler" to be the Paul of the new century of missions. He was converted and joined the Baptists at eighteen, and eight years later was ordained as a minister of the gospel.
There was nothing in the" environment" or " heredity" of that young shoemaker to hint his career as a missionary. That was not a mIsSIOnary age. He breathed no missionary atmosphere. The Church at that time denied her obligation to the lost race of man as well as neglected her duty. A distinguished clergyman of the Church of England chose the keenest darts in his quiver of sarcasm and wit to· shoot at the cobbler who proposed to convert the world. His own brethren treated his project with contemptuous indifference orpatronizing pity. And yet from the hour of his conversion there was lit in bis soul a strange flame of desire and purpose to preach the gospel in the regions beyond, for which we can account only by a coal from off a celestial altar.
Behold him, poor, obscure, unlearned, pegging away at a boot, while his eyes wander to an open book in which he is reading of faroff peoples, still farther off from God. See him making a rude m~p of brown paper or sole leather, drawing with cobbler's ink a rough outline of the world and filling it" in with such items of information as he can obtain about the populations and religions of the world, and, by shading the various countries, indicating the comparative degradation and destit.ution of their inhabitants. He was heaping fuel of facts on the flame of his zeal until the fire spread to a conflagration and consumed him as it consumed his Master before him. 1784 comes, and under his leadership the" monthly concert of prayer for the world's conversion" begins. Now, for the first time since the days of Pentecost, the Church organizes prayer to God for world-wide missions. From tile fires kindled in William Carey's soul God lights new flames on church altars until they spread over the whole of evangelical Christendom, and on the first Monday of the month there is a ring of prayer girdling the globe!
The next great step is the formation of a missionary society at Kettering in 1792. That same William Carey is again chosen to lead the way. It is this sanctified shoemaker who teaches a lethargic Church to "attempt great things for God and to expect great things from God." Twelve obscure Baptists withdraw to the parlor of the W allis house at Kettering on that 2d of October and draw up a com- pact to organize a society to send the gospel to the heathen. They erect a humble missionary treasury and put in it a trifling sum of thirteen pounds and a half crown sterling; and thus again William Carey is thrust forward by God to lead the Church to organize mis- sions. To-day R. M. Cust, Esq., tells us that there are approaching 250 missionary societies, belting the globe, with almost 7,000 mission- aries from Europe and America, and nearly five times as many who, from converted heathen, Moslem and pagan disciples, have joined them in the work of proclaiming a gORpel of salvation to the lost. To·day the missionary treasuries receive and disburse annually an aggregate sum of over two hundred thousand times the amount laid on the altar of missions on that day in 1792, and all this increase within less than a century!
In 1793 William Carey himself goes forth to India, leading now not in prayer and organization only, but in actual missionary activity -in self giving. He becomes England's first foreign missionary. The Lord of the harvest thrusts forth into His harvest the man of Paulerspury whom He has lleparated unto the work. For a hundred years his example has been the incentive and the inspiration to similar consecration. Thc aggregate number of foreign missionaries who have since 1792 gone into the field is known only to God. No one man has probably the data from which to give that sublime list of men and women who have fallen asleep, or are still living, and who belong to that sacred host; but we believe if that entire roll of living and of dead could be called it would be found to number not less than 25,000! Can any believer look at this missionary century and doubt that this whole work is God's work, who alone d()eth wondrous things?
We have no space, here and now, to carryon this presentation of the supernatural factor in missions. But, were there space and time at command, we should pursue the theme with enthusiasm through volumes.' For the encouragment of others who may be disposed to follow the subject into its fascinating ramifications it may be well to sketch a few of the directions into which the subject branches out, as we think of the divine presence and power in the missions of the Church.
There are two great branches of the theme. First of all, Christ's personal promise, "Lo, I am with you alway," and secondly, what He calls the" Promise of the Father," viz.: "Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you." Between these we are manifestly to distinguish. His own promise is one of His personal, perpetual presence everywhere-at the head of His missionary host, as the general-in-chief at the head of his columns. The angel of the Lord's presence is again acting as Captain of the Lord's host. Such an omni- present, omnipotent chief will of course manifest his invisible pres- ence in three ways: g~tiding, guarding and governing. We are justi- fied in expecting, if the Lord Jesus is at the head of the army of mis- sionaries, that all the movements of the host will be directed by divine wisdom. We shall expect to see a divine strategy exhibited in the whole plan of the campaign; to see movements all along the lines- piercing the enemy's centre, turning his staggering wings-now a flank movement; again a surprise in some new quarter; here a fortress taken, and there a rapid advance made into the very heart of his terri- tory. If Christ be at the head of the host we shall not be suprised to see Him exercising His protecting power as well as His directing wisdom. Especially in the crises of His kingdom He will turn the tide of battle in the very gate. When kings conspire to overthrow His Church and to burst His bands of control asunder; when around His elect band that dare for His sake the fight of the few against the many, the powers of darkness gather, He will interpose to defeat their counsels and bring their devices to naught. Has it been so in the history of missions? Look at the little band who have gone to cannibal islands, into the midst of savages, into the heart of hostile kingdoms surrounded by malignant foes. How wonderfully have they been preserved! Many have fallen because their blood was to be the seed of new churches, and their martyr testimony was needful as a witness for Christ. But who is He that sends forth His great army of locusts, who despatches famine, pestilence, drought to act as His evangelists and prepare the way of the Lord? Who is He that, when Sultan Mahmud had ordered the expulsion of all missionaries from the Turkish empire in 1839, sent death to cut off the tyrant and annul his decree; and who, when the King of Siam, twelve years later, plotted to dislodge all the missionaries from his kingdom, again sent the angel of His wrath to break the conspiring monarch as with a rod of iron and dash him in pieces like a potter's vessel!
Has the Captain of the Lord's host manifested Himself as the governing, controlling power behind missions? To answer this question we must command a wide prospect. The whole century has been full of new developments, which have been so much beyond all human devising as to present a series of surprises to the Church herself. God saw that, in order to the success of missions, there must be an awakened Church, an organized plan, a consecrated band, systematic giving, women associated, children devoted, new enterprise. a return to apostolic faith, covenant prayer and world-wide effort. And right along these lines has the Captain of the Lord's host been exercising His providential oversight. As a new emergency has. arisen a new interposition has been evident. The Church has found in every crisis a higher hand controlling. From every period of despondency or discouragement the faithful few who enter into the secret place have risen to new endeavor and in!lpiration by " beholding the works of the Lord."
But what shall we say of the Promise of the Father'! That again manifestly involves three things, for the work of the Holy Ghost is. seen in salvation, sanctification and service. If the promise of the Father has been falfiUed we shall find throughout the history of mis– sions that God has been exhibiting His grace as He has also His. proviilence. He has separated' and sent forth servants, then He has. accompanied their work with saving power, and, from the converts gathered, again sanctified and separated new workmen for His king– dom.
How has it been? Marvellous as have been the interpositions of Providence, the signs of the Captain of the Lord's h<lst, guarding, guiding, governing-still more wonderful have been the interpositions of grace-appointing and anointing workmen, subduing and saving souls, and reforming and transforming entire communities. Here our pen halts-in the very perplexity of the exuberant abundance of matter that claims at least a passing reference. Again we say, the whole story of modern missions is a new book of the Acts of the Apostles; and there was not a sign, wonder, miracle of grace in the apostolic. age of missions which in its measure is not characteristic of the moile1'n missionary age! From the time that William Carey went to India, Adoniram Judson to Burmah, Robert Morrison to China, J ustin Perkins to Persia, Robert Moffatt to Africa, Nott to Tahiti, Dober' to the West Indies, Eliot to the North American Indians, there have been, in one grand series, miracles of grace among the highest and the lowest alike. Sometimes a thousand have been born in a day;_ sometimes whole communities and even nations transformed; sometimes Christianity has become the law of the land, and idols, once in every house, have not been found even as curios and relics! Theadamant wall of caste, the iron wheel of transmigration, the brazen fetters of Moslem bigotry, the hopeless thraldom of Fetichism, have alike proved powerless to oppose the simple gospel of Christ. The investigator may follow any devoted missionary of the century intoany field of labor, however unpromising, and he will find that instead of the thorn has come up the fir tree; and instead of the brier has. come up the myrtle-tree; and this displacement of noxious and vicious growths in the soil of society by beautiful and fragrant trees and plants which show the "planting of the Lord" becomes, when
1890.J MORMON PROSELYTISM
other signs fail that had a temporary.purpose, "ttOD'S ll:VERLASTING SIGN THAT SHALL NOT BE CUT OFF."
That sign has been found and will be found wherever the gospel is faithfully proclaimed 1;0 the lost. And ~n this day the wilderness and solitary place are to be made glad and blossom as the rose. The field is the world-the seed is the Word of God; the seed is also the children of the kingdom. The Church has only to go throughout the field and sow both the seed of the Word and the seed of holy lives, and we may calmly and confidently leave the result with Him, who, whatever agencies He may employ, is, after all, the Husbandman, and the harvest will never fail. Even the apparent scarcity of the seed and the vastness of the field need not discourage us. He knows how to make the seed bring forth thirty, sixty and even a hundred fold. Missionary histor¥ both demonstrates and illustrates how the most desperately hopeless fields, with the most inadequate force of workmen and supply of material, have yielded the most amazing harvest and- often with such rapidity that the plowman is overtaken by the reaper. Are we yearning for new signs of God's presence and power in human affairs? Here is the grand sphere for such manifestations. He is ready, willing, rich in grace. All we have to do is to go everywhere-break up the fallow ground, scatter the seed of the Kingdom, in faith, in prayer, in tears, in hope; and heavenly dews and showers, with the beams of the Sun of Right~ousness, will make sure the fruits of a divine husbandry!
MORMON PROSELYTISM. BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, BELLEVUE, OHIO. To some it may seem an unwarrantable proceeding, an act bordering upon the profane, to use the pages of 'l'HE MISSIONARY REVIEW to set forth the methods and the achievements of the Mormon propaganda. And, indeed, it is setting such matters in far better company than they deserve. But facts are stubborn things, and certain facts, though unpalatable, we are in duty bound to consider. Fas est ob hoste aoce'l'i. 'fhen no feature of Mormonism is more characteristic. Not to understand its aims and modes of working in this particular is to omit from the great tragedy the part of Hamlet. Besides, taking note of the aggressive campaigns of the elders-so many, so difficult, so full of hardship and peril, we shall be persuaded that thpy are not wholly false-hearted and deceivers, but possessed of large measures of sincerity and zeal, and we can also more readily understand how this sect, so mongrel and outlandish, so fraught with folly, and so stained with serious offences agaim;t the moral law, has so marvellously spread and endured. But more than this, we are to consider one of the most startling and most forbidding religious phenomena in the civilized world in the current centu~. Beyond question the Latter-day Church has sent out more missionaries and made more converts in proportion to the number of its adherents than any other, in this respect far surpassing even the Moravian Church, whose name is a synonym for evangelizing zeal. Nothing less than world-wide dominion was in the eye of Joseph Smith from the start.
The church was organized in April of 1830, and in October four of the neophytes were commissioned to carry the infant gospel from New York to the Indians upon the extreme Western frontier, while in June following thirty took their journey towards the same remote region. In 1831 about as many more were named "by revelation" to make a preaching tour from Ohio to the Eastern, Southern and Western "countries" in part, while the rest were to "ask the Comforter" whither they should bend their steps.
. In 1837 in all 139 took the field, of whom 109 starting together were divided into eight companies, and were ordered to travel towards as many principal points of the compass. In 1844 every ·Congressional district in the Union was visited and canvassed by its share of a troop numbering in all 334. In 1852 Salt Lake witnessed the departure at one time of 109 missionaries destined to seventeen countries, and most of them in the Old World. In 1857 no less than 350 left the Great Basin, while for two decades about 200 was the annual average. For years together upwards of 400 were kept constantly abroad, and in all from the beginning not far from 5,000 American elders have been chosen and sent forth, with enough of native auxiliaries to raise the average to 100 a year.
As to results, within a few weeks of the organization of the church in Seneca County, N. Y., a branch was formed in Broome County, 100 miles away, and before the end of the year another in Ohio, and by midsummer of the year after scores of saints ate found in Western Missouri, while at the end of the year converts were abundant in several counties of the Western Reserve, and Cincinnati was blessed with a flourishing branch. Within three years Canada had heard the message, and every State from Maine to Mississippi.
In 1837 emissaries of Smith crossed the Atlantic and opened a door great and effectual in England, and a little later they pushed on to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, to the East Indies, to Australia. In 1840 two doughty crusaders set their faces towards Palestine; while in 1844 the Society Islands, lying in the Central Pacific, were invaded. The year befote his death the "prophet" declared, "I go in for preparing for a mission through the United States, and from Maine to England and to all the countries we wish. If I live I'll take the elders through and make just as big a wake as God Almighty will let me. We must send kings and governors to Nauvoo, and we will do it !"
In 1848 the tide of conquest reached France; Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland and the Sandwich Islands in 1850; Germany, Norway, Iceland and Chili in 1851; the Crimea, Burmah and the Cape of Good Hope in 1853; the West Indies, Ceylon and China in 1853; and Turkey and Siam in 1.854, etc. Aggressive faith and zeal had now reached their climax, but all this had come to pass within twenty-five years from the first baptism.
At the close of the first twelvemonth the membership had risen from six to 1,000, eight years later 25,000 saints could be counted, and six years later still, Joseph claimed 150,000 adherents. In Britain for a season baptisms were by the wholesale-entire churches surrendered, preachers and all, and during a period of nearly ten years the annual average of conversions there was upwards of 7,000. After a large emigration to Utah the British church numbered 33,000 in 1852, and the sum of those led captive from first to last can hardly be placed at less than 150,000. In Scandinavian countries the baptisms rose at one time to 2,000 a year, and reach in all about 50,000. An enthusiastic Mormon historian makes the preposterous claim of a round million brought by the elders into the citizenship of Joseph's kingdom! But if his estimate is too large by one half, the results of their labor are sufficiently astounding.
And all the more when we remember that it is their business not only to capture but to deliver the prey at the church headquarters. The undertaking was a bold one when the transfer was but from the Atlantic seaboard to Ohio, Missouri, Illinois. It became tenfold greater when an ocean and a continent must needs be crossed, including the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Thousands reached ZiQll via New Orleans and the Mississippi and the Missouri to Council Bluffs, and from thence 1,000 miles by wagon or on foot. But such was the grip of religious fear and hope (coupled with the promise of land without cost, and other material benefits) that at least 90,000 have made the long journey from Europe. rrhe high-water mark of emigration was reached in 1856, when 5,000 or more in a single season ascended the Platte and found their way through South Pass into the valley.
A variety of other features characterizing Mormon missions may be summed up in t¥ statement that from the beginning these hierarchs have affected to follow to the very letter all manner of New Testament precept and precedent, and in particular such as are found in our Lord's instructions to the Twelve and the Seventy. It is in this spiritual obedience that the church has always maintained a "quorum" of the twelve apostles, and also an ever-increasing number of seventies, constituting an order in the priesthood, and from which missionaries are commonly s~lected. The idea was reached at an early day that no saint lived for himself, that "the kingdom" had the first and supreme claim, that salvation was largply for the !'lake of service, and that all personal or family considerations must be kept in strict subordination. Every adherent is to hold himself subject to call from the church authorities, and must go wherever sent. To re- fuse is to lose caste and to make one's self an object of suspicion. And thousands have held themselves as passive in the hands of their leaders as ever did any member of the Society of Jesus. The first fashion was to call for volunteers, but little by little a system of drafting was substituted. The number desired is apportioned out among the sev- eral communities, the selection is made by the local authorities, and the names are sent on to the chiefs. If satisfactory these are read off at general conference, and "sustained" by popular vote.
"Without purse or scrip" has ever been the great commandment.
Each one goes at his own charges, and .no matter how great the dam- age to business may be. To pay salaries would be to wickedly imi- tate the ways of the false churches with their "hireling clergy." Let the elder get to his field as best he can. The first seven that crossed the ocean landed at Liverpool without a farthing. Of course they depended wholly for food and shelter upon the people among whom they labored, and in early times great hardships were often endured.
Then, seldom does a saint take a mission alone, but at least two travel and toil together, Still further as of necessity, in strict duty bound, the sick are healed with prayer and oil, and the devils are cast out as an every-day performance, and occasionally the dead are raised.
"These signs shall follow them that believe," is a prophecy whose fulfilment no good Mormon will suffer to fail. Marvels in every way to match the best of monkish legends are on record, such as healing 406 Zunis sick with small-pox by the laying on of hands, and the cast- iug out of 319 devils in Wales, all in one day and by one elder, and in lots of from three to thirty-seven at a time! Also, if their message was not received, woe was duly pronounced. As far back as 1833, one ·Whitney hurled maledictions against guilty Albany, Boston and New York, which latter city was well-ni.gh destroyed by fire only two years after. Shaking off the dust from the feet as a testimony was for a time in vogue, or sometimes it was washing the feet, but soon it was found wise to do this in secret places lest wrath be stirred up.
Mindful of the same injunction nneovtertoknreosw•t inwgiltyh being merely "harmless as -doves," the elders have cast pearls be- fore swine, or offered the strong meat of the gospel to toothless babes.
On the contrary, they have always and most carefully suppressed un- palatable, though fundamental, matters of faith and practice.
Thus was it with polygamy for more than ten years after hundreds had accepted, in very deed. On one occasion the prophet sent out 380 elders to testify far and wide that such a thing had never been heard of in the church. No Jesuit in his best estate was ever ready to lie more shamelessly and withaut limit for the advantage of his order. As an alleged further following of the New Testament, learning has never been held in high esteem as a needed part of preparation for heralding the Mormon gospel. The great business was to "give testimony" to the truth. This in the form of bold, positive assertions was all-sufficient, though proof texts are handled in a fashion fearful .and wonderful. The elders are not chosen because of any intellectual gifts. Most are unlettered, and many are also youthful. But let it not therefore be imagined that they are suffered to depart unprovided with weapons, both defensive and offensive, or untrained in their use. Every boy is a potential missionary, and is regarded as such in the Sunday-school and in the various quorums of the priesthood through which he passes. Presently he has by heart the tenets of the church, the choice texts and arguments for and against, and he is called to use them frequently in public in the presence of his friends. His piece is :not lengthy, he learns it perfectly and can produce it with vigor on short notice.
Strangest feature of all, and certainly a wide departure from even the letter of the gospel, piety is not deemed essential, the moral cha1'- .acter of the messenger is not much taken into account. So there is no .sort of scruple about appointing those whose graces are far below the average. They are called and sent to give them a chance to see the world and to test their courage and skill facing the foe, to deliver them from evil associations and habits, and even to punish them for transgression against church rule. One saint, a saloon keeper, was "'sustained" to go forth and tell of Joseph and the Book, but before the police were advised of the fact he had been arrested for selling liquor on Sunday.
It was a favorite practice with Brigham Young to take revenge upon any who were proud or stubborn, or in any way troublesome, t to break their fortunes and place them where they could do no harm, by sending them to distant and de~olate regions. That is, to remain lllltil penitent, at least until called home; for the traveling elders never go forth for life, but only for a single campaign of a few months ~r years. At first, when the distance to be gone over was not great, there was a continual going and coming. Next the fashion was to make -a summer campaign and spend the winter months studying in the Kirtland "School of the Prophets." Later still, when Salt Lake had become Zion's seat, and a broad stretch of mountain and desert must be crossed, and foreign lands were to be possessed, the rule was fixed -of choosing at the great April Conference, and for a period varying .according to circumstances from one to three years.
And it is worth noting that if this system of limited terms of service, coupled with constant change of men, results in defective work, through the crudeness and inexperienc~ of the toilers, the great advantage ensues as an offset that the tug of spreading the kingdom is distributed to a much larger number, who receive the benefit of exercise and experience, and are commonly bound closer to their faith, while deep interest in missions is easily maintained at home. Every community contains several who have been abroad; one or more have recently taken their departure and presently will return to tell the thrilling story of their adventures.
We have seen that the Mormon elder is expected not only to baptize, but also to bring home his trophies. And a few words concerning the gathering should be added. It was found soon after the Great Basin was reached that Europe was so remote and the difflculties so appalling of a journey from thence, that something potent in the way of impulse must be supplied 01' else the" valleys of the mountains" would never become the abode of the saints. And so the Perpetual Emigration Fund Society was contrived, which ever since 1849 has loaned or given pecuniary assistance to tens of thousands of the indigent. Companies of emigrants have been organized and led through all the long and perilous journey by those who had influence and knew the way. Vessels were chartered, and in later years emigrant trains. upon the railroads, and so the cheapest possible rates were secured. Fifty dollars would pay the passage from Liverpool to Council Bluffs. And then both the spiritual and the carnal were appealed to stimulate the faithful to transfer themselves to Utah. They were to press on at once, not only for heaven, but also for Salt Lake as a· very important station on the road. And success for a season was well-nigh overwhelming. So many ·would flock to Zion that the utmost of available ways and means proved insufficient. And then it was that Brigham in the plentitude of his wisdom hit upon his famous" hand-cart scheme," and announced it as of origin celestial. The saints were to dispense with wagons and almost all worldly goods, and to trudge the entire 1,000 miles from the Missouri, male and female, old and young, and, moreover, each one push before him a cart loaded down with about eighty pounds of baggage, food, etc. The storms should not harm them, their garments should not wax old,. the feeblest should renew his strength, etc. But, alas, the outcome was different. Mishap followed blunder in long succession. Frost. and hunger together beset the poor wretches in the mountains, and scores perished and their bodies became food for wolves.
Even the failures met with by :Mormon missionaries, the limitations which. beset the progress of that church, barriers to its spread found to be impassable, are full of instruction to the student of missions. As the first suggestive fact of this kind, in every case the elders have made their achievements by working up a "boom." Or, the uniform course of things was as follows: Under their preaching a tide of interest would set in, would rise presently to a flood, and then was certain to subside never to lift its front again. Examples are abundant. In Ohio the craze lasted about eight years, reaching a culmination in 1836. Throughout New England and the Middle States conversions were multitudinous from 1830 to 1844, bVt then by the scandal concerning polygamy cea~ed at once and forev'r. In Britain 1840-55 was the period of growth, for the" sealing" prac- tice was long successfully concealed from the saints over the sea, but from the day when, in Brigham's happy phrase, "the cat was let out of the bag," baptism!'! began steadily to diminish. Scandinavian coun- tries were the fruitful field from 1850 to 1870, but since have fallen off at least three-fourths. During the entire period of the operation of the Edmunds law f~wer converts have found their way to Salt Lake than formerly crossed the plains in a single year. Only a few hard-earned gleanings are now gathered in Europe, the Maories of New Zealand have not yet made discovery of the imposture, nor the illiterate mountain whites of the Southern States.
Originally it was understood that the Indians (Lamanites) were to be gathered in by the wholesale. These were the degenerate descendants of certain ancient saints who apostatised, and as a punishment their skins were changed from white to copper color, but brought back to the faith by Joseph's elders, they were again to become "a fair and delightsome people." But, alas, only an inconsiderable number have become the" battle-axes of the Lord." The conversion of the Jews was also to be a leading specialty. The Book of Mormon told of two old-time migrations from Palestine to America. It was learned by revelation that the ten tribes were not lost, but only hidden behind huge ice barriers at the North and busy amassing riches. In due season, said barriers melting, they were to migrate to the Missouri Zion and share their wealth with their brethren. For also it had been ascertained that in the veins of wellnigh every elder of note flowed the pure blood of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, or other of- the sons of Jacob, while every bishop was" a literal descendant of Aaron!" Therefore several expectant delegations were sent to the Holy Land to reconsecrate it and to make ready fo.r the return. Proclamations were sent out to the Hebrews that the set time had come, but for some reason, to this day and to a man, they have remained unbelieving, stiff-necked and uncircumcised _in heart and ears.
The assault upon the ramparts of heathendom was withheld to a date unaccountably and culpably late. Not much was attempted until the fifties were well advanced. But then, as if expecting that polygamy would supply an excellent point d'appui, and to make up for lost time, a cloud of elders went abroad and great things were planned. It was expected that the gift of tongues would give immediate command of every language, and by the ten thousand pagans would bow the knee to Brigham. But not so; the French authorities soon drove his recruiting officers from the Society Islands. In China the Tai-Ping rebellion engrossed the entire attention of the Celes- tials. From Hindostan went home most lamentable accounts of the measureless and unutterable stupidity and depravity of the natives. No' 'honest in heart" could be found. Even the Turks could not be woed and won by the principle of "celestial marriage." And so it was everywhere. As for the 200,000,000 of Africa, and the represen- tatives of the same race in the United States, Mormonism has no mission to them. The negro may be baptized if he seeks such salva- tion, but may not under any considerations be admitted to the pri~st hood, or receive the "endowment." For it appears that all black bodies are inhabited by spirits who, in that great war in heaven, took sides neither for nor against Jehovah but were neutral in the strife. So the curse is on them, and the church is bound to see that it is not removed.
Attempts to make converts in Catholic countries have been uni- formly and everywhere as discouraging. In Ireland the preachers have never had more than their labor for their pains. A Latter-day son of St. Patrick is as rare as a white blackbird or a dodo.
Once upon a time a little company just from Salt Lake, and with an apostle at their head, climbed a high mountain in Italy, named it Mount Brigham, formed a branch and consecrated the land to the gospel, but nothing came of it. In France, a paper, "Etoile du IJe8~ eret," was started, the Book of Mormon was translated, and a great public discussion was held at Boulogne-Sur-Mer, and that was all. The elders were expelled from Austria, etc., etc., etc.
After years of assiduous angling it has been settled definitively that Utah has no bait with which Papists can be caught, and the the- ocracy aceept~ the situation and wisely transfers the fishers to other waters. It is only in Protestant lands that trophies can be won, where conscience is free and the Bible is held in honor. And there only from among certain classes. The ignorant are won, the credu- lous, those ravenous for marvels, and such as by some hocus-pocus would be saved. "The Lord's queer people" likewise, and his "silly people." Religious cranks of all kinds, the uneasy and the unstable. And worse, the self-seeking and crafty, who, to serve their own lusts and eager for the spoils, scruple not to deceive and then to fleece the multitude.
The final phenomenon, and as striking as any other, relates to the infinite ease with which the :Mormon faith may be put off, or to the frequent and wholesale apostasies with which the career of the church , has been attended. A large majority of those who have received the message and been baptized, after a season of great fervor and zeal, nave sooner or later lost their enthusiasm and gone back to their for- mer state, or too often to something far worse. An experienced
THE GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE HELD AT SHANGHAI, CHINA
elder of long standing declares that not one in twenty holds out to the end of life. Of the eleven witnesses to the divinity of the Book of Mormon nine denied the faith, and of the first twelve apostles all but two lifted up the heel against Joseph.
In 1838 in both Ohio and Missouri occurred a fearful sloughing- off, and another in Utah in 1869. In the Scandinavian mission 1850- 82 out of 35,489 baptized 11,620 were cut off before emigration. In Great Britain from June of 1849 to December of 1854 the baptisms were 34,592, and the excommunications were 15,587, and in the latter portion of the period the losses equaled two-thirds of the gains. Of the 150,000 claimed for the church at the date of the prophet's death less than 25,000 ever set foot in Salt Lake, while the residue, having had their fill of priesthood and revelation, and of wonders and glories in general, scattered and were heard of as saints no more..
; THE GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE HELD AT SHANGHAI, CHINA, MAY 7, 1890.
BY REV. FRED S. CURTIS, HIROSHIMA, JAPAN.
To sum up in a few pages the doings of this Conference would be no easy task. Its 430 members represented not only all parts of China, including distant points in the interior, which it requires over two and a half months of constant travel to reach, but also Siam, Burmah, Korea, and Japan. We present a summary of the more prominent practical results of the meeting: I. A more comprehensive view of the work as a whole,with a mutual appreciation of the various methods employed. The most important facts in regard to the various lines of .work pursued throughout the Empire were focalized. It was possible thus to get a better view of the work as a whole than by years of travel and residence by individual missionaries. The free and harmonious comparison of views on the part of one-third of the missionaries of China brought the entire work into one grand survey. A more thorough understanding and a deeper feeling of sympathy was the result.
The purely evangelistic work was emphasized throughout-the duty of giving the gospel to the present generation. That a sufficient number of ordained men cannot be obtained for this purpose, was made the reason for an appeal for lay workers.
Great stress was also laid upon the work of teaching, and it was urged that the educational work be pushed, especially the training of native helpers. The hospital and dispensary work made a fine showing. A single fact by way of illustration: Dr. Kerr, of Canton, in the past 36 years, has treated 521,000 patients, written 27 volumes on medicine and surgery, and trained 100 medical assistants. Woman's work was also given a prominent place, one day being set apart for the consideration of the subject. The following summary of statistics was presented: Foreign missionaries.-Men, 589; wives, 390; single women, 316. Total, 1,295. Native helpers.-Ordained ministers, 209; unordained,l,260; female helpers, 180. Medical work.-Hospitals, 61' dispensaries, 43; patients (during 1889), 348,439. Churches.-Organized Churches, 520; wholly self-supporting, 94; half self-supporting, 22; quarter self-supporting, 27. Bible distribution (1889).-Bibles, 1,454; New Testaments, 22,402; portions, 642,131. Total, 665,987. Communicants, 37,287. Pupils in schools, 16,816. Contributions by native Christians, $36,884.54.
II. A second result was a more thorough understanding of the obstacles to the spread of the gospel in China. Of these, two received the most attention: "The Opium Habit" and "Ancestral Worship."
1. The Opium Habit. Such facts as the following were presented: The introduction of the d~g preceded that of Christianity by a short time, and it has become not only China's greatest curse, but one of the most serious obstacles to the gospel. It is impossible to exaggerate the evils resnlting from the smoking of opium. It causes the rapid deterioration of health, especially the 10Sd of muscular power, shortens life and undermines the whole constitution. The ease with which opium is everywhere procurable, and the facility and certainty with which it may be used for self-destruction, have largely increased the number of suicides. The Chinese, with their revengeful spirit, often for a trival cause commit suicide, regarding this as the most awful re- venge they can take, believing that the spirit of the dead person may continu- ally injure the living.
Opium smoking is spreading more and more. It is no longer looked upon with shame. Legalization has increased its consumption. At first the Chinese made a tremendous effort to stamp out the vice, and refused revenue. Their want of success must be laid to the account of Great Britain. This gigantic €vil now pervades all classes; high and low, rich and poor-Chinese, Manchus, Mongols and Koreans. The estimate for the whole empire is said to be, of the coolie class, four-tenths; of the merchant class, six-tenths; of the official class, three-tenths. The father of the present emperor has contracted the habit within the past two years. During an illness he was advised to try smoking the drug. The result is that the vice has become rooted, and although he be- wails the bad example he is showing to tIie royal family, and especially to his son, the emperor, he thinks he cannot give it up.
This habit so blunts the moral sensibilitv that the Chinese themselves will not trust a smoker and will but rarely employ him. To satisfy his craving the habitue will steal,will sell his wife and children, and even starve himself. The will becomes weakened, if not paralyzed. The government and people, smokers and non-smokers alike, regard it as a vice and a curse, their greatest plague. Not a word is ever spoken in its defence. It would be next to impossible now for the Government to eradicate the evil even if England were to cease her own importation. The poppy is now extensively cultivated in China; the officials use it, and the smokers would get it in some way.
Of course such a habit is a stupendous obstacle to the spread of the gospel in China. The only way to reach the heart of an opium smoker is first to rid him of his pipe. Hence many opium refuges have been opened by mis- sionaries, many cases have been treated in the hospitals, and the .native Christ- ians have done what they could to help. Much good has thus been accom- plished. In connection with this subject, however, one serious fact was brought to light at the conference. Many physicians, missionaries and native Christians, have been unwittingly selling and distributing so-called anti-opium pills, con- taining morphia, which have often resulted in the substitution of one form of -opium for another. This was regarded with such seriousness by the Medical Missionary Association that the matter was, at the recommendation of this Association, especially mentioned in the report of the Committee on Opium.
The entire report is.as follows: .
" }Vhereas, this Conference regards the rapid extension of the growth of native opium in addition to the use of the imported drug with profund alarm; and whereas, the consequent vast increase of the opium habit demands our most serious and unremitting consideration, therefore we resolve: "1. That we, as a Conference, re-affirm and maintain ·our attitude of unflinching opposition to the opium traffic. .
"2. That we recommend all Christians in China to use every endeavor to arouse public opinion against the spread of this evil, and to devise means to secure, as far as may be, its final suppression.
"3. That we advise the formation of a Chinese Anti-Opium Society, with branches at all mission stations.
"4. That we find this increase is largely owing to the indiscriminate sale, and consequent abuse, of so-called anti-opium medicines, and that we now, on the suggestion of the Medical Missionary Association of China, urge all missionaries to discourage, and as far as possible to prevent, the sale of such anti-opium medicines as contain opium or any of its alkaloids. "5. That we earnestly impress upon all Ohristian churches throughout the world the duty of u"iting in fervent prayer to God that He will in His wise providence direct His people to such measures as will lead to the restriction and final abolition of tbis great evil.
,. 6. That we deeply sympathize with the efforts of the societies of Great Britain and else- where for the suppression of the opium trade, and recommend them to continue and increase the agitation for the suppression of the growth and saJe of opiilm."
2. As to the question of Ancestral Worship the facts were brought out that it is a colossal system, firmly rooted. Touching this system we touch the foun- dation-stones of the Chinese empire. It is evident that the worship of ances- tors was practiced at the dawn of Chinese history, and was even then a well- developed cult. Ancestors were believed to be in existence and able to hear. The 242 emperors have each been associated with Shang-ti, or heaven. The ancestral tablet was in use as early as 1766 B. C. Every Chinaman is supposed to have three souls. At his death one of these goes to heaven, one remains in his tomb and one enters the ancestral tablet.
The question was raised in the Conference, and discussed with much warmth, whether it would not be possibl/il to tolerate such rites connected with ancestral reverence as were not idolatrous or superstitious. A very small minority- "Some four or five per cent. of the members of the Conference-were inclined to emphasize strongly the good points of the system, urging that it had incul- cated the virtue of filial piety, had consolidated and perpetuated the empire, .and had tended to keep up the purit! and morality of the family and of the classics.
On the other hand it was clearly shown that it is nine-tenths idolatry; that divine attributes are ascribed to the dead, and that the element of filial piety is in a large measure a slavish fear of ghosts. There are temples where" those spirits of ancestors who have no descendants" are propitiated by the multitudes purely out of fear.
More than this, the universal testimony of the converts is that it is impossi- "ble to practice any of the forms connected with this system without committing the sin of idolatry.
The strong and almost unanimous feeling of the Conference seemed tg be that we have no right to permit any of these forms, but should advise the con- verts to show their filial devotion by more attention to the funeral services of the Christian Church, to the care of the graves and such matters. This advice is most needful since the native Christians are apt to go to the opposite extreme of neglect.
IlL-As a third result may be named: A closer union of the entire mis- 8ionary body in Ohina. Notwithstanding the large number of representatives of different nationalities, various denominations and diverse preferences as to methods of work, a remarkable spirit of unanimity and brotherly love pervaded the Conference. In order to maintain and perpetuate the benefits of the gathering, it was resolved: 1. That members of the Conference and all other missionaries in China set apart a portion of every Satnrday evening as a time of special prayer for each other's success in bringing souls to Christ and that they may be united still more closely in the unity of the Spirit and the bonds of love.
2. That a Committee of Correspondence, consisting of seven members residing in Shanghai, be ejected by the Conference, whose duty it shall be to communicate with the missionaries on all subjects of common interest, to collect and publi~h missionary information and statistics, and to seek the views of the missionaries in all parts of the common field on any subject where they may think united action desirable.
3. That the missionaries in the various missionary centres, who have not yet done so, unite in local conferences or associations, and that each of these bodies select one of their number to correspond with the Shanghai Committee and to act in conjunction with them in carrying out the work above assigned them. 4. That the Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal and Tke Messenger be adopted as. the organs of this committee.
In regard to comity and division of the field the Conference advised: 1. The common occupation of large cities as bases of action. 2. That societies go into unoccupied districts with a view to the speedy occupation of the whole field. 3. In case of disagreement in regard to the occupation of the field that the matter be referred for arbitration to disinterested persons. A strong desire was apparent on the part of several denominations to unite their different branches organically in spite of the difficulties of distance and dialect. The various branches of the Methodist body, represented by 71 members, held a meeting and appointed a committee to consider plans for closer union. A Presbyterian gathering was also held; more than 100 were present. Seven branches of this church were represented. Of these, two, on account of the difficulties of language and travel, thought organic union impracticable; but the remaining five, which are located nearer each other, agreed to recommend steps looking to organic union between these bodies. It was agreed that a constitution be drafted, based upon the constitutions. of the Presbyterian churches of Europe and America, taking for doctrinal basis the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and the Westminster Confession. Itwas also recommended that all Presbyteries should form one Synod, meeting, for the present, once in five years. There was also union along literary lines. In view of the lack of knowledge on the part of many missionaries of the existing Christian literature in Chinese, and the great waste of time and labor resulting from this ignorance. it was resolved to appoint a permanent committee to collect information and prepare a classified catalogue with a brief description of books and tracts, to gather and publish information in regard to books in preparation, and to secure writers who shall supply the more pressing wants in any department of Christian literature. Missionaries contemplating literary work were recommended to communicate with the committee before beginning such work. It was voted that a general depot for the storage and sale of all books in the classified catalogue be established at Shanghai, with book rooms at other important centres. IV. Perhaps the most important work of the Conference was union in regard to a new version of the JVord of God. There are in use at present some half-dozen different translations of the Bible, which causes much trouble. Before the meeting of Conference there was little hope of agreement on a standard text, owing to the preference of different missions for the texts of their own translations; alio to the difference of opinion in regard to the translation of such terms as God, spirit, and baptize. However,with the blessing of God, separate committees were able to present, reports which were unanimously adopted by the Conference. By their recommendation three committees were empowered to select three corps of revisers, one to prepare a new version of the higher classical, one of the simple classical, and one of the Mandarin.* In order to secure one B~Dle in three forms, all the revisers are to act in conjunction. That such a satisfactory plan could be agreed upon, was regarded by some who knew the difficulties in the way as a great triumph of the Spirit of God. When the united report was brought in, inspired gratitude to God for the immediate prospect of one Bible for all China, the entire Conference rose, and, led by the chairman, united in singing, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow."
In its direct bearing upon the churches at home no greater work was done .. The Mandarin is the language of the officials throughout the empire, also that of the common people of uearlyall of North, West and Central China. by the Conference than the framing of the following four appeals for help: One for ordained men, one for unordained, one for womEn, and one summing up the other three in a call for ONE THOUSAND MEN WITHIN FIVE YEARS FROM THIS TIME! God grant that the call may be heard!
I.-AN APPEAL FOR ORDAINED MISSIONARIES, ETC.
TO ALL OUR HOME CHURCHES.
GREETING:-Realizing as never before the magnitude of China and the utter inadequacy of our present numbers for the speedy carrying into execution of our Lord's command, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature;" therefore, Resolved, that we, the four hundred and thirty members of the Missionary Conference now in session at Shanghai, earnestly and unanimously appeal to you to send out speedily as many hundreds as can possibly be secured oj wellqualified ordained men.
The whole of China is now open to missionary effort and needs a large number of men of prayer, of patience, endurance and of common sense-men full of the Holy Ghost and of faith in the gospel as "the power of God unto salvation."
The missionary here encounters hoary and subtle superstitions, a most difficult language, a people of vigorous intellect, with a vast literature and an elaborate educational system. There is need, therefore, of men of commanding practical and intellectual as well as spiritual endowments-men who shall be able to engage in and direct the work of evangelization, to educate, train and induct into their work a native pastorate, to fonnd and conduct educational institutions, and to provide a general theological, scientific and periodical literature.
Seeing, as we do, the utter destitution and helplessness of these millions still" having no hope and without God in the world," we appeal to young men to give themselves to t~ work. We believe that the great question with each of you should be, not" Why shouljl I go?" but" Why should I not go?"
We recommend that the men be sent under the regularly constituted missionary societies of the various denominations, and that these societies search out suitable men before they are committed to the home work.
With the highest appreciation of the claims of the home churches, we still urge young pastors to consider whether the places of some of them might not be filled by men who cannot come to the mission field, while they might bring their experience to spheres of work in China which must otherwise be left wholly unoccupied.
We call upon individual congregations to greatly increase their contributions for the support of one or more of these men.
We urge Christian men of wealth to prayerfully consider the duty and privilege of giving themselves personally to this work, or of supporting their representatives.
Finally, we shall not cease to pray the Lord of the harvest to move you mightily by His Holy Spirit in behalf of this vast and ripening field.
IT.-APPEAL FOR LAY MISSIONARIES.
This Conference, while strongly urging upon the home churches the susten- tation and continued increase of the staff of thoroughly trained and fully quali- fied ordained missionaries and the further development of native agenCIes in every branch of Christian work, is still so profoundly impressed with the mani- fold needs of this vast country, that it would present a direct appeal to the laity of the home churches for lay missionaries; and in doing so would place before them some of the departments of service in which their helpis more especially needed. .
Beginning with the highest service, and touching the deepest need of the country, they would point to the many millions of our fellow-men who have never heard the gospel of the grace of God; and to some millions more, who, though they have possessed themselves of some portion of His Word, still fail to comprehend its meaning for want of some one to guide them in their study of it; and they would urge the claimsof these unevangelized millions on the youth of the home churches, and would emphasize the nobility of the service which a Christian evangelist may thus render to the Lord in China.
The country long closed is open. The people, if not decidedly friendly, are not hostile. The work of the Bible colporteur has prepared the way. The promise of ingathering is yearly brightening, but the laborers are few; and with the abundance of Christian workers in the home lands, surely hundreds or even thousands might be found to hasten on the evangelization of this empire by their personal effort and consecration.
Passing now to the intellectual req,uirements of China, we rejoice to record the progress of missionary education LD the East during recent years; but are admonished by the fact that purely secular instruction so largely tinges the educational movements both of Christian and heathen governments; and in fact we hear a loud call to the Christian Church to supply in larger numbers Christian educationalists for China. The intellectual renaissance of the empire is just commencing, there is an incipient cry for western culture; and the re- sponse which the Christian Church may make to this cry will, to no inconsider- able extent, decide the course which the education of the country will take in the future. .
With Christian men in the chairs of the colleges of China, what may we not expect from so powerful an auxiliary in the evangelization of the empire?
University men may find here at no distant period some of the most influen- tial posts in the mission field; and we would earnestly invite all Buch Christian 'Co-workers to weigh over with all seriousness the question whether they may not more effectively serve their generation in China than in the home lands.
But besides the intellectual need of the country, there is also the chronic and otten dire necessity of phYBical distress. The masses of the people are poor. Physical Buffering meets us at every turn. Medical Bcience is almost unknown. Charitable institutions, though established both by the government and by private effort, fail to compass the need of the masses. Flood and famine slay their thousands; and yet the wealth of the world is in Christian hands, and might by judicious distribution both save the lives of thousands yearly and give completer expression to the Life we preach. On behalf of these destitute masses, therefore, we earnestly plead with the men of wealth in the home churches that they will consider the claims of these Buffering ones, and not only by their gifts and prayers will largely aid the reinforcement of the noble staff of medical missionaries already in the field, but will give them- selves in larger numbers to benevolent enterprises abroad. The blind, the aged, the orphan and the destitute mutely plead for Christian compassion, and the Lord Himelf has said, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me."
Weappeal,then, to our lay brethren in the home churches, to men of sterling piety, and of strong common sense, that they would lay to heart the needs of this vast empire-its spiritual destitution, its stunted education, its physical distress, and that they would.solemnly ask themselves whether for the greater glory of God they are not called to meet this pressing need, and to devote them- selves, their service and their wealth to this missionary enterprise in China.
We would offer to them a most hearty welcome to our ranks, and would as- sure them that, whether they come out as ordained 01' as lay workers, this welcome will be equally cordial; and in conclusion, we would earnestly pray that this appeal may be brought home to the hearts of many by the power of the Divine Spirit. (Signed) J. L. NEVIUS, } Ch . a~rmen. DAVID HILL, IlL-AN APPEAL FROM MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED LADIES, MEMBERS OF THE CONFERENCE.
To the Christian Women of the British Empire, the United States, Germany and all other Protestant Countries-Greeting: We, the women of the Missionary Conference now assembled in Shanghai, come to you, our sisters in Christ, with an urgent appeal in behalf of the one hundred millions of women and children of China who" sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."
The work of women in China has been prosecuted at the oldest stations for about fifty years, at first chiefly by the wives of missionaries, but in later years single ladies have largely augmented this working force. There are now ladies engaged in educational, medical and evangelistic work in China. Much has been done by them, many lives have been uplifted from the degradation of idolatry and sin, many sad hearts comforted, many darkened minds enlightened, and much solid good effected. But our hearts are burdened to-day with love and pity for the millions of women around us, our sisters for whom Christ died, still unreached by the sound of the gospel. Beloved sisters, if you could see j;heir sordid misery, their hopeless,.loveless lives, their ignorance and sinfulnesS, as we see them, mere human pity would move you to do something for their upliftin~. But there is a stronger motive that should impel you to stretch out a hel.{>mg hand, and that we plead-the .constraining love of Christ. We, who are m the midst of this darkness that -can be felt, send our voices across the ocean to you, our sisters, and beseech you by th~ grace of Christ our Saviour that you come at Olice to our help. .
Four kinds of work are open to us: 1. There is school work in connection with our various missions which in many cases the men have handed over to the women in order that they them- .selves may be free to engage more directly in evangelistic work. 2. There is a work to be done for the sick and suffering women of China, l.n hOspitals, dispensaries and homes, for which skillful physicians are needed. Most of this work can be better done by women than by men, and much of it can be done only by women. 3. There is work for us in the families of the Church. There are converted mothers and daughters who need to be taught the way of the Lord more perfectly, and to be trained in whatever is necessary for their fnIl development into lively members of the great household of faith. 4. There is a work of evangelization among women, similar to that being done by men among the people at large. It is not claimed that the evangelization of women cannot be done at all by men-but that there is more of it than men can do, there is much of it that will never be done unless women do it, and much that men cannot do as well as women can. There is nothing in this kind of work transcending the recognized scriptural sphere of women. Women received from the Lord Himself upon the very morniug of the resurrection their commission to tell the blessed story of a risen Saviour. What they did then we may continue to do now. But you will ask, " Who are needed for this work? " Knowing the conditions of life and work in China, we would answer that: 1. They should be women of sound health, of good ability and good common sense, also well educated-though not necessarily of the hignest education-apt to teach, kind and forbearing in disposition, so that they may live and work harmoniously with their associates, and win the hearts of the Chinese. Above' all, they should be women who have given themselves wholly to the 'Lord's work and are prepared to bear hardship and exercise constant self-denial for Christ's sake.
2. It is desirable that they should pursue a systematic course of Bible study before coming to China, and have some experience in Christian work at home.
Further, we would suggest that they should labor in connection with established missions in order that the good results of their work may be preserved, and that they may have, when needed, the assistance and. protection of their brother missionaries.
Open doors are all around us, and though idolatry lifts a hoary head, and ancestral worship binds the people as with chains of adamant, yet with God "all things are possible," and mountains of difficulty melt like snowflakes before the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, God is on the side of His own glorious, life-giving Word; we ask you to come in the power of consecration and faith, with sober expectations and readiness to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus, and take your share in the most glorious war that was ever waged on earth-the war against the powers ·of darkness and sin, assured that God will accomplish His own purposes of love and grace to China, and will permit you, if you listen to this call, to be His fellow-workers in "binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound."
That the holy and loving Spirit of God may incline your hearts to respond to His call is our earnest prayer.
Signed on behalf of the two hundred and four ladies assembled in Confer- .ence at Shanghai.
Mrs. Mary Lees, London Mission SOciety. Mrs. A. Elwin, Church Mission Society. Miss C. M. Ricketts, English Presbyterian Mission. Mrs. J. R. Watson, English Baptist lIission. Miss L. S. Sugden, M.D., Wesleyan Mission. Miss I. Newcombe, Church of England Zenana Mission. Mrs. E. Tomalin, China Inland Mission.
Mrs. John Ross, U. P. Church of Scotland.
Mrs. W. E. Soothill, United Methodist Free Church. Mrs. T. C. Fulton, Irish Presbyterian Church.
DR. HA.PPER ON THE SHANGHAI CONFERENCE
Mrs. Arthur H. Smith, American Board. Mrs: J. M. Foster, Baptist Missionary Union. Mrs. C. W. Mateer, American Presbyterian Mission (North). Miss L. H. Hoag, M.D., Methodist Episcopal Mission (North). Miss E. ]'. Swinney, M.D., Seventh Day Baptist Mission. Mrs. Eliza M. Yates, Southern Baptist Mission. Miss Laura A. Haygood, Methodist Episcopal Mission (South). Miss K. M. Talmage, American Reformed Mission. Miss R. E. Reifsnyder, M.D., Woman's Union Mission. Mrs. J. L. Stuart, American Presbyterian Mission (South).
N.-AN APPEAL TO ALL PROTEST~'<'NT CHURCHES OF CHRISTIAN LANDS.
DEAR BRETHREN IN CHRIsT,-We, the General Conference of Protestant Missionaries in China, having just made a special appeal to you for a largel;}' increased force of ordained missionaries to preach the gospel throughout the length and breadth of this great land, to plant churches, to educate native ministers and helpers, to create a ChrisQan lIterature, and in general to engage in and direct the supreme work of Christian evangelization; and having also just made a special appeal to you for a largely increased force of unordained men, evangelists, teachers and physicians, to travel far and wide distributing books and preaching to the masses, to lend a strong helping hand in the great work of Christian education, and to exhibit to China the benevolent side of Christianity in the work of healing the sick: Therefore, we do' now appeal to you, the Protestant churches of Christi.an lands, to send to China in response to these calls ONE THOUSAND MEN WITHIN FIVE YEARS FROM THIS TmE.
We make this appeal in behalf of three hundred millions of unevangelized heathen; we make it with all the earnestness of our whole hearts, as men over- whelmed with the magnitude and responsibility of the work before us; we make it with unwavering faith in the power of a risen Saviour to call men into His vineyard, and to open the hearts of those who are His stewards to send out and support them, and we shall not cease to cry mightily to Him that He.
will do this thing, and that our eyes may see it. On behalf of the Conference, Chairmen J REV. J L. NEVIUS, D.D. 1REV. D. HILL. REV. J. HUDSON TAYLOR. l Permanent CommitteeREV. WM.AsHMORE, D.D. REY. H. CORBETT, D.D. REV. C. W. MATEER, D.D., LL. D. REV. C. F. REID.
DR. HAPPER ON THE SHANGHAI CONFERENCE.
[We regard this large and representative Conference of misssionaries of sufficient interest to our readers, in its character, in its harmonious action, and in its loud and thrilling appeals to the Church universal, to fully warrant us in gi~ing additional space to it. And who more worthy to fill that space than the beloved brother who w.ent to China in 1844, and is now the "oldest mis· sionary" resident in the empire, and who can appreciate the marvellous contrast then and now as we cannot, and who, from the high tower of the Presidency of the Christian College of China, is now permitted to survey the future in the light of the past? We introduce his "obser- vations and statements" respecting the Conferenct', with his private note, because of the facts stated in it, and the earnest words by which he seeks to emphasize the action and the appeals of this memorable body.-J. M. S.] Canton, China, June 2d, 1890.
My DEAR DR. SHERWOOWD,-I am fully aware that your columns will be greatly taxed with the details of the Shanghai Conference. I have thought, however, that some general remarks might find a place-some observations and statements of the "oldest missionary in China." There is not a single missionary resident in China that was here when I arrived in 1844. There are three still in China that arrived in 1847. You can easily understand what a contrast it is now to what it was when I arrived. These considerations may add some force to the call for more missionaries. The plea for the several classes of missionaries will stand on their several requirements, as the call for medical missionaries, for laymen, single ladies and ordained men. But let the bugle-call go forth for one thousand missionaries within five years. Let it ring in the ears of the Church. Help them to carry it to the throne of grace. Let them ponder it in their closets and around the family altar. Let the youth hear it in the schOOls, in the academies, in the colleges and in the universities, and in the theological seminaries: "One thousand missionaries for China in five years." Keep this line in your columns every month, till the Church is aroused with the trumpet-call, and arouses itself to good earnest work and consecration and giving; and above all, may God by His Spirit accompany this call to the hearts of those He would call to have a share in this blessed work for the Master. With much esteem and regard, A. P. HAPPER.
As you will receive the full report of the proceedings of the General Conference in Shanghai from others, I will only give some general impressions and statements in regard to it. 1 may say the Conference was a great and blessed success. It far exceeded in the number of members, in the spirit of harmony and co-operation, and in practical results arrived at, all that the most sanguine friends of holding it had hoped for. The very first meeting of the assembly left upon the minds of all in attendance the impression that the Spirit of God was in our midst. This sense of the presence and power of the Holy Ghost increased and deepened each successive day till the last.
We may remark that there has been only one conference on the foreign field where the attendance of missionaries was larger than it was in Shanghai. At the General Decennial Conference in India in 1882, there were 500 in attendence; at Shanghai there were 432 names enrolled. If we consider the fact that there was a greater number of missionaries then laboring in India than there are now in China, that the distances are not so great in India as in China, and that the facilities and cheapness of travel are greater in India than they are in China, it is a matter of special gratitude that the attendance at Shanghai was so large. It manifests that there was a very great interest felt in the Conference when, notwithstanding the distances and the expense of travel, so many assembled to spend a season in special conference and prayer for the conversion of China.
I feel that I express the feelings of all who had the privilege of attending these meetings that they consider it a matter of. very special gratitude and thanksgiving that they were privileged to attend these solemn and delightful conventions of God's people.
There are some things that may be specially considered. During the last forty years there has been a diversity of views among the missionaries, which has led to the use of different versions of the Bible. These versions have differed not only in style but to some extent in meaning. Plans were arranged and agreed upon to prepare a standard version of the Bible to be used by aU the missionaries. This version is to be prepared in three styles-the high classical style, the simple book style, and the Mandarin colloquial style-so as to be suited to all classes of the people; but the meaning is to be the same in all the styles. Thus the division of forty years is healed, to the praise of God's grace.
It has long been felt that something was needed to help the people generally to read the Christian Scriptures intelligibly. This they were not able to do because of their ignorance of the history, the manners and customs of the Jews, ·and of the geography and religion of Judea. The Conference was able, after much consulting and prayer, to adopt a plan for the preparation of an annotated Bible which will give an explanation of names of persons and places, of countries and manners and modes of worship, which are so often referred to in the sacred text. The new version will be used when these annotations are printed in a complete volume.
Thus one great work of the Conference was to arrange plans for giving the Word of God to this multitudinous people in the form which will help them to understand its precious doctrines and the way of salvation as made known in it.
It was most interesting to sit from day to day in this company of missionaries and hear their testimonies to the goodness of God and their experience in the work. There were present persons of every age and sex. The men of gray beards and the youth-men and maidens-just commencing their life- work were there. There were those who were engaged in every kind of mis- sionary work-the preachers, the teachers, the colporteurs, the students, the translators and writers of books, the medical missionaries and the visitors from house to house. They came from far in the interior and from the coast ports. They had every variety of experience-of disappointment and success, of sick- ness and health, of danger and safety, of opposition and of quiet, undisturbed work; and they all wore the same joyful and hopeful expression of counte- nance and joined in singing the same songs of thanksgiving and praise. They all said "The Lord is our helper," "The Lord is our shield and our buckler," "Rejoice and be glad in the Lord," "In the name of the Lord we lift our ban- ners." Not a despondent word or utterance was heard in all those days.
After these forty years of experience of missionary labors and trials, con- flicts and hindrances, hear them as they unite, as with one voice and·heart, in the appeal to Christendom to send forth one tlwusand missionaries in the next five years. Will the Israel of God hear this call from the men and women who. are in the forefront of the battle-who, with full knowledge of the sacrifices, labors and toils which the service demands, send forth this call to their fellow- Christians of all lands, saying, "This is a great warfare in which we are ~n gaged. Our numbers are utterly insufficient for the great work before us. Send us men; send us strong, able, mighty men. Send us medical men and women. Send us those who can 'endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christl' Send us those who will have the spirit of love and compassion to win souls for Christ. Send us men and women full of faith and the Holy Ghost."
Blood-bought followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, will you hear this call of 430 of your fellow-Christians, who represent the 1,285 Christian workers in China, saying, "Come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty!" All can have a part. All can do something. Some can furnish the means to send forth the laborers. All can pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers unto the great harvest in China, with its 350 millions of people. Parents can encourage their sons and daughters to give themselves to the blessed work of faith and toil. Young men and women in Christian homes, in our colleges and universities, will there not be one glorious response from many hearts under the constraining influence of the love of Jesus, saying, "Here are we; send us! We long to have a part in the laborsandpatienee of the kingdom of God."
As I sat in the midst of that assembly, which filled the whole house in which we assembled, and looked back over the forty-six years of my missionary experience, my heart was filled with joy and gratitude for what mine eyes have seen of God's wondrous work in this land. I had seen the day of small things. At the time of my arrival in China, in. 1844, there were some thirty missionaries rflsident at four cities and the British possession of Hong Kong. There were some six native converts and two native ·assistants. Now" the little one has become a thousand and the small one a strong nation. " Scattered abroad in all parts of this widely-extended land 1,285 missionaries are making known the glorious gospel of the blessed God. They are assisted by 209 ordained native ministers and 1,260 unordained native helpers. There are 520 organized churches, with 37,287 members gathered into them professing the gospel; 16,816 pupils are gathered into Christian schools, where they are instructed in the knowledge and love of God. How thankfully I exclaimed, "Behold what God hath wrought!"
As I cast my thoughts on the future I could only think, "What will be
TRANSLATIONS FROM .FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS
seen by those who are privileged to see the results of another forty years of missionary work in China?" The workers continue the work with wonderful facilities and opportunities of. every kind. They may expect a yet more abundant outpouring of the Spirit of God. As I stood before that large company of brethren and sisters, and looked into their earnest faces, and saw their countenances beaming with joy and anticipated success, I could only say, "God bless you;" "The Lord be with you;" " The Lord give you to see the glorious triumphs of His grace." For" this handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon." The deep feeling of my heart was and is, " Oh, that I were young again to commence work in China with all these favoring circumstances and this strong band of workers and the mighty outpouring of God's Spirit."
In this review of the work and the results of labor in China, I could not but recall the scenes of labor and trial, the disappointed hopes and expectations, that have been met with by the many dear friends and fellow-laborers ;who have finished their toils and labors and gone to their glorious reward and to receive their crown of life and the welcome plaudit "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord." Some of them finished their course in early youth; some fell while still in the full strength of middle age: and some when they had filled up the measure of three-score years in labors for Christ. But they all have gone to their glorious reward and to unite with "that multitude which no man can number, gathered out of every nation and every people," to cast their crowns at the feet of their adorable Redeemer, and to cry" 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to be exalted thus!" While recalling those loved departed ones how blessed is the assurance that for such" to die is gain "-infinite gain-however great the loss may be to the Church on earth.
The Church may well count the cost of winning China for Christ. This populous empire will not be converted to Christ" except by much prayer and fasting." It will cost the sacrifice of many more lives and the expenditure of much labor and toil and sacrifice and money. It is a stronghold of the powers of darkness. But our encouragement is this: "Greater are they that are with us than they that are against us." " It is not by might, nor by power, but my Spirit, saith the Lord."
Let parents then rejoice to consecrate to this service the choicest of their sons and daughters. Count it all joy when you hear of conflict and trial on the high places of the field. Rejoice when any shall be honored to receive the martyr's crown. "Go forth in the strength of the Lord." "Trust in the mighty God of Jacob." Follow where the great Captain of our Salvation leads His people to the redemption of a lost world, and "Sure as God's truth shall last, To Zion shall be given The brightest glories earth can yield, And brighter bliss of heaven."
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
[INTRoDUCTOY NOTE.-Dear Dr. Sherwood: One of the brethren connected with the Jout"nal des Missions Evangeliques, in a very courteous and brotherly letter, has taken exception to my comparison of French Protestants with German Protestants, as less courageous in criticism of the colouial acts of their Government. He points out that, so small a minority as they are against a hostile majority, a certain degree of circumspection may well be pardoned them, and that while Saxons may charge them with Gallic arrogance, Frenchmen charge them with being sold to the Protestant England and Germany. He assures me, moreover, that various Protestant publications of France which I do not see have expressed themselves energetically concerning French aggressions upon English missions in the South Seas. I am sorry if I have given any just occasion to my Reformed brethren ir: France to complain that I do not sufficiently distinguish them from their Ultramontane and atheistic countrymen, under whom the wise providence of God permits them at present to be constrained. May en- largement come to them soon, by such a blessing on the P.rotestants and Reformed Catholics of France as shall bring this great nation into line with our noblest e/l'orts.-CHARLES C. STARBUCK.] The Dansk Missionsblad for December, 1889, speaking of the first mission- ary account rendered by Paul and Barnabas to the Church of Antioch, "how God had opened to the Gentiles a door of faith," remarks: "When we also look out over the missionary field and observe what comes to pass in east and west and south, in China and India and Africa, we, too, may say the same as Paul and Barnabas, when they returned from the first mis- sionary journey: God hath opened to the Gentiles a door of faith. This is the great alteration, which has come to pass in the last generation, that where there previously were locked doors there are now opened doors for the mes- sengers of the gospel. And we know also that missions are God's work by the fact that God is now opening the door of the world so that missions may be carried on. The work can only be done bysuch men as the Lord calls and qualifies, and in those places where God opens the door for the Word. Weare absolutely not to decide where missions are to be carried on, but to observe where the Lord points out the way. And as there is a sinful indifference to the holy work of missions, so there is also a sinful impatience that will insist on going whither the Lord has not sent His messengers, and has n0t pointed out the way by opening the door. Many noble powers have been sacrificed, many a self-sacrificing effort has been wasted. because Christians would insist on in- truding where the Lord had not opened the door.
" . . . When the first missionary who brought the pure gospel to India, Bartholomew Ziezenbalg, was sent out from Denmark, the voyage from Copen- haben to Tranquebert took up forty weeks. Now it requires forty days. Letters now go from London to Calcutta in from twenty-one to twenty-eight days. Formerly they could be sent, by sailing ship, once in a summer; and if the summer passed without an opportunity, or the ship was wrecked, two or three years might pass before the missionaries had answers to their letters. And what such difficulty of communication signified Ziegenbalg experienced when he had incurred the Danish governor's enmity. All King Frederick the Fourth's personal regard and sincere assurances of protection did not secure him from lyinf half a year in prison in the distant dependency. Nor was he released unti he had signed an agreement that he would make no complaint to the King. And if we turn to the West, as late as 1841, a missionary went from England to Canada. in order from there to reach his station in the interior of British America. But he found no opportunity in Canada and was obliged to return to England, and from there, the next summer, to go around by the glacial waters of the North Atlantic and Hudson'" Bay to York, and from there by boat, to journey up the river 170 miles to Winnipeg. At present a railway journey of two or three days from Canada to Winnipeg accomplishes what then required that long and terrible circuit. And when, three years ago, this same missionary died at his station, his death was known the next day by telegraph in England."
-The BlarI's brief statement of the Lakes missions in Africa may serve afresh to remind us that, according to the law of missionary beginnings, these have not been working fruitlessly-44 stations, 121 missionaries, 1,800 baptisms.
-India has become almost wholly British, but the missionary interests of Denmark are still confined to it. Their two fields are: the Tamils in South India; the Santals in Northeast India. Danes were the first Protestant mis- sionaries in India, and Danes received, sheltered and befriended -the first Eng- lish missionaries in India against the persecutions of their own countrymen.
All, therefore, that has been done by Englishmen and Americans for the cause of Christ in India owes a tribute of acknowledgment to our Danish kindred.
And, so far as we can call to mind, the first Protestant king who was, dis- tinctly and definitely, a nursing father of Christian missions, was the King of Denmark.
-In reference to India, however, the Blad remarks,that although the coun- try (excepting here and there some native State) has been unlocked since 1813, the home has only been unlocked since the Zenana Mission was formed, above all, among the Hindus proper, the Aryans of the northern plains. The Tamils of the south, though Hinduized, are not Hindus in race, and do not seclude their women very jealously, nor do the aboriginal hill-tribe of the Santals.
M. Coillard, whom, with all the French missionaries on the Zambesi, the heathen king Lewanika, of the Barotsis, greatly reverences, writes: " While I intercede with God for this bloodthirsty people, it is also my duty to testify publicly against a warlike undertaking which Lewanika himself had called an expedition for plunder, and so I do. No one shall be allowed to mis- understand our position in this matter. Lewanika, full of attention to his mis- sionaries. had sent to our brethren and sisters at Sherheke six head of the cattle won by the foray, and had courteously designated two of them as being ex- pressly intended for' his daughter,' Madame Jeanmairet. M. Jeanmairet, how- ever, in a letter, in which he warmly expressed his gratitude, set forth to the king, with courteous dignity, the reasons why neither he nor his fellow-laborers could accept any part of this booty. Can it be that Lewanika had expected this refusal? At all events he contented himself with the answer, 'I under- stand. But then what have the Barotsis, anyhow, which they have not ac- quired by plunder?'"
-The atheism of nominal Christians and Christian governments in heathen <countries appears to have reached its extreme in the Dutch East Indies. What the Macedonier says, however, in the following extract, is sufficientlyapplicable to other nations: "The governor of the Island of Cyprus, Sergins Paulus, an intelligent and thoughtful man, was very desirous to hear the new message of the gospel from the apostles. But there was found at his court a Jew, Barjesus by name, who also flaunted the Arabian appellation of Elymas, i.e., the Wise, the Magus, and who sought to hold back the pro-consul from the faith. Him- self unwilling to enter, he wished also to bar the entrance against others. And when our ~'eaders consider that Elymas was not a heathen but a descendant of the chosen people, who, just like Barnabas and Saul themselves, had been circumcised the eighth day, it will then be superfluous to remark, that we must look for the sin of Elymas not only among heathens and Mohammedans, but also, and indeed chiefly, among such as with us bear the name of Christ, and just like ourselves have been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. " And inasmuch as we meet with the sin of Elymas in a Jew in a heathen island, I venture to express it as my conviction, that the sin of Elymas finds a far more fruitful soil in our East In~ian colonies than in a Christian society. The opposition which we missionaries experience from our countrymen in our colonies may, in form and manifestation, be somewhat different from that which the apostle Paul experienced from Elymas in heathen Cyprus, but in essence it is one. It is.the sin of Elymas-personal unwillingness to enter in and solicitude to hold others back from entering in. And as with Paul, so with us; it meets each of us at the beginning of his missionary life, and in some form or other accompanies him to its close.
. "If European colonists or officials had been Christians in truth, and had let their light shine before men, they would then have been a bridge jor, whereas now they are too often a dam against, the diffusion of Christianity. They do this, it is true, more negatively than, like Elymas, positively, but with a like temper and a like result. They poison the whole atmosphere of influence by their indifferent, ungodly and immoral lives. It is no wonder, therefore, that we missionaries, even with the most strenuous exertion, do not succeed in establishing flourishing native churches in places where there are many Euro- peans."
-It appears that in the Dutch East Indies most of the whites have actually sunk to the level of heathen superstition, making offerings to propitiate evit spirits, and avoiding anxiously the spots which the natives declare to be haunted by them. Having no faith in Christ, they, like the same class among us, easily b~ome worshippers of ghosts. "ContelTIning the miracles of the gospel, as something too childish for the enlightenment of the nineteenth century, they have fallen back into the very darkness of heathenism. If a missionary talks with a Javanese or a Chinese about the Christian religion, he may expect to be asked, 'Have the Hollanders also a religion?' Verily, the Elymas of the nine– teenth century is no less a child of the devil than the Elymas of the apostolic age."
-The despotic prohibition, by the Russian Government, of every manner of- missionary activity, abroad or at home, of the Protestant churches of Russia, cuts off about $8,000 annually from the revenues of the Leipsic Society, an important amount for a continental society. The rising missions of the Finnish Church are not smitten by this blow, as Finland is not a part of Russia, but a grand duchy of which the Czar is grand duke. It has a constitutional govern- ment and a legislature; Swedish, not Russian, is the official language; the Lutheran is the established Church. This prohibition, therefore, does not apply to Finland, but applies to all the rest of the Czar's dominions, at least throughout the Russias. The Allgemeine Missivns-Zeitschrift well !lays: "But all un– righteousness cry to God, and at last comes His hour to set them home. Mean- while, may He grant to the oppressed the courage of confessors, faithfulness to· their faith, perseverance in prayer and patience." .
Persecution along the Baltic and fiendish cruelty in Siberia-the orthodox Czar seems to be doing his best to render antichristsuperfluous by anticipating- him.
-The German Government has given a singular statement, namely, that in its East African possessions it does not undertake to protect either whites or' natives against the attacks of natives, but merely against encroachments of other Colonial Powers! The German dominion in East Africa, according to the showing of the German missionaries, appears as yet to have wrought a great deal of harm and very little good to missions. The German missionaries who are within the English" sphere of influence" express a lively satisfaction in their good fortune.
-The Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift remarks that in the present inflamed condition of the native mind in East Africa it ought to be regarded as success enough that none of the stations have been destroyed except Pugu, German Catholic, and Dar es Salam, German Protestant. Besides the hatred borne to· these as being German, they had actually provoked q;estruction by consenting to receive great numbers of fugitive slaves without any adequate provision for their protection. "In the midst of all this tumult and battle-cry a work has been accomplished in stillness which is of the very greatest significance for the evangelization of East Africa: the translation of the whole Bible into Suahili;essentially the work of Bishop Steere and his Archdeacon Hodgson, of the Universities' Mission. "
-The BerlinSociety has in North Transvaal 11 stations, with 2,300 baptized Christians. There the recent discoveries of gold, with the rushing in of the whites~ are threatening a critical time. Pray that a new account of good destroyed may not be laid up against our race. In Transvaal the Berlin Society has in all 11,000,baptized Christians. The most important station is Botchabelo, with 2,310 baptized Christians. The law forbidding more than five native fam– ilies to reside on one estate has been suspended by the Transvaal go,ernment,. and it is to be hoped it will be repealed. It would be fatal to the missions in that Republic.
-The Hermannsburg Mission in Transvaal has in the last year baptized 1,390, raising the number of Bechuana converts to 13,969. In Zulu land the progress of the Hermannsburgers is much slower, the whole number of baptized con- verts here being now 1,618.
-The number of Basuto Christians in the French mission has lately risen from 6,000 to nearly 10,000. The station of Morija alone has received an ac- cession of 514 communicants. The scholars now number 5,314. The Industrial School has been so successful that at the Grahamstown Exposition the Basutos took the prize above all other South African tribes.
-Unhappily the Roman Catholic-we may here fairly say, the Romanist- counter-mission is more hostile than ever. "It patronizes all mannerof demor- alizing heathen customs, which the Protestant mission had 'proscribed' in its congregations, e. g., the purchase of wives. 'Weare, so to speak, assailed in our moral position.' … A continually recurring proof that Ultramontanism is ready to ally itself even with heathenism, if only it can harm the Evangelical Church. But it only harms itself and its own moral reputatiQn." This consideration makes it of vital significance whether here at home Romanism shall poison Catholicism, or Catholicism shall reduce Romanism to its lowest terms. The Baltimore archbishopric seems to stand for the latter effort; the New York archbishopric for the former.
-The Scandinavian Missionary Conference which was held in ChristiOOlia, Norway, last July, was largely attended, having 552 delegates in attendance- 105 Danish, 61 Swedish, and one Finnish, leaving, it appears, 386 for Norway. An animated description of it is given in the Dansk Missionsblad. The three Scandinavian kingdoms together send out over 100 missionaries, and contribute 1,000,000 crowns yearly, or about $250,000. The conflict of missionary effort is greatest in Sweden, where there are 9 societies, less in Denmark with 4, least in Norway with 2. As entire consolidation is not practicable, it was urged that. different Scandinavian societies, working in the same heathen country, shoul" at least strive after a common liturgy, Bible translation, etc. The next Scandinavian missionary conference is appointed to be in 1893 in Copenhagen.
-To us the name of "Hottentot" has by old habit come to signify the extreme of human degradation. But the Missions-Blatt of the Moravian Brethren for February gives a narrative which presents them, as Christians, in a very different light. It seems that in 1810, a. wealthy South African Boer, or farmer of Dutch descent, named Burgers, besides his extensive farms, bought at some distance frem them, in a mountain basin, a pasturing ground of a number of hundred acres which became his favorite resort, while his farms. were managed by his sons After nearly thirty years of pastoral contentment in this grassy and wellwatered valley, he found, in 1838, that he was likely soon to be left alone in it, as his slaves, whose hour of freedom dawned with the first of August in that year, had been so discouraged by him in their religious longings that they would be sure to leave him for some missionary station. He therefore took a great resolve. Surrendering his farms to his sons, he bequeathed his broad pasture-lands, or rather the usufruct of them, to six Hottentot slaves, on condition that they should care for him till his death. When the last of the six should be dead, the lands were to be divided among their children. They immediately established at Biirgerskloof a flourishing Moravian station named Goedvorwacht. But it was surrounded by wealthy Boers, worshippers of Mammon and enemies of Christ. These, conscious how plethoric their purses.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
were and how lean those of the missionaries, waited grimly year after year, till the last of the six Hottentots, who had been so suddenly raised from the depths into the rank of landed proprietors, should have passed away, nothing doubting but that with their long purses they could then buy up Biirgerskloof from all competitors, and scatter all godliness to the winds. Year after year passed, and one after another of, the six dropped away, until the whole continuance of the station, as it appeared, hung on the life of one frail old Hottentot woman, fitly named Christiana. The hearts of the missionaries grew heavy. But for many years "many were engaged in building up an invisible wall of prayer around Biirgerskloof." At last, December 28, 1888, old Christiana fell asleep, 92 years old. There were now thirteen heirs, all poor Hottentots, some a good deal in debt, to whom the Boers around stood ready to pay twice, thrice, nay five times as much for the rich pasture land, with its plentiful springs, as the mission had any hope of raising. And the courts decided that if one of the thirteen insisted on it, the whole must be put up to auction, in which case the Boers were sure of the result. It must be remembered that the Moravians claim no authority over the property of their members. They can advise but they cannot control, either civilly or ecclesiastically. Not one of the thirteen, however, could be moved to sell the land to anyone ,except the mission, for the moderate sum of £750, which it could afford to give.
And thus Goedvorwacht,through Christ's providence and His humble people's faithfulness, fulfilled its name of Well-guarded, and Mammon retired discomfited. In the various transactions connected with the final settlement, involving the fate of two stations, the Brethren remark that the Hottentots have displayed a dignity, a self-restraint, a submission to Providence, a preference of spiritual to temporal interests, which places them not among the lowest but among the highest of their converts. They contrast their behavior, greatly to their advantage, with the noisy intractableness which the Eskimo Christians sometimes exhibit.
H.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.
The following is an outline of the pledge. The pamphlet may be ob- Volunteer Pledge recently issued as tained of Walter J. Clarke, 50 East No.3 of Student Volunteer Series: 70th street, New York city, at three I.-The necessity for a pledge.-l. cents per copy; $1.50 per hundred, To secure decisions. 2. To secure de- prepaid. Mr. Robert P. Wilder has ,cisions early in the course of study. treated his subject in an exhaustive 3. To confirm those who have de- and masterful manner. His style is ·cided. 11.-What shall the pledge condensed,vigorous and pre-eminently be? IlL-The meaning of the pledge: clear. The little book is stamped by a " We are fully determined to become spirit of consecration and prayer. We foreign missionaries unless God block are reminded that "spiritual things the way." IV.-The use of the pledge. are spiritually discerned;" hence how V.-Who shall use the pledge? neccessary it is for one to be in prayer The necessity for understanding the to understand the messages which the pledge cannot be too strongly empha- Lord entrusts to some of His children.
sized. "It is the keystone to the arch The keynote of the Northfield Con- of the Student Volunteer Movement ference this year was struck early in for Foreign Missions." Volunteers the session. On Sunday, June 29, cannot be effective and successful Major Whittle preached on " Foreign .
workers, it may be fairly said, unless Missions." Scarcely a speaker during they understand an(~ hf'liE've in the the ten days which followed failed to recognize the fact that personal pernicious, and that those numbers responsibility in regard to the evan- already obtained (the 5,000) represent gelization of this blood-bought world only a small percentage of the men was the problem uppermost in the who intend actually to go into the minds of the majority of the men foreign work! Practical common present. Rev. George F. PenteCost, sense demands an estimate if our D.D., awakened interest in the pro- Lord's last command is to be obeyed posed" Siege of Bombay," an enter- in its entirety. Fellow-students, it is prise in which he will be assisted by our privilege to pray that men shall be men and women both from England faithful. We have a right, the conand America. Mr. D. L. Moody de- dition having been realized, to claim voted an hour one Sunday afternoon fulfillment of the promise:" Being to the subject of" Preparation," ad- confident of this very thing, that he dressed to missionary candidates. One which hath begun a good work in of the most vigorous and stirring ad- you will perform it until the day of dresses ever heard in Northfield was Jesus Christ." delivered on " Round Top" by Dr. A. T. Pierson. With great earnestness It is possible to evangelize the world and power he bore in upon the hearts in this generation. Let us work as of men his own deep conviction that though we believed it, absolutely sure the world can be evangelized in this that the endeavor is well pleasing to generation. our Lord and Master.
Alll)ther brief address is still ringing Foreign missionary meetings were in my ears, the substance of which held on Round Top Hill every other was as follows: "Fellows, we have no evening during the session. These record that a human being has ever meetings were conducted by Mr. Cosbeen converted save through the in- sam, who is successor to Mr. R. E. strumentality of some other individual. Speer, traveling secretary. On Wed- If this world is to have Christ preached nesday evening, July 9, a little meetto it missionaries must be, in a sense, ing of marked character was held on man-made missionaries. There are "Round Top." Mr. Dankowt was the about 85 volunteers here present and first speaker introduced-a gentleman 300 Christians on the grounds. Seize in charge of a medical school in New the opportunity! Strive by personal York city, established for the especial effort to persuade these 300 men to, benefit of men who intend to be forenter this missionary service. It is eign missionaries. He first called atnot hard to win men to this work. tention to the fact that many of the Let each volunteer' strive each day men and women who have gone into during this Conference to persuade a heathen lands have come back to study single man to enlist in foreign work." medicine. "It is barbarous," he went on to say, "that the Christian Church Has not this exhortation a possible should send out people to be removed wider application? Let us turn for a hundreds of miles, from medical assismoment from the Conference to a tance and without some knowledge of wider student body. On a conserva- surgery and medical practice." tive estimate there are 250 institutions, each one of which contains on an Mr. De Forrest, of Japan, underaverage 1() volunteers. Is it unreason- took to answer the question" What able to plead that each one of these 2,500 kind of men are wanted in Japan?" strived to secure each month (estimat- and said: "We don't want people ing nine college months in a year) a with quarrelsome dispositions; but we new volunteer: 10+250+9 recruits= do want men who can get along with 22,500 recruits. The objection is urged each other. We want men that can that this passion for mere numbers is love fellows with different color of skin. Furthermore, we want men with tact and discrimination; men held as he told about its geography who know when to talk about the and the people, "a little shorter in natural and when to talk about the stature than we are," those among .supernatural. " whom he intended to spend his life• He said: "Of the religion of these Mr. Laffin, who has already spent a people, Hinduism is like a glacier that little time in Africa, and who expects comes down the mountain and ab- to return, followed Mr. De Forrest. sorbs everything" in its way. Bud- His face was radiant and his manner dhism is beautiful externally. When touched by enthusiasm. "When men I contemplate this intricate and fasci- {)r women draw down their faces and nating system of religion I am retell me how sorry they are that I am minded of the appearance of the going to benighted Africa, I tell them beautiful wall about the city in which speedily, 'I don't want your sympa- I once lived-a wall pierced by winthy. Keep it.' No country in this dows and crowned by graceful minawide world is more receptive to the rets-and when the sunlight streamed gospel than Africa. I do not know a upon it it glowed and sparkled as village or a town where they won't re- though set with jewels; but underceive a missionary. One church of neath that wall, at its foundation, was 100 to 120 members supports six evan- rottenness, filth and decay." gelists. Can you equal that record in this country? With the native Afri- Spacewill not admitof telling about can God's Word settles any point of obstacles and triumphs of missionary dispute." life in India, nor of the crisis. No other man has been so thoroughly Mr. Griswold, who intends to go to identified with the missionary upris- Northern India, encouraged the men ing as Mr. Wilder-perhaps no other still remaining at home to shine as student in America is better known scholars, pointing to the great need, among Christians, and more deeply both in India and China, of men fitted loved. And so the personal farewell to train native teachers. words, simple and earnest, found a quick and glowing response in the When Mr. Griswold finished the hearts of men that night: "I want to twilight was deepening-it would soon see many here in India some day. be time for the eight o'clock bell to I want you to pray for me and my ring. Mr. Robert P. Wilder was an- dear India." The notes of the violin nounced"to say a few words in closing. could not have been sweeter or more " He expected to go out to India be- penetrating than these last words. fore another year had elapsed," he " Blest be the tie" . . . " Like to said. At his opening sentence every- that above." Never was the old body seemed to be listening expec- hymn sung with more spontaneity and tantly. It was very still: no sound spirit. was heard except the rising wind and the flap now and then in the breeze of MAX WOOD MOORHEAD. a map of Kolhapur which two friends Notes on India, by Rev. James Johnston, Bolton, England. -Indian Church Aid Association.- houses and engineering enterprises. This auxiliary, which aims at the The success of missionary work among Christianization of Englishmen resi- the natives depends largely on the lives dent in India, is growing in favor. It of Europeans living among them. is estimated that some 60,000 British Among the members of the Church of soldiers are stationed in different parts England in Great Britain the signifiof the empire, besictes large numbers cance of these claims is being reaof Englishmen engagep. in its civic ad- ized and enforced. One of the advoministration and in the commercial cates in Manchester Cathedral denied -that missionary propagation in India portance to the whole future of miswas a failure. It might be asserted sions." by travelers through districts where it was difficult to plant Christianity, – Female Education in India.-To -or where Englishmen congregated in read of an Indian princess enlarging large numbers, whose lives neutral- upon the advantages of education to. ,ized rather than sustained the mission- her less favored sex, is a notable sign ary's message. Upon Englishmen in of the times in Hindustan. Not long particular lay the solemn responsi- ago, in the ancient town of Gondal, in bilityof making reparation for the ne- the Bombay Presidency, at the Mongglect and failure of their fellow-coun- hiba School for Girls, her Highness trymen inpastyears to live and preach the Rani Nankooverba distributed the -Christ to India's idolatrous millions. prizes. The occasion was extra jubil- ant because an ex-student, Ladlubai, -DevelopmentofMedical Missions. a child of poverty-suffering parents, -Every year bears evidence to the ad- was first in the examination at the vance of medical missions among the Rajkote Female College, and had releading missionary societies which ceived an excellent appointment as supply an increasing number of nurses the head-mistress of the Porbandar and doctors. At the headquarters of Girls' School. This and similar matthe Zenana Medical College in London, ters gave the lady speakers some instudentsare trained, andsubsequently, spiring thoughts on the accompaniin connection with one or other of the ments and possibilities of education. great societies, proceed on service to "My sisters" were invited to let the the East. Two of the present students knowledge which they had obtained are Syrian girls, who, at the comple- teach them "how to win the husband's tion of their training, will return to heart, how to be always agreeable to their own land as the first Syrian his wishes, how to pa~ respects to the ladies to practice medicine. India, father-in-law and mother-in-law, as naturally, has most attention. The well as to the father and mother, how devoted Miss Hewlett, a fervent helper to behave towards juniors, elders, and on behalf of her Indian sisters at Am- equals, how to keep the house clean, ritsar, writes of its efficiency, and of how to acquire proficiency in cookery, Miss Bose, the first native Christian how to spend their leisure in reading, lady to be medically educated in Eng- sewing, 01' needlework." The Rani land, and now in charge of an exten- urged the benefits of higher education sive dispensary at Taran-Taran. From and the duty of parents teaching Mr. W. S. Caine, M.P., whose free their daughters, and finally closing criticism of mission work created a with the exhortation that girls should storm some mgnths ago, comes an elo- know something of the women who quent tribute. He says: "I believe in many lands were renowned "for for medical work among Indian wo- knowledge and learning and for varimen the three great essentials are a ous virtues. Some are celebrated for knowledge of nursing, of dispensing, their scholarship; some for their purand of maternity. The lady who has_ ity of conduct; some for courage, formastered these things is fit for service titude, enterprise; some, again, for in India. I may tell you that it is modesty or presence of mind; some officially stated that one of the best for devotion to their husbands; while dispensaries in the northwest provin- some have been remarkable for their ces is under the charge of one of your piety; and others for their excellence former students. In whatever aspect in household management." I view the work of the Zenana Medical College, I become the more convinced Generous sympathy is asked for that it is of the highest value and im- ~nss Cornelia Sorabji, the Indian young lady whose university career at the Deccan College, Poona, was so tion of a woman's self-denying love, distinguished. At Somerville Hall in taking the medical supervision of she is now reading literature to ob- the Ambala 1sylum, which shows. tain the place at Oxford equivalent, marked improvement in the condition in the case of a woman, to a degree. of the patients since she accepted the Unable to meet her expenses during charge. the next two years' study at Oxford, her special friend, Lady Hobhouse, -Zenana Missions-English Wes- has opened a fund on her behalf. It leyan Women's Auxiliary.-In speak- is felt that in extending support to ing of "the condition of women in Miss Sorabji a powerful impetus will India," Mrs. Sutcliffe, an earnest be given to the cause of Indian edu- lady missionary, alluded to the cation, to which this gifted scholar 120,000,000 women of the country, purposes devoting herself on return- 40,000,000 of whom were in zenanas ing to her native land. and 21,000,000 widows. Of these latter 80,000 were children between the ages -Lepers in India.-For 15 years the of six and sixteen years. Methodist Edinburgh Mission to Lepers has been Women's Mission Work in India had combating the evils which attend this achieved much success since its originterrible scourge. Along with its pri- ation in 1858, though even to-day there mary work to evangelize. the agents is only one missionary to about each of the society have alleviated the mis- million of the population. It is aperies of the lepers. A bill has been parent that the foundations of heathdrafted especially affecting the va- enism were planted in the zenanas. grant classes. "Retreats" are proposed in which the sexes will be separated. -Church of England Zenana So- The society's secretary goes to India ciety.-At the annual meeting held in to make arrangements for the erection May it was reported that at home there of asylums for adults. These are sore- has been healthy development in the ly needed for the lepers' comfort and number of workers, while in the field the protection of the natives from the there are 114 missionaries, with 62 aswandering lepers who spread the dis- sistants, and 577 native Bible-women ease. In considering the world of woe and teachers. The deathof Dr. Fanny represented by 500,000 lepers, the Butler was mourned over. It is noted most sorrowful problem is the case of that everywhere there has been dethe children. A leading authority on voted labor and a call for medical the question, Dr. Monro, states, "Lep- mission work, while in school work rosy has never been proved to be and zenana visitation there has been transmitted without contact, is not distinct encouragement. In funds constantly transmitted even when there is deficit of £1,743, although the both parents are diseased, and seldom income-£25,817-is £951, in advance affects more than one child in a fam- of the highest amount previously reily." Sir Morell Mackenzie says that ceived. The increased expenditure, hereditary contamination has scarcely it is gratifying to know, has not been any existence. Nevertheless, as early in the home but in the foreign departas possible it is important to remove ment, the fact being that, while in children from the risk of contagion, the ten years of the society's 'existence and in this direction the Edinburgh the income has barely doubled, stasociety is exerting itself. It has tions have trebled and workers have one home and branches for the lit- quadrupled. A worker of seventeen tle ones in connection with its three years' serv~ce, Mrs. Ellwood, spoke asylums. Let the name of Miss Carle- of the great subjection of the ton, M. B., an American lady doctor, Hindu women, and only could be universally honored as an illustra- their Christianization be effected by women. Latterly, zenana work has made rapid strides. Everywhere the This fam.ous field, scattered .over the Khassia Hills and s.ometimes spoken .of toilers were welc.omed with .open as the Assam missi.on, is the crown .of the society's harvest abr.oad. N.o doors. Net l.ong since the native written language existed in Assam at the- inaugurati.on .of the missi.on. w.omen shrank fr.om their missi.onary Meanwhile, the missi.onaries have translated the scriptures into the sisters. Mrs. MacDonald, fr.om South- tongue .of the people. A m.onthly periodical was issued in the native ern India, referred in gl.owing terms speech fer the services.of the churches and musical classes .opened .on the to zenana devel.opments. The sowers, tonic sol-fa system, which the natives much appreciated. The Khassian English ladies, last year increased Missi.on was being strengthened in the directi.on.of medical attendance and fr.om 100 to 117, mere than 20 .of schools fer higher educati.on. By the celebration.of the jubilee.of this miswh.om were h.on.orary missi.onaries si.on in 1889, the collecti.ons had been augmented. Preaching stati.ons numwh.o did net take a single penny fr.om bered 163, candidates fer membership, 934; day sch.olars, 4,134. Reinf.orcethe funds. In the same period the ments are wanted fer Khassia Hills, Jaintia, and als.o fer Brittany. The Bible w.omen's 1'.011 had risen fr.om 139 m.ovement to raise £20,000 in celebrat- ing the jubilee.of the Welsh Calvinto 141, the missi.on h.ouses fr.om 2,275 istic F.oreign Missi.ons, fer the mere ef- fective pursuit .of missi.on w.ork and to3,321, schools fr.om 177 t.o 183, and training .of native missi.onaries, has resulted in half the am.ount being the sch.olars fr.om 6,686 to 7,411. raised and its probable full realizati.on next year,.on behalf .of which wide- Truly the zeal.of the society's w.orkers spread interest exists.
indicated real, her.oic, c.onsecrated de- v.otion.
-Welsh Calvinistic Methodist For- eign Missions.-Meeting in Liverpool in May, this sturdy branch .of the Church .of Christ was largely c.on- cerned with its f.oreign w.ork. Pass- ing fr.om its evangelical labors in Brittany, special attenti.on was cen- tered in the Indian missi.ons. By com- paring the figures with th.ose.of 1861, the f.oll.owing results were tabulated: Churches. Communicants. Congregations.
1861, 6 158 500 lSi1, 16 514 900 1881, 36 2,600 3,326 1889, 78 6,054 8,424 Africa. between England and Germany, and we hope that when a like arrangement is concluded be- THE ANGLO-GERMAN AGREEMENT. tween England and Portugal we shall have- [This is an event of great importsnce in its matters as satisfactorily settled on the coast; bearings on the future of Africa, especially in of Lake Nyassa. the matter of missions. At ilrst English sen· tlment severely criticised some of its provis- The boundary between the English and Gerions, especially the ceding of Heligoland to man "spheres of influence" is to be what is: Germany. But reilections and a full under- known as ''the Stevenson Road," and may bestanding of the details has wrought a change, indicated by a line drawn from the mouth of and the feeling now is one of satisfaction. The the Bokura river on the western shore of Lakepoint of greatest importance is the acknowl- Nyassa, to the mouth of the Kilambo river 011 edgment of the English protectorate over the south shore of Lake Tanganyika. Ger- Zanzibar and Pemba. For Zanzibar is not many is to retain the country north of the line, only the largest city on the African shores and to the Congo Free State, and along theof the Indian Ocean, and the headquarters of ilrstdegree of south latitude, a divergence of commerce, government, and language, butthe the boundary being conceded around the west– base of extensive mission work. As England ern shore of Nyanza, so as to include Mt. has always been foremost in putting down the M'Fumbiro in the British "sphere," and makeslave trade, the practical control of the policy the frontier agree, as nearly as possible, with. of the Zanzibar Government will greatly facilitate this part of her work. Looking at it, Stanley's treaties. therefore, from the missionary and philan- The all-importsnt feature of the adjustment thropic point of view, we have every reason to feel satisfied with the settlement arrived at Is that it throws almost the entire responsi- bility of the continuance of the slave trade 011 England and Germany. Zamibar Is a great. slave mart; England will now control the being made for the suppression of the island. Droves of slaves are annually driven maritime slave trade as well as for the from the great lakes across the equatorial extirpation of slavery itself."
regions to Gondokoro and down the river to The Universities' Mission, which has Khartoum and across to the Red Sea. Eng- made Zanzibar its headquarters, has land virtually assumes the responsibility of thus a firm basis for those operations this country. The roads across from Tangan- to which Bishop Steere consecrated a yika, Nyassa and Victoria Nyanza are also life of so much learning and devoted- highways of slave trade. Forthese Germany ness, and which are still so earnestly must now be responsible. The whole area followed up by Bishop Smythies. The blighted by the slave trade is now open to an mission will now hold' in favorable exercise of authority and vigilance on the part circumstances thi& important centre of these two great Powers which ought soon for Christian education and for the to suppress the awful traffic. training of teachers, catechists and the We quote from the July Church Missionarv native clergy. It is true the great out- l'ntelligencera lucid statement of the "agree- field of their mission work will be now ment" and its relations to the work of tho chiefly in territories under German .great English and Scottish missionary societies rule, but already the report is favor- in Africa.-J. M. S.] able as "to the steady administration This agreement is an important p0- of affairs by the German Government," litical event, and will, no doubt, be much discussed in that aspect, but so that "the spiritual work of the sothere are indications already that a final settlement on the lines proposed ciety is no longer disturbed by wars will be accepted cordially by the German and British nations. Our interest and rumors of wars." Under the Brithere is non-political, although at the same time, looking at the settlement ish flag German missions have greatly in its broad aspect, apart from party, it cannot but be a source of thankful- flourished in India, and especially in ness that these two great nations, the pillars of European Protestantism, South Africa, and there is every reason have found a satisfactory S91ution of questions of territory which might to hope that when the German rule have given rise to dispute and alienation. If they proceed in friendly ac- is firmly established the mission will cord, we have one of the best guarantees that the inner African slave trade enjoy security and friendly support. is doomed, and that the time is hastening on when civilization and Christi- The Church Missionary Society and anity will win the day in the Dark Continent. the London Missionary Society have We look at the details of the agree- also their stations in German terriment, and we give the first place here to the protectorate of Zanzibar. From tories, and they may anticipate the the German Official Gazette we learn that Germany assents to the assump- same friendly support under the Gertion by England of the protectorate over the Sultanate of Zanzibar. This man protectorate. The Church Mismust be regarded as no small concession on their part. Of course France sionary Society has also its special or some other Power may still do what it can to hinder this assumption. But grounds of thankfulness as regards here it is satisfactory to find Lord Salisbury speaking out quite decidedly this settlement. Its work will be in his despatch, June 14th: "England will further assume, with the consent chiefly under the British flag, and of the Sultan of Zanzibar (which has been given), the exclusive protectorate what a wide door opens before it! But over the Sultanate, including the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba_" "The it scarcely belongs to us here to enter direct control and extensive influence,"LordSalisburyadds,"which this on so wide a field. We may only noarrangement will confer upon Great Britain, will furnish a powerful as· tice how much Lord Salisbury's words sistance to the efforts whi0h a1"(, nnw suggest. "Upon the east coast the Gerinan Government has agreed to surrender all the territory it occupies or claIms north of the British sphere of influence. The whole territory up to the Juba, with a coast line of more than 200 miles, is under the British protectorate. The elrect of this ar- rangement will be that, except so far as the Congo State is concernpd, there will be no European competitor to between the first degree of south lati- tude and the borders of Egypt, along the whole of the country which lies to the south and west of the Italian pro- tectorate in Abyssinia and Galla Land." .
Another part of this Anglo-German agreement relates to Lake ~yassa and Nyassa Land. In these regions the Scottish missions have been laboring for years, and with conspicllous suc- cess. The Church of Scot land has its mission to the south of La ~.(> Nyassa, close to the Shire. It is a country of religiously in the balance, our protecfertility and of much promise, but it torate of Zanzibar is of vastly more does not enter into the agreement, as consequence to the interests of huthe British Government has here to manity and the cause of religion. come to a settlement, not with Germany but with Portugal. The subject J. E. C. {)f keenest dispute here betwixt England and Germany has been as to what STANLEY AND THE BRUSSELS CONFERENCE. is called the Stevenson Road. As to Lake Nyassa itself there has been less [We are glad to see that this intrepid exdifficulty; the eastern shore where the Universities'Missions are established plorer, who doubtless understands the present has been assigned to Germany; the westernshores, where the Free Church condition and needs of Africa better than any Missions have been successfullyestablished, are to remain British. The other living man, is in full accord with the Stevenson Road joins Lake Nyassa at its northern end to Lake Tanganyika conclusions of this important Congress, which .at its southern extremity. As to its being a road, if Mr. Johnson, Her has just closed its sessions, as to the remedy Majesty Consul's authority is to be ac- ·cepted, there can be no question. for the wholesale slaughter and devastation Some 52 miles from the northern end of Lake Nyassa have been carefully which is going on in the Dark Continent.- engineered; in fact in the construction two able engineen; were employed, J.M.S.] Christian men, and they laid down their lives in the work. Along this "There is only one remedy for these road a steamer was carried in pieces to wholesale de,astations of African ab- Lake Tanganyika and launched there origines, and that is the solemn combion its waters for the London Mission- nation of England, Germany, France, .ary Society. The Germans here ha,e Portugal, South and East Africa, and done nothing; were they to be allowed Congo State against the introduction to enter into the labors of these ener- of gunpowder intoany part of the congetic Scotchmen? It has been ar- tinent except for the use of their own ranged that it is not to be so. agents, soldiers and employes; or seiz- ing upon every tusk of ivory brought There are other parts of the agree- out, as there is nota single piece now-ament on which we can but barely days which has been gained lawfully. touch. There is undoubtedly a break Every tusk, piece and scrap in the between the territories under British possession of an Arab trader has been influence north and south, extending steeped and dyed in blood. ~very from 1 degree south latitude to Lake pound weight has cost the life of a Tanganyika. On its western extrem- man, woman, or child; for every five ity, this is so far diminished, however, pounds a hut has been burned; for the British sphere of influence extend- every two tusks a whole village has ing so far south as to include the been destroyed; every twenty tusks mountain M'Fumbiro (10,000 feet high). have been obtained at the price of a This is to make the frontier "coincide district, with all its people, villages as nearly as possible with the region and plantations. Whom, after all, covered by Mr. Stanley's treaties." It does this bloody seizure of ivory enhas been agreed that the passage here rich? Only a few dozens of half-castes, for British goods and British subjects Arab and negro, who, if due justice will be perfectly free and exempt from were dealt to them, should be made to transit duties. sweat out the remainder of their pi- raticaI.lives in the severest penal ser- There are two other points of agree- vitude. ment in the CO?1pact; Germany is to be allowed to extend its influence in "On arriving in civilization after South Africa to the 21st' degree of these terrible discoveries, I was t')ld longitude, in place of the 20th degree. of a crusade that had been preached Lord Salisbury is of opinion that Lake by Cardinal Lavigerie, and of a rising Ngami will remain still under the desire in Europe to effect a reform by British protectorate, as its longitude force of arms, in the old Crusader style, is believed to be 22 degrees. and to attack the Arabs and their fol- lowers in their strongholds in central Heligoland forms a part of this Africa. It is just such a scheme as Ang'')-German settlement. What its might have been expected from men -valuels politically, it is not our part to who applauded Gordon when he set estimate. But weighed morally and out with a white wand and six follow- ers to rescue all the garrisons of the Soudan, a task which 14,000 of his countrymen, under one of the most skillful English generals, would have found impossible at that date. The last thing I heard in connection with this mad project is that a band of one hundred Swedes, who have subscribed £25 each, are about to sail to some part of the east coast of Africa, and the fine cloth and fine beads they exproceed to Tanganyika to commence pected to receive for the food furostensibly the extirpation of the Arab nished were not forthcoming, and it slave trader, but in reality to commit seemed for a time improbable that suicide."-Scribner's Magazine. enough food could be got to send any to Nelson. By the 26th, however, "NELSON'S STARVATION CAMP." matters were arranged, and on that day Mr. Jephson,with forty Zanzibaris [The following passage from Stanley's book and thirty Manyema, set out to rescue Nelson, whose camp was reached on givesone of many vivid and thrilling pictures of the 29th. Pitiable, indeed, was the condition of things there. Of the fiftysuffering endured during this ever memorable two men left with Nelson, five only remained, of whom two were in a dyexpedition for the relief of Emin Pasha.-EDs.] ing state; all the rest had either de- serted or were dead. Nelson himself, "On the morning of October 6,.1887, having hardly left his tent on account it was evident that Captain Nelson of his badly ulcered feet during the and fifty·two of the black men were absence of Stanley, had lived chiefly wholly unable to travel further. It on fruits and fungi his two boys had was decided, therefore, to leave these brought in from day to day. Jephson in camp, while Stanley and the other found Nelson sitting near his tent, white and black men-211 in a11- worn and haggard looking, with deep went forward to try to find some food. lines about his eyes and mouth, and Nelson and his fifty·two men were left the latter could do nothing but sob and with hardly any food in a camp on a turn away and mutter somethingabout sandy terrace, encompassed by rocks being very weak. But Nelson recovered and hemmed in narrowly by dark slowly and has lived to rllturn." woods which rose from the river's edge to the height of 600 feet, on the Japan.-American visitors at the bank of the Drumiwi, there a writhing and tortuous stream, making an recent Paris Exposition were astonish. unceasing uproar, and with two cata- I'acts not far away, each rivalling the ed at the educational exhiLit from J aother's thunder. A gloomier spot for a camp could hardly have been se- pan; an exhibit which showed greater lected. Stanley, with his 211 men, started on October 7th. They made intelligence, more thorough methods, their way as well as they could at a funeral pace, marching sometimes and more progressive educational deonly four and a half miles a day, through woods with dense under- velopment in Japan than exist in this growth, living on the fungi and berries they could find, glad even to get country. The recent report of the Japnux vomica, suffering the pangs of unappeasable hunger, all frightfully anese Minister of Education, summarthin, though the whites not so much reduced as the colored men. They had ized by "the nation," is exceedingly occasionally to climb hills, which, in their enfeebled condition, causeli their interesting and significant. There are hearts to palpitate violently. Hunger, followed by despair, killed many of in the empire 10,862 school districts; the colored men. The night of the 17th was ushered in by a tempest the total population being 39,701,594, which threatened to uproot the forest and bear it to the distant west, ac- andthe children of school age numbercompanied by floods of rain and a severe cold temperature. The next day, ing 6,740,929. The empire employs however (the 18th), relief came. They reached a community of Manyema, 62,372 teachers, and there are at pres- Arabian ivory hunters, who had arrived five months before. Here, at ent enrolled in its various schools last, they had food; but alas! they had lost the power to digest it. 'Nature about 2,800,000 children. When the either furnishes a stomach and no food, or else furnishes a feast and robs great reform of Japanese institutions us of all appetite.' The party began to suffer from many illnesses, the was undertaken twenty years ago, the result of the food it had so long been unused to. The Manyema on the first principle of education was accepted day were very gracious and friendly, on the next day were less so, becllillire as the basis of all progress, and noth- ing has shQwn the capacity, intelli- gence, and adaptibilityof the Japan- ese mind more strikingly than the thoroughness, progressiveness, and fruitfulness of the educational system they adopted, and which has now be- come thoroughly seated in the respect and affection of the Japanese people. In addition to common schools in all
1890.J MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
parts of the country, a seaside labora- piling an encyclopedia. Among the tory has been established on Yeddo teachers in the Japanese schools are Bay for the study of marine life. Ad- nearly two hundred Europeans; while vanced courses in art and science are among the men who have furnished text-books or have otherwise contrito be found in the university. High- buted to this remarkable educational progress are found the names of many class commercial schools, schools of Japanese who havestudied inour own fine art, schools of music, schools for schools and colleges. This record is a the deaf, dumb and blind, law courses notable one, both on account of the in German, French and English, completeness with which a very sulibraries and museums, all form a perior educational system has been part of this admirable system. The built up in Japan, and on account of Imperial University at Tokio numbers the promise for the future which it 864 students, and there is also in the contains. The Japanese are blillding same city a kind of Japanese academy, on a strong foundation. made up of eminent native scholars, who publish a magazine and are com- I1I.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Ohina. be full members of these. In all cases it shall be left to each individual foreign missionary PLAN OF THE UNION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN or minister to choose for himself one or other of these two relations, but during a temporary CHURCHES. sojourn at home he may resume full connec- tion with his former church court. A Conference on Union, composed of the representatives of seven Presbyterian II. The doctrinal basisof organlo union shall churches laboring in China, was convened be: (a). The Apostles' Creed. (b). The Nicene in Shanghai, China, May 12, 1890. At this Creed. (c). The Westminster Confession and Conference it was found that on account of Catechisms. the diversity of language and the difficulties of travel, the representatives of two churches m. Presbyteries sha.lJ be oomposed of the believed organic union impracticable. After the adjournment of this Conference an iu- missionaries, the pastors and the churches formal meeting of delegates, representing five occupying the same territory. These Presbydifferent Presbyterian missions, was held, at teries shall, for the present, constitute one which were present: Rev. A. P. Happer, D.D., Synod, which shall meet once in five years. Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. (North); Rev. John Ross, United Presbyterian Church of At a meeting of the full delegations. held at Scotland; Rev. T. C. Fulton, Irish Presbyteri- Shanghai, May 14th, it was resolved: an Church; Rev. John L. Stuart, Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. (South); Rev. D. McGillivar- 1. "That Rev. Dr. Happer, Rev. J. Goforth, ay, Canadian Presbyterian Church (in Hon'an). Rev. J. Ross, Rev. John L. Stuart and Rev. T. C. Fulton be requested to present this basis of Dr. Rapper was called to the chair. It was union to their respective bodies for their aprecommended that steps be taken to form an proval, with a view to bringing the matter organic union between the churches here re- fully before the assemblies of 189~." presented and any others who may desire to join them. A plan of union, similar in some 2. "That these delegates intercommunicate respects to the one adopted by the Presbyteri- the action of the respective bodies as soon as an Churches in India, was proposed, and at a practicable. " subsequent meeting of the full delegations unanimously approved. Following is the plan: 3. "That these resolutions, with the whole action in the matter of organic union, be print- I. That a constitution be drafted for the ed for distribution among the delegates." Presbyterian Church in China, based upon the constitutions of the Presbyterian Churches in A. P. HAPPER, D.D., President. Europe and America. (a). That, if foreign S. I. WOODBRIDGE, Secretary. missionaries and ministers retain their connection with their home church courts, they shall Ohili, have no vote in the China church courts, but only the right to counsel and advise; but if [We give below a letter, addressed to Mrs. they sever their ecclesiastical connection with Dr. Asbury Lowrey, whose husband is one the home churchesand submit to the discipline of the vice·presidents of Bishop Taylor's Self· of the ecclesiastical courts in China, they shall Supporting Mission in South America, sent to us for publication.-Ens.] Santiago, May, 1890. Our Spanish work in Serena is progressing grandly under Dr. Canut; we have 40 probatloners and 300 In regular attendance at wor- Miss Rugg, late of the Ohio Wesleyan Uni- ship, patto (yard or court) crowded with versity, writes: "This is work to be enjoyed people anxious to hear the Word of Life. for its own sake, imparting knowledge to Plenty of persecution; but no matter, that others-a.nd this we do for His sake,Who gives don't harm. Bless God for the awakening us such blessed saving knowledge of Himself. shown amongst this people I Oh, do buy us a I constantly feelthat my stay inIquiqueis one of great pleasure and profit. Thongh never esoo, lot on which to bulld a church. There is one wishing myself back home, my thoughts are often in that direction." for saleat another at $1,000; either would suit us, and for either we would be thankful. Faithfully yours, The $1,000 lot Is much the better suited for our purpose. Surely we should have one of these MRS. A. W. LA. FETRA. at once. India. Our Spanish work in Valparaiso in- creases in interest with astonishing rapidity; YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN A.SSOCIATION WORK, its needs are very great. In Valparaiso es- pecially we need a church and one of the best While the first chapter of this history may men in the Methodist Episcopal Church to to some seem only a common place record, supply English work there. Give us the church those who understand the situation sufficient- and the pastor and Methodism will take root ly to read between the lines wili see In it a there at once and flourish. deeper significance and the earnest of untold possibilities. Because this new departure in Communion wasadministered at Concepcion Madras will no doubt be repeated In many last Sabbath;. the church was full and several other cities of the Orient, the record may well joined the society; the Spirit of God was pres- be given more in detail. ent. Thereare now 100girls in the school here. In March, 1888, the Madras Missionary Con- Rev. James Benge, pastor of the church ference listened to a statement by Rev. Jacob· at Iquique, writes May 10, 1890: ()hamberlain, D. D., telling of the magnificent movement he had recently seen in progress. "We have here a properly organized church, among the young men of the United States. consisting of a pastor, a local preacher, a class and Canada for the salvation of their fellows, leader, eight members and six probationers, and of the young men of other lands. He sugall working together in harmony. Our class gested that thoroughly trained and experimeetings, prayer and Bible readings, are true enced leaders might be sent out and supportmeans of grace. Most of our members and ed by the American associations, to organize probationers are present at every meeting." the Christian young men and set them at work to reach their tellows by means of Dr. Hoover is wonderfully quick at acquir- Young Men's Christian Associations, whereing language. He superintends the meetings upon the conference unanimously took the of the native church, which has a dozen or following action: more members and probationers, among them a lad of 17 who has been educated in the "Considering that this Conference has on school and is 1Illed with a desire to serve God. many occasions called the attention of the He gives short addresses to the people. Dr. churches to the existence of a well prepared Hoover preaches in English, and a little in field among the educated non-Christian yonng Castilian; both English and Spanish congre- men of Madras, and begged them to send a gations are good, much interest being shown special agency to work it, it regards this proin religion. posal as a Providential response to their ap- peals, and it will gratefully welcome such Every form of religious literature we offer well qualified, thoroughly trainedagents as the the people is received with avidity and care- American Yo.ung Men's Christian Associafully read. Bible agents sell their books In tions propose to send, and it will give them large numbers; the people seem to crave God's its cordial sympathy and co-operation." Word and buy liberally. This means eulightenment. Responding to that action, I reached Madras on the 9th of January last, and was A few days ago we laid in the grave the body met by Mr. L. D. Wishard, who is visiting the of a lad, of Scotch family, who had been one students of the East as a representative of the· of our pupils. Dr. Hoover, with some 50 of College Young Men's Christian Associations the school boys, went in procession to the of Europe and America. Predisposed as we cemetery, where, during service, the boys sang were to Madras, by the action of the Mission- "Beautiful Home" by the last resting-place ary Conference and other Provideutial indicaof their companion. It was an unprecedented tions, that this was the likeliest point for event in the history of Terapaca, the sweet beginuing this work, we had, nevertheless, left voices singing tremblingly, while tear drops it an open question whether or not the time coursed down the faces of many native born. was yet ripe to organize here. The very day Chillans singing in English a song of Heaven of my arrival, a conference was held with the in a Chilian grave-yard marked an epoch in missiouaries, and, notwithstanding the colher history fragrant with promise for the fu- leges were all closed for the holidays, it was ture. Soon these boys will be Chilian men, decided to take advantage of Mr. Wishard's and the lessous of the grave and the hope beyond will never depart from their memories. presence to hold a Union meeting of ChrIs- reading-room, and actually increased in the tian young men in Memorial Hall, Saturday social room_ evening, January 18th. We held four preliminary meetings, explaining our purpose The membership has grown graduallyand making acquaintances. There were 800 February, 85; March, 85; April, 110; May, 125 present at the Union meeting, and it was -until now, early in June, we number 131, evident that the time had come to fully Inau- who have paid the annual fee in adgurate our work by and for the young men of vance. This includes not more than 100 Madras. sustainiug members, who contribute not less than 10 rupees each. Of the member- A voluntary commitee of management was ship, 48 are I' active," i. e., communicant constituted, consisting of five native Chris- members of Protestant churches, having tians, four Europeans and one Eurasian, seven the right to vote and hold office in the of the ten being laymen_ 11k W. Rierson Arbuthnot was elected president and Mr. J. association; 83 are I' associate" members, so L. Duffield, of the Bank of lIIadras, treasurer. An assistant secretary being required, Mr. J. that it is evident non-Christian young men are Gnanamuthu, a native Christian of Tinnevelly, being brought within the influence of the assojust graduated from the Christian College, at ciation. 84 are natives, 29 Eurasians, and 18 once entered upon these duties. Europeans, proving that it is possible to work on SO broad a basis, ignoring race prejudices, We got immediate possession of the most despite predictions to the contrary. The fureligible building in the city, already furnished ther fact that, of the 84 native members, 34 in part for our purposes. This building, "two are Hindus (of whom 16 are Brahmins) and 2 stories high, eighty feet by sixteen, with a Mohammedans, shows that the association shaded yard in front, centrally situated on the will bear heavily against the' caste barrier. Esplanade, overlooking the sea alongside of The occupations of our members are: Stuthe Christian College, within two minutes' dents, 48; teachers, 23; in Government posiwalk of the Church of Scotland College, five tions, 19; mechants, 6; clerks,10; railway serminutes from the Hindu College, and ten vice, 3; clergymen, 7; bankers, 2; catechists, minutes from the Medical College, is within 2; secretaries, 2; barristers-at-law, 2; physieasy access of several thousand students, cian, 1; unemployed, 3; unknown, 2. many of whom daily pass our doors. Important improvements were begun, renovating The privileges offered are not great as yet. the place, and improving the' ventilation. The reading-room is well supplied with Indian Down stairs a reading room, bath-room and aud foreign publications. The social room is kitchen. Upstairs a room, seating seventy- furnished with games, such as chess and five, was devoted to meetings and social pur- draughts. We have about 100 volumes for a. poses, adorned with pictures, curtains, etc., library; a taste for healthy literature will be and furnished with chess tables and checkers. cultivated, and the reading of young men be On this fioor there is also an office, where directed, if the library is SO enlarged that it meetings of the board and of the committees can be made circulating. We expect soon to are held. secure athletic grounds and to have a compe- tent instructor in the physical department, a. The formal" opening" was on the evening class in vocal music, and probably also an of March 7. Between five and six o'clock orchestra; but for lack of room we cannot there was a musical reception; the rooms meet the demand for other classes, especially thronged with members and friends. The in technical branches. public exercises were held in the evangelistic hall near by, which was crowded with the Since the middle of March Friday evenings young men of Madras, Christian and non- have been devoted to literary and social fea- Christian, Brahmin and Sudra, native and tures alternately. The social hour is spent Eurasian. It was gratifying to find so large a informally with music, recitations, games, number of young men who, f.hough without etc. Our course of lectures on literary and the pale of the Church, had been led thither scientific 8ubjects has become so popular that by conscious or unconscious interest in on one occasion 177 crowded into a room large Christian work designed to further the true enough for only half that number. progress of India. The Lord Bishop of Madras presided, and addresses were delivered Since January Saturday evening has been deby Dr. Miller, principal of the Christian Col- voted to a Bible class, preceded by a short servlege, and others. ice of song. The average attendauce has been 48, Hindus as well as Christians attending, and The attendance in our rooms has increased most of them bringing their own Bibles and steadily from the first, the daily average note-books. During the college vacation the the first week being 15, and in successive class is converted into a young men'8 gospel weeks, 31, 47, 51, 68, 94, 106, 102, 141. Even meeting, in which the members take part. during the hottest weather, many members being absent during the college vacation, the A Bible training class, composed of six attendance has decreased but little in the young men, pledged to invariable attendance and at least three hours' study a week, is being conducted through a systematic course, to prepare workers. At the close of every evening the members ently refused to do. Alone, with no defense of the reception committee conduct a brief save the feeble protest of his brother, he finalinformal service of prayer, to which those in ly consented to have the marks put on for the roomS are invited. fear they would kill him. He is keenly consci- ous of the shame which he feels he bears, and At our first quarterly members' meeting, 71 is more pronounced than before in his purpose being present, the reports from the various to follow Christ. Indeed he assures me now committees would have done credit to any that he is quite ready to be baptized. He needs similar association in the West. Most of the instruction, however, and our hope is that active members are at work on the com- other members of his family may join him ndttees. a little later. To become a Christian here means literally the loss of all things. Those 3,000 rupees, it was estimated, would be re- words in Mark xi:29·30 never meant so much quired for the expenses of this year, inclnding to me before as when this young man and I furnishing. We have already secured 2,500 in read them together: "There is no man that membership fees and annual subscriptions of hath left house or brethren or sisters or father sustaining members. and it is believed that or mother or wife or children or lands, for My the work will become locally self-supporting, sake and the gospel's, but he shall receive an apart from the salary of the general sec- hundredfold-with persecutions-and in the retary. world to come eternal life." Food and water and fire are cut off from the man who dares to The building is already too small to accom- break caste. modate the growing membership,and the management feels the pressing need of another The young Brahmin convert who led our building adapted to the peculiar requirements Young Men's Meeting last week and made a of this four-fold work, and for the funds to ringing appealfor fearless confession of Christ build the association must look to generous at any cost, is regarded by his fl'iends as dead friends in America. and his funeral obsequies have actually been performed. When another of our active mem- The Young Men of India, our eight-page bers, one of my training class, was about to monthly paper, is bearing tidings of this work be baptized, poisoned food was sent him by through the land, and we are now in corres- his own mother. and the road near my bungapondence with twenty-two other associations low was thronged with a mob of 2,000 Hindus, in India. infuriated at the missionary who was to per- form the ceremony. What far-sighted wisdom Already "first fruits" are beginning to ap- Jesus displayed in appointing baptism as the pear; success is provoking opposition-a wel- sign and seal of complete separation from the come relief from death·like indifference. For dead past! example, a Hindu member who has attended evening prayers and my Bible-dass quite regu- Dr. Chamberlain did not exaggerate when larly has shown anxiety to know the truth, at Northfield, in the su=er of 1887, he deand seemS not far from the Kingdom. On a clared that this was "the opportunity of the Saturday evening, about two weeks ago, he ages" now presenting itself to the Young was waylaid and prevented from coming to our Men's Christian Association here in India. Young Men's Gospel Meeting. After being What is being done in Madras can be done struck he escaped, and went quietly home. A throughout India. Calls for experienced genfew days after he came to get an English Bible, eral secretaries have already come from Calsupplementing his Tamil New Testament cntta and Colombo and Allahabad, and other which he has been using for some time; he cities are making similar demands. But the also attended a native church with one of our pressing need of the hour is to establish per· active members. Then a rumor was started manently in a suitable building this growing at Ihis home that he was becoming a Chris· work that has begun so well in this strongtian, and persecution commenced. Last Sun- hold of Hinduism. We are praying for the day he went with his brother, according to needed funds. "The God of Heaven, He will custom, to his native village to attend a cere- prosper us; therefore we His servants will mony for a sister who had recently died. arise and build." Are ye who read this record Sixty or seventy relatives had gathered to to "have no portion nor right nor memoriar' perform Puja for the deceased, but when the among the fifty millions of young men of Intime came to eat they refused to take food dia-so many of whom have English education with our friend, because they said he was go- but are "without Christ, having no hope and ing to become a Christian. They insisted upon without God in the world 1" his shaving his head and putting on the castemark of his god which he had abandoned. He Yours in His name and theirs, was taken to the temple. Excitement ran high. They demanded that he take an oath DAVID MCCONAUGHY, Jr. not to become a Christian, which he persist-
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. 'T. GRACEY, D.D.
Ohinese Education-Past and Present. China, when he stated that, as his victorious troops were returning to- BY REV. MARCUS L. TAFT, OF PEKING wards· the capital, they could fre- quently hear sounds from certain UNIVERSITY. buildings as of "the humming of bees." This poetical allusion would (Paper read before International Mis- be readily understood by any intelli- sionary Union, June, 1890.) gent Chinaman as meaning" students studying aloud "-a sure sign of peace " Formerly Confucius had young Hsiang Toh and prosperity. for his teacher; "Pai Chia Hsing," or "100 Sur- Even the sages of antiquity studied'with dili- names," is the title of the second book gence. which the youthful John Chinaman is required to memorize. This ex- ,Chao, a minister of State, read the Confncian plains why, although the popUlation Dialogues, of China amounts to hundreds of mil- lions, there are only 100 purely Chi- And he, too, though high in office, studied nese surnames, and, therefore, we in assiduously. this country so often see so many of the same name, as Chang, Lee and One copied lessons on reeds, another on slips Wang. of bamboo; Four other books, based upon the 'These, though without books, eagerly sought Confucian Classics, as well as the knowledge. famous " Four Books" and "Fine Classics," are, in due order, mastered (To vanquish sleep) one tied his head (by the by the patient, ambitious scholar. hair) to a beam, and another pierced his thigh with an awl; These Confucian Classics inculcate morality and teach jurisprudence. In 'Though destitute of instructors, these were comparison with the ancient writings laborious in study. of India, Greece and Rome they are remarkable in the absence of the One read by the glowworm's light, another by vulgar and obscene. Some of the reflection from snow; poetry is truly of a high order. Take an example of an ode, composed by 'These, though their families were poor, did Wan Wang, about 1,000 B. C" which not omit to study. may remind us of a more modern production on a smilar topic: .one carried faggots, and another tied his books to a cow's horn, "THE SWEET PE.AR TREE.
And, while thus engaged in labor, studied with (1.) " 0 I FeIl not that sweet pear tree I intensity. " See how its branches spread I Such are some of the inspiring senti- Spoil not its shade, ments in the" San Tzu Ching," the For Shao's chief laid universal primer, committed to memory by every Chinese lad who Beneath it his weary head, .enters upon the road of learning. Well do I remember the pardonable (2.) "0 I Clip not that sweet pear tree I pride of ;t certain Chinaman at Kiu Each twig and leaflet spare- Kiang, China, who brought his little brother before me to have me hear 'Tis sacred now him recite the" San Tzu Ching." Since the Lord of Shao, Being winter, the little urchin was clad in cumbrous, cotton-wadded When weary, rested him there.
clothing, and appeared hardly old (3.) " O! Touch not that sweet pear tree I ,enough to walk alone. Quickly facing Bend not a twig of it now; about, with his back towards me, and There, long ago, constantly swaying from side to side, As the stories show, this Chinese youngster glibly recited the entire" Trimetrical Classic." Oft haIted the Chief of Shao."
Another peculiarity in Chinese schools, besides" backing" and swaying during recitation, is stUdying aloud. It was to this universal practice that the late Viceroy, Tso, referred, a few years ago, in his report to the throne upon his repulse of the Russians from the northwest province of The familiar lines, " Woodman, These Governmental examinatione Spare that Tree," are thus, by this place a premium upon learning and Chinese poet, .anticipated by over furnish worthy incentives to every twenty-five centuries. aspiring youth to acquire an educa- Throughout China there is no sys- tion. Conceit, conservatism and cau- tem of public education. Many tion were legitimate results of this.
schools are started by wealthy parents contracted, antiquated curriculum of for their sons, and other pupils are stUdy. The ordinary Chinese scholar, allowed for a small sum to attend. with his enormous goggles and long Other schools are carried on by weH- finger-nails, indicative of leisure and to-do Chinese as meritorious deeds, for erudition, considers that he, like the which they will receive due credit in Pharisee of old, is the personification the world to come. of all wisdom. Their conceit is some- The attractive incentive.> to study thing prodigious. Nearly ten years.
are honor, office and immunity from ago, shortly after my arrival in China, corporal punishment,obtained through as I was studying with one of these> the civil servive examinations. DiS- literati as my teacher, we came to a.
trict, provincial and national exami- point where I could not comprehend nations, if successfully passed, open what he was trying to explain. Since the door to rank and office. Nearly he could speak no English and my all youths in the empire may compete knowledge of Chinese at that time> inthesepublicexaminations. Through- was very limited, he resorted to the out China there is no aristocracy of object method of instruction. He wealth, rank or caste. Only the aris- was endeavoring to explain the differ- tocracy of intellect prevails. The son ence between China and foreign coun- of a poor coolie as well as the son of tries. So he drew a large circle, and a rich mandarin may alike compete in inside wrote "Middle Kingdom"- this intellectual tournament. Who- one of the namE'S for China, and over'
ever succeeds, whether of a rich or the rim of this large circle he drew a poor lineage, may, provided he has very small circle, markingit " Outside the brains, attain a pqsition next to Countries;" His notion was that the emperor himself. This, in fact, is China, the;' Middle Kingdom," com- the ballot of the Chinese. This system prised all the best poI'tion of the· of competitiveexaminations, in opera- world, and over the bordt!r of this, tion during nearly thirteen centuries, where no one would live if he could has done more to maintain the integ- possibly help it-why, there were the rity of the ChinE'se empire than any United States, England, France, Ger- other factor, excepting, perhaps, filial many, Russia and all other foreign piety, to which God attached the first countries.
promise in the Decalouge. Conservatism is also a natural result.
Most remarkable has been the loyalty of their educational training. The of the Chinese literati. During that Chinese seem to think that whatever long and bloody Tai Ping Rebellion was good enough for their illus- " not one imperial official voluntarily trious sage, Confucius, who lived joined the Tai Pings, while hundreds about five centuries before Christ, is died resisting them" (v. Villiams' good enough for them to-day. To- "Middle Kingdom," Revised Edition, alter now what suited him then would Vol. I., p. 563). Compare such unani- be irreverence. As an instance of this.
mous loyalty of Chinese officials with look at the springless, seatless, rude some of the graduates of West Point cart of North China to-day. This and Annapolis during our late Civil conservatism especially manifests it- War, and the contrast will be more self against any innovation in morals evident. and religion. Hence the intense hostility towards the Christian religion on ous wealth, into the possession of a British Queen, who lives on a little the part of these same literati. island far away on the other side of the world. They do not at all desire Throughout the Chinese empire, these that a single square foot of Chinese soil shall be owned by any foreign literati, and not the Buddhist and Power. Therefore, eight years ago, on the introduction of the telegraph Taoist priests, have been the most via- into China, the Chinese would only em- ploy foreign experts from one of the lent opponents of Christianity. Ifany- smaller Powers of Europe, even Den- mark, so that every foreigner engaged one will take the trouble to investigate in the ereotion of the telegraph lines in China was a Dane. With reference the various riots in connection with to railroads a similar policy has been adopted. Syndicates in Great Britain, mission work which have occurred in France, Germany and the United States have sent their representatives widely separated sections of China, he to China in order obtain grantS for the construction of railroads. The will almost invariably find that these urbane Chinese mandarin received them very politely, but not the slight- Chinese literati have been the chief est concession would he grant any of them. After a brief interview, they instigators of these disturbances. They were ushered out of his presence and politely but plainly shown the way to· do not always show their hands. They their respective native lands.
usually stir up the lewd fellows of the China's enlightened statesmen want railroads, but only on the conbaser sort to perform this menial work dition that China shall control them. She may employ foreign engineers and for them, while they stand by and mechanics, but the railroad must be under her exclusive control. Such is. urge them on to their dastardly deeds.. their great caution, which, in some re- spects, rather deserves commendation Who, a few years ago, started the than condemnation.
riot in Chung-King, in West China, Notwithstanding this conceit, con- servatism, and caution, the shriek of when the Gamewells, Lewises and the locomotive and the glare of the electric light are causing these Chineseother missionaries with their families Rip Van Winkles to wake up from the slumber of centuries. Within three had their houses torn down by a mob, years modern science, mathematics, history and kindred studies have been and who, after an imprisonment of placed upon the list of examinatlOns. In the autumnal examinations of 1888 nearly two weeks, escaped at midnight in Peking, a further advance was· made. "For the first time in this exfrom the Ohinese yamen' Who, time amination a large premium was placed upon a knowledge of mathe– and again, have caused missionaries matics and Western sciences. Previ-· ous to the time for entering the lists, of the China Inland Mission to be proclamations were posted in the· driven by mobs out of their houses in Honan and Hunan? Who, in the lat- est instance of the kind, pulled that Baptist missionary out of his house in Shantung, "dragging him into the street by the hair of his head, tramp- ling him under their feet and leaving him there almost dead? Who were the instigators of all these and scores of similar riots in all parts of China?
No other auswer can be given than the Chinese literati. Such is their hostility developed out of their intense conservatism. • Again, excessive caution is another result of their educational system.
Since the influential officials have be- gun to investigate the history of for- eign nations, they are very cautious in making changes. Their leading statesmen are well posted concerning India. They know how India, after having been seized upon by Portugal and France, has at last come, with its enormous population and prodigigates, announcing that this much- ate at Edinburgh and ranked high sought-for honor would be bestowed as a physician at Canton; Hon. Yung upon five per cent. of those who Wing was the originator of the Chinshowed proficiency in these studies; ese Educational Commission to the whereas in the case of students from United States. Their headquarters the province at large, who, after the were at Hartford, Conn., but these order of the old regime, submitted to Chinese students, after a few years of examinations in the classics only, but study in New England, were sumone per cent. would receive the de- marily recalled to China. Now they gree." are filling influential positions in the Chinese army and navy, in the Since the iniquitious Opium War of telegraph offices, in the medical 1841-4.2, China, perceiving the superi- profession and in foreign consulates ority of Western science, has estab- and embassies. Tong King Sing is lished arsenals and technical schools president of the China Merchant for military and naval tactics, Steamship Company, and the leading medicine, telegraphy, and other director, withViceroy Li Hung Chang, Western sciences at Foochow, Shang- in the newly constructed railroad from hai, Nanking, and Tientsin, as well as the Kai-Ping coal mines to Tientsinthe Imperial College, Tung Wen about eighty miles in length. These Kuan, at Peking, where some 100 Chi- are some of the results of the "Morrinese students are prepared to act as son Educational Society," organized interpreters and consuls, under the before conservative China began to apefficient leadership of that eminent preciate and appropriate modern sci- American sinologue, Rev. W. A. P. ence from the West. Martin, D.D., LL.D. All of the Governmental institutions are secular, Since Morrison's day, Christian eduthe Bible and Christianity being rigor- cation in China, started by his wise ously excluded from the course of in- foresight, has made marvellous strides. .struction. Institutions, where only the vernacu- lar has been used in teaching West- Robert Morrison, the far-sighted ern learning, have been in successful and clear-headed pioneer of Protes- operation on many mission fields, tant missions in China, inaugurated notably atSwatow, Tungchowfu, and both educational and medical work, Tungcho in Chihli. Other Protestant as able auxiliaries in evangelizing that institutions oflearning have combined empire. In the light of recent events the study of English with Chinese, as the wisdom of his planning is most in the ChristianUniversity at Canton, manifest. For thorough mission-work, in the Foochow University, in the there should be an indissoluble union Shanghai College and in the Peking ·of body, mind and heart. Christianity University. must have possession of the whole man. In all these Christian schools, a great door and effectual is to- Dr. Morrison, clearly seeing this, day opportunely opened for the established both educational and medi- thinking classes of China. These cal auxiliaries for Chinese evangeliz- literati, recruited from all grades of ation many years before the Opium the Chinese population, have all along War. Also, antedating that epoch, been our most bitter opponents. Since there was organized in his honor' 'The the recent radical departure of the Morrison Educational Society," with Government in placing Western Dr. S. R. Brown as first instructor. If science upon the examination lists, Dr. Wang, Hon. Yung Wing and these ambitious scholars have ascer- Tong King Sing were the only pupils, tained that Christian Anglo-Chinese the work of that society was surely schools could provide them with the not in vain. Dr. Wang was agradueagerly desired Western science. They tainty the life beyond the grave. have loudly knocked at these Chris- Philosophers of all nations may surtian halls of learning, asking admis- mise and speculate, but, as Gibbon sion. All available room has been camlidly stated in his famous fifteenth quickly taken. At present, worthy chapter, "It was still necessary that applicants, willing to pay tuition and the doctrine of life and immortality, support themselves, especially at Pe- which had been dictated by nature, king, have had to be turned away, sim- approved by reason, and received by ply for lack of accommodation. superstition, should obtain the sanction of divine truth from the authority and Merely secular education will never example of Christ." rescue China from her heathenism and atheism. Allowing to Confucian- Clearly appreciating the present nism all the moral and political excel- educationalcrisis of missions in China, lence it deserves, there still remains contrasting the intense hostility to "an aching void." In it exists no Christian education in Turkey, and self-renunciating love, no forgive- remembering Christ's farewell comness of sin, and no hope of immor- mand, " Go, teach!" the faithful Protality. testant missionary in China to-day gladly employs Christian education as The negative maxim, "Whatsoever the right arm for evangelizing China's ye would not that men should do to millions. to you, do not do them," is sometimes called the Silver Rule of Confucius, in The Evolution of a Missionary Society. comparison with the positive law of love, the Golden Rule of Christ. One BY REV. JAMES MUDGE. is negative and passive; the other is positive and active. One is as the It has for some time seemed to me priest and Levite, who do no harm, that since the International Missionary but sympathetically pass by on the Union was also, in the most emphatic other side; the other is as the Good sense, interdenominational, it would Samaritan, who at the sight of the be highly fitting that there be presuffering traveler, at once dismounts, sented at its annual meetings a series binds up his wounds, places him upon of papers setting forth somewhat in his own beast of burden, and makes detail the internal organization of the arrangements for his comfort at the various societies, together with the inn. One is like the moonlight, sil- changes, if any, that have taken place very and clear, but cool and chilly; since their formation. Such a series The other is like the genial warm sun- would be especially timely just now shine, with its invigorating radiance in view of the fact that the oldest at noon-day. American society is casting about for the wisest method of so modifying her Once a disciple of Confucius came constitution as to bring herself more to this conservative sage and asked fully en rapport with her constituency. him concerning sin. The only conso- By way of a beginning in this direclation Confucius gave him was this: tion, and as affording in a compact " He who sins against heaven has no compass information not easily accesone to whom he can pray." At sible to all, I present the following another time a disciple of his inquired sketch of the manner in which the concerning the future life. Confu- missionary society of the Methodist cius replied, "If we know not the Episcopal Church has reached its present life how can we know the present position. future life?" Honest words, frankly spoken! No man, however wise in It has undergone what may not inthis world's wisdom, can, unaided by aptly, perhaps, be styled a process of divine revelation, describe with cer- evolution. Like Methodism itself it has gradually developed, adapting itself to circumstances and undergo- meeting. A committee from that ing a variety of changes, passing on meeting, composed of Nathan Bangs, from point to point as Providence ap- Freeborn Garrettson and Laban Clark, peared to direct and the wisdom of drew up its constitution, which was experience to dictate. It has not formally adopted at a large public probably yet attained in all respects gathering held in Forsyth street perfection's height, but in most par- church, April 5, 1819, and a full set of ticulars it affords an admirable ex- officers was elected. The ensuing ample of close approximation to the general conference sanctioned the ideal. scheme and recommended all other Previous to 1872 its membership, as Methodist missionary societies, nota- in so many other societies even at the bly the one at Philadelphia, which present day, rested on a purely finan- was of older date, to become auxiliary cial basis. The society up to that time to this at New York. But it was more consisted exclusively of life members, than twenty years before these two made such by the payment of twenty societies really united. Norw~ it till dollars. No others belonged. Twenty- 1836 that the missionary society be- five of these members constituted a came of sufficient,.importance to have quorum for the transaction of busi- a resident corresponding secretary ness. And at the annual meeting, of who should give his entire time to its such members as might choose to come service. Dr. Nathan Bangs was ap- together in the city of New York on pointed. He had from the beginning, the third Monday of November, there without salary orcompensation of any was chosen the full board of man- kind, conducted almost all its busi- agers in whom was vested the entire ness, writing every annual report but disposition of the affairs and property . one; and holding in himself the most of the society. Rather a loose arrange- of its life-blood. Dr. Bangs was ment it would seem. These managers chosen by the general conference, as consisted of thirty-two laymen, and, have been all subsequent correspond- after 1856, of no more than thirty-two ing secretaries, although, until the ministers, although before that all abolition of the old" society" in 1873, Qrdained ministers, both traveling and it went through the legal form of re- local, who were·members of the society electing them at its regular annual were also members of the board. This meeting. From 1836 to 1844 the cor- made it, by the necessities of the case, responding secretary had to be a mem- largely a local affair, and to some ex- ber of the New York Conference, tent, legally at least, independent of which was charged with his super- all church authority. Yet from the vision.
first its promoters earnestly endeavored In 1844 a very important step was to give it a connectional character, taken in the direction of generalizing and partly succeeded. They groped the management. It was in this year their way steadily toward the true that the church was divided into mis- theory and method, dropping off one sion districts, and there was formed erroneous feature after another, fol- from these the general missionary lowing the leadings of the Lord, and committee, appointed by the bishops, moving forward as fast, perhaps, as to whom was given a share in the the church in general was prepared to control, conjointly with the board.
accompany them, until they came at In 1856 the clerical managers were re- length to the fully developed system. stricted to thirty-two, and in 1872 was It is instructive and interesting to instituted the present arrangement, note the advances. whereby the general missionary com- This missionary society was clearly mittee is composed of one representa- the child of the New York preachers' tive from each of the mission districts, now fourteen, elected by the general States and foreign countries there conference, on nomination, by the shall be a missionary society, duly in- delegates of the annual conferences corporated according to law, and within each district respectively, alilo having its office in the city of New an equal number of persons selected York; said society being subject to by the board of managers from its such rules and regulations as the own sixty-four members, together general conference may from time to with the secretaries and treasurers of time prescribe." Singular as it may the society, and the whole Board of seem, this was the first issue of the Bishops. This action more than any Discipline, fifty-six years after the other gave the final death-blow to society had been endorsed by the the old society idea, and made the general conference, cOlltaining a direct missionary organization, as it ought authorization of its existence. No to be, an integral part of the work of previous Discipline has any mention the whole church. of the society, except two or three indirect references or allusions in Dr. Durbin, secretary from 1850 to paragraphs treating of other topics, 1872, had already seen the importance which shows emphatically in what a ,of emphasizing this side of the move- very miscellaneous manner the entire ment, and in the" Disciplinary Chap- legislation of the church on this ter on Missions," recast by him with a subject has been thrown together, large amount of new matter in 1852, and how fragmentarily it has arrived he had taken pains to place at the at its present excellent condition. head of all this highly significant sen- tence: "The support of missions is The most recent emendation of the committed to the churches, congrega- constitution, ordered by the General Conference of 1888, was in the same as tions and societies such." In other line with all the previous changes, and provides for the still further emwords, the cause was not to be re- phasizing of the connectional, as opgarded as the concern simply of such posed to the local, character of the separate members of the church as institution, by prescribing that the might choose to bind themselves annual meeting of the General Comtogether in local auxiliaries, which at mittee shall be hereafter no longer the first, and for a long while, were confined to New York but shall be regarded as the principal feeders held at least three times out of four in Df the society, nor of such as were other cities. able and willing to contribute twenty dollars at one time, but every church It would seem now that there is member throughout the nation or the nothing left of the society or local world was by the very fact of his idea beyond the mere name and the membership pledged to contribute restrictions imposed by the necessity and co-operate according to his ability, of having a charter from some specinor did he need to be further enrolled fic State Legislature in order to hold in any distinct way to make this property, as well as the necessity of having headquarters where certain pledge more binding. And all the matters of business can be attended pastors were, as such special agents of to. This missionary society, still so- .the cause, charged with collecting called for convenience sake, is now funds for its furtherance and in every simply and solely the whole church way advancing its interests. itself acting in its corporate capacity for the establishment and support of The missionary section of the Disci- missions. It is not an outside organizpline was again entirely recast in ation allied to the church, but distinct 1876, with a number of new para- from it. Rather is it tpe right arm of graphs, of which the following 'Stands first: "For the better prosecution of missionary work in the United
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
the body. holding most vital connec- and sovereignly regulates all its aftion with every other part, receiving fairs. The bishops appoint all the its full share of the life blood and con- missionaries. The general committee, tributing its full share to the welfare meeting annually, selects the mission of the whole. The missionary society fields and allots the money, and the is only one of the names of the church, board of managers, meeting monthly, and every member of the latter, from looks after the details, while the secthe senior bishop to the youngest pro- retaries conduct the correspondence bationer, is also a member of the and set in motion all possible agencies former, having some part to fill in its for filling the treasury. So there is at maintenance. The General Confer- last provided here an agency of marence, the highest authority, the one vellous completeness for the purpose body which speaks for the entire in hand-a system of wheels and pulchurch the world around, elects its lies and bands in which strength is secretaries and treasurers and presi- combined with elasticity, and which dents, appoints its managers and gen- moves with a smoothness and effieral committee, revises its constitution ciency leaving little to be desired.
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY SECRETARY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
The Situa.tion in Ja.pan and Korea. decades-the average force for that time having been small. But that I.-JAPAN.
The statistical report of Protestant which may be tabulated in figures is missions in Japan for the year 1889, but a small part of what has been ac- published by Rev. Henry Loomis, complished in Japan. The beginnings agent of the American Bible Society, which have been made point to is full of suggestions. Its general in- broader future results. Everything dications of success are remarkable. in such a work is of the nature of Only fifteen years ago the member- seeds. Forces are set in motion which ship of the churches were buta hand- will continue to act for generations.
ful. The missionary boards scarcely What if foreigners should now be took the pains to publish any statis- wholly excluded, as were the Portu- tics. It was the day of small things. guese missionaries two centuries ago? It is almost startling, therefore, to Is Christianity planted and rooted SO find now a total membership in the firmly that it would survive and Protestant mission churches of 31,181, prosper if the Japanese churches with 274 organized churches, 153 of were left to themselves? Judging which are wholly and 151 partially from the history of Protestant mis- self-supporting. Thereare 135 ordained . sions in Tahite and Madagascar, we native ministers and 409 unordained may safely conclude that the work preachers and helpers. There are 350 accomplished in Japan is a perma- Sabbath schools with 21,597 pupils, nent and enduring power in the land.
and 17 theological schools with 275 And it is from this point of view students. The contributions of the that we may perhapsgainthe strongest churches during the year 1889 amount- impression of the value of the work of ed to $53,503.13. The number of mis- twenty-five years. Over against the sionary organizations represented in work of less than a generation, there this work is 29, and the number of must be set down to the credit side foreign missionaries is—{)f men, 200; the endless development and the im- of unmarried female missionaries, 171; measurable fruitage of many genera- with a total, including wives, of 527. tions to come.
Such is the force now engaged and Of course missionary influence canthe result shown is the work of two not claim all that has been done in the transformation of Japan. Com- in place here as we contemplate the merce has done much, and "he general situation. It has been too government and people have until common, though on slight grounds, to now seemed almost eager to learn the consider Sintoism* as dead and out of ways of our Western civilization, in- the question. But intelligent Japcluding education. But the missionary anese, even some of those most work has contributed that best of all friendly to Christian progress, look elements, the ethical and the domestic. upon Sintoism as constituting a It has changed especially the whole greater obstacle to Christianity than status and outlook of Japanese woman- Buddhism, though its influence is less hood, and that includes also the out- conspicuous and obstructive. Sintolook of the future state. ism is the old national religion; it is a development of that nature worship But there is another lesson which which has been so common in the the statistics of Mr. Loomis present. early experience of many races. There has been evidently some reaction. There has not been as large a Sintoism recognizes one Supreme growth in 1889 as in other recent years. God, who is unknown to men, but We were prepared for this, for all from whom all things have sprung. sources of information have revealed From him eight subordinate divinities the fact of political jealousy connect- emanated, of whom the most impor_ ed with the question of the revision tant were Isename and Isenangi, male of treaties. There has sprung up a and female, the progenitors of manparty which is opposed to foreigners kind. and foreign influence. It embraces many of the young and vigorous ele- These related deities, standingon the mentsof Japanese society. There has ramparts of heaven, reached down to in consequence been less readiness to earth with a long spear and stirred listen to the gospel, and the religious the depths of the ocean, and as they movement generally has felt the in- withdrew the spear there dripped from fiuence. Missionaries are consequently its point a peculiar substance from filled with no little anxiety, though which grew the islands of Japan, and generally they are hoping that the re- which had in it "the prophecy and action is only temporary. potency of all life," animal and vege- table. It was Huxley's protoplasm It isa fitting opportunity, now that turned to' practical account. From the work has slackened speed, to re- the two deities sprang a beautiful view the whole situation. What is daughter, the goddess of the sun, and the religious condition of Japan to- she became the mother of the day? What remaining strength have Mikados. the old faiths? Are they likely to abide, or will the future conflict lie It is claimed tha~ there has never between Christianity and some new been a break in this royal and divine form of belief or unbelief? Really succession, and that for 2600 years it there are four religions still contend- can be clearly traced. Many imporing for supremacy – Sintoism, Bud- tant results have sprung from this dhism,Confucianism and Christiar:ity, sun myth. It has conduced greatly to say nothing of those new types of to the loyalty of the Japanese toward thought which are the result of their sovereign. Only in three unsucconflict or compromise, and which cessful instances have attempts ever generally savor of general dissent and been made to dethrone a Mikado, negation. though changes in the dynasties of the Shoguns, or temporal rulers, have SINTOISM. • Some writers use the simple term Sintoo, A moment's consideration of the bnt Sintoism is employed by some native old faiths and their present status is writers. been frequent enough. The myth of neighbor, considered the universe as the sun goddess has also had a general- eternal, subject only to development ly favorable influence on the con- by natural growth or by generation. dition of women. The chief deity Though the Japanese, unlike the Inof Sintoists is a female. The most dian faith, recognized the existence gorgeous temple in Japan is the Sin- of a supreme deity from whom the to temple, reared to the sun goddess two divine progenitors emanated, yet in the Province of Ise. She is regard- it made no practical account of him. ed as the giver of all life in nature, He was never worshipped. and therefore the goddess of spring and of harvests. In the springtime festi- The two systems appear to have exvals and processions are instituted in ercised a degree of mutual toleration, her honor. and both adm~tted the claims of Confu- cianism, which in Japan, as in China Of the long succession of sovereigns and Korea, became largely the faith nine have been women. Naturally, or cult of the intellectual classes. The therefore, the female sex escapes favorite illustration by which this the degrading estimate which obtains tolerantspirit was expressed ran thus: in most Asiatic countries. Women There are many paths which lead to are not secluded as in China or India, the top of Fusyama, each approaching and there is in Japan something from a different side, but when they which approximates to our ideas at reach the summit, they all alike home. command a view of the world.
A religion which is so strarigely In some respects Sintoism and naturalistic might be expected to be Buddhism rendered to each other a weak on its ethical side. It is not a mutual service. The former, like creed of strong moral power. There other systems of sun worship, develis less ~f "thou shalt" and "thou oped a great aversion to death and shalt not" than in most faiths. The corruption. As with the followers of sexual relations, especially among the Zoroaster, so with all Sintoists, the rural populations, are lax and the pro- contact of the dead was considered test of conscience is feeble. Yet in polluting. And there was but slight the common ethics of life in all that attention given to the hereafter. concerns mutual rights, Sintoism presents a better record than many Buddhism, on the other hand, magsystems of more rigid law. It is nified the issues of the future. It was always the sin that breaks over a more sombre in spirit and looked upon strong moral code that becomes the death as only a transition to oth&r most heinous. Sint6ism has no forms of life. But on the other hand positively corrupting doctrines or Buddhism held an awkward relation ceremonies like those of Hinduism or to marriage. Itwasessentiallyopposed the old Baal worship. It has no vile to the reproduction of life. Its celiand demoralizing promises like that bate priesthood were out of place at of the Mohammedan's heaven. It has the marriage feast, whileSinto priests, DO legends of vicious conduct in its themselves fathers of families, were in gods as have most heathen systems, full sympathy with it. ancient and modern. For a thousand years, therefore, BUDDHISM. marriages were under the direction of Sinto priests, while the Buddhist Buddhism entered Japan about 552 bonzes officiated at the funerals. The A. D., and from that time interesting arrangement was finally broken off changes occurred mutually between it through the jealousy of the Governand the Japanese faith. The two sys- ment. As with the Church of Rome, tems were alike in dispensing with a so with the· Buddhist Sangha: the Creator. Sintoism, as well as its new power over the dying and the dead and the issues of the world to come The Japanese Government from was found to be a formidable factor time to time canonizes the great men in the State. who in their lives have been public benefactors, and thenceforth they are It must be ,"mfessed that thE' line of enshrined. Every prefecture. in the cleavage between the two systems is empire has its Sinto temple. The still very difficult to trace, as the great system seems entrenched in the mass of the people are practically both national life however little of aggres- Sintoists and Buddhists. The latter siveness it may manifest as a religion. <:ult, by its stronger intellectual character, has accomplished more for Buddhism of the old stamp can education and for all the elements of scarcely retain its power, but it never an advancing civilization than the old cares to retain any particular type. faith. It has also introduced moral It has ul'l.dergone many changes in the precepts of a more positive character past centuries and is ready for many than the simpler nature worship had more. It is the most flexible and adever inculcated. Modern Japan as it justable of all systems. It is divided stood at the time of Commodore into twelve distinct sects as it nowex- Perry's expedition was greatly in- ists in Japan. What new attitude it debted to Buddhism, and it owed much will assume in the new ordeal to which also to the teachings of Confucius, the full blaze of Christian truth is which with the introduction of the subjecting it remains to be seen. Chinese language had gained a strong German philosophy, Indiantheosophy, foothold. Both of these systems are and American Unitarianism are doing :still active and aggressive in their what they can to keep it in good heart influence, though lacking the one ele- agaiust the incursion of the" Western ment of strength which Sintoism religion" which missionaries are strivenjoys in its alliance with the Govern- ing to introduce. ment. When the present Mikado assumed full power he proclaimed the What, then, is the outlook? The Sinto faith as the religion of the foes of Christianity love to dwell State. upon what they call the small and in- effectual efforts and smaller success of Well he might, for he had witnessed our Christian propagandism, and they a manifestation of its power as a sup- point in contrast to the widespread porter of his throne such as few conquests of Buddhism on the same sovereigns in the world's history have field fourteen hundred years ago. known. The voluntary surrender of But they forget that those conquests their power and their feudal estates by which we have se~n to have be~n only the daimios of all the provinces to one partial were the result of hundreds of ruler could only have been brought years of slow growth. We have been about by that reverence which the at work a quarter of a century, the sovereigns of Japan have so long re-' first decade of which showed little <:eived as the sons of the gods. fruit, and yet no other such trans- formation ever occurred even in a Moreover, the Sinto temples are century or in two centuries. The enshrined in the pride and reverence nation was never so awakened before, of the people as the resting-places of and it is not strange that some rethe national heroes. There are no action should have occurred and some idols there, but the images of the great real fear lest all trace of the past men of the past are legion. Bud- should be lost. dhism has adroitly followed this example, but the images are only bor- The fact that neither the Buddhist rowed and seem out of place. They nor the Confucian faith ever entirely properly belong to Sintoism and the won Japan after so many centuries of national system. experiment may properly raise the question whether even Christianity dynasty it has been under the ban of will take exclusive possession of the Governmental condemnation. It excountry. The idea that Japan or ists only by sufferance. Confucian- China or India will become exclusively ism has fared better among the lead- Christian in the near future seems ing classes, but its influence is greatly born rather of enthusiasm than of· a circumscribed. careful consideration of facts and indications. No _country is wholly Korea, as a country, has no religion Christian. The best are only prevail- except a crude mass of superstitionsingly Christian, and such Japan will spirit-worship or nature-worship, or be. But until the day comes in which the usual mixture of the two. Like infidel influences from so-called China and Japan, the country has had Christian countries shall cease to ob- an experience with Jesuit missions and struct the conversion of heathen races has driven them out with bloody perby positive efforts to corrupt and lead secutions-though a remnant of native astray we can only hope for a supreme Roman Catholic Christians has reand Qvermastering influence of the mained. The work of Protestant gospel. missions in Korea all lies within the last decade. It began on the North- The Government will perhaps cling west even before the seaports were to the alliance of the Sinto faith for opened by treaties with Western Powa time even after the light of civiliz- ers. Through the indefatigable labors ation has shown the absurdity of the of Rev. John Ross, a Scotch Presbyold myths. Buddhism will continue terian missionary at Moukden, North to find sympathy and support in the China, parts of the New Testament natural self-righteousness of many were translated into the Korean lanhuman hearts, and Confucianism, that guage and were borne over the borproverbially self – sufficient system der by his native helpers who pro– which has become so deeply rooted in ceeded southward even to Seoul, where all three of the great Mongolian races, they won a few converts. will perhaps be slow to yield its hold, but the sceptre of the cross will bear Then followed the medical work or supreme sway and will transform the Dr. H. W. Allen, of the American country more and more. Presbyterian Mission. He was soon followed by Dr. J. W. Heron*andRev. n.-KOREA. H. G. Underwood, of the same mis- sion, and by Messrs. Scranton, Appen- It seems natural to associate Japan zeller and others of the American with China and still more nearly with Methodist Episcopal Mission North. Korea. Both of these missions have been greatly strengthened and are realizing The Mongolian type of race renders an encouraging success. The Presthem essentially one. Between the byterian Church of Australia estabsprightliness and docility of the Japan- lished a mission a year and a half agoese and the extreme conservatism of under the direction of Mr. and Miss the Chinese the Koreans present a Davis. They gave great promise of medium character, as their country success, but the death of the brother holds a geographically intermediate and the consequent return home or position. the sister have left the mission in suspense. The Young Men's Christian Korea, in its existing religious posi- Association of Canada is about to send tion, is unlike either China or Japan. two missionaries to 'Korea during the Sintoism has never been introduced present season. there. The Taouism of China has made but a slight impression and that in a *Dr. Heron has recently died of dysentery. modified form. Buddhism was successfullyintroduced long ago, but during the whole period of the present
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CCRRENT TOPICS
VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
A general conference of all evangeli- of this REVIEW, who has been in Brit- ~al Christians is called to meet in Florence in 1891, immediately after ain for seven months on a tour of mis- Easter. The invitation is issued by the Italian Branch of the Evangelical sions among the churches, should un- Alliance, and is exceedingly tender in tone. One can realize how changed is dertake a similar campaign in this the aspect of affairs in Italy only by a tour in this wonderful land. The country. He has given his consent to people breathe freely now, with the Pope "a prisoner in the Vatican." How this arrangement and the details only vast the changes since Dr. Marsh was ~ompelled to leave his Bible outside remain to be settled. It is probable the walls before he could himself enter the Eternal City! We remember Sig. that he will accept the invitation of Arrighi's saying that he should not be surprised if he yet had the privilege the Presbyterian Board of Foreign of inviting the Evangelical Alliance to meet in Rome, and seeing the meet- Missions to give a series of addresses ings held in St. Peter's and the delegates lodged in the Vatican! Rome in the great centres East and West, was thought of for the coming meeting, but abandoned on purely pru- between October and meeting of the dential grounds. There are now about 30 places of Protestant worship next General Assembly. We beinside the city of the PopesI A. T. P. speak for Dr. Pierson in this expected The recent outrages at Zacatecas show that the Romish spirit of intoler- campaign the prayers of the readers ance is only slumbering, and that if the Papal Church dared all the hor- of the REVIEW. His aim will be to rors of the Inquisition would be revived. Father Hecker said in the put before the people the great facts Catholic World that heresy should be puuished, and that sins of heresy which are calculated to stimulate should be taken cognizance of in the department of thought. What does missionary zeal and awaken personal that mean but that to think differently from Rome is an offense that ought consecration of self, substance and to be dealt with by law and visited with penalty? Truly we are not so far children to the work of spreading the from the days of Cardinal Bellarmine who, on the basis of two texts, "Feed good news over the wide world. We My sheep," and "Rise, Peter, kill and eat," argued that these two texts prove know no one better fitted for such a the double duty of the Church to take care of disciples and burn heretics! mission. J. M. S. Why not carry such liberalism a step further, and prove that the Church It is another significant sign of the should eat the heretics she burns! times that in both China and Japan there should be the most prominent A.T.P. and promising movement toward the union of all evangelical Christians in It is proposed that one of the editors one body. The contrast is significant, that in Christendom there should be such a multiplication of sects, and on the field of missions such a drawing together and tendency to eliminate denominationalism altogether from the body of believers I -A trained teacher is wanted by the Reformed Church for Nagasaki, Japan, to take charge of the Steele Memorial School for Young Men. Here is an opportunity for some man of balanced judgment, learning, health, piety and a missionary spirit to impress himself upon a whole generation of Japanese youth. A similar man is needed in Amoy Mis- sion, China, and neither needs to be ordained. Where are our young men who, like Micawber, are waiting for something to turn up? Here are op- portunities for investment of mental and moral capital such as no previous hedge into the playground. This was generation ever presented. Think signal for a rude assault, in which what Paul would do if he had the stones and even knives came into play.
chance which this generation supplies But for the fact that it was discovered of expending his life for Christ and by the assailants that he WQ.S a teacher souls! Here are two nations, excelled in one of the schools his life might by none in the Orient for average have been sacrificed.
capacity and culture, waiting for the Meanwhile, in Utsunomiya, the right man to take the rudder and Buddhists had organized a society, guide the coming State. A. T. P. supported by the money of citizens -The outbreaks of personal violence not worthy of the highest esteem, in missionary fields of late are very hired a theatre and employed a lectur- significant. An attempt was made to er to abuse Christianity publicly.
murder Rev. D. W. Frazier, of the When a challenge to public discussion· Presbyterian Board, in Greenville, was wisely declined by the Christians West· Africa, but baffled by the fact about 300 men came from the theatI'e that he and his boys were armed. on Sunday evening, and not only in- Rev. Mr. Newby, in Monsterrade terrupted the service of worship but County, was shot and killed for the broke the windows and some of the sake of land he had bought and im- seats, and only the police prevented proved. At the same time Mr. Frazier further violence.
himself bears witness that the mission- All these are significant signs. We ary spirit has never risen to so high a read of the devil as coming down, Hood mark! "having great wrath because he At the same time the anti-foreign re- knoweth that he hath but a short action in Japan is creating alarm. On time." It would seem that Satan April 4th two armed, masked men begins to tremble for the stability of entered the house of Rev. T. A. Large, his kingdom in this world. Were of the Canada Methodist Mission in missions the failure some would make Tokio, and in attempting to drive out us think he would not trouble himself the intruders he received deadly much about them. Evidently Satan wounds and his wife was wounded in does not agree with some modern the face and had two fingers cut off. critics of missions.
011 the 14th of May Rev. J. Summers, But more than this, we think we of the Church of England, driving out see a decided sign of God's providence with his wife met the carriage of the in permitting these outrages. Mis- Empress Dowager of Japan. Because sions have been in danger of being he did not lift his hat in salute when Invested with a false" romance." On as yet the carriage was onlyapproach- one hand one would suppose from the ing. an advance guard struck off his halo with which heathenism is sur- hat with the butt of his lance. The rounded that the " Light of Asia" is "soshi," the "young America" of quite sufficient to illumine the world.
Japanese society, followed this assault And on the other, we fear that the by rude and irritating conduct in their necessity for the martyr spirit has in ~eal to defend the honor of the royal the eye of some disappeared in the family, and Mr. Summers has resolved rapid advances of modern civilization to return to England. The insult and culture. We have heard young seems purely gratuitous and inex- men exhorted to go· to these far-off cusable. Only three days later, at a lands on the ground that no such sel/- game of foot ball between the pupils denials are now required as once of two native schools, Dr. Imbrie, of were; 1;hat they would find all the the Presbyterian Mission, to avoid a comforts and luxuries of modern civili- roundabout walk stepped over a low zation surrounding them in these Oriental lands! We protest, that when is found in the dominions of the the martyr spirit is quenched the mis- greatest Protestant empire on the sionary spirit will be found to have globe! We record our solemn belief gone out in the same dying flame. Per- after much observation, that, notwith- haps the Lord sees that if missions are standing many precious Christian to have a new and great advance it truths held by the Papal Church, it must be over paths marked with harbors and fosters idolatrous worship blood. As persecutions have tested, of the Virgin and even of the sacra- sifted and purified the Church, so mental wafer. And where idolatry have the trials and risks of missionary prevails, under whatever guise, the life purged the missionary band of the Spirit of God has never yet been pres- chaff and dross of unconsecrated and ent to convert and sanctify. If idols unworthy workmen. Let us not be in are in the courts the Shekinah is not fear. It would not be surprising if in the temple. A. T. P.
the devil should be permitted to work -Recently we attended a simplecon- out his great wrath, and God should ference of believers at Niagara-on-the- make that wrath to praise Him in Lake, where for a week a few hun- raising the level of missionary devo- dred disciples who held the truth es- tion. The man or woman who is not pecially dear, and wished to study the ready to dare death for Jesus is not Bible in company, assembled. Never ready to use life for Him. The lions have we breathed an atmosphere so in the way that send Mr. Fainthearted full of God. In the closing three and Mr. Halfhearted back only em- hours, on Thursday, July 17, we heard bolden Faithful and Christian to brave three successive addresses from Dr.
danger for the Lord. A missionary W. G. Moorhead, on the" Millell'ial life that presents only worldly attrac- Age," from Dr. Nath. West, on tions and tempts worldly indulgences " Christ in the Apocalypse," and from produces a degenerate class of mis- Dr. Brookes, of St. Louis, on the sionaries. We shall have no more "Rewards of the Believer," which we Morrisons, Moifats, Livingstones, never heard surpassed or even Lindleys, Brainerds, Bushnells, Notts, equalled for scriptural quality and Hunts, Williams, Hanningtons, Jud- spiritual power. During seven days sons, McAlls, when there is no more we heard only the Word of God ex- need of self-denial for Christ, for self- panded, expounded and applied. No sacrifice is the mould of heroic souls. ad captandum speeches, no essays or The Lord has not left the work or the orations; no attempts at drawing a workmen yet, and if there be any new crowd; not a hint of the new theology trials and tests they will only make -the old-fashioned views of plenary the product purer and more perfect. inspiration, with every cardinal doc- A. T. P. trine as our fathers held them, with- Those who think that Roman Catho- out any attempt to accommodate lic communities need no Protestant them to the demands of modern cul- missionaries should read Rev. A. B. ture and science. It was refreshing Mackay's letter about the adoration of and invigorating; it was a tonic for " Corpus Christi" in Montreal! the soul. But the most noticeable Think of compelling people not only thing about it is that when the old- to halt while the procession was mov- fashioned Bible was so deeply rever- ing but to kneel in the presence of the enced and earnestly studied, the mis- "host!" What is this but the idolatry, sionary flame burned more brightly not of sun or moon-which are at least than we have ever seen it before in noble objects of admiration-but of a such a gathering. Such a spirit of mere piece of dough! And this forcible spontaneous giving was there ex- participationin iiolatrous ceremonials hibited that a few hundred people, mostly of very moderate means, vol- results, compare favorably with any untarily offered more than $4,000! other in the whole fil<ld. A. T. P.
Year before last that same little con- We desire to call attention to the ference gave $2,500 to Hudson Taylor National Missionary Conference to be for the China Inland Mission, and held at Indianapolis on September 3d furnished him some 13 missionaries and continue till the 9th. It is ex- besides! All from that small com- pected that there will be a large at- pany of disciples met for Bible study! tendance, particularly of the volun- Last year again about thesamesumwas teers for the work of foreign missions given, unsolicited, and now again this and of those who feel especially "in- year the voluntary offerings are nearly terested in giving the gospel to the double those of the previous years. whole world as speedily as possible."
Never have we seen in any similar There has been a marvellous quicken- assembly a like devotion to the old ing and extension of the missionary Bible, a like spirit of prayer, a like spirit in Kansas and other portions of spirit of missions, or a like spirit of the West during the past few months.
giving. And we asked ourselves as A great many missionaries have been we came away, whether a. revival of raised up already as the fruit of this the simple faith in the Word of God, revival. One company, as we have in place of modern "Progressive previously chronicled, has already Theology," "Second Probation," gone forth to plant a new mission in "Higher Criticism" and "Christian the Soudan, and another company, we Science" might not be the key to a understand, will join the pioneer band new zeal for missions, and a new the coming autumn. Doubtless this Pentecost of prayer, and a new spirit Conference will intensify this move- of large and abundant self-sacrifice? nlent. which has taken such powerful The more we see of Christian life the hol~ of the Young Men's Christian As- more do we feel confident that every sociations of several of the Western step away from a full faith in the States in particular, and will origin- plenary inspiration of the Word of ate and give shape to new and impor_ God is a step away from the Cross tant developments looking to the of Christ and from all which that speedy evangelization of the world.
Cross represents in the believer's life May the Holy Spirit of God baptize of devotion to the spread of the the Conference with a special effusion kingdom. A. T. P. and guide all its deliberations and doings! J.11. S.
-We note that Rev. Dr. Gulian The Shanghai Oonference. Lansing, of the United Presbyterian Church, after forty years of mission- "ONE THOllSAND MISSIONARIES FOR ary life in the Valley of the Nile, is now in this land for a rest. He is the CHINA IN FIVE YEARS!" father of Professor J. G. Lansing of the New Brunswick Theological Semi- This is a bugle-blast from tke nary. The fires that burn in the great Conference of Missionaries in father's heart have been kindled on the China which recently closed its sesson's altar, as is evident from the fact sions at Shanghai. We have elsewhere that he is at the bottom of a special given a pretty full account of its promission to the Arabs, and not only ceedings from the pens of two of its stimulates young men to devote them- members. It was, with one exception, selves to this work but,we understand, the largest gathering of missionaries proposes to lead the columns! The work that ever took place on the foreign of Dr. Lansing and his fellow-mission- field, numbering 432 members; and its aries in Egypt will, in character and whole proceedings were character- ized by a spirit of harmony, enlight- ened wisdom, a broad and compre- hensive policy, and bold and earnest aggressiveness never excelled by a in five years! It can be done-done similar assembly. It was a grand op- easily and without neglecting any portunity, and grandly did our mis- other field. Why, the China Inland sionary brethren improve it. The Mission alone-one of the new and Church may well be proud of such comparatively feeble organizations, representatives, and thank God for with no visible resources-resolved, in the harmony, the courage and the 1888, to send out to China, within one wisdom given them. year,100 missionai'ies, and then prayed the Lord for the men and the means, The Conference has now spoken to and both the men and the money came the Church at home-'-the Church forward. If that little band could universal-and spoken in no uncer- tain way. Its voice is like the voice send out and support 100 new mis- of many thunders. It met and calmly sionaries to China in one year, what and thoughtfully and solemnly dis- are 200 a year for the great British cussed, planned, prayed, resolved, and and American missionary societies made its four-fold appeal and ad- represented in the Shanghai Confer- journed. It did its duty in a great ence? If each would do its propor- emergency, at the flood-tide of vast op- tion, the work could be done with portunities-and did it nobly, grand- ly, in the fear of God and in faith in infinite ease. Note that "lay" as well the churches that sent them forth. as ordained missionaries are called Now the responsibility is laid upon the churches, whose servants and re- for. Surely our brethren in distant presentatives they are; will they respond as the occasion demands? Will China have not sent out their loud ap- they lay to heart these masterly and burdened "Appeals" which they have peals in vain. J. M. S. sent forth and give them practical effect? We repeat here the burning " What Ought we to do for Foreign .words of Dr. Happer, our editorial Missions?" is ably shown in a leaflet correspondent at Canton, and make we have received from thepen of Rev. them our own: T. G. Field, district secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union "Let the bugle-call go forth for one at Minneapolis. It is a plea for rethousand missionaries within five organizing the home department of years. Let it ring in the ears of the the work carried on by the Union. Church. Help them to carry it to the He contends that there is a great lack throne of grace. Let them ponder it of wise and efficient organization on in their closets and around the family the part of Baptists, and he finds in altar. Let the youth hear it in the schools, in the academies, in the col- this fact occasion for the following leges and in the universities, and in statement: the theological seminaries: 'One thousand missionaries for China in " On every hand we have been, we five years.' Keep this line in your are, outdone by Christians of other columns every month till the Church names. To look no farther, with selfis aroused with the trumpet-call, and reproaching gratitude behold the arouses itself to good earnest work Moravians, and weep. Or consider the and consecration and giving; and, enterprise and liberality of the Church above all, may God, by His Spirit, ac- of England, or of Presbyterian or company this call to the hearts of Congregational mission work. In those He would call to have a share in one thing Baptist missions do proporthis blessed work for the Master." tionately greatly excel, viz., in fruit- fulness of conversions. But is this A thousand missionaries for China ours, or is it God's gift to the obedi- ence of the few? The four leasing foreign mission societies of America spent last year over $2,500,000. Less than one-sixth of this was Baptist money. To these societies was given a report of 17,336 converts, of whom 6,093, or over one-third, were gathered intothe mission churches of ourUnion. With what feelings must we own that
ORGANIZED MISSION ARY WORK AND STATISTICS
for such blessing on such service we pansive, inadequate, outgrown system have contributed this year but twenty- five cents a member; that in a year of of administering foreign interests." the largest receipts ever known, the highest average per member, in any An over-conservative policy is not State, for the general work of the Union, is only sixty-five cents, while restricted to anyone society or church. in the lowest it is but eight cents. Nay, there is one grand exception. We deeply regret the present ten- California breaks the record with the splendid average of almost $2.16 per dency to start independent missions, member; but this is due to a noble contribution from one individual. but is it not in part the outcome and Twenty-five cents apiece and one ordained missionary abroad to 6,356 protest against a too narrow or rigid members at home, 01', counting wives and single women, about one mission- iron-cast policy not in harmony with ary to every 2,800 Baptists does not overstate the present practical guage the spirit and changed conditions of of our obedience to the parting injunction of Jesus. The fact is that the times? Secretary Field's views for several years we have made no adequate progress. We seem to be are commanding attention in his 'own nearly at a dead-point. The most of our missions are sorely taxed' to hold church, and they may do good in their own. Speedy reinforcement, requiring large increase of men and other mission circles. J. M. S. money, alone can enable them to maintain efficiency with vigor. . . . As to the prize offers of premiums Practically, we now struggle simply for articles on Prayer in connection to hold what our fathers acquired, with missions, the editors would save the Congo Mission, and thIS, too, further say that they have not thought at an hour when we, in every way, in it necessary to say that they will not numbers, intelligence, wealth, pros- consider themselves obligated to award perity, are blessed as never heretofore; any premiums if there shall not be a at an hour when" to earth's remotest sufficient 'I1,umber of competing and bound" every nation thrown wide satisfactory articles to make such open to approach is threatened with award justifiable and practicable. In the vices and atheism of the West, to such case all that we engage to do is add death unto death, instead of re- to return all such essays as cannot be ceiving the Bread of Life, and while made of use. And, secondly, the we, with all the equipment of divine articles should cover ground not algrace and modern civilization, fully ready covered by articles which have know the awful need of heathenism appeared in these columns. One letter' and our ability, under God, to minis- which we have received from a proter to it." posing competitor asks one of the editors to furnish certain details of He argues that it is not" the fault fact, which have already been pub- lished in the REVIEW. Of course we' of the Missionary Union, but rather shall insist that the instances given shall be culled by the writers from the inevitable outcome of onr denomi- material found outside our own pages., national growth constricted by an inex- A.T.P. J.M.S.
VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
Reformed Presbyterian «Jovenanter) From Contributions to missions.•••• 3,400 00 Ohurch in the United States. Synod's trustees ………. . 1,320 84'
Secretary: REV. R. M. SOMMERVILLE, D.D.,l26 Total….. .. ….. … .. ……….. $18,462 89 West 45th Street, New York. Expenditures.
REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 30, 1890. Balance from last account ………. $01,01485' For the missions…. • • …. …… . .. . 16,042 27 Receipt•. From congregations.. … ……….. $7,858 Zi' Total…………………….. $17,057 13 Balance to new account.. •.• • . . . . . . 1,405 76 .. Sabbath·scbools and mission- ary societies…………… . 2,804 07 Total.. ………………… ,_ •. $18,462 89 " Individuals and bequests .. , 4,07971 ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
There are no home expe~s, all the funds Amount In hand of being directly used on the field. Mission Treasurer STATISTICS. called In.. . . ….. .. 48,326 25 Deficit carried for- 3 missions (Latakiyeh, Larsees, Cyprus); missionaries, ordained, 4; lay, 1; missionaries' ward ………….. 60,2759.3 wives, 4; other ladies, 4; native ordained ministers, 4; other helpers, 34; stations and – – – – $158,602 18 out-stations, 8; organized churches, 3; total TotaL ………………….. $952,668 62 number of preaching-places, 11; communicants, 190; added during theyear, 12; schools, Expenditures. 25; pupils, 730. Amount cOl)tributed by na- Balance (Deficit) May 1, 1889 ….. $44,696 62 tive churches, $33.91. Appropriations for year ending May 1,1890: Board of Foreign Missions of the Africa…………. $31,155 02 811,245 69' Presbyterian Ohurch (North). China, Japan and 43,001 84 The Secretaries: 53 Fifth Avenue, New York, Korea ……… .. 248,57600 1,724 47 N.Y. India, Siam and. 52,000 00 REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDING MAY 1, 1890. Laos ………. .. 181,723 26 Receipts. Persia . . . . . . . . . . .. 76,872 89 Syria …………. . 60,733 64 From Churches…….. $291,719 86 Guatemala and " Woman's Bo'rds 280,285 51 Mexico ……… . 92,314 00 Sunday-schools. 36,062 56 South America .. 117,180 88 Papal Europe .•… 2,690 00 Legacies…….. 112,877 68 Individuals and Chinese and Indians in United States …………………. .. miscellaneous sources … … 73,120 83 Special ………………….. . Home Department•..•••..•….. $794,066 44 Balance to New Account: TotaL …………………. $952,66862 Amount withheld on acc't of changes in !lscal y~rs in vanous miSSIOns.. . $50,000 00 STATtSTtes.
Missionar'es Na ive ~00 "r~n",S-'0~"o. ~~ o"""~~ OJ' ',"c",6"~ ——- ~~6 :~Cg.S.~- 5~~ ga ~ ~ .:;; g ~ g~.8 _:.:SI rtl 'm0 ~• ~ ~~ ~~c~6o~~ ~o ~0 ~~CD Q3 .u"; ~ ! j ~ .:;;w . .4 !":l ~~=::=:-::-:- 217 910'9 '9 24171.398156ls 57981l,3121$ 504 China………… … . …. … " 13 48 68 12 61 226 45 4,084 446/'124 2,687 6 2,969 2,809 Japan……. …. ………… 1 5 21 47 3 43… 34 4,977 672 15 1,409 17…… 6,750' Korea ………. ……….. 1 1 3 5 2 .. …… 104 39.. ……………….. .. India… ………………. 3 10 37 71 4 33 174 4(?) 1,093 81 14 8,016… 4,590 82 Siam and Laos …………. 2 5 13 21 4 6 33 12 1,114 1711 21 f541 14 fi76 804 Persia……. ……… …… 2 6 14 35 5 89 170 27 2,269 141 147 3,069 18 5,210 2,200 24 Syria………………….. 1 5 14 1 39162 20 1,619 98 142 5,853 7 4,966 7,767· 1 Guatemala…………….. 1 11 2 4 …. ••• 1 1 . 4….. 1 38 2 50 15 Mexico …… …………… 1 5 7 11 …. 50 53 90 5,165 388142 1,358 15 1,795 3,627 South America…….. " …. 3 15 2-J 25 1 15 69 46 2,993 324 22 1,263 5 947 13,602 _.2 .:.:.:.:. .:.:.:. _ 92: 24;820 24;913 92 22,~15 .Total ;Foreign Lands…. 21 $37,660 Indian Tribes…………… 3 ,03 2,986 61 190 321411345 912 297 2,516/546 320 9 5 8 … 114 21 20 1,630 198 10 Chinese & Japanese in U. S. 1 ~ _~ ~ ~ 344 _.~ _~ .2~:: ~ _~ 3,711 Total. ……………… 25 lOti 199 336 411359943 320 26,794 2,753 583 26,348106 23,935 1$44,357 Board of Foreign Missions of the Expenditures. Presbyterian Ohurch (South) in the United States. Three Brazil Missions•…•.••••••.. $ 37,433 01 SeQretary: Rev. M. H. HOUSTON, D.D., Nash- China Missions………………. .. 17,928 82 ville, Tenn. Japan 13,132 44 REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 1, 1890. Receipts. Greek 2,722 65 Balance on Hand. . .. •• … ….. … $ 7,229 29 Italian 1,206 25· From Churches……………….. 47,459 63 Sabbath-schools.. . •. . . . . …. .. ….. 10,290 00 Indian 6,550 00- Missionary Societies.·……… ….. 25,422 03 Legacies……… …. ….. …….. 1,934 59 Mexican " 7,863 71 Individuals and Miscellaneous….. 10,948 89 Total for Missions………….. $ 86,836 92· General Expenses….. …….. ….. 7,989 42· Balance on Hand…. •.. . . . .. . . . . . . 8,457 59 Total……. .. ……. …. …… $103,283 93 Total. • .• …. ••. ………….. $103,283 93· STA.TISTICS. tions),8; other helpers-evangelists, 108; or- ganized churches, 43; other preaching places, o-g§ J 87; stations and ont-stations, 130; communi- 00 00 oll cants, 3,60'2; added during the year, 222; col- '0 leges and theological s"minaries, 4; pupils, § 41. Of other schools no accurate statistics are ~~, available.
i Sc:.e: ~ ~ o~" ~~o~j ~'"~~~~~f 'C 00 ~~ Reformed (Dutoh) Ohuroh in Amerioa. ] ,: 5 '8 -;;; iO' Secretary: REV. H. N. COBB, D.D., 26 Reade 5.; "~ ~>. •~::::s Street, New York.
'~~gOO.~~O~.O~ ~…S.. ~Iw~ ….. .~ r.tJ. w'O REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING APRIL 30, 1890. §.S .S .s A JJ Receipts.
~:-8:.-s~ I:'-~s~~1:~d § .S Balance from last account. . . . . $971 69 -~ ~ ~O~ From churches ………. $54,76228 · – – – § -8§-:~[- -0 – " Sundar-schools, etc. 12,385 10 -8 – LegacIes, ."…… 8,965 64 Brazil… 30 10 10 5 10 601 100 224 165 $3,040 " Individuals……… 25,995 28 ChiRa .' 71011 .. 110 82 4' 240248 92 " lHisceIIaneous …•..• 14,981 84 Japan.. 12 7 8 5 2 567206 200 100 600 Greece. 41111 28 11 15.. . 130 – – – 117,090 14 Italy … 1 .. 2…. Mexico. 44 2 4 8 3 400 43 40 …… —- 250 150 875 Total …………………….. $118,061 83 Expenditures.
India: .Arcot Mission..••• $30,01327 China: Amoy Mission ••••……..• 21,008 46 Total Japan: North and South Missions .. 49,209 74 929 ;'03 $4,737 I Foreign. 983036 19,26 1,678 364 300 60 1,200 General mission expenses, ……… $100,231 47 Arcot Seminary Fund"……….. 105 00 IinndiIannds. Home expenses……………….. 6,276 75 Terriey Interest and loans (balance)…….. 9,422 03 (U. S.). 37 3 3 5 6 625 27 Total. 13.3 33 39 24,32 2,303 391 1,229 763 ,6,437 Balance to new account………… 2,026 58 —— 1 Total….. .. .. …… ……. …. $118,061 83 1 The work among the Indians will probably ~IHfl >'31l;'g[! be handed over to the Home Missionary ~I ~~-oo-TI~St~a~ti~o-ns-.—– Society during the current year, the Foreign Missionary Committee continuing to con- e….1 tribute somewhat towards its support for a ·term of years.
lOut – Stations and !:5!il i§l Preaching Places Presbyterian Ohuroh of England. 1~ Secretary: JOHN BELL, 13 Fenchurch Avenue, !ill 1 Ordained. ~ c£:)OHX) I I I ~ ~ eo eo Female. London, E. C., England. ~.
REPORT FOR YEAR ENDiNG DEC. 31, 1889. ~.
Receipts. I ILay. Il Balance from last account, ..•••• £4981211 ~ l':I~-q…. Congregational contributions… . 6,497 2 6 Edinburgh Committee …….. . 2,740 0 0 ~ ! dj00 …. 1 Ordained. Legacies. .. -. _.. .. .. . . . … .. 1,454 15 3 i I I ~ ~!:5~ Other Helpers, ~. Juvenile fund………………. . 1,785 3 8 Students' Missionary Society ..•. g: I !:5 oo!ill Churches. Donations, etc….. .. ……… . 348 6 6 Balance overdrawn, .•. " •••••••• 1,710 2 6 2,086 4 0 Total. ………………….. £17,070 7 4 ~8l~ 0.' to ,,"",,"' Expenditures. §ll 1 Communicants.
General mission charges…….. £15,767 1 11 ~ 1~g;:s51 Added. Home charges .. ……………. 848 17 6 Interest and amounts drawn on ac- ~ I … '" '" ·1""'S;-em—C-in-a-rI~·e-s.— count …………….. …….. 454 7 11 8 ~ ~1£ 1 Students.
Total…………….. . ….. :£17,070 7 4 e ITheological Stu- The total missionary income should in- ~eo~ dents. ·clude £2,608 15s 6d from the Woman's .Associ- 00 ~ 1 Day Schools. ,ation making (exclusive of the balances) £17,13958 11d. i : i Ii§ Scholars. Adding also the expenditures of the Woman's Association, £2,700 3s 3d, the total '" : …….. I Hospitals. ,expenditure is £19,770 lOs 7d. • ~~ .W . ~! STATISTICS. '""'I: I ~,p..: Patients Treated.
Missions, 6; ordained missionaries, 20; lay, §~ ~ Contributi~ns 13 (of whom 10 medical); miSSIOnaries' wives, from NatIve :21; other ladies, 16; native ordained ministers Ooo.~ (elltirely supported by their own congrega· djg;~ Churches.
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa.-The Work in Abyssinia. The nouncing their allegiance to Portugal and are strong position Italy now occupies at Massaua joining Gungunyana. on the Red Sea, its military strength, its alliance with King Menelek, its rising colony at -The report of the Mackenzie Memorial Assab-alJ inspire the hope that Abyssinia and Mission to Zululand and the tribes towards the Zambesi river begins with mourning the the Galla country may be speedily opened up loss of its head, the late Dr. D. Mackenzie, to the gospel. The pastlabors of the C. M. S., Bishop of Zululand. The mission consists (in since 1830, in these regions are well known. addition to the Bishop) of 13 clergymen (two GoOOt, Krapf, Isenberg were among its faith- of them natives) and 22 lay helpers. The total ful agents; these were, however, gradually income from free contributions received during driven out through religious intrigue and the the year was a little over £1,200. violence of King Theodore. There remain, however, valuable translations, such as those -King Mwanga, of Uganda, Central in the Amharic, Tigre and Galla tongues; the Africa, who has heen twice dethroned and driven out of the country, has returned and is last the laborious work of Dr. Krapf. There again at the head of the kingdom. In a letter are still, also, fragments of missions among written to Cardinal Lavigerie he asks that the Falashas, in the Shoa country, and there is priests be sent to teach the religion of Christ the Swedish Mission at Massaua, etc., which in all the country of Uganda. General Gordon so generously supported. -The reports of the suffering from famine The Church of Rome is availing itself of the in the Soudan are appalling. The greatest opportunity. It is said that Russia also is to sufferers are the widows and children of the establish a consulate and to send a mission. men who have been killed during the many It is to be hoped that evangelical missions will conflicts which have raged in the interior. not be slow to avail themselves of this open Reports from Suakin are that not only all door. sorts of animals are eaten, but toot cannibal- ism has actually commenced. An appeal has -In response to a telegram from Mr. been made in England for these starving Douglas Hooper of Eastern Africa, received Soudanese. on a Monday in London and announced that evening in Exeter Hall, no less than nine vol- -The number of missionary stations in unteers presented themselves in thirty-six Africa now exceeds 500. There are 400,000 hours for work in that difficult field. Four converts and the number is increasing at the men were selected, and by the following rate of about 25,000 a year. Within five years Saturday evening actually started on their more than 200 natives have suffered martyrjourney via Marseilles. " This," says the dom for their faith. Indian Witness, "is a good answer to the charge that mission interest is dying out." -Rev. A. R. Tucker wits consecrated Bishop for Eastern Equatorial Africa on April -A Steamer for Victoria Nyanza. The 21, and left for Africa the same day. He has enthusiasm in England has led to the raising charge of the missions of the English Church of a .. Stanley Fund, " and Mr. Stanley himself Missionary Society in East Africa. A telehas made the suggestion as to its disposal- gram to the London Time" says that his party that it be devoted to the placing of a steamer are to start for the Nyanza the first week in on Victoria Nyanza. This lake is as large as July with Mr. Stokes' caravan. the whole of Scotland, and he states that a steamer upon it would be of immense service, China.-A Revival.-A great and mighty both for the use of the missionaries and as a door has been opened lately for the gospel in civilizing factor. He proposes that it should the Shantung Province, China. A revival be handed over either to the Church Mission- wave is passing over that section of the counary Society or to the Imperial British East try. The Rev. Robert M. Mateer, one of the African Company.-Missiona1'1/ Herald. laborers in that province, has been so dis- tressed by the great hunger of the people for -The Gaza Country. L'A/rique reports the gospel and the small number to feed them that a Portuguese expedition has been sent to that he has taken upon himself the support of the Gaza country, the region to which, as we ten native preachers ($50 a year each), three have recently reported, Gungunyana, the son girls' schools ($175 each), and one boys' of Umzila, has removed with all his people. school ($:lOO). He wrote to the pastor of This expedition is intended, by an effective Tabor Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, occupation, to enforce the claims of Portugal Rev. Willis B. Skillman, stating the above as the protectorate of Gazaland. A more re- facts and asking for a helping hand. The cent report by way of Lisbon, June 11, states pastor laid the matter before his Bi ble-class, that Gungunyana has joined the chief Bilene, composed of 35 young men, and the class made and, with a force of 50,000 men and women, the hearty response of $50, which means the has beaten Bifoana, the leading chieftain of support of a native pastor for a year. The in Portuguese territory. Other chiefs are re- same matter was brought to the attention of the Young Men's Prayer Meeting of the church, years and has come home to raise $15,000 for numbering 125 members. The boys' generous a printing plant in Calcutta. After describing response was over $60, which will support an- the country, with its population of 310,000,000, othernativepastor for a year andtheeducation he took up the culture and religion of the for one year of a boy in the loys' school. The people. Said he: "Calcutta has a student matter was also laid before the congregation. population of 15,000, and its college men are No collection was taken but simply the state- peers of their American brethren. From this ment made. The response was over $50. Can- cultivated class you can descend until you find not some other pastor be the means of bless· whole villages where no person can read a ing his people by asking them to help in this word of any language. To these degraded great work of Christ? classes the missionaries go or send native preachers who teach the alphabet by marking . -Shanghai Union Conference.-A Confer· in the sand with their fingers. With this beence on Union, composed of representatives ginning they teach them to read the Bible. " of seven Presbyterian churches laboring in Chica, met at Shanghai, May 15th. On ac- Cannibalsthe Bishop does not regard as the count of the diversity of language and the lowest class of men. He has seen men worse difficulties of travel the representatives of two than cannibals in New York and London. In of the churches deemed organic union impos- speaking of the work of the Young Men's sible. At a later meeting it was decided to Christian Association in Calcutta, he said take steps to form an organic union between that its representatives are undenominational the five other churches, and any others who and he wished them to remain so. When he may wish to join the union. A plan of union said that $30 would support one of the lowest similar to the one used by the churches in In- class of missions, for which he had men dia was adopted. A constitution is to be trained, Mr. Moody said that he wanted one of formed for the Presbyterian churches in China those missions and would contribute $30 for based upon those of the churches in Europe that purpose. About twenty minutes was and America. Its doctrinal basis is to be "The given up to receiving similar offers. College Apostles' Creed," the "Nicene Creed," and the after college responded. The Virginia delega- "Westminster Confession and Catechisms." tion and the University of Virginia each sub- The Presbyteries are to be composed of the scribed for a mission. "We think more of Virmissionaries, the pastors and the churches ginianow than we did in '61," said Mr. Moody, occupying the same territory. These Pres- and the applause stopped the contributions byteries are to constitute one Synod, meet- for a short time. Princet<>n, the University of ing once in five years. The uniting bodies are Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale, and Johns-Hopthe Presbyterian Church (North), U. S. A.; kins were among the twenty or thirty instituthe Presbyterian Church (South), U. S. A.; tions which will share in this new phase of the United Presbyterian of Scotland, the Irish mission work in India. Presbyterian, and the Canadian Presbyterian churches. The two declining to unite are the -A meeting was held in Exeter Hall, on English Presbyterian and the Reformed Dntch May 2, to establish a London Auxiliary of the chnrches. The snmmary of statistics given Mission to Lepers in India. The secretary reat the Conference shows, Foreignmissionaries, ported that there are about 500,000 lepers in 1,295; native helpers, 1,&:19; churches, 520; India. The society utilizes existing agencies communicants, 37,287; pupils in schools, as much as possible. Addresses were given 16,916; contributions hy native Christians, by Mr. T. A. Denny and Rev. F. E. Wigram. $36,834. Italy.-The Waldensian Church of Italy, India.-"Our work in North India continues which has recently celebrated its two hnnto prosper. Brother Bare writes that no less dredth anniversary of the return of the exiled than 2,364 persons have been baptized in the Vaudois, gives evidence of continued life and Rohilkhund district since the annual statistici vigor. It reports 44 churches, 38 pastors, Z7 were made up at the close of last October. evangelists, including colporteurs, 6 Bible This covers a space of five months. Add to readers, 4,074 communicants and 469 catethese 400 baptisms in connection with Dr. chumens. Parker's evangelistic work, and 300 by Brother Osborne and others in the Rnski district, and Japan.-Murder of a Missionary. It was we have a total of more than 3,000. This sur· at first feared that the recent assassination of passes the sanguine expectations with which Rev. T. A. Large, of the Canadian Methodist we began the year, and our brethren are very Mission in Tokio, Japan, indicated a reaction naturally filled with joy and hope."-Bishop in the popular feeling about missionaries, and resulted from hatred to the foreign religious Thoburn. teacher. But the sad event proves to have -Bishop Thobnrn on India.–At Northfield, been the crime of robbers, who entered the missionary's bedroom to find the key of his Mass., in Mr. Moody's College Conference on safe, in which a considerable sum of money Missions, July 3d, Bishop Thoburn, of the happened to be deposited. Roused suddenly Methodist Episcopal Church, jnst returned from his sleep, and wholly unarmed, Mr. Large bravely expelled the masked intruders, from India spoke. He has been In India 31 but was meantime so cut and gashed by their from posts under the Government. The en- sharp Japanese swords that he fell dead at the forcement of the edicts will result in the ex- -feet of his wife, who had also been wounded pulsion of over one million Jews from the in the struggle. Earnest sympathy has been country." universally expressed with the widow by all the organ~ of the press, and universalindigna- Sweden.-The Annual Convention of the tion is felt against the cowardly criminals, Swedish Fatherland Missioi1 Society was re- who, if they can be captured, will be severely cently held in the Blasieholm Church, Stock- punished.-Misionary Herald. holm; 245 clerical and 216 lay delegates were present. The branch societies have, during -The native churches under the care of the the year, increased from 107 to 116; 18 travel- American Board's missionaries~in Japan, says ing missionaries and 187 colporteurs are em- the Congregationalist, organized half a dozen ployed. 762,000 copies of the Bible and other years ago a home missionary society. It devotional books were printed, and somewhat has flourished so well that the demands of the more than that number sold and distributed. work now justify the appointment of a paid Since its organization the society has pub- president, who will devote all his time to es- lished 22,700,280 copies of various religious tablishing new churches and strengthening books. The net profits of the pUblishing house those already existing. for the year are 11,890 crowns. 35 mission- aries are laboring in Eastern Africa, and 35 in Korea.-In regard to the progress in India. The expenditures for foreign missions missionary work, Dr. Underwood, of the were W3,525 crowns. The balance remaining Presbyterian Mission, writes to the Occident: in the foreign mission treasury is 105,282 "In the Presbyterian Church at the end of the crowns. The home mission fund shows a bal- first year our first convert had not been seen. ance of 36,666 crowns. We had come to sow seed,and had hardly dared expect to see fruits so soon. Japan hali to Miscellaneous.-A special committee of wait six or seven years for the flrst results. the English Wesleyan Missionary Society has In July of the second year, however, the Lord investigated and reported upon certain permitted us to see the flrst convert baptized. charges published in the Methodist Times re- At the end of the third year our numbers specting the alleged extravagance of Wes- were about twenty. Steadily they increased, leyan missionaries in India. The substance their interest grew, the members were zealous, of the report of the committee is that the and at the close of the next year there was a Wesleyan missionaries in India do not live in revival, and before the year ended the little luxury, that their stipends are not excessive bsnd was almost sixty. Another year of compared with those that are given to Wesleysteady progress was granted to us, and to-day an ministers in England, and that the attend- the company numbers over a hundred baptized ance of the missionaries at the levees of the Christians, besides over half as many more Viceroy does not involve pecuniary expense who have applied for baptism and profess nor hinder their work among the native poputhemselves Christians, but have been urged to lation. The committee find that the charges- acquaint themselves more fully with God's that the missionaries live in such a manner Word." and in such places as to alienate them from the natives-are not sustained. The result is a Palestine.-Bishop Blythe of Jerusalem complete exoneration of the missionaries. says there are now in Palestine double the number of Jews that returned from the Baby- -Up to July IS the number of appoint- 10nish captivity, and that the "latter rains" ment.s for missionary service in connection which had been withheld since the times of with the American Board, since the last annual _the exile, had been granted again during the meeting, was just sixty, 22 of them men and last two years,. 88 women.
Russia.-Persecution of the Jews.-Lon- -The statistics of the Christian Endeavor don, July 3O.-The Times says: "The Russian Societies, as presented at the international Government hasordered the application of the Convention at St. Louis, shows clearly the edicts of 1882 against the Jews. These edicts great advance this society has made. These have hitherto been held in abeyance. Accord- societies exist in every English-speaking land ing to these, Jews must henceforth reside in in the world, the total number being 11,013, certsin towns only. None will be permitted to with a membership of 66O,OOO-a gain of 3,341 own land or hire it for agricnltural purposes. societies and 185,000 members in eleven The order includes within its scope towns and months. hundreds of villages that have large Jewish -Arabic tracts for Mohammedan readers. At populations. No Jew will be allowed to hold the request of General Haig the Committee of shares in or work mines. The law limiting the Religions Tract Society (London) have the residence of Jews to sixteen provinces published a series of Arabic tracts, setting will be enforced. No Hebrew will be allowed forth, in progressive order, the main doctrines to enter the army, to practice medicine or of scripture, and leading up to that of the law, to be an engineer, or to enter any of the Atonement of the 'Lord Jesus Christ. other professiollll. They will also be debarred
INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE SEPTEMBER NUMBER
INDEX OF CONTENTS SEPTEMBER NUMBE~.
PAGE PAGE. I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS…… 641-684 CHINA.-Proceedings of Shanghai Con- n.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLI- ference, 669; The Four Appeals of the GENCE~._ …. _._ … ___ …….. 684-693 Conference to the Churches, 673; Dr. Happer's Remarks on the Conference, m.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE._ 6934)96 676; Edit.orial Note on do., 712; Plan of Union of Presbyterian Churches, 693; IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT… 696-704 Editorial Note on,709; Chinese Educa- tion,697; A Great Revival,717; Shang- V.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS 704-708 hai Union Conference……………….. 712 English Wesleyan Missionary Society, VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT Report of Investigating Committee….. 719 Field, LeafietonBaptistMissions ………. 713 TOPICS __ ………….. 00. •• 709-713 "Hottentot," A Noble Example. ……. . 683· VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK INDIA.-Notes on various interests, AND STATISTICS.. . . . .•.• ••..•• 714-717 (translations), 680; Indian Church Aid Association, 686; Development of Medi- VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTH- cal Missions, 687; Female Education, LY BULLETIN ……………. 717-719 687; Lepers, 688; Zenana Missions, 688; Welsh Calvinistic Foreign Missions, 689; IX.-INDEX TO CONTENTS………… 720 Young Men's Christian Association Work, 694; Work Prospering, 718; Bishop Authors. Thoburnon India, 718; LondonAwdliary of the Mission to Lepers …………… 718' EDITORS. – A. T. Pierson. The Super- natural Factor in Missions, 653; Edi- ITALY.-Missionary Conference at Flor- torial Notes, 709; J. M. Sherwood, Edi- ence in 1891 ………………………… 718 torialNotes………………………… 712 JAPAN.-Educational Exhibit at Paris Curtis, Rev. Freq.. S., Account of the Exposition,692; The Situation in, by Dr. Shanghai Missionary Conference…..••• 669 Ellinwood, 704; Murder of Mr. Large, 718; Work of Home Missions…………. 719 Ellinwood, F. F., D.D., Woman's Work for Woman, 648; The Situation in Japan KOREA.-The Present Condition of and Korea ………………. _…….. 704 Things,708; Progress in Mission work .•• 717 Gracey, J. T., D.D., International Depart- Lansing, Dr. Gulian and hisSon…•……. 712 ment ……………………………. 697 Missionary Conferences-The Conference Happer, A. P., D.D., Comments on the of Believers at Niagara, 711; The Indian- Shanghai Conference .. …………… 676 apolis National Conference ………… 712 Mormon Proselytism.. .. …. • •…. .. …… 661 Johnston, Rev. James, Notes on India…. _ 686 Outbreaks of Personal Violence ..••……• 710 Pierson, Dr. A. T., A Proposed Campaign Leonard, Rev. D. L., Mormon Proselytism 661 in behalf of Presbyterian Board of For· eign Missions………………….. … 709 McConaughy, David, Jr., Y. M. C. A. Work Prize Offers …………………………. 714 in India…….. …. ……………….. 694 RUSSIA.-Persecution of the Jews …… 719 Moorhead, Max Wood, Student Volunteer Movement…………………………. 684 Mudge, Rev. James, The Evolution of a Missionary Society.. .. …. … .. …….. 701 Starbuck, Rev. Charles C., Translations from Foreign Missionary Periodicals…• 679 Taft, Rev. Marcus L., Chinese Education .. 697 SOUTH AMERICA.-Spanish Mission work in Chili, 693; Romish outbreaks in Thompson, Rev. Andrew, D.D., The Mis- Zacatecas…… ……………………. 709 sion in Basuto Land.. .. …. … .. ……. 641 SWEDEN.-.A.nnual Convention of the Countries and Subjects. Fatherland Missionary Society,719; Scan- dinavian Missionary Conference in AFRICA.-Dr. Thomson on the Mission Christiana…………………………. 683 in Basuto Land, 641; The Anglo-German Agreement 689; Stanley and the Brus- Statistics of Foreign Missions. sels Confererence, 691 ; Nelson's Starva- tion Camp, 692; The Work in Abyssinia. Reformed Presbyterian Church in the 717; Steamer on Victoria Nyanza, 717; United States. Report for 1889·90….. 714 TheGaza Country, 717; MacKenzie Me- morial Mission, 717; King Mwanga, 717; Presbyterian Church (North) Report for Soudan Famine, 717; Number of Stations 1889-90.. .. …. .. … ………………… 715 in Africa, 717; Bishop Tucker………. 717 Presbyterian Church (South) Report for Berlin Mission in Transvaal…… .. ……. 682 1889-90 …. …. . …………………… 715 Christian Endeavor Society, Statistics of. 719 Presbyterian Church of England. Report for 1889……………. ……… .. …. 716 COrpU8 Christi, Adoration of in Montreal. 711 Reformed (Dutch) Church in America. Report for 1889-90…. …….. …. ….. • 715