The Missionary Review of the World — August 1899
JAN H US, THE PRE ACHER OF PHAG
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: Old Series. I AUGUST. New Series. VOL. XXII. No.8. f { VOL. XII. No.8.
THE WOl{LD'S }IISSIONARY CONFERENCE OF 1900.
llY THE EDIT()R-I~-CHIEF.
One of the grandest gatherings of the ages is already convokt for the closing year of this century, in the metropolis of the Western world, a notable conference of Christian workers from all parts of the earth, such as has never been seen before on a scale of like magnitude.
This Ecumenical Council on foreign missions, which is to convene in the city of New York for twelve days, beginning April 21, will, in many respects, have hall no ri val in all church Jouncils, for its main features are unique. It will not only be of intense interest tv every denomination of disciples, and to every society of missions throughout Christendom, but it will be composed of representatives" from every nation under heaven," and its constituency will, therefore, span the oceans and link the continents. Protestant missions from sunrise to sunset, and from equator to poles, will send <lelegates. No other council of the church has had equal importance, perhaps, since that of Nice, in 325 A. D., where 318 bishops assemble<l; where Constan" tine was present, and where Arius and Athanasius met as for deadly encounter, like antagonists in the ancient arena. In modern days the nearest approach to tbis projected gathering was the memorable conference in Exet,w Hall, London, twelve years before, at which 1,500 delegates were present; but in 1900 twice as many are expected to meet.
Now is the time, and the only time, for preparation, and the sole purpose of this paper is to contribute, if possible, some humble hints toward the success and efficiency of this noble convocation. The writer, having been a "delegate-at-Iarge" from hi8 own land to the council of 1888, the experience of that meeting has led to the suggestions that follow. Any methods or measures then found helpful * This periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Association and the Philological Society of England :-Change d or ed final to t when so pronounced, except when the e aJIects a preceding sound.- PuBLISHERS.
THE WORLD'S MISSIONARY CG.'FERENCE OF 1900
naturally prompt a like course for its success '1', and if there were any errors in plan or performance then, it is obvious they ought to be avoided; in a word, the conference of 1900 ought to stand upon the shoulders of that of 1888, and excel it in every particular. We should aim at making this new gathering like the ointment of the apothecary, and not only see that there are no "dead flies" in it, bu t no lesser hindrances to its holy savor-nothing to mar its fulne8s of blessing, perfect peace, wise conduct, and permanent power.* Much depends on the choice of chairmen. A presiding officer may not only lead on, but lift up a whole assembly. His tact and talent, decision and devotion, are the hinges and pivots on which the meeting turns. He may help or hinder business, create or disentangle perplexities, bring order out of chaos, or he may almost bring on the reign of chaos itself. We have all seen a skilful and devout moderator unravel the skein of confused and contradictory motions, stimulate prayerfulness and patience, and promote harmony between brethren, and accord between the assembly and the mind of the Master; and we have known others to embarrass, obstruct, and delay the whole proceedings. No chairman knows, perhaps, how much hangs on his action or inaction; even his voice, glance, tone, gesture, manner, unconsciously influence a throng. Debate may run wild because he knows not how to hold the reins, and the whole business drag because he can not handle the whip. A man who lacks self-poise, or prompt decision and energetic action, can not expect to hold the balances of an excited assembly, or promote the speedy progress of affairs toward a right goal. To put any man In the chair who, whatever his personal merit or social standing, is unfit to guide a deliberative assembly, is to put him in the wrong place, where he can neither do good to his brethren nor do credit to himself, for the one criterion in such choice is capacity to manage a meeting. The chair is not a mere seat of honor for a popular idol, but a throne of power for a born king who can hold and wield a scepter. We remember one case in which, in Britain, the presiding officer, tho a lord of the realm, was a hopeless stutterer, and his vain attempts at introducing speakers and putting motions were irresistibly funny, and kept even serious people in a tit· ter. This, tho an extreme case, illustrates the principle that fitness must determine all such selection.
In a sense, there should be but one acknowledged presiding officer, for the first of all conditions of power is the presidency of the Holy' Spirit. Upon no matter would we lay greater stress than upon the need of care that, from first to last, every step be under the distinct guidance of the Spirit of God.
* We refer the reader to the opening pages of the June number of 1889, and a paper taking a retro"pect of the conference of 1888, in which several mistakes are pGinted out, not needful to repeat here. In the "Acts of the Apostles" the first recorded act seems to be rather Peter's act than one of the acts of the Spirit. The election of Matthias was in advance of Pentecost. Christ's last admonition was "wait for the promise of the Father," and His last assurance was, "ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." If the Spirit were needful for witnessing, how much more for business so solemn as the choice of a new apostle! Is it not possible that Peter, instead of waiting to be endued with power from on high, acted in the energy of the flesh; and that, if he had" tarried" for ten days, this step would never have been taken? Matthias does not seem to have been chosen of God, and after his election we hear no more of him; but God had a "chosen vessel" in Saul, who seems more hon- ored in the New Testament narrative than any other man. Moreover, the mode of Matthias' election left no chance for a discovery of God's will. The lot was resorted to-never again to appear in the New Tes- tament- and the question was not raised whether the Lord would have any man chosen, but which of the two-in a sense, compelling an apparent choice of one of them. And again, the standard of fitness announced by Peter proved not to be the standard according to which Saul of Tarsus was selected-that he must have been, from the bap- tism of John until then, one who had companied with them.
There is here a possible lesson of great importance. It warns us that even in a solemn proceeding we may move in advance of God's Spirit. Delegates may be chosen to this conference by the voice of man, whom God neither chooses nor recognizes. Proceedings may be prefaced with prayer, which are not in accord with God's mind, and have no real blessing. Resolutions may be carried and votes taken that receive no Divine sanction, and produce no spiritual fruit in the churches. How different the vision of God's own dealing in Saul's conversion (Acts ix), and his calling to missionary service (Acts xiii). In the latter case it is the Spirit who calls by name and sends forth His chosen missionaries, and the Church, whJse dull ears are made sharp by fasting and prayer, hears, and heeds, and obeys the higher call. And again (in chapter xv), how significant is that sentence which left a Divine seal on that first council's united action, "It seemed good TO THE HOLY GHOST AND TO US."
The supreme desire of all spiritual disciples is that this conference of 1900 may be the most Spirit-controlled body ever assembled since ·that council at Jerusalem. And, if this is to be the case, now is the time to insure such a result by a right beginning. Let those who send delegates send Holy-Ghost men and women. Let the standard of fitness be not learning, wealth, fame, social rank, or ecclesiastical position, but spiritual life and power. Let those who are arranging the program seek persistently to know and follow the Spirit's leading in even the smallest detail-the themes, the speakers, the chairmen; the times and places of assembling, the service of song, how and by whom led, the public receptions, welcomes, farewells-everything planned under higher guidance. Then, from the opening session, let every effort be made to make real and constant the sense of the Divine presence, in comparison with which the most imposing royal personage sinks into insignificance. Constantine and Athanasius will be forgot- ten wherever God is felt to be present.
The importance of a fit chairman, already adverted to, is the greater, because the presiding officer strikes the spiritual keynote of the gathering. If he be lacking in keen spiritual perception-if his senses are dull, he will trifle when he ought to be serious, and be careless and thoughtless when he ought to be intensely and intently watchful. He will seek his own glory, and deal out those trashy compliments to speakers and hearers, which must specially grieve the Spirit of God, and in mallY other ways fail in his duty. To strike a false keynote is to risk the accord of the whole performance with the mind of God.
At the Liverpool conference of 1896, one young man presided throughout, and his manner of conducting the meeting was a study. He was like a deputy-pilot who simply stands by another whose hard is on the helm. In a country where there is an aristocratic govemment, and where such deference is paid to rank and station, there was absolutely no "court patronage:" the most distinguisht dignitaries of church or state might be present, but the chair was always occupied by that one" student volunteer," whose one thought was to be filled with the Spirit, and so guide the assembly. He made no attem pts at wit or smartness, indulged in no fine epigrams, no flattery of speakers; he had no air of self-importance. Donald Fraser uudertook for God, and lost sight of all else but the unseen Presence. And even when a large offering was askt for, he first for a half hour trained the collectors, lest there should, in the gathering up of pledges and money, be any unseemly anxiety or frivolity. It was a common remark that chairmanship so simple al'ld so successful had seldom if ever been seen, especially in great gatherings of young people. But the secret is an open secret: the chairman got in close touch with God and kept there.
There is no little risk of a loss of power in great gatherings-a risk run mainly in these three ways: e.l:ceiSS ~l1l/ecltanism in COJlduct of business, lack of spirituality (:f tone, and careless sacrifice of impression. In gatherings of a religions character, such risks are correspondingly fraught with peril, since higher results are at stake.
First, there may be too mechanical (t program. Too much may be embraced in the plan, for one session, so that. everything is crowded, confused, hurried; speakers are upset, and hearers wearied. One of the worst resorts of such meetings is the time limit-an invention of the 'devil-which, while it may stop some bores from turning their augers longer, a.lso stops some sages when just ready to utter wisdom's voice. Five-minute rules may befit machine-run meetings, but not Spirit-led assemblies. Truth lies in crystals, and crystals must be cleft according to the searns. Yon may pl1sh a bark canoe into the water quickly, but it can carry little freight, and will upset as easily; the great steamship that bears its thousands of tons of burthen, you can not launch in a moment. Many a man of power takes time to get undm' weigh, but, when he gets started, does weigh-there is weight in his words-while another who leaps promptly into the saddle of the subject, can not keep his se!J,t or lead on the host, but exhibits mainly his own weakness and nnwisdom.
To get as many subjects on a program, and as many speakers on a platform as possible, seems to be the object with some H committees," but, to a sagacious and spiritual mind, it must be obvious that quality is more important than quantity. One theme, well presented by well-chosen speakers, who have tiine enough to make all impressionthis is a fundamental principle for an efl'ecti ye public meeting.
l,ack (~( spiritual tone is most disastrolls. Whoever presides in a solemn assembly, and whoever is visibly present, there is One who presides in invisible Presence, and whom it is of the first importance to recognize. Everything should be done as before Him-the Master of assemblies. And the whole power of a conference will exactly be gauged by the measure in which the Holy Spirit"s presence becomes recognized, as real and actual. In a deep sense, the place may be shaken where disciples are assemhled, and all may be filled with the Holy Ghost. But not unless He is devoutly recognized as there, and unless everything is done and said with reference and deference to Him. Praise and prayer, the reading of the Inspired Word, and the use of the human tongue in speech-yes, even the silence, should be vocal with His inaudible utterance. And the thought of His Presence is the true impulse that is to forecast the whole program.
The risk of sacrificing irnpress1:on is, alas, too often recklessly run. In fact, few who, as committees or chairmen, control meetings, seem to have any sense of the danger, or the damage involved. In the late huge gatherings of the Church Missionary Society Centenary, a writer observes, that on one day when the rising tide seemed to reach its flood-mark-after Hubert Brooke and Evan Hopkins had led in their superb Bible readings on missions and prophecy·-after Macartney and Chavasse, and Bishop Knox and con verts from India had turned all eyes to the regions beyond-after Bishop-elect Peel, and Mr. Selwyn and Webb Peploe had lifted the thoughts and hearts of the vast throngs to three successively lofty levels, from" spiritual shortcomings " to "spiritual possibilities," and then to "spiritual determinations "-and when, for twenty minut.es, this last address had held the rapt attention, and a word of solemn prayer was the one and only thing needed to fasten impressions, an awful blunder was made, "another topic was introduced, and the audience were lost and never again regained." "Those last ten minutes," says the narrator, "were responsible for much." Much indeed-responsible for a swift ebb tide of impression, and a sacrifice of spiritual gains that only God can reckon.
And who that is in touch with God has not felt the vanishing of power, after a solemn sermon or address, when the" still small voice" of the Spirit has been heard-and just at that supreme moment of awful hush, when one ~eels that the Lord is passing by, and is moved to wrap his face in his mantle and stand in silence before Him-an aspiring choir or ambitious soloist bursts forth into a musical art display, or an irreverent organist conjures up some musical semi-operatic thunderstorm, to drown the quiet whisper of God!
One of the peculiar qualifications of a successful fisherman is delicacy of touch as he holds the net, to perceive the presence of fish, and know just how to manage the net, and when to close it and haul them ashore. There is a delicacy of spiritual touch that enables us to detect the Spirit's motions and follow His guidance. But how few ever learn that divine art!
It might seem intrusive to suggest topics for discnssion, seeing that so large and competent a committee is in charge. But there are some great practical questions which we hope may find a place on the program. Prominent among these are the following: The securing of a sound and ample financial basis for evangelization.
The svstematic education of the Church in the facts of missions. 'rhe r~vival of intelligent and concerted prayer for a lost world. The provision of cheap and first-class missionary literature. The best means for deepening spiritual life among missionaries. The promotion of cordial comity and cooperation on the field. The economical use of the working forces, without waste or overlapping. The expediency of industrial missions, and their best methods. The distribution of laborers over the whole world-field. The enlargement of the missionary force with adequate workers. The true conception and exhibition of unity among missionanes.
Of all these questions none is more weighty than the practical division of the world-field with reference to the speedy evangelization of the world in this generation.
There are other questions which can not well be avoided, tho we know not the shape they will take. For instance, the federation of Free Churches in Britain and their new catechism has a very manifest bearing on missions, especially on the visible unity of denominational effort, in doing away with sectarian strifes and even divisions. The question of Ritualism ought to have consideration, but it wouM need careful handling if strife is to be prevented. The attitude of Prot- estants toward Roman Oatholic missions is one of the most important matters needing adjustment, and it is one in which truth must not be sacrificed to a false charity. And so our attitude as Ohristians toward all other religions is a question now especially imperilled by lax liberalism. It is perhaps too much to expect a calm scriptural exhibit, such as at the recent Ohurch Missionary Society's double jubilee, of the relation of the Lord's coming to missions, altho that is the one supreme incentive in the New Testament, and is much clouded by prejudice and misapprehension. The relation of education and evangelization to the work of missions will probably come up in some form, and is very important, and the question of practicable links between individual missionaries and fields and. the home churches is now awakening wide attention.
If a word might be added, addrest especially to speakers, we would emphasize certain mistakes as always to be avoided. For instance the mistake of apolog.1f. In the majority of cases apologies are out of place. Time is worth too much to be spent in vain explanations and false humility. Self-depreciation is often both inappropriate and insincere. Moreover, if the apology be true· the speaker should not be making the speech, and, if untrue, he should not be making the apology. We have heard a man face a grand audience, when every moment is golden, and coolly state that he has had no time to prepare or is unfit to treat the subject-both of which statements become speedily but too obvious-when, if what he says he means, by all the laws of good sense and good manners, he should sit down and give place to some one who is competent and !tas prepared himself. We heard a man of some distinction, appointed to his duty months beforehand, insult his hearers by informing them that he had made no preparation until on his way hurrying to the meeting, and we all thonght so before he concluded. Let speakers give their hearers what has cost thinking and is worth thought, and then, without needless delay, plunge at once in medias res.
Another mistake is to bring in irrelevant matter, especially when brevity of time demands concentration and condensation. There is a great gulf fixt between having to say something and having something to say. Those who lay hold and keep hold of a throng are they who speak on the theme assigned, and strike a straight road to the heart of the subject. A vigorous mastery of any question commands attention. Matter, interesting enough in its place but foreign to the subject on hand, is H ruled out" by a thoughtful hearer, tho it may not be by a listless chairman. No man ought in a paper or address to ride his hobby, using his opportunity simply to inflict on a helpless audience some pet argument or theory or notion, having only a nomina} connection with the theme he is treating.
Sidney Smith denounced dulness in preaching as the crime against the Holy Ghost. He probably meant thE.t it is unpardonable to intrude and obtrude before a meeting what is not well prepared and is thoughtless and pointless. Platitudes are the plague of great assemblies. It should be a matter of conscience to spare no pains to get ready for an occasion on which depends such issues. It is not always the man who wants to be heard whom the people want to hear: there are many moths that fly about the flame only to hide the light and singe their own wings.
The mistake of sectarian bigotry is in snch a conference worse than a blunder-it is a crime. In an ecumenical gathering, all tribal standards must be forgotten, as we rally round the ark of God anti the banner of the Cross. Yet, even in the Exeter Hall conference, a few had to let the conference know that they felt it a condescension to be seen there, and it must not be interpreted as a concession, as tho they were abaudoning their "church" notions or admitting that all socalled Christians are on the right ground as to "apostolic succession. ,. A pity indeed to interrupt spiritual harmony oy ecclesiastical bigotry. Magnanimity is never more in place than ill snch fellowship, and intolerance and uncharity llowhere seem so pusillanimous.
Other suggestiolls occur to the mind, bu t these suffice. We have no disposition to intrude advice. But we feel jealous, and we hope with a godly jealousy, that this grand occasion and opportunity may be utilized to the full for God and Ilis cause. No words can justly express the possible outcome of such a conference, when the conditions of unhindered spiritual power exist. The uttermost parts of the earth should be constantly in view as the field to be tilled, and the uttermost bounds of time as the horizon of vision. '1'he atmosphere of prayer should be the element in which such a conference lives, moves, and has being. The Holy Spirit's nnseen presence should be devoutly recognized and the hush of God should be upon the assembly. If the delegates come np to the gathering as tribes to a solemn feast of the Lord-if the Lord himself is felt to be present j if all is done as in His sight j if the preparation of the heart and the answer of the tongue is from Him j if His wisdom guiues and His love su bdueswho can forecast the final outcome of such meetings! They may prove a latter rain of the Spirit, introducing a new era and epoch in history. Broken altars of God may be rebuilt, and thousands of slumbering fires Illay be rekindled upou them. 1Iore than this, there may be the new d0scent of fire from heayell-a consuming flame which shall both burll up the dross of our worldliness and selfishness, and compel an unbelieving world to confess, "Jehovah, He is the God."
JAN HUS: THE PREACHER OF PRAGUE
JAN HUS: 'fHE PREACHER OF PRAGUE.
BY REY. GEORGE H. GIDDINS, LONDON, ENGLAND.
Secretary of the Evangelical Continental Miss:onary Society; Author of "Paxton Hood: Preacher and Poet," "The Christ in the Canvas of Gustave Dore,n Etc" Etc.
Nqne of earth's rivers are fairer than the Rhine, the" Rhen Superbus" of the Romans, the "Figora Rheni" of Virgil, the" beautiful Rhine" of Shakespeare, the" Fleuve Unique" of Victor Hugo.
The classic and the romantic meet upon its shores. The picturesque in nature, the illustrious in history are linkt together. '1'he glories of wood and crag, vineyard and cornfield, grove and rock are woven with the mists of legend and the lore of poetry and song. We may read the history of ten centuries upon its shores, for what is history but the autograph of the ages, the rent in the arras, the time-stain upon the battlement?
On these banks we trace the foolsteps of Attila, Clovis, Frederick Barbarosa, Rudolph von Hapsburgh, CoosaI', Charlemagne, Charles Martel, Pepin Ie Bref, Lonis Ie Debollaire, Napoleon. Gunpowder was invented 011 one bank, alld the first printing-press was set up on the other. Old feudal times and ages of chi valry look out from ruined tower and turret at every turn. Battle bbsts have thundered here; here monarchs have been crowned and dynasties founded. It has heard the mutterings of the priestesses of Hertha and the Allah cry of the Moor. It has witnest the dread symbol of the Vehm-gericht and the feuds and follies of the Rosicrucians. It was the locale of a very witenagemot all through the Middle Age~. The crimson cross of the Crusader has been lifted among its hills. The Roman eagle has fluttered over it. The burden of " the solitary monk that shook the world," has been heard along its course. Every hill-top has been the theater of conflict of Hun and Goth and Frank. The palmer with his scallop-shell and sandalled shoon has wandered here. Romancers have tenanted every castled crag with wonder; painters have drunk inspiration from its beauties; poets have sung its praises in sweetest songs. Every ruined donjon, every grass-grown moat, every ancient chateau and decaying tower has its tradition of mystery and awe. Castle and cloister, once the abode of beauty and bravery, now desolate like the walls of Balclutha and the dwelling of Mona, have each their twilight-tinted dream-poem and legendary lore.
Every turn of the noble river reveals some feature of beauty. Here the hills rise abruptly from the brink, covered with vincs and crowned with some ancient abbey, from whose turret the sound of the compline ;'S borne n pon the evening air. Here a village nestles in a radiant valley, with its tiny church pointing its taper spire to the blue heavens, with morning shadows mantling it in violet clouds. Here the mists are lying in the valley; here, hanging on the mountain peaks, here the sun is glinting through the branches of the forest trees on the gloomy grandeur of some ruined tower, or "under the opening eyelids of the morn" upon the bursting buds of starry anemones, on asphodels 01' heather, on gentian or wild thyme. Here the wind is whispering among the lindens or sobbing among the pines. Here the lights, shimmering on the waters, announce some larger tOWIl, and at aJlOther turn on the quiet hillside, the dead are sleeping in "God's acre." Anon we glide by purple mountains, dotted with white chalets, great groves of oak or pasture lands, from which there floats the tinkle of the sheep bell or the blast of Alpine horn. Rose trellisses adorn the slopes of many a green hill, crowned ,~ith the mountain ash, whose scarlet berries are growing golden in the sun.
World-famous cities lie along its banks: Dusseldorff, the city of arts; Coblen tz, of fortresses; Cologne and Strasburg, the cities of the great cathedrals; Basel, with its university; Rotterdam, the city of Erasmus; Mainz, of Guttenberg; Worms, with its memories of Luther, and-Constance with those of Hus.
Beautiful is the blue Lake of Constance, girdled with mountains; reflected in its limpid waters the shadow of the antique city, its hoary dam, battered with the blasts of eight long stirring centuries, rising in its midst.
THE COUNCIL AT PRAGUE.
The venerable place was bright and brisk one morning in the year 1414, when a long procession entered its ancient gate. Along the narrow streets ill magnificent array there moved a mighty phalanx of notables of every ecclesiastical and civil grade; deputies from England, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, and Constantinople; the emperor of Germany, the sovereign pontiff, 2G princes, 140 counts, 20 cardinals, 7 patriarchs, 20 archbishops, 91 bishops, GOO deans and canons, doctors and theologians, and 4,000 priests. Ostensibly they had met to settle long existing disputes that had torn and rent the Catholic world, and to bring to a conclusion the disastrous schism that had scandalizec. the church for seventy years; in reality to silence the eloquent tongue of the great preacher of Prague. The simultaneous infallibility of three contending popes, each fiercely anathematizing the other, had sorely tried what little logic lingered within the one universal and indivisible church.
Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII. had each their partisans. A still more powerful faction had denounced them both and raised Balthazar Cossa to the pontifical dignity under the title of John XXIII. His nameless debaucheries, unblushing greed, and boundless ambition had, however, become notorious, and the power he had pUJ'ehast openly with moneys fraudulently acquired, was, at this synod, transferred to Otho Colonna, Martin V. In his person the disaffected factions were united, and the great schism came to an end. This was the one redeeming act of this significant council. What followed brought an undying infamy upon its name.
Throughout all Europe no country had become more educateti and enlightened than Bohemia, in whose capital the emperor:, Oharles IV., had founded the justly famous university.
The truths of Ohristianity had been early introduced into Bohemia by the Greek apostles Oyril and Methodius, and the Augnstinian, Oonrad, of Waldhausen; Jan Milicz, of Kremsien; Mathias de J anow, and Thomas of Stitny, had, by their preaching and teaching, prepared the way for that revival of the truth of which the little kingdom was to be the source and inspiration. Cyril and Methodius had tl:anslated THE K.AUFHOUSE AT CO!o:STANCE WHERE POPE MARTIN V. WAS ELECTED the gospels into the Slavonic tongue, and, in celebrating the services of the church, had employed the only language comprehensible to the 'people, to the small scandal of the Ohurch of Rome.
Peter Waldo and his disciples had settled in Bohemia with daring dreams of reuniting th(1 rituals of the Eastern and Western ch~lrches. The Waldenses, persecuted in France, seekin g a refuge on Bohemian soil, had brought the truth with them, and purity in their path. The 'risserands, the Albigenses, and the Cathari, mingled with the persecuted Vaudois, to whom the apostolic Claude had preacht the Gospel in the peaceful valleys of Piedmont, had all sought shelter here, and brought with them their faith, the heritage of brave traditions, the contagion d a pure religious zeal.
The man who should give definiteness to the vague !j.spirations and BIRTHPLACE OF .1AX HT·~ .AT HFSIl·EC.
dim dreams of the Czech people, was found in the person of Jan Hus (or John Huss), who was born in South Bohemia, in the town'of Husinec, near Prachatice, on July 6, 1369.
The little houso in which tho futuro reformer ilrst saw the light has braved the tempests of five hundred years, and stands as a monument to his unflinching faith. A small medallion of tho martyr has been placed upon its front, and beneath it may be read the words- jvIistr Jan Hus dU)' 8 CerV1~e, 136.9.
As is almost invariable in the case of the vast majority of men of mark, he was cradled in comparative indigence, and early we find him supporting himself, while studying in the elementary schools of Prague, by singing like another Luther, and performing lowly service in the church.
After passing through the lower schools he entered the faculty of arts in the uni"ersity of the capital. At the age of twenty-four he was performing the usual pilgrimages to the Prague ch urches on the occasion of the jubilee or great indulgence, and so extreme was his poverty that he was fain to live upon dry bread and part with his last four groschen for absolution after confession in the Church of St. Peter by the Vyssehrad. Three years later he took his degree of B. A., proceeding in another three to that of M. A, In 1401 he had reacht the highest position possible, that of rector of the university. A year before he had received priest's orders, and a year later past as bachelor of divinity. From the moment of his ordination he began to enter in earnest npon the duties of his high vocation, devoting himself almost exclusively to this. Throughout the whole course of his active life he appears to have been more of a plodder than man of brilliant genius; diligent, per- severing, earnest, and sincere, his one chief talent, amounting almost to genius, being that of capacit.y fol', and concentration in work.
The princess Helen Ghika says of him: "'fhe spirit of self-ahne- gation it is which characterizes Hus even more than his genius.
Calvin was more learned than he; Ln ther sUl'past him in f110quence; Zwingli was verst ill philosophical questions of which he was utterly ignorant. Hus's glory is in his martyrdom. Like the early Christians, he has triumpht in death. The flames of his funeral pile havc shone above the heads of succeeding generations, a consecrated light brighter than the sun. His ashes scattered to the winds have fertilized the soil of Europe, and Lefevre, Zwingli, Luther, were the offspring. The Christian Church has never had in its fold a more magnanimous shepherd. To the bold heart of Paul he united the angelic mildness of John and the burning zeal of Peter."
The old city of Praha, or Prague, founded by Libussa, the first duchess of Bohemia, is one of the most picturesque of all the cities of the Middle Ages; lying ill the valley alHl upon the genUe slopes of hills which quite encircle it, watered by the Moldau. and full of those antique remnants of quaint timber·fronted houses and gothic churches, such as meet us in Rauen, Lubeck, or Bruges. The city is filled with ecclesiastical edifices, having no less than fifty churches, twenty-two chapels, seven convents, and eleven syna- gogs. Of the former the most famous is the Teyl1 Kirche, on the Grosser Ring, the ancient Hussite church with its monu- ment of Tycho Bruhe, the Danish astron- Oilier, and on its far;ade the great statue of the V i l' g in replacing the Hussite's famons symbol of the chalice; and the great cathedral of St.
Veit, the resting-place of St. Adalbert, St. Well- ceslas, St. Veit, and the so-called remaillS of the fictitious St. Jan Nepo- muc, the city's patron, TEYN KIIlCHE, PRAGUE1 WHERE BUS PR"~AC HT. entombed within a mas- sive ~ilver shrine, of the In front of this was the Grosser Ring, where be was burned at the stake. latter. In the dismal and dirty Ghetto, is the oldest synagog in Europe, with its adjoining and world-famous cemetery. Its university, founded in 1348, the oldest in the Fatherland, after the plan of that of Paris, with its fonr "nations," Bohemians, Saxons, Bavarians, and Poles, numbered no fewer than thirty thousand students, until the expulsion of all others than the Czechs led to its gradual diminution and the founding of the universities of Leipsic, Heidelberg, and Cracow. Not only is Prague a city of churches; noble palaces, venerable halls, and splendid statues aro met with at eyery tnrn. Here are the Konigshof, the rmoient palaoe of its kings, the Czernin'sohe .Majoratshaus, the palaces of Steinberg, Nostitz. Kinsky, and Wallenstein, and the remains of the old Acropolis on the IIradschin. Here, too, is the Rathhaus, where in 14U) the citizens, commanded by the intrepid Zisca, after a fierce attack set the IIussite prisoners free; and now its council chamber adorned by the noble picture of the trial of Jan Hus in tho cathedral of Constance, by the patriotic Bohemian pain tel', Vaclar Brozik. When the first Edward of England died he left commandment that his unburied bones should 1>e carried at his army's head until Scotland was suLdued. The gallant Zisca left his skin as·a legacy to his Czechish braves, ordering that it should be tanned and converted into a drum to sound the battle march of freedom over the Bohe!nian fields.
Upon the famons Karlsbrucke, spanning the Moldau, are the statues of thirty saints, the principal of which, the city's patron, Jan of Nepomuc, the mythical confessor of the queen of King Wenceslus, who, for refusing to betray the secrets of the confcssional, was thrown from this bridge into the lfoldan, was drowned, but miraculously refused to sink, and aronnd whose brow, so legends tell, five stars were seen to shine. On every statue of the saint fiye stars are fOllnd, and many a veritable statue of Jan lIus has been transformed into Jan Nepomuc by the simple addition of this diadem.
Not the least significant of the many relics of the ancient city is the marvelously beautiful miniature in the University Library, which illustrates an old Bohemian Cantionale, and dated 1'752. It is in the form of three medallions. In the first the English Wiclif is striking sparks from out a stone. In the seeond the Bohemian lIns is kindling coals. In the third the German Luther is lifting high a blazing torch. 'rhat spark that was wafted across the sea and over the mountains and valleys of France, was borne to Hus; with it he lighted the coals upon the altars of his country, and right manfully he fanned "them into flame.
The first clerical duties of Hus in Prague were performed in the Church of St. Michael, where, as a preacher, he soon became conspicuous.. so much so that John of Milheim, through the inflnence of Kriz, presented him to the preachership of Bethlehem Chapel, in suecession
A ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW OF MISSIONS IN CHINA
to Jan Protiva of N ovaves and the Cistercian Jail of Stickna, the specific duty of which office was the preaching twice daily, on every Holy Day, except in Lent and Advent, in the Bohemian tongue.
This Bohemian, or Czestro-Slavonic language, had, thanks to the unremitting energies and daring genius of Stitny, risen to a high rank among the spoken tongues of Europe. Possest of exceeding elasticity, and cultivated to a lofty excellence, it lent itself readily to the work of popular address, and through this medium the sensibilities of a highly sympathetic and impressionable people were easily enkindled and aroused. This and the sterling character of the teaching of that noble university which had been founded by the son of the blind olJ warrior king, who fell at Crecy, conduced in no inconsiderable degree to the speedy successes of the reformer's labors.
(TI) be continued.) A ROMAN CA'rHOLIO VIEW OF CHINA AND OF MISSIONS IN CHINA.
BY ROBERT E. SPEER, NEW YORK CITY.
The missions of the Roman Catholic Church in heathen lands are more or less shrouded in mystery. It is difficult to get full and reli able reports of the number of missionaries, of the number of converts and native workers, and of the work itself. It is easier to obtain such information, to the extent to which it is obtainable, in other languages than English. There are onlightening accounts of the travels of Catholic missionaries, like Abbe Huc's books, and some invaluable records of missionary devotion and success, like Father Wallays' history of the" Missions Etrangeres," but little is obtainable in English descriptive of the present extent and methods of Catholic missionary work. And the traveler in Asia, at least, who tries to inform himself of the character and plans of the work, while meeting sometimes those who will lay it bare before him frankly, especially if he can speak French or can appear as a Catholic sympathizer, will still often meet with a secretiveness which makes him anxious for fuller and more specific knowledge.
" Another China," described as "Notes on the Celestial Empire as Viewed by a Catholic Bishop," meets such a want as this. Monseigneur Reynaud, its author, is vicar apostolic of the district of Che- Kiang, with residence at Ningpo, and tho his notes were written in French they have been translated and pnblisht in English by a Catholic hand. Monseigneur Reynaud's view of the Chinese, his account of the Catholic missionaries and their work, and his opinion of the work of the Protestant missionaries, are all of the greatest interest. It is a very kindly and charitable view of Chinese character which appears in this book. The Chinese are spoken of as "those generous and upright beings who, led away by error, are yet sighing for happiness." If it is characteristic of the Catholic missionaries, it does them credit. Monseigneur Reynaud points out the significance of the fact that the Chinese language is such a rich language in moral maxims, and that while the life of the people is quite inconsistent with the ethics of their maxims, there is yet in the latter a real preparation for the teaching of Christianity. There have been those who regarded the language and these beautiful sayings as the very illventions of the devil to obstruct the acceptallce of the Gospel. But this bishop says: The daily language of the Chinese is full of pl'Overbial sayings, which are in constant use among them, praising virtue and condemning vice. Some of them point out the vanity Df worldly honors, the con- tempt of riches, the avoidance of pleasures that entail so much misery, the horror of injustice, the effects of anger and impatience, the folly of pride, the iniquity of slander, the shortness of life, and so on. Others inculcate love of virtue, practise of good works, esteem of wisdom, patience in troubles, forgetfulness of injuries, fidelity, gratitude, humil- ity, and good example. The proverbs having reference to charity are particularly expressive and beautiful, and it is to be desired that our missionaries should make great use in their sermons and instructions of these axioms, in which may be heard distant echoes of passages in the Gospel. . The language of an entire race can not be one universal falsehood, and these moral notions, so often repeated, must be esteemed by individuals even if they do not always follow them; and such clear ideas of good and evil can surely be no obstacle to their conversion.
Of the people Monseigneur Reynaud uses such adjectives as intelligent, skilful. sobel', hard-working, patient, persevering, enduring, very subtle, keen, prompt, precocious, artistic, expert in farming, simple, practical, frugal. thrifty; but he must speak also of their Incredible ingenuity at deception. Calm and good-tempered. when not roused to fury or panic. the Chinese take everything as it comes; and men as they are, and actuated by their philosophy of practical common sense, they are not disposed to be ruffled by disappointments. This apparent apathy concealing powers of much passive resistance, rendere the Chinese dangerous sophists, for possessing full control of their feelings, they are not carried away by heat of discussion; they avoid all weak points in their arguments, and discuss the most burning topics with a blandness and subtle irony peculiar to themselves. According to the Chinese, well-bred people, if they do disagree, should explain themselves calmly and politely, while invective and threats (at which, however, the Celestials can be great adepts), are considered to indicate want of dignity and strength of mind, besides being a sure sign of defeat.
National spirit, Bishop Reynaud thinks, as understood by the Chi-, nese, exists chiefly among the literati, while" among the common peo- ,pIe no thought is given to patriotism," and tho possessing a certain degree of conrage, it seems to be more negative than active. Of the position of women in China, he says: The Chinese have the utmost respect for the proprieties of social intercourse, in which great reserve is maintained between men and women. It is really surprising to see such strictness and decorum, and absence of familiarity in the manners of a heathen nation. The women are remarkably modest in all their actions; they rarely speak to the men, and are satisfied with the society of people of their own sex, even when there are family gatherings; and, as it has already been observed, the Chinese are scandalized by the very different manners of the Europeans, which, in their eyes, appear to be exceedingly frivolous and indecorous.
At the same time'" Protestant evidence, but none the less valuable on that account," is cited to the effect that- The state of degradation to which heathenism has brought the women and girls of China is truly pitiable. The higher classes are secluded in their own homes, just as in India, and spend miserable, aimless lives, almost their only occupation being smoking, drinking tea, and embroidering tiny shoes for their poor crippled feet. You rarely find one among them who can read, or is in any way educated.
Of the mandarins and literati, Monseigneur Reynaud has no kind words to say.
There are two rlistinct Chinas, the official China, composed of liter- ati and mandarins, and the China of private individuals. The first deserves all the reproaches heapt upon it. Altho the Chinese code of law is remarkable for its wisdom and its equity, it is a mere col- lection of beautiful maxims, as all legislation is left to the sweet will of the corrupt mandarins, who make a regular traffic of justice.
The Chinese, while stoically enduring these e.xactions, heartily despise the mandarins and their satellites, who are really responsible for the abuses that so forcibly strike Europeans.
Aud most of the obstacles to the conversion of the Chinese are attributed to "the hatred of the mandarins, the calumnies of the literati, and family persecution."
On the native priests as severe judgment is past as upon the mandarins: The bonzes, as I know them in the province of Che-Kiang, ought not to inspire us with any serious apprehensions. Their bad reputation injures their influence, and their laziness interferes with their zeal. Their vocation is simply a trade, and they live by the altar, as a work- . man lives by his tools. Their services are indeed believed in and paid for, but their conduct wins them much contempt.
This is the opinion exprest also by such fair writers as Eitel, who says: The priests are mostly recruited from the lowest classes, and one finds among them frequently the most wretched specimens of humanity, more devoted to opium smoking than any other class in China. They have no intellectual tastes, they have centuries ago ceast to cultivate the study of Sanskrit, they know next to nothing about the history of their own religion, living together mostly in idleness, and occasionally going out to earn some money by reading litanies for the dead, or acting as exorcists and sorcerers or physicians. No community of interest, no ties of social life, no object of generous ambition, beyond the satisfying of those wants which bind them to the cloister, diversify the monotonous cnrrent of their daily life.
And of Ball, who declares: "The priests are ignorant, low and immoral, addicted to opium, despised by the people, held up to contempt and ridicule, and the gibe and joke of the populace."
An interesting chapter is given to Chinese charitable institutions, hospitals, and homes for animals, orphanages, almshouses, asylums for widows, dispensaries, and homes for old men, which is closed with tho true paragraph: Tho it may surprise our readers to hear of such beneficent associations among pagans, they should not leap to the conclusion that China is a land of milk and honey, where every unfortunate creature may be sure of aid; for these charitable institutions are deplorably mismanaged. Great is the robbery and waste by rapacious underlings, not to mention the utter carelessness and the various abuses to be found in these Chinese establishments, thereby forming a striking contrast to those of our missions, to the wondering admiration of the natives. StilI these good works prove that there is some feeling of philanthropy among these people, and everywhere the missionaries constantly meet with souls, who, as Tertullian would say, are" naturally Christians, since they can comprehend the spirit of charity."
The contact of Western irreligious civilization with the Chinese seems as objectionable to this Catholic missionary as it does to the Protestants, and he calls the treaty ports "real sinks of iniquity, attracting the wicked and corrupting the good;" and proceeds: The contact with Western civilization seems to turn the head of the ordinary Chinese, who imitate European defects in addition to their own vices. Nowhere are there men so absurd, more arrogant and insupportable, than certain Celestials in foreign employment. . . . Infatuated with their own superiority, the Europeans are often blind to the good qualities of the Celestials, whom they offend by displaying open contempt of the natives and "their habits; while, on the other hand, the sad samples of our civilization often seen at the ports, are not likely to excite in the minds of the natives respect or admiration for modern progress. The Chinese are heathens who have not had eighteen centuries of Christianity to civilize them; but it must be admitted that with all their errors and vices, they have not fallen as low as other nations. For instance, many of the reproaches addrest by St. Paul to the Romans, would n~t be brought by him against the inhabitants of Chiua, were he now to visit it. We may go further, and say that the corruption existing in China is less deep-seated and less visible than in certain of our Western cities, the scandal of which would bring a blush to the cheek of a Chinaman, who is deemed to be so wicked.
The number of Catholics in China is acknowledged to be doubtful, but Mr. Kelly, the editor, says: "If we might hazard a guess as to the actual truth of the question, probably we might place the number of Catholics in China proper at three-quarters of a million." He computes the annual number of conversions to be rather more than 10,000, not including those who receive baptism by deatll. The following" outline of the Oatholic propaganda" in the provillce of Ohe- Kiang, is given and declared to be representative of the work throughout Ohina: Che-Kiang was, in 1551, a portion of the diocese of Macao, the Portuguese settlement near Canton, but in the next century it was made a vicariate apostolic with three other districts (1639). Thirty-five years later we find Che-Kiang a vicariate in itself, until 1790-1830, when it was joined with that of Kiang-si. In 1846, these vicariates were separated again under different bishops, and there has been no subsequent change in this division. In Che-Kiang the missionaries are chiefly Lazarists or Vincentians, and in 1896 there were in the vicariate 10,419 Catholics, 1 bishop, 13 European and 10 native missionaries, and 5 native theologICal students, among a population presumed to be over 23,000,000 heathens and 5,359 Protestants. There are 35 Sisters of Charity, 29 Virgins of Purgatory, and 38 Catechists, including schoolmasters and mistresses. The Sisters of Charity in the province of Che-Kiang have the care of a large number of hospitals, orphanages, and similar institutions. They courageously compete with the Protestant ministers, some of whom being physicians, also have hospitals, and visit the sick in their homes, striving by this powerful means to push on their own work. The Sisters, comprehending the far-reaching consequences of this enterprise, carry out their visitations of the sick with the utmost zeal and success, and even influential families, including those of the mandarins, apply to them for their remedies and care. The Sisters can go where they please, and are invited into the houses of rich and poor, where they nurse an immense number of pagans, and baptize every year over 3,000 dying children. Even the ferrymen will refuse to take a fee from the Sisters, so much are they loved at Ningpo and elsewhere.
Such is the brief preliminary outline of the Catholic propaganda as it exists in a single diocese of China. From this basis, it will be possible to calculate in some way the vast work which is carried on throughout the empire, in which there are (in China proper, without including the dependencies), 27 such districts, each with its own bishop and staff of clergy, besides four districts which are differently organized. The diocese of Che-Kiang may be considered in a certain sense as a typical one, inasmuch as it stands midway, in numerical importance, between the very large and the comparatively small divisions. It may be useful here to give a few statistics relating to the largest vicariate, that of Kiang- Nan (Nan-Kin), which is under the Society of Jesus. In the year 1892, it boasted no less than 96,382 Catholics, with 128 priests, 32 seminarists, and 177 nuns. There is one other Jesuit mission, that of South Pe-Tche-Li, which is smaller than Kiang-Nan, but is yet among the most flourishing dioceses. There are six Lazarist missions, including that of Northern Pe-Tche-li or Pekin, and the Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians are also well represented. Most of the missions are French; others hail from Belgium, Italy, and Holland. Mr. Kelly says there is but one English-speaking priest in China, the Rev. John McVeigh, of Peking. This may be true, but a brother, whom I understood to be a priest, and who spoke English excellently, took me over the large Catholic establishment at Shanghai, in the summer of 1897, and told me that there was one priest there from America also, the only American among the Catholic missionaries in China. There is one English sister, I know, in Monseigneur Reynaud's episcopal city.
Of the character of the Catholic Christians, Mons. Reynaud speaks with unwavering confidence. "When we consider their sincerity," he says; "when we consiller that at the call of grace they have trampled under foot all human respect, and have voluntarily exposed, and do expose, themselves to insult and perseeution, how can we imagine China to be a country invincibly opposed to the progress of religion and the ethics of the Gospel?" He defines the kind of conversion at which the Catholie missionaries aim, as meaning" not merely passing from one altar to another, but also including a complete change of life along with a change in one's beliefs." At the same time Bishop Reynaud believes in conversion en masse.
I will proceed to deal with an assertion sometimes made, namely, that conversions en masse are no longer possible in China. Now the falsity of this statement can be best contradicted by events that occur in this very province, where on all sides we are invited into large villages, and deputations are sometimes sent to us by entire cantons. Overwhelmed by these petitions, my own missionaries no longer suffice for the work, and on all sides they are begging for helpers.
Some might skeptically wonder whether these village movements are such spiritual movements as are represented. Protestant missionaries are meeting constantly with such appeals, which spring not from religious interest but from desire to have the powerful help of missionary influence in Chinese lawsuits. Loeal mandarins fear appeals to Peking, and the prospeet of missionary intervention seeures for a litigant in a Chinese court consideration which unassisted he would never receIve. 'rhis danger is reeognized elsewhere in this book: Of course, we may have careless or even vicious people, but sooner or later they turn over a new leaf; while apostasy is a rare occurrence, as everything is done to test the reality of each conversion, and no pains are spared for the instruction of the catechumens. In a land like China, where abuse of authority, bad administration, love of litigation, and a ven6"eful spirit are rife, if we were to open our doors to everybody, we should quickly be overwhelmed, and our whole time absorbed in settling the quarrels of the people. Moreover, there is the danger of unwittingly posing as champions of unjust causes, besides the risk of opposition to the mandarins, who, at best, barely tolerate us. Religion also would suffer, as the converts would be accused of interested motives in joining us. Hence it is very necessary to be most particular in the admission of catechumens, and to reject all who come to us with lawsuits. Before pagans can be inscribed as catechumens they must renounce all superstitions, destroy their idols, begin to learn the catechism and their prayers, and to live as if they were already Ohristians.
But elsewhere Mons. Reynaud recognizes the part played by Catholic missions in political intervention. "Settling local difficulties" is spoken of as one of the duties of catechists, and the missionary "must settle various difficulties that always arise among the converts, such as family persecution and worries of all kinds, while the mandarins are always ready to complicate the simplest cases; so that a missionary must be kept stationary a long time by one piece of business." It is recognized also that in some places the Catholic missionaries assume the rank of mand~rins. It is not stated, tho it might truthfully be admitted, that sometimes they usurp the functions of Chinese magistrates. It was against the common practise of the Catholic missionaries in these regards that the Chinese government protested in the circular issued in 1871, saying: Oases for litigation between Ohristians and non-Ohristians are under the equitable jurisdiction of the authorities, and can not be left to the patronage of the missionaries. In the provinces the mission- aries make themselves the advocates before the local authorities, of the Christians who have suits. "'Titness that Ohristian woman of Sze-Ohuen, who exacted from her tenants payments of a nature which were not due to her, and ultimately committed a murder. A French bishop took upon himself to address a despatch to the authorities in order to plead for the woman, and procured her acquittal. This deed aroused animosities among the people of Sze-Ohuen, which have lasted to this day.
The missionaries ought to observe Chinese customs, and to deviate from them in no respect; for instance, they ought not to make use of seals, the use of which is reserved for functionaries alone. It is not allowed them to send despatches to a yamen, whatever may be their importance.
If, however, for an urgent matter it should be absolutely necessary to write, they may do it, but taking good care not to speak of matters beyond the subject, and making use, like people belonging to the class of literates, of the ping-tieh (petition). When the missionaries visit a great mandarin, they must observe the same ceremonies as those exacted from the literates; if they visit a mandarin of inferior rank, they must also conform to the customary ceremonies. They must not unceremoniously go into the yamens and bring dis:Jrderand confusion into the affair.
The French bishop, ~Ions. Pinchon, in a letter which he sent to the authorities, made use of an official seal manufactured by himself. . .
Mons. Faurie, bishop of K wei-chow, handed to the officer charged with the remission of the letters of the government a despatch to the address or the yamen, to ask that marks of distinction should be accorded to a Taoutae, called To-Wen, and to other persons besides. In Shantung a missionary past himself off as hsiun-fu (provincial governor). In Sze- Ohuen and Kwei-chow, missionaries took upon themselves to demand the recall of mandarins who had not arranged their affairs to thei.r satis- faction. So it is not only the authority of simple functionaries that they assumed, they claim further a power which the sovereign alona possesses.
After such acts, how could general indignation fail to be aroused? There has been much in the corrupt administration of officials to invite such intervention. Protestant missionaries have not been free from it, tho they have been much less guilty than Catholics. The consequences can not be discust here. It is enough to observe that Monseigneur Reynaud, who seems to carryon his work in Che- Kiang with as fair a spirit as possible, does not disavow this political interference.
Of course such interference derives its power from the possibility of the intervention of foreign governments. There are signs of restiveness on the part of some Catholic missionaries under the embarrassment of their relations to the French government, which has been their chief support. The consequences of the close relationship of missions with government they are coming to see. The Rev. L. E.
Louvet of the "Missions Etrangeres" wrote in Les Missions Catho- hques, June 26, 1891: Whence comes this obstinate determination to reject Christianity? It is not religious fanaticism, for no people are so far gone as the Chinese in skepticism and indifference. One may be a disciple of Confucius or of Lao-tze, Mussulman, or Buddhist, the Chinese government does not regard it. It is only against the Christian religion it seeks to defend itself. It sees all Europe following on the heels of the apostles of Christ, Europe with her ideas, her civilization, and with that it will have absolutely nothing to do, being, rightly or wrongly, satisfied with the ways of its fathers.
The question, therefore, has much more of a political than a religious character, or rather it is almost entirely political. On the day when intelligent China shrcll be persuaded that it is possible to be Chinese and Christian at the same time; above all, on the day when she shall see a native ecclesiastic at the head of the church in China, Ohristianity will obtain liberty in this great empire of 400,000,000 souls, whose conversion will carry with it that of the Far East.
The efforts of the missionaries should therefore be directed toward separating their cause entirely from political interests. From this point of view I can not for my own part but deplore the intervention of European governments. Nothing could in itself indeed be more legitimate, but at the same time nothing could be more dangerous or likely to arouse the national pride and the hatred of the intellectual and learned classes. In truth, even from the special point of view of the safety of the missionaries, what have we gained by the provision of the treaties? During the first forty years of the present century three missionaries only were put to death for their faith, after judicial sentence, viz.: The Ven. Dufresse, vicar-apostolic of Sechuan, in 1814; the Ven. Clet and the Blessed Perboyre, Lazarists, in Hupei, in 1820 and 1840. Since the treaties of 1844 and 1860, not a single death sentence has been judicially pronounced, it is true, but more than twenty missionaries have fallen by the hands of assassins hired by the mandarins. These were: In 1856, the Ven. Chapdelaine; in 1862, the Ven. Neel; in 1865,1869,1873, Mm. Mabileau, Rigaud, and Hue, in Yunnan. Did the treaties prevent the horrible Tientsin massacre in June, 1870, the murder of our consul, of all the French residents, of two Lazarists, and nine Sisters of Charity? Nearly every year Christian communities are destroyed, churches sackt, missionaries killed or maimed, Christians put to death. And when France protests against such outrages, she is answered by an insolent memorandum (1871) filled with calumnies against the missionaries and their works, and the chief of the embassy sent to Paris to excuse the massacres of Tientsin is the very man who directed them, and whose hands are still stained with the blood of our countrymen!
(To be continued.)
THE STUDENT MISSIONARY CAMPAIGN
THE STUDENT MISSIONARY CAMPAIGN.
BY .FENNELL P. TURNER, NEW YORK.
General Secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.
The Student Missionary Campaign is an organized effort of students (especially student volunteers) to carry their knowledge of, enthusiasm for, and consecration to foreign missions into the church through the young people's societies. The opportunity began to be fully realized in 1895. At the three summer conferences of that year about one hundred volunteers spent an hour a day in meetings especially designed to help them in presenting missions in the chnrches. Most of these gave two or more Sundays to such work during the vacation. Previous to 189fi-indeed, since the inception of the Student Volunteer Movement-volunteers have done much to disseminate missionary information, and to quicken the missionary conscience of the church. Not a few congregations and individuals have been led to undertake the support of missionaries on the field. Each volunteer workt on his own responsibility, and according to his own plans. There was no attempt to organize all the available students of a church, as is undertaken in the Student Missionary Campaign.
To fully understand this campaign we should keep in mind the following facts: 1. The inability of foreign mission boards to send out all the candidates who applied. One missionary seC! etary expresse£ it as follows: For more than three years the writer has been answering candidates for a ppointment to the foreign field by saying, "We have no money with which to send out or support new missionaries, except such as may be needed to fill vacancies occasioned by sickness or death."
2. The organization of the young people's societies had been perfected, but investigation proved that there was a woful ignorance of missions on the part of the membership.
3. The educational scheme of the Student Voluuteer Movement for Foreign Missions was working satisfactorily, and during the academic year of 1894-95 some 1,800 students had been eurolled in mission study classes. The knowledge of missions thus gained led volunteers to believe that much would be done toward the solution of the financial problem of missions if the membership of the young people's societies could be educated.
The first attempt so to organize the students was made in the Methodist Church of Canada. A missionary conference of students, held at Victoria College in March, 1895, determined u to inaugurate a missionary campaign during the summer months, to be carried on by each [Methodist] college student in !ds own neighborhood, in order to arouse an intelligent interest in missions." The plan was indorst by Dr. A. Sutherland, secretary of the Methodist Mission Board. During the summer of 1895 the Epworth Leagues of one district were united in an effort to raise the money necessary for the support of a missionary to be sent out by the Canadian Methodist Board of Missions. The motto of this forward movement was, " Pray, study, give."
For the summer of 1896 the work was better organized, and there was a larger number of workers.* At the end of the vacation a report of the work, showing that 517 meetings had been held, and that the Epworth Leagues of six districts had been led to undertake the support of missionaries, was submitted to the Board of Missions. The board adopted a resolution expressing "cordial sympathy with the students in their work, gratification with their desire to place the work under the direct control of the church through the board, and belief that the movement, wisely guided, will result in stimulating and developing widespread interest in missionary work among our young people, and in securing substantial additions to the income of the board." That resolution also provided that F. C. Stephenson, then a medical student, be appointed the corresponding member of the student missionary campaign, "to take charge of the work under the executive committee of the board." The report of 1898 showed that 678 meetings had been held; 564" Pray, study, give" bands formed; 320 Epworth Leagues promist to establish missionary libraries; 40 districts were organized; 17 missionaries and 11 native workers on the field are supported by the Epworth Leagues. In the United States the first organized work was that of the Mis- sion Band of Denison University, Granville, Ohio. It had its origin during the academic year 1894·-95 in a special effort to raise money to send a missionary back to her field. 'rhe students went by twos into the neighboring Baptist churches and raised the money needed. Their snccess led them to continue the work during the summer vacations of 1895, 1896, and 1897 among the Baptist churches in Ohio and West Virginia under the direction of the district secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union. t The last report shows that 209 churches were visited by members of the band, and there was an increase in the contribution of $638 from 10'/ churches.
A direct result of the work of the Denison Band in 1895 was that *The workers were instructed (1) to avoid making any charge for expense or work; (2) not to advocate the raising of money by any member or department of our church for missionary work not under the direction of the [Canadian] ~rethodist Church; (3) to organize bands for (a) daily prayer for our heathen brethren; (b) careful study of their need, and our relation before God to them; (c) systematic weekly giving toward the missionary cause. As guides and helps to the members of these bands, we to introduce (a) the pledge form of weekly giving; (b) the cycle of prayer; (c) the missionary literature publisht by our church; (4) to recommend that all missionary money must be sent through proper channels to the general secretary of missions, and avoid accepting any money for missionary purposes ourselves; (5) to distribute as much missionary literature as possible.
t Their method of work was as follows: (1) They were introduced to the churches by a letter or personal word from the district secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union; (2) they placed chief dependence upon public addresses rather than on personal work; they emphasized the scriptural basis of missions rather than the incidents from the field; (3) they took weekly pledges at the end of the service, leaving them for the church treasurer to collect and forward; (4) a responsible person already interested was secured to work ur subscriptions to the missionary periodical. of the Volunteer Band of Wooster University during the summer vacations of 1896 and 1897 among Presbyterian churches in Ohio.
They placed themselves under the direction of the chairman of the missionary committee of the synod, who secured the cooperation of the Presbyterial chairman, and he in turn the churches. In each church a missionary address was given, and a practical conference held with the missionary workers of the young people's society, at which was urged the importance of systematic giving, missionary literatUl'e, and prayer. At a meeting of the synod, held in October, 1896, a resolution was past indorsing the work and commending it to the presbyteries. .
The beginning in the Methodist Episcopal Church was made by five members of the Volunteer Band of the Northwestern University, during the Christmas vacation of 1896. Five members of the bands of Northwestern University and Lawrence University workt in the Methodist churches in Wisconsin during the summer vacation of 1897.
During the Christmas holidays of 1897 the Northwestern Missionary Band visited twenty churches in Northern Illinois. But the Student Missionary Campaign in the Epworth League, in the Methodist Epis- copal Church, was not definitely organized until the summer of 1898, when the General Cabinet of the League, through the first vice- president, Rev. William 1. Haven, D.D., issued a call for one hundred volunteers to go out from the Methodist colleges, and to spend a month in systematic visitation of the Epworth Leagues in the interest of foreign missions. Mr. W. W. Cooper was appointed business manager. At the request of Dr. Haven and Mr. Cooper, Mr. Fletcher S. Brockman, one of the secretaries of the Student Volunteer Move- ment, was directed to seek out men in the colleges who would be suitable for the work, and to conduct conferences for the training of the workers in various educational centers. During the spring of 1898 he conducted seven training conferences, open to students of all churches having a total attendance of 420 students.
In order to meet the need of a well-selected missionary library, suitable for young people and inexpensive, Mr. Cooper assumed the responsibility for the purchase of 500 libraries of sixteen volumes.
The books for the library were selected by the following committee: Dr. W. 1. Haven, Prof. S. F. Upham, Rev. Harlan P. Beach, Messrs.
F_ S. Brockman, and W. W. Cooper. 'rhe books were bound uni- formly and sold for $10, which was just one-half of the retail price.
In selecting and appointing the students who were to serve as campaign workers, the following points were emphasized: 1. Only those students were appointed who agreed to devote at least four weeks during the summer vacation to this work, to receive adequate training for the work, and who were indorsed by the presidents of their respective institutions. 2. The workers, who usually went out by twos, served without compensation. Each chapter of the league visited, provided entertainment and proportionate amount of the traveling expenses.
3. In a visit of two days the workers were expected: (1) To organize a missionary committee; (2) '1'0 plant a missionary library; (3) To arrange for a missionary study class; (4) To secure signatures to a systematic-giving pledge-card when, in the opinion of the pastor, this would be advisable.
From the beginning the interest of the students in the campaign was great, and as a result of the 'invitation, over 160 workers, representing twenty-three institutions, accepted the conditions and were enrolled as student missionary campaigners. In 90 days the campaigners visited 1,000 young people's societies, and addrest 100,000 persons. Forty-four missionary committees were found, and 600 were organized. In the 1,000 societies there were but ten missionary libraries; 650 were sold (lO,400 volumes of fresh missionary literature). Eight mission study classes were found; 300 were formed. Over 15,000 people were pledged to systematic giving for foreign missions. In response to questions askt concerning the value of the Student Missionary Oampaign by Mr. Oooper, replies from 176 ministers in fourteen States were received; 163 gave the work their unqualified indorsement, and only three did not approve. 'rhe missionary secretaries, Drs. Leonaru., Palmer, and Smith, wrote: The Student Missionary Campaign has proved a great success, and is, without doubt, the key to the situation in awakening missionary interest and establishing missionary methods among young people of the church. The plan of work and report of results during the past summer was presented to the general missionary committee at Providence in November last, and heartily indorsed by that body.
Mr. Brockman did not confine his efforts to the students of the Methodist Episcopal Ohurch, bnt enlisted as many students of other churches as possible. The most extensive work was done in the Presbyterian Ohurch in the U. S. A. (North) and in the Methodist Episcopal Ohurch, South, the plan followed being like that outlined above; the same library was used.
In the Presbyterian Ohurch in the U. S. A. there were six workers under the direction of the Woman's Board of the Northwest, spending about seyen weeks each; 318 services. were held in 97 churches; 161 practical conferences with missionary workers were held; 120 prayer cycles and year books of prayer were' introduced. Systematic giving to missions was adopted in 37 churches. In 16 Ohristian Endeayor Societies, missionary committees were organized; in 33, monthly missionary meetings were started; in 26, mission study classes were begun; 56 libraries (i. e., 896 volumes) of missionary literature were placed ill churches and societies; 1,127 homes were visited; 347 books were sold in homes by three workers; 419 subscriptions to missionary magazines were taken by four workers; nine societies, such as Young People's, Women's Missionary, etc., were either organized or reorgan- ized. One lady who had received a bequest was led to devote the income to the missionary cause, and this little gift will amount (annually) to several times the cost of the campaign. The Presbyterian Student Volunteers in Ohicago having brought the Student Missionary Oampaign to the attention of the secretaries of the Board of Foreign Missions, the board authorized the Student Missionary Campaign for 1899, with George L. Gelwicks, of McOormick Theological Seminary, as business manager. The secretaries of the board act as the advisory committee.
In the Methodist Episcopal Ohurch (South) the first attempt was made during the summer of 1898; Rev.. P. L. Oobb was appointed manager. Six of the men visited 113 Epworth Leagues and 45 churches which had no leagues, made 248 addresses, organized 121 missionary committees, placed 35 libraries (560 volumes), arranged for 93 mission study classes and 120 monthly missionary meetings. "These facts, and, better still, the permanent results," writes Dr. W. R. Lal~buth, secretary of the Mission Board, "are such that the secretaries of the Board of Missions are encouraged to extend the movement."
In the summer of 1898 five graduates of Yale University decided to defer for one year their theological courses, in order to spend the time conducting a missionary campaign among the young people's societies in the large cities of the United States. They were indorsed by secretaries of young people's societies and mission boards. They began work October 1, 1898, and on June 1, 1899, reported as follows concerning the work done: Seventy cities visited; 884 missionary meetings addrest; 364 missionary conferences held, at which 2,000 young people's societies were represented; 350 Student campaign libraries (16 volumes each), 10,984 missionary pamphlets, and 553 maps sold; 241 societies out of 875 reporting exprest intention of organizing a missionary committee; 757 of adopting a missionary prayer cycle; 674 of studying manual of methods (either "Missionary Spoke" or "Missionary Methods "); 579 of securing a library -large or small; 392 of organizing missionary study classes; 518 of adopting a systematic giving.
During the summer vacation of 1899 the Student Missionary Oampaign is in progress in the following churches: Methodist Church of Oanada, Methodist Episcopal Ohurch, .Presbyterian Ohurch in the United States of America (North), Methodist Episcopal Ohurch (South), Reformed (Dutch) Ohurch of America, United Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran Ohurch (General Synod), Baptist churches in Ohio, and the Oongregational churches. Not only have the secretaries of the boards of missions of the churches named cooperated most heartily in the campaign which is conducted in their own churches,
EVANGELICAT~ MISSIONS IN SPAIN
but the Student Missionary Oampaign has been indorst by the conference of officers of the mission boards in the United States and Oanada, as shown by the following quotation from a report adopted at their fifth annual meeting: 1Ve suggest that wider use may profitably be made of the Volunteer Bands by our boards as a valuable and efficient agency in quickening the zeal of our churches in this service, and leading them to recognize in the Movement, as they appear to have failed to do as yet, God's answer to their own prayers for laborers for the world's great harvest field, and His challenge to their greatest faith and consecration, and their enlarged and self-sacrificing Iiberality.
Mr. S. Earl 'l'aylor, the secretary of the campaign in the Methodist Episcopal Church for 1898, makes the following statement as to the possible results if the Student Missionary Oampaign be carried on in all branches of the church in the United States and Oanada: 1. The missionary committee will be organized in each congregation. The first responsibility of this committee will be to create and maintain missionary interest.
2. The missionary library, if carefully placed and used, will revolutionize the thought of our young people in regard to foreign missions.
3. Obedience to Christ's last command will react powerfully upon the spiritual life of the young people.
4. Personal contact with college students will awaken in many II heart a desire for better preparation for life work. Many will go to college as a result, and some will doubtless become student volunteers.
5. The youth of the land will receive training in systematic giving, and this, if generally adopted, will do much to solve the "money problem" in missions.
EVANGELICAL MISSIONS IN SPAIN.
BY MRS. CHARLOTTE FENN.
In September, 1868, occurred the most memorable of the many revolutions which have taken place in Spain. Remarkable for its suddenness, its universality, and its almost bloodless character, it was also unique in its results with regard to religious liberty.
Only a few years before that date several intelligent Spanish Protestants had been banisht for attempting to meet for quiet worship and Bible study in their houses. Two English missionaries, who had been endeavoring to spread the truth by distributing a few copies of one of the gospels, epistles, or a New Testament, be0ame painfully conscious that their steps were being watcht, and thought it wise to leave the country. Only an hour or two after they had crost the frontier an order to arrest them reacht the border town. In their absence they were condemned to nine years penal servitude. These facts plainly show the attitude of Spain with regard to the Scriptures and evangelical doctrine prior to 1868.
In God's providence, at that time, measures were taken to extend Madrid northward. Roads were cut through the large elevated piece of ground known as the QuemadeTo, or burning place of the Inquisition, exposing to view the long-buried remains of its victims.. 1'he sight of bones, singed hair, charred wood, and 'rusty chains, brought to mind most vividly the cruel work of "the Holy Office." The spectacle was used by the eloquent Dr. Echequerhay in a powerful harangue on religious intolerance in the Cortes, and led to an almost unanimous vote in favor of liberty of conscience and worship. This liberty was duly proclaimed by the new "provisional government." The banisht Spanish Protestants were at liberty to return" with their Bibles under their arms," and the country was open to all kinds of missionary work. The opportunity was speedily improved by the entrance of a few missionaries from Great Britain, Ireland, the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. These represented various bodies of evangelical Christians, so that in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Cordova, and one or two other important cities and towns, Gospel work was energetically carried on. Public preaching for some time was necessarily almost entirely in the hands of Spaniards, who had returned from banishment, until foreign missionaries had acquired sufficient facility in expressing themselves in the language to speak in public assemblies.
There was manifest a considerable amount of inquiry concerning the doctrines so new to almost all who heard the preaching, and a widespread curiosity as to what the" heretics" taught; and in the above-named towns meetings were very full until the curiosity wail somewhat satisfied, and a personal acceptance of the teaching or its rejection began to separate the different classes of hearers and thin the numbers. D. Antonio Carrasco and D. Francisco Ruet, both long past away, were the most sought after as preachers in Madrid at the beginning. Much was done by the missionaries in house to house distribution of portions of Scripture, the free distribution of tracts, and by the sale of books in fairs and markets in various parts of the country.
As education was in a low condition, ere long day as well as Sunday-schools were opened, and, when well managed and conducted by converted teachers, have had much success, affording opportunities for spreading the Gospel, both directly and indirectly, .far beyond what is generally supposed. The training of young women for school teachers in S. Sebastian has been an important part of the work of Mr. and Mrs. Gulich, of the American Board. Something has also been done in Puerto St. Maria in preparing young men for Christian work. This was under the superintendence of Dr. Moore1 from Ireland, until he was called up higher. Through the openings of God's providence, and the leadings of the Spirit, one of the centers of mission work of all kinds for twentysix years was just on the border of the Quemadero, in Madrid, to which reference has already been made. It has been a corner of the vineyard blest of the Lord. It is a populolls and growing district. Many thousands of children have been educated in the schools (which, for some years after their establishment, were supported by George Miiller, lately gone to his rest); large numbers of old and young have heard the Gospel, and not a few have accepted the good news close to the spot where, up to less than a century ago, men, women, and even children, suffereu martyrdom for their faith and their steadfastness in rejecting Rome's perversions of God's truth. A goodly number of the converts have already joined those martyrs in thr. presence of the Lord. Many are scattered over the country, as well as over other Spanish-speaking lands. God has taken to Himself him who labored there for many years, but the work goes on prospering under the superintendence of Mr. Charles E. Faithful.
It may be truthfully stated that, in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Saragossa, and a few other capitals of provinces, the knowledge of good news of a present and eternal salvation has been within the reach of all, altho comparatively few have availed themselves of their opportunities. It has also penetrated many smaller towns, and a goodly number of villages. Where the evangelist has not reacht, the colporteur has found his way and left some copies of the Scriptures, unless, as also is not unfrequently the case, contrary to law, he has been driven out by the local authorities. Among the poor, simple, honest people of the northwest there are many little churches of steadfast and often suffering Christians, old and young. The fishing town of Marin, and yarious approximate villages in Galicia are especially fruitfuL Through printed reports from the northeast we learn how the truth is spreading there through a variety of means.
I know of no place in Spain where the truth has been faithfully preacht by God's servants, whose lives have been consistent, without more or less fruit in conversions within a short space of time from its introduction; and while in no part has there been a striking general awakening, it is also true that in various places and times there has been a special gracious visitation of God's Spirit in connection with the ministry of the Word. It must not be imagined, however, that even after thirty years of liberty, the whole of Spain is being evangelized, for you may travel by rail one hundred, or even two hundred miles in variolls directions, without passing any town or village where evangelical work is being carried on, and it is increasingly difficult to open up new spheres for the following reason: From 1868, for a few years, there was much real liberty, and, as has been stated, some of the earliest workers began at 011Ce on entering the country to do something in the cities, while studying the lan- guage, by giving portions of Scripture from door to door, distributing Gospel tracts in the streets and roads, and by inviting the people to come and hear the preaching, and for one year preaching in the open air was tolerated; but, from the restoration of the Bourbons in the person of Alfonso XII., a reaction commenced, by which liberty was considerably curtailed. All sign-boards outside the "temples" (the official name for Protestant places of worship), or school-rooms, had to be removed or painted over, ar;d all aggressive propaganda apart from these buildings became illegal. No" public manifesta- tion" of the Protestant religion was henceforth permitted. These ambiguous terms left room for a variety of interpretations, according to the character of the government in power, or, in the provinces distant from the capital, according to the views of the local mayor. The missionaries have generally understood it in its most liberal sense, and have put their announcements inside the doors of their buildings, ~JUt visible from without, and from time to time have distributed to the public printed notices of meetings. Both foreign and Spanish Christians have done considerable tract distribution in town and country, and Sunday-school children ill some parts have walkt in file from their school-rooms to the "temple." Still, as the Jesuits have regained ground, there have been troubles in all evangelical centers or their offshoots, varying in character with places and circumstances. The greater the distance from the capital, the more frequent are the hindrances, and the more difficult to overcome. An appeal to the highest authorities in Madrid has often been successful in obtaining all the liberty the law allows; but even this has sometimes failed of late years, and the work in some parts has been stopt, and in others the attempt to commence has been rendered impossible.
In one case an architect was induced to pronounce the building either unsafe or not otherwise suitable for meetings, while in another the" temple" was so ecclesiastical in its structure that the principal entrance must be perpetually closed, lest" the faithful" should mistake it for a church, and the worshipers still have to enter by a more private door at the side. In yet another instance the local authorities wisht to widen the thoroughfare just where the Protestants had purchast a piece of land to build a simplc hall for meetings.
It is not at all an infrequent occurrence that a colporteur, properly licenst to sell books, is roughly treated, and ordered out of the place by the priest and mayor, and threatened with the burning of his books and the imprisonment of his person if he refuse to obey orders. Then, too, various poor Protestants in the provinces have been imprisoned for refusing to do reverence to the wafer god in the street or road. There is then sufficient evidence to prove that Rome only awaits her opportunity to repeat the persecutions of the Middle Ages. Yet, notwithstanding all these difficulties, aud added to them the universal excitement caused by the Cuban and Philippine rebellions, and the consequent war with the United States, there are not wanting in Spain inquirers after truth. Ears are open to hear and hearts to receive it in many parts of the country, and in most parts mission- aries are going 011 with their work as usual.
There is, however, a revived dislike to foreigners, especially those that belong to the Anglo-Saxon race. This apparently will be a hindrance for some time, yet God, in His wonderful providence, can even overrule this for the greater extension of the Gospel. May it be by means of the Spaniards themselves, endued with the power of God!
The question has often been askt, Are the profest Spanish converts consistent in their lives and persevering in their confession of Christ? This is all important question, for they are surrounded by opposing influences, and subject to petty persecutions and pecuniary losses by becoming Protestants. We have heard from workers, especially in the south of the country, some most discouraging experiences on both these points, and doubtless every missionary in every part has had some sad disappointments, and we certainly have not been exempt, for some have profest without possessing, and have fallen away either to return to Romanism or to their sinful habits, or both, while others have backslidden and been restored. But the number is by no means small of those whom the Gospel has thoroughly transformed, and who have steadily and steadfastly followed Christ in the midst of difficulty and even persecution. Listen to a carpenter preaching and telling the story of his own conversion j-how, more than sixteen years ago, he was arrested in his wild career of sin and folly; how he came to hear the preaching as to an entertainment, but went out convicted of sin and 'an earnest seeker of salvation; how he obtained pardon and peace, and with them power to live a llew life.
Here are two intelligent women – mother and daughter – who were among the early cOllverts, after the revolution. The elder daughters had been brought lip in a convent school till their mother heard and received the truth j but they also heard and Lelieved, and having learned the ways of the Lord through His word for fifteen and twenty-five years respecti vely, have had charge of evangelical schools and have taught in the Scriptures the thousands of children whom parents have put under their care. See those young mothers with their children. They were brought up in the day-schooL.;, and two or three of them as orphans, entirely under the care of the missionaries; they were early converted and are bringing up their children in a godly way.
Truly the Gospel is suited to every nation and people and tongue, and produces like fruit cyerywhere, even in those countries which for hundreds of years have been under the fearful spiritual bondage of Rome.
It muet not be forgotten, however, that, with the exception of those educated in our evangelical schools, the converts have much to unlearn as well as to learn. 'l'heir consciences, previously being (if working at all) under the power of their confessors and guided by their church, are not all at once educated according to the Scriptures and exercised toward God, and consequently, while there is much zeal and earnestness, at first for some time there are inconsistencies which would be altogether inexcusable in persons brought up under Gospel influences; but, generally speaking, indeed so far as we personally have observed, they are thoroughly separated from Mariolatry, saint image worship, and every form of idolatry, and the spiritually minded hate what they call the" smell of Rome."
One of the most difficult lessons for a convert from Romauism to learn, is to speak the truth, habitually as before God. Romanism classifies untruths. There is the malicious lie, the prevarication permitted to avoid unpleasantness or shelter another; the mental reserves authorized, and the misstatements made to advanee the cause of religion. This last is a meritorious untruth. To have to learn then from God's word that all lying is abominable to Him, must be a hard lesson. This is especially so with the converted priest, who not ollly has been so well instructed concerning these diversities, but has been doing his diligence in instructing his parishioners in the same.
'Ve were not associated in work with converted priests, but were acquainted with more than one who had fully unlearned Rome's teaching on this point, and we can testify concerning the large majority of converts we know, who had been neither priests, friars, nor nuns, that their word could be trusted. The greater number of the hundreds of children constantly under instruction in our schools, very soon after entering, are exercised concerning truth speaking. A carpenter remarkt that if he got an apprentice boy from the Protestant schools he could trust his word, bnt he could not in the case of any other boy.
What a lack of mutual confidence must exist in families, in social circles, in business transactions, and in the country generally, where convenience has to decide whether trutr. ')1' falsehood has to be uttered! Such is the condition ill Spain and every other country where Rome has had the consciences of the people in her power; and such must be the case in our Protestant countries in proportion to the extension of Romanism in them. Can there possibly be national prosperity where mutual confidence is largely lacking?
It is of vital importance that they who serve God, in the Gospel, in Spain and other Roman Catholic countries, should be men and women endued with power from above, for their work. There can be no doubt that the elaborate buildings, the gorgeous apparel of priests, the smoke and smell of the incense, and the mysterious genuflections of the Romish worship, produce sensations of awe and reverence in the wor8hipers. These things, of course, can have no effect on the conscience, heart, or life, nor can they appeal to the intellect. The effects are purely sensational, but these sensations are often mistaken for spiritual experience by those who know not what true Christian experience is. In Spain, when a convert has known the transforming power of God, he quite throws off, and even hates the mummeries of his former belief.
"I feel something here when I come into a service or prayermeeting," said a poor woman, pressing her hand over her heart. She had not attended many times, and there was certainly nothing to call forth feelings of reverence in that plain room- a carpenter's workshop transformed into a preaching hall, with no other adornment than a few texts on the walls. "Oh, those hymns! How they speak to my heart," said another. "It makes me ill to go into a church and see the images and people repeating their paternosters and counting their beads on their knees before them, for I remember that I used to do the same." This was said by a young woman much tried in circumstances, but taught of God. "I have done with all that," said a colporteur, when a friend wisht to take him into the cathedral of a city through which they were passing.
The simple preaching of the Gospel in correct Spanish, in dependence upon the power of the Spirit, will draw people, even tho by coming they bring down the anathemas of their church upon them; but let the preaching be without power, altho perfectly Scriptural, and they will not come. Let the prayer-meeting be formal; the prayers speeches to God instead of heartfelt thanksg;ving and definite petitions for felt needs, and the interest will fall off, congregations will dwindle away, and those who have been only hearers will either return to Rome or become indifferent. When power is lacking, it is of little use to endeavor to maintain interest by fine buildings or ornate services, for there is no possibility of competing with Rome on those lines. An eloquent speaker, however, can generally gather a congregation; but only the Gospel, preacht with the power of God's Spirit, can deliver souls from the woman s8ated on the scarlet-colored beast of the seventeenth chapter of Revelation.
It is impossible to foresee the future attitude of the Spanish government with regard to Protestant propaganda, but surely He who so marvelously. opened the door thirty years ago, and has kept it open until now, will overrule even the most untoward events to the advancement of Christ. Let us only do our part toward the evangelization of this unhappy land, either in going or helping to send those of His servants whom He is preparing for these various spheres, and thus be workers together with God according to His will.
REV. SAMUEL HJ£NRY KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D
H.-MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
REV. SAMUEL HENRY KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D."
The sudden death of Rev. Samuel Henry Kellogg, D.D., LL.D., in North India, on Wednesday morning, May 3d, has given a most painful shock to his many friends, and is a tremendous loss not only to his own family and the mission of which he was a member, but to the mission canse generally and in particular to the revision of the Hindi version of the Old Testament on which he was especially engaged at the time of his :leparture. Bright, buoyant, enthusiastic, scholarly, of sound judgment and kind heart, earnestly evangelical and spiritual, he was admired and loved by his brethren in no ordinary degree. He was one of our most valued correspondents, and his able article on educational missions (December, 1898) has attracted deep and widespread interest. The following tribute to Dr. Kellogg is from Dr. J. J. Lucas, who labored with him in India and who conducted the funeral services: Three days b"efore his death Dr. Kellogg preacht in the Methodist church, Mussoorie, on Luke 20:36- "Neither can they die any more."
On the previous Wednesday evening at a prayer meeting he had spoken on the words, "For this God is our God for ever and ever; He will be our guide even unto death," bringing out the thought that God will be our guide beyond death. How little he knew that soon he was to have both promises fulfilled to him-the Guide beyond death coming in a moment unexpected to fulfil the promise upon which he had made his servant to hope, henceforth, forever, to be his Guide. On Tuesday night, May 2d.
Dr. Kellogg led a prayer meeting at Dr. Valentine's house, of which Dr. Valentine writes: "I have never SAMUEL HENRY KELLOGG. heard him speak with greater clearness, animation, brilliancy, and fervor," running through the Scriptures and gathering passage after passage to show the relation of the world to the" ages to come." Thus during his last week on earth the Spirit led him to speak words of promise for our comfort, assuring us that the Guide was ready that morning to go with him through all the "ages that stretch beyond death." At seven o'clock on Wednesday morning, May 3d, Dr. Kellogg left his house for a ride on his bicycle, and he was an experienced rider and had been hundreds of times over the road running through his compound.
He past out of his house with a few bright, cheerful words to his wife.
Two roads run from the house, one going down to the kitchen, and the other above this. He had not gone more than twelve yards in this upper road when he was thrown from his bicycle on to the kitchen road below, a distance of fifteen feet. No one saw him fall, but the cook heard the * Compiled from articles in The Indian Witness, The Evangelist, The Presbyterian Banner, and The Indian Standard.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
sound, and running out found him lying dead in the middle of the road. How the accident happened no one can tell. It may have been a sudden attack of vertigo, something may have gone wrong with his wheel, or his attention may have been diverted for a moment. His left templo had struck on a sharp stone, producing death instantaneously. It was thus granted him to pass quickly through the valley from which so many shrink. In a moment our beloved brother was "absent from the body and at home with the Lord."
Dr. Kellogg had consecrated himself to the service of the Lord without reserve. Vhen a small child he was ill, nigh unto death. All hope had been given up, but while the family were watching to see the end a devout woman, a member of the congregation of which his father was pastor, told them that she had prayed for the life of the child, and had received an assurance that the child would live and would preach the Gospel. To the astonishment of all, save the woman of faith, the child recovered. Vhen the question of his life work was to be settled, the prayers of this woman were not forgotten by the Lord, and as a result the brilliant young student elected to enter the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
When Kellogg was a student at Princeton Seminary, he wrote a tract entitled" A Living Christ." That furnishes the key to his life. Christ and the kingdom of the Lord was a great, present reality to him. Hence his delight in the prophetic Scriptures, in which the Kingdom of Christ is seen progressing through the ages until at last "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." Like the prophets, Dr. Kellogg was ever searching diligently what or what manner of time the Scriptures signify when they testify concerning the glory of Christ following His sufferings. He believed the personal coming of the Lord Jesus to be "the blessed hope" of the Church. That" blessed hope," he often said, had made him a missionary, and had brought him to India. He believed that a revival of this" blessed hope" would lead to a revival in missionary interest in the Church.
How shall I speak of him a8 a missionary-of his thorough knowledge of the Hindi language, unsurpast by any foreigner; of his mastery of the subtleties of the Hindu system of philosophy and religion, so that he could follow the thought of the pundit and learned Hindu; of his power to make the most difficult subject clear, once by request of the children taking them through the prophecies of Daniel, making these prophecies full of interest and meaning; of his Bible readings in Dehra, Mussoorie, Landour, and other places, making the Bibl1Cl a new book to some; of his missionary spirit, so that he delighted to get out into the villages to preach to the unlearned or ignorant; of his longing for the upbuilding of the church in India; and the crowning grace of all, his unaffected humility and love of men? His great learning had not made him cold and distant. He loved books, but he loved the fellowship of men more. He loved to gather knowledge, but his delight was to pour it out into any willing ear, the knowledge greatly enricht by passing through his mind. Alas! alas! poor India has been once again sorely smitten. His work on the revision of the Hindi Old Testament yet unfinisht; his lectures in Hindustani in the types of the Old Testament incomplete; his lectures on missions to be delivered at Princeton next year, material for which he had begun to gather-all this and much more has been suddenly stopt.
REV. SAMUEL HENRY KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D
A very large number of friends gathered at the house on the evening of the 4th and followed the coffin to Landour cemetery. Dr. Kellogg had frequently indicated his desire that no eulogy should be pronounced over his grave, and so the only address was a brief one in Hindustani by Dr. Hooper (C. M. S.), for the benefit of the Hindustani brethren and non- Christians who had come to the funeral. By the open grave Dr. Hooper, his associate for six years and more in the revision of the Old Testament, spoke of the great love for India which had brought Dr. Kellogg back to labor here, and that the words of our Lord to Peter had come to him again and again as he thought of the way in which it had pleased the :M:aster to take his servant out of the world. " When thou wast young thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest, but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he signifying by what death he should glorify God. "
The hearts of a great company go out in tenderest sympathy toward the wife and children of our dear brother, three of his children in this country and four in America.
DR. KELLOGG'" CAREER.
The career of Dr. Kellogg has been, in some respects, remarkable. He was the son of Rev. Samuel Kellogg, and was born at Quogue, New York. But altho he had attained to three score years, he was still in his full measure of intellectual power. Nearly all his college preparation was given him by his parents at home. He entered vVilliams College in 1856, but was obliged to leave on account of ill health. Two years later he entered Princeton College and graduated in 1861. After attending a theological seminary, during two years of which he acted as mathematical tutor in the college, he turned his though~s to the mission field. He attributed his decisive adoption of that work to a sermon which he heard in the First Presbyterian church of Princeton by Dr. Henry :M:. Scudder. In 1864 he was married to :M:iss Antoinette VV. Hartwell, of :M:Gntrose, Pa. As navigation was much disturbed by the civil war then in progress, the young couple were delayed for some time in embarking for their mission field in India. At last they took passage on a merchant vessel bearing a cargo of ice from Boston to Ceylon, fondly hoping to reach that land in a hundred days. But on the third day out they were struck by a cyclone, in which their Christian captain was washt overboard, and the ship was barely saved from foundering. The captain's death placed the first mate in charge, and he proveu to be one of the most ignorant men ever charged with the care of a vessel for so long a voyage. His ignorance was only equal -ed by his wickedness and brutality. Very soon after the storm a plot was laid by the crew to get rid of this incompetent and brutal commander. It was soon discovered, however, and supprest, and as a last resort the new captain, finding out accidentally that Dr. Kellogg had studied navigation, askt him to take the mate's place in directing the vessel. Thus within a week after leaving Boston the young missionary found himself with the nautical library and instruments of the late captain placed at his disposal, and took the necessary daily observations and acted as navigator until they reacht Ceylon not in a hundred but in a hundred and forty-eight days from Boston. For altho they made the Cape of Good Hope in fifty-eight days, the captain, being totally ignorant of the laws of the monsoons
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
beyond that point, and yet overruling Dr. Kellogg's urgent advice, took a different course, which cost a needless delay.
Dr. Kellogg's first experience in India was a trying one, as he was placed in the Barhpur Mission in charge of all the work. " It was hard at first," he said, "but had the good result of bringing me on in the language much faster than I should have otherwise learnt it." Within six months he began regularly to take his turn in the Sabbath Urdu service in the native church. For some time he divided his labor between the Anglo-Vernacular High School of Fatehgarh and evangelistic work, including the instruction of the native preachers. About 1870 he began the important work of preparing a Hindi grammar, which proved a most useful and important addition to the grammatical literature of India. The reputation gained in this work gave him a place in the congress of Orientalists held in Stockholm, in 1889, under the presidency of King Oscar II. The grammar was also prescribed by her Majesty's civil service commissioners for India as an authority to be studied by all candidates for the India civil service. In 1871, after a furlough in America, he was chosen by the synod of India as professor in the theological seminary, just then establisht. Mrs. Kellogg, who had labored with him all his years of service, was removed by death in 1875, leaving him with four little children. It was this bereavement and the peculiar care resulting from it which brought Dr. Kellogg home to America in 1876, and kept him in this country for several years. In this interval he was called to the pastorate of the Third Presbyterian church of Pittsburg, and later to the chair of systematic theology, just then vacated by the Rev. Dr. A. A. Hodge, in Allegheny Seminary. He was married to Miss Sarah C. Meacrum, by whom he had five children. In 1886 he accepted a call from St. James' Square Presbyterian church, Toronto, where he labored for six years with eminent success. He resigned the pastorate of this church upon receiving a call to the special literary work referred to above.
Dr. Kellogg's influence while in this country and in Canada, both as a pastor and as a professor, was positive and strong in leading young men to enter the foreign missionary service. Among those who were under his care were the late Rev. A. C. Good, D.D., of Africa, and Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, president of the Lahore College. Altogether Dr. Kellogg shared in the training of thirty-six missionaries for the foreign field.
Notwithstanding the busy life which he had led in official relations as pastor, professor, and missionary, he was throughout his career a prolific writer, having furnisht many able articles for various magazines, delivered numerous lectures, and publisht several books; for example, "The Jews; or, Prediction and Fulfilment," "From Death to Resurrection," "The Light of Asia and the Light of the World," "An Exposition of the Book of Leviticus," "The Genesis and the Growth of Religion," and" A Handbook of Comparative Religions."
Dr. Kellogg had been honored by the degree of Doctor of Divinity conferred by Princeton College, and Doctor of Laws by Wooster University.
The first thing, perhaps, that would strike one about Dr. Kellogg was the versatility of his genius; he could turn his hand successfully to almost any thing-could preach a sermon or take a photograph, could deliver a lecture or prescribe a potion, could teach theology or steer a ship! He was informed on almost every conceivable subject, and could talk intelligently on the most technical topics. It was this in part that made him so hrilliant a conversationalist. and secured the wonderful
THE AGRA MEDiCAL MISSiONARY INSTITUTE, INDIA
richness of illustration which was so markt a feature of his sermons. But, unlike most versatile men, he was as thorough and accurate as he was versatile. He was never superficial. What he did, he did well. What he knew, he knew thoroughly. His careful observation, quick apprehension, and remarkable memory combined to make him almost a specialist in every department of work or of recreation upon which he entered. The story of his having navigated the ship on which he sailed from America in '64 is probably too well known to need repetition.
Another striking feature of Dr. Kellogg's character was clearness of his mental vision, and his ability to pass on to others what he himself thus clearly perceived. There was nothing hazy or slipshod about his thought or his speech. He saw to the center of things, and he reproduced what he saw with a directness and incisiveness not often surpast. Yet he was as simple as he was incisive. He was simple in his language, even when the profound subjects he often presented seemed to forbid simplicity. He was simple and unpretentious in his personal character. He was never overbearing, rarely sarcastic, never ostentatious. No one would ever have guest his extraordinary abilities from anything in his general bearing. He was a loving father, devoted husband, and faithful friend.
The greatest thing about Dr. Kellogg undoubtedly was his wonderful knowledge of and love for his Bible. He was a man of the Book. His insight into its meaning was phenomenal, and his ability to present its truths to others was such as few men attain. He mastered principles and details alike in his Bible study. And it was not simply an intellectual mastery; he was clearly taught of the Holy Ghost. He was not naturally an emotional man, but God's truth and God's Spirit stirred his deepest emotions; and many a heart has thrilled as he set forth in his simple, quiet way the deep things of God.
THE AGRA MEDICAL MISSIONARY INSTITUTE, INDIA.
BY THE LATE REV. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D.
One of the most interesting and unique institutions for the education of native Christians, probably, in all India, is the Medical Missionary Training Institute of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society at Agra, where young men and-in separate classes-young women receive a medical education intended to prepare them for work among their countrymen and countrywomen as medical missionaries. The school is wholly undenominational, and among its students are represented a large number of the various missions of India, from the furthest north and east to the extreme south. At present the number of students is about twentyfour, and the remarkable extent of the present and prospective influence of the institute is strikingly illustrated by the fact that by these twentyfour students, besides English and German, no less than fifteen different languages of the India vernaculars are spoken.* In that small company of students one may find men who are of the ruling Aryan race of India, others from the Dravidian stock, others, again, from one or other of the * These are: Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali,Oriya, 11lahrathi, Cashmiri, Tamil, Telugu, Nlarwari, Persian, Arabic, the Kaftri of independent Kaftristan, the aboriginal Crau, and Muhdawi.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
wild aboriginal tribes of the country, and even one from the wild moun- taineers of Kafiristan over the northwest frontier of India, where as yet there is no missionary work establisht. Apart from the daily instruc- tion in medical science given by the honored principal, Dr. Colin S. Val- entine, the students all have free access to the instruction of the govern- ment medical college of Agra, and the clinical work in the government hospital, and pass the examinations and take the degrees with govern- ment students. It is of interest to note that the young man who last year took the highest stand in such examinations of either the govern- ment or the mission institution, was a young man from the church of the American Presbyterian Mission of Lodhiana. All the students, aside from their medical studies, are assembled twice daily for prayer and con- ference and the exposition of God's Word. The freedom of conference and the spirit shown in such of these gatherings as I have attended, are most delightful and most encouraging for the future usefulness of these young men.* A fuller description of the work of this institute is given by a writer in The Young Men of India, a copy of which was forwarded by Dr. Kellogg shortly before his death. From this we quote: More than thirty years ago, when t.here were no lady medical mission- aries in India, and when the number of men who practise medicine in con- nection with mission work could have been counted on the ten fingers, Dr. Valentine, the principal of the institute, conceived the idea of training Indian Christians for this most important work. For long years he had to labor before he saw the idea assume a practical shape. After writing hundreds of letters, writing articles, and addressing public meetings in Britain, he was able to raise a sum of money sufficiEl1lt to purchase the commodious buildings in which the work is now conducted. The insti- tute was opened in 1881; in 1885 was affiliated to the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society. Its object is to impart to Christian young men a systematic knowledge of Scripture and medicine, to prepare them for the work of medical missionaries, healing the sick, and preaching the Gospel. The students li,-e in the institution and receive their profes- sional education, and the diploma of the Agra Government Medical College. The medical curriculum extends over a period of four years.
In the institution, regular tutorial classes are conducted by Dr. Valentine and his assistant. These are illustrated by means of a skeletoll, -models, anatomical plates and diagrams. There is a complete collection of the medical preparations of the British Pharmacopceia and Indian drugs and medicinal preparations illustrating the subject of Materia Medica and chemical testing, etc. Morning and evening there is reading of the Scriptures, with a running commentary on the passages read. On * As this institution has no one great church or denomination behind it on which to depend for means, it may not be amiss to mention that financial help there bestowed will go where it is needed, and likely to be excellently well bestowed. The total expense charged for each student is about £10 ($50) a year, which includes board, education, books, lodging, and clothing. A pressing need just now is a dispensary, which, both for the better training of the students and as a center for evangelistic work, is of prime importance. As the Edinburgh society feels unable to supply the money needed for this, Dr. 7alentine has undertaken himself to raise the £300 required. And when it is remembered that a very considerable proportion of the students come out of churches connected with our various American nlissions, it needs no argument to show that any financial aid from American Christians will be most timely and suitable. N} be~ter opportunity is given in India, probably, for cooperation of different churches, and nationalities as well, in one missionary work, than in the support of the Agra l1edicalMissionary Training Institute.
THE AGRA MEDICAL MISSIONARY INSTITUTE. INDIA
the Sabbath day there is an advanced Bible dass in which some particular subject is taken up and discust. The students take verbatim reports and transfer them to their note-books; thus, at the end of a four years' course, each student possesses the principles of many subjects which he can study and use in after life.
RULES :FOR ADMISSION.
L Candidates should be between sixteen and twenty years of age. They should be unmarried. They should have a sound constitution. They should have no bodily defect, as a loss of an eye. a finger, deafness, lameness, will preclude their being admitted into the medi- cal college.
2. They must have past one of the following examinations, the middle Anglo-Vernacular examination of the educational department of Bengal, of the N.W.P. and Oudh, the middle school examination of the Punjab, the middle school examination of Madras. Whatever examination in the Bombay presidency corresponds to these will be accepted.
3. Every candidate must be able to read and write Urdu and Hindi. 4. Every student must bring with him a copy of the Holy Bible, with marginal references if possible. If the student is a member of the Church of England, he must bring along with him also a copy of the Prayer Book and the Book of Hymns used in public worship.
The classes in the Agra Medical College commence on the 1st of July of each year. Students are, however, recommended to join the institu- tion a couple of months earlier, so as to join the tl'.todal classes in the institution, as it is most important that the student should have an idea of the studies upon which he is to enter before the medical college actually commences its work.
There are a number of scholarships provided by Christian friends for deserving students. The amount of a scholarship received by the student will, after the first year, depend upon the position he takes in his professional examination. In second, third, and fOllrth years a firstclass student will receive such a scholarship as will supply him with food, clothes, and books during the course of his studies. If, however, his scholarship is inadequate for his maintenance, the deficiency must be supplied by the missionary society or individual sending him.
Students coming upon a scholarship must sign a stampt paper to the following effect: (a) That they will conform to all the rules of the institution and the verbal orders of the principaL (b) That those who have come under engagements to their own society shall faithfully observe these. It is a matter of very great importance that the missionary, before sending a student, should get him to sign an agreement on stampt paper that he will serve the mission with which he is connected.
(e) That those who have come under no special engagement to the mission from whence they have come, shall, after having obtained their diploma, and provided the missionary society from ,,,hence they have come do not vish their services, go to any mission appointments that may be provided for them by the principal, and that they shall continue in mis· sionary service for the period of not less than five years.
From this it is seen that the institution is bast upon the most catholic principles and conducted in the most liberal manner. Vhile the spiritual interests of the students are attended to, the principles of the missionary societies are also carefully conserved.
In connection with the institution there are a number of philanthropic and Christian agencies, such as the Y. M. C. A. Bible readings, a medical missionary dispensary, and yet another which has been pathetically named "the Beggar's Church." About eight or ten years ago the beggars who called at the mission bungalow for alms were askt to come at a particular hour on Sabbath morning, when they were addrest by Dr. Valentine and his students. From 200 to 300 regularly attended,
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
listened to the preaching of the Gospel, and were taught to sing Hindustani hymns and Bhajans, after which they received alms. During the famine months of last year the attendance ran up to 1,200 or 1,600 several times a week. In this way 103,144 heard the Gospel and were assisted with food, clothing, and medicines. From 1st March, 1897, up to March 26th, 1898, 14,419 patients haye been treated in the dispensary. These different agencies present a most valuable field for instructing the students in the various forms of mission work in which they are to spend their lives. Neither the Beggar's Church nor dispensary received any assistance from the Edinburgh l'ledical Missionary Society with which the institution is affiliated, but are dependent upon the free-will offerings of God's people.
During the years in which the institution has been in existence it has sent out quite a number of valuable agents, who are now laboring in connection with many missionary societies in different parts of the country; with the C. 11. S. at Bannu, in the extreme Northwestern frontier, Kashmir, the Punjab, and in several parts of Bengal; with the Presbyterians at Kalimpong, on the borders of Bhutan, Chamba, the Punjab, Rajputana, and different parts of Central India; with the Baptists in the Punjab and Central India; with the Gosner Mission in different parts of Chota N agpur.
It was our great privilege several weeks ago to visit Agra and renew our friendship with the principal who was our fellow-voyager when we first came to India. On that occasion we made ourselves acquainted with details of the institution and the important work it is carrying on. Ve were at the usual evening ,vorship in Dr. Valentine's drawing-room, and as we lookt upon the bright, intelligent young fellows gathered in from so many branches of the Church of Christ, we felt that if the institution did nothing else than bring so many young men together in love and unity for four years, it was playing a most important part in making the fulfilment of our Lord's prayer possible, "that they .all may be one, as thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee."
SUGGESTIONS FOR DIAGRAM AND MAP lfAKING.* " A picture photographed on the brain is remembered much longer than words falling on the ears," and especially in the missionary problem, the field, the opportunities, the resources, the obligations, and the possibilities are so vast as to be almost incomprehensible to the ordinary mind.
I. SUGGESTED SUBJECTS.-l. Comparative statistics. (a) Population. (b) Areas. (c) Progress.
2. Ret'sx influence of missions. (a) On church work at home. (b) On commerce. (c) On the growth and development of nations.
3. Growth of opportunities for mission work. (a) Rapid spread of the English language. (b) Rapid increase in number of languages into which the Bible is translated. (c) Rapid extension of the temporal power of Christian nations.
II. MATERIALs.-(a) White glazed blind holland (cheap and easy to work on). Calico. Linen. Cartridge paper. (This latter to be avoided if possible, as difficult to roll and fold.) • From The Student Movement (England).
SUGGESTIONS FOR DIAGRAM AND MAP MAKING
OUTLINE FOR A CLOTH OR SAND MAP OF CHINA.
DIRECTloNs.-Take 0 where long. 1100 cuts the Yangtse. Draw NOS true N. and S. and etc. With center 0 describe circle ABC D E F G H through Tientsin and Shanghai (Radius, say 20 yards), and concentric circle A' . . . . . . H', where 0 A' ~ half 0 A. With centre H describe circle A G P. Draw true tangent at A to ABC. Join F' H', cutting A G P at R. Join B D and B'D' : A K ~ A A'. Bisect F F' at Q. Join P Q (for Great Wall). To obtain true right angle keep three pegs connected by string in the proportion of 6,8, ani 10 yards between the three.
STATISTICS.-Population about 400,000,000. 1,919 cities. 1,000,000 villages. 1,000,000 students. Missionaries about 3,000. Native communicants, about 100,000. N.H.-50 years ago there were twelve communicants.-REV. LOUIS BYRDE, M.A.
(b) A long straight-edge or ruler. (e) If map-making, a pantograph needed for enlarging.
(d) Paint. Make as follows: 2 oz. gum arabic dissolved in U pint of water (cold is best). Then Yz oz. vermilion, Chinese red, French ultrama- rine, or drop black (according to color), mixt with gum water on a tile or slab with "putty" knife. Thin with cold water. If used fairly thick, any of the materials named-calico, paper, etc.-can be employed, and edges will not "run." Aspinall's enamel does well on some material. For painting large surfaces, use a camel's hair" gilder's dab."
(e) Dot diagrams may be done best with zinc stencil-plate with holes puncht. Cardboard may also be used. Also an India-rubber stamp.
(I) To enlarge a map or diagram, a good plan is to borrow a magic lantern, have a slide made, throw the enlarged map or sheet, and then trace the outline.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
III. OTHER SUGGESTIONS.-l. Do not make the charts too small; the lett ering should be clea rly visible from a distance. Choose colors easily distinguishable in gaslight.
2. Diagrams should be prop ortion a t e, correct, up to date, origina l. 3. In the matter of statistics, use the best figures obtainable, e. g., " The Statesman's Year Book" and Dean VahI's "Missionary Statistics. " Quote authorities at foot of diagram in small letters. 4. In missionary maps it is a hvays well to have in one cor ner a map of Great Britain drawn to scale. 5. Get boys and girls to help in the measuring, coloring, e t c. A la rge map or diagram is difficult to manage alone. Ask some sign painter to MISSIONARY lUAP OF INDIA MADE ON TH E SAND A'r POONA.
contribute a couple of hours' work to the missionary cau se; in this way you w ill have an opportunity of personal work for missions.
6. Pray much before, during, a nd after the work, tha t the Lord of the harvest may use these messages to thrust forth manY lahorers. * CHRISTIANITY A ND BUD DHIS~1 I N J AP AN. t BY DR. GERLAND, STRASSBURG, GERlIIANY.
Tokuisso Y okoi m akes very inter esting remarks on the genuine n a tura lization of the Christian church es in Japan, so that they are no longer exotics; on the influen ce of Christian ideas upon J apanese literature ; upon the earnestness and the dignity of the conflict between Christianity and Buddhism. Y et, to put the two religions on an equality, as Yokoi seems inclined to do, would involve a g;reat error. F or Christianity is the religion by and through which our culture has developt itself, on the soil of which it stands, as Christianity no less h as bee n receiving, and still receives from our culture, purifying and continually • For the above suggestions we a r e chiefly indebted to an a rticle by Dr. J. R. Williamson in the British Student Volunteer, November, 1895, and to papers in the American Student Volunt eer for Mar ch and April, 1893, January, 1895, a nd Novem be r , 1897. See a lso t he Missionarp Pastor.
t Partially translated from Zeitsch1-ilt l a,' JI{ission~1cttnde.
CHRISTIANITY AND BUDDHISM IN INDIA
elevating forces. And this notwithstanding the sharp opposition in which Christianity and modern culture not seldom seem to stand. The two interprelate each other. They are indissolubly conjoined in growth. But the Japanese nationality and Buddhism have no such mutual rela- tion. Notwithstanding many mutual influences, especially of Budd- hism, the two have by no means so cooperated for mutual advancement. And, moreover, precisely for this reason, that Buddhism attaches itself so closely to the racial character of Eastern Asia, is, as it were, cut out and fitted to this, establishing it in its peculiarities without deepening it, without itself being capable of an infinite development-for this very reason it reaches no equality with Christianity. It is, as Kumon has so strikingly demonstrated, a people's religion, in which there is reflected not so much a deep creative Oriental necessity of development, but rather its intellectual phlegm, which only gathers together and confirms what is already found, confirming and stiffening itself along with this. In this religion of the East all individuals of the East are counted as being alike; they are, therefore, not regarded individually. How utterly dif- ferent is Christianity, which emphasizes and advances the individual in his specific character, presenting to him in its conception of God an ideal /10 which he is to develop himself, not in order, at the last, to rise or sink into it with a complete surrenderyof the individuality, but in order to maintain himself in full distinction of being before the Godhead. Hereby is Christianity the religion of love in freedom, for she suppresses none, she advances every distinctly sentient individual being; hereby she is the religion of human development, which knows no human immobility of state, but by reason of her infinite development is continually creating new and higher ideals for all individuals. Thereby she becomes the world's religion, the religion of human society. Humanity society, indeed, first constitutes itself out of the various individuals, which have first been appreciated by Christianity in their diversity. But as Christianity means to develop the individual still higher, it willingly leaves him everything which does not stand in the way of this development; it suffers the different peculiarities of race, the ethnical distinctions to remain undisturbed, but r.equires of this a higher development. How momentous this is for the development of all mankind needs no setting forth. And as a society can not form itself without individuals, quite as little can the individuals, and the generations of individuals themselves, unfold and develop themselves to ever higher achievements; and Christianity has ever acknowledged the outer form of society as something necessary given by God, altho not final in any special manifestation. Thus Christianity demands appreciation and mutual development of the individual, and of society, and herein lies its enormous significance, its indispensablenesfl for mankind. Hereby Christianity is both the one possible and the one necessary religion for the collective world and all its peoples, as for all its individuals, for, over against mankind, peoples also are only individuals. Thus, in our culture, the Christian ideas have the supremacy and completely permeate it, altho they are far from being everywhere recognized as such. Accordingly, for the East of the world, and also for Japan, it would mean a lowering of worth, incapability, and lack of development, if, to use Y okoi's language, the pantheistic mind of the gigantic East should digest and change into a formless mass the theistic-that is, the Christian ideas. But that will not corne to pass, for mankind never loses its mighty, toilsomely-achieved treasures.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
Moreover, Y okoi is only seemingly right, in maintaining that the problems of the East and of the ,Vest are alike. Assuredly, the East is not to be broken into slavery, not to become the sacrifice of Western love of plunder. But, quite as little can it, so soon, be enlisted as an auxiliary for the solution of the problems of the West. For this, as a whole, even its most active nation is as yet much too unripe and undevelopt. At present the ,Vest has no advancement to expect from it, unless it be in merely outward things, which do not lead to the heights; but none such as shall in any way contribute to the solution of the new and significant problems, which ,Vestern mankind must surmount in order to its further intellectual development. And if in Japan they are of the opposite opinion, this rests upon a complete misconception of the necessities of the cultivated peoples of the ,Vest, upon an utterly uncritical overvaluation of Japan. Nevertheless there are many voices of the East exclaiming that Japan has already achieved enough, and may and must, in justifiable national pride, stand henceforth isolated, on her own independent footing. This is a very dangerous error, pregnant of evil, and everyone who means well to Japan should be of another mind. If this remarkable people of the islands would escape the danger of relapse, if it would really set hand effectively to the great development of the West, if it would achieve an independent position in the development of mankind, it is time for it now to begin the main labor. This main labor is that of inner transformation, of a deeper spiritual apprehension. This alone is ca:Jable of achieving an upward movement that shall be independent and specifically distinct. This, it is true, is something that will not let itself be carried through with a rush, like the 3.ppropriation of the easily learnt outer side of a completed culture. But what the cultivated nations of the West, what the culture of mankind has thus far received from the East, signifies for culture, for a true progress of culture, nothing, no deepening or further development, at most only an outward extension. New fruitful ideas have thus far not come to the 'Vest, or to mankind, from Japan or the far East. Compare the achievements of the Teutonic, of the Romania races in the field of culture with those of the far East. If Japan wishes to become a land of culture in the true sense of the word, the reception of the outward culture of the 'Vest is only the first external measure, whose quick accomplishment, tho well worthy of acknowledgment, is far from being any particularly heroic achievement. The really hard work, the obtaining of a mature inner culture, is yet to come. This is a culture, as much as possible detacht from national vanity, continuously developing the individud more and more on every side, thus rendering him free and meritorious. The only means to this is the reception of such a view of the world as modern Christianity presents, such a one as makes man free and gives him worth, which values men as such, and the individual no less than society, pervading both, strengthening and raising both, to ever higher, more comprehensive, more fruitful careers. As Japan has accepted the world's culture, so must she also accept the world's religion, if she would secure and successfully maintain an independent position among the peoples of the world. For only in that view of the world which is given by this religion does the culture of mankind find its true inexhaustible soil and nourishment. I1I.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The International Missionary Union. 1888 Dickie, Rev. lI1ichael Brazil 1890 Dietrich, Miss Lillian E. India The sixteenth annual session of 1894 Donahue, Julia 111., III.D. China the International Missionary Union was held at Clifton Springs, N. Y., 1876–90 Dowsley, ~lrs. A. In/lia June 14-20. Aboutonehundredand '1 China thirty missionaries were in attendance, representing a large number 1890 Duff, Rev. James E. China of missionary societies, denominations, and fields. 1890 Duff, Mrs. James E.
As this REVIE'W has preserved 1853-58 Ford, Mrs. O. M. Africa the personal history of the attendance for many years, and is the 1893 Frey, llIiss Lulu E. Korea only periodical which has done so, we again give space for the names 1885 Gilman, Rev. Frank P. China and fields of those who were present. Where there is no second 1861-68 Gracey, Rev, J. T. India date the persons are still in service of society. They represent at least 1861-68 Gracey, II1rs. J. T. fifteen different mission boards, besides some not connected with 1883-96 Griffin, Rev. Z. F. any society. 1883-96 Griffin, II1rs. Z. F.
1888 Griffiths, lI1iss IIIary R Japan 1888 Griswold, Rev. H. D. India 1888 Griswold, Mrs. H. D.
1872-84 Gulick, Rev. T. L. Spain 1874 Gulick, lIIiss Julia A, E. Japan 1806 Hallam, Rev. E. C. R India 1856 Hallam, IIIrs. E. C. B.
1892-94 Hambleton, Turkey 1892-94 Hambleton, Mrs.
Hamilton, George III. Siam 1837-77 Hamlin, Rev. Cyrus.
1891 Hammond, Miss 111. L. Mexico 1890 Hannum, Rev. Wm. H. India YEARS OF 1890 Hannum, Mrs. Wm. H. SERVICE. NAME. FIELD. 1893 Heaton, lI1iss Carrie A. Japan 1892 Abell, Miss Annie E. Micronesia 1887-93 Hopkins, Rev. G. F. India 1888 Allen, Miss Belle J. Japan 1890 Kay, lI1iss Lydia J. Brazil 1858-80 Baldwin, Rev. S. L. Chma 1892 Kerr, lI1iss Sarah 111. A. China Japan 1888-93 Beall, A. w. 1891 Kilborn, Rev. Omar L.
1884 Beebe, Robert C., lI1.D. China 1893 Kilborn, IIIrs. Omar L.
1887-96 Bostwick, H. J. 1890 Knight, Mrs. W. Percy.
1887-96 Bostwick, Mrs. H. J. 1881 Knowles, Miss Emma L. India 1892 Bosworth, Miss Sarah 111. 1853-76 Knowlton, 11rs. L. A. China 1892 Brackbill, Miss Sara C. 1866–93 Locke, Rev. W. E. Bulgaria 1890 Briggs, Rev. W. A., M.D. L&os 1880-90 Long, lIrs. Flora S. Japan 1889 Brown, Mary, III.D. China 1883 MacNair, Hev. Theo. 111.
1862 Bruce, Rev. Henry J. India 1883 IlIac Nair, II1rs. Theo. M.
1862 Bruce, Mrs. Henry J. 1879 lIIarling, II1rs. A. W. Africa 1853-83 Bushnell, Mrs. Albert. Africa 1893-98 McLean, llIiss Jennie F. Persia 1882-87 Cartmell, lI1iss 111. J. Japan 1887-95 lIIechlin, 1111'S. J. C.
1879-89 Chamberlain, lIIiss L. R Turkey 1891 lI1edbury, Miss Harriet L 1889 Cochrane,Rev. Henry P. Burma 1885–95 Merritt, Rev C. W.P.,M.D. China 1889 Cochrane, Mrs. Henry P. 1895–95 Merritt, 1111'S. C. W. P.
1883-92 Cole, Rev. J. T. Japan 1892 Mosier, IIIrs. L. H. Burma 1890 Cooper, Miss L. J. Siam 1892 Mooman, Miss Nettie. China 1885 Cooper, Rev. A. Willard. 18- IIIonroe, Rev. D. C. India 1885 Cooper, Mrs. A. Willard. 18- 1I10nroe, lIIrs. D. C.
1873 Correll, Rev, L H. Japan 1890 Mosier, Rev. Lee H. Burma 1892-97 Crane, Rev. Horace A. India 1899 lIIoyer, Miss Jennie. India 1892-97 Crane, Mrs. Horace A. 18- lIIulford, Hannah R, II1.D.
Craven, 1I1rs. J. W. 1877-83 Penick, Rt. Rev. C. C. Africa 1886–98 Crosby, Miss E. T. Micronesia 1878 Pettee, Rev. James H. Japan 1870 Crossette, Mrs. Mary M. China 1855 Pixley, Rev. Stephen C. Africa 1877 Curtis, Rev. W. W. Japan 1868 Powers, llliss Harriet G. Turkey 1878-79 Cushing, Rev. Chas. W. Italy 18- Priest, lIIiss Mary. Japan 1891-97 Davis, Rev. Geo. S, Bulgaria 1878 Ririe, II1rs, Benj. China 1892 Davis, Mrs. Anna L. China 1898 Robinson, llIiss Ida S. S. America Devor, Rev. D. Africa 1884 Rood, Miss Alice J, Assam 1896 Sheldon, Miss Marion E. Turkey Some had been connected with most important political move- 1895 Smith, ~1iss Florence E. Colombia ments of the world for forty years; some had personally had to do with 1880 Smith, Miss Sarah C. Japan all educational and social reforms in all the non-christian world. 1878 Spencer, Miss M. A. Dr: Pettee, for twenty years in 1892 Stanton. Miss Alice 111. China Japan, referred to the noble char- acter of the Americans who had 1884 Stark, Miss Eva C. Burma been sent officially to Japan, and of their influence, of the changes 1879 Stone, Rev. George I. India going en in the empire, largely through the influence of Chris- 1&- Stone, Rev. J. S. tianity. He said Japan believes in America and loves America. A 18- Stone, Mrs. J. S. letter also was read from a member of the union residing in Japan, in 1869-96 Swain, Clara A., M.D. which reference was made to tbe religious changes now going on 1893-98 Swartz, Rev, Henry B. Japan among the native Japanese.
1890 Taylor, William, China POLITICAL MOVEMENTS AND MISSIONS. 1890 Taylor, Mrs. William. Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D., read a 1868-73 Thayer, Rev. C. C., M.D. Turkey paper on the political state of China in relation to missions from 1868-73 Thayer, Mrs. C. C. Rev. VV. A. P. Martin, D.D., pres- ident of the New Imperial College i869 Thoburn, Miss Isabella. India at Peking, China. Dr. Baldwin said that undoubtedly the reform 1869-72 Thompson, Miss Mary A. China that swept over China a short time ago indicated that the emperor 1890 Torrey, Miss Elizabeth. Japan went a little too fast, and yet every one of those edicts was an indicat876-9! VanHook, Mrs. L. C. Persia tion of a revolution in thought and purpose of the governing powers of 1890 VanSchoick,IsaacL.,M.D. China China. He did not think that the empress was opposed to reform. 1873 Walker, Rev. J. E. The reforms will go on. The great educational movement has not 1892 Webb, Miss Anna F. Spain stopt, and concessions are being made for mining and building rail- 18- Webb, lITiss Mary G. Turkey roads, and the literature which missionaries have been preparing 1857 Wh"eler, Mrs. C. H. and circulating is producing a powerful effect. He rapidly re- 1879 Wheeler, Miss Emily C. viewed the present attitude of the Western political powers toward 1880-91 White, Mrs. Wellington. China China. He believed that while the nations were intellt in watching W77 Whitney, Henry T., M.D. China yet the disintegration of China was not very near at hand. 11177 Whitney, Mrs. Henry T. vVe would like to reproduce the entire address, but can not. 1883-88 Witter, Rev. W. E. Assam 1838–86 Wood, Rev. Geo. W. Turkey 1871-86 Wood, Mrs. Geo. W. "
1888 Woodside, Rev. Thos. W. Africa 1888 Woodside. 1I1rs. T. L.
1892 Yeiser, Rev. N. E. India 1868-77 Young, Rev. Egerton R. H. B. Ind.
18!l8-77 Yonng, Mrs. Egerton R.
As will be seen from looking over the list, men and women were here from the interior of Africa, from the West Coast, and from Zulu- land; from several parts of the Turkish empire, from the t.erritory of the shah of Persia; from many parts of the coast of China, hom far up the Yangtse River, even as distant as two thousand miles in the interior; from many points in Japan and from Korea; from India, north, sout.h, east, and west; from the republic of Mexico; from Burma, Siam, BulgariP", Spam, and the islands of the South Pacific, while some were present who had visited missions in most of Clese countries.
Thus there was not a prominent part of the globe, and scarcely an obscure one, about which the assem- bly could not speak from personal observation and experience con- cerning the latest phases of events. Bishop Penick spoke on Africa, such as itinerating work, the hos- and Dr. Gulick followed on our new pital and dispensary, and to their possessions. He said he loved the influence in overcoming the preju- Spanish people, and they are no dices of the people and race hatred. more naturally inclined to be cruel Thousands are reacht and helpt than we are in America, and there only in this way. He urged the have been greater manifestations necessity of training the natives, of cruelty in America within the and stated that there were no past six months than in Spain. He medical schools, text books, or thought the war with Spain was medical literature available, only necessary. He traced the history what is translated and provided by of the oppression of the Spanish the missionary. Miss H. B. Mul- government in Cuba, and said that ford, M.D., of Calcutta, read a the gathering together of three paper on the condition of child- to four hundred thousand women, widows in India, and urged the children, and old men, utterly un- necessity of a hospital for some of armed, to put them in a narrow this unfortunate and downtrodden space, dig a trench round them, class, saying she had received some and then deliberately starve them, contributions toward the object. was worse than anything the" un- Dr. Bebee, of Nanking, China, made speakable Turk" did in the late a statement of the power of medical Armenian massacre. He deplored work, and gave instances of the the opening of saloons by Ameri- liberality of some of the Chinese cans in the Sandwich Islands, Cuba, officials, who had been helpt by the Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. foreign medical missionary. Dr. "Vitter, of Assam, followed, and Rev. J. T. Cole said that in said that no one could form any Armenia there are over eighty idea of the needs for medical help thousand orphans, but in Cuba in a foreign land without being on over two hundred thousand. More the field to see, personally. He lives were lost by the reconcen- related some experiences of. his trado order than were lost in the missionary life in Upper Assam, massacres in Asia Minor. Some when he was located some sixty cities of Cuba are now, as to streets miles away from any physician, and public parks, as clean as New and made an appeal for more medi- York, but pass the thresholds and cal missionaries. Dr. Petee spoke you find darkness and horror. of Japan. The need of the foreign physician is not so great in Japan MEDICAL MISSIONS. as in other Eastern countries. He referred to the training of native The subject of medical missions Christian nurses, and their influreceived large consideration under ence. Dr. Clara Swain, for twentythe guidance of Dr. C. C. Thayer. seven years in India, and the first Dr. Whitney, for twenty-two years woman to enter Asia with a in Southern China, opened the dis- medi~al diploma in her hand, made cussion with a very able paper. a short address. He said that the greatest efficiency of missions in most pagan nations WOMAN'S MEETING. must include medical missions, and that many more such missions There was a large audience at ought to be establisht, and most of the Woman's Meeting, many comthose establisht should be better ing in from the adjoining towns. equipt and more thoroughly Mrs. Gracey, Mrs. Wellington manned and better supported. He White, and Miss E. T. Crosby alterreferred to the various methods, nated in presiding. The Scriptures sional Plymouth brother. We have were read by Mrs. Dr. Foster, and a union prayer-meeting once a prayer was offered by Mrs. H. B. week in English, which all the mis- Skidmore, of New York. Upon the sionaries attend. Once a month we platform were seated nine women have a union service for the Chiwho had seen over twenty-five nese and foreigners together. Three years of service in the foreign field, times a year we have a union sacraviz.: Mrs. C. Wheeler, forty years mental service, and many times in Turkey; Mrs. H. J. Bruce, have we had Methodists, Baptists, thirty-seven years in Western In- Plymouth Brethren, and Church of dia; Mrs. A. Bushnell, for thirty England members, all partaking of years in Africa; Mrs. Julia Gulick, the Sacrament together. I believe twenty-five years in Japan; Miss the Protestant Chinese of our part H. B. Powers, thirty years in of China are practically one, and Turkey; Mrs. E. C. Hallem, forty- might at any time become one three years in India; Mrs. J. Knowl- body." ton, twenty-three years in China; Miss Thoburn, for thirty years in Rev. S. J. Pixley, of Natal, said Northern India; and Dr. Swain, in that country they have missiontwenty-seven years in India. The aries of many denominations from speakers were Mrs. Woodside, of America, England, and the conti· West Central Africa; Miss Eva nent of Europe. In general, they Stark, who workt for several years work together harmoniously in among the Kachins of Upper good spirit, and with success. He Burma; Miss Bosworth, of Southern did not know how much more suc- China; Miss Cartmell, of Japan; cessful they miglJt have been had and Miss Kay, of the China Inland there from the first been a divi- Mission. Mrs. Bruce, Miss Tho- sion of the territory among them. burn, and Dr. Swain represented The multiplicity of denominations different lines of work in India. crowded together in the small Miss Gulick spoke on Japan; Miss territory of Natal is bewildering Frey, Korea; Miss McClain, Persia; to the nati ves. Miss Powers, Turkey; Miss Webb, Spain; and Miss Cooper, Siam. Dr. S. L. Baldwin was glad of the tendency to bring into cooperative The evening meeting was devoted work missionaries of the same gento literature in the mission field, eral denominational class. He the general literary work done by would go further than merely unite missionaries, the press, and all all divisions of Methodists in a thekindred topics. ological school, and have but one for all denominations in a given The next morning the subject locality. was" missionary cooperation." The young people had a meeting in Mr. W. H. Grant, on invitation, the afternoon, and at four o'clock told what the officers and repreoccurred the president's reception, sentatives of missionary societies which is always a pleasant social in their annual meeting had done feature of this gathering. to further cooperation.
COOPERATION IN MISSION FIELDS. Rev. T. M. MacNair said: "In Japan six missionaries represent- O. L. Kilborn, M.D., said: "In ing churches in the United States Chentu, West China, 2,000 miles and Scotland that are Presbyterian from Shanghai, in the interior, in their polity, cooperate in furtherthere are three missions. We have ing the interests of one Presbyte- Methodists, Baptists, and an occl.- rian Church organization called 'The Church of Christ in Japan '- one native church instead of six! least, give the gist of some of them The arrangement is regarded as satisfactory by everybody con- in the future. cerned, and has been for years. Some thirty-three missionaries "The council composed of these six missions has recently combined were on the platform the last evenwith the American Methodist Mission in the preparation of Sunday- ing, and made brief remarks, all of school literature, having one series instead of two as previously. In whom expect to return to their the region of Tokyo the Presbyterian missions avail themselves of scveral foreign fields before the the Methodist Publishing House at Tokyo, thus helping on that excel- next annual meeting. They were, lent agency and avoiding the cost of maintaining a similar one. in part, as follows: "Several years ago an attempt MISSIONARIES HETURNINGTO THEIR was made to unite the Presbyterian and Congregational native FIELDS. churches. The attempt fail e d through opposition of Japanese 'V. Miss E. L. Knowles, India, lV1. E.; only." Mr. and Mrs. H. Hannum, In- Dr. George W. Wood alluded to dia, P.; Miss Jennie Moyer, India, the working together of three de- M. E.; Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Mosier, nominations in the earlier history Burma, B.; Miss E. C. Stark, Burof the American Board, and of re- ma, B.; Mr. and Mrs. A. W. lations of missionaries in Turkey Cooper, Siam, P.; Rev. Dr. ~. A. and other missions. Where the Briggs, Siam, P.; Dr. G. W. Hamspirit of Christian unity exists co- ilton, Siam, P.; Mr. and Mrs. I. H. operation can easily be secured in Correll, Japan, M. E.; Miss J. Guvarious practical modes. The evils lick, Japan, Am. B'd; Miss· S. C. of rivalries are many and great; Smith, Japan, P.; Miss M. B. the advantages of a good under- Griffiths, Japan, M. E.; Rev. 11. standing and harmonious methods Dickie, Brazil, M. E. (South); Miss and separate spheres of action, so Lulu E. Frey, Korea, M. E.; Rev. far as may be practicable, are of D. H. Devor, W. Africa, P.; Miss immense value. S. M. Bosworth, China, M. E.; Miss S. Brackbill, China, Can. 11. E.; 'Ve have not the space to sum- Mrs. 11. 11. Crossette, China, P.; marize the discussions on sociology Mrs. Anna L. Davis, China, M. E.; and missions; philology and eth- Rev. and Mrs. B. Ririe, China, C. nology and missions; and science I. 11.; Dr. Mary Brown, China, C. and literature and missions; the 1. 11.; Miss Nettie Mooman, China, native church, including conditions P.; Dr. Sarah Kerr, China, 'V. of baptism, mass movements, F. U. standards of admission, indigenous support, "the Nevius plan," and Resolutions of thanks were past, influence of non-Christian religions on the ethical and spiritual ele- giving hearty expression to obligament of native Christians. tion to Dr. and ]Irs. Henry Foster Many other groups of subjects of wide interest have to be past for their exceptional hospitality in without even mention, hoping we may get an opportunity to, at entertaining the members of the union, free of cost to them, throughout the week.
The devotional meetings were of a very high order, under the gener- al charge of Rev. Dr. 'Vitter, dis- trict secretary of the American Baptist Mh;sionary Union, former- ly missionary in Assam. The ser- mon of Bishop C. C. Penick, D.D., of the Protestant Episcopal Church, formerly missionary to Liberia, on Sunday morning, was full of strong and helpful thoughts. The conse- cration service on Sunday, led by Dr. Foster, was a season of great spiritual blessing. Resolutions were adopted on the "Department F," is this suggestion: peace conference and the saloon in "The Nevius Plan: its results, its our new island possessions; also of extension to other fields." The special thanks to the contributors short paper which I propose to to the ~pecial fund opened by Dr. write, will be merely a few explana- A. T. Pierson, for the presentation tions, together with some informaof his recently issued life of George tion on that general subject. First Muller, of Bristol, to missionaries, let me say that my husband, Dr. and for the marked kindness and Nevius, never elaborated any plan thoughtfulness in the gift of a copy for mission work to which he into each member of the Internation- tended to give his name, and which al Missionary Union present during he considered "the last word" to the week. be said on this momentous ques- tion. I think he would be greatly The officers of the Union for the surprised to know that such is supensuing year are: posed to be the case.
President-.T. T. Gracey, D.D., On first coming to China, in the Rochester, N. Y. year 1854, he found already in operation methods of work which Vice-President-S. L. Baldwin, required a large outlay of money D.D., New York City. from the home lands. The methods had been inaugurated by men of Secretary-Mrs. C. C. Thayer, great piety and wisdom, and Clifton Springs, N. Y. seemed to be working well. There was no thought of questioning Treasurer-Rev. C. C. Thayer, them on the part of anybody, and M.D., Clifton Springs, N. Y. probably at that time, when China had not stirred in the slightest de- Librarian-Mrs. C. W. P. Mer- gree from the long sleep of years, ritt, Clifton Springs, N. Y. no other methods were practicable. Still it is possible that even in the Bishop C. D. Foss, of the Metho- first opening of China, we did not dist Episcopal Church, was present sufficiently realize that not by the throughout the entire week, taking might which comes from the free part from time to time, and on use of money, but by the Spirit of Sunday evening giving his "Im- the Lord alone, true and lasting pressions of India," having recently progress would be made. returned from a protracted official visitation to the missions of his As years past on Dr. Nevius, in church in that country. Dr. Thos. common with many other mission- Marshall, home secretary of the aries, felt that the too free use of Presbyterian Board of Foreign money had been the source of grave Missions, Mrs. ,Vm. B. Skidmore, evils in the church of China. He Mrs. Mary C. Nind, and many began to experiment in his own other prominent missionary work- particular fields of labor. He also ers were among the visitors. made a careful study of the whole question, examining those mission The "Nevius Plan." stations where least foreign money was used, and comparing thenl BY MRS. HELEN S. C. NEVIUS, CHE- with others where money was used very freely. I can not, within the FOO, CHINA, PRESBYTERIAN limits of a short paper such as this, attempt to give even a faint MISSION. idea of the anxious thought and In the prospectus of the international Missionary Union, at Clifton Springs, N. Y., there is a request that missionaries abroad should contribute "essays on leading topics" and other information likely to be of interest. On page 6, under earnest study he gave to the sub- all the workers on the self-support ject. Several years before his death system in this and other old stahe prepared the little manual called tions are at a great disadvalltage; " Methods of Mission Work." That and the younger missionaries who embodied his views at the time he are trying to work on what they wrote it, and I can say positively believe to be a truer basis, have that he had not, in any important great difficulties to contend with, particular, changed his views be- and deserve much sympathy. fore he was called away. I think it is but right that I should say In the western part of this provthis, because a statement exactly ince is a mission called "The Gosthe opposite has been made and pel Mission," at the head of which publisht. So let me repeat that to are Dr. and .Mrs. Crawford, very the very end of his life Dr. Nevius old missionaries, having come to was fully convinced of the truth Ohina about fifty years ago. They and the practicability of the views were so imprest by the evils of the and methods suggested in the lit- free use of money in missions that tle manual, which since his death some years since they cut themhas been so extensively used. This selves loose from their society-the I know with positive certainty. Southern Baptist of the United States-and, establishing a direct If it is correct to call any system communication between the mthe "Nevius" plan, it is merely selves and their home churches, that of using just as little foreign they began a new work so radical money as possible in every branch that it seemed too much to hope of missionary work. And to this that it could be successful. Their one would suppose a priori that mission, I think, has now fifteen there would be no valid objection. or twenty members, and tho its But many strong and useful mis- progress is slow, it has been fairly sionaries do not have, and never successful, and its founders do not have had, much sympathy with feel discouraged, except by the fact the fear of injury to the cause from that the policy of other missions is the free use of foreign money. In so diametrically opposed to theirs this province from the first it has that their work is far harder than been impossible to give a really fail' it would otherwise be. Aside from chance to the plan of using little or their own moderate salary, I supno foreign money in native Chi- pose they use no foreign money at nese work. Alongside of a mission- all in the prosecution of their work. ary trying to work out that theory The natives provide their own is, perhaps, another equally de- tea c her s, preachers, pastors, voted, who spreads much money in schools, and even books. Dr. and employing native assistants at Mrs. Crawford believed that no what, in China, is a generous half-way measures would do in salary, and larger than they could China, not even a little help now possibly get from their own people, and then, when it seems so much who open schools, paying the wages needed. The "luxury in giving" of the teachers, and in some cases in which some of us indulge they furnishing food for the pupils, and are very doubtful of, and apparall other expenses. What chance, ently their reformation of old-fashthen, has a missionary in the ad- ioned plans is as radical as it could joining prefecture who requires his well be. They have gone farther, converts to pay for their own and are much more extreme in schools, and the church to provide their views than Dr. Nevius was; its own pastor? For this reason but if the result proves that they are right, surely we should all re- less of that kind of temptation there joice. is, surely the better.
When my husband died, his I should say without fear of convarious small stations were incor- tradiction that in Shantung the porated into those of other mem- belief in the importance of selfbers of his mission, none of whom, support by the natives is growing, with one or two exceptions, were and is stronger now than it ever in entire sympathy at the time was before. But I must' also conwith his views; so that naturally fess that practically it has not been his theories were never fully workt insisted upon and carried out as it out even in his own field. The sta- might have been, and has been in tion which came nearest to it was some other mission fields, notably and is the English Baptist mission in Korea. JlIi8sionaries in Korea in this province. It continues to have been so kind as to tell me that flourish, and I think the pran of in a measure it was directly owing self-support is strongly insisted to Dr. Nevius' advice and warnings upon. and example that in the very first beginning of their new mission in Some of the younger members of the Hermit Kingdom, they adopted Dr. Nevius' own mission seem to the theory of self-support in their me to be coming more and more native churches, and the propagato his way of thinking; being influ- tion of the Gospel to a great degree enced by their personal experience by means of agents not paid from and observations of the great evils the foreign treasury; and probably resulting from the free use of nowhere in the world has there foreign money. They earnestly ever been such genuine and permawish to build upon what they be- nent success attained in so short a lieve to be a more solid basis, and time. Korean missionaries are the are determined to sacrifice imme- ones to write of this. I refer to it diate results to the genuine and with great pleasure, as it seems permanent good of the work. It is that in Korea the so-called" Nevius a matter of surprise to me that Plan" there and there only, has nlOre than one nlissionary in this had a fair chance to show what it part of China, and doubtless others would do if acted upon from the elsewhere, have a strong prejudice very start. against the practise of strenuously pressing the duty of self-support on In other and distant parts of this their native converts. "I believe empire there are many new stations in 8uC"ce88," I heard one missionary being commenced on very much say, adding that if success was to the same plan. I think the largest be attained in such and such a way, of all missions in China, the C. I.M., then he would adopt that" way." is in fullest sympathy with it; but There is no doubt that success, if it is too early to speak with cerby that word is meant a quick tainty of their results. increase in the number of nominal Christians, can be secured by the As I intimated in the beginning free use of money. And it is also of this article, there was never origtrue that not every Chinaman or inated or elaborated by Dr. Newoman who has been, in the first vius, any such definite "cut-andplace, attracted to Christianity dried" plan of mission work as demore or less by the hope of gain is served to be called "the Nevius a hypocrite or a false professor. plan," and I think he would have If that were the case our churches deprecated the name; especially as would be decimated. But yet the there are other missionaries nearly as long on the field as he was, and also very effective workers, who worthless elements are being elimapprove and practise the principle inated; and is growing stronger as of "self-support," as strenuously her foundation is more and more as he did. It might seem invidious firmly placed upon the Rock Christ to them to attach the name of any Jesus-upon Him and upon nothing one man to a theory of work which else is the common possession of so many. Lest it should be thought In the New Hebrides. that Dr. Nevius attacht overmuch importance to any special BY REV. J. ANNAND, D.D. theory in particular, or to the de- President Training Institution for Preachers sirabilityof "self-support" in car- and Teachers, Presbyterian Church in rying on missionary work, r wish Canada, Tangoa, Santo.
to say before closing, that so cath- The summer now drawing to a olic was his spirit, and so consider- close has been tolerably hot, with a ate his judgment of others, that he small rainfall, twenty-five and a willingly conceded the good there half inches since the year began. might be in methods of work quite Calm weather has for the most part opposed to his own, so that for prevailed, with bright hot foremany years he workt side by side noons, and light showers in the with men who believed in the very afternoons. The lightning in the free use of money in carrying on evenings at times was very vivid their stations. He also approved and beautiful. We have had as heartily as anyone of schools nothing approaching a hurricane. and colleges, and all sorts of educa- For-anyone who loves heat it has tional work, as auxiliary means in been a charming summer. Of late evangelizing China. His own prac- fever has been quite common tise, at least in his later years, was among our folk. Every day we commonly what he called "the have applications for quinine, and conversational method," as opposed often a pupil fails to answer the to more public harangues or "street roll call. However, nothing serious preaching." Meeting with people has troubled any of our company. who were virtually atheists, and had no belief in a soul, he tried to On March 17th we had a holiday bring them to an acknowledgment commemorating the completion of of the existence of God, of a life our first four years' term. Six hereafter, and of a Savior from sin. young men then finisht their But to say just what in truth were course of training in the instituhis theories of evangelization tion. We had a special evening would be to repeat the story of meeting that we might hear partforty years of incessant work-an ing words from those leaving us, impossibility here. and also that we might impres- sively wish them Godspeed. Four r am sure all who love the cause of the six who graduated are from Malo, the other two are from Maof Christ, and are longing for its lekula. The former left us by boat spread over the whole earth, must for their homes the next day. rejoice in every evidence of its be- Their affection for their alma coming more and more free from mater was manifested by their the special temptations which in tears. They felt keenly leaving its earliest stages in China were so their comfortable quarters and dangerous; and that as the years kind friends here. We hope soon roll by a great advance is being to hear of them doing good work made in methods employed; and on their own island. . The next that the church is purer as the three to complete their course are also Malo boys, but they will not us of the progress of the enterprise leave us until the end of November. which he is chiefly responsible for, In looking over our classes the other evening, and seeing the to alleviate the condition of the bright faces, I was reminded of the fact that many of them had been demented of Syria. 'Ve have inheathen, and that all their parents had lived in darkness. Twenty-six tense interest in this enterprise, as years ago, when we first came to this field, there was not one Chris- it is the first attempt to provide tian among the people now represented by our students. Then and scientific care for disordered minds for some time after there was not a baptized person north of the south in the land wher~ the Master himside of Efate. Five of our students are from Mr. Mackenzie's district, self nearly two thousand years but they come from Efila, among whose parents we first workt for since showed pity on this class of three years. The whole of our sixty-six students come from districts stricken humanity. wholly heathen twenty-five years ago; and many of them from places Mr. Waldemiersays: "We have a not half that time under the influence of the Gospel. Weare greatly place at the foot of Mount Lebanon encouraged when we think of what God has done, and is still doing which is called Asfariyeh, containamong our New Hebrideans. We hope and believe that, before an- ing thirty-three acres with fig, vine, other twenty-five years pass, there will be few, if any, of the people almond, mulberry, and olive trees, left in these islands remaining in heathen darkness. However, the two drink-water springs, and two battle is not yet finisht. The enemy disputes every foot of houses. 'Ve had to pay nine ground. Lately we had to exercise discipline on the men of two small thousand dollars for it. 'Ve have villages near us. In order to stop the spread of the Gospel they askt completed the administration buildthe bushmen of certain places to kill either the missionaries, or any ing. The deaconesses from Gerof their boys that might visit them. Some of our friends told us of their many and one deacon are here malice, and we went and disarmed studying the Arabic language to the plotters. We now hold their fit themselves for this work. Only weapons as a pledge of peace. truly Christian nurses can do this work well. '"e are building two March 28, 1899. hospitals at once, one for mer!. and the other for women patients, both The First Asylum for the Insane in of which we hope to have ready for Asia. patients at the end of the year. Patients are already coming and Mr. Theophilus Waldemier, di- asking for admission; some come in rector of the Lebanon Hospital for tears and broken with weeping. the Insane, in a personal note from All the people of this country are Beirut, Syria, May lOth, informs much interested in this first asylum in this country, but the country is poor and not able to do much, and we are obliged to appeal for foreign aid. 'Ve build the asylum on the cottage system, which enables us to begin with a few houses, and erect more as funds may come in. We have now two cottages, each calculated for twenty patients, ready for occupation. We have a specialist in nervous diseases, Dr. Maag, of Zurich, of excellent family, who was led of the Lord's love to proffer his services to the institu- tion without any compensat,ion. This seeIllS very strange, for we had not made any public mention of our need of a specialist while in Europe and were sad about not having met anyone, when at the end of our stay, when unsought, but doubtless, directed of the Lord, Dr. Maag proffered his services. The Lord deals wonderfully with His children who put their full trust in Him." IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
'rhe Christian and Missionary Alliance. before the public, and later still The Independent; and now the 'fhis is an organization in whose complaints of the China and South history and progress, in common American contingents of missionwith many of God's believing chil- aries have so far come to the ear of dren, we have felt an unusual inter- the general public as to make some est. Rev. A. B. Simpson, who is rejoinders necessary on the part of at the head of it, has for thirty the Alliance; and, therefore, the years been a close friend and be- stage when these matters could be loved brother of the editor-in-chief, quietly and privately dealt with and the steps whereby he cut him- is past, and is so acknowledged by self loose from existing church or- action of the Alliance board. In ganizations and undertook a work .Tune a public meeting was held in among the non-churchgoers and Boston, at which Mr. Simpson and the neglected classes in New York some of his coworkers offered com- City; then built up a church or- plainants a hearing, and gave at ganization upon [l, simple and least a partial explanation of mat- Scriptural basis; then, as God ters that have caused criticism. seemed to lead, undertook a mis- And now two pamphlets have been sion work abroad, which has stead- publisht, one" A Slander Refuted" ily grown until there are some 230 and the other an "Explanation," missionaries on the field-all these as to Mr. Olsson and his relations successive steps we have watcht to the Alliance, and a rejoinder with profound interest, as well as from Mr. Simpson in the Evening the attendant developments of a Post, etc. large and successful training-school of workers, and the annual gather- On the merits of the questions at ing of voluntary offerings which issue we have not the data to form has come now to average over one an umpirical judgment, but in enhundred thousand dollars. Of late tire friendliness we can not withthe buildings erected at South Ny- hold a few suggestions which seem ack, and the new plans for a sort of to us to be not only proper, but Christian Alliance settlement on obligatory, from the position of the heights overlooking the Hud- this REVIEW, as an undenominason, have commanded the atten- tionaJ and independent organ of tion of many friends of the work, missions. 'Ve are, as a matter of and aroused some hostile criticism. principle, free from all connections with any body of Christians or We regret to see the signs of a board of missions, that we may be widespread and growing dissatis- unfettered in honest and impartial faction with the Alliance manage- review of all existing methods for ment, on the part both of donors a world's evangelization; and our and hitherto supporters of the sole object is, with all the light we work at home and of missionaries can get and all the help we can abroad. To this matter we have command, to point out the strong hesitated to refer, lest we should and the weak places in the missiononly seem to be embarrassing this ary harness, and to promote the work by calling attention to the speedy triumph of missionary encontroversies and the antagonisms deavor. which have in some way been generated. But for some weeks The The Alliance challenges admira- Examine1' has spread these matters tion by the aggressiveness of its spirit and the boldness of its ventures in the missionary field. It Mr. Olsson is charged with serious has sent forth not a few noble, mistakes, arbitrary action, refusal h!!roic, and self-denying laborers. to comply with orders from the It has gathered round itself a large board, and is represented as having and spiritual following of praying been recalled for the purpose of and giving supporters of missions. giving account of his stewardship, The weekly paper which is its pub- etc. And the statements of the lic organ is a very readable and missionaries in China, etc., have helpful record of missionary activ- been met not only with explanaity. Our brother Simpson himself tions, but in some cases with absohas shown much ability and versa- lute denials; so that it becomes a tility and devotion to the work in serious question, not only of good his conduct of affairs. or bad business methods, but of falsehood or veracity. At the same time there must be some ground of complaint when Candor compels us to admit that dissatisfaction is manifested in so some of the" explanations" do not many quarters and voiced by men explain, and that a few of the stateand women of such unquestioned ments made are not accurate. For piety and spirituality. example, Mr. Olsson is made re- sponsible for the withdrawal of Mr. Olsson, for example, who was Robert Arthington's pledge of finansent to South America as a man cial support, etc. We happen to peculiarly fitted to oversee a wide know that the responsibility lies work of evangelization, publicly elsewhere, as the editor was himasserts that, of money given for his self in Britain at the time, and support by a lady in New York, was made the confidant of the reaand which she affirms she paid in son of Mr. Arthington's change of the amount of $400, on May I, attitude, and as to who was the 1898, neither he nor his wife nor party influencing it, which was not family have received one cent; and Mr. Olsson. that no allowance has been paid him from the board from April, But the matter to be adjusted 1898, to June, 1899, altho $1,000 per lies, we believe, deeper down than annum was pledged for his support these superficial disagreements. and that of his family, etc. He further states that he has had to The Alliance work has grown borrow money from friends to help with almost unexampled rapiditypay his expenses as a missionary, grown, we fear, faster than was and that his brother workers have consistent with its wise, economihad to wait for from four to eight cal, and successful conduct. It may months for their allowances, all of be that the snare of numbers and which statements are proven by outward expansion has overtaken documentary evidence in his pos- it, and that missionaries have been session, etc. hurried to the field in greater abundance than the organization Similar statements have been was prepared to equip or maintain. made by Rev. Mr. Nichols and It may be that offerings have not wife, recently Alliance mission- always proved equal to the pledges aries in China, and who have now given, and that the shrinkage in withdrawn from its work because receipts has been greater than a of dissatisfaction with its methods. somewhat excessive enthusiasm was ready to admit. We have In the publisht replies of Mr. long felt tha.t the especial peril of Simpson and the board, these com- individual effort in the conduct of plaints are met by counter state- mission enterprises is found in the ments and counter accusations. risk of arbitrary and sometimes accepted, too superficially prepared, reckless administration. Human and too hastily sent forth, in not a nature is not yet so far perfected few cases – all these being the as that it is safe to put large power necessary risks of a work that has in anyone man's hands; and even with such unusual celerity sprung where there is a nominal board, it to maturity. Pallas Athene was is sometimes only the creature, not said to have leapt full armed the controller, of the one man who from the head of Zeus, under the is in a double sense the head. axe of Hephmstus, according to the Greek legend, but this only oc- It seems to us that there should curs in myth-in actual fact, it be a more detailed statement, net takes time and experience to equip only of money received, but of a work. The Alliance has done money expended; that the books, wonders, and we believe would do vouchers, and other documents of greater if less ambitious perhaps such a board should be open to in- to do great things, content rather spection, audited by parties wholly to restrain than to foster rapid exindependent of the Alliance, and pandion, and careful to grow no whose s,anction will command pub- faster than is consistent with a well lic confidence; that it should be developt, equally balanced, and within the power of any donor or healthy organism. supporter of the Alliance work to go and examine, with the aid of a We regret also to see a disposi- "chartered accountant," the rec- tion on the part of the Alliance ords of the board, and trace every board to meet charges by counter gift from its giver to its receiver. charges-a method which is so This is the only way to lift the often used for purposes of evasion, financial administration above the and which never clears up a diffisuspicion of fraud or mismanage- culty. Pettifogging lawyers in a ment. We have no thought that court room sometimes divert susthere has ever been any intentional picion from a client by creating misappropriation of funds, but suspicion of a witness; but such there may have been irregularity methods do not serve truth or and lOven insufficiency of supplies righteousness, and are unworthy for the workers in the field, and of such a board. there may have been a lack of economical, systematic business The question is not primarily conduct of the work, temporary whether :Mr. Olsson has been wise drawing on one fund to meet the or even faithful in his administraemergencies of another, etc. tion, but whether he has had the support, financial and moral, which We have long felt that the pres- the board owed the superintendent sure brought to bear upon givers of its South American missions. to secure large aggregate amounts, And it seems to us that the charges is wholly unwise and unscriptural, on which he was " summoned" and leads to many complications. home could not have been serious, A work of faith and prayer does in view of the glowing editorials in not admit of urgent and frantic ap- the Alliance paper, after his return, peals for funds, and there has been and the offer to send him back with to us a glaring inconsistency in new powers, which he says has this respect between the principles been repeatedly made to him on advocated and the methods pursued certain conditions. by our brother Simpson. Another suggestion which from It seems to us also that mission- deep conviction we venture to ary workers have been too easily add is, that when such a work as this grows as this has, and repre- are inevitable. Dissatisfaction will sents both such a widespread body not only continue but increase. The of givers and of workers, it ceases growth of the enterprise is such to be a one man's work, and he can that only in a multitude of counselno longer reply tc) criticism, that it lors is there safety, and the coun- is his husiness and he is responsible sellors should be persons of suffi- to God for it. Every mission worker cient intelligence, independence, and every home supporter has and spirituality, to be something 1'ights in the 'Work which are to be more than mere reflectors of the respected. Every work in which opinion and preference of the men and women engage personally originator. In several cases those or to which they contribute, be- who have been closely connected long.'! to them,. it represents them with the work have withdrawn and their interests; they are in- because they could not sanction tegral parts of it and can not be what was done and the way in ignored or treated with con- which it was done, such withdrawal temptuous indifference. They have only removing from the board the a right to investigate what becomes corrective or preventive element of money given to its support, who needed. ,Ve have often and is managing it, and how it is earnestly urged Mr. Simpson to managed. The books of the society effect a thorough reorganization of or board are not private property the whole work. Our urgency has but public property, and every been vain and has been apparently detail of administration ceases to treated as meddling. But every be a personal or private matter. day's experience only confirms our These are great principles too often opinion that until this is done the overlookt, especially in independ- Alliance will more and more alienent enterprisel'l, and it is the arbi- ate public confidence and hinder its trary and often tyrannical mode of own efficiency. There are hundreds carrying on independent missions of devoted friends of missions from that brings them into disfavor. J. whom could be selected a large and Hudson Taylor had the grace to see efficient body of counsellors, under that the China Inland .Mission had whose care this enterprise would long ago outgrown his control and flourish into new beauty and ferhis right to control, and he acted tility. accordingly. Hence we never hear a whisper against this work, not- This REVIEW would be the farwithstanding its huge dimensions. thest from doing anything to hin- And the time has fully come when der the good work of the Alliance. MI'. Simpson and his wife should The suggestions we made two years hand over the Alliance work to a since as to financial management large, competent, and trustworthy were prompted by a desire to body of men and women, retaining further and forward this missionno control whatever over either ary enterprise by helping to put it funds, workers, or methods, save on the soundest business basis. In as wisdom and piety enable them the same spirit the present suggesto counsel and direct. ""Ve are fully tions are made, and they voice the persuaded, after close study of the unexprest sentiment of a large body Alliance and its mode of business, of friends of brother Simpson and that too much po'Wer is wielded by the Alliance, who have no opportuone man, and that this is bad for nity of being so widely heard. Many both the man and all concerned. So prayers go up daily for the hun-' long as this continues, complaints dreds of missionaries located in so many fields, and for those who at hOllle "hold the ropes." One rot- Success and Su:ffering. ten or weak strand may leave the rope to part at a critical juncture, Dr. Edward Judson, in an ad- or an unsteady and weak hand at dress before the Baptist Social Un- home may imperil the security of ion of Boston, June 5th, comprest the work abroad. May our brother into forty words a whole volume of Simpson and his intimate cowork- truth. He said: ers be divinely guided so to reor- ganize the administration of the "Success and suffering are vi- work as to silence all just com- tally and organically linkt. If plaint, and so to render all their you succeed without suffering, it conduct of the enterprise transpar- is because some one else has suf- ent and translucent, as that it may fered before you; if you suffer not only be as they claim-able to without succeeding, it is that bear close inspection, but so easily some one else may succeed after inspected as to disarm both com- you." plaint and suspicicn. The eyes of the whole church are on this work. In 1 Chron. v: 18–26, we have two Its success or failure has an impor- strongly contrasted and very imtant bearing on all missionary en- pressive historical lessons which terprise. Many mistakes, almost are capable of a far wider appliinevitable in its early history, may cation, and this narrative again be avoided after nearly a score of teaches one great cause of success years of experience. And we in- and failure. voke the Spirit of Wisdom to take complete possession of His servants, There is first a brief account of a that their work, being first pure, war, in which the sons of Reuben, may be also so peaceable, full of and the Gadites, and half the tribe mercy and good fruits, without of Manasseh, valiant and able warpartiality and hypocrisy, as to pro- riors, went out to battle with the voke all other missionary organiza- Hagarites. They were conspicutions to emulation. ously helpt of God against their enemies, so that their foes were de- In connection with this matter, livered into their hand, and all that it is well to add that a circular were with them. And the reason was freely distributed in Great is assigned: "For they cried to God Britain and elsewhere some two in the battle, and He was entreated years ago, issued by the Chris- of them; because they put their tian and Missionary Alliance of trust in Him." New York City, commending Emilio Olsson and his plan for the And it is further added that speedy evangelization of South "there fell down many slain, be- America. To that circular the cause THE 'YAR 'VAS OF GOD." name of the editor-in-chief was attacht as a referee. Statements Immediately afterward a part of have recently been made to us by this same victorious army, the half Mr. Olsson (who has since with- tribe of Manasseh, mighty men and drawn from the Alliance) which famous warriors, transgressing make it necessary for the editor against God became mixt up with to withdraw his name as a referee, the idolatries of the people of the and to decline to assllme any re- land, and the result was that the sponsibility for the work of the same God who had so conspicuously Alliance in South America or else- helpt them against their foes now where. "stirred up the spirit of Assyrian kings, and they were carried away into long captivity." What a les- son on the causes of success and failure! Victory and defeat are not accidents, In preparing the official and au- A Revival in Missions. thorized family "Life of George Muller," so great blessing was real- Ve believe that there is in many ized to the writer that the purpose quarters a growing and deepening was definitely formed of giving a sense of the need of more self- copy of the book to every mission- sacrificing devotion in the con- ary family or unmarried missionary duct of missionary work. In the in the field. Since then the origi- last twelve or fourteen years there nal purpose has been somewhat en- has been an unprecedented increase larged, and many copies have been in the number of young people pre- given to the students at missionary paring and offering for the foreign training-schools and workers at field. There is more widespread home. The extent of the distribu- systematic study of missions than tion has been according to the ever before-in women's and young means supplied in answer to prayer. people's societies, missionary read- Thus far about twelve hundred dol- ing circles, and Student Volunteer lars have been provided by God for bands. The missionaries on the this purpose, and already over a field also seem to be aroused to a thousand copies have gone forth keener sense of their responsibility on their errand. Already many and privileges, and are holding in letters have been received, tell- many lands conferences for the ing of blessing received in the deepening of spiritual life. There reading of this story of a life of is a Forward Movement in many faith. of our churches at home, whereby separate congregations and indi- May we not again ask for united viduals maintain representatives prayer that the publication of the and substitutes in foreign lands, marvelous facts of George Muller's thus keeping in more vital and life history may be singularly blest sympathetic touch with work of God. The conviction grows upon among the heathen. us that there is no other record of one man's history since the days But tho considerable progress has of Paul, that suggests more helpful been made, much, very much, yet and instructive lessons in holy remains to be accomplisht before living and holy serving. Muller Christians are fully aroused to their stood unique as the man of God and responsibility to fulfil the Master's the man of the century, and no last command, and pay their debt man or woman who is at work for to non-Christian peoples. Thou- God in spiritual spheres can review sands of Christian churches and that life without new springs of individuals never give one cent or devotion and action being intro- one thought to the perishing milduced into the secret machinery of lions for whom Christ died, and to life and service. All the biogra- that extent they forfeit their right phies which we have read, put to the name of Ohristian, for Ohrist together, have not influenced our and all His followers must be misown character and conduct as the sionaries. facts of this life have done. A vast amount of missionary ser- I t seems that as the young people vice is directly and indirectly have given to the church an examtraceable to this one man's prayers ple of consecration in the cause of and alms and efforts. He was in Christ, and have answered the himself a whole missionary so- question, "Whom shall we send?" ciety, and a whole community of so they will be the means of arousgivers. ing the church to more self-sacri- fice, and will furnish an answer to the question, "How shall we send? " To insure the success of this pro- posal it is essential that each dis- In the Presbyterian, Methodist, trict asking for representation be visited as speedily as possible by the and other denominations there is proposed l'epresentative, in order that the constituency may be made already a "Young People's For- thoroughly cognizant of the plan under which its representative goes ward Movement for Missions" and to the field, and may he made fully alive to the responsibility involved. a Student's Missionary Campaign The Sacred Trust of the South. (see p. 583), which should put the Booker T. Washington makes a churches to shame for their lack of strong appeal to the South to solve the lynching question by creating zeal and devotion. such public sentiment as will make human life as safe and sacred in the The young people of the Cana- Southern States as it is anywhere in the world. This he regards as a dian Methodist Church issued a sacred trust committed to the South. He says in part: pledge which is also an appeal. It I fear but a few people in the South realize appears in the Toronto Christian to what extent the habit of lynching or the taking of life without the uue process of law Guardian, and is signed by eight has taken hoW of us, anu to what an extent it is not only hurting us in the eyes of the who are ready to go immediately, world, but injuring our own moral and material growth. Many good people in the and by twelve others who will go South, and also out of the South have gotten the idea that lynching is resorted to for one as soon as their course of prepara- crime only. During the last year 127 persons were lyncheu in the United States; of this tion is completed. The resolutions number 118 were executed in the South, and 9 in the North anu West; only 24 were are as follows: charged in any way with crimes against VVHEREAS, The Spirit of God has WOIllen. shown us what should be our attitude toward the non-Christian na- I am not pleading for the negro alone. tions of the world; and Lynching injures, hinders, and blunts the moral sensibilities of the young and tender WHEREAS, The support of nearly manhood of the South. all the foreign missionaries of the Canadian Methodist Church has There is too much crime among us. The been undertaken, in whole or in figures for a given period show that in the part, by districts organiz~d under United States 30 per cent. of the crime comthe Young People's Forward Move- mitted is by negroes, while we constitute only ment for Missions; and about 12 per cent. of the entire popUlation. This proportion holds good not only in the WHEREAS, This movement has South, but also in Northern States and cities. further developt to such a stage as No race that is so largely ignorant and so to render it imperative that the recently out of slavery could perhaps show a districts numbering approximately better record, but we must face these plain twenty, which are now asking, or facts. will ask in the immediate future, for representation on the mission A large Rlllount of the crime among us field, be granted such as soon as grows out of the idleness of our young men possible; and and women. It is for this reasOl, that I have tried to insist upon some industry being WHEREAS, The Missionary Board taught our young people in connection with has not sufficient funds to warrant their course of literary training. the appointment of new missionaries to represent these districts; It is difficult if not impossible for therefore, a Northerner to fully comprehend the negro problem. Newspaper We, the undersigned graduates reports and statements are usually and undergraduates in arts, medicine, or theology, desire to place ourselves on record before the church by offering ourselves, subject to appointment by the Mission Board, as representatives of these districts on the mission field.
We propose to accomplish this end without involving the board in increast financial obligation-that is to say, we agree to proceed to the mission field as soon as the said districts will support us, no deficiencies of salary to be met by the board, . biased and fragmentary and can of a trial. It is no money-making not reveal the whole truth. North- erners can not realize the fearful scheme, and we know well that it effect of lynchings upon the Southern youth of all classes, and while has been richly blest in our own the "better class" of citizens may not participate in fiendish cruelties country. Mr. Moody's letter is in their children are often demonized by the sights which they behold. part as follows: One Southern Christian pastor feels constrained to leave his field be- There are five millions of English-speaking cause the sentiment in his church people in India-more than twice the populais so against him on the negro tion of the entire state of Massachusetts,- question. Another Southern cor- some of them nominal Christians, many more respondent writes that the truth is not, and large numbers of them live in open not yet known on the lynching vice and sin. They are almost entirely unquestion. He continues: ,·e.cht by the Gospel, and practically unreach- able by ordinary methods. They are so scat- Summer before last I was holding meetings tered throughout the empire that, outside in —, when a rape occurred, followed by the largest cities, it is impossible to gather a lynching. The so-called best citizens took them into congrep:ations. English and Amera prominent part in the brutal affair, and the ican evangelists have been urged to go there sad truth about it was this: Men who made a and labor among them; some have done so; great ado about protecting the virtue of wife but the great mass of the people can not be and daughter, were not above reproach them- reacht in that way. Our lllissionaries go selves. One pleasant-faced boy, at whose there to labor among the heathen population, father's house I had eaten, and whom I had and so of course can not give their attention seen in one of my meetings, was at the lynch- particularly to those of whom I am speaking. ing. Before that he was the mildest and It is of the utmost importance that special quietest of creatures, but the evening of the efforts be put forth on behalf of this class of lynching I met him, and he had a piece of the people-not only for the sake of their own rope, about three inches long. His eyes were souls, but also, inthe opinion of Bishop Thoafire, and he seemed almost possest of a burn and other missionaries of lonl;" experidevil. He said, H Hanging was too good for a ence, because of their tremendous Influence nigger who would do such a thing." These upon the natives. Something must be done people do not know themselves, and most of to teach them if India is to be brought to them are too proud and self-satisfied to learn. Christ.
Truly the South need to be Less than a year ago it was determined to aroused to a sense of the enormity try a method that has succeeded well in other of the crime of lynching, and for places1 and at his earnest solicitation, one their own sake to teach the coming thousand of the Colportage Library book. generation by precept and example, were sent to Mr. Albert Norton, secretary of to protect the virtue of all women, the Evangelistic Book Depot, Poona, for black as well as white, and to treat careful and prayerful distribution. This lithe negro, guilty or not guilty, brary is made up of about 75 carefully sewith the same justice and mercy lected books, comprising those best calcuthat they would wish to receive at lated to reach people and lead them to true the hands of a negro jury. and consistent Christian lives. Mr. Norton made his own selection from them with the Colportage Books in India, needs of these particular people especially in mind. He ihen secured the hearty coopera- We have received from D. L. tion of the tract and book societies and mis- Moody the following appeal for the sionaries, and by means of the admirable English-speaking people of India. postal system in India, was able to reach It is well worthy of prayerful at- even the most distant inland villages. A suftention and prompt action. The ficient charge was made for the books to deproblem is a difficult one, but the fray the expense of postage. In a very short method suggested is at least worthy titne the entire number -'as disposed of, and Mr. Norton wrote that he needed 100,000 more -could easily dispose of them in the same way, and put every book where it would ac- complish something for GOd.
Now I do not believe that Christian people who are interested in the evangelization of India will let this opportunity to strike a good blow for it pass by. The expense is compar- atively small. A friend in New York has of- fered to pay the freight on all the books from Chicago to Bombay, and with a few thousand dollars we can put 100,000 good books to work preaching the Gospel in India. This is not an experiment, but a tried and proven way of reaching otherwise unreachable people. A book will go anywhere, gets into cabin or palace; waits its tinIe to be heard, is never tired of speaking; travels further and cheaper than others, is unaffected by climate, and un- toucht by fever. Once started off, calls for no salary; costs nothing to feed or clothe; never changes its voice, and lasts forever- until the fire comes.'
• AIr. Moody has felt so sure of a hearty response to this appeal, that he has already ordered the first 5,000 books sent on. Con- tributions, small or large-from a postage stamp to a hundred dollars or more-may be sent to him at East Northfield, Mass., and will be promptly acknowledged.
RECENT ARTICLES ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS
V.-RECENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. alleviating the miseries of child- hood and womanhood; suppressing Vol. II. By James E. Dennis, D.D. Illus- slavery, cannibalism, human sacri- trated. 8vo, 486 pp. $2.50. Fleming H. fice, foot binding, and other cruel Revell Co., N. Y., Chicago, aud Toronto. and unnatural customs, etc., etc.
Dr. Dennis' second grand volume Dr. Dennis has proven by his on "Christian Missions and Social work how richly it pays to give Progress," is now on the market, oneself wholly to the theme he and it fully meets the high expec- treats. He writes with the caretations awakened by its predeces- fulness and studiousness of the sor. The work expanded in its specialist. He seems' to us to avoid doing, and a third volume is now extravagance and overstatement, in preparation. As this second inaccuracy and unscientific haste part, like the first, embraces about in reaching conclusions. And, if 500 pages, an examination of it in. we do not much mistake, his work detail has been thus far impracti- is destined to be a sort of classic on cable. Indeed it is rather like an the theme he treats. The Revell encyclopedia-a book to be consult- Company is to be congratulated on ed topically, than like an ordinary this new issue from their press. It narrative, a book to be read con- does the publisher and author alike, secutively. This second volume great credit. treats the dawn of a sociological era in missions, and the contribu- THE MonEL M,SSIONARY. (Tbe life of Dr. tion of missions to social progress. John L. Nevius in Chinese.) By Mrs. Nevius. Illustrated, maps, etc. 8vo, 45 The contents of these carefully cents. Presbyterian Mission Press, prepared chapters indicate the Shanghai. scope of the treatment; for example, the topics treated are-the cre- This is a briefer memoir in Chiation of a new type of individual nese (Mandarin and Wen-li) of one character, and a new public opin- who was a pioneer missionary in ion; education is seen to have re- Shantung, the "Holy Land of the ceived a new impulse, and the lit- Chinese," and who has left his erature of missions has elevated mark and the mark of Christ not the intellectual life of non-Chris- only on many individuals, but upon tian races; missions have kindled the whole missionary field. He the philanthropic spirit, the per- was, indeed, in many respects a sonal example of mif'sionaries and "model missionary," and we wish native converts has been a stimulus that the fascinating and most helpto holy living and serving; and na- ful story of his life could be read by tions have felt the uplift of nobler Christians everywhere. Revell has ideas of social life and government- now issued a second and improved al functions, etc. edition of the English memoir.
Christian missions have positive- THE STUDENTS' CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES. ly contributed to social progress in ennobling character, in the temper- By Luther D. Wishard. 12mo, 47 pp. 15 ance reform, opposing the opium cents. Paper. Fleming H. Revell Co., traffic and habit, gambling, self-in- New York. flicted torture, mutilation, etc.; establishing higher ideals of personal This is a challenge indeed, and purity, habits of industry and fru- one to which the Christian churches gality, etc.; remolding family life, should not be slow to respond. It is in some sense a sequel to Mr. Wishard's" New Program of Mis- AFRICA. aTrht ethperAobflreicmanoMf etthheodnieswt Ccheunrtcuhryi~' sions," but one for which, as far as the p the churches are concerned, there to have in its solution. By Rev. H. B. should have been no need. It is Parks, D.D. 12mo, 66 pp. Maps and another plea for a forward move- ~Ol'traits (paper). Board of Home and ment in world evangelization. N~~i~~r~~Ssions of the A. M. E. Church, The call came for missionaries and the student volunteers have re- We believe that the Dark Consponded, but the church as a whole tinent is destined to receive more has utterly failed to provide the and more attention as an important adequate means. How long shall mission field and that the American this continue? Negroes are to have a larger hand in its evangelization, tho the con- AMONG INJ>IA'S' STUDENTS. By Robert P. tinent must be evangelized by Wilder, M.A.. 16mo, 81 pp. SOc. Flem- native preachers of the Gospel. ing H. Revel! Co., N. Y. The Afro-Americans are practically foreigners and in most respects have Mr. Wilder is probably as the same difficulties to face as the thoroughly acquainted with the white missionaries. Some of them student problem of India as any have had remarkable success as young man living. He was born in missionaries in Af"ica, and they that country and has made a special certainly owe a debt to their nonstudy of the subject for years. An Christian brethren in their fatherarticle from his pen appeared in the land. Dr. Parks seeks to set forth REVIEW in December last which briefly but forcibly the duty of the clearly indicated his grasp of the Christian Church as a whole, and subject. This little book should the African Methodist Episcopal find many readers, especially among Church in particular, to evangelize the young men of America. Mr. Africa. These brethren have al- Wilder well says in the preface: ready done much in 'Vest and South Africa, and we hope that To the student, India represents a wealth this little book will be the means of philology and a maze of philosophical of arousing this branch of Christ's system. Church to more zeal and self-sacri- fice in the cause of Christ among To the statesman, India is a nerve center of their brothers in the Black Conthe world. . . . tinent.
To the statistician, India means one-fifth of We have received a pamphlet the inhabitants of the globe. . . . copy of a fine address by Dr. J. A. Spurgeon on "The Faith once for To the entomologist, India means thirteen all delivered to the Saints," an races . . . speaking eighty languages and address prepared to be given from dialects, and divided into eight religions. the chair of the Baptist Union of But to the Christian, India is the court Great Britain and Ireland, April guarded by .. the strong mind fully armed" 26, 1899. It is in a sense the last It is the place of opportunity, since it is great utterance of our departed under a Christian government which guaran- friend, who died March 23, nearly tees right of residence, freedom of speech. and protection from violence. It is also the one month before this address was place of responsibility, because it is in the to have been given; and as a poststate of transition and will adopt Western civilization without Western Christianity humous paper it will serve as a sort unless the Church of Christ moves forward of last legacy to the world and the more rapidly. church. It need scarcely be said In this little book Mr. Wilder that Dr. Spurgeon's utterances are takes up: The Student Field, Hinduism, The Work and the Worker, not loose or careless. He is very The Unconvinced, The Convinced, earnest in remonstranCfl against In the Districts, A Stronghold of Ritualism, Romanism, Rational- Brahmanism, Methods of Opposition, Trials, and Joys. It is a con- ism and all other fOi'ms of evil in cise and pointed statement, full of the church, and his address lays interesting incidents and telling anew the old foundations for misfacts, and is excellently adapted for a text-book on the subject in Volun- sions at home and abroad. teers and young people's classes.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
VI.– GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D.
THE KINGDOM. turned to home missions, but the fact remains of their willing mind. -Dean Hodges says: "The devil And further, 'Villiam Carey and has divided us and conquered us his associates not only maintained time and time again. The devil in themselves during more than a all his portraits wears a smile. It third of a century, but in addition is the pleased expression of one contributed $450,000 for the spread who sees those who might be fight- of the Gospel. ing him fighting one another." We want to spoil that smile on the -The Church Missionary Society devil's face. makes these statements, which well set forth the marvelous develop- -An English Baptist missionary, ment of missions which this cenwhile on a tour of exploration tury has witnest: A hundred years through a region lying to the south ago the founders of the society of the Lower Kongo, among other were unable to find a single Engthings, noticed this: "In Zombo lish missi@nary whom they could the houses and towns are full of send to carry the Gospel invitation, fetishes and charms; ,we came and it seemed as if the doors of acacross many fetishes which even cess to the heathen and Mohammedour carriers had never seen before. an world were hermetically sealed. One thing interested us all, and we Now, thank God, the open doors found it in many towns. It was a abound on every hand, and the trap to catch the devil. It was missionaries who have gone out cleverly arranged-sometimes on from Great Britain and Ireland in the square space where the people the society's ranks, tho far too few, met for palavers, and sometimes in are numbered ill thousands. The the houses-with cord loops and two thousand and third missioncane springs, and they had special ary, not counting wives, sailed in charms to attract their prey into March last. The one thousandth it; The idea was very commend- sailed in 1880, so that more have able, and the trap would be a great gone out during the past nineteen blessing to the world at large if it years than during the previous were successful. But they all con- eighty-one. The average number fest that the trap had not caught sent out yearly during the first yet!" Alas! alas! fifty years was 872'; from 1849 to 1887 it was 19, and from 1887 to – We are not to think of 1898 it was 707:£'. "princely" giving as something wholly modern. A hundred years -These missionaries are said ago two Scotch Presbyterians of never to have returned to their blessed memory, Robert and James home land: Archdeacon Henry Haldane, became so deeply inter- 'ViIIiams, during 45 years of labor ested in missions to India that they in New Zealand; Oakley, during 51 sold their estate at the Bridge of years in Ceylon; Rebmann, during Allan, the most ·beautiful in Scot- 29 years in East Africa; Robert land, and offered the price, $175,- Noble, during 24 years in Masuli- 000, to found a mission in Benares. patam; Bishop Bompas, went out It is true that William Pitt de- to Northwest Canada in 1865, and feated their purpose, and that their has since come home but once, yiz., princely gift was of necessity in 1872, for his consecration; Alexander MacKay, during 14 years of aries rather than to its own labor in Uganda. officials.-China's Millions.
-The uprightness of Christians -Judging from what I saw as contrasted with the heathen is among the churches of our de·· observed and acknowledged. When, nomination and the place missions for example, last autumn the occupy in our seminaries and northern island of Japan was prayer-meetings, many still look visited by devastating floods, which upon them as a glorious form of rendered homeless more than 30,- recreation for Christians suffering 000 people, and the Buddhist monks from ennui in the congregation. and priests of Hakodate offered to The lnission business, as a whole, collect and distribute money and is not taken seriously in the Sflnse, clothing among the distrest, the re- for instance, that railroading is, sponse made to their offer was in- and yet in one sense they are alike. significant. But when the native "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; Christians appealed to the towns- make straight in the desert a 1"ailpeople for gifts of clothing, and road for our God "-a modern highsent round carts surmounted by way for the Gospel. No man ever red cross banners, the people expects to get his original investgreeted them with cries of, "Here ment out of a railroad. He could come the Christians!" " They not do it if he tried to. The money crammed old clothing into the that goes into building the railroad carts," Bishop Fyson says, "some has gone beyond recovery. The even taking off what they were railroad builder knows this, and wearing and throwing them in; still he goes on wil,h his work. It shopkeepers gave new goods out is not a question of a collection of their stores, and some gave semi-annually or a mite-box in the money as well." Over 10,000 arti- hands of each section-boss. He cles were collected, the townspeople sinks capital. He does this because saying that they gave so freely be- he has faith in the enterprise.-REV. cause they could trust the Chris- S. M. ZWEMER. tians to be honest and judicious in distributingtheircharity.-C. M. S. -At a recent missionary meet- Report. ing, Rev. F. Melville Jones said: "Every mission needs a capable, -The Chinese government has wise head, and a good, strong backdecided to make large grants of bone. The head is the European, money to the famine sufferers in but the backbone is the native the northern provinces, and has worker, and the latter is the more communicated with the Hbngkong important, for it is the larger. In and Shanghai bank, at Shanghai, the Yoruba mission there are 13 asking its managers to secure the Europeans and 150 native workers. assistance of the missionaries in The European can never do withthese provinces in the distribution out the native. The native natuof the funds. The managers of rally knew better how to reach the the bank have thus approacht our hearts of his people than the formission directors in Shanghai, and eigner, and the latter could not be have askt them to arrange for the left alone, because of the risk of relief distribution in the province sickness. He hoped, however, for of An-huei. It is a noteworthy in- the time when the native would no cident that the government has de- longer need the European. Fourtermined to entrust the disburse- fifths, or even nine-tenths, of the ment of the money to the mission- idols given up were given up not to the foreign, bnt to the native societies, and individuals. This is worker." the largest number ever sent out by any board in one year. It does UNITED STATES. not represent an accumulation of appointments, but their names -The Foreign Board of the South- were acted on at the same time. ern Baptist Convention reports 8 They are assigned to 17 different missions; 1 in Africa, 3 in China, foreign countries. The provision 1 each in Japan, Italy, Mexico, and for their salaries was secured Brazil. There are in all 100 church- through the efforts of the student es, 140 out stations, 82 missionaries, volunteers who have been pushing 27 ordained native helpers, 101 un- foreign missions the country over ordained native helpers, and 5,347 during the past winter. Great communicants. The number of credit is due the new secretary, baptisms reported during the ye'ar Robert E. Speer, formerly of the was 845. student volunteer band, who has been largely instrumental in secur- -The Christian Missionary Al- ing this help through the efficient liance reports $250,000 expended in work of Mr. Wishard, who has maintaining nearly 300 mission- lately joined in a similar work with aries in the foreign field, nearly as the American Board. During the many native workers, and at least past week veteran missionaries 300 more evangelists and workers addrest these new candidates at in our various home fields. The several meetings held for that pur- Alliance maintains a missionary pose in this city.-Congregationtraining institute, in which candi- alist. dates are trained for the work of missions. Last year there was an -One of the commissioners to the attendance of over 100 students, recent General Assembly was the and altogether during the sixteen Rev. John B. Renville, a Dakota years of the institute's history, Indian. He is near his three score over 1,200 students have past and ten and has been a preacher for through its classes. Its work is in 32 years, being the first Presbythe Sudan, China, Tibet, Palestine, terian minister ordained in the South America, India, and Japan. tribe. He was a member of the General Assembly of 1883, and has -A few years ago the Presby~ been held by all his ministry in the terian Foreign Board made a deter- highest honor. mined and persistent effort to enlist the Christian Endeavor societies in -Mr. F. S. Rrockman tells of a its work and to secure larger con- young people's society in a "Vestern tributions from them. The results village with 85 members. In 1894 have been most gratifying, the they were giving $50 to missions. contributions having increast more The leader secured a series of misthan eight-fold in seven years, or sionary addresses, provided a misfrom $5,264 in 1891 to $42,650 in sionary library, and in other ways 1899. sought to cultivate an interest in missions. The next year the con- -An epoch in foreign missions tributions were $106. He continued was created by the Presbyterian to cultivate, and made prayer an foreign board last week, wli en its important factor. The next year officers announced that 52 new mis- they gave $200. The next year sionaries had been appointed and their attention was directed to a would soon sail for the foreign student, and they said: " Why field. All these have had their salaries provided for by churches, shouldn't we send out this young known. This great victory of the man?" Their contributions were Cross is due to native Christians increast, and they pledged $1,085 and to a Centenary prayer-meeta year for five years to keep their ing, which they held at the hour own missionary on the field. It (half-past seven in the morning) was easier, said the leader, to get which corresponds to the time of the $1,085 than it was to get the the Thursday afternoon prayerfirst $50. Here was a village society meeting at Salisbury Square.-The of 85 members giving an average of Gleaner. over $10 per member for foreign missions, when askt intelligently to -After a service of 37 years, Dr. respond to the missionary appeal. Nassau has come horne from Equa- torial Africa, leaving three asso- -When Dr. Marsh and his young ciates, who have each served above wife set out two years ago on their 30 years, one for 26, another for 21, long journey to the northmost two for 17 years. point of land in America's possessions, under the very shadow of the -" He was a colored man and an north pole, it was well known that old sailor"-a double reason for at best they could only be heard unthrift and waste; but no, he was from at long and irregular intervals thrifty and saving, this particular of a year or more. Very recently colored sailer, Pyrrhus Concer, of word has come that a church of 115 Southampton, Long Island, and members has been organized. Of left legacies of over $2,000 to religthese Eskimos Dr. Marsh says: ious charities, besides a bequest of "They are earnest and sincere $376.66 to this society. To be sure, Christians if I am able to judge." he may be, and probably is the first Truly a wonderful fruitage of the colored man to mention this sociwork done at that station since it ety in his will, but no doubt he was opened, among a wholly un- knew in his seafaring days that tutored people, some six or eight shipwreckt and destitute colored years ago! seamen received the aid of this so- ciety, and that all colors and na- -A native woman recently tionalities were included in its charshowed to her pastor at Sitka a tty. Whether he was the first or cord on which knots were tied at not, may he not be the last!-Sailintervals of about one-fourth of an or's Magazine. inch. It was her reckoning of the Sundays that had past since she -The Board of Foreign Missions was baptized. There were over of the Reformed Church in America 500 knots on the cord. Upon refer- sends out the following statement ring to the church record it was as to the proportion of $1.00 confound that she had been baptized sumed in home expenses, and the over ten years ago. amount used in the foreign work: -A notable victory of God's Salaries… " .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. 3 cents 8 2 mills. grace is reported from Kincolith, British Columbia. Chief Skoten, Rent and care of office…… 0 ,. 7.9 of the Nishga Indians, a leader of the heathen party, and a great op- Printing annual report, leafponent of the Gospel, has been converted to God. Archdeacon Colli- lets, and The Mission Field 1 1.3 son says that Skoten was even more powerful and hostile than Traveling·-visiting churches 0 " 2.4 Sheuksh, whose story is so well Stationery, postage, mite- boxes. etc …………….. 0 ,. 7.4 Total home expenses ……. 6 cents 7.2 mills. Total spent for our missions in India,China, and Japan, 03 H ?8 $1.00 -The League for Social Service who were admitted by baptism into (105 E. 22nd St., New York City), the visible Church during the year under the presidency of Dr. .Tosiah were 6,829, an average of 131 a week. Strong, has for its immediate ob- They include a blind woman at jects, industrial betterment and Onitsha, who has experienced per- city improvement. Dr. W. H. secution; the first-fruits of the val- Tolman, the secretary, recently re- ley station at Mamboia, 'Persis, turned from a trip to several West- beloved by everybody,' and who ern cities to study what employers loves to labor for her Savior; a are doing to improve the conditions young sheik, a student at the EI of their operatives. In one factory, Azhar University, Cairo; a Pathan a small boy has charge of an ice from over the frontier of British water tank, which is wheeled about India, whose first lessons in the so that each man may have a drink Gospel were learnt froIJ? a torn of cool water; the business man copy of St. Matthew. which found will appreciate the saving of time, its way to his village; a Rajput and the working man appreciates leper; a Brahman at Bombay, in- the refreshing drink. structed by Mr. Anderson, of the S.V.M.U.; an Arabic-speaking .Tew The support of the League is de- in the same city; a Tamil-speaking rived from voluntary subscriptions. Mohammedan, known as Lubbais, Its work is educational, non-parti- at Madras; a Hindu sorcerer; the san and non-sectarian. An appeal first-fruits of Kien Yang, the re- is made for funds to enable it to motest station in Fuh-Kien; a col- meet the operating expenses. lege tutor at Ning-po, aged eighty- nine; a.Tapanese artillery corporal EUROPE. at Hiroshima; a number of Black- feet Indians, gathered in after England.-The British and For- many years of labor; and an influ- eign Bible Society reports that the ential Nishga chief, whose name work of translation is in progress was used to conjure with by the in not less than 120 languages, a medicine men of the Naas and number great beyond precedent. Skeena rivers." Its 725 colporteurs sold last year more than 1,500,000 copies of the -The Church of England Zenana Scriptures. Its 552 native Chris- Mission reports 220 missionaries, tian Biblewomen (an increase of 48 and an income of £46,118. To its on 1897) labored mainly in India hospitals and dispensaries 200,000 and Ceylon. These women read to women come annually for healing. their secluded sisters, shut off from all preachers and churches. They -We have been looking over the are supported chiefly in connection files of the mission to ascertain the with some 80 different missionary equipment in medical service, as societies-British, Colonial, Amer- related to our body of missionary ican, German, and Danish-and laborers in China, and to the cost last year above £3,400. More heathen. We find that we have 18 than 31,600 women have been read duly accredited physicians and 69 to, on an average, each week; near- qualified trained nurses, and that ly 2,000 have been taught to read there are 7 hospitals, 21 dispensafor themselves. ries, and 48 opium refuges. This is a sadly inadequate ministry for the -What a startling recital of re- needs of the workers in our mission, sults is contained in these sentences and for the many millions of the from the Gleaner (C. M. S.): "The Chinese which our missionaries adults, converts from Paganism, Heathenism, or Mohammedanism, touch. Will not friends ask that lVIr. Mott presented the ubject, over the hearts .)f some of the Christian $16,000 was subscribed. The Bom- medical men and women on this bay Bowen Memorial Fund of continent may be influenced by the about $5,000 will be added to the Spirit, and that we may· receive above $30,000. many offers of service from this class of workers ?-China'8 Mil- Scotland.-The United Presbytelion8. rians report progress in the Mis- 8ionary Record in this language, -The Presbyterian Church of which relates to Kaffraria, Old Cal- England has gathered 8 Chinese abar, Rajputana, China, Jamaica, churches at Singapore, J ohore, and and Trinidad: "This report was, in Muar, with a membership of 175 some respects, one of the most men and 75 women, whose contri- hopeful and encouraging that the butions reacht a total of $1,374 synod has ever received. Except last year. in Jamaica, there has been distinct advance in all our mission fields. -The Wesleyan Church has this In 1897 the increase in membership to say of its missions: "The 8tati8- reported was 2,376; in 1898 the intical return8 for the year are en- crease is 3,567, the largest increase couraging. The Transvaal and in anyone year of our missionary Swaziland district leads the way history. The total membership of with an increase of 849 members in the native churches in 1880 was addition to 3,500 on trial. The Can- 9,687; in 1898 it has reacht 26,971, ton district comes next, with an in- showing an average annual increase crease of 359, the largest hitherto during the past eighteen years of recorded. All the di8trict8 in the 960. There are 114 congregations, A8iatic .field 8how an increa8e. But with 268 out-stations, at which it is with respect to our Asiatic services are regularly conducted. missions, above all, that we would At the Sabbath-schools there are repeat the oft-exprest caution 21,070 in attendance, and at the day against a too literal and narrow schools 20,146 children are receiving interpretation of figures. There is a sound Christian education. These much real progress that can not be figures are convincing. In the face set forth in statistics. There is the of them adverse criticism of misdiffusion of Christian thought and sions must feel ill at ease." sentiment over widening areas; there is the moral impression made Fra;)ce.-O!le of the most successby the character of good men and ful agencies in the evangelization women, and the affection cherisht of France is the canal-boat in conby thousands of young people for nection with the McAll mission, those who have taught and cared "Le Bon Messager." In France, for them; there is the movement, owing to the multiplicity of canals, under social and economic pressure, it is possible to travel 20,000 miles of whole classes, and even races, in the heart of the country by this toward the religion that pities their means. A writer in the New York sorrows and recognizes their aspi- Evangeli8t says: "It is impossible rations." to give with any sobriety of descrip- tion an account of what this boat -Mr. Frank Anderson, the stu- work is to the people of France. dent secretary of Bombay, has re- The floating chapel, seating 150, turned to England to raise $30,000 moves slowly along its way, stopfor a student association building ping at hamlet after hamlet, and in that city. At a breakfast in wherever it stops, for two weeks or T.ondon on May 5, where he and three, the room is crowded, the successful efforts among the Ital- river banks are thronged, if there ian Roman Catholics, most obnox- is a bridge overhead it is crowded, ious to the Vatican. But the pope's too, and this for meeting after power at Rome is nil. The progress meeting. When it moves along of the Gospel in Rome is one of the the people follow it, walking 8 strong motiv8s for the desire of the miles, 5 miles, even 15 miles, after restoration of the temporal govern- their long day's work in the field, ment. for the privilege of a service." ASIA. Germany.-The Berlin City Mis- sion has recently publisht its an- Syria.-The American Prells at nual report, written by ex-court Beirut last year issued 138,000 vol- preacher Dr. A. Stoecker. During umes and printed more than 28,- the past year 48 city missionaries, 000,000 pages. There are now about 10 assistants, and 6 candidates of 672 distinct publications on the the ministry were employed. They catalog, which can be obtained made 100,000 visits, mostly in the at the Press. They include not destitute parts of the city. only the Scriptures, but religious and educational books, theological, Sweden. – A week's conference scientific, historical, juvenile, and was recently held in Stockholm of miscellaneous books, prepared by between 20 and 80 Swedish mission- the American missionaries and the aries who were home on a furlough. professors of the Syrian Protestant They represented 4 different socie- college and by Syrian authors. ties, and the conference was the first of its kind held in Sweden. The -According to the Sidon report last evening they were invited to for 1898, 39 villages were repre- Prince Oscar Bernadotte's for tea, sented in the girls' schools; 32 girls and afterward a prayer-meet;ng were Protestant, 30 Greek Orthowas led by the prince, in which the dox, 18 Greek Catholic, 5 Maronite, princess also took part. The first 9 Moslem, 2 Metawali, 11 were Swedish missionary to China was Jews-l07 in all, of whom half con- Eric Folke, who went out in 1887. stituted the primary class. The To-day, after twelve years, there latter gave an entertainment which are 250 Swedish missionaries in that netted $12 for missionary society; country. Of these about 100 are the total collection from the school sent out and supported by Swedes was swelled by needlework and in America. Sweden, compared self-denials to $40. with its population, has more missionaries in foreign fields than any -Secretary Hay has received deother country. tails of a new railroad which is to cross the Holy Land. The pro- Italy.-It is not a little instructive posed capital is $50,000,000, but 110 to find the Civilia Cattolica devot- shares will be put upon the market, ing more than two pages to the so it is said, until the line is comspread of Protestantism in Rome, pleted as far as Nazareth. The and to the measures which have road will run from Haifa, a been taken to check it. The Amer- seaport town 75 miles south of ican Methodists, the Baptists, the Beirut, to Damascus, a distance of "Valdensian Church, the Evangel- 142 miles, and the project includes ical Italian Church, the Young an extension from Damascus to Men's Christian Association are, Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. according to this leading Romish paper, making themselves, by their -What a Babel the Holy City must be with all these among its inhabitants: Syrians, Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, Latins, Jews, in the stocks, is constantly beaten Abyssinians, Egyptians, Copts, Su- and half starved, with the idea if danese, Russians, English, French, badly treated the devil will the Spanish, Germans, Italians, and sooner leave him. And then, as a A~ericans. "The strange multi- last resource, when the friends tude streams through the narrow have grown tired of even this unstreets, amid shopstalls, horses, kind care of their relative, the asses, camels, children, and beg- lunatic is given freedom in the gars, down ill-paved lanes, under desert. His hands are tied behind d,rrk arches, up irregular flights of his back, and he is led out into the steps, under old tottering walls, desert and is never heard of again. and past new – built structures, There are no homes for the blind emerging here and there by various and crippled, and none for the invenerable gateways in the enclos- curable, in this land." ing walls, amid the bright rising settlements of the open suburbs." -A Persian of high standing in Kernan has promist to build a -A private letter from Jerusa- mission hospital as soon as a medilem states that Rev. A. Ben Oliel cal missionary can be found to and family have left that city per- carry it on. manently for Canada. His house has been closed and his goods sold India.-A sheet edited by heathen at auction. This is the man who, speaks thus of missionary results according to his own publisht ac- in India. It is speaking immedicownts, has for some years past ately of the Basel missionaries. belen carrying on extensive mission " Before the missionaries came into work among the Jews – "girls' the land a great part of the popusehool and kindergarten," "dress- lation had no conception of how a making schools," "rnothers' meet- book looks. To touch a book was ing," "Bible classes," and" Sunday supposed to involve defilement. services "-but about the reality of Before the missionaries publisht whose work some doubt has been dictionaries and grammars, the exprest. Considerable money from Hindu scholars never once thought the United States, on the solicita- of such a thing as necessary. tion of Mr. Ben Oliel's daughter and Further services of the missionaries his friends, has been going to him are schools, the introduction of for several years. People in Jeru- weaveries and tileries, their care of salem and elsewhere are wondering the sick, their hospitals, and the how such a "large and flourishing distribution of rice in times of mission" could be closed up and famine. We can learn of them how disappear in the short space of to redeem the time. They too are two months.-Congregationalist. Europeans, and yet they reach out after no manner of honors .01' dis- Persia.-How much the medical tinctions, like the English functionmissionary is needed in Persia may aries and merchants; moreover, be gathered from the following ex- their devoutness, humility, kindtract from a missionary's letter: ness, and patience are very well "Do you quite realize the state of known to us. How modest and Persia as it is to-day? In this land simple is their attire and their there are no hospitals excepting whole demeanor. While, therefore, those belonging to missionaries. in matters of religion our views There are no free dispensaries, there widely diverge, yet there is no are no lunatic asylums. The poor doubt that in their course of action lunatic is chained, his feet fastened and in their efforts they are benefactors of the Malabar people."- now I think he has made up his Der Missions-Freund. mind to live. In my hospital I have four cases of sunstroke, and a -The Madras Hindu suggests to blind child, blind both eyes." us the way India may be converted by its splendid testimony to Dr. -The local newspaper publishes Gell, thirty-seven years bishop of a bright narrative of the prize dis- Madras. It says: tribution to the Poona schools in November last: "There were We are not Christians, and we can not pre- present the 2 boarding-schools un- tend to be in any sense enthusiastic about the der the direct care of the Rev. J. results of the propagation of the Christian and Mrs. Small and Miss Paxton, Gospel. But a pious man is a pious man, the Beni-Israel and Hindu schools whether he be a Christian or a Hindu. . . . of the city in Miss Ligertwood's And as true Hindus we are toleralit enough charge, and 3 Hindustani schools to recognize in Dr. Gell a saintly personage. superintended by Miss Clerihew. . . . From the day he landed here he has Altogether there were about 500 been the same, shedding a benign influence children, little and big. The all around, offending none, irritating none, quaintly-trousered little daughters and taking sides with no one, and yet witness- of Islam, the Hindu girls with their ing unto the beauty of his faith more effect- neat toilets and serious little faces, ively than all the militant missionaries about. the fair Beni-Israel children, and Orthodox Hindus who have come in contact the promiscuously-clothed hopefuls with him bear witness to his work as elo· of Christian parentage, backt up quently as the most enthusiastic of his by the big boys of the Press and followers. And no Christian would look for Orphanage generally, made up a a better reward for his religious labors in picture of mixt Oriental life that this land. Christian progress here is not to a student of human nature would be measured by the increasing number of delight to linger over. But these converts, but by the growth of appreciation did not represent all the children for Christian character. And we are as of the mission, or all its schools. sorry to bid him good-by as any Christian Saswad has its own schools, where could be. most of the famine orphans have been placed. Neither famine nor -Pastor Haegert, of the Bethel plague had left the slightest shadow Santhal Mission, writes: "Cattle upon the gathering." disease is here on a visit, and the lamentation in some villages over -We often hear complaints their dead oxen and cows is great. about the imperialist spirit of In Dumoria the villagers had a Europeans in India toward the meeting. All agreed that the inhabitants. Would not that be a blood-thirsty goddess Kali caused good name to call the spirit with the trouble. To save their remain- which the low-castes and the Ining cattle, all promist to contri- dian Christians are treated by the bute to a big sacrifice to the villain- higher castes? Alleged snperiority ous old goddess. Mohammedans, of race could be the cause in both Hindus, and Santhals all gave cases. In a district in this presfreely. The sacrifice was made, idency there lives a Christian and everybody hoped that his cattle preacher who was originally a was safe. The next few days the l!fang by caste. He is a respectable cattle died more than before, and man, clean and tidy, and his the disappointment was great. I character commands the respect of attended five oxen; four pulled his neighbors. Said a Brahman through without much trouble. who knew him: "That man is a The fifth-a big fine ox, I fed with a bottle three days; then he recovered, and I.shouted 'victory.' The next day a thunderstorm gave him a chill and relapse. Again I fed him with a bottle for one day, and real Christian." He has a fine little workers have to be guarded against wife who was before her conversion constantly. Crickets and other ina Kunbi (farmer caste). Both had sects, and even ants eat holes in become Christian in adult life. clothing. Those who travel IJY They recently went to a new town boat suffer from the ravages of to live, and rented a house of a cockroaches, which sometimes ruin Hindu landlord, but the Hindu either books or boots that happen -neighbors revolted, put a padlock to be left exposed. Books suffer in on the door, and threatened the houses also, unless kept in a booklandlord that they would all leave case with glass doors, and even his houses if the Christian was then there is a danger of mold in allowed to live in the house. The the rainy season. Vithout going landlord refunded the advance rent, into further particulars, one can and another house was rented from safely say that the loss caused here a Mussulman. A few days later, as by the climate and insects, etc., is he drew water from the public pipe an item quite unknown in Canada." nearest his house, he was carried off by the police on the complaint -An old Buddhist, bent with of his neighbors. His wife, fright- age, nearly blind, scarcely able to ened, ran to a missionary who pro- walk, spoke thus to a Vesleyan ceeded to the spot and completed missionary in Ceylon of his hope the story. "I found him in custody for the future: "I am ninety-six. at the house of the Mamlatdar, I have climbed Adam's Peak (where who seemed quite angry when I Buddha is said to have left his footappeared on the scene, and profest prints) 20 times; I have visited the not to know what the municipal , Temple of the Tooth' in Kandy 7 rules were about drawing water times; I have had a number of from the pipes, and refused to look Buddhist books copied and given up the matter while I was there. to Buddhist priests; I have never After I left he told the preacher he killed an animal, only on a few could draw water from a pipe It occasions have I caught some fish. long way off where Mangs, Cha1lt- So you see I have plenty of merit, bars, and Bhils drew water, and and I shall be born well in my next that he would inquire into the rules life." and let him know. The pipe is a small one and necessitates the loss -Village settlement work has of a good deal of time for the been started in Kolhapur, India, preacher to wait his turn when he hy Miss Grace E. Wilder and four goes for the water."-Indian Wit- young women associates. They ness. have gone out under the Presby- terian Board, under a special pro- -A Canadian missionary writes vision that they shall receive only thus to his friend: "The intense $300 a year salary, for which the dry heat of the hot season, and treasurer has opened a separate acthe damp heat of the rainy count. Mrs. Royal G. Wilder is season, are very trying on all also in the settlement as an honorkinds of leather and rubber goods. ary member-a self-supporting mis- In the latter season mold some- sionary, who first went to India in times forms on one's boots in a day. 1846. They are in a district where Insects are very destructive. A there are over two thousand towns, valise left on the floor over night with no resident Christians. They was found eaten by white ants in desire to bring Christ to these' peothe morning. These incessant ple by women's meetings, house to house visitation, Bible school, etc. They are asking the prayers of to see and speak with us, to be sure Christians for God's blessing upon that there was no mistake, and the work and the workers. then turned immediately and ran China.-Ninety-one years ago, all the way back to Ichowfu to Robert Morrison arrived in China, give the word that Mr. and Mrs. 3,000 missionaries have followed Killie had surely arrived, for he him, and nearly 100,000 converts had seen and talkt with them. are reported. Soon the river bank was lined with men, women, and children. The -The Religious Tract Society in schoolchildren met us two miles China recently observed its twenty- from home, running along the third anniversary. In an interest- bank, jumping up and down, waving address delivered on that occa- ing their kerchiefs, and shouting sion Dr. Griffith John, the veteran at the tops of their little voices." missionary at Hankow, states that the society, during these twenty- -The Rev. A. A. Fulton, of Can- three years, has circulated over ton, wrote under the date of March 13,000,000 copies of Christian books 13: "I have finisht my second coun- and tracts. During the last ten try trip since the annual meeting.
years the circulation was nearly On this trip I baptized 76 adults. I 11,000,000 of copies. To fully appre- held ten services in three coun- ciate this immense circulation, we ties, the most distant point from must bear in mind the fact that all Canton being 170 miles. By invita- these tracts are sold. The only tion I went to a village where no gratuitous circulation made by the foreigner had been, and baptized society is to the students at the three adults. They gave me a plain time of the triennial examinations, adobe building for chapel purposes.
this being the only way of reaching At Tong Ham, where we have them as a body. raised more than $1,200 on the field, -There are 9 different colleges I baptized 27 adults, and organized and academies in Tien-tsin, China, a church with 87 members and 1 and excepting two or three of the elder. A little less than one year I:lmaller ones, the Tien-tsin Student ago there was not a Christian Association has representatives in there. Now there is an organized all. Most of the members are in church, having more than $I,COO the imperial university and in the with which to build. Yesterday medical college. The university was communion service at First has 230 students, of whom about 30 Church in Canton. I baptized 13 are professing Christians and 40 are adults. and in less than forty minmembers of the association. Sfx utes we raised more than $1,000 to of these regularly keep the" morn- buy a'new site. Four men gave ing watch." each $100. We will get, I feel sure, $1,500, as some were not -Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Killie re- present who will help. The fact is, ceived an enthusiastic welcome on the church is so crowded we can their return to Ichowfu, China, not seat the communicants. Six after a year's furlough. They went years ago we could not have raised up the river in small house-boats. $10. Since the annual mission "Two or three miles down the meeting, a little more than four river," writes Mrs. Killie, "we months ago, I have baptized more could see men walking and running than 200 adults." toward us. One took off his shoes and stockings and waded into the -Rev. A. P. Happel', of Canton, middle of the river, close enough said: The training of Bible women for evangelistic labor among the flood of civilization will have people will in most parts of China begun to set in toward Nyasaland. be the most feasible and economical Hitherto our progress has been so plan of Christian work. The slow thap such a thought is apt to Chinese women have sufficient be considered ridiculously optimismental powers and intelligence to tical; yet there is scarcely one of fit them for such work. There are those who were in the country ten everywhere large numbers of mid- years ago that dreamt of the Shire dle-aged widows, with no children Highlands being what it is to-day. requiring their care, and having no And we do not doubt that the next mothers-in-law to restrain them, decade will transform many parts who after conversion can be pre- of the country still more. The pionpared for such Christian work. eers of a new country do not gener- This form of work for women ad- ally possess too much money, conmits of the most indefinite expan- sequently progress is slow until the sion under the care of women from resources prove a success. Our proother lands. And it is one which tectorate has been developt by men the native Church can at an early and societies who have had a good day take up and carryon for and of deal of philanthropic blood coursing themselves. " through their veins, who have spent their all, and gained the experience Japan.-The educational depart- which is a gift to all newcomers. ment of the Student Volunteer When the development of the next Movement for Foreign Missions an- few years takes place, it will come nounces for the fall of 1899 a course oblivious of the hard-won and uphill of study. The text-book is "Japan past, paying but scant honor to and its Regeneration," prepared by those who have borne the brunt of Rev. Otis Cary, a prominent mis- pioneering days, and laid on a solid sionary long resident in that em- foundation the fortunes of the propire. This study of contemporary tectorate. Nor can we blame them, national and religious progress will for since all time it has been that prove invaluable from the educa- one sows and another reaps. tional and sociological point of view, not to mention the far higher The want of capital has crampt interest that it should have for the and cabined the energies of many, student of missions. who we see have the real interests of the country at heart, an interest The following auxiliary books which benefits not only themselves are suggested: but the people. Still these are not the men who will be rewarded, but w. E. Griffis, " The Mikado's Eml?ire" ; M. rather the capitalist, who in a few years will come in and reach out L. Gordon, 4' An American MissIOnary in his hand for the golden fruits and Japan n; W. E. Griffis, "Religionsof Japan"; get them. D. Murray, .. The Story of Japan "; A. M. Bacon, "Japanese Girls and "''''omen "; B. H There are many who, while Chamberlain, H Things Japanese "i A. S. welcoming this reign of things, will Hardy, "Life and Letters of Joseph Hardy not care to forego the old. The Neesima"; R. B. Perry, "TheGistofJapan"; Africa that inspired them before W. G. Ashton, "A History of Japanese Litera- they ever set foot on it, will never ture"', A. B. Mitford," Tales of Old Japan "; disappoint. The African life, with F. Batchelor, "The Ainu of Japan"; G. L. its charm and romance and adven- Mackay, ". From Far Formosa. " ture, acted like some magic spell on many who, without necessity, loved AFRICA. the country, and preferred it de- There can scarcely be any doubt now when we hear of the certainty of the railway, and note the important telegraphic and commercial developments now in progress that within the next few years the full spite its dangers and afflictions to Egypt.-Twenty years ago there the care and comfort of home life. was scarcely a mile of good wagon- road in Egypt. During 'the last 6 It is a privilege not given to years more than 1,000 miles of many to be an eyewitness in the fine roads have been constructed. development of a new country, to Egypt to-day has more miles of watch the introduction of law and railroad tha.n Spain, or Portugal, order into the midst of a mass of or Austria-Hungary. Under the autocratic chieftainships, each of Ptolemies it is estimated that the whom followed" the good old rule, population did not exceed 8,000,000; the simple plan, that he should under the Mamelukes it fell to take who has the power, and he 3,000,000. When the British began should keep who can." The near their rule in 1882 the population future will witness lightning was less than 6,000,000; it is now changes, for Africa will pass almost 10,000,000, an increase of 66 through no weary plodding. stages per cent. in 16 years. British enas Britain has done. The transi- terprise and British government, tion will be marvelous, from one of joined with modern methods, have early and primitive bush life to the wrought wonders in this land of the full glare and glitter of twenty cen- oldest civilization of historic times. turies of matured thought and brainfulness. Old Punch pictures, Kongo Free State.-The Baptist dealing with what might take place Missionary Society's report states in Central Africa, hideous tho that its farthest station up the they seemed, have turned out won- Kongo, at Yakusu, is within 500 derfully true. miles of Mengo. In that case it is within 300 miles of Toro, and less This is the moment of history- still by some 50 miles from the outmaking, and the present calls for station across the Semliki River redoubled activity on the part of that Bishop Tucker, of Uganda, missions in the " getting ready" of visited last year. In other words, a nation for this rich legacy; and the chain of missions which Krapf the right use of it is as hard a bit dreamt about, and predicted, now of cramming work as ever tutor actually exists. gave to student. Livingstonia. – The year 1898, We claim no more for the natives which is only the twenty··third in than we would for ourselves. It is the history of this mission in Britapparent to even the most indiffer- ish Central Africa, has proved even ent judge that they have as bounti- more remarkable in fruitfulness ful a share of human nature in its than its predecessor. It began with good and bad aspects as any Euro- 557 native communicants in the 5 pean nation, and all that is askt, congregations of L i vi ng s ton i a, and what, indeed, is freely given by Bandawe, Ngoniland, Karonga, intelligent and cultured men, is a Mwenzo. It closed with more than sympathy which appreciates the double that number, besides hunstage of development, and judges dreds of candidates for baptism or according to that standard. Those full communion. The year began who have conscientiously studied with 10,976 scholars on the roll,.or the native must find in him traits 13,122, adding those under our Reworthy of our highest admiration, formed Dutch Church coadjutors. capacities for heroic action, and It closed with an addition of several loyalty to a good master; but he is, thousands to these high figures,- above all, human, and responds Free Ch'l.trch Monthly. to the humane.-Life and Work (Blantyre). Uganda.-In many fields there are cult situation at Muscat is in safe found instances of a warm and hands until Mr. Cantine can be rezealous mlssIOnary spirit. The lieved at Busrah." church in Uganda affords the most conspicuous example. Bishop Born in Mexico, Oswego County, Tucker last summer visited Toro, N. Y., on September 1st, 1873, he under the shadow of Ruwenzori there united with the Presbyterian Mountain, supposed to be the Church in 1883, and thence departed famous" Mountains of the Moon," in 1898 to join the Arabian Mission. to the far west of the Uganda He was a graduate of Hamilton protectorate. He found there 12 College in 1895, and of Auburn churches with accommodation for Theological Seminary in 1898. He 3,000 worshipers; 2,000 were able came of a line of godly ancestors or learning to read, 100 were com- on both sides, so far as he was able municants, and 43 of these were to trace his descent. While in the engaged as teachers, supported by seminary he supplied, fop two the natives themselves. The pio- years, the Presbyterian Church at neers of this work had been native Onondaga Hill, N. Y. He was orevangelists from Uganda. More- dained to the ministry by the Presover, these Uganda missionaries bytery of Syracuse on April 11th, have penetrated to the confines of 1898. His service in Arabia was Stanley's Great Forest, and the short, but only God can measure bishop came in contact with two its influence. Our heartfelt symindividuals of the remarkable race pathy is with those at home and of Pygmies who were under instruc- abroad who most deeply feel this tion. Speaking of these evangelists loss. the bishop says: .. These men are living lives of such self-denial and By the death of John Mackenzie, devotion as almost to make one at Kimberley, South Africa, on ashamed of the little one has given March 23d, the London Missionary up in the same great cause."-C. Society has lost another devoted M. S. Report. servant. Born in the county of Elgin in the year 1835, he was ap- -Many of the people spend all pointed, in 1858, to the Makololo their spare time for weeks in copy- Mission in South Africa, in the ing the marginal references from country north of the Zambesi, one an English Bible into the margin of result of Livingstone's first great their Luganda ones. The British journey. and Foreign Bible Society has just supplied an edition of 2,000 copies of In 1862 Mr. Mackenzie was apthe New Testament with marginal pointed to Shoshong, the capital of references. These will be eagerly Khama's people, where he labored bought up on their arrival in until in 1876 when he was put in Uganda in this region. charge of the Moffat Institution and native church at Kuruman,the Obituary Notes. institution being a development of a training-school for native evan- Arabia and the Arabian Mission gelists started by him at Shoshong are passing through deep waters. about 1871. At Shoshong Macken- Less than a year ago Peter Zwemer zie had been the friend and teacher past away, and on the 29th of June of Khama during the stormy days a telegram announced the death of when the young man was making George Erwin Stone, who first went his first stand for Christianity to the field a year ago. It is likely against his heathen father, and that he succumbed to a violent at- when he ultimately became chief. tack of fever prevalent at Muscat. Mr. Mackenzie is survived by a Mr. Stone had given himself wife and several children, one of wholly to the Lord for the work in whom is the Rev. Douglas Macken- Arabia, to which he esteemed that zie, the well-known professor of the Lord had called him. Rev. S. divinity at Chicago, and author of M. Zwemer said in a letter recently a recent book on .. Christianity and received from him: .. We praise the Progress of Man." God every day for thrusting out such a true 1!crpa, rock-disciple as Mr. Mackenzie himself was the Stone is. He is called of God in- author of three valuable worksdeed, and has made remarkable .. Ten Years North of the Orange progress in every way. The diffi- River" (1871), "Day-Dawn in Dark Places" (1883), and .. Austral Afri- ca" (2 vols., 1887).
The Missionary Review of the World — September 1897
PA'I)lTA HA:lIASAl
lIER (O-WORKER.
WORK FOR TIlE WIDOWS OF T:DIA. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: VOL. xx. No. S.-Old SerieB.-SEPTEMBER-VoL. X. No. S.-N81lJ&rieB.
THE SPIRiTUAL MovEMENTS OF THE CENTURY- WOMAN'S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD.
BY THE EDITOR-[N-CHIEF.
The" Diamond Jubilee" ofthe accession of Queen Victoria affords a most fitting occasion for the review of the marvellous development of Christian womanhood during the half century which has been so markt by manifold forms and phases of missionary activity. AmOllg all the achievements of the Victorian era, none is perhaps more C011spicuous than what may be truly called The Epiphany of Womanher emergence out of the obscurity of centuries into something like her true position and relation as to the work of God. And how curious is the coincidence that such emergence should so exactly correspond with the period during which a woman has occupied the throne of the most prominent of Protestant kingdoms, and, during sixty yearsthe longest reign of a woman on record-has challenged admiration by her unblemished personal character and Ohristian influence 1 Victoria may well stand as the historic type of the era of woman's development as a. distinct and separate factor in the Kingdom of God.
In the Old Testament there are seven women that stand out with singular and unique distinctness, Eve, the universal mother; Sarah, the mother of the faithful; Miriam, the minstrel prophetess; Deborah, the ruler and judge; Esther, the interceding Persian Queen; the Queen of Sheba, and the Queen of Massa, who seems to have been the mother of Agur and Lemuel whose wise words are attributed to her teaching (Prov. xxx, xxxi). These seven women seem typical of the new era which Ohristianity was to inaugurate, when womanhood was to be associated 'with holy minstrelsy and teaching, with Christian government and counsel, with consecrated courage and intercession in critical emergencies, with adoring gifts to the King of Kings, and with the imperial power of home influence whereby to train a household of princely characters to wield the scepter of social life.
Surely, among the most remarkable movements, guided by God's • Thia periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Aesoclation and the Philological Society of England :-{)hange d or Old lIDal to , when so pronounced. except wbeb the e aBects a preceding 1IOlIIId.-PuBLIaIIua.
SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS OF THE HALF CENTURY
hand, in our times, has been this singular and steady forward march of Christian womanhood towards the front rank of consecrated service. While God was opening new doors and removing old barriers to heathen peoples, He was preparing new workers and agencies to enter the doors and occupy the accessible fields. The story of the organization of women, in boards of missions, especially in zenana work, and in every other form of Ohristian service, to promote total abstinence, social purity, systematic giving and united prayer, to disseminate intelligence and educate a new generation of givers and workers,- this is one of the greatest of the modern chapters in the new acts of the apostles. The importance and significance of this series of developments, and the obvious leadership of a divine hand in them all, entitle them to a special and permanent memorial among the markt spiritual movements of our time.
We mnst go back to the beginning. It is just about sixty years ago since Mr. Abeel was returning to Ohina, having told the women of Britain about the women of the far East, who, shut up in zenanas, harems, seraglios, were inaccessible to all holy influences, unless their own sex could be induced to undertake work in their behalf. That moving, melting plea was the parent of zenana missions. How strange that this first woman's mission should so marvellously synchronize with the accession of this Christian Queen to the British throne! that God should have chosen, at the very time when He was lifting to the seat of an empire that reaches round the world, a young Ohristian woman, He should be revealing to woman throughout the world the throne of her predestined influence, and put in her hands a hitherto undreamed of scepter for a more than imperial sway! The Victorian era is woman's era. When Victoria was crowned, the diadem was placed upon the head of her sex, and woman's true epoch began to be inaugurated, as we behold it in our day. We can do no more than briefly trace the outlines in this sixty-year history.
The project of carrying the Gospel to women in their oriental seclusion and exclusion, seemed at first the wild visionary scheme of unbalanced enthusiasts; and wise men and even sagacious women shook their heads in doubt, if not derision. How impracticable, nay how impossible! It was like forcing gates of steel in walls of stone, to seek to get access to the harems of Turkey and the zenanas of India. But something mnst be done. The condition of womankind in the East was so destitute and desolate that it had long drawn toward the wives, mothers, daughters of the Orient the attention and sympathy of the whole civilized world. And there seemed to be neither hope nor help for woman, unless it should come through woman herself. No activity or generosity in sending and supporting male missionaries would solve the problem; for no man could without risk to life enter these sealed doors even in the capacity of a physiciano And this fact seemed to compel woman's ministry. God appeared· to be saying to woman as from heaven: "Thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this; " and to those who had ears to hear and heart to heed and respond, there seemed no alternative. The women of England resolved to undertake the work of carrying the Gospel within zenana gates.
How little we, even yet, grasp the facts. In India alone it is estimated that there are one hundred and forty millions of women and girls. These were found sunk in such depths of degraded ignorance, that one-third of them could neither read nor write; one-twelfth of them were widows, and of these widows fourteen thousand were under four years of age, eight thousand were under ten and one hundred and seventy-five thousand under fourteen. Think of such a host of women, twelve million of girls under fourteen, and half of them wives! Absolutely unreacht and unreachable by any existing influence that could elevate, educate, or evangelize them I What words could fitly portray sO Iowan estate for nearly half the popUlation of oriental empires!
The work was undertaken. 'Reason opposed, but faith proposed and disposed. It is an old familiar, pathetic story, how in the days of Rev. Dr. Thomas Smith, then of Rev. John Fordyce and Alexander Duff, the first systematic efforts were made to get access to the zenanas of India.* Then how the deft needle of a missionary's wife, Mrs.
Mullens, was used to unlock the doors. A simple piece of embroidery, wrought by her skillful fingers, attracted the attention of the secluded inmates of one of these household prisons; they argued, that if a woman could do such work as that, other women might learn how to do it, and so with the cordial consent of the lord of the zenana, this Christian woman was welcomed within the veiled chamber, and encouraged to teach his wives the woman's art of embroidery, and as she wrought on a pair of slippers the beautiful pattern, she was quietly working into the very fabric of their hearts and lives the scarlet threads dyed in the blood, and the golden threads shining with the glory of the Lamb.
*This history has been carefully outlined elsewhere (" Crisis of Missions," Chap. XIX, "New Acts of Apostles," PartII.,Chap. 8) but we here rehearse the main facts. Rev. Dr. Thos. Smith March, 1840, urged on the Oalcutta Missiona!71 Observer, the question of zenana teaching. But it was fifteen years later before his sensible plans took such root as to have practical and lasting growth. Rev. Jno. Fordyce and others secured the services of two or three lady vlsi- ~ors, and got access to some native families. Then Mrs. Mullens, Mrs. Eliz. Sale, Miss Briton and others enlarged the work. But in 1851 the work had as yet no Imporlance sufficient to give It any statistics.. In 1871, twenty years after, 1,800 houses were found to be under visitation and there were about 2,000 pupils, and twenty years later, the homes found accessible had multiplied more than three-fold, to over 40,500. In 1896 the following are the figures for the work outside this fleW ofIndia.
Foreign and European female teachers……………………… 711 Native teachers………… •••••••••••••••• …………………… 8,661 Day-schools………………………………………… ….••.• 1,507 Scholars…………………………………………………… 62,414 See MIssIONARY RKVIB'W, April 1897, p. 278-279. We can scarcely credit the fact that, under so gentle a touch as that of a woman's hand, the long-locked gates have flown wid" open, and that the barriers of ages are no more! Christian women go, almost without restraint, sometimes with urgent entreaty, into the homes of women in Turkey, Syria, China, India, and the Orient generally. The girls are gathered by hundreds of thousands into Christian schools; and the increase in the number of female pupils has been so rapid, that it doubled in ten years between 1876 and 1886, and has multiplied much more rapidly in the last decade. As long ago as 1884, one hundred and sixty women missionaries had been enrolled in the work of that one I ..ondon mission; pupils numbered thousands within the zenanas, and tens of thousands in their day-schools. Ten years later, Bible women entered the richest homes freely, and Hindu husbands actually clamored to have their wives and daughters taught. l!'ourteen years ago, the Church of England society alone had under visitation eighteen hundred zenanas with four thousand pupils; and both visitors and schools have steadily grown in numbers and influence.
Thus suddenly the women of Christendom had "discovered a new world" with limitless possibilities of work for the Master. Leupolt, contempJating the fact that, not only to the houses of the lower classes of natives, but to the zenanas in cities like Benares, Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, Amritsi, Lahore, etc., European women with their native assistants were admitted freely, to teach the word of God, exclaims: "If anyone had hinted twenty-five years before that this would be, I would have replied, 'All things are possible to God, but I do not expect such a glorious event in my day.' But what has God wrought! more than we askt or thought, expected or prayed for! His name be praised." And when Leupolt thus wrote, already to more than twelve hundred such seraglios the agents of the Female Normal School and Instruction Society had access; and this was many years ago, when the work was at its inception comparatively, aud this was only as to the success of one organization! and an intelligent Hindu says: "If these women rmch the hearts of the women of our country, they will soon get at the heads of the men."
It was about thirteen years since, when the Indian Education Commission officially reported to the government that the most successful efforts at woman's education, after leaving school, had been conducted by missionaries; that in every province of India, Christian women had devoted themselves to teaching in native homes; and recommended grants for zenana work to be recognized as a proper charge on public funds, etc. .Soon after, a Mohammedan paper of Lahore urged those who would propagate Islam, to see to it that zenana women were taught the Koran, lest by the Christian teaching that was making such inroads the very foundations of Allah's empire should be demolished. Shaftesbury, at the jubilee of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, in 1884, said: " The time is at hand when you will see the great dimensions of the work you are now doing, not Qnly in rr.<1ia but throughout the East. Great changes are in the future." His words were prophetic of what is already taking place. Ten years ago this society had missions not only in India and Oeylon, but in Japan, Persia, and Africa, etc. One instance may be cited as a representative example of how in individual cases this zenana movement proves far-reaching and mighty. At the girls' central school in the capital of Madagascar, Miss Bliss taught the young princess who at the crisis came to the throne in that great island.
While God was thus opening the door of approach and access to Gentile women, behold Him moving Christian women to organize for the great Woman's Orusad~ of modern history! And so we come to that new chapter of missions which records the rapid growth of Women's Boards of Missions, which mark the next grand epoch of woman's epiphany and activity.
Much pains have been taken to find the facts, for the early records were destroyed by fire, and hence a general misapprehension as to the origin of the parent society.. Rev. L. A. Gould, in a letter to the writer, says: "The exact facts are as follows: Mrs. Ellen B. Mason, wife of Rev. Francis Mason, D.D., a Baptist missionary from Burmah, stopt in Oalcutta on her way to America, and learned the story of Mrs. :Mullens' zenana slippers. Mrs. Mason, with two ladies, still living, Mrs. J. D. Richardson and Mrs. H. O. Gould, my mother, visited influential families in Boston; and the first society, consisting of nine ladies, whose names I have, was formed in Boston, November, 1860, Miss M. V. Ball, President. Subsequently, in 1861, societies were formed in New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia; and the New York society, by reason of its strength, was allowed to become the general society. These facts are not vital, only advantageous for accuracy."
Thus, then, was organized, thirty-seven years ago, in America, the Woman's Union Missionary Society, which, under the leadership of the loved and lamented Mrs. T. O. Doremus, became the pioneer society of America, with The Missionary Link as its organ. This was an undenominational society, and led the way as the parent of the various denominational Women's Boards now found connected with all the great Ohristian bodies. Of all these societies the one originating cause was the inaccessibility of heathen women save to their own sex; and the one aim was to organize women, in cooperation with the existing foreign missionary societies, for sending out and supporting unmarried women as missionaries and teachers to their neglected heathen sisters.
The rallying cry, heard in Britain sixty years ago, and loudly echoed in America about twenty years later, brought Ohristian women boldly to the front in all the leading denominations. Early in 1868, there was formed in Boston the New England Women's Foreign Missionary Society, with Mrs. Albert Bowker for President, and Mrs. Homer Bartlett for Treasurer. The previous year the American Board had sent into the field ten single women, appropriating for this end $25,000. We can readily understand why Ohristian women felt called of God to this special work. We mention the following dominant reasons: 1. Women abroad were inaccessible except to women. 2. Ohristian womanhood would naturally both prompt and help work for woman. 3. Woman owes a special debt to Ohrist for what He has done to uplift her socially and domestically. 4. Woman naturally sympathizes with her own sex, and can appre- ciate woman's degradation and elevation. 5. Woman abroad needs the practical illustration of what the Gos- pel can do, and has done, for women. 6. In all education woman is God's ordained pioneer. As wife, mother, sister, daughter, she is the heart of the home and sways its scepter. 7. This work provides a legitimate sphere in which all that is best in woman can thus be amply exercised and developt.
The results are correspondent with what might be expected. Ohris- tian women became, for the first time in all history, thoroughly united in organized work for souls. Their interest in the spiritual uplifting of their own sex was quickened; larger means for supporting women as missionaries and teachers were forthcoming; intelli- gence was more widely spread, and in cheap mission leaflets and booklets; offerings were systematically gathered iu small sums, like "Oarey's weekly pennies"; direct correspondence with women workers, stated meetings for prayer, and hearing of news from the field- these were the results, which became in turn causes of new and larger results. The collections of the first month enabled this early New England society to assume the support of a missionary to South Africa. At the end of three months, three women became living links with the foreign field, Miss Edwards in Africa and Miss Andrews and Miss Parmelee in Turkey; and ten native Bible women were to be main- tained by the society. By October 8th, 1868, at Norwich, Oonn., this society was already the parent of auxiliaries everywhere forminK. and was now called "The Women's Board of Missions."
The same month, of the same year, a similar society was formed in the great West, " The Women's Board of Missions for the Interior," and the next year this new society assumed the support of Mrs. Tyler of the Madura mission, and Miss Dean of Oroomiah, and issued its quarterly, Life and Light for Heathen Women. During its first year about *4,000 were gathered. So rapidly grew the women's societies, that in 1884 there were twenty-two Women's Boards, representing twelve denominations, and aD. aggregate of about $1,000,000 receiptsl In 1897, the total number of women's societies has reacht upwards of one hundred.
One example of the rapid increase of gifts ought to be added to show the power of many little sums, systematically gathered. One Board, the Presbyterian, that reported in 1871 $7,000, reported $224,- 000 in 1886-thirty-two fold increase in fifteen years 1 And the incre80/3e still goes on.
No wonder Thos. Chalmers should have declared that he had found in benevolent work, that one woman was equal to seven and a half men!
This has not been the only direction in which Christian women have organized for holy activity during this Victorian era. Zenana work was but the first trumpet-blast that rallied this vast reserve force of the Lord's army. Then came the Women's Boards, both of Home aud Foreign Missions. But since then, behold the various forms of holy enterprize upon which the Christian sisterhood have entered. Four or five may be mentioned as conspicuous, tho far from exhausting the long list.
The Women's Temperance Orusade is one of the most memorable for its desperate daring. Maddened by the cruelties inflicted by strong drink, and hopeless of human intervention, Christian women in the United States took the kingdom of Satan by violence, and went into the drink-shops to protest with dram-sellers; they knelt on the floors of bar-rooms, and with prayers and tears besought God to curse the drink traffic and stop its awful ravages. When turned into the street, they knelt on the pavements and interposed their bodies between the door of gin palaces an9- those who would enter. They saw the haunts of the drunkard turned into places of prayer, rumsellers changed to evangelists, and sots into saints. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was baptized in tears and prayers and blood. It has a holy history.
The Woman's League for Social Pnrity attempted to do with the brothel and all its accessories what the Temperance Crusade undertook with the drink-shop. Obscene books, prints, exhibitions, houses of iII-fame, the uses of the post for all immoral purposes, and the perversion of law to impure ends,-these and other helpers and abettors of prostitution and corruption occupied their attention. It was a mighty movement, and has still an increasing momentum, directed toward the purity of our homes, as its sister movement toward their sobriety. And it ought to be said that it required great heroism and courage of conviction, for women to cast off the trammels of a mock modesty and a refined sensibility, and call things by their right names, and in public as well as in private, before men as well as women, and sometimes in courts and legislatures, grapple with an evil that even men had found it difficult to discuss. But they have done it, and challenged universal admiration for their intrepid fidelity.
The Young Women's Ohristian Association has done grand work for young women, as the Y. M. C. A. has for young men. It is making itself felt in all our great cities, in throwing a loving shelter about young girls who come to the great centers of population to find employment, and have no proper home-life. These associations have erected magnificent buildings where young women find board, lodging, companionship, employment, libraries, prayer-meetings, Bible classes, and every aid to temporal and spiritual advancement. If there is any more beneficial institution of its sort in existence, we do not know of such, and can speak with confidence and from personal knowledge of the immense benefit accruing, the writer having a daughter who is the secretary of one of these city organizations. And just now this work is expanding and becoming a power in foreign lands, gathering young women, as in India, into the embrace of a consecrated Christian sisterhood.
The women's medical mission work is one of the latest born ofthe organized movements of women in Christian lands. To have women going forth into all parts of the world, not simply as nurses, but as fully qualified physicians; and to have them commending themselves even to imperial governments as competent to practice medicine and surgery side by'side with the most skillful male practitioners, is certainly a very markt advance. Here is especially a new feature of the zenana movement, which led all the rest in point of time. Women penetrate the seclusion of oriental homes to-day, with the balm of Gilead in one hand and the balm of the apothecary in the other; they go to heal the body and to heal the soul, to preach and to cure; and in true apostolic fashion to commend themselves to the heart, by skill in ministering to the bodily ills and ailments. There is an eminent fitness in woman's medical ministry to woman, and upon it God is setting II. very markt seal and sanction.
No reference has yet been made to the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, nor to the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, iIi both of which women are perhaps as prominent leaders, if not as numerous members as men. But our object has been to call attention mainly to organizations solely composed of and officered by women, and these, selected out of many, may suffice to illustrate how in every direction the female factor in the Churcp. of Christ is making itself felt as never before in the various forms of Christian activity. There is, in fact, not one department of service to Christ and a lost humanity, in which women's gentle hand is not found conspicuous, not in association with m'en, but in independent methods of organized action. What the church and the world has gained thereby, it would be difficult to estimate. One example might be given out of many thousands as a typical instance. Nearly forty years ago, Mrs. Murrilla B. Ingalls, widow of Rev. Lovell Ingalls, a missionary to Arakan, after a visit to America, returned to Burma, and went at once to Thongze, where she remained and had entire control, without help from any male missionary, except a native ordained preacher and a few other native assistants. Often ,alone, she has with markt capacity and sagacity carried on the mission with conspicuous blessing. Without transgressing the limits of propriety, or assuming ecclesiastical functions, she has been a sort of acknowledged bishop of a vast diocese. +n all that has to do with Christian doctrine and church organization and administration she has taught both women and men. She chooses and then trains native evangelists, oversees the schools and discovers the aptitude in pupils for teachers, and then trains them for educational work. She maintains strict discipline, guides the church in appointing pastors, and then humbly trains pastors in Bible truth, homiletic studies, and pastoral theology. She has establisht Zayat preaching, organized a circulating library, and distributed Bibles and tracts over a wide district. Seeing the great destitution about her, she went with her Bible women on tours into the country, and her tent became the resort of multitudes who sought instruction. Being accused of "preaching" by those who were jealous of her influence, and defending her course as justifiable from New Testamen texamples, she was askt, "Were you ever ordained?" " No," she answered, "but I was Joreorda·tned." Mrs. Ingalls is a bright example of what woman has done and is doing in all lands, and those who would pursue the study of the theme have only to read the story of such heroic women .as the three wives of Dr. Judson, the second Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Krapf, Mrs. Judith Grant, Fidelia Fiske, Eliza Agnew, Mrs. McAll, Mrs. Moffat, and Mrs. Livingstone, Mary Whately, Matilda Rankin, Mary Graybell, Clara Cushman, Hannah Mullens, Rebecca Wakefield, Sarah B. Capron, Mary Williams, Dorothy Jones, Anna Hinderer, and a host of others who have adorned the annals of missions. And who needs to be'told that the names of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton are inseparable from the ministry to wounded and sick soldiers and victims of famine and persecution Bnd pestilence the world over?
Surely, when God lifted a Christian woman to the British throne sixty years ago, He was saying to her whole sisterhood in all Christian lands, "Ye are come to the Kingdom for such a time as this." Let woman appreciate her opportunity, for it is the golden age of her reign, and she holds a scepter that ·sways empires. Let her prove herself to be a power ordained of God to fulfil a holy mission!
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. [t;eptemoer
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN.
BY WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., AUTHOR OF "THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE."
Japan is the most interesting country in Asia, perhaps in the whole missionary field. The reason is plain. Despite their boasting and self-conceit, the Japanese are not satisfied with themselves. Despite many foreign flatterers, they know that their civilization is very far ·from being finisht, and that their character lacks much. In this dissatisfaction lies the best hope of their salvation. When a nation ceases its restlessness and becomes self-contented, it is hopelessly senile. The people who say that they are rich and have need of nothing, and that they see clearly, when others know that they are poor and blind, are already in the numbness of paralysis. Japan now sees herself as others see her. By sudden contact with many nations, she is in a panopticon, and is disturbed at the too numerous reflections. Her people are an interesting study to themselves, like a man thoroughly awakened to himself, through some searching sermon or book which has revealed himself to himself.
Modesty is not a shining characteristic of the modern Japanese; but, tho their books and newspapers are painfully, even disgustingly, full of boasting and national vanity, yet in reality there is a deepseated self-disgust, a realization that something is not only wroug, but radically so. The most thoughtful men feel that, despite victorious armies or foreign models, steel and steam navies, and the miscellaneous borrowed furniture of modern civilization, somethiug still is lacking. "More moral oil to run the machinery," is a native editor's cry. To put on sealskins, diamonds, and what anyone can buy in the shops does not make a lady. Even one's private palace car and steam yacht will not produce a gentleman of culture; for "vindictive circumstances" of speech, spelling, and grammar will betray early deficiencies. To-day, probably more than ever before, there are deep searchings of heart in that country, where it is not yet safe to openly challenge the mythology on which the popular and political religion rests. There is much earnest talking and writing about a "moral crisis." There is yearning after a religion that will satisfy the awakened man in the Sunrise Land. The old foundations are slipping away, even while Japan hopes to build a national superstructure that will dazzle the world. The old stone-weighted wooden anchor, with its wisteria-vine rope, will no longer hold the ship of state. Millions of human beings, heretofore political ciphers, each one lost in a mass of similar ciphers, and made into expressional value only by the integer of the throne, are slowly rising into consciousness of rights and. individuality. It may be that each individual may become a giant. Then how hold the strong ones together? Let us inquire and see what the matter with Japan is. Whether we derive religion from the same idea that is in the word ligament~ and regard it a vinculum to bind the individual man and all his powers in unity, and to hold society together; or, whether we derive it from the idea of reading and reflection, making it the choicest product of thought, or of inspiration through revelation, it is what the Japanese want; and it is that which they know they want. At what they have had thus far, let us look, and then apply those words of her Master, which Christianity continually and unsparingly applies to herself,-" By their fruits ye shall know them."
Japan has three definite religious systems, thoroughly acclimated, naturalized, and active for over a thousand years, with only two intervals of labor by Christian missionaries–one of seventy years, from 1540 to 1620, by Portuguese and Spaniards, and the second in our day; which, whether we reckon from 1860 or 1870, we shall call a full generation of sporadic missionary effort by teachers from Roman, Greek,. and Reformed Churches,-those of the English-speaking nations outnumbering all others.
The oldest of all religions in the archipelago is Shinto, or the godway, which, briefly comprehended, has no distinct idea of God or of a Creator. It is a crude form of merely natural evolution, in which matter blossomed into mind and beings arose from mud to man. The men were the conquering few, and they conquered many; for Shinto is, first of all, a political machine, and will die the moment the ligature is cut which biuds it to the throne. Personifying the powers of nature, the islanders made apotheosis of the wise, the heroic, and especially the chief of one clan which, conquering other clans, became paramount in the archipelago. The core of Shinto is Mikadoism, and it has neither ethics nor religion, apart from the imperial decrees. It is bald of either rational morals or dogma, but yet is a joyous and pleas!mt cult, fitted for the infancy of a people liviIig off on an island by themselves. It inculcates personal cleanliness and gentle manners,. and nurses a narrow sort of patriotism. It is also the fountain and supply of a senseless conceit which, pardonable and even pretty in the minds of children and rustics, is simply absurd in a people who wish to be collectively considered as a great world-power, and even a teacher and giver of civilization to mankind.
Shinto goes back of history, and even well-founded tradition, tho its ancestor worship may possibly be borrowed from China. Confucianism, or the Chinese system of ethics and etiquette, has had a foothold in Japan for probably fourteen hundred years. Whatever the primitive faith of the first settlers of the Middle Kingdom may have been, it is certain that when Confucianism came into Japan it was already nearly a thousand years old, having scarcely the rudiments of a religion in it-nothing of prayer, aspiration, idea of personality, or suggestions of exalted soul-consciousness. Ignoring God and the soul, it taught a low routine ofl human duty, gave rules of conduct, and prescribed the ceremonies to be used in propitiating the unknown, and for the most part, politely ignored spirits that vaguely have something to do with the universe and its order. Whereas, in China filial piety was the center of the system, in Japan loyalty was made the basis. For in Mikado-land everything is sub- ordinate to the throne. No freedom of thought or of action was or is allowed in any way likely to disturb this subordination of every- . thing in the whole empire to the emperor and his ancestors.
As in China, so in Japan, but still more so. The agnosticism and etiquette of Confucius lent themselves aumirably to despotism and arbitrary government, whether of the central suzerain or the local lords. Over a thousand years' active use oi the sword, of oppression, of grinding down the masses, have made the Japanese that submissive and demure people, which we find all over the empire, below that sub- I merged tenth that have ruled the country for ages, and who, despite all pretense and profession of modern constitutionalism, rule them yet. Now, thousands of this hereditary ruling class see their mythology melting into empty air. They have discovered that their feudal ethics rest as does a mass of iron rails and wooden tif)s which, after an awful washout, still holds a thin shell of earth. They wonder how the heavy engine of modern life can be run over the foundation- less old tracks. Having bought or made all sorts of new machinery, but with mighty problems unsolved, they ask, Where is the new type of man· to stand on deck and order at once the steersman above and the engineer below?
Buddhism entered Japan fourteen hundred years ago. Then, for the first time, the Japanese were brought in contact with a distinct product of the Aryan mind. The ultimate result was a chapter of decay for Buddhism. In the first centuries the tremendous zeal of the new missionaries, their positive works of benevolence, their intro- duction of a great train of civilizing influences with art, ethical codes, sutras and shastras, a ,great apparatus of devotion, with idealistic philosophy, with a splendid architecture and symbolism which beauti- fied the landscape of Japan, and teachings which made the law of kindness the rule of life, they educated the whole nation. The suc- . cess of Buddhism in winning all, from the nobles at court to the humblest fisherman and farmer, to gentle virtues, appreciation of natural beauty and of art and literature, has been vastly more than that of all other influences put together, including Shinto, Confu- cianism, and whatever has drifted to Japau from the continental nations of Asia. Buddhism has been the mother of Japanese civiliza- tioll. Nevertheless, Japanese Buddhism, when once become domesticated, won its final victories by compromises and transmutations that not only changed its own character, but ministered to the conceit of the Japanese people; for it proclaimed the gods of Shinto as nothing more than previous avatars or manifestations of Buddha. Thus it not only swallowed up the older indigenous cult, making it practically invisible for many centuries, but itself entered upon a wild reversionary and degraded form of pantheism which still further swampt any gleams of the personality of God or of real individuality in man. Thus the Japanese people could not, morally and religiously, be anything else than a nation still bound in the lower forms of invertebrate and nerveless life, remiuding one of a jelly fish rather than of the splendid creatures of nerve and brain, which we find in the higher ranges of life.
So, applying the test that "by their fruits ye shall know them," most linguists, historians, and the students of philosophy and literature, and of religion, agree in their general appraisement of the outcome of the Japanese mind and heart. While gladly and warmly acknowledging much pleasing fruit and many beautiful products, critics can not, if honest and truthful, but point out the defects which, indeed, seem appalling when we consider the ambition of the Japanese to claim an equal place among the nations of the world. For these islanders at this end of the nineteenth century claim to have aci;ually inaugurated a new career of civilization, which neither as to religion, nor ethics, nor philosophy, nor literature, nor politics, nor social life, nor material products and inventions shall pe second to anything which the nations in Christendom have produced or can produce. Yet what is the outcome of the Japanese religions? How stand, not the rare specimen, but the average Japanese man, and the masses to.day?
As one who has for thirty years been before the English-speaking and American public as a writer on Japan, one will not accuse me of lack of appreciation. Yet the truth must be told. Using words in their highest and therefore their true sense, we declare that the average Japanese lacks the fundamental ideas that go to make up a religion. He not only does not know of God but he ignores the very idea. He has scarcely a conception of the sonl as perdnring and individual. His idea of duty, nobly as he fulfils it, is a childish one. Once again, remember, that I nse the ideas of " God," " soul," and "duty" in the highest sense and that I do not refer to the few thousand Christians or a few hundred sincere thinkers who are not agnostics or slaves of Mr. Herbert Spencer,-the philosopher, whose name and work I honor.
Using the word with the same value, weight, and color that we nse it when talking of the Hebrew prophets, the Greek sages, the English poets, Dante, Milton, or Shakespeare, or of the nations which have produced these men, I believe that the Japanese, in spite of all their religions, are not a religious, certainly not a spiritual people. I have tried to make myself reasonably familiar with Japanese history, but I find in it no overmastering spiritual ideals such as have moved and do move the great men of the continents; no consciousness of personal individuality such as filled and exalted the soul of teachers, heroes, and martyrs in lands where Christ reigns; no vision and realization of a presence filling heaven and earth. Tho the term Creator is not unknown in the language of the Japanese, yet they have never reachtany idea of God higher than that of a bundle of abstract principles and forces. Their notion of God is such a sort of entity as may be found inside of a book like Ganot's physics. Their most holy men remind one more of Benjamin Franklin on the one hand or of Saint Simeon Stylites on the other, than of Paul or Augustine, Anselm or Bernard, David Brainerd or Abraham Lincoln. In studying Japanese Buddhist's books, or, the only work which might, by a tremendous stretch of fancy and charity, be called the Japanese Bible,-the Kojijione feels that he is in a fog, or a mist that rolls over and covers everything sharp and definite. Indeed, in that kind of painting which depicts cloud and haze, as well as in philosophy, the Japanese delight; but, whether this misty vagueness be the product of the brush or the brain, such art, philosophy or religion, will never produce men like William the Silent, Raphael or Rembrandt, Kant or Bacon, or Oliver Cromwell, John Huss or Guido de Bres, William Penn or Peter Cooper. Indeed the whole idea of Buddhism is to ignore man's soulconsciousness and that infinite Presence,-that "one simple and spiritual Being which we call God, who is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good." Indeed, what could we expect, with a rudimentary system founded on the idea of the mere evolution of matter and force which, after rising into the personification of the forces of nature, became a political engine for the subjugation of the people, centering everything to the will of the emperor?
After the boldness of Shinto comes the agnosticism of Confucius, t'eaching only etiquette and ceremony, bidding men to "honor the gods but keep them far from you." After this extinguisher of all faith in personality divine or human, Buddhism enters to ignore and ridicule the idea of a Creator, teaching flat atheism and a new cycle of ideas founded on agnosticism, evolution without any previous divine involution, and finding the whole basis of its philosophy in a succession of cause and effect, even while ignoring the First Cause. '
Is it any wonder then, since the Japanese have, roughly speaking, never had anything else but a protean agnosticism, and being throughout their whole history, swampt and mired in the philosophy of ignorance, that they should never know God, or the soul, or duty in any high sense P Is it any wonder that to-day the gospel of Herbed Spencer-a J apanized gospel of Herbert Spencer at that-is the favorite creed of the average educated (heaven save the mark!) Japanese? Without then, the idea of a personal God as a living, self- conscious, free intelligence; without the idea of personality of man, as of a real individual surviving as a spiritual entity the di~solving of his fleshly frame-work; without any moral character apart from per- sonal interest and social necessity, or the will of the emperor; how, in the name of any philosophy known under heaven, are the Japanese to face the perils which now beset them and solve the problems await- ing them? How can Japan, undoubtedly yearning for the fullrecog- nition of all the world, reach that level which the proud nations in Ohristendom require in one who claims to be an equal? The very fact that under the searching word of God, and under that travail and questioning which Ohristian nations feel, because of their God-con- sciousness and soul-consciousness, they ever challenge themselves unto ever nobler ideals, makes them all the more rigid ill demanding of a still pagan nation stern moral tests, and not only a high religion but the frnits of it. It is certain that the nations of Ohristendom will never admit as their equal one in which Buddhism is the popular creed. Oertainly Shinto, the last shadowy relic of an ethnic religion, gives no card of introduction. A mere code of ceremonies like Oon- fucianism begets neither confidence or recognition.
The Japanese boast of their ethics or "spirituality" is a sham.
They may be perfectly certain that a country in which one divorce to every three marriages is the rule, where polygamy and private harems, -with children born in a herd instead of a home, the emperor him- self setting the example, and this being the general custom from the court noble to the betta, is reckoned distinctly inferior and will be.
The hazy view which mercantile and other folk take of the sacredness of a contract, the low value put on the letter of one's bond and of truth generally, the lack of general understanding of the value of a promise, -these things, which better religion will vastly improve, are paving the Japanese future pathway with failures both humiliating and con- tinuous.
He who dwells in the country of the little captain Miles Standish, and familiar with the story of David and Goliath, will not willingly twit the Japanese for their smallness, either in personal stature, the area of their country, the dimiuutiveness of their rice and wheat stalks, compared with those of South Oarolina and Dakota, the little- ness of their rivers, their low percentage of arable area, nor with the grade of their heroes, literature, art, or poetry, all of which seem miniatures rather than mature or imposing products. And this we .'. say, in spite of a whole school of American and European uncritical admirers. But, when we see the Japanese persisting in their love for things petty, and clan-like in regions sublime, cosmical, eternal, demanding" Japanese ethics," a religion of their own making, or "Ohristianity adapted to the needs of Japan," we behol<1 either a merely splenetic reaction against what they deem foreign, or insanity with which God has afflicted them in order to hum.ble them, and we trust afterwards to raise them up.
When the whole truth is told about the Japanese armies in Ohina and Formosa, and the behavior of civilian officers in the newly con- quered island, one is not favorably imprest with the fruits of their ethical training. Tho the nation is to-day ground down under the awful load of taxes that keeps the mass of the people poor and ignorant, tho, no doubt, many are made rich, one in Tokio, Osaka, or Kioto looks almost in vain for great schemes of benevolence, hospitals, asylums for the insane, for the blind, and for diseased and suffering humanity. One does indeed find a few hospitals maintained by the government, but even these are ridiculously few compared with the number in Ohristian countries; while for the special classes, for orphans, the blind, the dumb, the insane, the lying-in-mothers, one is appalled to find that, ~)Utside of those under Ohristian or foreign auspices, and one blind and dumb school of the government, such things hardly exist. The finest buildings in Japan are the government offices, the houses of the high officials, and the military barracks, but a Girard Oollege or Oooper Institute, or those institutions which even in colonial America were hopefully common, are practically unknown in boasting Japan. Large-minded philanthropists are as rare as white crows.
Even the idea of prosperity in religion is apt to mean the approval of eminent statesmen or the applause of the secular newspapers. The Japanese are not yet educated to the idea of ethics, religion, practical benevolence existing apart from politics. It is also true that they are too sadly encouraged by the examples of those despotisms in Europe which they so delightfully follow.
Perhaps it is not possible for a foreigner to divest himself wholly of prejudices, but the writer has not often been accused of prejudices against Japan. 'fhis question of religion must be and can be ponderated apart from subjective prepossessions, when we apply the test ~~~~~~~I~~~~~~~~~ continue in these old paths or to rest in their interpretation of the gospel of Herbert Spencer, will result not only failure to win a place of equality among the nations of Ohristendom, but means utter collapse of the nation. They have planted the acorn in the bottle, but their honest men know the power of growth and the thinness and rigidity of the glass, and therefore dwell in impotent fear. Theyneed ~ become a religious nation and to have that sense and apprehension' .of one living and true God who is "the overflowing fountain of all good." They need to know the reality and therefore the worth of the individual human soul. They need to know of duty done" as in the great Task-Master's eye." They need to get over that frightful conceit which makes them still look on the fundamental principles of Christianity-the world-educating and the world-conquering religion -as inferior to their insular hereditary traditions. Their notions about the desertion of even father and mother for Ohrist's sake as "uprooting Japanese society," seems puerile or dotard-like. It reminds us of Marshal.McMahon who would govern France solely by the advice of his family clergyman. It resembles that of those "mouutain whites" in Kentucky, whose preferenoe for home-distilled corn whiskey leads them to think United States law inferior to local ideals. It is this narrow, childish spirit which has led to Bome of those grotesque reactions and those picturesque anachronisms which have recently illustrated Japanese history during this decade, and which are to be classt with those manias which for twenty-five years have kept them in a succession of wasteful crazes for rabbits, cockfighting, whist, waltzing, big funerals, planchette, wrestling, and the revival of obsolete costumes and sports. Even the Japanese writers now make themselves merry over these revivals of "New Shintoism," "Neo-Buddhism," and over the (now past) spectacle of old-fashioned Oonfucianists, spectacled and top-knotted, lecturing on ethics to classes of bright-faced boys sitting in school-rooms with seats, desks, apparatus and text books of latest pattern; and over that variegated Ohauvinism in politics, literature, dress, and behavior which shows, we trust, the last flickerings of a dying flame. By and by the Japauese will see clearly that God Almighty is greater even than their Mikado. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that, after two thousand years inoculation in the idea that Japan is the center of the universe, the disease is not easily curable.
Will not the Japanese, even those who "swallow Herbert Spencer whole," understand that even the philosopher of the unknowable does not deny the existence and activity of a personal God, that even those destructive critics on the European continent who have deserted the old Calvinism and other traditional forms of Ohristian faith, believe none the less in a great determining Power, personal and intelligent? The Japanese must learn that the very "evolution" in which they so delight is, with thousands of Ohristian thinkers, supremely loyal to Jesus, only another way of describing and of seeing plaiply God's method of continuous creation. Oertain it is that, without the faith of theism, it will be impossible to grasp that which not only binds the nations of the west in unity, but which gives them their law of progress,-that is, the fatherhood of God ani! the brotherhood of man. Nor can any hope for the welfare of the great mass of the Japanese people be based on anything else than on Ohrist's law of love. Following out this law, the leaders of Ohristendom have been able under
ABOUT THE AINU 01f JAPAN
God to lift up the whole body of their fellow men. For the Japanese intellect-after three different systems, all agnostic, pantheistic, and corrosive of the great fundamental truths which have uplifted Europe and America-to adopt a new one-that of Spencer, but with SFencer's ultimate idea left out-seems rather the freak of the insane than the choice of intelligent men. Possibly, however, they are playing a game to deceive the world, and once more practicing their old trick of taking on the material forces and bastard philosophy of Christendom, in order, really, to guard their isolation amI insulate themselves from the shock of vital change.
The editor of this magazine has askt me for an article on "The Religions of Japan," leaving me free to deal with some special phrase of the subject, or with the subject in general. I have chosen to point out the failure of the three religions of Japan (and, like failure in all, because of the same defect in each), to elevate and save the Japanese. I believe they can be elevated and saved, when they come to God, believing that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; when they realize human personality in the highest sense, and when the,r notions of duty become something more than a local, insular, and familyaffa,ir. So I close this article with words written in March, 1875 (after having lived four years among them, and known them for seven years), and now all the more deeply felt after thirty years' acquaintance with them.
"Unless a mightier spiritual force than either Shinto or Buddhism is allowed unimpeded operation, we see little prospect of aught better than the gain of a glittering veneer of material civilization, and the corroding foreign vices under which, in the presence of the superior aggressive races of the west, Japan must fall as the doomed races of America. or Hawaii."
SOMETHING ABOUT THE AINU* OF JAPAN.
BY THE REV. JOHN BATCHELOR, SAPPORO, YEZO, JAPAN.
It will be found that, as a rule, writers of certain classes of nOTels make their stories center round some one or more heroes. It is also a rule,- a very natural, and therefore most important rule it may be added,-that the remarks made concerning these heroes shall be in conformity with the character it has already been determined to portray. Unless this principle is maintained the story will certainly be pronounced bad. Nevertheless, in a large majority of cases it turns out that such conformity is found to be of a highly embellisht nature, * The word Ainu means" man " or " men," This people therefore knows itself as the race of U men." SOMETHING A.BOUT THE AINU OF JAPAN.
and is often so exaggerated as to amount to moral untruth, for the writer dwells almost exclusively on one or two characteristics at the expense of all others.
So does it also appear to be a general rule that any person undertaking to write about the Ainu residing in far off Japan, must, to lend interest to his book, by all means produce this phenomenon. Intending travelers and writers will have already heard beforehand that the Ainu are a very filthy and very hairy race, and so before they appear upon the scene and commence their task, they have already got their own clean cut ideas as to what the people ought to be like. Their phenomena, therefore, invariably figure as particularly filthy, hairy, and for this reason abject specimens, more like brute beasts than human beings. And, the cue being taken from that, the race is described very much according to the writer's notion of what they consider it ought to be, rather than what it is in reality. Moreover, the phenomena are made to serve various purposes. They are either used as subjects upon which to base a few interesting remarks, or from which to give a far-fetcht back-handed hit at the Christian faith iu the creation of man by the Supreme Being, or as texts from which to draw some peculiar, if not impossible conclusions; or else they are made to do duty as pegs, upon which to hang some long cherisht opinion of persons or things in general which the writer wishes to air by some pretense or other. And we find that the interesting remarks made are often so exaggerated and the facts so over-stated as to give the reader quite a wrong impression of the people, while the peculiar conclusions drawn and sentiments exprest are, if not unscientific, at least such as reflect credit neither on the intelligent discrimination, fairness of mind, aud kindness of heart in the writer, nor moral character, intellectual status, and common human nature of the Ainu. Indeed, unless great care is exercised, there is a danger of being led by writers to look upon this people as partaking more of the outward appearance and inward nature of the lower animals than of human beings,-of being led to expect to find them wild savages rather than as the civilized, quiet and good-natured men and women they are. Many a traTeler has said to me: "Why these people are nothing like as hairy and wild as I expected to find them I " And such indeed is the fact; the whole matter has been greatly over-stated.
That most indefatigable and brave lady traveler, who, whenever she puts pen to paper, always writes so honestly and vividly, intereetingly and impartially (I mean Mrs. Isabella Bird-Bishop), found her filthy and hairy specimen at Repungepin Volcano Bay. She writes very graphically of him, and in a pleasant, good-humored way calls him the MISSING LINK. Futhermore, to give greater perspicuity to her description she speaks of him in the neuter gender. In writing about him she says: "I was startled when I first saw it. It was-shall I say-a man, and the mate, I can not write hUsbQ.ud,of the ugly woman. The arms and legs were unnaturally long and thin, and the creature sat with the knees tuckt into the armpits. The limbs and body, with the exception of a patch on each side, were thinly covered with fine black hair, more than an inch long, which was slightly curly on the shoulders. It showed no other signs of intelligence than that evi- denced by boiling water for my tea." * Bnt Miss Bird is very fair to this people (and I wish, indeed, I could say all were like her in this matter), and would not have the careful reader be led astray by this or any other exceptional phenome- non, for, in another place which she likewise intended to be read, she most trnly says: "The Volcano Bay Ainos t are far more hairy than the mountain Ainos, but even among them it is qnite common to see men not more so than vigorous Enropeans, and I think that the hair- iness of the race, as a distinctive feature, has been much exaggerated, partly by the smooth-skinned Japanese."! Thus, then, by comparing these two passages together, we find that Miss Bird gives a very good description of the hairiness of the Ainu, and in it she speaks the trnth. When, therefore, we hear her speaking about the MISSING LINK as existing at Repungep, we must take her words, not as conveying assent to the doctrine 'of human evolution, but rather as an expression of surprise at seeing a man who was, even for an Ainu, beyond donbt exceptionally hairy. And we must ever remember that the Ainu is not altogether made up of hair, and is a biped.
But all writers on the Ainu are by no means as fair as Miss Bird, for, while she describes her phenomenon as above quoted, and, tho not / in an unkind manner, yet perhaps a little thoughtlessly for a serious writer, calls him the MISSING LINK, Mr. Savage Landor gOE)s a long step further, and seems to seriously look upon the Ainu as the genuine article referred to in the above terms, as if, forsooth, the doctrine of the MISSING LINK was a proved and already accepted article of general belief! This gentleman writes at the end of the 27th Ohapter of his book as follows: "Resuming these few remarks 'on the characteristic points of Ainn senses, my readers will probably have noticed certain facts which strongly support Darwin's theory of evolution and the hairy arboreal ancestor with pointed ears, from which the races of men are descended." Mr. Landor has very highly colored his Ainu, and in his" remarks on characteristic points of Ainu senses," has sadly dis- torted the facts of the case. He is uttel'ly unreliable when writing of the Ainu. Indeed, from a perusal of his account and illustration of them, I should hardly have known, unless from some of the names he gives and from his having told us, that he was writing of the race I …. Unbeaten Tracts In Japan." Vol. Ii., page 1"1.
t It should be written Ainu, not .. Alnos. " ; .. Unbeaten Tracts In Japan." Vol. Ii., page 189.
BATCHELOR AND CHRISTIAN AINU
~v. J OH N BATC HELOR AND NO~-C H KL!!i 'l' l AN Al NU MEN.
AMONG THE AINU OF JAPAN.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE .&.IlIIll' OJ!' JUIJr
and my wife have been for so many years most intimately connected with and working among. Whatever Mr. Landor may consider to be his own ancestry, I, for my part, prefer .to accept the account revealed and set forth in Genesis i-iii. Whatever that gentleman's illustra- tions may be, upon these I make no comment here, his writing can, in no sense, be relied on, particularly so when he touches upon matters connected with any department whatever of psychology or theology.
Dr. Howard also found his hairy specimen to write about, but in this case it happened to be a woman. He found her in a Russian hospital on the Island of Sakhalin. Of her he says: "The most astounding feature of all in this remarkable phenomenon, and that which at first caused me to inquire why the doctor allowed it the privileges of the female ward, was that the neck, chest, arms, and, as I afterwards found, the whole body was more hairy than the most hairy man I ever saw.
It Despite the atrocious appearance, this phenomenon was taciturn, shy, and docile, with an evident wish, were it possible, to be even friendly and amiable." '"
The inference, I suppose, the doctor desires the reader to draw is not only that the Ainu, both men and women alike, resemble the lower animals as regards quantity of hair, but also that they are no more capable of intelligent friendship and expression of amiability than those creatures are. But in this he is altogether mistaken, for not only is it possible for the Ainu to be friendly, but they are indeed so. They are just as much human as Doctor Howard himself, and neither more nor less so. According to Dr. Howard and another writer one would be led to conclude that the Ainu have not as much sense and capacity. for affection as a common Scotch collie. Furthermore, the doctor has informed us that the Yezo Ainu are descended from those of Sakhalin; the Ainu themselves, however, know nothing of this, and the Yezo Ainu scornfully repUdiate the idea. It is a purely gratuitous guess on the part of the doctor. Thus we find that almost all statements made by the passing stranger and ordinary traveler on these and kindred matters should be received with caution, and ought to be taken very much cum grano salis.. A few weeks or months is not sufficient time in which to learn all about a race of people and write a good, reliable book on them, especially so when the writers know nothing of the lauguage of the subjects of their remarks.
So much then for Messrs. Landor and Howard. But, it may be askt, does not one of the greatest Japanese scholars and writers on things Japanese speak somewhat in the same strain as these gentlemen? Well, yes I Professor Basil Hall Ohamberlain does appear in one place to be rather hard on the poor Ainn, but his writings may not, for a moment, be compared with those of the writers just men- … Trans·Siberian Savaies," paie 9. tioned. Whatever he says about the Ainu is reliable, and may not be lightly questioned. However, there is just one place in his writing with which I cannot agree. In concluding an essay on the Ainu, he finishes with the following remarks:* "By some European travelers this Japanization of the present generation (of Ainu), and the probable speedy extinction of the race, are mourned over. The present writer can not share these regrets. . • . But so little have they profited by the opportunities offered to them during the past thousand or two thousand years, that there is no longer room for them in the world. It (i. 6., this race) has no future, because it has no root in the past. . . . The existence of this race has been as aimless, as fruitless as the perpetual dashing of the breakers on the shore of Horo- betsu. t It leaves behind it nothing but a few names."
No one would ever suspect me of being one of those who think with the professor on this point. We might inquire as to what the so-called opportunities of the last one or two thousand years he speaks of have been. There is, perhaps, another side to this question upon which a great deal might be said, but a discussion of which would be outside the scope of this article. And as to saying that the race has 'been as aimless, as fruitless, as the perpetual dashing of the breakers on the shores of the sea, can it be demonstrated, indeed, that the dashing of these same breakers is aimless and fruitless? Is the least vibration of the earth or the smallest movement of air aimless and fruitless? Unless a man is infinite in knowledge and perception he surely has no right to say that this is so. Perhaps at the time when all mysteries are laid open before us, we shall see that the existence of the Ainu race has not been in vain. No; surely there can be nothing in the whole universe that is or has been absolutely useless. We believe that" God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." This being so, the Ainu existence may not lightly be called aimless and fruitless.
And when we remember that Christ, like the merchantman in the parable, sold all that He had, as it were, i. 6., laid aside His great and eternal glory for a time and became man, that He might come to this earth and seek after the goodly pearl of the human soul-when we remember Him as the good Shepherd seeking till he found the sheep that was lost-then, in some. degree, do we learn to look upon these friendless Ainu in the way that the Great Master of all looks upon them; then do we learn to see through the rugged exterior and understand something of what is contained beneath. And looking beyond • "lIIemoirlof the IJterature College, Imperial University of Japan." No.1. Pages 74,15.
t Horobetsu is a mixt village of Japanese and Ainu ou the East coast of Yazo, and Is open to the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Prof. Chamberlain spent a few weeka with the present writer and his wife at this place in 1888 for the study of the Ainu laqtIaie, hence the illustration. this present world to that which is to come, we see, with the eye of faith, men "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and natiou" (and surely this includes the Ainu race), standing round the throne of God and the Lamb. Thus we believe that when the Ainu race has served the purpose for which it was sent into the world, and not before, it shall pass away as other races have done before it and shall do after it. And so we go on working in faith.
That the Ainu is a disappearing race is a fact which can not be denied, for while thirty years ago the population numbered some thirty thousand souls, there are now no more than sixteen thousand of them left. And the fewer they become the faster they will die out. What with the rapid immigration of the Japanese, who come by thousands every year, and not only reside in and about the Ainu villages, but also take up the lands and the fishing grounds along the seacoast and rivers, thus pushing the Ainu out; what with the strong passion for alcoholic drink there is among the men; the poor food they have to subsist on; the inroads of disease and utter ignorance and disregard of the most elementary hygienic rules, together with other causes, it seems to be inevitable that the race should. become qnite extinct within a very few years. One or two Japanese philanthropists, indeed, have spoken about preserving the Ainu by placing them in :reserves, and the matter has been even mentioned in the diet, but so far it has all ended in talk. The doctor who attends to the Ainu who come to our" rest-house" in Sapporo, has examined and prescribed for some four hundred of them, and his opinion is that the race is worn out; its energy and vitality have disappeared. It would appear to be too late now to do anything effectually for the physical salvation of the people by way of placing them in reserves. The Japanese nation has missed a grand opportunity in suffering this poor people to be thus driven to the wall when it was in their power to help them.
Mission work has been carried on ft.mong those Ainu under Russian rule for many years and there are quite a number of Greek Christians, I understand, on the Island of Sakhalin. How many I have no means of finding out. I also hear that laws have been made and are rigidly enforced, by which it is forbidden to sell alcoholic liquors to them. I am sure the people are happier and better for this wise regulation. I wish I could say as much for the Japanese treatment of the Ainu in their dominions. So far from forbidding the sale of Sake* to them, there is now a distillery in full work right among the Ainu of the old capital of Piratori I It was built about twelve months ago, and has already done much harm to the people and the cause of Christ about there. I notice a great di1Jerence between the people to-day and what they were before this distillery was built. It is very distressini to * Sake is whiskey distilled from rice.
September
see ~he downward grade of many a promising youth, and the sad, tearful faces of what were but a short time since bright and happy wives.
So far as I am aware, I happen to be the first missionary of any denomination to preach the Gospel to the Ainu of Yezo in their native tongue. Speaking of the communion to which I belong, the Rev. W. Dening was originally sent in the year 1874 by the C. M. S. to take up work in Yezo with the special object of reaching the Ainu race, but he gave the most af his time to the study of Japanese in Hakodate, and tho he 'made one or two trips to some of the Ainn villages, notably those of Usu and Piratori for the purpose of studying the language, he was not able to spare enough time from the Japanese work to make himself proficient in the Ainu tongue. I was sent to Hakodate in the year 1877, having been obliged to leave Hongkong, to which place I was originally appointed, through malarial fever. For the space of two years I gave almost the whole of my time to studying the Japanese language, occasionally, however, making a short trip to the Ainu near at hand and while among them devoted myself to stUdying their language, religion, and customs, as a kind of rest and recreation from the difficulties of the Japanese tongue. These trips became more frequent till in the year 1882, having by this time gained some little knowledge of the language and people, I was appointed by the C. M. S. Committee to make the matter of evangelizing the Ainu my special work and first care. Hence the Ainu have for many yeam been my chief study while preaohing, the Gospel to them. Mrs. Batchelor has of course assisted me in no small degree in the work, and the Lord has been pleased to bless the labors of our hands abundantly.
But we are nOw no longer alone in this work. All the O. M. S. missionaries on the island have their share of Ainu to evangelize. The majority of the people, however, are still under my charge, for out of the total of 16,000, nearly 10,000 are in my district. A lady also has now been sent to help us in this cause, and there are three Ainu and two Japanese helpers laboring especially among the people. There is also a school for boys at Hakodate, and a "Rest-House" for the sick at Sapporo.
The first Ainu Christian admitted into our section of the Church of Christ was baptized on Christmas day in 1885, and he past away on January the 19th of the present year. In the following year three others were added to the church. In 1887 two more were baptized, and so on till the year 1893 the people came out by ones and twos· But in that year the seed which had been steadily sown during so long' a time'suddenly sprang to life, so that up to the present time more than seven hundred have been admitted into the Ohurch by baptism, while there are many others coming out. There are, in fact, more
TBB nu.a IN UPU
than a hundred catechumens uuder instruction at the present moment. Thus does the Lord add to His churches daily such as are being saved. Moreover, it has been my blessed privilege to give the Ainu the New Tt*itament in their own language. May the Lord continue His good work in the hearts of this poor downtrodden people.
THE YEAR IN JAPAN.
BY REV. GEORGE Wlf. KNOX, D.D• .As we closed our survey of the year in Japan, in July, 1896, came the news of the terrible disaster in the North. It was described in the October number of this REVIEW, by one who visited the scene on an errand of mercy. During the months following, there were terrible floods, and, later, a long continued epidemic of smallpox. But terrible catastrophies occur so often in Japan that they are accepted as natural and to be expected. So has it been from the dawn of history and so is it likely to be for ages to come. The only unusual thing is the bleSBed charity which hastens now to alleviate the suffering, a charity taught by our Lord but learned by multitudes who do not profess his name.
The Death of the Empress Dowager occurred in January, 1897, and her funeral gave opportunity for the Japanese to show that in some things at least they still are lovers of the past. The funeral ceremonies were prolonged, expensive, inexpressibly tedious (to impatient occidentals at least), exaggerated, antiquated. The empire was searched for oxeu of just the right ritual color to draw the cart that bore the coffin, the cart itself was of a peculiar pattern and its wheels emitted a monrnful sound as they revolved. After careful search oue ancient carpenter was found who knew how to construct the vehicle. The interment at last was at night, and an hour was consumed in lowering the coffin into its place. Everything belonged to the old, old Japan of elaborate ceremony, and endless time, and exhaustless patience.
Amnesty to prisoners was proclaimed. Sixty thousand were benefitted by a reduction in their sentences, and 16,000 were released outright. It was in vain that some of the newspapers protested that this ancient custom was more honored in the breach than in the observance. In the ancient times the presumption was all against the prisoner and he was often kept for years, sometimes for life, without his guilt .being establisht, even without formal trial. Many, too, were condemned for ceremonial or unintentional or some relative's transgressions implying no real guilt. For such the death of a ruler offered an opportu-
TlIB Y]U,B IN JAPAlf
nity for redress, and the prison doors were opened that innocent sufferers might go free. But now, it was argued, with the modern system of law men get only what they deserve, and such release of prisoners is at 'the expense of justice. They also prophesied an increase of crime as the result, a prophecy that has seemed to be fulfilled in the months past.
More in accordance with modern notions was the gift of 400,000 en from the Imperial purse to charitable institutions, though it is doubtful if even so royal a gift could make up for the sufferings caused dancing girls, actors, and musicians, who for fifteen days were forbidden to follow their means of livelihood. And after all the Empress Dowager was not the mother of the Emperor. But in family relationships, as in funeral ceremonies, Imperial Japan is still wholly archaic and unreformed.
With Foreign Powers.-Some of the very patriotic folks sharply reproved the government for not insisting on mourning by foreign courts. But European powers have never thus recognized Asiatic courts, and it is not yet clear that Christian usages can be extended to non-Christian states. In any case, some at least of the Japanese felt that a slight was put upon their idolized land.
A more serious matter was the reported Russian military mission to Korea, a mission seemingly in contravention of the treaty recently concluded between the two empires concerning the troublesome little kingdom. But this is now reported as arranged satisfactOl·ily. None the less does Korea remain a thorn in the patriotic flesh of Japan. None can pretend that she achieved peace with honor there.
Nor yet in Formosa. That remains a white elephant. Insurrections, epidemics, dissatisfaction, and worst of all, the conduct of the Japanese themselves appear as causes of the misfortunes and disgrace. The newspapers are keenly alive to the situation and loud in their demands for reforms, and in that is perhaps the brightest gleam of hope.
With Hawaii, too, there hits been trouble; the Japanese being at least technically right. This little cloud shows how all the world is one, since the Japanese protest against the exclusion of its laborers has hastened the action of our own executive in making its new treaty for the incorporation of the Sandwich Islands in our domain. 'rhe Japanese protest again as they already felt themselves aggrieved by our proposed new tariff with its increased duties on silks and matting, and its tax on tea. Perhaps the cutting off the latter tax may appease the cl~mor raised against the new" unfriendly" policy of the United States.
Politics at Home.-There has been the usual strife, but less acute, and the customary change of ministry. No ministry seems able to endure a twelve months. Perhaps the last may have a more kindly fate. Two measures of importance it has already with the willing help of Parliament accomplished. There is now greater freedom of speech and of the press. Indeed, Japan is now far in advance in this of some European powers that count themselves at the very top; Germany for example. Nor has there yet been undue license, though there have been occasions for excited debate. But freedom in Japan we venture to prophesy will prove to be conservative and not revolutionary.
But whether because of greater freedom or because of greater cause there are plain charges of serious corruption in the government. It is openly charged that the change of ministry was rendered possible by the bribery of Parliament. Certain it is that a hostile majority was converted mysteriously into one subservient, and certain also is it that a change is passing rapidly over Japanese society; a change ominous in many ways.
The Money Power.-Japan has still retained socially its feudal ideals and standards. In old Japan luxury, wealth, and display were despised. The poorest samurai counted himself superior to the richest merchant. In the great clans young gentlemen were trained as soldiers, and by precept and example were taught that wealth was not to be sought by gentlemen. Boys grew to manhood with no knowledge of trade and without a dollar they could call their own. In the old representative samurai families a puritan simplicity reigned. And after feudalism past the old standard remained. The smallest official felt himself of the governing caste and superior to common folks. The petty officials were poor but beyond suspicion. One could not fee even a policeman, not even for extraordinary service. The deference accorded them and the powers exercised by them, by men paid the merest pittance, was astonishing. Within a few years to be in the government service was the ambition of the brightest youth.
But with the new civilization comes a. change, most markt since the termination of the war. The old ambition that Japan be the equal" of the great Powers seems attainable ouly through a vast increase of wealth. The nation has never thought itself poor. It has had enough, but now with new ~ays of life come new needs. Civilization of the modern style is endlessly costly. Compared with Europe and America Japan is poor indeed, but it must maintain itself in the new society into which it has been forced. Expenditures increase apace, and taxation is in proportion. A clear example of the new influence is in the substitution of gold as money standard in place of silver. The change was effected in the briefest space of time, with the minimum of discussion and almost no dissent. The nation felt it another change advancing it towards equality with the favored nations of the West. The rapid adoption of the measure markt, possibly, the new influence of the money power. But the
Sept~~
nation agreed. So does it agree to the new social position accorded wealth. It is now said to be the ambition of young men to become rich, and the relative position of poor officials and rich merohants is suddenly reverst. There comes to be a scramble for money. New enterprises are planned, new resources sought, and new characteristics displayed. With all the vast extension of commerce and of manufacturing industry of recent years the nation still feels poor and st.ill craves wealth. One can not look upon this feature in new Japan without grave disquietude. Inevitable it doubtless is, but what shall become of the old charm of the old life, so restful, so full of grace, so far removed from the sordid strife of the modern world? One does not like to think that~' Christian" civilization taught Japan first how in most approved style to kill, and then introduced the scramble for more and more and ever more of this world's goods. It is not pleasant to be told that money makes and unmakes parliamentary majorities, and that a ministry can endure only if in alliance with millionaires. When shall we be able to say that not only Western modes of warfare, and of commerce, and of sordid politics, but that the Christ's teaching of love and truth has won Japan? Not at once we fear.
The Work of the Okurck.-Not yet does there seem to be a turn of the tide that has so checkt the advance. Indee'd, some of the keenest observers think this new strife for wealth the most antagonistic force which has yet appeared. Whatever be the cause the result is manifest.
Again the table of statistics of all mission work shows a net 1088. At the close of the year 1896 there were 349 fewer communicants in Protestant churches than were reported at the close of 1895, and 879 less than those reported at the close of 1894. Let us face the facts at their worst. Not counting the wives of missionaries, many of whom do most valiant and effective service, there are 472 foreign missionaries, with 281 ordained Japanese ministers, and 610 unol'dained preachers and helpers, and 204 Bible women, a total of 1,567 professionallaborers, and the net result for two years of work has been a loss in the number of communicants of 879. In the long list of columns the list of laborers almost alone show increase. More laborers and less results, that seems to be the story for years. And even the number of ordained Japanese shows a large falling off.
It is true that there is a pretty large number of adult baptisms reported (2,513), but this is less than in the year preceding, and that less than in the year before, and that also showed a decrease.
The largest diminution is in the work of the American Board, and the exceptional causes for its decrease are well known. For the first time, we judge, it falls to third place in the number of converts, and its native ministry is less than half, only 25 now against 60 a year before, while its students for the ministry are reported as only six. But tho special causes have affected this work long the most promising of all, still, at best, the other missions have only held their own.
It is much that they have held their own, and much that in that mission that has suffered so grievously so many stand fast and maintain the faith. In total result they are second, and in benevolence still leli.d all the rest.
The Hope jor the Future.-So far 3S we know none is discouraged. In the days of success many, as in the days of the early Church with apostolic leadership, profest the faith who did not know its power. And many flourisht for a time but had no root and by and by withered away. But many endure, and from them shall come the Church that shall endure. The work no longer occupies its old place in the public eye, it no longer comes with observation, but it endure~, and it will still possess the land.
In many places interest is manifested, and faithful work brings forth fruit. Missionaries and converts are in greater harmony than in times past. There is less unrest, less curiosity abont the latest novelty, anef a truer and more sober estimate of the work that must be done.
The experience in Japan is not exceptional. It is from such experiences that the Chnrch learns patience, faith, and its absolute dependence upon God's power. To learn that is to learn all, and at last to win all.
PANDITA RAMABAI AND HER WORK.
BY MISS GRACE E. WILDER, KOLHAPUR, INDIA.
The name of Pandita Ramabai isfamiliarto many. We American women are glad to recall the fact that when this young widow came to our shores, she received the sympathy and aid for which her heart was longing. Ramabai's efforts for the widows of western India, and more especially her present connection with famine widows, has 80 brought her into prominence that some may be glad to have a short review of a life so signally molded and used by God.
In the famine of 1876 Ramabai was a little Hindu girl living in, the jungles of India. Her father being a pundit, he chose So solitary abode-a custom not uncommon among the religious people of India. Both parents were anxions to have Rama become learned; so, from So child, she was taught the Hindu shastras. I have been told that she committed to memory 23,000 verses of the Hindu scriptures.
. Among others, her own people fell victims to the terrible famine. Of this time she says: "Eleven days and nights, in which we sub-
PANDITA. ,RAHABA.I AND DEB WOBlI
sisted on water and leaves, were spent in great mental and bodily pain. At last our dear father could hold out no longer. He determined to drown himself in the sacred tank neal' by. ' Remember, my child,' he said, 'you are my youngest, my most beloved child. I have. given you into the hands of our God; you are His, and to Him alone you must belong and serve all your life.' He could speak no more. My father's prayers for me were no doubt heard by the Almighty, the all merciful heavenly Father, whom the old Hindu did not know. The God of all flesh did not find it impossible to bring me, a great sinner and an unworthy child of His, out of heathen darkness into the saving light of His love and salvation."
Happily the resolve of suicide was not carried out, for later this father was attacked by fever, from which he did not recover. Ramabai touchingly tells of how fellow-villagers, being doubtful as to the caste of the family, offered no assistance, and her brother carried the lifeless form alone over two miles to its last resting-place.
The story of helplessness and starvation continued until mother and sister both died. She and her brother visited the large cities of India. She advocated female education, and after a time this young lecturer and Sanscrit scholar created a sensation by her views and scholarship. The pundits of Calcutta conferred upon her the distinguisht title ()f Sarasvati. Soon after this her brother died. "His great thought during his illness," she writes, " was for me." When he spoke of his anxiety, I answered: "There is no one but God to care for you and me." " Ah," he answered, "then if God cares for UB, I am afraid of nothing! and indeed in my loneliness it seemed as if God was near me, I felt his presence."
After the death of her brother, Ramabai married a Bengali gentleman. After nineteen months of married life she was left a widow with a baby daughter Manorama (Heart's Joy). She resumed her former work as a lecturer, going from city to city to plead for the education of native women and the discouragement of child marriage.
It was not long before her restless desire to go to England was real. ized. She writes: "It seems to me now very strange how I could have started as I did with my friend and little child, throwing ,myself on God's protection. When I reacht England, the sisters in St. Mary's Home at Wantage kindly received me. There I gradually learned to feel the truth of Christianity, and to see that it is a philosophy teaching truths higher than I had ever known in all our systems; to see that it gives not only precepts but a perfect example; that it does not give us precepts and an example only, but assures us a divine grace to follow that example." Here she and her daughter were baptized, and thus before reaching America she had profest an outward adherence to Christianity.
She was received into the home of Dean Bodley, of Philadelphia, and there received the encouragement and counsel and love of a truly great woman. In preparing an introduction to one of Ramaba.i's boo~s, Dean Bodley writes: "I askt her as she arose to depart if she had a last message for the readers of her book. 'Remind them,' she • replied, with animated countenance and rapid speech, as she claspt my hand, 'that it was out of Nazareth that the blessed Redeemer of mankind came; that great reforms have again and again been wrought by instrumentalities that the world despised. Tell them to help me educate the high caste child widows, for I solemnly believe that this hated and despised class of women, educated and enlightened, are by God's grace to redeem India.''' In remarkable ways God is causing Ramabai to realize the gradual fulfillment of this prophetic desire.
Her'home for widows is located at Poona, amid pleasant natural surroundings. The inmates-numbering at the close of last year between fifty and sixty-receive here not alone superior educational advantages, but a home-life which is a constant protest against the awful customs of Hindu widowhood.
During the last two years Ramabai has herself experienced a deeper knowledge of the life of Christ and of the possibilities of that life being manifested in her. Through the blessing of God on the efforts of an English evangelist, she was shown that the Holy Spirit is a living person. Her acceptance of Him and obedience to Him have had a markt influence on the girls in her home. Ramabai has always held the position that every pupil is free to join her at the time of morning and evening prayer. As the spirit of God has been manifested in this home, the attendance at prayers has increast, and last year twelve girls profest faith in Christ by baptism.
Six months ago-as fearful facts of famine su:ffering reachtRama- bai-her heart could not rest without making efforts to save the widows of Central India. "We shall be quite contented," she writes, "to have only one meal of common coarse food daily, if necessary, and so long as we have a little room or a seed of grain left in this' house, we shall try and help our sisters who are starving."
After a rail journey of many miles, Ramabai hired a bullock-cart, and visited some of the villages of the Central Provinces. She found that not only were young widows and deserted wives starving, but their lives were in great moral danger from wicked Mohammedans, who were taking advantage of this time of their dis- tress and helplessness.
Before we left India, Ramabai's jourlley had added 125 to Sarada Sadhan-her home in Poona. I saw many of these young widows, with skeleton forms and gaunt looks, which said more than their words. They were under a temporary inclosure of Bamboo poles, covered with clo.th and matting. When I said, "Ramabai, you now need bui,ldings," she replied, "Yes, and the Father must send the money." News has reacht me that the number of widows or deserted wives taken by Ramabai from famine districts has risen to 149, and preparations are being made to receive more.
We, who live in Western India, recognize God's gracious love and power in this chosen life. . We see that Ramabai is now gathering in the girls who will, with God's blessing, be teachers and missionaries to their own people. Will you help her by prayer, and by undertaking the support of one or more of the members of her increasing family?
We add the following account of the terrible condition of affairs in India, where the distress brought about by plague and famine is unspeakably augmented by the unprincipled use which evil men make to gratify their own lust. Pandita Ramabai is doing her utmost to rescue the young girls and child-widows who would otherwise fall into the hands of these human vultures.
At Sohagpur Ramabai first began the work of rescuing these starving girls. Sbe says: We found that we could not get the orphan children without the permission of the government, so our first business was to see the physician in charge of the hospital, and the tahsildar in charge of the poor-house. Before that hospital were walking three little famished skeleton-like forms, and this first sight of- their distress I shall never forget. The three children were of the Ohamar caste, their father had died some time ago, and the mother died only the day before. The eldest was a girl of about seven, the second a boy of five, and the youngest a baby boy three years of age. The girl was protecting herself from the intense cold with a covering of rags, and the two boys had nothing on their bodies. Their wrinkled faces and the ghastly, death-like expression told the story of the terrible suffering they were in. All of them were crying for food. The youngest had sore eyes, and could scarcely open them. The poor babe was suffering from dysentery, so much so that his intestines were almost falling out. T{) add to hIS misery, he had fallen down and hurt his back. The blood flowed freely from the injured part, which was already so sore and painful, but there was no one to care for him. He was crying, but tears were not to be seen in his eyes. The children were right before the hospital, but no one showed any sign of pity. It took us so long to find the officer in charge of the poor-house that when we returned they had gone, and though I went searching all over the town, I could not find them. Perhaps they died of hunger.
The poor-house was only a grove in the outskirts of the town. Groups of famisht people lying down in heaps, or sittin~ or lying in ashes on the dirty ground. Some had rags to cover theu bodies, and some had none. There were old and young men, and women, and children, most of the ill, too weak to move about, and many suffering from leprosy and other unmentionable diseases. Bad men, immoral wqmen, pure young girls, innocent children and old people, good, bad, and indifferent, were freely mixing and conversing with each other. They slept in the open air, or under the trees at night, and ate the scanty and coarse food provided by the government. The food was nothing but dry flour and some salt. Many of the so-called poor-houses are open grounds with a lIort of fence all round them. Some are nothing but sheds temporarily erected to shelter the people. The miserable men, women, and children, who find shelter in these places, are baked in the sun in the day and freeze in cold at night. In some places there is a thin fencing, where men and women are placed separately. But this arrangelllent is not much of a protection to the women. The devil is at work, even in these poor-houses and relief camps, and they are not fit places for young women and girls to be in. The European and native officers employed to look after the interests of the dying thousands are hard at work, and try to do as much as they can. But it is impossible for them to find out what goes on behind their backs; they are obliged to leave the work in the hands of the Mukadams, who can do whatever they like. They pull and push the working coolies, even women. Young men can be seen everywhere talking to girls and women under the pretense of doing the Mukadam's work. Wicked men and women are everywhere ou the lookout for young women and girls; they entice them by offering sweetmeats and other kind of food, clothing, and fair promises to take them to nice places and make them happy. So hundreds of girls, young widows, and deserted wives are waylaid as they go to the relief camps and poor-houses in search of food and work, and taken away before they place themselves in the custody of the governmeut. The wicked are not afraid of the judgment of God, they are sinning away their lives in the midst of the fearful scene of famine and pestilence. They are carrying on a wholesale trade in young girls who have been obliged to leave their families and wander away from home in quest of food. In many cases parents have fallen a prey to the famine, and left their young girls to the tender mercies of their neighbors, or fellow travelers, or other wayfarers. Such girls easily fall into the hands of wicked people.
Here is an instance: A young girl of fourteen, and a little sister of about eight years of a~e, were left orphans and taken possession of by a wicked man at !tarsI. I happened to see her in the streets and askt her who she was. She told me her whole story and said she would let me have her sister, who was not wanted by her cruel master, and that she could not come away for the fear of that man. I wanted to rescue the poor child but was at that time unable to do so. I prayed to the Lord to show me the way-and in the next week He sent help. A young missionary gentleman came to help me. He went to the police station and took her away from the "man who had kept her in his possession against her will. She was sent to the mission bungalow with a servant, but the former master carried her away by force. A~ain the missionary went to the town and fetcht her, and that very mght 1 took her to Jabalpur, and now she and her sister are placed with some good missionary ladies who will take care of them. The elder girl, poor child, is rumed for life, and.is suffering from horrible disease.
May the merciful Father help these children! Another young girl of about fifteen was some time ago wandering away from home, when a res~ectable looking man told her to go home with him and help his wife m the household work. She consented, and went with him. He gave her nice clothes and food, and for a few days all went on nicely with her, but the devil was at work in his heart. Other demands were made on her, but the girl said she had gone to his house to work and not for any other purpose. He then said that she should nDt get sari and fDDd, unless she cDnsented to fDllo.W his wishes.
" Very well," she said, and put Dn her DId rags, threw away the gDDd sari, and went Dut Dn the street again to beg her fODd. She was pickt up the same day by a kind lady and is safe with me now.
There are not many such girls who. will resist the devil in the face of starvatio.n and death. Go.d be thanked fo.r prDtecting the virtue of these innocents. But it has been my sad lot to see many little girls ruined for life.
My sympathies are excited by the needs of young girl widDws, especially at this time. To let them go. to the relief camps and pDor- hDuses, or allDW them to' wander in the streets and Dn the highways ,means their eternal destructiDn. Ever since I have seen these girls in the famine districts-some fallen into. the hauds o.f wicked people; some ruined fQr life and turned Qut by their cruel masters Qwing to.
bad diseases, to. die a miserable death in a ho.peless, helpless manner, SDme being treated in the hQspitals Qnly to' be taken back into the pits Df sin there to await a cruel death; some bearing the burdens of sin utterly lost to. the sense of shame and humanity-hell has become a horrible reality to me, and my heart is bleeding for those daughters of fond parents who have died leaving them orphans. Who. with a mother's heart and a sister's love can rest without doing everything in her power to save at least a few of the girls who can yet be saved from the hands of the evil ones I So, regardless Df the trying financial state Df my SChODl, I went to work in the Central Provinces to get a few of the helpless young widows.
The Father, who is a very present help in trouble, has enabled me to get SDme sixty widows, forty· seven Df whDm will go to SChDOI to study, and others will work. Over eight hundred and fifty rupees were spent in fetching them here. The Lord has put it into. my mind to save three hundred girls out of the famine districts, and I shall go to work in His name. The fundI! sent to me by my friends in Amer- ica. are barely enough to feed and educate fifty girls, and several peo-'
pIe are asking me how lam going to suppDrt all these girls who may come from Central India. Besides their food and clothing. new dor- mitories and dining-roo.ms must be built. Our present school-house is not large enough to hold more than one hundred girls at the most.
And how are these emergencies to be met?
I do. not know, but the Lord knows what I need. I can say with the Psalmist," I am Po.or and needy, but the Lord thinketh upon me." My girls and I are quite ready to fDregD all Dur cDmfDrts, give up luxuries, and live as plainly as we can. We shall be quite CDn- tented to' have Dnly Dne meal of CDmmDn CDarse fDOd daily, if neces- sary, and so. long as we have a little room or a seed Df grain left in this hDuse, we shall try and help our sisters who. are starving. It seems a sin to live in this go.Dd house and eat plenty of gODd fDod and be warmly clDthed, while thousands of Dur fellow creatures are dying of hunger, and are without shelter. If all of us do our part faithfully, GDd is faithful to. fulfil His prDmises. and will send uil the help we need at this time.
r humbly request you to pray for me and mine that we may be made strong in the Lord, and walk by faith and not by sight. Believe me, yours in the Lord's service, R.uLBAI.
MILITARY RULB IN MADAGASCAR
MILITARY RULE IN MADAGASCAR.
The past eight months have been a time of darkness and horror to many of the natives, upon which they will long 100Js back as upon a terrible nightmare. General Gallieni is a man of immense energy and a prompt striker. "With him," said one of his compatriots, "it is a word and a blow, and usually the blow comes first." He is said to have acquired the name of the "fusilier," and in Madagascar he has fully maintained his reputation. The shooting of rebels and others has been an almost daily occurrence. Many of those shot have, doubtless, been guilty of rebellion, or, as they would themselves perhaps say, of a determination not to be ruled by foreigners; but some of those so hastily shot down have been, in the judgment of many, absolutely guiltless of the charges laid against them. During a state of siege it often happens that young and inexperienced officers have great powers entrusted to them, and evidence is not very carefully sifted. Everything, too, has to be done through interpreters, whose knowledge of French is neither extensive nor accurate, and there is thus but small probability that a trial will be fairly conducted. Some of these officers seem to think it highly to their credit to shoot down natives. One of these said recently to one of his compatriots, " I am just going to shoot a native rebel-my seventy-third. Come and ~ee it done." All this may be a natural consequence of military rule; but it is none the less deplorable, and we long for the time when civil rule will be restored, and every accused person may at least have a fair opportunity of defense.
Madagascar is now a French colony, and the Queen has been banisht to Rennideo. This was a logical result of the steps already taken by the authorities. The hybrid form of government that existed for a few months after General GaIIi€mi's arrival could not last long, and the situation has been simplified by the removal of the Queen: Her power had already been taken from her, and she was of no service to the French rulers. Indeed, without any "fault of her own, she may have been an indirect hindrance to them in their efforts to pacify the country. The general has not charged her with any act of disloyalty, tho, perhaps, she did not show enough gaiety to satisfy Frenchmen. She remained a Protestant to the end, notwithstanding many attempts to induce her to change her religion.
The general results of French rule in Madagascar are becoming more and more apparent. Great labor is being expended on roadmaking, and the general appearance of the capital is rapidly changing. Not many new public buildings are being erected; but great activity is shown in altering and adapting the many native houses that have fallen into the hands of the government. The central parts of the city will soon become entirely French. During this month of May hundreds of workmen are busy in Adohalo, a fine open space in the very heart of the city, and it is said that by the Fete of the Republic, on July 14th, the place will have undergone a complete transformation, and will have become a public garden, with a band- stand in the center.
The French rulers are gradually perfecting their system of com- mercial government and of taxation, and also the regulation of the corvee. It was said at the beginning of the occupation that the covee was dead-an evil system that would never be revived. The natives, however, are finding that such hopes were an illusion. Every able-bodied man is required to spend fifty days a year in roadmaking, or in certain privileged cases he pays five dollars. In addition to this there are military requisitions of different kind and various taxes, and many are beginning to feel the hand of the conquerer press' heavily upon them.
But the bearing of French rule on the cause of Protestant mis- sions is the topic possessing most interest for the readers of~ this RE- VIEW, and to that we address ourselves.
General Gallieni reflects the feelings of thousands of his fellow , countrymen in showing himself strongly opposed to English influ- ence. He was sent, it is said, to fulfill a two-fold mission: to destroy the rule of the Hova and the English supremacy. "English suprem- acy" with him and with many others simply means the influence of the London Missionary Society. It is strange to those actually en- gaged in the work of that society to find their influence regarded as an important factor in the political situation. In carrying ·out this policy, General Galli€mi is simply following out the lines laid down by M. Ie Myre di Vilers, who said the two irreconcilable enemies of France in Madagascar were the Hova Government and the London Missionary Society. The latter, he said, has always cherisht the se- cret design of securing the annexation of Madagascar by England.
A series of events has shown how strong the anti-Protestant (or anti-English) feeliug is among the French officers. From the begin- ning of the occupation Protestant churches have been requisitioned for the use of the soldiers, but, so far as I know, not a single Roman Catholic church has been so taken. This has been a great trial to the . Protestant Ohristians, who have been grieved to see their houses of prayer become scenes of debauchery and immorality. In the com- pound of a mission house in the country, on property belonging to the London Missionary Society, huts have been erected for the native women who follow the soldiers.
The seizure of the large hospital at Goavinandriana, and more recently the purchase of the principal educational establishments of the London Society, have been regarded by the people generally as a blow dealt at the work of that society. That this was the real motive that led General Gallieni to enforce the sa.le of these buildings, is shown by the naive confession of the correspondent of the Temps. This gentleman, evidently well informed, after stating the sum paid for the buildings, says, "This sum, which at first appears very considerable, is relatively slight, considering the injury done to the prestige of the society, for it is thereby deprived of its most powerful means of propaganda."
An illustration that throws much light upon the French policy is found in the action of the administration in regard to the Normal School building. When arrangements were being made last February for the purchase of its buildings named above, it was said by General Galli€mi's intermediary, that they were absolutely required by the exigencies of the public service. Within a few hours, however, of the arrival of the Paris missionaries last month, the Normal School building was offered them on condition that no Englishman should take any part in the work to be carried on in it. The building and the whole work connected with it was accordingly handed over to Mr. Mondain, of the Paris Society, a few days ago; and Mr. Richardson, who has had charge of the school 25 years, is leaving the island.
Another instance illustrating the same point is that of the church at Andohalo. This is a building of burnt brick, built after designs prepared by the late Mr. William Johnson. The people have spent a large sum on the building, but they also gave much labor, especially in digging very deep foundations. The site is one of the best in the town, and we attacht a special value to it, because from its fine central position it would have been so convenient for united meetings of various kinds. The congregation was founded by missionaries of the London Missionary Society more than 30 years ago, and the former building was erected almost entirely at the expense of friends of that society. The building was required by the government, and the people have sold it (according to Mr. Peake's estimate) for about half its value. Their defense is that they had no option in the matter. We are greatly disappointed to lose this building, and the more so, as we had a written promise from the General, that none of our church buildings should be taken by the administration, unless we ourselves agreed to treat in a friendly manner. This we have not done, but have urged strong reasons why the building should not be taken. All the material claims of the London Missionary Society are fairly met by the French government; but this is no compensation for the loss of such a well-situated and well-built church. Rumors are common both among the natives and among Frenchmen that this church is to be turned into a theater. Let us hope this is one of the cases in which rumors may prove false.
In the Betsileo province the French president, Dr. Besson, has shown a bitter animus against the work of tbe London Missionary Society. The people have been terrorized by the agents of the Jesuits in the most shameless fashion. Many of the agents of the London Missionary Society have been banisht from the province on the plea that they were Hovas, whilst other Hovas are not interfered with, and stranger still any of these agents who are willing to become Roman Catholics, are also permitted to remain. The latest news from this district is that twelve leading men from Ambohimandroso have been imprisoned or put in chains, the only charge against them being (so far as our friends can learn) that they have been friendly with the English and have spoken against France. No opportunity has been given them of rebutting these charges.
It should in fairness be stated, however, that this intolerance is by no means universal among the French administrators. There are large sections of the country in which the proclamations guaranteeing religious liberty are faithfully adhered to, and where much kindness has been shown by French officers to the native Protestant Christians. Everything seems to depend upon the character of the officer in charge, and on the greater or smaller influence the Jesuits have over him. The districts in which the Protestants have suffered most are those of Betsileo, already mentioned, and of Ambatomanga. Of the latter district the missionary in charge could tell a sad story. More than twenty Protestants were shot in a small circle of villages a few weeks since" with scarcely the shadow of a trial. It is quite enough if some overzealous native governor calls them fahavalo (or rebels), and in a few hours they may be dead.
Dark as recent experiences have been, however, there seems some reason to hope that the worst is past, and that the fierceness of this intolerance is abating. Since March there has been no more church stealing, and some few of the buildings have been restored. Some of the churches requisitioned by the military authorities (as Imahamasina and Isoavina) have also been recently restored to ns. Mr. Leban, the Colonial Minister, has also promist that compensation shall be paid for the hospital. We trust these indications of fair treatment may soon be followed by the restoration of religious freedom, such as was enjoyed before the war. The French might in regard to this matter well learn a lesson from the despised Hovas. During the war of 1883- 1886, tho all the French were expelled, their native congregations suffered no persecution, nor were their buildings taken from them by the powerful Protestant majority.
Our main ground of hopefulness as to the future lies in the action of the Paris Missionary Society. A year ago it was thought that some slight help may be rendered by that society to the Protestant cause. The severe troubles of the native Protestants and the stirring appeals of Messrs. Kruger and Langa throughout France, have deeply stirred the heart of the Protestant churches there, and already they are enter- ing with much zeal and earnestness into this work. Five new mis- sionaries arrived a month ago, and a few days after their arrival a large meeting attended by 1,200 or 1,400 Protestant Christians of Antananarivo was held in the Amparibe Church to bid them welcome. At the present moment their position is this: They have taken charge 'of all primary schools, nearly 500 in number, with more than 30,000 scholars. They will also train teachers in the Normal School, and take charge of "the Palace School." They will also settle in distrest districts, and undertake general visitations for the encouragement of the native Protestants. Reenforcements are expected, and it seems probable that the bulk of the London Missionary Society's work will gradually pass into their hands. It is possible the Swiss Society will also take some share in the work; as recent events make it abundantly clear that it will be much to the advantage of the native churches to be placed under the superintendence of French-speaking missionaries.
How soon this transfer of work may take place can not, of course, be foreseen; but events have been marching rapidly of late, and the work of the London Missionary Society in this land may come to an end much sooner than some of us anticipated. Still there remains the hope, that if the larger portion of the work is taken over by the French-speaking missionaries, some few of the English workers may remain for a few years, so as to preserve the continuity of the mission, and to give to the Frenchmen the benefit of their knowledge of the language aud of the people. Whatever the final issue of event;s may be, the foundations, laid broad and deep by the English society, will not be destroyed. The written language, the translated Bible, the spread of elementary education, the developmeut of higher education and of medical study, the general principles of church order, and the native missionary society-these are things that will abide; and those who follow us in this land will gladly acknowledge that other men labored, and that they had entered into their labor.- • Since the aboTe was written we haTe had a tragic illustration of how much anti-foreign feeling may still be smoldering under the apparent calm. On Monday, May 17th, the Revs. B. Escande and P. Minault, of the Paris Society, left the capital tor Betsileo. Mr. H. F. Standing, of the Friends' Mi88lon, went with them part of the way, and lett them on Thursday morning. 'On the Friday morning, when nearing a large market, they were suddenlyattackt by a party of SO armed rebels and killed. Details have not yet reacht us. But the bodies, we hear, haTe been recovered by the Rev. E. O. McMahon, of the Angelican Mission, and buried at his station of Ramainandro. A gloom has been cast over the Protestants ot AntananariTo by his sad news. Six victims have now tallen since the outbreak of' the rebellion. Mr. and Hi'll. Willism Johnson and little Blo88om at Arivonlmamo; Father Berties near AmbohlbemaMI&Ildro, and now Messrs. Escande and Mlnault near Ramainandro.
A.LLlA.NCE }fi1!1I10NARY OFFERlNGII
THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE MISSIONARY OFFERINGS.* BY REV. H. WILSON, D.D., NEW YORK.
Nearly a quarter of a million dollalrs were subscribed at five meetings during the summer and autumn of 1896, in one day at Old Orchard meeting, August 9, 1896, .101,500 being obtained without special effort, and October 11, at Carnegie Hall, New York City, *122,000 more so freely given, that those on the platform could hardly keep pace with the tide of pledges and money poured in upon them. Beginning at Old Orchard with a one dollar bill, given by a very poor woman, and followed by a nickel brought up by a little boy, the offerings rose steadily to the amount given above. While at Carnegie Hall a washerwo~an handed in $25 as the first contribution, followed by others, thus varying from 10 cents to $10,000, till the total reacht the sum which has startled so many by its size, and the perfect ease with which it was obtained, and this in a year of great financial depression. . Let me try to answer the question so often askt us and from so many quarters: "What is the secret of this spontaneous and magnificent giving at the conventions of the Christian Alliance? How is it. that a body of people so poor, can be led not only to pledge but to pay so much to the cause of Foreign Missions, and in times of such financial pressure? They do it.
I. Because they have caught God's Tlw1tght for the world. By years of truthful teaching they have learned God's idea of missions, viz., the rapid evangelization of the heathen world in preparation for the speedy coming of our Lord to this earth again.
Not the conversion of every soul on the earth, but the preaching of the Gospel for a witness to those who have never heard it, giving at least one chance to know Ohrist and be saved to those millions in heathen lands who have never had one chance in contrast to those in Christendom, who have been preacht to till they are Gospel hardened.
II. The second reason for the extraordinary liberality shown at the close of these conventions is the gradual and solemn preparation for the offering.
These extraordinary gifts for missions are not spasmodic or hypnotic in their character. They are not the result of any labored appeal to the feelings, or of playing upon the emotions of the audience. A stranger dropping in and sitting on the outskirts of the vast multitude at Old Orchard, or any similar meeting, would perhaps be • We have asked Rev. H. Wilson, D.D., who has been familiar with the whole history of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, to give a succinct account of the missionary olferings at Its conventions, which may at once Inform the public and correct erroneous statements. puzzled to account for the result of a simple Gospel sermon of perhaps 45 minutes in length. But if our stranger or critic friend had been present from the beginning of the convention, and observed that for 14 days-beginning each morning at 6 :30, and going on almost c9n- tinuously ti1110 :30 or 11 at night, comprising from 12 to 15 different meetings-the people were under the direct and continuous influence of the Holy Spirit, he might catch the secret of the closing day. For two weeks the great themes of our life in Ohrist and His life in us, for salvation, sanctification. Healing and the second coming of the Lord, and their practical outcome in the salvation of sinners and the evangelization of the heathen are presented and dwelt upon by speakers filled with the Holy Spirit, and listened to by thousands of equally baptized people. Added to this comes the mighty influence of men and women, lately returned from their missionary fields among the heathens, and speaking with the freshness and power of a living experience. With the eloquence of facts backed up by aims of deepest consecration, the Holy Ghost himself speaks through these to the hearts of the people, and keeps speaking until all prejudice is removed, false views dissipated, eyes are opened, vision cleared, minds enlightened, and hearts are melted into one mighty stream of tenderness and love for the 100,000 souls a day that are passing to their doom.
In.fact, the outpouring on the closing Sabbath is but the natural, or rather supernatural result of the inpouring of right, truth, and life throngh the Holy Spirit during the days preceding it.
III. A third reason for this liberal aLd continuous giving on the part of onr people is their confidence in the simplicity and economy of administration of the funds they so freely give.
Without any invidious comparison with the system and methods. of other societies, it is simple justice to state that every dollar subscribed at these great meetings goes directly to the object for which it was given. With the exception of about $2,000 spent on the rent of one or two very plain offices, printing and stationery, the whole of the large sums pledged and paid goes straight to the field for the spread of the Gospel.
Excepting a bookkeeper, who receives a very modest sum, there is not a paid officer in connection with our Board and committees, while the 200 missionaries are sent out and supported on the fields for a year for an average sum of $500. The missionaries abroad and the people at home know these things. Oonfidence is begotten and enthusiasm awakened by the lives of those sent, and the sympathy of those who send them. And when the simplicity of the system is justified by the results attained; when, from one missionary on the field eight years ago, the number 11as grown to over 300 now at work in various parts of Japan, Ohina, Thibet, India, Africa, Palestine, Bulgaria, Hayti, Brazil, Venezuela, aud the income of our society has risen steadily from *5,000 in 1888 to $140,000 last year, the offerings of the past summer are not so hard to understand. The secret is an open one to those who have seen the vision of Jesus, heard His commission, and breathed in His Spirit.
THE MADRAS CHRISTIAN A880CIATiOJl'
THE MADRAS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
BY DAVID MCCONAUGHHY, M. A.
The success of the experiment which the Young Men's Christian Association of America entered upon, when, in 1889, they sent out their first representatives, one to India and the other to Japan, is no longer questioned. There had previously been a few associations in India, but the character of the new organization, which was establisht in Madras early in 1890, was distinctly different from these. In that land where caste is so rife amongst Europeans, as well as Hindus, it resolutely refused to recognize any distinction whatsoever of race, rank, or religion. Any young men of good character were admitted as associate members, while the management was retained in the hands of active members who must be in the communion of some Protestant Christian Church. The Madras Association was also establisht upon a self-supporting basis, refusing to be subsidized from outside, altho its work might easily have been doubled or quadrupled at any time, if this principle had not been adbered to. Tbe board of directors has from the outset insisted that the growth, tho slower, would be surer and more permanent, if not dependent upon outside sources. During the first seven year!! about $10,000 had been contributed by the members and friends of the association in Madras. Every expense except the salary of the General Secretary has thus been provided. The principle of supporting Indian agents solely by funds raised in India has now been adopted for the National Union, as well as for the local associations, and all surplus is now applied toward this end. Amongst the subscribers to theassociation are His Excellency, Sir Arthur E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, and each of the members of his Executive Council, as well as the Lord Bishop of Madras, the Venerable, the Arch-Deacon, the Bishop's Chaplain, and a hundred others prominent in Church and State, in government and commercial circles. Perhaps no better proof than this can be given of the seal of divine approval which has been put upon the work of this association in reward for its adherence to the principle of the real brotherhood of man. Of the more than four hundred members of the Madras Association, nearly one half are non-Christians. Tho without any voice in the management, they enjoy all the varied privileges which the association affords, including that of being brought into living contact with Christ in the persons of the active members in the rooms, socials, lectures, educational classes, and on the athletic field day by day.
As long ago as 1892 the need of a building began to be felt, and the members of Madras have since contributed more than $1,600 toward the building fund. In 1894 Dr. Pentecost proposed at a drawing. room meeting in Kent House, London, that a building be provided on international lines, India to provide the cost of the foundations, Great Britain the site, and America the superstructure. That suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, and within a few weeks some *6,000 was raised in England. At the end of more than two years of patient negotiations, the site was secured which His Excellency Sir Arthur E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, when laying the corrierstone in January, described as "really magnificent." It faces the Esplanade-the open green of the city-just opposite the handsome buildings of the high court and law college, with the electric tramway passing in front and a great Union railway station about to be built near bv. Within a stone's throw, on the east, is the Madras Christian College, and on the west the principal Hindu college of South India, while just across the China Bazaar road stands the splendid new building of the law college. Facing on three streets, the site has a frontage of 151 feet and a depth of 126, covering an area of 19,000 feet. The story of the purchase of this ground is in itself a fascinat- ing chapter in the growing volume of answers to prayer. It was in I 1893 that an amateur photographer focused his camera upon the block of old tin bazaars which then covered this piece of land. That photograph, though not even shown to the board of directors for . many months, like Hezekiah's letter, was spread before the Lord. In spite of obstacles, which all who were at all acquainted with the cir- cumstances pronounced insurmountable, the conviction had been begotten that that ground had been given of God for the purposes of this association. It was not until November 27, 1896, that the last obstacle to the purchase was removed, and it has been only within the past month that the collector's certificate has been obtained, giving an indisputable title to the entire property. There were more than a sC,.ore of different signatories (all non-Christians) requisit in order to complete the transaction, and the consent of more than twice this nnmber of Hindus was required. In the midst of the eighteen tin bazaars, which formed the front of the lot, were two, the revenue of which went to support an Hindu temple, and these were h~ld by trustees. After all the other owners had come to terms, two, whose holdings measured about six by eight feet each, still held out for an exorbitant price-five times the amount they had paid only a few years ago. Every effort to bring them to terms had been exhausted, and as they believed that their ground was absolutely indispensable to the purpose of the association, they believed they could get what- ever they demanded. On the last morning before the last monsoon ended, the building committee of the Madras Association met for con- ference and prayer over this matter. In the course of the two hours thus spent, the committee pleaded with God to once more cast out the heathen to give place to His people. Within an hour after adjourn- ment these bazaars were a crumbling mass of ruins, a cyclone having swept across the town while the committee was still in session. As the Hindu owners stood wringing their hands in front of the ruins a little later that morning, they were overheard lamenting that this calamity had overtaken them in retribution for their having refused to sell the ground to the association for a reasonable price. Next day the ground was bought for less than half what they had been demanding.
Meanwhile, friends in America have come forward and contributed the full amount required both for the superstructure and for furnish- ing, the Hon. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, personally assum- ing the cost of the former, which is estimated at $30,000. The site cost about $12,000, of which two-thirds has now been contributed. The building is now in course of erection, and it is expected that it will be ready for occupancy next year.
INTlIBlU.T10NAL DBPABTK:IIlfT. [Septemb&t
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Anglo-Ohinese College, Foochow, dred .dollars, the Missionary Society Ohina. added twenty-five hundred, and the property mentioned was bought. The REV. GEO. B. SllYTH, D.D., PRESIDENT. school was opened, and has ever since been conducted on the lines then laid The Bok LiDg Anglo·Chinese Col- down. The College therefore had its lege, to give it its full name, was birth in the brain and heart of a gener· founded sixteen years ago, by Diong ous Chinese, not in the treasury of the Hok Ling, a Chinese merchant at FOG- Missionary Society of New York, and chow. Unhappily for himself, as he this fact alone should plead eloquently regarded it, he was a gentleman wholly with those who are interested in educaunlearned in the knowledge of books, tional work in connection with missions for when young he could not afford to in China. go to school, and so grew up without those educational advantages the lack I am well aware that compared with of which he never ceast to mourn. some American gifts toward the found· But he had energy and faithfulness, ing of colleges, the one of which I am and after working for a time for others, writing is small indeed. but it must be he came from Amoy, his native city, thought of in connection with the cirand opened a small shop at Foochow, cumstances. It was given toward the which finally grew into the larger founding of a Christian school by a store so well known to both Chinese Chinese who was not a Christian, and and foreigners at this port. Increasing it is, so far as I know, the largMt gift wealth did not make him less sensible for such a purpose yet made in China. of what he always considered his great Again, the founder was not a rich man misfortune, and he resolved that when in the American sense, indeed. in west· the opportunity offered he would found ern countries he would have been con· a school where young men, who wisht sidered poor. If his business had con. it, might acquire a thorough education. tinued to prosper he would have added Be made careful observations as to the to the first sum, but he met with rebest way in which to realize his gener- verses, and left but little at his death. ous purpose, and give permanence to Christians will be glad to know that the work when it should be once beguu. soon after founding the college, he He finally decided to place his gift at entered the Methodist Church, of the disposal of a Board of Trustees which he remained a faithful member who should control it for the Mission. until his death in 1890. ary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This Board was composed of In the following numbered parathe United States and British Consuls, graphs I would invite attention to the agent of the Hong Kong and Shang- some special points in the character and hai Bank,several members of the Meth- position of the college. odist Mission, and, one each, from the American Board and English Missions. 1. The purpose of the college is to The donor then handed over ten thous- prepare young men for the work of life and doUars toward the purchase of a by giving them a sound education, fine building, other Chinese, stimulated both moral and intellectual, in the Chi- ' by his example, subscribed fifteen hun· nese and English languages. The English course is very much like that of the smaller colleges in America.
INTERllfATION.A.L DEPARTMENT
omitting Latin and Greek. The spe- foreign gentleman in the compilation cial study of English is kept up of an Anglo-Chinese dictionary, and through the students' whole course, is now a :aritish government interand there are the usual courses in preter in Singapore. He is a consistent mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Christian, and superintendent of the In addition there Is a systematic pro- Methodist Sunday-school there. gram of Bible study, including Scripture history and the history of the 3. So far as the students are con- Church. cerned, the college Is sclf-supporting, not one of them receiving pecuniary 2. It is a Christian college. Cinis- aid of any sort from the college or the tianity is the basis of its teaching. mission. They pay in full for board, This is announced in our catalogs and in addition, the current expenses, and every father who sends his son such 8S salaries of Chinese teachers, here knows to what he is sending him. Chinese tutors in English, repairs, fur- Nevertheless, no compulsion is ever niture, and other items, amounting last employed, we deal with perfect good year to about $2,500, were met by their faith with the parents of the students, fees. Besides the salaries of the forallowing perfect freedom of conscience, eign teachers, of whom there are three, o1fering no allurements or inducements the Missionary Society makes an annu_ of any sort, yet enjoying the right to al grant of *260, and this sum has-to present the truth in fulness to all. Re- be used entirely in the purchase of ligious services are held every morn- necessary apparatus. ing, and all are required to attend one service at the church on Sunday. The attendance is larger than that of There is a Young Men's Christian As- any other college in China; this year it sociation, the first of its kind in China, is 237. This represents a great advance which conducts a weekly prayer-meet- since 1887, when we had but fifty-four. ing. The president of the Association For some years the higher classes lookt is also president of the local Epworth at the college with suspicion, but their League. Tho the majority of the fears have been removed, and now we students who go out from us do not en- have the large number given above, gage in direct Christian work, some of many of whom arc the sons of men, our graduates are prominently con- who, a few years ago, would not have nected with the Church. One of them allowed them to enter a school conis the principal teacher in the Theolog- nected, however remotely, with a ical Seminary of the Church of Eng- Christian church. The students reland Missionary Society, a second, who present every class eligible for admisis a member of the Foochow Confer- sion to the government literary examience, has recently gone to America to nations. Some are the sons of poor men pursue a. theological course, while who are obliged to work hard to give still another, a graduate of the class of them an education, while others are the 1896, was elected last November by the sons of merchants and officials. Rich National Council of the College Young and poor, Christian and non-Christian, :Men's Christian Associations of China all alike are represented, the only reas the Chinese delcgate to the conven- quirements being that they be of suittion of the WorId's Christian Students' able age, be properly recommended, Federation, at Williamstown, Massa- pass the examinations, study diligently, chusetts. There are others engaged in and conduct themselves as gentlemen. direct Christian service, though not so They are, therefore, with a few excepprominently as thcse. tions such as are met with in every school, a body of self-respecting young One young man deserves special students, who come here to learn, who mention. He workt his way through have something at stake both financollege against great odds, helped a cially and in reputation, and who are intent upon making the most of oppor- spring term in 1896, the numbers who tunities which it costs them something desired to be in residence were so great to get. that I was compelled to borrow one of I'i. The college is situated at one of the mission residences for a temporary the treaty ports, and one of the great- dormitory, tho the one we had would est literary centers in China. As the accommodate 104. I promised, however, chief center of the tea trade of southern to have a new dormitory by the open- China, it has a large number of mer- ing of the present term on the 23rd of ,chants of enterprise and wealth, and February, and resolved to raise the the influence which such men natural- money here. I am happy to say that ly possess. None of these have en- I have been able to keep that promise, tered the Vhurch, or look upon its and when the new students came in purely evangelistic work with any sort last week the building was ready for of sympathy. But the advantages of a their reception. It is three stories high, school like this are so apparent that seventy· five feet long, and has rooms some of them send their sons here to for sixty-six students, a monitor's room, be educated. One result is the estab- servant's room, office, reception-room, lishment of friendly relations with men and two school-roOlps. The cost is whose friendship is valuable, and the nearly three thousand Mexican dollars, gradual revealing to them what Chris- and not a dollar has been askt or re- tianity is. ceived from foreigners. The whole Thus, to that extent at least, is reacht work was done by Chinese subscrip- a class of men who are for the present tions. The money came from different as far beyond the reach of all the other sources. The officials of the city sub- agencies of the Church as if they were scribed $600, a Cantonese merchant, inhabitants of another planet. who gave $200 himself, raised $500 Again, Foochow is the literary center more among his friends; a former stu- of the province, the focus of all its dent here $150 as a thank-offering for most powerful influences, the meeting- what the college had done for him, the place of those whose teaching and ex- Foochow Mint gave $100 and promised ample count for most with their fellow to give regularly $100 a year; various provincials. Surely it is no small thing sums ranging from $5 to a $100 were to have an institution here on which given by others, and so the amount many of this class look with favor and grew. The new dormitory is therefore to which they send their sons. They a striking testimony to the confidence do not hesitate to be known as its in the work of the college, which is felt friends, to visit it, and to recommend its by those who know it best.
work to others. The college thus be- A pleasing evidence of interest of an- comes leaven, which, tho working slow- other kind was shown by His Excel- ly, works surely, toward the establish- lency, Lo Fu Luh, the new minister to ment of a better understanding between England, in sending fans and scrolls these men and the Church; it is a plat- with complimentary sentences in his form on which men of both sides may own handwriting to the heads of our meet and discuss together the great various classes at our last Commence- theme which brought us here, the re- ment. This gentleman will be remem- generation of China through the vital- bered in America as Li Hung Chang's izing power of Christianity. interpreter on his tour around the 6. Last year the Chinese of this city world. His nephew, who has just been gave striking proof of this confidence appointed Chinese Consul-General at in the college, by their ready response Singapore, was present, and made an to my request for subscriptions for a address of much encouragement to new dormitory. At the opening of the the students. A ffigh Oaste Woman's Oonversion. making an offering to the shrine at- tacht to the tree. She was so devoted MRS. J. T. GRACEY, ROCHESTER, :N. Y. that nothing would satisfy her but the building of a temple, and now near the The conversion recently of a high- city of Madras, where the Methodist caste Brahman lady, in the city of Mad- church has lately commenced work, ras, India, and her public baptism in stands a temple, a monument to her the Methodist church, has attracted idolatry and devotion. Every week considerable attention throughout that she visited this place, and often spent country. While the great ingathering many days, feeding and sustaining the in the churches has come from the people connected with the tem~le, and lower classes, there is now a movement decorating the idol with some of her among the higher classes of women, tinest jewels. Her own house was who have been receiving instruction in tilled with idols, in her own room she the 2;enanas. The experience in the had twenty-five pictures of idols and a present case is one of many who have dozen images. As the holy child in grown weary of their false religion, the household she decorated the idols and long for something higher and with flowers, drank the sacred water better. The story as told by the after placing it before the idol, and for one instrumental in her conversion is hours would sit with a wet cloth about of thrilling interest. She was a strict her, counting the beads that were given Brahman, and from the day of her for this office, offering a prayer over birth had all the lites of her sect per- each bead, until a thousand were acformed for her, and in the seclusion of complisht. Every day she lighted beher ancestral home, amid all its wealth fore shrines and idols two or three and luxury, was devoted to her gods. hundred little oil lamps, excluding Her father was a man of great wealth, from her mind everything else, but mediand exerted a powerful influence, and tated upon the Vedas, thus performing was of the strictest Bl'ahmanical sect, the ceremony called, .. the million and many of his friends, who are lights," to insure a pathway of light among the leading citizens, express when she should come to die. astonishment that the daughter of such a cultured man should embrace Chris- This was the woman, with intellect tianity. The daughter was the young- bright, and with a religious devotio~ est child, and was taught early to live scarcely surpast, when the Methodist an idolatrous life. According to Hindu missionary found her about two years custom, she married at the age of ten, ago. It is now no longer necessary to and at her wedding thousands of rupees hide the true object in teaching the were spent. As is the custom with woman in 'the zenanas. They have Hindu wives, she divided her time be- been taught various things in the way tween her mother's and her husband's of fancy work that an opportunity home. She was of a thoughtful and might be afforded for presenting religious turn of mind, and from her Christian truths. Now the study of early years there was no ceremony in the Scriptures is required. This womwhich she did not take part. She an desired to be taught, and accepted went to eight sacred rivers, and bathed the conditions, against all the remonin the sea, visited fifty temples, and strances of her family. She did not the bread she ate was from a certain want the Scliptures, she wanted other temple. At one time she fasted for things, and was willing to take the one forty days to appease the gods, taking for the purpose of securing the other. only a little milk. She performed many Sometimes she would take a lesson, at penances,chlef of which was making the other times she was too much engaged circuit of a certain tree forty-two times with fasting, prayer, and idol-worship Tery early in the morning, each time to pay any attention to her teacher, and without a word would wave her hand ran. I was so frightened, I would not for her to leave, as there were often stop to take my breath, but at every days when she had to keep silence, not step I took I felt as if some one were a word escaping her lips. behind me. The swifter I ran, the But then came a Change. The quiet, swifter seemed the step. If I am persistent presentation of the truth and caught what will become of me, I reading of the Word had its influence, thought, but I ran on and on, and at her zeal for idol-worship began to flag, your gate I stopt. I felt that if I were and she failed to visit her temple. caught, I would scream, and you She had contemplated having a golden would all run out, and help and protect image of herself in the act of prostra- me. When I stopt, I turned around.
tion before the idol, but that was given There was nobody. Then and there I up. She neglected many of her relig- offered a prayer. I told God I might ious duties, and her family became be dragged back on the streets (about greatly concerned. half a mile) on which I ran, I might The mother and ever vigilant priests have to endure persecution, trial, and were on the alert, and she was ordered hardships, but I askt him to keep me to dismiss the teacher, which she did, faithful to him."
tho this caused her great sorrow. Soon Reaching the home of the missionary after she wrote a letter to her teacher, who had been instrumental in her con- in which she opened her heart, and version, who was busily engaged in told how her people hated the Christ- Christmas festivity, she ran almost ian religion, but that she loved it, and breathless up the stairway, and falling askt for the prayers of her teacher, into the arms of the missionary said, that she might be willing to leave all "I am come; I am God's Christmas her former associations. This was fol- gift to you."
lowed by another letter saying she was She wore no jewels nor costly very unhappy, but that in her heart clothes, but was clad in the coarsest she had abandoned idol-worship and cloth. She took from her person a depended on Christ alone for salvation. little metal box, containing the sacred Preparations were made by her family powder that had been given her by the to send her away from the city, but priests as a sign that she had been she set her face against all their ar- sealed by them, and which she had to rangements and determined to cast in wear about her person, and in doing her lot with the Christians. She was this, she renounced caste, heathenism, willing to leave her family, and even idolatry, everything. This was all be- exprest a wish that she might become hind her. Before her she knew not a zenana worker. She offered to do what. In a few days persecutions the work at her own expense. At last commenced. Relatives accompanied the crisis came, she counted the cost, by native policemen visited the house, made her preparations, packt her insinuating that she had been unlaw- boxes, put away her jewels, and when fully detained. They had an inter- the evening came, and all the family view, pleading with her to return to were engaged in their evening worship, her home, her mother and her old asso- she quietly embraced the opportunity ciations; but none of these things to slip out. moved her, Quietly, but flrmly, she She said afterward: H I went out in- said, "I can not go back; I am & to the darkness with only the stars Christian." They used every argu- above me. It was to me like taking a ment, assuring her that if she persisted, long journey, and I did not know as orthodox Brahmans they would be where or how it was going to be. under the necessity of performing the There was nothing before me, but a funeral ceremony over her, and that voice in my heart told me to run, and I she would be dead to them and to the whole Brahman community. She only perience exprest fears in regard to the replied, ., 1 know it-I shall be dead to course to be taken, and advised that all, but tell them 1 yet live, and will the baptism be done in the Home, or tell of Christ's love to my people." the church doors closed. When the hour arrived, the missionary accom- Upon another occasion came the panied by her protege, found the mother and relatives accompanied by church crowded with Europeans, na- an angry mob, with threats and impre- tive Christians, Hindus and Mohamcations which could be heard all over medans. Every window and door was the house. They predicted the down- crowded so they could not be closed, fall of the mission and threatened to and police were on all sides of the spend thousands to take the case into churcb, tho their protection had not the courts, and denounced her in the been askt. The services were convilest language. When they found she ducted in Tamil and English. When could not be infiuenced, the mother the candidate was presented at the altar called on all the gods to curse her to take ber part in the service, there child, and with bitter cries lamented was a murmur of voices 'aU over the she had not dragged her dead from a house, many of bem saying, .. What! a well. It became necessary to call Brahman lady baptized!" At the close the police, and the people unwill- of the service she sang in a clear sweet ingly retreated with cries of venge. voice the hymn she had learnt. ance, shouting that if tbey could tbey would kill ber, and declaring she acted .. Jesus 1 my cross have taken, thus because she was intoxicated. All to leave and follow thee; " etc.
It was suggested that she be taken and then in great simplicity and tenaway from Madras, but it was decided derness gave her testimony before the that it was better to stay and give her crowded audience. The whole exerpeople every opportunity of seeing her. cises made a great impression. Many And so her relatives came and went. Hindus and some of her relatives who Several weeks past and the mattcr of had attended to give trouble went away a public baptism was agitated. This deeply imprest, confessing the woman woman lIad made such a noble confes- was sincere, and they would not intersion, had been so brave in the midst of fere with her. sucb opposition, bad been so clear in her Christian testimony, that it was This baptism made such a stir that thought a public baptism would convince people that the missionaries de- a for several Sabbaths, more than three sired to hide nothing from them, and it would probably be an encouragement thousand Hindus assembled in large to other women to take the same step. hall to discuss the work of the mission- So the decision was made, but not aries in their midst, and to devise without grave apprehension on the part plans to end all missionary work. Then of many Christian friends, both Euro- the Hindu papers took up and discust pean and native. The service was ap- the matter, expressing surprise that a pointed for an evening in the week and woman of such social standing among Christians and missionaries of other the Hindus should embrace Christiandenominations were invited to be pre- ity. One month after the baptism, sent. During the day there was con- funeral ceremonies were held for her siderable excitement and the mission- by relatives, as she was considered ary was told that the event was the talk dead to them. These lasted three days. of the city bazaars, and that evil·dis- and were attended by large numbers of posed persons would make trouble at Brahmans who had been invited. the church in the evening, and even a Special bathing was performed by.her missionary of twenty-four years' ex- husband, money spent liberally to feast Brahmans and costly presents were made to the multitude. .All the crock- ery belonging to the woman in her home was broken and everything de- kind of things he wants aI'e sold. Some stroyed that would remind them of needs will have been already antici- her. Then an effigy was made of her pated, and supplies brought, but these of reeds from the banks of the Ganges, run out, and so many unlookt for re- and the form was thrown into the fire quirements come to light, and keep on and the priests shouted, "Dead! Dead! presenting themselves, so that recourse Burnt out I" has to be had to the friendly missionary brother, at the nearest point where The bond or "Execution Bill" was such supplies may be purchased. While signed by the family priests and four such aid may do in the early stages of Brahman gentlemen, the sacred ashes missionary openings, and the" friendwere gathered and taken at night to the ly brother" be willing to leave hls own burying ground, where other cere- work, and go about his needy brother's monies were performed. business, it will not answer when there are many who have such needs, She is now living with the mission- and the number of workers scattered ary, happy and cheerful. The once about interior parts become numerous. proud, petted, wealthy Brahman wom- Thus, an agency which will undertake an has broken all her alabaster boxes all such matters, and meet the needs as and laid all upon the altar, and is now they arise, becomes a necessity. The teaching a low-caste Sunday-school and qualitieations of such an agent, however, aiding in the Christian Orphanage, and for the work have to be manysided. her one longing is to go to the villages One always to be depended upon and tell the women the story of God's to be there when applied to, to be great love. ready to go about the matter entrusted to him, promptly, attentively, to use Missionary Agencies. skill, taste, judgment, care, and econ- omy in selecting, ordering, purchas- MR. EDWARD EVANS, S3ANGHAI, ing and packing, is a desideratum. Such an agent is called upon to take CHINA.* such a variety of matters in hand. The selecting of stores, food, drugs, The missionary, entering upon life in clothing, books. etc., hardware and a heathen land, aforeigner in the midst other necessities for the house and of a large population of natives, whose other buildings, which often have to be habits of living, clothing, eating, etc., undertaken. Then, packages are being are entirely different to his, is at once sent from home, which must be reconfronted with some very practical ceived, past the customs -and forquestions entirely apart from his spirit- warded on. ual vocation. Himself and family, to be housed, closed, fed, and all their New arriving missionaries require accustomed needs supplied, how is it to outfits for residence in the interior; 80 be done? No shops there, where the furniture adapted to the new condi- tions has to be obtained, experienced • It is now nearly two years since we re- counsel in such respect being all esquested Mr. Edward Evans to collate infor- sential. Dressmakers are not! where mation concerning missionary agencies in clothing is so different, what is to be the far East, and to prepare a paper on the done? The wife and the children as entire topic. Our thought was to provoke well as the poor man himself mURt liave discussion of the subject. We had known of such things done for them; so the agent the efficiency of such agency in Constantino- is called upon to buy, match, alter and ple aL~ elsewhere, and believed that much get made the wardrobe of the family. greater etteciency might be reacht by com- Who can do for others, with all the parison of experiences among missionaries. different ideas and tastes which are The Sanitarium was not in our thought, but Dr. Beebe of the hospital at Nanking and Dr. Main of the Hongchow hospital, both write endorsing Mr. Evan's article in its reference to SanItarium. J. T. G. suggested in such a presentation of Home and Supply Depot JJ for its the case as the foregoing? And with members, that is a model of excellency. it all, there must be economy, or the This mission is noted for its thrifty bills will get beyond the resources. methods in these matters. A depart- And what means for remunerating ment for the storing of all kinds of such agency? Many of these calls are supplies is kept, the articles having for items of trifling value, tho most been purchased at wholesale prices necessary, and therefore anycommi8sion and imported, and then retailed out at to really be commensurate with the bare cost to its members. Distributing service would probably be equal to or branches are establisht through the more than the amount to be expended. land at various points. One such" agency" described in its report this branch of the work as A number of the members of the "the un·remunerative branch." In mission have been delegated to attend his case the Board paid his salary and to this work. Some give their whole all the expenses of the "agency." But time, and others a part. Clerks, acvery few Boards have made this pro- countants, housekeepers, etc., are occuvision, and the larger part of the mis- pied thus, as their share of the work, sionary body in China [for the writer who gave themselves to the missionhas this field in mind] are without any field, expecting to be preaching to the provision thus made for them by their "heathen;" but it has to be "indi- Board, and have consequently to man- rectly .. in their cases, and the blessing age these things themselves. shared as to those who "tarry by the stuff." In connection with such agency there has been made evident that another The writer has been askt by the Edineed has to be met. The arrival and tor of this periodical to give some acdeparture of the missionary family, and count of "Missionary Agencies, his the occasional visit to the ports, have own included," and may therefore be led to the establishing of a " Missionary permitted to add to this sketch the in- Home," where all the conveniences of formation that he, with his wife, some " llome" may be had, rather than the eight years ago, having gone to China, expense and discomforts of a hotel with the intention of laboring among while so sojourning. It would be ren- the heathen, was led quite unexpectdered more trying to the heads of the edly into undertaking the organization family if, as they necessarily have to of a work such as has been herein inmake many excursions around the port dicated. "The Missionary Home and to select and purchase the outfit, and Agency" in Shanghai was in existnece these things are accumulating and being before, but has expanded in its scope prepared for transport to their station, in the last seven years so that now they felt themselves intruding on the it has for its correspondents a very " Hotel" and their children meantime large part of the missionaries in China, having been left in the care of servants, numbering upwards of 2,000, not mothers on returning finding the chil- counting wives and children, and exdren and their nurses alike voted an cluding the C. I. M. already mentioned, intolerable nuisance to the other guests. as well as many in Korea, Formosa, Thus a "Home" where no sense of and Japan. The office·work to attend restraint will be felt, where the circum- to the Agency Department employs stances they are in are understood and several native assistants, bookkeeper, sympathized with, the help rendered in etc., as well as keeping perpetually every needed way, is appreciated. busy the writer and his wife the year round. The China Inland Mission, which has now some 700 workers in the field, The "home" as its name implies, is has provided at Shanghai a "Receiving necessarily a place made as convenient as possible for the circumstances of those who come to it. It is confined to the work. Not seldom wo:uld such exclusively to missionaries. There are expense have been avoided, and the dif- times when it will be crowded to its ftcultymet, if a .. Home," combining utmost capacity, tho the question. the advantages of a .' Sanitarium"
sometimes askt has not yet been an- were available here to be a little swered, "How many can it accommo- while in a restful home, away from date?" It meeting emergencies, so that the sighs and sounds (and smells) of when there is a great congregating, as the native land, and in the midst of at time!! of some mission assembling, or Christian friends of one's own kind, at the season of arrivals from the would often rehabilitate such an one, home-lands, it is in much demand. without the necessity of traveling fur- At other times but a very few may be ther. Owing to recent appreciation in found in it, but it is always ready for the value of property in Shanghai, rent· whatever call may be made on it, how- als have greatly increast, and altho the ever unexpected, as in the times of present Home is an old dilapidated "Riots," when a whole province of place in a poor locality, the rent has workers was emptied into it at once. been so increast that with the advanced It has been appreciated, too, because cost of everything else, rates of accom- of the opportunity given for meeting modation have had to be advanced, in workers from different points with order to meet the expenses, so much, whom comparison is made of methods that only a short stay in Shanghai is of work, etc.; and to the new arrival it practicable owing to the expense. An is an inspiration thus to come at once institution, erected as a permanent in contact with veterans whose names Home ava1lable to all missionaries of are familiar, and find a warm welcome every denomination, or of no connec- to the land. tion with any society, would be a great The Christian atmosphere, too, is blessing. If the only expense that had helpful, where all have a common in- to be covered were the food and ser- terest, so that tired workers are cheered vice, it would bring its advantages by a few days' stay there, and little within the reach of the poorest, and meetings may be held of an im- there are "poor" missionaries, where promptu character, for stimulating the large families and frequent sickness spiritual life, and bearing mutually the has taken all the resources. Tene- burdens of others. Of all .the other ments, of two or more rooms, partially needs that it is sought to meet, this is furnisht, connected with it, would be ever regarded as of the greatest im- desirable, so that a family could use it, portance. and live as economically as they de- And now ere concluding the writer sired.
after relating the actual, would like to In the present state of things, with give his thoughts of the t'deal in some many of the societies in debt, and of these matters. unable to carry on all their present What one individual, on his own re- undertakings, it would be out of the sources, has been able to accomplish in question, if for no other reason, that meeting the needs that have been indi- such an institution should be incepted'
cated, comes very far short of what either by one or a combination of sev- might and should be provided for the eral societies. Their funds-even if Lord's servants, laboring in trying con- they had a surplus-are not available . ditions in this wonderful land. One for such a thing. Our only hope for might go on to speak of times, not in- one, therefore, would be that some of frequent, when one of the heads of a those entrusted of the Lord with a family becoming invalided, the entire stewardship for him, should take it in family has to be transported away to hand. Mention has been made of that the home land, at great cost and loss ·of the China Inland Mission, and it is known that this splendid Home was the work, just as much as preaching the gift of one of its own members, who, gospel to the heathen. At any rate the out of his ample means has mainly writer feels this, and is grateful to God provilied the cost of several such places for putting him in such a place. for the mission at different points, including a SCHOOL now being erected Still beyond there is more Ideal planfor the children of its missionaries. ning. This suggests another Ideal. The need of education for the children of mis- Why should there not be a supply sionaries is a pressing one that has been depot establisht, where staple articles ill met so far. One of the trials and of food, clothing, drugs, etc., could be hardships of a missionary life is this. laid in at first cost, and retailed at low- To see their children growing up est rates to all the missionaries in the around them without school advan- land? Here is a grand opening for a tages, and dependent upon what they firm of consecrated business men. personally can teach them, with the ine"vitable necessity to look forward The writer has, too, some pet ideas to, of having to send them to the about a central bank for missionaries home-land soon, for years of separation, in the East, in charge of a responsible to get them educated, this is indeed a financier, who would consolidate the trial. Recently one has made a start local treasureship of the several socIe. in connection with the " Home" here, ties operating in the East. At present, to undertake the education of such in each station, and in each district, one children, and if such an institute as has of the missionaries of each society is been suggested, should have attacht to given the work of local treasurer, it a children's home and school, where whose duties are, to draw upon the families could send their children to be home Board for needed funds, selling trained for later entering on college life exchange on it for what the banks will in the home lands, it would be a great give him. Much time is necessarily boon to many. Yes a misssionary spent in keeping accounts, by those " Home," including a sanitarium and a who would so gladly be more congeniboarding and day.school for mission- ally occupied, unaccustomed as many aries' children is a need in Shanghai. are to business accounts and bookkeep- It may not be known 1;0 every reader ing. A general treasurer could econom· that Shanghai is practically the port of icallyadminister the funds of a number entrance to China. Almost all have to of societies, experience enabling him to pass through it, going and coming, and obtain the best terms in disposing of it is the metropolis of western civiliza- exchange at the most favorable times tion in this East. The writer would for operating. Instead of each society like to include in his scheme a resident having to hold a margin on deposit at dentist, who could be sent to convenient various points, losing interest on it, such points in the land, as well as several a manager would be able to meet any trained nurses to go to the relief of sick exigency promptly without such being families; one or two teachers; as well required. The clerical work would be as a good dressmaker to take in hand doue by native help in large measure the women's and children's supply de- and methodically, regular reports made partment. But enough has been said to Boards, an experienced audit also to show what a work can be done in certifying to the correctness of all the aid of the missionary worker. To thus details recorded. Business men will help in economic supply of necessities, appreciate these suggestions, and it and provide ameliorating service of would not be difficult to believe that various kinds, is surely a missionary the expense of such a general treas- ury, would be largely, if not wholly covered by the saving effected in ex- change.
FIELD OJ' MONTHLY IURT1I:T. (l?eptember
lII.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Ja.pan,* Korea.,t Medioal Missions.
BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
KOREA FOR CHRIST. become a recognized and indispensable factor in the national life. In former Korea has nearly ninety thousand days the king's birthday was a time of square miles of territory, twelve mil- festivity to the official and noble classes lions of people, and is extraordinarily only, the common people having no rich in natural resources. These natu- part in its observance. Last year when ral resources consist in a soil of great the auspicious day came around the fertility, vast mineral deposits, untold Korean Christians suggested that spewealth in sea products, which Korea's cial prayer and thanksgiving services unusually extensive seaboard brings to be held in the different churches in its doors, and a population capable of behalf of his majesty. On the aftergreat industrial activity. Until 1883 noon of the day a grand Christian mass- Korea had no relations with foreign meeting was held in the open air outcountries, and, therefore, there has side the city wall, and over three thoubeen a total absence of that commercial sand Koreans were present. Addresses exploitation, which would have made were made by high noblemen as well the people rich. As a nation they are as by Christian missionaries, and great poverty·stricken, but a brighter day enthusiasm was manifested. Coming seeIDS to be approaching, for the total spontaneously, it impressed the Korean volume of foreign trade for the ten government in a most pleasant manner, years ending 1894 was about thirty-five and his majesty was especially demillion dollars, aDd this seems to point lighted. to dawning commercial-linterprise. This is but a hint of the power which At present the Protestant missionary the Christian community possesses in force in Korea numbers about ninety modeling the national life. Korea workers, representing six different mise must, and will be. won for the Lord sions. Since the work began in the Jesus Christ.-REV. G. H. JONES. fall of 1884 the Korean Church has had a marvelous growth. The total num- From every hand come cheering tidber of converts to the various missions ings of the progress of the Gospel in is about two thousand, and regular Korea. Bishop Joyce writes that all preaching is maintained at fifty differ- Korea is open to receive the Gospel. ent places throughout the peninsula. Towns and villages are constantly ask- A Holy Ghost native ministry is being ing for missionaries, and the need for raised up, and the outlook is of the reinforcements is rapidly increasing. brightest possible nature. lIrs. Bishop's call has already -been sounded in these pages (May, p. 363). Under God, Christian missions have Rev. Malcolm C. Fenwick. of Wonsan, writes that missionaries are now gladly • See also pp. 47, 48, 55 (Jan); 110 (Feb· received all over the country, and that ruary); 650, 658, 665 (present issue)_ there are multitudes of earnest seekers after the Light. Rev. D. L. Gifford NEW BOOKS: "The Gist of Japan," R. P. tells of churches whose membel'lhip has Peeryj .. Religion in Japan," G. A_ Cobboldj increast three-fold in the past year .. Japan, Its People and Missions," JeS88 &tid of congregations far too large fo; Page; .. Dragons and Cherry Blossoms," Mrs. any of their church buildings. Dr. Morris. Underwood. of Seoul, says that it migh'
t See also pp. 863, 871 (May). NEW BooJtS: "Korea, The Hennit Natlon" (new edition), W. E. GrIftls; .. A For· ward Movement in North Korea," D. L. Gif· ford. almost be said of his report as was said of Christian friends, the prayera and in a certain war record, "There is the exhortations and comforts of Christian usual monotony of success and victory." ministers, and even where the sufferer Churches have been increasing rapidly, may have been impenitent to the last, members have been growing in num- we .have Him who was ever ready to bers and in grace, and almost the only save, standing by the sickbed, ready to drawback has been that due to the the very uttermost to cleanse and rechurches at home. Surely God is mov- ceive the parting soul. ing marvelously in Korea, and is calling us to an "advance upon our knees" to But what does'sickness mean among claim the country for Him. the thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of millions of our un- The Need for Medical Missions. christianized brothers and sisters? We must remember that sickness among BY MRS. BISHOP, F.R.G.S. them is usually, if not always, supposed to be the work of demons, especially It is not as a worker, but as a traveler in Asia and Africa. In many parts of Bolely, that my journeys in .Asia have .Asia a sick person is looked upon as given me some knowledge of the un- being possest of demons, and bechristianized Asiatic world. In those comes an object of loathing and terror. years I have become a convert to the He is put into a large house with food necessity of missions, not by seeing the and water beside him, and is absolutely success of missions, but by seeing the avoided, owing to the terrible fear lest misery of the unchristianized world. the demon in him go into the one attend- From the seaboard of Japan to those ing him. In other cases the medicine shady streams by which the Jewish men, priests, and astrologers aresentfor. exiles wept when they remembered They light huge fires, and bring gongs Zion, and from the icy plateaux of and drums and six feet high horns, and Northern Asia down to the Equator, I dance round the fire, blowing the horns have seen nothing but sorrow, sin, and round the sufferer; and if this does not shame, of which we have not the re- drive out the demon, they lay the motest conception. sufferer before a roaring fire until his skin is blistered allover, and then We all know what sickness means plunge him into cold water. If this among ourselves, and even in such an does not succeed, they lay him on epidemic as influenza. The sufferings his back and beat him with heavy of surgical operations, weary nights, clubs in order to drive out the demon_ fever, pain, and much distress are all If the case is chronic, and he does not connected with illness among ourselves, succumb to these remedies, in some but this illness has its bright side. It countries he is carried to the mountain brings out kindness and temlerness in top, a few barley balls and a little those about us; it brings delicacies and water are put teside him, and he is left flowers into the sick·room. Everything there to die alone. In all these circumthat might bring distress into the sick- stances of misery and solitude, thouroom is kept out of it, and everything sands and hundreds of thousands are that might cheer the sufferer is brought passing away in heathen lands, where in. We have the skill and kindness the Gospel of Christ, the Good Physiand self-sacrifice of men of the very cian, has never produced its healing noblest profession about us, and the infiuence. There is no hope. There is skill of trained nurses; we have magnifi- only the looking forward with terror cent hospitals, where the appliances of to something going to happen of a medical skill and the most skilful nurs- terrible kind, launched at the diseming are at the disposal of the very bodied spirit from some quarter they poorest of the community. We have, know not. besides that, the tender ministrations Medical missions put an end to these views about the heathen world. barbaric systems of native treatment, We imagine that the heathen world which are 'IlJ0'1'8e in the case of women is not so much worse than our own. secluded in their zenanas. In the hour After living amongst the heathen in of women's greatest peril and pain, many mission stations, I would say these barbaritie& are multiplied to such that the awful and fearful wickedness an extent, that in many places women of our own slums, and of our own die in legions, or are rendered invalids lapst masses, can not be named in the for life. We are bound, as humanita- same day with the wickedness which is rians as well as Christians, to make an part of the daily life of these people. end to those systems of treatment that Scenes of vice are witnessed not only exist in Asia and Africa, and to carry inside their temples but outside. in the first place the unspeakable bless- There is no public opinion, prompted ing of European treatment at the hands by Christ, to condemn any single act. of skilful and gentle doctors, combined From the sole of the foot to the crown with the knowledge of the Gospel of of the head there is not one sound part. the Lord Jesus Christ as the Healer of It is one mass of wounds and of putrithe soul as well as of the body. fying sores, and there is nothing left on which to build any superstructure of People go to missionary meetings truth. There is nothing left to tell of and hear much that excites enthusiasm that creation of God in the beginning. about the work done, but we have While the intellect of women of 20 and only touched the outskirts of the work 25 is not on a level with girls here of that is to be done, altho it is nineteen 10, yet the worst passions exist as if centuries since our Lord was on the grown on a hotbed. I have counted earth. We should set ourfaces towards up about 200 times that I have been that wilderness in which two-thirds of askt what drugs would takeaway a the human race are, at this moment, favorite wife, or a favorite wife's son. wandering without hope. We have This is the state of women in the East 1,000,000,000 at this time on the earth -huddled together and exposed in illabsolutely unchristianized, of which ness to the barbarities of native doctors. number, it is said, that 800,000,000 have There are now a few hundred medical never even heard the name of our Lord missionaries, many of whom are womand Savior. We have 3,000 languages en, but we need them in thousands. in which not even a fragment of the Bible has been translated. If the popu- There is spent every year in this lation ofthe world, estimated at 1,500,- country fifteen dollal's a head on alco- 000,000, could pass before us, two out holic drink, and eigUeen cents a head of every three would have no knowl- on converting the heathen. When we edge, even in name, of the Lord Jesus; remember that every minute five souls and this is after the voice of our Lord pass into eternity-1,400 dying every has been ringing through the Church for hour in India aud 1,600 every hour in nearly 1,900 years. It seems to me that China-it seems to me the time has instead of congratulation in speaking come when we should readjust our exof what has been done, and imagining penditures at the foot of Christ's Cross. that the kingdoms of this world are on We must choose whether we will spend t~ verge of becoming kingdoms of our upon ourselves or give to Him. We Lord, we should look these awful facts speak of the claims of the heathen, but in the face, and be covered with shame I should rather speak of the claims of and confusion, when we are content to Christ. Blessed indeed are those who take the blessings that come to us from have heard His voice, and who are the death of Christ, without passing giving their lives to Him, trying to them on to those who know Him not. lighten that great darkness. And we must do the same. How will they We are getting milk and water preach unless they be sent? and as to The Church is on a better basis. The sending them, we. can do it if we will. impression seems to be general that We can do it by expending our means, Japan is about to witness another great and in other ways. Silver and gold spiritual movement, provided, .the we may have none, but we have influ- Church sizes the present opportumty, ence in our own sphere, and we can About thirty years ago the drst two use that influence upon those about us Christians were baptized, now there are in favor of Christian missions. By over forty thousand. God has doubtprayer, by influence, by conversation, less great things in store for Japan. Let us advance to the place of duty and of privilege.
by cheerful giving, we may advance Rev. Dr. J. D. Davis, of Kyoto, authe work of Christ. The self-denial thor of a "Life of Neesima," has reof Christ was not confined to the cently made an extended evangelistic week of His passion, but the whole tour in Japan, and thus sums up his of His life was one long sedes of impressions: incomprehensible self-denials, and He 1. Japan is more ready for the Gospel than ever before. The official classes has left us an example that we should are more favorably disposed, and the follow in His steps. masses are more ready to hear than at any time before or since Japan was The Situation in Japan. opened. 2. The era of doubt and rationalistic Mr John R. Mott who has recently discussion has past its zenith. Many of the pastors and workers, and most of completed his world-tour in the inter- the Christians who have held on to their ests of the student movement, gives us faith, realize their need of a positive faith, and are hungering for spiritual some very lucid and suggestive "Im- food. '
pressions of Japan" in his account of 3. Wherever earnest men are preachhis visits in the various Asiastic coun- inl! a positive gospel, churches are alive tries.* He says in part: and souls are being gathered into the kingdom. 1. The work of the missionary in 4. The great lack of workers. That Japan is not dnisht. What was seen great rich Aidzu valley, with its 800 and heard in Japan created the convic- square miles of villages, has no missiontion that the present missionary force ary and only three Japanese evangelists is not only needed but should be wisely at work. Echigo, over 100 miles long increast. Three-fourths, or 30,000,000, and half as wide, has two missionaries of the Japanese have not yet heard of and only eight to ten Japanese workers, Christ. Missionaries are needed to all told. reach these unevangelized_ They are 5. Now is the time to pray for Janeeded to help solve the problem which pan. Pray that its force of workers confrot the Church in Japan, to pro- may not be further depleted, but rather mote the development of the Japanese restored to its former strength; that the church and to train the native ministry. rising spiritual tide may sweep over the 2. Japan calls for missionaries of land, filling the hearts of all the Chrisunusual strength, mentslly, and sphit- tian workers here, and bringing the uaall.yT. he greatest peril to Japan is the Doshisha University and every band of Christians back to their former earnest secular character of her institutions of faith and active service for Christ and higher learning. 4. Buddhism as a religion is doomed for these millions who wait. in t.he land where it has greatest vigor. It is rent with internal dissensions, and Dr. H. Loomis says: The one thing needed at this time is shows man;r signs of decay. the work of the Holy Spirit. There 5. The SIgnS indicate that the cause are men and means enough now em- ployed to work a great change in the of Christ in Japan is entering upon a country, if only accompanied by power new and remarkable era. The rational- from on high. Meetings have been istic wave is receding. The Japanese held in Tokyo to pray for this. A are more friendly toward Christianity. '. deep interest has been awakened, and services are being held in the churches • Strategic points In the World'S Conquest, to arouse and stimulate the believers, as well as gather in the unconverted. by John R. lIlott. Fleming H. Revell Co.
l&DITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Vic- In gold and silver designs. On the left toria's accession was, of course, a great of the Archbishops were the clergy of occasion. The interest of a great em- the various churches, and other invited pire, in the longest and best reign gues,ts, in all about five hundred. After known in its history, found its highest the Te Deum, and a special prayer preflood mark in the celebration of June pared for the occasion, the Hundredth 22d. By the courtesy of Sir George Psalm was sung, the whole of the vast Williams, we had the opportunity to company that filled and surrounded the witness a pageant unsurpast in its way church-yard taking up the holy strain in modem times, from one of the win- of praise; it was as the sound of many dows overlooking the very steps of St. waters, and the 3upreme moment of the Paul's where the main ceremony was Jubilee celebration. Then, of course, performed. followed " God save the Queen," after which the Queen's carriage resumed its The procession occupied about two onward progress. Millions of people and a half hours in passing, and the lined the route of the procession, and whole Empire was represented, and all the moral order of the whole pageant its colonial dependencies. Five conti- was something to evoke thanksgiving nents, the isles of the sea, and every and was a fine proof of the self-regreat nation from sunrise to sunset, and straint of the British people. from pole to pole, had their representatives. The costumes were brilliant and On the Thursday of the following costly, beyond description, and the eye week, at Albert Hall, we saw a sight seldom looks on any scene so magnifi- even more significant in its way, for it cently grand and imposing as was wit- was an exhibit of the work of woman nest that day in the semicircle that for her own sex, as represented by the fronts the great master-work of Sir Y. W. C. A. Lord Kinnaird presided, Christopher Wren. and Canon Fleming, the Dean of Nor. wich, the Archdeacon of St. Paul's, the When the Queen's carriage entered Bishop of Sierra Leone, Lord Overtoun, the inclosure and halted before the and myself made addresses, or took other steps of St. Paul's, the attendant royal parts of the service. The hall, which is carriages, with the highest dignitaries vast, held probably 10,000. Dr. Barof the various royal families, stood out- nardo, who has a genius for such specside the railing, drawn up in line side tacular displays, organized a procession by side, and the Prince of Wales and in which we should judge a thousand others on horseback, within the railing, young women may have taken part, all facing the Queen's carriage; in front representing by detachments with banof1hem and likewise facing her Majesty ners all the departments of the work were the primates of Canterbury and carried on by the Young Women's York with the Bishop of London, all Christian Association in this and other in the most superb vestments, with their lands, each detachment wearing coscroziers, etc., and the lesser clergy tumes appropriate to, and indicative of about and behind them with the grand their work. The" Flower Girls " orchestra and choir. On their right the lookt like a procession of moving high civil dignitaries of the Empire, flower-beds, and the "Foreign workwith the various Ambassadors from ers" were drest in the costumes of foreign lands, and all in robes of office the various lands among whose women of the most elaborate and gorgeous they are carrying on their work. The material and decoration, including the procession moved up the middie aisle, Hindus in cloth of gold, and the Chi- mounting the stage, and then filing to nese in sumptuous silk heavily wrought right and left, past through the corridors held in July, in San Francisco, and and took their seats in the center of the was attended by immense crowds. The hall. But anyone who witnessed that reports of it would more than engross score of bannered regiments, each repre- all the pages of this REVl1tW, and all senting a different department of we can do is to call attention to some woman's work for woman, must have of the salient points in this history. felt as never before how much the Vic Five thousand new societies within the torian Era had done to develop woman, year, with a world enrollment of 50,- to bringher out of comparative obscurity 747 local societies and 3,000,000 mem- into her true, normal sphere of organ- bers; in sixteen years, a multiplication ized and independent service for her of the original single society into over Master and for human souls. It is 50,000, and the members nearly 60,000 probable that no one occasion has ever fold. hitherto presented so effectively the wide work of Christian women. It was Dr. Clark, in a masterly address, or in the highest sense a great success, and " message," luminously sets forth the left impressions not easily effaced. The following propositions as to this world- Queen, had she been present, must have wide movement: been greatly gratified at the exhibit of the multiplied spheres of usefulness in· 1. It must be true to Its fundamental to which God has ushered her sex since Idea, raising the standard among the she began to reign. young of outspoken devotion and con- secrated service. The first convention of the Federation of Ohristian Students, recently or- 2. It must be a unifying movement. ganized, met at Williamstown, under 3. It must be a pervasive force the shadow of the famous •• Haystack" 4. It must be essentially sacrificial, monument, July 6-9, and was repre- and missionary. sented by twenty-seven nationalities- 5. It must listen to and continually China, Japan, India, Syria, South obey God's voice. Africa, and Scandinavia, Holland and He gives a four· fold motto: Germany, France, etc., as well as the British Isles. This latest development The world for Christ, of the Christian College movement will The nation for Christ, receive ample reference in these pages The family for Christ, hereafter; but we can not but wonder, Myself for Christ. as we watch the Providential interposi- And we can only add, may this holy tions of our day, what is to be the next message prove a message from God, of God's great movements in connection heard and heeded. with organizing the forces of the Christian Church for the last grcat We had the pleasure of meeting Miss onset against the powers of darkness. Annie R. Taylor at Keswick, with But what united prayer should now Puntso, her faithful Tibetan servant, rise from millions of holy hearts, lest and Siggue, his wife, who are now with we be found unready for the combined her in Britain. The sight of a Tibetan advance. man and woman will, as Miss Taylor says, better enable friends to pray for The" World Encircling ~Iovement " the Hermit nation, and claim for Christ of the Y. P. S. C. E. excites more and the followers of the grand Lama. l'Iiss more amazement at the rapidity of its Taylor was expecting to stay in England progress and the almost wild enthusiasm some three months. She hopes to pick it evokes. The sixteenth international up volunteers for the work of occupyconvention of the Y. P. S. C. E. was ing this long shut up land. All eyes are now turned toward Tibet.
Our friend, WellesleyC. Bailey, Esq., of Edinburgh, who is superintendent of the Mission to Lepers in India and the East, sends from Edinburgh a copy of the address from the lepers of the Almora L~per Asylum to Her Majesty and to honor the principle of faith the Queen, Empress of India, on the wherever dominant in His people; occasion of the diamond jubilee, by H. second, to evangelize the Continent of H. Raja Harnan Suiha Ahluwalia, who Africa directly by the missionaries, IWd was also bearer of an address from the indirectly through the training of native native Christian community of India: preachers, who shall be able to live and work in those interior districts where " We, the lepers of the Almora the climate is fatal to the white man.
Asylum, having heard that our fellow- Three qualifications are to be empha- sized as absolutely essential: a passion- Christians are uniting in presenting an ate love for the Lord Jesus Christ; a firm belief in the plenary inspiration, address to her Most Gracious Majesty infallibility, and divine authoritr. of the Holy Scriptures; and a recogmtion of the Queen Empress of India, wish to the supremacy of the Holy Spirit in the life of the individual, and in the be allowed to join in expressing our conduct of the assembly. No one will be askt to join the movement, the same gratitude to God for having given us Spirit by whom the plan was originally conceived, being trusted to call out such a beneficent sovereign. Perhaps laborers into His service, whether preachers, teachers, doctors, nurses, or in no time during the history of the humbler tradesmen. Only such simple organization will be formed as seems world has the sad lot of the poor leper really necessary to the effectual and harmonious cooperation of a body of been so sympathetically considered as people spiritually united. Finally, it is assumed that if the movement be during the reign of our beloved Queen born of God, He will supply such funds as are needed for the inauguration of Empress, whose ears have always been the work without His servants solicit- ing or borrowing the money, or incuropen to the cry of the poo.r and t~e ring debt in any way whatever.
afflicted. We thank God WIth all our Jared H. Randall, '97 Brown, ex- pects to leave about the middle of heart that He has so long spared her, September, under the auspices of the Brown Young Men's Christian Associaand we pray Him to continue her reign tion, to begin work in Natal.
and make it still more prosperous. We The Utility of Missionary Effort.
are poor and helpless, and can do The following appeared in the Mie- sionary Herald: nothing to add to her royal mag- Among the recent contributions to the nificence, but we can and do pray London MansionHouseFund ,for famine relief in India, is one of a little over for her. May our humble prayers be $4,000 (.£844) from the Fiji Islands. In connection with this gift, the English accepted. . magazine Work and Workers may well call attention to the fact that when "We beg to subscribe ourselves the Queen Victoria ascended the throne, sixty years ago, the Fiji Islands were grateful tho helpless subjects of our inhabited by pagan cannibals, to whom not one ray of light from the Christian beloved Queen Empress. world had come. These people were peculiarly ferocious. The Wesleyan "The inmates (120) of the Almora Society, which in 1838 had planned to commence work within the group, de- Leper Asylum. N. W. P., India." clared in its report of that year that the missionary must prosecute his work A Twentieth Century Mission. " before the sailor and the merchant will dare to frequent those now inhos- A few young men met in a room in pitable shores." And now we have an Brown University, April 24th, to dis- illustration of what the missionary has cuss a new plan for missionary work in accomplisht. The Fiji Islands are the coming century. Most of them had christianized, for out of a population felt the practical failure of the present of 125,000 about 100,000 arc reported in business methods used in carrying out the Lord's world·wide purpose, and were persuaded that the nations can be successfully evangelized only by a revival of the 8pirit oj faith and prayer. A new movement, if the Lord will, will be inaugurated in the spring of 1900, and with respect to Africa. The key to the Dark Continent is undoubtedly its southern end, and here a missionary colony is to be establisht, interdenominational and self·supporting. South Africa is extremely fertile, and the sheep-raising industry is attended with fair profit. There the colony of missionaries may undertake self-support, and thus be independent of all mission boards and like agencies.
The purpose of the mission is to be twofold: first to exalt the name of God by furnishing a living witness of His power IWd willingness to answer prayer the government statistics as Wesleyans. art. A few specimens might be here The whole face of societr has changed. In place of brutal orgtes there is an exhibited from this Museum of the orderly and thriving community, and now the grandchildren of the cannibals, Inferno. whom it was seriously feared would slay and eat the first missionaries, have A victim's hands and arms were cut sent $4,000 to feed the poor of India. off, and the eyes gouged out; a slash across the breast, and another across A Missionary's Striking Operation. that, making a cross, with the taunt, ,. Where now is your Christ I " One The Rev. R. Swallow, M.D. (China), man at Malatia riddled with bullets in related at the sixth anniversary of the form of a cross, that ., Christ might U. M F. C. Deaconesses' Institute, at find him if He wanted him." Exeter Hall, London, on May 17, some instances of his work in the mission A house took :fire, and when help hospital at Ningpo, China. "On one was needed, instead of a water barrel, occasion a girl was brought to our hos· the hose was maliciously attacht to a pital with her leg doubled up. The petroleum cask that the :fire might be father askt me whether I could do any· more inextinguishable. Wives were thing for her. After carefully examin· compelled to witness the slaughter of ing the limb, I said I thought the husbands and sons, and a deliberate deformity could be cured in about two attempt was made throughout Armenia months. He said I would have to doit to slay every male over ten years, that quicker than that, or not at all. In a the Armenian families might hence· fortnight he came again, and seemed forth be impossible. disappointed. I askt him if he would allow me to take a piece of flesh out of The slau~hters were by wholesale, his arm to put it in his daughter's leg. 100,000 havmg perisht. In one church , Oh, no,' said he, and he went off. I at Ourfa from 2,000 to 3,000 were slain askt the mother the same question, and or burned, 1,500 killed were dra~ged she replied, ' No; I would rather she to a long trench and piled in prOlruscustayed a little longer.' Then I called ously and buried in one grave. In the man, and told him to take my in- Malatia, that natural paradise, between strument and cut a piece of flesh out of 2,000 and 4,000 Christians suffered my arm. He took the scissors lip, but martyrdom. The flesh of the chief stammered, 'I can't do it.' I then men was carried round the market pickt up the instrument, cut out a piece place for sale at less than a farthing a of flesh from my arm, and planted it in pound. There alone are over 1,500 orthe girl's leg. In a few weeks she went phans and 500 widows. home cured." Of course, some outrages were worse The horrors of Armenia have never than death, and to avoid them, a short distance from Harpoot, 32 women, led yet been adequately told, nor so far as by one of peculiar nobility and intelli· gence, drowned themselves in the Eutold, have they reacht the knowledge phrates. 600 ~irls and brides were in one case carrIed off to Kurdish and of even the intelligent and conscientious Turkish homes. Mothers in despera- tion first flung their children and then body of Christians. Professor J. Ren· themselves into the flames which con- sumed their dwellings or churches. del Harris and his wife, Helen B. Har· . After orders had come to stop the massacre one of the noblest men of ris, have pUblisht a volume of letters, Eghin, venturing out of his hiding- place was assailed by stones. He prodescriptive of their experiences, while tested, "You may not kill me now;" but the brutal answer was, "No, not traveling through Armenia and dis· with guns-we are forbidden to shoot; hut stoning is a different thing and so tributing relief. Those letters ought they crusht hi,s head with heavy stones.
to be read and pondered by every dis- Not one village is yet rebuilt out of over 150 pulled down or burned round ciple of Christ, by every lover of hu- Harpoot. 'fhe women's eyes are always full of tears and the men's voices seem manity, as should also Prof. Lepsiua' to have a tearful quality. "We can't sing," they say; .. we have not sung book. since the massacre." At Biredjik not one Christian is left-all dead or turned The enormities they chronicle exceed over to Islam's tender mercies.
for hellish cruelty and refinement of The needs of Armenia are corre- torture anything known to modem history. Outrage, rapine, malice, murder are reduced to a science and an spondingly great. Here are 60,000 ing in the old Gregorian churches and orphans to be fed, and 5 cents a week in the midst of the long and tedious will keep them. Twenty-five dollars a Gregorian Ritual. year will not only provide for any 0-':- phan, but leave a margin for the For every missionary who fell in widow. It is possible to provide for China in the massacre of 1895, God has 400 boys and 300 girls and supply 10 already given at least 1,000 converts, teachers at less than 400 dollars a year and there are many more inquirers. (school year of 10 months). If not So in Armenia. Already the divine provided for these orphan children harvest from the seed sown in this will inevitably get under control either bloody soil begins to appear. Will not of Romanists or Mohammedans. Christians hasten to the help of the 60,000 orphans that need immediate The animU8 of this massacre; is not provision for their food, and shelter, hard to trace. The civilization of Asia and instruction? When was there a ~Iinor is American. The missionaries like opportunity and obligation? have spread over the whole conntry a network of religious and philanthropic TluJ Oentral Sudan Mi88ion, whose institutions and influences. The Armenians have been getting wealthy, headquarters are in London, t calls thrifty, skillful, intelligent, and influential, and this has provokt the hos· attention to the open door into this tility of the Turks. There has been a secret plan, prompted by the Sultan, long closed country. They are much without doubt, for the extermination of this whole people, and it still moves in need of financial aid to take adon towards its accomplishment, with the Turk as the upper and the Kurd as vantage of this opportunity to preach the nether millstone. Christ where He has not been known. There are off-setting and relieving lights even amid this horror of deep Mr. Hermann Harris, the director of darkness. What heroism I Who will ever forget those heroines of the mas- the mission, is at present in Gabes, sacre, Miss Shattuck, of Ourfa, and Dr. Grace Kimball, at Van, not to mention Tunis, Africa, from whence he writes Dr. Barnum and his associates in the American mission at Harpoot? Every as follows: one of this mission band faced death without fear or flinching. Dr. Barnum We have a hall for Gospel meetings, showed Professor Harris the remnants of the shell that burst in his little study. with good shop front on the main road. Professor Harris askt some of them what were their feelings just then. The Overthe entrance we have written in answers sound like primitive martyrs. " All fear was taken away, and death large Arabic characters the words, seemed nothing." Others said-" We had no fear. We expected to be directly "House of the Gospel of Jesus, the with Jesus, tho the flesh trembled a little. " Messiah, the Crucified;" and on the There are other compensations. A side wall in French is written, .. Maison religious awakening at Aintab has been the result. Various bodies of Chris· de l'Evangile." tians have been drawn together as never before. Protestants are preach- In the windows we display Scrip- tures, Tracts, and text·cards in several languages, and many people come in- side to read more, and to hear the Gospel; to some we give Scriptures and Tracts. Many of the natives, however, can not read, and even those who can, do not easily understand the standard version of the Arabic Bible, which is in high.class Syriac Arabic, well suited to the native Christians of Syria and Asia Minor, but not adapted to the Moslems of North Africa. We long to have a revised version of at least one Gospel in simpler language suited to the people of this province.
• Address Miss Mary W. Ranney, lM5 Masonic Temple, Chicago.
tMr. R. Caldwell, r eFe.Rt,.LGo,Sna'JoSn,t.E.MCa. rt i n' . House, 1 Gresham St Our work may be well described and return to their regular ways of life. under two distinct headings: 1st, the The t woman' of the dead man changes French or European work. This con- masters often before the funeral. Every sists of meetings held three times a imaginable vice exists among the white week, conducted chiefly by Mrs. Harris. people who are the exemplars of the na- On Sundays, at 6.30 P. M_, the hall is tives. The immoral lives of the Euroalways well filled by soldiers. Many pean merchants and officials make hard have been brightly converted, and ale work for the missionaries. To say that bravely standing the test of persecution the missionaries are hated by the white in barracks. On Wednesdo.y evenings a people is putting it mildly. To be sure, Converts' meeting is well attended, they turn to us when there is sickness and the men give bright testimonies. among them, or their dead must be On Thursday8, at 3.30, dlere is a Chil- buried, but at other times they hinder dren's Class, when illustrated Bible our work wherever they can. lessons are given on the black-board. t t Protestant missionaries seldom get 2nd, Arabic or native work. This consists of (1) reading, conversation, credit for the work they do. At least, and personal dealing every morning officials and explorers hardly ever give with visitors at our hall, individually them their just dues, altho they often or in groups. (2) Four or five after- praise the Catholic missions_ It is true noons every week are spent in visiting the surrounding villages, and the popu- that the Catholic missions, in most lation scattered in the oasis_ The more places, have nice buildings and a large distant places I reach on my bicycle. school, and these outside appearances Sometimes I have a group of from ten give rise to glowing reports. The exto twenty or more men and lads (Arabs) plorers remain only a few days at a to hear the Gospel. (3) Twice a week station, and have not time to find out a service in Arabic is held in our hall, the inside workings of the different consisting of singing, prayer, reading missions, nor the treatment which the of the Bible, and preaching. These children receive. The whip of hippo meetings are attended by both Jews hide which is the means of persuasion and Arabs; at some the numbers have in the Catholic missions and is frequentbeen very encoural,>ing, and the atten- ly used on the natives disappears when tion and behavior of the audience ex- vi~itors are present. More than half of cellent. the children hardly learn to read, but have to work hard on the farm. The The evident sign of God's presence brighter ones are exhibited in the schooland blessing with us have been accom- room to the passin~ stranger. The panied by strong opposition from the natives are not slow In finding this out, authorities against our work. In November last we were forbidden to and the Catholics can not &,et freeborn sell or to give away any Scriptures or native children in their neIghborhood. Tracts either inside our own hall or So they carryon a slave trade with the elsewhere, and for continuing to do so, interior. The slave children are comwe were summoned and prosecuted pelled to stay in the mISSIOn until of both in January and February, and age, and in most cases even longer. fined sums varying from one to three These things can not be learned during dollars. We have committed the mat- a short visit, and since the hospitality ter to God in prayer, trusting that these of the Catholic missions and the quality things may turn out rather to the fur- of their wines are famous all along the therance of the Gospel. coast, explorers and others sound the praises of these establishments. A lady, recently returned from West- "Explorers carrr black girls with ern Africa, writes concerning the life them into the interIOr and bring them back with them, if convenient. I know of European settlers there: whereof I speak and can confirm it at any time. Civilized nations would "Nearly all the traders, officials, and have stricter laws if they only knew, explorers rule the natives with a rod of but it seems as if they did not want to iron and commit the greatest cruelties, know, about the true state of affairs, especially upon the girls and women. and if the real facts reach the ears of It is no wonder that death often cuts them off in one of their sprees, and European Governments they are quickaltho this happens often, it has no effect ly husht up, and the public at large upon those who remain. They are a knows nothing about them. The only little subdued until the funeral is over, remedy for these outrages seems to be but even when returning from the for white men to take their wives with grave they joke about their dead friend them, and through the influence of educated women a different atmosphere will be found in African society."
GENERA.L MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLI(i:ENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D., OBERLIN, omo.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign apt to be divinatory, not reasoned. Periodicals. 'l'herefore it fiashes out first here, then there. Like themselves, it is genial, BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, but not stable. First they are national- MASS. ists, then idealists, always inclining, JAPAN. however, to materialism, not coarse, but decided. They do not worship Mam- -Pastor Karl Munzinger, has a pro· mon, they rather despise him. Fame, foundly instructive article in the Zeit- lligh position, are their idols. The 8d~riltfilr MissWnskunde (xii. J ahrgang, world of invisible truth and good has Heft 2), on the intellectual and spirit- scarcely any meaning to them; even uallife of the Japanese. It ought to Christianity is viewed by them largely be studied by every Japanese mission- as a mere refined substitute for Con- ary. fucianism, a simple support to social Theauthor remarks that accommoda- and national life. The author says he tion to the inner life of a people is has been repeatedly told by Christians, much more important for missionaries of whose perfect orthodoxy he had than accommodation to their ways of never doubted, that they did not and living. The latter, in Japan, is not could not believe in immortality, and expected. and would not be well re- moreover saw no use for it. They ceived. But it is of the utmost import- could be' good parents and citizens ance that the missionary should learn, without it, and they seemed to have no for it is only by slow experience that further use for it. That they were he can come to know, the inner temper citizens of eternity as well as of Japan of a people, and their fundamental way seemed to them unintelligible and of thinking. Are they idealistic or ineredible.
materialistic, religious or merely ethi- Nor do they regard themselves as cal, patriotic or merely domestic, in- citizens of mankind. Japan is the be- dividualistic or gregarious, patient or ginning and end of things to them. It fiighty and impulsive. A very differ- is what Athens or Sparta was to an ent way of dealing is requisite accord- ancient Athenian or Lacedremonian.
ing as these questions are differently Whatever aggrandizes it is good, from answered. an aggressive war to an assassinated The fundamental intellectual trait of statesman. Macchiavelli's maxims have the Japanese character, says Herr become flesh and blood in Japan. They Munzinger, is impatience of thorough do not even say, like our heathenish research. They want results, they statesmen in the Mexican war. .. Our want to be spared processes. They are country right or wrong." Their coun- extraordinarily quick and keen in the try can not be wrong. Christianity it- apprehension and application of knowl- self gives way too much to this pro- edge, especially technical and physical pensity. Romanism is antinational.
knowledge. They have done wonders Protestantism is national, but Chris- in this. Nowhere are processes and tianity, in no form, has a right to be- methods, from the working of the come absorbed in politics. Its first steam engine to that of the State, more WOl'k is Personal Regeneration; its sec~ skillfully appropriated. But a deep. ond, Universal Brotherhood. So far intellectual assimilation of knowledge, as nationalism will not minister to hu- step by step, genetically, is something manity, the Gospel must be against it. '
they do not l!'ve. Their knowledge is Much of the late brilliant patriotism of
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Japanese Christians has been much generacy by confining marriage within more Japanese than Christian. narrow circles.
Should Christianity, by a sudden 5. It has been a source of conserva- lurch, become the national religion tism in everything.
of Japan, Herr Munzinger thinks it 6. It has supprest the development would fare with it as with Buddhism. of individuality and independence of Japanese Buddhism, he says, is not the character.
true Buddhism at all. Its metaphysics 7. It has helpt in developillg other and mysticism have almost disappeared. injurious customs, such as early mar- Its atheism has become idolatry. Its riage, the charging of heavy matri- nirvana has become a sensuous heaven monial fees, etc.
and hell. A suddenly adopted Japanese 8. It has successfully restrained the Christianity, the author says, would growth and development of national simply be the Gospel dechristianized. worth; whilst allowing opportunity of Happily this danger seems past. A mental and spiritual culture only to a "holy seed," of elect souls, spiritual, limited number of privileged people, it steadfast, patriotic, indeed, but refus- has denied those opportunities to the ing to let the Church, like Shintoism, majo~ity of the lower classes, conse- become the mere handmaid of tile quently it has made the country neg- Mikado. and owning fellowship 'only atively a loser.
with those who are striving after that 9. It has made the country fit for .. true fount of life, our native land on foreign slavery by previously .enslaving high," would slowly but steadily re- the people by the most abject" spiritual generate Japan. All other successes tyranny."-O. M. Intelligencer.
are illusive.
The Japanese are so easily carried -Oscar Flax, in the Allgemeine Mia- about, that they have an instinctive 8wns Zet"tschrij't, gives a pleasing de- craving for organization. Nowhere is scription of the famous Indian lotus, a thoroughly constituted congregation which, from of old, the Hindus have more beneficent, and more indispens- so enthusiastically admired. that they able. The pastor must to them, far esteem it the embodiment of a goddess.
more, than to us, represent Christ. A " On a slender shaft, four or five feet thoroughly constituted national Church, long, sways gently on the surface of not afraid of a strong government, the pond a half-opened bud, whose would be a tower of strength against outer leaves yet cover over mysterious- the winds of misbelief and unbelief. ly the inner cup, whose dark rose color The author thinks, and with good rea- already becomes visible through the son, that the exaggerated American clefts of the leaves. The fully opened notions of democracy need to be very blossoms reveal the complete enchant- essentially tempered in Japan, if they ment of this wonderwork, which stands are not to work anarchically. unique in God's creation. The petals, INDIA. at the tip of a radiant rose color, grad_ ually paling below, and melting by the -" The following are the heads of a most delicate gradations into the purest lecture by Pundit Siva Nath Gastri, white, gird in the unveiled magnificence on ' Caste,' viz :- of the cup, in the midst of which, like 1. It has promoted disunion and an inverted obelisk, rises the velvety discord. flower gently touched with yellow 2. It has made honest manual labor and red, whose upper rounding is contemptible in this country. strewn with violet, rose-colored, white S. It has checked internal and exter- and gilded points as with stars. Around nal commerce. it wave in a circle the barriers of the t It has brought on physical de- stamens, which, white beneath, golden
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
yellow above, balance snow-white pol- -" The Hindu people is a poo~ 'peo- len-cases. Upborne by dark-green ple, and poorer, seemingly, it becomes sepals, and profused with the magic every day," says Herr Jensen. The charm of interblending colors, there it great reason, probably, is the enormous rests, the pearl of Hindustan, the moot and unmanageable increase of the popu- imposing, most delicate, fairy-like im- lation.
age of absolute beauty that our earth -Mr. Jensen says also: "The mis- has to show. What wonder that the sionary, having come to bring India Hindu honors it as a flower of heaven, Jesus and the Dible, is apt to give hirp.- that in his glowing phantasy he makes self very little concern about what he it to have grown out of the bodies of regards as all her trumpery literature. his divinities of love, lind when he Yet he is pl'obablynot without pride in seeks an image of utmost beauty and his acquaintance with the Greek and gloriousness, finds it in the Kamal, the Latin authors. And yet all this is dead Lotus! and gone, and has only historical worth, while our Indian Iliad and Odyssey "The Hindu Temples, there they still live upon the tongue of every rise before our view, the mighty Hindu child and every Hindu woman. colossal fabrics, with their pillared The missionary often fails to underhalls and balconies, pyramid cones with stand that what culture he brings with their decorations of uncanny idols and him from home does not at all pass curcobolds, the little gloomy filthy 'tika- rent here, but should be regarded only nas,' in the midst of the city throngs, as increasing his facility of appropriatthe mysterious shrines in the midst of ing the Indian culture. The ultimate the pathless wilderness, bathed in the truth may well be. that the Hindu depurple of the setting sun, the beautiful spises us, because we both openly and and noble Sikh temples, and the king tacitly have made it so thoroughly eviamong them, the golden temple in dent, that we despise him. What does Armitszar, the sight of which trans- it signify to ft. common man what we ports us into 'The Thousand and may have learnt in Europe? All he One Nights: Yes, interesting and ro- inquires about is, whether we know mantic are they to him who only knows anything about India, whether he can the outside, but devilish and accursed feel, in any measure, that we would to him who has gained a deeper view. gladly adapt ourselves to him, whether Jesus must conquer. In Bombay, be- we are willing to become Hindus to tween two temples you see a handsome save the Hindus, or whether we think house, inscribed 'Wesleyan Chapel. ' it enough for this that we are Euro- It is not yet true that wherever Satan peans and believers." builds a temple, the Christians build a church alongside, but we may say that the Standard of the Cross now rises -The Damk MiBBions Blad, for everywhere, and that Christianity b,- March, 1897, reports some statements of gina to be a power in India." the president of the Indian Natio~al Congress at its last meeting, which sug- -We notice that Herman Jensen, in gest the question whether England is the Danak MiBswns Blad, gives the pro- governing India in the interest of India, portion of the casteless to the Hindus, or in the interest of the younger sons of the various castes, as being, in South of the English gentry. For instance: India about one to six. In North In- .. Poverty ,is increasing, and a third dia, he remarks, the proportion is much part of our husbandmen are in debt; less. So long, therefore, as missions the land is pregnant with wealth, and work chiefly among the casteless, they every seventh' man has to fight with can not be said to be taking hold of the famine.
Indian people. .. The government, in view of the
ENGLISH NOTES
depreciation of silver, advances the pay long been in weak and failing health, of the high-paid English officers, but was called home on December 6. The not of the poorly. paid native non-com- bishop, in a long, touching letter of her missioned officers, although the prices last few days on earth, writes: 'She of provisions are rising daily-this was taken to church the Sunday before makes bad blood. in Mr. Hogan's strong arms, when it was noticed that she lookt much .. The larger the foreign element is, changcd. In the afternoon of that day which, of course, must have larger pay she was taken into the chapel, and she to be able to serve in a foreign land, took hcr women's class as usual. . . . the deeper and wider does this dig the For a long time she has been unable to channel through which wealth and stand alone or walk, but she never re- prosperity flow out of the land. mitted any duty, or missed pnblic wor- ship. Four races at the same moment "I can not refrain from mentioning held her in their hands and mingled the lack of justice which our tribunals their tears as she blest them all. Beoften show, as between Englishmen sides all the mission party kneeling and natives, where Englishmen are de- around, the room, a very large and airy fendants and natives the plaintiffs. one, was covered with silently-praying Such partial judgments awaken discon- crowds of Indians. For the three days tent among the masses, and weaken and nights when she lay a-dying, often confldence in the government. nearly choked, the prayer-meeting in the chapel adjoininu; ~ur house never .. The crushing poverty under which once flagged. It was always full, and our land sighs, and which nothing is the overflow in other rooms. Every done to mitigate, is the mother of many ten minutes messengers past from the public aberrations from morality; for a bedside to the supplicating crowds, repeople which gro~ns under the heavy porting her actual condition. They yoke of want, and for whom existence had changed their pctition when they is a suffering, has no interest in main- saw that it was God's will to take her, taining morality." and prayed that she might have a peaceful, painless end, and that I might MISCELLANEOUS. be upheld by the everlasting arms. Itfany souls found the light during the The O. M. Intelligencer, referring to death-struggle. In her death she, by the cordial letter written by Archbishop her beautiful and tender work, and Wake, Jan. 1, 1719, to the missionaries patient endurance of agony at times of Denmark (themselves Germans), through choking, drew more souls to Ziegenbalg, and Grundler, remarks that Jesus than ever. It was victory on while then the primate, tho most victory, triumph on triumph. Quite cordial in his recognition of these two hundred souls shrored in the blessbrethren's labors, does not seem to ing.'''-Ohild1·en's World. have a thought of any similar responsibility of the Church of England. English Notes. Archbishop Temple and Bishop Browne, in similar letters or speeches, BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M. A. "address themselves to the home clergy, and seek with all earnestness to T1U! Ohurch Mi88ionary Soczety.-The arouse in them a realization of their Rev. C. H. Gill writes with reference own duty in the matter." to the Indian famine: Since my arrival home from Jabalpur, I have Little Denmark has since been over- frequently been askt, "How long will past, perhaps even relatively, by the the famine last?" With regard to those mighty England, yet she remains, districts where it is acute, one may among Protestant nations, one of the pioneers in missions.
"The wife of Bishop Ridley, of the British Columbia Mission, who has
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
!lIl.fely assert that the famine mU8t CQn- Eaatern Equatorial ..Vrica.-The Rev.
tinue till next &ptember 0'1' October, F. Rowling, of Busoga, has just sent because there can not be any harvest home a copy of the Gospel of St.
tm then. The success of the harvest Matthew, printed in the mission in the depends on many conditions, but if language of the people. He is hoping these be fulfilled, and the famine in its soon to start the Gospel of St. Luke, acuteness be ended, it will even then and by degrees the whole of the New take years to wipe out the disastrous Testament will be in the common traces, and set things right again. The tongue of the people of Busoga.
fund raised at the Mansion House is Presbyterian Ohurch of England.- being used to supplement efforts made Conferences for studying the Word and by the government in trying to cope instructing native teachers, are being with the misery caused by lack of food. organized at Siong si, a large fishing A large number of orphans and waifs village at the mouth of the Chinchew are left on the missionaries' hands who River. Mr. Campbell Brown superinwill require continual provision and tends these gatherings, and the occamaintenance until they are grown up, sions are employed both for the systemand it is for this that funds are urgently atic study of Scripture and evangelistic needed. Surely the maintenance of work in the district. famine-orphans, rescued by Christian missionaries from certain starvation, Medical Mi8sions in Formosa and and brought up and trained in the China are prospering. Dr. Maxwell nurture and admonition of the Lord is writes hopefully concerning them, tella most fit and appropriate object for ing of many instances where closed Famine Relief Funds to be expended doors have been opened to the medical on, and one on which our Savior will missionary, which would have resmile. mained closed but for the healing art Hang-OllOw Medical Mi,sion.-The practised. work done during the past year in this He concludes his letter to the Monthquarter has been fully maintained, advance being made as far as circum- ly Messenger by saying, "The pioneerstances would permit in every direction. ing power of the medical mission is The work is now very great and daily unquestionable. Its abiding power for on the increase, the double nature of strengthening, extending and consolithe mission providing for the whole dating a Christian mission is also a being of man. Many times opportunies great fact. The medical missions of the occur for speaking the Word while Presbyterian Church of England have ministering to the physical needs, both done much to bring to the front and to in the dispensary and hospital of this commend to the whole Church of Christ center of work. the manifold value and power of this agency."
The native missionaries in Western -Baptist Missionary &czetll.-The Africa are being much blest in their Rev. T. Richards, of Shanghai, in work. In the station of W orawora, speaking of mission work in China, on the Gold Coast, the king has been states that what is most needed by won to Christianity by native agency, Christian missions in order that they and consults and largely acts on the may prosecute their work most effectu- advice given by the native Christian ally is;- teacher. Several of the distinctly 1. That the Christian Church should heathen observances are no longer re- send out the best men of her colleges as garded in this district, and Christianity missionaries.
,in its ,essence of love is being felt and 2. That the natives may be helpt to realized. provide suitable institutions for training the Chinese themselves to become London, E. C. Two Harley students missionaries. are preparing to proceed to :Madeira, Mr. A. Robson and Mr. C. Pike. Miss He fnrther states, that the cbief dif- Meyer has also been accepted for the ficulty in working In China is the fact same :tield and will accompany the that foreigners have no right to settle mission party. In the int(lrior of the country, and are only legally allowed to travel. No THE KINGDOM. missionary can settle down in a district without :tirst having gained the good -The editor of this department of will of the people 01 that district. the MISSIONARY REvmw will esteem it a special favor if secretaries of mission- Mr. Richards is one of the oldest ary societies, whether in this or other missionaries of the Baptist Society, hav- lands, will send him copies of their aning workt in China during twenty- nual reports, and any items of intelliseven years. He purposes returning gence from the world-field. very shortly to his much-loved sphere of labor in Shanghai. -Not a little embarrassment and perplexity come to the editorial mind -Gospel Mission to Madeira and and heart in connection with obituary Porto Santo.-Among the modern sur- notices. Not a month passes without prises in missions, is the attempt now on intelligence arriving of the departure foot to evangelize the Madeira Islands. from life of a half dozen or half score For almost two years Mr. and Mrs. of Christian toilers in far off lands, Jefferd llave been spreading the glad whose names are precious. It would tidings in those parts, and have found be easy to cover the entire space at the work, notwithstanding the malig- command with the story of their lives, nity of the priests, delightful. Mr. and an estimate of their character. But Jefferd has told his story in vivid such a task can very easily be overdone. words. Speaking of the people he Whoever considers the matter, and resays: "Many of them are tired of Rome calls the fact that there are some 15,000 and her deceptions, and to them the men and women at work abroad, can words of a free salvation that can be easily see that only a very few of the known and enjoyed here on earth, are most eminent names can be mentioned especially welcome. You can tell them when the Master gives them their final a Bible story without t1leir knowing discharge. whence it comes. How astonisht they are to find that it comes from a book – How painful almost to the shocking which is forbidden them; and when is the contrast between the tidings they become further acquainted with which come from the" foreign" dethe Gospel, and know by experience partments of our societies, and those how exactly it suits their needs as sin- from the "home" department. In ners, great Is their indignation as they well·nigh every case, while the former realize they have been robbed of the tells continually of deep interest, very words of life by those who pose as growth through conversions and need of the representatives of God." Mr. Jef- enlargement, in the latter the main ferd has reluctantly left Madeira for a mention relates to lack of funds and season, that he might get the help the like. That is, tho among the needed for the thorough evangelization heathen the outlook is most cheering, of the island. A council has been where Christians abound the prospect formed in London to assist him, and is gloomy. 0 Lord, how long! among others who will gladly receive gifts for the work is W. Roger Jones, -There is no evidence of a crisis in Esq., Secretary of the )fissionary Pence missions. All movements, religious as Association, 186 Aldersgate Street, well as commercial and industrial, have their periods of enthusiastic ad ranee and of conservative delay. The cause Indian printers.- Woman's Work for of missions, not merely foreign but Woman. home, is at present in the latter, but It will not remain there. It is as firmly -The Rev. R. W. Gurd, of Kitkatla, seated as ever in the conscience of the British Columbia, writes to the Church Church, and it has as strong a hold as Missionary Society: "No annual letter ever upon its affection and dcvotion. would be complete without a reference There is need for work, but none for to Chief Sheuksh. The change in him discouragement.-~he Independent. is really remarkable. His very looks and features indicate what he is-a -The trained statistician, F. W. whole-hearted believer in the Lord Hewcs, contributes to the Outlook a Jesus Christ. Those who knew him in valuable article showing what 14 of the days of darkness-Skeuksh the the leading denominations have been autocrat, the severe, the proud, the lion contributing to missionary work by ten- -ean not but extol the power which year periods, beginning as far back as has transformed him into Skeuksh the 1815 The object of his study was to gentle, the true, the lamb. find out whether the present generation is giving as liberally to missions as our -As a beautiful standing illustration fathers did. The conclusion is estab- of Christian unity, Benito Station, lisht by outline maps that the decade Africa, bears off the palm. Three wo- 1885-1894 greatly surpast its predeces- men missionaries and 1 man, a teacher, sors-not only in the absolute amount constitute its membership. Among given, but relatively as compared with them there is 1 American, 1 Germanthe incr.ease both of property and of Swiss, 1 Norwegian, 1 French-Swiss; 1 population. His maps show a steadily is Baptist, 1 Lutheran, 2 are Reformed. increasing growth of contributions, All are one in heart and aim and cheer- ($40,000 in 1820, $860,000 in 1840, $2,- ful adoption of the Presbyterian forms. 481,000 in 1860, $7,780,000 in 1880, to No wonder their school-children from $13,887,000 in 18ll0); with a decline, antagonistic tribes, the KomM, Mabeya. sharp, tho temporary, in 1857, during and Fang, are learning to dwell together the Civil War, the panic 1872-9, and the in unity.- Woman'8 Workfor Woman. current one 1893-7. The per capita contributions have also increast from $0.04 -Thirty-two years from the landing to $0.22 for each man, woman and child. of the first missionaries in the Sandwich .And in like manner, the giving of the Islands 15,000 were found in the schools churches has grown much faster than and 21,000 in the churches, a foreign their wealth. missionary society was contributing more than $6,100 annually, a limited -When Rev. John Newton went to monarchy had been set up, and a legis- India in 1835, he took out an old-fash- lature with two houses. ioned wooden printing-press. It was the foundation of a publishing estab- -The ignorance of missions which lishment which, in the course of fifty prevails in seafaring circles generally is years, issued 267,000,000 pages in 10 amusingly illustrated in the following different languages. The earliest relig- anecdote: The sailing ship, &ottish ious literature in Punjabi was the fruit Dale, was wreckt on the Batoa, or Turof Dr. Newton's labors, and of Rev. L. tle Island. The crew took refuge in Janvier, afterwards associated in the the boats, but saw, to their terror, that same. The works produced included a native boat with a brown matting sail the New Testament, a Punjabi gram- was bearing towards them. They rowed mar, dictionary, and numerous tracts. with all their might to escape these That press at Lodiana. as well as another supposed bloodthirsty savages, and in Allahabad, were long ago rented to thought themselves lucky when they distanced them. After a course of 240 miles they reacht the haven of Suva, -The gifts to foreign missions during where there is a British governor; but the past year in the Presbyterian they were astonisht to find that when Church, North, which .came from the they related their narrow escape from churches, were $270,497. The Women's the cannibal Batoans, it was received Boards and societies contributed $299,· with bursts of laughter! and they were 115. The women have beaten the men told that they would have been safer in by nearly $30.000. Batoa than in any civilized European State. The Batoans are Christians, and -The managers of Woman's Work have saved many shipwreckt crews and for Woman (Presbyterian) have made given them food and lodging free, and that magazine such a splendid success, have preserved stranded goods and re- that out of a surplus in its treasury they stored them faithfully to their owners. have been able recently to contribute to -Allgemeine ~l[i8siom Zeit8chrijt. the Assembly's Board more than $3,000, of which $578 was to pay for the type WOMAN'S WORK. for the Bangkok Press, and $2,500 was to reduce the deficit in the year's re- -The W. C. T. U's. of Cape Colony ceipts. have been very much in evidence lately. Port Elizabeth, as usual, supplied tem· -Mrs. George S. Hays, formerly a perance refreshments at the agricultural missionary in China, says: "The religshow, and 801d thousands of cups of tea ious feelings of Chinese women vary and coffee, taking £l1i8. From all over greatly in different localities. In some the country reports came in of other places they are distinctly religious, visit· Unions in the smaller up-country towns ing temples, worshiping daily at a having taken up the same work, while private shrine in the home, fasting. the number of permanent ,booths on praying. and endeavoring by good sports' grounds is increasing. The works to lay up for themselves a regard Unions of Kimberley arranged and in the future world. In the eastern part carried through an industrial exhibition of Shantung province this is not the on a large scale in April. The exhibi- case. The women, as a rule, never visit tion lasted two days, and was an all· the temples, and worship no private round success. £100 profit was made, gods. They are, of course, filled with part of which was devoted towards many vague and dark superstitions. erecting an Inebriate Home in Cape Hard-workt,improperly nourisht, easily Town. Mrs. Fehr, of Britain, is tour· distracted, and excited by the little de· ing the Colony and holding meetings, tails of daily life, they seem to give little and Miss Moody, the Colonial organizer, if any thought to their future after has given several successful lectures in death." various towns. YOUNG PEOPLE. -Over $8,000 has been sent in to the -Foreign Mail, representing the In- W. C. T. U. national treasurer for the ternational Committee of the Young Armenian relief, and it is still coming Men's Christian Association, for June; in, $26.54 having been received from has most impressive articles upon "An Tasmania. The India relief fund has Appeal for Reinforcements in Japan," also been increast by W. C. T. U. sub- " The Present Situation in China," and scriptions. Through the influence of " The Indian Conferences of 1807." No the national officers the national India phase of missions just now is more relief fund committee has voted and worthy of serious attention than this sent $500 to Pundita Ramabai, to be which relates so largely to students. used at her discretion for the relief of TIM Student Volunteer for the same the women in her school, and those month finishes volume 5 of the maga· under her personal direction. zine, which chronicles the progress of that thrilling movement. ~The great conventions of the cur- UNITED STATES. rent year indicate that the young people are still "marching on " in their united -Alaska cost $7,000,000 when pureffort to do great things for Christ and chased 30 years ago. Its gold mines the Church. First come the Christian are expected to yield $10,000,000 the Endeavorers, 24,000 strong to San Fran- present year, and the values of furs and cisco in July, one-half from outside of of fish are expected to bring up the California, and representing 3,000,000. yield to twice the original cost of that A few days later Toronto was fairly country. A heterogeneous American ftooded by theEpworth Leaguers stand- popUlation are fiocking up to that land ing for half as many more, and the of varied climate and wealth, increas- Baptist Young People's Union gathered ing its importance as a mission field. In Chattanooga. -"You must not be discouraged," -In opening his address at San said a Kiowa, "if we Indians come Francisco, Rev. F. E. Clark said: slow. It is a long road for us to leave "During the past year I have been our old Indian ways, and we have to journeying in many lands, among peo- think a great deal; but I am sure that ple who speak many tongues. One all the Indian people will come into the factor I have found constant in all these Jesus road, for I see that these white limds. I have found Christian En- Jesus people are here to help up, and I deavor principles everywhere the same. thank them for coming. Tell the Chris- The same pledb"ll, the same consecration tian people to pray for us. Weare meeting, the same general lines of ignorant, but we want to be led aright effort for the Master. Societies that are that we may come into the Jesus road." as widely separated in miles and manners as the Bengalis who live in the -It is a tribute well deserved, but swamps of the Ganges, and the Kaffirs one not always rendered, when the of the up-lands of Africa, from the Ohristian Advocate says: "If we were Endeavorers of the Golden Gate, called on to specify the institution now have subscribed to the same cov- at work in the United States that has enant pledge, and better still, are keep- done the most for the promotion of ing it." Christianity in the world, we should without hesitation name the American -A "missionary roll of honor" was Bible Society; and were we personunrolled in one of the meetings. Upon ally reduced by some insurmountable it were the names of 10,468 Christian force to contributing to but two in- Endeavor Societies that have given stitutions designed to benefit mankind nearly $200,000 to missions through and to promote Protestant Christianity. their own denominational missionary the American Bible Society would be boards. And these same societies have one of them." given an equal amount for other benevolences. The largest gift to missions -The Baptists, South, are doing misreported by anyone society is the sion work in Africa, China, Japan, $1437 of the Clarendon Street Society Brazil, Italy and Mexico, have 80 misof Boston. The Calvary Presbyterian sionaries in the field with 110 native Society of Buffalo is second, with assistants, 75 churches with 4,324 mem- $1017; and a Chinese society in San bers, and baptized 660 last year. Francisco, in he Chinese Congregational mission, stands third, having -The American Board has medical given nearly $700 to its own denomi- missionaries in almost all of its 20 mis- 'national missionary board, and is sup- sions, and a total of 39, of whom 11 are porting 6 missionaries in the field. women and 15 are ordained. It also has 10 hospitals and 30 dispensaries.
-The Presbyterians, South, rejoice that 6 individuals and nearly 50 churches are each supporting mission- Scripture were circulated by the society aries of their own, and are able to say: in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Nothing "It means a great deal that one-third could be done in Austria.N ow the of our foreign missionaries are support- society has an agent in each of these ed either as • substitutes for service' or countries, and they reported an aggreas the foreign counterpart to the home gate issue in 1895 of nearly 400,000 pastor." copies, chiefiy through the labors of 102 colporteurs. -F. W. Hewes, mentioned on an earlier page, finds that the rate of giving, -Naturally at the present time in according to the financial ability of Great Britain reference is constantly each, in 14 denominations l'anges from made to Queen Victoria's reign of sixty $6.87 among the Congregationalists years, and the Church Missionary Soto $1.04 among the Disciples (" Camp- ciety recalls the fact that when she bellites"). The 4 which follow the came to the throne there were in conbest are these: United Presbyterians, nection with the society only 3 natives $5.98; Presbyterians, North, $4.84; ordained to the ministry, while during Reformed (Dutch), $3.44; and Presby- these sixty years 540 have been ordained. terians, South, $2.67. Ascending from Ten years ago, at the time of the the lowest we have, Cumberland Pres- Queen's Jubilee, the society had sent byterians, $1.33; Free Baptists, $1.35; Ollt 900 missionaries, while during this Reformed (German), $1.70; aild Epis- last decade nearly 700 have been added copalians, $1.72 to the roll. It was in that year, 1887, that the committee definitely adopted EUROPE. the policy of refusing no candidate on financial grounds. The past year has Great Britain.-The British and witnessed the lurgest number of adult Foreign Bible Society, at its recent an- baptisms on its records, namely, 7,700, nual meeting, reported its receipts as a fact accounted for by the great innearly $11,000 in excess of those of the gathering in Uganda, where 3,751 present year, amounting to $642,000. adults have been admitted to the The total issues of the society since its church. organization in 1804 amount to 151,- 142,802. The committee report that The Continent.-Some weeks since they have "thus far taken up with a party of French Protestants left Marglad alacrity every item of translation seilles for Madagascar, consisting of 3 and revision work that has been brought _pastors, 2 professors, 3 women, and 6 before them with sufficient evidence as children. Four Malagasy students were to its excellence and missionary useful- present, and .. one of them exprest their nes8." gratitude and confidence in a French speech which won the sympathies of -When Queen Victoria began her the whole audience. No one would reign, the British and Foreign Bible have believed that his stay in France Society had only 9 agents working out- had lasted only four months, so easily side England and Wales. Two of does he manage the language." these were located in the West Indies and 1 in Canada. The others were in -The mission schools in the German Frnnce, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, colonies have become a great power. Greece, and China. There are now 20 At the beginning of last year there were foreign agents, besides 6 secretaries of in these colonies 279 schools, all but 53 auxiliaries in India and South Africa, of them sllstained by the gifts of evanwhose salaries are provided by the gelical German Christians. Since 1884 parent society. In the year before the more than $1,125,000 have been spent Queen's accession it was with difficulty upon them. They are of four grades, that probably less than 3,000 copies 0 the lowest, in which reading and writing with religion are taught, elementary -The British Weekly tells of a schools, intermediate schools, in which " quiet but remarkable work in France in addition to what are termed common in the provision of an asylum for train- branches at least one European lan- ing priests who are leaving the Roman guage is taught, and high schools, or Catholic Church." Of 40 who applied the seminary, in which natives are last year, after very careful investiga- trained for the best work of which thcy tion, 12 were accepted. Some are pre- are capable These schools have been paring to be teachers, and a few arc of untold benefit to the colonies. Inas- already at work as Protestant ministers much as the government has as yet and missionaries. In most cases the done nothing for education in them, it change was "attributed simply to the is quite natural that it should now be study of the New Testament." There askt to make Bome provision for their is a clearer, freer religious atmosphere support in the way of grants, as Eng- than 25 years ago.
land Holland, and even Spain have ASIA. done for schools in their colonies. The policy of the German government has Islam.-We have often been forced been to follow the settlers rather than to observe that the whole Mohamme- to lead and to do no morc for them than dan world is connected by' secret is necessary for their protection. But threads, and that a defeat which Islam the managers of missionary work think suffers in any part of the world, or a the time has come when government triumph which she can claim either may reasonably be askt to share in the really or :fictitiously, has its retIex expense of educating children born in action even on the work of our misthe colonies.-Oongregationatist. sionaries in the Mohammedan part of Sumatra. Thus the recent massacres -The McAll Mission was begun a in Armenia have filled the Mohamme quarter of a century ago, and now it dans in this part of Sumatra with pride. can be written: In 25 years the one They say to the Christians, "You see room in a shop at Belleville has been now that the Rajah of Stamboul" multiplied until there are 35 places of (that is, the Sultan of Constantinople) meeting in Paris and its environs, and "is the one whom none can withstand; nearly 50 scattered throughout France and he will soon come and set Sumatra and in Corsica. From the :first tiny free, and then we shall do with the plant have brancht out Sunday and Christians as the Turks did with the Thursday schools, Young People's Armenians." And it is a fact that a Meetings, Christian Endeavor Societies, considerable number of Mohammedans Mission Churches, the Mission Boat, who were receiving instruction as can- Mothers' Meetings, dispensaries, tem- didates for baptism have gone back perance work, reading-rooms, work for since the receipt of this news.-Bericl,t soldiers, house·to-house visiting, a der Rheinischen MisaionsQf!8el18chajt.
monthly paper, that has proved a sec· -Considerable surprise will be felt ond "Bon Messager," with its glad at the news that a steamer has been motto, "The Gospel for All," a hymn- placed on the Jordan, to run between book, from which children learn to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
sing wor9s that, long afterwards, may It is said that the voyage can be ac- cheer their dying hours, a book that has complisht in 5 hours. The current come to Ameriea, and is used by the idea has been that the river is too rapid French from Canada to New Orleans, to allow of such a feat. But if it is and has been welcomed by French true that the two seas arc now con- soldiers in Madagascar. There seems nected in this way, there should be an no end to the possible shoots from the added attraction to traveling in the seed sown a generation ago. Holy Land. Another thing is mentioned in this connection-that 4 Jew- open door and immense need for It ish families have settled in Jericho, greater work.
and have rented for 5 years from the -India.-Sixty years ago the govern- Sultan a large area of fruitful land for ment of India forbade its officials to cultivation, the land to be irrigated employ native Christians in the public from the Jordan.–Jiree OhurchMonthly. service. Brahmins and :M:oslems were preferred. This year a Bengal Chris- -Miss Mattie R. Wylie, of the mis- tian, a pupil of Dr. Duff, was appointed sion of the Reformed Presbyterian chief justice at Raepore, in Central Church, at Latakia, Syria, writes: India. "Perhaps an outsider would say, there is no longer work among the Ansairyeh.
Last spring the Government ordered -The Bombay Guardian says: "We the parents of those who had children could mention several Christian women in the boarding-sehool here to take who are receiving starving widows or them out, and threatened them with orphans by the dozen on their ,own re- imprisonment if they refused. But we sponsibility, without any guaranteed do not know how much seed is being means for their support, but in faith in sown in a quiet way. There is 1 evan- Him whose book says, "Pure religion gelist, and iu villages where there are and undefiled before God and the Protestants they meet on Sabbath for Father is this, To visit the fatherless prayer and praise and the study of the – and widows in tlleir affiietion, and to Word, and the members make an effort keep himself unspotted from the to attend communion scrvices at Latakia. world.' One of these heroines is clear- The schools arc full. There are preach- ing her drawing-room to increase her ing services twice every Sabbath, and a accommodation for those who are Sabbath-school with an cnrollment of 'ready to perish,' and is selling its 380. There is a weekly prayer-meeting furniture to help support them."
and also a mothers' meetiug. A Bible -Rev. J. E. Robinson, of Calcutta, reader visits from house to house. There is well assured that grell,t accessions to are 2 Christian Endeavor societies, 1 the Christian population will be made for the young men of the church and as a result of the famine, basing his extlle other for the schoolgirls. Dr. pectation upon experience. He says: Balph has also commenced hospital Out of the great distress of 1857 in work on a small scale. We also hold Northern India, and in Southern India clinics 3 times a weck, in which there in 1877, a host of valuable mission is an average attendance of over 60. A agents were gathered in process of Bible woman is employed to read and time. One large, well-establisht mission talk to the patients, both in the clinics has drawn the greater portion of its helpand in the hospital, and to visit the ers, teachers and preachers, from the sick in their homes." orphans gathered in during famine. Christian communities are formed -Mr. Robert E. Speer, of the Pres- byterian Board, writing to the Inde- more rapidly during famine times than pendent from Persia, speaks of 5 dis- under ordinary circumstances-in some tinct impressions he has received in instances formed where efforts, under that land: the general decadence of all ordinary circumstances, would prob- things from forces inherent in the ably prove unfruitful through a long Persian character and the religion of term of years. Indeed, there are Islam, the power of the ecclesiastics of strong missions in India to-day whose Islam; the influence and fanaticism of foundations were laid in the troublous the officials, the increase of religious times of famine, consisting largely of feeling against Christians, the power orphans and rescued victims. In this and hold of the missionaries and the connection nothing can be more instmctive than the experience of sundry missionaries, 192 laborers in all, 18,000 missions in South India after the Christians, and 3,400 pupils; the Herfamine of 1876-7. With much hesita- mannsburg mission among the Telugus, tion, and many misgivings, not less, I with 10 missionaries, 1,000 members, think, than 60,000 persons were received and an increasing number of baptisms; by five or six missions as a direct result the Leipsic Society's mission among of the famine-persons who, in all hu- the Tamil people at Old Tranquebar, man probability, would never other- with 27 missionaries, 76 other ministers wise have become Christians. After a and helpers, 353 teachers, 5,400 pupils, few years Bishop Caldwell publicly and 15,000 confirmed native Lutherans, stated that this famine element, which and branch missions to Tamils in Burhad been incorporated into his mission, mah and Ceylon; the Schleswig-Holdeveloped more satisfactorily than the stein or Brecklum Society'S mission, old "hand-picked" section. in northern Teluguland and J eypore, with 10 missionaries and not more than The Rev, J. Parson, of Jabalpore, 500 converts; the Basel Society's misfurnishes an apposite illustration of sions in Malabar and among the Canarthis point. He says: "We havc not ese, Marathis, and Kurgs, with 75 only taken compassion on orphans and missionalies, 152 native pastors and widows, but when strengthless, help- catechists, 265 teachers and 12,500 less men, in a few cases with their 'adherents; the Gossner mission among wives, occasionally with a surviving the Kols, with 23 ordained missionarmotherless child or two, came begging ies, 20 native pastors, and 40,000 conus to take compassion on them, I felt verts; and the Scandinavian Santhal that I could not say no and leave them mission in South Bengal and Assam, to perish. Between 30 and 40 such are with more than 10,000 converts. now with us. They came ignorant of Smaller missions are those of the Danthe way of salvation, but now rejoice ish Society among the Tamils, with 8 in God through Jesus Christ. Where missionaries and 1,000 adherents; the there were only a few preachers and Swedish Fatherland Institution's Misteachers less than ten months ago, we sion among the Ghonds in Central have now a rapidly increasing Christian India, and the Missouri Synod's mission community. They have utterly aban- in the Tamil country. In all there are doned idolatry, and so broken the bonds 170 European and American missionarof caste in pieces, that people from at ies, 50 native pastors, nearly 1,200 naleast 25 castes of Hinduism, from the tive teachers and catechists, and more Brahman and Rajput down to the than 100,000 confirmed church mem- Chamar and Basor, with J'rlohamme- bers and 7,000 children in the mission dans and Gonds and Kols, have all schools. become one in Christ Jesus. Caste questions give us no difficulty what- China.-A Chinese typewrit'er, with ever. And, in almost all cases, they 4,000 characters, has been designed by are living a simple, straightforward, Rev. Mr. Sheffield, a Presbyterian misupright life, growing week by week in sionary at Tung-Chow, and constmcted, the knowledge of Christ." at his order, by an American factory. The characters are cslTied on the edges -The Lutherans have 8 missions in of thirty wheels, each of which is a foot India: that of the General Council in diameter. Two keys must be struck among the Telugns at Rajahmundry, to make un impression, one to turn the with 6 married missionaries, 162 work- wheel, the other to bring down the leters in all, 4,500 Christians, and 1,000 ter or sign required upon the paper. children in the mission schools; that of the General Synod, also among the -Smoking seems almost universal Telugus, at Guntur, with 7 American with the Chinese. They smoke only a very small quantity at the time, but other •foreign devil' will be able to go they indulge so frequently that they by rail from the seashore to the gates of must consume ii considerable amount of the mysterious capital. Thi~ will add their poorly cured wecd. When work- about 90 miles to the 124 miles of the men are hired to build a house it is road from Tientsin to the Kaiping coal customary in fixing the amount of the mines, which now constitutes the railwages to stipulate the number of way system of China. The spell of smokes they are to be allowed per day. prejudice has been broken, and several For unless there is something to regulate other railway enterprises are now on the number of smokes, the work is apt foot. The chief of these, a great trunk to progress very slowly. It is quite liue from Peking southwesterly to Hancommon to see the workmen percht on kow on the coast, a distance of some their heels indulging in a "smoke so- 1,400 miles, has already been started, cial" during working hours.-" Hadji," with a small government subsidy, but in North and West. its rapid construction is not to be ex- pected. A short road from Shanghai -Although in theory the Buddhists, to Woosung is also in progress. If may Confucianists, and Taoists hold differ- be well, however, to anticipate many ent views with regard to the future, yet inquiries by assuring our readers that there is a general impression thnt the there is not at present, noris there likely next world will be very much the same to be for a long time to come, any deas this, that is to say, there will be mand for American railway men in magistrates, law courts, etc., etc. Every China." Chinaman knows that the man who can get to the magistrate first, by a judici- -Rev. James Carson, of Newchwang, ous use of dollars, can generally make reports the remarkable spread of evansure of winning his case. As in this gelical truth in the province in which world, so in the next it is important, he is laboring. Not long since a retherefore, that if a man wishes to injure spectable man from the market town of another he should get to the magistrate Tien-Chwaug-Tai came to Newchwang as soon as possible. Among English to ask that some one might be sent to people angry words lead to blows, and instruct a number of inquirers. The sometimes to murder. In China angry application was backt up, in a most words often lead to one of the men remarkable way, by the proposal to committing suicide, that he may go into pay all the traveling expenses of the the other world and lay a charge against person who should come. This man his enemy there. In the year 1872. was the proprietor of an inn. Later a when Mr. Elwin was staying on the second and special messenger arrived Island of Pootoo with a friend, they to say that a small house had been were called in to save the lives of two prepared and was to be at the disposal Buddhist priests who had taken opium. of the teacher, affording a place in These men had quarrelled, and one of which to meet inquirers. Mr. Carson them took poison in order to go into the says: "Such urgency and such an unother world to lay a charge against his precedented offer it has never been my enemy. When the enemy heard what lot to receive." A similar request came had been done, he took a larger dose in from the city of I:lhuing Yan. These order to get there first.-North Ohina are new cases. Daily News. Korea.-A notable event is the -"The Chinese Government," says arrival in this country of the heir appar- The Railway Age, "is slowly but surely ent of Korea, Prince Eui Wha, who, pushing forward the railway from by the wish of his royal father, comes Tientsin to Peking, and it is expected to remain some years in America and that in the near future the traveler or pursue his education under the special guardianship of Dr. Ellinwood, secre- chumens. In no other mission of that tary of the Presbyterian Board. The Board is the harvest so ripe for the Prince is only twenty years old. reaper_ -During the political excitement in -In Korea butchers have been hith- Korea, a company of Christian students, erto degraded and despised, forbidden chiefly from the country, started out to wear the ordinary costume-virtually one dny to do sight-seeing in the city; serfs; but the Korean Government, a but the appearance of such a body of few months ago, issued a proclamation countrymen moving in company ex- granting them the right to dress like cited suspicion among the military other people, and enjoining that they authorities, and the whole class were be treated everywhere 'Yith respect. An arrested and taken to the barracks_ As interesting evangelistic work is now a confirmation to their claim of being being carried on amongst these men, students, a Sunday-school lesson paper 30,000 in number. A Christian of their was produced by one, and served as the own guild is traveling through the basis of a practical talk about Christ to country accompanied by a colporteur the officer in charge. He soon dis- preaching to them, and distributing missed them all. the Bible and other Christian books. The expenses of the tour are being met -Dr. J. Hunter Wells, PyengYang, by Christian butchers. Korea, in the last year, cut off an arm in the dining-room, performed an AFRICA. operation for cataract of the eye in the bedroom, cut off a leg in the shed. made -From every side the locomotive is use of the kitchen for many minor making slow but sure advances upon operations, and had patients lying all the Dark Continent, and hastening the over the neighborhood in every avail- day of her redemption. England is laying able shed or room. Notwithstanding rails up the Nile, far northward from the lack of accommodations, he treated Cape Town, with two lines westward some 4,000 patients, contributing much from Beira and lIombasa on the East to the advancement of the growing Coast, the latter aiming for Lake Vicwork of that station. Friends Iiving in toria Nyanza; France is pushing Indiana have provided the funds, and a towards the interior from Algeria, Belnew dispensary and hospital on a small gium up past the cataracts of the Kongo, scale have just been completed.- aud Portugal slowly from Benguella in Ol.urch at Home and Abroad. Angola.
-Rev. J. S. Gale, of Gensan, speaks -Including what has heretofore been thus of the difficulty of translating the known as Bishop Taylor's Self-support- Bible into Korean: " 'I am the bread of ing Mission, the American ~Iethodists life,' would seem one of the easiest sen- labpr in 4 districts of Africa: (1) Liberia; tences to translate, but the Korean has (2) The Kongo; (3) Angola; (4) The no bread. ' I am the good shepherd East African Coast Mission. The and know my sheep,' seems simple lan- statistical summary of the work in guage, but there are no sheep in Korea, these districts is as follows: Stations, so it takes much thought. to discover 28; missionaries, 40; native teachers the best way to show the truth to minds and preachers, 2S; membership, 581; whose modes of reasoning and whose children in mission homes, 588; value associations are so entirely unlike our of property, $73,122. own." -Rev. John Howell writes thus of -The Presbyterian churches in traveling in the Kongo country: "So Korea received during the past year away we went, and next day found us some 200 into their membership. and on tramp. I was quite at home at this, have besides enrolled a thousand cate- but my wife, in the hammock, with a black man at either end, found thi'ngs rather strange. Very often she was Christianity is popular. No; but with some distancc in front of me, alone with deep, downright earnestness and child· her new col.ored friends. Once I caught like faith they desire to know and love her up. They were just fording a river the Lord. There is no. excitement. We with her, she being just a few inches are most careful in our examinations above the water; a slip and it would before receiving them into the church, have been a free bath. On the far side sometimes putting them off for months. the bank was at least six feet above the We have 1 station, 3 preaching places, water's edge. The porter at the foot of 9 missionaries on the field, 1 Sabbaththe hammock climbed up; the head- school, 1 church, with 126 communiend remaining down, you can imagine cants, and a day·school with 45 pupils. the position; she was standing on her Mr. Verner left two days ago to open a head, hanging on with all her might to new station at Wissman Falls. My the hammock, or she would have slid- magic lantern has been of great use to den head first into the water. At night me. u our beds were put in a rough shed, with our mosquito net over, to keep off -A remarkable revival of the Amer· ants, spiders, rats, and other abounding ican Board ofMission is now progressing live stock." at all the stations in NataL Such a work of grace as has never been wit- -Not a few will watch the career of nessed in the Colony is now going on, Heli Chatelain and some co·workers, leading to conviction of sin and converwho have just started for Afdca to sion to Christ, with every evidence that inaugurate the work of the Phil-African it is a work of the divine Spirit. The League. The object of this league is year 1897 will hereafter be as memorato bring relief to the large number of ble among the churches of Natal as is slaves in Central Africa and to endeavor the year 1857 among the churches of to break up the slave trade, especially America. among the Moslem tribes, by establishing a series of colonies. The section -It is gratifying to learn that in selected Is the high tableland between Bechuanaland, especially in the terri· BengueIls and Lake Nyassa. '1'he plan tory occupied by Chief Khama, the of work is to acquire fertile lands by distress caused by drought, locusts, and concession from European governments the rinderpest is somewhat relieved. and by purchase from the natives, the Aid has been forwarded from England, adoption and settlement in model Chris· chiefly through the agency of the Lontian villages of freed slaves and natives don Missionary Society. There was an to be educated in farming and handi- absolute dearth of grain, but food was crafts. The station work is to be di· supplied, and especially seed, so that vided into these main departments- now a harvest is being gathered which agricultural, industrial, educational and promises to save the district from further medical or charitable, each in charge of famine. a competent specialist. Mr. Chatelain has had wide experience in Africa, and ISLANDS OF THE SEA. is thoroughly acquainted with the situ· ation. -The French Protestant Church has received a terrible blow in the death of -lIr. Sheppard, a colored mission· two of her devoted and efficient pasary of the Presbyterian Church, South, teurs, M. Escande and 11. lIIinault, writes from Luebo, March 20: .. The cruelly massacred on the road from Gospel Is being wonderfully blest by Antananarivo to Fianarantsoa, the post the Holy Spirit. The people are seek· which the latter was about to occupy ing the Lord, not for what they may as missionary in the disturbed district receive at our hands, and not because of Betsileo. M. Escande had already been establisht in the island as pasteur and missionary for nearly a year. justice note the markt divisions which When, on PlIsteur Laugs's return to prevail among the Chinese. Those France from Madagascar, the French born at the Straits differ from the SocieHi des Missions appealed for some- Chinamen at home quite as much as one to take his place, M. Escande, the Americans do from the English, altho he had but just arrived from Sen- while the various tribes of Chinamen egal with his wife and children in order differ among themselves both in lang- to recruit their health, without hesita- uage and race·feeling quite as much tion offered himself for the difficult and and probably more, than do the differ- responsible po~t.-London Ohristian. ent nationalities of Europe. I was told by one who lookt over the assembly -Police-Inspector Fitzgerald, for- and made a count of the different lang- merly an enemy of missions, reports uages and races represented there, that thus to his superior upon the work of no less than 18 nationalities could be the Herrnhut missionaries at liapoon found in a company of people which on the east coast of the Gulf of Car- perhaps did not much exceed 200 pentaria, Australia. ., As the result of persons.-Bi8hop 2hoburn. personal observation of the manage- ment of the mission station of lIapoon, -The Bremen Mission in New Gui- I can bear witness with great pleasure nea (Kaiser Wilhelm's Land), is still that this mission is in my opinion a sorely tried by the unhealthy climate. perfect success; a proof of what sound To this, according to the latest news, common sense, courage, and goodwill is now added the even worse trial of a can accomplish with savages. It was Romish eruption right into the portion quite a new experience for me when I of the field which the Bremen missioncompared this station with others. . aries have for six years occupied. "The last steamer," write the brethren, . The results obtained here ex- "brought 4 padres and 8 lay brothers ceed all my experience among the to begin operations where our mission aborigines during more than thirty is already at work." Missionary Helyears. I recommend that the Govern- mich writes: "The Romish mission ment should supply the station with a presses itself like a wedge into the good boat and with 400 woollen blank- midst of our field. And, however sure ets yearly. I am glad to have had the we are that no might of this world can privilege of seeing a station which is stop the truth of the Gospel, we can conducted in so excellent a manner." scarcely repress some slight concern for – Allgemeine Mis8ion~zeit8cltrift. our work. Shame on them that they sllOuld plant themselves where our -Malyasia. Missionary work in mission has poured out its blood and Malaysia is interesting for many reasons, its tears, and made many a sore sacriand at Singapore for the special reason lice." that so many nationalities are represented there. Our good friends ten- -The missionary steam yacht, John dered us a reception during our stay, William8, on leaving Sydney, carried and among the many kind people who out 50 tons of building materials for II were present at the Deaconess Home, Jubilee Hall, to be erected at Malua were persons who had come from Su- in Samoa, at a cost of £1,000, all sub: matra, Java, Borneo, Bangkok, Saigon. scribed by the Samoan native Chris- China, and Japan, besides lIalays from tians; 40 cases of Bibles for Savage this region, Singhalese and Tamils from Island, and a large consign:nent of India, and Europeans of various nation- books for New Guinea, in the Motu alities in Europe and America In- language, printed in Sydney under the deed, if I begin to make mention of supervision of Rev. Dr. Laws. In condiffcrent nationalities from Europe, we nection with the Samoan Mission there may with equal and even greater are now 600 members of the Christian Endeavor Societies.
The Missionary Review of the World — May 1888
THE SUPREME QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR
MISSIONARY REVIEW .OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XI. No. 5.-0Id Series.-MAY.-VOL. 1. No. 5.-New Series.
I.-THE LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
THE SUPREME QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] As we study missions we are more and more convinced that the defect in our methods is radical. There is something wrong, and it reaches down to the very foundations of our system; otherwise there would be a greater and grander onward march and a more speedy and glorious success. Let us be ,honest with ourselves and with God, and handle this subject with ungloved hands.
The supreme questions of the hour, in respect to missions both at home and abroad, are these two: How can missions be prosecuted vigorouslyand efficiently? How can missions be supported generously and systematically?
1. As to the prosecution of missions as an enterprise of the church. Any worldly man who is considering the question of his calling in life from a purely secular point of view will ask four subordinate questions: 1. As to the character of the business he proposes to pursue: its honesty and honorableness, its effect on his own physical, mental and moral well-being. 2. As to the opening for such a business: whether there is room for it, where he proposes to prosecute it, and a reasonable prospect of its success. 3. As to the profit of such a business: whether whatever capital he has can be· best invested in that particular way, as to quick and safe and large returns. 4. As to the associations of such a business: whether they are like to be congenial, helpful, stimulating, harmonious, and especially if a partnership in business is involved in the proposition.
Missions must be regarded as the business and the only business ever yet divinely committed to the believers as individuals and as a collective body. "Follow me, and I will make you FISHERS OF MEN." No other calling is legitimate unless it is in harmony with this; any other calling is legitimate if in it we may abide with God and carryon God's work. Let every believer get this fixed in his mind and heart: whatever his employment may be, his business is saving souls, or more exactly stated, bearing witness for Christ. He is responsible not for results, with which he has nothing to do, but for his work as a herald of good tidings.
Now apply to this life-vocation the four tests heretofore stated. 1. The character of such a business is of the most exalted possible order. Beside it everything else, however lustrous, dims and pales. The most colossal schemes of human enterprise are small beside this which embraces the whole world and reaches forward into a limitless eternity! What is all making money to making a human being godlike? What is all the triumph of art in comparison to modeling of character? It is architecture, painting, sculpture, poetry and music, aU in one, and elevated to a spiritual sphere! Consider such a life business in its effect on the 1vorker, the heroism of endeavor and endurance, self-sacrifice and self-oblivion to which it inspires; the atmosphere of influence with which it surrounds character, the transfiguring halo with which it invests common mortals-nay, the transparent spirituality which refines away all the grossness of materialism and carnalism. Go read of Ziegenbalg and Zinzendorf, Krapf and Schwartz, Carey and Moffatt, Martyn and Morrison, Dober and Duff, Harms and Eliot-the illustrious host who~have burned with the quenchless fire of missions-and tell us where will be found the like of such characters? Where the glory and joy of such reward? 2. The opening for such a divine vocation is especially inspiring, for it is purely of God. Fifty years ago the world was like the sealed jar in the tale of the genii. Now the seal is broken, and forth in the form of a colossus that strides from pole to pole comes the gigantic opportunity that challenges us to make it our servant to do our bidding in great achievement. Again we hear Prince Albert thunder out, "Find out God's plan in your generation and do not cross that plan, but fall in unto your own place in it." Has God a plan in this generation? If so, what is it, and how am I to know it? By every sign and signal God has shown -the men of this generation that his purpose is the immediate evangelization of the 1(Jorld. Behold him, while the church is yet asleep, arouse here and there a heroic soul to dare to go, like Jonathan and his armor-bearer, to attack the strongholds of the enemy. B~hold him, when the church is yet but half awake, go before the little missionary band, and as they shout the gospel message at high walls and closed gates he makes the barriers fall and within thirty years flings wide the two-leaved portals of every leading nation on the globe to the entrance of the gospel. He who doubts providential interposition in missions is blind. Nothing like it has ever occurred in human history. The cleaving of the Red Sea or Jordan, the tumbling of Jericho's walls, the defeat of Amalek, were not as conspicuous miracles as the opening of modern doors of access to an people, because these modern miracles have been on a larger scale and repeated through a half century. Obstacles are out of the way that were as broad as continents, as high as the Himalayas, and as hard as adamant. Facilities of approach have been provided in a succession of discoveries and inventions unparalleled in history-the mariner's compass, steam, the telegraph, the printing press, all the new machinery of human progress can be made available to carry us and our instrumentalities to these open gates and occupy the vast fields of labor. And besides all these openings God has by his grace so proved and approved the work that a whole series of miracles of another ,order may be seen following up the wonders of his providence by even greater wonders of his grace in the transforming of souls and even of society. Men have seen the deserts blossom as the rose, with the excellency of Carmel and Sharon; instead of the thorn the fig tree; instead of the brier the myrtle tree; the obvious planting of the Lord-God's own husbandry-that he might be glorified.
3. The profit of such a business as winning souls, who can estimate it? There is another capital to be invested besides the capital of money. Brains as well as brawn, mind and morals, gifts' and graces, time and talents, acquisitions and accomplishments, the inherited and gathered riches of human character – knowledge, love, speech, life-tell us, young man, young woman, you who wish to serve your own generation by the well of God, where will you find such opportunity for the investment.of your intellectual, moral and spiritual capital? Do you want to make your life tell for God and man? Do you want to wield a sceptre of far-reaching and deathless influence? Do you want to multiply yourself a thousandfold, to make your tongue and your pen a redeeming factor in human history? Here is your chance. On our border lands of civilization new empires form in a quarter of a century. A desert tract to-day is a hamlet to-morrow, next year a thriving village, within five a flourishing city, within ten a radiating railroad center, within fifteen a capital of a new state, and so on, marching with gigantic strides to the imperial control of vast territories with teeming population. The clay is on the wheel; you may go and sit at that wheel as the potter and mould that plastic society, now in the crude lump, into vessels for God. Here are old empires now opening to a new civilization; the Orient welcoming the Occident, asking for the western schools, manners, inventions, and taking with them the western faith because it is inseparably interwoven with the western civilization. Here is a new set of conditions, such as the world now sees for the first time: nations like Japan asking you to come and teach them, casting away hoary super- , stitions and effete faiths to take whatever you will bring, and jn danger of taking something worse than what they cast away in the craving for something new and fresh. While you hesitate the devil pushes his army of skeptical and infidel teachers and books into the new openings and threatens to sow the tares before the Lord's people get in the wheat! While you are looking about at home, waJting for something to turn up, you are losing the greatest opportunity for the investment of your mental and moral capital ever offered to the sons of men! You can shape a nation, perhaps a continent, anew before you die!
4. The associations of such a business are nothing less than divine. Human companionships of the most ennobling character, but beyond and above all the rest, fellowship, partnership with God! « Lo I am with you always" is a promise that can be enjoyed only by those who at home and abroad are engaged in the work of missions. The assurance is the divine reward and encouragement of the herald of the gospel, the cross-bearer, the witness. The business you are invited to take as your vocation, employed, engrossed, absorbed the Son of God. It drew him to these foreign shores, it made him to assume our nature and become of kin with us, learn our language, and suffer our cruelties and scorn, and fall a martyr, that by his blood he might buy the way for us to heaven! Ohrist Jesus was the pioneer in foreign'missions, the first Ohristian martyr and the leader of the host of heralds. Partners who share work share profits. No man hath forsaken all to go on this errand for Ohrist and with Ohrist who receives not a hundredfold here and now, and in the world to come both the gift of eternal life and the jru'it of his toil, which is the added wages for his work. Tried by this fourfold test, this business overtops all other in its claims and in its charms! Those who have heartily undertaken it would not exchange it for all the honors and dignities and coffers and crowns of earth. They prefer the fiery furnace, with the Son of God as a companion, to the throne of a world without him. The very self-denials of the work are an attraction, since they imply a fellowship with his sufferings; to be crucified with him is only next in bliss to being glorified together.
Such are some of the motives to the immediate and energetic prosecution of the work of missions. It is but too obvious they have never yet grappled with the convictions, affections and consciences of the bulk of disciples. Think of it. It is now 1850 years since Jesus ascended, his last message being, « Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." For fifteen centuries the church lost sight of her duty, until she even disputed and denied the obligation itself, and sneered at the few fanatics who would obey the great commission; and now after all this millennium and a half of lost time, worse than lost, while the world has been gaining on us, outstripping us, vastly outnumbering us, until the task of evangelization seems like an impossibility, we still send only about 5,000 missionaries into the whole field and'spend only about $10,000,000 a year on the work, while in this country alone $100,000,000 are spent every three months on popular amusements alone, and many times that sum every year on strong drink! The Ohristian churches, counting only the evangelical and reckoning only the more intelligent and consecrated members, could put one million workers in the field by giving to the Lord's special work one out of thirty church members, and could put at their disposal $1,000,000,000 yearly by laying aside systematically one-tenth of the average income of those members! Are we not jCistified in saying that there is something radically wrong about the methods in which our missionary enterprises are prosecuted, or rather are not prosecuted? The church is but just half awake, rubbing her eyes from her long sleep; they need to be washed with the milk of the word and get fully open to the duty, the privilege, the opportunity of modern missions. Never was sueh a business, never such an opening, never such returns, never such a divine partnership possible to the children of God! Let the church wake up and gird herself for the work and win, and seeing her white-plumed leader in the van of the fight, press on to get by his side and bear the flag of the cross to the summits of the citadels of the enemy!
1. But as yet we have not touched, save in passing, the obher grand factor in this problem of missions, namely, their systematic ana'generous support! This is even more shameful than the lack of vigor and enterprise in pushing the work itself. To think of crippling foreign missions and home missions too by withholding adequate support from self-denying servants of God already on the field; obliging them to retrench when every voice of God sounds the word, "expand j" compelling them to hesitate and halt in the very face of such magnificent opportunities; begrudging them the pittance which keeps them from starvation, and helittling their heroism by showing a lack of appreciation! This is the crown of our dishonor.
We take up the latest printed appeal of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, as an example. The brethren that are in charge of this work we know-know intimately-and we dare affirm that there is not a more capable, conscientious, careful body of administrators of such a trust anywhere to be found thau the four men who as secretaries conduct this work in behalf of a church of nearly 800,000 members, and representing more wealth than any other like number of Christians in this country, with perhaps one doubtful exception. At the last general assembly in Omaha it was determined in view of the loud calls of the foreign work that at least one million dollars should be raised this year, which is only about one and one-third dollars per member, or a little over one-third of a cent. daily! The secretaries, notwithstanding this enthusiastic vote and the imperative needs of the work, did not venture to layout the expenditures upon any such scale in advance; and yet, with but two months·left to finish the fiscal year, again they trumpet forth their note of alarm, that nnless the church they represent redoubles its fidelity and increases its gifts, this year cannot close without repeating the disaster of debt! In this appeal these brethren will say: "This Board is not a producing capitalist. It can assume no obligations of its own. It is only a board of trust for the receipt and disbursement of whatever the churches may give for their great work of foreign missions. But the Board is so circumstanced· that its grants must be made or pledged in advance. The general assembly, instead of ordering a halt, called for more than $200,000 advance. The actual pledges made by the Board in June last were far short of the amount which the assembly named, and yet even at that lower figure, there will be a heavy debt unless a more adequate supply of funds shall soon appear!"
And such appeals as this have been chronic. Year by year, not only this Board but other similar societies have been compelled to appeal to their constituencies importunately and repeatedly to help them out of the slough of debt. On the one hand they are distressed by the needs and openings of the vast field abroad, and on the other hand by the slow, sluggish movements or lack of movements on the part of the church at home! Pity. indeed-shame, indeed-if we are to be embarrassed by the very opportunity that God gives us ; if we dare not ask for other open doors because we cannot enter those now open; if we dare not reach out a helping hand to those who entreat us for aid, because our hands are now more than full; if we dare ,not ask for more workmen because we do not know what to do with those now offering or even already on the field!
We deliberately say, after much thought and prayer over this matter, that something is radically wrong in this matter of the financial support of missions. Our methods are either unscriptural and unspiritual, or else they are defective in their application. God certainly does not need our money; it is for our sake that he uses us as almoners of his gifts. We need the discipline of unselfish giving, and the church will never grow in the grace of giving until she recognizes the fact that no believer ever puts God under any obligation by the most" munificent donation," as though" he needed anything." We must from the bottom rebuild both the science and the art of giving. We must learn for ourselves and teach others, that 1. It is a privilege to give, rather than a duty. To scatter is to increase, to give is to get. The richest growth comes by the most heroic pruning. It makes one comparatively omnipotent and omnipresent to use money aright-multiplying his power and his presence a thousandfold.
2. The giver can sanctify the g{ft, however small or insignificant, by his unselfishness and magnanimity of motive. A cup of cold water in the name of a disciple cannot lose its reward. It becomes a great gift by a great motive and spirit in the giver. Whatever is done in His name is divine. Give what you can, when you can, where you can, but give it cheerfully; give a cup of water, a mite, a kiss, a word, a smile, grandly, nobly, as a disciple. That way of giving swells the gift, and God will use it grandly. 3. The altar sanctifies the gift. Put on God's altar as such, the humblest offering acquires dignity. We should study to' give discrim- . inatingly, to the worthiest objects, not carelessly or indiscriminately. Money may be thrown away and lavishly wasted on nothings, while the greatest objects appeal in vain for our aid. Where can be found any altar so sacred as that of missions? The Lord himself laid himself on that same altar, the first grand whole burnt-offering, and any gift laid there is made divinely sacred by his sacrifice.
4. God values the little gifts from the many more than the greater gifts from the few. For the church to depend upon large donations from a comparatively few is not God's way. It is bad alike for the many and for the few. The many learn to lean on the few, and the few become self-complacent and self-righteous as though the progress of the church depended on their munificence. God's way is not that other men be eased and a few burdened, but that there be equality, i.e. a sharing of responsibility according to ability. " Organize the littles," make many little rills unite in one great river. The Women's Boards both teach and illustrate this lesson: they have gone straight on, giving more and more, and yet the immense sums they gather are all the aggregate of small and regular gifts.
5. Giving does us little good until it comes to the point of downright self-denial. The tithe system may answer for the minimum, but never for the maximum of our gifts. It is obvious that one hundred dollars from a man whose income is a thousand is a very much larger proportion than is one thousand for him who gets ten thousand, or ten thousand for him who has one hundred thousand a year. In one case the man has 900, in the next 9,000, and in the last 90,000 dollars left for his own expenses. The fact is that all these rnathematics of giving are sadly, radically misleading. The ethics of giving reach higher, hut we need some higher plane than either. Shall we call it the (Esthetics of giving? We need to apprehend the beauty of giving. It is the highest of the fine arts. We ought to be enamored of it as of the most resthetic productions of the artist, the sculptor, the architect, the mu- SICIan. Then giving will not need to be urged; there will be rather need of restraining the people from bringing, as Moses dia. The man or woman who learns to give in the right spirit forgets all about the duty, in the privilege, and the absence of life's necessities would bring no such distress as to be cut off from this lztxury. To illustrate and enforce this truth, we add to this article a few facts from history and biography. First, we recall a fine tribute of Bishop Ooxe to one of his old parishioners, Mr. Lee: "He was an instance of religious principle and system as regards tithes and offerings. For years it was his habit to set apart a most liberal portion of his income as the Lord'sportion. Hence giving was to him a great pleasure and a mere act of stewardship. If an object struck him as a good and valid claim on him he said, 'My only-task is to reckon how much of the Lord's portion should go to this object in view of others. Hence,' said he, 'the visit of a good man 1;0 solicit aid is a source of pleasure to me. 1 say to him, If you have a good cause I've something for you; you must help me to judge how much.' Sometimes he would say to one calling on him, 'I've money for you, but this morning. I've no time; please state the case in few words, and if 1 find it a just claim on me I'll gladly do something; only, 1 am sorry to say, 1 can give but five minutes to the matter.' Often, in such case, the five minutes would send the laborers away $50 or $100 richer, and cash in hand. Once a solicitor said, 'Mr. Lee couldn't give me anything this time, but he told me why so kindly and so satisfactorily that his very refusal has done me more good than some men's contributions.' At a crisis in the early history of St. John's church he came to me and said, 'If they will go on and pay the debt 1 will give $5,000.' 1 said, 'You can't afford it.' He answered, 'I intend to sell my house and live in a plainer one till 1 make it up.' And he did so! When Christmas came he enabled me to give a Christmas turkey to everyone of my poorer parishioners. Henry IV. of France, who wished that 'every peasant in his kingdom might have a chicken in his pot every Sunday,' did far less than Mr. Lee by way of personal sacrifice to make the poor man's heart rejoice over his Sunday meal. When prevented from attending the Board of Missions he would send a check equal to what would have been his expenses in attending. 'I can't go, but that will do more good than my presence.' "
Next, we remind our readers of the famous story of the origin of The Order of the Iron Gross. Frederick William III., the father of the present king and son of the great Frederick of Prussia, was the providential prompter of a simple and sublime testimonial of the pure patriotism of his subjects and their readiness to come up nobly to the help of their country in the time of its greatest distress. At the call of their king to pour their gold and silver ornaments into the public treasury and to receive in their stead iron ornaments of the same form, the people cheerfully and nobly came forward, stripping themselves of their bracelets, necklaces, rings, brooches, crosses, earrings of gold, and jewels, casting them into the treasury, and receiving only in exchange similar articles, beautifully worked in bronze and bearing the inscription, " I gave gold for iron, 1813." Hence arose the "Order of the Iron Cross." What an interesting instance of the confidence of subjects in the wisdom and valor of their king! And how impressively does it demonstrate their patriotism and willingness to make any sacrifice for the liberation and glory of their country. They were ready to surrender all their luxuries for the relief of their oppressed nation. Hence, as long as the war lasted, gold ornaments were never worn, and the beautiful Berlin bronze ornaments became more admired and more highly prized throughout Europe than were the most costly jewels before the war.
What if the disciples of- Jesus would but form a new Order of the Iron Cross, and cheerfully sacrifice their superfiuous ornaments to supply the needs of his poor, destitute ones! We should not know what to do with the money! And yet our sacrifices would not have touched our necessities or even our comforts; we should have got only so far as the women when they gave their burnished metal mirrors to make the brazen laver.
Our last illustration shall be the story of Princess Eugenie and her jewels. Eugenie of Sweden has a name already immortal for her selfsacrificing, sympathetic friendship for the poor and suffering. It is now many years ago that she was ordered by her physicians to go to an island off the coast for her health. On that island she found a large number of wretched cripples, many of them hopelessly incurable. She could not be happy until she had done something for their relief. She devoutly prayed God to put into her own heart his own thought about the matter and show her his will concerning this thing.
Then the thought came into her mind which has now made her famous. She would build a home for those poor cripples, where they might have loving nursing and sisterly care. Their number was so great that the house must be large and costly, and she knew not how to raise the necessary funds. Then another thought came into her heart. She wrote to her brothel', the king, asking his c~nsent to sell all the crown jewels that belonged to her and to use the proceeds of the sale for God. The letter was baptized in tears and hallowed with many prayers that the king would accede to her request.
At first he thought Eugenie must be crazy. These jewels were heir- . looms'; they had come down to her from past generations. Who had ever heard of such a preposterous notion, that a royal princess should part forever with her precious family treasures to build a hospital for cripples! But there was one phrase in her letter that her brother could not forget. Her whole plea was "for OMist's salce." And at last he wrote a reply giving his consent. The princess, happy in the sacrifice, sold her jewels and finished and furnished the hospital.
.And not only so. Her sublimest gift was the gift of herself. Into 'the home she had built she went day after day, God's ministering angel to those deformed and loathsome cripples. One day a poor woman, at whose bedside day after day she had thus been a visitor, was drawing near to death. Eugenie had been wont to sit by her, holding her hand and pleading with. her to accept Jesus as her Saviour. And now as the last hour had come she raised herself in bed, bent over the princess' hand, and caressing it said, "Lovely princess, I bless the Lord for sending you to this island, for but for you I never should have learned to love Jesus and my soul would have been lost." Then she fell back and expired, but the hand of Eugenie was covered with the tear-drops from those dying eyes. Eugenie, looked down at her hand, saw those grateful tears glistening upon her hand in the sunlight, and lifting her eyes to God said, ., 0 my Saviour. I sold my jewels for thee, bu,t I see them all restored, and hOtv much more beautiful they are titan lJ)hen Iformerly owned them!"
THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE AGES
Let our giving to missions be wholly reconstructed. Let as awake to the fact that we have not yet begun to learn the divine lesson of self-sacrifice. Our luxuries must be surrendered in view of the destitution of a ptlrishing world-yes, even our comforts, our very necessities must be diminished and sacrificed in the face of the extremities of those who must perish for the want of bread.
THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE AGES.
By JACOB OHAl[BERLAIN, !lI.D., D.D., OF M~DANAPALLE, INDIA.
INDIA is the home of one-sixth of the human race. Reaching from Oape Oomorin, within eight degrees of the Equator, north 2,000 miles to the peaks of the Himalayas, and from Afghanistan through 1,800 miles to Indo-Ohina, we have a country inhabited by 252,000,000, and equal to about one-half of the area of the United States.
The people are not homogeneous. There are forty languages spoken in India; many are very ancient and polished. The Sanskrit, in which the Vedas were written, rivals even the Greek in fullness, power, and beauty, and is stiU the language of ritual in all India, being to the Hindus all that Latin is in the Romish Ohurch. The people are as different as their languages; not of one cast of countenance, not of one ethnological descent. The religion of the people of India is one- Brahmanism or Hinduism-with the exception of the descendants of the Mohammedan invaders of some seven centuries ago. Of these, 40,000,000 remain in India still, and are Mohammedan. .
Let me remind you what Brahmanism or Hinduism is. Their ancient Vedas, the most ancient of which is believed to have been written about the time of Moses, teach, in the main, a true conception of God· and man and sin and sacrifice. But though they have these ancient Vedas and these purer ideas of God, there came later the teaching and the practice of polytheism and idolatry, until what once was light in Asia has become darkness.
As the purer religion of the Vedas degenerated, their purer morals gave place to sensuality, corruption and vice. As a physician I have treated many thousal!ds of patients, from the Rajah to the beggar, and I say that there is no such thing as purity or virtue among them.
And I have this from the confessions of their best men, that" there is not a family that is not tainted with the impure disease." Honesty in dealings is scarcely known, and is not expected in trade. And al- though their Vedas, poets and sages call on the people to main- tain truth as their choicest heritage, yet there is no truth among the people. A common proverb among the Telugus is, "If a man tells the truth, the town will soon become too hot for him." I was once preach- ing in a Telugu city; said I, "You Hindus tell a lie as often as you tell the truth." "What, sir I" said a Brahman right before me, "do you say that we Hindus tell a lie as often as we tell the truth?" " Yes," said I, intending to staud my ground. "Sir," said he, "we Hindus tell ten lies for every truth we utter." That time he certainly told the truth.
Hinduism has two chief bulwarks in this generation: caste and the endowed temples. Caste is a religious distinction. It is not a social distinction, but one of birth; for Brahma created each caste by a different creation, they hold. 'fhe Brahman claims that he is holier than the rest, and if we yield to caste we must allow him to say to the rest, "Stand by thyself, for I am holier than thou." If we give place to caste, we can no longer proclaim, "As in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," for they hold that there were a dozen Adams. Caste is so firmly rooted that I have known of a Brahman that died by starvation when there was food placed by his side, because that food was cooked by one of a lower caste. "Better die," said he, "and reach heaven, than eat that food and live, and lose caste and lose heaven," Caste, then, is the adamantine chain which Satan has wound around these people to hold them back from embracing the truth.
The second great bulwark which supports the system is its myriads of endowed temples. They dot every hilltop and every plain, endowed in former ages with rich lands-the choicest of the fields. AU the revenues of those lands go to the support of the priesthood, who carryon the ceremonies of the temples. If Christianity prevails the Brahmans will cease to reap those revenues. By this craft they have their wealth, and they lock arms to defend their ancient system against the missionary. I had a discussion in the Mysore country, in a city where no missionary had been before, with the chief priest of that region, the president of their theological seminary, where were seventy young Brahmans studying under him for the priesthood. He, surrounded by his disciples, had come to meet us in the market-place, and the discussion lasted hour after hour. He had been pushed to the wall; but darkness coming on he said there was no time to discuss further then, but he would renew the discussion the next evening.
At noon the next day, when all the people were indoors at their midday meal, he stole out of the northern gate of the city, and, coming around through the rice fiel~s and behind the trees to our tent, asked if he might come in and let down the curtain. " Certainly." " Is there anyone within hearing besides yourselves?" " No ; all our people are away at their dinner." At once his whole mien and appearance changed. "Sirs," said he to us, "what you said yesterday was utterly unanswerable. I did the best I could to defend my own posi- I tion, but I am not going to meet you again. What you said is so pure, so holy, so good, it appeals so to the highest needs and desires of men, that it seems as if it must be divine, it must be true. At all events, it is a better religion than ours. But, sirs, we Brahmans canuot afford to let you succeed. Look at our position. . We reap the rich revenues from all these temples. Weare treated as demigods by the people. At every festival we receive rich gifts. Weare looked up to and worshiped. But let your system succeed, which teaches that there need be no human mediator between God and man but Jesus Ohrist, and we Brahmans drop from our high pedestal down to the level of what we are worth, and you know what that means as well as we do. We Brahmans can't afford to let you succeed. We have got to fight you." And fight us they do.
How then is such a system, defended by the power of caste and of an endowed priesthood, to be overcome? We missionaries try to follow our Master in the oral proclamation of the gospel to the people, carrying it to them in the highways and the byways, in their towns, their villages, their hamlets; at their markets and their fairs. We take our tent and pitch it by some central village, and preach in that and each of the surrounding villages within a radius of say three or four miles, reaching perhaps forty to eighty villages, before moving on. We mount upon some platform and gather the people together, and preach to them of Ohrist and his salvation. In our part of the country we gather them by the voice of song. The eighteen millions of Telugu people are a very musical people, and their language is a language of poetry and song. They have old tunes by the hundred, weird and sweet and pleasant, which they have sung through twenty generations in the praise of their gods. We, anxious to seize the devil's choicest weapons to thrust him with, take these tunes of theirs and marry them to Ohristian words, and set them afloat again through the country in tracts with the gospel message put into their style of poetry, and adapted to their choicest tunes. They, curious to see how the new words fit the old tune, will often sing until they sometimes sing the gospel message into their understanding, and the love of Ohrist into their hearts. And on in the night, mingled with my sleep, I have been conscious of hearing songs of redeeming love sung by Hindus who had that day, for the first time, heard of the Redeemer, Jesus. Thus with preaching and with song and with tract and Scripture scattered as we go, do we canvass the country sowing the seed of the kingdom, and the seed is taking root.
We are reaching the people also by medical work. Many of us are physicians as well as ministers. We have gathered in thousands from all the villages around simply by the knowledge that if they came their diseases would be healed. They have come from thousands of towns and villages in all directions. They hear the Bible read; they hear the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Ohrist; they listen as we raise ~he voice of prayer to him who made us and who can save us; they go back to their homes; they take with them the tickets on which are printed a concise statement of Christian truth, and thus the truth is being scattered where we have never set foot.
Our schools present the truths of Christianity. Heathen pupils come to them with the understanding that they will study what the Christians do. Everyone of them studies the Bible, and so we initiate the young into the pure teachings of the religion of Jesus; and we have girls' schools now, which are filled with the highest caste of Hindu young women. They all read the Bible, learn our Christian hymns, study our catechisms, and come to a knowledge of the truth in these schools; and thus we are reaching the secluded zenanas everywhere. Then we have our Anglo-vernacular schools, high schools and Christian colleges, with which we reach young men preparing for the universities and help them on their way through those. In everyone of these schools the Bible is studied as a text-book in each class every day. In December, 1883, I received a very singular petition from Vayalpad, the county town of the adjacent county. There were no Christians in that county. The petition was brought by a special 'messenger and signed by the chief men, not one of whom was a Christian. They petitioned me to receive under my charge the Anglo-vernacular school which they had established the year before for teaching their sons, and to introduce the Bible as a text-book in every class every day.
Much surprised at the tenor of the request, I went out at once to see them and see if they were in earnest. A meeting was summoned of all interested in the school. I read this petition to them. I said: "If this school is placed under my charge, it will be my aim to present the highest truth that man can conceive of to all the pupils. With that understanding, do you wish me to receive the school? The head mas- ter of the school, a Brahman, not a Christian, but who had himself been educated in a mission school, spoke first, telling of what he had learned in that mission school, how he had learned to reverence the Bible, and how anxious he was that these, his pupils, should be under biblical instruction. By experience he knew what the Bible did for one, even though he did not become a Christian. Then a native judge, . the judge of four counties, spoke. He was a high-caste native gentleman and finely educated. His speech was so remarkable that when I reached home I wrote it down in English. He said : "I was not educated in a mission school, but I have many friends who were and who studied the Bible daily in school. I have witnessed its effect upon their lives. I have read the Bible myself privately a great deal. I have come to know the pure and beautiful morality it inculcates. Nothing in our Vedas can compare with it. Let your sons study the Bible. They need not become Christians; but if you want your sons to become noble, upright men, put this school under the charge of the missionary and have the Bible taught in it daily. I have but one son. On him all my hopes are centered. I am able to send him where I please for his education, but I want him to be a noble, earnest man. I have therefore sent him to the Madras Christian College, and there he studies the Bible with the missionaries every day." • By unanimous vote the school was placed under my charge. The Bible from that day was introduced in every class, taught by our cate- chists, and as I examined the school from month to month before I came home I found there was no lesson learned with more avidity, no examination passed better than in the Bible. Thus are we reaching the young men of India. But they seek, as did this Hindu judge, to obtain the morality of the Bible, the nobility of character which its precepts give, without embracing Christianity. They forsake their old religion. They neglect their ancient scriptures. They sip at the fountain of the Bible, but alas, they do not take the Jesus of the Bible to be their Saviour. Fearful danger lies before them.
Thirty-five different missionary societies laboring in India, with their 658 ordained missionaries, have been diligently working, sowing the seed and preparing for the harvest. The Scriptures in twenty-five languages have been scattered throughout the hundred thousand towns and villages of India. These gospels have gone into ten thousand vil- lages where there is no missionary, no native assistant, and not a Christian. We have indeed made the people dissatisfied with their own system, but we have not yet given them Ohrist. Said a Brahman to one of our missionaries visiting that village for the third time in ten years: "Sir, you come just often enough to make us dissatisfied with our old religion. You shake our faith in our ancient gods. You do not come enough to explain your religion to us, so that we can intelligently embrace it. Either keep away entirely or come and bring us to your God and Saviour."
And there was truth in what he said. 'rhe mass of intelligent men all through India have lost faith in their old religion, and now Satan comes in to reap the harvest. 'rhey are dissatisfied with their ancient system, and he brings in the books of John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer and Huxley, and men of that class-yes, and of Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, and of Voltaire and Thomas Paine. The writings of these are scattered all through India, and presses run night and day casting off pages by the million for the poisoning of these awakened Hindu minds.. Anything opposing Christianity, no matter how vile, will be published by them and scattered through the country broadcast.
The whole nation is on the eve of coming out of Hinduism and going into-what?
" Sir," said a Brahman priest to me, "I have never seen a missionary. I have never seen your Veda. But one of our townsmen went to your hospital and was cured, and brought a little ticket which you give your patients, on the back of which was printed a statement of your religion. That is all I have ever seen. He told me what he had heard of your preaching at the hospital. That is all I have ever heard of your religion. We Brahmans have been reading that gospel ticket. It has shown us that Hinduism is not the complete soul-satisfying system that we imagined it to be by pointing out a nobler way. We have talked it over. Sir, Hinduism is doomed. It must go by theboard. Now I have come eighty mile'tto ask you, What are you going to give us in its place?"
I tried to tell him of the pure religion of Jesus Christ, which we were going to give them in the place of Hinduism; and as I talked with him, said I to myself: "Am I telling this man true or false? Are we going to give to these teeming and now awakened millions-are we going to give them the religion of our Jesus? Or are we going to awaken them and dissatisfy them with their own system and then leave them to drift out into skepticism or rationalistic deism or black agnosticism? That is what they are drifting to, and that does not interfere with their caste and the enjoyment of the revenues of the Hindu temples. Shall we let them go out into that realm of darkness? Shall the ruins of Hindu temples be built up into temples for Satan, or into temples of the Most High God?"
THE TIME FOR ACTION.
There is a "tide in the affairs of men" in matters spiritual as well as temporal. That tide in India is now at its flood. If it recedes, the advantages that we now have will never again be offered. There is not a province where Hinduism stands firm on its ancient basis. There is not a caste or a creed whose ranks do not show gaps made by those who have deserted them and enlisted under the banner of King Immanuel. The thirty-five missionary societies now in India are coming together for the conflict. The strategic points have been gained. Plans for the final attack are matured. The enemy are weakening and are dispirited. Already do we see them on their citadels prepared to let down the flag and surrender if a vigorous' assault be made. But, alas! our forces on the field are still too weak to make that assault.
But can the men and the sinews of war for this stupendous battle be obtained? When Lincoln, in the early daya of the war, issued his call for 75,000 volunteers, the cable told us that the roll of 75,000 was filled; that word had to be sent out to stop the enrollment, as so many more offered. Then the men and women of the North said, "Send them into the field. We will raise the needed funds." And right royally was the promise fulfilled.
We must have an army of 75,000 to conquer India for Christ! The privates for the army we will enlist there. We must have 5,000 "West Point officers" within five years to lead that army. 'rhoy must be men from America and Europe, trained for the conflict in the older Chris- tian lands. There has been no greater msplration in this century than . the springing forward within the past twelve months of 2,500 young men and women in America enrolling themselves thus as volunteers to go to the front if God shall open the way. "Is it possible for the church to send out and support such a great number of new recruits?" That question is born not of faith, but of fear. Behold God's triangle! He has created the opening bj; his marvelous providences. By his Spirit he has called for these volunteers, and they have responded. The apex of the triangle only needs the funds. The silver and the gold ate the Lord's. God's triangle is never incomplete. In the name of our Immanuel, I ring out the caU for 5,000 volunteers for tMs glorious warfare!
There are in India 60,000 young converts to be trained for the work. They have not the life, the energy, the spiritual earnestness for the work of saving other souls that we have longed to see in them. Their piety, their endurance under persecution, their devotedness to Christ, we do not question. But they have not inherited the capacity for organized vigorous effort. '.rhey do not know how to touch their fellows. We need in India the life, the fire, the method, which the Y. M. C. A.'s are giving to the young men in America. We need organized effort all along the line.
In our great cities in India there is abundance of material to work upon and to work with. Our colleges, our universities, our schools, all give abundant scope. Send us out one of the best-trained General Secretaries, trained in the school of failure as well as in that of success, that we may know that he will endure. He need know no language but English, for his labor should be given to laying the fouudations all through India, not among the people of one language, and for such work the English is sufficient. Let him be a man of experience, of spiritual power, of hop@fulness, of tact. With him send us five younger men to be general secretaries in the five capitals of India-Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Allahabad, Lahore. They will need to learn each the principal vernacular of his presidency.
When out upon a tour in 1879, in a county where there was not a Christian, a native official, high in office, in caste, in social position and in wealth, sent a message to me saying that he would like to come and see me privately for the treatment of an ailment. I found that he had some trifling ailment, the treatment of which was dispatched in a few moments; he had used the little ailment merely as a cover to talk with me about Christianity. He said to me in substance: "Sir, I am not a Christian. I am still regarded as a devout Hindu. I still perform enough Hindu ceremonies to avoid suspicion. But in my heart I dare not deny the claims of the Bible. I see the power of Jesus Christ in the lives of hisfollowers so distinctly that I cannot deny his divinity. He is not yet my Saviour. Caste, wealth, position, family, all hold me back. But even now I never allow him to be spoken against in my presence. I have long been reading the Bible in secret. The more I read of Christ and ponder over his life and teachings, and the power to conquer sin that comes from embracing his religion, the more do I feel that in the end I shall have to accept him at any cost as my personal Saviour. But how can I do it and bring ruin upon my family?"
That was six or eight years ago. He has not yet come to the Saviour ; and there It.J"e thousands in this position all over India. They are not being reached. They need not polemics, but a loving, feeling presentation of the gospel of Christ.
Five hundred years before Christ, India was groaning under Brahmanical sacerdotalism, priestcraft, polytheism, idolatry, and caste. Buddha arose as a reformer. With the modicum of truth which he presented to them, teaching them that there was one God, that no human mediation was necessary between God and man, that all men constituted one brotherhood, that service for others was man's highest glory, he fired his disciples with zeal, and they went forth with him to conquer India to their new-found faith. Kings became the nursing fathers of the new religion. A prince of the royal house of Magadha, with his associates in the work, went down through India, and crossed to Ceylon, and all Oeylon was converted to Buddhism. Other disciples went around the northern end of the Bay of Bengal and converted all Burmah to Buddhism. They entered Siam, and all Siam and its monarch embraced the faith. These Buddhist missionaries, climbing up the ascents. of the Himalaya Mountains, went through Nepaul, and all the Nepaulese became Buddhists. They went over into Thibet, and Thibet became and remains Buddhist. They passed on into Siberia; into Ohina, and two hundred millions of its people embraced their faith. ~'hey crossed over to the island empire of Japan, and the standard of Buddha was planted there.
Let this history be to us a prophecy and an inspiration. Give us the men and all the agencies God has put in our power, and we can, by God's blessing, bring India to Ohrist within this onr generation. The Hindu converts will repeat the history of the past; but with new zeal, aided by a power that Buddha's disciples knew not. Again will they sweep through Nepaul and Thibet. Again will they traverse Siberia to its northern limit, and sweep over northern Ohina, conquering not for Buddha, but for Ohrist. The Mohammedan population of India, thus converted, will sweep northward and westward through Arabia and the Turkish Empire, and joining with the missionary forces already at work bring their coreligionists to Ohrist. The Japanese, now so rapidly and grandly enlisted under the banner of Christ, having then through their vigorous home missions completed the conversion of the islands of Japan, will sweep across through Korea and on through Siberia, to meet the advancing Hindu army of Ohrist. And the Chinese contingent, starting northward from Canton and Swatow and Amoy and Foochow, gathering force from the other coast missions and the Inland Mission, will complete th!;l conquest of Ohina, and all Asia will have been brought to Ohrist. Then upon the high mountains in East- will ern Asia will those three armies meet, and together plant the royal standal'd of King Immanuel, and from those united hosts go up the shout, "Hallelujah! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
THE MlRAOLES OF MISSIONS.-No. III.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] THE "WILD MEN" OF BURMAH.
WHEN the missionaries first landed in Burmah they were not even aware of the existence of the Karens or Karians or wild rnen, a rude race inhabiting also Siam and parts of Ohina, dwelling in jungles and mountainous districts, and numbering from 35,000 to 40,000. They reckon themselves by families, and though a family should number hun- dreds of souls it has but one house. Their government is primitive and patriarchal. They wear but little clothing, generally a long sleeveless shirt of coarse cotton. It is now sixty years ago since these obscure people were discovered by the Baptist missionaries. They were oppressed and virtually enslaved by the Burmans.
While their Burman oppressors turned proudly away from the cross, and clung the closer and the more resolutely to the follies and absurdi- ties of their atheistic idolatry, these humble people emerged from their obscure hiding places and not only heard the simple message of the gospel with a strange gladness, but bore the tidings from village to village till hundreds had been baptized and added to the church of God. Wherever the missionaries went the good news had preceded them, and in even the most remote, retired and untraveled quarters they found some who, like Simeon, were waiting for more light and prepared for its reception. Side by side with preaching went the mission schools. By lessons in language and science, as well as in the faith of Ohrist, these devoted men and women sought to lead the young from the vanities, idolatries and superstitions of their ancestors, and displace the , doctrines of Gautama by the teachings of Jesus. The printing press was also brought into requisition. Within ten years after the mission was begun fonts of type were prepared in each of the Karen dialects, and thousands of copies of books, tracts and portions of the Scriptures were published. The natives speaking the several languages soon learned to print them and became valuable helpers both in producing and distributing the issues of the press.
It may be worth while to trace at least the grand 9utlines of this wonderful history of modern gospel triumphs. When in 1828 Mr. Boardman removed from Maulmain to Tavoy there lived in his family a middle-aged man who had been a slave till the missionaries themselves purchased his freedom. Already a convert to Ohristianity, soon after' their arrival in this stronghold of Gautama with its two hundred Bud- dhist priests, this poor Karen was baptized. His name was Kho-Thah- by-u. He was the first Karen convert; his turning to Ohrist was the turning point in the history of the degraded race to which he belonged, and the work begun in his transformation was ~he auspicious forerunner and foretaste of a success which has in all Christian history scarce any superior or even equal as a demonstration of divine power. These "wild men," upon whom even the Burmans looked down with haughty contempt as servile inferiors, weaker in body and mind than their oppressors, the victims of intemperance and disgusting vices, were cruelly trodden under foot and virtually enslaved by the Burmans, who forced them to till the land, pay exorbitant taxes, and do all kinds of slave labor. To escape their persecutors they became half-nomads, wandering into remote and inaccessible regions that they might not be kidnapped and reduced to bondage. Though they had some crude belief in deity, and a future state with its awards, they had neither a definite religious faith and form of religion nor a priesthood. Yet these were the people whose unbounded enthusiasm in receiving the gospel has proven that none are so low that the good news may not at once reach to their deep degradation and accomplish their moral uplifting and utter transformation. Soon after Mr. Boardman settled at Tavoy, Ko-Thah-byu brought to him several Karens of the city. 'l'his first convert not only evinced a true and deep interest in Christ, but a passion for other souls that proved how the degraded pagan may not only be converted, but take up the work of winning souls with avidity and constancy.
At one of the Karen villages, twelve years before, a traveling Mussulman had left a mysterious book, which he told the Karens was sacred and entitled to divine honors. The superstitious party who had charge of it knew nothing of its contents, but wrapped it in muslin and enc~sed it in basket-work of reeds covered with pitch, like the Nile cradle of Moses. The mysterious book became a deified obJect and religiously venerated. The keeper himself became a kind of high priest and sacristan combined, and it was vaguely believed that a treasure had been sent them from a.bove which some future messenger would claim and explain. When Mr. Boardman came to the village he was visited by the guardian of the holy book to ask concerning its character. He could give no opinion till he should examine the book. So the keeper of it returned to his own village and came back after several days bearing the revered book and followed by a numerous train of interested people, all eager to know Mr. Boardman's verdict concerning this unknown volume. The wrappings were removed, and an old, torn, worn-out copy of The Book of Oommon Prayer and Psalms was revealed. It ,was an Oxford edition in English. Mr. Boardman, like Paul at Athens, told the people they were, in their way, very religious, but their devotion was misplaced. They had been ignorantly wor- shiping an unknown god, and he took opportunity now to declare to them the messa;ge of the true God. ." That book," said he, "is a good book, and teaches of the true God in heaven." The docility of the people was amazing. These Karens seemed to feel the sin of having given to a mere book the homage due only to God, and during the two days of Mr. Boardman's stay received with deep interest his instruction. The aged keeper of the book saw that his office and dignity were at an end and laid aside his sorcerer's fantastical dress and wand which had been for twelve years the sign and sceptre of his authority and influence.
In 1831 Mr. Boardman yielded to solicitation and began to visit the Karen villages, accompanied by the devoted Kho-Thah-byu. First of aU they went to the village of Tshick-Koo, the repository of the" sacred volume." The journey was through a country where the very hills and mountains were monuments of idolatry-every height was crowned with a pagoda.
Three days' journey brought him to Tshick-Koo, where he not only found a cordial welcome, but a zayat had been built in anticipation of his coming, and it was large enough to accommodate the whole population of the small village. There at once he preached, Kho-Thah-byu being his interpreter to such as were ignorant of Burman. Not only was he heard gladly, but some stayed all night at the zayat to hear him and the next day crowded about him with presents, and at the end of the second day five came for1vard to receive baptism, one of them the old sorcerer himself. Wherever he went he was received with great hospitality and frequently found candidates for baptism who had first heard of Christ from the lips of Kho-Thah-byu. This itinerant experience of ten days determined him to form a grand plan of comprehensive missionary operations, embracing preaching tours among the villages and establishment of Christian schools.
In 1829 the famous Tavoy rebellion scattered the little band of Karen disciples, broke up the schools and destroyed the mission premises, but when Mr. Boardman returned the fugitives came back from the jungles and new power attended the preaching of the word. There were those verging upon old age who traveled fifty miles by hard and perilous paths to apply for baptism. Kho-Thah-byu went often over the mountains to bear the gospel message, and from these distant homes, some of them on the borders of Siam, there came to the missionaries Karen inquirers who had been first reached by these disciples, who, scattered abroad, went preaching the word. On one occasion Kho-Thah-byu brought back forty of his countrymen.
Mr. Boardman's health gave way and he saw that his end was near. These simple Karens in the villages roundabout, fearing that he would not be able to visit them as he had promised, came to Tavoy and bore him ona cot upon their shoulders to the zayat they had builtior his use on the banks of a beautiful stream, where the sloping mountainsides were lined with Karen villages. There he found about fifty can- di@tea for baptism. With the aid of Rev. Mr. Mason and native disciples the dying missIonary examined the candidates, and at the sunset . hour his cot was placed by the riverside and the first Ohristian baptism: ever known in that district was celebrated in that mountain stream by Mr. Mason. This was Mr. Boardman's" closing scene "-fit close to the labors of a devoted missionary. They attempted to bear him back to Tavoy, but he died on the way, and his tomb is in the midst of what was once a Buddhist grove and beneath the shadow of a ruined pagoda. Its simple marble slab bears an epitaph which reminds us of Ohristopher Wren's memorial in St. Paul's cathedral, "If you seek his monument, look around you."
The next prominent stage in this wonderful work among the Karens was the gathering of these scattered converts from the villages into a community by themselves, in order that they might be provided with schools and other means of religious culture and growth quite impracticable in their scattered condition. This docile people accepted Mr. Mason's proposal, and about the year 1833 actually abandoned their homes, and a site was chosen for a new Ohristian town. It was the site of a former settlement known as "the ancient city," but only tradition of its former condition survived. The new settlement was called Matah, city of love, almost the Karen equivalent for Philadelphia. Fifteen years wrought there marvelous transformations: there might be found, forty years ago, a flourishing church, Ohristian schools, a.nd a happy, harmonious people, their nomadic habits having given way to a settled life of trade, industry, and agriculture. Heathen vices had already been displaced by neatness, cleanliness, decency and ordl(r. They began to support not only their own families but their own schools and the institutions of the gospel. The history of the wonderful changes wrought by the gospel among the "wild men" of Burmah we cannot trace further. Both in manners and morals, in manhood and hvusehold life, the Karen became unrecognizable after tHe gospel had touched his mind and heart.
When Mr. Mason in 1832 visited the fields of the beloved Board- man's labor, he came to the villages under the jurisdiction of Moung So, the chief, who early sought the missionaries at Tavoy, and he beheld with astonishment the changes already wrought. Hear his own words: " I no longer date from a heathen land. Heathenism has fled these banks. I eat the rice and potatoes and fruit cultivated by Ohristian hands, look on the fields of Ohristians, and see no dwellings but those of Ohristian families. I am seated in the midst of a Ohristian village, surrounded by a people that love, talk, act, and in my eyes look like Ohristians !" And this was over fifty years ago• .At Dong-Yahn the lamented Eleanor Macomber, in December, 1836, found the poor Karens, slaves of drunkenness and all the most loath- SOIJle vices of heathenism. With the aid only of two or three natives she maintained at her own dwelling daily prayer and Sabbath worship and opened a small school. Before the close of the .first season tw~lve Karens; rescued out of their low and degraded paganism, were baptized and formed into a church of Christ. By September of 1837 native preachers were in charge of the church and schools, and Dong-Yahn was the seat of a flourishing Christian community, from which Over a wide district crowded with Karens the ligbt and life of the gospel was extending. Her influence on the women and girls was such that scarce a home in the numerous villages of the jungle had not felt the power of her Christian womanhood to uplift and transform female character; and when in 1840, after less than four years of labor, she was called to her reward, the wilderness had already begun to bloom like Eden and the desert like the garden of the Lord. Persecution broke out, and the poor victims fled in every direction, but they held fast their fai~h, and like primitive disciples preached it when scattered abroad.
Among the most fascinating stories of missions is this triumph of the Christian faith in the wilderness of Burmah. It was propagated by Karens, who themselves had only just heard it and had scarcely learned to read the Gospels-men" persecuted and despised by cruel priests and superstitious despots"-yet that gospel took possession of hundreds of Karen hearts and homes and lifted a whole people to a new plane of domestic and social life and started them on a new career! What hath God wrought!
But the work thus begun has grown with a rapidity seldom paral- leled. In 1878 the fiftieth anniversary of the conversion of Ko-Thah- byu was kept by jubilee gatherings and the consecration of the Memorial Hall that bears his name. The Karens themselves built it for school and other mission purposes at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars. It rep- resented twenty thousand then living disciples, converted from demon worship, maintaining their own churches and schools, besides twenty thousand more who, in the faith of Jesus, have died and gone to be with him in glory.
At the dedication of this Hall four veteran native Karen pastors and hundreds of others were present. 'fhe hall measures 134 feet on its south front, 131 on the east, and 104 on the west. It has a splendid audience room 66 by 38 feet, and with a fine gallery. Along the east side is carved in Karen, "Behold the Lamb of God," etc., and on the west side, "These words . . . thou shall teach diligently unto thy children." What a work may this hall see done in fifty years to come!
He who would realize what the gospel has done for the Karen slaves must go and stand on that" gospel hill" and see Ko-Thah-byu Memo- rial Hall confronting Shway-Mote-Tau pagoda on an opposing hill, with its shrines and fanes. Here is the double monument of what the ; Karens 1(Jere and are. Burmah has not only taken her stand among· the givers, but in 1880 ranked third in the li!:St of donors to the Bap- tist Missionary Union, only Massachusetts and New York outranking her! Burmah gave $31,616.14! and of this amount the Karen churches gave over $30,000! Fifty years ago in idolatry, now an evangelizing power! And not content with this, they set about raising another $25,000 to endow a normal and industrial institute! Their liberality puts to shame the so-called benevolence of our Ohristians at home. We give out of our abundance; "the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abound unto the riches of their liberality."
In the Government Administration Report for British Burmah for 1880-81 there is a glowing tribute to the American Baptist missionaries, followed by the statement that there were then attached ,to their communion" 451 Ohristian Karen parishes, most of which support their own church, parish school and native pastor, and many of which subscribe considerable sums for missionary work." The report adds: "Ohristianity continues to spread among the Karens, to the great advantage of the commonwealth, and the Ohristian Karen communities are distinctly more industrious, better educated and more, law-abiding than the Burman and Karen villages around them. The Karen race and the British Government owe a great debt to the American missionaries, who have, under Providence, wrought this change among the Karens of Burmah."
In connection with these gospel triumphs the name of that first Karen convert can never be forgotten. First in the Burmese Empire to embrace Ohristianity, afterward pastor of Maubee, for many years he preached the gospel to his despised and oppressed countrymen. The servant of Ohrist, the apostle of the Karens, whose conversion was the pivotal point in the history of a whole people, was a poor degraded Karen slave!
Sau Quala was one of the first converts among the degraded Karens. From the lowest state the gospel raised him, with a rapidity that no civilization ever knew, to a noble Ohristian manhood. His' first impulse was to tell others of Jesus. He helped to translate the Bible into the Karen tongue, for fifteen years guided the missionaries through the jungles, and then himself began to preach and to plant new churches. In one year he had formed nine, with 741 converts; in less than three years the nine had grown to thirty, with 2,000 converts. He did his work without salary, and when the English Government offered him a position, with large compensation, he at once declined, though his poverty was such as prevented him from taking his lovely wife with him in his missionary tours! This one man, whom no bait of money or position or personal ease could win to leave his holy and unselfish work, is an unanswerable proof that a power higher than man works in Ohristianity. And yet there are those who "do not believe in missions !"
WOMAN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS
WOMAN'S WORK FOR MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] PAUL writes to the Philippians of those "women which labored with him in the gospel;" mark the phrase, "who labored with me in the gospel"- tTwtjO).1)tTav – were my co-athletes, fellow-gladiators, al':! though the life and labor of the gospel were an arena and they were his fellow-combatants, destined to the crown of life!
God fitted woman constitutionally for a high service in the gospel. Woman is pre-eminent above man in her sentimental, emotional and religious nature, and so it is that she holds the very keys of the domestic ~anctuary in the opportunity to form youthful character. She has marvelous capacity for teaching and for endurance. She is especially fitted to care for, sympathize with and reach her own sex. Hitherto in our denominational schemes she has been quite too much neglected and her work almost altogether ignored. But now the time has come when her capacity and sagacity, her intelligence and her consecration, bid fair to constitute her the leader of the modern missionary host. When we think of Augustine and his mother Monica, Ohrysostom and his mother Anthusa, Basil of Ooosarea and his grandmother Emmelia, Gregory of Nazianzen and Nonna, Theodoret and his mother, no marvel that Libanius, the pagan rhetorician, exclaimed in amazement, "What women these Ohristians have!"
Let us not forget how much woman can do for the rising generation by fostering in them a spirit of consecration to the work of God in evan- gelizing the world. The Scriptures * tell us to whom the world and the church are indebted under God for the labors of Timothy: "I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice"; "from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures." Here is the double secret: not only a pious education, but a pious ancestry transmitting an aptitude for a religious life, almost as though faith and devotion of soul to Ohrist were become hereditary, like the curse of a sinful character.
Put in contrast to the exclamation of Libanius what Napoleon said: "France is lost for want of mothers." There was a .boy at Athens, according to the old story, who used to boast that he ruled all Athens. and when asked how, he said, "Why, I rule my mother, my mother rules my father, and my father rules the city." But there is a reverse side to this statement. The mother shapes the character and influence of the child, the child determines the future man and woman; and so in the hands of the mothers God puts the character of the whole generation that in thirty years is to give shape to society. As we trace * Compo 2 Tim. i. 5, and iii. 15. great rivers to their sources we find a point in every stream where by the palm of the hand you may divert the current to any direction. At that point in the stream of human life God puts the mother.
We wish, however, to magnify especially woman's work for the conversion of woman in pagan countries, and in the organization of her own sex in Ohristian lands for missionary effort. Let us remember that she can especially understand and appreciate the condition of her own sex, and the elevation to which the gospel of Ohrist has brought her and can bring her degraded sisterhood elsewhere, and again that she alone can have access to the women of pagan countries. The severe restrictions of the seraglio, harem, zenana, forbid a mau to approach Eastern wives and mothers, even in capacity of a physician. There are perhaps four hundred million women who, if reached at all, must be reached by Ohristian women.
Jerome in his letter to Otesiphon says that Simon Magus founded his heresy by the help of Helena, a prostitute. Nicolaus of Antioch, the founder of all impurities, led about troops of women. Marcion also sent in advance to Rome a woman for his greater pleasure. Apelles had Philumena for a companion. Montanus first corrupted Prisca and Maximilla with gold and then polluted them with heresy. Arius, that he might deceive the world, deceived first the sister of his prince. Donatus was aided by the fortune of Lucilla. The bliud Agape led the blind Elpidius, and Galla was allied to Priscillian, and Justinian and Theodora were associated.
Even so has God ordained woman's work for the conversion of the world to be the grpat auxiliary to man's endeavor.
A student at Auburn inquired, "Shall I go to the heathen married or single?" Dr. Eli Smith replied, "By all means, married. 1. Because a single man must depend on another missionary's wife for home comforts, etc., which is unfair. 2. Because the question is not whether he shall take care of her, but she of him. 3. Because a single man in the East is looked, upon as corrupt. 4. Because woman proves the equal, if not the superior, of man in Ohristian work." He might have added, Because nothing more influences the heathen mind than the exhibition of what Ohristianity makes woman and home life.
Woman's work in the conversion of the world may be considered from four points of prospect.
1. The womanly nature and character. 2. The relation woman peculiarly bears to Ohristianity. 3. Woman's identification with her own sex in pagan lands. 4. Woman's opportunity and responsibility in the education of children. Woman sets us the example of self-sacrifice. The Roman maidens gave their tresses to make bowstrings for the Roman soldiers, in the second war with Oarthage. The Tyrian girls gave their long locks to be woven into cables to defend the city against Alexander. The women of Ephesus contributed their jewelry to restore Diana's temple. From the day that the hosts of women gave their polished metal mirrors to be cast into the mould for the brazen laver for the tabernacle, women have been our examples in the heroism of self-denial.
Woman's nature gives predominance to love. Now religion is more than anything else a matter of the affections. Although there can be no holy living without first a basis of conviction or belief, there may be this basis without any structure of godly character resting upon it. Not until the heart is touched by the truth and our love responds to our faith does true union with God begin, and the building of a renewed nature surmount the basis of belief. Hence when the affectional nature predominates we may naturally expect to see the noblest developments of piety. From the beginning of Christ's ministry until now women have been largely in the majority in the number of the followers of Jesus, and distinguished alike for their service and their suffering in his cause.
The elements of womanly character, therefore, indicate her peculiar fitness to co-operate in the conversion of the world. She is confessedly prominent and pre-eminent in her sentimental, emotional, affectional and religious nature.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, before she could read, used to go into the castle chapel and bow before the crucifix and place her little golden crown before the thorny crown. Whatever power woman may manifest in intellect, and whatever prominence she may exhibit in purely intellectual faculties and functions, no one will deny that her affectional and emotional nature is especially rich and exuberant.
Women have been pre-eminent in literature, like Martineau, Browning, Bronte, Beecher, Edgeworth; in art like Hosmer and Bonheur; in science like Somerville and Mitchell; in humanity like Patton and Nightingale; but the pre-eminence of women in direct and indirect missionary work is greater than all. The life of Harriet Newell has made many a missionary. Mrs. Grant and Fidelia Fiske in Persia, the three Mrs. J udsons in Burmah.• Mrs. Krapf in Africa, Mrs. Bushnell at the Gaboon-these are a few specimens of the heroic women who have thrilled the world by the exhibition of their consecration.
The woman of Samaria gave an early example of woman's power as a preacher. What preaching that was! Evangelical, experimental and consistent, earnest, simple, practical, effective. True; she was uneducated and unordained. She inquired of Jesus, .then told of Jesus, and so brought to Jes"iIs, directly and indirectly.
Great is the service rendered by woman in the evangelization of mankind. From the very beginning of Christ's ministry we find women following closely in his footsteps, ministering to him of their substance and sympathy, love and devotion. At his death there stood by his cross the three Marys-Mary his mother, Mary wife of Cleophas and mother of James and J oses, and Mary of Magdala; and Salome wife of Zebedee, and many other women who came up with him from Jerusalem. And again at the sepulchre we find two of the Marys and Salome very early in the morning bringing spices and ointments for his embalmment.
Subsequent to Ohrist's ascension we shall find woman still p;ominently engaged in spreading the conquests of the cross.
Acts ix. 36 : At Joppa there lived Tabitha or Dorcas, a woman full of good works and alms deeds which she did, and at whose bedside stood all the widows weeping and shewing the coats and garments which she had made for the poor while she was with them; and so abundantly did God recognize her service to the saints that Peter was sent to restore her to life. Acts xvi. 13 : When Paul visited Philippi he went out of the city on the Sabbath day by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
There it was that Lydia, the seller of purple cloths from Thyatira, heard the wQrd, whose heart the Lord opened, and who, after her baptism and that of her household, manifested such a grace of hospitality, saying, "If ye have judged me faithful to the Lord, come unto my house and abide," constraining Paul and Timotheus and Silas.
The last chapter of Romans is a chapter of farewell messages. rrwenty-seven persons are mentioned particularly and by name: with special salutation and commendation. Of this number nine are godly women. "Phmbe, our sister deaconess of the church at Oenchrea, who hath been a succorer of many, and of myself also;" "Priscilla, my helper in Ohrist Jesus,'~ who with her husband Aquila actually took Apollos, who though converted, eloquent, and mighty in the Scriptures, was a raw recruit, and "expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly;" "Mary who bestowed much labor on us;" " Junia, of note among the apostles." Ohrysostom regards this as meaning of note as one of the apostles.
Paul describes the good works of the godly woman: "If she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints' feet, if she have relieved the affiicted, if she have diligently followed every good work" (1 Tim. v. 9, 10). All this both evidences Ohristianity and advances it; the pious discharge of motherly responsibility, the exercise of Ohristian hospitality, the ministry of humble service to the weary and afflicted-all this constitutes a method which the humblest woman can follow for the furtherance of Ohrist's gospel. A modern example of fellowship in missionary service may be found in a Vermont mother, following her son Henry in all his work in the missionary field with her prayer, becoming a participator in every visit, discourse, and journey, about four weeks after.
Well may woman be devoted to Ohrist. Ohristianity was the first great step in her elevation to her true rank and place. Even Judaism treated woman with comparative contempt. The Talmud abounds in insulting references to the female sex, classing women with slaves and idiots. 'Whoever will read such works as "Women in Persia," by Laurie, or" Woman in India," by Rudolph, or "The Women of the Arabs," by Jessup, can see what woman is and always has been, independent of the uplifting power of the religion of Ohrist. Well might woman, when apostles fled, the danger brave, last at the cross and earliest at the grave of Ohrist, for all that she is in social position as well as spiritual hopes she owes to Jesus.
Weare sometimes told that it is civilization, not Ohristianity, that has rescued woman from degradation and elevated man in morals. It is a great mistake. When Rome was in her highest state of civilization she was in her lowest stage of morals. Ohina has been a civilized nation for centuries, but the Ohinese women have no educational facilities and no social status above that of a slave; the girl babies are heartlessly murdered and the wife and mother is a mere chattel. No; civillzation without Ohristianity is incapable of purifying man or elevating woman. Ohristianity is the great purifier and elevator. Let us thank God for it, seek more of it, and rejoice more in it.
Woman's work for the conversion of the world is a natural result of her conscious indebtedness to her Saviour and his salvation. Woman feels her indebtedness to Ohristianity for what she is. Man owes to the religion of Ohrist all that he is spiritually as an heir of heavenly hope. But woman owes even her social and domestic dignity and liberty to the gospel. Independent of the influence of Ohristianity, what has she been everywhere and in every age? The slave, the tool, the victim of man. Education even in the Garden Oity of the Orient was the badge of the courtesan. Degradation and thraldom were the universal law of her condition. When Ohrist condescended to be born of a woman and call a Jewish maiden mother, he elevated her sex to a new dignity; I henceforth her social progress began. Paganism had treated her with contempt, as it does still. You insult a Turk by inquiring after the welfare of his wife and daughters, and to bury a female child alive car- ried no twinge of suffering to a parent's heart.
Tryphena and Tryphosa and Persis still labor much in the I~ord. They love his service and the service of souls. God bless the women of this day of missions for their widespread effort to inform the mind, inspire the heart, move the conscience, in the direction of missions I It is now held that the new version of the Old Testament gives a clear authority for women's foreign missionary societies by its rendering of the eleventh verse of the fifty-eighth Psalm: "The Lord giveth the word; the women that publish the tidings are a great host." Their separate organizations are not twenty years old, yet they have overspread the earth. The great uprising of young men and women, unprecedented in human history, who knows how far it is traceable past all the nearer impulses to the remoter cause-the training at the.
knee in the nursery. Go forward, godly women! God has given you the rare gifts and graces, the emotional, affectional fervor, the warm sympathy, the heroic sacrifice. Penetrate the harems and zenanas of the Orient; set up your schools and touch the child heart; build up the Ohristian home in the very centers of pagan, Mohammedan and pa.pal superstition and degradation. Gather your dimes till the mites make the millions; scatter yourtraets till the knowledge of the facts has penetrated even the lowliest home and humblest heart. Leave the stereotyped methods behind while you devise larger and more liberal things. The Lord is with you. May he give you yet more abundant grace and wisdom and success!
In 1883-84 the following list of women's organizations was published by Mr. Wilder. It might now be greatly enlarged: Woman's Union Missionary Society, New York. Organized in 1861. Income, $44,779.
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, Philadelphia. Presbyterian. Organized in 1870. Income, $138,778.
Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, New York. Presbyterian. Organized in 1870. Income, $43,219.
Woman's Presbyterian Board of the Northwest, Chicago. Organized 1870. Income, $59,134.
Woman's Presbyterian Board of the Southwest, St. Louis. Income, $3,646. Woman's Baptist Missionary Society, Massachusetts. Organizf:'d in 1870. Income, $63,424. Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of the West. Chicago, 1871. Income, $30,419. Woman's Board of Missions of the A. B. C. F. M., Boston, 1869. Income, $137,949. Protestant Episcopal Woman's Auxiliary, New York, 1871. Income, $18,179. Boxes, $131,617. Freedmen and Indians, $30,362. Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of M. E. Church, New York, 1869. Income, $143,199. Woman's Missionary Society of M. E. Church South, Nashville, 1878. Income, $52,652. Woman's Missionary Society of M. P. Church, Pittsburg. Income, $2,135. Woman's Board of Foreign Missions, Reformed (Dutch), New York, 1875. Income, $20,573. Woman's Missionary Association of the U. P. Church, Dayton, Ohio, 1875. Income, $9,689. Cumberland Presbyterian Board, Evansville, Ind., 1879. Income, $8,860. Lutheran General Synod's Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society, Baltimore, Md., 1879. Income, $18,825-for two years. Woman's Board of Missions, Church of the Disciples, 1875. Income, about $14,000. Woman's Missionary Society of the Evangelical Association, 1884, Cleveland. Income, $1,220. Free Baptist Woman's Missionary Society, Danville, N. H. Income, $5,712. Woman's Foreign Missionary Association of Friends. Income, $3,000. Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of Presbyterian Church in Canada, Toronto, 1876. Income, $10,381. Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of Ontario, Toronto, 1877. Income, $2,500.
We add a selection as in the line of this paper: "Woman occupies a conspicuous place in the primitive church. This will· be evident if we simply mention some of the feminine names which appear in the New Testament records: Anna, Apphia, Chloe, Claudia, Damaris, Dor-
DAVID BRAINERD
cas, Elizabeth, Eunice, Euodia, Joanna, Julia, Lois, Lydia, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Mary of Magdala, Mary of Nazareth, Mary of Rome, Mary the mother of Mark, Mary the wife of Cleopas, Persis, Phoebe, Priscilla, Rhoda, Salome, Susanna, Syntyche, Tryphena, Tryphosa, etc. Moreover, there are many women on whom the Lord bestowed signal favors, but whose names have not come down to us ; for example, Peter's mother-in-law, th~ widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus, the woman with the issue of blood, the Canaanite mother and daughter, the woman with the eighteen years' infirmity. Once more, there are the many anonymous women who tried, in one way or another, to serve the Lord J.esus; for example, the woman at Jacob's well, the penitent adorer in Simon's house, the widow with her two mites, Pilate's wife, the wailing women on their way to Calvary, the praying women of the upper chamber, etc. Indeed, it.may be doubted whether any secular history so small as the four Gospels wal> ever written in which the womanly element so largely prevails as in the life of Jesus the Christ.
"Nor is this surprising. For, first, woman's distinctive temperament makes her, if one may so say, a natural believer in Jesus Christ. He is emphatioally 'the seed of the woman.'
u, Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied him with unholy tongue; She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave, Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.'
"Secondly, woman owes an incalculable debt to Jesus Christ. His birth marks the turning point in woman's history. Hitherto, as in heathen countries to this day, she had been the victim of man's caprice, cruelty, lust, scorn and tyranny. EYen the Hebrews themselves, although taught from the beginning to reverence woman, had been wont to regard her as man's handmaid rather than his equal; in fact, a Jewish morning prayer prescribes that a man shall bless God for three things, namely, that he was not born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. But when the fullness of the time came, and God sent forth his Son to be born of a woman, as well as under the law, then was woman herself emancipated and restored to her·paradisal equality with man. Henceforth, at least in the realm of the spiritual life, there was to be neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female; for all are one in Christ Jesus. It has been so ever since; wherever Jesus Christ has been best known, there woman has been most honored. Woman owes everything to the Son of Mary."
D A V I D BRA I N E RD.
[EDITORIAL.-J. M. s.] HAVING sketched the Life and the Oharacter of this extraord~nary missionary saint, it only remains for us to touch upon the matter of his expulsion from Yale Oollege and vindicate his memory from the asper- sion cast upon his good name by that unjust and cruel act, and offer a few remarks suggested by his life and experience. .
His expulsion was as high-handed a measnre as the annals of college discipline can produce. Viewing it even from this distance of time, it fills us with amazement and indignation. If we were a member of the Faculty of that venerable institution, we would not rest until that iniquitous measure was expunged from its records. Sure we are that no unprejudiced mind, possessed of the facts of the case on which the act was based, as carefully stated by President Edwards and also by Brainerd himself in his journal and letters, can come to any oth~r conclusion than that the college authorities erred in expelling him in the first instance for so slight an offense; erred in inflicting the severest academical punishment in their power for a word spoken in confidence to two 01' three college mates and intimate religious friends with no malicious intent; that they erred again in refusing to accept his very humble and penitent confession and restore him to his standing; and again erred by their strange and relentless persistency in refusing the request of a large number of the most distinguished clergymen in the colonies, that Brainerd might be allowed to take his degree with the class from which he was expelled the year before. Had his alleged offense been tenfold more serious than it was, we cannot see how the~r conduct in this instance could be justified, especially in view of the peculiar circumstances of the case and the fact that the offending party had made a prompt and manly acknowledgment. But the offense in fact was a trifling one, and one that the o.:ffended tutor and the faculty of the college ought not to have laid to heart or made a serious fuss over. If the authorities of Yale or of any other college in the land to-day should expel a student for such an Qffense, a cry of shame and indignation would ring throughout the land.
The offense consisted of two particulars: The first a hasty and foolish remark, reflecting on the piety of one of the tutors, made in private to two or three fellow students and overheard and reported by another student who happened to overhear it. The other item Was in going to a religious meeting in the town when the college had forbidden attendance on such meetings. That 10as the whale of the offense. It seems scarcely credible to us in these days. The last item must be ruled out. For no college rulers had a right, legal or moral, to enact such a rule. It was a high-handed assumption of power, and was a fling at the promoters of the great religious Revival which then agitated and divided New Haven and many other parts of New Englaud. And whether the other offense-the words applied to tutor Whittlesey-were true or false, there was, as all must admit, a great deal to excuse or palliate the offense in the spirit and occurrences in the life around him at the time the words were spoken.
A great religious movement was then on foot. Whitefield and other apostles of the new evangelism had fired the hearts of multitudes. Excitement ran high. The revival had shaken the town of New Haven and the mass of college students had come under its power, Brainerd among the rest, who entered into the work with all the intensity of his earnest nature. « Ministers of long standing," and churches without number, were divided in regard to these « New Lights," as they were .
called. Extravagances and evils, according to President Edwards'
testimony, mixed with much that was good. A censorious spirit was rampant. Whitefield himself publicly judged and denounced ministers of standing and experience, and many leading churches also, for their supineness or opposition-so much so that the pastor of Northampton, while sympathizing with the movement and throwing the great weight of his example and preaching in favor of it, deplored the excesses of intemperate zeal, and specially exposed and condemned the. censorious and self-righteous spirit which characterized a portion of its promoters.
Even Whitefield himself he censured and personally rebuked!
Surely, when old and staid ministers-ministers of learning, piety and recognized standing-were led away for the time being from the meekness and sweet gentleness of Christ, and in speech and manner, in preaching and praying, implied that all who were not of their way of preaching and praying-all who cast not out devils after their fashion -all who failed to enter heartily into their measures, or who dared to oppose them, were hypocrites or graceless professors-the young and zealous sophomore who had caught the contagion and entered 'into the excitement and took an active part in the revival, which changed the character of the college and numbered many of its students among its converts, might have been pardoned the hot, thoughtless words spoken in private concerning the lack of piety in one of the tutors who had just been "pathetically" praying before the students! What college law was broken? What was there in the nature and extent of the offense to call for college discipline ? Were there not many palliating considerations in the times and in the circumstances of the case? Would not a reprimand have been all that the offense called for? On what principle of justice or fairness could they visit upon him, a student too of blameless virtue and exemplary piety, condign punishment, blast his future prospects and consign him to disgrace, so far at least as their action had effect? Fortunately it did not seriously injure the character of Brainerd, even at the time, or lessen the high esteem in which he was held by his friends, while it served to rally to his support many of the most eminent ministers of his time, and called forth great sympathy and interest in his career, not only over all New England, but also in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And God so overruled the matter that, beyond all question, it was one of the chief causes which led to the establishment of Princeton College.
The first point suggested by these memoirs that is worthy of careful consideration by all the friends of missions at the present time relates .to the methods and the machinery of missionary operations. We do not propose to discuss this important and vital question here, but simply to note the example of this eminent Christian and missionary and the results of his labors. Brainerd literally obeyed the ascended Lord. He went forth with the Bible only in his hands. He gave himself to prayer and to the preaching of the Word of God, to catechetical instruction, to direct efforts to convert souls and train them for Ohrist. He at once began to preach to these untutored, uncivilized, degraded barbarians the central trnth of Ohristianity, the cardinal doctrines of the Ohristian system -the very same doctrines which Jonathan Edwards then preached in Northampton, and which Dr. John Hall preaches to-day on Fifth avenue in New York Oity-and he preached them with the same distinctness and discrimination and directness and urgency and application; and the same results followed! He had to preach through an interpreter. He labored under a thousand disadvantages. But he honored God's word, God's method of saving sinners, and he preached and prayed with faith in the efficacy of the gospel and the Holy Spirit's power; and the effect, the fruit, was the same at Kaunaumeek, and Orossweeksung, and at the Forks of the Delaware, as at Northampton, and in New York Oity, and in primitive times.
Have we not, in these days of weak faith and decay of spiritual life, departed quite too far from the apostolic idea and practice in our missionary endeavors? Are we not making organizations, schools, civilizing influences, machinery, and merely human devices, altogether too prominent? Is not the natural, if not the inevitable tendency of such a policy to unduly exalt the human element at the expense of the divine'! And is not the effect to weaken our hold on God, to lessen the felt necessity of prayer and the Holy Spirit's omnipotent energy? Is it not precious time lost? are not energies wasted? and is not the time of harvest delayed?
Ohrist understood perfectly the conditions and necessities of the case, andthe nature and adaptability of the gospel to its end, when he commissioned the disciples to go and teach all nations. And we know how the disciples understood his message, and how they obeyed it; their one uniform and universal method among Jews and Greeks and Romans, alike among barbarians and in civilized communities, was to preach Ohrist and him crucified, and to organize and gather the converts into Ohristian churches on the simple basis of the gospel. They knew nothing about our modern theories and accessories. We do not find the slightest trace of any of these modes or machinery in the primitive church's effort to evangelize the world. And human nature is the same to-day as then; and the condition of the heathen world is essentially the same. And yet we have drifted into a totally different method. We have come virtually to put civilization, education, preparation, before and in place of the gospel. It is not "the foolishness of preaching" so much as it is the perfection of appliances and constructive agencies and civilizing forces that is the church's main reliance today for the evangelization of the world, both nominally Ohristian and heathen! The Indians to whom Brainerd ministered were exceedingly ignorant; their social and moral condition was of the lowest order. They were simply savages. And yet the gospel, as preached and expounded to them by this single young isolated missionary, whose heart was all aflame with the love of God, and who spent hours every day on his knees in prayer, was made mighty through faith in God for their salvation. The grace of God achieved in four short years among that degraded race as signal and as glorious a triumph as it achieved under Whitefield and Edwards among the civilized and educated whites. No one can trace the history of God's converting and transforming grace at Kaunaumeek and Orossweeksung-note the operation of gospel truth and of the Holy Spirit's influence on these ignorant and degraded sinners, and especially such manifestations of power and grace as are recorded in Ohapter X. of Brainerd's memoirs-and doubt for one moment the sufficiency of the gospel in the hands of the Spirit of God, when wisely and faithfully preached in faith and with importunate prayer, to tr3.nsform and elevate any people, however depraved and degraded. 0 for the simplicity, the faith, the whole-heartedness, the reliance on the teachings of Ohrist and" the witness of the Spirit," which characterized the early Ohristians, and which characterized the life of Brainerd! 'l'he chl1,rch ?rmst yet come to this, or the" millennial " age, for which she has prayed and waited so long, will prove only a pleasing dream. Maya renewed study of the life and example and achievements of this illustrious missionary help to bring it about!
A second remark. Brainerd and his co-workers on the same field- Eliot, Horton, Sergeant and Edwards-really solved for us in theory the. Indian Problem, and we have been almost a century and a half in finding it out! Had the work which they began among and in behalf of the aboriginal tribes of North America been continued and prosecuted to its legitimate end; had the policy which they clearly marked out and inaugurated in their treatment of the Indian race-viz., honest dealing, evangelization, education, teaching the industrial arts-had this Ohristian policy been recognized and pursued by the United States Government and people in their subsequent dealings with them, what untold millions of treasure had been saved the nation! what bloody wars and frightful massacres had been averted! The long dark record of injustice, cruelty, perfidy, treaty-breaking-the strong oppressing the weak, high-handed unrighteousness in the sight of Heaven and the civilized world-had not been written.
At length, blessed be God, the truth which these missionary pioneers clearly perceived and exemplified in their teaching and lives begins to dawn upon the American mind. The gospel of Jesus Ohrist, the church, the ministry, the school, Ohristian society and civilization, are coming at length to be recognized,by the Ohristian church at least, as the only forces and methods to settle this perplexing question, which has so long overmatched alike the wisdom of statesmanship, the resources of military genius and power, and the humanities of philanthropy.
If our Government, which has so strangely blundered and so grievously sinned in the past in its Indian policy, will now at least keep its hands ofi and not sufier evil-minded or pig-headed officials in our Indian Bureau to Jlerpetrate monstrous stupidity and outrageous interference and injustice at the dictation of political intrigue; if the policy and trend of our missionary efiorts in behalf of the Indian established by Eliot and Brainerd and Edwards, and kept steadily in view ever since by those who have sought their elevation, shall not be interfered with, the practical solution of the Indian problem is nigh at hand.
. We bless God to-day for such a noble life, for such a saintly char- acter, and for such an example of Ohristlike sacrifice and toil in the glorious cause of human redemption as we have been contemplating.
That life, that character, that example are calling to us to-day-call- ing by the printed page which perpetuates his wondrous, burning testi- I I mony; camng by those earnest soul-wrestlings and prayers, which God witnessed and heard in the American wilderness five generations ago; calling by those displays of almighty and regenerating grace which he was the occasion and the instrument of displaying among the heathen and savage tribes of this new world; calling by the tongues of prophets long dead, by the sacrifices and the triumphs of modern missions, and by the hopes and expectations of the church of God, to awake out of sleep and take hold of the work of the world's conversion in dead ear- nest! The appeal is made to 1l8, of this generation, as truly as though an angel were flying through the midst of heaven summoning the sacra- mental host of God's elect to be up and doing, to go up and possess the land, to thrust in the sickle and reap, to "stand and see the sal- vation of God." The prayer of the church for more than eighteen hundred years has been, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." And the apocalyptic angel has joined in the grand chorus, "Even so come, Lord Jesus! Amen." The souls under the altar that were slain for the word of God are crying, " How long, o Lord, holy and true! " The earth groaneth and travaileth in pain for her redemption hour. The nations which sit in darkness stretch forth their hands unto us and are struggling upward toward the light.
There are signs too in the heavens, and commotions on the earth, and stately steppings of almighty power and converting grace in the providential world, which plainly indicate that Ohrist the Lord is speedily coming to take to himself his great power and assert his king- ship over aU and establish his millennial reign on the earth.
The preparation of long ages is now complete. Prophecy has closed its testimony. The promises are world-embracing. Discipline, waiting, training, developing, laying foundations, have had their day and done their assigned work. ~he time for ACTION has now fully comethe time for a combined assault on the kingdom of darkness, the time for a grand aggressive movement all along the line. The trumpet is sounding to the charge! In the name of the Lord of Hosts, lift up the banner of righteousness and fling to the breeze the all-conquering standard of our Immanuel. Long since the church had her marching orders: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature !" Why hesitate? Why wait for other manifestations?
Young men and maidens! can you look on the stirring scenes which this world presents to y()U to-day-the world in which the Eternal Son of God has planted the cross, the symbol of omnipotent love and divine sacrifice, by which he is to conquer and reign over a redeemed uni. verse-can you view these scenes and events and not long to participate in the glorious struggle and the glorious conquest? Ye Brainerds and Henry Martyns and Careys and J udsons and Livingstones, ye Harriet Newens and Mrs. J udsons, this is the day for such as you to come to the front and assert your Ipission and fire the heart of the sacred brotherhood with flaming zeal, holy enthusiasm, and a self-denying spirit-the day to emulate the faith, the heroic spirit, and the sublime self-sacrifice of Paul and Peter and John and the other primitive disciples.
Weare approaching the close of the nineteenth century; and what a century it has been, especially the latter half of it, in the way of change, development, progress, achievement! Stirring events are transpiring before us every day. Divine providence is writing history with a rapidity and on a scale of magnitude unparalleled in the past. And have these things no significance? Have you no personal interest in them? Is not God speaking in them all to you, to me, to every disciple with'loud and solemn voice? And especially the young men of this generation, are they not" brought to the kingdom" at a momentous crisis in the world's history? Is not human life to-day, measured by its opportunities, its responsibilities, its possibilities, worth a hundred lives in ages gone by? Did ever a generation have such opportunities to distinguish itself in the grand march of human events? Was ever such a cry heard from so many lands, and from the isles of the sea-from India and from Africa, from China and Japan and Mexico-from so many races and nations and peoples and tongues, saying, "Come over and help us," as noUJ resounds throughout Christendom?
If we will not respond to these wondrous providential calls-these calls of the Spirit of God, these calls of a groaning and perishing world, going up day and night to heaven like the sound of many waters-we shall be thrust aside, and the kingdom, the work, the honor and the victory will be given to others. For, CONVERTED TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST this world will be. God has purposed it. Prophecy proclaims it with a thousand tongues. Divine promises without num·
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN JAPAN
bel' are the pledges of it. All the instrumentalities and facilities necessary to its accomplishment are ready. All over the earth prayer is continually ascending for the hastening of th~ work. Ohristianity was never such a living power in the world as it is. to-day, despite the unbelief and wickedness of the times. The Anglo-Saxon race-the race of progress and dominion, the custodian of Ohristianity-which nnmbered but 7,000,000 when the Pilgrim Fathers replanted Ohristianity on these western shores, numbers to-day 100,000,000, and is marching on to universal snpremacy ; while the achievements of the last seventyfive years in the missionary field are on a scale of grandeur unparalleled in the history of the church, not excepting even the apostolic period. A few decades of years will decide the momentous issue; will flood the earth with supernal glory, or witness the going down of the sun of human hopes in a night of darkness that shall have no morning!
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN JAPAN.
[For prudential reasons the writer of this interesting paper prefers not to give his name, but we assure our readers that it comes from a source which entitles it to the highest consideration.-EDs.] THE Japanese follow the West in politics as in all else. Already there are two parties, with leaders, organs and programmes. For years the strife has been hot; it will reach a crisis in 1890. Both parties profess their devotion to Western ideas and civilization; the strife is as to the European country that shall furnish the political model. Shall the new parliament be German or English in its powers? The Imperialists are in power. They command all the forces of government-the public purse, the army, the police, the signature of the Emperor. The Liberals are in opposition. They have neither public power nor wealth, and must depend upon enlightened sentiment. The extreme radicals are supposed to place some reliance on dynamite.
The Liberals state their case somewhat as follows: For some years after the revolution of 1867-68, which resulted in the overthrow of the Shogun and the re-establishment of the rule of the Mikado, the men of new Japan acted in harmony, All agreed that Western civilization must be adopted, and all desired complete reform. Great things were accomplished even in politics, and a constitutional development was begun that would eventually place Japan abreast of the most advanced of the free kingdoms of Europe. There was complete freedom of the press and platform, and both were widely used for the enlightenment of the people. Local self-rule was, to some extent granted, and both town and provincial assemblies were formed. A national parliament was promised. So far there was agreement. But dissensions arose. Some of the statesmen thought the pace too fast for safety. Absolutist tendencies became manifest, and a desire to replace the feudal despotism with a powerful and centralized imperialism. Some of the J,iberals protested, and were silenced or forced to resign. Thenceforth the development of the new imperialism was more rapid. In 1876-77 was the Satsuma rebellion, led by General'Saigo. It was not directly connected with liberalism and was personal in its origin, but its repression was followed by stringent political measures. One by one the political rights already granted were curtailed or abolished, and an open tyranny was established. Freedom of the platform and of the press was overthrown. Political meetings were broken up by the police, and public speakers were hurried off to prison at the will of petty officers. The privacy of the mails was invaded, and spies entered the homes of suspected r~iberal leaders. The press was intimidated or bribed, justice was corrupted; there was false imprisonment of political opponents and no hope of redress. The powers of the local assemblies were so reduced that men of position refused to enterthem. The governors of the provinces were given great powers, and became the mere creatures of the Tokio executive. The police and army were strengthened and force became the ruling policy. Taxation became more and more oppressive, the administration WaS grossly extravagant-in short, all the evils of political tyranny followed. The government has finally agreed to establish a parliament in 1890, but it will be a parliament with little power to benefit the people, since every change during the past ten years has been in the direction of centralization and personal government. The events of December, 1887, are only the last in a long series, and show that the right to petition has ceased to exist. The ministry stands between his Majesty and the people, and the most moderate petition is refused a hearing. Nobles and men influential in the restoration of the Emperor are denied all access to him if their politics displease the men in power. The Liberals sum up their charges in an adjective an~ call the government Russian.
The Imperialists are ready with their reply. The men in power are not reactionists; they are not tyrannical nor intolerant. They are the very men who have been most instrumental in the advancement of Japan. All the progress of the past is owing to their wise statesmanship. They are not even conservatives; they are leaders of young Japan. In other lands governments are goaded to reform by public' sentiment, but here reforms have been in advance of popular demands. The nation follows, the government leads. The story of the past fifteen years is the all-convincing evidence of good faith. It must not be forgotten that a few years ago Japan was feudal, and even now the ignorant people know nothing of politics. Surely England is too advanced to be a safe guidE' at once for Asia. Men who can lead Japan from Asiatic feudalism to German constitutionalism in a single generation are not tyrants. Progress is as rapid as safety will admit. The promise of a parliament in 1890 is enough to satisfy all reasonable men. The leading Liberals are carried away with crude ideas of English politics. They have no experience of practical government, and have no notion of its responsibilities. The radicals are dangerous and must be repressed. If the press and platform were not controlled, the people would be inflamed by irresponsible politicians. Most of the people are content, and the agitators are only a handful. It is better to repress a few and thus preserve the peace. Oertain of the radicals plot, and men who play with edged tools must not complain if they are hurt. The government is repressive only as freedom is abused to the injury of the people.
Missions have nothing to fear from either party. The present government is friendly and has afforded every protection to miSSIOnaries. It has shown its good feeling iIi very many ways. It regards the Ohristianization of Japan as inevitable and as a part of the adoption of Western civilization. It naturally desires that religious work be kept wholly distinct from politics. The Liberals are not less friendly. Some of their leading men are already professed Ohristians and all desire the rapid extension of the religion of Ohrist.
The severely repressive measures of last December are used as an argument to strengthen the position of those men who are opposed to the abolition of extra-territorial rights in Japan. It does not seem to us that the question is involved at all. The argument is that the government is irresponsible and not to be trusted. An imperial rescript can change the laws without notice, and there is no guarantee that the modern system of legal procedure will endure.
The objection would have a show of force were there any party in the empire desirous of re-establishing the old system of Asiatic and feudal Japan. Extra-territoriality is justified when Europeans dwell in barbarous and hostile lands. In Ohina and Turkey the system is necessary if foreigners are to dwell in those lands at all. In Ohina judicial procedure is crude and cruel, and in Turkey the Ohristians have no rights that Moslems are bound to respect. When foreigners first went to Japan the same system was the necessary condition of residence. N ow all is changed; the law is no longer Asiatic, but has become European, and no one.desires a return to the old ways.
The men in power rightfully refer to the history of the past years as proof of their earnestness in the adoption of Western civilization. And as to guarantee, the treaties will be guaranteed by all the safeguards of treaties made between J:ltrong and weak powers. There is no danger that the stability of the laws, that are the very reason for the abolition of the present extraordinary rights, will be endangered. 1'he Japanese proposals guard our rights in fullest measure. Oertainly no debate within Japan as to the European model that is to be accepted there can justify the treaty powers in refusing a simple act of justice. As Americans we naturally sympathize with liberal politics and regret absolutist tendencies. But much as we prefer England to Germany, the questions at issue now in Japan in no wise alter the fact that foreigners in Japan should henceforth submit to Japanese laws.
THE MISSIONARY CAUSE. [M.A.Y
THE MISSIONARY CAUSE.
[One of the most powerful appeals ever made in behalf of missions was recently made by Canon Liddon in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. We give a few extracts from it.-Ens.] "IF when Christians had been free to do their best for their Master's cause, missionary enterprise has at any time slackened, it has been because the real nature of the claims of Christ has been lost sight of. Missionaryimter- prise is at once wasteful and impertinent if the Christian religion, instead of being necessary for every child of Adam, is only suited, we will say, to the . Western world at a particular stage of civilization. And if all religions are partly true and partly false, and the choice between them is to be settled, not by recognizing any universal necessity of man or any decisive proof of a clear mandate of God, but by considering what is called the' genius' of a par- ticular people, then Christianity has been mistaken in a vital manner and from the very first. If we have not lost part and lot in the spirit of St. Paul we should not deem the antiquity and vast empire of Buddhism, or the aggressive and more modern religion of the false prophet Mahomet, any rea- son which should deter us from doing what we may to rescue races, some of them more highly endowed by nature than ourselves, from the tyranny of these and other errors. Be the genius of these people what it may, we, like St. Paul, are debtors both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; we owe the gospel to them, but especially do we owe it to that loving and gracious Saviour, who, without any claim or merit of ours, has called us out of dark- ness into his marvelous light, and has bidden us go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
"It is urged that missionary work, like charity, should begin at home. 'Look at your great cities! '-so an anonymous correspondent wrote only last week-' Look at London before you busy yourselves about the needs of dis- tant populations.'
" A religion issuing from the mind and heart of the Universal Father must be adapted to the needs of everyone of his rational creatures; and to say that there are any stages of their development for which it is less adapted than some false creed which would fain support it is to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ is what he claims to be-the Saviour of the world. But are those who thus object to Christian missions always and entirely sincere? Is it not the case that when the church takes their advice and is enabled to restore Christian faith and life in a particular English parish, district or diocese, to something like a primitive standard of fervor and excellence, she is apt to be cautioned against thinking too much of any such success, while two- thirds of the world are not Christians? And yet if we ask them to help For- eign Missions they plead their absorbing interest in Home Missions' To such critics we cannot afford to listen. Time flies, and our Master's bidding is plain and imperative. Some of you will remember an occurrence which took place during the Second Punic War. It has often been referred to as showing how from very early days the Roman people possessed what is called the instinct of empire. When the victorious Carthaginian general, Hanni- bal, was in the heart of Italy, and threatening Rome itself, the Senate dis- patched a fleet and army to Spain that they might, by laying siege to Sa- guntum, deal a deadly blow to Hannibal in his rear; and this bold venture w-as abundantly justified by the result. Now every heathen land is the Sa- guntum of the Christian Church, and if it be true that some spiritual Hannibal is ravaging possessions which had long owned her sway, or even
THE DESERTED MISSION
threatening ruin in this or that of her ancient homes, still she owes the gospel of salvation to all the world.
"It is sometimes said that England best does her duty to heathen lands by conferring upon them the blessings of civilization, by which is meant all those material improvements in human life which European science and industry have so largely multiplied. Certainly it is not my duty or my inclination to depreciate these great advantages; but, unhappily, our civilization is accompanied by an alloy of evil which we cannot ignore. We cannot forget what has been the moral meaning of the sale of some British drug, or of the arrival of a British ship's company at a pagan port, or of the methods of capitalists in savage lands. There is no need further to lift the veil. All those who have looked into these matters must know that England owes a debt to more pagan lands than one, not merely that of the glorious gospel, but also some sort of moral reparation for evils which those who bore her name have too often carried with them into pagan lands and homes.
"I ask you to give your generous support to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. . . • With a history that now approaches the completion of its second century, it has necessarily done more than any other body for the expansion of our portion of the kingdom of Christ . . . and you will not, we feel sure, be found wanting in an effort which must command the sympathy of every man and woman who sincerely believes that through our Lord Jesus Christ alone is there real approach to the Father of spirits."
THE DESERTED MISSION.
PROF. HENRY DRUMMOND of Glasgow, in a lecture on "The Heart of Africa," before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, gave a striking illustration of the peril which besets missionary life in that deadly climate. As his boat swept along the beautiful Lake Nyassa he noticed in the distance a few white objects on the shore. On closer inspection they were found to be wattle and daub houses built in English style and whitewashed. Heading his boat for the shore he landed and began to examine what seemed to be the home of a little English colony. The first house he entered gave evidence of recent occupancy, everything being in excellent order, but no human form was to be seen or human voice heard. The stillness of death reigned. He entered the school-house. The benches and desks were there, as if school had been but recently dismissed, but neither .teacher nor scholars were to be seen. In the blacksmith shop the anvil and hammer stood ready for service, and it seemed as if the fire had just gone out upon the hearth, but no blacksmith could be found. Pushing his investigations a little further he came upon four or five graves. These little mounds told the whole story and explained the desolation he had seen. Within them reposed the precious dust of some of the missionaries of Livingstonia, who one by one had fallen at their posts, victims of the terrible African fever. Livingstonia was Scotland's answer in part to the challenge which Henry M. Stanley gave to the Christian world to send missionaries to eastern equatorial Africa. When that intrepid explorer, after untold hardship, had found David Livingstone, and during months of close companionship had felt the power of that consecrated life, he blew the trumpet with no uncertain sound to rouse the church to her privilege and responsibility in central Africa. But it was not till the death of the great missionary explorer that the land which gave him birth resolved to send a little army of occupation to the region which he had opened to the Christian world. On the 18th of January, 1875, at a public meeting held in the city of Glasgow, the Free,
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK
the Reformed and the United Presbyterian churches of Scotland founded a mission to be called Livingstonia, and which was to be located in the region of Lake Nyassa, the most southern of the three great lakes of central Africa, with a coast of eight hundred miles. Although founded by the churches just named, it was understood that it was to be regarded as a Free OhUl'ch mission, the others co-operating with men and means as opportunity offered or necessity required. The choice of location was most appropriate, not only because Dr. Livingstone had discovered that beautiful sheet of water, but because he had reqnested the Free Church to plant a mission on its shores. The first company of missionaries, which included also representatives of the Established Church who were to found a separate mission in the lake region, after immense toil and severe hardship, reached the lake via the Zambesi and Shire rivers, October 12, 1875. They selected a site near Cape Maclear as their first settlement, and as soon as possible put into operation the various parts of the mission work they had been commissioned to prosecute-industrial, educational, medical and evangelistic. From the first the mission met with encouraging success,. becoming not only a center of gospel light to that benighted region, but also a city of refuge to which the wretched natives fled to escape the inhuman cruelties of the slave-traders. As the years rolled on, however, it was found necessary to remove the main work of the mission to a more healthful region on the lake, hence the desolation seen by Prof. Drummond, the work at Cape Maclearbeing now mainly evangelistic and carried on by native converts. The mission still lives and comprises four stations, one of which is situated on the Stevenson Road, a road constructed at a cost of $20,000 by ~n English philanthropist, and intended to promote communication between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. An additional station is soon to be occupied in the uplands southwest of Cape Maclear.
It is still the day of small things with the mission so far as tangible results are concerned. In the annual report submitted last May but one organized church is mentioned, with a roll of nine communicants. The missionaries write in a hopeful spirit, however, both as to their work and their health, and the friends of the mission at home are encouraged at the outlook, and have recently completed arrangements by which the support of the work for a third term of five years is assured. They are not discouraged by the fact that already some $200,000 haye been spent upon the mission, exclusive of the expense of constructing the Stevenson Road and of efficient help rendered without compensation by the African Lakes Company. They are determined to push forward in the noble work of evangelizing the lake region of Central Africa. Livingstonia, therefore, so far from being a deserted mission, gives promise of being a power for good to the dwellers by Lake Nyassa who are sitting in the region and shadow of death.
II.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK.
Missionary Society of the Methodist third year from the union of the Ohurch (Oanada). Methodist Church of Canada, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the REPORT for 1886-87 (sixty-third an- Primitive Methodist Church, and the nual report), being the thirteenth Bible Christian Church. year from the union of the Wesleyan "The General Board of Missions Methodist Church of Canada, the submits this report with feelings of Wesleyan Methodist Church of East- devout gratitude to the Head of the ern British America, and the Meth- church, who has crowned the work odist New Connexion Church, and the of the society withabundantblessings, Montreal Conference ………….. . 22,490 86 and with cordial acknowledgment of Manitoba Conference…………… . 28,626 13 the liberality with which the fund Nova Scotia Conference………… . 5,930 10 has been sustained. Having now New Brunswick and Prince Edward passed the $200,000 line, it is hoped that the church will make this the Island Conference ………… :… 6,56923 starting point for a grand onward Newfoundland Conference……… . 10,64793 movement, and the board suggests Mount Elgin Industrial Institution .. 3,125 28 that the motto for the present year Sundries …………………….. . 16,132 16 shall be, 'A REVIVAL IN EVERY Cost of management ………….. .. , 8,942 53 CONGREGATION, AND A QUARTER OF A MILLION FOR MISSIONS.' The re- Total expenditnre……………. $189,286 15 ligious reports for the past year are Balance, being excess of income full of interest and encouragement. In almost every department there over expenditure for the year. . . . . $12,588 19 has been substantial growth, and there is a spirit of hopefulness about $201,87437 most of the reports which promises well for the future." Balance, deficit June 30,1886……. $13,58i 41 After a very full and detailed state- Balance brought down, net deficit.. $999 22 ment of operations, covering some 350 pages, the following summary is The ,General Baptist Missionary Society. given: THIS small but venerable society INCOME FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, '87. made its seventy-first annual report June 29, 1887. It sustained a great loss Toronto Conference, including mis- in the death of Rev. John Buckley, sionary districts …………….. . $46,588 71 D.D., their senior missionary, after more than forty years of devoted ser- London Conference ……………. . 16,27002 vice. His death is greatly lamented, and it is proposed to raise a "Buck- Niagara Conference ………….. .. 24,69641 ley Memorial Fund" for a twofold object: 1. The support of a native Guelph Conference ……………. . 18,14663 minister; 2. The establishment of a scholarship' in the Mission High Bay of Quinte Conference ……… . 19,16905 School.
Montreal Conference ………….. . 32,707 18 The chief mission of this society is in Orissa, a district containing over Manitoba Conference………….. . 5,463 42 9,000,000 souls.
Nova Scotia Conference ……….. . 11,687 03 The general statistics of the mis- sion, March 31, 1887, were as follows: New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Conference ……………. . 7,985 16 English missionaries (male aud female) 17 Native ministers. …………………… 23 Newfoundland Conference …….. . 5,104 10 Ministerial students… …. …. .. …… .. 3 Mission stations……………………. 16 Legacies…………………….. .. 1,868 30 Mission chapels……………… …….. 14 Mission churches…… .. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. .. 9 Lej(acies ,!mltted from Mission Church members…………………… 1,306 Rooms List: 1. Rev. Wm. Shaw, Total native Christian community….. 3,366 devise acc., 1 year's interest ….. . 1800 Baptized since the commencement of 2. Duckworth legacies, Brantford. 2000 the mission …………………….. 2,162 Donations on annuity………….. . 1,500 00 FINANCES. The committee are concerned to Indian Department …………… .. 9,04798 report that the debt, which at the commencement of the year was £696 ForJapan……………………. , 1,103 00 17s. 7d., now stands at £1,197 9s. 10d.
Miscellaneous ………………… .. 67735 The total disbursements for the past year have been……….£8,147 4 II Deduct unpaid subscription, $202,052 34 The total receipts for the past Toronto district, 1885-6.. $Ui 00 year have been ……………. 6,949 14 8 Deduct amount charged to Leavin~ a balance due to the miscellaneous income acc. bank of………………….. £1,197 910 in error……………. .. 163 00- 178 00 Thus the balance due last year $~1,87434 of ……………………….. £69617 7 Balance brought down, surplus. . . . . $12,588 19 Has been increased this year by £500 12 3 This ~iffel'ence arises from a de- Balance, net deficit …. ; . .. .. . .. .. ..- -9-99 -22 $13,58741 EXPENDITURE.
Torouto Conference, including mis- sionary districts …………….. . $52,00057 London Conference……………. . 9,87266 Niagara Conference……………. . 4,30854 Guelph Conference …………… .. 9,454 60 Bay of Qulnte Conference ….. , … . 10,219 56 creased income and an increased ex- 97; 4 local preachers; 180 Sunday- , penditure, the latter having been oc- schools, with 935 officers and teachers casioned by sending out a new mis- and 12,255 scholars; 25 churches val~ sionary, by extra payments on ac- ued at $207,652; 4 parsonages valued count of passages, by grants for print- at $24,175; present indebtedness on ing Scriptures and tracts, and by church property, $101,832. The colgrants for schools. For some years, lections had been $576 for missions, however, the ordinary expenditure $88 for church extension, $35 for has been in excess of the income, Sunday-school Union, $40 for Tract hence the balance against the society Society, $44 for education, $37 for has gradually increased. American Bible Society, $68 for Women's Foreign Missionary So- Southern Baptist Home Mission Board. ciety, $7,404 for pastors, presiding elders and bishops, $254 for confer- THE work of the board during the ence claimants.
past conventional year has been as Poreign Mission Work of the Reformed Ohuroh in the United States. follows: OUR Board of Foreign Missions cel- Missionaries.. . •.. .. .. • . . .. . ••. . .. • 251 ebrates its year of jubilee in 1888. Places occupied. .. . .. . . . .. .. . . . . .. 822 Ten years ago we had no mission in Baptisms …………………….. 3,923 the foreign field, but we carned on Received by letter. .. .. … . .. .. . … 2,319 the work of-evangelization by giving Rev. Benjamin Schneider, D.D., and Total additions. . . … . . . . . . .. 6,242 318 our means to the American Board of Snnday-schools reported.. . . . . . . . . . Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Teachers and pupils. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,031 In the year 1878 the Spirit of peace Churches constituted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 began a gracious work in our vener- Houses of worship built.. . . . .. .. .. 62 able General Synod at Lancaster, Pa., which gave us, among other THE EXPENDITURES $86,827 05 precious results, our present promis- 35,270 15 ing foreign mission in Japan. A com- Have been for missions………… parison of our men, means and re- Our missionaries have raised for sults with those of other boards fur- nishes abundant reasons for praise houses of worship built upon and encouragement. their fields oflabor.. .. . . .. . . . . . . Rev. AmbroseD. Gringis the senior Total. . …. .. . . . . . . . •. . . •. . . • $122,097 20 missionary of our church in Japan. This sum represents actual work done for the His recent return to America has had Baptists of the South. a very refreshing influence on our people. The Reformed Church in The board calls for an increase of 50 the United States forms a part of the per cent. on the receipts of last year. Union Church of Christ in Japan. We have three principal centers of "God has so enlarged the sphere of operation-Tokio, Sendai, Yamagata. our labors that nothing less than this will enable us to do what is im- At Tokio the work is mainly evanperatively demanded of the board." gelistic. The church owns a very handsome parsonage at '28 Tsukiji, The Switzerland Methodist Oonferenoe. and supports the Bancho and Nihon Bashi Missions. THE German and Switzerland Conference of the Methodist Episcopal At Sendai we have a flourishing Church was organized in 1856. At girls' school, with 70 pupils, and also the conference held in Zurich, Switz- a theological school for the training erland, June 24-30, 1886, the confer- of young men as evangelists. ence was divided into two conferences, one to be known as the Germany Conference and the other as the Switzerland Conference.
The last session of the Switzerland Conference was held in Berne, Switzerland, April 23–27, 1887, Bishop Ninde presiding.
The statistics reported showed there were 4,638 members, an increase of 238; 996 probationers, an increase of The students are doing good work thing gave promise of further adfor the Master, some thirty souls vance. During the fifty years now having already been won for JesU!; closed five connections of mission through their personal efforts. A churches have been formed under the large school building and residences jurisdiction of no less than eighteen for the missionaries will be erected annual conferences. on a large lot during the summer. The native Christians have recently The missions of 1837 are to-day purchased a fine Buddhist temple, represented, as nearly as can be ascerwhich ~will be used for church pur- tained, by 1,959 circuits, 10,919 chapposes and for the training school. els and preaching places, 2,592 minis- ters and missionaries, and 430,247 At Yamagata the Rev. J. P. Moore members. is acting as professor in a native cooperative boys' school, with three The society operates in almost ev- Christian native teachers. The school ery part of the world. In 1836 the work here promises to be a great suc- expenditure of the society was 4%, cess. One hundred and fifty students per cent. of its expenses in Europe; will attend the spring term. The citizens wish to raise $30,000 for the 12~ in Asia; 11%: in Australasia; 17 school and make it one of the best in the north of the empire. in Africa, and 38 in America and the West Indies. During 1886 the corre- A congregation has already been sponding percentages were: Europe, organized which will become the cen- 15%; Asia, 27%,; Australsia, 0; After of a number of out-stations. rica, 21; America and the West StatiBtiCG.-Number of married missionaries, Indies, 574' 4; lady teachers, 2; native preachers and helpers, 13; churches and ont-stations, 16; com- The gross income for 1886 amountmunicants, 1,000; receipts for the year 1887, $2,000. ed to £135,259. In addition to this £7,922 was received and disbursed by ALLEN R. BARTHOLOMEW, the ladies' auxiliary, and is not in- Secretary. cluded in the general treasurer's ac- count. Total amount for the year was £1~,182 ($715,910).
Wesleyan Missionary Society. FINANCIAL REPORT.
THE seventy-third annual meeting HOME REOElPTS. £. 8. d. of this society was held in E~eter Hall, London, May 2, 1887. It was Mission House donatioll!l, suhscripan occasion of special interest, not tions, etc.. ………………… 3,864 13 11 only because of the advent of a national Jubilee but also because it Home districts,includcloses a "century of missions." ing England, Wales, When the society published its first Scotland and Zet- £. 8. d. report in 1818 it had 82 mission- land ……………. 82,987 3 0 aries in charge of 109 stations, with 23,473 enrolled members. The income Ditto, Christmas offerfrom ordinary sources was £18,434. ings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,655 14 5 At the close of 1836 the society reported 64,691 members, under the Ditto, juvenile asso- ciations. . . . . . . … . .. 11,149 0 1 care of 306 missionaries, aSSIsted by 100,791 17 6 1,955 paid agents and 3,1li6 gratuitous helpers. These were grouped in 180 Less expenses and recircuits. The total income of the wards. . . . . . … . . . . . . 6,239 16 7 society from all sources was £75,526. – – – – 94,552 0 11 The expenditure exceeded £70,000, and there was in the hands of the Hibernian Missionary Society, in- treasurers more than £11,000. Every- 19 g cluding Christmas offerings ….. . 4,833 18 :- Dividends on investments …….. . 5,~ Interest on centenary grants…… . Lapsed annuities …………….. . 2,600 0 0 Legacies …………………….. . 12,760 10 9 Loans repaid ………………… , 139 0 9 Indian Famine Fond, for orphan- ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 15 3 RFreont~ Centenary Hall…………. . 50 00 Stratton Extension Fund for the Transvaal………………. . 1,500 0 0 Total home receipts …………. 126,995 10 8 FOREIGN RECEIPTS.
Mission Districts auxiliaries… . . . . . 6,668 1 3 Total ordinary receipts . . . .. . .. 188,663 11 11 EXTIlAORDINAlIY BECEIl'TS. To which add the excess or aver· £. B.d. age on legacies carried- to Lega- 6,853 6 I> Contributions for speCial missions cy Reserve Account……. : … . in Upper Burmah, Central Africa, £. 8. d. China, India, etc……………. 1,431 1 7 Total expenditure ………….. . 141,345 19 10 From which deduct ordinary and Ditto, for St. Vincent Hurricane. Distress Fund………………. 165 4 10 extraordinary receipts for the year.. . .. .. .. .. •.. .. .. .. •. …… 185,259 18 4 Total income……………….£185,259 18 4 Leaving a deficiency on 1886 ac- PAYMENTS. count of.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 6,086 1 6 General expenditure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138,145 1012 To which add the debt of 1885.. •• 4,682 18 5 Onaccountofs~eCialmissions, etc. 1,596 6 5 Ditto, Ladies Auxiliary Com- Leaving a total deficiency of.•••..£10,768 19 11 mittee……………………. -' 250 16 10 Total……………………..£134,992 13 5 Presbyteria.n Ohuroh in Oanada..* FROM the report made to the Thirteenth General Assembly, held at Winnipeg, June 9-17, 1887, we glean the following items: FOREIGN )[lSSION FUND-WESTERN DIVISION.
. – Receipts.
Balance from last year ……………………………… _………. : …… . $8,25820 Total receipts for year. _.. _………………………… _……………… . 49,817 13 Balance ……………….. _………………………………………. . 2,906 43 $55,98176 E:r!penditure. I. Northwest……………………………………………………… $9,71078 II. Formosa- Salaries and expenses, hospital, etc. …………………………… . 22,528 87 m. India- Payments ……………. _………… _…………….. $16,806 00 Miss Oliver, outfit, passage, etc…………….. _. __ .. _… 1,030 00 Miss Wilson ………………………. __ .. .. . .. .. .. . .. .. 800 00 Misses McKellar and Fraser.. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 600 00 Rev. R. C. Murray, special………………………….. 5000 IV. New Hebrides, Trinidad, etc.- 19,286 00 From W. F. M. Society, 1885-6 ……………………… . $600 00 do. do. 1886-7 ………………. ;…… .. 80000 On account of Rev. J. Gibson's salary………………. .. 97222 2,872 22 Chinese work on Pacific Coast………………………-……………… .. 6400 Jonathan Goforth………………………………………………….. . 1000 Expenses of committee, secretary aud convener ………………..•….•..•• 01054 Printing and advertising ……………………. , ………"……………… . 4680 Proportion of general expenses and salary of agent ……………………. .. 620 00 Balance of interest …………………………………………………. . 228 60 Interest per Mrs. J ……………………………………………….. .. 21000 $55,98176 It is gratifying to report that the receipts for the several schemes of the church have been in almost every case in advance of last year's receipts.
We subjoin a comparative statement of receipts for the last three years : Home missions.. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. .. 1884-5. 1885-6. 1886-7. Stipend augmentation……………………….. …… $81,960 10 $82,276 46 $82,83190 Colleges …………. _…………………… __ ……. _.. 23,721 S6 Foreign mission ………..-………………. __ .. , _. … . . 22,45994 80,57498 Widows' Fund……………………………………. 8,499 88 8,404 99 5,95791 38,773 71 38,881 70 49,81718 Rates……………………………………. 4,685 41 4,065 77 4,868 37 Aged aud Infirm Ministers' Fund .. _. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,994 20 2,24150 2,304 65 5,658 59 t 10,026 89 7,630 ('fI .. Rates……………… ……. 1,292 CR'I 9,08748 1,91045 7,138 05 8,83991 French evangelization……………………………. _. *6,347 41 3,000 40 8,120 11 3,287 ('fI 3,372 84 Manitoba College….. …….. ……………………… 3,196 49 3,806 fY1 Assembly Fond.. .. .. …………………… … …….. .
Total………………….. _……… _… $127,987 92 $185,081 62 $150,910 CR'I * The report is so elaborate aud embraces such a variety of subjects, that is is diJllcnlt to giva in briefspacelln intelligent view of the Assembly's mission work.-EDs. t This amount includes several special contributions and donations. :1= 'l'I!llI'!e amQunt~ 40 not InclUde the amounts received at Montreal or Halifax.
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL tloTELLIGENCE
FOIlEIGN lIHSSIONS-EASTElIN DIVISION. $16,363 34 Cr. 17,21704 By total receipts .. : …………………………………………………………. . $853 70 Dr.
To balance dne May 1, 1886………………………………………. 0 .. • $719 64 " total elq)enditnre ……………………………………………. 0 • • •• 16,497 40 Balance due treasurer . . . . . . . . 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 0 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III.-CORRESPONDENCE and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
An Appeal to the Ohurches from Student ministry go to the foreign field, and out of each 100,000 communicants in America only twenty. Volunteers for Foreign Missions. one go to the foreign field.
It is our desire to place before the S. The reflex irifluence Of foreign. mis8ions on the spiritual life of the home church. Many churches some of the reasons which minds ask the question, Does not this uprising mean a decline in the work at home f A proml. have led us to decide- nent evangelist of our country, 0 when asked what he thought of it, replied, " I rejoice, for it 1. First and foremost, our Lord's command, means revival at home." The week of prayer "Go ye into all the world and preach the gos- was suggested by missionaries in India. Though pel to the whole creation." Does" go" mean carried out with reference to foreign needs, the stay ? ~nd does" preach the gospel to the whole first week in January has become a time of spiro creation" mean keep repeating that gospel to a itual awakening at home. few while two·thirds of onr race have never o The missionary movement, starting among the heard the name Jesus? Instead of regarding the world as the field, have we not been practic- stUdents of Cambridge University, was followed ing •• high farming," cultivating certain sections by floods of blessing in Great Britain. The forto the highest degree, and anowing the vaster eign missionary work started by Pastor Harms tracts to go to waste? Has not the church said of Germany resulted during the remaining sevof each sncceeding ,generation, "Send the mul- enteen years of his pastorate in a continuous retitudes away?" Or, at best, has it not, in re- vival at home and the addition of 10,000 to that sponse to the words of the Master, "Give ye one church. Two divisions of the Baptists in them to eat," continned to feed the first three or the United States were about equal in memberfour frows over and over again, allowing the ship; after seventy years the anti-missionary masses beyond to die of starvation? section had 45,000, wbile the missionary Baptists numbered two and a half millions. Truly, 2. Because the needs of the foreign ./leld are "the religion of Christ is a commodity, of which 80 mIJAJh greater. Our heart's desire and prayer the more we export, the:more we have at home." to God for America is that it might be saved, "There is that seattereth, and yet increaseth ; but we go because the need abroad is a thousand· there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and fOld greater. This is so in some countries from it tendeth to poverty." Let it be our earnest a purely numerical standpoint. In the United prayer that there may be such an outlet of men States there is one minister to 700 people; in and money from this country as shall lead to an China one ordained missionary to 1,000,000. Of inlet of blessing from heaven. the 200,000,000 of Africa, 140,000,000 have not been Wuched by Christian teachers. The United 4. Because of the" pre8ent crisis." The fields States has 80,000 preachers. while India, with are white, the harvest must be gathered at once five times the population, has but 700 ordained or be lost. Are we alive to the fact that the hosts missionaries. of evil are rushing forward to gather these golden sheaves f The Mohammedans are at work in Says one: "But two thousand two hundred Africa. Thousands of the aborigines are yieldhave offered to go." "What are these among ing to them because Islam appeals to the sensuso many Y" China alone would swallow them ous and is propagated by the sword. If we deup, and adding them to her present farce, includ- lay, the present difficulties of evangelization will ing the native ordained ministers, there would be at least dOUbled. For" Mohammedanism, so then be but one man to 175,000 people. If you would get an approximate idea of what that far from being a stepping-stone to Christianity, means, eliminate from the United States the is one of the very strongest fortresses of unbe· great mass of her Christian institutions, her lief. Converts from Mohammedanism are comschools, hospitals, churches – the church and paratively few." A missionary who has labored S. S. workers-in a word, take away her whole twenty·six years in India says: "India is now Ohrl8tian atmosphere. Throughout the length ready for our work, and if this crisis is not met and breadth of the land seatter but 343 ministers with a few thousand converts and adherents, and by the cburch at least two or three generations you have Ohina in miniature. will paos before an equal opportunity can again be offered." Do not fear that our country will be depleted; for only one and three-tenths per cent. of our From Brazil the word comes: U This land is ready; thousands would accept the gospel if dying at the rate of a hundred thousand a day, they ouly had preachers." One writes concern- and Christians are giving to save them at the ing China: .. A thousand missionaries are worth rate of OM·tenth Of a cent a day." Every tick of more if sent now than ten thonsand ten years the watch sonnds the death-knell of a heathen from now." As for Japan-it is melted and soul. Every breath we draw, four souls perish, ready for moulding. What skatl the mould be? never having heard of Christ. Christianity or infidelity 1 You may help us also by prayer. "Helping 5. The whole world can be evangelized in the together by prayer." Oh for some five hundred present generation. "Let us go np at once aud Elijahs, each one on his Mount Carmel crying possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." nnto God I Then we should soon have the The Earl of Shaftesbury says: "During the lat- clouds bursting with showers. " There shall be ter part of these (eighteen) centuries it has been showers of blessing." "I will pour . . . jlood8 in the power of those who hold the trnth, hav- upon the dry ground." . . . Oh, for more ing means enongh, having knowledge enough, prayer, more constant, incessant mention of the and having opportunity euough, to evangelize mission cause in prayer, and the blessing will be the globejifty time8 ()'/)er." Listen to the dying snre to come. words of the veteran missionary, Simeon H. Calhoun: .. It is my deep conviction, and I say WE have received the following it again and again, that if the church of Christ letter from Rev. John Crawford, were what she ought to be, twenty years would pastor at Morristown, N. J. : not pass away till the story of the cross would be uttered in the ears of every liviug man." ])ear Editors: Will you give us in THE MIS- Bot mark more recent testimony. It is ginn by SIONARY REYI'EW the present status of Pllstor one hundred aud twenty missionaries in China, Harms' mission work? In" Praying and Workrepresentatives of twenty-one Protestant socIe- ing" I can find no sequel to Fleming Steventies. They say, "We want China emanCipated son's account, and Harms' work is a wondrous from the thralldom of sin in this generation. inspiration for us pastors. Indeed, Dr. Steven- It is possible. Our Lord has said, 'According son's course in promoting missionary interest at to your faith be it unto you.' The church of home, as a campaigner for that cause, has greatly God can do it if she be only faithful to ber great aroused me. But I can find very little of detail commission." This statement comes from mis- concerning him. In my conference I have been sionaries who are acquainted with the discour- trying to engage some of the men as lecturers in agements, who know the dilIiculties. "missionary concerts." If we could hear of such work as Stevenson's we would be much Money is wanted for this work. There is need quickened. With great relish for THE REVIEW for the millions and for the mites. All cannot on its new departure. go, but all can give. There are two colleges in Canada-Knox and Queens-Princeton College, REPLY. New Jersey, three theological seminaries in the United States; each has jdecided to support a The Hermansburg Misl!lional'Y Sograduate in some foreign field. ciety's last report to which we have access was that of 1886. Rev. Louis Are there not enough churches, each of which Harms, its originator, died in 1865. will give enoagh money to support at least one Rev. Egmont Harms is now secreof these men 1 Eighty-five people each contrib- tary, and may be addressed at Heruting twenty-five cents a week will pay the sal- mansburg, Germany. The income of ary of a missionary and of his wife. Thonsands the society was, in 1886, $48,500; it of churches, Sunday-schools, young people's so- employed 219 missionaries and native cieties, and Young Men's Christian Associations helpers, of whom 40 were ordained can support one, two or three missionaries apiece Europeans, 50 laymen and 42 women, -if they will. Single individuals can each hold likewise Europeans; and 25 were naa representative abroad. A student about to be tive ministers and 62 native helpers. admitted to the New York bar has pledged to There were 4,680 native communisupport a friend as soon as he enters the foreign cants and 12,120 baptized persons. field. Can you not yourself give enough money Two hundred and sixty communito support at least oUll missionary? cants represented the gain of the year. South Africa is the chief field Is there one law of self·denial for the mission- of this society, and the work is prinary disciple and another for the disciple who cipally among the Zulus. Mission " stays by the stuff? " Is it a time for Christians work is however prosecuted in India, to hoard money? Is it a time for thinking only Australia and New Zealand. The of society and fashion, for spending money on society feels the need of the remarkrich eating and dressing, while the world is waiting Cor the gospel and the eyes of the dying are able inspiration communicated to its fixed on us? Is it not a time for close economy, for handling our substance as stewards of God? Out of every dollar given to the Lord's work we spend niuety-eight llI'!lts at borne. "The heathen are work by Louis Harms. He was a illustrated by a native artist. It is produced very uncommon man; it is no dis- handsomely in a small volume by the American paragement of his successors to say Baptist Mission Press at Rangoon. A copy has that his enthusiasm was contagious. been, through the courtesy of the translator and His fire burned so bright and hot that superintendent of the press, Mr. F. D. Phinney, everyone about him took flame. He sent to Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, who is advised was one man among a million. It is that copies of the volume may be had from a marvel that the work survived at Scribner & Welford, importing booksellers in all when it lost such a head. But it New York. will ever stand as a proof and illustration of what one man can lead one Oft' Duty. church to do, composed of the middle class, rept'esenting little if any THE missionary is also a man. He has his wealth. It was all accomplished by moments of relaxation. It may seem to afford faith, prayer, gathering of the littles, readers an idea of how much a missionary's life and self-giving. may resemble the life of his brother minister at home if we print here a list of books lately Letter from Mrs. J. O. Braq, Gen. Seo. given, by the way, In private correspondence by of the Amerioan MoAll Assooiation. a missionary In India, that he had been reading as a diversion and replenishment of his mind. I SEND you a few items regarding the McAll We simply print the list as throwing a light of Missiou, takeu from letters just received from reality on what to the imagination is often a Paris. Perhaps the oue thing for which we are dimness of romance: the most thaukful is the Intelligence that ten new stations have been opened lately in the "I am to-day reading 'Charlotte Bronte,' by provinces. These stations are very nearly self- Laura C. Holloway. We have been reading supporting, the mission being responsible for 'Sartor Resartus,' 'A Tale of Two Cities,' the rent of the halls only. The French pastors 'French Revolution,' 'Never too Late to Mend,' and their people provide the speakers, pay the 'IHeart of Midlothian,' 'Vanity Fair,' 'Woman running expenses, etc. This seems like a long in White,' 'Mrs. Browning's Poems.' To-day I step in advance. received Dr. Smith's 'Modern Church History.' I notice that Dr. Fisher is publishing a Church A letter dated Paris, Jan. 3, 1888, says: "The History." work this winter has surpassed our expecta· tions. We have never had so large and so good Prom Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, audiences, and never such signs of regeneration and salvation being wrought in the halls. . . . CHINA INLAND MISSION, At Bonne Nouvelle we have lately adopted the LONDON, Feb. 17, 1888. plan of asking all friends who wish to be privately talked to concerning their souls to remain DEAR DR. PIERSON: I have not yet had the after the meeting Tuesday evening. There are pleasure of seeing your January REVIEW, but always as many as 25 or 30 young men who re- have had a card from your pnblishers telling me main, and 80 women. The sight which the hall it is ont of print and will be forwarded later on. presents from 9 to 10 O'clock is beautiful." .•• The February No. came to my hand yesterday, At Rue Royale we are also much encouraged. and though only able to glance at it hastily I feel The hall is more than full on Sunday afternoons. profoundly thankful that such a periodical has (This is the street leading from the Place de la been brought out. Concorde to la Madeleine.) My friend Mr. Reginald Radcliffe of liver- " In general it may be said that there seems to pool tells me he has mentioned to you the probhave been a wonderful outpouring of the Holy ability of our being able to pay a hasty visit to Spirit In the mission, as the renewed consecra- the States, and perhaps to Canada, together. I tion of the workers and many conversions think that I shall very likely come over In time testify." , to attend Mr. Moody's Northfield conveution, and bring with me a clergyman-a member of Buddhist Literature, the Church of England-who is shOrtly going to China, and whO, like myself, will be refreshed [Note from Prof. W. C. Wilkinson.] and helped by coming in contact with onr breth- ren in America who are animated by the same READERS who may like to take a fresh taste spirit. of the real quality of Buddhist literature at its best have now a new opportunity to gratify I presume we shall see yon at that conventhemselves. Mr. L. Allan Goss, inspector of tion or otherwise, and if any suggestions occur schools In Burmah, has translated from the Bur- to you that would be helpful to a stranger and mese version of the Pali text the " Story of We- also helpful to the missionary canse, I shall be than-da-ya," a Buddhist legend. This has been very thankful to receive them.
From our most recent Intelligence from China the water is retiring from the fiooded districts, partly from lessened influx and partly probably from improved egress Into the Yellow Sea; and the Imperial Government is most manfully and nobly coping with the distress. The spiritual progress of the work in China is in Peking, then there is one ordained minister to very encouraging, aud we are grateful to God for answers to prayer, the 103 new missionaries every r5O,000 people. " , having gone out during 1887, and our income having been raised as we asked God, and antici· In 184:~ the population was estimated to be pated by £10,000. 330,000,000. On this snpPosition, notwith- Letter from Dr. A. P. Happer. standing the immense loss of life by wars, re- CANTON, CHmA, January 31, 1883. DEAR EDITORS: The statistics of the missions bellions, famine, and pestilence, there has been in China have been partially made up for the year 1887. These show the missionary workers an increase in the population of 32,000,000. in China to be 489 men, 820 wives, 231 single women, in all 1,040, of whom some 400 are or- The statistics ,above given state the number dained ministers. There are 175 ordained native ministers, 1,816 native workers as preach- of church members to be 32,260, which may imers, colporteurs, Bible women and teachers of schools. There are 32,260 adult church mem- ply that the members of their families nnmber bers, 13,777 pupils in Christian schools. The contributions amount to $38,236. say 150,000. It may be supposed that two or These statements compared with those of 1886 three millions of the people may have such a show the increase to be as follows: Of men mis- knowledge of the gospel as would enable them sionaries,43 ;.,of wives, 4; of single women, 74 ; making 121 in all. Of native ordained ministers to accept of Jesus Christ as their personal the increase is 35 ; of native assistants, 20. The increase of communicants is 4,260; of pupils iu Saviour, and that a larger number have some schools is ouly 198 ; of contribntions is $19,862, which sum is double the amount of contributions knowledge of Christianity. On these supposithe preceding year, and is more than $1 for each tions the efforts of the Protestant churches member. These statements will be gratifying to all the during these 46 years to propagate the gospel supporters of missions and call forth thanksgiv has not been sn1llcient to reachune-tkird of the ing to God for his rich grace and mercy. It is to be noticed the great increase in the number increase of the population during these years. of foreign laborers; this is much greater than in any previous year, and of this increase it is to be The accepted time for the life of one generaremarked that 74 are single women, nearly double the number of the increase of men. They tion is 33 years. During these 46 years more everywhere find ready entrance to the homes of the teeming millions of women and girls who are than one whole generation of the population of in all the darkuess of heathenism; there is room for hnndreds more of Christiau laborers in this China has passed away. If then the efforts of populous empire. the Protestant churches have ouly reached 1888 Let the churches cousider these facts and arouse themselves to the greatness of the work t::'on one-third of the increase of the people, and to be done. In the year 1842 China was partially opened to the introduction of the gospel by a whole generation and more has passed beyond the treaty England made with China at the close of what is known in history as the opium War. all hnman effort to reach them, when will the It was still more fully opened to the gospel in 1858, at the revision of the treaties with Western present measure of effort by the churches fulfill nations, when toleratiou to Christianity was granted and missionaries were permitted to the command of our Lord and Leader to preach propagate the gospel in all parts of the country. natives to profess it and to assist in its propaga- the gospel to every creature? May the leaders tion without hindrance, according to the stipnlations of the treaties. It is now 46 years since of God's sacramental hosts devise the means God in his providence opened this populous land to his people, thus preparing the way for them to for carrying out these orders of the Captain of carry out the command to .. go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." In our salvation, and may all the host follow ont ol)edience to his command there are now some 400 ordained ministers here laboring for this ob- these plans to a complete accomplishment of the ject. If we accept the recent statement of the population of China proper to be 882,000,000, as work, and until the knowledge of God covers given by the secretary of the Russian Legation the whole earth even as the waters cover the sea I Letter from Rev. G. W. Ohamberlain.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL. I HAVE read with much pleasure and profit your editorial on the" Apparent Waste of Missions," in the March nnmber of THE REVIEW. Simon- ton, our first missionary to Brazil, was perhaps the most able man that our churCh' has ever sent to Brazil. He died after seven years' services, at the age of 33, when he seemed to be indispen- sable to our work. Yet he lived to see three chnrches begun-Rio, Sao Paulo, ann Brotas. To-day these three have a membership of 491, 47 of whom were added on profession of their faith last year, an increase of over 10 per cent. They contributed toward their own snpport last year the sum of $3,300.00. The Presbytery of Rio, which Was composed at the time of Simon- ton's death of these three churches, has now on its roll thirty-three. This year they will (at our next annual meeting), in combination with the fourteen or fifteen churches of the Southern Presbyterian Chnrch Brazil Mission, form the Synod of Brazil, and enter, 21 years after Simon- ton'8 death, upon an era of self-propagation and increasing self-snpport, whose results in the next 21 years it is difficult to forecast. At Sao Paulo, where Simonton died In 1867, we now publish the ImprelUla Evangelica, a weekly re- foreducation, and in furnishing a number of exligious paper, of which he was the first and cellent text-books in the Siamese langnage. aolest 'editor; a monthly Missionario Juvenil They are, however, mainly used for fitting native (organ of the young people's missionary society young men for positions as clerks and translators of the chnrch and school at Sao Paulo), self- in the government service. They are not aVRilsustaining, and third, Revista das M"1.8soes able for the traiuing of teachers of good eduea: Nacionals, edited by one of our native ministers tion and ability, nor for the preliminary educaon behalf of the Society of National Mission!- tion of native ministers. It is believed toot a self-sustaining and stimnlating by its monthly suitable institution of the kind here suggested reports all the churohes of the presbytery to would receive extensive patronage from wealthy self-snpport. The school which I began in 1872 Siamese princes and nobles, as well as from the as a parish school has grown from a primary to king himself, wbose gifts in aid of Christian edua school of over 200 pupils, embracing normal cation have been frequent and liberal. It is not elasses of both sexes and a department for intended at present to expend a large snm of training our theological students. We have eight money in organizing an institution beyond the native pastors (two others have gone up to the present demand, but it is proposed so to organ- General Assembly of the First-born), and sev- ize it that it shall be able to keep pace with the eral candidates under care of the presbytery. needs of the people, and in time to become an The Synod of Brazil will have on its roll the institution like Robert College in Constantinople, ,names of at least 12 native ministers, besides 21 doing efficient work for the country of its locaforeign missionaries. tion.
Bhaisdehi, Betul Diat" Oent. Prov., India. It is proposed to establish a Christian high school in Siam for the purpose of giving native • J anusry 24, 1888. young men a plain, practical education, such as will fit them for usefulness in any honorable EDITORS OF MISSIONARY REVIEW. – I pmise employment, but especially with a view to pre· God that he has led you to take npthework which pare them for teaching, with the ultimate design of raising up a native ministry which can be dear R. G. Wilder was, compelled to lay down. supported by the people. It will be a school for May he grant you grace and spiritual power to the training of native Christian workers. In undertaking this work it is not considered addo mighty things for Christ's glory in the visable to erect buildings in the outset, which would require nearly two years of valuable responsible place in which he has placed you I time, but rather to rent the necessary buildings I am thankful that you have started a .. fund" for the present, expecting that after the school has made a reputation and its work has become to send THE MISSIOlS"ARY REVIEW OF THE favorably known, a more desirable location can be obtained, perhaps as a gift from the king, and WORLD to the 3,000 young men and women in considerable aid can be secured in the way of contributions from Siamese gentlemen of wealth the United States aud Great Britain who have and liberality, and from foreign merchants residing in Bangkok. devoted their lives to the missionary work. The school is to be organized under the care I hope that you will also start another fund to and control of the Presbyterian Board, which send THE REVIEW to all missionaries now will have charge of all property belonging to the actually laboring among the heathen who are school, and direct the general policy to be fol- lowed and the expenditnre of the funds connot able to pay for it. As a rule, among this trihuted, being assisted by a board of advisers residing in Siam. The Bible will be a text-book class are laborers in self-supporting missions for all classes. Daily stndies in both Siamese and English will be required of all students, and so-called independent or faith missionaries. translating each language into the other. In addition to this the course of study will in- There are also beloved brethren under some or clude instruction in mathematics and the nat- ural sciences, mental and moral philosophy, and all of the boards who on account of the demand normal methods of teaching, being similar to the course given in onr best normal schools, and for the education of their children or other de- equivalent in mental discipliue to the· course in mands are not able to pay for THE REVIEW, a first-rate classical academy.
though they would much like to have it. One It is estimated that S15,Coo will be sumcient to way to sustain the zeal of this goodly army of establish this institution ou a permanent basis, with a prospect of becoming self-snpporting young men and women who have devoted their after a few years. It is proposed to raise this snm in advance, and to place it in the haeds of lives to the mission cause is to keep the fire of the Preilbyterian Board, to be expended by them III sending out and snpportin~ three teacher~ devotion and enthusiasm burning in the hearts of the laborers already out in the harvest field.
God bless you and wondrously endue you with power from on high I Yours in Christ, KORKOO MISSION. ALBERT NORTON.
Ohristian High School of Siam.
[Letter from Rev. J. A. Eakin.] EDITORS OF MISSIONARY REVIEW. -In the opinion of the missionaries in Siam and also of the Pres. Board of Foreign MiSSions, the time has come to found in Slam a school which will ultimately grow into a flrst,class educational establishment for that country. The government schools which have been established there have Ilolje a 1500d work in exciting a popular delIsnd and providing the necessary equlpments for the rather tban God·s will? "Herein is my Father school. Of this sum $10,000 has already been glorified that ye bear much fruit. " secured, mainly in large contributions, and it is hoped the remainder wilrsoon be offered, so that But has not God for each child that sense of the work may be begnn as soon as possible. This nearness to him which. comes from special diboard has elected Rev. J. A. Eakiu, who was for rection? God does send special impressions, four years a teacher iu the Kiug's school iu Bang- but should we lean On these except as confirmkok, to be principal of the Christian high scbool, ing God's word f Is not what we term a special and authorized him to solicit fnnds for this pnr- call simply God's hand reaching down to help us pose. The board also cordially recommends to acknowledge onr "bigh calling in Christ this school to the churches as a suitable object Jesus? ,~ for memorial offerings during the centennial year, and the Executive Committee of the Cen- If in Christ Jesus should we not find our mistenary Fund have placed it On their list as one sionary call as easily as the Crown Prince finds of the special causes for which contributions are his heirship to the throne? If challenged for requested. onr right to seek a missionary life, we can per- haps point to the hour or circumstsnce through There are special reasons for urgiug the begin- which we realized our bigh calling, bnt if not ning of this enterprise at the present time. this, directly to Onr high calling. "He that_ winneth souls is wise." "Follow me." U I 1. The Siamese are entirely dependent On the come to s~ek and to save the lost." "Ye shall Presbyterian Cburch of this couutry for the be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in Judea knowledge of the gospel. No otber denomina- and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of tion is laboring for their evangelization. the earth." Accepting this Bible missionary call, we can extend it and say to a brother 2. Tbe present missionary force is altogetber Cbristian, "It is your privilege to be a missioninsumcient. In Siam proper there are only four ary just as much as mine." .. Let him that ordained missionaries and four or five native heareth say come." It is your privilege to seek preachers for a population of six million souls. a neglected field, unless hindered. "Go ye into the highways and hedges." Tbis choice <I. Tbe situation of affairs iu Siam is remarka- will not diminish daily guidance or nearness to bly favorable for tbe successful planting of such God. A fixed purpose to enter Canaan was tbe a school. The king has promised to establish a reason of the guiding pillar and cloud. Tbose system of national scbools throughout the coun- who lean bardest and are asking God to try. He has intimated his willingness 1.0 employ shape every hour of life mnst be those who be- Christian teachers in these schools. Here, tben, lieve that the Cbristian's calling is to carry life is our opportunity to prepare Christian young to those in the sbadow of death. This convicmen for this work, and so mould the future edu- tion leads to close walking with God. .. Go " cation of the entire kingdom. Tbe opportunity and" 10 I " (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20) were linked by is ours now. It will soon pass away from us un- Jesus. less it is improved. Contributions may be seut to Rev. J. A. Eakin or to the treasurer of the Oh that the spirit of God~may so fill us that Board of Foreign Missions, marked for the we shall seek Christ'S'last command, yea have it Christian High School of Siam. our cbief desire to "preach the gospel to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, and bring Have Not IOommanded Thee'l .deliverance to captives." We sball then, like a certain young man, be willing to .burn the im- [Letter from Miss Grace E. Wilder. plements of our former pursuits. We shall, like Concluded from p. 285, April No.] him, follow even wben a prophet says, Go back. Three times was the temptation repeated, but ONE has said," Where our Father has written every time the young man answers, .. As the out for us a plain direction about anything, he Lord liveth and as my soulliveth I will not leave will not of course make an especial revelation to tbee." Is this fixedness of desire rewarded f us about that thing." Doubtless in his great When they had passed over Jordan Elijah says, love he does help our weak faith by special Ask what I shall do for thee? "Let a double providences. Bnt God forbid that we insist on a portion of thy spirit be upon me," was the special providence before we obey such a clear young man's request. revelation as that to carry the gospel to every creatnre. His desire must stand still another test. .. Thou hast done hard in asking, nevertbeless, Some are saying, My concern should be, not the if thou see me when I am'taken from thee it conversion of souls, not the evangelizing of this shall be so unto thee." Tbis condition involved world, but the doing God's will, accomplishing not only intense desire but a firm purpose. He his purpose for me. Does not this imply that must keep watch constantly. Tbe great future his purpose for me is an exception to his re- of Elisha-the power with which he performed vealed purpose'· for his cbildren? Did the early twice as many miracles as Elijab-was con- Christians make a mistake that all interpreted ditioned upon eager seeking for his Master's God's will to be the extension of Cbrist's king- spirit. dom f In the space of 8 year the Thessalonian church made the gospel known througb the re- Our prize is the mind flf the Lord Jesus and gion of Macedonia and Achala. Is this ambition the power of the Holy Spirit, by which we are to do greater works than he did. The condi- prime minister, summoned Dr. Thompson and tion of our receiving it is, "Go ye into all the his medical aSSistant, Rev. Mr. Cooper, and the world and preach the gospel to every creature." writer, to an audience. It was a glad day for ns and an important one in the history of this mis- A Remarkable Letter from Siam. sion.
[The following was written and published by After ascending the mountain we were invited us in another magazine some months ago, but is to seats in a ball occnpied by several princes, worthy of a place in this REVIEW. We give it among them the Minister ofEducation, the king's only in part.-EDs.] private secretary and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. We were hardly seated before the THE past fifteen days have been busy and joy- princes began to qnestion' us regarding the ful Ones for the missionaries at Petchaburi. The Christian religion and the nature of our mission. king of Siam, with hundreds ofprinces, ministerb They pnt many searchiug questions about the of state, nobles and soldiers, has been in our creation, atonement, forgiveness of sins, miracity, the king resting in his palace on the top of a cles, future life, etc., thus giviug ns a good opmountain, one mile from our home; the plains portunity to preach Christ to them. One of the below covered with soldiers and followers in princes stated that he was a reformed Buddhist, camp; the river in front, "bove and below our that he discarded the supernatural from Bnddhhome, filled with crowded boats. We have had ism, and tbat he did not regard Bnddha as a god, daily preaching of the gospel to good audiences, but simply a great teacher, and received only and at 0 night through the sciopticon, Bible pj.c- his moral teachings. We learned from the tures have drawn large crowds to hear the life prince that tbis view is rapidly gaining adherents of our Lord. Ouro.homes. schools and hospitals in Siam. Our conversation lasted for one hour were visited by princes and nobles, who encour- and a half, and was enjoyed by all. After this aged us in onr work, some of them in a very pleasure we were conducted to the palace and substantial way. met at the door of the drawing-room by the king, who, after grasping our hands, warmly in- We conld not help noting the contmst between vited us to chairs, and at once began questionnow and former days. Not many years ago, ing us regarding our work, relieving US of no when tbe king passed along the highways, the little embarrassment, and showing us that inpeople were compelled to fall upon their faces stead of being summoued to a formal audieuce and did not dare look upon his Majesty. Now we were to have a familiar talk on mission work. the king rode ont to the villages and through The king at first expressed his gratitnde to Dr. the streets, halting now and then to speak with Thompson for the surgical aid given the marines the people. Crowds greeted him along the way, who were injnred by the gunboat explosion, and and large companies visited him daily at the then for his medical work among the people, palace. His Majesty had many kind words for assuring him of future aid and urging him to them. On one occasion about two hundred aged carryon the work to the best of his ability. He women sought him at the palace, carrying with then told ns of his joy at seeing and hearing of them offerings of fmits, sogar, sweetmeats, flow- our schools over the city, asked many qnestions ers, etc. The king received them kindly. Ad- coucerning our plans and told us of his plans for dressing one old lady, he said, "Well, grand- a system of public free schools for his country, mother, when your king comes to visit the which he hoped to establish at an early day. prOVince, are yon filled with fear or does it give you joy?" The old lady answered, "Your He then called the Minister of Education, and Majesty's visit fills us witb joy. Why, before told him that if the missiouaries should apply for your Majesty arrived we took three meals a day, text-books or other aid for the mission schools but since your arrival we have been so happy ill' Petchaburi, he mnst grant them freely. Then that we take but one meal a day, and are satis- turning to ns he said: "I wish to place yonr fied." The king laughed heartily land replied, schools-as to aid from the government-on a "If that is the case I shall come frequently." plane with the government schools." We ex- His Majesty sent these (as well as all who sought pressed to him the gratitude of the Board of him) away rejoicing over liberal gifts from his Foreign Missions for liberal aid and encourage. hand. ment received from him in the past, and also for the liberty granted the missionaries in their la- Shortly after his arrival the king rode throngh bors. The king replied, "During our reign we the streets, and on noticing our little school- always have encouraged and will in the futnre houses expressed his joy, and inquired of the encourage the American missionaries, being prime minister of Siam and the governor of fully persuaded that you are deeply interested In Petchabnri as to the extent of the school work, and laboring for the good of the people." IDs number of pupilS, how it was sustained, etc. Majesty then bestowed upon Dr. Thompson a These otllcials having visited our schools were handsome silver medal, to his medical assist- able to give the king considerable information. ant a well-filled purse, and the Rev. Mr. Cooper The next day the royal physician visited our and the writer beantiful presents, saying, "These hospital and inspected it. That night he report- are tokens of my appreciation, and they will ed to the king, who intimated that be would be serve to keep this occasion in remembrance." glad to have a report from the missionaries re- After taking ns each by the hand and wiehing nB gardiug their )Vork, its needs, etc. We there- success iu our work, he withdrew. fore prepared reports, and they were presented to him, and on the following day he, through his But this was not all. The Jing's private sec- and family, and otherwise animadretary handed us two letters-one from the queen verting on Bishop Tayloll's scheme, addressed to the ladies of the .mission, and one which he adjuges to be a failure and from the king addressed to the gentlemen. The a folly. We have not much occasion former read as follows: "Her Majesty the to discuss the case now, as it has queen has been informed of the work of the lady been largely presented by the secumissionaries in the girls' school and of your de- lar and religious press, but we doubt sire to establish a home for aged women. This if this brother's testimony is worth so work has produced great joy and gratitnde in much notice. Discussion of methods her Majesty's heart, and it is her pleasure to grant s generally wholesome, and this the sum of sixteen hundred Iicals ($960) to aid may" provoke" to good works. Ceryou. Her Majesty prays that the work may be tainly there are formidable obstacles carried on free from difllculties, and ever pros- to Bishop Taylor's plans, but it is per." The king's letter read as follows: "His rather early to summon them for Majesty the king has been informed of the medi- judgment. cal mission work in Petchabnri, and deems it a great pleasure to aid in this department of your China.-Professor Joseph Edkins work. His majesty feels that it is proper taup- of the Educational Department at hold this work, because it is one of vast benefit Peking, and one of the foremost ta his people. He therefore takes pleasure in authorities on the language and litergranting the sum of twenty-Cour hundred licals ature of China, has traced an inter- ($1,440) for the purpose of enlarging your hospi- esting connection between the Pertal buildings. His Majesty asks that you labor sian and Chinese calendars. Instead to complete this work, and that it may be firmly of fire, air, earth, and water, the established and ever prosper." Thus the day Chinese hold to five elements, omitbrought us the good wishes of the king and ting air, and adding wood and metal. $2,400 to help in the Master's work. The system of five elements has not been discovered in India or Babylo- GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. nian archreology, but is the basis of the Persian calendar, in which five Africa.-The opening of Central angels, corresponding with the spirits Africa to commerce is working great. of the five elements, preside over the changes among the people. They months and over the days of the are rapidly laying aside their native week. The date of its entry into clothing, arms and implements, and China is referred to the Ria dynasty, adopting those brought in from civ- or about 2100 E.C.. so that Persia ilized lands. People that four years must stand for one of the prehistoric ago asked the traders for beads, trink- Bactrian empires. During the Chow ets and brass l'ods, now ask for guns, dynasty, one thousand years later, cloth and-rum. The Hakka or high- the Chinese had an increased knowlland people of Kwangtung province, edge of the elen)ental philosophy, China, furnish more literary men to and elaborated it to suit their own the National Academy than any other counting and their own tastes. But class. They are the people in South- the modern Chinese calendar was not ern China who do not bind the feet completed till 140 B.C., when the of their women, and their character route to the Caspia.n was opened, and is vigorous and independent. The King Fang, the philosopher of that American Baptist Missionary Union period, received clearer ideas of the has a mission a few years old among Persian system than had previously this interesting people. been known in China. The fitting of the five elements to the months and – Bishop Taylor Criticised. A days, which is characteristic of the brother by the name of Waller, who Persian and Chinese calendars, was joined Bishop Taylor's Congo mis- not expanded to its modern fullness sion in the capacity of cook for the in China till 140 B.C., after which steam yacht, has returned to this country and attained notoriety by allowing himself to be "interviewed" by the secular press, and giving out that he was not suitably provided with necessaries of living for himself followed the construction of the an- the annual address. .A large company nual calendar as now established in of native gentlemen were present, the empire. together with one European lady and less than ten European gentlemen. England.-Fifty Years of the Brit- Oratorically the lecture was labored ish and Foreign Bible Society.-.At and the sentenceslabyrinthian. Theothe late anniversary of the British logically the lecture was pantheistic, and Foreign Bible Society, the presi- theistic, and occasionally Christian. dent, the Earl of Harrowby, in his His views of God were in harmony address from the chair, referred to with the gospel according to Spinoza. the progress of the society's work On the question of sin he was more within the reign of Queen Victoria. orthodox, declaring that Theodore The story is most cheering; Parker erred in saying "every fall is a fall upward." Mr. Mozumdar's " Fifty years ago our receipts were plan of salvation is opposed to Mat- £100,000; now they are nearly £225,- thew the Evangelist's, but in hal'- 000. Fifty years ago that great test mony with Matthew the peculiar son of the interest taken in this noble of a well-known .Arnold of Rugby. work – the auxiliary societies – The lecturer spoke of the ills of idolamounted at home to jl,370; now atry and the" demon caste." For they are over 5,300. If there is any this we praise him. He frankly conproof of the spread of the interest fessed that the present state of his taken in the circulation of the Bible, branch of Brahmoism in Calcutta that is one. .Abroad you had 260 was" anarchy," and affirmed aU the auxiliaries and bl'anches fifty years evils of hatred, jealousy, falsification, ago. You have now 1,500. Fifty etc., of his people. We regret this years ago, what was the issue of the fact, but do not think that Mr. Bible and portions of it from this Mozumdar's closing invocation to our great society'? The annual issue was Saviour and aU the prophets of his 600,000; now it is about 4,000,000. pantheon can stem the tide that has The cheapest copy of a book half a set in. Theism has no conservator century back was issued at about two but Christianity. Hindu or Brahmo shillings; now the price is sixpence. pantheism is only refined or figurative The cheapest Testament then was idolatry.-The Indian Witness. tenpence ; the cheapest now is Lord Shaftesbury's, and the price is a -British rule inIndia has not resulted penny. .And that not done by any in the removal of the hateful customs grinding of the people who produce which prevail in reference to marthese works. In how many tongues riage. Parents continue to contract and languages were the Scriptures marriages for their children. One bad circulated fifty years ago? In 136. feature of such marriages is illustrat- That figure is actually doubled, for ed by the story of two sisters in a now they are circulated in 280. Fifty zenana school at Serapore. These years ago 14 fresh languages of Eu- girls resemble each other, but one has rope had been honored by Bible pub- ugly scars on her face which disfigure lication. Now the Bible has been her. It is said that the father intends published in 12 fresh languages in to repeat Laban's fraud on Jacob. Central.Asia and Siberia, 12 in India, The expectant bridegroom will be 14 in China and Mongolia, 19 in the told by his parents that, the bride is Pacific, 30 in .Africa and 30 in .Ameri- aU he can desire (they will have seen ca. That surely is a most marvelous the scarless sister); but whlln the marriage actually takes place the record. disfigured girl, duly veiled, will be India.-The town hall lecture of seated at the lad's side, and not till too late to draw back will he see her Keshub Chunder Sen used to be the event of January in Calcutta. Last Saturday Mr. P. C. Mozumdat· gave face. Of course, as Leah was hated, undertake a humanitarian work for so will this Hindu girl be when she the relief of Hindu child-widows. becomes a wife. No government, She does not propose to do this on however paternal, can succeed in in- any pronounced Christian basis, as suring happy marriages, but the she thinks that would be fatal to the wrong we have instanced ought not attempt, in the present state of to have the semblance of the sanction Hindu prejudice. She seeks to found of British law. and sustain a school and home at a cost of $25,000, and estimates that -A Hindu Husband's Creed. The $5,000 w:ill meet the expenses of fifty Hindu idea of marriage is curious. scholars. At a public meeting in A man both day and night must keep Boston, Dec. 13, an association was his wife so much in subjection that formed to assist her, and a constitushe by no means be mistress of her tion drawn up under which friends own actions. If the wife have her might co-operate, and an organizaown free will, notwithstanding she is tion was effected. Among the offiof superior caste, she will go amiss. cers we find Rev. Edward E. Hale, A woman shall never go out of her D.D., Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., house without the consent of her hus- Miss Frances E. Willard, Dean Rachel band, and shall pay proper respect to L. Bodley, M.D. A board of nine trusher husband's father, the spiritual tees, aided by an advisory board in guide and her guests, and shall not India, controls all business matters. eat until she has first served them " Ramabai circles" are being formed with victuals (if it is medicine, she throughout the country. The cormay take it before they eat); a wo- responding secretary lis Miss A. P. man shall never go to a stranger's Granger, Canandaigua, N. Y. Of the house, and shall not stand at the benevolentintent of this society there door, and must never look out of the can be no question. It distinctly diswindow. If a woman, following her claims being a missionary movement. own inclinations, goeswhithersoever she chooses and does not regard the Mexico.-The General Assembly of words of her mastel', such a woman Evangelical Mlssionaries in this reshall be turned away. If a man goes public, held in the City of Mexico on a journey, his wife shall not di- January 31 to February 3,1888, was vert herself by play, nor see any pub- attended by nearly one hundred mislic show, nor laugh, nor dress herself sionaries-male and female-l'eprewith jewels or fine clothes, nor see senting eleven different Protestant dancing, nor hear music, nor sit at churches. Many visitors were also the window, nor ride, nor behold any- present, besides six of the eight inthing rare or choice, but shall fasten vited speakers from the United well the house door and remain pri- States. The meeting occupied six vate; and shall not eat any dainty nights and three whole days, and invictuals, and shall not view herself cluded social reunions, devotional exin a mirror; she shall not exercise ercises, written essays, oral discusherself in any agreeable employment sions, sermons, and addresses. The during the absence of her husband. subjects embraced in the programme covered many points of prime interest -The Ramabai Association. The and importanGe to the evangelization learned Sanskrit woman, Ramabai, of this country, and were ably treated has for a year or more attracted in the essays and discussions. Work public attention in this country. was assigned to fifty persons, nearly Ramabai was baptized in the Church all of whom met their allotments, of England. She is one of three high- and many of those who had no specaste Brahman women who have cific tasks took part in the exercises been known to make their way to and discussions. The following sta- America. She is very desirous to tistics were presented, which will be sacrifices, of the blood feuds that exread with interest: All of the States isted among them, of the rule folof the republic occupied except Cam- lowed by all of keeping alive two peche and Chiapas; number of cen- children, and no more, in everv famtres of operation, 86; congregations, ily, and of the whole aspect of"life as 393; ordained foreign missionaries, something fearful. All this has been 48; assistant foreign missionaries, changed through the influence of 44; foreign lady teachers, 43; whole Christianity. The spiritual work has number of foreign workers, 123; na- been most interesting. To see a peotive preachers ordained, 81; native ple who once were cannibals partakpreachers unordained, 65 ; native ing of the Lord's Supper has been teachers, 96; other native helpers, truly delightful. At the New Year's 49; total native workers, 273; grand gathering it has been the custom for total of foreign and native workers, all the members of the church at Rar- 442; church societies, 17'7; communi- atonga to assemble together for worcants, 12,135; probable adherents, ship. Looking around upon this 26,967; training and theological gathering, the family history of all schools,10 ; pupils in same, 66; board- known to him, he had seen the bread ing schools and orphanages, 15; pu- administered by one to a man whose pils in same, 503; common schools, father that man had murdered, or the 71; pupils in same, 2,187; total reverse. The work of evangelization under instruction, 2,492; Sunday- in these islands has been done almost schools, 199; Sunday-school teachers entirely by the natives whom it has and officers, 367 ; Sunday-school been Mr. Gill's object to train for scholars, 4,187; total membership of this purpose. It is wonderful what Sunday-schools, 5,306; publishing they have done. Hundreds have houses, 8; papers issued, 10; pages sacrificed their lives to carry the of all kinds of religious literature is- gospel to their brethren. Sixty of sued since establishment of presses, Mr. Gill's own church have been killed 49,471,295; church buildings, 73; ap- while acting as missionaries. proximate value of same, $257,900; parsonages, 39; approximate value -French Policy in the South Seas. of same, 93,260; educational build- France is quite liberal in religious ings, 16; approximate value of same, matters at home, but she has a very $147,200; value of entirfl publishing different policy for her colonies. In outfit, $39,500; total value of all mis- her colonial policy she is almost as sionary property, $599,251; churches intolerant as Spain; indeed, quite so. and chapels built without aid from It is true that the Spanish governor Home Boards, 16; receiving partial of Ponape, one of the Caroline Islaid, 19; martyrs, 62; native preach- ands, seized and imprisoned, on the ers, sons of former workers, 2; for- most absurd charges, a missionary of eign workers, sons and daughters of the American Board; but the govmissionaries, 3; foreign workers, sons ernor-general promptly gave the misand daughters of ministers in the sionary redress and removed the home field, 9. offending official. What French in- tolerance is capable of was seen a South Pacifico-At a recent meet- few years ago in the case of Mr. in London, Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, a mis- Shaw of Madagascar, and has been sionary from the South Pacific, gave a illustrated more than once in the statement of work there and its re- Loyalty Islands, over which, unhapsults. His work since July, 1851, has pily, the French protectorate has been among eleven islands of the been extended, since missionaries of Hervey group. He spoke of the con- the London Society began many dition of the natives at the time-of years ago to make Cllristians and their love of revenge and human civilized beings of the savage population. The Loyalty group lies between or his banishment was his having New Caledonia, the French penal roused the wrath of his coreligionists colony, and the New Hebrides, where by declaring on a public occasion his French influence has been asserting belief that the Messiah came in the itself to the discomfort of the mis- time of the second temple. This consionaries, and with the manifest in- viction doubtless remained rooted in tention of seizing the islands. Hap- his heart, but does not seem to have pily, English protest has prevented become a living power within, until this. On Mare, one of the Loyalty one day at Tomsk, where he had group, the Rev. John Jones of the gone to meet his family, he founa a London Missionary Society has been tract containing Rabinowitch's conlaboring since 1853. He has wrought fession of faith. He at once entered a wonderful work among the natives, into correspondence with the writer, and is one of the most popular men and procured more of his writings. in the Western Pacific. Mr. Jones These were read by some thirty of has, by order of the governor- the Jews at Tomsk, and Scheinmann general, been expelled from the expounded to them what the Talmud island. This is the news which his and other Jewish books say about society has received. There are no the Messiah. "The scales," he says, particulars, but it is thought that the " fell at once from their eyes." In expulsion was caused by his protest the letter in which this passage ocagainst the introduction of convicts curs, Scheinmann asks Rabinowitch from New Caledonia into Mal·e. Two for a New Testament, only one copy years ago Mr. Jones's church and of which he had ever seen, and which schools were closed by a decree of no one in Tomsk knew what it was the governor, but they were re- about! All the books and tracts opened by permission of the French which were sent to him, except the consul at Noumea. There are Cath- New Testament, he distributed among olic priests on the island, and they his brethren in Siberia and Poland. have, it is said, been waging a relig- And there is reason to think that they ious war against Mr. Jones. It may are being read to good purpose. be that their influence has helped to Schienmann seems to be devoting his bring about Mr. Jones's expulsion. energies to the propagation of his Whether English influence will be so newideas. He has published several exerted as to secure his reinstate- letters, in one of which he calls upon ment is a matter of doubt.-Method- the Jews to "take up the New Testaist Review. ment, the true Thora, which Jesus, the Son of God, and our Master, has Siberia.-A Judmo-Christian move- taught us, and give yourselves to the ment has begun in Siberia, analo- study of it day and night." The New gous to that which for two or three Testament is being read by the Jews years has been proceeding at Kisch- as it never was before.-Chronicle of nieff, in Southern Russia, under London Miss. Society. Joseph Rabinowitch. It owes its institution to a Polish Jew, one Jacob- – The Oldest Missionary Journal. Zebi Scheinmann, who, on the The present volume of Periodical ground of utterly false accusations, Accounts relating to the missions of was banished to Siberia in 1874. He the church of the United Brethren settled at Irkutsk, where he set up in will complete the century of their business, and at the end of five years issue. In 1790 the first number of found himself in possession of a cer- this oldest of missionary journals was tain competency. In his native land "presented to an that pray for the he had heard about Jesus Christ from coming of the kingdom of Christ one of his 'friends, the late David and take an active share in its pros- Levinsohn, and the indirect occasion perity." Since then successive vol-
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT•
. umes have followed at intervals of Bureau of Information, where mag- about two and a half years, until azines and leaflets on all flelds and by more than thirty now stand slde by all evangelical denominations are side. In anticipation of the approach- kept for consultation and sale in ing hundredth year of the issue, the cheap form. A catalogue of these latest volumes have increased from publications, with their prices, can be ten to twelve quarterly numbers. had on application by enclosing 5 The present one will therefore (d. v.) cents in stamps to Maryland Baptist extend over three years, and its last lfission Rooms, 10 E. Fayette st., number will be published in Decem- Baltimore. ber 1889, so that a new volume will commence in 1890, the centenary -Prize for Essay on Missions. One year of the venerable publication. of the recent graduates of Hanover College' offers to the students a prize -A Missionary Training School in of $25 for the best essay on "The Philadelphia has been opened at 4045 Relations of Missions to the New Ogden street by Mrs. W. B. Osbdrn, Civilization in the Orient." This a former missionary in India. It is prize will be continued for at least two conducted on the basis of faith and years. prayer, and aims to put a course of preparatory study within the reach -Missionary Intelligtmce. Two of the humblest and poorest who are thousand secretaries of district mis- seeking to go abroad as miSSIOnarIeS. sionary meetings are now furnishing the daily and weekly papers of the -Mission Repository. In compliance country with missionary intelligence. with a resolution adopted by the last Never was such an amount of infor- Maryland Baptist Association, there mation distributed as is being sent has been established in Baltimore a forth now.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D. D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MIS- SIONARY UNION."
Islam in West Africa. with those who were authorities on this subject, such as Rev. Dr. Blyden, THE writer had the good fortune then professor in the Liberia College, when in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and Archbishop Crowther of the some ten years or more ago, to have Niger, enabled him to collect what a letter of introduction to Muham- was then and is still esteemed valumad SanusL who presented him with able information on this subject, just an illuminated manuscript, written now attrar.ting attention afresh. by himself, of an original Arabic composition by Sheikh Omaru-al- The measure of Moslem bigotry Haqq, a native of Futah Toro, West and fanaticism did not seem to be Africa. It is an acrostic poem, with equal in all parts of the coast. preface on the letters contained in Bishop Crowther said that in conververses 9, 10 and 11 of the 63d Sura of sation with Moslems along the the Quran. Being on a tour along Niger, on which river lies a portion the West Coast of Africa, partly of his diocese, and where, as on some with a view to study local Muham- of its lower tributaries, he has bemedanism, as far as opportunity come familiar with Moslems, he had might allow, this interview ana con- never met with a stern opposer of tribution were specially valued. Christianity among them. He could Little incidents of this nature, and a not say whether this WaS becau:se of peculiar good fortune in falling in theil' apprehension of the purer moral teaching of the Scriptures, or purchase of them, establishes less bigbecause they were ill informed con- ogtry than elsewhere we do not say. cerning the Quran, and surprised to The Moslems of India do this from a find how much more the Christian variety of motive; sometimes with a missionary knew of it, than they view to endeavor to prove their corthemselves. He said he had in a ruption and disagreement with the number of instances given the Quran. The Wesleyan missionaries Christian Scriptures to Moslem chiefs about Sierra Leone have made a someand moulvis, but never met with an what vigorous attempt to reach the obstinate disputant of his teachings Moslem community in that quarter, in connection with the present. The and at the time of which we write, had Emir of Nupe accepted from him an just held a soiree with them on an ap- Arabic Bible in the presence of his pointed evening, when seventy Moscourtiers, and a copy was sent lems were present. Working among through him to another king. The them was a Rev. Mr. Schafira, a Jew head messenger of the Emir solicited who had been under instruction in a copy like that given to his master. Palestine with the view of becoming a He also presented a Bible to an old rabbi, and after his conversion was priest, keeping an Arabic school at educated in the Missionary College at Lokoja, who had solicited it a long Islington, England. Many Moslem while previously, but to whom it had chiefs had called upon him, and a large not been given through fear that it number of Arabic-speaking Moslems was his purpose only to put the book from the interior purchased Bibles of to poor use, by taking scraps of the him. :Qr. Blyden informed us that paper and writing on them some many Moslems came from a long dis: verses of the Quran and selling them tance in the interior for the purpose of for superstitious uses to the people. learning of Christianity in its relation The native preacher under the to Islam. In November, 1870, one Bishop read selections from the came to him from Kankan to inter- Arabic Bible to merchants who came view him, bringing a manuscript copy to certain trade centers to sell ivory. of the Quran and many other elegant Arabic manuscripts. Kankan is nine Bishop Jayne of the Episcopal days from Musardu and six from Church had added similar testimony. Footah. He said that the Moslem priests are found all through Central Africa, In some other localities the bigotry from the borders of Egypt to the At- is objectionable enough. A missionlantic Ocean, zealously prosecuting ary at Lagos said, that whenever in their mission, yat exhibiting none of preaching they speak of the sonship the bigotry and fanaticism usual to and divinity of Christ, the Moslems Islam. present cease not to repeat the Sura of the Quran which says, "God does Rev. Mr. Day of the Lutheran Mis- not beget, neither is he begotten." sion at Muhlenburg said that Moslems He affirmed that the priests were dilof the Mandingo, and Vei tribes fre- igent to keep the people from listenquently came to his house and spent ing to their preaching, advising them hours in reading the Christian Scrip- in their public services to avoid the tures for the purpose of comparing Christian missionary, and refused to them with the Quran. The Liberia hold conversation with them, consid- College has distributed copies of the ering them enemies. An active con- Scriptures among Moslems of the troversy among them the year prenorth and northwest portions of Li- vious, respecting the authorship of beria and beyond, toward Boporo and Jallaloddin's Commentary on the Musardu, and found no disposition to Quran would have resulted in bloodreject them. How far this willing shed but for an appeal to the Lagos acceptance of the ScriptUl'es or the Government. Rev. Mr. Picot, the fourths of the additions were from account of whose journey to Kumasi conviction and not by natural inis more thrilling than Stanley's of crease by birth-rate. his travel over the same route, says he met a Moslem priest at Houssa The African Moslems appeal' to be who said his native place was Stam- great travelers. Dr. Blyden met at boul [Constantinople], and that he Toto Korie a young lad, bOl'n in had been traveling two years, all of Mecca, while his mother was on a which time had been occupied in pilgrimage at that place. Newlyreaching Houssa. He conversed converted Moslems often go from the freely about the nature of the road, desert of Bornou or Lake Tchad, to and the countries through which he the great collegiate mosque at Cairo, had passed, and entered into a vigor- and return. They go long distances ous defense of Muhammedanism. for the purpose of securing education. One young negro Moslem is told of, That the Qill'an is studied in towns who was accustomed to send orders from seventy-five to three hundred to Trubner of London for books, who miles from Monrovia, and by the went two hundred and fifty miles to Veis and Mandingos much nearer, is be instructed. A copy of the Quran well accredited. At Boporo, Man- was found in the interior which dingo, and other places many travel- proved to be of Liberia origin. It ers testify that the muezzin calls reg- was written on coarse folio leaves of a ularly five times a day to prayers, ledger, such as is used in the customand it is not to be called in question, houses. It was written by a negro. that mosques are to be found from It was imperfect, comIIlencing with Senegal to Lagos, but they are not to the 19th Sura. The Muhammedans be imagined to be fine specimens of appeal' to have shrewdly stationed Moorish architecture, modeled after themselvE's in influential towns near St. Sophia of the Levant or The the coast, and generally in those com- Pearl at Delhi. The Moslem is too manding the trade from the distant zealous to wait till he can construct interior. They have succeeded in an elaborate edifice, and often his impressing the people that their re- "mosque" on this coast, is not dis- ligion is peculiarly adapted to the Aftinguishable from his ordinary house rican. A missionary who had been of bamboo, wattled and lined with laboring in the interior for two years mats, covered with its thick straw said that on urging Christianity he thatch. Still it is his "mosque," be- met with two common answers: cause it is set apart as his place of first, that Christianity was good for prayer. Such is the mosque as found ., 'Merican man," but no good for in Liberia. "country man." The other came from Moslems, that "Christ is the Dr. Blydeninformedus that during white man's Saviour; Muhammed is his travels in 1872-73, on the explor- the black man's." To what extent ing expedition for the Sierra Leone Islam has proven a blessing to the Government, in every large pagan West African negro, is quite too large town he found one intellectual Mos- a question to discuss in a fragmentlem acting as prime minister to the ary way, and the testimony gathered chief and directing his policy. He by the writer can itself only be conlearned that the chief advisers of the sidered fragmentary. King of Ashantee are Moslems from Sokoto, and this was true also of One should be slow to disparage Da,homey. The Rev. JamesJohnson, any agency which ameliorates the now archdeacon, a native clergyman cruelty or the degradation of any of the West Coast, thought Muham- portion of mankind, yet after the medans were numerically increasing most assiduous inquiry made of misabout Sierra Leone, and that three- sionaries, merchants, sailors, explorers, among Europeans of several na- and his fetish may become bewitched tionalities and negroes of several and powerless. It can be befooled.
tribes, the writer reached the con- He will whip it and throw it away clusion that the balance between the or exchange it for a better. The in- blessing and the bane of Islam in evitable gree-gree may be seen every- West Africa as compared with those where, hung on doors or trees to se- of fetishism or Christianity had not ~ure good crops. Only the rich can been struck. As to the demoraliza- afford a good many. .Anything may tion of the natives by rum, there become a fetish, and the Moslem of- seemed to be much testimony that fering his superstitious charms sim- many non-Moslem tribes, like the ply asks the negro to substitute Quran Pessahs and Barline people. were not Suras as a fetish, for tigers' teeth, cats'
more given to the use of intoxicating clawsor alligators' scales. The Qu- liquors than were the Moslems about ran fetish becomes the most popular Musardu, and even among those like because supposed to be the most pow- the Kabyles of North Africa. erfu!' But all that, leaves the heart It is claimed by some along the of African heathenism untouched.
coast, that the Moslems work with Re'. Mr. Picot makes special mention wiser adaptations to native preju- of these men in the journal of his visit dices, customs and idiosyncrasies to Coomassie. When he found one than the Christian missionaries do, of these lIoslem teachers, with his and their success is quoted in evi- manuscripts and his beads, he asked dence of the statement. But Islam if he was not ashamed to be deceiv- has been for a thousand years gradu- ing the people by giving them these ally spreading over the northern half scraps of paper, telling the people of Africa, and has held the country they were capable of protecting them of these Mandingos since the days of against evil. The man suddenly pre- the Norman '(onquest, and that of tended not to understand the language the Foulahs and of Lake Tchad for spoken, but the people made sport of six hundred years, yet there are large him, and he confessed his deception.
tracts not conquered by it to this As to the unity of the godhead taught day. Mr. Boswell Smith speaks in by Islam, that is an article of faith his" Mohammed and Mohammedan- from end to end of Africa among the ism" of "whole tribes laying aside entire negro popUlation, and this devil worship or the immemorial fe- compounding with the superstitions tish, and springing at a bound, as it of existing heathenism, or overlaying were, from the very lowest to one of it with another without any im prQve- the highest forms of belief;" but ment, does not look much like Mr.
from facts learned all along this coast, Smith's description, of the African that seems to be quite a rhetorical laying aside the immemorial fetish statement. After more than a thou- and springing at once to the highest sand years of effort to subjugate these form of religions belief.
pagan tribes, the Bornous, Fulahs, Muhammedanism, if it has added Mandingos and Jaloofs, who profess any to the limitations which the Af- Islam, have done little more than rican's povel·ty imposes in most cases abandon some of the rites of pagan- to the practice of polygamy, has in efism, while their belief in some su- fect left it in principle and practice perstitions is said to be intensified•. intact. Rev. Mr. Adcock, Wesleyan A Moslem negro offered for sale to missionary on the river Gambia, the writer,alarge silver locketor box, properly put this part of the case for said to contain selections from the the whole coast, when at a breakfast Quran, to be worn as a charm to meeting in London he said: ward off evil. The gree-gree does the "We have no difficulty in getting members. same thing for the native African, The difficulty is to keep them out of the chqrch, We could have thousands of members if we stra.tes to these heathen, the secret would allow them to come iu with a wife ou and strong power in Christianity that each arm, aud many other things which we do binds together all who truly love and not permit. We never have to refuse the sac· serve our Lord Jesus Christ. rament because people do not believe in the per sonality of the devil; they believe in it a great Much to our astonishment there deal too much." has recently come a proposition from Mr. Joyama, the former president of Affairs in Japan. the Imperial University, to place all schools of the middle grade underthe BY REV. H. LOOMIS, AMERICAN BruLE care of Protestant missionary bodies.
AGENT, YOKOHAMA. The reforms and improvements which have been inaugurated by Mr. ONE of the many encouraging and Mori, the Minister of Education, delightful features of Christian work have been important and helpful, in this land, is the unity of spirit that but the claims on the government prevails among all the followers of are so many and varied that it is Christ. found impossible to do all that is felt to be needed. In this emergency it The prayer of Christ is being an- is urged that suitable preparatory swered here in the manifestation'of a schools would be found, by calling in oneness of heart, so that even those the aid of the missionaries and givof different folds mingle together as ing them the charge of this branch one flock and followers of the same of educational work. This is a mere Shepherd. As evidence of this, a suggestion, but it comes from one social meeting was arranged for all who knows of what he speaks, and the theological students in Tokyo. whose opinion will have weight in It was held in a sort of park near the the minds of those who are to decide center of the city, which is a popular such matters. Possibly such a thing place of resort for all classes of people. is not wholly feasible even should it A meeting was recently called in meet with the approval of the proper Tokyo by the various pastors, in Japanese authorities. It would inwhich the question for discussion volve large expense on the part of was, "What is the present need of the missionary bodies, and at present our respective churches?" none of them seem to have surplus funds, even if there was a willingness A monthly meeting for prayer and to devote their income to an almost conference was arranged; it was well distinctively educational work. But attended and exceedingly profitable. the suggestion is an important indica- At the recent gospel meeting held in tion of what has been accomplished Tokyo under the auspices of the Epis- by the missionaries in this land in the copal mission, were Bishop Bicker- work of educa.tion. Of course no steth of the English church, Rev. such proposal would have been made Dr. Verbeck of the Reformed mission had not the work hitherto done atin America, Rev. Mr. Honda of the tracted the attention and won the Methodist church, and Rev. Mr. approval of those who are best qual- Hashimo of the Congregational or ified to judge. Mr. Joyama is not an Independent body. As Bishop Bick- avowed Christian, and has therefore ersteth was unable to speak in Jap- no religious bias that would lead him anese, he was assisted by a Presby- to take this step. The 'proposition terian interpreter. It is reported shows the confidence that the leadthere were one thousand persons ing men in Japan have in the charpresent. At a similar service recently acter of the missionaries, and of their held in Nagoya the speakers repre- ability to conduct such a work even sented the Protestant Episcopal and better than the Japanese themselves. Methodist Episcopal, the Reformed and the Presbyterian churches. The general influence of such unity is most beneficial to all, and demon- It will not surprise us if we see in to missionaries on a number of forthe future a flocking of the young eign fields, to secure an expression of men of Japan tothe Christian schools opinion on the importance of musical as the most desirable place to secure a training as a part of the preparation complete and thorough education. of persons for service abroad, and re- There is no question but what the fu- ceived such responses as to lead him to ture of Japan depends on the training make most liberal proposals to miswhich the present generation of schol- sionary boards, or to intending misars receives. sionaries themselves, for special edu- cation at his institution, in any or all There is a most blessed work now branches of music. This paper was gomg on in the various schools, es- presented at the meeting of the pecially in Yokohama and Tokyo. At International Missionary Union last the Ferris Seminary forty-five con- August, and a general discussion was verts are reported among the girls entered into, which gave a good with no extra effort or excitement, deal of information to those present. one after another has come out bold- Perhaps nothing was more striking lyand joyfully on the Lord1s side. On than the diversity demanded by the a recent Saturday it is said that more several fields oflabor in the character than fifty letters were sent by these of the music to be used. Rev. Mr. new converts to their homes and Chandler of South India, said three friends in all parts of the land, courses were open to the missionary: asking permission to profess their First, to teach the English system, faith in public, and pleading with one which imposed no end of labor in and all to repent of their sins and fol- teaching. Second, to translate hymns low the Saviour. In the Methodist and sing them; but in India the peo- Protestant school there has also been ple knew nothing of our scale and great interest of late, and on a recent nothing of harmony, and even the Sabbath forty-five persons received reduction of native airs to notation baptism. had to be done by ear, and then they could not get them as the natives did. In the school at Ayoma, in Tokyo, If the natives tried to sing in parts in there are seventy-four applicants for harmony they went through together baptism. The students have become if they started together, but whatever so aroused that they have for some difference obtained at the start was time gone out into the streets and maintainetl to the end. The third preached to the people and distributed method, which he thought the best, tracts. At another of the mission was to use native tunes and metres. schools in Tokyo there has been a general awakening and twenty of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, Baptist, of Burscholars asked for prayers at a single mah said the natives there learned meeting. English music very quickly. Rev. Mr. Stanley said in Northern China The churches also have been arous- there had been no exoensive attempt ed and are at work as never before. to use native tunes. The Chinese At many of them special services are scale was unlike that of Europe, and being held; not only are sinners being our instruments were not adapted to converted, but those who have been their music, which was in minor visited by their brethren aroused to a chords mainly; yet in the boardingnew zeal. schools the pupils learned our music very creditably. Mrs. Culbertson Musia and Missions. spoke of Chinese girls learning our tunes, and singing as they strolled, THE subject of music, as related Moody and Sankey hymns. Dr. Barto the work of the foreign and native num said in Turkey the natives readmissionary, seems to lose none of its interest. Professor Tourjee of the Boston Conservatory of Music wrote ily adopted our tunes and caught the an article intended to show how great airs of the military bands. a work has bt::en accomplished by missionaries, in the introduction of The Indian Evangelical Review for Christian. hymnology among the va- October, 1887, had an excellent arti- rious nations of the earth, and for cle on "Hindustani Hymns and this purpose Rev. W. R. Stevenson, Hymn Writers," which will be con- M.A., Carrington, Nottingham, Engsidered as contributing much of inter- land, wishes answers to the followest to the general subject. Rev. John ing questions from all mission fields: Chamberlain of the English Baptist Mission was the first to enter this " (1) Please state to what part of the mission field, by the publication of a volume field your answers refer, and the language or of Hindu hymns still su,ng after 70 languages there spoken. (2) What hymn-bookR years. Following him was Rev. Shu- have been prepared for the use of the converts· ? jaat Ali, a native preacher, whose Abont how many hymns do they contain? By hymns" will be sung for many years whom were they prepared, and when P Where to come." Rev. John Parsons, an- are they printed? Are the same books nsed other Baptist missionary, "became elsewhere, or by the missionaries of any other famous for his vernacular hymns, society, so far as you know. (3) Are the especially Bhajans, which are still hymns chiefly translations or originals P If widely sung and are full of poetic translations, by whom were they translated P If fire." Rev. John Newton, Sr., now the Original, who were the authors? If possible, of. Lahore, the oldest missionary in kindly give the first lines in I!Jnglish of the India, was the first Hindustani hymn- prinCipal tran81atedhymns. (4) AreourEngJish writer am~ng the American Presby- metres and tunes used? Do the lines rhyme 8S terians. Rev. Mr. Janvier and Rev. with our hymns. Please address reply to Rev. Mr. Ullman are also noted for their W. R. Stevenson, M.A., Carrington, Nottinglarge contributions to Indian hym- ham, England." nology. Several other societies have contributed through their mission- Bnlgaria.-W e cannot fail of symaries, original hymns and transla- pathetic interest with Bulgaria. It tions. The author of the article says is an old battlefield of Asia and Euthat Mrs. J. E. Scott of the M. E. rope, and hard soil for missions, with Mission of North India, has been forces that would grind them as beat work for two years on a book of tween the upper aud nether mill~ native tunes and hymns. He further stones, but it is a vast strategic point says: for Christian work as well as for the soldier and the statesman. It must be "Munshi Shankar Dyal, literary assistant in taken and held for God. The people the Methodist Publisblng House in Lucknow, has are a noble stock, and though trouwritten at least one hundred ghazals (hymns), bled about political existence now, many of them of a bigh order, several of which they are as likely to yield results to have found their way Into various hymn·books. Christian toil as any branch of the One of these is sung more frequently In the Slavic race, and they are admirably Christian congregations of the Methodist mission situated to be a leading Christian than any other native hymn, and yet this inter- power among their ninety millions of esting writer, whose literary prodnctions (the brother Slavs. In less than seven product of his spare hours) are found so accept- years this race of Slavs became a able, breathing throughout a truly Christ-like nation of freemen, with power to spirit, is as yet a Hiudu. He admits that at heart govern themselves. They set themhe is a Christian, and those who know him best selves to crush brigandage,. and they are convinced that illuminating grace has reached did it completely in East Roumelia his soul. For twenty years or more he has given and almost completely in Bulgaria. all his time and strength to the preparation of Christian books in tce vernacular; evidently he The Rev. D. C. Challis of Bulgaria is not far from the kingdom of God." calls our attention to the stamina, strength, and promise there is for And now we learn that a "Dic- Bulgaria, as illustrated by the action tionary of Hymnology" is in course of their national assembly; He says: of preparation, which is to contain "The serious and businesslike man- Delegates to the London Oonferenoe. nerwith which the Bulgaria National Assembly, lately adjourned, ad- REv. WILLIAM KINCAID, D.D., Bible House, dressed itself to the work in hand is a striking instance of coolness under New York, Secretary of the American Commitfire. A gh1nce at the list of laws enacted during the late session shows tee of the General Conference on Foreign Miathe presence of no mean legislative ability, and the published reports of sions, informs ns that our Euglish brethren are the discussions show that nothing making generous provision to entertain all reg~ was done by force or the abridgment of the freedom of speech. The most lady accredited delegates during the continunpractical and cranky members were free to express their opinions and uance of the Conference, June 9 to 19. Delecast their votes. gates may expect to hear from the London com- " Among a large number of enactments ofgeneral importance we notice mittee on this snbject in due time. – the following: A law authorizing a subsidiary nickel coinage of 3,000,000 He also says: "Societies that have not yet apfrancs. A law for the disposition of cases pending in the courts of Eastern pointed delegates, but still hope to do so, will Roumelia at the time of the annexation. Alaw for the suppression of brig- confer a favor by taking action at the earliest andage, granting the government extraordinary powers in cases of neces- convenient date. It is important that the list sity. A press law guaranteeing full freedom with responsibility, and pro- should be completed and be in the hands of the viding for the speedy trial of offenders. A law authorizing a loan of committee as soon as possible. The requisite 50,000,000 francs ($10,000,000). A special credit of twenty millions to credentials will be sent in proper season. payoff the debts of Eastern Roumelia. A special credit of 370,000 .. Special attention is called to the request of francs for the preliminary survey of new railroad lines. Many other our English brethren that 'earnest and conmeasures of importance were passed, all pointing to the fullest possible tinued prayer be offered in behalf of the prorealization of the provisions of this liberal constitution." posed conference,' and to the suggestiou of the In his address on closing the session, American committee, in this connection, that Prince Ferdinand expresses the highest satisfaction with the "loyal and interdenominational meetiugs be held throughpatriotic co-operation of the assembly" and the "tact, intelligence and out this country to inform the Christian public devotion of the ministry." Cut off from the recognition of the "pow- with reference to the conference and awaken ers" by their" illegal" position, and themselves the bone of the fiercest interest in it. Such meetings, with great succontention, the Bulgarians quietly attend to their business and defeat the cess, have been held in New York; may they intentions of their enemies by presenting an example of good govern- not be planned for throughout the whole land?" ment on a system almost purely democratic. The delegates from American societies, so rar as reported to Dr. Kincaid, are as follows: Pre8byterian Board of Foreign MisBionB- Rev. F. F. Ellinwood, D.D., Secretary.
ForeignMisBions of the Presbyterian Ghurch- Rev. M. H. Heuston, D.D.; Rev. W. M. Murk- land, D.D.; Rev. J. A. Lefevre, D.D.; Christian Deovies, Esq.
Board of Foreign Mis8ions Qf the Reformed Presbyterian Ohurch – Rev. D. McAllister, LL.D.; Rev. D. McFall, Mr. A. Alexander.
Board Qf Foreign Missions Of the Reformed Ohurch-Rev. T. W. Chambers, D.D.; Rev. W. J. R. Taylor, D.D.; C. L. Wells, Flatbush, N. Y.
Board Qf Foreign M'f,8sions Qf the Rejormed Okurck-Rev. D. Van Horn, D.D. Alternates, Rev. C. L. Weiser, D.D.; Rev. S. G. Wagner, D.D.
American Board of Oommissioners for For- eign M'Ulsions – Rev; A. C. Thompson, D.D.; Rev. Judson Smith, D.D.; Elbridge Torrey, Esq.
American Missionary Association-Rev. A. F. Baird, D.D.
American Baptist M'f,8sionary Union-Rev. John N. Murdock, D.D.; Rev. A. J. Gordon, D.D.; Hon. Eustace C. Fitz.
Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Okurch-Rev. William S. Langford, D.D.
Missionary Society Methodist Episcopal Ohurch-Bishop W. F. Mallalieu, D.D.; Rev. J. N. Fitzgerald, D.D.; John M. Phillips, Esq.
Home and Forei(1n Missionary Society of the African Metfwdiet J!Jpiscopal Ohurch – Rev. Wm. B. Derrick, D.D.; Rev. D. P. Roberts, M.D.; Prof. Philander Outland. Alternate, Rev. C. T. Shaffer.
MONTHLY CONCERT OF. MISSIONS
Board of Fusions Metlwdi8t Protestant DR. hUD'lJD-DIN is the first native oC India Church-Rev. F. T. Tagg. who ever received the title of Doctor of Divinity. The Punjab New8 has the following interesting Mis8ionary Board Free Metlwdist Church- incident: "Recently the Rev. 1I10ulvie Imad-ud- Rev. B. T. Roberts, Rev. T. B. Arnold. din, D.D., was asked by a rich and infiuentlal 1I10hammedan to come and see him on important American Bible SociBty-Re…. E. W. Gil- business. When he reached the place he was very man,D.D. cordially received aud hospitably treated. After some time the business was broached. His host Chicago Tral.ning Schoolfor City, Home and took him into an inner room. There he found Foreign Musions-Wm. E. Blackstone, Esq. about forty 1I10hammedan gentlemen, including some 1I10ulvies and well-to-do infiuential per- Washington City Bible Society-Rev. A. W. sons. They carefully shnt the door, and having Pitzer, D.D. taken every possible precantion against interrup- tion and eavesdropping, they said to him, • Now Foreign Missions Southern Baptist Conven- you are alone with us and God. We charge you tion-Rev. H. A. Tupper, D.D.; Hon. J. L. M. by the living God, to whom you will one day Cnrry. give account, answer our questions truthfully. The Lord judge you ifyou deceive us.' The 1I10ul- Woman's Foreign Missionary Society Pres- vie said, • God is my witness. Ask, and I will byterian Church-Mrs. William Dugdale, 1111's. answer truly.' They then said,' We see you are Arthur T. Pierson. a man of learning and worth. Why did you be- come a Christian f ' •For the salvation of my Woman', Board Cumberland Presbyterian soul,' the 1I10ulvie replied. • Could you not find Church-1111's. A. H. Stephens. salvation in Islam, 0 brother?' •No. ' • Tell us why not.' Woman's Board Of Riformed Church-Mrs. W. J. R. Taylor. "Dr. Imad-ud-din then preached Christ Jesus to them. They listened attentively, and ouly in- Women', National Indian Assoc·iat·on-1I1rs. terrupted him now and then to ask pertinent Amelia S. Quinton, Mrs. Geo. D. Boardman, questions. Be stayed three days. and each day was spent in converse about the things of Christ. 1I1iss 1I1ary L. Bonney. Wheu he left they all showed him great honor, Woman'8 Board, Congregational – 1I1iss embraced him and said, 'God bless you and be with you. Now we' know that whatever yon Abbie B. Child, 1111's. A. C. Thompson, 1111's. have done you have done, not for the sake of gain, but with a pure heart. for the sake of Geo. W. Coburn, 1I1iss Carrie Borden. what you believe to be truth.' .. Woman'8 Foreign Missionary Society Of I()Wa Meeting if Friends – 1111's. Elizabeth Hutchinson. lJelegates at Large-Rev. Geo, E. Post,1I1.D.; Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D.; Rev. Geo. D. Boardman, D.D.; Rev. Wm. 111. Taylor, D.D.; Corneliu. Vanderbilt, Esq.; Re,·. Daniel Dorchester, D.D., General Clinton B. Fiek.
V.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
Burmah and Siam. two sects; one held a kind of panthe- BURMAB contains about 3,000,000 ism, believing the godhead to pet'- of people and is rich in resources, vade all nature and life, but especially both vegetable and mineral. Here, the Buddhists: the other sect rejects as in Hindustan, God permitted Brit- the doctrine of the metempsychosis, ish arms and diplomacy to establish cloister system, etc., worships one an Anglo-Indian empire, controlling spirit supreme and all-creating (Nat), the seaboard from the mouth of the and holds to a life beyond death with Gang-es to the Malacca strait, but un- weal or woe according to the works locking this land also to the gospel, of the departed. These heretics were which here fonnd a field for special burned by the king, but were reported triumphs. The article on another numerous though worshiping in sepage of this issue gives an account of cret. the work among the Karens. The Burmese are Buddhists, and The empire of Burmah reached its their religious faith is purer from ad- apex of glory in the eleventh cenmixtures than that of the East Ind- tury; in the sixteenth the state was ians and Chinese; there is not as rent into several warring factions. much picture-worship as in China, Alompra, founder of the present dyand the monks are more faithful to nasty, restored the empire to sometheir vows of poverty and celibacy. thing like its former territory and About the close of the last century prestige. But the British have since the state religion branched off into then, in the wars of 1823 and 1852, made it largely a dependency of Britain. The government is dflspotic ; society in the world. This great or- the hlwot-dau or council of state reg- ganization is revising its whole mis- ulates details, and is composed of four sionary policy, to bring it into line ministers and presided over by the with the demands of the times. The heir ~pparent to the throne, or a General Commjttee has resolved: prince of the royal blood. First, not to refuse any candidates for The Burmese courts seldom dis- missionary service on the sole ground pense justice. From the Supreme of the lack of funds; second, to rec- Council down, every office-holder is a ognize the present methods for the plunderer; the judges are venal, the collection of funds; third, to employ police powerless; life, liberty and more lay evangelists; fourth, to ar- pl'opertyare at the mercy of the vio- range for more meetings for ulllted lent and vicious. Thefarther from the and special prayer. The Henry Reed capital the less heed is paid to the Steamboat Company, connected with king. The provinces near the Chi- the American Baptist Missionary nese border live under two govern- Union, raised $1,056.02 in 1887 for ments, the Chinese and Burmese ac- the support of the steamer on the tually sharing the control. The in- . Upper Congo River, in Central Africa; terior of Burmah is comparatively $1,750 is wanted for 1888. The Equa- unknown, the seacoast having been tor Station of this mission is farther mainly the scene of missionary oper- inland than any other from the West ations. Coast. Baptist missionaries in Assam The Irawaddy, navigable for 400 are laboring among people speaking miles, is the" Father of Waters," and seven different languages, three of Ava, made capital in 1819, is the" City which had never been acquired by a of P-..)arls." foreigner until the missionaries went Those who would read it fascinat- there. One station is sixty milfls ing story of mission labors and tri- from even a cart-road. Rev. J. E.
umphs must real Gammell's "His- Clough, D.D., has been laboring on tory of American Baptist Missions" the Ongole field in the Telugu Bap- and the "Life of Adoniram Judson and tist Mission for twenty-one years. In his Wives." No more thrilling chap- that time the number of Christians ter can be found in the entire record has risen from none to 25,545. More of modern missionary labor. than six hundred converts were bap- The Burmah Baptist Missionary tized in the first eight months of last Convention held its thirteenth an- year. Rev. Kyouk – kai, a Karen nual meeting at Moulmein November preacher of the Toungoo District, 5-7. All the work is encouraging. Burmah, has been presented with a The convention was preceded by a silvel' sword by the British Govern- three-days' conference for prayer. ment for his efforts in suppressing On the last evening of the conferenee the rebels and restoring peace to the a mass-meeting of all races was held district. This is the only case in on the Burman Mission Compound, which such an honor has been be- near where Dr. Judson's chapel used stowed.
to stand. Addresses were given in SIAM has a territory of about seven languages-English, Burman, 200,000 square miles, and a popula- Karen, Shan, Talaigu, Telugp and tion estimated at eight millions. Lit- Tamil. No one of these languages tle has been known of this romantic was understood by all present, but a country in literature until of late.
hearty Christian unity prevailed. We are now beginning to know some- The Church Missionary Society is thing of this second great river basin supported by the evangelical element of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, with of the Church of England, and has BangkOk, its capital, the "Venice of the largest income of any missionary the Orient." Vegetation is abundant and luxuri- The Presbyterians have but two ant, the fruits unsurpassed in variety main stations – at' Bangkok and and excellence, the animal kingdom Petchaburi-and two more among the varied and interesting. The white Laos, at Chiengmai and Lakawn. elephant is the form associated with Their entire force, including native the appearing of Buddhas and the preachers and teachers, would num- transmigration of souls, which are ber less than thirty workers, who, if believed to be far on their way to- their responsibility could be aver- ward the Buddhist heaven, Nirvana. aged, would each have thl'. rare of a Woman's condition is far above that quarter of a million souls. of her sex generally in the East, and her treatment more affectionate and It is a rare opportunity that Siam considerate. Social distinctions are presents. Contact with vVestern civ- numerous and numerical, 5 repre- ilization has embraced Siam in the senting the lowest slave, and 100,000 telegraphic circuit, that thus binds the second king. her to the Christian world; the ,. postal system reaches from Bangkok The sacred literature, in the Pali, to the bounds of the kingdom. Com- is written with a stylus on long slips merce is developing the exports and of palm-leaf, and the 400 principal introducing imports. Next to the works embrace 4,000 volumes. The Mikado of Japan, the kin!; is pro- secular consists of about 250 principal nounced the most" progressive sov- works with 2,000 volumes. Of the ereign in Asia." Himself an educated males, from 80 to 90 per cent.. can man, he favors education; more read, and education is afforded gra- than this, the government has given tuitouslyat the temples. Buddhism practical proof of its estimate of the absolutely sways this people. Its value of Christian missions by giving sacred fanes are among the costliest the land for a new mission station at and finest of the Orient; one, esti- Lakon. The king subscribed $1,000 mated to have cost $800,000, holds for a hospital building. A series of nearly a thousand images of Buddha, friendly acts shows the attitude of the principal of which is 158 feet the royal court toward the work of long, inlaid with pearl and overlaid the mission. with gold. The priesthood, now much reduced, once numbered This new and liberal policy was in- 100,000. augurated by the government in 1851, when a new king took the Protestant missions date from the throne. He reigned for seventeen days of Gutzlaff, Tomlin and Abeel yf'ars; was a scholarly gentleman, 'in 1828-31, and properly from the who had been taught in languages settlement of Jones in 1833. A half and modern science by a missionary century ago all foreigners, whetheL' of the American Board; and under missionaries or merchants, were ex- his successor, the present king, the cluded; now all Christian countries influence of Protestant missionaries . enjoy treaty rights. No country on with the government, as we have earth is perhaps more widely open to seen, has not waned. An official the gospel, and Providence has espe- document, under royal sanction, tes- cially given to Presbyterian Christians tifies to their intelligence, integrity this land to occupy for him. and personal worth. It acknowledges the debt of the Siamese to them for The American Baptists, who have teaching them to read and speak the had a mission there for over fifty English tongue, and says: " The years, are now working only among American missionaries have always resident Chinese, from whom Dr. been just and upright men; have Dean in 1837 organized the first never meddled in the. affairs of church of Chinese Christians in all government, nor cre:lted any diffi- Asia. culty with the Siamese; have lived breathe new life into her explrlllg with the Siamese just as if they flame, so that her light may shine belonged to the nation; " and further- clear and far. more this document affirms the high standing. of the missionaries In the The fourth verse is open to a simirespect and love of the government. lar construction, and may be trans- When this young king, by a sad ac- lated, he shall not burn dimly nor cident some years since, lost his wife, be bruised; and then the thought his brother came to the missionaries throughout is beautifully consistent. for a copy of the New Testament, and gave as a reason for the request that Christ finds his church with the king had lost faith in his own re- branches bruised and lights dim, and ligion; that he could find nothing in by his corrective judgments he makes Buddhism to console him in his great her capable of a powerful testimony grief. It might cost the king his to the truth. But we are to look up crown, or even his life, to renounce from a fallible, imperfect body of disthe state religion, yet this bereaved ciples to an infallible and perfect monarch flies to the Christian's Bible Head and Lord; he cannot be bruised for the solace that his pagan creed and broken, nor does his light ever cannot supply! Siam may be much nearer to becoming a Christian nation become dim or threaten to be extinthan we think! The additional fact should be put on record that the first guished. He shall not only correct zenana teaching ever attempted in his church by chastening judgments, the East was by missionary women, but by punitive judgments destroy in 1851, among the thirty wives and the wicked and set up his throne upon royal sisters of the king of Siam. the earth. And for his law tile isles shall longingly wait and Ethiopia THEME FOR A GRAND MISSIONARY shall stretch forth imploring hands.
SERMON. God has called him to be the justi- Isaiah xvii. 1-7. fier, and holds his hand and keeps him; he has entered into covenant THE Messiah is here set forth as the with him, and that covenant is as servant of Jehovah, upheld by his sure as the word and oath of God can almightiness, his elect, the object of make it. Christ shall be a light of his delight, the subject of his Holy the Gentiles, though the church's Spirit's unmeasured indwelling and lamp may at times seem to be going outworking. out and her testimony be almost quenched. He shall open blind eyes, His special mission is to the Gen- release imprisoned souls, and those tiles. He shall not cry as in helpless in the shadow of death. We do not grief, nor shout as in boastful glory. claim that this is a precise, exact and He shall perform his service in the scholarly exegesis of this passage, quietness of a divIne confidence and but we believe a careful study of the certainty of result. Hebrew will satisfy any student that the drift of this paragraph is not or- The bruised reed and smoking wick dinarily apprehended; that the hope seem to me to refer to the golden of missions is here shown to be the candlestick, whose branches were infallible covenant of God; not the called reeds; and so regarded this golden candlesticks, but He who walkverse may refer to the church,which eth in the midst of them; not the even in her periods of spiritual de- efficiency and energy of human orcline he shall not forsake. When her ganizations, but the power and grace branches are bruised he will not of the living, risen, glorified Christ. break them off, and when her lamp The word judgment occurs here in burns dim he will not quench it, but three conspicuous connections, and by his patient, loving discipline heal that word always calls attention to her schisms, repair her breaches, and divine energy of action. God invites the co·operation of his people, but SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. he is not dependent upon it. He can work in his own way, and sometimes DR. W. M. PAXTON said to his stu,. by mighty jugdments he both brings dents at Princeton Theological Semian unfaithful church to see her duty nary as to the Signs of a call to the and a rebellious world to bow and foreign field: submit to his law. The wholetlutline of missions is suggested in this 1. Desire. passage in Isaiah-the outline of mis- In general, when the Lord wants sionary history and of the divine a man to do a certain work, he puts philosophy of missions. into his heart a strong desire to do it. "I have long observed that God It is also particularly noticeable puts certain proclivities in men's that a conspicuous change in pro- minds," etc. (Albert Barnes.) phetic terminology occurs at chap. liii. of this prophecy. The Sel'- II. Qualifications. 'ant of the Lord is a phrase which Many men would make good minisoccurs frequently up to chap. liii. 11 : tel'S at home who would not perhaps the Messiah who represents the true do for the foreign field, e.g. : Israel, the holy seed of God, the in- 1. One must have some faculty for destructible germ which assures con- acquiring a foreign language. tinuity to Israel's life, who restores 2. A man must be good.tempered moral order. But though this title enough not to quarrel with his occurs nineteen times in chaps. xli. to brothel' missionaries. Scores of trouliii., after the eleventh verse of chap.. bles have arisen from this source. liii. it disappears. "My righteous Bad temper is easily developed iI) a servant shall iwdify many." Now missionary field, especially in a bad his work as servant is done. He llas climate. Above all, don't take a bad· suffered the just for the unjust to tempered woman. A man who is to bring us to God. He has justified be a missionary must not have a many and made them servants of curious, prying or gossiping disposi- God. They now take up the work tion. He needs especially to mind be has laid down, and fill up that his own business. which is behind of his sufferings. 3. Must have aptness to teach and And so aftel' this, as in chap. liv.17, patience in imparting knowledge we have the new phrase, "servants even to those of a low grade of caof the Lord," which occurs ten times pacity. from chap. liv. 17 to lxvi. 14. The 4. Must have good health, and his servant of God now sees his seed, and physical constitution should be it is a numerous seed. The servant of adapted to the climate where he God is multiplied a thousand fold labors. Every man must have a phy- (Rom. v. 15-19). He ceases to suffer, sician's certificate-e.g., one with a and in the former sense to serve, and torpid liver should not go to a very his spiritual offspring take up service hot country like India or Afl'ica, nor ~nd suffering for his sake. They go with weak lungs to a land unfavormto all the world, and as witnesses able for pulmonary weaknesses. testify and as martyrs die for him ll;nd his cause, until he comes again, III. Opportunity. and then service and suffering are This means. that providence will merged into triumph and glory, and open the way when God has a purthe new heaven and earth, wherein pose in a man's hfe. There may be dwelleth righteousness, take the place an insuperable objection – e.g., an of this sin-cursed and sorrow-stricken aged and dependent mother, etc. world, and chaos is once more displaced by cosmos. -Dr. Barnardo, the English phi- lanthropist, has now the largest fami· ly in the world cared for by anyone man. It numbers 2,233.
PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
VI.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS- MONTHLY BULLETIN.
A.frica.-Bishop Taylor's advance advance of those of the preceding party have at last reached the goal year for the corresponding period, ~ in the depths of Africa toward which which amount about $30,000 was from he has so long been struggling. Be- donations and $48,000 from legacies. fore his pioneer band of missionaries started the bishop declared his inten- -The French Government and Mistion to plant stations among the sions. Rev. John Jones, a leading tribes along the Upper Kassai and its missionary of the London Missionary tributaries. Toward this region his Society, has been expelled from the chain of stations has been steadily Loyalty Islands by the French Govlengthening. Dr. Harrison, one of ernment. The directors of the sothe party that the bishop led up the ciety have given to the press the de- Congo in July last, has reached Lu- tails of the outrage from Mr. Jones's luaburg, the new station of the Congo own pen, and now pnblish them in State. He is one of the two phy- their own periodical, The Chronicle, sicians who have followed the bishop for March: to Africa, and he is now established among the natives. These Balubas .. Mr. Jones has been summoned home by are among the most remarkable sav- telegram to meet the Board, whose future ages in the world.-The Christian. action will be determined upon after his arrival. In the mean time, suffice it to say -Dr. Elmslie, an American mis- that they sympathize deeply with their sionary, who has been stationed for missionary in the wrong he has sustained, some time among the Zulus west of and regard him as the subject of harsh and Lake Nyassa, has sent home the first unjust treatment. He has been expelled book printed in Nbungoni language. not so much on account of his Protestant- The book was issued from the press ism, as on that of known friendliness to the of a neighboring mission station islanders, and as being a sturdy representacalled Blantyre. It contains the tive of earnest British Christianity, a type Decalogue, passages from the Psalms, of man the French Colonial Office is not Proverbs and the Gospels, with four- partial to." teen hymns. Much is expected from the book, as the Nbungoni language India.-They write from Kolapoor is intelligible to a large number of that it is wonderful the joy the nathe tribes. tive Christians show at seeing the Wilders, mother and daughter, after -The Royal Niger Company has an ab~ence of thirteen years, and that determined to impose a tax of fifty Miss Grace talks Mahratta (or Maraper cent. upon all spirituous liquors thi) "like a native." landed within its territories. Total prohibition is impossible, as the river -The Lutheran Missionaries in is free to all hade under the Berlin South India have long had a German Treaty; but this tax will limit the synod, but in June, 1887, their first supply. The company has been en- Tamil synod met, composed of deledeavoring to induce the government gates of the churches (which have to negotiate with other powers for hitherto had a very loose connection a uniform duty on spirits all along with each other), of all the native the West African coast for :!,500 miles. ministers, and of three missionaries, together with the Senior of the mis- -American Board. For the first sion. The synod is to meet triensix months of the financial year the nially. Tanjore, as being the most total receipts were about $78,000 in central station, was chosen as the first place of meeting.
-July I, 1883, was the bicentennial anniversary of the missionary Ziegenbalg, the first foreign missionary of whom no fewer than 115,361 were of the Lutheran Church. It was in Ninnahassa, or Celebes, the whole therefore resol ved to build a hand- population of that island being 138,- some memorial church at Shiali, on 026. In Dutch Timor there are 33,015 the southeastern coast of India, some nominal Christians, with only one six leagues south of Tranquebar. government helper and no mil.sion- 'l"his was dedicated last July. ary. The Dutch Government has no objection to missionaries of other na- -The North India Methodist Con- tionalities working, as the Germans ference met at Cawupore on the 4th do, in its possessions; and the Rev. of January. The reports presented J. B. Cook of Singapore, who sends were full of encouragement. The us the above information, is very native Christian community now urgent that British Christians should connected with the conference num- come to the help of these multitudes bers 9,226, of whom 5,675 are adults. of Mohammedans and heathen. There has been an accession during the year of 832 adults by baptism. Of -Commercial Value of Missions. these 27 were from Mohammedanism, Take the following figures, vouched the rest from Hinduism. Inquirers for by competent authority: The are not reported, yet the~e are so nu- commerce of the United States with merous that' if the missionaries de- the Sandwich Islands alone in 1870 sired only to swell their numbers, was $4,400,426, while in the same 2,000 persons could be baptized at year the whole amount expended in once. One native preacher, the Rey. foreign missions by all denominations Philemon, ordained by Bishop Ninde in this country was $1,633,801. "The a year ago, has since baptized 211 cost of the Sandwich Islands mispersons. The conference greatly sions," says Dr. Andel'son, "up to needs a staff of goo'd colporteurs. 1869-that is, for fifty years, and dur- There are 23,913 scholars in the ing the whole period of its dependschools.-Indian TVitness. ence on the Board-was $1,220,000. The profits of our trade with the -Netherlands India, that is, the Sandwich Islands for 1871 was $660,- India under Dutch rule, possesses a 964-more than half of all that was popUlation of 27,000,000. It stretches expended on the mission during fifty from Atcheen, in Sumatra, to New years." Guinea. Among these 27,000,000 there labor 70 missionaries, 36 of -Pope's Jubilee. The gifts to Pope whom are Dutch, the rest being Ger- Leo, at the late Jubilee, exceeded mans, principally from Barmen, and $10,000,000 in articles of value, besubsidized by the society at Amster- sides as much more in cash. The dam. Besides these there are 24 United States outstripped every other "helpers," who are in government country, and no greeting was perpay and labor only among the nom- haps more cordial than that of the inal Christians. These 94 agents (in- New York Independent! cluding helpers) are distributed as follows: In Jaya, 24; in Sumatra, Madagascar.-Rum! The British 19; in Mias, 5; in Borneo, 7; in Weekly says: "Rum and the gospel" Celebes, 11 ; in Sumba, 1; in Timor, have reached Madagascar in the 1; in Rotti, 1; in Wetter, 1 ; in Buru, same boat. The official Chronicle of 1 ; in Ceram, 2; in New Guinea, 5; the London Missionary Society, in in Gilolo, 2; in Sangi, 3; in Talan, 2 ; announcing the safe arrival of the in Saparina, 2; in Amboyna, 4; in Rev. A. G. Shaw and Mrs. Shaw at Ternati, 1; in Letti, 1; in Harnku, 1. Tamatave, and the hearty welcome given to them by their old friends, -According to the Census (1885- adds that they shortly afterward left 86) there were in Neth. India Malay- in the coasting vessel which had an race native Christians, 235,070, taken them across from Mauritius. It "was partly laden with rum, the Syria. – The good tidings come stench of which filled it from stem to from Syria that the late attempt of stern, and accommodation on board the Turkish authorities to force was of the most meager description." new and intolerant restrictions upon the cause of Christian education has Persia. – The Persian mi~sions been earnesly resisted by the diplohave been more richly blessed during matic representatives of the different the past year than ever before, both powers, that it has utterly failed and in the accessions to their churches has finally been withdrawn. and in the general prosperity of their work, while as to opportunities for -The Y. M. C. A. in Evangelization. the extension of the .work they seem Mr. L. D. Wishard is about to underliterally without limit. take a tour of the world in the in- terests of the Y. IV!. C. A. Eighteen -Reformed Dutch Missions. The associations are now established on treasury of the Reformed (Dutch) foreign missionary soil-Japan, Tur- Board of Foreign Missions is becom- key, India, China, Persia and Ceylon. ing seriously burdened. It is main- There are 300,000 in India speaking tained at present by the use of the English, and 60,000 Christian young credit of individuals. The receipts of men, and 100 government schools October were twice those of October, from which the Christian religion is 1&86. Since that statement such a excluded, but where the undenomidecline of income has occurred as to national Y. M. C. A. could enter. cause increasing anxiety. The receipts of December, usually a fmiHul -The Eleventh Triennial Meeting month, were much below those of re- of the Young Men's Christian Assocent years. ciations of all lands is to be held in Stockholm August 15 -19. A spe- South America.-The William Tay- cial rate has been secured to Lonlor Transit Fund and Building Fund don and return by the new steamer Society has a self-supporting work City of Berlin. of the Inman line, in South America, begun eight years sailing from New York July 21; ago, embracing four well-established the return tickets are available from missions in Chili and property in Antwerp by the Red Star line, as churches, parsonages and schools well as by the Inman line steamers worth about $100,000. There are in- from Liverpool. Special rates becipient church organizations, one tween London and Stockholm. with a membership of thirty-six, and Friends in England extend an invithere have been about 3,000 pupils in tation to a special steamer trip along the~e schools, with from 600 to 1,000 the Norwegian coast before the meetchildren under tuition now. The ing. There will be a trip provided schools are patronized by the most which will include all expenses of influential classes, from the Presi- the journey from New York back to dent of the republic down. There New York, covering about seven are also stations in Brazil. These weeks, the cost of which will be foundations, say the officers of the $300. Particulars can be obtained society, have been built up largely from Geo. A. Hall, State Secretary within the quadrennium now closing, Y. 11. C. A., Twenty-third street and and more missionaries and larger Fourth avenue, New York. premises are called for. Zenanas.-The needle of a mission- -Spanish Armada. In May next it ary's wife was the instrument God will be 300 years since the" invincible used to give access to Oriental zenaar-mada" met with the beginning of nas. A piece of embroidery wrought those disasters which terminated but by her deft fingers found its way to with its destruction, and it has been the secluded inmates of a zenana. If proposed in England properly to cele- a woman could do such work as that brate the anniversary.
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
other women could learn under her gaged; four normal schools with 123 instruction; and so, with the cordial pupillil, and lil3 other schools with consent of the husband, this Chris- 5,411 scholars. Last year 2,364 zetian woman was welcomed to the in- nanas were regularly visited. Finanside of his home; and as she taught cially it received 19,497 rupees in his wife the art of embroidery she government grants, 7,916 rupees in was working the" scarletdyed in the fees, and 18,953 rupees locally subblood of the Lamb" into the more del- scribed. Its home receipts during icate fabric of their hearts and lives. the year amounted to $118,185. Of 14 missionaries recently sent out by -The Church of England Zenana the society, 3 were self-supporting, 4 Society is the most enterprising soci- draw no salary, 2 have their salaries ety of its kind probably in the world. plid by their friends, and 5 only are It has 88 missionaries, with 445 Bible chargeable to the. society. women and other ageIts locally en- VII.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
The Comparative Cost of War and The English army has now under of Missions. Dr. Fed. Garlanda, in arms 218,569 men, with 22,242 horses, an unusually able article, has recent- and 624 guns. The navy is equal to ly measured the military strength of the combined navies of France, Ger- Europe at the dawn of 1888. many and Austro- Hungary, em- The Italian standing army presents bracing about 700 ships.
a total of over 871,000, of whom over The Russian Empire could bring 250,000 are in actual service, and into the field over 2,500,000 troops, 17,800 officers; the milizia mobile and and a navy of over 300 ships. Tur- the milizia territoriale being added key and Spain could muster over to the others, we have a grand total 1,000,000 more, and 200 vessels. In of 32,248 officers and 2,475,533 men. other words; the combined armies of The navy includes 235 ships. Europe could bring into the field The French army can in case of over 16,000,000 men and cover the war summon to her aid over 2,000,000 waters with 1,400 vessels of war, men and a navy of over 400 s4ips. many of them of the most destruc- Her yearly expediture on navy alone tive sort.
is $46,000,000. The total annual expenditure for The land forces of the German Em- the war and navy departments of pire consist in time of peace of 19,264 these governments is said to reach officers, 468,409 men, with 84,091 the enormous sum of $906,000,000.
horses. The artillery has 364 batter- These' governments are also im- ies, 47 of which have six pieces each, mensely in debt, yet the political sit- and 317 have four. In time of war uation is such as to require increased those 317 batteries have also six – armaments. They cannot go to war pieQes, bringing up the total to 2.184 because they have not the financial guns. In case of war Germany can credit to extend their indebtedness.
muster 1,753,000 men of the standing The total annual interest upon Eu- army and 993,000 men of the Land- ropean indebtedness is about $1,070,- wehr. The Landsturm numbers 000,000. Hence the people are bur- 3,955,000 men. Altogether about dened with high taxes.
6,000,000 men. Bel' navy contains All this it costs simply to .be pre- about 200 ships. pared for international conflicts in The Austro-Hungarian Empire can Em·ope.
command nearly 44,000 officers and Now look at the cost of actually 1,533,296 men, with 207,034 horses, carrying on the Lord's war for hu- and a navy of 106 ships. man redemption by the universal church I We have put into the en- tire church of Christendom can mustire foreign field, including men, wo- tel' in men and money for the Lord's men and native helpel'S, considerably war of the ages! less than 50,000 laborers, and we ex- How would these figures be changed pend about $10,000,000 yearly;. so if the Christian church should but apthat Europe alone has 333 times as preciate her opportunity and her remany soldiel's, and spends 900 times sponsihility-the perils and possihilas many dollars each year as the en- ities of the critical hour of history!
—- Women's Foreign Missionary Societies.
[THE first in the field was the Woman's Union MissionarY Society, organized in the City of New York in J annary, 1861. In 1885 more than twenty foreign missionary societies of ladies exi~ted in the United States. The following table we copy from Dr. Dorchester's" Christianity in the Uuited States," showing that over eight and a half millions of dollars have been raised by these women's societies in this brief period of time.-Ens.] ·C.; 1 .0.0,00 " , ' "• ~~'''':"": '0'" . …. 00:.:$:: FROM REpORTS FOR 1885. .; – -.~ :"".0..,''0 "'-0" ~ ,-:011 0 .. '0 ~ 0 ~ -< . —— " .. l A~"'bat~ I'< -1.'<~-.". -w"- – – – Union Missionary Society.. . … ………….. …. •. .. .. 1861 521 141 49… . 78: 2,881 Congregational Board ………………………….. " 186~ 1201 97 98 98 2C9 ….. .. .. " o f Interior ……………….. " 1868 1,275 …… 43 35 58 …… . .. of Pacific ………………… " 1873 50 25 4 .. .. …… . ….. . Methodist Episcopal Church Woman's Board…… . . . . ]869 3,&70· . . . . . . 59 225 2C3 5,772 .. .. .. South, Woman's Board. " ]878 ],406 514 ]6 6 21 522 Protestant Church Woman's Board ……. " ]879 ]02 20 2 ] 1 47 Presbyterian Woman's Board…………………….. 1870 1,327 1,2131124]02 152 …… . .. of the Northwest…….. 1870 1,506 …… 6] 4~ 98 …… . " h 102 113 7 15 31 53 of Northern New York .. 187~ 489 259 34 62 47 …… . of New York City ……. 1870 294 ….. . ]4.. .. •………. . of the Southwest …… " ]877 1,189 528 27 57 109 4,049 Baptist Woman's Board…………………………. 1870 ],363 327 25 107 147 1666 .. . ", .. of the West ……………….. 1871 Southern Presbyterian Cburch Board. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. …… 369 …. " …. …. …… . .. : .. .
United Presbyterian Church of North America Board.. …… 4691 ………………..•…… Cumberland Presbyterian Church Board ………. , .. " 1879 589 …… …. …. . ……….. . Reformed Presbyterian Board ………………….. " …… ….. . …… …. …. …… . ….. . Friends' Foreign Missionary Society… ……………. 1881 9 …………………….. . Reformed (Dutch) Church Board …… " ………… " 1875 190,1…………………….. . Protestant Episcopal Church Board…………….. '" 1871 43 …………………….. . Free Baptist Foreign Mission Board. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ]873 ]93 49 7"… ……….. . Mite Society of African Methodist Episcopal Chnrch. " ….. . United Brethren Board ………………………….. 1875 ·· ..S03 ….861 …6 '''9 ….. i; …. iii; Disciples' Foreign Missionary Society…… .. ………. …… 454 5:1 .. .. ….. .. . .11.1………. …. Lntheran General Synod…………………………. 1870 302 29: 2 20 Total of 26 Women's Missionary Boards ……… ~ 15,8663,4541 578 785 1,1421 ]5,165 TOTAL REQEIPTS OF WOMEN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY BOARDS.
Woman's Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1861 $119.827 $473.221 $246.687' $1,026,239 Congregational, East. . . . . . . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1868 20,495 688,134 841,78] ],550.410 Congregational, West. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1868 ]69,364 276,446 450,903 Methodist Episcopal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1869 505,246 Presbyterian, Philadelphia. .. .. …•………….. 1870 567,394 1,066,338 1,661,585 Presbyterian, New York City………………… 1870 166,194 692,765 ],250,]65 Presbyterian, Northwest…… ………………. 1870 207,560 208,771 374,966 Presbyterian, Albany and Troy…………. , .. . . .. ]872 45,341 371,005 578,565 Baptist, East ……………•…………………. 1870 281,100 1)5,165 100,506 Baptist, West………………………………. 1871 104,841 378,753 659,863 Protestant Episcopal. .. '" …. .. …….. …….. .. 1871 67,278 160,191 244,031 Reformed (Dutch) Chnrch… …………•……… 1875 35,869 115,005 182,283 United Brethren. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1875 15,000 119,6!H ]54,972 Methodist Episcopal, South. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1878 20,319 69,755 84,755 232,144 25.!,463 Total ……….. i……… …………….. …… $140,322 $3,436,361 $4,884,419 $8,57],706 NOTE.-There are I1bout a dozen other woman's boards very recently organized, a statement of whose receipts we have been unable to obtain. Most of the above receipts are included in those of the various denominational boards, but not all.
* In a few instances the receipts are limited at ]885, and in a few others ]887 are included.
g StatistilSs of Missions and Missionary Work in Japan for the Year
THill following table is condensed from one prepared by Rev. Henry Loomis, agent of the American Bible Society at Yokohama. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Mission declined to give statistics, and the figures for this society are partly approximate. In the column for contributious the yen is equal to 75 cents gold. Two columns, for which we cannot make room, giving statistics of churches wholly or partly self·supporting, show that of the 41 connected with the American Boartl33 are wholly, and the remainiug 8 are partially self-supporting. The progress of the past year, as indicated by this table, is most cheering. "' "". . . . ~',…;.. .~8;; w ".',"151£ .~ ,,; .t:.f3 Q).f, " ., . … ,;0 .~ ~ ~~~ w,; 0 '" NC)~ .,,,; .~~ 'a~ 't:IooaJ oW 1-<-;; ~ ~g ., s .. "" ~~.~;::S~-·OJ'off.i.'~"~ "-" .~ I-< '~d .~_.Sc ~~ ~:§ ~ .~ 00 p"~'~S ~ ~-5 MISSIONS. i; I-< ;.S~ .c bll., '"8"~-'"g .~…,. c:::1 I~U .,.~ E-o"< '''' 0-" .P-=I – – ::":a .9"" uz l – – – – ~ -"- """""" —- — – – —- -I><- – :::a-;~ :a1lj ~~~ i:il~.~ 0 " ,,~ 0 0 Z".~ – – – – 00 -,,'" 0""0 .0..0. Eo< —',– ~ -~- en American Preshyterian Church ………………….•………….. 18:)9 14 21 85 ts 6 85 Reformed Church in America ….•……………………………. 18.';9 10 4 14 8 19 Union Presbyterian Church of Scotland ……………………….. 1874 8 United Church of Christ in Japan (Native) ……………………. 8 1 6 I 1,688 6,859 I 3 I 44 I 34 I 48 I 18,553 "A Reformed Church in the United States………………………… 1879 4 1 5 I 8 10 ~ Presbyterian Church in the United States ……………………… 1885 4 2 6 2 5 Woman's Union Missionary Society ………………………….. 1871 ~ ·s 5 5 1 2 J7 454 15 700 2 408 1,085 CAummebriecralnanPdroPtreesstbayntteEripainscCohpualrcChh.u.r.c.h..*……………………………………………… 1877 11 4 7 2 21 11 88 1 1 2 4i 1859 4 15 207 Church Missionary Societ.v. . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1869 2 11 5 12 19 222 880 1 19 3 7 1,209 I'iI Society for Propagation of Gos'El ……………………………. 1873 9 200 ~ 7 1 8 2 2 bOO 300 Eo< Society for Promoting Female ducation …………………….. 1877 ·s 2 2 1 ·2ij 1 10 8 20 745 American Bapti,t Church …………………………………… ]860 6 22 10 715 ~ English Baptist Church ……………………………………… 1879 2 7 15 33 1 4 3,166 3 1 11 2 20 140 1 1 57 1 7 Disciples ………………………………………………….. 1883 2 2 5 1 6 16 .i 00 Christian Church ………….•……….•…………………….. 1887 1 1 2 ·i 868 5,65·) ·6 4 t 15 A.B.C. F. M ……………………….••.•………………….. 1869 1 49 1 100 1 25 15 t 12,769 0…. 28 8 102 41 64 21 845 2 700 eEon< Independent Native Churches ……………………………….. 2 t ~70 355 American Methodist Episcopal Church ..•…………………….. 1873 jiJ 4i 2,a5~ 87 23 32 3,395 -rE"w<<o"< Canada Methodist Church. .. . ………………………………. 1873 15 33 11 46 109 2 15 5 12 Evangelical Association of North America. . ………•………….. 1876 9 15 3 25 12 64 1,012 1 t 1,500 Protestant Methodist Church ….. ,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. … . ……….. 1880 3 6 4 1 64 250 3 1 2 ·i 4 30 177 1 6 4 4 7 75 2 125 1 2 43 American Methodist Episcopal Church (Sonth) …….•…………. 1886 5 6 4 1 3 76 ·i 4 85 3 37 Gen. Evan~elical Protestant (German SwiSS) ………………….. 1885 2 2 1 1 :;'5 5 17 Society of riends, America ………….•….•………………… 1885 1 11 Unitarian Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. 1887 1 148 1 1 — — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Total, 1887 ……………….•………•.••……………… 128 — – – – – – – – – – – – – Total, 1886 ……………………………………………. 216 102 19) 41,511 103 253 69 -316- -221- -5-,020- -19-,829- 14 S.S — — — 169 98 166 26,866 215 50 211 193 3,640 14,815 11 – – – – – …. 1 i Increase, 1887………..•……………………………… …. 20 18 38 19 105 28 1,380 5,014 3 47 9 ' 25 14,705 .-< • Statistics to June 1. t Approximate. -Missionary Herald.
Episoopal Mission in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Vicinity
~ A HALF OENTURY of mission work in South America was closed in 1887. It was begun by no less a man" than John Dempster, followed in successiou by William H. Norris, Dallas D. Lore, Goldsmith D. Carrow, William Goodfellow, and Henry G. Jackson, all men who had made their mark in the service of the church at home before coming to South America, and who proved after their return, by still more eminent services and successes, that it was no fault of the workers that the work in South America did not meet Impatient expectations. The difficulty was in the field, and not in the men. Not till 1882, when the mission was reinforced and backed up by a pollcy of aggressive evangelization, were there satisfactory results secured. The work of 1886-87 prospered all along the line. We give 'the statistics of the mission for 1887, for which we are indebted to the (Iogpel tn all Lands, which gives an interesting history of the mission.-EDs.
J ~ ~ Q1 5 ai: STA.TISTIOS OF THE MISSION, 'g -0 fn ~ ~~ ~ ~~ W~ ~ g~ -o trn5~a~dl ·~Wg~.8'0>~ ~ ~ ~ ~.E ~ ~ ~ '8 ~ • • ~~ -a• . -~~. (J,) -0 a~. '~~- i ~ ~& @9 !ll a t rB 0 e~,Q g 1=3 ~ ~i ~ ~ .'~;I..0~… ';:::.. ~ ~ ,g 8 :w; ~ g3 U '~" • ,.gr!i "d (J ,g ..t:I ab~r~7o .:s.=~. "'" ]. –.: Q1 CD .~0 . ~g ~CD f ~"'" :. '0 -§ § 'Q -0 Q. ~~Q;> ~ -~§ ..0 5·…. • A. Q;l rn. • rn CD 'tj :: CD >'l r~ .~~ ~~l ~ ~ i ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~ i J~ ~ j j j ~ ~ ; ~ ~<~ ~~ ~ ~ -~ge:-§;2m §!ONOI] = S §! $ e::t .——I~i'.0:T0.•l~:~.rn~,:i~Trn.".l~.~~0."~.-0~t=+~.""'~0~"~:~..t.'=:".". -~ .0~'" :.~Q=al:iI_dcd….j.=;P~'>4,:Q~SQ,:) .,~:0~3~I''§.r~=0tl::'~~t-,:I,'.:;~~t:~~o: ~~'00Q~..) &'~.00~ii~'00J.~"'.d00~~~~~I0>~.J ~,~C~0~.: ~,~~I0~::J.. ~-~00""-':500;=::l"~('fl0= -~Q~'I~-~.0•EPc0F~:"-i.E,..(I~~l.)~.sr":i"C.f,l.l..gS0. 1887. -S.; ~ '~~~O- _~~~ ~~ ~~'~~8 "gg ~ CD ~ :=1:=1 W :=I 1]-0 b ~ ~. := I'o:s: , , 0~ 00 0 0 0 Q1 Montevideo and its Depen- I> 00 00 0 '"Sl "" ,'" ;,,+01.. '" .. ..,.1 ,I ",",,' ",~, ,,~, dencles…………….. . fa "",700' '" "" n ,., ,; m,,, …" …. .,,' _ …. ~ Buenos Ayres and its Depen- dencies ……………. .. 2121 I 2121111111 .• /4122112751 2,100/ .• 1 761··1 .. 1··181 815181 5051·.121 46,0001 6111 16,000/ .·.·1 3801 101 6,6861 1,6001 1,006 Rosario and its Dependen- 11 11 2 I 8 I 21 81 6181141 861158/ 2,6501 21182 .. 1.. 1.. 151 3371141 4051191 21 9,000113 ,.. …. ,$14,0001 631 651 2,2391 8,BOOI 64Il 'I' cies ……………….. .
Total ………………. I 51 51 2 1 82 1 8137/531 31281 546 724 7.450/ 8 3041 11 lil0134 2.1321371 1,740119 5:$64,000/ 32 I 21$16,500:$14,000/ $626/ $86/$9,4721$5,8581$8,213 Last report (1885) ..•.•.•• ~I~I~I':'I~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 46: 4'5~ ~ 185'~ ~ ~I~ 1,204 ~ 1'6041~ ~ 64,O~ ~ ~ 16,000 14,000 ~1~ 444 5,753/2.991 2,950 15 Increase in two years … 1 1 .. 10 819 .. 9 109 262 2,950 4 119 .. " 21,2 928 5 136 12.. •… 1 1 $500 ~ …. $"0' .. $3,7191$2,867 $268 1 ~,
! Reoeipts of the Poreign Missionary Societies of the United States from the Origin of Eaoh.*
SOCIETIES. !S10 to 1820 to 1830 to 1840 to I 1850 to 1860 to 1870 to 1881 to Total: 1810 1819. 1829. 1839. 1849. 1869. IfSO.t 1887.+ to 1887. 1859. —– .——— .American Board C. F. M……….. $162,430 $664,247 $1,684,751 $2,550,277 $3,140,811 $4,519,112 $5,243,137 $4,488,112 $22,452,877 .American Baptist Missionary Union 43,780 81,471 591,230 769,265 1,061,608 1,429,149 2,753,977 2,327,239 9,057,719 Methodist Episcopal. . ………… …. . ….. 195,403 330,213 785,357 1,505,550 3,773,887 2,756,251 9,346,661 Protestant Episcopal …………… … .. …. 227,816 309,026 559,435 709,200 1,270,731 916,246 3,992,454 <Ii Presbyterian Board i …………… … .. …. 186,639 784,750 1,772,873 2,372,552 4,885,241 4,744,533 14,746,588 …. ……. 65,886 276,263 238,365 404,428 472,411 1,457,353 ~ Southern Baptist ……………… ….. …. .American Foreign Church Union 0 ••••• 246,505 608,424 829,164 518,613 129,625 2,404,331 w. …. (chiefly foreign) !' … '" •…….. Sl Reformed Church (Duteh) with .A. w. B. C. F. M. until 1857……….. ….. …….. · ….. 20,000 41,111 568,424 701,576 413.2[10 1,724,401 ~;j Evangelical Lutheran 'IT •.•••••••••. ….. · ….. 35,000 80,000 165,000 257;089 557,089 ~ Evangelical .Association ………… ' … . …. · ….. 12,000 30,000 62,000 145,000 85,000 334,000 United Brethren……………….. ….. ….. · ….. 44,402 161,101 345,150 200,000 750,653 …. ….. . United Presbyterian……………. … " . …. I>l Southern Presbyterian …………. …. · ….. · ….. . ….. 400,331 609,298 616,610 1,626,239 · ….. 54,767 483,174 498,570 1,033,511 0 ••••• · …..
E=o=! Reformed Presbyterian …………. .. .. …. · ….. · ….. · ….. · ….. 92,732 9Po,000 185,732 . ….. . ….. · ….. S Disciples ……………………… ….. , … . ….. · ….. · ….. 33,177 185,565 218,742 Free-Will Baptist………………. 0 ••••• · ….. 126,000 466,362 w. Methodist Episcopal, South (partly . … .. … . …..
8 .. . . . . . . . . . . . -. -. . . – -.-…-.. 719,43~ 2,719,439 '$il,425, estimated… .. . . Ewo.! . . – -.' '"- – …… .. …. I …… ……
~ —-1—- – —- —– wEo.! Total ………………….. $206,210 $745,718 $2,885,839 $5,087,922i $8,427,284 $12,929,715 1211 $19,028,980 $73,074,151 NOt'E.-Add to the above $2,501,707, received by Woman's Foreign Missionary SOCieties, known not to have been inclnded in the receipts of the parent boards, and we have a total of $75,575,858. There are also some smaller boards which are not included, because the data cannot be obtained. Complete returns from 1881 to 1887 wonld make about 21,000,000, or an average of THREE MILLIONS annnaily• * In a few cases the earlier receipts have not been ascertained. t This period comprises eleven years.
:j: Several are for 1881 to 1886.
…., II For many years the New School Presbyterians contribnted to the American Board of Christian Foreign Missions, but not since 1870• -~ § Formerly more largely foreign than of late years.
,. Estimated by a leading official of that denomination. Since 1880 the figures include other Ln'theran bodies. '-])1'. Dorchester'8 "Ohristianity in the United States." SOCIETIES. 1820 to 1830 to 1840 to 1850 to 1860 to 1870 to lESl to I 1820 to 1829. 1839. 1849. 1859. 1869. lSSO.t 1887. 1887. —- —– – – – — – – – ——– $105,643 $860,599 $394,482 $1,012,281 $1,190,657 65,173 612,658 1,178,017 724,231 1,107,852 1,746,963 o Presbyterian, Old School Board………. Ameri"can New School Board…….. , }t$4,314,327 $3,666,186 $13,334,8 Home Missionary Society…… 2,847,210 11,586,8 1,975,878 3,119,584 Methodist Episcopal Domestic….. " ….. ·6.3.,0..1.0 390,806 660,426 1,576,714 3,011,100 2,907,635 2,505,848 11,164,5 9 ~ 108,184 320,613 463,204 754,507 1;827,724 1,187,904 4,762,1 6 Protestant" " ………… · ….. 1,103,~ 5 ..r~J…,l 453,097 517,690 133,158 American Church Missionary Society …. · ………. 31,661 64,297 139.490 202,534 308,516 217,143 963,e 42 Q · 243,444 441,762 1,149,161 2,330,585 2,256,656 6,556,1 42 Reformed Church (Dutch)…………… 134,534 172,128 254,914 689,796 378,234 !i1,112 421,249 430,766 3,743,113 American Baptist Home Mission.•……. · ….. 94,697 120,000 1,829,624 580,000 2,020,5 5 rJl · ….. · ……….. .4.8.,0.0.0. 693,291 Seamen's Friend Society t …………. , .. 88,804 248,000 258,279 3,257,567 9,302,e 5 ~.., American Missionary Association t……. 266,356 322,201 6,773,082 630,616 1,626,e 6 · Evangelical Association $i •.•..••••••…•• 908,000 495,020 650,078 494,225 · ….. 7,384,218 369,661 455,399 · ….. ·· ….. 27,714 84,410 457,633 1,598,5 United Brethren§ ………………….. · ….. 186,801 7,850,000 1,601,2 ~ ….. …… 117,728 2…0…9…,2…..8….7 410,500 Southern Baptist Domestic…… , …….. · ….. · ….. • •• 0.0 g 22,165,C o ::!l ………………………..' · ….. **893,918 1,372,7 Young Men's Christian Associations II .•.. • .0 ••• · ….. tt50ll,671 · Disciples …………………………… ….. · ….. ……….. H124,284 .. …… · ….. · … • •••• 0 .,0..••.•.•.• 296,890 853,B United Presbyterian Church…………. ,~ . ….. ~ · Southern Presbytedan Board ………… ·………. .0 . . 495,788 1,076,1 .0' .0' .o . .. . rJl'
Cumberland Presbyterian (last 9 years)… 184,734 394,C e: …… Free-Will Baptist…………………… …. • 0 •••• …… 103,900 373,8 · ….. ….. .' 1,061,495 4,061,4 …rJl 221,905 747,8 Meth. E. Church, South (estimated)…… rJl · Lutherans ………………………..'.. ·eO..' .'0 ..' …… o 951,403 .0 •• o ,r Freedmen's Aid Societies .. '~ ….. …… Methodist Episcopal ………………… .. …….. 1,845,3 …… …. .. Presby •• 0…. ….. • ….. United ….. , terian. . .. .. . … .. ………•… . . . – .. 703,356 1,207,0 Prpsby teri an . … " …………. , . – 0 ••••• 176,556 300,8 – – – – – —– – — Aggregate, …………………… $233,826 $2,342,712 $3,062,354 $8,080,109 $21,015,719 $21,272.154 $27,556,673 $100,019,3 NOTE.-The above is by no means a full exhibit. The Reformed Presbyterians, the Reformed German, the Moravian, the Protestant, ·Free Wesleyan and African * i Methodist chnrches, the Disciples, the Christians, the Adventist., and, in short, all denominations do much borne missionary work which cannot be tabulated in any form. * The earliest receipts of some boards cannot be ascertained.' t United in 1869, Chiefly domestic. § Estimated by a leading ofllcial. UIncluding Christian Commission. 'IJ The Freedmen's work of most churches is included with the Domestic Mission work, ** For thirteen years. tt For eleven years. tt For fourteeu II- ~ years. -Dr. ])()rchester's "Christianity in the Unitea;<itaie8."
The Missionary Review of the World — April 1888
PAUL'S MISSIONARY PRINCIPLES
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XI. No. 4.-Old Series.-APRIL.-voL. I. No. 4.-New Seriu.
I.-THE LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
PAUL'S MISSIONARY PRINCIPLES.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] LOOKING back through the long aisles of the ages and tracing the history of missions, we behold a grand procession, or succession, of devoted men and women, whose names constitute an alphabet of glory. yet back of t4em all, farther removed into the distant past, stands "Paul the Little," yet the colossal, commanding figure that even distance cannot diminish-the pioneer, in a twofold sense, of missions to the heathen. Noble as are the names of the missionary host, and inspiring as is the story of their heroism, there is no nobler name, no more heroic career than those represented by the Apostle of the Gentiles.
It may be well to try and analyze the principles that underlay that grand missionary life which, leading all the rest in point of time, has led all the rest in point of excellence and eminence; for the history of man has furnished no higher pattern save only as found in Him who made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and undertook the original mission to universal man.
1. In Paul's life as a missionary we observe first a peculiar law oj evangelization: the occupation of otherwise unoccupied fields. " I have strived to preach the gospel not where Ohrist was named, lest I .should build upon another man's foundation; but as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of they shall see," etc. His special aim was "to preach the gospel in the regions beyond" (Rom. xv. 20, 21; 2 Oor. x. 13-16).
The right and left arms of Ohristian activity are these two-education and evangelization. Weare first to proclaim Ohrist where he has not.been named, and then to train converts into active, stalwart disciples and workers. There is undoubtedly a work of building, but foundations must first be laid. And this necessity cannot be too much emphasized. The mission work is sometimes treated as though it were all one; and so indeed it is in principle. But practically there is a great difference between those who have heard of Ohrist and those who have not; between the indifference of apathy or habitual resistance, and the indifference of downright ignorance and habitual surrender to the tyranny of superstition.
You ask, Why should a man go to Africa? Are there not souls needing the gospel in Nebraska and Iowa, and even in our own cities? I answer, There are unsaved souls perhaps in your house, but their destitution is not to be compared with that of millions in the interior of China and Africa. These people are without saving faith in Ohrist ; those are without saving knowledge of Christ. With one class it is light unused, with the other it is darkness unbroken. Paul did not deny that there were hundreds in Jerusalem who had seen Christ's mighty works and heard his divine words, who yet needed salvation, but he yearned especially to reach those who had not even heard ~( him. Theirs was a double destitution-first, not having Christ; second not having the knowledge of Christ.
Take our most destitute mission districts. Can you find a town or settlement in the remotest frontier where there is not at least some pious man or woman who is competent to guide an inquirer? One of our missionary superintendents went to a small group of hamlets on the Rocky Mountains, where there was neither a church nor a Sunday-school, but there he found a poor but pious widow whose humble home was the gathering place for prayer-meetings, and there was not a soul in that village that would not know where to go for counsel. But when Stanley crossed the Dark Continent, from Zanzibar to the Congo's mouth, over all those 7,000 miles he found no native that had heard of Christ! And in China a poor man who had been convicted of sin journeyed sixteen hundred miles to find an American consul, who, as he thought, could tell him about the God of the Christians. Were the question before Paul afresh for decision, where he would go to preach the gospel? He would go where no one else 1vould-where there was the greatest destitution and degradation. If other men feel attracted to the work of building on other men's foundations, let them do that work; but Paul yearned to press into regions beyond, where Christ had never been named, and so within the life of a generation he carried the cross over the known world west of the Golden Horn.
That principle of evangelization must be the law of our Christian life if we are ever to overtake the regions beyond. We must practically feel that the call is loudest where the need is greatest and the darkness deepest. Then, while we shall pass by no really needy field nearer home, we shall press with untiring zeal and contagious earnestness into the farthest corners of the earth.
II. Paul's life was regulated also by the principle of obligation. " I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise." He was a debtor, owing and owning a debtsomething was due, from a man who had such ample revelations of truth, to the rest of mankind.
We often speak of the family of man. God's universal Fatherhood involves and implies man's universal brotherhood, and this brotherhood implies a mutual bond of obligation. Weare each our brother's keeper. Huber, the blind naturalist, observed that a wasp or an ant would not stay alone to enjoy some precious morsel, but go to the nest and return as leader of a host that might partake of the same delicacy. If I have found the bread of life, lowe a duty to my hungry and perishing brother to supply his needs, especially since the more I divide my loaf the more it multiplies. He that is content idly to enjoy gospel blessings, without caring for the starving, dying millions, is guilty of inhumanity. There is such a thing as encouraging a monopoly in salvation. And monopoly is monstrous in proportion to the value of the article monopolized.
How can any man contemplate the moral and spiritual ruin of the race and be unmoved! nave we not all one Father? And we, are we not all brethren? What would be thought of a family that should allow a member of the household that was living thousands of miles away in destitution and degradation to go unthought of, uncared for, unaided, because remote from home? Is not that very remoteness a reason why the heart goes out in especial tenderness in that direction? Let a Ohristmas season come, aud the annual love tokens be distributed, and the first child provided for will be the absent one, nay, even the alienated one. Such is the love of God and the love born of God: it seeks the farthest, neediest, poorest, first of all, because the more liable to be overlooked.
Indifference to foreign missions is the natural outcome of infidelity and materialism. Deny the unity of the race in Adam, the oneness of the human family; make man the offspring of the monkey or the clod of earth, and a true manhood the result of development, and the logical effect is apathy toward a pagan world. The Hottentot is a brute. The French governor of the Isle of Bourbon is right: "You may as well attempt to convert oxen or asses as to make Ohristian men out of the Malagasy." According to the creed of Huxley, Darwin & 00., these superstitious fetish worshipers are brutes, at best only on the long road toward manhood. Why not let them alone and take care of the higher products of evolution! Let these millions of cannibals die eating each other; it matters not if they are never evolved!
But the instant you heartily believe that God has made of one blood all nations of men; that the family of man is one; that there is no human being however embruted or brutal that is a brute; that behind the darkest skin and most bestial physique an immortal soul burns like a gem buried in the dust; that the Maori, Papuan,Terra del Fuegan is my brother and yours, and capable of a future equally glorious with that of any other soul-the moment you accept this truth, such indi:ffer~ ence cannot survive.
III. The Lato of Accommodation. "I am madeall things to all men, that by all means I might save some." This means nothing less than that Paul identified himself with every class of men whom he met and sought to save. Even now Ohristian character is sometimes rigid and frigid in its inflexibility. We know very little about bending and stoop~ ing. We have our Inborn, inbred peculiarities; we call them charac~ teristics because they seem inseparable from character. Our high intel~ lectuality lifts us above ignorance, our refined taste above coarseness, our wealthy associations above the environments of poverty. Weare prone to consult our affinities. And so society separate/! into little groups of those who are like-minded. Self-love degenerates into selfish~ ness; we become comparatively isolated, and do not touch the great mass of humanity sympathetically, helpfully, savingly. .
This great apostle had everything to tempt hi~ to a similar isolation and separation. He was a man of royal mind, enriched with imperial culture. The· schools of Tarsus had done all for him that Greek wisdom and Roman civilization could accomplish, and the schools of the prophets with Gamaliel as teacher had added to all the polish of secular learning the strength and solidity of sacred knowledge. He was fitted for a Oorinthian column in the structure of society, for he had the solid, massive, substantial education of Judean scholarship surmounted by the elegance and grace of Athenian philosophy. Besides all this he had refined sensibilities. He was delicately organized. All his emotional and affectional nature was built on the most exquisite pattern. He had the strength of manly courage and fortitude, with the tenderness of womanly sympathy and sensibility. He was aggressivelyactive, yet his energy and activity were qualified by the passive virtues.
Such a man was one most likely to retire into the comparative exclusion and seclusion of a few cultured friends. He might have been at the head of an academy, or a court, or an army, but he would have been naturally the center of a small circle of intimate associates. But Paul had beneath his life a principle of accommodation. He sawall men in 11 lost condition, and so terrible was spiritual alienation from God that in those measureless depths all comparative differences were lost, as in the star-sown depths of illimitable space. And he forgot his intellectual gifts and graces,his fine sensibilities and selfish affinities, in one burning desire to save men. To the Jew he was a Jew, that he might gain the Jews; to those who were under the law or without law, as himself in the sam£, condition, that he might save them. He sacrificed no prin~ eiple, he denied no truth, he compromised no eternal verities, but he got down to every other man's level and from his point of view looked at life and duty, law and penalty, sin and salvation. Beside a poor man he felt poor; beside the rich man he imagined himself encompassed by the snares of greed; with the ignorant he forgot his learning, and with the gross his refinement. The idolater and sorcerer found in him a man who could sympathize with a mistaken religiousness and a temptation to impose on popular credulity. Chained to a soldier as a common convict, he became interested in the soldier's life as an armed defender of the state, and became for the time himself a soldil'r, and as day by day he was chained to a new member of the Prretorian guard he told anew the story of the cross till so he had preached the gospel to the whole guard in turn. Whether in the palace of the Cresars or the Philippian jail; whether in the house of Lydia or the synagogue at Thessalonica; whether on Mars Hill or the Temple stairs; among the barbarians of Malta or the disciples at Antioch, he never anywhere held himself aloof from human souls. There is no lofty air of superiority in the presence of the lowest and no servile air of cowardice and flattery in the presence of the highest. 'rhis accommodation might almost be called assimilation, for it brought him into such vital, honest, sympathetic contact with man as man.
I have a friend who holds weekly in his church parlors a theological clinic. He brings in convicts, the vicious, the abandoned, the profane, the infidel, and asks them questions concerning their life and opinions and notions of men and things, that, to a band of Christian workers, he may by a kind of dissection of spiritual experience unfold the mysteries of that strange thing the human heart. Paul's life was one long spidtual clinic. He studied men that he might know them, and sought to know them that he might reach them.
IV. Again, Paul was moved by the principle of self-abnegation. "Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved." Mark, not even his own profit. There are many who get where they forego pleasure for others' profit, but Paul surrendered even his own profit. He simply lost sight of himself in his passion for souls.
Only in the light of this marvelous enthusiasm for God can we interpret Paul's self-limitation. "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Wisdom of words he could forego lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect. Literary ambition beckoned him on to receive its shining crown, but he forgot all else in that absorbing passion. He could say with Count von Zinzendorf, "Ich hab' eine Passion, und die est Er, nur Er."
In this flame of devotion to his Lord all else was consumed. The lust of gain, of applause, of pleasure, of office, of power, of achieve~ ment, all burned as to ashes in those inward fires that left only the image of his Redeemer to survive and glow the more brightly. Of this self-abnegation there is no expression more sublime than that in the epistle to the Colossians (i. 24), "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church."
To be crucified with Christ was a reality to such a man. It meant a cross and a death to self in order to save others. Christ's death saved no human soul. It only made salvation possible. The word of God is but the declaration of the terms of salvation. The Holy Spirit must take of the truth and blood and apply them to the soul. But how does the application come? By lttlman agency. A believer, one to whom salvation has come by faith and faith by hearing, becomes the missing link that joins Christ on the cross, in the word and in the Spirit, to the penitent soul. The believer is a witness and a herald; he tells the story of redeeming love, and he adds his own experience to attest tho word. The Holy Spirit uses that believing testimony to convince the reason, persuade the heart, and move the will. It may be reverently said that the blood of Jesus plus the witness of the word, plus the work of the Holy Spirit, plus the believer, save sinners, for, each in its own place, all together are used by God to accomplish the salvation of the lost. God might have saved men immediately. He chose to do it mediately. Hence Paul needed to fill up what was behind of the sufferings of Christ in his own flesh for his body's sake. He had no need to atone. for men, for the work of atonement was "finished;" he had no need to furnish the Holy Scriptures of truth, for they were all embraced in the Bible; he had no need to act as a divine physician to apply the balm of Gilead. The blood, the word, the Spirit were provided; all he had to do-but that was still lackingwas to get human souls where the blood could sprinkle them, where the word could reach and teach them, where the Spirit could touch and transform them. And to do this he was content to suffer with Christ and bear in his body the marks, stigmata, of the Lord Jesus, as one literally crucified with him.
Paul's success in evangelism is no mystery; it is all an open secret. Give us one man, moved by such principles of evangelization, obligation, accommodation, abnegation, and again the history of humanity shall show a man who in one generation will compass the known world with the network of his personal labor and make a continent echo with the trumpet voice of his testimony!
DAVID BRAINERD
DAVID BRAINERD.
[EDITORIAL.-J. M. S.] HAVING briefly outlined his Life in a previous paper, we proceed II. To SET FORTH IN BRIEF OUTLINE BRAINERD'S CHARACTER. An analysis of his character is not difficult to make, for the leading traits or qualities of the man stand out in bold relief and challenge our observation and admiration. 1. The first thing that impresses the reader of Brainerd's life is the genuineness, depth and thoroughness of his personal piety. We see at once that there is nothing superficial, transient, doubtful, half-hearted about it. Weare brought into contact with a Christian character, and a Christian experience, and a Christian life, most rare and extraordinary in many of their elements and features. There is something startling and awe-inspiring in the depth and intensity of his religious "fra!pes" and" exercises," as recorded so frankly and faithfully in his diary, running through several years, with no expectation that any eye save his own and God's would ever read them. " He belongs to a class of men," as one has well said, "who seem to be chosen of Heaven to illustrate the sublime possibilities of Christian attainmentmen of seraphic fervor of devotion, and whose one overmastering passion is to win souls for Christ and to become wholly like him themselves. " The Law made thorough work with him. His sense of the evil, guilt, and awfulness of sin, of his own deep moral corruption and desert of God's wrath, his personal unworthiness, and entire dependence on divine grace, and his constant need of the Holy Spirit to cleanse, enlighten and sanctify, was most profound and ever present with him. He could not find language strong enough to express his hatred of sin and desire to be entirely and forever cleansed and delivered from it. He longed and strove after holiness, after complete victory over sin and the world and the devil, after entire conformity to the will and likeness of Christ, with a strength and intensity of soul that seem almost; superhuman, 2. His consecration to the Master's service was, seemingly, entire and sublime. Not since the apostolic age has the church produced a grander illustration of the power of the gospel to subdue human selfishness and the love of ease and pleasure and self-indulgence, and to make Jesus Christ supreme, "an and in all," in the affections and life of the soul. Like Paul, he made a total surrender of every faculty and power of body, soul and spirit, to the divine Son of God, and at the same time an unreserved, absolute consecration of his life and being to his service. He could not love and serve God enough. lIe was jealous of his own heart and life lest he should not render every day and hour a tull measure of love and labor. He kept nothing back. From the time he gave himself to Christ he devoted his life and strength and attainments and acquirements and opportunities to the work of saving souls, without recreation, without cessation, sparing himself in no par- ticular ; serving God to the full extent of his ability, and even beyond.
The amount of work he did was almost incredible. He broke down his constitution in four short years, by exposure, privation, and labors of every kind; literally wore his life away in the cause of his blessed Master. It is affecting in the highest degree to read the entries in his journal from day to day, of what he did, what he attempted, what he longed to accomplish; and in the midst of his incessant labors to hear him bemoan his shortcomings, his barrenness of spirit, his unfruitful- ness, and pray God to forgive him his unfaithfulness and grant him a new baptism of love and zeal. Here is a specimen : "Here I am, Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wildernesfi; send me from all that is called comfort in the earth; send me even to death itself if it be but iq thy service and to promote thy kingdom."
And it was no ascetic or misanthrope that wrote thus, for he adds: " At the same time I had as quick and lively a sense of the value of earthly blessings as I ever had, but only saw them infinitely overmatched by the worth of Christ's kingdom. Farewell friends and earthly comforts, the dear- est of them all; the very dearest, if the Lord calls for it: adieu, adieu; I will spend my life, to my latest moments, in caves and dens of the earth, if the kingdom of God may thereby be advanced." .
He was affianced, as is well known, to a youthful saint of rare gifts, the youngest daughter of Jonathan Edwards; and such a pure, intelli- gent and sensitive nature as his would have enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the felicity of domestic life. But he sacrificed even this, and plunged alone into the wilderness and passed his years with savages, that he might win them to Christ. The little patrimony left him he also devoted to the education of a poor young man for the ministry soon after entering upon his missionary work.
3. Hi8 love for 80uls amounted to a pas8ion, 1IJkich nothing cmtld cool or conquer. No miser ever clung to his treasure as he grasped this idea and made it an ever-present and supreme object with him. No matter where he went, or what were his surroundings, the ruling bent of his soul was manifest. In health and in sickness, in his wigwam among the Indians, on his numerous and solitary journeys from settlement to settlement in the wilderness, and in his occasional visits to New Eng- land, his supreme desire was to convert souls; and no occasion, no opportunity, did he fail to improve, however weary or racked with pain, or weak or broken down from disease. This intense, ever-burning passion often finds expression, as when he Wl'ites in his diary: "0, how I longed that God should be glorified on earth! Bodily pains I
lSS8
cared not for, though I was then in extremity. I never felt easier; I felt willing to glorify God in that state of bodily distress, so long as he pleased I should continue in it. The grave appeared really sweet, and I longed to lodge my weary bones in it: but 0 that God might be glorified! this was the burden of all my cry. 0 to love and praise God more, to please him forever ~ This my soul panted after, and even now pants for while I write, 0 that God might be glorified in the whole earth! Lord, let thy kingdom come! • • • o the blessedness of living to God! • • • Spent two hours in secret duties, and was enabled to agonize for immortal souls, though it was early in the morning and the sun scarcely shone, yet my body was quite wet with sweat. • • • With what reluctance did I feel myself obliged to consume time in sleep! I longed to be a flame of fire, continually glowing in the divine service, and building up Christ's kingdom to my latest, my dying moment."
Is it any marvel that many souls – even the souls of such ignorant and degraded savages-were given to him? And he never regretted his q.evotion and self-sacrificing zeal in: this work. Read his thrilling words as he hung over eternity while in Boston: "I declare now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world."
4. His humility and spirit of self-denial and cheerful submission to deprivations and hardships for the gospel's sake are touchingly illustrated in his life. According to President Edwards' testimony, he was a young man of "distinguished talents;" "hali extraordinary knowledge of men and things;" had "rare conversational powers;" "excelled in his knowledge of theology, and was truly, for one so young, an extraordinary divine, and especially in all matters relating to experimental religion." "I never knew his equal of his age and standing, for clear and accurate notions of the nature and essence of true religion." His "manner in prayer was almost inimitable, such as I have very rarely known equaled." He" had a very extensive acquaintance, and engaged the attention of religious people in a remarkable degree." He had also many invitations to settle in his own New England, and an urgent and oft-tepeated call to "East Hampton-the fairest, pleasant~ est town on Long Island, and one of its largest and wealthiest parishes." So that he did not give himself to the missionary work, as is often though unjustly said of other missionaries in these days, because he could not succeed at home. His talents, gifts, and Christian attainments made him the peer of New England's most gifted preachers, with few exceptions.
But he put from him all these tempting offers, and all considerations of a merely personal and temporal nature, and gave his whole self for life to the work of teaching the poor American Indians the way of salvation. And he had no thought that he was doing anythingUJonderful, or that he was degrading himself, or throwing away his talents and Hfe by so doing. On the contrary, he evidently felt that God had greatly honored him in calling him to such a service; and he consecrated his heart and soul and mind and strength and life to it with as much hearti-
DAVID BRAINER1;l. [Al'RIL
ness and enthusiasm and ambition as though he were ministering to a highly cultured people in some conspicuous and wealthy parish.
So real and great was his humility that he often expressed his sur: prise that he was called to such a noble service; that the Indians should have any respect for him, or show him any attention, or that any good should come from his labors. His privations and hardsltt"ps likewise were such a few missionaries have ever experienced. An extract or two .
will serve to introduce the reader to his mode of life: " My diet consists mostly of hasty-pudding, boiled corn, and bread baked in the ashes, and sometimes a little meat and butter. My lodging is a little heap of straw, laid upon some boards a little way from the ground, fsr it is a log room without any floor, that I lodge in. . . . I have now rode more than 3,000 miles [on horseback] since the beginning of March [8 months].
. • . Frequently got lost in the woods. . . . At night lodged in the open woods. . . . Crept into a little crib made for corn and slept there on the poles." .
And yet not one word of complaint do we hearfrom him. Even in his times of extreme melancholy and dejection, and they were frequent; when sick and racked with pain; when lonely and disconsolate, not one breath of murmur rises to heaven. His forest home was often a "Bochim," or as the "valley of Baca," as it respected the outward man and his surroundings. And yet, even then and there, like Jesus after the temptation of the wilderness, angels comforted him and his soul often exulted while he magnified the God of his salvation, "who giveth songs in the night."
5. He exemplified the law of Ohristian meekness and forgiveness in a pre-eminent degree. The unusual attention which his extraordinary career and saintly character attracted, at home and abroad; the sympathy and interest manifested in him by many of the most eminent ministers of his day, among whom were Jonathan Edwards, Bellamy, the Tennants, Pemberton, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan Dickinson, and the high esteem in which he was held py the Ohristian world, especially toward the close of his life, did not tend in the least to elate him. On the contrary-as in all cases of real and eminent worth and superiority -it only tended to make him more humble; it induced Ohristian meekness, and filled him with a profound sense of his unworthiness. The expressions of this feeling in his journal are frequent, emphatic, and evidently sincere.
In all the annals of human life and experience, excepting those of the God-Man, we have no more striking example of Ohristian forgiveness than the life of BRAINERD furnishes. Take a single particular.
He was wronged-wronged as few men in similar circumstances ever were wronged. He was wronged by a public institution; wronged before the world; nay, it is not uncharitable to say that he was perse- cuted, insulted, outraged, and all redrQss refused, and that against the united, solemn, and earnest protest of such men as President Ed-
18!8.] DAVID
wards, Burr, Dickinson, Pemberton, and many others of the most distinguished men of the times. He was wronged in a way to mortify, humiliate and injure a young man of his ambition and talent and gen~ . uine manliness 'and high Christian character and standing, to the ntmost possible extent. The wrong was persisted in, with iron determination and rtlentless severity, even after he had made the most manly and ChriJiian acknowledgment and confession that it was possible for the college authorities to exact, or a gentleman, respecting his own manhood, truth and righteonsness, could consistently make.
And that he felt the wrong exquisitely, and smarted under it, and carried the memory and the scar of it to his grave, his diary affords abundant and affecting proof. This ill treatment at his tender years had much to do with his dejection. It preyed upon his sensitive nature. He felt as if a brand was placed upon his forehead. Most of all he mourned over it, because he thought religion suffered in consequence of it. Noone can read the entries made in his journal during his visit to New Haven a year after his expulsion-at the time when he would have graduated but for that unjust procedure-afraid to show himself in the town for "fear of imprisonment," hiding away in the house of a friend in the outskirts of the town as if "guilty of some open and notorious crime," and there spending Commencement day in prayer and sweet converse with Christian friends-and not feel his heart rise in rebellion against that stern and unrighteous decree which on that occasion crushed his last hope of redress! Earnest application was made on his behalf to the authorities of the college by a "council of ministers at Hartford," and by Edwards, Burr, and many other distinguished men in the various colonies, that he might be allowed to take his degree with his class. But all in vain. Yet here is the entry he made in his diary in this bitter hour of disappointment: "Sept. 14. This day I ought to have taken my degree [this being Commencement day], but God sees fit to deny it to me. And though I was greatly afraid of being overwhelmed with perplexity and confusion, when I should see my classmates take theirs; yet at the very time God enabled me with calmness and resignation to say, 'The will of the Lord be done.' Indeed, through divine goodness I have scarcely felt my mind so calm, sedate, and comfortable for some time. I have long feared this season, and expected my humility, meekness, patience, and resignation, would be much tried; * but found much more pleasure and divine comfort than I expected. Felt spiritu- ally serious, tender and affectionatfl in private prayer with a dear Christian friend to-day."
But notwithstanding the wrong done him was so great and was so obstinately persisted in to the last; and notwithstanding he suffered in his feelings as only a man of such exquisite natural and moral sensibilities could suffer, not once was he known to speak harshly or unkindly of those who had committed the injury. Not a line is found in his diary * Had he been allowed to gradnate he would have been at the head of his class. a.nd that class the largest that had ever graduated at that college.
BRAINERD
alluding to the matter· that breathes other than a spirit of Ohristlike charity and forgiveness, while he was fervent and frequent in his prayers in behalf ofthose who had" so ill used bim." The same spirit that cried out from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," animated the heart of this youthful disciple while living, aud to-day encircles his brow with a halo of Ohristlike glory.
6. But the crowning excellence of Brainerd 10as the l!8-ge measure of the spirit ofprayer which characterized his life. Prayer was his chief reliance and the secret of his remarkable success. Much of his time was spent in prayer. Days and nights were thus passed, and he grieved when anything interfered to keep him from his knees in solitary and prolonged intercession and communion with God. Closely in this respect did he follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Prayer was his solace, his inspiration, his strength. No part of his diary or journal is of more thrilling interest to any and every Ohristian worker, either in the home or'the foreign field, tban the numerous entries in relation to his seasons of secret prayer. Few saints this side of beaven ever got so near to the throne of God in prayer, ever so "wrestled with the angel of the covenant," ever experienced such communion with the Father of spirits until his soul exulted and overflowed with the fullness of "ineffable comforts." Read a specimen or two: "Had the most ardent longings after God which I ever felt in my life. At noon, in my secret retirement, I could do nothing but tell my dear Lord, in a sweet calm, that he knew I desired nothing but himself, nothing but holi- ness; that he had given me these desires, and he only could give me the things desired. I never seemed to be so unhinged from myself and to be so wholly devoted to God. My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day. Felt much comfort and devotedness to God this day. At night it was refreshing to get alone with God and pour out my soul. Oh, who can conceive of the sweetness of communion with the blessed God but those who have experience of it ! Glory to God forever, that I may taste heaven below! . • • Retired early for secret devotion, and in prayer God was pleased to pour such ineffable comforts into my soul that I could do nothing for some time but say over and over, 0 my sweet Saviour! 0 my sweet ~aviour!
whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. If I had a thousand lives my soul would gladly have laid them all down at once to have been with Christ. • • • My soul was this day at turns sweetly set on God; I longed to be with him that I might behold his glory. I felt sweetly disposed to commit all to him, even my dearest friends, my dearest flock, my absent brother, and all my concerns for time and eter- nity. 0 that his kingdom might come in the world, that they might all love and glorify him for what he is in himself, ;l.nd that the blessed Redeemer . might' see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied!' Oh come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Amen."
Is it wonderful that such a habit of prayer and such experiences in prayer in the, closet should have made his social and public prayers edifying and striking in a remarkable degree? President Edwards'tes- timony on this point is very explicit and noteworthy: "I know not
THE BffiLE IN
that I ever SO· muoh as heard him ask a blessing or return thank8 at table, but there 1vas something remarkable to be observed both in the matter and manner of the performance." Prayer, in secret and personal communion with God, will temper the whole spirit of a Christian and put its impress upon his social and public habits. If you witness habit- . ual fervency and fullness and power and a wrestling spirit in prayer on the part of any disciple, you may be sure the habit has been acquired in secret intercourse with God upon his knees. Prayer is not so much a gift asa grace, implanted, nourished and matured in long and intimate communion with the Hearer of prayer.
The end of such a life, as we might anticipate, was peace and joypeace in fullness of measure, and" joy unspeakable and full of glory." A glance in his dying chamber reveals the fact that it was" quite on the verge of heaven." Says President Edwards: " On Tuesday, Oct, 6, he lay for a considerable time as if he were dying. At which time he was heard to utter, in broken whispers, such expressions as these: 'He will come, he will not tarry. I shall soon be in glory. I shall soon glorify God with the angels.'. . . The extraordinary frame he was in that evening could not be hid. His mouth spake out of the abundance of his heart, expressing in a very affecting manner much the same things as are written in his diary. Among very many other extraordinary expressions which he then uttered were such as these: 'My heaven is to please God and glorify him, and to give all to him'and to be wholly devoted to his glory; that is the heaven I long for-that is my religion, and that is my happiness, and always was ever since I suppose I had any religion; I do not go to heaven to be advanced, bu't to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven-whether I have a high or a low seat there-but to love and please and glorify God is all; if I had a thousand souls, if they were worth anything, I would give them all to God.'"
THE BIBLE IN INDIA.
By REV. JACOB CHAMBERLAIN, M.D., MADANAPELLE, INDIA.
THE Bible contains a plan devi5ed for the redemption and elevation of mankind. Take the Bible, then, !1S an engine thus devised for the performance of a certain work, and test it well and see whether it does that work or no. And it is to this view of tlie subject that I particularly ask your attention.
Is this old Bible, given centuries ago among the Jewish people, now calculated to do the work for which it was designed? or, in this day of progress and of the intermingling of nations, do we find it antiquated, and its day of adaptedness and usefulness passed away? This is, emphatically, an age not alone of changes, but of improvements. Fast mail-trains and the telegr~ph hiLVe taken the place of the old mounted mail-carrier~ with his mail-bags thrown over the 4ors6 upon which he rode. The four and six horse stage-coach has' given way to palace cars. The quiet stitching of the seamstress is replaced by the hum of the sewing machine. There is scarcely ~ piece of machinery, of any kind, now in use that was used even by our grandfathers. New books, new systems of sciences, new methods in the arts-aU, all is new. Have we made a mistake, then, in holding on to our" old Bible" too long? If so, let us acknowledge it like men and try to replace it with something better; but first let us put it to the proof and see.
Now, in testing a machine or engine it is necessary to try it in all the different circumstances in which it is to be employed, especially in the worst. The government of India sought to introduce the best machinery for ginning and spinning and weaving the cotton growing there. A proclamation was issued, and published in every country where machinery was made, offering a princely premium for that machinery that should best do the work. And when, after near a year for preparation, the machinery was gathered from the four quarters on the banks of the sacred Ganges, when the viceroy and his council and the judges had assembled to test it, it was tried not alone wit.h the cotton grown there on the banks of the Ganges, but cotton was brought from the base of the Himalaya Mountains, and from the plains of Tinnevelly, near Oape Oomorin, from the hill country of Berar, and from the plains of Bellary, and the country a~out Bombay; and the machinery that best did the work in all, the long staple and the short, the coarse and the fine, it was that that won the prize, and that is now doing the work in India. So if an ocean steamer be launched, it must be tried not alone on the smooth waters of the bay or river on whose banks it was constructed, for until it has crossed the ocean, breasting the mountain billows in a storm, no one can tell whether after all it be a safe vehicle for human life. So with every kind of machinery-it must be tested in the 1IJOrst circumstances in which it will be called to act.
For the last score of years I have been engaged in putting the Bible to just such a test, and that in the most unpropitious circumstances. India is Satan's stronghold. Hinduism, with its handmaid caste, weaves iron fetters around its votaries. With much of truth in its scriptures, the Veda'l, it has degenerated into the worst of polytheism and idolatry; with .its defective view of God and man, it has had no conservating, elevating influence over its votaries. The Hindus are at once a very religious and a grossly immoral people. Intelligent, sharp, quick-witted, immutable in their nature, wedded to their ancient system, which is a splendid one though false, the Brahmanists are the most able and determined adversaries of what they term the" new religion." If the Bible will work in India, then we may safely COllclude that it will work anywhere. How, then, does it work in India? Let us test it and see.
For example, does this "old Bible," given so many centuries ago among the Jews, describe the human heart of to-day, and the condition of man in different lands? or is it antiquated and defective in this respect? On a certain occasion, some fourteen years ago, I went into a native city in India, where the name of Jesus had never been heard, there for the first time to show them and give them these Scriptures, and to preach to them of Christ and His salvation. As an introduction, when we had assembled an audience in the street, I asked my native assistant to read the first chapter of Romans; that chapter which those who call themselves liberal-minded tell us is too black to be true; that chapter that describes the heart of man wandering away from God and into sin, and conceiving vile conceptions of God, and then wandering away farther, until at last, "though they know the judgments of God, that they which do such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them ;" the chapter which many tell us is a libel upon human nature. That chapter was read. The most intelligent man in the audience, a Brahman, stepped forward and said to me, "Sir, that chapter must have been written for us Hindus. It describes us exactly." The photograph was recognized. It had ICen taken centuries before, and among a Jewish people; but the artist .vas divine, and the heart that was photographed was that, not of a lmo, but of a man.
On another occasion I went into another city, there also for the first time to proclaim Christ as the way of life. As we entered the native town and passed up the main street, I noticed a small Hindu temple, built upon the side of the busiest street, with its doors open and the idols in at the farther end, so that passers-by could worship as they went. At the side of the door sat the Brahman priest of the temple on a pedestal, unclad down to the waist-that he might receive the homage, the demi-divine worship which the people were wont to render him-with a platter by his side to receive their offerings as they went in and out of the street to their business or their work. I noticed it and passed on. Going up the main street, and looking here and there and finding no better place, we came back to this temple; and as I politely asked permission of the Brahmin to address an audience from the steps of tho temple, he as politely gave his permission; and singing a song to bring the people together, we soon had the street packed with those who wondered what we had come for, and I preached to them. I took for my theme "the character of any being whom the intelligent mind of man in any land would be willing to call God ;" and from the necessities of our natures, I attempted to show them that in order to call any being God, we must believe him to be stronger than we and stronger than any powers that might be arrayed against us;' that he must be omnipotent, or we could not trust him; that he must be wiser than we and wiser than any intelligences that might be combined against us; that he must be omniscientj that he must be able, in all parts of his dominion, at the same time, to be and to notice all passing events; that he must be omniprB8ent; that he must be a God of love, a Goq. of jus~ tice, and so on. I had painted to them the character and attributes of God as we find them given in our Bible-not telling them where I found the picture, but drawing this characterization of God from the necessities of the soul of man. The intelligent men in the audience at once acknowledged the picture to be a correct one, as I went on from point to point, and admitted what I said to be true. At last, complet~ ing the picture, I said to them, "Now, who is God, and where is God?" The Brahman priest sitting there on his pedestal, seeing how intently the audience of his worshipers were listening to my description of God, so di:tIerent from that enshrined in the temple at my side, and seeing at a glance, with his keen mind, that if this description of God was ac~ cepted as true his employment was gone, seeking to create a diversion, straightened himself up, and with his finger drawing a line around his stomach, he said, "Sir, this is my God; 1IJhen this £s full, my God is propitious; token this is empty, my God is angry. Only give me enough to eat and drink, and that is all the God I want." Turning to this same old Book, I gave him that scathing denunciation of Paul of those "whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, and whose end is destruction." And then turning again to the audience and reminding them of the pure and holy character that I had described, I told them that "this poor, miserable wretch here is willing to call his belly his God." Amid the sneers and scorns of his own worshipers, he sprang from his pedestal, slunk around the corner of the temple, and vanished down a side street. And oh~ how the audience listened while I described to them Him in whom all the fullness of this Godhead was manifested bodily, even Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour of all of them, in all the world, that will believe in Him!
On another occasion I was reading from the seventh chapter of Romans that declaration of Paul of the power of sin over us, where he says, "When I would do good, evil is present with me, and the good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do." As I read it the most intelligent man in my audience spoke up, saying, "That is it! that is it! That is exactly what is the matter with us Hindus. Now, does your Book tell us how we can get rid of that evil disposition, and do the good we would and avoid doing the evil that we would not?" How gladly, from this same old book, did I point them to Him who can create a new heart and renew a right spirit within us; who can give us not only the desire but the power to do good: "For I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."
On another occasion and in a di:tIerent city I read the description of the forty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, of the making and worshiping of images. When I had completed the reading, a sharp man in the audience, a Brahman, st9pped out and said, "Now, sir, we have caught
THE MIRA.CLES OF MISSIONS
you. You told us that this was an old book, given long ago in another part of the world to tell us how we might find God, and, how worshiping him we might attain to peace with him; but, sir, that which you have just read you have written since you came here and saw how we Hindus managed it." The photograph once more was recognized.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-NO. II. [EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] THE LONE STAR MISSION.
THE Romance of Ongole reads like a fairy tale. This station is some two hundred miles north of Madras, in the Telugu country of India. Some thirty-four years ago Dr. Jewett, missionary from Nellore, in the service of the Baptists of this country, touring in this thickly settled region, climbed the summit of a mountain near Ongole, and surveying the country besought God to send there a missionary. For thirteen years that prayer seemed to be lost. But God was not unmindful, and he was preparing a workman for this "lone star" field, which in 1853, at the anniversary meetings in Albany, it had been almost determined to abandon as a fruitless and hopeless enterprise.
Mr. Clough, a civil engineer, became strangely impressed that he was called to this field, and that God would there give him ten thousaud converts in a great and marvelous ingathering. It seemed to be the wild fancy of a vagarist or dreamer. The Baptist Board hesitated to send such a fanatic to the field. But he persisted, and was finally appointed to the Lone Star Mission. Blessings have crowned his work that have thrilled the whole Ohristian church with amazement and gratitude, and which deserve record among the Miracles of Missions.
The Lord has often used the locusts and caterpillars as his "great army," and he used the famine of 1877 as his messenger to prepare the way. It has been estimated that in the presidency of Madras alone three millions of people perished in consequence, and in Mysore and Bombay districts two and a quarter millions more. While the Brahmanic priesthood and the heathen people, even the rich, looked on with selfish and stolid indifference,Ohristian England sent a relief fund of $4,000,000; and the distribution of !Such noble charities among this alien people made a profound impression on the native mind and compelled a comparison of the two religions, which by no means was favorable to Brahmanism and its kindred faiths.
During the severest pressure of famine it became obvious why God had chosen a civil engineer for this emergency. Mr. Clough was studying to provide work for the suffering masses round about him. He went to the authorities of the government and proposed to undertake the construction of three and a half miles of the Buckingham Oanal, in order to furnish employment and food for these starving thousands. The offer was accepted. After the day's work was done these people gathered in camps and the gospel was preached to them; meetings for prayer and praise were held, inquiries were guided, and converts taught and encouraged. The spirit of God began to work in a way and on a scale which probably has had no parallel since Pentecost. Seed that had been sown now rapidly sprang into blade, ear, and full-grown corn in the ear. Idols were fiuug away by the thousands, and even the hundreds of thousands, as useless. The missionaries were througed by inquirers, and had no leisure so much as to eat. Lest the sincerity of the motives of the converts should be questioned, they were kept on a sort of probation until after the famine had been relieved and there was no longer the temptation to seek the church as a charity organization.
As soon as it was safe to receive professed converts they poured by the thousands into the church. Between June and December, 1878, nearly ten thousand were after diligent and careful examination received into the fold by baptism. These marvelous ingatherings were undoubtedlyof such as were being saved. '['hey have proved unusually faithful, and after ten years the work still goes on. The prayer offered on that mountain has been conspicuously and gloriously answered, and no miracle of apo.;tolic days more plainly shows the finger of God. The immense congregations, the character of the converts, the theological seminary at Ramapatam with its two hundred students, and the transformations to be seen in society all through the Telugu country, prove that the Lone Star has been and still is shining with supernatural beams in this great darkness.
Mr. Clough has been permitted to do efficient service in another direction, in striking a heroic blow at the monstrous caste system of India. His first arrival in the country was hailed with joy by. the highcaste Brahmans, who rejoiced to have a prospect of good schools for their children. They promised their support, and they kept their word; they placed under Mr. Clough's instruction sixty-two of their sons and paid well for their education. The prosperity of the schools seemed to be on a firm basis, and no restraint was put upon the teaching~of the truth. This spontaneous and generous welcome to Ohristian schools was the opening of a new and wide door of service.
But a perplexity arose. Three men of low caste presented themselves as converts and were welcomed as became a missionary who believed in a church where there was no barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, male or female, but all one in Ohrist Jesus.
The caste spirit was aroused and the aristocratic Brahmans indignantly threatened that if Mr. Clough had any more to do with the outcast Sudms and Pariahs, all the support of the higher classes would at once be withdrawn from him and his schools. While he hesitated and wavered, scarcely knowing what course to take, two more low-class converts knocked at the church doors, and the genuineness of their conversion demanded a prompt decision. The crisis of the mission had arrived. The horns of an inevitable dilemma threatened to impale the missionary, and to escape the one was to cast himself upon the other. If he refused the low-caste converts, what became of the democracy of the Ohristian church? If he admitted them, what became of his aristocracy and the schools dependent on the high caste for support?
He consulted his wife, and they both retired by agreement to separate rooms for prayer. H 0 God, guide us in this extremity of the mission," was the groaning of two hearts whose deeper prayer could not be uttered. Simultaneously, in their different rooms, the husband and wife each took' up a 'l'estament from a pile lying before them for distribution among Eurasians; and without any intention of open'ing to any particular place, both husband and wife, involuntarily, unconsciously opened to the same passage and verses -1 Cor. i. 26-31 : H Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: but God hath chosen the foolish, weak, base, despised, the things which are not," etc. 'I'o each of them came the same thought: H I see it: I have not been building on God's plan; this structure must come down and I must begin anew." The wife and husband started to meet each other and communicate with each other the direct answer to prayer through the Word. H See here," said Mrs. Clough, H what I have been reading." H But I have been reading the same verses," replied he; "did you know it?" H No, indeed." Thus by a remarkable coincidence God, at the same moment, by the same means, made their way clear as day. They were to build the church like a pyramid, from the broad base of the lowest classes upward, and the base must be broad enough to take in the masses of the poorest and basest and the weakest and most despised.
They had the heroism to follow the divine guidance. The very next morning they made their decision public. Every pupil l~ft the school, and the financial bottom of their enterprise collapsed in ruin. The friendship of the high castes was changed to bitter hostility. They began anew. The base was now broad enough to embrace all who would come, however poor or low. And on that basis another structure was reared, in which, strange to say, m.ore upper-caste converts have been built than under the former aristocratic system!
We do not wonder that those who have studied the work of God among the Telugus have said: " It is without a parallel in the history of modern Christian missions in heathen or in civilized countries. In some cif its features and aspects it always suggests the Pentecostal period and its wonderful scenes. The present condition of the mission is full of promise and prophecy. Stili greater successes in the near future may be confidently expected. This mission demands, must have, and is sure to receive, the best care and the most munificent contributions of the Baptists of America. But we have been standing off and e;aziu~ ill amlloZemen,t at tbe ;l.chievements of divine 15l'ace and power amon9' the ignorant and degraded Telugus. The time has come when we must move closer up to the work, more vitally and practically link ourselves with that work. We must without delay prepare to assume the weighty obligations and to discharge the grave responsibilities which success has created and is daily pressing upon us. A short time ago and a few brief paragraphs or sentences, uttering only depreciation and discouragement, if not something akin to contempt, constituted all the annual statement which the executive officers of the Missionary Union had to give the denomination relative to the mission among the Telugus. Now many pages of the yearly exhibit are required to present only the merest outlines of the surprising successes which continue to crown the toils'of the working forces in the Telugu field. Last year large and eager audiences assembled and listened with breathless attention for nearly two hours to Dr. Clough while he narrated, witho~t embellishment or emotion, the simple, extraordinary, almost incredible facts of his labors among the Telugus. No mission in the world, prosecuted by any Christian denomination, can so compel, arouse and enlist the attention of a public assembly; no mission in the past or in the present has such a marvelous record; but this very success calls for immediate and vigorous effort, for prompt and generous gifts of money, to provide for the deep and pressing necessities which spring up with and out of that success-necessities which cannot be neglected or inadequately met without jeopardizing the best welfare of the mission in the future.
"Education, both secular and religious, must be instantly and amply pro- vided for. It is gratifying and encouraging to learn that this want is at this hour being felt and to some extent provision is being made to meet it. At Ongole, the great centre of that large field on which the blessing of God has been so bountifully lavished, a school has been established, for which, since Dr. Clough's recent return to this country, $10,000 have been subscribed for additional buildings. Besides this he has also raised $10,000 for the erection of two mission-houses in Madras. The prOVision being made for the enlarge- ment of the high school at Ongole should haNe the hearty and practical co- operation of all interested in the training of the converts in that field. The high-caste people will not, cannot be reached and inlluenced by the Christian diSCiples in the Telugu churches until ignorance gives place to intelligence. God is able to work without the mental training and discipline of the Telugu Christians; so is he able to work without their intellectual inferiority and crudeness. The theological seminary at Ramapatam, under the manage- ment of the energetic President Williams, iii doing a large and splendid work for the training and equipment of a native ministry. On the )st of last July there was completed and occupied a building that will favorably compare with anything of the kind that can be found among the other missions of Southern India. At Nellor~ is soon to be built the Bucknell Female Seminary, a school for the training of Bible-women and female teachers for girls' schools. For this building one gentleman, Mr. Bucknell of Philadelphia, has given $3,500.
" While these efforts are being made and these projPcts are being pushed forward to provide for the necessities and the advantages of secular and Christian culture, the work of evangelization is being carried steadily and vigorously on. The conversions and baptisms since the great awakening and ingathering in 1877-78 have averaged over 2,000 souls a year. There are now 13 central stations and 205 out-stations in this mission. There are 37 Ameri- can missionaries, including the women of the company. The number of na- tive preachers, ordained and unordained, is 174. There are 21 Bible-women and other nativ(,! helpers, making a tota.! working force of 323, There are
MISSION WORK IN PAPAL EUROPE
now 84 churches, comprising a membership of nearly 25,000. There were baptized in 1886 in this mission nearly 3,000. Besides the high school at Ongole and the theological seminary at Ramapatam, there are 180 mission schools with nearly 4,000 pupils; and all this the growth of about eighteen years! True, there was much of sowing, praying and weeping for some years prior to this large and splendid harvest. But what a harvest! "
MISSION WORK IN PAPAL EUROPE.
By R:EV. WILLIAM OLARK, D.D., FLORENCE, ITALY.
IN my brief paper in the January REVIEW, "Mission Work in Papal Europe," I alluded to woman's work, some features of which I desire now to give more in detail.
The school in Greece has had great influence in awakening in the women of southern and eastern Europe a desire for higher education, for social and industrial freedom, and has awakened also a consciousness of higher privileges, rights, duties and responsibilities in society and in the state.
This school was established and has ever been sustained by American women. Mrs. Emma Willard, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Hill will ever be remembered as honored names in connection with the founding in Athens, Greece, of a college for the higher education of Greek young women. . When Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Sigourney visited Europe, about 1835, it was not merely to seek health and pleasure, but they sought to do a most noble work. They became deeply interested in the condition of women in Greece, and returning to this country Mrs. Willard organized a society called" A Society for the Advancement of Female Education in Greece." In regard to this enterprise she said: "Is not improvement in female education an important feature in the grand system of moral advancement now going forward in the world? Should we not strengthen it at home and send it abroad?" For this object she offered $3,000, and this sum she would have given herself had not the ladies of Troy nobly come forward to her aid.
This school, carried forward by Mr. and Mrs. Hill, has been the cause of the education of more than 20,000 in that country and in the colonies of Greece in all parts of the Orient. In all the centres of Greek civilization-Oonstantinople, Smyrna, Salonica, Seres, Adrianople, Philippopolis and Janina-are found the best schools for girls, whose teachers have been trained in the American school in Athens. In 1874 a pupil of this school was invited to Oonstantinople to take charge of a Greek seminary fOl' women, and soon she became principal of the" Zappion," the greatest female college in that city, and this position she still holds.
Fifty years ago Athens and the East were dead in regard to higher female education, but by the sympathy and interest of noble American women there was set up a great agency which has been a most power· ful civilizing influence thronghout all southeastern Europe, and which even sheds its light and joy far into western Asia. It has trained an admirable band of well-educated teachers and sent out hundreds all over Greece and its oriental colonies. TheI;e is no question that Greece owes its rapid progress and Greek instruction to its women.
This school has awakened in them a love for the study of the works of their ancestors, which, pervaded by a lofty spirit of patriotism, have made them more alive to their responsibilities at the first reappearance of their national life.
There is in Greece among women a consciousness of their rights and duties and an activity in benevolent work hardly to be found in any other European conntry. There are also large charitable organizations, composed of prominent ladies of Athens and other cities, and recommended by her Majesty the Queen, which confer great blessings upon the poor and needy. The work done by these associations received medals and honorable mention at the Vienna Exhibition. And in all this culture and benevolence, so marked in Greece, there is a spirit of warm patriotism, a' religious nature untainted by fanaticism, and a philanthropic and hospitable heart.
It is also of this American school at Athens that Mr. Botossi, the Greek consul in this country, speaks with so much enthusiasm, saying in substance that to be a graduate of this school is to have a diploma for the best manners, the most thorough education, and the highest and purest. morals; adding at the same time that here his own sister was educated, and also the daughters of all the best families in Athens. He also said that the Greek papers were filled with the highest praise of this institutiou. In such favor is this school with the government that it is visited by the queen, and a few years since the king thanked the American principal in the name of the nation for her fifty years of devotion to the cause of education for Greek women.
How large and widely extended is this noble mission work accomplished by a few large-hearted Ohristian ladies! Pupils of thilil school who have taken high rank in social and domestic life have been found at Smyrna, in remote eastern Asia Minor, at Oonstantinople, in Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and Italy. Indeed 'we can safely say that the highest and best educational and religious culture in 'all southeastern Europe and western Asia can be traced to the institution for women at Athens. And I am happy to say that this same school is at present most generously aided by one of the best women of our land.
There is also another institution in Europe which by its energetic and wide-spreading influence has done much for the intellectual and religious culture of young women. I refer to the one at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the education of German deaconesses as teachers and nurses. Here Florence Nightingale was educated previous to accomplishing her great work at Constantinople during the Crimean war. There is an indescribable charm about Kaiserswerth as a seminary of higher female education, and in home work and mission work throughout Europe and the Orient the results have been wonderful in awakening a desire among women for high literary and religious culture. Their institutions, embracing normal schools and colleges for the training of Ohristian workers are everywhere recognized as agencies of the purest benevolence, characterized by a lovely Ohristian spirit, and agencies also of a high intellectual culture. It is impossible to speak sufficiently in praise of this noble agency for woman's highest mental and spiritual improvement. At Kaiserswerth at present there are about 260 deaconesses. More than one thousand have been sent forth. They have 103 stations, many of which are in Germany and Southern Europe. Nineteen are in the East-at Smyrna, Oonstantinople and other citiesand all are in charge of some 50 deaconesses. At Florence, Italy, there is an institution of 70 pupils. It began with 20, and in two years it was self-supporting. In some places these labors are under the direction of' a committee of ladies. The deaconnesEles are religious, cheerful, loving and earnest in spirit. The only critici~m that I could make in regard to all these schools would be that they should be of a still higher literary grade, in order to respond more fully to the wants of the people. These noble-hearted deaconesses, however, going forth two by two in V the various countries of Europe, are doing a great work and are signally blest. Their policy is the true mission policy, and the only successful mission policy that can be employed in mission work for all the Papal States of Europe.
In conversation with the late Dr. Mark Hopkins, President of the American Board, only a short time before his death, I spoke of the culture and religious influence I was endeavoring to secure for young women in Oentral and Southern Europe, and I referred to the work of the German deaconesses establishing religious schools in the East and in other countries, with their wonderful success. He replied, "Why cannot the Ohristian women of our own land do a similar work? Let there be an organization and perhaps an institution in this country or in Europe like the one at Kaiserswerth, to prepare young women thoroughlyfor this special work; call them deaconesses-I see no objectionand send them forth two by two to establish evangelical schools; it would be a noble work." And when I referred to the aid I was then seeking for this very object he said, as President of the American Board, " We are doing no better work in any part of the world than you are doing in Southern Europe; if I had money I would give liberally, but poor as I am I wish my name and the name of my wife associated with this enterprise;" and saying this he gave me a donation for himself and also for his wife.
Only a day or two after, in speaking with Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., of my work in Europe, after words of high commendation and approval he said, "It is a grand work, and I wish to show that I fully endorse and appreciate it." He then gave me a donation for this object.
In the same day these two men, first in our country in culture and first as leaders in benevolence, finished their work on earth.
It is by means of such influences as have gone forth from Kaiserswerth and from the college in Greece that woman is now earnestly calling for a higher and better Ohristian culture. Feeling that she has in the past been held back from her higher sphere of action, numerous organizations are now everywhere being formed for improving her condition. Her claims for education, for social and industrial freedom, and for political enfranchisement are earnestly advocated by the first women in every department of art, literature and philosophy throughout Southern Europe.
Most marked and happy was the influence upon the educational condition of wome~ in Europe coming from the admirable exhibit of our American system of education made at the expositions at Vienna and Paris. Residing at Vienna and the south of Europe at the time, I could give many interesting proofs of this. For instance, at Vienna, shortly after the Exposition, a princess of one of the first families of the empire said to me, "Do you know what we want at Vienna? It is an institution similar to the best female schools and colleges in the United States. We need it for the education of the daughters of our nobility. I am fully persuaded that your system of female education is far superior to that in our church under the direction of the Jesuits and the convents." And she added, "If you will persuade the good ladies in England and America to aid in initiating such a system of education and establish a college here at Vienna, I will be a patroness of the institution." Such were the wonderful words of a lady who belonged to the representative Oatholic family of Austria.
So also in Italy. Once visiting the highest school of female education established by the Italian Government at Florence, being struck by some improved methods of instruction, I asked the lady principal some question in regard to them. She replied in substance, "You will recognize my system of instruction in many points to be distinctively American. I was at the Paris Exposition, and there day after day I faithfully studied your American methods, and these I have introduced as far as possible into my school." This lady expressed the wish that our American system of schools, with a true religion, might everywhere be introduced into Italy, and she believed that such schools would be the salvation of the country.
Here is opened before us a mission work in Europe, in our opinion second to no other-a workfor ~ooman and to be done by ~ooman.
In close contact with mission life for a long series of years, in all that I have seen and done, I cannot form a conception of a nobler mission work in this or any other age than that of' carrying our best culture, with a true religion, at the present crisis of woman's history, to the Papal countries of Europe. Evangelical schools of higher female education are the agency, and the agency that is desired in Italy. Not schools without religion, but schools with religion.
It is well known that the Italian Government is now doing much for education; but having banished the Jesuit and the priest from all educational institutions, their schools are all without religion-from the primary to the highest-no religion. But the Italians of the beUer class have much religious sentiment, and wish their daughters to be educated in schools under religious influences. They say, Religion has in the past occupied so prominent a part in our schools, what is now to take its place? The schools are becoming more and more irreligious, and there is reason to fear that ere long the people will appeal to the government for the priests to be returned to give religious instruction in the schools. For this reason they ask us to hasten to their help. One of Italy's first scholars and ablest statesmen not long since said: "The weakest point at present in Italy is the religious education of young women. In our schools there is no religion; and why," he asked, "do not benevolent men and women in America and England see it and come to our help, bringing to us the superior culture of their schools, with a true religious influence, and thus aid in emancipating our system of female education from the control of the convent and the Jesuit? They could confer no greater blessing upon It~ly." Thus speaks a noble Italian, who has the best interests of his country at heart.
Immediately after the formation of the kingdom of Italy, which seemed like the springtime of life to the nation, many courageous women arose to take part in her literary regeneration, and these gave a marked impulse to higher female education. As early as 1869, at the :request of some of the first ladies of Italy, we made an appeal to the Italian Government for the establishment at Florence of a "Ladles' International Oollege." We had several conferences with the Minister of Public Instruction, and the project was received with great favor. The United States minister wrote several letters to this country to interest friends in the enterprise. But Florence was then the capital, and unfortunately a building in that city could not be found for the purpose. But the establishing of such an institution of high literary culture was regarded of supreme importance to Italy. Un.sectarian in its character but vUaUy Ohri.stian in its influence, it would prove far superior to any direct denominational mission agency ever introduced into the country. It is thus, as Sir William Muir of the University of Scotland said, "establishing evangelical schools of higher female education in Papal Europe, is mission work of the highest imuortance."
THE GREAT WORLD COUNCIL. [APRIt
THE GREAT WORLD COUNCIL.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] THERE are those on both sides of the sea that look forward to the coming month of June as the time for the convening of a Council second in practical importance to none that has ever met since the day of Pentecost.
A general Missionary Conference is then to be held in Exeter Hall, London, from June 9th to 19th, which will embrace representatives of all the great missionary societies and Christian denominations. Missionary workers, native converts and helpers from every part of the mission field will be present and participate; information of the most comprehensive and accurate sort will be furnished as to the world-wide work and field, and the practical questions to be covered in the discussions and addresses are of supreme importance to the prosecution of the great missionary campaign and conquest.
For example, the matter of missionary comity. There is a great deal of work that overlaps. While some fields are wholly destitute, others are comparatively over-supplied. . The time has fully come for a mutual understanding between Christian denominations and their societies and representatives as to the limits of their respective fields, interchange of workers, transfer of converts, etc. We need to have it determined what is to be regarded as preoccupation and what as intrusion. Certain principles need to be agreed upon as to the policy to be pursued in dealing with such questions as Chinese ancestral worship and East Indian caste; there ought to be a consistent plan for developing a native ministry and making native churches self-governing, selfsupporting, self-propagating. A common scale of salaries for native helpers would remove the temptation of a mercenary motive in seeking .larger wages, etc. A hundred questions that now present practical perplexities would be no longer embarrassing could Christian disciples agree upon a standard for the conduct of the work.
The place of education in the work of missions needs to be determined. The need and value of schools, the scope of their educational schemes, coeducation of the sexes, the language in which teaching should be conducted, the character of the teachers to be employed, the question of copartnership of different societies in college work, the importance of higher education, and especially theological training, the shortening of preparatory courses for those who cannot spend the full period of preparation ordinarily required-how many and vast are the problems of education demanding solution!
Then the whole position of the native agencies needs definition and determination. How to secure a large efficient body of capable native workers, how to fit them for service and set them at work and support them in the work, how broad to make the basis of their training without raising them unduly above the people for whom they labor, how ample to make their pecuniary support without putting before them the temptation of avarice or elevating them to a false level-here is a whole continent of thought needing exploration.
The methods of mission 1vork demand adjustment and agreement. The qualifications of missionaries, physical, mental and spiritual; their course of training, the question of a medical education for the ordinary worker, the establishment of missionary professorships and lectureships at home and abroad, itinerant and local evangelism, industrial and medical missions, adaptation to existing usages and customs, and the attitude of the missionary toward the government and society at large-these are matters vital to a large success.
Then the creation and dissemination of a Christian literature; the power of the press and its utilization; Bible translation and distribution, and the multiplication of tracts and books; the newspaper, apologetic literature, children's papers and periodicals; and last but not least, the way to get and keep before Ohristians the facts of modern missions through a cheap, comprehensive and frequent form of printed statement-here again the conference might busy itself for the ten days of its sessions.
Consider again all the intricate matters that concern the development of the chu,rch at home. The monthly concert, missionary maps, missionary conventions, simultaneous meetings; the increase of gifts, but above all of prayer / the education of children in knowledge and love and systematic giving; woman's work, its range,' its opportunity, its grand utility; the consecration of wealth' and the organization of the mites into millions-behold here another class of questions engaging the best thought of our day.
These and scores of other subjects will occupy the sacred season of prayer and conference in June next in the world's metropolis. One of the editors of this REVIEW may well be permitted to feel a very special interest in this approaching conference. As long ago as 1881 he published an appeal, which was widely distributed in this and other lands, calling for a world council of missions. That appeal closed with these words: "Let us have an ecumenical council, representing all evangelical churches, solely to plan this world-wide campaign and proclaim the good tidings to every living soul in the shortest time! Let the field be divided and aistributed with as little waste of men a,nd means as may be. Let there ~e a universal appeal for workers and money, and a systematic gathering of offerings that shall organize the mites into millions.
"The grandeur of the proposition thrills the very pen that puts it on paper. And yet, after studying to look at it calmly and coolly, I can see nothing to hinder such a glorious result, save the lack of the divine anointing."
At the Northfield convention of believers in August, 1885, Dwight L. Moody presiding, the great assembly by a rising vote adopted a similar deliverance calling for a "great council of evangelical believers to meet at some great centre like London or New York t.o consider the wonder. working of God's providence and grace in mission fields, and how fields now unoccupied may be insured from further neglect, and to arrange and adjust the work so as to prevent needless waste and friction among workmen, and so to greatly further the glorious object of a world'!! evangelization." That appeal closed thus: "We earnestly commend the suggestion to the prayerful consideration of the various bodies of Christian believers and the various missionary organizatioll!'l. What a spectacle it would present both to angels and men could believers of every name, forgetting all things in which they differ, meet by chosen representatives to enter systematically and harmoniously upon the work of sending forth laborers into every part of the world field! "
This deliverance was signed by seven representatives of different denominations, as a committee: Arthur T. Pierson, Philadelphia, Presbyterian, chairman; A. J. Gordon, Boston, Baptist; L. W. Munhall, Indianapolis, Methodist; George F. Pentecost, Brooklyn, N. Y. Congregationalist; William Ashmorc, missionary to Swatow, China, Baptist; J. E. K. Studd, London, England, Church of England; Miss E. Dryer, Chicago Avenue Church, Chicago.
There will be many who will regard this council, now called to meet in June, as the answer to many fervent prayers. For one, the writer of this article looks forward to this meeting as surpassed in importance and possible results by no other ever held. In fact it may be doubted whether it be not the first of its kind. When before have Christians of every name and land met, without regard to any denominatioual lines or limits, to represent on the one hand the entire body of Christendom and on the other hand the entire field of missions, pagan and papal, Mohammedan and heathen! This will be an ecumenical council in fact. And think for what a purpose they meet who gather there and then! To map out the world-for Christ's war of the ages! To cover every district of earth's surface with the network of missionary effort; to plant the cross in every valley and on every hill ; to put the Bible in every hamlet and hut; to prevent all waste of men and material and means; to distribute work equally and equitably; to accelerate the progrelils of missions so that in the shortest time the witness may be borne to all people and to every soul! Is there any purpose on which the whole Christian church could so heartily and confidently invoke and implore God's blessing?
There is one outcome of this council for which we look with greater confidence and hopefulness than for all other results combined. How heavy has our heart often been over the wide spread apathy and lethargy of the church itself in respect to missions! Even where missionary effort is found, how often are its methods excessively conservative, stereotyped and often even secular. Dependence is frequently placed on mere organization. A transient enthusiasm is awakened that is like the morning cloud or early dew, that passes as quickly away. How little avidity in welcoming news from tbe field! How little prayerful solicitude for the progress of missions! How slow and spasmodic the inflow into the Lord's treasury !
What the church needs just now above all else is a baptism of prayer. 'fhe world has invaded the church with its secular spirit and its skeptical spirit. Confidence in the supernatural is practically undermined. " A life of faith" is often sneered at as fanaticism, and" dependence solely on prayer" is regarded as a mere pretense or an indirect mode of advertising and appealing. Men show the grade of their own piety and spirituality by their construction of the motives and methods of other disciples. A Ohristian who sneers at George Muller, Francke, Dorothea Trudell, and who speaks in depreciation if not deprecation of J. Hudson Taylor and the heroic African bishop, William Taylor; he who will embark in no enterprise where he has not a human security, has the flavor and savor of the natural man and does not perceive, or certainly receive the things of the'Spirit of God. -The Christian church needs to pray and pray in faith, believing and expecting great results. Mathematics and measuring lines cannot compass God's power. There is a supernatural sphere and an omnipotent energy at work in that sphere. The God of Pentecost is not dead. The Holy Ghost can" demon.,trate" what no argument can prove to a soul whose spiritual perceptions are dulled and deadened. There is a logic of moral conviction that God only can wield. He who takes up the isles as a very little thing knows how to raise a continent to a higher level; He who can say "Let light be" can flood a world with glory. Where is the faith in prayer that made the place where primitive disciples assembled to shake with the presence of God; that caused Peter's chains to be riven and his prison doors to open of their own accord; that made the palace of the Oresars a vestibule of heaven, and turned infidel Thessalonica into a pulpit of evangelism?
If that conference in London shall not issue in a new baptism of prayer, the highest result will not be attained. We believe that from the first that great gathering in which all disciples forget their differences and join hands and touch hearts in a common purpose to promote God's glory will prove a new Pentecost. We expect to see even the visible tokens of the divine presence. Let the whole Ohristian church unite in one mighty and moving entreaty, that in these latter days it may come to pass that God shall pour out his spirit upon an flesh and Joel's prophecy shall at last find its grandly complete fulfillment.
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS FROM FOREIGN MAGAZINES
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS FROM DANISH, SWEDISH, DUTCH, SWISS, FRENCH, AND OTHER FOREIGN MISSIONARY"
MAGAZINES. .
[Translated and arranged for THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD by REV. CHAB. C. STARBUCK, Andover, Mass. Scores of our exchanges in other tongues have been patiently gone over for these interesting facts and statements.-EDS.] THE Swedish Lunds Missions Tidning gives the whole number of missionaries (male and female) that have gone out from Protestantism as six thousand.
The Missions Tidning, in an obituary notice of the eminent Swedish missionary Dr. Andrew Blomstrand, says that one of the motives he assigned for going abroad was his wish" to see whether missionaries could not live in peace with one another!" Having once; during his 27 years' stay in Southern India, been exhorted to come home for rest, he answered: "As it so often happens that missionaries, without any sufficient reason, leave the missionary work, I hold it my duty to give others a good example, and it is therefore impossible for me to leave our mission with a good conscience so long as God upholds my health and powers. With broken health I shall be glad to die in the dear homeland, if such were God's will. If I should return home well and strong but without a good conscience, I should be unhappy and should not be able to occasion joy to the dear ones at home. But if I stay in India so long as God wills, my letters will occasion joy to my dear ones."
The Tidning, speaking of the Ziegenbalz, a memorial church in Tranquebar, remarks that" even heathen have gIVen a very decent amount toward it. They hold it a good work to contribute,to religious ends in any form. Some do this without any further thought. But others again are convinced that the Christians' God is mightier than theil'S. Thus lately a heathen told me that when his grandchild was ill he was thinking of calling me in to baptize it before it died. But as the child recovered he let the matter go by, in fear of his kindred, as usual."
The question of caste in India has many complications. Herr Horberg of Tranquebar, giving an account of a primary school of which the native pastor had taken charge at the request of the heathen, and in which all the teachers were Brahmans, remarks, "To send our Pariahs to it is quite out of the question. A single one would suffice to put teachers and all the pupils to flight."
The Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande, spea~ing of the lepers' asylum at Jerusalem says, "The only pastoral offices in this are Protestant. It is true we should not in principle object to admitting the pastoral visits of a Catholic or Greek clergyman if they were desired. But they are not desired, either by patients belonging to these communions or by the priests. ThQ Greek and the Roman church alike see in the lepers only men thrust out of society and appointed to death, who are no longer of any value as concerns the extension, power, and glory of the visible church on earth, since they noflonger have any influence in the family or the community. And far less does Islam advance any claim over the religious instruction of Moslem lepers."
The Danske Missions-Blad published at Copenhagen, remarking on the late spread of missionary interest in the colleges and seminaries of England and America, laments that there is so little in Denmark's one university. There is, however, it appears, a missionary conference in the University of Copenhagen, at present numbering- one hundred aud fQur lllembersl and C(msisting not only of theological students but of various others. It holds eight meetings a year, in whiCh the missionary cause is handled in what migh- perhaps appear to us a clumsy and roundabout way, but, on the other hand, with that scientific thoroughness and expendIture of thought and previous research which is more characteristic of European than of American schools. What appears to us very strange is that no theological student has yet offered himself to go abroad. Danish as well as most German missionaries are laymen, mostly of the working classes, who, after offering themselves, receive a special preparation in special seminaries at the expense of the missionary societies which send them out. But the interest, more and more felt in the more cultivated circles of society in England and in America, seems to be making a decided impression among Christians on the continent.
The Blad has an interesting autobiographical account of a Chinese con- vert, describing his first meeting with the missionary who brought him to Christ. "In the great famine I was helped by Mr. Hill, an English mission- ary. After having distributed gifts he offered a prize for an essay on Christ tian subjects, and to facilitate its composition offered the loan of Christian books to those who might wish to compete. I presented myself, and my essay won the prize. I was to receive the money in Ping-Yang-Fu. I had heard that the Christians could. bewitch people, and was therefore afraid to • approach them. Yet I went to Ping-Yang-Fu, taking my brother along. On our arrival my brother undertook to procure the money for me, but came back with the message that the foreigner wished himself to see and talk with the man who had composed the essay. I was now in a strait: on the one hand stood the fear of being bewitched, on the other hand the fear of losing' the money. At last I decided to go. As I neared the house I met three of my countrymen coming out of it, who I found had been helping him. I asked them if they were not afraid of being bewitched. 'No,' said they, 'nor will you be when you learn to know him.' Accordingly one of them introduced me to missionary Hill. A look, a word was enough! As the stars pale before the dawn, so vanished all the evil reports I had heard; every trace of fear disappeared, my heart became at rest. I saw his mild eye, and remem- bered the words of Mencius: 'Where a man's heart is evil his eye betrays it.' I felt that I stood before the face of a noble man."
The following words of M. Dieterlen, a French missionary in South Africa, found in the Journal des Missions Evangeliques, are often as hard for mis- sionaries to take to heart as for natural parents. The secular incapacity of Rome to comprehend them is what has chiefly converted her presidency, in so many nations, from a blessing into a curse. It has been simply an obsti- nate refusal, continued through ages, of a missionary society to provide for the gradual withdrawal of its own oversight. "I have striven," says M. Dieterlen, "to gain the confidence of my people by exhibiting confidence toward them, to develop their individual conscience and judgment, and to teach them to depend not on a man, but on Christ himself. The thought with which I have endeavored to be constantly inspired has been: 'They must increase and I must decrease,' a word which ought, so soon as it can safely be applied, to become the motto of every missionary, and which, car- ried out in wisdom, will bring us, without any revolutionary shock, to the establishment in our missionary churches of a regular government and of a native pastorate,"
The African races are far enough in arrear of civilization, but they have the instincts of despotism in a high degree. The following description by one of the French Protestant missionaries on the Zambezi, :Mr. Coillard, presents this on both its ludicrous and its atrocious side: " Kabnkee, a lad of fifteen or sixteen, the king's son and the viceroy elect, seems as yet illinstrncted how to bear the weight of his novel dignity. He grimaces like a coqnettish girl, .winks, twists his month, trifles with a rhinoceros-horn, as if he fonnd his hands in his way; he drinks the native mead, said to be as strong as brandy, and surronnds himself with all the ceremonial of his father's court. He had not been half an hour at the station when he began to show all the qualities of a practiced beggar. He had all manner of wauts to satisfy. He coveted above all one of our wooden chairs, and, undannted by two refusals, returned a third time to the charge, so that I was fain to capitulate. And now this seat, glistening with ochre and grease, is borne everywhere before him as the symbol of his high position. The elder chiefs, onr old friends, are, in the presence of the beardless yonng prince, as mean and cringing as they had been hanghty. They appear like greatfnnctionarles disgraced and fallen. bnt still in a measnre indispensable. When they visited the capital the king did not kill a single beef or even goat for them; he gave them only fish to eat. No wonder, then, that they are moody and taciturn. Lewanika has made a distribntion of the wives of all the murdel'ed or fugitive chiefs, but all the children-those dear little children, of whom some are so intelligent and so amiable-have to the last one been mercilessly put to death. We have received harrowing details of this horrible tragedy."
The Journal remarks that at present a singular conflict is going on in Africa : " Civilized Enrope protests against the Arab slave trade; the Moslem merchants lift their voice in return against the alcoholic fioods-il2,420,0921itres in one year from the two ports of Bremen and Hambnrg-which to their eyes represent Christianity. Is not the work of missions interested in these facts'? Ought not our missionary enterprises, our missionary agents, onr missionary prayers, to form, as it were, a dyke against this poison in which the colonial civilization of the nineteenth century would fain steep Africa?
.. But there is in all these facts a Christian interest of a more general order. We cannot too often repeat that in the impulse which at this time Is directing the activity of Europe toward distant countries and especially toward Africa, we onght to behold a sign of the times. Almost always the signs of the times contain appeals to the chnrch of Christ. As the Reformation was, in the plans of God, a parallel current to the Renaissance, so also to-day Christian missions ought to be our response to the contemporaneous colonial movement. May the Lord, who has caused us to live at this honr, give ns the spirit which ought to animate ns I The new routes opened throngh the hnge African continent, the great commercial crises, the creation of new colonial empires, the birth of international states, the chivalrons enterprises for the rescne of a valiant soldier; the encroachments of Islam, which is everywhere forming its odions slave-cofles, and pnshing them like mere cattle toward the coasts; the corrnption which our merchant ships discharge upon these same coasts, and Which insinuates itself into the veins of these vigorous populations to enervate them; the perseverance of our miSSionaries, who alone in the night of paganism, like sentinels of a forlorn hope, watch the horizon in hope of discovering the arrival of new recruits, not isolated but in serried ranks; the Christian constancy, in the midst of torments, of negro colliessors, the blood of martyrs -do they not instrnct us that the hour of God has strnck for missionary efforts snch as shall surpass all that has been done hitherto? Do not all these events cry ont to us, 'Where is there to-day in the church the love of Christ which constrained a Paul f' "
M. Duvoisin, of the French Protestant mission in South Africa, writes: " A considerable part of our work, and we may well believe not the least solid, is that which is wrought, so to speak, In the deep places of th~ earth, and which consists in restoring the conscience and in laying ,n human sonls the very beginnings (les assises) of that moral fonndation on which some day may rise the fabric of a living and spiritual faith. Here is a work which escapes our hama. standards.of valnation, and which, nevertheless, is so precions that it would be worth the consecration ot one's life to it, were one never to have the joy of registering a single conversion."
Dr. Casalis, from among the Bassutos, writes to his father, describing a visit to a remarkable waterfall : "The river has cut itself a bed 300 feet lower than the rest of the platean, before arriving at a narrow gorge surrounded by frightful precipices, and there it makes a perpendicnlar leap of 620 feet. I do not feel myself capable of describing this wonder of nature. I have seen Niagara; I have visited the Staubb..ch, the Reichenbach, the Giessbach, etc., and nevertheless I have fonnd the Maletsnnyane more overpowering still. Tbe gorges are something extraordinary, rising perpendicularly almost 900 feet, like a titanic wall of a reddish granite veined with white qnartz. Here again rises a tower of more than 5,600 feet; you might thiIlk it the tower of an old cathedral. How is it, that during more than forty years the missionaries of Lessouto have never snspected the existence of such a marvel f"
CONDITION OF FEMALES IN INDIA
Occasional visits to such a resort will be a wonderful restorative to the spirits and health of the missionaries.
Says the Journal des Missions Evangeliques : " The history of Christian missions on the west side opens with a characteristic and most mOving incident. In the middle of the eighteenth centnry ten Moravian missionaries established themselves on the Gold Coast. In 1770 they had ali snccumbed to the murderous climate of this region. Count Zinzendorf declared, in a memorable and prophetic epitaph, that the ten seeds thns laid in the soil of the dusky continent should yet spring forth in a waving harvest. The Basel Missionary Society in 1828 succeeded to the Moravians. In 1840 the sole snrvivor of this second company of volnnteers retnrned to Basel. They had been faithful unto death. Canon Taylor has good rcason to say, however disparagingly he may mean it, that the chnrch has made great sacrifices for Africa. The pretended Moslem missionaries lay waste the land and massacre without pity entire popUlations. The servants of Jesus Christ, aner the example of their divine Master, lay down their lives if need be to save that which is lost.
" What is the present state of the Basel missions on the Gold Coast? They reckon in the ten stations nearly 8,000 adherents, of whom 2,995 are communicants. The work is directed by 82 European missionaries, 19 native pastors and 116 evangelists and schoolmasters. And this is only one of at least twelve missionary societies which are sending laborers into these homes of fe"er and death, among which we are glad to be permitted to mention our own modest work in Senegal."
Canon Taylor's Moslem missions do indeed have their dark side, as witness the following, from the Journal des Missions Evangeliques: .. In 1855 peace and prosperity reigned in the country between the Opara and the Niger; fertile fields sustained the nnmerous villages which filled the valleys, according to the testimony of the traveler Clapperton. When Richard Lander traversed these countries in 1830 he no longer fonnd there anything but slight traces ofburnt villages and here and there a banana plant struggling with the weeds; the howling of apes and the cries of paroquets alone disturbed the silence and solitnde. The fanatical Fulbes had passed over all things like a destroying wave. Some bands of fugitives, rem nants of more than 150 villages burned and destroyed, sought refnge in a cavern near an immense clilr of porphyry. There they fortified themselves and named this asylum Abeokuta-that is to say, • Under the Rock.' "
The history of the steadfast Christian church of Abeokuta and of Yoruba is well known.
CONDITION OF FEMALES IN INDIA.
[From a discourse delivered to a company of ladies in the castle of a German baron, by Rev. Mr.
RUDOLPH.] "A WOMAN when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour has come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world." But in India the poor mother has additional anguish, of which mothers in Christian lands know nothing. For months she has petitioned the gods to grant her a son; she has tried to propitiate them by gifts and promises, and now in the hour of pain and danger she looks eagerly at the women that surround the bed. At the decisive moment she watches to receive the glad tidings from their lips, "It is a son and not a daughter." But who can describe the disappointment of her attendants when they have to 8.nnounce to the poor mother that her hopes are not to be realized? How sinks her heart within her! how does she wish the child were never born! No expression of joy greets the little stranger; the little daughter is received as an intruder upon the family, that has no claims on a mother's affection. Caste distinction may peremptorily demand that an end be put to her existence forthwith.
If she is permitted to live, the father assumes the grave responsibility of seeing her married within seven or eight years. A Brahman would lose his caste if his daughter remains unmarried at the age of eleven years. But proper marriage alliances are not easily affected in India. A girl must marry in her own caste, but not in the same subdivision to which she belongs, nor in one that stands lower than her own. For those subdivisions, therefore, that stand highest in honor and reputation, it is often absolutely impossible to form proper marriage ties, and hence the only way of escape from such; difficulties is to put the little girls to death as soon as they are born. A skilllui pressure on the neck or a small opium pill would be resorted to wherever the vigilance of the English Government was but little feared. In most cases now, however, the parents try to obtain the desired end by other means. The child is untended and uncared for in every possible way. Unsuitable food is given; it is exposed to the inclemency of the weather in a state of nudity. Cleanliness, so important to a young child, is often not used.
If, however, the girl survives the neglect and the hard treatment she has received from the hands of those from whom she might have claimed love and affection, she is allowed to grow up without ever knowing what it is to have loving parents. They do not rejoice at her unfolding beauty or the ripening of her understanding. She receives no education to make her a fit helpmeet .for the lad that may enjoy the privileges of a good school. A mother in India has no wish to see her daughter beeome wiser than she herself is. The poor little thing has reached the age of seven, and the family' barber is commissioned to look out for a family with whom an alliance may be properly conduded. This important functionary must give himself no rest till he has found one that can fulfill all the conditions as to caste, wealth, standing in society, etc. He now puts himself en rapport with the barber of that family, who informs his employers of all he has ascertained about the little girl and her family.
An engagement being agreed upon, and the gods having been asked through the Brahmans, whose good will is obtained by gifts, a sum of monpy, a few dishes of sweetmeats, or afew bags of grain are sent into the house of the girl. The betrothal is followed in a year or two by the marriage of the little couple. Vast preparations are made to celebrate it with due pomp. Sums of money at exorbitant interest are often borrowed by the father, which it is impossible for him ever to repay. Astrologers are consulted as to a lucky day when the ceremony may be performed; near and distant relations and friends are invited to the marriage feast.
Musicians and dancing girls are engaged for the amusement of the men outside, while the women sit pent up in small apartments trying to eatch a gbnce, through the lattice-work of a small window or from behind a curtain, of the festivites carried on outside. The bridegroom is the centre of all; the bride is of no aecount.
Vhile the marriag'e procession on horsebaek and all kinds of vehicles, and accompanied by music, is passing through the streets of the town, copper and silver coins are scattered among the sight-seeing crowd at random. Strong young men thus reap a rich harvest, while they thrust the poor weak beggars, for whom the offering was intended, unmercifully aside. These often go away empty-handed.
The Brahmans have been feasted; they now recite with great rapidity the marriage rites in the Sanskrit language, which fortunately bnt few understand, for many expressions are far fl'om delieate. They walk three times round a fire, tie the garments of the two ehildren into a knot. The bride has to take seven steps, a ring is drawn through her nose, and now she is the wife of a lad perhaps a year or two older than herself, She continues to live in the house of her father till she is of age, when she is sent away under the disagreeable howling of the women of the house to the dwelling place of hel' husband. Here she enters another labyrinth of dark passages, small damp apartments and dirty inclosures, which look very much like the abode she has been accustomed to. She is now closely watched by fault-finding mothers-in-law and severe aunts, and she is envied bitterly by widowed young maids who were less fortunate than herself, having lost their boy husbands before they knew them, and who are now condemned to perpetual widowhood. The position of the young wife is not to be envied though. The house being uncomfortably arranged and thickly peopled by the members of the family, she has no' opportunity to be alone with her husband. In fact she sees him only in the evening by the flicker of a small lamp or on the flat roof of the house, by moonlight. In the presence of a third, not even her own children, she never sees him unveiled. All that she knows to teach her children is to fear their father.
Within a few short years she may have to share her rights as wife with another hated rival, who may soon succeed in pushing her and her children out of her position altogether. At best life with her is a continual struggle. The children grow up to hate each other; strife and quarreling among them is the rule of the day. If she happens to be childless she :;;ubmits to her fate with impatience, and possibly she may yield her affections to the children of her adversary; for whom else has she that she can love?
Who would dare to describe the abuse and neglect, the angry words and blows to which the poor women have to submit in a land where it is not reckoned a shame if her husband lifts his haud against his wife? But if she survives the hard treatment she has received in her younger years, the time comes when she will revenge herself on her lord. In old age, when passion has done it utmost to efface from her heart and countenance everything that is lovely, she generally manages to regain her lost position. It is now her turn to change the house into a hell of strife to her husband as well as to all the younger members of the family. Her old, weak, emaciated husband has now to submit, and if he does not she may sue him in court for the means of support or the restoration of jewels. Public opinion is now against him, for in India old women are well esteemed, while younger ones are treated as dirt, and girls are ciphers that have no claims of any kind. Anxiously waits the decrepit old man for the day when he may purchase a rupee's worth of fuel to burn the remains of her that hath embittered his old age so much. And after her decease he is not slow by any means to show the contempt he regarded her with, and the satisfaction he feels in being released from such a companion. Ask him why he neglects to shave his beard, and he may answer, Will I shave when I have lost an old shoe?
It is not so when she survives her lord. Her voice will be the loudest among all the mourners in the house and she will most scrupulously perform every prescribed rite that she may believe to be capable of procuring his happiness in a future world. You meet an old woman alone on the highway, unaccompanied by any attendant or friend; as she passes you, you ask her where she is going, and you are told in reply that she is on a pilgrimage to the Ganges, and that she carries the last remains of her deceased husband into the holy stream, to secure his final happiness. But where is the box that contains these remains? Ask her, and she may open the corner of hel" coarse veil and show you a piece of charred bone that she has picked up from the ashes, at the cremation of the corpse, and that she regards as a sufficient representative of her departed lord.
Bad as the condition of a Hindu wife may be, that of a widow is still worse. She may never have known her husband, he may have died when still a boy; she is condemned to perpetual widowhood, and this means a life worse than death.
At the decease of her husband she is deprived of her hair, her jewels, her good clothes. The coarest food and the hardest treatment is good enough
THE BABOO CHUNDER SEN
for her. She is excluded from all festivities in the family, she is treated henceforth as a slave. She ought to have been burnt with the body of her husband, but the English Government has forbidden it, and the widow there- a: fore remains source of anxiety in the house of her father-in-law. She is sur- rounded by the grossest immorality, and who would dare to lift the veil as to the temptations that her chastity is exposed to, and the consequent danger to her life? Poison is a convenient means to hide a multitude of sins, and the report that she died of cholera may save the honor of the family. If childmurder was an easy means to relieve the father of the difficulty of providing a suitable husband for his new-born babe, the cremation of the relict with the body of her husband used to be another means to strike at the root of all the difficulties that a widow might create to a family, and intoxicating drugs would be a powerful help to secure her consent. The watchfulness of government hinders the perpetration of this crime, and thus a life of unspeakable humiliation and misery is prolonged to the widow, but in many cases only in order to be cut short still by the cup of poison. And here government can bring but little relief by laws and regulations, because life in a Hindu family is too much hidden from the eye of the public observer.
Only the gospel can bring here effectual relief-the gospel with its enlightening, softening, consoling influences. And as the missionary cannot carry the Bible into the family, but female missionary agents can do it, we must beg that these be sent in large numbers, so that the blessings of the Christian religion may be brought to the families of the people of India.
THE BABOO CHUNDER SEN.
INDIA originated the two religions most widely spread of any, Brahmanism and Buddhism. Lately a third religion seemed strugglinginto life-an Eclectic Theism. The Eramo Somaj of India aims to combine whatever is best in all religions, Christianity rating highest, in one new faith for all mankind. Under the influence of Dr. Duff, the great missionary at· the mouth of the Ganges, arose Rommahun Roy, who died in 1833. To him succeeded Tavoal the Bengalee, who carried out the same views, accepting the Vedas, and forming a theistic society, a "Natural Religion." Of these two men Chunder Sen was the lineal descendant and heir. He was a man of magnificent physique, thoroughly honest and sincere, not profound, and scorned all books unless they be the bibles of the religions. It has been said that there are in India ten thousand Emersons; he was the greatest-ambitious, politic, exceedingly devout and emotional, not at all of an analytic or philosophical mind, not an Occidental but an Oriental in every sense of the word, a mystic, throwing himself wholly upon the intuitional in himself. More than any Quaker he believed in conscience, in an Inner Voice. No man held more heartily than he to the doctrine of an overruling Providence, to prayer, to an inspiration which answers to illumination. He considered himself gifted with an indwelling spirit, and yet that the spirit of the prophet ·is subject to the prophet. Our Scriptures he accepted as above all other bibles, the book most from God, and yielded to it avowedly when in conflict with his own "inspiration." He believed that in and by him the Holy Ghost revealed a new dispensation which shall result in the unification of all religions. He detested Unitarianism, and denounced its one representative in India; and he opposed materialism, agnosticism, atheism. He had his own idea of a trinity, regarding Christ as having existed from eternity, but" as an attribute of God." He was impetuous, possessed of the noblest oratory, completely the master of himself in every emergency. His English was. simply perfect. Every Sunday he preached in the City Tabernacle, but his chief place of worship was in his own house. Here his disciples came together
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW
every day of the week. Seated upon a raised platform, he entered upon the service, after music, in a very long prayer, the most intense petitions of which he and his disciples regarded as inspired. Often his disciples kissed his feet, but that is a not unusual sign in India of reverence only, not of worship. After music another long prayer was offered, sometimes by a disciple. When two or more such prayers were in agreement, that agreement was considered to be by inspiration and recorded as such, the truth thus revealed being accepted as infallible. These services often lasted five or six hours. At the close a poet, to the accompaniment of an instrument, indulged in an improvisation which was taken down from his lips by a stenographer. Over 1000 such Hindu hymns have been preserved, accepted as inspired scripture. When advised to read this book or that, the suggestion is rejected with scorn. "No, never," they reply; "we prefer to gaze in, and by prayer into the face of God." A vessel of oil is placed during their services upon a central table and set on fire; sticks of fragrant wood are cast into it, with the exclamation over each, "Thus perish our lust, our pride, our self-will!" During prayer a pause of some minutes occurs, in which each supplicant is supposed to be making an absolute surrender of himself to God. At the end of the service is the cry of all present, "Victory to God!" and the benediction follows, "Peace, peace!" The Baboo used dances, theatricals, processions, singing in public, and every other means of disseminating his religion. He abhorred caste, idolatry, child marriages, transmigration, and all forms of infidelity, while a hearty friend of temperance and every philanthropy. Yet, alas, when challenged to do so, the new religion could not produce a dozen individuals reformed by its agency from drunkenness; in a word, its practical results are very few and faint, and tha,t after thirty years of effort and the organization of 200 societies over India. The whole thing is but a beautiful bubble, knowing nothing of an atoning Saviour or a regenerating Spirit.
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
Christianity in the United States. From the First Settlement down to the Present Time. By Daniel Dorchester, D.D. 8vo, pp.795. Price, $4.50. New York: Phillips & Hunt.
This is a noble volume in size and mechanical appearance as well as in its contents. The author, so well known for his work on "The Problem of Religious Progress," has given much time and patient labor to the production of the present volume, which is of the highest interest and value, and will long remain a standard work on the subject.
Dr. Dorchester has taken up the work of that eminent historian of Religion i'fl, America, REV. ROBERT BAIRD, D.D., and is carrying it forward with distinguished zeal and ability, and is doing invaluable service for Christianity. No attempt has here been made to write the history of our various religious denominations, but a bird's-eye view of the field is presented under the threefold classification of the three great competing forces in the religious life of the aation-"Protestantism, Romanism, and a variety of Divergent Elements." As to the Protestant churches, the beginning of each, the organic changes, schisms and reunions and the evangelizing agencies employed by them are sketched. The Roman Catholic Church has also blilen fully, fairly and generously dealt with. The Divergent Elements, existing only as drifts of sentiment and mainly unorganized, have been skillfully handled. The statistical exhibits of all the religious bodies are the best their own'official Minutes or Year-books make possible. The numerous and carefully prepared statistical tables are invaluable. We have already availed ourselves, in anticipation of the book, of some of these statistics in this REVIEW, and shall frequently have occasion to refer to them in the future. We congratllate the author and the publishers on the completion and pUblication of so grand a work bearing directly on the status of the American Church and the cause of Christianity.-J. M. S.
Protestant Foreign MiSBions. By Theodore Christlieb, D.D. Only Authorized American Edition. Congregational Publishing Society, Boston.
While this little work has been some time before the public we gladly call the attention of our readers to it. It has run through several editions in Germany, and been translated into French, Dutch and Swedish. It is a laborious and careful work, giving a "universal survey of Protestant Foreign Missions" down to the date of its publication in 1880.-J. M. S.
Ohrist mid the Gospels. By James P. Cadman, A.M. Chicago: American Publication So- ciety of Hebrew. Chas. Scribner's Sons, N. Y. Price, $1.50.
This is a life of our Lord in the words of the evangelists, and after the Re- vision of 1881. It has already passed its sixth edition, and deserves it. It contains a synopsis of the Gospels, explanations of the text, a Life of our Lord in Bible words, together with a brief history of various translations, indices of persons, places and subjects, maps, diagrams, etc.
The four Gospels are here made to throw their combined light on the career of the Lord Jesus. The true chronological order is, as far as can be ascertained, followed after the method of Rev. S. J. Andrews.
So far as we have examined this admirable book it is a very great help to any devout student of the New Testament. A simple but complete method is pursued by which at a glance,the analysis is presented of the entire con- tents of the Gospels, together with the improved readings of the text, and Scripture parallel references in full. A full and complete index is found at the close. Bible class teachers will find in it a helpful companion to the study of the Gospels. We began the examination of the volume WIth little interest, but laid it down with a conviction that it is a valuable contribution to Bible literature.-A. T. P.
The Story of Smyrna Medical Mission, in Connection with the Church of Scotland.• R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh, Scotland. Price, sixpence.
While this mission is a branch of the operations of the Jewish Mission Com- . mittee of the Church of Scotland, it receives no share of the ordinary church collections forthe Jewish missions, but is sustained by special aid from friends and churches, The account given in this little work by Mr. Scott, one of the missionaries of the society, is highly interesting.-J. M. S.
The Crisis Of MiSSions. By A. T. Pierson, D.D. Price,35 cents.
The Carter's have brought out a paper-cover edition of this wonderful work, of which many editions have been sold in a single year. It is a marvel in cheapness, considering the size and excellent quality of the letter-press.
The same publishers have brought out a new edition, the fourteenth (price, $1. 25, 12mo, pp. 406), of Moffat's" Southern Africa," with a brief sketch of his life, condensed from the "Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat," published by the Armstrongs and which we reviewed at considerable length in these pages in our January issue. We need not repeat what we there said. Moffat was an extraordinary character; his long missionary career in laying the founda- . tion of the South African Church was extraordinary; and this book, written by him on a visit to England (1839-43), considering the period at which it was written was, in some respects, the most extraordinary work on Africa ever written. We read it at its first appearance with a degree of interest and excite- ment we have seldom felt. His vivid pictures of African scenery and life, his perilous adventures, and his experiences as a missionary explorer and pioneer over all that region which his son-in-law Livingstone, Stanley, and others have since laid bare to the civilized world, have scarcely ever been exceeded. The impression of the book on our mind, after a lapse of over forty years, is almost as vivid as the day we read it.-J. M. S.
The Teaching 0/ the Apostles. By Prof. J. Rendel Harris. Baltimore: Publication Agency of the Johns Hopkins University.
This is a newly edited and superb edition of this remarkable work, with lac-simile text and a commentary for the use of this university. Through the negotiations initiated by Dr. Hale with the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the co-operation of Mr. Henry Gillman, the United States Consul of that city, a complete series of photographs of the" Teaching" have been obtained and are here given, thus securing in the most complete form possible the publication of the recovered memorlal from the early days of Christianity. It is a work of great intrinsic worth to the whole church of God.-J. M. S.
A Budget 0/ Letters/rorn Japan. By Arthur Collins Maclay, A.M., LL.B. I'p.391. New York: Armstrong & Son.
From a missionary point of view this is a book of decidl'd interest. It is written by an intelligent man after close observation and the best of opportunities for judging the Japanese. A long chapter is devoted to the missionary work. He says they are "champion listeners. They wear an ordinary man out. They are insatiate. They come three or four times a day, urging a continuance of the speech. I knew one missionary who began at four o'clock in the afternoon, and when he was exhausted his native helpers carried on the exhortation until nine o'clock at night. Of course sermonizing is not resorted to. Simply the barest recital of the Ii fe, the work, the agony of our Redeemer seems to chain their attention. The people then disperse. Very few of them, perhaps, will be baptized. But curiosity has been awakened to know about this extraordinary religion; books are bought; and when the missionary makes his next visit he will find a number of earnest inquirers after the truth."
Other chapters give discussions of the claims of Christianity as compared with Buddhism, and the need the heathen have of the gospel of salvation, and of the results effected by Christianity as compared with the results of Buddhism. This discussion is conducted with great ability and fairness. The author gives a clear and concise account of the early efforts of Protestant Christianity and the results down to 1877, the time when he left Japan.
Mr. Collins tells the following story as characteristic: "The Mitsui Bank in Tokio is a national bank, backed up with the money of the government. Young Japan had been especially educated abroad to carryon the banking sy!'tem on approved foreign principles. They were intelligent, capable and shrewd. They made excellent cashiers, tellers, bookkeepers, and clerks, so far as the merely executive qualities were concerned. They possessed every intellectual requirement necessary for carrying on a bank, but they were too intelligent. They were so thoroughly acquainted with financiering that they understood many little methods ofdeflecting cash from the treasury into their own pockets. And there was no power except fear that could prevent their doing so ; and fear had but little effect, as there was hardly any fear that the capitalists, composed of effete daimios and of government officers unfamiliar with banking, could detect how the cash disappeared. In this predicament, one of the bank officers, with great candor and solicitude, came and explained the situation to one of the missionaries. He frankly admitted that he did not believe in any religion whatsoever. He claimed that the Japanese intellect was of too philosophical a nature to accept the Jewish myth called Christianity. 'But,' said he, 'your religion does something that our religions cannot do. It makes men honest. Now, we wish our employees at the bank to be carefully instructed in these principles, so that they may learn to discharge . their duties with scrupulous integrity.'''
Mr. Collins says that the missionaries meet their greatest discouragemenij from the foreign community. "The cause of this hostility is easy to see. The presence of missionaries is a continued rebuke to the greater part of the foreign community, who are leading lives they would not think of leading at home. The natives are soon taught that these foreigners are living beneath their duties and privileges. They soon learn to point this fact with cutting and contemptuous observations, which gall the recipients thereof exceedingly. And they soon begin to draw a line between the two portions of the community: one portion is bent on gain, it is selfish and grasping, it abuses its servants, deals harshly with the natives, and is licentious; the other portion acts justly toward all, so that servants are anxious to secure them as masters, and the merchants are always on the qui vive to open accounts with them. They learn the language accurately and elegantly, and instruct the people carefully and thoroughly, and the people soon begin to love and respect them. "-J. ]H. S.
Mary and I. Forty Years with the Sioux. By Stephen R. Riggs, DD., LL.D. Pp.437. Price, Sl.50. Boston Congregational Publishing Society.
The reader who takes up this book is quite sure to read it through. He will recognize in the Mary of this story a worthy pupil of Mary Lyon and Miss Grant. Cultured and attractive, she cheerfully left her Massachusetts home and plunged into the wilderness of Lac Qui Parle. She found a " home" for five years in the upper story of Dr.Williamson's log house. From the letters written at the ijme to friends in the East, we get vivid pictures of the privations, discouragements. dangers, and triumphs of those who devoted their lives to giving the gospel to the Indian. How bravely she bore up in that terrible midnight flight from Hazelwood, and the long perilous journey to St. Paul through the pelting rains and wet swamp-grass, and with murderous savages upon the trail!
"The other partner in this firm," says Prof. S. C. Bartlett in his brief Preface, "needs no words of mine. He speaks here for himself, and his labor speaks for him. His Dakota Dictionary and Bible are lasting monuments of his persevering toil, while eleven churches with a dozen native preachers and 800 members, and a flourishing Dakota Home Missionary Society bear witness to the Christian work of himself and his few colaborers. , Forty Years among the Sioux,' he writes. ' Forty Years in the Turkish Empire' was the story of Dr. Goodell. ' Fifty Years in Ceylon' was the life work of Levi Spalding. What recol'ds are these of singleness of aim, of energy, of Christian work, and of harvests gathered and gathering for the Master! "-J. M. S.
The EvangelizatilYn oj the World. A Missionary Band. A Record of Consecration and Appeal.
This is a volume prepared especiallyfor the student volunteers. It contains 242 pages. Published by L. Morgan & Scott, London, 12 Paternoster Buildings. The price is not given, but if we remember it is 18. 6d. sterling. It was published under the name of "The Missionary Band," and has run through fifteen thousand. It is now enlarged and published under this new title. It contains skillfully arranged extracts from Spurgeon,Arthur,Griffith,Vaughan, Moule, Somerville, Radcliffe, Loudels, Alden, Guinness, Pierson, Cust Haig, Hudson Taylor, etc. It is one of the best books conceivable to put into the hands of young men and womeq. Its paragraphs are a history, a poem, a prophecy, all at once. Short, suggestive, on fire with God's Spirit. The themes so briefly treated are: The Needs in India, China, Africa, e!c.; Benefits to the Church from Missions; Injury to the Church from Neglect, etc. ; The Missionary Spirit; The Men and Women Wanted; The Work of Missions; Truths Essential to Success; Prayer; Personal Consecration; Spiritual Anointing; Woman's Work; Y. M. C. A.; Universities and the Missionary Volunteers; Helpful Books; Missionary Societies, etc. There are 20 full-page illustrations, alone worth the price of the book, besides three maps, four musical pieces, and six portraits.-A. T. P.
Hodder', Li/e Q/ the Earl 0/ 8ha/tesoor1l. 3 volumes. London and New York: Cassell & Co.
We do not hesitate to say that from this book, which we read with enthusiastic delight, we got more inspiration and help in the direction of missionary labor at home and abroad than from any other biography we ever read. Shaftesbury was a rare and unique example of a man who deliberately turned his back on temptations to wealth, position, rank and power, pleasure and self-indulgence, to undertake the uplifting of his fellow men. Without regard to their position, degradation, or depravity, with utter contempt of casteocracy, he devoted his time, his money, his whole soul, to the work of reforming abuses, abolishing outrages, and improving conditions. For sixty years of his public life he never swerved from his purpose. He accepted as his divine calling this sublime vocation, to lift up the fallen, and to take out of the way of the poorest and most easily tempted the enticements to evil. Where he found a man ignorant of Christ he sought to inform him; where he found the most abandoned criminal he sought to touch the tender spot where capacity of response still remained. He fought for half a century to see the abuses of the insane asylums, factories, mines, and workshops abated or removed, and meanwhile stood at the head in all true labors to bring the. gospel to bear on the darkest and most abandoned quarters of the great cities, especially London. Every intelligent and earnest man or woman ought to read this book. Those who cannot afford to buy it ought to borrow it. The copy we own is a part of our "circulating library," and we rejoice to see it worn out in service, as its heroic subject was. As a model biography, as a biography of a model philanthropist, as a book which combines the value of a history with the beauty of a poem and the fascination of a novel, we cannot speak in terms high enough to express our appreciation of Mr. Hodder's magnificent work.-A. T. P.
Modern Olties and Their Religious Problems. By Samuel Lane Loomis. New York: Baker, Taylor & Co.
This is a book that deserves to be widely read. It touches wisely and discriminatingly some of the most practical problems of the day. The author has manifestly spent years in the personal and painstaking investigation of the questions he discusses, and his suggestions throw a flood of light on the method of dealing with the cities. The Introduction, by Dr. Josiah Strong, is itself worth the price of the book. But this iii! not meant to deprljOiate what follows. The growth, social composition, and menace of the cities is plainly set before the reader; and then the best and most successful methods of Christian and philanthropic work are presented, with extended references to the actual examples of such work in London and Paris. The last chapter abounds in useful hints, as to the increase and employment of working force, the nature and frequency of such service, the value of the parish system, etc. The two chapters on Christian work as performed in London, with the ex- tended and detailed description of the methods employed, furnish in themselves a volume rich in valuable contribution to the practical solution of the great perplexities now before the church. This book should be set side by side with" Our Cquntry," and read by all earnest and thoughtful men and women. -A.T.P.
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
II. -CORRESPONDENCE and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
The Missionary Meeting. Ages. The carrying of the gospel to the modern nations. St. Augustine, Cyril and Methodlus ; [Letter from Mr. H. N. Brainerd, a St. Patrick in Ireland, etc. (c) Study of Boman graduate of Harvard, who expects to Catholic and Jesuitical missions. Francis be a foreign missionary.] Xavier, Loyola, etc. Dlustrative of the wrong method of working. (d) Modern missions. How shall we make our missionary meetings Awakening of Protestants. History of societies, both profitable and interesting? This is a ques- especially of the early movements in our own tion often asked, and for nOne is a practical country. (Si Study of particular missions, as answer more important than for the members of China Inland Missions, missions of Polynesia, the missionary bands now to be found in nearly the Harmannsburg MiSSion and the rest. (4) all our colleges. Perhaps a few suggestions may Study of missionary heroes, as Carey, Brainerd, be helpful. John Eliot, Judson, Bishop Patteson, Living- stone, Moffat, Henry Martyn and hosts of others. 1. Give the missionary meeting a status. De- (5) Study of the actual life and work of the various termine upon the number which may be reason- missionary stations. This may be got from reably expected to be held, and make no devia- turning missionaries, always glad to speak of tion, providential events alone excepted. If pos- their work; from the various publications of sible bave a regular date assigned. This will the different SOCieties; from current literature. sllow of thorough preparation. especially periodicals, happily not now indlfi'er- ent to these subjects. (6) Study of blessings 2. Give the missionary meeting an efficieut or- other than religiOUS, arisiug from efforts of misganization. Ifyour association has a missionary sionaries, as translations of the SCriptures and committee, see that the most active and de- other books, the foundations of new literatures, voted of the band are among its members. If schools. The cessation of idolatry, cannibalism, possible choose those who are in some way con- infanticide,. and modificatiou for the better of nected with actual missionary work. A record many superstitions. (7) Contributions of misof the meetings and proceedings should be kept. sions to science, such as is found in the Ely It wlll be valuable for future reference. volume. The missiouary exploration of Africa.
S. As to the meeting itself. The course of the Subjects like these ought to be interesting to meeting may be turned in several directions: every one. The Christian college man Is just the person who should be familiar with this A. The religious or ethical. In this attention kuowledge. If on no other ground, Christianity should be turned to the spiritual features of the is worthy of attention for its respectable infiumissionary question. This may not differ much ence in history, to be seen nowhere more clearly in kind from the ordinary prayer-meeting. Snb than in this. jects like these might be taken: C. Auxiliary helps. These are important. (1) The Ground of MIssionary Work. John These are: iii. 16 ; Luke ii. 10 ; Mark xvi. 15; Matt. xxvlti. 18-20. (2) The Need of Missionary Work. (1) Books. Every association or band should Psalms xiv. 2,3; Eph. ii. 12; Rom. x. 13-15; .have its missionary alcove, or shelf for books on Acts xvi. 9. (8) The Purpose of Missionary missions. (2) Maps. These are almost indis- Work. Luke xix: 10; Acts xxvi. 18. (4) The pensable to a successful meeting. They may be Siu of Standiug Aloof. 2 Kings vii. 9 ; Judges v. had at reasonable rates. (3) Charts and publica- 23; Matt. xxv. 25, 26. (5) The :Motive. Luke tions of the dlfferent societies, as "Gospel in all xvi. 5; 2 Cor. v. 14; 2 Cor. viti. 9. (6) Ways of Lands," M'wBionary Herald, THE MISSIONARY Helping. Isa. vi. 8; 2 Cor. i. 11; Matt. ix. 38 ; REVIEW, American Baptist M'f88ionary Maga- zine, and many others. They may be got always, Acts ix. 61; Col. iii. 23 ; 2 Cor. ix. 7. (7) The Re- either free Or at a merely nominal cost. (4) Curiosities from missionary fields. These may ward. Prov. xi. 25 ; Job xxix. 13; Matt. xxv. 28. not be in the reach of all, bat they render a (8) The End of Missionary Work. Matt. xxiv. meetiug very interesting. Copies of Scriptures, 14; Isa. ii. 18: Hab. ii. 14; Rev. xi. 15. objects relating to customs, productions, an- tiquities, are all profitable. (5) FInally seek and This list is not exhaustive. Many others will obtain the co-operation of your president and suggest themselves. professors. They can often aid very much in rendering an evening spent on any of these topics B. The practical and historical. This side of one worth the attention of all the students. missions is as vast and as varied as the world itself, for "the field is the world." We might In closing let me say that these topiCS are suggest here : simply intended to be suggestive. That which must be at the base of all missionary work-a (1) Study of dlfi'erent fields, as China, Japan, consecrated, active, senSible heart and mind, India, Turkey, etc. Information of the people, full of the Holy Spirit-Is most necessary here. customs, tongues, climate, productions, advantages, state of society and religion in these countries. The caution here Is not to undertake more than can be thoroughly handled. (2) Stndy of history of missions. (a) Ancient missions, which ended in the Christianization of the Roman Empire. (lI) Missions of the Middle To sueh a one these suggestions will, I trust, be pit aud looks down tnto thousands or sonls but a beginning-the first-fruits of a plentiful whose darkest night has never shimmered with harvest. Above all, let every member of the eveu a starlight ray of God's blessed and savtng band take especial interest in the meeting. Let gospel. We find ourselves here in a town ot him make it a constant theme for prayer. Let about 30,000 tnhabitants, to whom only two men all who are to contribute in any way to the are preaching Christ in the vernacnlar. The meeting hold a previous period of prayer and direct need at home is scarcely so straitened consecration together. Such efforts the Holy as that, and yet this place is supposed to be well Spirit loves to bless. supplied with missionaries and preachers."
From a Student Volunteer. NOTE FROM ANOTHER VOLUNTEER. The" Student Volunteer Movement for For- HAVB read with keen pleasure the circular, eign Missions" is still increasing. Names of .. Student Volunteers for Foreigu Missions." I volunteers are coming tn every week. Stnce favor strougly having one college each mouth the New Year Grove City College, Pa., has enwrite a somewhat similar letter, sketching the listed her sympathies and a number of volonuhistory of Its own foreign missionary movement, teers tn this movement, and also organized togiving any ideas as to their methods of organiz- support a foreign missionary, and they say they ing, increaSing numbers; stirring np snrround- can do it. ing churches, etc., as may seem helpful, and then The report that comes from this college cheers filling the remainder of the letter with snch stir- the band in Union Seminary. This seminary is ring facts as are fonnd in that circnlar, and get- betng stirred on this subject. Prayer-meetings ting as many copies printed as would place one are held each night on the different fioors for in the hands of each of the 2,800 volunteers, and the purpose of awakening a missionary spirit. send them to all the colleges. Gro,"e City College had its attention directed to this movement by a single student to whom a Suppose Yale send one iu January, Prince- letter was written on the subject. ton in February, Harvard in March, Toronto in April (and the others when they will), why Letter from Rev. W. Alfred Redwood. each letter would be a source of iuspiration to the other schools and wonld draw them together MALVALLI, MYSORE TERRITORY, INDIA, with sympathy in the same cause. December 29, 1887.
At the end of the year-the college year-if the IT is a great pleasure to me to find THE MISletters were preserved, each volunteer would be SIONARY REVIEW evangelical iu these days of so loaded with facts that his summer's work "new-fangled notions." If it had a grain of could not fail to be of great power. Try it. How sympathy with such theories as " Future Proba- I long to see the .. volunteers" pull together; tion" I certatnly should not, for one, welcome what a power they must be if only focused! The it under my roof. 2,800 should shake about (yes, altogether) $2,300,- 000 more out of our churches annually than is THE REVIEW tn the past had great sympathy now beiug given for missions, if they" get hold of "with independent missions-I mean work not the church and the Spirit gets hold of them. dependent on a society. It may be glad to know .. Come, it may be that the Lord will work for us; that I am a child of that school and am opening for there is no restraiut to the Lord to work by up this fresh ground to the light of the gospel in many or by few." _ dependence on God alone for all I need both for myself, family and work. And I am bound to .. I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do say, to the honor of his name, that he has never much, but I can do somethiug, and all I can do I allowed me to want. I have been engaged tn ought to do, and by God's grace will do." mission work for abont five years in India, but only a year'-and some months tn this neighbor- What One Did. hood. I have taken up two .. talooks " (dis- trictS) to work which contain about 200,000 Less than eleven months ago Mr. H. F. La- heathen and Mohammedan sonls, the former beflamme joined the" Student Volunteers for For- tng more than 95 per cent. of the whole. Most eign Missions." Six and one-half months after of these people have never heard the name of his decision he sailed for India under the .. Ca- Christ, and their moral condition is too terrible nadinn Board of Missions." Before sailing he to describe. Though not professioua1ly a docand Mr. Davis had appealed to the churches of tor, I give away medictnes to all who apply, and this denomination tn behalf of their foreign have a school, which is well attended, where the work; as a result about $3,000 were added to word of God is taught daily. When we came that denomtnation's foreign missionary tncome here the people were afraid of us, but now they -an income which was scarcely $14,000 the pre- come around us and show much love for us. cedtng year. Mr. Lafiamme writes as follows: .. Cocanada, India, Dec. 9, lSS7.-God can level We suffer of course some privation, from'the mountatns. I reached here just three weeks place being far away from any town where proago aud have had scarcely time to look around, visions can be got, but nothing serious. We still I am ready for this remark. The need here find much more pleasure than pain tn worktng loo!ted large to me when 11,000 miles away, but tn such a place, though there Is not at present a awful wheu one stauds ou the very verge of the suitable house In the neighborhood for Eurnpeans, and our strength Is very small. If we whole gospel, full salvation, Africa for Christ." can buy our present dwelling, the only one of I expect my brother, J. H. Harned, to send me brick in Malvalli, which we rent from govern- a valuable box of medicine which I need immement, we might in time be able to enlarge it, as diately iu my practice, which is already large. the Lord enabled us. The government will There is no doctor in this part of the country, sell it for 700 rupees, i.e., about £50 or $250. My support will come in great measure from this source. Bishop Taylor's Self-supporting Mission. Ha.ve Not I Oommanded Thee? [LetterfromMissionary Harned and wife to the Treasurer of the Society.] [Letter from Miss Grace E. Wilder, written on her way to India.] CAPE PALMAS, LmERIA, Oct. 8, 1887. DEAR BROTHER GRANT: We arrived in port BEFORE conversion, in connection with the here last Saturday. We had considerable diJIi- command "Be ye reconciled unto God," these culty in getting our goods ashore, as there are words arouse deep concern. but few boats, and these boatmen are never in a hurry; but the captain kindly lent two of his What of their message after conversion f boats, which facilitated matters somewhat, but Have not I commanded tkee, redeemed one, most of us staid on board and came ashore with bought with precious blood f Can the pronoun the remainder of our goods Sunday morning. be any less personal as I read " Go ye into all After breakfast we all went to he little old stone the world and preach the gospel to every creachurch, where the Lord graciously poured out ture. Have I not commanded thee f" his Splrit. Mr. Harned was blessed in preaching "God so loved the world that he gave his Ab, we say this .. thee" means the church. only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth It should be Interpreted as an indefinite or a disin him should not perish, but have everlasting tributive and only in exceptional cases as a perlife." In the evening Brother Cadle preached, sonal pronoun. We are like the father who after which an altar service was held aud many after an earnest appeal for missionary workers seekers went forward. We have three services asked for volunteers from his congregation. every day: one at seven in the morning, One at Among the first to rise was his own daughter. 10:00, and the regular revival work in the even- Agitated, he hasteus to whisper to her, "My dear, ing. Many are being gloriously saved, for which I did not mean you." Not alone are fathers and we praise the Lord. mothers saying this, but some are saYing, My son, my daughter, Ohrist doesn't mean you. Friday, Nov. 11, 1887. Even ministers are urging caution. Do they Mrs. Harned commenced this letter, and finally fear a literal apostolic obedience f Alas, the I found time to write a few lines. Of course you church is far from this, for" they were allscstrealize that I am full of business these days. tered abroad, and they that were scattered God is wonderfully with me while attending to abroad went everywhere preaching the word." the very many details of landing aud caring for our effects. I would be glad to write you about me' But, says one, how can I know that Jesus' last the voyage, but present matters press heavily, and I shall write concerning the work. Five of command is for the stations ou the Savilly RiTer have honses Does not much of the doubt over this question completed, and Baraca on the coast is ready for occupation. There are two stations in this large arise from a failure to Bee that God's scheme of tribe, one of which is on the bank of the river service is as wide as his scheme of salvation? and one back in the bush. We are to go to the .. Whosoever will may come; let him that hearstations this week, say about 16th or 17th. eth say come." With confidence we say the Sister Amanda Smith is here with us, work- first of these promises applies to every sinfnl ing as usual with power in the meetings. She is soul, but does not the second as unconditionally not strong, while not really sick. She will not apply to every redeemed soul? Do we meet be able to attend us on our trip up the river. a struggling, timid seeker with the question, Are When we get to our station I shall write a letter you sure God has called you to be saved f God with some description of the work. I would forbid. Satan asks this question. God forbid say for your encouragement that our goods were also that we should create doubt in the heart of landed here without the loss of an article, either a young Christian by asking, Are you sure you from the lot from New York or Liverpool. are called to serve God f As surely as the atone- Brother Pratt seems a fIIithful agent for the ment leaves no doubt as to God's yearning for work. My dear brother, I have no fault to find, the lost, it leaves no doubt as to his purpose for but in the name olthe Lord Jesus get men and the saved. Calvary not only rescued our souls; women of sound body and good sense who can it purchased our service. "He died for all, in accommodate themselves to any circumstances order that they who live should not live unto for Christ's sake, and find out if possible what themselves but unto him who died." This author- kind of doctrine they intend to preach. We go izes us to give him all-heart, soul, strength, to work with great hope of success. The Lord time. Is it not then the privilege of e'lJery Chris- God Is with us; our motto Is" All for Jesus, a tian to make the evangelization of the world the business of life f It is a fearful thing to limit service to a few believers, for this limits salva- tion. Is it not due to this that the church must now face the fact that in the last century while
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
she has been gaining 3,000,000 converts hea- own hands f Yes, and we must, for God hall thenism has Increased 200,000,000 1 placed It In our hands. Human choice Is a gill; we must use after salvation as well as before. The Earl of Shat'tesbury says, "Dur1ug the Did not t/le prodigal take the plan of life into latter part of these (eighteen) ceuturies it has his hands when he resolved, " I will arise and been In the power of those who hold the truth, go , " Yet no man cau come nnto me except having means enough, having knowledge enongh, the Father which hath sent me draw him. Ezra and having opportnnity enongh, to evangelize came to Jerusalem accordiug to the good hand , the globe fifty timee over." of his God upon him, for Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it. What a tonchstone of guilt is the qnestiou, Have Nehemiah forms a definite piau and takes his not I commanded thee? in the light of these three desire to God. "Prosper, I pray thee, thy serfacts' Christ redeemed the world, and with the vant this day and give him favor in the sight of emphasis of his last desire asked us to;evangelize this man." the world. "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I Into the world, that I shonld Mr. Mackay, who celebrated his fonrteeuth bear witness to the truth. As my Father hath anuiversary in Formosa with 1,213 converts, sent me into the world, so have I sent you. When and has during a tour of ten days baptized 1,200 this gospel shall be preached for a witness, then persons, writes: "While superintending the shall the end come." Can I, dare I say, if God work of two hundred workmen I also dispensed wants me to witness he will put me into the medicines to hundreds, preached the gospel for work; if he wants me to be a missionary he will hours at a time, taught the students at night, give me a missionary spirit? Is there the slight- and in three months traveled over 1,600 mUes." est ground for an if here' Are we not holding I don't believe in those cant phrases, "Trust iu the rebellions position of him who says, "If God God and all will come right," unless the rest be wants to save me he wi11 do it ?" He longs to added, Trust In God bnt cut the trees down; save, but he has conditioned salvation. "When trnst in God but burn them; trust In God but ye shall seek me with the whole heart, then shall plough the soil. ., Trust In God but sow the seed ye find me." Panl recognized this 800king at -sow it in tears. I believe we should think, any coot, as also the condition of service. "I plan, pray, and toil as if all depended on our fol(Qw ajt.er, if that I may apprehend that for work-excuse me, as if th.ere were no God. But which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus; I pree8 stop I At the same time conscious we cannot toward the mark of the high calling of God In hold the pen even without the power of our Christ Jesns." Conscious of the awfnlilmiting great, living and adorable Redeemer." Is not power of human inertia, he writes, " Stir up the this truth confirmed In the life of Paul and In gift that is In thee." the experience of every Christian f " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, Which is the greater, responsibilities In serv- for it is God that worketh in you." The divine ing or the responsibility of not serving' One and human are linked In every action. A divine says, I wonld not dare to be a missionary with- promise of Canaau was not realized for forty out a missionary spirit. But can you dare to years because of human unbelief. The promise, live withont it' Where lies the responsibility The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the if I have not the spirit? Perhaps it is not God's Lord, !bas waited fulfillment 1,800 years. Why f What more subtle and effective, way conld Satsn gift for me. "Let this mind be in you which devise than the unbelief of refusing to take was in Christ J esns." God's revealed will as his will for men? I have not the qualifications. "Who is able TWO NATIVE SIAMESE. to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think?" I am empty, so can't rnn [THE following thrilling letter will over. " Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it." be read with great interest. Though But am I eutitled to appropriate as miue the the editors withhold names, these high aud holy work of wituesslng for Jesus young Siamese are now 'in this coun- where he is not known? Keep and 800k all the commandments of the Lord your God. He has try, personally known and loved by given us the opportnnity of treadiug in the very US.-EDS.] footsteps of Jesus; like him to leave home; like him to be a stranger, despised, rejected; like My DEAR DR. PIERSON: him to seek and save the lost, the privilege of entering into fellowship with Christ's suJferlngs, I am constrained to appeal to yon, my good aud in him have it our meat and drink to do the friend of many years, for counsel and aid, If pos- will of the Father. Is it strauge that God should sible, in this time of need. You know some- not give such attainment until we covet them thing of the circumstances under which, when earuestly? Where was Dauiel when Gabriel In 1876, forced to leave Siam, my home for thirty touched him? "I set my face unto the Lord years, my wife's health brokeu down com_ God to seek by prayer and snpplication with pletely, we brought with us, to be educated In fastings." Again the conditiou appears In Ga- the United States, two Siamese lads, then each briel's words: " At the beginniug of thy supplica- 11 years old. One of these-the expense of whose tion the commandment came forth." passage home aud educatiou we took upon our But, says one, would not seeking to be a mis- sionary be taking the plan of our life Into our
selves-was the son of a true Christian woman- heading was executed stonce upon my poor boy's a treasure to the ladies in charge of the girls' mission boarding school in Bangkok, founded father; his mother and the other native wives by my wife, where she is native matron and teacher. Her heart's desire and prayer for her (the English wife with her babe made good boy was and is that he may become a preacher to his benighted countrymen. her escape to Englaud) were made slaves in tlie The other was the eldest son of one of the king's rice mills, and all the property was con· most intelligent and enterprising young noblemen in the kingdom, high in favor with the fiscated. The boy's graudfather and his two progressive young king, as were also his father and brothers, understanding, as they did, ma- uncles, once great favorites' with the king, were chinery, the steam-engine, photography, gasmaking, etc. The boy's grandfather was super- that same night arrested, sepiuztedinbycthhaeincs~oawnn.d intendent of the royal mint and a member of their houses and property the Idng's privy counCil, and the father had charge of the government gold mines at Pachim. And in chains they stilllu. It would seem as if They 80 earnestly requested us to take the nothing else than the ruin of the family could lad to Amel'ica with us, to be thoroughly educated as a civil and mining engineer, that we satisfy their vindictive enemy. And yet the could not refuse them, desirous as we were of still doing all in our power for the good of the king knows he had none more capable of servland and the people we so reluctlantiy left. So we brought on both these brave littie fellows ing him, but he is powerless against the exwith us across the seas. a~ members of our family, and in due time were established with regent, who in fact put him on the throne. I them in myoid home. I shonld have mentioned as to the latter of these lads that his friends, who cannot but believe however, that on the death were wealthy of course, were to defray all his expenses. of their foe (aud he is quite and old man) this I had been home littie over a year w hen cer- family will be restored to favor. . tain financial reverses left us with a home of our own to be sure, but without income, and with Notwithstanding these unexpected calamities the boy we had undertaken to bring up on our hands. One lad, however, still paid his expenses. which have befallen us, we have persevered iu Two years more passed away, and he too was thrown upon us for support. The story will our purpose to give these boys a thorough edusound like romance, but alas it is too true. cation, both for their own sakes and for Siant's The father had incurred the grave displeasure of his sovereign by strangely elopiug with the sake. They are intelligent and amiable, and, daughter (by a native mother, but highly educated i~ England) of the English cOJ:lsul-general better still, are, we trust, sincere Christians, In –carrying her oft' in a steam yacht, which he owned, to the mining works at Pachim, where 1880 both of them, desiriug to acknowledge behe was a sort 'of viceroy. Unfortnnately for the young noble, the ex-regent, the most pow- fore men the Saviour in whom they believed, erful of all the nobility, had a grudge against his family, and now was an opportunity to gratifY it. and beiug judged worthy, were baptized and re- He took advantage of the king's displeasure to bring charges against him ofembezzlemeut, etc., ceived to church membership. It strangely and when he returned from his three weeks' wedding trip to Bangkok, had him arrested. happened that the very next day there came He was whipped to extort confession, imprisoned, aud throwu into irons. across the seas the uuexpected aud terrible Mr. Consul- General, who at first had been tidings to the young noblemau of his father's exevery angry, now espoused the cause ot his new son·in-law and demanded his release, threaten- cution, hls mother's Slavery, and graudfather's ing a bombardment of the city by an English fleet, and actually ordering up from Siugapore an and uucles' imprisonment, aud of the loss of all. English gnnboat. The Siamese stood firm, however, and dispatched an envoy to England de- Poor boy I he had secured the unfailing Friend manding the consul's recall. This was fiually granted them, the English Government pro- none to soon. nouncing his interfereuce unjustifiable; and on the consul's leaving and the envoy's return They are both promising lads, Uniformly triumphant some months after, sentence of be- good reports as to their deportment and diligence have been received. The professor in charge of their class writes, "They are doing well in their studies," are H industrious land capable." One of them at the close of the first term" ranked .fifth in a class of 3·1," which is certainly very creditable to a boy from a heathen land in a New England school. They maintain too their Christian character and an earnest purpose to fit themselves for usefulness in the land of their birth. They are both 23 years of age. The young noblemau bears a strong resemblance to his unfortunate father whose career ended so tragically, and in looks is a good speCbneu of the better class of Siamese.
It may be that yon have iu the circle of your acquaintance those who could be induced to take an iuterest in the8e Siamese youth and carry them through their educatiou, and thus through them aid not a little in the work of Christianiz- ing and elevating that interestiug kingdom from which they come.
Tribute to Missionaries. I have of- ten been asked, "What of the mis- sionaries of the East? Are they true, and do they serve their Master?" And I have always been a swift witness to say-and I say it now, solemnly and emppa.tically-that if anywhere on it does not need the gospel; .and secthe face of the earth there exists a ondly, that there is any nation so low band of devout Christian men and down in degradation that it is incawomen, it is these. I personally know pable of receiving the gospel. The many men and women, and the names first has been exploded by the triof Dr. and Mrs. Riggs, the names of umphs of the gospel among the most Woods, Bliss, Pettibone, Herrick, accomplished, progressive nations, Dwight, and others spring up in my like India, China and Japan. As to memory most vividly. Their work is the other fallacy, let me mention one of that kind which will in future be or two facts. When Dr. Vander productive of the greatestgood. They Kemp went to labor in Cape Colony live and die in the work. One I know he found over the doors of nominally has been in the work fifty years. They Christian churches this sentence: are God's people and they should be " Dogs and Hottentots not admitted." remembered and sustained by us.- They classed the Hottentots with the General Lew Wallace. dogs, and would not have them even in Christian churches. When the Setting all religio1s questions aside, the civilizing power of the missions; Church Missionary Society went to the revolutions which have been consequent on their work; the coloniza- labor in Madagascar the French govtion, of which they were the pioneers; ernor of the Island of Bourbon said to the growing empires, founded on the missionaries, "Youmightjust as European and American civilization, well attempt to convert the cattle and of which they laid the foundations; sheep as to convert the Malagasy." the enlightening influences which And as to the Australian aborigines, have spread among barbarous nations it was thought at first that they were from their points of labor-all these so far gone that they could not apprecommand the profound respect of all ciate even the fundamental vital men of sense. The one great fact, truths of the gospel, putting them that the spread of the power of the into the simplest language in which English language as the language of you could clothe them. And yet commerce and advancing civilization, what has been done? The grandest receives an assured impetus from mis- victories of the gospel in the ninesions of English – speaking people, teenth century have been among makes these missions of paramount these very people. Madagascar has importance to the spread of British become a Christian island within less and American commerce.-.rournal than fifty years; and what triumphs of Oommerce. have been won among the Hottentots and the Australian aborigines! Taking pagan lands, we find two things. First, the people have lost Proposed New Missionary Society. faith in their religion. Sometimes The organization of a new misthey are not ready for any other faith sionary society is now being con- sidered by Christian workers in the because they are reduced to a condi- United States. Almost simulta- neously suggestions upon the subtion of skepticism or infidelity. Some- ject came from. China, Africa and times they nurse a secret faith until Chicago, to Dr. Dowkontt of the the deathbed, "that detector of the New York Medical Mission. The heart," reveals the real state of things. China Inland Mission and Bishop Sometimes they come out openly, as Taylor's Mission in Africa, which are in Southern India, and confess Jesus self-supporting, are the models set Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the before the friends interested. It is Father. Secondly, the gospel, by its proposed that the new organization triumphs, has exploded these two shall embrace some of the peculiar greatfallacies: first, that there is any features of the&e tWQ missions, and nation so high up in civilization that have in it the element of medical in less than 240 years it amounted to JDlSSlOns. The originators desire to take Canada into.. the organization more than two and a half millions of and make it a representative inter- dollars. And I asked myself whether national missionary society. The God would not make a dollar laid name which thus far commends itself up for him grow as rapidly as it does is " The Evangelical Medical Mission- by the laws of trade." GIVE 1 ary Society." Dr. Jefferis, the leading Con~ The Hope of Paganism. Christian- gationalist in the Sydney pulpit, de- ity is confessedly the greatest power clares that the most degrading in- . in the world. This is so politically, fluence in New South Wales is that commercially, intellectually and mor- of Parliament, which is characterized ally. There are other faiths, as by the intemperate use of strong Buddhism, with a more numerous fol- drink, clouding the faculties of its lowing, but none with comparable members and rendering legislation power. The powerful and ruling na- impossible. tions are Christian nations. The ag- gressive force, the elements of con- Afrlca.-As an instance how entirely quest and molding influence-wealth, the German authorities in East Africa learning, enterprise, progress-are all are attempting to make the mission- in Christian hands. It is a significant aries subserve to their colonizing pur- fact that the political power of poses, not only are German terri- Christendom dominates almost en- tories to be made the preserves of tire paganism, whilst one-third of Protestant missionaries from Ger- paganism is under the absolute sway many to the exclusion of other na- of Christian rulers. All the forces tionalities, but arrangements have of modern thought are Christian. been made with the Pope to establish The eyes of heathenism are turned an ApostolicPrefecturein EastAfrica to the centers of Christendom. The to be occupied by German priests heathen world, dissatisfied with its alone. The French missionaries of religion and civilization, not less the well-known mission atBagomoyo, than with its poverty and misery, is opposite the island of Zanzibar, have looking toward Christendom for help. been constrained to place themselves They are· waiting for deliverance temporarily under German protec- without knowing what it is they are tion, and to continue in their office waiting for. Heathenism cowers and until German priests are duly quali- shrinks away in conscious weakness fied to take their place and develop before Christian thought and Chris- the German language and German tian institutions. Christian truth sat- influence. This appears to be a death- urates the atmosphere of the globe. The very essence of Christianity is blow to real spiritual missionary that it reconstructs man and makes him anew creature. Itnot only recasts work, as the missionaries will degenhis ideas and practices, it resets his erate into German officials, doing the affections and will. It is a life. It is work of chaplains to the German this fact, more than its external vic- settlers and state educationists, and tories, that gives us the confidence deprived of all free action. The that it will possess and remake the French priests set a bad example of world.-Bishop R. S. Foster. preaching France and Christ, and they have found now that the Ger- Dr. Deems relates that one of God's stewards once said to him: "I sat man Government is ready to play the down a night or two ago and calculated the increase of a dollar at same game with a much stronger compound, interest, and found that hand.-Church Miss. Intelligencer.
Life on the Congo. The Rev. W. Holman Bentley, an English mission- ary, has published a. book entitled .. Life on the Congo." Mr. Bentley has been longer in the Congo region than almost any other missionary, have been recently surprised by calls from the Paranapanema district for .and his book contains much that is the govermnent to send Jesuit mis- sionaries to catechise, corral and bapvaluable on the physIcal character- tize pro forma the Chavantes and Guatos, who were coming into the istics and climate of the country, the frontier plantations by fifties and hundreds. Heretofore it has been home life and superstitions of the the fashion to hunt these" buqres" and shoot them for sport like any natives, the experiences of the mis- other wild game; but a few warm- hearted men tried the other plan, sionaries, and some of the results of that of treating them liko human beings, and the result is that they are their labors. It is not yet ten years begging to be taken care of. These tribes are of a peculiarly timid and since the first missionaries at'rived in peaceable disposition, and only at- tack the white settlers when forced the country, and yet already there are to retaliate. The whole district lying between the Paranapanema and the native Christian churches at Mukim- Tiete is peopled by these tribes.
bungu, Lukunga, Banza, Manteka and Here is the finest chance in history for those of our Christian friends who San Salvador; there being about 1,500 do not believe in missions in papal countries. A million of native Americonverts, whose sincerity is attested can pagans; 20,000 immediately ac- cessible! There is a large class of by the self-denial and consistency of so-called "tame Indians" scattered throughout the empire, whose conditheir lives. There are more than fifty tion is wretched almost beyond de- scription, and who know nothing of missionaries, but the greater part of Christ Ot· his salvation. Thecondi- tion of the wild Indian of these souththem have but recently arrived. ern provinces is simply that of a wild animal, naked and unspeakably Mr. Bentley believes that Bishop filthy. Has he a soul, and have Christian people a duty toward him? Taylor's self-supporting idea is im- The work of the government is a farce, so far as any serious attempt practicable in Africa, and that it to evangelize the Indians is concern- ed. The frontiersman shoots him "could only be entertained by those without compunction, the Jesuit en- slaves him in the most literal sense. ignorant of African life and circum- Who is interested in the poor Indian, and who believes that Christ died for stances. This will be a matter of him ?-Brazilian Missions.
painful experience." He gives the France.-The Huguenot Church in France is just now appealing to following illustration of the risks and American friends. By the terms of the Edict of Nantes which received difficulties of some. men with whom the signature of Henry IV. May 2, 1598, the utmost freedom of worship he was acquainted: granted to the Protestants of Paris was the freedom to assemble outside "A few months ago a faith-healing mission, a party of four men, sent by Mr. Simpson's church in New York, started for the Congo. They held this same notion of selfsupport, and of being able to establish mission work far into the interior with a small sum of money. I saw the leader of the party, gave him the fullest information and more advice than was agreeable. They reached the Congo, and ignoring medicine the leader died in a week or two, the rest were obliged to abandon their principles, and the mail of May brought a message from them that the:y wished they had followed my adVICe. They had come to the end of their means; differences had arisen; without money enough to return home they were hoping to get some employment on the coast and thus to earn sufficient to return. Such a story nt'eds no comment, but certainly ought to be known."-Spirit of Missions.
Brazil.-The fact that there is a round million of wild Indians on the plains and in the selvas of Brazil is practically ignored by the Christian world. We who live in the country the city walls. In the suburb of church throughout all France if Charenton, accordingly, they built a another Protestant sanctuaryj ·how- Christian tern pIe. It had provision e,'er humhle, is built on that ground for 8,000 worshipers. The lj,l'chitect so memorable and sacred and from was the famous Debrosses, designer which the blood of the martyrs cries. of the palace of the Luxembourg. In that church outside the walls India.-As an instance of inquiry worshiped a multitude of the faith- among the educated classes in Inful of whom the France of that day dia, it is stated that in Calcutta a was not worthy. well-known Brahman recently called on Dr. Baumann, who in the course On the 22d of Octoner, 1685, just of conversation asked him whether 202 years ago, the revocation of the he had ever read our Bible. The man Edict of Nantes was registered and on looked at him and then slowly rethe day of the registering the destruc- plied, "I have read the New Testation of the great Protestant church at ment eighty-three times and the Old Charenton was begun! Not one stone Testament twenty-seven." was left upon another. The Huguenots residing there were cruelly per- There are thousands of towns and secuted and dispersed. cities in India and China with a pop- ulation ranging from 5,000 upward, For nearly two hundred years Cha- accessible to Christian life, that never renton has had no public Protestant have hdd a single missionary to tell worship, though the popUlation is them of the way of life. If the Im- 60,000. About ten years ago, how- man family are equally divideo, male ever, Professor Charles Clouet, con- and female, there are 500,000,000 of nected with the Belleville station of women and girls who have never had Mr. McAll's wonderful mission, be- a chance to heal' the name of Jesus. gan mission preaching at Charenton. In unbroken procession, one by one, He has already gathered a church of they would, in passing your door, 286 Huguenot members, poor in this consume thirty successive years. world's goods but rich in faith. These members have been worship- Bombay is a perpetual wonderland. ing in an old workshop, dingy and 'Vhence came the 800,000 inhabismall, and for years have hoped to tants? Last week a Greenlander build a sanctuary. During these called, seeking work. Two days aftel' years, despite their poverty, they I>. man from Australia wrote me askhave paid for a lqt costing $3,600. ing a fayor. A few weeks ago a West They have succeeded in laying by Indian came to attend to repairs on $1,000 toward a building fund. A my house. Last Sunday night I crisis, however, has come. In April preached to a congregation at which next the workshop is to be taken sat, side by side, a Russian from the down for business purposes. There Baltic, and an Armenian from the is no rental available for them, ex- foot of Mount Ararat. Among my pacept at ruinous rates. Therefore, rishiont'rs are an Abyssinian, Turks Professor Ciouet, bringing letters of from the Dardanelles, Greeks from warmest commendation and most tile Adriatic, Sidhee boys from, Zanearnest appeal from such men as zibar. Norwegians and South Afri- Monod, De Pressense, Bersier and cans live, do business and <lie in this McAIl, is now here for the raising of human hive. Is it not a wonderland? $5,000. God is working in this city. I found the Greenlander trusted him, the The churches of our country, with- Abyssinian wept as she talked of him out distinction of denomination, and the Sidhee boy from Zanzibar ought to take up the work and Cl'own needed him. it with speedy success. It would give inspiration to the Huguenot Miss Tucker ( "A. L. O. E.") went to India in her fifty-fourth year, and is now in her eleventh year ofservice under the preaching of Mr. Knowles, there. She has been enabled not only an Englishma.n, and his colleagues, to learn the language but also to visit members of the North India Meth~ habitually in more than one hundred odist Episcopal Conference. Mr. Knowles has been in the mission work zenanas, besides influencing in a very for a number of years. He has been considerable degree various portions led to feel that greater privileges of India by her writings. belong to Christian believers than have been generally realized; that Native Christians. Rev. E. Mac- through faith the gift of the Holy kenzie Cobham of Madras says of Spirit might be received in large the native Christians in India: measure both for one's self and others, and that through this gift God would .. I went one day to our chief conunissioner do his own work of conversion far of police in Madras to ask for the criminal more grandly than we had ever bestatistics of our presidency. First of all lieved. Accordingly, when preachhe told me who were the worst people in ing at the" melas " or great religious Madras. Government divides the population gatherings of the Hindus, he has into three classes-Christians, Mussulmans, been wont to press upon his hearers and Hindus. In Madras, a city of 400,000 the importance of °an "immediate people, which of these three classes is the decision." He declares himself ready best, which the worst? Government says: to baptize immediately, without fur- 'The statistics which we have received say ther test or instruction, any who will this: The Mussulmans are not the best peo- come forward and publicly avow a ple, the Hindus are not the best, the Chris- belief in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. tians are the best people.' Out of every A large number of baptisms have thus 447 Hindus we have a criminal; out of every been made of those who, up to the 700 Mussulmans in the city of Madras we moment of preaching, were thorough have a criminal; but it takes 2,500 Chris- Hindus, in full caste relations. tians to make one. Out of every 100,000 Hindus throughout the 31,000,000 of the Ma- The same course is pursued by the dras Presidency we have 49 criminals; we American United Presbyterians in have 06'2 criminals out of every 100,000 Mo- the Punjab, and thus far with unusual hammedans; but we have only 16 out of success. Whole villages have come every 100,000 Christians. That is the testi- to Christ and called for instant bapmony of governm,mt. The fact is, that if tism, which has been given, with full all the population of the Madras Presidency admittance to the church. The Methwere Christians, we should have 12,000 fewer odists and the Church Missionary criminals every year than we now have. Society prefer, as a rule, not to allow Christianity in South India has won the instantaneous baptism. The advorespectand esteem of the whole community. cates of instantaneous baptism ask, Not long ago one of my evangelists met in "Is not this the' way, after all, in the street a Hindu with a troubled counte- which the bulk of the people of India nance, a man who had a great deal of money are to be brought to Christ-not by with him. He had gone to the town to col- preliminary education, which can lect what seemed a bad debt, oand he haa reach only a few at a time, and may got it. Hehad tied it round his waist. Then draw men away from Christ instead came the trouble to keep the money. He was of toward him" (meaning evidently afraid, since he was in a strange town, that that such may be the effect of instrucitmight be stoleu, and that he might be tion in speculative and metaphysical murdered. He met my evangelist, and saw dogma), but by conversion, with inby his dress that he was a Christian, he stantaneous baptism to seal the act. saw by his face that he was a Christian; for God puts a bit of sunshine beneath a Mr. Lawrence gives a most interbrown skin, you know. He said, 'Sir, I esting account of successful work in should like to stay at your house, if you Bombay, and especially of the only please, to-night.' 'Oh I but,' said the evangelist, 'my dear sir, I am a Christian, you are a Hindu; there are thousands of Hindus here.' 'Yes, it is just because you are a Christian I want to stay with you. I can trust a Christian, but I cannot trust a Hindu.'" Is not one such testimony worth a volume of sneers?
"Instantaneous Baptism." Remark- able conversions have taken place self-supporting native church in the done everything that malice could city, and of the work it is doing. invent to annoy and impoverish the colony. "They seized," said he, .. The working force of this church is or- "our church, our village hall, our ganized into a kind of Christian Endeavor cannery, sa.wmill, store and work- Society. having from fiftEen to twenty men shop. They have taken from us over and women connected with it, who do regular 80,000 feet of lumber that was in unpaid work for Ohrist. His last night in stock at our sawmill, and white men India was spent at a tea-meeting of this have been sent to the old village and society. The hostess was a native lady, a ordered to take arms against our member of the church, who was supporting people if we attempt to bring away and teaching a school of native children in the buildings I have named. The one of the most thickly settled portions of poor people are almost afraid to go Bombay. Her husband is a Christian in for their personal property, and nothgovernment employ, and it seems to be his ing would gratify our enemies more· highest aim to have a little independent than to see the people driven to deschurch near his wife's school, where as a peration and commit some breach of layman he may regnlarly preach the gospel. the peace whereby the law, so called, Altogether I may say I have never found a might be invoked to punish them." church at home more full of the true spirit He also refers to his hope for a grant of the coming kingdorn, more ready to learn of land from the American Governand teach, to prayand labor, to receive from ment, and says that the Governor of God,andgive and do for God, than this com- Alaska has sent to him a commission pany of ninety-six Indian Christians in the of the peace, which makes him an city of Bombay." American citizen.-F. G. Carpenter.
Alaska.-The New Settlement of Madagascar.-Mr. and Mrs. Stowell the Indians in Alaska is to be called Ashwell have safely arrived attheir New Metlakahtla, and from a letter destination in the centre of the island written by Dr. Duncan, October 29, of Madagascar. Mr. Ashwell has I find that it is bravely under way. been sent out to take charge of the Eight hunared .of the Indians have society's printing establishment at crossed in canoes from British Colum- the capital. He is delighted with that bia to this point, and the work of important institution, and thinks the clearing the forest is now going on. greatest credit is due to his predecess- A line of huts nearly a mile long has or, Mr. Parrett, who had the training been built among the big trees upon of the staff of workmen.-Chronicle the shore, and a steam sawwill has London Miss. Society. been erected and is at work. The natives have built a 1l1rge salmon Pamare,Queen ofTahiti and Moorea, cannery, 100 feet long by 34 feet died at seventy years of age. At her wide, and this will be used as a birth not one convert had been made church and school until other build- in the South Sea Islands. At her ings can be provided. The Alaskan death, after years of faithful Chris- Indians are deeply interested in the tian life, more than 300 islands were new colony, and a number of· them wholly evangelized, and the gospel leaven is permeating the entire lump. have visited it. Dr. Duncan has the plans ready for building a guest- The Woman's Missionary organihouse to take care of strangers, and zations in this country and Great he hopes to extend his civiliiing work Britain report 19,286 auxiliaries, 5,193 to the Indians of his new territory. bands, 999 missionaries in their vari- The Sunday services during October ous fields, 2,219 Bible readers and were held in the open air, but at the teachers, 2,305 schools and 59,318 time of writing he expected to have pupils. Their aggregate increase the big building ready November for 1886 was $1,221,649.57, an increase 6, and they are probably in it at on the preceding year of $68,947.96. this time. In his letter he states that the governments of British Columbia and Canada and the ecclesiastical party of the English Chm'ch have
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
III.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MISSIONARY UNION."
The Spiritual Element in Mission Work. ject, that of devout waiting before THE leading article of this "de- God. And yet the" shortcomings" partment" for the March REVIEW, was on the impulse got from well- of Christians when measured each by conducted" simultaneous meetings." It must have been remarked that the his own ideal so faithfully analyzed special aim of those meetings was by the Ven. Archdeacon Richardson not primarily to convey instruction, as "the coming-short" . • • "found but to develop the truly spiritual ele- in the development only in some and ments necessary for the successful the shrinking· of other parts," must prosecution of the work by those at naturally have quickened their spirhome and those afield. The "simul- itual perceptions. Rev. Hadley C. taneous meetings movement," origi- G. Moule thought no sort of missionnated by the Church of England mis- ary meeting was so likely to be made sionary secretaries, has been followed a vehicle of calling out personal servby another phase of the same general ice and calling out from those who effort to restore the devout element could not go personally, just that to missionary work. The committee spirit of prayer and self-sacrifice of the Church Missionary Society in- which would result in personal servvited their friends to join them in a ice of others, as this sort of meeting. " Whole-day Devotional Gathering" Information was not enough, general on Wednesday, January 11, saying appeals were not enough. He shrank thatitseemed tothemthat the present from criticising missionaries, but he was ,. a time when 'the members of knew from themselves their manifold the society are specially called to ap- temptations, by the solitudes of proach the throne of grace in solemn Africa, by the society of India, by supplication, confession, intercession, external success, by working for ten dedication, and praise." The place years without a convert, and by facset for the holding of this meeting ing heathenism. Rev. Canon Hare was Exeter Hall, London, and the knew there were periods of special programme divided the devotional manifestation of God's powel' "in a topics as follows: Morning meeting, way not known at other times." So "Spiritual Shortcomings;" afternoon it had been in the history of their meeting, "Spiritual Possibilities;" own missions-men had toiled and evening meeting, ." Spiritual Deter-· died one after another and their minations." Eminent men were se- wives had died. From 1804 till 1816 cured, three for each session, to pre- there was in Africa not one single sent these topics. The remarkable baptism, and then the fountain was thing about these addresses was that opened. So it was in New Zealand. they were not remarkable at all. They had toiled on without success Tp.ey were just such familiar utter- from 1814 t.ill1825-eleven long years ances as one hears over and often in -without a baptism. So it had been exhortations to holy living and even in Foo Chow. They had gone on in prayer-meeting addresses. This, for eleven years toiling without one we suspect, was deeply intentional. baptism till there was a great discus- A brilliant address might have di- sion whether or not the mission verted attention from the main ob- should not be abandoned, and one young man-he remembered him well as a Scripture reader at Margate who used to come over to him at Rams- General Assembly of Proteetant .Mis- gate to talk about missionary work, sions in Mexico.
and who had gone to Foo-Chow- OUR correspondence from Mexico when everyone said it was to be just now is full and intensely intergiven up had said, "You may give esting. The topic which is most up the mission, but I will remain." prominent is the General Conference That very year baptisms began, and which the several missions carrying a shower was poured forth from on work have held in the city of Mex- God. ico. Pan-denominational conferences are not a novelty on other greater The Rev. C. A. Fox said it was by foreign mission fields, but this was cleansing and purging that all the churches must be fitted for their the first attempt within the Republic great and glorious work. There of Mexico to bring together repre- were indeed open doors everywhere. sentatives of all the Protestant The Bible was open in 300 languages. churches and societies in the country.
The world was open all round as it The societies, missions and agents had navel' been before. The doors who took part in this conference, arwere open everywhere. What was ranged chronologically in the order wanted was the open windows of of the beginning of their work, were: heaven pouring out such a blessing 1. The Baptists (Northern Convenas they could not even measure. tion). who commenced work May, And there must be the fourth bap- 1869, and now operate in six states of tism which they read of in the Epistle the republic. 2. The Protestant Epis- -that they should all be baptized copals, formerly "Church of Jesus" into one body. Christ claims us, said (1869), but adopted by the Protestant Episcopal Church by General Con- Rev. Evan H. Hopkins-claims own- vention, 1886, and are now carrying ership, claims possession, claims con- on work in Central Mexico. 3. The trol. God undertakes for us. Sir Friends, who began in 1871 and con- Arthur Blackwood, speaking of spirit- duct a mission at Tamaulipas. 4. The ual determinations, said it was rather Central Presbyterian, who began in spiritual determination, not of the 1872 and operate in the Federal Disparticular resolution that they might trict and several states. 5. The Presbe inclined to form, but of the atti- byterian mission of Zacatecas (1872), tude of soul in which they were, the working in five states. 6. The Methdetermined attitude rather than the odist Episcopal Church South (1873), individual determinations. The now a conference with six districts in blessed result which they desired fifteen different states. 7. Methodist would depend not on the numbers o[ Episcopal Church (1873), working in the Federal District and seven states, their gatherings, not even on the now organized as an annual confer- scripturalness of the addresses that ence with three districts. 8. The might be given, but on the attitude Methodist Episcopal Church South of soul in which those gatherings left has frontier conference since 1874, them. working in seven frontier states. 9.
These brethren of the English The Southern Presbyterian Church Church have set the example, and it (1874), working in two states. 10. The is worthy of imitation. A whole-day Reformed Presbyterian Mission (1880), missionary prayer-meeting, in which also working in two states. 11. The we pray not so much for missions and Southern Baptist Church (1881), work- missionaries as for the missionary i.ng in four states. 12. The" Ameri- spirit-the consecration and spiritual can Board" (1882) mission in Chihua- uplifting that fits for the work. hua. 13. The same society's mission in J alisco (1872), abandoned 1880 and This subject, we may be allowed to re-establishedin 1882. 14. The Friends say in passing, is one of wide inter- (1886), with work in Central Mexico. est. The standard Romish versions 15. The Cumberland Presbyterian of the Scriptures in Spanish are two mission (1886), operating in Aguas -Scio's and Amat's-both from the Calientes. 16. The "American Board" Vulgate. The Protestant text is (1886), at Sonora. 17. The "Church mainly that of Valera. At present of Jesus," a small independent body, this is the text followed by the Amerso called, still under Bishop Riley, ican and the British Bible Societies and which has refused to be received for· Spanish America, though the' by the Protestant Episcopal Church. American Bible Society has issued por- 18. An independent English mission, tions we believe of other translations. under charge of James Pascor, a con- Valera's style is that of the sixteenth verted miner, who works among the century, and as various attempts Indians of the State of lfexico. De- have been made to modernize it the nominationally, perhaps, he is a sort result is, several, at least seven, differof "Plymouth" brother. This com- ent texts are in print with sufficient pany represented twelve different variation to create great confusion in churches or denominations, carrying their use; while Valera's text itself on work in every state of the Mexican was defective, and its style is, of Republic except Campeche and Chia- course, archaic and mystical. pas. Dr. Patterson of the Methodist The opening service (Jan. 31) was Episcopal Church South presented addressed by Rev. Dr. Green, who the subject of territorial division of preached to about five hundred per- the country between the different sons in the Presbyterian church. The denominations, and after a warm formal opening of the Assembly in discussion a resolution was presented the fine audience room of the Trinity to the effect that in all towns of over Methodist Episcopal church was on 15,000 inhabitants more than one Feb. 1, the representatives sitting by church might establish missions, but delegation, and after an hour of in towns of less population only one prayer was organized by appointing society should enter; and if two or a Spanish and an English secretary. more societies are now opel'ating in Dr. S. P. Craver (Methodist Episco- such towns the field should be a!Janpal) read an essay on the attitude they doned by all except the society which should assume toward the Roman first began work in that place. The Catholic church, and then the ques- entire subject was referred to a comtion of Bible translation was pre- mittee, consisting of one from each sented, Rev. H. P. Hamilton (A. B. S.) denomination present. speaking of the need of revising the Spanish version of the Bible, and also Among the topics treated were of translating the Scriptures into the "Self – Support" and "Gambling." vernacular of the native Mexican peo- During the discussion of "Education ple. Rev. H. B. Pratt of Virginia, an of the Ministry," Rev. P. Rodrigues eminent Spanish scholar, who was of the Protestant Episcopal Church sent specially by the American Bible advocated the establishment of one Society to attend this Assembly, ad- preparatory school for all Mexico. vocated the revision of the Spanish translation, and pressed its impor- The Assembly sent its congratulatance among sixty millions of J?eople tions to the President of the Repubspeaking the Spanish tongue. The lic. Amongtbe distinguished visitors whole subject was referred to a com- to the Assembly were Bishop Harmittee of one from each denomina- grave and Dr. Morton (M. E. Church tion represented. South), Bishop Thos. M. Bowman, Dr. Wm. Butler, founder of M. E. Church missions in India and Mexico, and Dr. J. M. Reid, senior secretary of the foreign missionaries are chilof the M. E. Missionary Society. dren of ministers.
The statistics of the several mis- The Situation and the Outlook in Ohina. siot;!s were carefully prep~red by Rev. John W. Butler of the City of Mexico, BY REV. C. A. STANLEY, TIENTSIN, as follows: Number of centers of CHINA.
operation, lil6; of congregations, 393 ; LOOK at the map of China and take ordained foreign missionaries, 48; in the size of the country. It ex- tends over about 20 degrees of latiassistant foreign missionaries, 44; tude and 24 degrees of longitude. It foreign lady teachers, 43. Total for- contains 2,000,000 square miles of eign workers, 125; ordained native territory and has a coast line from preachers, 88; unordained, 65; na- southwest to northeast of over 2,000 tive teachers, 96; other native help- miles. Its dense population is variers, 49. Total native workers, 300 ; ously estimated at from 250,000,000 total of foreign and native work- to 400,000,000-we will say about ers, 4550. Organized churches, 177; 300,000,000. It is an old nation. It church members, 12,444; probable possesses an extensive literature, one adherents, 30,000; theological schools, book of poetry comprising 900 vol- 10 ; scholars in same, 66; boarding umes. Its culture and civilization schools and orphanages, 15; scholars are hoary with age, and are well in same, 687; of these 109 are sup- worth our study. They are practiported by indigenous resources. Com- cally what they were centuries ago. mon schools, 71; scholars in same, Her laws are spoken of as " copious, 2,187. Total unde1' instruction, 2,516. consistent, free from intricacy, big- :sunday-schools, 199; teachers and otry and fiction," and as little infeofficers, 367; scholars, 4,817. Total rior to the codes of Europe. The membership of Sunday-schools, 5,256. "Ritual of Chau," B. C. 1130, formed Publishing houses, 8; papers issued, the type of construction for the" Six 10; most of these are issued monthly, Boards" of the present government. two semi-monthly and oue weekly. Total pages of religious literature To understand the situation we issued from the beginning, 49,471,295. must look at the past. Note the ex- Number of church buildings, 73; ceptional opportunity the Chinese approximate value of same, $333,400 ; people had throughout centuries to number of parsonages, 39; value of develop their individuality in peculiar same, $93,260; educational buildings, circumstances, in their own way, and 16; value, $147,200; value of press amid the best conditions. (1) They property, $39,500. Total value of were to no perceptible extent affectmission property, $594,260. Of the ed by foreign influence or intervenchapels and churches sixteen were tion. They have been a nation apart, built without aid from home boards, separdte, as few nations have been, and nineteen received only partial and that while time grew hoary. aid, which is encouraging and indi- This will become apparent if we concates a disposition to aim for "self- sider that (a) as a nation China is support." Bro. Butler notes also in isolated geographically. On the his correspondence that the Mexican south and east it is guarded by the church can make sacrifices for Christ's ocean. On the north it is separated cause. She has already added fifty- from the Mongolian plateau by high nine to the-" noble army of,mar- and precipitous ranges of mountains, tyrs." He remarks also that two reinforced by the great wall, which native preachers are sons of former stretches its serpentine length of workers, three foreign missionaries 1,500 miles across its northern borare children of missionaries, and nine der. The western frontier is correspondingly hemmed in by moun- religious system so much as a moral tains, thus making its geographical philosophy, although it contains position unique. But (b) China is many religious elements. Not only isolated by its language. This has no its moral tone but its distinct moral affinity with or similarity to any utterances surpass in my opinion the other of the Oriental tongues. It has teachings of any other non-Christian no alphabet. It is monosylabic. It nation. And although terrible wick- has not grown away from its original edness and corruption prevail the simplicity of structure. The speech moral sense of the nation and the of to-day is essentially the speech of laws are wholly on the side of virtue, three thousand years ago. The char- truth and honesty, and can always acters remain as they were construct- be appealed to with the certainty of ed at the first. The idiom is the same. a response. The teachings of Con- As they thought then so they think fucius have molded and govern the now, and so they speak. Moreover social and family relations, and the (c) the surrounding nations were small principle of filial reverence, exagger- in extent, weak in power and defi- ated by him into the real worship of cient in attainments, and sought the ancestors, has thereby perhaps kept Chinese as guides and instructors. woman from the degree of degrada- Their literature, culture and civiliza- tion which prevails in most other tion were derived from China. Its heathen lands.
sacred books became their sacred Here I would call attention to four books in many cases. Hence there points of politieal significance in the was little fear of invasion. Possessed growth of the country, and which of extensive territory, there was owe their existence, I think, to the equally little occasion for aggressive Confucian teachings.
warfare beyond natural limitations. 1. China has mu.intained demo- It was therefore left free relatively to cratic ideas under a purely despotic develop its own institutions, and es- theory of government. The entire pecially its literature, according to local village and clan administration its own genius and after its own is essentially democratic. Patient un- model. der oppre~sion, this spirit is manifest But these conditions alone could when the people rise in a b6dy against not have developed such a national oppressh'e rulers and exacting offi- life, such a continuity and uniformi~ cials, and assert theiL' rights and se- ty of endurance, language, custom cure them temporarily. In such up- and habit. We must seek other rising's the people are helped by the causes for these wonderful results. teachings of the sage, and conversely They are very largely found (2) in the a beneficent ruler is equally strength- moral and social teachings of the an- ened by an appeal to those precepts.
cient sages and rulers during the in- 2. The rights of the subject have fancy and simplicity of the race, and been respected by giving them the reimpressed by Confucius more than protection of law. It may seem to twenty centuries ago. Confucius' ~s cruel and arbitrary and be badly claimed that he was not an origina- administered, but it is settled and tor. He reverenced the sages of the largely.known among the people.
past. He strove to revive a love for That subjects have certain rights is them and lead the nu.tion back to the acknowledged.
observance of their teachings. In 3. The sovereign is held amenable doing this he dwelt upon seemingly to a higher power for continued swav.
trivial matters of observance. But Any extensive calamity is consider;d .
he knew his people, u.s is evident to be in consequence of misrule or from the influence his teachings ex- , maladministration of law and calls ert to 'day. Confucianism is not a for humiliation, confession and repentance on the part of the emperor " opium war" began. This issued in and his subordinates. We not infre- a treaty which opened the five ports quently see calls to righteousness in of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo the way of edicts from the throne and and Shanghai to foreign residence. witness the humble presentation of These were occupied as speedily as petitions at the temples by those possible by the missionaries who had highest in authority, including the been waiting long on the borders. emperor. In 1843 active operations were begun within the empire. Later treaties 4. The domination of feudal, hered- opened other ports. In 1858 came itary and priestly classes has been the second war with Great Britain, prevented by making elevation to when the allied forces of England _ and promotion in office depend on lit- and France bombarded the Takoo erary examinations. Here is an old- forts at the mouth of the Pei Ho, protime civil service of merit. Although ceeded to Tientsin and secured the it has been and is abused, yet proba- promise of further concessions. On bly much more than half the officials the departure of the invading force hold their positions regularly. the forts were restored and strength- ened, the promises were disregarded Two facts of a religious nature, and little came of it all until the fall which though negative have yet ex- of 1860 when the allies again proceederted an unquestioned influence in ed north, marched on Peking, dethe formation of the national charac- stroyed the" Summer Palace," and ter, should be mentioned in passing. secured the opening of other coast 1. So far as I can learn, human beings and river ports. Since then the have never been offered in sacrifice whole country has been practically for sin. 2. Vice and sensuality have open to travel with a passport, and never been deified. The way of the we can go anywhere at little risk, if sinner has not been made easier by careful, preaching and distributing causmg it to pass through a temple Christian books. Residence is grantand giving it the sanction of religion. ed by treaty only at the "treaty The natural result of all this was ports," but missionaries have generpride, conceit,. arrogance, in view of ally been able to secure residence at China's own attainments in compari- interior places by rental or purchase. son with the surrounding countries, Honan is the only province we have to whom "The Middle Kingdom" been unable to enter for residence. had given much while it had receiv- ed little in return. They and all Viewing the work by decades the " outside" peoples became despised growth has been as follows: In 1853 in the eyes of Chinese. Such in brief there were 350 enrolled church mem- '»as the people and such the situation bers. In 1863 there were 2,000. In when the gospel was first borne to 1873 there were 8,000. In 1883 there them. were 22,000. And now there are not less than 30,000 Christians scattered The first missionary, Rev. Robert among the towns and villages of the Morrison, reached Canton in 1807. eighteen provinces; for all that I He could only study the language have said refers to these alone and and do preliminary work. There was not to the dependencies. Not less no opportunity to reach the people. than 14,000. children are taught in the The missionaries sent out had to la- different mission schools. There are bor entirely among the Chinese of eighteen hospitals in which 150,000 the "Straits Settlements." Morri- patients receive treatment annually. son died in 1834. The outlook then was "nearly as dark as when he Look at the work in a smaller field landed." Only three Christians could be found in Canton in 1835. In 1841 and for a fewer number of years- the troubles which resulted in the the North China field. Rev. H. Blodget reached Tientsin on Nov. 8, 1860, nifica.nt utterance. Further, censors going north in one of the transport have memorialized the throne, recomships of the allied fleet. His mission, mending that western studies be the A. B. C. F. M., now occupies six placed on the list with their own stations and is opening another. classics for the examination of those Five, or, including Shansi, seven seeking degrees and promotion. This other societies, have since entered seems to be receiving favorable con- this northern field. There are now sideration. enrolled over 30,000 Christians in less than twenty-seven years of labor. It Such, briefly and very imperfectly, is estimated by careful observers that is the situation to-day. The whole in' addition to the more than 30,000 country is open and full of opportuni- Christians in the empire there are ties to do effectiYe work for the Mas- not less than 50,000 to 70,000 who ter. Not that there are no difficulhave lost all faith in other systems ties, no opposition, no hindrances and of religion, if indeed they have not occasional local and temporary inter- abandoned them. But this is not all. ference and stoppage of the work, as The prejudice of exclusiveness, pride, everywhere, but these do not alter bigotry, contempt for all outside of the great fact. The outlook is indi- China, and conceit of themselves, cated in the array of facts above given have gradually given way and sus- -churches, hospitals, schools, 30,000 picion has been overcome as the Christians and double that number years have passed. Steam has been of "adherents" scattered throughout introduced on the water and on the the land; prejudice and suspicion land, and its power is felt deep down largely disarmed; hundreds seeking in the mine. The telegraph and the western knowledge and science; the telephone arethere. Schoolsfor teach- government not hostile. Surely there ing the knowledge of western lands is no cause for anything but encour- and the English language and fitting agement. Great enlargement seems young men for official positions have not far distant. been established by the government. There is an increasing demand for Death of Rev. George Bowen.- western knowledge and science. It is becoming apparent to all that the The cable has brought the news of work of missions must be enlarged so the death of Rev. George Bowen at as to include a complete education in Bombay Feb. 5, 1888. Some time such western knowledge as is adapt- last fall he met with an accident in ed to the needs of a rapidly develop- alighting from a tramcar. We do ing country. The demand for this not know any of the particulars of knowledge is increasing, and if facil- his death. He was born in the ities for acquiring it are not furnished United States in 1816. He went to by the church which are thoroughly India as a missionary of the Ameri- Christian it will flow in skeptical can Board of Foreign Missions Jan- channels, and much of our work be uary, 1848. The following year he lost or have to be done over again. resigned his salary, but his relation Then, too, there is the edict issued to the society continued until 1855. from the throne early in the year and For seventeen years following he. ordered to be published all over the was not connected with any mission- empire. It speaks of the missiona- ary society. In 1872 he joined the ries as "guests," and directs that Methodist Episcopal Church in Bom- they shall not be interfered with in bay, and in 1873 the missionary . their labors since they have come to staff of that church. From 1854 to teach morals. However little it may the time of his death he was editor accomplish at once, it is a very sig- of The Bombay Guardian, one of the most vigorous and best-balanced Christian weeklies of the foreign mission field. Among the produc- manners. He subsequently abantions of his pen are a "Life of Mo- doned this course, being convinced hammed," "Discussions by the Sea- that it did not im,rease his influence side," "Abiding 1'Iliracles of Proph- or usefulness among the natives. ecy," "Friendly Words to Roman- Yet there is something thrilling in ists," "The Religion that Man the example and the honest experi- Needs," "Did Christ Rise Again?" ment made by a cultured Christian "Some Friendly, Words," "Friendly gentleman who had traveled in Words to Educated Natives," "Paul Europe and knew French, German, the Christian's Pattern," "Is Infant Spanish, Italian and other European Baptism Unwarranted?" But those languages, besides some Oriental by which he is most known and tongues, as Hindustani and Marathi. through which many thousands He was later secretary of the Religlearned to love him though they ious Tract Society, residing at their never otherwise knew him are" Daily depot and managing their affairs Meditations," "The Amens of without fee in addition to all other of Christ," and" Love Revealed." his duties. He was a cheerful, self- sacrificing, devoted missionary and a The preface to "Daily Meditations," loving and lovable friend. " There written by the Rev. Mr. Hanna, gives was a man sent from God, and his a brief sketch of the author of the vol- name was"-George Bowen. ume. In early life he became quite a skeptic concerning the Scriptures The London Oommittee's Appeal. from reading a chapter in Gibbon's history. For eleven dreary years he The Oommittee of Oonference, to the FJuropean, wandered in the darkness of infidelity. American, and Native M'1,8sionaries of all A Bible bequeathed to him with a P"oleslant Ohurches lalxffing for the Salvadying request that he would read it tion of the Heathen in all parts qf the HalJ. was faithfully perused, but he never itable World. doubted for a moment that his views concerning it were correct. He was BELOVED BRETHREN: We, your fellow-laboraccustomed to get books from a pub- ers aud .. companions in the kingdom aud palic library, and on one occasion asked tience of Jesus Christ," salute you heartily iu for a volume and when nearly two the words of the apostolic beuediction, " Grace miles away to his surprise he found and peace be multiplied unto you, through the he had" Paley's Evidences" instead knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." of the book he had called for. He could not go back, but he would not We greatly rejoice with you in the blessings read the book. Before putting it which have accompanied your labors and those away he glanced at the first sentence; of your predecessors dnring the past hundred he read one page, another and an- years of modern missiouary effort, whereby other, and was pleased with the about three millions ,from amoug the heathen style. Halfway through the vol- are at this honr fouud gathered into the fellowume he offered the prayer, "Help ship of the church below, while at the same thou my unbelief." When he reached time large tribes of our fellow-men, who were the last sentence his dOlJbts were all sunk in the grossest barbarism and snperstition, gone. have been socially elevated, and have derived manifold secondary benefits from the preaching As a missionary Mr. Bowen was of the gospel of.Christ. true to his convictions wherever they might lead. He made a fair experi- We rejoice also over the many millions more ment of increasing his influence by who have passed within the veil, after testifying becoming self-supporting. He earned by their consistent lives and peacefnl deaths to $15 a month, and for many years the regenerating and consoling influences of the lived in the native bazaar, adapting grace of God-many of them having been faithnative dress, we believe, and food and ful witnesses of Jesus Christ, not only by taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods, but by en- dnring manifold tribulations in the flesh, and suffering even unto death for His Name's sake.
But while we are unceasingly grateful to God for the great things accomplished in the past by the inadequate means employed, we lament over the feebleness of the efforts put forth by the churches of Christ, and we mourn over the great and increasing mass of heathenism which still
MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
confronts the church in this nineteenth century of one mind; doing nothing through faction or of the Christian era. It is one great object of through vain glory, bnt in lowliness of mind, the Conference to be assembled in June to look each counting other better than himself." this appalling fact fully in the face, and byapplying the lessons taught by the past to the con- Pray that, under God, the Conference may be ditions of the present, to awaken the church of the means ofintroducing a new era in missionary Christ, by every possible effort, to a due sense of enterprise. That it may hasten the day when the obligation under which she lies to the perish- " the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the ing heathen and to her Divine Head and Lord. Lord," and when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." Our great object in now addressing you is to ask you to unite with your brethren of other de- We do not fix hours nor prescribe snbjects nominations, if such there be in your neighbor~ for prayer. The one special gift which includes hood, or in solitary stations with your converts, ail " good things" is the gift of the Holy Spirit, in earnest and united prayer for a Pentecostal whose presence we seek in all the plenitude of blessing on the Conference, on Sunday, the third his grace and power. of June, to Tuesday, the 19th of the same, >eing the week before and the ten days during which Let us, dear brethren, encourage one another the Conference will be in session. in the thought that unnumbered brethren throughout the whole world are uniting in the Pray that the presence of God, the Father, same prayer. We have good reason to hope Son, and Spirit, may be in our assemblies, and that this will be the most universal cry that has that gracious manifestations of his power may ever gone up from this sinful world into the ear be displayed in the midst of his people gathered of" the Lord of Sabaoth." Through the promfrom all parts of Christian and heathen lands. ised help of the missiouary societies this re- That the spirit of union and peace and love may quest will he sent ont into all lauds, wherever reign in and among us, and that all our deliber- the feet of the messengers of the gospel of peace ations may be "in the Spirit." Pray for the have trod, and will be read in the languages of single eye and the undivided heart, for strong almost all the natious upon earth. faith and ardent zeal, and for that "wisdom from above," which is "first pure, then peace- But most of all would we strengthen our muable, gentle and easy to be intreated, without tual faith, by the promise of the Father, as partiality, and withont hypocrisy;" and that learned from the lips of his only begotten Son : in all our assemblies we may "be of the same " If ye then being evil know how to give good mind, having the same love, being of one accord, gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him."
V.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
MISSIONS IN INDIA. missionaries either to Africa or St. BARTHOLOMEW ZIEGENBALG, found- Thomas. After some hesitation he er of missions in India, was born on yielded, but on reaching Copenha- St. John's day, 1683, a little over two gen he found that Tranquebar was hundred years ago. His mother their destination. The vessel which called her four children to her dying bore them bore also secret instrucbed and: committed to them a" treas- tions to the governor of Tranquebar ure" she had laid by for them: "Seek to oppose and crush the mission. it in the Bible, my children; there Through the long voyage of nearly you will find it; there is not a page eight months the ship became a uni- I have not wet with my own tears." versity of Christ, where they were Ziegenbalg learned of Fmncke at learning daily new lessons in holy Halle, that men who heard were living, both from nature and the bound to spread the good news, and Divine Word. that he ought at once to begin. So when a tutor at Merseburg he or- Ziegenbalg's heart was greatly ganized prayer-meetings,Bible classes stirred at the sight of the heathen and Bible readings, and became the whom he saw on the Coromandel center of godly influence. coast, as he entered the harbor of While preaching neal' Berlin he Tl'anquebar July 9, 1706. But the received a letter proposing, in behalf captain of the ship gave them no aid of the king, that he and Pliitschau, even in landing, and when they did .his old fellow-student, should go as land the governor did eveL"ything he dared to drive them back. The first Protestant missionaries that ever Obstacles such as confronted Zieg- stood on the soil of India found them- enbalg have been met by few even of selves literally without a place to lay the most heroic missionaries. The their head-destitute, abandoned, and governor was the implacable foe of alone. We talk of "India for the mission, faithful to his secret Christ;" but there had to be some- instructions. Meanwhile there was thing deeper than a sentimental en- a fire in the rear, for at home thusiasm in those two pioneers who both friends and funds were scarce.
stood under the midnight skies, Liitkens, the chaplain, died, with his homeless, strangers to the language last words breathing a blessing on the and peoples of India, facing the most mission. Ziegenbalg went home, told subtle and seductive of false faiths, his story to the king, sped through the most gross and sensual forms of Germany and Holland like a flaming idolatrous worship, and that mon- e'angelist, and returned to India to strous caste, which is the most sa- find the hostile governor displaced by tanic system of organized opposition a friend of missions. Two years more to human brotherhood and Christian of hard labor, and on New Year's progress ever yet devised-a radical day, 1719, his voice was heard for the denial of all fellowship based either last time, and Feb. 23, 1719, not Jet in nature or in grace, deifying hu- 36 years old, he died of cholera. His man selfishness and sanctioning its last exclamation was, "How is it so own exclusiveness by penalties more bright! It is as though the midday terrible than death. sun shone full in my face!" The Zeigenbalg and Pliitschau found eternal glory had already broken up- temporary shelter through the mere on his dim dying vision and dazzled pity of one of the governor's suite, him. While they sang "Jesus, meine and then in a house upon the wall Zuversicht," he fell asleep.
close by the heathen quarters. Six To that man, so brave, wise, calm, days after they landed Ziegenbalg is resolute, of such commanding pres- studying Tamil, though he has no ence and such winning piety, mis- lexicon, grammar, or even alphabet sions in India owe their true begin- to guide him; and yet within eight ning. He planted there that germ months he is talking Tamil intelligi- whose growth is yet to cover with bly! Three ,years Jater it was as a healing shadow and fruitful bour-hs vernacular to him, and then he pre- all India. Yet when he died all the pared a grammar and lexicons con- visible or tangible results were a few taining40,OOO words. He had scarcely hundred converts and the translation been two years in India when his of the Bible into Tamil.
translation of the New Testament Count Zinzendorf is another link in was begun, and within three years it the chain of Indian Missions. He was finished and he began the Old came under the contagious influence Testament, himself not yet twenty- of Francke, at Halle, when a lad of seven years old! ten years, and at fifteen founded the From Madras to Cape Comorin "Order of the Seed Corn," whose this young German had already be- pledge and symbol was the conver- come a mighty power. In Tamil he sion of the heathen. Ziegenbalg on proclaimed the wonderful works of his short stay at home had been the God, and in the broken Portuguese guest of Zinzendorf, and the count of the half-breeds all along the coast, had felt the fire within him burn which was the relic and remnant of with new fervor as he came into con- ancient Portuguese possession, he ad- tact with the ardent glow of Ziegen- dressed the slaves at Tranquebar and balg's evangelism. The Moravian gathered five of them into the church exiles who founded on Zinzendorf's a!) first-fruits of India unto Christ. estate the site of Hernnhut became the great missionary leaders of the tions and conflicting armies. On he Lord's host, and still continue in the went, until he died at 72, in Tanjore, van of missions. A procession of preaching, gathering converts, or- missionaries more than 2,000 strong ganizing churches, opening new sta- moved out from that little communi- tions, training native workers, shel- , ty that never numbered over 70,000 tering orphans, doing every good in all. The Moravians kept the mis- work that can accompany good sion fires burning on the continent, words. When Hyder Ali invaded the and many a heroic life got its inspira- Carnatic and Tanjore was in a state tion unconsciously from those vestal of starvation, Schwartz induced the altars. farmers to bring in their cattle, pledg- Almost while Ziegenbalg was dy- ing his word alone for their payment.
ing, Christian Frederick Schwartz After his death the Rajah of Tanjore was preparing to take up the apos- and the East India Company each tolic succession. He was born Oct. erected to his memory costly monu- '
8,1726, dedicated from birth by his ments.
dying mother to God's service in the Henry Martyn is the next promi- ministry. He likewise got his train- nent link in this fascinating history.
ing in Francke's Orphan House at From his birth in Truro in 1781 to his Halle. There he met Schulze, come death in Tokat in 1&12, only thirty- home from India to superintend one years old, his story bas a thril- the printing of the Tamil Bible. ling missionary interest. When a Schwartz caught fire from this bless- young man of 21 his father's death ed contact and told his father that he turned his thoughts to a holy life and must go to India, and, in that very the mission field, and in 1805 he sailed bedchamber where the wife and for India. For years he traveled in motiler died, the husband and father India and Persia and preached the learned to give up his boy to the gospel, studying the native tong-ues heathen and to God, with'such success that he was chosen Schwartz studied Tamil with the to superintend the translations of the missionary and was able to preach in New Testament into Hindostanee it within four months after his land- and Persian, and had already made ing in 1750. Schwartz is probably no little progress in an Arabic ver- the most prominent figure in the In- sion when his frail health gave way, dian Missions of the eighteenth centu- and on his way home he was laid to ry. He went often on foot, tirelessly rest in Asia Minor. His career was journeying and tirelessly preaching. short, but it cannot be measured by Himself a living epistle, he made years. Close by the river at Seram- preaching almost unnecessary by the pore, a small deserted idol fane was eloquence of his life. He won uni- fitted up as a bungalow, and there on versal confidence. The Rajah of the open platform overhanging the Tanjore made him on his deathbed river Martyn would kneel in prayer guardian of his adopted child. Hy- for India's millions. That spot has der Ali, the stern warrior, the ruthless become to Christians one of the chieftain, the scourge of the Car- world's Meccas. The ceaseless labors natic, said to the Madras rulers, of that devoted man, who at Dina- "Send me Schwartz, the missionary; pore and Cawnpore welcomed the him only can I trust." The humble most abject vagrants to his garden man who walked with God while he and bore ridicule and abuse without talked of God, and whose talk was so a murmur of impatience or even a subduing because his walk was so sign of annoyance, that he might sublime, was at once the minister of read to them the sweet words of God, and the minister plenipotentiary God, have never been lost to India to lllediate betweell contending fac- or to the church at home. Thebrokell ;flask has only let out a pervasive dorf, Schwartz and Carey, Martyn perfume. Dr. Stevenson has well and Duff•. are destined by God to tri- said that in the annals of Christian- umph? ity there is "nothing grander than the picture of Henry Martyn, with MISSIONARY TEXTS AND THEMES. the Bible in hand, alone and un- supported in a strange country, chal- Preach, i.e., proclaim the word. lenging the whole strength of Mo- The gospel should be preached and hammedanism to a conflict." The in as nearly as may be the words of memoir of that sublimely conse- Scripture. crated life has perhaps stirred to a , like devotion more disciples than his 1. Because these are God's words. life itself would ever have reached. 2. Because his message is the only thing we are commanded and com- At but one more link in this chain missioned to preach. have we space to tarry. William 3. Because it is the only thing that Carey was the first great gift which it is profitable to preach. England gave to missions in India 01' 4. Because the Spirit is most likely indeed to the world in these modern to use his own inspired utterances as times. The full century has not to the vehicle of his power. passed since, in 1792, Carey organized 5. Because as a fact conversion and that first Baptist missionary band !)anctification and all comfort are which may fairly be called the pio- traceable to the very words of Scrip- neer of all the existing societies. ture. When William Carey died, in 1834, 6. Because not our words but his India had become the established word has the promise of not return- field of missions. The broad founda- ing to him void. Is. .lv. tions were laid on ¥i hich such men as Rev. Dr. H. B. Smith's outline ar- Alexander Duff were to rear a struc- gument: ture so grand that no civil revolution 1. The spirit of missions is th~ or political convulsion can ever over- spirit of Christ, etc. Christianity is throw it. That pious shoemaker of a doctrine, teaching an incarnate Paulerspury became the uuremitting God, an atonement, a new birth, and student of the languages of the Ori- a new life; teaching and exemplify- ent, and with his colaborers, Marsh- ing a love that is universal and im- man and Ward, he was the means of partial and manifested mainly in un- making forty different dialects of selfish effort for souls. Asia channels for conveying the .2. Christianity is solitary in this: news of salvation to as many differ- teaching one blood for one race of ent tribes. At Serampore he estab- man, and one blood of redemption lished that large successful mission- applied to one blood of creation and arypost of his denomination, taught, one curse of sin. in the college at Fort William, the 3. The Experimental argument: Bengalee, Sanskrit and Mahratta Christian Europe and America, as tongues, and made valuable contri- fruits of missions, vindicate the meth- butions to the natural sciences. Three ods of missions. He who would not • years before Carey's death Alexander send the gospel to heathen peoples Duff met him at Serampore and the must first ask himself, What would aged apostle of India gave his bless- I have been but for missions? The ing to the young Highlander who purpose of missionary enterprise is to was to thrill not only India but the do for present heathen what has been world with the electric energy of his done for the present Christian nations utterance. Who can doubt that J:Uis- when they were in the same condi- sions which present such a chain of tion. workmen as Ziegenbalg and Zinzen- Itis admitted that sometimes there is slow progress. All great und per- manent results are slowly wrought. Espeeially, changes ~f intellectual, receive the grace of God's Son the sociaJ and moral life are necessarily chains are struck off and the prison slow. Moreover, in many cases it is thrown wide open.-Dr. Edward must be borne in mind that the work Judson.
is preparatory, like the breakwater on A Beautiful Legend.-In the hill the coast, or foundations of Eddystone country of India is a touching myth lighthouse. of a queen, greatly beloved by her 4. Historical argument: Where the people, whose life was devoted to spirit of missions is found, there is their interests. – In olden times the the Spirit of Christ-i. e., Holy Ghost. people of Chambra suffered grievous And wherever a church or a disciple distl'ess for want of water. The is indifferent to missions, there the queen, taking the sorrow of her sub- flame of a renewed life is with great· jects greatly to heart, consulted the est difficulty maintained at all, if in- will of the gods how the constant deed any really exists. curse of drought could be removed.
SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. The reply, "If the ruler of Chambra lVho his Own Self Bare our Sins.- – die for her people, abundant water Some time ago a war raged in India shall begiven." "Here am I," respond.
between the English and a native ~d the generous queen. Bravely monarch named Tippoo Sahib. On standing on the lofty position des- one occasion several English officers ignated by the gods, the devoted were taken prisoners, among them woman was buried alive for the sake one named Baird. One day a native of her people. Thereupon a fountain officer brought in fetters to be put on of pure sweet water flowed from the each of the prisoners, the wounded spot, descending to quench the thirst not excepted. Baird had been se- of the people of Chambra, visiting verely wounded and was suffering each hut and bearing to each its life- from pain and weakness. A gray- giving blessing. We by whose haired officer said to the native offi- homes the pure waters of salvation cial: are constantly flowing need hardly " You do not think of putting be reminded that they gush from a chains upon that wounded young grave, and mingling with the music man?" of those sparkling waters comes the "There are just as many pairs of echo of worqs spoken, commission fetters as there are captives," was the given, "Whoever shall do and teach answer, "and every pair must be my commandments Rhall be called worn." great in the kingdom of heaven."
"Then," said the officer, "put two Stimulated by this promise, mission pairs on me. I will wear his as well work has ever been carried on.
as my own." There is an honor in contributing The end of the story is that Baird in however small a measure to the lived to regain his freedom, lived to spread of God's church in the world.
take that very city, but the generous When the walls of the House of friend died in prison. He wore two Commons were about to be orna- pairs of fetters. But what if he had mented with cartoons, Haydon, the worn the fetters for all in the prison? eccentric historical painter, besought What if, instead of being a captive Parliament that he might be one of himself, he had been free and great the favored artists, or if this might and had quitted a glorious palace to not be, that he might paint one live in their loathsome dungeon, to figure, or put on a few touches, or at wear their chains, to bear their the least mix the colors or hold the stripes, to suffer and die in their brushes for those who were per· stead that they might go fl'ee! Such mitted to do the work.
a thing has been don~. For all who
PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
V.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS- MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa. – Rev. George GreenfeIl, the world, take back with them to lately returned from the -Congo, re- their homes slaves of both flexes.
ports "Christianity spreading even This is the case at Constantinople, where missionaries had not labored. for though the traffic is prohibited by As he approached one town in which law, evasions are winked at. The no Baptist missionary had ever 1<1- trade is wholly in the hands of Mos- bored, he saw a band of native evan- lems, and the open market which gelists coming out of it to preach the makes the trade profitable is under gospel to their native brethren, and the shadow of the shrine of their that town, a few years years ago, was prophet.
sunk in heathenism." Ceylon.-The Church Missionary -The last Congo mail brought Society's baptized native Christians good news from all along the line in Ceylon are 6,378 (2,861 Singhalese from Lukolela, Nshasa, Stanley Pool, and 3,518 Tamils). The adult bap- Ngombe, SanSah'adorand Underhill. tisms last year were 126 Sin~ha "The brethren report good health lese and 81 Tamils, and there are 273 and much and manifest blessing." adult candidates for baptism, 142 -The Congo Free State embraces Singhalese and 31 Tamils. '['here over 1,000,000 square miles of the terri- are 6 Singhalese and 6 Tamil natory tributary to the Congo, having, tive clergy, 156 Singhalese and 187 it is supposed, a population of about Tamil native lay teachers, and 9,735 ~7,000,000. It thus occupies about scholars in the 192 schools, 5,841 be– one-tenth of Africa, and includes ing Singhalese and 3,952 Tamils.
about one-seventh of her estimated China.-Rev. J. L. Stewart of the population. Of course the sover- Southern Presbyterian Mission in eignty of King Leopold exists only China, in a review of the progress of ad extra, being felt as little in- the gospel in China, gives these spe- teriorily as the sovereignty of the cial points of encouragement; State of Nebraska ovm,·the swarming .. Books for the study of the English lan- towns of her prairie-dogs. But it is guage and on the Western science, written a great fact even thus, doubtless, to in Chinese, meet with an extensive and inbe the parent of greater facts. creasing demand. A dozen daily newspa- pers, all founded within fifteen years, are -The slave trade between Africa obtaining a wide circulation throughout and Arabia is far from being sup- the empire. These are spontaneous appeals pressed. According to L'A/rique on the part of the Leathen Chinese for more there is, on the borders of the Red light. Add to this the voluntary attendance Sea, a regular price current for slaves. on the hundreds of schools and chapels, Girls from 10 to 15 years of age bring wherever opened in the empire; their re- spectful attention to the preaching of the from $80 to $100; boys from 7 to 11, Word, to the quiet talks by the roadSide, in their places of business, and in their homes, $60 to $80; young women from 16 to and it sums up a mass of evidence that the 22, $50 to $79; young men from 15 • Chinese mind is in an attitude of attention to 26, $30 to $50. The slave caravans and inquiry. n rarely have men who are above 25 -The City of Naiyen, north of years of age. It has been a question Ningpo, SUbmerged about 1,000 years as to what became of these slaves ago, has recently been exposed to view after they entered Arabia. It is now and a nurnber of vases, plates and affirmed that Moslem pilgrims to other utensils of the Sough dynasty Mecca, coming from various parts of have been recovered by the natives. .. '" "' India. Of the 50.000,000 of that faith in India, 24,000,000 are in Bengal. el° From the most careful census reports ci … ever taken in ,India it appears that the followers of Islam increased dur- 0 g8§g~§§888g88888§g~ 0:", ing the nine years 1872-1882,2,145,472 or at the rate of 10.96 per cent., the ~~~~~&~§~~~~&~&~~~~ 'C ~otz5 whole population increasing at the :0 qq,qqrSqqqqqqqqqpSoo rate of 10.89 per cent. The actual gains of Mohammedans were 15,000; 1il>~o oj ca this shows how much faster they in- creased than the whole population. :010: ~ Q A careful thinker would not concede 0-0 all of this number to proselytism. A t-O~O~OCl1':lO'OlO':>t-CO:::>lQ~l.~eol.C i0ii small increase in the health and lon- ~1"""'1~~1'""4W<:,!….-I (N T"'<1"""1 gevity of the Mohammedans would IIl<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ wipe out aLI the gains. But we would ::::::::::: .:. think that a church of twenty mill- "<X'"l0_ ions of members that only gathered : : : : : : : : : ; : ; : : z 1,666 members a year more than an- >" ;0:: other body, that made no converts and could make none, was not a model 0: of progress. The case grows darker 0 for Mohammedan success when we 0 remember that few have left Islam in Bengal, although several are far from ''""0: being as orthodox as of yore.-Indian oJ ::::::::::: : : ;.~ Witness. z ~J) :!l~ ~ ~ 3 d ~ d ~( : :….: ~ : :~ ~;:; ~.~ :. : 0 Japan.-Eighty-five thousand Eng- 0 ==bn~.§.~:..~cg '~~? Ec!·.~~..;~~~~~'£f-=:9:';!0]'r~C,i ='~f'9C;1l §c~6.-~!§ =co'!~)~~ 6gC ~Z0 lish and 119,000 American books were 0: imported last year, an increase of nearly 100 per cent. A lamentably Po. large fraction of this importation consists of skeptical anQ agnostic ~~o~wo~~~ww~w~~~~~~ writings.
India. – There are 42,000,000 chil- -The missionary fields in Japan demand more men and more money. dren in India who ought, according to There are now 200 churches with 15,000 members and 100 ordained their age, to be at school. Only about Japanese ministers. The Congrega- tional churches number 4,000 mem- 3,50G,000 of these are receiving any bers.
education, and less th[1n 200,000 of – The Japan newspapers report the ceremonies at the opening, Dec. this comparatively small number 15, of the last link of the railway connecting Sendai with Tokio. The are learning the truths of Christbn- line was opened from Tokio to Ko- riyama, 137 miles, in July last. The ity. Many adults (even in the Tamil- section just completed is 87 miles in length, and now Sendai, the most speaking districts, where mission northern station of our mIssion, is in quick and easy communieation with work has prevailed most extensively) the capital city of the empire.
who learned to read at school are for- getting the art because of the scarci- ty of books.
-The Church Missionary Society send out eight clergymen on a " win- ter inission" for India two by two, visiting all the stations of the society in India and Ceylon, stirring up the native churches to the work of evan- gelization, and preparations have been made on an extensive scale for wel- coming them and furthering their work. General Haigstates that "there are already Christians enough in In- dia, were they baptized with fire and endued with power ·from on high, to carry the gospel to every town a~tl village and hamlet from Comorin to Peshawur. In Southern India the native church ought to be able even now to take in hand and complete the work of evangelization with little European assistance."
-General Haig furnishes statistics concernmg Mohammedan progress in Italy.-Rev. T.D. Malan of Geneva tion was made for the poor heathen writes: The Genevan Italian Mission, founded in ] 882, has yielded good re- and sent to the treasurer of the sults from among the many thousands of Roman Catholicswho fiockinto that Auxiliary Bible SOCiety of Halifax, town from all parts of Italy and Italian Switzerland. The mission was and forwarded by that society. constituted into a church in 1884, and granted the use of a chapel by the Amount, £8 13s." This, says Dr. Bill, Genevan Presbytery, and much good has been attained, notwithstanding may be regarded as the commencemanifold difficulties. Owing to the fluctuating state of part of the Italian- ment of the foreign mission enterprise speaking population in Calvin's city, from 500 to 600 new hearers are every of the Baptists of the maritime provyear brought into contact with the gospel from the Roman Catholic inces.- W. J. Stewart. / Church. Thus far 114 of them have been received as members of the Russia.-In Russia there are 32,000 church. An important branch of the work is the Italian Young: Men's schools, having an average of 36 Christian Association, Circolo Diodati, so called in honor of the trans- scholars each. This is one school lator of the Italian Bible, Giovanni Diodati, who helonged to the Geneva for 2,300 inhabitants, at a cost of less Italian Church of the Reformation. than one cent a head of the popu- Korea. – The first Protestant church has been organized in connec- lation. In Austria, with 37,000,000 tion with the American Protestant llllSSlOn. Fifteen members are en- inhabitants, there are 29,000 schools rolled, and others are calling for baptism. Though contrary to Korean and 3,000,000 scholars. The average law, the government is reported as raising no question. It is but a score number at each school is 104, and the of years since the organization of a Christian church in Japan was not cost per inhabitant 20 cents. In Italy, only contrary to the law, but would have been visited with severe punish- for 28,000,000 inhabitants, there are ment, yet to-day there are more than 15,000 church members in thatempire. 47,000 schools, one school for every Mexico. – A convention of all 600 people, at a cost of 17 cents per Pl'otestant mission workers began in the City of Mexico Jan. 31 ult. Dele- head. In Spain there are 3,000,000 gates from all quarters, bishops from the United States were present. Ser- scholars, 29,000 schools, giving an mons were delivered in the ancient Franciscan convent, now used for average of 56 in each school, and one mission purposes. school for every 600 inhabitants, as Nova Scotia.-The Baptist Association of Nova Scotia met in the year in Italy. The school bill comes to 30 1814 with the church in Chester, N. S. Among the records of the association cents a head. The number of schools I find the following important statement for that year: "A contribu- given for England is 58,000, which is one for every 600 inhabitants, with an average attendance of 52 per school and a cost of 37 cents per head.
The Germans have a school for every 700, giving a total of 60,000 schools with a hundred pupils in each, at 40 cents per inhabitant. France has 71,000 schools, being one for every 500, with 66 in each school.
Turkey. – The Government and Mission Schools. Dr. Barnum, of Harpoot, India, writes to the Miss.
Herald that the Turkish Government, constrained by the remonstrances of the American and other ministers to respect its own laws in regard to mis- sionary schools in its territory, has now" determined to change the laws so that it may defeat the aims of the missionaries in a legal form. Mr.
Straus, the American minister, learn- ing that a new law for schools was under discussion at the Porte, claimed that as a large amount of American capital is invested in educa.tional in-
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
stitutions in the Turkish Empire, in the Sultan himself. [Such a document is not easily obtained.] 'fairness the American minister ought .. 2. No Ottoman subject shall be allowed to be consulted in regard to it, in or- to attend such a Ecbool until after he has had a course of religious instruction in one der that these interests might be of his own schools.
properly protected." He was fur- ··3. Foreign schools are to refrain entirely from religious instruction. nished with a copy of the proposed "4. That all foreiirn scboolsalreadyestablaw. It provides: ' lished which do not conform to this and to certain other conditions, and obtain the "1. Tbat no foreigner shall be allowed to Sultan's permission within six months, shall open a scbool without a special firman from be permanently suppressed."
VI.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
Home and Foreign Missionary Statistics 1841-1885, Amer. Tract Soc. col's ….. 13,148,659 1866-1885, Amer. Bible Soc. col's …… 12,~91,460 of the United States. 1855-1£8.5, Presb. Board of Pub. col's.. 2,879,586 [WE are under additional obligations to Rev. James H, Ross of South Total visits, representing 190 years .• 31,577,433 Norwalk, Conn.,' for these "latest statistics," which he has prepared Average number of visits per year.. 1C6,197 with great care and thoroughness, acknowledging his indebtedness to PRAYER-MEETINGS HELD. 520,C51 Dr. Dorchester.-EDs.] 70,7f8 1840-18E5, by missionarieS Bapt.HM. S. 439,247 The statistics of Home Missions cannot be tab- 1854-1885, by col's of Bapt. B'd of Pub.. ulated satisfactorily. But tbe results attainable 1841-1885, by col's ofAm. Tract Soc …. are not pe!simistic. They indicate advancement. The worst feature of them pertains to the pro Total by agents of three boards …… 1,030,086 rata giving as tested by the estimated wealth of ADDITIONS ON CONFESSION TO H. M. CHUROHES.
tbe Christian portion of the population of the 1826-1E85, A. H. 1I. S. churches.. . . . . . .. 326,862 United States. Mr. Moody has said that the 1870-1885, Presb. H. M. Board chs.. …. 115,804 next characteristic revival within the churches 1832-1885, Am. Bapt. Mis. Soc." …… 97,919 is to be a revival of beneficence. Total additions to churcbes of 3 boards. 540,085 The total number of missionaries and helpers in the care of Americau evangelical home mis- YEARS OF LABOR RENDERED. sionary societies in 1885 was 8,482, and the number of missions or stations served or aided was 1826-1885, by Am. H. M. S. missionaries. 38,811 13,367. In 53 years, by Baptist H. M. S. mission- BELIGiOUS VISI'rS BY MISSIONARIES AND COL~ PORTEURS. aries (incomplete) ………………. . 7,357 1840-1885, Bapt. H. M. S. missionaries. 2,367,151 1870-1885, by Pres. H. M. B. miseionaries, 13,951 1824-1885, Bapt. Pub. Soc. agts. or col's. 890,574 1850-1885, by Pres. Bd. of Pub. .. 1,329 In 45 years, by Baptist Bd. of Pub. mis- sionaries (incoroplete) …………… . 1,029 III 49 years, by Am. 'r. S"c. colporteurs. 5,550 Total by agents of 6 bds. in 296 years. 68,327 RECEIPTS OF HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.
—————–S-OC-I-ET-IE-S.—————– 1881 to 1887. 1820 to 1887. Presbyterian Old School, North, and Presb. New School, North…..•….. $3,666,186 $13,334,850 A. H. 1I. S. (Cong'I) ……………………………………………. . 2.847,210 11,586,891 M. E., Domestic ……………………………………………….. . 2,505,848 11,164,539 Protestant Episcopal, Domestic ………………………………….. . 1,187,904 4,762,136 American Ch. Miss. Soc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. . . . . . … . …… . 133,158 1,103,945 Reformed (Dutch) Ch…………………………………………… . 217,143 963,642 Am. Bapt. H. M. Soc……………………………………………. . 2,256,6.56 6,556,142 Seamen'S Friend Soc……………………..•…………………….. 378,234 2,020,535 A. 1I. A. (Cong'I) 1816…………………..•………………………. 3,257,567 9.302,665 Wn~~~e~~~:,~~O~i~~~~n::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::: 630,616 1,626,616 494.225 1,598,521 Southern Bapt., Domestic…………….. "……………………….. . 455.399 1,601,256 Y.M. C. A. (1851-1887) …………………………………………. . 7,&'iO,OOO 22,165,000 Disciples………………………………………………………. . 410,500 l,372.70'Z United Presbyterian……………………………………………… . 296,890 Southern Presbyterian……………………..•…………… "……. . 853,352 495,788 1,076,149 Cumberland Presbyterian ……………………………………….. . 184,734 Free-Will Baptist………………………………………………. . 103,900 394,021 373,827 M. E. Church South ……………………………………………. . 1,001,495 4,061,495 Lutberans ………………….••………….•••…………••……… 221,905 747,835 Aggregates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .• $28,655,258 $96,666,119 Contributions to the Freedmen's Aid Soci- and United Presbyterian churches, and to the eties of the Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian Christian Commi"sion, increase the total for the last six years to $30,486,573, and for the last 67 by the American churches, exclusive of the years to $103,019,308. The contributions of the American McAII auxiliaries, chiefly of ladies, Reformed Presbyterian and German, the Mora- numbers 203 stations, 2,125 sub-stations, 1,273 Vian, and the Protestant, Free Wesleyan and Af- official laborers of all kinds and both sexes, rican M. E. churches are uot included because 115,542 communicants, 2,123 pupils in day and not available. boarding school8.
OOMPARATIVE RECEIPTS. AMERICAN EVANGELICAL MISSIONS IN ASIA.
Yearly average. The lands included are Western Asia (Asiatic 1820-1829.. … ……………. ……. $23,382 Turkey, Persia, Syria, and Asia Minor), India, 1830-1839…………………. …. … 234,271 ,Burmah, Siam, China, Thibet, Korea, and Japan. IB40-1849.. .. . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . . . 006,235 Tbe totals for aU denominations are 237 prinCipal 1850-1 Bfi9 …. " ……………. ,……. 1308,010 stations, 2,606 sub'stations, 533 ordained foreign 1860-1869 ………………………… 2,101,571 missionaries, 843 foreign lay helpers, 632 native 1870-1800, , ' , ….. , … , ' , … ' , , …….. 2,842,923 ordained helpers, 5,479 natiye lay belpers, 7,487 1881-1887…… , ' ………………. '… 4,000.000 laborers of all kinds, 120,890 communicants, 100,560 pupils in day and boarding schools. Foreign Missionary Statistics. IN AFRICA AND MADAGASCAIt. THE latest foreign missionary statistics of the evangelical churches of the Uuited States are The missions are chiefly along the coast and in indicative of progress. The numbel~ of church the centre of the continent. Tbe total figures members disinterested in foreign missions is a for all denominations n1¥Il ber 55 principal stalessening fraction. The nnmber of disciples is tions, 255 snb·stations, 138 ordained foreign misincreasing who realize the force of Christ's sionaries, 81 foreign lay helpers, 57 native orteachings and commandments, that tbj3 field is dained and 788 native lay helpers, 1,064 laborers the world, that the dnty of the Christian is to of all kinds, 15,426 communicants, and 16,920 pucover the whole of it by prayer, gifts and labor- pils in day and boarding scbools. ers, in person so far as possible, by representation so far as individnals are limited by time and IN POLYNESIA, space. We give the following facts, before tbey are pnblished in complete form in any other inclusive of New Zealand (Seventh Day Ad· pnblication : ventists), Micronesia and Sandwich Islands (A. B. C. F. M,), tbere are 5 principal stations, 33 MISSIONS o.F AMERICAN EVANGELICAL CHURCHES sub-stations, 8 foreign ordained missionaries, 13 foreign lay helpers, 11 native ordained mission· IN EUROPE. aries, 35 native lay helpers, 67 laborers of all kinds, 10,852 communicants, and 2,500 pupils in Tbese consist cbiefly of missions among Rom- day and boarding scbools. isb and lapsed rationahstic populations in Austria, Austria- Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark, IN NORTH AMERICA, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Norway, Roumania, Scandimivia, Spain, Switzer- inclnsive of Greenland, Labrador, work imong land, and European Turkey. It would seem as the North American Indians (States and Alaska) if the American churches might do more to ayail and the Chinese in Oregon and California, Mexthemselves of the wonderfnl opportunity existing ico, Central America and the West Indies, there in France, even if they were compelled to work are 181 principal stations, 823 sub·stations, 44, Rolely on lines developed hy the McAlI missions. foreign ordained miSSIOnaries, 253 foreign lay Dr. Mutchmol'e of Philadelphia, now making help',,"s, 168 ordained native missionaries, 1,419 the tour of the world to stndy foreign missions, native lay helpers, 2,287 laborers of all kinds, ~ays, "France is in a wonderfully receptive 56,269 communicants, aud 26,214 in day and mood. . . . God has opened new avenues on boarding schools. all sides. It is as if tbe windows and doors of all French dwellings were snddenly thrown .IN SOUTH AMERICA, open to the light." Mrs. DoddS, the widow of the Rev. Theophilus Dodds and a successor of inclusive of Brazil, the Argentine Republic (Chili her husband in tbe MeAl! missions, says ;hat the and Colombia) and Guiana, there are 28 principal workers want ," everything except opportuni· stations, 84 sub'stations, 100 foreign ordained ties." The Enropean work in hand, supported missionaries, 37 foreign lay helpers, 15 ordained native miSSionaries, 454 lay native helpers, 715 laborers of all kinds, 12,724 communicants, and 4,597 pupils in day and boarding schoole.
RECAPITULATION.
– -St-at-ion-.s.- – Laborers For. miss'aries. Native Helpers, Total Communi- Pupils in Or- Lay Or- Lay labor· cants in day and ers. mission boarding dained. helpers. dained. helpers. scbools. — churche~. —- — — — —- – – – – Prin·Sub- stations. cipals. —- 1,123 Europe…. , . 203 2,125 41 34 245 396 1,273 115,542 Asia …….. :!37 2,606 533 843 632 5,479 7,690 120,890 100,560 Africa……. 55 255 138 81 57 788 1,184 15,426 16,920 N.America.. 181 823 447 253 168 1,419 2,287 56,629 26,214 S. America .. 28 84 100 37 15 454 715 12,724 4,597 2,500 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Polynesia….533813 11 35 67 10,852 —- — –~ Aggregate.. 700 n,9'?6 1.267 1.2M 1,128 8,571 13,216 332,063 151,914 The statistics are largest for Asia, the native are fewer pickers but more grspes; while in home of Christianity. The number of foreign or- the far distance the clnsters are dead ripe and dained and lay missionaries, and of native or- not a man to pick. Another student said: "I ~ained helpers is about equal. The relattve thought of one minister to every 600 ofpopulafigures are 1,261, 1,261, and 1,128. The harvest is tion in America, and I thought of one man to white,the laborers are few, the total of all kinds every 5OQ,OOO in the foreign field; of South 13,398. At Mr. Moody's college of colleges, America, with one man to 600,000; of the Congo, Northfield, Mass., last summer, a Princeton with one man to 40,000,000 of people." student stated the matter of " a call" to work at home or abroad, as follows: Near the gate I THE REOEIPTS find many pickers and few grapes; further on of the foreign missionary societies of the United States, in receut years and the totals since their origin are as follows: SOCIETIES. 1881-1887. Totals 1810-1887.
A. B. C. F. M …………………………………. . •$4,488,112 $22,452,817 Am. Baptist missionary Union ……………………. . 2,;)27,239 9,057,119 M.E………………………………………….. . 2,756,251 9,346,661 rr~!~~~e~!nPJ~~~~~I::: …: … '.. ~ . '.. '. '.. ~ ~ '. '. '. '. '. ~ '. '. '. : : : : : : : : 916,246 3,992,454 4,744,533 14,746,588 Southern Baptist………… '. .. .. …. .. …… .. 472,411 1,457,353 American and Foreign Church Union……………… . 129,625 2,404,331 Reformed Church……………………………… . 413,290 1,724,401 Evang(')ical Lutheran…. …. . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . :<57,089 557,089 Evangelical Association…… . ………………. .. 85,000 334,000 United Brethren ………………………………… . 200,000 750,658 United Presbyterian.. . . . . . ………… . 616,610 1,626,239 Southern Presbyterian. . . . . …………. . 498,570 1,033,511 Reformed Presbyterian.. .. . .. ………… . 185,732 Disciples…….. ……… …… . …………. . 93,600 218,742 Free-Will Baptist………………………………. . 185,565 466,362 Methodist Episcopal South ………………………. . 126,000 2,119,439 719,439 TOTALS ……………………………….. . $19,028,980 $73,074,115 Complete retnrns from 1881 to 1887 would make 3,000,000, and more than one-quarter as much for about 21,000,000, or an annUal average of about last six years as Cor the last eighty-six.
COMPARATIVE TABLE.
MISSIONS. 1850. 1880. 1887.
Stations……………………………….. .. 77 129 175 Ordained missionaries, foreign and native. .. . .. 438 1,7E2 2,395 Lay laborers …………………………….. . 4,167 Total laborers ………………………….. .. 829 : 9,832 Communicants ……… .. …………… …… . 1,267 5,959 13,398 Day and boarding scholars …………………. . 47,266 205,132 332,060 29,210 65,825 151,914 During the last thirty-seven years the number quite recently pagan women were almost wholly "'f foreign missions has increased more than two- nnreached. Oriental customs account for the fold, the number of ordained missionaries over failure. The organization of Christian ladies in five-fold, the nnmber of lay helpers twelve-fold, the home churches to aid missionary work in the total number of laborerR over ten-Cold, the the foreign field has been one of the characternumber of communicants seven·fold, the number istics of the last quarter of a ceutury. There of day school scholars five-fold. are now 26 female foreign missionary societies in the United States, in 16 denominations (count- Since this decade began, the mission communi- ing subdivisions of one type of denominationcants have increased 126,928, or 60 per cent.; the alism). The "Woman's Union Missionary Somission day-scholars 86,189, or 130 per cent.; the ciety," organized in New York City in 1861, still total laborerS 7,391,or 124 per cent. exists as a Union Society. The latest available statistics, except for their receipts, are those of The average yearly receipts since 1880 have the year 1885, when there were 15,867 auxiliaincreased about one million dollars over the av- ries, 3,454 bands (of girls and young ladies). The erage for the previous decade, and they are aggregate receipts of 12 of these Women's Fornearly seven times as large as the average from eign Missionary Boards is 8,571,706, from 1860 to 1840 to 1850. 1886. This is exclusive of the receipts of 12 of these boards, so recently organized that their WOMAN'S WORK. statistics are not available.
Thus Car the number of female converts to Christianity from paganism is small. Until TOTAL AVERAGE YEARLY RECEIPTS, HOME AND FOREIGN lIIISSIONS.
Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Total. 1850………………………… $675,000 $557,1:!!3 $1,232,123 1,450,479 1860.. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. . . .. . … 1,075,070 2,472,246 2,525,549 3,389,845 4,225,952 1870.. … . .. . . .. …… ………… 1,753,700 4,000,000 5,989,845 7,000,000 1880………………………… 2,600,000 1886.. •.. . •. .. .. .. ••. .. •.. . •. . . . . . 3,000,000 ACTUAL INCREASE.
Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Total. 1,384,426 1850 to 1860. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 400,070 983,356 1,700,403 1860 to 181"0……… '" ……… 678,636 1,021,767 1,763,898 1870 to 1880…………………. 846,294 917,604 • RELATIVE INCREASE.
Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Total. 1850 to 1860…………………. 59 per cent. 160 per cent. 105 per cent. 1860 to 1870. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 70 67 1870 to 1880. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. 48 37 42 The increase of the otrerings for foreign mis- priests. The rapid increase of Roman Catholics sions in 30 years was about four-fold, and for in Scotland oflate has been due chielly to immihome missions about six-fold. The total annual gration from Ireland. The increase of priests in receipts in 1886 are $7,000,000 as against $6,000,- Enl(land from 1871 to 1885 was 636. 000 in 1R8O. Although it is claimed that the Church of PRO RATA TESTS. Enl(land has a majority of one million adherents over all other creeds, this claim is seriously Average per questioned hy Dissenters. If the actual senti- Inhabitants member for H. ment of the people were taken, it might be Members. per member. & F. Missions. found that in England as well as in Scotland the Established Church is really in the minority. 1850.. 3,529,988 6.57 35 cents. Until 1871 the Established Church of Ireland 1860 .. 5,240,554 6.00 48 was Protestant Episcopal, though it represented but a fraction of the population. At present 1870.. 6,673,396 5.78 63 there are fonr Roman Catholic archbishops in Ireland and 23 bishops. The Roman Catholic 1880 . . 10,065,963 5.00 591-2 c. population in 1881 numbered 3,960,~91. The Protestant Episcopal Church had, at the same 1888.. 12,132,000 (estimates) 579-10 c. time, two archhishops, ten bishops, 1,560 clergy, 1,550 churches and 6.."0,000 members. There Multitudes of members have given nothing, or were iu the same year 470,734 Presbyterians, only a few dimes, and those spasmodically. The 48,839 Methodists, 6,210 Independents, 4,879 average is still less then % of one dollar. Baptists, 3,645 Quakers, and 472 Jews. From 1851 to 1861 the decrease of Catholics in Ireland Religious Statistics of Great Britain. was 43 per cent., of Protestants 10 per cent.; 1861-1871 the former decreased 8 and the latter THE Church of England has two archbishops and 31 bishops. In 1881 there were 14,926 civil Yo per cent. In 1871 the Catholics numbered parishes, with 14,573 churches and chapels; the clergy in actual service numbered 21,663. Ac- 4,141,933, so that in 1881 there was a further decording to an estimate made in 1883, 13,500,000 crease of 181,042. The Jews in Great Britain persons in England and Wales were adherents number about 70,000, of whom 40,000 are in of the Establisbild Church, leaving 12,500,000 to London. It is claimed that nine-tenths of the other creeds. The Wesleyans, Independents, inhabitauts of Wales are Dissenters. The Baptists and Presbyterians are most numerous Quakers in Great Britain, now numbering 15,- among dissenting bodies in England. The Wes- 219, are said to have been constantly on the inleyans have 13,270 chapels; the Independents crease during the last 20 years. 2,603; the Baptists 2,243. The number of dissenting ministers in 1881 was 9,734. The total A German authority gives the following as the number of denominations in Great Britain is ]80. religions statistics of the world: In Scotland the Established Presbyterian CHRISTIANS. Church has 84 presbyteries, 16 synods, 1,307 parishes, with 1,587 churches, chapels and sta- Catholics. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. 190,000,000 tions, and about 1,700 ministers. In 1884 there Protestants. . .. … . . ……. . ……. 108.000,000 were 556,622 members, an increase of 12,653 Greek Christians.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SO,OOO,OOO over the preceding year. The Free Church of Other churches… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16,000,000 Scotland has 1,096 ministers, 32.5,000 members, while it is claimed that the adherents number Total. . …. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … 393,000,000 945,000. The United Church has 594 ministers, Ii59 churcheS and about 179,891 members and ad- NON-CHRISTIANS. herents. The Episcopal Church of Scotland has seven bishops, 220 churches,255 clergy, and a Jews ……………………….. .. 7,000,000 claimed adherence of 76,939 souls. Mohammedans ……………….. . 85,000,000 Buddhists …………………….• 500,000,000 The Roman Catholics of Great Britain are es- Hiudus ……. .'………………..• 190,000,000 timated at two millions. There are 15 ecclesias- Heathen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … 280,000,000 tical dignitaries in En~land, and in Scotland there are two archbishops aud four bishops. In Total. ……………………… 1,062,000,000 England there were in 1835 1,269 chapels and This makes thirty per cent. of the earth's popstations, and 2,256 oftlciating priests. In Scot- ulation Christian, of whom less than one-half land there were 305 chapels and stations and 320 are Roman Catholics.-Dr. J. H. W. Stucken- berg, in H()TT!iletw Review. S Foreign Missionaries. .b., I ' Date Native Unordalned Commu- Pnpils ContrIbntions of Ordained Nat;"e nicants. in by Q.I Name of Society_ Mission Men. Wlves. IWSoinmgelen TotaI. Ministers. Helpers. Schools. Native Churches. .~ —————– 1 London Missionary Society……… 1807 28 21 11 60 8 69 3,595 2,186 –.,——- 1:1.l $17,200.00 2 A.B. C. F.M………………….. 1830 29 25 12 66 8R 1,545 ::Q;s) 3 American Baptist, North . . . . . . . . . . . 1834 21 559 180.00 5 2 i:Q 4 American Protestant Episcopal …. Ita; 5 12 4 16 371 145 279.26 410.76 S 5 American Presbyterian. North .. " . Itlil8 10 6 1 17 22 21 362 900 6 American Reformed (Dutch) ……. 1842 45 34 19 98 19 176 3,786 1,932 2,448.88 .~…
00 7 British and Foreign Bible Society .. 1843 5 5 3 13 5 19 820 124 2.076.29 114 ~ 8 Church Missionary Society……… 1844 13 7 20 'i2 2.507 2ji;z 3.ioa:so 171 1,062 450.00 <11 9 English Baptist………………… 1845 26 19 8 63 1 8 3,349 160 ~ 43 1,084 3,473.57 Q) ;;<11 19 15 34 87 24 10 Methodist Episcopal, North ….. " . 1847 "7 1,641 36 1,175.61 CD 11 Seventh Day Baptist……………. 1847 30 27 14 71 7 1,808 232 654.00 ~ 1 1 1 3 24 3,553 598 Io:ol'-~o 12 American Baptist, Sonth ……….. 1847 370 3,920.00 13 Basel Mission …………………. 1847 13 10 9 32 60 200 35 222 725 ZiO::i4 <11 ·14 Engli~h Prespyterian …………… 1847 20 15 3 66 80 ::s ~ ~ 935 520 600.00 15 Rhemsh Mission …………….•.. 1847 21 15 7 43 5 84 17 105 8.00 p !.; 3 6 1,218 162 16 Methodist EPiSCOlJil, South …….. 1848 3 3 14 6 273 100.25 C!:l'tS 7 '634 50 11 Berlin Foundling ospital. ……… 1850 8 7 4 29 173 250'.00 ::r:.: 5., 1,932 ~ 18 Wesleyan Missionary Society……. 1852 1 1 6 "5 ':ii "77 401.34 r:.1' 6 306 tIl 19 Woman'c Union Mission ……….. 1859 19 8 5 32 … 34 83 260 240:00 :~-;::.::~~~ 5 25 5 Eo< 20 Methodbt New Connexion ……… 1860 5 .'".. 13 1,765 72.00 21 Society Promotion Female Educ…. 1864 11 …1……2 73 …. .5.2.7. o". 22 United Presbyterian, Scotch …….. 1865 ::: I 7 5 42 97ii.oo 1 5 …..2. 11 30 80 ~~ o<11 4 70 . ….. E:: 6 12 .5.0.0. . ….. § .~ 23 China Inland Mission ………….. 186.5 1~ '46 . … . … <11 24 National Bible Society of Scotland .. 1868 4 52 .9..0 265 . … .. :i2 …… 25 United Methodist Free Chnrch ….. 1888 2 6 '60 . … …… ~ t.3. ~ . … 26 American Presbyterian, South…… 1868 3 3 6 "30 . ….. ……0., .o., Eo< 40 . ….. 27 Irish Presbyterian ……………… 1869 10 6 4 20 32,260 . ….. o ~ 28 Canadian Presbyterian …………. 1871 13,777 . ….. 29 Society Prooagation of the Gospel. . 1874 3 3 '" ~ 4,260 =..'!l 30 American Bible Society ………… 1876 198 "4:00 31 Established Church or Scotlaud …. 1878 2 2 .".2. 4 Q) 4 2 $38,236.70 8 4 8 12 $19,862.14 <11 3 3 "i 6 3 4 9 3ro2 Berlin Mission ………………… 1882 4 '….. 1 …..3, .2.1. 8 General Prot. Evang. Society•…… 1884 1 1 ………… 34 Bible Christians ……………….. )885 4 5 …"….i,, ~ 35 Foreign Christian Miss. Society …. 1886 5 2 .'".. 7 ~ 36 Book and Tract Society .••….•…. 1886 1 1 2 37 SOCiety of Friends……………… 1886 1 1 2 – – – – – – – – – 38 Independent Workers ……..••…. -…-. 4 1 3 8 @ ..-. …. 489 320 221 1,030 175 ~ — ,~.. — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Total-December, 1887………• 1,316 Tncrease .over 1886……•…•…. …. 43 4 64 121 ·35 20 — –_._-
m4 EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
-Roman Catholics in India. Ac- about a million and a quarter among oording to the official return pubiished the 260,000,000 of India-the result by the Propaganda last year the num- of 300 years of labor. ber of Roman Catholics in India is -There are some 200,000,000 wo- 1,185,142; churches and chapels, 2,677; men in India of whom 20,000,000 are stations, 417; EUropean missiona- in enforced widowhood. The English ries, 940; native missionaries, '150; Baptist Zenana Mission has been do- ,elementary schools, 1,566; scholars, ing a good work among them. It 64,357; orphanages, 73; orphans, commenced in 1867 with a revenue of 4,837, This does not include the $1,500. Now H! has 18 stations, 42 Catholics of Goa, under the Portu- lady visitOl'S, 25 assistants, 42 native ,guese, who are at feud with Rome at teachers and Bible ,,"omen, and 41 girl present. Together they will number schools containing about 1,500 pupils.
——– VII.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT Office be so modified as to give entire free- AND MISSIONS. dom to the various missionary societies to conduct their educational work on Indian FROM the Bible Society Record we reservations in their own way, without inquote: ~";;'Jerellce on the part of the government; .. On the 2d of November last a delegation .. II. That the regulations be further modof gentlemen, headed by the Hon. William fied so as to allow the use of the native Strong, ex-Justice of the Supreme Court, tongue in schools supported, in whole or in ,and represeHting theAmerican Bible Society, part,. by t,he government, so far as such use the Presbyterian Boards of Home and For- may be desirable as a means of acquiring eign Missions, the American Missionary a knowledge of the English or of imparting Asso~iation, the Missionary Society of the moral or religious instruction. Methodist Episcopal Church, the Board-of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, .. This interview with the President gave the Board of Indian Commissioners, and the warrant for the hope that the order would be various organiz.ations represented at the so far modified as to remove all objection Mohonk Conference, waited upon President to it on the part of those interested in it. But Cleveland with a statement and a request. we deeply re"ret to say that this hope is blasted, and that the latest order from the .. The occasion which led them to seek this Indian Office is open to the gravest obj~c interview was an order issued some time be.. tion as an attempt on the part of a single fore by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, officer ot the government to restrict religrigidly and positively forbidding the giving ious instruction and to dictate to missiona.. of instruction in the Indian language in any ry societies how they shall give instruction Indian school, and threatening to close ev- in religion and morals. ery school maintaine,d at private expense which did not comply with the regulation. .. The delegation asked, as a matter of pub- lic policy, that in schools in which govern- U The delegation expressed its accord with ment funds are employed the teachers might the department in its desire to have the be allowed to make use of the native tongue English language take the place of the na- as a means of teaching English, or of teachtive dialects as soon as possible, but re- ing their pupilH how to become good men spectfully questioned' the wisdom of at- and women. The answer is precise and pas.. tempting to secure this end by forbidding itive: 'No textbook in the vernacular will teachers to employ the only language which be allowed ;' ~ no oral instruction in the ver~ their pupils have known from childhood, nacular will be allowed at such schools;' or to use interlinear books in those lan- • the entire curriculum must be in the Engguages, especially in schools where the at- lish language.' tendance is Sure to be irregular and the period of tuition very brief;' and further- .. Furthermor'e, they asked, as a matter of more represented that it is' not within the civil and religious liberty, that missionary province of the govetnmeRt to enter any societies, intent on promoting the welfare private institution and say that Indian chil- of the aborigines, should be allowed to condren shall not be taught to read the Ten duct their eaucational work in their own Commandments and the Lord's Prayer in way, without interference on the part of the their own tongue. ' Government, using the primer, the hymn- book, the bool< of devotion and the Holy .. The delegation, believing that the best Scriptures in Dakota at their discretion. sentiment of the nation would sustain them ion it, made this twofold request: .. This appeal also is disregarded. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs assumes .. I. That the regulations of the Indian to know better than the missionaries. Bishop Hare must not teach his catechU' mens to read the Dakota catechism. Mr. perhaps is a little more-than the original Riggs must not use as a textbook the ver- was. It is a great pity that so important a. sion of the Bible which his father prepared matter should not be managed more sensiwith so much patience and scholarship. Mr. bly." Williamson must not write on the blackboard the T"u Commandments expressed in For ourselves we are amazed at any words his Indian boys have ever heard this" rebuff from the U. S. Governin their wigwams or on the playground. The ment." Our worthy President canbook, the printed page, the written words, not afford to have this action of his are under the baH of tbe United States Gov- subordinate stand. It is a grievous .,rnment. Its edict is, • Thou shalt not teach indignity to the missionary sentiment an Indian boy to read a word in his own of the age and directly contravenes a tongue." 'No person,' says the Commission- fundamental principle of our instituer, in his order, dated Jan. 18, 1888, • other tions. It is quite bad enough for our than a native Indian teacher, will be per- politicians, in national, state and mitted to teach in any Indian vernacnlar ; munidpallegislation, to show markand these native teachers will only be al- ed partiality to the Roman Catholic lowed in schools not supported in whole or Church for the Rake of political influin part by the government, at remote points ence; but when a government officer where there are no government or contract arbitrarily interposes and forbids our schools where the English language is missionary societies, in schools estabtaught. ", lished and wholly supported by them, from conducting them as their wis- That this high-handed and imper- dom dictates, it is quite time a halt tinent action on the part of a gov- were called and the pulse of the peo- ple felt. The order excluding the ernment official will be acquiesced in Dakota Bible from every school by the religious public, especially by where its reading can do any good is our missionary societies, we do not only paralleled by the recent attempt for one moment believe. The posi- of the Turkish Government to suption taken by the conference at Mo- press American schools in the Otto- man Empire-an attempt against honk ,Lake last summer is the only which our Department of State cprrect one, and our presumptuous through Mr. Straus, our minister, Indian Office will be forced to see it : so earn2stly protested as to defeat the attempt. No less earnest should .. No policy can be endured which forbids be the protest of the American people Christian 'IlUJn and wO'l1UJn to teach Ohristian against an arbitrary order which dictruth, or to prepare instrul'tion in it in any tates to their missionary societies the way theydeen. right, in any part of this com- metho.ds which they must pursue as monwealth, that is consistent with that civil a condition of being allowed to work and religious liberty which is unhampered for the conversion of the Indian race. in every other part of our land, and must So long as this order stands the Dehereafter be unhampered within all Indian partment of the Interior will be in a reservations. " position of direct antagonism to the Christian sentiment of our land.- The Christian Union well says: J. M. S.
.. It is monstrous that there should be a THE INDIAN BUREAU AND THE CA'l'HOsquare mile of territory in the United States in which the National Government should LIC CHURCH. be able by despotic decree to determine the conditions under which a free religions soci- THE American Protestant Church ety which asks no support and no favors has another serious matter to settle from the government may carryon its work. with this same secretary. Something We should be glad to have religious societies is evidently wrong in his department, appeal to the President to have this order and it is quite time some light was rescinded, not because they wish to use the let in upon it. We quote the follow- Indian vernacular, but because they demand liberty to make their own rules and regulations without let or hindrance of any kind from the Indian Bureau."
Says The Congregationalist: .. The simple facts are that the order of the Indian Commissioner, which has bAen modified, was absurd and unjust to begin with, and that whoever has attempted to modify it has bungled his task so that the result is not much more satisfactory to intelligent and patriotic people-although it ing froIn The Independent of this president and Rev. Joseph S. Stephan direc- tor, which devotes itaeJf to forwarding the city, and commend the startling facts interests of the Catholic Church with the government. Contracts for Catholic Indian here disclosed to the serious attention schools are made with Father Stephan. The energy of this bureau deserves high of our readers. We know that New commendation. Not simply the contract schools, but the government schools, sup- York, Brooklyn and other cities, as ported wholly by the government, are also rapidly passing into the control of this well as many state legislatures, have bureau by the appointment of Catholic teachers, even where the Indians are all long discriminated in favor of Roman Protestant. If we are not mistaken the chief of the department of schools in the Catholic as against Protestant insti- Indian Bureau and his assistant have both tutions; but here is evidence of such been Roman Catholics. The government marked, gross, iniquitous favoritism has given them all it could, not, we suppose, on the part of our National Govern- out of any preference to Catholics, nor bement as to shock one's sense of justice cause it believed the Catholics to maintain and demand an investigation. Such any better schools than the Protestants, an administration of our Indian but simply because it is believed that the Bureau as these two items disclose administration has something to gain politshows it to be a disgrace to the nation ically by favoring this one church at the and to President Cleveland's admin- expense of all others. "-J. M. S • istration! A WOMAN died in Philadelphia on .. What we say is in no way designed as a criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. the second of January who has in We respect it for its enterprise and activity. herself done more to solve the prob- That its activity has been wonderfully fa- lem of how to heal the breach bevored by the Indian "Bureau at Washington is tween the so-called "higher" and all that we propose to show. The statistics "lower" classes than all the wise we give need no eloquence to teach their plans and resolutions adopted by meaning. The government expended last ecclesiastical bodies. She was heryear the sum of $308,299.98. Of this sum the self a woman of elegant refinement, Catholics got $168,959.13, and all others, in- wealthy, beautiful in feature and cluding Hampton and Lincoln, got $139,- character, lovely in disposition, gen- 340.85. For contract day schools the gov- erous and charitable. But instead of ernment expended $9,847.27. Of this the identifying herself and all her family Catholics got $7,632.92, and all others $2,- with one of the wealthy and aristo- 214.35. The government paid for the educa- craticchurehes she deliberately joined tion of Indiau youth in contract schools the a church mostly and almost exclusum of $318,147.25, of which $176,5~2.15 went sively composed of the working peoto Catholic schools, and $141,555.20 to all ple. She became a teacher in the other schools. The Catholics comprise from Sunday-school and practically the one-tenth to one-sixLh of the population; pastor of the entire parish which her the amount allowed to their boarding and large class constituted. She visited day schools is 55).2 per cent. of the total each member of the class systematiamount expended ou these schools. The cally, and they were not social calls non-Catholic population of the couutry is either, but spiritual visits, dealing from five-sixths tonine-teuthsof the whole ; directly with souls. When they the amount allowed to their Indian schools were sick she went to them, Qn foot is 44).2 per cent. of the whole. In 1884 the and in humble attire; she carried government expended on Catholic schools them little dainties, she read hel' the sum of $35,263. In 1885 it was $90.142. Bible at their bedside, she knelt and In 1886 it was $134,197. In 1887 it reached prayed with them, she inquired of the sum of $176,592, five times as much as their spil:itual condition and directed in 1884. them to Jesus. No pastoral care be- .. When asked how it happens that Catho- came needful where that woman lic schools got so much, Mr. Atkins a.nswers that they ask for more. This is not a fair answer. Protestant schools find more dif- ficulty than Catholic in getting what they ask for, besides the fact that the govern- ment iuterferes less with Catholic than Protestant contract schools. But Catholic schools are very diligent in their asking. There is in Washington a bureau of Catholic Missions, of which Rev. P. L. Chapelle is went. She declined invitations to score of such men and women as this social parties that she might be free and we can close up the slums in our to devote her time to the Lord's great cities, build a chapel in every work. She might be bearing a sor- forsaken quarter, put a missionary in row that would have crushed another every remote hamlet, and girdle the woman, but no one would ever sus- globe with a zone of missionary pect it behind that cheerful face. labor. We are scarcely sincere when She was one among the people with we talk of insuperable obstacles in whom she was identified. There was the way of evangelizing the cities or no sign of conscious superiority. In- the world.-A. T. P. to the prayer-meetings and missionary circles and Dorcas gatherings she LIVINGSTONE at first had no thought went, just as though she had no high of being himself a missionary. Feelblood, nor social pank, nor ample ing that" the salvation of men ought purse. Everybody loved her. The to be the chief desire and aim of every poorest work – women would drop Christian," he had made a resolution everything and go at her call 01' her that he would give to the cause of beck as though they were serving a missions all that he might earn bequeen. Her last act was to rise from yond what was required for his subher dying bed, as her disease suddenly sistence. The resolution to give himdeveloped fatal symptoms, and write self came from his reading an appeal out checks to cover various benevo- by Mr. Gutzlaff to the churches of lent expenditures, and among others Great Britain and America on behalf a contribution to the church of whi9h of China. It was" the claims of so she was a member, and which just many millions of his fellow creatures, then was making heroic efforts to and the complaints of the societies of cancel a large mortgage debt. She the want of qualified missionaries," wrote her checks with a clear firm that led him to aspire to that office. hand, and went back to bed to die. From that time, apparently his When the news of her decease came twenty-first year, his efforts were like a thunderclap from a clear sky, constantly directed toward that oba hush fell on' the entire people as ject without any fluctuation. David though the ground were trembling Livingstone said, "I am a missionwith an earthquake. They could at'y heart and soul. God had only scarcely speak to one another. The one Son, and he was amissionary."- prayer-meeting turned to sobs and A.T.P. tears.
We talk of missions. There is no ONE of the most pathetic stories of trouble in reaching souls, but it takes missions is that of MarialIathsdotter. .a soul to do it. When we are in As she followed the reindeer over the dead earnest-when all else is practi- silent hills around her father's house, 'cally trampled under foot in our in- the needs of her people seemed to tense desire and determination to call her. She wept and prayed for bring souls neal' to God-when self- the ignorant Lapps until their condiindulgence gives way, and even self- tion forced her to decide. Their need love, before the burning, consuming was the voice of God. It took her flame of devotion to Christ and those three years to learn the Swedish for whom he died, we shall sweep language. Then, clad in ottel' and earth as with a conflagration lOne reindeer skins with the Lapland skid- Paul, in thirty-three years, made a del'S on her feet, she walked in winter, journey afoot over the greater part 600 miles to Stockholm. It was a ·of the known world west of the long journey over the dreary moun- Golden Horn and bore the gospel tains and dismal forests. But suc- .into the regions beyond. Give us a cess crownfld her efforts. The Lord was with her. The king of Sweden THE editor of The Church at Home granted her request. Her people and Abroad, our esteemed brother were provided with schools and Dr. Nelson, calls our attention to the churches.-A. T. P. fact that the article on "Beginning at Jerusulem," which we reviewed in WHEN Dr. H. H. Jessup, for so the March number of this REVIEW: many years a missionary in Syria, has already been met by "clear and was offered the secretaryship of the conclusiye" counter statements in Presbytel'ian Board of Foreign Mis- the same magazine in which the artisions, after enumerating the reasons cle first appeared (The Church, Jan. why he should remain in the foreign 1888, pp. 67,68). We would simply field he closed by saying' : add that a distinction ought always to be made between attacking a sen- .. One thousand Presbyterian churches timent and assaulting a man. We give nothing for the spread of the gospel in were reviewing an argument whic·h heathen lands I What a mournful minor we regarded as unsound and unscripstrain rises from that sentence amid the tural, but we had not a thought of glorious harmonies of that ever-memorable antagonizing its author, who is yet assembly in the city of Philadelphia! One to us unknown, nor above all of holdthousand churches giving nothini!': Sccres ing the editor of The Church responof young men graduating from our theologi- sible for all the sentiments of articles. cal seminaries, and ahnost none wiIIiEg to that appear in the various depart go to the heathen. A devoted lady teacher ments of that organ of the Boards. from a foreign field, spending a year in America, invitin~ a young woman to return In our opinion the only way to conwith her to a delightful field of missionary duct a Review is to deal frankly, labor, and obliged to return alone I Appeal honestly and impartially with all· after appeal sent for a teacher to aid subjects. If any published line of Miss Everett in the interesting- female sem- argument seems hostile to the best inary in Beirut and no oue found to come 1 interests of the cause of missions, we mean to do our best to expose its fal- H Is this the time for us on the ground to lacy. And we expect at others' hands leave onr work and go home? Not until the the same treatment and shall not Great Captain calls us htlme.'" complain. We felt sure Dr. Nelson would agree with us in our strictures No wondel' he refused. upon the article in question.
SAID the Earl of Shaftesbury, upon FROM a very valued and influenthe occasion of his taking the presi- tial foreign correspondent the editors dency of "the English Missions Aid have received a letter full of wis- Society" III 1860 : dom. He congratulates the eaitors on the grand conception and great •. I do not believe that in the whole history u~efulness of the REVIEW, and hopes of missions; I do not b@lieve in the history our plans will be fully carried out. of any negotiations carried on between man He thinks the tone of the REVIEW and man, we can find anything to equal the should be at once independent, imwisdom, the soundness and the pure evan- partial and uncompromising in its gelical trnth of the body of men who c,msti- rebuke and exposure of whatever tute the American mission in the East. I is wrong OL' hostile to the best inhave said it twenty times before. and I will tel'ests of missions; that there should say itagain, for the expression appropriately not be too much license in attacking conveys my meanin6'-they arg a marvelous missionary societies and committees combination of common sense and piety. or defending acts on the part of Every man who comes in contact with these missionaries :which are indefensible misslOnaries speaks.in praise of them. Persons in authority and persons in subjection all speak in their favor. I know of no man who has ever been able to bring against that body a single valid objection. There they stand, tested by years, tried by their works and exemplified by their fruits, and I believe it will be found that these American missionaries have done more toward uphold- ing the truth and spreading t.he gospel of Christ in the East than any other body of men in this or in any other age." -simply in a partisan spirit. He be- speak out with unflinching voice when lieves a missionary should be loyal to a thing is done which is wrong, and the society with which he is engaged, point out faults um;paringly, yet in and not take up arms against the Christian love." To all of which we agency which placed him in the field, have only to add that whenever auand suggests as our motto" audi al- thenticated facts are brought to our teram pe,rtem." He deprecates ex- notice demanding faithful reproof, travagant praise and undue epithets, we mean that there shall be found in and even thinks Bishop Hanmngton our pages no cover or cloak to evilcannot in any proper sense be called a doing. 'Ve believe that the law of martyr as he did not die for the Faith, "truthing it in love" is one of the but like any other indiscreet traveler. foremost laws of Christ's kingdom, In this we disagree with our friend, and that nothing' is gained by the while giving;place to his friendly stric- concealment of wrong or the veiling tures. The word martyr is one of of it in apology. wide scope. Hannington certainly was a witnQss for the Faith, and will- NOTHING is needed more in these ingly surrendered life that he might days than an entire reconstruction, purchase the way to the heart of not of our systems of giving only, but Africa with his blood, which is not our very ideas of giving. The most true of any mere traveler. princely sums given to the Lord's work are miserably and shameflllly Our correspondent thinks errors of a iNadequate to the demands of that most serious sort are springIng up and work on the one hand and wretchedshould be unsparingly exposed in such ly disproportionate to our average a Review. He asks, What could justi- ability and personal expenditures on fy the appeal of Mackye and Ashe for the other hand. One great church help from England to rescue them of 700,000 members raises a dollar a and their native conv:erts? "'hat year for foreign missions-less than could justify the American mission- one-third of a cent a day for each aries in the Caroline Islands making member !-and calls that generous. their converts, who were subjects of Another church, far more numerous. Spain, keep the 4th of July? or the raises a million and sets all its church Presidentof France giving the Legion bells ringing for a jubilee! of Honor to the French mi5sionaries in Basuto Land, within a British col- We find ourselves lacking $50,000 &ny, "for advancing the interests at the end of a fiscal year, and word of France? What can justify the goes out to the various missionary French Government expelling the stations that all expenses must be re- American mIssionaries from the Ga- trenched; and accordingly schools boon? The Germans have expeJled are closed, mission stations abandonthe Engli'lh Baptists from the Came- ed and all aggressive work ceases. roons,and the Basle missionaries have The" Salvation Army," at whose vaoccupied their place. Missionaries garies we laugh, at whose extravaare beginning to ill-use the natives gances we sneer, finds need of $50,- of Africa; they habitually beat them, 000 for an onward movement and and some men have died under their they raise it in one week by simple- hands. In Madagascar all the mis- self-denial. They impose it on them- sionaries-S. P. G., Norwegian, L. M. selves to limit their supply of food so S., Friend-use slave labor in their as to realize the needed sum. houses; all the native pastors, once slaves, buy and sell them and are not We have just passed the holiday ashamed." season. We have not one word to say in discouragement of exchanges With regard to such things our cor- of friendship and family love-tokens, respondent says the REVIEW" should although we feel confident that this. thing is carried to an absurd and of- "The account for last year iii as follows ten idolatrous extreme; but if one- for foreign missions: tenth of all lavished in Christmas gifts had been simply saved for Christ Parent society …………….$576,914 and his kingdom, the treasuries of Woman's Board …………… 167,000 every great benevolent agency in the world might now be bursting with a Total for last year……… $743,914 superfluity of funds I-A. T. P. This year We have appropriated for ERRATA. Foreign Missions…………..$635,000 Woman's Board…………… 228,000 AN unfortunate error occurred in our January number on page 33. To Total , ……………….. $863,000 Sir Monier Williams's admirable "The point is, !1lways remember to count paper an extract is added purporting our women in if you count those of other de- to be from Prof. Max Miiller, but nominations. " which is a part of the address of Pro- fessor Williams delivered on another ON page 130 (Feb. No.), in a note from occasion. The first speech was before Prof. Wilkinson, several errors occurred. the Church Missionary Society at the Read the work goes on for the world moves annual meeting in Exeter Hall, in on. The name of the missionary is Witter May last; the other is from an ad- iustead of Willis, and Naza Hills should read dress before the Bible Society at its NagaHilis. annual meeting in 1886. The error is easily accounted for. The second OUR MISSIONARY MAP OF THE WORLD. extract was put in THE REVIEW just as we cut it from one of our ex- WE bespeak the attention of our changes, where it was credited to readers to the publishers' offer of this Prof. Miiller, and we unhappily trans- great map on terms that bring it ferred both the extract and the error. within reach of every mission circle, Sunday-school and church. We OUR attention has been called to a know from long experience that such discrepancy in our figures given in the a map displayed at the monthly con- February number, of the receipts for cert or in the Sundav-school or at mis- 1887 of the Missionary Society of the sionary gatherings·would add vastly 'Methodist Episcopal Church. On to the interest and the profit of such page 118 we give the sum of $576,- meetings. Well do we recall the 914.74, and on page 156, $828,000. In widespread interest and enthusiasm the former case our figures were offi- awakened by "Bidwell's Missionary cial, taken from the society's last re- Maps," a generation or so ago, and port. In the latter they occur in a many thousands of them were sold table of statistics, copied from and in this country and abroad. " Col- credited to the Missionary Herald. ton's," which our publishers offer, is a We wrote to the editor of the M. H., "thing of beauty," and immensely and he replied that his figures were superior to any ever before produced. obtained by conespondence with Dr. It would be money well expended for McCabe, Secretary of the M. E. C. a church or Sunday-school to take Society. Dr. McCabe very kindly up a collection and possess one, if it responded to our request for informa- can be got in no o!her way.-J. M. S. tion with the following gratifying statement: THE patience of our patrons has been and may still be tried by delay "The discrepancy arises frOm a failure to in getting our REVIEW 'after subscrib- count the receipts of the Woman's Foreign ing for it. The demand has so far Miss. Society. The Presbyterian Board" outstripped our editions that three [to which we referred in our note] "counts editions Of the January and two of the receipts of the Woman's Board. the February have already been printed and more will speedily be called for. Fortunately the work is stereotyped and hence the largest demand can be supplied. This delay, however, will only be temporary.- J.M. S.