The Missionary Review of the World — January 1897
IV. Plate ill. Plate IT. Plate
MECCA CERrrIFICATE.
This Certificz(te is gIven to Moslem Pilgrims to Mecca and is Considered by them as good as a Passport to Heaven.
(See page 32.) MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.R VOL. xx. No. 1.-0ld&riu.-JANUARY.-VOL. X. No. 1.-NI'IDlJtJtriM.
BUILDING FROM THE BASE.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Rev. William Haslam, in his remarkable book, "From Death Into Life," tells us about an elderly Cornish woman who had been taught the deep things of God, and who, observing that he was trying to promote a higher standard of active Christianity without due care to lay right foundations in holy living-asked him one day as be past, "Now, Mr. Haslam, are ye goin' to build your spire from the top'! "
The question was like an arrow that is not easily dislodged. He could not get that thought out of his mind. "Have I begun at the beginning? Am I building from the bottom or absurdly attempting to construct from the top down?" Such were the questions he found himself asking of his own inner self, until he was compelled to make a new start, and lay the broad, deep and firm foundation of all holy serving in holy living and holy praying. This experience suggests the title of this paper, in which we purpose to discuss the radical need in mission enterprise of a reconstruction from tlte base upward.
This conviction and conclusion have not been reacht without much thought and prayer. If a bit of personal history be not an indelicate intrusion in an article meant for the public eye, the writer would here confess that it is now thirty years ago since, as a pastor in New York State, he turned his attention deliberately and persistently, first to informing himself and then to informing and arousing the church npon the great cause of missions. Since then, with growing absorption, both tongue and pen have been put at the Lord's service in this world-wide work. Books and pamphlets have been written by the score, missionary sermons and addresses delivered by the thou. sand to an aggregate audience, singularly expanding year by year under guidance of a strange Providence which gave unexpected
FROM THE BABE
opportunity to be heard across the sea; for ten years the writer haa been addressing every month fifty thousand people who at least read the MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: and these are bnt a few of the ways in which the editor of thit! REVIEW has been compelled to watch the progress of missions for more than a quarter of a cen- tury. Without claiming any undue capacity for observation, saga- city in discernment, or accuracy in judgment and induction, the calm conclusion reacht after thirty years of study of this theme and of active participation in the actual machinery of missionaryenterprjse, is, that at no time during the llalf century now closing have missions to the heathen been at greater peril of utter collapse! Wide doors are open, immense fields invite, some soil calls for the ,sower, while 11arvests demand the reaper; we never knew so well how much territory there is to be possessed. and how deep is the need of mankind; never had the church such opportunities and facilities, never such large numbers and wealth at her disposal: and yet, with doors open wider than ever, and candidates offering in unprecedent£d numbers, the giving of the people of God is so utte]'ly inadequate and disgracefully disproportionate, that where every divine sign of the times is a call for rapid adyance and expansion. our drums beat a retreat, and our boards loudly call for retrenchment!
And-what is, to our view, most fraught with risk,-there is a growing apathy about the whole question of a world's evangelization, which seems to argue a decay at the very root of missionary enterprise. The canses of this we cannot for ourselves either doubt or deny. On one hand there is laxity of doctrine, which, at least, leads disciples to induJ,ge a vague" eternal hope," like Dean Parrar, that the heathen are not really lost without Christ: and on the other hand there is a laxity in practice, which leads to a practical recognition of all religions as belonging to a universal brotherhood of faiths, and to the fellowship of their representatives as entitled to our" Christian charity", forgetful of the famous proverb quoted by Dr. John Ryland to Robert Hall, that "charity is an angel while she rejoiceth in the truth, but a harlot when she rejoiceth in iniquity," embracing those whom she should rather pity and weep over.
These pages are devoutly consecrated, not merely to the news of missions, but even more particularly to the problems of missions, to the principles and practices on which depends whether there shall be any news to announce save that of defeat and disaster. And so, in the faith and fear of Him whose stewards we are, we make no apology for the candid examination and outspoken testimony which are necessary if we are either to guard against errors or secure lasting advance. And the firm persuasion controls the editor; that if anything can be done to secure a broad, strong, firm basts in a holier, diviner life in the church, the whole structure of active evangelization will take new
BUILDING FROM THE
proportions and dimensions, and grow up toward completion and con-. summation, like the Temple of old, noiselessly, symmetrically, cease- lessly, without buildiug into it one false element, misplacing one stone,.. or timber, or reshaping by human tools of worldly wisdom or inven- tion any of the blocks which a Divine architect has hewn in his own, quarry.
Let any prayerful and candid disciple survey without prejudice the- present status of the Ohristian Ohurch and the so-called Ohristian world", and as in the sight of God, calmly ask himself whether from such con- ditions a true self-sacrificing apostolic type of evangelism can be ex- pected. Look at the church pervaded by sectarianism, sacramental- ism, ritualism and Romanism, and an even more fatal secularism. Be- hold the awful lack of gospel preaching, the reckless extravagance thatreigns and practical denial of stewardship, the low level of piety, theprevalence of prayer]essness, and the encroachment of virtual infidelity_ See the church confronting the world with its more than thousand million unconverted souls, scattered over a wide unevangelized territory, with its unoccupied and neglected fields continental in breadth;. yet unable to grapple with the awful problems of society, conscious of a widening gap or gulf between itself and the world, yet nnable tobridge the gulf, while the intemperance, licentiousness and anarchy of society takes on a more and more revolutionary aspect. Then turn to the history and progress of missions, the triumphs and successes of the past century, the encouragements of God's promise and prophecy, the providential access to all nations, and the heroic examples of faith and consecration that are our incitements to holy effort-as well as the large body of converts and the larger communities of adherents which are the visible planting of the Lord-and then let anyone tell us why missions stand at such a halting place on the way, unless it be becanse vital godliness has been suffered to decay.
There is to our mind but one possible conclusion, which we dare to, emphasize by repetition: namely, to build up missions so that thestructure shall risk no collapse, we must look well to the base-in the individual as well as the collective church-life. We mnst press homO" on the believer the demand for personal holineRs. The word of God mnst be r{'stored to its supreme place as the inspired, infallible testimony of God; the personality and power of the Holy Spirit, the indispensableness of Ohrid to human salvation, the nniversal priesthood of believers and the need of a simple and spiritual worship, the call to'
separation and selfdenial for Ohrist, and the neglected hope of the Lord's coming,-these and like truths must be preacht, taught, driven home to ihe conscience-until God's people are brought into personal, living, loving sympathy with Himself.
When Rev. Dr. Aleyander MacLaren, of Manchester, spoke at the Jubilee of the Free Ohurch of Scotland, he thrilled and awed his hearers by a characteristic treatment of "Spiritual Dynamics." And in course of that grand speech he shewed how. wide reaching is thlt range of spiritual truth, by an illustration which had the force of a demonstration. He set before his audience the image of a compass, with one foot firmly set in the true center, and the other describing a circle which, while that center was preserved, could not possibly err in its width or range of circumference.
The persuasion grows upon us that the first necessity in our mis· sionary theory and practice is to get the truth center and fix there the point of our compass, and then, however wide the circle of our activity, we shall always be right, scriptural, spiritual; and, on the contrary, if we have not the true center and do not keep it, our best enterprises, by whatever name called, will be more or less failures.
It is a most markt fact that, thus far in history, all the great .epochs of missionary activity have been circles with one center: a revival <oj E'IJangelical pietYj and even within these have been only smaller "circles with a uniform center: PRAYER. In other words, all wider or ,smaller enterprises which have been of a true missionary character .have been a circumference whose one center has been a new approach ':1;0 God in believing supplication and intercession. For example, John Wesley unconsciously founded a great missionary movement known as Methodism, whose results already are five and a half million of adher· "ents, but all this can be traced back to a holy club of four that met in Lincoln College, Oxford, one hundred and seventy years ago, for cui· . tivation of holiness and prayer. The great revivals that swept over ,ine United States and Britain between 1830 and 1860 were all the ,result of prayer that began with a few burdened souls. So of the 'China Inland Mission, which leapt into life under the inspiration of 'one man's supplication. The Bristol Orphanages, with all the work ,of the Scriptural Knowledge Institution and kindred work of missions in all lands, may be traced to that one apostle of prayer, George Miiller.
It seems too plain to need demonstration that, if we are to sweep a wider circle of missions around the now unoccupied territory, and have it a real achievement rather than an apparent and superficial advance, we must be sure that the compass of our plan plants its foot in the firm pivotal center of believing prayer and the higher holiness that is bound up inseparably with such devout and privileged communing with God. And for this reason we propose to give in consecutive pa· pers in this REVIEW a series. of half-historic sketches of certain con- spicuous spiritual movements of the last half century, from which we may learn some great lessons of God. We believe that the effect will bit to shew that all real advance in missions is due, uniformly, to an advance first of all in the standard of holy living, and that eTen this is quite as uniformly due to a new power of prayer. .I There has been no time within the memory of men now living, when the crisis in missions has equalled the present for critical and pivotal interest. There are three factors that now combine to consti- tute this a new and critical emergency in the work quite beyond any previous exigency, both in its importance and its appeal: namely, the vastness of the area, both open and unoccupied; the inadequacy of the available force for occupation ; and the apathy exhibited by the Ohurch at large, especially as shown in the insufficient standard of giving, and in the indifference which allows retrenchment to go forward where every condition calls for expansion.
These convictions are not held bj the writer of this paper without a wide constituency of sympathetic souls. Much residence abroad and travel on the continent has revealed a general unrest and dissatisfac- tion among God's people, a common consciousness of this need of a highe:a: standard of holiness, and a drawing into closer fellowship on the part qf praying'souls, to the utter disregard of all previous barriers of separation and exclusion. Never before, since apostolic days, has there been such a fraternizing of believers who have been pent up within high sectarian fences. Close limits that have restrained many Baptists from communing at the Lord's table with nnimmersed believers, and the close limits that h~ve restrained many Anglicans from acknowledging any ordination as valid, except that of prelatical bishops, and have kept many conscientiously from ever attending a dissenting place of worship -even such high walls as these have not been high enough to keep apart disciples who, in yearning for a deeper spiritual life, have found in other disciples an answering yearning, as in water, face answereth to face.
In this um:on of all disciples in common prayer and self-surrender to God for holy living and serving, is to befound the most significant sign of the times. It suggests the one practical solution of the problem of missions, if indeed it be not the hope of solving all the perplexities of our Ohristian life. Certain it is that wherever, and so far as these movements have prevailed, the whole state of the church has felt a new and reforming power at work. Prayer meetings have multiplied and become mighty: preaching has taken on' new gospel tone. and new Holy Spirit power: giving has become more spontaneous and liberal, and missionary candidates have offered in unprecedented numbers.
The result of this "Oxford movement" which ,a few years later found a center in "Keswick" teaching, so-called, and which is to form the subject of the first paper in this series, are far wider in range than most of us realize. One who is as well qualified to speak 8S any other observer, and who, at seventy years of age, gives his calm judgment, writes me thus in a letter not meant for publication, and so the more valuable as a testimony. He says, "I think that perhaps the results were larger in Germany than in England. A German theo- logical professor told my brother that, as Justification by Faith had -once been establisht in German theology, so now sanctification by faith has likewise been largely accepted as a doctrine by theologians there. I hear from various quarters that a great impulse has been given by this wave, to missi01~ary work, the dedication of Ute will, the central thought of it all, leading to this form of service in large numbers of cases. "When Mrs. Catharine Booth was dying," he continues, Il she said to Mr. Edward Clifford, who was much with her, that the Oxford- Brighton mOTement was one of the principal means of the establish- ment of the work of the Salvation Army, or rather an aid to it. It brought the very great number of the upper classes who have been ef- fectually reacht, into sympathy with the Salvation Army, the central power of which was the same-a completed consecration and a full faith. Curiously, therefore, the' High Church' were greatly reacht at one end, and the' Free Methodists' at the other. And yet more curiously, it was the means of forwarding the agnostic' Peoples' Church' through an attendant at Brighton, who, in a full joyous sense of a yielded will, and full trust, feeling the force of the historical difficulties in Ohristianity, tho he seemeJ. to be as earnest, sincere and consecrated and true in heart as ever, felt led with the same sort of personal devotion to making a church for the large class of morally good men among the working classes whom he found seemingly incapable of Christian faith (in its historical sense), and formed congregations out of such. I have conferred with many such men, and all acknowledge that the spiritual leverage-shall I say-power to immediately and greatly move souls is wanting. In one of George Macdonald's novels he makes the typical 'broad' doctrine curate effect only a modification of a carpenter's cynical views of life! Sudden and effectual conversions-the ordinary work to be wrought by evangelical preaching-is not in it, though he had the novelist's choice.
"From my present standpoint, the essence of Christianity lies not so much in doctrine, even historical, as in the surrender of the will and effectual realization of the real Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Christ: and whenever I attend public services I burn to have these things proclaimed in power and souls brought out of that misery -of a quickened conscience while yet there is a divided heart-into the joyous obedience of a realized sonship. This is the truth which has formed (the church within the church' in all the ages-the inner church which instructed Luther and the great apostles of the faith,- (lven while some of them rejected the form it took." * This is one testimony out of hundreds which we hav;e collected, to * See the new" Catherine of Siena," by Talbot. the effect on mission work at home and abroad of this school of teach- ing, the central peculiarity of which is that it seeks to bring the believer into close and vital contact with Ohrist as a sanctifier, and as complete master of the surrendered will. Is not the final solution of our present problem of missions, is not the only hope that the work of a world's evangelization will ever be carried forward as it ought to be, found in the increast holiness of God's people, and in the real surrender of the will to Christ as Master, which at once establishes the bond of sympathy with Him, and makes obedience natural, implicit, immediate, delightful?
We feel that we are working down past the accidents and super- ficial attendants of the difficulty to its very root. Missions languish because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhp.re and preach to everybody is still unobeyed, because the will is not lost by self-surrender in the will of God. There is no right giving because there is so little right living, and, because of the lack of sympathetic contact with God in holiness of heart, there is a lack of effectual contact with Him at the Throne of Grace. Living, praying, giving, and going will always be found together, and a low standard in one means a general debility in the whole spiritual being. We must come to feel and acknowledge this. And for this reason, that our readers may be brought into more sympathetic contact with this flood-tide of spiritual sympathy and power which is now sweeping quietly over two continents, we shall, from the best sources possible, get accurate information on these subjects, and spread this before those who commune with us through these pages. We shall first trace the history of the Oxford-Brighton movement; then of the Keswick Oonventions, which are, in a sense, its successors; then look at the Newport Revival in Monmouthshire, England, singularly contemporaneous, yet independent; and we may afterward, to complete both the record and the impression, refer to the distinctively missionary movements like those of the Ohina Inland Mission and the Missionary Alliance which are the indirect outgrowths of the deepening spiritual life to which we refer.
The first of these successive articles, immediately following this, on the genesis of the" Oxford Movement," is prepared by one who, tho modestly withholding his name from publication, was intimately, and from the beginning, both an actor in, and an observer of, what is here put on record.
May the God of all truth and grace add His blessing to the simple, humble effort to build up from the base a new and growing interest in the work to which our Lord gave Himself and appointed us-the Evangelization of the world.
TlIE GENESIS OF TlIE "OXFORD MOVEMENT."
THE GENESIS OF THE "OXFORD MOVEMENT" FOR THE PROMOTION OF SORIPTURAL HOLINESS.
The spiritual history of the coming decades in England can be pre- dicted largely from the spiritual currents among the younger men of the universities. The" High Ohurch" or " Puseyite ., tidal wave was rightly called" the Oxford movement." The" evangelical impulse," given mainly by Charles Simeon, was similarly called "the Oambridge movement." Succeeding, or parallel to this last, was a radical highly Calvinistic impulse through the unorganized body called "the Ply- mouth Brethren." In the well-known book, "The Fairchild Family," by Mrs. Sherwood, one may find the evangelical teaching prest to its extreme and least attractive forms, and in the numerous and widely circulated publications of the" Plymouth Brethren" will be found the teaching of the strongest doctrines as to implicit literal" obedience to the Word," or Scripture, combined with strictest Oalvinistic statements as to the forensic condition of the believer, as an unalterable complete state of grace. The influence of this latter teaching ex~ tended through both the Establisht Church and most of the dissenting bodies, far beyond the limits of the unorganized Plymouth Brethren themselves, who, without formal membership or denominational system, met" to break bread," as they termed the act of communion.
In the seventies, the first generation of these three forms of revival was passing away, and the successors, who had not shared the deep I'lpiritual crisis in which the High Church, evangelical and Brethren movements originated, found themselves with forms, either of ritual, or of doctrine, which, dulled by use, failed to meet their spiritual needs as they had supplied those of their predecessors. There was a felt lack of, and a great hungering for a personal righteousness, which shonld really meet their too often starving spiritual natures. Taught that they wpre sacramentally complete by absolution on one hand, or judicially, forensically, perfect. by forgiveness of sin on the other, they yet found themselves unsatisfied, with no well of living water within, as promist in Scripture. They lived with a high standard of holiness, yet under frequent or almost constant sense of condemnation for transgression. They exaggerated the doctrine, often exprest in the words "black but comely;" or. as they would state in prayermeetings, they were "from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot bruises and putrefying Bores;' while yet forgiven saints, and by imputation "whiter than snow," and ready for heaven itself. Their supposed judicial standing and their lives of practical failure, were in startling' contrast.
In this condition of mind numberless tender-hearted Ohristians found a sorrow which nothing reacht. They felt that they were by their failures continually grieving the One in all the univers-e whom they loved best, and they suffered constantly renewed sorrow. Saved, as they believed, for eternity, from the penalty of sin, they were yet in many respects under its acknowledged power. It was not gross sins, but sins of pride, anger, temper, censoriousness, evil thoughts; and they even sometimes felt that some around them who made no. Christian profession were more free from failure than themselves.
In 1873 a series of papers written in America appeared in a London weekly, now named The Christian, which called attention to a neglected part of scriptural teaching. This teaching was that Christ came to save His people from their sins, and not from the consequences of them only; that in the Epistles His offering of Himself was more often stated as for their sanctification than even for their justification; that" He gave Himself for us that He m;ght purify unto Himself a people," etc. "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, shottld live unto righteousness." This was felt to be more than judicial pardon and imputed righteousness. One part of the Gospel had been fully preacht, pardon to the sinner, forgiveness to the repentant transgressor; but its complement of a practical, continuous victory over temptation equally provided in the Gospel had been overlookt. A false humility, while boldly claiming pardon for sins, overlookt its correlative victory over sin.
These "views" in The C'hristian deeply affected great numbers of spiritual Christians, and when, in 1873, they were emphasized in meetings, beginning in the rooms of the London Young MelY's Christian Associations, many were greatly changed by them in their attitude as to faith and personal consecration, and consequently in their lives.
What was taught was simply that a completed consecration of will and a completed trust in the Word of Christ would bring the Christian into a realization of the promises of victory over sin, and into sustained communion with God; that the only normal condition of the "believer" was that of full belief; of the" child of God," implicit obedience. That as a bird cannot rise on one wing, so in both full trust, and full obedience alone could a disciple find the promises of victory over sin a continuing reality.
What gave effect to this teaching was the steady insistence that bere and now, even while this simple truth was being preacht, the- Christian should yield his too often divided will, give np some doubtful or consciously condemned idol or practice, and commit himself to an unreserved trust and obedience. Often it was like death itself t() renounce something more or less clearly known to be evil. "I would die if I gave it up," said a popular preacher, referring to an unhallowed indulgence. The reply was, "Life to a Christian is not a: necessity; obedience is. The early Christians preferred death to dis· -obedience, and so must you." ~'he agony almost of death was in his -countenance as he said, "Then I renounce it." The battle of Waterloo is said to have depended on the possession of a small cottage as a key to the contest. It was often some small matter in which tlte will was entrenched, and till this was yielded full trust was impossible; ;and, conversely, often till a full trust was exercised the yielding was impossible. How near they often were to the Rock and knew it not! A man descending a well by a rope found himself at the end of the line, and soon his strength began to fail. He could not climb up, and to let go would be, he supposed, to be dasht to pieces. At length he ,could hold on no longer, and dropt. The distance to the rock was- three inch8s! How often have we seen the spiritual counterpart of this scene!
Words can but imperfectly describe the joy and spiritual power which came through the extr-nsion of these meetings to thousands of dergymen and religious teachers, and to Ohristians in less conspicuous conditions. By the liberal kindness of Samuel Morley, the Member of Parliament for Bristol, a leading Oongregationalist, a series of breakfasts were given in London in 1874-75 for ministers, which were ..attended by twenty-four hundred preachers, mostly at breakfast-tables of thirty or forty in a morning. Oontinuous meetings of a few days at a time were held in London and the provinces and in various cities on the Oontinent, and in 1874, in response to the request of a number of young men at the University of Oambridge, the late Lord Mount Temple opened his country seat, "Broadlands," widely known as the residence of the late Lord Palmerston, for a meeting of ten days. This was by private invitation, and so great was the blessing found, that it was felt that another and larger meeting must be convened. This resulted in a meeting at Oxford of clergymen of the Establishment, as well as preachers and members of the various churches, about a thousand in number gathered from all parts of England. At this "Oonvention" many pastors were also present from the Oontinent; and similar meetings were held later in France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Germany, which were crowded, sometimes the addresses being repeated twice in the same evening to as many as .six thousand hearers. Everywhere the same remarkable results in the revival of the Ohristian life were realized. In France, Theodore Monod, in Switzerland, Pastor Stockmeyer, and in other countries -others held similar" conventions" or "retreats" upon the same model.
In 1875 a yet larger meeting of ten days was held at Brighton, .attended by about six thousand persons, among whom were about two hundred and fifty pastors from Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and France, and also by the venerable Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem.
And now, after twenty-one years, there are still held annually in England, ten" retreats" or " conventions" on a similar plan of three to ten-day continuous services. The one at Kendal, establisht by the Rev. Canon Battersby, is widely known. The one at Guilford collects about five thousand persons annually. From many countries on the Continent continual reports come of continuous blessing still attributed to this movement. At Nancy, for twenty years a pastor has held a weekly meeting as a remembrance and continuation of the blessings received at Brighton.
This spontaneous, unorganized movement, so far as is known, never resulted in a change of the Church connection of a single individual from that in which it found him. It gave him power to work in the sphere in which he already lived. The establishment of a new denomination was confidently predicted by some, but its announced object was not a change of either doctrine or organization, but a revival of living faith in truths already accepted, and in full practical obedience within spheres already found.
It was without public emotional expression. The writer cannot recall any indication of physical excitement, not even a single Amen! spoken aloud. Those who led it, it happened, did not need any pecuniary support, and with little mention of needs for rents of halls and traveling expenses of Continental pastors, there was a surplus of many thousands of pounds of voluntary contributions, while no portion of a guaranty fund of twenty-five hundred pounds was required. Seventy ushers waited on the meetings at Brighton, held in several languages, from seven o'clock in the morning almost continually till ten at night. The civic corporation gave three large halls and many rooms for the purpose free of charge.
Among other results, a great and continuous impulse has been given the missionary movement, through the completed obedience and faith of Christians attending these "consecration meetings."
It would not be well to close this notice of the movement without stating what is nat meant by the teaching above described. Everywhere an anxiety prevailed among good Christians lest it should mean what is termed" sinless perfection." Perhaps our danger lies more in sinful imperfection, but yet it is an honest anxiety based on occasional fanaticisms. The wine of the Kingdom, like earthly wine, proves sometimes too much for ill-balanced souls. It was interesting to see persons coming to these meetings full of the expectation of hearing "sinless perfection" preacht, and then to see their surprise as a speaker opened with the words, "Perhaps no one has ever accurately defined and limited the term Sin. If it be the coming short of the absolute holiness of the Divine, I sin in every breath I draw." Such hearers would look in surprise at one another, and the speaker would continue: "But if continuous, conscious trespass be made the necessary inevitable condition of the Ohristian; if he, by the law of his exis"tence, as a follower of Christ. must continuously and inevitably grieve Him whom he loves best in all the universe; if the fence between sinners sinning and saints obeying be thrown down; if Christ did not die to redeem us all from iniquity, and pnrify ns unto Himself, to 'save me from my sins, then is the Gospel a failure as regards this life, and the will of God is not our sanctification. Yet no one can claim deliverance from sin in any other sense than victory over known, dis- covered sin. Had we the insight of angels, we could not take one step in our confused .surroundings without conscious sin. But from known sin, from discerned evil, one may find deliverance in Christ. And as we walk in the light and in obedience. each day shows us more of evil to be avoided. In to-day's light yesterday's sin of ignorance may become one of knowledge to be now conquered. No wise person will boast that he has not sinned for such and such a time. But he may say, that to the utmost of his trust is his victory over known sin; and that so far as he does not trust, in so far he fails. In such a life, the momen t of confession of sin is the moment of realized pardon, and also of power to avoid its repetition."
"Wherein, then, does your present life differ from the former experience?" we are askt. It differs, first, in that we are not expect- ing to sin, that we are not making a provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof. And that the courage of faith, that secret of vic- tory, and the coincidence of our wish or will with what we as yet know of God's will, makes a habit of victory and obedience.
You claim an undivided allegiance to your country, entire loyalty .. to your wife, complete affection for your children-is it impossible to have, as to the totality of your condition, equally trne relations to God? Must you be partly a rebel, an adulterer, indifferent to your children? Nay, even tho there be momentary failure, the trend of your being, the habit of your life, the current of your existence, may -nay, mttst-be henceforth allegiance, loyalty, love. Then you no longer are under law-a sense of compulsion, a contest of inclination, but your will, now completely yielded, becomes henceforth that of God• .. I worship Thee, sweet Will of God, And all Thy ways adore, And every day I live, I learn To love Thee more and more."
SOME OF THE DEEPER THINGS.
BY REV. F. B. }fEYER, B. A., LONDON, ENGLAND.
The only hope for any of us to realize the life which is life indeed is: first, To discriminate between the workings of the flesh and that of the spirit; and second, To consign the former absolutely to death.
The workings of the flesh are very insidious, because they are the outcome of the I-life. "In me-that is, in my flesh," sald the apostle
BOllE OF THE DltEPElt TIDNGS
(Rom. 7: 18). The flesh is mej the me-life; the life in which self is prominent; which is prompted and inspired by self; the final end and efficient cause of which is self. And beeause our personality is so ubiquitous and energetic, the presence and power of the flesh is infused into all our life.
The only true test of discrimination between these two principles is the Word of God, because it is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the 'dividing asunder of soul (which is the seat of the self-life), and spirit (which is the seat of the Christ- life). Bathe in the Word of God, let the blessed Spirit use it perpet- ually, and you will become sensible of the manifold workings of the flesh in regions where you had not suspected it.
The flesh assumes base passionate aspects. It The works of the flesh are manifest, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, enmities, strife, drunkenness, revelling, and such like" (Gal. 5 : 22). At any tllAvern, in the streets at dark, in the cell of the jail you can see its works by the myriad; and in the beginnings of Christian life one is conscious that, tho restrained from outward manifestation, there is still the un- hallowed, inward impulse in such directions.
But t7te .fles7t may also be present il~ our efforts after sanctification. " Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the fl<l:3h ?" (Gal. 3 : 3). It would appear that in Galatia there was a sc11001 of perfectionists, who were attempting to secure perfection in the energy of the self-life. And, indeed, to take an illustration from what is known as consecration teaching, in which people are incited to give themselves again and again to God, how much there is of the resolves and determinations 'of the flesh! Do you suppose that a man 'I who has really entered into an act of consecration will need perpet- ually to repeat it? And will it be needful for him to maintain him- self therein by the incessant exercise of his own energy? 'J'rue holi- ness, as true consecration, must be wholly of God, through Rim, and to Rim. "Of God, are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us ••• sanctification."
The flesh may also be energetic in Ohristtan work. The apostle clearly indicates this when he says that he did not after the flesh plan his coming to Corinth so that "there.should be the yea yea and the nay nay" (2 Oor. 1 : 17). How much of our Christian work has been along this line, suggested by the flesh, wrought out by the flesh or self-energy, and tending to the glorification of ourselves! And, therefore, much of it is wood, hay, and stubble, to be burnt up, altho men have admired and praised it.
Much of our work has been begun at our own instigation, and after the plans have been made, we have turned to God, asking Rim to help and bless; whereas we should have let Him guide and lead, being iatisfied to stand beside and hand Rim the implements, or to lie deep down beneath the roadway, trampled under foot of men, the wire that carries His messages.
How memorable is that incident in Hudson Taylor's life, in which God said to him: "Iam going to evangelize inland China, and if you will walk with me, I will do it through you!" This is the way in which we think when we have learned to consign the self-life to the death.
Bnt it is only as we live in constant fellowship with the Word of God, as illumined by the spirit of God, that we come to detect these workings. The man who has breathed pure air will know in a moment when he is inhaliRg poisonous miasma; and the purer the air he has breathed, the quicker he will be to detect the worse.
And as we detect it in ourselves, we shall sorrowfully detect it in others. Perhaps it is well that we should do so, because it reminds, humbles, and warns us. "I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal" (1 Cor. 3 : 1). And the word carnal is the Latin equivalent of the Greek word rendered flesh. They were certainly Christians, for he speaks of them us beiug babes in Ghrist, but they were as certainly dominated by the self-principle, and so in the most elementary stage of Christian experience.
The carnal, self, or flesh-life is indicated by (1) the inability to receive the teaching of the epistles; (2) the presence of jealousy and strife; (3) the sectarian' spirit, which set up one teacher against another, instead of going behind the servants to the Master; (4) the inability to withstand impurity (1 Cor. 5); (5) and all this is not inconsistent with the possession of many wonderful gifts (1 Cor. 12).
When people are in this state it is useless to present the deepest truths of the Christian life. They must be rebuked and shown their error, and led into that position which is presently to be described, in which once and for all the self-life is consigned to the cross beneath the curse of God, an execrated and abominable thing.
The next step towards the attainment of the true life is to see what God thinks of the life of the flesh. It is somewhat of a shock to the believer when he comes, so to speak, for a second time on the cross of Jesus. At the first he saw the Savior dying there for him, and came away thankful, not suspecting that there was a deeper vision possible, reserved for those who had eyes to see. But whenever that deeper vision is vouchsafed, he sees the likeness of his sinful flesh there in the dying Lord (Rom. 8 : 3). It is as if a man were suddenly to see a crime, akin to something in his own life, tho long hidden, adjudged in another, doomed to die, and led to the scaffold. Of course there was no sin in Jesus, no taint or touch of it. He was "that holy thing." But in Him there was, the apostle says, the likeness of sinful flesh, and God's curse was on it, for it is written, "Curst is everyone that hangeth on a tree." Thus we reason with ourselves: if the likeness of our sinful nature, as born by the holy Savior, was so abhorrent to God that He nailed it to the cross beneath His curse, what must not its reality ana essencebe, as it dyes our nature, tinctures our holiest moments, and enters. into the vitals of our being. God help us! No flesh may glory in His presence, but life hitherto has owed all to the secret energizings of this heaven-cured principle.
Cain's offering was made after the wisdom and in the energy of the flesh. He brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Without doubt it was beautiful to look at, luscious to taste, but it could not be accepted. And all that emanates from the pride ftnd ambition of our nature is equally abhorrent to the holy God; nor could lIe endure it, if it were not for the precious blood of Jesus, who ever lives to intercede.
My reader, will you pause here and acknowledge the justice of this enactment of God's infinite holiness! In the Old Testament, where Amalek was the type of the flesh, Moses said: "'fhe Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." In the New Testament, Paul said the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.
Do you see that you have been consorting with a felon, well drest tho he may have been, and that much of your religious effort has been instigated by his suggestions? Can that which has originated in a. felon, whom God has arraigned and consigned to the crOSE, be acceptable in His sight? Ah! it is a bitter, bitter discovery to see that so much that we have prided ourselves on has been what Israel's sacrifices were (Isa. 1 : 12-15).
The next step is to 1mite O1trselves with the death of Christ. " If we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death" (Rom. 6 : 5 [R. V.]). "They that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof" (Gal. 5 : 24 [R. V.]). There comes a definite, never-to-be-forgotten moment, in 8, man's life, when he definitely unites himself by the choice of his will with the death of Jesus to sin. This is already his position in the sight of God, as he is viewed in the Lord Jesus; but he accepts it definitely and finally as his own.
"My God," he says, " I see what Thy thought of the flesh is, that it is an accurst felon. I accept that judgment of it henceforth, and I desire that no part of my life may be dominated by its unholy influence. I cannot do it to death, or die to it, by my own resolve, but I will it to be so, and in the power of the Eternal Spirit I offer myself to live henceforth in the energy of my risen Lord. I would be crucified with Him, that so long as I live, my life may be one of faith in the Son of God, receiving from Him life on life." It is an awful moment when the soul takes this step. Never again to live on its own plans; or obey the promptings and suggestions of its own restless will; or tolerate the promptings of appetite aud selfwill. It seems as tho the very ground were giving way under the feet, and the grave yawning to receive. Did our blessed Lord feel this when He finished His holy and beneficent ministry among men, and took the path for Oalvary? But as the soul goes down into the grave, it sings the song of resurrection hope. Listen as the words come up from the vault: .. The Lord ia alway8 before my face ; For He i8 on my right hand, that I81wuld not be m01!/Id: Tlierifore my heart i8 glad, and my ioTlfjue 1·tjoices; Moreover my jle8h alBo shall dwell in hope ; Because Tlwu wilt not leave my Boul in Had~, Neither wz'lt TluJU give Thy Holy one to see C()rruption. Tlwu makest known unto me the ways of life; . Thou shalt make mefull of gladne88 with Thy countenance."
Have you ever definitely arraigned your self-life as a felon, and adjudged it as an accursed thing to the cross? If not, I pray you to do it. It need not take long, but it should be done solemnly and irre- vocably. You do not realize all it may involve, but you can safely leave yourself in the hands of Jesus. Remember, however, not to do it in the energy of your own will. If you do, at the first summons, the crucified will descend from the cross. No, you have only by faith to accept a position, already fixt and assigned in the purpose of God, and in the death of Jesus, and then to trust the Holy Spirit to make real in your habitual experience that which is real in the purpose of God. Ascertain what God has done with the flesh principle in the person of Jesus, and ask the Holy Spirit to make this objective fact a ~ubjective experience.
It is impossible to live this life apart from the infilling and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Unseen and eternal facts are too recondite and far away to be matters of experience, unless we yield to the Spirit, become filled by the Spirit, live and walk in the Spirit. We must saturate our spirits in the contemplation of these great mysteries of identification with Jesus in His death; but we mltst also receive the Spirit continually, as the unshuttered windows receive the light, that He may not only explain t.hem to the inner heart, but may make them blest living experiences! Oh, give the Spirit time! T-lie asoak in His gracious influences! He will take of the things of Ohrist, and reveal them. Fear not, only trust Him, and be still.
What then, may 'We expect? Some would say the death of the self-life. But I am persuaded that in this they greatly err, and lead many astray. It is not a scriptural expression, and it is not true to Christian experience. I grant that we may be instantly and forevermore delivered from known sin, and the very desire for it may be taken away and turned to holy loathing. But the self-principle is not eliminated from our inner life. It is not dead, but we are to reckon ourselves dead to it, trusting the Holy Spirit to make our reckoning good (Rom. 6: 11; Gal. 5: 16, 17).
Supposing a woman is divorced from her husband, because of his cruelty and unfaithfulness, and marries again, this time to a nol1le man, whom she devotedly loves. The moment of the divorce is the moment of her liberation, and from that moment she reckons herself dead to him. He may sometimes solicit her to return, but his solici- tations fall on deaf ears. There is no effort even in refusing them, because she is so occupied and satisfied with her new true love. And if the drunken sot comes too near or threatens her, she only gets closer to her beloved, and puts him between them. The former hus- band is not dead, but she is dead to him.
What may 10e expect? I answer, a quicker appreciation of the promptings of the self-life, at ever lower depths. So that we shall detect its presence where we never dreamt to find it. But whenever we are conscious of its presence, we shall know and judge it, and consider that all its strivings were included in the hideous felon-life which we have definitely put away. Then we shall turn to the Holy Spirit, and ask Him to deal with it. We need not fight it; if we do, we shall fail; if we try to help the Holy Spirit to fight it, we shall fail; if we antagonize it by our righteous wrath, we shall fail-we must hand the matter over to the Holy Spirit. He will deal with it in unknown depths. We may hear the sounds of the awful strife, but we must stand still and see the salvation of God.
Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah, this that is traveling in the greatness of His strength! It is the living Christ, who by His Spirit has dealt with our enemies alone. His own arm brought salvation.
This, so far as I can understand it, is the process. We detect the presence of self; we arraign and adjudge it to be included in the feJon from which we have been divorced; we then hand it over to the Holy Spirit. He delivers us from it, and gives us more and more of its opposite in Jeous. And as this process is continued two or three times, the suggestion itself is apt to drop right out of our life. We may be tempted in other ways, but not in this. I do not say that this is invariably the case; but I suspect it will be your experience, if you live and walk in the Spirit.
When at Northfield, Mr. Moody showed me a tree in which grafting in three kinds of apples had been performed. He said that every bud beneath the graft was at once nipped off, so that the energy of the plant might not expend itself in its own growth, but ascend into the graft. He said that after nipping off a bud in the same place once or twice it ceased to appear, tho the natural life of the plant might break out in other places. This seems to be a true analogy. You may therefore expect deliverance from the suggestion to certain forms of sins, but beware of the manifestation of the self-life in other forms, more subtle, and deeper.
Still there is no need to be constantly living in apprehension of such things. Reckon yourself dead to them, in the flash of a moment, and do not think of them further. Hand them over without surprise or alarm to the Holy Spirit, and leave them there. But, as the habit of your life, be occupied with Jesus, reckon yourself alive unto Him, let all the love and desire and attention of your nature be toward Him. This will be in proportion as you abide in the Spirit, because it is His delight to take of the things of Christ, and reveal them to those who hunger and thirst.
It is thus that Jesus is formed in 1M. My beloved friend, the late Dr. Gordon once said: "In the part of New England where I spend my summer holidays I have seen a parable of nature. Two little saplings grew up side by side. Through the action of the wind they crost each other. By and by the bark of each became wounded, and the sap began to mingle, until, in some still day, they became united together. After they were firmly compacted, the stronger began to absorb the life of the weaker. It grew larger and larger, while the other grew smaller and smaller. And now there are two trunks at the bottom, but only one at the top. Death has taken away the one; life has triumpht in the other. There was a time when you first were united to Jesus Christ. But how is it now? Has the word been accomplisht in you, 'He must increase, but I must decrease?' Has the old life been growing less and less, until it has almost disappeared, and the life of Jesus bclcome all in all?" This beautiful illustration may help you to understand how the self-life decreases and Jesus increases. This is the process: " All of self and none of Thee, Some of self and some of Thee; Less of self and more of Tltee, None of self and all of Tltee."
It may be aslcet, ltow does all this affect the outward l{fe'! In one sense it leaves it unchanged. The merchant still goes to his countinghouse and store; the wifu still attends to the duties of the home; the clerk is still found at his desk; the child iiJ at the school; and yet there is a difference The old life is lived from a new standpoint; it is no longer I, but Christ; no longer self-enthroned, but love, love to Jesus and love to all mankind. The life I now live in the flesh is a life of faith on the son 0f God, who loved me a:J.d gave Himself for me.
There is new tenderness between husband and wife, because the love of God flows through each to the other. There is new obedience
THE GOSPEL AMONG THE RED MEN. 19
on the part of the child, because the meek and lowly Jesus is living: through its yieldecl heart. There is new punctuality and diligence in attendance on and performance of daily duty, because the old fitful wayward life is abandoned, and Jesus is within, who for thirty years lived in the carpenter shop at Nazareth.
Do not fear, then, to surrender your own life to the death; Godwill give you something infinitely better, even the life of His Son,.. which will rise up like a fountain, and pour through all the channels of your being.
My friend, Mr. Gregory Mantle, in The Way oj the Oross, tells of 8> district on the Amazon which was rich in gorgeous foliage, but heavy with malaria and fever. There was no alternative but to cleanse it by fire, and for three months fire raged through the valley, destroying the rich aud beautiful growth, until a desert lay bare to the sun, where myriads of flowers had lifted their cups to his rays. But after a while the whole territory was covered with an extremely rare and exquisite Hower, that excited the rapturous admiration of all beholders; so, as Dr. Matheson sings: "We lay in dust life's glories dead, And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be."
THE GOSPEL AMONG THE RED MEN.* BY REV. EGERTON R. YOUNG, TORONTO, CANADA.
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."-Isaiah xxxv: 1.
The prophet is looking down to the time when changes will be made in moral wastes, such as our forefathers accomplisht on this continent when they changed the great forests into these splendid farms and beautiful homesteads. Similar transformation will bewrought in Ohrist's kingdom. "The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopt. Then shall the lame leap as an hart, and the tQngue of the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert." Those{ same transformations, which you have seen in your missionary work. in towns and cities, the missionaries have been permitted, under God'S' blessing, to see in the lands of paganism.
We labored among the wild Indian tribes away up in the heart of the British territories, a thousand miles north of St. Paul. They were the most northern tribes of Indians on the borderland of the Esqui..
• Oondenst from Th6 Nortlifleld Echo~8, August Conference Number, 181l6. maux people, away from civilization, so far away that the nearest post office was four hundred miles distant; we received our daily paper there twice a year. We found hundreds of Indians wandering through those vast forests as hunters and fishermen. They lived in a land so remote from cultivation that the word « bread " was literally unknown in those days, and the petition, « Give us this day our daily bread,"
had to be translated, "Give us something this day to keep us in life."
I have seen Indians eighty years of age who never saw a loaf of bread, .
or a cake, or a pie. When my wife and I went out there we lived as they did; we lived on fish twenty-one times a week for months together, and for weeks together we did not average two good meals .a day. For years we did not begin to live as well as the thieves and -murderers in the penitentiaries of Great Britain and America. But ~.it was a blessed work, and we were happy in it.
We have the Bible translated for our Indians, it is the work of one "of our missionaries, Rev. James Evans, who invented what are known '..as the Syllabic characters. He found these people wandering on the borders of the Great Lakes and ALPHABET. rivers, fishing, hunting in the vast forests for bears and other ani- mals, and looking all the time for (a) SYLLABICS. game, as they were ever on the go. The thought occurred to him to invent a simple way of teaching ~e these Indians to read, so that they might be able to use the Bible for Ape themselves. The result of it was this invention, each character is Qte a syllable,-in all thirty-six of them. 'l'hey are represented in r '1 eha eM .j eM L ehi the accompanying cut, which gives both the Iudian characters qka p M d ko b kit and the English sounds. As soon as the characters were graspt we ,f ":0 nil ~ n~ used to turn to the· first chapter of the book of Genesis, and begin :tma. E m~ L IDa. to read. Now, I want to paint a picture, to take you with me to a ," ·i.• ! ""' '-. sa .-~ s~ 6 yA '~ y~ * a, as in far. l;>and that has never seen a mis- sionary, never seen a Bible, never heard the Savior's name, and I want to show you how we teach them to read on a first visit, which lasts only a few weeks. We have no schoolhouse, no school-books, no pencils or paper. We have only a few Bibles, which that magnificent society (the British Bible Society) now sends out to us. After I have preacht to them for some daysl and have gained the good will of most of them, * I say, "Would you not like to learn to read this book?" "Yes." I cannot go and get a sheet of paper, slate and pencil, and begin teaching them, but here are great granite rocks near by, and I take a 'burnt stick from my camp fire, and with that burnt stick I make the characters shown in the cut: A, E, 00, AH, MA, ME, MOO, MAH, etc. Then I say to the people, "Now say as I do," and just as a primary teacher gives a lesson to her children in A, B, 0, so I begin, " A, E, 00, AH, MA, ME, MOO, MAH." By and by a fellow gets out his flint and steel, lights his pipe, and repeats, A, E, 00, AH; but I can't say auything against the pipe, for one dare not be cross with them. We go over it again and again; I point to the letters in turn and say, a What is this? " They are unknown sounds to them, but I write down a character and ask," What is that?" They look at it and shout, "MA." I put down another, and ask, "What is that ?" "NE." I write a third: "What is that?" "TOO." I have written the word in Indian,-Ma-ni-too-thre.e characters, but I have not combined them yet, and they don't know. I say, "What is the first?" "MA." "The second?" "NE." "The. third?" "TOO." Then they combine them,-Manitoo.-Whylthey drop their pipes and put up their hands, and open their eyes in wonder. It is worth starvation and suffering, it is worth any amount of hardship, to see the ray of intelligence darting into the eyes of hundreds of these Indians, as for the first time, God, the name of God, becomes visible to their eyes there on the rock, made with a burnt stick from the camp fire. Manitoo, God. They have heard Him iLl the thunder, in the blizzard, and in the storm. But to them here is a new revelation. There is Manitoo on the rock, and they can hardly believe their eyes. Then, when the excitement is over, I write: J[anitoo Sa-kee-e-wa-tvin, "God is love," and that is a revelation. So I go on, and on, and on; no more smoking pipes. Most intense iuterest is excited, and we talk and talk until my mouth is dry and my strength exhausted, and then we go off and sit around our camp fires and have something to eat, and come back again.
In less than three weeks some of those Indians can read the Word of God in their own language. Just as soon as these characters and some simple sentences have become familiar to them, we turn to the first chapter of the Indian Bible, and with those characters on the rock, and we begin, "Ma tva eke misturn ne sa Manitoo." "See God in the book just as He is on the rock," they say. They catch the idea at once. Thus slowly we go through the verse. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." To a people that have been in darkness and ignorance there is a lot of information in that first verse. "Who put those stars in the sky; who caused the warm sun to greet • The old conjurers hate me because they know that my success means the end of their terrible rule over the people. the eyes and fill up our creeks with fish again?" Thus had they talkt ,as they groped in darkness. " Now we know: 'In the beginning God >created the heaven and the earth.''' Some of them thought their -education was complete at once,-they knew all about it now, and I have known a boy to jump up and run away six miles and bring his :father, pulling him along to show him the book which tells how those things, talkt about by their old people before the camp fires, had been ,accomplisht. In some of our villages eighty per cent. of our people Qver eight years of age are now reading in their own tongue the blessed :Book. In spite of the many hardships and trials, God is blessing the work grandly.
Not very long ago the governor of our colony sent out one of his >commissioners to meet the Indians with supplies, in accordance with the treaty. This commissioner sent word to one of our Ohristian Indians to bring his people to a certain point, as he would be there to distribute their annual allowances. The Indians were on hand at the time appointed; they brought nothing from their distant camp fires, i{)r they expected to receive abundant supplies to feast upon. But the day came, and the big white commissioner did not arrive,-and it is an everlasting disgrace when government representatives break word with the Indians. The commissioner did not come the first day, Qr the second, and the Indians were hungry. They went to the big .chief and said, "Pakan, our wives and children are crying for food,- here are our supplies, the gift of the Queen to us, and her servant has :not yet come to distribute them. Will you open them and give us enough to satisfy us?" "Oh, no, my children, I have never broken a word of treaty and I don't want to now," replied the chief. The next day no white man appeared, and the third morning those young Indians' eyes began to look ominous and flash out something that boded trouble. They went to the chief and said, "We must have food for our hungry ones." His answer was, "Have patience a little longer, my people," and he called on an Indian who had a splendid horse to accompany him, and, mounting his own, away they went as :fast as they could, to find and 1mrry up the dilatory commissioner. About noon they met him coming along with a large retinue of friends and servants. In those days that country abounded in game, and these white men had gone out for a good shooting time. As Pakan Tode into the camp at noonday he found them preparing to stop there, because not far off was a spot that seemed full of game. Pakan said to the commissioner, "You have broken your promise to my people. You were to have met them three days ago. Don't stop here,-come cQn and distribute the supplies, for my people are hungry." "Oh, Pakan, I am glad to see you," replied the white man," you are the .chief. I would like to have you dine with me, I hear you are a great hunter. Oome with us this afternoon and show me your skill in huutiug." "No," said he; "you have broken your word. The peo- ple are hungry,-come on at once." " Oh, no; I am going to have some shooting." Pakan said, "When are you coming?" "I will come to-morrow." "Oh," said Pakan, "to-morrow is the Sabbath, and we have been taught to keep the Sabbath." The commissioner answered, "My religion won't prevent me from distributing the food on Sunday." Pakan looked at him. He is one of the finest specimens of·a man I ever saw. He bravely replien, "I don't care what your religion will allow you to do, mine says, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,'-and, hungry as we are, unless you come and dis- tribute the food to-day, we will not take it until Monday." The man quailed before him, and at once some subordinate was sent back with him. Before they left the commissioner said to the chief," I shall come along to-morrow, and we will have our usual annual talk about Indian affairs and the distribution of money." Pakan replied again, "To-morrow is the Sabbath, and we will have no treaty talk to-mor- row," and away he rode. The next day the white man came on to the Indian encampment. He expected the Indians to meet him, hundreds of them, with firing of guns and waving of flagE', but not one came to receive him, and no guns were fired; the only wigwam where the flag was flying was the place where the people met together three times a day to worship God. l'he commissioner sent out his criers for a council, but not one Indian responded. He sent for Pakan to come and dine with him, but Pakan said, "I dine with my own family on God's day whenever I can,"-and he refused the invitation. It is a great thing to dine with the ambassador of the Queen, yet this godly Indian refused the honor on account of his respect for the Sabbath day.
Now I want to give you an incident that is practical, and that you can use when advocating the Sabbath as a day of rest. When Mr. Evans induced a large number of Indians to become Ohristians, he said to them, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." In that country is the greatest fur trading company in the world, the Hudson Bay Oompany. They have been there since the reign of Oharles the First. All the goods are taken through that part of the country by brigades of boats. Until lately they carried all their goods from distant places by Indian brigades, who bring Qut as the exchange cargo boat-loads of furs, which are shipt to London. Before these Indians became Ohristians, they traveled every day alike. When our mission was establisht, all the missionaries went in for the observance of the Sabbath day. At once there was opposition from the Hudson Bay Oompany. They argued, " Our summer is short, the people have to work in a hurry, and to lose one day in seven will be a terrible loss to UB, and you missionaries must get out of the country if you are going to interfere with our business." There was downright persecution for years,-but there is none now, for it was found that the brigades , of Indians who traveled only six days, and quietly rested on the Sab- bath, made the journey of perhaps fifteen hundred miles, without a single exception, in less time, and came back in better health, than those who traveled without observing the Sabbath. So the Hudson Bay Oompany opposes us no more. They say, "Go on, missionaries, ana the Lord bless you."
When traveling in the winter we had to dig holes in the snow, and there cook our fat meat, and make a kettle of tea, and then try to go to sleep, until sometimes the snow piled npon us, during the fierce blizzard storms, so that we were completely covered, and if you were out hunting you could tramp right over us, little dreaming that a missionary and three dog-drivers were asleep there under the snow. I did not take my wife on those winter journeys, but in the summer months she sometimes went with me. We were paddling along one day and we came to a sand bar, where we went ashore, and while the Indian boatmen were cooking the dinner, my wife and I walkt along the beautiful beach. Soon we saw a number of Indians coming along in their birch canoes. I saw that they were some of myoId friends whom I intended to visit on my return journey. As they came along in their canoes from a distant point, I noticed one old fellow who had not the strength and skill of the younger fellows, and so his canoe lagged behind. I said to my wife, "My dear, go down and talk to that old rndian,-his name is Benjamin Oameron. Get him to talk to you of what he knows of Ohristianity, and r will talk to the others." So my good wife went to him where he landed, and, as she under- stands the language like a native, they sat down on the rock, and chatted. When dinner was ready she did not care to come. She seemed very unwilling to leave the old man. She replied to my call, " Oh, I would rather talk to this old man; it is such a blessing to hear him tell of what God has done for him. It is a greater privilege than eating my dinner." Finally she came with me, and as we walkt back she talkt about Benjamin, and her face lighted up with interest. When she stopt I said, "I am glad that you think so much of him; I think just as much of him as anyone, but listen: he was once a cannibal and ate his first wife." " Ugh!" she exclaimed, "can it be possible; well, I am glad that I didn't know it before I talkt with him or I am afraid I shouldn't have so enjoyed the interview." Years ago that old Indian went out in the woods with his wife for their winter hunting. They put out their traps and snares to catch the wild animals that wandered there through those northern forests in the cold and the snow,–":but they were not very successful. The deer did not come as usual, so when there came a day that food was scarce, the man became discouraged and one day he up with his rifle and shot his wife dead. He put the body out on a staging where it froze as solid as marble, and, when other supplies failed, he went to that, and during the winter he ate his own wife. Years after, the missionary came along with his Book. At first Benjamin was very shy and distant,-"No! no I-tho book is for you white people. Not for us." "Oome now and listen,-it is for you." He said, "No," but finally he became interested. Those Indians have wonderful traditions and stories, and I used to match their tales with Bible stories. Some of the Indians are huge fellows, over six feet tall, and they pride themselves on their stature. As they talkt about their height, I would say, "Listen,-I have a book that tells about a man as tall as if one of you were seated on the shoulders of the tallest among you." "Oh! what a story ; what talk is that, missionary?" " Well, come and listen." Then I talk to them about Goliath, and get them interested, and the Gospel follows. In my work among these people I found one reason at least why those stories were in the Bible. Benjamin would not listen, but he became interested in stories, and then he listened to the Gospel. Then he was in 'a state of despair as he thought of his great crime; his head hung down, his face was sad. "Oh!" he said, "if you had only come before I shot my wife, I might have had a chance, but don't tell me that the Holy Spirit is so kind. that the great Father is so kind, and that the Son Jesus is so kind, as to look down and notice a man who shot and ate his wife." "Why yes, I do believE!' He can save you." "Oh.• no, no; I thank you for your words, but I am sure you must be mistaken. He surely will not stoop so low." "Yes, He will." Then I think of the passage "beginning at J erusalem." Ohrist said practically, "Go find out my murderers and offerthem salvation." So I do not despair, and such a blessed Ohristian does Benjamin become that when my wife first met him, mature blessed Ohristian woman as she is, she, nevertheless, felt that she was a child to sit at his feet, and listen to his blessed words. If you should go to that land, and should want to get a maguificent pair of reindeer horns or splendid bearskin, there would not be a, better man than old Benjamin to guide you to where you could shoot what you desired; but he would not let you be with him five minutes before he would say, " Are you a Ohristian? Do you love my Savior? Is His love in your heart? If so, give me your hand, I am glad to shake hands with one who loves this blessed Savior who so loves me."
Blessed work! May God give us a missionary spirit, and whether it is in home missions or in foreign work, church work or prison work, let us do what we can, and remembtll' Longfellow's words, so applicable in these blessed days:- .. Out of the shadows of night The world rolls into the light; It is daybreak everywhere."
TRYING TIMES IN MADAGASCAR
TRYING TIMES IN MADAGASCAR.* BY REV. W. E. COUSINS, ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR.
Madagascar is now a French colony, the Chamber having on June 20th, 1896, by 312 votes to 73, past a bill declaring this change. The tri-color now meets the eye at every turn. It is hoisted in all the ports, and in almost every important town throughout the country. In some places the native flag still flies side by side with the French colors, notably on the Queen's palace of Manjakamiadana, the most prominent building in the capital; and this combination of the flags not unfittingly symbolizes the actual condition of the government of the country. Ranavalomanjaka III. is still Queen, and has her Prime Minister and her court, and keeps up much of her former state; but Frenchmen are now at the head of all government departments, and the French Residency bulks more largely in the minds of the people than does the royal palace of Manjakamiadana. All respect is shown to the Queen, and a definite sum has been allotted to her from the national revenues, and she probably possesses fuller liberty in all minor matters than she did formerly. But it is perfectly well knowu that the administration of the government has past into the hands vf the French, and in every department they now exercise the controling power.
In many ways French rule has already effected many changes and improvements. The things that first strike the attention of an old resident returning to the country are the new roads, the free circulation ·of French money, the use of mules instead of native porters, the pres- ~nce of many French troops, and the gangs of Chinese coolies now to be seen near the coast engaged in road making.
'rhe mule road from Tamatave to the' capital, a distance of more than two hundred miles, is a wonderful achievement. In less than a year from the taking of Antananarivo the French have effected what the natives have failed to do during the many centuries they have been in the land. In the more mountainous parts of the country the road is carried round the slopes of the hills, and all the steeper ascents ,.of the old route are avoided. Streams are bridged, and all swampy places now have well-constructed causeways running across them. No bridge has yet been built across the Mangoro, but a large ferry boat is used to carry the mules across. Canals are being dug to con- • Having recently returned to Antananarivo after nearly two years absence in England, J: wish to give a,n account of the present state of this island and of the prospects of Christian work under the new regime. W. E. C. nect the line of lagoons near. the coast, and it is believed that soon steamers of light draft will pass from near Tamatave to Maromby, a third of the whole distance to the capital.
Oonvoys of mules are constantly employed in carrying stores from post to post, and in these convoys one sees with pleasure a prophecy of the time when human beings will cease to be beasts of burden in this land, and the thousands of able-bodied men who now spend their lives on the roads as porters will be set free to cultivate the soil or to engage in other works that may increase the wealth and prosperity of the land.
Another welcome change' is the free use of French money. Till recently the five-franc piece was the only coin in use, and it was cut into small pieces for change. A pair of scales was always required in making payments, and much loss of time and temper occurred. Now from Tamatave to Antananarivo a traveler need not once handle the scales or touch a piece of the old cut money.
A less welcome change is the presence everywhere of the soldiers of the Republic-Frenchmen, Algerians, Senegalese, Dahomeyans, and others. This is, of course, only natural, seeing we are as yet only ten months distant from the close of the war; but it is nevertheless a cause of no small trouble and annoyance to the natives. Many of the villages now have a neglected and deserted appearance, the people having left in large numbers for more remote and quiet places. These soldiers are a constant reminder that the land has been conquered; and tho, on the whole, friendly relations are maintained between them and the natives, they are at times overbearing and unjust in their dealings with them. This evil, we may hope, will gradually disappear; but it is my opinion that for years to come a strong French force will be needed to keep order in the land. What has been taken by force of arms must, tm other influences have had time to work, be held by the same power.
In my paper publisht in the June, 1896, number of this REVIEW, I quoted a statement from the correspondent of the Standard newspaper to the effect that fifty Frenchmen would be more than sufficient to prevent any outbreak against the French. This, no doubt, seemed probable at the time; and so far as the capital and its immediate neighborhood are concerned, it might be true still; but, alas! even three or four thousand l!'rench troops do not seem enough to maintain order in the outlying districts of Imerina. For many weeks past there have been daring outbreaks of rebellion, nominally at least, against the French rule, or rather perhaps against foreigners, and the changes their presence inevitably brings. There is, no doubt, among the rural population a strong anti-foreign spirit, and this has been turned to ac- {lount by all who are ready to rejoice in disturbance for the sake of the plunder they may obtain. On the borders of this central province of Imerina, there have been for many years bands of· lawless men, who have, at times-especiaLly in the cold and dry season-raided the country, shooting down the men, driving off the cattle, and carrying the women and children into slavery. Thus the evil is an old one, but it has been growing to more formidable dimensions during the past twelve years, the bands of raiders having been largely increast by deserters from the army. These bands, taking advantage of the political excitement caused by the downfall of the late Prime Minister, and receiving encouragement from e,il disposed persons generally, have for months past been committing serious depredations all around. In every case they have proclaimed a crusade against Christianity, aud have declared themselves adherents of the old heathenism. Pastors and evangelists are the special objects of their hatred, and some of these have died a martyr's death, while scores of others have had to fly for their lives. About four hundre.d churches belonging to the London Missionary Society have been burnt; and many others belonging to the Roman Catholics, the Anglicans, and the Norwegian Lutherans have been similarly destroyed. We can, just now, with sad hearts repeat the words of the Psalmist and say: "They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land." No distinction is made. Christianity and the presence and predominance of foreigners are considered to be so closely connected, that everything that has to do with Christian worship is to be destroyed. A French priest, Father Bertier, who was trying to aid some of his opprest and frightened people, was brutally murdered at AmbOhibemasoandro. About a dozen other Europeans, mostly Frenchmen, have also been killed. At Antslrabe a party of Europeans were besieged in the Norwegian mission house by many hundreds of the rebels; but they were bravely defended by a few French soldiers and some of the Malagasy militia, and were finally rescued by the French Resident of the district and a native governor.
This widespread movement may have in it some rude elements of patriotism and a wish to be free from a foreign yoke; but, on the whole, it is rather, I think, to be regarded as a last dying struggle of the old conservatism and heathenism against all progress and change. In the meantime, whatever may be its true explanation, it is a sonree of untold suffering to thousands of quiet, law-abiding people. The full tale of the miseries of the past few months will never be fully known. From our district alone no less than eighteen hundred have been obliged to flee. The capital is full of such refugees. Happily many are earning a livelihood by joining the gangs of road-makers so largely employed just now. We never saw so clearly, tho in words we often acknowledged it, how light a hold the Christian religion has had on the minds of thousands of the country people. Much in the past history of the country explains what is now taking pl~ce, as multitudes only gave up the observances of the old religion because the Queen and the leading people of the land led the way.
This outburst of persecution and lawlessness is just now like a. thick cloud hanging over the land. But, on the other hand, I see much reason for thankfulness and hope. Not a few of our friends have proved faithful in the hour of trial, and again in the annals of the Malagasy Church fresh names are being added to the noble army of martyrs. Instances are constantly coming to light in which native pastors and others refused to save themselves by taking a heathen {jath, preferring to lay down their lives rather than to bE, false to their Lord.
There is also much reason for thankfulness for the quiet way in which Christian services are being maintained lind general missionary work is being carried on in Antananarivo and its neighborhood. Changes, it is true, are coming over the land. Evils will arise from many sources, and the young esp':lcially win be exposed to fresh temptations. Strong drink may be obtained more easily than ever. And the presence of thousands of French soldiers brings with it well-known moral evils. But in this nearer district, and in other older centers of teaching, the Christians, as a whole, are true to their profession.
The well-timed visit of MM. Langa and Kruger as delegates from the Paris Missionary Society has been of immense service to the cause of Protestantism. The Jesuits, not unnaturally perhaps, sought to take every advantage of the French victory; but it has now been shown clearly to all our native adherents that there are loyal ~nd enthusiastio Frenchmen who are not Roman Catholics, and who can preach the Gospel to our nathre congregations in all the simplicity to which they have been accustomed. There is reason to hope that the Paris Society will undertake permanent work in thi8 land, and its cooperation will be warmly welcomed by the London Missionary Society.
I am much imprest by the q!1iet, matter-of-fact way, in which our people generally accept French rule. I have heard no word of bitterness from them. Indeed, recent events have distinctly tended to throw them into the arms of the French, as their only defenders against these bands of marauders. Already it is becoming apparent to the people, that altho French rule will involve some things distasteful to them, it will also bring many solid advantages. The fine roads now being cut through all the main districts of the 'capital are an evcrpresent indication of French energy. Another clear gain is the promptness with which public business is now transacted. The French judges are also making it clear that justice will be administered with strict impartiality to all classes. A young Hova, who holds a position in one of the courts, said to me a few days ago: "Now for the first time the old ideal of our ancesters, that' the rich should possess their own, and the poor should possess their OWll, ' is becoming a fact of daily experience." The care and strict impartiality of the French Judge who presides over his court, he described as being worthy of the highest praise. It is becoming evident that the government will not be carried on in future for the benefit of privileged classes, but for the good of the whole people.
M. Laroche, the Resident-General, is himself a Protestant, and makes no secret of his religious position. But as representative of the French Republic he allows no distinction to be made on the ground of religion, and many important government offices are filled by Pro- testants. An illustration of the feelings of the native Protestant Christians toward him is to be found in the fact that in the large public meeting of the Congregational Union of Imerino on April16th~ a resolution was past expressing satisfaction with his policy.
An important proclamation on the subject of religious liberty was publisht May 15th, the text of which reads as follows: " Nous garantirons la liberte de conscience et de la liberte des cultes. Cette liberte a ete proclamee en France il y a un siecle; nous en affirmons ici, non moins haut que chez nous, Ie principe. Les protestants, les catho- Iiques,les diverses communions, leurs ecoles, jouiront d'une egale pro- tection sous nos lois: et il serait contrarie a nos moours d'en favoriser une, a plus forte raison de la persecuter." There is, then, no immediate danger to be feared from the action of the French Government. Still, the ol1tlook just now is, it must be confest, a somewhat gloomy one. We see much of our work apparently destroyed; and our people scattered. But we thank God for what remains, and we believe there are in Madagascar a sufficient number of true Christians to prevent the final destruction of our work~ even in the more remote country districts. We believe that, as soon as these disturbanMs are brought to an end, and order and peace are once more restored to the people, earnest and well-directed efforts will be made to gather together the scattered. sheep, to rebuild the burnt churches, and to "strengthen the things that remain," which to all outward appearances just now, indeed, look to be "ready to perish."
[Later .Notes.] **** The general condition of things in Central Mada- gascar remains much as it was two months ago. In some parts the people seem inclined to settle down quietly under their new masters; but church burning still goes on in other districts, and fresh out- breaks of rebellion are constantly reported. Just now, (Sept. 18), the Vakin-Ankaratra district (in the southwest) is in a very disturbed condition; the whole of Vornizango and much of Marovataua (in the northwest) are virtually in rebellion; and the small French force in Ambatondrazaka, the chief town of the Antsihanaka province (in the northeast) is reported to be surrounded by a large body of the socalled rebels. Whenever French troops meet these bands, they are, of conrse, victorions, and no French post has been taken by them. Bnt unfortunately these would~be patriots and deliverers of their country from a foreign yoke prove themselves to be only common marauders and robbers, and the poor defenceless people must either feign obedi- ence to them, or suffer the loss of all they have. A new French general has just arrived, and fresh troops are said to be on their way" so that some more decisive action may soon be taken. That the French will ultimately succeed in reestablishing order, no one, I suppose" doubts; but the process is a tedious one, and in the mean time hun- dreds of our country people are snffering greatly.
Bright spots may, however, be discerned amid the prevailing gloom. In the Betsileo district, for example, where the Jesuits have been trying hard to frighten the village people and make them believe that their only chance of safety under French rule lay in becoming Roman Catholics, the Resident, Dr. Besson, who for a time manifested an unaccountably bitter spirit against the L. M. S. Mission, has now issued a most satisfactory proclamation of religious freedom, and onr people are relieved from the fears to which they had been yielding. At the same time M. Langa, one of the special envoys of the Paris Missionary Society, is visiting the Protestant churches in the Betsileo district, and, we believe, his presence and his message will do much to quiet the minds of the people.
Another cause of rejoicinK just now is, that our Stone Memorial Church at Ambohipotsy, which has been occupied by French soldiers since the bombardment last year, has now been vacated. The people generally, and particularly the congregation using the building, are delighted to have this proof that the authorities do not intend to place any hindrances in the way of those who adhere to the Protestant form of religion. Two suburban churches are still occupied by French troops, as well as a schoolroom, and several country churches. We hope that these, too, may soon be restored to their ordinary uses.
It is a noteworthy fact that not a single Roman Catholic church has been occupied by French soldiers, showing how difficult it seems for even those who profess to be strictly impartial, to treat Protestants and Roman Catholics alike.
Our country work has, of course, been sadly hindered by recent events. More than five hundred of our churches have been burnt. But in and around the capital all ordinary mission work is being carried on much as usual, tho many congregations are reduced to a third of their former numbers. In our educational work, on the contrary, there are signs of advance, and our college and the high schools were never so well attended. Young Malagasy are now beginning to see some of the material advantages of education, and, of course, they are eager to learn the French language, which bids fair to lead to good appointments of various kinds.
lIIECCA CERTIFICATE
THE MECCA CERTIFICATE.
The following is a description by Dr. H. II. Jessup, of Syria, of the ~ertificate given to Mohammedan Pilgrims to Mecca.
The copy of this certificate, from which our frontispiece for this month is reproduced, was given by an aged Mohammedan pilgrim in the Beirut quarantine to a physician who had attended him in sickness in 1893. It is a duplicate copy which he had, and which had never been signed by the Sheiks of Mecca or by the Shereef of Mecca. This certificate is especially interesting in the inside view which it gives of the character and tenets of the Mohammedan religion.
PLATE I.
The Arabic verse at the top of the page is from the Koran "Sura el Bukr" or "The Cow"-(Chap. I ; 198); "And when ye go in procession from Mt. Arafat, remember God near (El Mashaar el Haram) the holy monument."
The words at the bottom of the certificate read as follows: "Praise to God who has granted us the privilege of the Holy House, and the well of Zemzem, and the Mukano (station of Abraham) and the station of the Prophet, may Allah pray for (or bless) him and grant him peace! . . . After this preface we testify that the Hajj . . . has performed tllC llOly pilgrimage at the lawful time according to the holy law and continued clad in pilgrim garb. Ihram, persevering and praying upon (by the intercession of) the Propliet, may the Lord bless him and grant him peace! ; until he entered Mecca and entered the House of the Haram by the gate of Es Salam, and went around the (Kaaba) Raj going and advancing, and went to Mount Arafat, on tbe west side, and joined the "rush" to lluzdalifa, and gathered the stones, and spent the night in it (Mina) until dawn and went to Mina all(~ tbrew the seven stones at tIle pillar (Cairu) of Akaba ; then returned to Mecca and performed the Towaf of the visit; then returned to Mina and remained there the appointed days, and hurled stones at the three Cairus (Jemeat) and completed the Haj and the 'Omra. Our standing or witness to this was on the – – day of the year 130 – '- and I call God to witness to this, and He is the best of witnesses."
Then follow places for the names of four witnesses. At the right-hand upper corner of this page is the representation of the Mosque of Muzdalifa and tents of the Pilgrims; to the left of this the Mosque of Nimr near Mount Arafat and below it the Mahmals of Syria and Egypt, i. e., palanquins carried on camels, surmounted by flags. 'ro the right is Mount Arafat, a sacred mountain about 12 miles northeast of Mecca, which, in Moslim tradition, is said to be the place where Adam and Eve met after the fall. 'rhey were in the Celestial Paradise in the skies. when one day, while walking too near the border, they stumbled and fell over the edge, so tumbling down into this world. This is the Moslem idea of the "Fall." Adam landed in Ceylon and Eve at Jeddah on the Red Sea. He was 200 years search. ing for his wife; but at length he set out westward, stepping sixty leagues at a step, and wherever his foot touched the ground, a city sprang up, until at length he met Eve at this mountain, " Arafat-hoo, she recognized him," hence the name of this mountain. At the foot of this mountain, the Mohammedans believe that Abraham offered a ram in sacrifice instead of his son Ishmael (who, according to the Koran, was the favored son instead of Isaac). Here every year each pilgrim offers a sheep as a commemorative sacrifice. The Bedawin Arabs from Arabia come together in thousands at this time, bringing their vast flocks of sheep, which are sold to the pilgrims, each one of whom, if able, is to buy and sacrifice a sheep. Formerly the offal of these . thousands of slaughtered animals poisoned the air and produced pestilence. The governor of Mecca now has great trenches dug to receive this offal. In 1893, when 100,000 pilgrims visited Mecca, and 50,000 died of cholera, these trenches were filled with the dead bodies of the pilgrims. Hundreds dropt dead along the road from Mecca to Arafat, and while writhing in the contortions and agonies of the cholera convnlsions, no medical aid was askt or provided. The devout pilgrims only said "Niyalhoo," "happy man-he has died at Mecca."
The three pillars of Mimi, which are also represented here, are ancient pagan shrines. At each one every pilgrim must hurl seven stones at the devil.
Near this is pictured the Mesjed or Mosque of Taif, the altar of Ishmael, the Dome of Abd-el Kader in Baghdad,.and at the extreme right the DO-llle of "Our Lord" Hassein al Kerbela, where thousands of corpses of deceast Persians are brought yearly to be buried. It is northwest of Baghdad and lies in 'furkish territory.
Then we notice the birthplace of Mohammed, of Ali ibu Abi Talib, of Abu Bekr, and Fatimeh, and the Tomb of Amina and Khadijah; also two bell-shaped hills, Jebel Thowr, and Jebel Noor.
PLATE II.
At the top of this page is a verse from the Koran (Sura III: verse 90).
"Verily. the first house appointed unto men to worship in was that which was in Becca [Mecca] blessed and a direction to all creatures."
This page contains the quadrangular court of the Mecca Haram, within which is the circular colonnade, enclosing the Kaaba or Beit Allah, the House of God. 'fhis Kaaba was, in the days of Pre-Islamio paganism, a pagan temple, and was adopted by Mohammed as a. sacred shrine, out of deference to the time-honored superstitious reverence of the Arabian people, especially the citizens of Mecca. According to Burckhardt, its sides are 18 paces by 14, its hight from 35 to 40 feet. It is oovered yearly with a Kiswet or vail of black brocade, adorned with a broad band embroidered with golden inscriptions from the Koran; it has also a richer curtain for the door.
The old Kiswet is removed on the 25th day of the month before the pilgrimage, cut up into small pieces, and sold to the p'ilgrims for charms.
At the southeast corner of the court is the famous Black Stone, or Rajr el Asswad, a meteoric stone set in the wall, about a span long, which is reverently kist hy every pilgrim seven times, as he makes the seven-fold circuit of the Kaaba. The Moslems claim that this stone was given by Gabriel to Abraham. It is no doubt a meteorite, which fell from the skies in ancient days, and was regarded as divine as was the "image which fell down from Jupiter" (Acts 19: 35): Mohammed, as a concession to the Pagan superstition of the Meccans confirmed the kissing of the Black Stone as a religious rite of Islam. The fiery Omar, when askt, why he kist the stone, said" Verily, I know that thou art a stone; thou doest no good or harm in the world, and if it was not that I saw the prophet kiss thee, I would not kiss thee"-(Mishkat ul Masabih, Book XI : ch. IV. pt. III.) Modern intelligent Mohammedans, when askt why they kiRs the stone, reply, " God knows, we do not."
Below the representation of the Kaaba is depicted the famous station of Abraham, a stone 20 inches long by 15 inches wide. It is in the shape of a basin, and iR buried in the earth. The naTDe of Abraham is connected with it from the tradition that he first built the Kaaba.
Below this may be noticed the famous "Beer Zemzem," Well 01 Zemzem, or Well of Hagar, which is claimed to be the water which Hager saw, when Ishmael was dying of thirst. The Moslems ascribe miraculous virtues to its tepid waters, and the manufacture of bottles or jars for carrying the water to distant countries has developt into quite a trade. The curb of the deep well is on a level with the pavement, and as the vast procession of pilgrims comes to the spot, the keepers of the well draw up a bucket, the pilgrim drinks a little, and the rest is poured over his body, and runs back into the well. One can imagine the state of this water when ten or twenty thom:and pilgrims have been washt in it 1 Prof. Hankin, of London, analyzed the water and publisht the result in the the British Medical Journal of June, 1894, as follows: Total solids in a gallon _______________________________.___ . _.259. Chlorine . _________________________________________________ 51. 24 Free ammonia parts per million ______________ : ___________ • __ 0.93 Albuminoid ammonia _______ . ___________________________ . _.. .45 Prof. Hankin says that this water" contains an amount of solids greater than that in any well water used for potable purposes."
Even when cholera is raging, the same use of this well is con· tinued; no wonder that it becomes the means of conveying and increasiug the cholera germs among the unfortunate pilgrims, so that the European government have urged the Sultan to enforce a reform, cleanse this water, and protect the lives of the pilgrims.
Around the circle are the praying places of the Malikis. the Hanafys, the Hanbalys and the Shafi-is, the four great sects of Islam.
Around the quadrangle are 20 gates, such as Bab-su-Nebi, Gate of the Prophet, Gate of Abraham, of Peace, of Abbas, of the Mare, the Mule,Safa,* of Farewell, of Wisdom, etc., etc.,-besides various>- shrines.
PLATE III.
On the third page are represented the Holy Places of El Medizel,,_ the tomb of Mohammed.
The Koranic passage at the top reads as follows: "Said the prophet, may God bless him and grant him peaceI Who visits my' tomb, has my intercession."
The large dome in the upper left-hand corner is the tomb o:t Mohammed. Around the page are drawn the mosque of Fatimeh,.. mosque of the Strength of Islam, the mosques of Hamzeh, Abu: Bekr, Ali and Silman, the tomb of Othman, and various other shrines~ PLATE IV.
This page contains the Holy Shrines of Jerusalem. The Haram-es- Sherif, or the quadrangular area once occupied by the temple of Solomon, occupies the centre of the page. The verse of the Koran at the top is from Sura XVII. : .. Praise be unto Him who transported His servant (Mohammed) by night from the sacred temple (of Mecca) to the farther temple, the Mosque El Aksa (of' Jerusalem). "
'1'he Mosque commonly knowu as the Mosque of Omar, is here> • styled "Beit el Mukdas" or the Holy House. Under the dome in thS' black circle is the" Rock of God," or the" Suspended Stone." Every visitor to thill Mosque is startled at finding within it, surrounded by' the iron railing, an enormous naked rock. 'rhis was very probp,bly thssummit of Mount Moriah. Moslem traditions say that when Mohammed made the famous "Mi'raj ., or midnight journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and started to ascend to heaven, this rock followed him until he kicked it back with both feet, leaving the prints of his. two feet in the rock, which has ever since remained suspended in the air! 'rhe two footprints of the prophet are pictured below the rock.
Below this are the Scales of "Mizan," in which all men's deeds are· to be weighed at the last day, together with the shears which cut off the life of men. Men's good deeds are to be placed in one scale-pan· and their evil deeds in the other. The good deeds are the Moham-· medan good works, viz.: (1.) To repeat the Oreed or Formula. "Tnere is no God, but God, and Mohammed is his Apostle." (2). To give alms to the poor. (3). To pray five times a day. (4). To keep. the fast of Ramadan. (5). To make the pilgrimage to Mecca. If one observes these outward rites, his good deeds will outweigh any possibleevil deeds. The Arabs have a proverbial saying, "If a man has been to Mecca once, well and good; if twice, have an eye on him; if three· timeR, have nothing to do with him, he has become so holy that he is; dangerous," i. e., he has laid up such a stock of religious merit that ha,~ can commit any amonnt of sin with impunity. At the bottom of this fourth page of the Oertificate is the great'; Bridge of S~'l'aat, of vast length, the width of a hair, and sharp as a, razor, over which every mortal must walk barefooted. At the right..
* The Hills of Safa and Merwah, a short distance outside of the Heram, beyond th&o Bab Safa, are two hills, Sata and Merwah, on the top of which in Pre-Islamic days stood two stone idols. worshipt by the Pagan Meccans, When they accepted Islam, it was on condition that these two sacred hill-tops continue to be visited as a part of the holy pilgrimage. So to this day, every Mohammedan pilgrim, however grave, learned and dignified, must run seven times from the top of Safa hilI to the top of Narwah hill, as did the old pagan Arabs. When m askt, why do you do this? they reply, • Allah knows, we do not." This is another instance of the adoption and adaption by Mohammed of the superstitioDs of paglUlism order to.. win the Meccans to his cause.
THE ENTRANCE OF ECUADOR
of it is the pit of Jehenaam or hell, and to the left Jenneh or Paradise. A nazatdous feat it is to make the journey, since on it depends one's eternal destiny.
Arouud this area are pictured the tombs of David, Solomon, Moses aud Jacob, and in the right-hand upper corner is seen Jebel, Tool' Sina, or Mount Sinai.
This Oertificate is the Moslem's passport, as it were, to Paradise. It gives one in brief an epitome of Mohammedan faith and practice. Islam is a religion of works, of human merit. There is no way of salvation by a Redeemer. 'l'hese 200,000,000 of Moslems sorely need to be taught the true way of life, even salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, their true prophet, priest and king.
THE ENTRANOE OF EOUADOR.
BY GEO. S. FISHER, DIRECTOR OF THE GOSPEL UNION.
A few days of tossing on the sea, a short ride across the Isthmus, -a calm journey down the coast and "Over the line," four days of travel on mule-back, toiling up the mountains, a wet, cold night in a shepherd's hut on old Chimborazo, 14,000 feet above the sea, a day and a half by stage and I arrived in sight of Quito-a city whose history is shrouded with a record of licentiousness;murder, rapine, torture, igno- rance and superstition-all that cruel Spain, the unscrupulous priests and inhuman rulers could make it; but the streams have washt the blood away, the rocks are dumb, and she still lies at the feet of old Pichincha, fair and beautiful, and, thank God, I believe that for her ,the first rays of light are streaking the mountains and the morning dawneth when there shall be here sounded out the true and glorious 'Gospel of the Son of God.
A few mornings after my arrival I climbed the mountain for a short distance and sat down to pray to the Great Oreator and to look . over the city. Though 10,000 feet above the sea, Quito is situated in "I" valley almost surrounded by mountains, and three or four snow- "capped peaks are to be seen on a clear day, among them the lofty 'whitened head of Catopaxi, some 18,000 feet high. It is not now an ;active volcano, but sends forth enough light steam to form a cloud ;that appears to sit upon its brow like a silvery plume. 'rhe city: con- tains 60,000 people, and is built very compactly, the streets are paved, and. fountains where the drinking water is obtained, play in all the principal pIazzas, while numerous streams of water run through tha city underground. The climate is quite cold, plenty of rain falls, and hail is not infrequent. But a few hours distant hot valleys are reacht, while wheat, corn, potatoes, etc., are raised in other parts, so that th!3 markets are well supplied with eatables, which are gener- ally sold very cheaply. The best restaurant in the city serves meals- about five courses-for twenty cents, and house-rent is quite reasonable. Wool abounds, and some very good, but coarse, cloth is manufactured. Almost the entire work of the city is performed by the Indians, and their powers of endurance are marvelous, but they are poorly paid, and are kept in ignorance and poverty.
Perhaps one-fourth of the city is occupied by churches, convents, etc.-one of the churches with its attachments covering nearly two entire blocks, and is enclosed with a.great high wall. From the days of the killing of Atahualpa, king of the Incas, by the Spanish troops, to the present time, the Indians have been treated very much as were the children of Israel under Pharaoh. 'fhe Catholic religion has been supreme, the Bible is almost unknown, and the priests have become rich and wanton, and are the fathers of many of the inhabitants. I have met here one of the chief priests of the Cathedral, who, it is believed, poisoned the Archbishop, because he spoke against their evil practices-at any rate, the Bishop drank the communion cup and fell dead. Sermons are no longer preacht, but dozens of bells seem never to cease their clanging, calling the people to their idolatrous worship. Images are to be seen almost everywhere, and feast days to certain saints are most numerous. Processions march the streets, men with lighted candles, and the priest, arrayed in his vestments-walking under a canopy carried by a boy-on his way to administer "Extreme Unction" to the dying, while men take off their hats and women fall upon their knees on the pavement. This very day I saw a number of horrid looking images carried about the city, before whom, I suppose, some time or other, the faithful are to fall down and worship. Nuns have been paid by the government to teach the Indian children, but only attempted to instruct them so that they could read mass. Many of the people live together as man and wife without being married, because the priests charge such an exhorbitant sum for performing the marriage service. All sorts of means are used to obtain money from the now poverty-stricken people. Collections are taken up in a silver box with a crucifix attacht, the people kiss the image and drop their money in the box-even the dead are not at rest, for, unless the grave rent is kept paid up, the remains will be exhumed and carried to the burn pile. I do not wonder that in his day Luther's soul was moved within him until he was forced to cry aloud. Oh, that to-day our God would help us confess our own sin-the sins of the professing Christians of our own land, and then cry mightily for the desolate blinded people of this country, tottering fast into the grave and utter darkness forever.
Some thirty years ago, under the reign of President Morena (The Tyrant), a large number of foreign priests were brought into the country to help him, "Hold the people." He was finally stabbed as he came out of the Cathedral, and from the date of his death, about 1880, until a year ago, there has been no strong or lasting government. The liberals desired many changes and struggled a little, but the priests and church party were so firmly entrenched, that there seemed to be no possible means of gaining a victory. But our God had heard the cries of the poor down-trodden people, and was making ready his Chariot of Deliverence. His ways are not our ways, but He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him.
Something over a year ago Japan, then at war with China. wisht to buy from Chili the warship "Esmeralda," but under some treaty or international law she could not sell to her without probable tronble. Ecuador being considered a small obscure nation, it was suggested by Chili that the ship take the Ecuadorian flag and be sold as her vessel.
The President, the Governor at Guayaquil and the Consul at New York entered into the agreement, and, it is said, received $400,000 for the sale of the Ecuadorian flag, as the transaction was termed. In some way the action became known, a revolution was started at Guayaqui! and the President was obliged to flee. The old Government being conservative, i. e., for the clergy, the liberals of course now came to the front. A" Hnnta," or meeting of the leading men of Guava- 'quil, was called and they decided to send for Gen. Alfaro, who had been fighting for liberty for many years, but for some time past had :been exiled in Oentral America, and proclaimed him "Jefe Supremo."
He came at once, bringing with him Gen. Franco, who had also been <exiled as a liberal. From Quayaquil Gen. Alfaro marcht with his troops up country, taking the cities as he went, without very much of a struggle, occupied Quito, the capital. His officers and soldiers then began the work of taking the different provinces and cities, and an ;·election was soon ordered for delegates for a convention to reform the ,(}().nstitution and elect a president. There are no real elections in any _part of South America-the ruling officer simply reelects himself with :the aid of his troops, or designates some friend for whom the few votes …-are cast, and Gen. Alfaro's men were, of course, all elected. Trouble, however, arose at Ouenca in the south, and the General was obliged to go once more to battle. After qnite a severe fight Ouenca was taken and the couutry quieted. '
On taking hold of the country Gen. Alfaro at once stopt the pay- ment of state money to the church-perhaps a million sucres per year, -or $500,000. He also found that the priests were the strong enemies of his party, and were using their vast wealth and power against the .:government, he therefore confiscated some of their property, and they were pretty thoroughly driven out of the Oriente and the province of Manibe, and a number of them were exiled. Three o'clock in the morning was the regular time f(r confession and mass, and as few peo- Jlle but women attended at this hour, aud the priests were probably using the churches for immoral purposes, he ordered that the churches should not be opened until five o'clock. 'fhe Archbishop instrncted the priests to stir up the people against tlie government, until he was 'in a measure silenced, and he now pretends that his life is in danger, :and that he has left his palace and is in hiding in the city. U ndoubt- >edly the priests and church party understand that a change has taken . place, but the conservatives have much of the wealth of the country, and the priests are never known to give up.
Gen. ]!'ranco is next to Gen. Alfaro in command of the troops and is stationed in this city. He is supposed to rule with a much stronger hand than the President, and he is much feared. He has placed the !City under martial law, and the whistle of the sentinels day and night >on nearly every corner, the concerts giyen by the two military bands, -with soldiers attacht, the marching of the troops through the streets, all tell the people thflt a ruler is in their midst. A short time ago a ~onspiracy was formed to assassinate him, but it was discovered, the 'head man apprehended in the morning and shot at 4 P. M. This tCaused quite a stir, and Mr. MorIa, the head government minister, and ·>others resigned, but the general seems not at all disturbed and walks or rides in the streets with a friend or two, and holds the key to the <city. Both Gen. Alfaro and Gen. Franco have received me very kindly, ,and offered any assistance in their power.
I have found here a small grammar of the Quichua language, ;printed in Spanish, and have had a short conversation with a nun who has been in the Oriente for seven or eight years as a teacher for the Indian children. Archidona, the capital of that province, is over the eastern range, and some seven or eight days distant, but there are no roads, and a person must walk or be carried on the backs of Indians. That town is, however, only two or three days from the Napo river, at a point where it can be navigated by small vessels to its confluence with the Amazon, The country is supposed to be healthy, and parts of it inhabited by tribes of wild Indians who speak dialects of their own.
I find quite a number of people who are now openly opposed to the church and the priests, and while I believe that during the past years brave, wise, Holy Ghost laborers could have lived here, and possibly with much persecution disseminated a good deal of Gospel, I can now see no reason why God's chosen workers should not come here very soon. However changable the people may be, and whatever may in the future befall the present liberal rulers, our God still sits upon the throne, and He is well able to care for'His own so that they may glorify His Son in life or even in death.
'rhe Gospel Union, with headquarters at Kansas City, Mo., has already undertaken a work for this country. Laborers are now at Guayaquil. Brethren pray for us.
* *** At the annual summer Bible School of the Gospel Union held at Orete, Neb. (July 17-25, 1895), it pleased God to pour out upon the Christians there assembled an unusual spirit of prayer for the evangelization of the world. Without premeditation they were led to pray especially for the opening up of South America to the Gospel and the sending forth of missionaries to that land. 'l'he interest culminated in an all-night prayer-meeting and an offering of money, jewelry, etc., amounting in all to about $150.00 for the opening of a new mission in the Neglected Continent. To human eyes this was the beginning of the work which has now resulteu in the sending of four missionaries to the hitherto closed country of Ecuador. We say to human eyes, for in the councils of God the work had been begun before our prayers were offered. It is well known that by the Constitution of Ecuador all forms of religion, save the Roman Catholic, are prohibited from being preacht or taught, and the fanaticism of the Jesuit priests, by whom the country is overrun, had served to re-enforce the law and make the preaching of the Gospel there exceedingly difficult and dangerous, if not impossible; and the result has been that there has never been any settled Protestant missionary work undertaken in the country. There have arisen, however, from time to time in Ecuador some who have opposed this policy by pen and sword, and who have attempted to bring about such a revolution in the government that the Constitution might be so revised as to grant religious toleration; but this liberal party has been hopelessly in the minority, the conservative element controlling both the mass of the people and the wealth of the country, while behind it was the tremendous power of the Jesuit priesthood. But God was working for Ecuador. Almost simultaneously with the Kansas Bible School a revolution was inaugurated which has gone forward until Gen. Alfaro has been elected, the first liberal president of the Republic; the Constitution has been. revised, and we have now every reason to believe that religious tolera- tion has been granted. It seems to us that under such clear leadings of the Providence of God, there is nothing for us to do but to send out missionaries as rapidly as God may permit us to do so. The faith of the people ill
THE THREE YEARS' ENTERPRISE
the Jesuits is shaken, the doors are opened inviting Protestant missionaries to enter, and now is the time to move forward before the country shall settle back into infidelity and atheism, or invite the priesthood to resume control. Delay at this time may mean (as in the case of others of the South American countries) a relapse into a condition worse than that from which it is now emerging.
THE THREE YEARS' ENTERPRISE.
In an appeal issued with reference to the approaching completion of the first hundred years of the Ohurch Missionary Society, the committee say in part: "On April 12th, 1899, the Church Missionary Society will have completed its first century. 1'he O'lle hundredth year (April 12th, 1898, to April 12th, 1899) will be its second jubilee year, and wiU call for an observance markt by still deeper thankfulness, and still greater largeheartedness in offeriug to the service of the Lord. • . . While we would praise Him for His blessing. the attitude of all His servants should be one of deep humiliation on account of the inadequacy of their efforts, and of the neglect by the Church, as a whole, of His solemn command to preach the Gospel to every creature, to make disciples of all nations. That after the lapse of nearly nineteen centuries since that command was given, at least one half the present population of the world should never have heard that there is a Savior for them (to say nothing of the myriads who have died without hearing such glad tidings), is a fact that should humble the Church in the dust; and no joyful commemoration should be allowed to canse it to be forgotten for one moment.
"For this reason, the committee desire to turn the thoughts of the whole society to the consideration of the great and world-wide work of evangelization. . . . The committee accordingly propose to devote all the attention that can be spared from the constant demands of current work during the three years to two great objects: "I. A comprehensive review of the Society's position and met/zods, particularly in the mission-field-tho not excluding its home administration-with a view to the detection of weak points, the correction of errors, the application of the experiences of one mission to the circumstances of another, the more effective distribution of forces, the inauguration of such fresh plans as may conduce to more stable and lasting results. • . . In particular, to give careful attention to the position and needs of the native Ohristian communities called out of heathendom through the Society'S instrumentality; for the evangelization of the great heathen nations will not be accomplisht by foreigners. . • . "II. A large increase in the SoC£et.lf's evangel1:stic forces,. and this with three great objects in view-viz.: first, the strengthening and consolidating of the existing missions of the Society; secondly, the extension of its operations, both in present work and in regions beyond; thirdly. the promotion of the spiritual life of the native Christian communities, with a view to more active and fervent evangelistic effort on their part.
"But there are two essential requirements for the taking of whatever measures may prove to be desirable-viz.: more missionaries, and more means for their maintenance. And with a view to these, the committee propose the following steps: "1. To foster and extend in every possible way the Society's existing agencies, old and new, for spreading and deepening missionary zeal and interest. • . . "2. To seek fresh opportunities of reaching various particular classes of the community. (Men, women, boys, girls, students, and children.) • . . "3. To open communications with several organizations already at work among some of these classes, such as the Church of England and Church of Ireland Young Men's Societies, the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, the Girls' and Young Men's Friendly Societies, the Children's Special Service Mission and Scripture Union, etc.; not with any idea of their specifically helping the Church Missionary 'Society, but rather that the Society may be able to help them in the efforts already being made by them (or some of them) to awaken a missionary spirit among the classes for whose benefit they exist. "4. To take fresh steps for the circulation of missionary informa- tion, particularly of the latest current intelligence. The committee propose to issue a monthly letter, containing the latest missionary news, in such It form that it may, if desired, be read as it stands from the pulpit at a Sunday or week-day service. . . . "5. To encourage definite and believing prayer, private, or in the family, or in social or parochial meetings, by supplying friends with topics for prayer, either in the above-mentioned letter or separately.
"6. The committee fully hope that the general interest aroused by these and other plans to be specially developt during the three years will, if inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit, give such an impulse to missionary zeal and interest as will call forth immediate and numerous offers of service. . . . If in the seven years from October, 1887, to October, 1894, the Society did, without realizing it at the time, send out additional missionaries in such numbers that, at the end of the seven years its staff had actually doubled, surely in the coming three years a similar advance may be lookt for, itthe Lord pour out upon his people the spirit of self-sacrifice. . . . "7. The committee consider that the sending forth and the main- tenance of these immediate recruits should be a principal purpose of the new and special freewill offerings which many friends will wish to make during the three years. No object will so surely call forth liberality and self-denial as the sending out of more missionaries for the evangelization of the world. The committee therefore propose to ap- ply to the support of the new missionaries not otherwise provided for, and of any development consequent upon their going out, snch of the centenary or second jubilee offerings as may be made in the following ways: "(a) The committee invite their friends to adopt St. Paul's direc- tion in 1 Cor. 16: 2, and to 'lay by them in store,' Sunday by Sunday, some additional weekly contribution, however small, over and above their ordinary subscriptions, toward the support of the three years' reinforcement; such offerings to be paid in from time to time, either through the associations or direct. "(b) The committee recommend the adoption of the plan of rais- ing additional contributions for the support of individual missionaries, either as personal substitutes for service, or as 'our own mission- aries' for individual parishes or branches of the Gleaners' Union or other bodies, . . .
"The committee will remind their friends that while they rejoice to continue the policy of faith to which they believe God led them €ight years and a half ago, and to send out all qualified missionaries in full trust that He who has called them will provide the means for their support, they are bound to combine effort with faith, and to seek new methods of increasing the funds; and as the income, notwith- standing its unexpected growth in the last few years, is still insuffi- ,dent for the upkeep of the existing staff and machinery, the com- mittee do not doubt that the plan of utilizing the interest which the Society's second jubilee or centennary will arouse, and of employing the funds that will be contributed, primarily for the increase of the Society's evangelist.ic forces, will command general approval. '1'he ,committee do not contemplate the formation of a great centennary fund. To name a figure for such a fund would be either to cause dis- appointment if it were not reacht, or to limit the liberality of God's people if it were reacht. But as the year of the second jubilee ap- proaches, the committee will issue a list of special objects, other than the three years' reinforcement, to which special thank-offerings can be .appropriated. . . • " 'l'he committee earnestly desire that the three years should be a period, not only of progress on the part of the Church Missionary ;Society, but also of a general advance in thc whole Church toward a deeper realization of her responsibilities to her Divine Master for the fulfilment of His great command. In several ways these and succeed- ing years will be a period of centennaries. In 1898 the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge will celebrate its second centennary; in 1901 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel will celebrate its second centennary; and in 1904,the British and Foreign Bible Society its first centellnary. In addition to this the close of the nineteenth cen- tury itself is suggestive of solemn considerations. It is true that if the Christian era should date four years further back than the com- mon reckoning, as is generally believed, 1900 years since the birth of our Lord will be completed this year; but still the very change from the .expression nineteenth century to twentieth century will be a natural occasion for review of the past and preparation for the fu ture. . . .
"The committee do not at present put forth any suggestions for the observance of the Society's second jubilee itself. . . . What is needed is that every member and friend of the Society and of the missionary cause should (1) intend to move forward, (2) actually move forward, and (3) feel and know that he is moving forward; that he is not to-day where he was yesterday, and will not be to-morrow where he is to-day. And this applies to prayer for missions, to the study of missions, to the exercise of influence upon others in regard to mis- ,sions, to the dedication of our substance to the Lord's service in mis- sions, to the daHy 'submitting' of 'ourselves wholly to His holy will and pleasure,' ready to go where He sends us and to do what He bids us. It is little indeed that any of us can do; but if every individual Christian will do that little-not the little he is doing now, but the little he can, if he will, do besides-in prayer, in influence, in offerings, in personal service-then the Lord will do great things for us whereof we shall be glad."
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The General Missionary Outlook. less than three quarters of a century. It took the whole of the first hundred BY REV. GEORGE W. PECK, L.L.D., years after the birth of Christ to gather 500,000 Christian adherents in the whole BUFFALO, N. Y. world, and now we are gathering over 100,000 converts each year in the for- For our sakes, rw doubt, tltis is written: eign mission fields alone. Surely, our that M that ploughetlt sltould plow in, God is marching on. hope; and that he that thresheth in hope JJhould be partaker of his ltope. (1 001'. In the year 1800, before the era of D : 10.) foreign missions began, there were 200,- 000,000 Christian adherents in the whole Theodore Christlieb remarks at the world. The next ninety years of this beginning of his" Universal Survey of great missionary century showed an in- Protestant Foreign Missions," that it is crease of total adherents to Christianity of 270,000,000. Thus, on the average, "a hope inspiring review. * * There Christianity expanded more than 30 times faster during eaeh decade of the breaks upon us, in our days, and grows missionary century, than it did during more and more complete, the age of each decade of the previous eighteen universal missions." centuries.
Other authors of perhaps wider per- What are the facts with reference to sonal observation, tho no better stu- the United States? In 1750 evangelical dents of the theme, agree that the times church membership in the U. S. inin which we are permitted to live, are cluded only one out of every 13 of the unparalleled in their missionary enier- population. At the end of 42 years the prises, and it has come to be recognized church membership included only one that, ., the Church that is not mission- out of every 18 of the popUlation. Durary in its spirit must repent or wane; ing the next 25 years five great missionthe pastor who is not should reform or ary boards were organized in the U. S. resign." largely for work in foreign fields. Since that period evangelical church member- Reliable figures are not always avail- ship has increased in the U. S. from able. I have selected some from Den- one out of every fourteen to one out of nis, Pierson, Todd, Gracey, Christlieb, every four and one-half of the popula- Adams, Gordon and others of our best tion. That is to say, while we have authors, and from our current periodi- been plowing and reaping at the rate (lals and reports. of 100,000 converts a year in the foreign field, our home church membership has Take the year 1825 as our first land- increast from about seven per cent. to mark. There were then only 60,000 nearly twenty-five per cent. of our popu- Christians in all the mission churches of lation. the world. The annual rate of increase was then so small that it was sometimes As an encouraging feature of this cona question whether the diminutive re- denst exhibit, the rapid spread of the sults justified such prodigious efforts. English language and the wide circula- tion of the Scriptures are interesting In 50 years from that time the annual items. In 1800 the English language increase of Christians in mission fields was used by only 24,000,000 of people, was equal to the previous sum total, 60,000,.and in 70 years from that time the annual increase of Christians in mission churches was 100,000; from a few scattered converts each year to over 100,000 converts each year, in a little but in 1890 it had become the vehicle of tend the Savior's kingdom throughout thought for over 115,000,000, outstrip- the habitable world. The Orient will ping its nearest competitors among the furnish the material for the proper in- Russian, German, Spanish and French terpretation of the Scriptures, as within tongues by more than 35,000,000. As a that Orient these were almost exclu- consequence the Bible of our own splen- sively confined for 4500 years. Hun. did vernacular, by far the widest dreds of its cities, towns, rivers, moun· medium of communication between tains, and present inhabitants, are living' the Christian forces of to·day, very witnesses of the truth of the inspired naturally follows the" King's English" word, and will reward extended tours to every nook and corner of the world. for independent investigation in the The Bible is also publisht and circu- interests of Biblical interpretation. The lated in more than 350 translations into stamp of scientific accuracy and appro· languages spoken by 1,400,000,000 peo- val which these lands and people give ple, so that its present annual circula· to the geography, hi2tory, botany, tion exceeds 6,000,000 copies, and its geology, topography and ethnography total circulation during this missionary of the Bible, are so satisfactory to the century exceeds 256,000,000 copies. honest and industrious inquirer that he cannot help regarding them as necessary Here we discover a mighty mission- links between the distant past and the IIry force at work. By competent au- living present. thority it is estimated that not more than 8,750,000 copies of the Bible were These statements give only a faint issued from the time of }loses up to idea of our real indebtedness to the 1804, a period of thirty-six centuries. Orient. The Christian world should From 1804 to 1896, less than one cen- pay, without further delay, its indebted· tury, more than 256,000,000 copies of ness to the fatherland of the prophets the Bible were issued. With the Bible and apostles by saving their unregen· in the hands of the people, ancient erate successors. Educated natives in apathy gives way to modern missionary the east recognize the most perfect activity, and as our tireless presses and adaptation of our religion to all their increasing agencies continue to sow the needs, and this is proving to be a collagospel seed, we will continue to plow teral encouragement of prime importand sow, to r<':ap and thresh in hope of ance. Keshub Chunder Sen, one of glorious rewards. the most learned Hindus, made use of the following forcible language ;- The objection is frequently made, that .. When I reflect upon the fact that it is a waste of time and money to at- Christianity was founded and developt tempt to force the religion of the west- by Asiatics in Asia, my love for Jesus ern world upon the people of the Orient, becomes a hundred-fold intensified." whose habits and customs are so widely different from our own. The Outlook in India.
This, indeed, when our Lord Him- REV. H. F. LAFLAMME, COCONADA, Belf was an Asiatic, and when Chaldean INDIA. shepherds, watching their flocks by night upon the plains of Shinar, were Tho the statement that 15,000,000 of the first to hear the glad tidings of the population of India can read and great joy to all people. Our religion write English has been repeated, it is was born and cradled in the Orient. very wide of the mark. Not that many, It was preacht and practist in the Ori- altogether, can be considered literate in ent in its prestine purity, by the Son of anyone of India's many vernaculars. God himself. The comparison, as regards literacy, between the United States of America Mesopotamia, Egypt and Arabia, and and India, of each 1,000 males, and indeed all the adjacent lands, were laid under contribution to solidify and exthe same number of females, stands choicest troops, and about 12,000 or thus:- more of her pickt men in the railway Malu. Female,. and civil service of India, to preserve The literate in U. S. A. are 725 406 and administer that empire, besides the "India " 109 6 large staff of native officials, then surely That makes but 5 per cent., or 14,- it seems a very reasonable request to 500,000 of the people who can read and ask that 5,800 ordained mis~ionaries, write any language. Out of that num- with a large number of single ladies, ber only 537,811 speak English. Ex- should be engaged in the conquest of <lIuding from this last total the English that continent in the name of tile Lord residents, such as troops, civil servants, Jesus.
traders, the handful of missionaries, etc., the residuum l'epresents the Eng- Outlook in India. lish-speaking natives, who number only 388,032. Tho this class make REV. D. O. FOX, POONA-, INDIA.
themselves heard thro the press, and on What is the outlook for the conquesi 'he platform, the attention of enlight- of India for Christ? This is a very ened Christendom thus drawn to them interesting question. A beginning has is ont of all proportion to their influ- been made towards this end. There is ence and importance. Superstitious, an army of hundreds of workers in the idolatrous, degraded, ignorant India. land. Tllousands of converts are with her teeming millions sleeps on un- gathered into the Christian fold every conscious of their very existence as far year. But what are these anlOng the as any significant effort on their part millions that fill this great empire.
to enlighten her is concerned. These workers were never more con- India's eternal hope lies in the mis- scious that they are face to face with sionary of the cross. Her peoples' il- opposing forces that no human power literacy makes tle colportage campaign can overcome.
a feeble factor in her evangelization. There are two elements at work in That same limitation, while calling India which, together, give promise of loudly for Christian schools as a relief. wonderful results. 1st. There is Ii places them as an immediate and rapid growing spirit of oroeneal among the evangelizing agency largely out of the missionaries of nearly all the different count. Native agents, in greatly mul· denominations. This oneness that tiplied numbers, fired with a holy zeal, comes from love to God and to one an- prepared and sent forth by native other, is becoming a marked feature churches, will be the final efficient fac- among them. It is a cause of grea'
tor. But these are war times. Those joy to all. They freely and heartily vast millions are dying at the rate of unite in missionary conferences, a11- twelve millions a year. They can- day prayer-meetings, camp meetings, not await the preparation of even the district conventions and Bible read- effective native agent. The 800 or- ings. 2nd. There is a united cry going dained foreign missionaries from Pro· up to God all over the land for the gift testant Christendom are entirely inade- of the Holy Spirit. They study the quate. Tile immediate, emphatic, urgent Scriptures with reference to this expe- call is for 5,000 more ordained mission- rience, and are seeking it in all their aries from the warm heart of Christ's meetings. In this they are following people. and a large contingent of select the apostolic practice. As in apostolic Christian women to meet the peculiar times, so now in India, there is coming needs of India's secluded womanhood. the Divine power that follows the bap- If the Queen-Empress of British Do- tism of the Holy Spirit. The resulta minions needs to keep 73,000 of her will be glorious. Outlook in Burma, Previous to the war with Japan, BY REV. DAVID GILMORE, RANGOON, China's principal attention and fears BURMA. had nrenfwerietnhcaestobeceenrtaprianctdii(s~taalnlty nations When I left Burma last March, the but demon: prospects for missionary work-at least strated that her nearest neighbor is an for the work of the American Baptist- ambitious and powerful enemy. In were generally regarded as brighter order to cope with this enemy, China than ever before. The most significant has no alternative but to accept heartily feature is the changed attitude of the and sincerely those western inventions Burmans towards the Gospel. The and sciences that have helpt make the Baptist mission has in the past been Island Empire such a mighty force in blest with great success in Burma; the Far East. but this success has been principally Many things seem to indicate that among the Kavens, a non-Buddhistic race. The work among the Burmans a new era is dawning in "the Land of Sinim." The recent visit of Li Hung (who are Buddhists), while equally Chang to Europe and America has doubt· faithfully done has, until recently, had less much significance. Li is regarded comparatively meager results. But as the leader of the progressive party in now all over Lower Burma it is noticed China. His numerous, practical ques· that the Burmans are much more ready tions while in this country, show that to listen to the Gospel. The number of he sought information which he hopes those desirous, or at least willing, to em- to turn to good account in his native brace Christianity, is steadily increas· land. It is highly probable that west· ing, and many more Burmans are being ern inventions will soon be introduced baptized now, than was the case five into China as never before, and that years ago. railways will be built for military pur· poses primarily, but ultimately for Other important signs are: the great general use. increase of Bible reading among the Christian Kavens, due to the introduc- Recent letters from China indicate an tion of a cheap and portable photo-en- increasing interest in western affairs graved Bible; the extension of work and in Christianity, despite the riots of among Telegus and Tamils by the Bap- last year, and the deplorable Kucheng tists, who for the past two years have massacre which, on August 1st, 1895, had a missionary devoting his whole deprived the writer of eight valued time to this work, and the organization fellow-workers of the Church Missionof a Conference by the American ary Society of England. Yet from that Methodist Episcopal mission in Lower region, and also from the scene of the· Burma. The Methodists are evidently riots in West China, there come cheering determined to take up work for the reports, which betoken the dawn of a natives with the same energy they have brighter day of opportunity. shown in their Eurasian work in Ran- Rev. G. B. Smyth, President of the. goon. Anglo-Chinese Oollege, connected with the Methodist Episcopal mission at The Outlook in Ohina. Foochow, writes: BY REV. M. C. WILCOX, PH.D., FOOCHOW, "There are many signs of a great.
CIDNA. awakening of interest here in things.
During the last few years China has foreign. Large numbers of people are been making history far more rapidly attending the churches. Over 100 have, than ever before. The recent war with joined Tieng Ang Dong (a leading- Japan, in which China lost every battle, Methodist Church) on probation since, will doubtless prove a greater benefit, conference. Of course, it would be a in the sequel, to the larger country than mistake to suppose that all this isa relig· to the smaller. ious awakening. • • • I think thegreater part of it is not. It is rather a two million who have heard, more or less, to accept the Gospel offer, and feeling that the future belongs to the how shall the forty thousand Protestant Ohristians of Japan be helpt to fuller foreigners. or to those who learn their faith and larger work? Il'his is th9" great Japan problem. secrets. . Some of the new America has its problem of the massstudents at the college are from some of es ; but in America it is the problem of persuading the two out of every three' the most important families in 'the city. who are not members of evangelical churches, to accept Christ and the One is a nephew of the Au Kuang Christian life. In Japan, it is persuad- ing the nine-hundred and ninety-nine of magistrate, another is a grandson of the everyone thousand.
Chek Kiang Taotai." Here the two refuse Christ, not from ignorance, but from deliberate choice. So much from one whose statements There the nine-hundred and ninety- nine do not choose because they do not are sure to be sufficiently conservative. yet know of the Christ.
I will now quote from a missionary Suppose the case reverst, and the United States to be in the condition of who is sufficiently optimistic, but prob· Japan-circled by isolation and steept in heathenism for twenty-five hundred ably not too much so in view of all indi- years, all the people Buddhists, Shinto- ists, Confucianists, Atheists or Panthecations, Rev. W. N. Brewster, of Ring- ist8,-a large part of them all of these at once,-our present material civilizahua, China: tion-railroads, telegrafs, school-system and the like, all gotten from abroad .. Weare growing as rapidly as we within the past thirty years. Then suppose that only thirty-five years ago have men to shepherd the people. The missionaries from Asia began cOming to 8uch an America to make us acquainted, people and the officials are in general for the tirst time, with the Bible and Christianity, and that to-day-carrying very friendly. . . . Ringhua mis- out the proportioDs,-there were but 800 of those Japanese and Chinese men sion, when organized separately from and women working for us as Christian missionaries, and but 65,000 of our the Foochow Conference, will have over 65,000,000, who call themselves Protes- tant Christians, while over nineteen 5,000 members and probationers. . • . twentieths of the rest had never heards word of Christian teaching. What our A missionary's life, if anything. is one problem would be in such a case is the problem of Japan to-day. Prayers and of faith; he 'sows in hope.' The black- sympathy are needed for the Japan missionaries and Christians, who are ness of the heathen night enshrouds facing these difficult minor problems. But we must not let these obscure our him like a pall. Even though he report view of the 181'ge problem. It is not re- trenchment and withdrawal of mission- 1,000' converts in a single year, what ary help, as some have suggested, but deeper sympathy and more earnest are these to the thousand times 1,000 souls in his district that are, to all ex- cept the eye of faith, as far from Christ as ever. . . . You ask me, 'Watch- man, what of the night?' 'The morn- ing cometh.' It is here."
The Japan Problem.
REV. c. A. CLARK, MIYAZAKI, JAPAN.
Japan has come to the "problem" stage. Problems great and grave have arisen; problems of education, of property, of theology, of cooperation; problems calling for great wisdom and patience and wakeful nights and earnest prayer, and above all, for Christ-like love.
But the compound problem, which towers above all these problems, and makes them seem small, is: How shall we get t.he Gospel m~ssage into the ears and hearts of the forty million people who have never yet heard a lisp of it, aud how shall we persuade the .other prayers, and renewed and continued bloodshed as a consequence of stirring effort, and still larger offerings of men up Buddhist wrath by attempting a and money, for years to come, that are house-to-house visitation and distribu- needed to help in solving the great prob- tion. It was well known that among lem of Japan. these two-hundred thousand people, mostly Buddhists, two thousand Bud- Do the Japanese desire this help? A dhist temples and five thousand priests, few may not. But anyone who knows there would be some opposition; but the feeling of the great mass of the the committee did not hesitate. All Evangelists and Christians will not were eventually surprised at the mild- hesitate to say yes, vcryemphatically. ness of the opposition. The work was While the spirit of indepcndence is begun by presenting to the ~rarquis strong. and sometimes is manifested in Tokugawa and the four officials of conspicuously unpleasant ways, yet all Chokunin rank, well bound copies of but the very few realize thut Japan the whole Bible. Neat, well-bound must have outside help for" long time copies of the New .Testament were preto come, to accomplish the evangeliza- sented to fifty-four officials of Sonin tion of the nation. Let us not forget rank, and to gendarmes and police inthe great problem! spectors cheaper editions of thc New Testament were givcn, and with each Bible Distributi?ll in Nagoya, Japan. copy of the BibJe and New Testament special letters of explanation were pre- In the spring of 1895, the missionaries sented. With but one or two excepresiding in Nagoya, together with some tions, the officials received the commitof the native workers, representing tee with great cordiality, and many of four denominutions, resolved to under- them seemed glad to iuquire about take the work of putting one copy of a Christian customs, etc. Portions of portion of God's Word into each of the the city adjacent to the respective fifty thousand dwellings in this city. churches were apportioned to their Dr. W. N. Whitney of the Scripture workers, and the work of house-to- Union greatly encouraged and sub- house visitation began. In some insta~tially aided this work. A' repre- stances priests went in advance of the sentative working committee was ap- workers and threatened the people, if pointed by the contributors to the pro- they should take copies of the Word. ject, fifty thousand copies of the four In other cases the distributors were Gospels, twelve thousand five·hundred closely followed, and all the portions of each, were specially ordered and left were gathered up for destruction. printed for this work, the Bible So- In some cases doors were barred in the cieties' agent making a reduction of face of the workers. In one section, 50 per cent. of the retail price. Sys- covering several blocks of the most tematic preparations were made to be- wealthy people of the city, an agreegin the work of distribution. A brief ment was made that no one there would tract, introductory and explanatory, receive these portions of Scripture, and was printed, and 11 copy of it put into in some instances priests required the each portion of the Word. This tract people to sign documents to the same singled out and called special attention effect; but no violence has taken place. to important passages. The committee From 2 per cent. to 40 per cent. of the held regular meetings, and the different offers made were refused, but the avcrphases of the work were fully discust_ age will not cxceed 4 per cent. or 5 per Some Christian friends came to the cent. In many instances people apmeetings of the committee, and made peared glad to get the Word, and inwell-meaning but discouraging speech- stances of direct good are known to es, declaring the undertaking danger- have followed this work. The spirit of ous, and one Christian pastor predicted inquiry has increast and some per- draw the" color-line," for they" shade sons thus found are now attending the off" into all the colors which" flesh is churches_ Some small, isolated por- heir to."
tions of the city still remain to be Nominally Romanists, the majolity workt, but 'the main portion has been pay little, if any, respect to religion.
covered, and the remaining portions of They are given to vice rather than the Scriptures have been divided among crime, are weak rather than wicked.
the four missions represented-the Some regions are priest-lidden, others Presbyterian, Methodist Episcopal, have very few, and some no priests at lIethodist Protestant, and the Church all. Northern Colombia is counted of England. mostly as "liberal" in politics and Some of the workers have met with religion.
rich experiences, and in this way alone Baptisms are frequent; confirmations the work has paid well. ThG borders rare; church going still rarer; and "con- of Zion have been enlarged and her fession," even once a year, at Easter, is bulwarks strengthened perceptibly in practically almost abandoned in this this city within the past twelve months, region. :Marriage is made costly by to which good work the distribution of "The Church," hence is rare, save Scripture portions has undoubtedly among the rich; but there are children contributed no mean part. Much prayer none the less. Two-thirds are illegiti- has accompanied this work, and while mate. "Extreme Unc,tion" is beyond we may never be able to tabulate re- the reach or the desire of the masses.
sults, sure it is that He who has made a It costs too much to die in the arms of dennite promise as to the fruitfulness of "The Church." Hence the many die His Word, will see to it that great reo unshriven. Twenty dollars is the sults follow. Hundreds who would priestly tax for a funeral. Hence there otherwise never have seen the true is seldom any ceremony other than a Word of God, have had at least one thorough-going "wake," accorded by chance to read some of its truths, and the neighbors, who carry the defunct 'have had the importance of the subject in noisy, irregular procession at night, brought home to them. with lighted lanterns to the grave.
To the entI that those friends who With only ten per cent. able to have felt interested in this work may read, with frequent revolutions, with know what has been done, and in the few or no houses, and all too little hope that others into whose hand this home purity, and with little or no relig- writing may come,will unite with us in ious spirit, the spirit of "faith and a Nagoya in prayer that the Word which sound mind," in the vast majority-it has thus been distributed, may long is not surprising that public morals are continue to burn 'its truths into the "at low ebb," while "progress" does hearts of this people, this brief report not come within the "list of possibili- is respectfully submitted, by order of ties, " Indeed, tokens of retrogression the Committee. are too evident on every hand, save D. S. SPENCER, Pres., where foreign interests and enterprise A. R. MORGAN, Sec. employ and develop native resources.
Nagoya, Japan. In a word, Rome and heathenism have long ago formed a "close-joint"
The Outlook in Oolombia. partnership, under the now ancient BY REV. THEODORE S. POND, style and title of "Pope and Pagan."
NEW YORK. The fruits of this union in Colombia This "RepubHc " (?) has a population and all South America are exhibited to of 4,000,000. A mixture of European angels, devils and men on a scale at races with Indians and negroes, result- once colossal and continental.
iDg iD a people where it is impossible to In the midst of this thick darkness, covering the people of Colombia, there Greater Strategy in the Orient. are three little points of light discernible. BY REV. D. C. CIIALLIS, SISTOF, BUL- GARIA. There is represented in that needy country just one missionary society. The flnal settlement of the Eastern The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mis- Question involves more than the arbi- sions has two ordained missionaries tration of war, or the machinations of in the capital, Bogota (150,000 in- European diplomacy. It depends rather habitants), four ladies and one native on the action of forces whose field is helper. There is one higher school for humanity, and whose measure is the girls, with preparatory department. march of the ages. Unconscious racial Another higher institute for boys and instincts independent ofmere selfishness, young men. These schools are well at- and more potent than ministers or gene- tended. There is one church edifice and rals, are the plane wherein a "Provi- book deposit and a congregation of 150. dence that shapes our ends," finds its Another point of light is the station peculiar field of action.
at city of Medellin. (60,000 (1). One The steady advance of Russian power ordained missionary, his wife, and a in all those regions is not mainly owing native lady assistant-a school house to the skill of her diplomats, or the size for a day·school and for meetings; of her armies. Her people are but a books for sale. part of a great race whose" stream of A third point is Barranquilla, at the tendency" overleaps and ignores all the mouth of the Magdalena river, the chief labors of diplomatic map-makers.
port of the whole country. (40,000). From the fifth century onward we Her-e are two ordained missionaries, find the Slavic race, slow.going but their wives and three ladies; two steady, healthy, patient, industrious schools for girls, one for boys and and prolific, has possessed all of Eastern young men, in training for native help- Europe. Huns, Tartars and Franks ers; no place of worship save a school- have successively invaded and fought room. This board can do no more now. over these lands. The "unspeakable II There is only one ordained missionary to Turk has settled in a darkening cloud, every million of souls, and there are only like locusts of the Apocalypse. But all four hundred (400) evangelical work- these have past or are passing away ers-both native and foreign-to the 37 without disturbing the stately move- million of the Southern Continent. ment of the mass. Freed from ancient Comment is struck dumb. despotism and the blighting influence Since the last revolution not a tithe of medieval priestcraft, the Slavic race of the .common schools are sustained; will be to the East what the Anglo- not a press in the whole country is Saxon is to the West.
wholly at disposal of the mission. There Mohammedanism is a mighty force, is not a hospital worthy of the name, but it is built on fanaticism and not on nor a refuge for the 27,000 lepers who racial instinct. Blood is thicker than live unsegregated from the people of water and more potent than the foam of Colombia. fanaticism. Diplomacy will exhaust its Not the merchants of the world, not skill and play out its little game.
the gold hunters, not the naturalists,cer- Fanaticism will "foam out its own tainly not Rome, ubiquitous and domi- shame." Russian autocracy and Turk- nant, has neglected this country (among ish atrocity will be alike forgotten, but the very richest in natural wealth), but the Slavic race, civilized and evangel- the Church which has the Everlasting ized, will possess the land, and, joining Gospel to preach, has past by on the hands with the Anglo-Saxon, will other side and has made of South encircle the world with a girdle of America, ., The Neglected Continent." peace. The Outlook in Turkey. .. Another subject for deep sympathy is the condition of the many innocent'. It is not prudent to append names of men, unjustly imprisoned. They are contributors from within the Turkish charged with having caused the Empire. The Ohristian, of London, massacre, and the impression is that collates whole columns from corres- they will be sentenced to long imprison.· pondence received at its office. We ments, if not to death. A!llong these:.' could readily do the same, but prefer to prisoners, (perhaps 150 in all), is thegive a few extracts from the budget of good pastor of the Church, with the: TIle Christian. assistant teacher and the beloved! doctor, full of good works and faith~ 0< • The attitude of the Turkish who, like Paul, is rejoicing in that he Government has never been so antagon. is countecl worthy to suffer for Christ. • istic as it is now. Leading Turks . . The people are like poor frightened confess that Protestant teaching is loyal sheep. It is pitiful to Bee how terrifie<l to the Government, but that it also they become at the slightest rumors. opens the eyes of the people, and leads Threats of further massacres are comthem to think for themselves, which is mon. We wonder how long a Governnot co~patible with the Turkish poli- ment so thoroughly corrupt and so< tical system. Protestants are not hopelessly bankrupt can hold out. God allowed to rebuild their burned chapels only knows when and how the en<t and schools without permission from will come. . . . Our spirits have been the Sultan himself, and such permission greatly refresht by visits from the Red there is no hope of receiving. We Cross agents.'" have never had such discouragements to face as now. As compared with a We also quote a late editorial of TluJ year ago, the work seems to be in Christian, to wit:- ruins. Many of the best men in all our congregations have been cut off. "The dark midnight that has hung Every congregation is impoverished, over Turkey for so long seems touched and the people are still living in the with light at last. While rumors of fear of another massacre, but we know further massacres are still coming in. that this is God's work and He will yet there is at the same time a belief that bless it. Pray for us. the powers are really working towards a mutual understanding. The latest H 'There is a mighty battle being advices contain repeated hints that fought between the false prophet and England has led the way in making the Son of God, and although we are certain overtures to Russia that may" sure that Christ will conquer in the lead to such interference with the SuI-. end, it often seems that the victory is tan, as will bring his power for mischieV being long delayed. We are trying to to an end. What these proposals a1"6.·' help the people to set to work, but does not yet appear; but that they are.' what can the multitudes of widows at least being made seems pretty cer·· and orphans do? There are no factories tain. The agitation that has moved; for spinning, weaving, stocking-mak- this country from one end to another._ ing, etc. When there is no market so together with the Czar's visit, appear to! far in the interior, the condition is be the primary causes of the new direc– desperate. Had it not been for the tion which affairs are taking. If we' relief last winter thousands would have have succeeded in proving that the. died, and the prospects of this winter moral sense of Europe was not dead,_ are even darker. We dare not look but sleeping, and in rousing it to action: ahead, but only lean hard on God How we have done a good work. It would. we wish that some one would come and however, be a mistake to think that the start an orphanage here for the many battle of humanity and justice has yet orphans. been won. All the resources of diplo,… macy will fail, unless the nation shows Not long after, on a Saturday, Miss a determined and watchful attitude." Stevens was astonisht beyond meas- The sentiment in America must be still further stimulated to furnish moral ure to see this priest standing in her support to our own Government at Washington, in enforcing the rights of own room, and to hear him say, "Jesus American citizens in Turkey. " Eter· nal vigilance is the price of liberty."- has conquered me." I thought, said [J. T. G.] Miss Stevens, I had seen heathenism in A Mighty Miracle. all its repulsiveness, but never had I BY REV. A. w. RUDISILL, D.D., MADRAS, seen anything that quite equaled this, INDIA. and I confess I trembled. He offered Miss Stevens-" Evangelist Eliza- beth,"-entered a Imtcher shop in a her his beads and askt for baptism. village in the suburbs of Madras, dis- tributing tracts and talking to the peo- With her customary prudence she said, ple. Among them was the priest of the village; near by was his temple. "Not now. Wait awhile_ Think what He was a periodical worshipper at all the chief temples of that part of the this will cost you, and if, aner a timo .country, having treasure of some de- scription in each. About him was his you still desire it, I will arrange for your yellow priestly robe; on his neck the priestly rosary; on his arms strings of baptism." beautiful beads; on his forehead the sacred ashes, in the center the round Not less was her surprise on the fol- . crimson mark, a sign of his devotion to the god he worshipt. He was known lowing day to have him approach her . as a subtle dialectician by some of the leading missionaries of Southern India, in church, and taking the rosary from with whom he had disputed for many . years, but this poor woman was not his neck, and the beads from his arms, worthy of such honor, and he listened in contempt. Had he not taught the say meekly, "What hinders my being :people that he himself was a god? .Had he not seen them prostrate at his baptized to-day?" :feet? Elizabeth read the third and fourth verses of the first chapter of After a brief sermon by the native Isaiah, then kneeling, asked the Holy Spirit to do his work. The priest pastor, Elizabeth conducted him to the accepted her tracts and read them, and they kindled in his heart a fire of altar, and the sight was that 01 a fierce indignation. A few days after he poured upon one of our native preachers tiger following a gentle lamb. 8. volley of abuse, and vehemently at- tackt the Christian religion. The Miss Stevens washt from his brow the preacher answered him never a word, but when the priest had spent his fury, sacred ashes; the man tore away tho read to him the first chapter of 1st John, and kneeling, wrestled with God for crimson disk and threw it on the floor. the man's conversion. The priest was visibly affected. Askt why he took such a step, why he renounced the religion of his fathers and cast away his priestly inheritance, he answered, "Christ is my Shep- herd." He was baptized, receiving at his reo quest the name of "John." In the parsonage he exchanged his yellow priestly robe for a cloth of pure white, and in this garment, emblematic of the clean linen in which the saints auvve are arrayed, he went away.
In the afternoon Miss Stevens found him sleeping in the shade with his Tamil Bible, which she had given him, lying near his head. He wakened and at once began his work, preaching with great power from the text-" Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world."
Anxious to say nothing that would not accord with the truth, he would tarn and ask in Erglish-" Am I right'! "
He was right in all he said; he waa the Savior's mouthpiece. He is now preaching and teaching a village school, and is one of Miss Stevens' distributors of tracts.
Waa it not "A Mighty Miracle?"
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
IlI.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
Monthly Topics for 1897.* DECEMBER.
JAN-:JARY. Syria and Palestine. The Jews. The General Outlook. Educational Missions, FEBRl'ARY. A Glance at the World ofMission& The Chinese Empire. EDITOR-IN-CillEF. Tibet and Formosa. Confucianism and Taoism. As the field of survey for this Jpen- The Opium Traffic. lng month of the new year is the world, and this issue as a whole is taken up MARCH. with the conditions of this world-wide work, we content ourselves with a few Mexico. additional comments upon general mat- Central America. ters of practical interest and import- The West Indies. ance. City Missions. Foreigners in the United States. The first thing that strikes us in the outlook is the almost unprecedented APRIL. 'Unrest in the nations. Seldom have we known a year within the life-time of India. Burmah, and Ceylon. this generation, when the world was in Hinduism and Brahmanism. so unsettled a state, and there was such 'Woman's Work. a common feeling of uncertainty. N(} political crisis since the first gun was )lAY. fired upon Fort Sumpter, thirty-five years since, has created an excitement Siam and Laos. so intense as the last presidential cam- Malaysia. paign in the United States. In Africa, Unoccupied Fields. Madagascar, Boerland, The Sudan, Buddhism. The Kongo Free State, in fact, almost Work Among the Lepers. every partof the Dark Continent, has had an upheaval during 1896. In Japan lUNE. there has been the most serious and alarming crisis since the Gospel was Africa and Madagascar. first preached. In China, India, Turkey Fetichism. and Armenia, Spain and Cuba, the The Slave Trade. Philippine Islands-all over Europe- The Freedmen in America. in almost every quarter of the known world, some peculiar form of disaster JULY. or struggle, some alarming crisis, war, massacre, financial depression, political The Islands of the Sea. entanglement, which threatened serious Arctic Missions. results, or actual revolution, has charac- North American Indians. terized the last twelvemonth. Work Among Seamen. The Liquor Traffic. While, in the Master's work, discour- agement is never in 'order, it must be AUGUST. confest that in most parts of the mis- sion field there has been no markt ad- Papal Europe. Romanism. Bible Work.
SEPTEMBER.
Japan and Korea. Shintoism. Japanese and Chinese in North America. Medical l'Iissions OCTOBER.
Turkey, Arabia, and Persia. Russia, Siberia, and Greece. The Greek Church and Eastern Sects. Islam.
NOVEMBER.
South America. Frontier Missions in North America. Mormonism. Younl'" People's Work.
ber• Articles intended for insertion in the num- devoted to these topics should be in our bands at least two months in advance. vance, and in many cases, our missions where a vast population is as yet have with difficulty held their own. accessible only to Greek priests, and It may be well to give a few exam- imperfectly reached even by these ples of the history which the past year ignorant and superstitious men.
has been writing, and to call attention 3. Arabia, with its nomadic tribes once more to the crisis which the world- and shrine of the False Prophet. In field now presents. fact we may say of that whole territory Glancing first at the field as a whole, which may be called Mohammedia-or the outlook for the new year is one, first the territory of Moslem power, which of all, of appalling destitution. We must reaches from the west coast of North not shut our eyes to the vast unoccupied Africa to the borders of Tibet – it is area which after nineteen centuries like Jericho, yet to be encompassed by still confronts us in the world-field. the hosts of the Lord, for the first There are two massive oriental Em- time.
pires, India and China, each in itself a 4. 'fhe Sudan, reaching from the world, which together embrace one-half Kong mountains east to the Nile valley, the entire human race. Yet, among 3,000 miles long and 500 miles broad, these seven hundred millions, all that is held under the sway of the crescent, has been done is thus far insignificant. and has a popUlation equal to that of J. Hudson Taylor, twenty-five years the United States and Great Britain com- ago was driven to the organization of bined. It is just beginning to be the "China Inland Mission," by the entered by missionaries.
impulse of a resistless passion to reach 5. The central portion of &uth eleven vast provinces of the celestial America, sometimes called Amazonia, empire, which up to that time had not with at least 10,000,000 natives, is an- one resident Christian Protestant mis- other of the unevangelized spiritual sionary. In India, each of the great deserts of our globe.
native states has heen nominally occu- Even in the best manned mission pied by one missionary or more, but fields, the laborers are few. Out of all many of the smaller states have yet to Protestant Christendom, with fifty mil- be entered by preacher, teacher or lion church members and four times healer; Nepaul alone being shut to the that number of adherents, the total mis- Gospel. Bengal's non-Christian popu- sion force, including women and medi- lation exceeds the whole popUlation of cal missionaries, is not over 10,000. If the United States, and Bahar. with a we include in the total force at work all population as large as England, has but the converted native helpers, the whole thirty missionaries, one-half being number is about fifty thousand, or one women. The Decennial Conference laborer to every 20,000, supposing them held in Bombay in 1893, solemnly ap- all to be equally distributed, without pealed to the Christian Church to help regard to grade or sex. The great meet "an opportunity and responsibil- Tabernacle in London could accom- ity never before known." modate the entire male force of mission- Yet, entirely outside of these two aries now sent out from the churches of <colossal empires, there lie at least five Christian lands.
great territories which may be marked As to the money supplied in 1897 for as yet unreached by the pure Gospel. the world-wide work, it has been 'Three of them lie in Asia, one in ,liberally estimated at fourteen milllion 'Africa, and one in South America. dollars, or, perhaps 2,800,000 pounds 1. What Illliy be called "Inner Asia" sterling. Yet the incorM of the Pro- -the Central Belt spanning the very testant church membership-not to heart of the continent, including Tibet mention the vast capital accumulated and reaching to the Chinese Sea. and invested-reacht at least, in 1897, 2. Upper Asia, or Russian Asia, the sum of fifteen thousand millions of dollars. So that less than one dollar in REVIEW, but it is a strong and urgent a thousand found its way into the presentation of the wants of that great mission treasury I empire, addrest to their feIlow·students whom they would draw to the field as Missions among the Mohamrnedarui sowers and reapers. have made very little progress during the past year. In fact, the dominions The statistics of the Madras and BOID>" of the crescent seem to be the most im· bay Presidencies, of the centr~l and pregnable of all fields open to Christian northwest provinces, Bengal, Rajpu. missions. tana, and the Punjab, are given sepa· rately and carefully, some of which are Korea presents features of great in· of permanent interest and value, and interest. A fair beginning is making in which are here condensed. The census evangelizing that land, and what is of 1891 is made the basis of estimates. needed now is a large band of devoted men and women to take possession of The Presidency of Madras was the this field. There is room for three first in order of occupation. The num- thousand workers there to·day. ber of native Christians in southern India is 865,528, having increast in a Tibet seems about to be opened to decade more than 22 per cent., while Christian effort. A band of very the population increast but 15 per resolute and self'sacrificing men and cent. The Christians are one in 40 of women are on the borders of this land, the population, but 1 in 12 of the mastering the native language, and graduates is a Christian. Yet even in preparing to push towards the very this comparatively well·workt field- capital itself when it can be done with Madras and vicinity-at least 32 work- any measure of safety. And a native ers are at once needed, and students are Tibetan has recently embraced the especially helpful in the effort to re.ach Gospel and proposes to devote himself the educated classes. to its proclamation among his own people. Outside of Madras, the destitution is in some cases appalling. In one dis- In Japan there is a net loss in memo trict there is but 1 missionary to bership of Protestant churches of over 40,000, in another to 50,000, in another 500, in fact, a general decline in bap· to 100,000, and in others but 1 to tisms and Sunday.school attendance, 250,000, 380,000 and even 500,000! etc. The gifts of native converts faIl $10,000 below 1895. And the worst of In the Bombay Presidency, there are it is that these statistics do not misrepre· 21 colleges and schools, only one under sent the real state of things. It is quite Protestant Christian control; and out of too obvious that in spiritual state there 3,189 students only 35 are Christians. has been a very noticeable lowering of Bombay City has 47,000 Parsees, a com- the level of piety, of which the defec· munity especially inviting to educated tion of the Doshisha-the institution Christian students. In the Poona dis- founded by the lamented Neesima-is trict are nearly 1,200 villages without a one conspicuous sign. And yet the more resident Christian. Kathiawar has 3 devoted missionaries, instead of losing missionaries to 3,000,000. Kutch, equal heart and hope, believe that all this is to Ugunda in popUlation, never yet had . only one of the inevitable reactions one messenger of the cross. In Wadh- which come in spiritual work, and which wan a missionary writes: are foIlowed by an even more markt advance, as in the case of sea·tides. .. The people listened splendidly, They have never heard before, in Bome Rev. Robert P. Wilder and his asso· cases, in others possibly once. There ciates in the Student Volunteer Move- are hundreds of villages of aboriginal ment in India and Ceylon have issued races as reachable as the Fijians were, a very stirring "appeal for India." It and with little or no religion to destroy. is entirely too long for the pages of this In a few years these wilt have beeome Bra1.manised, and then work among them will be like knocking our heads thought of the masses, we ought to be against a stone wall. A government official of the district entreats us to send prepared to whiten the fields of India men there, promising every assistance in his power, an'l we cannot move. with a snow-storm of lively penetrat- Why? For want of men. We could keep two or three men busy at nothing ing and attractive leaflets. '1'0 accomelse than translating and writing. The Bible revision is not expected to be plish this, experts should be set apart finished in any one's life-time, and all for lack of men. We have one man to to the task. do the work of a minimum of six in Sm'at alone." We append the closing paragraphs: Of the central provinces, Balaghat The picture is a dark one, taken by missionaries on the spot, and taken for has a solitary worker who believes no us volunteers. One of the workers part of India promises speedier or better asks for "European Knights of the Cross," and adds: " It's cbivalry for results. Chanda has a popUlation of Christ that is wanted in the hearts of over 690,000 without one missionary. young men at home." Nearly all the native states in Raipore are unoccupied. In Hoshangabad, a Are you to disappoint these dear population of over 3,000,000 is entirely faithful workers? They are only 1,600 among a population more than untouched. four and a half times that of the These are some of the specimens of United States, and nearly ten times that of England and Wales. Eight facts with which the twenty pages of and a half millions die annually.
this appeal are absolutely crowded. The We close with the words of that repetition of this destitution would be friend of Western students, Rev. A. J. monotonous, but it is the monotone of Gordon, D.D.: ., I have long since misery, which can be tedious only to ceased to pray, 'Lord Jesus, have the selfish. This pamphlet is aflame compassion on a lost world'! I rewith facts, which ought to make the member the day and the hour when I dullest disciple arouse himself and ask, seemed to hear the Lord rebuking me Lord, wilt Thou not send me to reach for making such a prayer. He seemed to say to me, 'I have had compassion these untaught millions? upon a lost world, and now it is for you The close of the appeal lays great to have compassion. I have left you to fill up that which is behind in mine stress on the power of Christian litera- afflictions in the flesh for the body's ture. There are now 15,000,000 of sake, which is the Church. I have given my heart; give your hearts.''' persons in the Indian Empire who can read and write, and about 1,000,000 "When I say llnto the wicked, 0 wicked man. thou shalt surely die, and leave school every year. Here is a thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way; that wicked man shall great field to be sown with the products die in his iniquity, but his blood will I of a sanctified press. Books and tracts require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if are like bullets which strike far beyond thou warn the wicked of his way to the range of a hand to hand con- turn from it, and he turn not from his tact. For example, Rev. J. F. Ull- way; he shall die in his iniquity. but man's book-" Dharmtuta," or "Re- thou has delivered thy soul." Ezek. 33: 8-9. ligions Weighed," carried by a Hindu ascetic into a village of Behar, -The Twenty-Seventh Annual Meetproved the means of establishing a Christian community there. A Chris- ing of the Inter-Seminary Missionary tian coaly bequeathed Rs. 100 for the Alliance at Chicago, November 12-15, spread of three little books, which he highly valued, as they had been the 1896, was attended by six hundred means of bringing him to Christ. theological students, and was es- After his death they were found under his pillow. If we wish to alter the teemed one of the best, if not the very best annual meeting the Alliance ever held. The culminating consecration meeting on Sunday afternoon will be remembered specially for Mr. Studd's recital of his personal experience; and all realized a great spiritual uplifting under Dr. A. '1'. Pierson's address, Sun- day evemng.-J. '1'. G
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
., Few events of the past year have The A. B. C. F. M., venerable and been more remarkable than the revolu- beloved as it deservedly is, feels with tion in Ecuador, of which we heard a other missionary agencies the backward vivid description by George S. Fisher setting of the missionary current in the of the gospel union, who returned from churches. The total receipts for the there in November. His stirring ac- year were $743,000, including the count of the sudden and marvellous up- money raised for the debt of a year heaval, the singular connection of the ago. But the fact is that those who Japanese Chinese war with the events have the conduct of mission Boards in Ecuador, the first free convention, move in these days with timidity and etc., we have printed in allother de- apprehension, having little confidence partment, in which the details are pre- in the solid backing of their so·called sented to our readers. constituency, which alas! proves too The Review of ReVie1JJ8 remarks of often rather a deficiency. In raising this the Ottoman Empi1'e: "It is like a debt, the special committee thought best smouldering heap of burning refuse. chiefly to solicit from individuals, not It reeks all over with smoke, and some- churches, which is itself a significant fact. times when the wind blows it bursts Is it not humiliating that the world-wide· into flame. But as no one can say on work of Christ should have to go to what side of the rubbish heap the wind Christians one by one, and beg money will play, so no one can predict where to pay a debt and prevent a collapseI' the flame will appear. All the pro- The amounts given by individuals are vinces smoulder with discontent, and also significant. Beside the large gift every now and then, under some un- of Mr. James, $4,500 came from seven seen influence, that discontent leaps persons, twenty-four gave $500 each, forth into active insurrection. Lately and there were about a hundred gifts it was the turn of Crete, where there of $100 each. It is safe to say that has been bloody work by the Turks in $50,000 came from about 250 persons, Canea. apparently by way of reprisals so that they paid the bulk of the debt. for the insurrectionary movement of This surely is abnormal, and no steady the Christians in the hills. It is more advance can be hoped for in this work dangerous to kill Greeks than Arme- of the whole Church, while there is so' nians; Crete, moreover, is accessible to unequal distribution of pecuniary supwarships, and the Sultan has therefore port. been sternly told that Europe will stand no nonsense in the Mediterranean. It As usual, the Report of the meeting is rather hard upon the local Mussul- in the November issue of the Herald mans, who will feel themselves most is a small library in itself, and contains cruelly deprived of privileges which most interesting matter. Dr. Barton's their brother True Believers enjoy to paper on Japan, the discussion on the the full in Anatolia; but necessity knows no law, and however disagreeable it may be, the Sultan will have to stop the massacre in Crete."
The eighty-seventh annual meeting crisis in Turkey, led by Dr. Smith, and of the" American Board," held in To- the resolutions on the Armenian q ues- ledo, 0., in October last, Dr. Storrs tion presented by President Angell, pronounced one of the best and most were among the special features of the inspiring ever held, tho Rev. S. N. meeting, which gave it a very markt Packard, the preacher for the meeting, character. Hon. E. O. Wheeler, after a remarkt that the Board "has never fine speech, brought down the house been placed by the churches sustaining with tumultuous applause as he con- it in so grave a position as to-day, des- cluded by saying: pite the favorable showing in the treas- "I can see but one thing to do under urer's accounts." the circumstances, which is to send a fieet and armed force to Turkey to en- people and negroes to be instructed or force our treaty rights. boarded within the same building, or be taught in the same class, or at the same " We ought to be ready to send men time, or by the same teachers! It has to seize Smyrna until our righteous been well said that to find such a law- damages have been paid. such a relic of barbarism-even getting countenance, not to say becoming an "The European governments could enactment, in a state legislature, makes have no reason to interfere with our one wonder whether he is dreaming or actions. We have unselfish interests at not, and if not, what country it is he is 1!take." President Angell's resolutions living in. This atrocious law~ was re- were similar in tone; commending the ferred to in a prominent Christian news· steadfastness, courage and faith of the paper in mild terms of condemnation, American missionarieR in Turkey, and and at once a citizen of Virginia, a sub- pledging the Board to stand by them in scriber to that paper, wrote an indig- maintaining their work. They recite nant letter, in which the following that nearly $200,000 worth of property paragraph is found; belonging to American citizens in Tur· key has been destroyed, their houses "Stop senging me your paper. I do burned, themselves attackt and im- not believe that God ever intended the -prisoned, and in some cases driven from negro to be a companion or associate of their homes; that the government has our race, either on this earth or in '<iemanded redress of these injuries and heaven." punishment of the offenders, but has ,obtained neither, and that these violators And this man calls himself a Chris- 'of treaty rights indicate a purpose to de- tian! stroy the whole fabric of Chlistian civilization which has been erected with so In the October issue, 1896, the editor much toil, sacrifice and cost. refers to Mr. Dimbleby's calculations as to the "end of the Gentiles" The President of the United States is and the doom of "Turkey." No part urged to insist upon the issue by the of the intention was to sanction Mr. Turkish government of the proper" ex- Dimbleby's theory, but only to call equatur," that our consuls may securely attention to it as of interest in the study occupy, under the flag of our country, of "prophetic history." We have since the posts which our government assigns received a very elaborate and learned to them, and in the interests of justice pamphlet, "Astronomy and the Bible," and in accordance with treaty rights, by a fellow of the Royal Astronomical administer with authority the duties of Society, in which the author sharply the office. contests Mr. Dimbleby's theory and contends that it is far from trustworthy. We have seen another singular evi- This pamphlet is publisht, at three ,dence of the caste and race spirit which pence, by Parker Brothers, Sheffield, largely dominates people in the South, England, and will richly repay study. ,and perpetuates the hateful and baneful Tho anonymous, it would not be influence of slavery in keeping the difficult to guess at the authorship, for colored man down. the "speech" of the writer "bewray- eth" him. The Sheats Law, which has recently 'been declared unconstitutional by the All the hopes of the Ritualists and 'Supreme Court of Florida, has been well of Mr. Gladstone have been completely 'pronounced "infamous" as a statute. disappointed, for the Pope has decided It was passed at the instigation of the that "all ordinations made under the State Superintendent of Public Instruc- Anglican rite are invalid." Rome detion of Florida, and gives his name an cides that the cbain of succession was infamous immortality. It provides that it shall be a penal offense for white broken by the Anglican Church in the make a contribution not only to the sixteenth century, and that the only record of .mission work, but to the way in which the Ritualists can enter solution of problems of missions, he the Church of Rome is by conver8Wn. takes a concrete and typical case with So that the Pope has placed the Church which he is personally connected, and of England, the Episcopal Church in presents through it the great questions the United States, and the whole Ritual involved, and the helps which his own party in the same position, with respect observation and experience have to Rome, as the Presbyterian, !fetho- collated toward their successful answer. dist, Baptist and other non-Episcopal An index of twenty-five pages puts all denominations. the contents at the disposal of the reader, and superb illustrations and The representative of the highest maps complete one of the most Ritualists, the Holy Cr088 Magazine, attractive and useful books we have said lately that such a decision by the seen on India. Pope would stop all movements in the direction of Anglican reunion with The copies, we hear, are getting Rome for generations, and called for scarce, and it is not to be wondered at, prayer from all Ritualists that it as the sale has been uncommonly rapid. might be prevented. But the decision Our own hasty glances have kindled a was given, and the Ritualists' strong de- desire to examine more closely into a sire for recognition by Rome looks as if volume that, as Bacon would have said, they were somewhat doubtful of the is to be not" tasted" only but" chewed validity of their own ordination. and digested."
Meanwhile the following notice ap- Those who are tempted tf) compropears in the list of deaths in the Public mise with false faiths should read the Ledger, of Philadelphia: "Smith.-A manly utterances on page 356, where Requiem }Iass for the repose of the soul is shown the double drift on one hand of Miss Hannah P. Smith will be offered toward unduly magnifying the ideals at St. Clement's Church, Twentieth and of false religions, and on the other Cherry streets, on Tuesday, at 7.30 toward lowering the importance of the A. 1'1:." This should be put alongside distinctive features of the true faith. of the Pope's decision as a sign of the Dr. Stewart shows also the result, re~ times, showing the Romanizing drift of ducing all faiths to one dead level of a section of the Episcopal Church of common-place, or blending them in a Pennsylvania. The church mentioued resultant ideal, which is simply a subin this notice is not under the jurisdic- limated form of natural religion. tion of Archbishop Ryan, but is still of His words are a tonic to weak unquestioned standing in the Protestant souls. Hear him protest, that the Episcopal Church. strength of Christianity lies in its uniqueness, and between it and every Notable Books on Missions. other non·Christian system the confiict is irrepressible; and that, to parley, We might have embraced in our barter or compromise will end in dis- " Survey" a notice of some of the grand aster. Here are thirty chapters of solid contributions made to the permanent meat, that will make strong men literature of missions, during the year stronger, and wise men wiser. 1896, not a few of which are entitled to a special commendation. There has been issued now on both sides of the sea a life of Robert "Life and Work in India," by Dr. Whitaker McAll, founder of the McAll Robert Stewart, pUblisht by the Pearl Mission, in Paris. It contains a frag- Publishing Co., Philadelphia, is one of ment by himself, and a souvenir by the fullest, most painstaking and com- his wife. With portraits, facsimiles, plete books of the year, in its special and illustrations. 8vo, cloth, $1.50. department. As the author seeks to " Heroic toils, sanctified by self·sacri- ".A Cycle of Cathay," is Mr. W. .A. fice, defy description. One may as Martin's book on China, spiced with well try to put on canvas or into poem personal reminiscences of one who for the subtle aroma of a flower as to five and forty years studied the Celestial embody in the printed page the still Empire both as a missionary and as an more subtle charm of a spirit like that employee of the Chinese government, of Dr. McAll. But what can be as well as president oithe Imperial Colpreserved is here to be found, and as lege. Whatever Dr. Martin bas to say, the reader traces the life story, may it always commands an audience, and his heart be set on fire with a living this volume is a suitable platform from coal from off God's altar. Such a life which to reach the multitude. This is vocal, and its perpetual command is, book is very racy and readable. It is full of intelligence and humor and sanc- , Go and an thou likewise.' .. tified common sense beautifully blended.
This charming life is written with George Smith, LL.D., has once more sympathetic ink, for it was from the put the world under tribute by a maspen of a beloved wife, who was herself terpiece of biography in the Life of magna par8 rerum. She not only Bishop Reginald Heber. (London, Jno. shared her husband's toils, but her own Murray.) This accomplished author, have equaled his in heroism and self- who has done more than any other man sacrifice. This book is sure of a wide of his time, to provide a library of miscircle of readers. sionary biographies-the man who has given us Carey and Martyn and Wilson F. H. Revell Co. have sent forth a in such attractive setting, now tells the new illustrated edition of John G. story of the poet missionary bishop of Paton's autobiography. It is a bene- Calcutta. The laborious and prolific diction. The aroma of heaven is about pen of Dr. Smith has left its mark its pages, as about the saintly man everywhere through this life of Heber; whose story it tells. nothing here is slovenly or superficial. The style is befitting the subject, and "The }Ussionary Pastor," from the that is all that need be said. The sad same publishers, is meant to aid a pas- story of his death in the bath at Trichitor in developing missionary interest nopoly is superbly told, it is a poem. and activity in churches. It is one of the fine group of helps which the Stu- The .Armenians are still in sore need dent Volunteer Movement has created, of our sympathy, prayers and pecuniary or is creating. Rev. James E . .Adams assistance. The time has not come for is the editor, and R. J. Kellogg the us to fold (lur hands with the thought delineator of the charts. There are five that we have done our duty. Thouchapters which respectively discuss sands are in danger of perishing and are missionary methods, meetings, classes, in need of immediate help. literature and charts. That on the charts alone would well compensate for We acknowledge with thanks, the the price (75 cents). receipt of $5.00 for the persecuted Russian Stlmdists, from Mr. George W. "General Gordon," by G. Barnett Cross, of New York, and 50 cents from Smith, is another of Revell's noble se- W. C. Dixon, of Berwick, Pa., for the ries of missionary biographies. Brief, .Armenians. covering but 160 pages, it puts succinctly the story of this unique Christian It is said that the French Governsoldier, who has the strange record of ment contemplate excluding from their heroism in three continents, into read- colonies all missionary workers who are able and useful form. We can safely not natives of France. This would commend this life to the study of the be a great blow to missions in North young especially, who cannot read this story of rare self·sacrifice without feeling a desire to emulate it. Africa, Madagascar and other French course of scriptural, practical and spiritual preparation; and no honest colonies and protectorates. We can student could pass through this course of study without being much enricht only look to the Almighty either to thereby.
prevent it, or to overrule it to His glory. 'l'he school is under the presidency of the editor of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW. Rev. John :M:cNeil of Australia, the and the wise and careful guidance of Rev. l!'. L. Chapell, who gives it his author of one of the most helpful books whole time as Iiesidcnt Instructor, per- sonally conducting the classes in Bib- of modern religious thought, " The lical and Practical Theology and Exe· gesis. Those who best know his work Spirit-Filled Life," has recently died in recognize him as a man prepared of God for this sphere. Among the instructors Melbourne. He was a most devoted is also Rev. Dr. JamesM. Gray, a man of rare scholarship and consccmtion, who and successful evangelist, and his sud- gives valuable instruction on the Syn. thesis, History, Inspiration, Interprets- den death created a solemn pause in the tation and Use of the Bible. The med· ical instruction under Dr. Julia Morton rush of city life, and deeply imprest Plummer includes two courses of lee· tl!res – one on Physiology and Hy- even the most thoughtless. He was a gIene, and one on Obstetrics. There are classes in New Testament Greek man who lived as loudly as he spoke, and Christian Song, lectures on various Biblical and MiSSionary subjects, and and his death will be keenly felt. evening lectures for those who cannot attend during the day. The Missionary Training School as a The tuition being ,free, the expenses Feature in Modern Church Life, of the school are met by free-will offer- ings. An accomplished lady in Boston writes: "In these days it is prest 'rhe school is thoroughly inter-de· upon the ChriEtian consciousness as nominational, yet it stands unequivo. never before that· the King's business cally for great vital truths of Redemp- requireth haste'; many are hearing tion ; it emphasizes the supreme author- and heeding the call to a separated life ity of the Holy Scriptures; the neces- for service in home and foreign fields; sity of the enduement of the Holy and still others hunger to be enricht in Spirit; the Lord's Coming, the nature the Word of God, unto new measures and need of the times in which we are of blessing and usefulness, while abid- living; and the urgent duty of heralding •in the calling.' Hence has arisen ing the Gospel throughout the whole a new need, which is to be distinctly world. recognized as a part of this great new quickening in Christian work," The eighth year opened last Octo- ber. For further information any who Hundreds of earnest young men, and wish may address Dr. Chapell, of Clarwomen, with some perhaps of riper endon and Montgomery Sts., Boston, years, have come to their hour of self- or the Editor·in-Chief of this REVIEW. dedication, to be met by a new problem-that of PREPARATION. How and George Muller has tql.d the story of where are they to gain the necessary equipment for the work to which God his c0nversion. He was a worldly is calling them? young man, not vicious, but utterly in· Even if they had the time and money and technical education to pursue a different to his soul's salvation. In his theological course, that would not meet the need I and they might have sought own words, .. he never read the Holy in vain for more condenst and practical course of preparation, had not God Scriptnres, never thought about the con· wonderfully gone before them in 1esponse to this providential demand. cerns of his soul, never in the least de- Several Training Schools have thus gree sought to care about God." He come to be, among them the Boston Missionary Training School, begun was in this state when he was in college seven years ago through the faith, prayer and labor of Rev. A. J. Gordon, in his twenty·tirstyear. One of hisfel· D.D.,-its President until his death,- since which time his name has been low students askt him to go to a little given to the School that it might thus stand as a living memorial of him. prayer-meeting at the house of a trades- Here is offered, to men and women man which was attended by four pious 4Ilike, free of expense, a two years' students. In that little prayer-meeting It is with thanksgiving that we look he heard of the way of salvation forward to the speedy agreement for through the Lord Jesus Chr.st, and settlement by arbitration, of all disputes for "the first time he saw what a between England and the United States. wicked, guilty sinner he had been, walking without a thought or care The British and Foreign Bible Soci- about God." He sew himself ,. dead ety has issued since 1804, 147,363,669 copies, while 73 other societies have in trespasses and in sins," and the pious issued more than 257,000,000 Bibles, students pointed out to him the grace of Testaments and portions. God which would pardon so guilty a sinner as he, because Christ had died in According to the eightieth annual rehis stead, making a propitiation for his port of the American Bible Society, the sins. He had gone into that little prayer- total issues of the Scriptures for the year amounted to 1,750,283 copies, and meeting careless and forgetful of God; during the eighty years of its existence, he went out rejoicing in theforgi,eness 61,705,841 copies, circulated in nearly of his sins. Those foul' pious students one hundred different languages and who kept up that prayer-meeting have dialects in all parts of the earth. More gone home to glory, but the good which than one half of its issues in 1895 went they did in their humble faithfulness into the hands of the pagan, the Moabides. In fact, they originated in hammedan and nominally Christian Halle a sort of holy club like that of a people outside of the United States; 383,000 were sold in China alone. The century before in Lincoln College, be- society expended during the year gun by John and Charles Wesley, $503,500.52. George Whitefield, etc. They rest from their labors and their works do follow The outrages committed in the Kongo them. It is well to hear stories of con- Free State in the name of civilization version in which God's pardon and seem incredible in this age of enlighten- God's grace are points on which em- ment, and a Baptist missionary declares phasis is laid. Too little ~s perhaps the treatment of the Kongo natives by said, even in talking to sinners, of God's the government agents to exceed in cruelty anything known, instancing the forgiveness of sin. seizure and execution of one of his hear- ers simply becau8e he had brought in no How shall we meet the present exe- rubber tltat day__ and in another village gency of the mission field except by a several persons slaughtered by the sol- diers because the villagers had not sucmore United Church? ceeded in collecting the amount of rub- " At the battle of Doornkop two men ber required to be paid as taxes to the State, and upon which the white agents were about to fire on one another at received, until recently, a percentage. short range, when they simultaneously Last year a Belgian c~ptain, on the redropt their rifles. Each recognized the fusal of some native porters to carry a other. They had been at school together__ store of ivory taken from a trader, on Rnd so they realized their brotherhood the ground that they were not employed in the very madness of battle. And are by him, ordered his soldiers to fire, and not all combatants brothers, if only they killed more than a hundred of tlUlm. In would recognize the fact? When men the United Ser1Jice Magazine, a British of aU nations learn their true relations officer who in 1894 volunteered for serunder the Prince of Peace, they will vice in the Kongo State declares, as to find it as impossible to fire on a human the white officials, that their" boasted being-tho a stranger-as these two work of civilization is murder, rapine, friends did at Doornkop when they recognized each other at the fateful moment."
A true recognition of the brotherhood of humanity would make impossible war between nations, and still more impossible between Christian na- tions. plunder and cruelty in the most awful "To show that when I have once degree ever reacht." These barbarities past, I cannot be caught." are perpetrated also on the black subjects of other countries, particularly We do not see statues standing on those of Great Britain, who are induced the highways to remind us of our opby false I epresentations to go to Boma as portunities for doing good and being contract laborers, but forced to serve as of service to others, but we know that soldiers on distant expeditions, and in- opportunities come to us. They are stead of being sent home at the ex- ours but for a moment. If we let them piration of their two years' contract, pass, they are gone forever.-Selected. kept until woru out with service, then turned into the bush to becomefood for In 1867 the tirst diamond ever found cannibals. Of such conduct it is well in South Africa was picked up by a said that it is an outrage not only upon hunter out of a heap of shining river humanity but upon international comity pebbles. This was near the banks of of the grossest kind; and if the blacks the Orange River, a little above its concan be controled only by such out- tiuence with the Vaal River. Then a rages, the work of civilizing Africa diligent search for diamonds began in would better be abandoned I all the surrounding districts. In 1870 diamonds were discovered in consider- The present crisis in the mission tield able quantities near where the town of exceeds for grandeur of opportunity Kimberley now stands. A rush of and for failure adequately to meet it miners soon filled the neighborhood, any crisis of previous history. and from that time onward Kimberley has been the center of the diamond-get- In one of the Greek cities there ting industry, though there are other mines scattered here and there to the stood, long ago, a statue. Every trace west and south of it. of it has vanished now, as is the case -A young church composed of Zulus with most of these old masterpieces of in Johannesburg, under the charge of genius; but there is still in existence an Rev. H. D. Goodenough, has made a epigram which gives. us an excellent remarkable record in the matter of selfdescription of it, and as we read the support. Over two years ago a chapel words we can surely discover the lesson was built, largely by the natives themwhich those wise old Greeks meant selves. During the first year a debt of that the statue should teach to every $500 was paid, besides meeting the curpasser-by. rent expenses, and on April 1, 1895, there was a balance in the treasury of The epigram is in the form of a con- $85. For the year ending April 1, 1896, versation between a traveler and the the receipts of the church were nearly $1,200 and came within about $70 of statue. meeting all the expenditures, including the salary of the native preacher and a "What is thy name, 0 Statue?" house for him, together with the cost of a class-room and some furniture for the "I am called Opportunity." chapel. Mr. Goodenough writes of a plan for establishing a new station eight "Who made thee?" miles from Johannesburg, at a railway and mining center where already a lit- " Lysippus." tle chapel bas been secured. The spiritual work does not suffer in the "Why art thou standing on thy midst of the material prosperity. .
toes? " .. To show that I stand but for a moment " .
•• Why hast thou wings on thy feet? "
"To show how quickly I pass by."
" But why is thy hair so long on thy forehead ?"
"That men may seize me when they meet me."
"Why then is thy head so bald be- hind?"
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign touching the essence of idolatry, we are surprised at the peculiar reserve with Periodicals. which he handles idolatry before the heathen. We find in him no irritat- 1. ing attack, no scornful or mocking word. He says on the Areopagus of BY REV. C. C. 81'ARBUCK, ANDOVER, Athens: 'Being then the offering of MASS. God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or MISCELLANEOUS. stone, graven by art and device of men.' How earnest and yet how meas- _H The attitude of Missions toward ured are these words. They contain the heathen religion as such is, on prin- the whole truth, and yet refrain from ciple, that of utter repulsion. Above all injurious speech. That' the God- all is this so ever against the abomina- head d welleth not in temples made with tion of idol worship. Young mission- hands,' Paul may have said in Ephesus aries cannot avoid a shudder when they itself. But, in the theatre, the town first become witnesses of this evil thing clerk expressly bears witness that Paul dragging down human dignity into the and his colleagues had uttered not a dust. 'They are indignant in spirit,' word of blasphemy against the god- like St. Paul at Athens. The horror dess. We nowhere find an intimation grows, the deeper the insight which they that Paul ever addrest the popular obtain into the impelling motives of masses gathered to the May feast this madness, which is for our thoughts around the temple of Diana. Indeed, utterly incommensurable. Idolatry is of the whole situation, as portrayed in demoniacal nature, and its demoniacal the Acts, appears to exclude this. background is its power. St. Paul This implies a momentous admonition concedes to the enlightened Corinthians to the missionary practice of to-day. that an idol is nothing, but intimates H my views on this point contradict Ii with sufficient clearness that this noth- wide-spread practice, this only urges ingness is only relative, that the idols me to emphasize them the more. They are only a nullity to those who have are well-weighed. I should deem myfound in the one God the Father and in self not to have spoken in vain, if only the one Lord Jcsus Christ the being of in this one point I can find hearing in all things, their life, maintenance and influential missionary circles. Is it defence. None the less do there stand judicious to attack idolatry in direct behind the idols dark powers and in- and public preaching? to scourge its visible realities, whose might the Corin- folly, to mock and scorn the idols? thians have discerned, when they 'were Young missionaries, especially, are apt carried away with these dumb idols, to do so, often with great zeal, not seleven as they were led.' 'Our wrestling dom provoking thereby dismal and is not against flesh and blood, but riotous scenes. Are those who provoke against the principalities, against the these scenes martyrs of a good cause? powers, against the world rulers of this I think this most difficult province darkness, against the spiritual hosts of ought to be vigorously interdicted to wickedness in the heavenly places,' young missionaries. Idolatry, unqueswrites the Apostle in view of the tionably, must sometimes be openly as- Ephesian idolatry, and of the magical practices which in Ephesus were connected with idolatry. But notwithstanding such a fragment of the Apostle
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
sailed. Where do we find the right proclamation of truth would be a far model? In Paul's speech on the more effective fOfce."-Pastor STOSCK, Areopagus, with its chastened, prac- in AUgemeine Mis8ion8 Zeitschrift. tically deeply earnest temper. But for this there is needed great spirit- -The collective German Protestant ual ripeness, deep knowledge, and, missions (Moravian, Basel, Rhenish, I may well say-an illimitable compas- Hermannsburg, Leipsic, Bremen, Goss- sion. Idolatry is a deep, unfathomable ner, Berlin I, Berlin III, and some wretchedness. Should the wretched be others), have 700 ordained missionaries, mockt in their wretchedness ? They and 300,000 native Christians. In 1894, know their misery and feel their the total outlay was 4,800,000 marks. chains. With all idolatry there is con- joined a deep sense of unhappiness. -" Pastor Dr. LEPBIUS, who himself They are aware of its demoniacal has traversed Asia Minor and Armenia, background. In the doctrinal books of and has everywhere instituted the most the true religion there are heartrending careful inquiries, has come to the con· testimonies to this. That this con- clusion that up to October, 1896, a' sciousness is also living in the people is least 65,000 Armenians have been killed, a conviction easily gained by confiden- at least 100,000 forced into the profestial intercourse with some of the more sion of Islam, and 500,000 reduced to reflecting heathen. When we scourge the greatest misery, 2,500 towns and the madness of idolatry we tell the peo- villages laid waste, 568 churches and ple nothing new. They know better monasteries destroyed, 282 churches than we that idolatry is folly. The turned into musques, 21 Protestant Apostle in Ephesus might easily have preachers and 170 Gregorian priests, bebeen tempted to mock at the delusion cause they would not deny their faith, that the wretched doll, which, under cruelly murdered. But the most terri; the name of Diana of Ephesus, was ble is the outraging of women and girls. idolatrously reverenced by millions, had 'No quartering of soldiers, but that the fallen from heaven. The story was Christian maidens of the village are quite as ridiculous as any Indian legend. every night allotted by the officers to That Paul did not do this, is, I think, their men; no massacre, in which the an admonitory law for the missionaries murder of the men is not at once folof all times. Testimony must, unques- lowed up by the violation of the women tionably, be borne against idolatry, but and girls.' The most hideous abominalet it be done in the right place and at tions are simply unreportable. And for the right time. Not in the neighbor- all this the government of the Sultan is hood of temples or at idol feasts, where answerable. But his accomplices are passions are excited to the uttermost. the European governments, who have And let attacks be not too frequent. promist to care for the safety and reo The missionary centre of gravity is not ligious freedom of the Armenians, but found in the offensive, but in the posi- who do not venture to intervene."- tive attestation of salvation in Christ. Calver Mission8 Blatt. By means of the new the old will fall. as the new germs in the oak tree push -"The Church Missionary Society off the withered leaves, which, tena- missionaries last year baptized 7,000 ciously adherent to their place, no win- heathens, adults and children, 3,000 try storm had power to detach. The being in Uganda. The whole number faith in the Living God and in Jesus baptized by Protestant missionaries Christ, whom He hath sent, will bring seems to have been about 60,OOO.-Muidolatry to its fall. Much precious time ,ion8-Freund. and noble capacity is squandered in disputations, in place of which positive -" A speaker in the General Assem- bly of the Church of Scotland lately aI· ledged that travelers like Mrs. Bishop
GENERAL MISSIONAHY IN'fELLIGENCE
and Miss Gordon Cumming had exposed the earth, and to the very utmost of her the failure of Foreign Missions! The power strengthening others.' "-C. M. latter lady at once wrote a vigorous let- Gleane'!'. ter to the chief Edinburgh paper, the Scotsman, protesting against this mis- _U 'On all sides we see a change in representation. She wrote:- the temper of the people from what it 'Mrs. Bishop and I were merely travelers wishing to see various phases was in years gone by,' writes the Rev. of humanity with the smallest admix- ture of European influence; conse- W. Wallace, of Krishnagar, Bengal. quently we by no means sought the company of mission workers. It has • The antagonism to Christ has given been entirely in consequence of what we have each seen of the awful needs way to a most persistent attempt to in- of heathendom, and of the amazing transformation of whole races, who have corporate Him into Hinduism. It is heard and accepted the Gospel message, that we each have become most em- attempted to be shown in public lec- phatically mission workers. tures that He took His itneaicthifnro~- mfrHomis 'Mr. Menzies' words prove that he India, having traveled cannot have read my books, as it would be impossible to find a more emphatic twelfth to His thirtieth yeur. His testimony in favor of missionaries, or more startling instances of successful teaching is extolled as that of a true missions than the wonderful and true histories I have recorded in " Fire "Yogi." One of the Gospels has been Fountains of IIawaii," "At llome in Fiji" and "A Lady's Cruise in a versified and published in the vernacu- French Man of-War." And altho my "Wanderings in China" and "Two lar. More than this, a translation of Happy Years in Ceylon" tell of less fruitful mission fields, assuredly they the whole Bible into the vernacular has' also tell of encouragement. been commenced by the Hindus them- 'As regards the testimony of Mrs. Bishop, I can only suggest that Mr. selves at their own expense, and the Menzies should send to the Church Mission House, Salisbury Square, Lon- Gospel of St. Matthew has already been don, E. C., for a copy of the magnificent speech delivered by her some years printed and published with a Hindu ago in Exeter Hall, which so stirred that vast assemblage, and hundreds of commentary. These are amongst the thousands who have since read it in print, that many have thereby been chief, but are not the only signs of the awakened to a sense of their own grave responsibility in having so long neg- influence of Christianity on India, and lected the last Commandment of their Lord-that all who call Him Master, witness to the immense indirect effect should bear their part in making known His message of Love throughout the of missionary and other Christian effort world. Mrs. Bishop has herself, for some years past, devoted her own life in this country. Seeing such signs..we and marvelous energies to establishing Medical Missions in remote corners of may well go forward. knowing that tho our Lord's way may not be ours, yet our labor shall not be in vain in Him. '"
-C.M. G.
-" At Jabalpin, in the Central Prov- inces of India, a Brahman Pundit, pos- sessing a government teacher's certifi- cate, was baptised last year. His old father came with tears to try and dis- suade him, and warn him of the danger he ran in confessing Christ. But he answered, •It was a serious matter that the Innocent should have died for my sins, but it is a small matter for me to die for such a Savior's sake. Besides, He now lives to defend me, and no one can touch me without his permission. Even if that man should lift his club to fell me, Christ can arrest the blow and save me. But if He should not, I can but die and go to Him."'-C. M. G.
-The Christian Patriot, of :M:adras.
ENGLISH NOTES
quoted in the Flvangelisch·Lutherisches regeneration through God's spirit the Missionsblatt, remarks of the so-called Indian people cannot be helped. Will Indian Congrees, which is now we not bestir heart and hands to help almost wholly in the hands of the bring this to pass." Hindus, as follows: "The native Christians have more and more with- English Notes. drawn themselves from the Congress, because it has not kept what it has BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M. A. promised. At first it proposed (1) to join together in one great body politic The Church Mis8ionory Society.-Th6' the peoples and social classes of India, work done in Uganda has brought which are now in part widely separate, about immediate results which must (2) in every sphere of the national life surely encourage Bishop Tucker and his of India, intellectual, moral, social and helpers, and enable them to go on in their political, to work towards a gradual labor. regeneration. Has it kept its word? We answer emphaticaily, No I The During the Bishop's sojourn of eight separation of classes and castes in this months in Uganda, over 2,000 candiunhappy land is as great as ever. And dates have been confirmed-with reas to the second object, the Congress spect to the work the Bishop says: expressly declares that it means to set " When we consider the amount of inaside the impro;:ement of moral and struction given to the candidates for social relations, and to confine itself to baptism, and then afterwards to those political activity, in order to acquire who offer themselves for confirmation, for its members greater liberties and I am lost in wonder at the amount of rights and a reform in the administra- work our native and European brethren tion of India by agitation both here and have been enabled to get through in the in England. For this latter end it preparation of these candidates. It will maintains in England, at great cost, a easily be realized what an enormous restanding 'Reform-Committee.' sponsibility the existence of between 2,000 and 3,000 communicants casts The Missionsblatt adds: "In view of upon the ministry of the church, and these soaring aspirations, the Christian what claim they have for pastoral overjournal calls the attention of the orators sight. It is this thought which, tho of the Congress to the crying social in itself a ,very solemn one, yet fills my maladjustments, which demonstrate healt with thankfulness, when I think the unripeness of the Indian people for of our three native pastors and five napolitical independence. It exclaims to tive deacons ordained on Trinity Sunthem: 'While you smite your breasts day. With the increase of the flock and, in "the holy name of humanity," God gives us a corresponding increas& Ch,lTIl equal rights for Indians and of pastors." B""f)'1s, you do not stir a finger to help tpe do'Vn-trodden Parias out of their Sierra Leone affords a vast field of unwretched condition, or to lighten the occupied labor-thirty-nine fortieths of yoke of your women, and to illumine the protectorate have not as yet been the darkness of their ignorance.' It touched by any missionary society, and ends with the incisive remark: 'So every district is now easy of access and long as we bear on us the visible brand open to missionary work. of slavery, of slavery to slothfulness, superstition and other sins, it is our first Mr. William Humphreys shows that and chiefest duty first to reform our the great need in Sierra Leone at the own community.' present time is that some European leaders come among the native Chris- "All these endeavors and movements tians. There are many belonging to show ever anew that without a religious the native churches who are willing and ready to go to the interior of the dis- trict with some person or persons at
ti8 GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
the head; a great work is already being Jesus far and wide. )l.'[r. W. M. Bel- done solely by natives; they support cher writes encouragingly about the liberally several mission stations, and work at Liang-Chau: "There will be send many of their own missionaries. an abundant harvest here some day. At the present time there are over 30,- That God has much people in this city (JOO native Christians. It mUDt be borne is my firm belief. This last Sunday or .in mind that Sierra Leone represents a two our little room has been packt, and district as large as Scotland, and much sometimes the quietness was intense- 'lIlore thickly populated, so the number the people hanging on the word breathof Christians is small in comparison less. It cannot end there. God is in with the number of Bouls needing our midst, and the day is not far dis- ,Christ. tant, when the reaping will begin"
Londqn Miasiona/I"!/ &ciet'U.-The city Baptist Missionary Society .-As in ·<Jf Peking was one of the first to open India, so in the interior of the Kongo its doors to European missionaries, but Free State, one of the chief obstacles to altho work has been carried on there for the spread of Christianity is the con- some thirty.five years, the progress is duct of nominal Christians. Central slow. Now is the time of sowing- Africa is the theatre of violence and the reaping shall be hereafter. crime, of lawlessness and rapacity, of in- humanity and desolating wickedness. Still there is progress, altho it is small, The Belgian officers of State give the both in the East and West cities. In poor overburdened natives a bad idea of the former, the street chapel is regu- Christian white men, and thus the work larly open for four or five hours every done by the missionaries is hard, and day throughout the year for the preach- the results few and far between. ing of the Gospel, and it is always well filled. Too much importance, however, The illness of the Rev. n. Wright cannot be attached to this, for it is one thing to listen attentively, and quite Hay, which necessitates his rctum to another to yield the heart to the influ- England, causes great regret and anxiety ence of the message. to the MissionaryCommittee, as well as unspeakable sorrow to Mr. Hay him- "In the West city the work of daily self. " Alike in the Cameroons and at preaching in the street chapels is car- Dacca, among the semi-savages of ried on with encouraging results, the Africa and the educated Hindus, Mr• . congregations being good and attentive, Wright Hay has wrought nobly and ,but here again, as in East city, the sueeessfully in the Kingdom. We unite '..' time for believing' seems not yet." in the prayer that he may be restored to perfect health, and in years to come Ohina'8 Millions.-We have already excel his former self in efficiency of heard of 526 baptisms during the first service." half of this year, and there may be some still to report from the more distant Work in Shantung ProvinC6, N. W. stations. We mention this for the en- Okina.-A new dispensary was opened couragement of all who are interested recently in Po-shan, the Rev. A. W in the progress of the work. A large Wills working as dispenser as well as proportion of these received into the preacher. He writes: "On the morn- church were in the province of Cheh- ing of the 29th inst. over 300 patients Kiang, but we expect ere the year closes filled the chapel and courtyard. Being to learn of many more being baptized anxious that none should be disap- in other parts of the field. pointed, I commenced before 6 A.1'I., and continued till past 8 P. M., when A new station has lately been founded the last patient was seen. at Liang-Chau, far distant from most other existing ones, and likely to be the "The Sunday before I left, I had the means of extending the knowledge of pleasure of baptizing nine men and five us women, who were afterward received taking right at once to the Eternal into church-fellowship at the Lord's Goodness Himself. It provides us not table. I tried to press on them' to live only with the way, but with the life a& in deed because of Christ, who lives in well; with the rail as well as with the them (for he only truly lives who lives engine. I am yet to be taught by for God, and in his life and work reveals "Comparative Religion" of some other his Master's image). Thus reflecting religion !hat doell likewise.-Kanzo: Him and following in His footsteps, Uchimura in "Dia1'l1 of a Japanese.
who shall say what that little group of Convert."
now forty-eight Christians might ac· -A brave Commis8aire of the Free complish, by shedding around them State, who had himself suffered from upon the darkness the light of His fevers almost to the point of death, and knowledge and glory!" yet had refused to return even for a The Rev. W. B. Frame writes short furlough to Europe, answered, cheeringly of the results he has seen in when inquired of as to whether a diffi- his missionary journey on the Kongo culty existed in Belgium to secure up country. He tells a pleasing inci- officers for the Kongo, "Our King shall dent which occurred during his expe- never lack volunteers."
dition. "One night, on my way up -At a recent convention a young country, I was sitting outside my tent, woman of German birth, doing home when some of the carriers gathered mission work among Germans, strnck round and requested that I should read the key-note of "cooperation" when the Bible to them. They did not know she said: "I hardly know whether I English and I could not read in Kongo, should say I am a foreign missionary. 80 that the request was beyond me. But doing home mission work, or a home you can imagine how pleased I was to missionary doing foreign missionary hear them start up the hymn, 'All hall work, It is all so mixed up, you see." the power of Jesus· name.' After singing That is just the kind of "mixing up" a few verses, one of their number offered that ought to be found in all our work. prayer. It was no passing whim, for night after night six or seven of them -Mr. Yong Kay, ~ young Chinese, met for prayer before lying down to giving an account of his work among rest." his own people, says: "I visited the But a few years ago they had known Chinese missions under Dr. Pond in nothing of the Savior, now He is known, California. One man came in and· said: 'If Chinaman goes to heaven, r loved and worshipt by many.
not go.' ' But there are wicked China- THE KINGDOM. men in hell, do you want to go there?'"
"Ask of me, and I shall give thee the The old man did not kn()w what to heathen for thine inheritance, and the say.
uttermost parts of the ea1,tli for ilil; -The president of the Chicago Tele- possession. " phone Company has done a good deed -Christianity is more and higher in permitting physicians to use all his than heathenism in that it makes us telephone lines free, whenever they keep the law, It is heathenism plus wish to communicate with the healthlife. By it alone the law-keeping department.
becomes a possibility. It is the spirit -A pastor has been discovered WilO'· of the law. It of all religions works for years has not "begged" once for from inside. It is what heathenism missions, bas not even passed the has been searching and groping after " basket" or the "hat," neither has he with much weeping. It not only shows taken a solitary "collection." He has us the good, but it makes us good by simply given opportunity at each ser- Statistios of the Missionary Sooieties of the [THESE tables Include only Missions to non-Christian and non-Protestant peoples, and so they Japanese in the United States. The figures are derived almost wholly from annual reports, and leave the fewest possible blanks, and hence where official figures were not at hand, conservative Missionaries. Native Laborers. <l ~:3 NAMES 0 .. SOCIETIES. .§~ ,O>ill.<Si od d ".<"'-~dI<l <I•l od oS ,,0: E-<~ <Il s <Il " -g . .~.~ '" A§ f.98 .~ >. .; ~Sil~Os .13 ~~ ~ ~"'~ ….. ..g..s. ""d ..0.:. <Il 0: ~ 0 '-< E-<:g il I0i<"~'0…l. "B 0 0 – – – – – – —- – – – – – – – – – – American Board …..•…•.•••••• " •…•.. 1810 $743,105 178 19 179 177 583 227 2,951 Baptist Missionary Union…•••…•.•….• 1814 632,954 162 24 159 127 472 250 2,645 Southern Baptist Convention …..••••…. 1845 108,151 36 0 31 13 80 34 109 Free Baptist ….•…….•••••……•••••… 1836 34,913 6 1 6 12 25 7 216 Seventh-Day Baptist ..••••••••..•.•..•••.• 1847 11,065 1 0 1 8 5 1 4 Christian (Disciple) ..••••••••••….•..••.. 1875 92,596 19 8 22 12 56 0 66 American Christian Convention ..••••.•.. 1886 4,500 4 0 2 1 7 2 18 Lutheran, General Council ••…••••…•••• 1869 19,000 7 0 7 3 17 2 147 Lutheran, General Synod…••..•.••..•••. 1837 52,000 11 0 6 7 24 2 442 Methodist Episcopal ……..•••••.•……. 1832 889,283 230 44 224 296 794 415 8,475 Methodist Episcopal, South.•….••••….. 1846 240,802 53 1 49 5 108 114 271 African Methodist Episcopal. .. , •..•••…. 1876 6,940 6 12 12 8 33 0 7 Protestant Methodist ….••.•.•….•••.••. 1882 14,711 50 4 8 12 4 9 Wesleyan Methodist .•••………..•…… 1887 3,000 4 2 8 2 11 0 1 Protestant EpiscopaL ………•..•….•… 1835 395,298 93 9 23 16 141 66 420 ss.~,392 214 '1 Presbytel"ian •. , •…….•………..•..•.. 1837 43 223 188 668 180 2,101 Presbyterian, South.. • . . • . . . . . •• . . • . . . . .. 1861 142,499 60 10 58 21 149 81 151 I Cumberland Presbyterian …..•…•…… 1820 31,875 7 0 71 12 26 5 25 United Presbyt~rian……. •.•••••• … 1859 122,939 85 1 34 29 99 23 649 Reformed Presb. (Covenanter) ……….. 1856 20,250 6 27 6 21 0 37 Reformed Presb., General Synon……… 1836 6,000 5 0 5 2 12 0 28 Associate Reformed, South…………… 1879 8,413 3 0 8 3 9 4 5 Reformed (Dutch) …………………… 1886 154,139 28 4 28 20 80 33 364 Ref0!'!!led (German) …………………. 1878 80,000 6 1 51 2 14 12 39 German Evangelical Synod …………… 1ss.~ 12,124 7 0 0 11 0 49 Evangelical Association ……..••…….. 1876 9,100 2 0 0 4 14 46 United Bretbren …•…………………. 1853 23,111 26 10 :1 6 48 18 30 S ociety of Friends .••.. , ………………. 1871 82,661 11 34 11 19 75 9 82 Canada Baptist…•..•………………… 1873 30,252 11 0 11 10 32 11 172 Canada Baptist (llaritime Provinces) …. 1880 16,500 7 0 7 5 19 3 46 Canada Congregationalist ……………. 1881 5,600 1 0 1 2 4 0 4 Canada Methodist •……….•………… 1873 123,573 28 24 45 15 112 26 59 Canad:1 Presbyterian •…. …………… 1844 116,714 32 15 37 43 127 7 243 …. 669,160 92 413 170 272 947 33 441 — — – — — — — – – – – :TwentJ'-flve Other Societies …….•……. – – Totals …………………••….•.••… …. $5,693,020 1,396 672 1,392 1,33t> 4,825 1,538 15.347 1 United States and Oanada for 1895-96.
omit work done in non-Catholic Europe, while covering that in behalf of Indians, Chinese, and relate in the main to 1896, tho sometimes the year includes a part of 1895. The aim has been to estimates have been made.] Countries in which Missions are Sustained.
– – – — – — —— ———— 3,504 1,21)2 43,013 2,957 131,000 1,060 52,619 Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan, 3,117 1,131 121,849 6,41<1 350,000 1,138 'Micronesia, Mexico, Spain, Austria. 10,000 189 128 3,801 735 31 27,622 Africa (Kongo), India, Burmah, Assam, 241 13 743 68 1,610 101 China, Japan, France, Russia, etc.
851 1 China, Japan, Africa, Italy, Mexico, Brazil.
3,375 India (Bengal).
9 1 38 7 140 5 110 China (Shanghai).
122 26 912 94 2,000 20 784 China, Japan, India, Turkey.
20 6 261 31 800 4 12 Japan (Tokyo, etc.). 1,800 105 164 198 5,283 150 4,500 210 1,900 India (Madras). 43,560 1,506 466 13 7,888 1,870 15,000 5,870 India (Madras), West Africa. 68 4,269 560 356 4,270 121,929 5 4~,874 China, Korea, Japan, Africa, S. America, 254 2 Mexico, Italy, Bulgaria, Malaysia. 379 106 16 55 18,000 1 2,889 3,984 137 257 China, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, American 40 12 30,882 70 800 490 Indians. 2,804 36 680 4 West Africa, West Indies. 11,586 331 21 10 243 41 600 15 90 Japan (Yokohama). 582 S 12 8 276 o 50 4 30 Africa (Sierra Leone). 6,040 165 561 208 1,985 252 12,000 2 4,598 Greece, Africa, China, Japan, Haiti, in- 675 15 28,486 dians. 2,769 877 805 3,099 105,000 1 1,361 6,230 9 India, Siam, China, Japan, Korea, Africa, 300 45 993 519 7,000 27 200 Syria, Persia, S. America, Mexico, etc. 3,446 77 51 8 185 85 1,800 4 China, Japan, Korea, Africa, Greece, 26 2 Italy, Mexico, Brazil. 2,137 40 3,240 169 Japan, Mexico. 9,534 90 748 270 1,141 19,912 16,132 Egypt, India (Northwest Provinces).
58 8 28 500 590 Northern Syria, Asia Minor.
40 24 272 1,000 60 India (Northwest Provinces).
14 14 39 600 !lO Mexico (Tampico, etc.).
444 259 404 18,000 6,125 China, Japan, India, Arabia.
53 56 256 3,000 211 Japan (Tokyo, Sendai, etc.).
60 13 240 2,227 1,182 India (Central Provinces).
50 21 118 1,780 8 Japan (Tokyo, Osaka).
78 856 600 25,000 700 Africa (West Coast, Sherbro, etc.).
157 40 77 1,800 834 Mexico, China, Japan, Jamaica, Alaska.
204 80 453 10,000 1,178 India (Telugus).
65 12 20 500 80 India (Telugus).
8 1 9 100 105 Africa (West Central).
171 25 85 6,000 2,500 Japan (Tokyo, etc.), Indians.
370 99 350 10,000 7,338 China, India, New Hebrides, West in- dies. 1,3881~ 7G8 20,000 3,200 20,1421 6,1)49 315,287 25,5691 901,648 5,875 212,271 vice to present a thank-offering for the the liquor trade." Good; so mote it Lord's work, with the accompaniment be. of a brief prayer for a blessing upon the gifts_ -"The Devil's Foreign Missions" was the startling but suggestive title of -Here is a case of Christian comity a paper concerning the liquor trade in which for sheer novelty is well nigh West Africa, read at a recent meeting of startling, Rev. C. R. Baker, rector of Student Volunteers. But then, not only the Church of the Messiah, in Brook- are liquor dealers missionaries of Satan, lyn, lately said to his congregation that but slave stealers as well, and all godsomewhat recently a man and his wife, less sailors, traders and travelers from members of that church, had gone to Christian lands. North Carolina to live. They found themselves in the midst of a community -Mr. John R. Mott has reacht this of 250 persons who were absolutely conclusion concerning a branch of miswithout church privileges of any kind. sionary work: "We confess that we They learned that the people were started on this tour somewhat disposed Baptists by preference, and that they to look upon educational mission work had a small building which could be as less important than directly evangelused for services. The man wrote to istic work. A careful study of the the rector and asked for his advice, question in four or five mission counwhether he should try to organize an tries has led us to attach the greatest Episcopal church or to resuscitate the possible importance to educational mis- Baptist and get it in running order_ sions. No country has done more to Dr. Baker at once ad vised him to re- deepen this conviction than India. organize and set going the Baptist Without doubt educational missions church by all means, and a collection have opened a larger number of doors was taken up to buy hymn books. for the preaching of the Gospel than any other agency. They have furnisht -Dr. Jacob Chamberlain says: "I the most distinguisht and influential have compared the annual average ex- converts. They have done more than pense of running three New York City all else combined to undermine heathen churches with the annual average ex- superstitions and false systems of bepense of carrying on the Arcot Mission lief_ They are to-day the chief, if not since it was established 40 years ago, the only, force to counteract the influand it is less than that of these ence of the secular character and tenchurches. And note what has been ac- dency of the government institutions of complished. There are now 8 mission learning. In the interest of the ultimate stations; 100 village congregations; 24 success of the missionary enterprise we organized churches with 4,910 members believe that educational missions would and 1,861 catechumens. There are 120 be abundantly justified, if they were schools with 2,992 pupils, of whom doing nothing but teach science, his- 2,200 are not Christians; also 16 girls' tory, philosophy, ethics, and political schools with 1,343 pupils; 4 Anglo- economy, in their right relation to vernacular schools, where 1,000 young Christ." men are taught; 6 training schools with 322 boarding pupils. And yet the -A recent number of Harper's average yearly cost of all this work is Weekly calls attention to the $101,000 less than it costs to support 1 New raised at a meeting in Old Orchard last York City church." summer, and to the collection of- $112,000 at the meeting in Carnegie -Says the Wine and Spirit Gazette, Hall, New York, and says that in the which ought to know: "There is sixteen years in which Mr. Simpson everywhere a growing prejudice against has been connected with the Christian Alliance, he has raised about $700,000 for missionary purposes. The editor western part of that empire as has then observes as follows: .. No doubt hitherto been impossible. The im- most of the people who gave it got portance to India and China will be their money's worth. The satisfactions great, both commercially and poli- of religious enthusiasm are very great. tically. The other is to be projected People who don't understand them from the Mediterranean coast to undervalue them. If.a woman keeps Timbuctoo, through the oases of the a carriage, they can see, or think they Sahara. As a preliminary, the French . can, that she gets a handsome return government is organizing an expedi- for her money. But if, instead of a tion to secure control of the larger carriage, she keeps a missionary, they oases, especially that of Touat. With think her unthrifty, and believe her to a completed railroad to the central be imposed upon besides. They are Sudan, central Africa will be within stupid, these worldling~. The chances easy reach of Europe The western are that the woman with the missionary Sudan, too, cannot but feel the effects gets more true and substantial satisfac- of such an enterprise. tion oui of her investment than the woman who keeps the carriage." -This item and the three which fol- low are based upon Dr. Dorchester's -Certainly, this is strange reading The Problems of Religiou8 Progress, and from the Antipodes.' The Methodist, of give a cheering outlook for the future Australia, says: .. Fiji returns a native of Christianity. In A. D. 1500 there membership of 30,704, while the whole were 100,000,000 ,Christians in the of our New South Wales districts world; in A. D. 1600 there were 125,- can only return 10,549. Fiji has 803 000,000; in 1700 there were 155,000,000, churches and 447 other preaching and in 1800 there were 200,000,000. In pIsces, while our own district returns 1830 the number had grown to 228,- show 416 churches and 481 other 000,000; in 1840 to 300,000,000; in preaching places. Fiji has adherents to 1850 to 342,000,000 ; in 1876 to 374,000,- the number of 97,254, while our own 000; and in 1880 to 410,000,000. Thus list, including the children, only runs it will be seen that while Christianity to 83,940. And finally, Fiji raises for gained 100,000,000 in the first fifteencenthe general funds the sum of £4,512, turies of its history, and another 100,- which is nearly double the amount 000,000 in the next three, the entire result raised in New South Wales (and which of the progress of 1800 years had been includes a legacy account of £324), and more than doubled before the end of which almost equals the contributions the eighth decade of this century. And from the combined colonies of New it is safe to say that the two closing dec- South 'Vales, Queensland, South ades will add at least 50,000,000 to the Australia, Western Australia, and number of Christians in the world, Tasmania." bringing up the grand total to 460,000,- 000 (including Greek and Roman -Railway extension is playing a con- Catholics). stantly increasing part in the development of countries hitherto almost un- -Or, consider the increase of popukllown. Of such the great Trans- lation in the countries under Christian Siberian Railway has hitherto attracted governments. In 1500 the population the most notice; but two others are of such countries amounted to an aggredestined to be of great importance. gate of 100,000,000; in 1700 it was 155,- One is to connect British India, through 000,000; in 1830 it was 387,788.000; upper Burmah, with the large and and in 1876 it was 685,459,411. The fertile province of Yunnan, in western proportion of this increase which has China, and then open up the entire been made in countries under Protest- ant governments is remarkable. In 1500 the population under such as were E. Willard gave these facts and figures Roman Catholic governments was 80,- reJating to the status of her sex in this 000,000, and under Greek Church sway land. Twenty five States have given about 20,000,000. In 1700 the popu- the educational ballot to women; 1 lation of countries under Roman Catho- (Kansas) has conferred upon them the lic rule was 90,000,000; under that of municipal ballot, and 3 (Wyoming, Greek Church 33,000,000, and under Colorado and Utah) have made them Protestant dominion, 32,000,000. In 1830 full citizens. Forty-three per cent. of the figures stood thus: Roman Catho- the 400,000 teachers in this country are lic governments, 134,164,000; Greek women. Out of 451 colleges and Church, 60,000,000; Protestant, 193,- universities in this country only 41 are 624,000. In 1876 the population of coun- closed to women; the rest are coo tries under Roman Catholic govern- educational. Besides these there are ments was 180,787,905; under Greek 143 schools of the higher educational Church, 96,101,894; under Protestant, standard, with 30,000 students. One- 408,569;612. fourth of the fellowships of the University of Chicago are held by -Looking at the area of the earth, we women. notice similar progress. The latest computations fix this at 52,062,470 -The October Student Volunteer square miles, of which Christian nations gives a capital program for a missionary have under their control 32,419,915; meeting with " The Better Half of Our and the pagan and :Mohammedan, 19,- Mi8sionary Force" as the topic, Ps. 624,555; or, the earth is three· fifths lxviii : 11, 12, revised version, as a motto Christian, and two-fifths pagan and text, or if preferred, woman's ministry Mohammedan. Dividing the Christian in the Gospels, especially prominent ia nations, we find under Protestant gov- Luke, may be taken as the Bihlico,l -ernments, 14,337,187 square miles; basis. "Let one person briefly prepare under Roman Catholic, 9,304,605, and the way by calling attention to the fact under Greek Church, 8,778,123. The .that woman is nume'l'walill the st'l'07lge8t acquisition of territory by Great Britain f'Mw'l' in the mission field to-day. is a momentous fact, which has a direct World statistics do not show this, IlS bearing upon the subject of the progress scores of missionary societies do not of Christianity, and is without a parallel count in the wives of missionaries. in history. She bears rule over one- Place on a board in tabular form the fourth of the surface of the globe, and statistics of 1894-95. The United one-fourth of its population. Her pos- States: male missionaries, 1,469; sessions abroad are 60 times larger than female missionaries, 2,043. Canada: the parent s.tate. She owns 3,500,000 males, 119; females 116. Great Britain: square miles in America; 1,000,000 males, 2,991; females, 2,238. Germany: each in Africa and Asia, and 2,500,000 males, 550; females, 399. Total for in Australasia. And even these figures these and all other societies, wives being take no account of the British posses- omitted in many cases, males, 6,275 ; sions in South America, or of the im- females, 5,219. In supporting and praymense area in southern and central and ing for missionaries, therefore, we are northern Africa, which approaches to praying and contributing mainly for 3,000,000 square miles. the work of missionary women." Then follows an address giving reasons why WOMAN'S WORK. woman's work is important, and an- other presenting the phases of her -In her annual address of the twenty- work, such as: (1) literary work; (2) third convention of the National her medical work; (3) educational Woman's Christian Temperance Union, work; (4) evangelistic work; (5) the recently held in St. Louis, Miss Frances missionary wife and mother. UNITED STATES. ernment in the training of the Negro -We reprint the following from the and the Indian for American citizen- Golden Rule: " The Minnesota Prison ship in the Hampton Normal and Association is a noble philanthropy Agricultural Institute, in full view oj which we hope will be taken up and the beach smote bU the prow of the first copied throughout the nation. It is Dutch slave sMp in 1620."
one thing to place criminals in even the -Again says Mr. Mayo: "Out of best of our modern reformatories and the new South, burdened with the final train them to a life of useful industry social problem of humanity-the deand to a liking for it, but it b quite monstration that all races of men can another thing, after these criminals are dwell together in a republic, in freedom, discharged, to obtain work for them at order, mutual appreciation, alld muall, let alone to place them in situations tual helpfulness-is to come the final where their past will not be constantly decisive proof that the Christian rethrown up at them, and the scorn and ligion is the one power, and the Divine distrust of their fellow men drive them Man the one leader, whereby the awful back into their old sins. It is to meet distinctions and repulsions in our huthis difficulty that the Prison Associa- manity, before which paganism, secution has been formed. It will have larism, science, and culture stand branches in all the counties of the aghast, may be reconciled in the King- State, and its agents will seek out good dom of God on earth. places for deserving prisoners after their discharge, and endeavor in all proper -The New York Evening Post sugways to maintain their newly aroused gests that some of the journals that manhood." give criminal intelligence so conspicu- ous a place in their columns, make 8 -If the intermittent Indian fighting canvass of their readers in respect to and the brief contest with the Barbary their preferences in regard to crime. It corsairs be disregarded, the United guarantees that "the pUblication of the States have had only four years and a answers which would be received . . .
quarter of international war in the one would prove most attractive reading,"
hundred and seven years since the and that they would "help to sell the adoption of the Constitution. Within paper" containing them, and so accom- the same period the United States have plish the chief purpose of the "new been a party to 47 arbitrations, being journalism." It proposes, as very suit- more than half of all that have taken able for sending out, the following place in the modern world. questions: Some of them were of great magnitude.. " (1.) Do you prefer crime to any the four made under the treaty of other variety of news?
Washington being the most important "(2.) What is your favorite brand of that have ever taken place. Such is the crime?
language of President Eliot, in the "(3.) How do you like best to have October Atlantic Monthlu. your crime written up?
-In his masterly historical produc- "(4.) Do pictures of the criminals tion, Public Schools During the Colo- add to your enjoyment of it? nial and Revolutionary Periods in the United States (Report of the Com- "(5.) Would you like a paper filled missioner of Education, 1893-4), well entirely with crime? does Rev. A. D. Mayo exclaim: "Most amazing of all the wonders of Ameri- " (6. ) Would you like your crime on a separate sheet, or mixed with the other news of the day?"
can history is the spectacle of new Vir- -In the Greater New York, with its ginia striking hands with the N oIthern population of 3,200,000, only twenty per Christian people and the national gov- cent. of its inhabitants are American by birth and parentage, and the New Tuesday I would have very poor les- Yorkers of New York descent are bare- Bons, and the excuse was, •I had to go- ly one in eight of the entire population. to religion class last night and I did not The number of those' born in foreign have time to study.' These religion countries is forty-two per cent. of the classes have been formed in every ward whole. There are 700,000 persons of and all through the surrounding coun- German parentage in Greater New try, and it is probably the same all York, and nearly as many of Irish; through the State. Yet, after spending 100,000 of Russian, and as many of so much time in their so-called religion Italian, and 300,000 of other foreign classes, they know simply nothing parentage. There are more Germans about God's word. During the year, I than in any city in Germany except found that there was scarcely one of the Berlin; more Irish by twice than in pupils who came to our school for the any city of Ireland. Large portions of first time last fall, who knew one of the the population cannot speak or read the Commandments. " English language; vast numbers of them never saw the Constitution of the -Members of the Christian Alliance United States or of the State of New have purchased the property of the York, and have little or no knowledge Rev. Ross Taylor, and 14 acres, at of their history or form 01 govern- Nyack, N. Y., for a mission home. It ment. is understood that the purchasers will spend $50,000 in improvements the first -The summary of the New York year. The plan comprehends the en- City :Mission Society's work during the larging of a stone building on the proppast summer is given as follows: Num- erty, so that,it will have 100 rooms, for ber of services, 4,440; aggregate atten- the purposes of the home; the erection dance, 294,228; number of persons re- of another large building for educaceiving communion, 7,937; baptisms, tional purposes, in connection with the adults, 106; children, 478; number of work of the Alliance, and buildings for persons confirmed, 233; marriages. 35; an orphanage and an auditorium. burials, 202; visits made by missionaries, 56,972; papers distributed, 69,252; -By invitation of the president and books distributed, 21,676;. scholars, students, Booker T. Washington, the 30,691; number of children cared for colored principal of the Tuskegee Instiin the day nursery, 14,097; number of tute in Alabama, delivered an address children in the kindergarten, 20,198; in- recently before the faculty and students dustrial school, aggregate attendance, of Trinity College in North Carolina. teachers,595; scholars, 11',307; number Altho Trinity College is an old southern of women and children sheltered in"St. white college, and this is the first time Barnabas's House, 1,407; number of he was ever invited to address a southlodgings furnisht in St. Barnabas's ern white college, Mr. Washington says House, 33,413; number of meals fur- that he and the half-dozen colored citinisht at St. Barnabas's House, includ- zens who accompanied him were treated ing those sent to the day nursery at with the greatest courtesy, and his ad- God's Providence }[ission from the dress was received with markt enthu- Huuse, 117,787. This mission is under siasm. As he left the college grounds Protestant Episcopal care.-Observer. the students assembled on the campus and gave him their college yell in a -Speaking of the vigilant watch care most hearty manner of the Mormons in teaching their peculiar doctrines to the young, a teacher -The Qhurch of God (Winebrensays: "It seems to me the Mormons are nerian) has sent out its first missionary. doing more than ever to teach the chil- Miss Clara Landes of Iowa sailed from dren their doctrines. Frequently on Boston in November for India. She will be located temporarily at Midnapore, but the plan is to start a new sta- part of the Northwest Provinces, the tion in the near future. Punjab, eight districts of the central provinces and two districts of Upper -Rev. Jee Gam lately sent the fol- Burmah, which was not irrigated this lowing note and postscript, which ex- autumn, the crops are in a seriously plain themselves: "On behalf of the damaged condition. In addition the Congregational Association of Christian prospects of the crops in parts of Bom- Chinese of California, I enclose a check bay cause anxiety. Rain is now imfor $50.00 to the credit of the Jubilee probable and a famine is inevitabl0, un- Fund, as an expression of gratitude for less sufficient rain falls in Oude, the the noble work that is being done by Northwest Provinces and the Punjab. the American Missionary Association There is also considerable distress in for them and their countrymen. other affected areas, which are about the same as in 1877. "P. S.-I inclose also a mite (a postoffice ordeT for $5.00) as a personal of- -Then, after professing Christianity, fering in appreciation of the same ser- converts are subjected to such ill-treatvice." ment as goes far to deter others from joiningher ranks. III-treatment assumes -From 50,000 to 100,000 Armenian various forms. Sometimes our people children by the massacres of the last are turned out of employment, sometwo years have been left either half or times they are kept from getting water wholly orphans, and it seems to be a at a public well, sometimes troublesome part of the Turkish scheme to rear lawsuits are brought against them and them up in the faith of Islam. To save they are involved in debt, sometimes them from this fate and help them in they are compelled to do more than their destitntion, a noble plan is on foot their share of work for government to care for them in asylums. The officers, and that without pay, some- Congregationalist affirms that: " Ten times they are unjustly put upon the dollars will provide home, clothing official lists of rogues and are conseand food for one orphan for five quently exposed to arrest and much months, or until the trying winter is suffering, sometimes they are falsely over. Five dollars will house and accused of crime and thrown into clothe one orphan for a year. Three .prison, sometimes they are cruelly dollars will house one orphan for a beaten, sometimes they are deprived of year. One dollar will house, clothe and their property by force or fraud, and feed one orphan for two weeks." treated with the greatest indignity, sometimes they are kept from prose- ASIA. cuting their own trade, sometimes a private wrong is done them, and in- India.-Just as the buffalo has been stead of obtaining redress, they are exterminated from our great western punisht as tho this wrong had been plains, so lions are disappearing from done by themselves to the perpetrators. India before the rifle of the hunter and -Rev. Robert Stewart. the ax and plow of the farmer. In Kathiawar, whose forests have fur- -By thEllast report of Lodiana Presnisht one of the last retreats of the re- byterian mission it appears that 566 tiring king of beasts, an attempt is be- were received to the church last ing made to save the animals from com- year. There are 19 ordained native men, plete extinction by prohibiting lion 15 licentiates, 23 Bible women, 20 hunting during a period of six years. churches and chapel buildings where It is said, however, that the gradual services are held, 10 hospitals and disclearing away of the forests will in it- pensaries in which over 90,000 patienta self result in the extermination of the were treated. lions.
-The Viceroy of India cabled to London, that over most of Oude, a large -A remarkable man, named David, 200 miles, will enclose nearly 46,000,000 has arisen in Southern India. He goes of souls. Our students can easily reach about preaching the Gospel, and thou- this grcat mass of humanity. We sands flock around him. India has have sent out from the seminary 301 never seen such crowds surrounding a preachers, 196 women, and 61 trained preacher of the Gospel, and especially a teachers, who also act as evangelists colorcd preacher; we hear of 8,000 or and pastors." An American woman has even 10,000 people being present. And offered Dr. Scott a donation of $1,000 in he has found out that what is essential is aid of dormitories for the seminary on that a new spirit first should, of all, come condition that another friend or friends over our native churches, in order that will duplicate the sum. thousands of witnesses should arise for their Savior, instead of one. He -Next to the venerable Dr. Elias has recently gone through most of the Riggs, of Constantinople, the senior great towns of India, and everywhere missionary of the American Board on his message has bcen with power. "Is the field is Dr. S. P. Fairbank of the there nothing unsound in the move· Marathi mission in India. Mr. and ment?" I hear many anxiously ask. Mrs. Fairbank sailed the same year for We do not trouble ourselves greatly India that Dr. C. C. Baldwin did for thereat. We know by experience at China, and have recently celebrated home that, when God sends a blessing, the 50th anniversary of their arrival at people spin out discussion about how Bombay. much per cent. of it is sound and how much unsound. till all has gone happily China.-That this Empire is to profit to sleep again, and thc guardians of by the knowledge pickt up by Li Hung soundness often first of all.-Evan- Chang in his recent round-the-world gelisches Missions Magazin. trip, is made evident by his appointment to the office of president of the Tsung- -We learn that the Rev. A. Man- li Yamen, or chief minister of foreign waring baptized at Nasik Aug. 2, affairs, a position usually reserved for a somewhat notable convert, viz. imperial princes. This will require Li Professor Pandit Gopal Chundra to remove his residence from Tientsin Sastra. He is the son of Rao Bahadoor to Peking. Gowree Sankar, a wealthy landlord and influential merchant. The pandit isan -In writing of the evangelistic Oriental scholar, and was at one time a efforts in connection with the Tungmagistrate of the second class. He has Cllo hospital and dispensary, Dr. J. H. traveled widely in India, and has Ingram says he has often thought that visited Burmah,Ceylon,Aden, and even the want of clocks in China will Tibet as a preacher and teacher of certainly be one of the means by which Hinduism. He attributes his conver- God will save many souls. Onc of the sion to the Bible only. He says, "It most satisfactory l'esults of the past is the Book through which God speaks year has been tile opportunity for work to man; by constantly reading both among the women who come to the the Testaments I have been able to dispensary. They frequently arrive understand the True Religion and the very early, as they have no means of Only Meditator."-Ohurch Missionary telling the time at home, and they are Intetligencer. usually so anxious for treatment that they err on the safe side and appear an -Some of the statistics in connection hour or two before dispeI1sing time. with Bareilly Theological Seminary One of the Bible women talks with the are very encourgaing. Dr. Scott early comers while they are waiting for writes: "A circle drawn about the the doors to open, and seed is sown in seminary as a center, with a radius of the waiting-room from day to day which sometimes bears visible fruit. The opening for medical work among with me. When we came before him I Chinese women is evidenced by the knelt down real low, but the dear man,. increasingly large numbers flocking to he rise from his seat, come and assist the hospital and dispensary. Of the me up, and" bless you." He want to 10,000 treatments given the past year shake hands with me, and we did. We over one-third have been to women. sat down while he askt me all about the family from father down to my -In describing the superstition of youngest sister. He said he wisht to China before the English Baptist Union appoint me to represent our dear China at the recent annual session of that in the World's Congress of Representr.- body, Rev. Timothy Richard, of tive Women in London in 1898! He Shanghai, said that only five years ago gave three big books-histories of the he saw a procession headed by Li Hung World's Congresses. Chang going to the river to propitiate the god of the river, through neglect of Sept_ 27.-This afternoon Li sent his whom, it was believed, the river was secretary to me to get father's full name overflowed. He saw the god next day and address, and say he is going to -it was it snake fifteen inches long. write father just as soon as he reaches Tientsin. He commanded me to learn -The Chinese physician, Dr. George Mandarin thoroughly, and keep on my Mark, who was in attendance upon Li English also, because he desires me to Hung Chang in his journey around the go to Peking and see him just before world, is a member of the Second going to London in 1898, and when we Presbyterian Church in Canton. Dr. come back we must carry the report to- Henry baptized him and recommended him at Peking, and there he will prehim to the government school in Hong sent us to the Ell1press of our China Kong, where be was found when also. By and by, when we are through Viceroy Li instituted a search for young in this world, we will go to see our Chinese who were qualified to take a heavenly Father, who is the" King of medical course in English at the Tient- kings and the Lord of lords," hand in sin school, which Li establisht. hand together, and report our work be- Young Mark was chosen and did him- fore His throne. self great credit, and has been under the patronage of the Viceroy ever Korea.-The Rev. Eugene Bell, of since. He has the confidence of the Seoul, expresses the opinion in Th6 Canton Christia.ns. His wife, also a Ohristian Observer (Southern Presbymcmber of the Second Church, is terian), that no other mission field in daughter of a Bible woman now dead. the world, after the first decade, could -Ohurch at Home and Abroad. give the church at home so encourag- ing a report as Korea. The church -There is much more than a touch membership was increast last year by of romance about these quotations from abuut sixty-one per cent. At the decenthe diary of Miss Marguerite Wong, a nial meeting last fall 42 congegrations Methodist Christian Chinese young were reporting as worshiping reguwoman, who crost the Pacific in the larly every Sunday, 6 churches as same steamer with the greatest of ministered to by native pastors, and Chinamen: 445 persons as enrolled in Sunday- schools. Several houses of worship Sept. 16.-Li is very sensible, and have been erected entirely with najust dresses and acts like any ordinary tive funds, and native Christians have Chinese gentleman. I rather like him. contributed liberally to the erection He don't put on any airs, as I thought of others, the contributions for this he would. and other purposes baving averaged last year more than one dollar per mem· Sept. 17.-This morning the Viceroy sent word that he wisht to see me at ten o'clock. I askt Miss Hartford to go up ber. The Presbyterian church in Seoul, nearly five times the area of the origI- erected last winter, exclusively with nal .. Fatherland." If German acquisI- native funds, has been found too small tion continues at this rate for three to accommodate the crowds. years its African domain will be in ex- cess of that of Britain, provided always -Mrs. Underwood of Seoul has re- that Britain does not continue its work cently written as follows: .. Work is of annexation. In the 12 years from very promising here all the time. Last 1884 to 1896, France has acquired week was the king's birthdaJ, and some rather more than Britain, her accessions Koreans said they thought we might being 2,726,000 square miles; which is have a prayer-meeting on that day. Mr. to say that her foreign possessions are Underwood seized the opportunity and rather more than five times as great in tho only three days remained for prep- 1896 as they were in 1884. Then it is aration, he got out a tract for the occa- to be remembered that Italy has got a sion, had 10,000 copies printed, also a foothold in Abyssinia, that the Kongo hymn, .. God save the King," to the Free State, covering an area of 900,000 tune of America, and obtained the use square miles, virtually is a protectorate of the largest government building in of the European powers, and that Seoul, and advertised the meeting to Egypt, tho nominally ruled by a native pray for the king. He taught the Viceroy, is really a British dependency. school-boys to sing the hymn, engaged Except the Sudan, now in process of speakers, had the hall draped with subjugation, nominally to Egypt, but bunting, conducted a service at our really to Great Britain, there is no conchurch in the morning, had an audience siderable area of Africa that now is not with the king after dinner, and theu under control of Portugal, Italy, Gerwent to the celebration, where fully many, France, or Great Britain.-lnter 2,000 people were assembled, the larg- Ocean. est meeting ever held in Korea. Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries and -Bishop Tucker wlites thus of a ser- (lonverts were there, several members vice in Uganda: "My heart was very of the cabinet and highest officials were full as I spoke to these dear men of their on the platform, and one of them ad- work, and as I pleaded with the condrest the audience. The singing was gregation either as Chrietians to be grand, and hundreds of voices joined faithful to their God and Savior, or 6a reverently in the Lord's Prayer. It was unbelievers to- 'come to Christ. ' Very thrilling to us who have watched the nearly 500 communicants gathered work from the first. The tracts were around the table of the Lord, a congreaskt for before they were ready to dis- gation in themselves. What wonders tribute them, and there was great strife of grace I Acongl'egation ofsome 3.000 in the crowd to get them. or 4,000 souls, 466 communicants, 3 native priests, and 5 native deacons or- AFRICA. dained, and later in the day 22 lay readers set apart for their special work, -'An illustration of the rapidity with was it any wonder that one almost which the interior of Africa is opening broke down from time to time, or that to the world is the recent transmission one's heart was filled to overflowing of a telegram from Blantyre in the with thankfulness and praise to God? " Shire district, Central Africa, to a missionary secretary in Edinburgh in about -Rev. J. Roscoe, now in England, three hours. speaks of 500 churches in Uganda and 600 teachers at work, of whom 400 are -In one year Germany has added volunteers, and of 56,000 readers under 1,000,000 square miles, mainly of Mri- more or less regular instruction. C8Il land, to its possessions. This is
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1896
THE OUTLOOK: SOME SIGNS OF THE TIMES
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIX. No. 1.-0Zd &ries.-JANUARY.-VoL. IX. No. I.-New Serie8.
THE OUTLOOK: SOME SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
,BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Per~tllal vigilanee, is ll()t only tIle price of 'liberty, but tbe condition of all true intelligence and progress. God made the time-worlds. as well as the space-worlds: in the ages as well as in the stars He has a plan, and only he who watches while, he prays discerns the signs of the times, sees the plan of 'God,' and falls, into line with the march of God's obedient, hosts.
If the best chronology is taken ~s our standard, 'this new year is not, 1896, but 1900, of the Christian era, and' marks the closing year of the century. !tis well known among students of chronology that the familiar letters" A.D." do not originally stand for Anno Domini, but fO,r Aera J)ianysii, the era of Dionysius, surnamed Exiguus, the Little, from his small stature. This Roman abbot, originally from Scythia, who died in his monastery· in 540 A.D., was a man of great erudition, and, among other labors, carried on in chronology researches which gave him great celebrity. To this man, who died in the reign of Justinian, is traced the method of reckoning the Christian era which, since theeighlh century, has been, by so-called Christian nations, universally adopted, and which fixes the year of the Incarnation at the 753d year of Rome.
More careful computations, reckoning from at least six different points of observation, like converging paths all lead to one conclusion, that an error of at least/our years has occurred in the J)ionysian era, and that the Incarnation mllst date back to the year 749 from the founding of Rome, which would, according to the current reckoning, be 4 B.C.
For example, as the birth of Christ was certainly previous to the death of Herod the Great, which was just before the Passover, in the year 750 A. u., the year of the nativity cannot have been later than 749 A. u.
Again,John the Baptist entered on his ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, which, reckoning from the latter's eo-regency, would put the Baptist's birth in the year 748 A. u., or early in the next year; and, as there were but six months' ditference in the ages 'of Christ and of His forerunner, our Lord's birth would occur not later than 749 A. u.
Yet again, our Lord Himself said, "Forty and six years was this temple in building j" and the eighteenth year of Herod's reign, when he began the rebuilding, would coincide with 732 A. u. This would make the forty-six years end somewhere about 778 or 779 A. u. If our Lord was then about thirty years old, His birth-year would carry us back to 749 A. u. Other confirmatory testimony, as collated and compared by Dr. Edward Robinson and others, conclusively fixes this same year as the date, so that the year now opening really is the year 1900, and will thus complete the nineteenth century, and introduce the twentieth, of the Christian era.
Might not a correction of the calendar be made in accordance with these facts ~ If Pope Gregory XIII. could reform the calendar in 1582, taking out ten days in October, to restore to its true place in the seasons the vernal equinox, and if Britain could, after one hundred and seventy years'delay, adopt the new style and count September 3d September 14th, why cannot the calendar of Christian nations be once more adjusted, so as to call this new year by its true name, 1900 A.D., if the conclusions of the best chronologists are to be trusted ~ And if so, what a celebration of the birth of Christ should be kept by all the followers of our Lord, as Christmas Day of this year shall complete the full nineteen centuries since the angels sang the nativity chorus over Bethlehem! What a spectacle might be presented to angels and men if there were a representative gathering of all evangelical disciples in the very land where the Light of the world first shone! What if nativity week could be kept at Jerusalem, Christmas Day itself being observed at Bethlehem! the whole celebration marked by the erection in Bethlehem of some permanent memorial, such as a home for common worship for all true believers, a halting-place for pilgrims to and from mission fields, and a center for missionary operations! 'Vhat if, on successive days, there were devout assemblies, presided over by representatives of the different branches of the Church of Christ, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Richard S. Storrs, Bishop J. M. Thoburn, from India, Cavalier Matteo Prochet, of Rome, Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, of China, the venerable Andrew Thomson, D.D., of Edinburgh, William E. Gladstone, and others who at home and abroad are recognized leaders in missions !What a fit way to us4er in the twentieth century, with prayers and praises to Him who was born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod the king! What an incentive to a united and earnest effort to push the lines of holy occupation to the very outermost ends of the earth !
If this be true, that we are on the very verge of the twentieth century of the Christian era, the outlook is commensurately extensive and important. It becomes us to look about us and study anew our conditions, to Ieok back and review our conrse, to look ahead and be rell.dy for new risks and new duties. Without any attempt to exhaust a theme so vast in stretch and reach, we may well call attention to a few of the mere prominent signs of the times, which may be also to us signals of God, some encouraging, others, it may be, admonitory of danger.
1. First of all, it must not be disguised that this is a very critical hour in missionary history. It is about a full century since William Carey's arrival in India marked the starting-point in organized missionary effort_ There is no question in any candid, intelligent mind that the century has shown advance which is not by steps, but strides. What increase of general intelligence as to mission fields, religious systems, foreign peoples, and the biography of the heroes of mission history! What a new era of sanctified womanhood, now organized so widely for promoting acquaintance and cooperation with the work of a world's evangelization! What a marvelous crusade on the part of our young men and women in Christian associations, Endeavor societies, and last, but not least, the Students' Volunteer movement, now, like the others, belting the globe, and undertaking the occupation of all untilled fields! What a new epoch in medical missions, reviving the apostolic method of uniting physical healing with Gospel teaching and winning a way to the soul by ministry to the body! What a handmaid to the voice of the herald is the pen of the ready writer, made vocal in so many tongues by 1~he art of the translator and the power of the press! Who can doubt the drift of all the best nations, which are also the ruling nations of the world, toward the coronation of peace with the diadem of universal empire, by agreeing to arbitration instead of resorting to the arbitrament of war !
These are but a few of the hopeful signs on our horizon. They indicate both the fitness and fulness of times for the speedy occupation of the whole world for Christ, which never before could have been accomplished within such a brief space of time, and make especially emphatic the motto which should be emblazoned on the banners of the Church, "THE EvAN- GELIZATION OF THE WORLD IN THIS GENERATION."
II. We are in the midst of a general agitation in the direction of Church Unity, as it is somewhat vaguely called. The famous Lambeth platform, with its four planks, is a curious illustration of the whole movement. All other churches will be cordially received into union with the Anglican body, provided they subscribe three articles on which there would be no real disagreement, and concede the historic episcopate, which is the distinctive feature of the Episcopal Church. The Baptists, no doubt, arc equally ready for unity with all other evangelical bodies, if infant baptism is abandon"ed and believers' baptism, and that by immersion only, is adopted. This is Church nnity, not by mutual concession, but by one-sided absorption. "The lamb and lion lie down together, the lamb inside the lion." For one church to say to all the rest, " You must be like us if we are to agree," is what Dr. J. H. McIlvaine caIIed "an immoral tone of mind." More recently the Triennial Council of the Congregationalists submits another proposal, in which the sufficient authority of the Scripture, discipleship of Jesus Christ, the one Church of Christ, and liberty in the interpretation of the Scriptures, are the basis of mutual fellowship, cooperation in missions, and the prevention of unwholesome rivalries. 'It This is, perhaps, as wise and satisfactory a basis as any proposed, yet it embraces no confession of the Holy Spirit as the only source of regeneration, and" discipleship of Jesus Christ" is a vague term, easily perverted, which in these days would be held by twenty different sects in as many different senses.
One noticeable feature about this movement toward outward if not organic unity, which will be objectionable to many, is the widespread tendency to embrace if possible not only the Greek, but Roman Church in the alliance j and, in the popular cry for" charity," there is a new difficulty created-viz., the risk of appearing disloyal to love, in seeking to be loyal to the Lord Himself. Sometimes one is compelled to speak out plainly, at risk of being misunderstood, for a politic silence may be tacit consent to error, or even treason against truth. Ve may at least venture to ask a question or two. First, of what use is an external formal unity with internal division and dissension? The Roman Catholic Church is nominally one, but it represents beliefs widely differing. from the practically Calvinistic Jansenists, to the Jesuits who beheve most of all in their own infallibility. The Anglican Church is nominally one, but there is within it a ritualistic High Church, a rationalistic Broad Church, and an evangelical Low Church, and the fiercest war is waging within the ecclesiastical landmarks. Is not a nominal division, with real sympathy and amity, more the unity for which our Lord prayed, than a nominal umon covering a real division?
Some schemes of Church unity would never embrace all Christians. Some, who must be reckoned among the truest and holiest believers, cannot conscientiously join hands with Romanism ; for to them this is a question not of forbearing with minor differences, but of tolerating fundamental errors in doctrine and practice. To ask them to countenance, eveu indirectly, the worship of the Host in the mass, the intercession of saints, penance, purgatory, the abominations of the confessional, the idolatry of the Virgin and Joseph, the infallibility of the Pope, the surrender of the right of private judgment, and the withholding of the Scriptures from the people, is to ask them to wink at ten of the deadliest errors ever known in Church history, and they simply cannot do It. To them, moreover, the papal power represents not only a church, but a kingdom. A church has • The Committee on Christian Unity, consisting of Rev. Drs. W. H. Ward, S. W. Dike, A. H. Quint, and George E· HaJI reported, recommending as a basis of union: 1. The acceptance of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments inspired by the Holy Ghost to be the only authoritative revelation of God to man. 2. Discipleship of Jesus Christ, the Divine Savior and Teacher of the world. 3. The Church of Christ. which IS His body, whose great mission it is to preach His GosjlCI to the world. 4. Liberty of conscience in the interpretatiou of the Scriptures and the admiuistration of the Church. Such an alliance of the churches should have regular meetings of their representatives, and should have for its object among others: 1. Mntual acquaintance and fellowship. 2. Cooperation in foreign and domestic missions. 8. The prevention of rivalries between competing churches in the same field. doctrines and ordinances and spiritual laws and a spiritual constituency presumably of regenerate people; a kingdom has a temporal order, with civil laws and subjects, a territory to be ruled and a hierarchy or graded system of dignities. When Protestants are asked, therefore, to acknowl-· edge the papal system, they are asked not only to countenance the very errors against which they once protested unto blood, but to acknowledge as legitimate that wedlock of the Church and State in one body to which may be traced the parentage of a brood of evils of the most accursed character.
Many most earnest believers, who yearn to live in charity with all men and are eager to recognize Christ's likeness wherever found, feel compelled to maintain their separation from some professed disciples, because they seem to them to deny fundamental truths. It seems ungracious to stamp as heresy what so-called Christians hold and teach; but are disciples to be less brave than politicians? Who can withhold admiration from the in- trepidity of Edmund Burke, when he said to the Electors of Bristol: "I did not obey your instructions, but; I did obey the instructions of nature and conscience and truth. I maintained your interests as against your convictions!" If Daniel O'Connell could say, "I am a Cat/tOlie, but I am not a papist," and Pere Hyacinthe could virtually defend the great doctrines of the same Church while sacrificing himself in a protest against its perversions of the truth and unholy practices, why may we not discriminate between the right of a man to hold his religious opinions and our own right to protest against what we believe to be his vital errors!
The whole progress of the papacy, from the days of Phocas until now, has been a process of engrafting pagan errors on a Christian stock. One has only to read the history of Church councils to see how one scion after another was grafted on to the Church, until the original tree was no longer recognizable. Tile growth of papal pretensions may be well illustrated hy the tiara, or triple crown. At first a round cap, John XIII. encircled it with a crown, Boniface VIII. added a second, and Benedict XIJI. a third. And while many Protestants cordially acknowledge whatever truth the Roman Catholic Church conserves, they regard the papacy as a composite system, embracing at least five parts: First, a branch of the Church of Christ, holding much truth and embracing many honest, earnest believers; second, a philanthropic society, abounding in works of charity; third, a political powllr asserting a right to world-wide supremacy; fourth, an idolatrous system, a Christianized paganism; fifth, a Jesuitical organization, using not only secrecy, but falsehood. Now, as Judaism contained within itself representatives of true believers, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and Joseph of Arimathea, but, alas! also ritualistic Pharisees, skeptical Sadducees, rationalistic ESRenes, secular Herodians; so Romallism is a heterogeneous compound, and any recognition of the faithful few in its communion must not involve sanction of the political pretensions, idolatrous corruptions, and Jesuitical subtleties, bound up with the system as a whole. This is the real position of hundreds who are inclined to charity, but who see that charity is in danger of running into laxity.
To maintain a separation and a protestation for conscience' sake is becoming more difficult, because Romanism is putting on of late years a new front. Witness the attempt at Baltimore a few years since to make it appear that papacy was almost the patron of our republicanism, despite the fact that the allegiance owed by every subject of the Pope to him, as a foreign power, is constructive treason; witness the present advocacy of temperance, popular education, and of civil service reform, in which Roman Catholic bishops are taking the lead, and the widespread activity of the Sisters of Charity-all of which tend in the public mind to obscure the fact that back of all this attractive guise lie doctrines and practices that demand as emphatic a protest as at the Diet of Spire !
If the union of churches could be secured for which so mauy are hoping, what would be the effect on missions? Would not inevitable questions arise on which new separations would be inevitable? Two devoted missionaries in China, one a Presbyterian and the other a Baptist, were so intimate as friends that they determined to undertake a joint evangelistic tour. All was as smooth as a placid stream, until the converts began to multiply and desired baptism; then the tour came to an end, from the simple impossibility of further agreement.
Moreover, it has often been said that a wholesome emulation is promoted by the variety of denominations, and that no one church would ever accomplish an aggregate of service equal to the sum of all now done by many different bodies. And, again, with more force it is argued that variety is the sign and fruit of education; that uniformity is born either of intellectual stagnation or slavery, and that, as soon and as surely as men begin to reason and think for themselves, individuality takes the place of uniformity, as a tree cannot grow without branching, and the larger and fuller the growth the more minute the ramifications. Amid the clamor for church unity it may be well seriously to ask whether any further unity is practicable or even possible than a federation or alliance in which there shall be a cordial allowance for all individual divergences, but at the same time a fraternal cooperation. Thousands of families, with widely differing household life, manners, notions, habits, and preferences may be united in one harmonious state or commonwealth. vVhy may not all evangelical churches, recognizing their agreements as fundamental and their differences as non-essential, work side by side without interference or needless overlapping ~ Meanwhile an opposite tendency, obviously at work, threatens a new schism, or at least secession. Louder and more earnest grow the remonstrance and resistance to the alarming spread of rationalism and secularism in the churches, which is seen even in England and America. Professor Howard Osgood, in the Detroit Baptist Congress a year ago, following an address of a prominent oollege president, wherein the results of the higher criticism were set forth and defended, read a brief statement of the most approved positions now held by this class of thinkers. He then asked if anyone would challenge these positions as unfairly stated j and, after pausing for a reply, astonished his hearers by adding that these statements were drawn verbatim from the writings of the deist Thomas Morgan and the infidel Thomas Paine! He then quoted one more sentence from Paine, which shows to what conclusion these premises led him: "My belief in the perfection of the Deity will not permit me to believe that a book so manifestly obscure, disorderly, and contradictory can be His work. " And yet these identical positions are held and taught tQ-day in Christian colleges and pulpits.
From the days of the Tractarian movement in Oxford, especially, three influences have been jointly operating to compel a new protest and sep&ra- tion of believers from the body of the Church as a whole: First, the ten- dency to rationalism drawn from the German theologians j secondly, the drift toward ritualism and Romanism, as manifested in the Anglican body, and rapidly spreading j and, thirdly, the growing irreverence with which a pretentious criticism is stripping the Word of God of its essential infalli- bility and inerrancy. There are a very considerable body of believers, by no means lacking in intelligence or .piety, to whom this state of things is becoming intolerable j and we greatly mistake if a new secession is not imminent, like that of May 18th, 1843, when five hundred ministers under the leadership of Chalmers laid down their livings in Scotland rather than consent to the interference and control of law courts in church matters. While the air is full of loud clamors for a blending of all churches in one, anotlIer movement, not so superficial, but perhaps even more resistless, is in the direction of separation. There are some left who hold to the 'Vord of God as an inspired Book, an infallible guide j who hold to the Church as composed only of regenerate souls, whose law is to be unworldliness j and who hold to simplicity of worship as the condition of its purity and spirituality j and if the churches as now existing continue to countenance rationalistic teaching, ritualistic encroachments, and secularizing methods j if theological professors are to be allowed to undermine the faith in the Bible, and godless standardR of art and life to displace the Divine ideals even in the house of God, there may be another procession of new Protestants walking some day out of our present Church councils or courts, to rally about apostolic standards and keep alive the ancient faith.
We are not alarmists j but we have seen both in England and in this country influences that are more disintegrating than unifying. When within the very Church of England there is an open and organized movement toward Rome, numbering hundreds and thousands of clerical and lay adherents j when, in dissenting bodies there and their corresponding denominations here, there is an equally open and organized movement toward doctrines which thirty years ago would have ranked any IDan as an infidel, unworthy to teach or even come to Lord's table, it is not a marvel if a discerning eye sees in the sky signs of a new pIotest.
III. The assaults on missions constitute another feature of the times. There are at work two opposing tendencies equally hostile to all evangelical life and evangelistic effort. On the one hand, much that calls itself scholarly criticism is practically the lowering of the Word of God to a human level; and, on the other hand, the various congresses of religions are lifting all religious systems to a Divine level j and between the two the cause of missions is losing hold on the popular mind. For if the Bible be not divinely infallible, its unique authority is gone; and if the Christian religion be not the one and only saving faith, its unique indispensableness is gone j and the command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature not only remains no longer imperative, but becomes wellnigh impertinent. Let us boldly confront the dilemma which modern criticism and miscalled liberalism force upon us. The assaults on missions get countenance from this double tendency of our times. Once concede that the Bible is a fallible guide, and that the Christ it presents is not the solitary hope of a lost world, and we may as well recall our missionaries. Why should we send thousands of our best men and women to the ends of the earth, at a cost of millions of dollars annually and a dearer cost of priceless lives, if a Divine command does not both justify and sanctify implicit obedience ~ And if all religions are stages in the evolution of a Divine faith and life, differing only in the degree of their development toward perfection, why intrude Christian ideas and dogmas upon people who have the same Divine upward tendency, and some of whom regard themselves at a higher level than ourselves ~ The disturbances in mission fields, especially China, have given occasion to a number of open or disguised attacks on missionary policy, and it has been boldly affirmed that the whole system of modern missions is a mistake. A prominent Scotchman some years since raised the question in Exeter Hall whether it were even proper to waste so many precious lives in evangelizing the Dark Continent; and more lately frequent newspaper articles appear, arguing more or less pointedly against the right or the expediency of sending Christian missionaries to other nations. Some writers contend that it involves needless exposure to the hostile influences of climate and of foreign peoples j others, that it is an invasion of the territory of another faith that has as mnch as any a right to be ; that it is an interference with what Carlyle called the "majesty of cnstom," a collision with prejudices and superstitions as impregnable as the hills, and calculated to provoke resistance and incite riot. While there is a loud caH for protection to the persons of Christian missionaries peacefully teaching the Gospel, it is replied that such violate the right of asylum and forfeit the right of such protection by forcing their Christianity upon unwilling adherents of other faiths. Such plausible arguments are the more amazing when it is remembered that, had they prevailed eighteen hundred years ago, Christianity would have died in its cradle, and would never have lived to become the mother of such millions of believers, with all the thousanu benignant institutions that are the pride and glory not of Christian churches and nations only, but of the race of man! When the first missionaries landed in ,Britain they found savages, and Jerome Ilays cannibals. Every step toward Britain's present leadership in intelligence and integrity, philanthropy and benevolence, was taken in face of hostility. Look at the transformations of the South Seas, and even of Japan; follow the work of McAll in Paris and the French provinces, acknowledged now even by the government to be invaluable as a police measure; survey the whole field of missionary triumph, and where would there have been one step of advance had such counsels prevailed as are now offered in respect to missions !
These assaults on missions strike at the very root of the tree of all evangelism, and the alarming feature is that, so far as they influence the Christian sentiment of the Church, they imply the abandonment of the fundamental principle of missions. The Word of God makes no doubtful testimony. It acknowledges that men hold lords many and gods many, bnt affirms one only Name whereby men must be saved; and it sends disciples forth to proclaim in unwilling ears the Christ who led the way in a mission to a revolted world, and paid the price of His intrusion and invasion into hostile territory by his own blood. Those who prosecute missions are disciples of one Master, whose sacrifice of Himself they expect if need be to share. The world is in revolt against God, and the proclamation of the terms of amnesty and reconciliation will not find ready reception with rebels. But we are to persevere. Love must qualify boldness, but boldness must give energy to love. A mild, meek, amiable spirit, which has no courage of conviction behind it and no energy of resistance; that cannot look hostile courts in the face and say, We ought to obey God rather than men, and cannot bnt speak the things which we have seen and heard; nay, that cannot rejoice in being counted worthy to suffer shame for His Mme, is not the spirit of apostolic times. When God has another Paul and Silas that will carry the Gospel into Macedonia, even if their only reception is the scourging, the inner prison and the stocks, and yet sing praises to God, there may be other eart,hquakes that shall set prisoners free and convert even hard-hearted jailers. Missions with no martyr spirit are not the missions of the Acts of the Apostles.
Saluting our readers with cordial Christian affection, we invoke npon them all a new anointing of the missionary spirit. What the year before us will bring forth only He knows whose chariot rides amid clouds of mystery. But history is big with great possibilities, when hours and even moments witness stupendous changes and miracles of transformation. Let us watch and pray and stand in our lot till the end of the days.
THE MOTIVE FORCE OF MISSIONS
THE MOTIVE FORCE OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. F. B. MEYER, LONDON, ENGLAND, ASSOCIATE EDITOR.
Gregory the Great, summing up the doctrine of St. Augustine, writes as follows: "The holy universal Church is one body, constituted under Christ Jesus its Head. Therefore Christ, with His whole body, both that which is now ou earth and that which reigns with Him in heaven, is one Person; and as the soul is one which quickens the various members of the body, so the one Holy Spirit quickens and illuminates the whole Church. Therefore the apostle says, , From whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together, maketh increase of the body.'" It is here that we shall find the perennial motive force of missions. Not in cogent reasoning, nor in eloquent appeals, nor in the exposition of the results which have been attained during the wonderful century now drawing to a close, but in the intelligent appreciation and accentuation of. the union between Christ and His Church by the Holy Ghost, in virtue of which each member is subject to direct impulses and impressions from the exalted Saviour.
I. PRAYER FOR MISSIONs.-The missionary enterprise of modern times was conceived and cradled in prayer. As certainly as the sources of the Nile have been discovered in the great lakes of Central Africa can the rivers of modern missions be traced to the prayer-meetings of the early Methodists and the call for prayer issued by Jonathan Edwards. All along the line of history the progress of the Gospel has been in exaet proportion to the strength and volume of the prayers of the Church. It may be truly said that prayer has been the Nilometer which has measured the· extent and wealth of the harvests of which the desert places have been made to rejoice and blossom as the rose.
'Vhat a wealth of prayer has ascended to God on the behalf of missions from lonely souls isolated in sick chambers or foreign lands, which could do nothing else than pray; as well as from the Church, gathered in twos and threes, or in multitudes, but exercising her prerogative to bind and loose. !?till it becomes a serious question how the prayerfulness of the Church is to be maintained and increased; a demand which can only be adequately met by considering the true nature of prayer.
In its essence, prayer is the return tide, from the heart of the believer, of the purposes of God, as they are revealed by the Holy Ghost. The moisture of the ocean is drawn up by the sun, transported in the floating cloud-cisterns to the summits of the hills, there it is deposited as rain or snow, and begins to descend again to the ocean from which it was originally extracted. Similarly the prayer which prevails with God is that which emanated originally in the thought of the Father, passed through the heart of the Mediator, and was communicated to uc through the Holy Spirit. Throughout the Scriptures we have many references to Christ's prayer- fulness on the behalf of the Church and the world. On the pages of Isaiah we hear him saying, "For Zion's sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest." In his last discourse He told the disciples that He would pray to the Father for them, that He might give them another comforter. And in the Epistle to the Hebrews He is depicted as the great High Priest who ever lives to make intercession. The high priest in the old dispensation often entered the presence of God with the names of the people on his heart, the seat of love, and on his shoulder, the seat of power, and once a year, with a bowl of blood and sprig of thyme in his hands, pleaded for the entire nation. Vhat more vivid portrayal could there be of the ceaseless inter_ cession of that High Priest, who was once manifested to bear the sin of many, and who now appears in the presence of God for us !
In the days of His flesh He pleaded for His Ohurch, as in the sublime intercessory prayer of John 17 j for individu,als, as when He said, " Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee j" and for the world, as when He first assumed Ilis high-priestly functions, saying from His cross, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." Thus· He pleads still. For His Church, for His apostles, whether ministers at home or missionaries abroad, and for the world that lieth in the wicked one He says, "Father, I pray for them." Perpetually from His lips pours forth a stream of tender supplication and eutreaty, which makes glad the city of God.
We have been too much accustomed to think that these pleadings of the Divine Master are set in motion by the strong cryings and prayers of His saints on earth, and that He is simply the intermediary and spokesman of His Church, according to the sublime vision of the Apocalypse, where the mighty angel mingles much incense with the prayers of saintf', which He offers before the throne.. But probably the truth lies deeper. It is quite true that He prays in heaven the prayer we pray on earth, winnowing them of their selfishness, and asking what we would ask had we fuller light; it is also true that all successful prayer must receive His endorsement and authentication ; but it is a deeper truth that our best prayers are borrowed lights, the echo of His voice, the after-glow of His vision, the reflection of His eager desire. The body of Christ is brought into agreement with the Head by the Holy Spirit, who communicates to it by a quick sympathy and intention the thoughts and desires that are passing through the Savior's being.
Ve have two Advocates, one with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and one with us. As the one went up the other came down. As the one sat down at the right hand of the Divine Majesty, so the other sat in emblem on the heads of the twelve and in the Upper Room. As the one ever liveth to intercede in heaven, the other makes intercession in us for the saints and. for sinners, with groanings that cannot be· uttered. This is the clue to the mystery of prayer. It is all important that the Church on earth should be in accord with its Head in His petitions before the throne. And this accord is secured by the Holy Spirit. On the one hand He fills the Head, on the other the members. There is one Spirit of Life between Jesus in the glory and His believing people everywhere. One tide of life-blood, one system of nervous tissue, one ocean washing the shores of the metropolis and of the tiny seaport.
Let us be still, therefore, and listen carefully to the voice of the Divine Spirit speaking in our hearts, turning from all other sonnds toward His still small voice, and He will tell us all. Coming, as He does, from the heart of Jesus, He will impart His latest thoughts and convey to us His mind. In Him we have the mind of Christ. Then we shall know what to ask for. Indeed, we shall be swept along on the mighty current of our Lord's petitions. And when, in obedience to His Father's invitation, the Son asks that the heathen should be given Him for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, we too shall fin~ ourselves praying for the same things in holy unison. Thus prayer goes in an eternal circle. It begins in tIle l1eart of God, comes to us through the Savior and by the Spirit, and returns from us again to its source. It is the teaching of the rain-drops, of the tides, and of the procession of the year, but wrought out and exemplified in the experience and practice of holy hearts.
H, then, prayer for the great missionary enterprise is restrained and formal in the individual or the community, it is symptomatic of some flaw in the fellowship of the member with the Head; let ns not deal with the symptom, but with the disease which is secretly at work; let us seek, above all things, that living union between the Head and the member through which the Holy Ghost can impress 011 us the thoughts that ani. mate the pleadings of the Divine Man on the throne, then we shall ask exceedingly abundantly according to the power that worketh in us. As Jesus pleads for individuals, we shall become burdened allOut them; as He pleads for native churches like those which cost Him so much anxiety in Asia ]finor, we shall plead for them; as He cries of persecutors and murderers, " Father, forgive !" we shall cry aloud for them also, and the result of such united petitioning will be, as of old, a Pentecost, sweeping those very men to the foot of His cross.
II. MISSIONARY ACTIVITY.-What a blessing Christ's earthly ministry must have been to thousands of sufferers! He passed through Galilee and Judea as a river of the water of life. In front of Him were deserts of fever blasted by the sirocco, malarious swamps of ague and palsy, and the mirage of deferred hope ; but after He had passed, the parched ground became a pool and the thirsty land springs of water, the eyes of the blind were opened, the ears of the deaf were unstopped, the lame man leaped as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sang. Turning to His disciples before He left them, He told them that similar works should follow them that believed on Him. They should cast out devils, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, drink deadly poison without hurt, and lay hands on the sick for their recovery.
But there were symptoms, however, throughout our Lord's ministry that He did not look at these as the greatest and best results of Ilis mighty energy. He forgave the sins of the paralytic man, borne of four, before He bade him walk ; and told the seventy to rejoice more that their names were written in heaven than that they had cast out a few demons. " The works that I do shall ye do also; and greater works than these shall ye do." That the apostles became increasingly aware of the same distinction i.s clear from the small space given in the Acts of the Apostles to their miracles compared with the greater attention concentrated on their discourses.
There is evidently a parallel to be drawn between the works wrought by the Lord during His human life in the physical sphere and on the bodies of men, and the greater works wrought through His Church during the present age, in the spiritual sphere and on the immortal destinies of men. Did the Lord give sight to the bleared eyes of the blind @ The Church is sent to open the eyes of the spiritually blind, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Did He raise the dead ~ The Church may stand at the sepulchre, where the dead soul lies entombed, and cry, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from among the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee!" And as the Father led Him forward to ever greater works, so that the raising of Lazarus was a greater work than that of the daughter of J airus, we may expect that the wonders wrought in the spiritual sphere through the Church will grow in Importance and momentous issues till the close of the present dispensation. We shall yet see a nation born in a day. But what is the source of these greater works 1 In the Lord's ministry it is clear that the source of His never-ceasing activity consisted in the impulses which He was receiving constantly from the Father. He worked out what the Father wrought within to will and do of His own good pleasure. On one occasiol1, when challenged by His critics for working a miracle on the Sabbath, He replied, " My Father has wrought up to this moment of time. I am only working as He bids and prompts." Not only was He ever regarding the evolution of His Father's plan, but was ever conscious of the impulse of His Father's energy. To use His own words, He lived by the Father. This supplies the clew to the possession on the part of the Church of unceasing zeal and energy for missions. "Ve must depend on Christ, our Head, for the forthputting of His energy as He depended on the Father, who is designated by the apostle the Head of Christ.
For the. body of Christ to be stirred up to enthusiasm and endeavor in missionary enterprise by eloquent appeals from missionary platforms, by touching incidents that appeal to the emotions, by all the machinery of the modern missionary board, is like imitating the movements of life by the convulsive twitchings of nerve and muscle under the impulse of electricity. As soon as the current ceases the paralyzed limbs fall back into their former apathy. Where there is health, and the Head can exert its will on its members, there is no need for magnetic appliances. As the Father wrought through Christ for creation and redemption-for the un. folding of the history of Judaism up to the fullness of times, as well as for the works of His earthly ministry-so Christ is prepared to work through His people for those greater works-greater because what affects eternity must be greater than what affects time; greater because the soul is greater than the body, as the jewel than the casket j greater because the worm that never dies is more intolerable than cancer, the fire that is never quenched keener than fever. And where we are in living union with Him there will be no let or hindrance j but the goings forth of His mighty love to the salvation of men will pour through us with irresistible momentum.
Weare now in a position to understand the reasonableness of expect. ing greater works from the Church than were ever wrought by the Head. Clearly the Church has an argument to present to men which even her Master could not use. He could not point, except indefinitely, to the cross, its flowing blood, its testimony to a love that the cold waters of death could not stanch j nor could He count upon the cooperation of the Spirit in His convicting power as we can, but neither of these reasons will account for the greater works that have marked the progress of the Church through the ages.
Perhaps au illustration will best explain this further reason. Suppos. ing the great painter Raphael were to infuse his matchless power, as he possessed it during his mortal life, into some young brain, there is no reason why the genius of the immortal painter should not effect, through a mere tyro in art, results in form and color as marvelous as those which he bequeathed to all coming time. But suppose, further, that after having been for three hundred years amid the forms, souls, and colors of the heavenly world, he could return and express his present conceptions through some human medium, would not these later productions be greater works than those which men cherish as a priceless legacy ~ So, if the Lord were to work in His servants such works only as He did before He ascended to His glory, they would be inferior to those which He can produce now that He has entered into His glorified state, and has resumed the power of which He emptied Himself when He stooped to become incarnate. This is what He meant when He said, "Greater works, because I go to the Father."
The one cure, then, for lethargy of action or apathy of interest on the part of the Church is to be found in that profound word with which the Epistle to the Hebrews closes: "The God of Peace make you perfect to do His will." The better rendering would be " articulate, or put you' in joint." The members of the body of Christ are apt to become dislocated or stiff, hence the need of apostles and prophets, pastors and teachers for the articulating of the saints unto the work of ministering to the world.
A MISSIONARY ROMANCE
If we are in living fellowship with the Head He will work through us to fulfil His divine purposes. If, on the other hand, we are not used for the execution of those purposes which undeniably exercise our Lord during the present age, and which He is hastening to realize, we must attribute the failure to some break in the living union, some flaw in the connecting nerves.
Let it not be said that these considerations tend to quietism. They do, indeed, lead to the cessation of those fussy activities which are always abortive, but they tend to the increase of all those high Christian activities which never fail in their execution or design. The Apostle Paul could not be accused of quietism; he wrought more abundantly than all the apostles, preaching the Gospel from J ernsalem as his centre to Rome as his circumference. vVe have it in his own words that he strove according to the Divine energy which strove in him mightily. Christ wrought in him to make the Gentiles obedient in word and deed.
There is nothing, therefore, so much needed at the present time as a renewal of the belief of the Church in the Holy Ghost, and a larger measure of reliance on Him in its prayer-meetings and activities. Let us wait more persistently and constantly upon Him j let us make more room for Him j silent that He may speak j expectant that He may work j and surely as there was the early rain at the beginning of this dispensation there will be the latter rain at the close. When the whole body is in vital communion with its Head, new inspirations for prayer and work will begin to pour into its being and through its members,for there will be a repetition on a far larger scale of the spiritual results of Pentecost.
A MISSIONARY ROMANCE.-I.
CAPTAIN JAMES VVILSON, THE FIRST VOLUNTEER OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
BY GEORGE SMITH, LL.D., C.I.E., F.R.G.S.
Of the long roll of men sent forth by the London Missionary Society, which recently: held its first centennial commemoration, from Dr. Van_ derkemp down to David Livingstone and Chalmers of New Guinea, the first is still the most remarkable. He was James Wilson, ship captain, infidel, prisoner of the French, of Hyder Ali, and then, by the grace of God, the first to volunteer as a missionary to carry the Gospel in the good ship ])uff, which he helped to purchase, to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The story of Captain James Wilson is unique in the history of Christian missions, so full of holy heroism and romance.
A century and a half ago a Captain Wilson sailed his ship in the trade from the great English port of Newcastle. The father of nineteen chil~ dren, he could not afford to give them much schooling, so he-brought up the boys in his own ship under his own eye from their earliest years. His youngest son was James, who thus lived at sea, amid influences of the worst kind, at a time when the mercantile marine of Great Britain was at its lowest moral point. When the war with America began the youth sought a career on land, in which his love of adventure could be gratified. There he served j there he took part in the battles of Bunker Hill and Long Island. The close of the War of Independence set him loose for other deeds. Returning to England, so good a sailor and fighter found no difficulty in securing a mate's berth on one of the East IndIa Company's famous traders and passenger ships. The high spirits of the youth and his knowledge of navigation commended him to his messmates and his officers alike j but he had not been long at Calcutta when he found that money was to be made, as well as a reputation to be gained, in the local mercantile or transport service j for that he left the East Indiaman.
These were the days of the war with Republican France and with the Mohammedan ally of the French, Hyder Ali, succeeded by his son, "Citizen" Tippoo. The great colonel, afterward Sir Eyre Coote, had defeated M. Lally at Wandewash, had ~aptured the capital of French India, Pondicherry, and had been rewarded by a seat in the Bengal Council, when the bungling soldiership of the British generals in South India summoned him to meet Hyder Ali, then close to the very walls of Madras itself. Captain James 'Vilson again and again ran the blockade which the French Admiral Suffrein for a time established on the Madras Coast, carrying military stores and supplies to Sir Eyre Coote. In 1780, when Hyder Ali burst on the Carnatie, Warren Hastings knew that the very existence of the East India Company was threatened, and spent millions to wipe out the disasters of Governor Whitehill and Colonel Baillie. Thrice Coote defeated Hyder Ali under most difficult circumstances, and all the time Captain James Wilson was running along a dangerous coast and up little known rivers to feed his force with the munitions of war. Courage and skill were never more successfully applied than by this Newcastle sailor, whose marine and military adventures extended from Bunker Hill to Negapatam in the East Indies.
At last, Wilson's over-boldness, when as usual attempting to pass the French fleet with military stores for Admiral Hughes, who had spent all his ammunition in a sea fight with Suffrein, led to his capture. He and his men were carried to the French prison at Cuddalore, where he found the crew of another British ship. Life was tolerable enough for the officers till the French commander received an order from Admiral Suffrein to deliver up all his prisoners to the tyrant Hyder, who had deliberately purchased them for three hundred thousand rupees, or a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The commander and his officers were indignant at the baseness of the transaction, but they had no alternative save obedience. Wilson determined to save his own life. Carefully observing the ramparts of tho fort as they rose from the river, he resolved to drop down at n~ht fall and find his way to the nearest British force. A brother officer and his Bctig'ali servant agreed to accompany him. The place of rendezvous was fixed, and the hour, being seven o'clock, when it became dark and the guard was changed. .
After waiting for the other officer, who did not appear, Wilson let himself drop down forty feet into the water below, striking, however, his chin upon his knees, and making a splash which, he felt sure, must have alarmed the sentries. After a little he found his way to the dry land at the foot of the wall, and there received his slightly-built servant in his arms safely enough; but the lad conld not swim, and the fort is in the midst of a network of rivers and backwaters. Thrice Wilson, with the Bengali on his back, had crossed the mouths of the Coleroon, and thcy were already within hail of Porto Novo at its principal entrance, when they were challenged by one of Hyder Ali's sentries. Plunging into the tidal current, they were soon involved in the breakers, which so frightened the native youth that Wilson returned to the shore, and sent him off to a friend. Again crossing the estuary, he found a canoe, in which he hoped to reach the Danish settlement of Tranquebar. Instead of this he was discovered by a party of Hyder's troopers, who stripped him naked, tied his hands behind him, fastened a rope to them, and drove him before them under the burning Slln some forty miles to his old prison. There he was chained to a British soldier, and thence the miserable band were marched on foot some two hundred miles to Hyder's capital and fortress of Seringapatam.
The horrors of that captivity have been described in more than one of the military biographies and histories of Great Britain. It was there that the famous Dnke of "Vi'ellington began his exploits when, at the close of last century, the fortress was captured and Tippoo Sultan fell fighting.
Only in one other instance have these horrors been exceeded, when Nana Sahib butchered the English officers, their wives and children at Cawnpore in 1857. As if James Wilson had not suffered enough, he had yet to undergo much more misery, compared with which death itself were better.
But God had great designs for him and by him, tho he knew Him not.
First of all, Hyder Ali himself offered him and the other captives liberty and rewards if they would enlist in his army and profess Islam. If not, they were threatened with tortures, long and lingering. Some are said to have yielded. Not so James Wilson. Tho ignorant of Christian truth and religious principles, he was a brave and patriotic man, who had fought his country's battles and valued her civilization. He refused, as the majority did, and was at once ordered to prison with a body of a hundred and fifty-three Highland soldiers of Colonel McLeod's regiment. Irons to the weight of thirty-two pounds were put upon him, and he was chained to a fellow, similarly loaded, night and day, Many a time when one of the two died the survivor remained thus attached to the festering corpse. In an open court-yard, exposed to the cold wind by night and the fierce sun by day, and starved till they feared to put a finger near their mouth lest they should bite it off, hundreds of Christian captives thus lay, and rotted, and died in the gloomy years of war in which, in South India, the eighteenth century closed. To add to his sufferings, Wilson was seized with dysentery, known as the bloody flux, which was a scourge of the foreigner in the tropics till the discovery of the ipecacuanha treatment forty years ago. Death seemed at hand, and he would then have died as do the beasts j but again God's longsuffering prevailed, tho he knew it not. Exchanging his miserable rice diet for a small and cheaper millet, he unconsciously effected a violent cure. -When only thirty out of a hundred and fifty-four survived, after such a captivity of twenty-two months, Sir Eyre Coote inflicted the third defeat on Hyder Ali, the few captives were released, and Captain James Vilson found himself in Madras, penniless and impenitent.
He gladly shipped as a mate to Bencoolen and Java, where, when at Batavia, the putrid fever, which was so fatal to the Dutch, well-nigh carried him off. He never got rid of the effects of his awful captivity, but he persisted in his trading, became part owner and captain of the ship, and at last achieved the fortune for which he had been working so long. After more than one relapse, and all along ignorant of or indifferent to the Divine hand which held his soul in life and was gradually preparing him for the highest form of service to the Master, he resolved to retire to England. It is a curious coincidence that John Thomas was surgeon of the East Indiaman in which he sailed. That first of medical missionaries, who was about to draw William Carey away from the islands of the Pacific, on which the Northamptonshire shoemaker had set his heart, to Bengal, made James Wilson only more determined in his infidelity. Neither by the persuasiveness of his speech nor by the gentleness of his life did he, Dr. Thomas, lead to Christ the man who so closely resembled him in temper and in adventures. The two disputed about religion, and mere controversy seemed to drive James Wilson farther from Christ. Thomas remarked after one of these disputations that he had more hope of converting- the heathen or Mohammedan lascars of the vessel than Captain Wilson. So it is that still, as in the days of our Lord and the twelve, some of His followers would call down fire from heaven. 'What a lesson to missionaries in all ages and lands, at home and abroad! Wilson landed at Portsmouth, bought a house and garden at Horndean, in Hampshire, asked an unmarried niece to be his housekeeper, and soon became known in the country round as "a worthy gentleman who had retired to affluence and ease from the East India service. "
He was only thirty-six years of age, and was so well satisfied with himself that he had no conscience either for the teaching of Providence in his past eventful life and preservation, or for the warnings of Scripture, which he did not believe to be a revelation from God, or for the example of his gentle niece, who sought to win him to faith and service. He was a Deist of the old school, and he gained so easy an intellectual victory over one of his neighbors, Captain Sims, a godly man, that he became confirmed in his scepticism. Vanity and pride so filled his heart that he turned God's goodness to him into an argument for the conviction that he was a special favorite of the Deity. But tho unable to give the self-suffi- cient and worldly captain any other reason for his own belief in the Bible than this, " He that believeth hath the witness in himself," Sims did not cease to care for his neighbor's sou!. Accidentally, as it seemed, Sims had his minister, Mr. Griffin, of Portsea, -with him as a visitor on a day . when he was asked to dine with Wilson, and the minister was)ncluded in the invitation. Sims saw his opportunity. Recurring to former debates, he appealed to his minister as, to a man equal to the controversy. Mr. Griffin deprecated discussion in such circumstances, lest he should be sus- pected of being present by some underhand arrangement. This only stimu- lated Wilson, who said: "I am glad of the opportunity to converse on the evidences of the so-called Divine origin of the Christian Scriptures, and I never met the clergyman yet whom I could not foil in a quarter of an hour." Thus challenged, the young minister accompanied his host to the garden, leaving Captain Sims with the niece and a lady friend, who was also a believer. It was a July sunset in a cloudless sky, when the work of soul-enlightening, soul-winning began. The Holy Spirit was with the young theologian, who had first silently invoked His power, according to promise. Step by step the two wrestled to this conclusion, pressed home on Captain Wilson with singular modesty but assured firm- ness, " If you reject the remedy provided by God, remember there is no other, and you may be finally wrong and finally miserable." As Sims approached them in the evening twilight, he said: "Has he convinced you, captain 1" to which Wilson replied: "I wiII not say much about that, but he has said some things I shall never forget. " He begged for a reading of Major Burns's" Christian Officer's Panoply," which he had before scoffingly returned to Sims, who had pressed it upon him, and he began to search the Scriptures for himself. He went to Mr. Griffin's service in Portsea on the next Sunday, when the prayers and the preachings alike opened his heart to the teaclling of Paul, in the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, as to how God had predestinated men to be conformed to Himself in His Son. The next sermon showed how those whom He did predestinate He aL'Io called, and Wilson sawall his past life in the light of that revelation. After solitary agonizing from darkness to light, the proud Deist, now a humble and joyful believer, visited Mr. Griffin to tell him this: "I have no language to express the happiness I now feel. The gratitude I owe to God will, I hope, be expressed in the life I have yet to live by my zeal in His service bearing some proportion to that which I 'have manifested in the service' of Satan." The two joined in magnifying the grace of God. In 1796 James Wilson became a member of Orange Street Chapel, Portsea, and the good work was completed under his friend's preaching on the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he fully comprehended that he had been saved to be the means of saving others. " What," he now ever asked himself, "has my faith induced me to do for others ~"
The London Missionary Society had been founded the year before; its first Secretary, Dr. Love, and his directors had resolved to begin operations in the new island world revealed by Captain Cook in his three voyages, and they appealed for volunteers to go forth as the first missionaries. Captain James Wilson was the first to volunteer. He placed himself, his marvelous experience, and his fortune practically at the disposal of the society. All his worldly plans and visions vanished in the light of the heavenly vision, to which he was no longer disobedient. After continual journeyings to and from London, distant from his home sixty miles, to make preparations for the voyage which he was to conduct, he sold Horndean and went up to London, where he established his niece. On June 28th, 1796, he purchased the ship Duff for five thousand pounds, and on August lOth she sailed from the Thames under this resolution, "That a mission be undertaken to Otaheite, the Friendly Islands, the Marquesas, the Sandwich, and the Pelew Islands, in a ship belonging to the society, to be commanded by Captain Wilson, as far as may be practicable and expedient. " Thus was the missionary sea-captain made for the mission by the Spirit of God, and began the work of Christianizing the islands of the sea, which had so long waited for His law, even during the seventeen Christian centuries since the British Isles first heard the good news of God. The story is told in that now rare quarto volume, published in London in 1799, "A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, performed in the Years 1796,1797,1798, in the Ship Duff, commanded by Captain James Wilson. Compiled from Journals of _the Officers and the Missionaries, and Illustrated with Maps, Charts, and Views drawn by Mr. William Wilson. With a Preliminary Discourse on the Geography and History of the South Sea Islands, and an Appendix including Details never before Published of the Natural and Civil State of Otaheite, by a Committee Appointed for the Purpose by the Directors of the Missionary Society. "
How Wilson and his thirty missionaries fared, and what has sprung in the first century from that expedition, we shall see hereafter.
A Hindu woman wrote to Victoria, Empress of India, recounting the many terrible wrongs under which the women of India labored and pleading with her to have them righted. With the recounting, the burden of their wrongs came on her afresh, and in bitterness of soul she crilld; "0 God, I pray thee, let no more women be born in this land."
THE FOREIGN MISSIONAItY WORK OF THE SALVATION AltMl'
THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY WORK OF THE SALVATION ARMY.
BY ROBERT E. SPEER.
The Salvation Army is a missionary movement. It has been so from the beginning. Its leaders were sent of God, and the movement which they established has known but one thing-its mission to the lost; but the lost are in every land, and it is impossible to confine to anyone land any movement which seeks to bring back to God the masses of His lost ones. Every living movement is a missionary movement. As a recent editorial in the Pittsburgh' Times on the missionary enterprise succinctly stated : " A party which should content itself with supremacy in a single State would quickly fall into decay. An idea worth entertaining is worth push- ing, and the more energetically it is pushed abroad the more influence it will command at home." And back of this is the mighty propulsion of the order of the risen Christ.
The Octobcr number of The Conqueror reports in Australasia, 482 corps and 1527 officers; in Sweden, 175 corps and 658 officers; in India and Ceylon, 186 corps and 584 officers; in France and Switzerland, 111 corps and 421 officers; in Denmark, 70 corps and 267 officers; in South Africa, 55 corps and 195 officers; in Norway, 63 corps and 267 officers j in Holland, 61 corps and 282 officers; in Jamaica, 34 corps and 57 officers; in Germany, 21 corps and 68 officers; in Finland, 17 corps and 58 officers; in Belgium, 14 'corps and 34 officers; in Argentine and Uruguay, 10 corps and 41 officers; in Italy, 7 corps and 29 officers; in Japan, 15 officers; in Icelto!nd, 4 officers; in Spain, 3 officers; in British Guiana, 3 officers; in Great Britain, 1217 corps and 4283 officers. In the ,main, fields have been avoided where officers would have to acquire a new language in order to be of service. "A Year of Grace, ,. one of the publications of the Army, declares of China: ",Ve have not as yet seen Ollr way to add to our existing responsibilities by attempting an attack on this vast empire," and suggests, as explaining the slow progress in South America, that the officers sent out from England h!lve to learn the Spanish language.
The most interesting field in which to observe the missionary operations of the Army is Indi!l, where the Army has been at work for thirteen years, and where it reported for the year 1894, 188 corps and 3513 ont.. posts, with 6 training garrisons for native cadets, 322 officers, 184 cadet~ in training, 13,573 soldiers, 73 schools for children, 3 Homes of Rest for sick officers, 4 Rescue Homes for Vomen, 1 Prison Gate Horne, and 1 fll:rm colony.
The Army's supreme method is direct, enthusiastic assault upon the strongholds of sin. It sets about these assaults with the instinct of victory which Bishop Thoburn, in "The Christles.s Nations," declares to pe the only justifiable Rpirit in the missionary army. ",Ve who are at the front," he declares, and Commissioner Ruhani.Bai would agree, " have no other thought than winning the battle in which we are engaged. We never expect to lower the banner which has been placed in our hands, and as the years and ages pass along we confidently expect the strongholds of sin one after another to be beaten down, and temples of righteousness to rise upon the right hand and the left." The reports of the Army work in India are full of this fervor-e.g., "A Year's Advance," page 30 : " Enthusiastic welcome of colonel to the Cape. Huge crowd at two days'
soldiers' meeting. Vadasary feast to 300 village children. Two days'
officers' councils closed with half-night of prayer, everybody wonderfully blessed and cheered. Thalakudi Barracks opened. Three babies dedi- cated to God; 500 people praying and 50 souls seeking salvation at mass open-air meeting." Or this description of a meeling, from the same report, page 25 : .. Soon after five o'clock the troops began to arrive and take up the positions allotted to them. The ground was admirably situated for making a successful demonstration, the meetings had been well announced, and it soon became appar· ent that there would be a large crowd. By eight o'clock nearly all the soldiers were present, one lassie officer whose corps is situated seven miles off bringing in one hundred soldiers with her. Lively singing, the firing of bombs, letting off of fireworks, the beating of drums, and a stick dance were all brought into requisition to fill up the time before the arrival of the colonel. It was quite late when the welcome news reached the waiting crowd of some fifteen hundred people that the colonel was on the ground. She had no sooner taken her seat than tremendous volleys rent the air, and soldiers from each corps marched up to the front, presenting her with garlands, until the colonel was buried in flowers. This over, Ensign Yesu Patham was called to tbe front and gave out a. song which,'accompanied by plenty of hand.clapping and a lively jig from some of the most enthusiastic and boiling-over soldiers, went with a proper swine. Prayer followed, and in connection with tbese meetings nothing has been mOTe remarkable than to see the crowd of men and women, whu until lately were devil·worshlpers, all on tbeir knees, and in audible voices following the leader of the meeting in prayer to tbe living God. The meeting now commenced in real earnest. A testimony from a well-known late devil-dancer, in full Salvation Army uniform, was very interesting. He had been a worsbiper of twentythree different deities. or devils, and was much in requisition by the villagers around when they were visited with an epidemic. and his gainR from these ignorant people were often large. He was also a great drunkard, swearer. and wife· beater. but was now well saved. a Salvation Army sergeant. and living in peace with his wife and all otbers in the village. Another devil-dancer from Ilindiadi, before giving his testimony, made his way to the front and presented the colonel with a quantity of relics from the temple which they had abolished since becoming Salvationists. These were mounted on a board, and consisted of the knife used for killing fowls or sheep, which the people would offer to appease the wrath of the devil. the anklets worn by the devil-dancer when dancing. the temple bell and tripod. This gift was gracefully received by the colonel amid tbe tremendous enthusiasm of hundreds of recently converted devil.worshipers. When this had somewhat subsided, the colonel said she was glad to see them. She had loved them before seeing them. and now she was actually with them, to receive this reception. so much beyond ber higbest expectations, she felt she loved them ever so much more," Mrs. General Keer, whose husband had formerly been for many years . in the Indian service, a daughter of the Rev. Dr. Somerville, who went to India in 1893 to see the work of the Army for herself, testifies to the accuracy of this representation. "The roar-shout of welcome when Muthabaranum introduced me was tremendous. I felt as if I would die of the sudden and overwhelming noise. Native voices and instruments, women's whistles, drums, and all combined and acting from heart-earnest- ness-yon can picture the awful thrill the noise occasions. They placed a lovely wreath round my neck. The contrast between the savage bar- barism of themselves and their customs and these lovely wreaths-the very essence of grace-is remarkable." "After the meeting that night they had a salvation dance with sticks, singing redemption, deliverance words all the time. It was a beautiful thing! A set of eight men with short batons tramped it. They strike their sticks together like swords.
This dancing used to be for the devil, with arrack; now it is for God.
They do it once a week in the moonlight. I never saw the sense before of ' Praise Him in the dance.' It was really eight Davids dancing before the Lord. It was as distinctly native in time and tune and action and style as possible. " The enthusiasm of the Army's work and its distinctive methods are perhaps not better illustrated than in the Boom Marches, of which the following is a description from "Behold their ·Walls," the report of the Indian work for 1894 : .. A Boom March meeting is a very interesting affair, I can assure you, and if you will accompany me in these pages. I will take you to one. The village of C – is selected for an attack, and announcements of our intention are duly made by our pioneers. who go on ahead to arrange the meetings, test the feelings of the people, and in general smooth the way for the troops to follow. By even· ing the head of the march is spied by a sentinel posted on the lookout. Soon some thirty or forty red· jackets, with banners flying and bugles braying, sweep through the narrow streets to the public square. All the village is gathered. The place is lit up, and a cot, covered with some gay cloth, is put in a conspicu· ous place for the chief gurus or officers to sit on, so that the pleased people may look upon them. As soon as the chief gurus enter they are received with a tremendous volley. The meeting is then started by some well·known tune, which every one can join in. Earnest prayer is offered, while all kneel with closed eyes. Definite testimonies are given, with soul·stirring bright singing in between. The interest never flags for a single moment. No yawning, no going to sleep there. Men, women, and children all wide awake, until at last the leader rises and lays the choice before the people of Christ and His service, with persecution in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting, or the devil and his service, with darkness and eternal misery hereafter. A solemn hush falls over the eager, listening faces. Heart strings tighten, for many, many are in the valley of decision. There is no having to ask the people to kneel, • just to please us ,- they understand that if they kneel with us they are ours, to share henceforth our persecutions and our wrongs. It means their ceasing to worship the devil or go to his temple. It means accepting our Christ, to be known from this time forth as Salvation Army soldiers. Hallelujah, the shout rises, as they, one by one, .towly yield. .. Soon every officer is down among the people, praying with some, pleading with others, and pointing others to the cross. Soon shouts of victory are heard everYWhere, for great has been the slain of the Lord. The converts are then instructed, the officers introduced as theirs, and are, if possible, left in the village the same night. And thus we sweep on, in each place leaving behind some one to shepherd the sheep, and rejoicing nightly over fifty or sixty, it may be one hundred, one hundred .and fifty, or two hundred precious souls seeking salvation, until our supply of officers runs short, and we are obliged to stop opening for the time being."
The Army faith claims the conversion not of single individuals only, but of villages and communities. The report for 1893 defines this as the proper faith for an Army officer : " A Salvation Army officer In a village, tho apart from the town and all its advantages, feels as happy or more so than anyone else possibly can, and living in a barracks made of mud and thatched with cocoanut leaves, sometimes in a small room attached to it as officers' quarters, devotes his time entirely to the salvation of the whole village. The village is not, among others, uninfested with thieves, drunkards, harlots, cattle-stealers, cock-fighters, devil-dancers, gamblers, etc., so he plans and schemes how he can reach them and point them to Christ, who can change their live8 of sin. The program of work for the week is before him, and before commencing to do anything, he, in the night, gets under a tree in the jungle, and there with his lieutenant, if he has one, spends some hours in close communion with the Lord, and gets a mighty baptism of his power and love, which makes him desperate for Jesus in the fight.
"His whole ambition now is to speak to the people of the love of Christ. Visiting and War Ory selling is a wide door opened for him to accomplish his purpose. He spends at least eighteen or twenty hours in visiting during the week. Of course he cannot visit as many houses as he can in a town, as the houses are scattered about here and there. Yet he does not pass one house without trying, in some way or other, to be a blessing to its inmates.
"Begging is another favorite means of the village officer. This he does almost every day of the week. By this means he reaches the hearts of the people he cannot gain by visiting and War Ory selling, wins their sympathy, and shows them that he is entirely depending upon them, whose spiritual and temporal welfare he is living for. He not only makes the people willingly help the work of the Lord, but makes his corps self-supporting, and thereby lessens the burden of the headquarters."
Of bona fide village conversion, Mrs. Keer unqualifiedly testifies: "Oh, if you could have just seen and heard those givings of testimony, you would not have doubted whether these villagers, converted in a lump, were saved or not I" "I have only one thing to say about the movement here, and that is that it is purely Pentecostal and beyond all human nnder- standing. The whole village is converted I" Of another village the re- port for 1894 says: "To-day in that village every soul is a Salvationist, and at their own desire Christian nallles have been given them." The reports and Mrs. Keer's letters alike are unqualified in their statements as to the genuineness of these conversions. "It is a real movement of God's spirit," writes Mrs. Keer, " as remarkable, and much more so, than the Irish revival, because these are heathen brought to God in fifties and hundreds, and they stand well, and snfier, and give, and astonish their caste neighbors and co-pariahs." In vigorous language" Behold their Walls," page 15, declares: " Tobiah to the front again. God bless you, Tobiah! Howl and gnash your teeth, but it will all be vain: the walls of fair Jerusalem are rising! One of the Nagercoil Tobiahs or Sanballats stated in a London paper that no such con- version of entire villages had taken place-at any rate, none to his knowledge. We take this opportunity of asserting not one but many such cases have taken place, where all the inhabitants have publicly abjured demonolatry and accepted Christianity, joined the Salvation Army, and to-day are not unsuccessfully learning to fully follow Jesus Christ as their God and Savior."
The reports do not suppress, however, statements which are of anxious interest to the careful missionary student. " Behold their Walls," pages 12, 28, and 73.
" Only lately a fearful famine faced hundreds of the poor, helpless villagers ; but their new gurus, the Salvation Army officers, had the satisfaction of obtaining work from the government for them at a very fair rate. By the kindness of friends they were also enabled to give food to many, old and young. They also fed hundreds-I mean, kept them alive-by boiling rice and giving them the congee made into a sort of rice soup." "In the above village (Nairug) every soul reckons as either a convert or soldier. At one of their big national festivals, when it is customary after cooking special food to offer it to the gods before eating it, they all brought their food to the officer instead, and told her to pray and bless it fer them. 'As we have forsaken our gods,' they said, 'you must be to us in their place.' One of t.he men, finding his wife had been to the temple to go through the customary ceremonies at the festivel, thought it his duty to reprove her for it by a good beating." "The wild ;:~&ik soldiers have increased to five hundred; and the Army among them has gained a new name-that is, , Red god8.' "
With all this aggressive evangelistic effort, however, there is not wanting, as the statistics already quoted have shown, an enlarging emphallis upon educational and institutional work. " 'Ve have been forced," says "A Year of Grace," page 54, "to combine a measure of educational work on behalf of our own people, confining ourselves to merely elementary and useful knowledge, and adding to this such a system of warm spiritual influence as to keep the great question of the salvation of every pupil perpetually to the front." And page 5 : "If it be indeed true that the hope of a nation is in the cradle, it is difficult to exaggerate the im. portance of this department of religious enterprise. It has often been remarked th::t in the most sweeping revivals of the world the best and largest results have been reaped among the young." In the Cape Comorin District twenty-one primary schools were reported, which, says" Behold their "Valls," page 14, "strengthen the people's belief in our permanent stay among them, and proves to them that we mean to teach, help, and elevate them, as well as to alleviate their hard condition in life. This assurance was necessary in the face of interested and reiterated statements made by the Tobiahs to the contrary." There are also Rescue Homes, a large and widely sought dispensary, and a farm colony of 557 acres. It is to be hoped that the experience of the Salvation Army in this last particular may be more encouraging than the experience of the missionary societies with the Christian village system has proved. The Army does not share the views of many of its advocates in this country, as to the uselessness of schools. "A Year's Advance" describes the school at Sabamarti as " one of the most promising features of our present work, ",hich bids fair to become one of the best grounds for training the future Indian leaders of the great Salvation Army."
The Army has not overlooked the necessity of the development of selfsupport, as " A Year's Advance" shows: .. The month.of February was made memorable by the launching of a scheme that had long been contemplated by our general and commissioners-that of selfsupport-the success of which Is very largely due to the strenuous and untiring efforts put forth by Staff-captain Isu Charan, who, for the time being, was told off to introduce it.
" The full meaning of self-support is the entire cost of any given work met by the people for whom the work exists, including cost of management and all the expenses of the different headquarters, as well as the supply of food and clothing to the officers in the village corps, and the payment of the corps expenses; but progress has not yet been made so far as this. At present efforts are being directed to get the people of each village, both saved and unsaved, to keep their officers supplied with food and clothing. Much more than this has been done in many corps in various parts, but there is yet much more to be done.
"The system of self-support that was adopted was simple, and in accord with the ideas of the people. Each soldier was expected to give one pice in cash or one sir (about a pint) of grain per week per family for the support of their officers. This was to be quite separate from the usual collections in the meetings. The village was divided into wards, and for each ward a local officer appointed to see that every soldier therein gave his pice regularly. These gifts were to be given to the corps treasurer, by whom they would be delivered to the captaiu after the amount had been entered in a book. Copies of the Jangi Pokar (Gujarati War Cry), containing the rules of the system, were posted up in each ward and in the sergeants' houses, so that the soldiers should become thoroughly acquainted with the scheme. It was found that much more money was given, in proportion, than grain, altho our people are so poor.
.. Staff-captain Isu Charan, writing a few months later on the subject, ' Selfsupport in Gujarat, Past and Present,' gave the following summary of their position in this respect : " , Gujarat is coming out victorious after a struggle long and hard, and of such a nature that those who loved it most had their faith and strength sorely tried. Self-support, or rather support of the stationed officers by the local soldiers, is the thing which was thought impracticable. For even this much, without the support oC superintending operations, the leaders prayed, and toiled to make the thing understood and carried out. The low-caste soldiers are poor, and accustomed to the Idea, In the Christian religion at least, that the rich sahlbs come to give to them. Outsiders said that our Gujarati officers would all clear off and never return if they had not to go to the sahibs for bread and butter, but to the people for bread only, and that uncertain and poor. Those officers have had to suffer to win-many were dismayed, not seeing so clearly as the gener,.l and others the absolute dependence upon these lines of not only the impport of the workers, but the very chance of all the soldiers working out their own salvation (not working for it). Some Gujarati officers left under the first struggle for support; s'till, on the whole, we never knew any people endure so well. We foreigners sometimes thought we saw the turn of the tide, sometimes not. We waited for the people themselves to decide it. That is what they are now doing. Hallelujah! Family officers have returned. Cadets are coming in again, and our total is higher than ever it was.
" 'The people of the villages, saved and unsaved, never before showed so much confidence in God's army, or listened in such numbers to its teachings. In the Bhll districts the officers have food given them and laid up for the monsoons, and they are preparing to do without even clothing allowance. With the increase of the work, as great a mountain as ever remains to be faced in the carrying on of its superintendence; for the local needs the soldiers have to add works to their faith, and for the general supervising operations, that rupees may come fast enough, we have to add faith to our works.' ..
Even among these poor, the blessing of self-denial has been earnestly taught. The feature of Salvation Army work in India which has received most attention has been its adoption of the manners and customs of the natives, with the self-sacrificing devotion necessary for this purpose and the econ- omy in the conduct of mission work which has been supposed to result from it. "Behold their 'Valls" tells of the introduction of the Army's work into India by Commissioner Tucker, who at the outset set the ex- ample of attempted identification with the people.
" The year 1882 stands out star-like in the annals of our glorious Army's history, dawning as it did a new epoch in its ethics, eternizing the Pauline doctrine of ' all things to all men,' as was emphasized in the person of our beloved Commissioner Tucker, who, like St. Francis of Assisi, wandered about barefooted, a voluntary outcast from wealth and pleasure, till he became to India's people what St. Francis was to his-that is, an embodiment of holy, consecrated humanity. A. little drop of the same Divine love had fallen in the commissioner's heart, and constrained him to become poor for India's sake, to take upon himself the garb of a poor fakir, that, by being an Indian to the Indians, he might happily win a few."
Native names were adopted by the foreign officers. Miss Booth, now Mrs. Booth-Hellborg, is called Ruhani Bai j Miss Barrington became Cap- tain Adarawanti, and Major Grundy became Major Eshwar Das and mar- ried a Hindu wife_ Mrs. Keer is especially enthusiastic over this adoption of native customs: "I watched a Salvation Army officer wash his clothes in a river where sometimes tigers come to drink. It was moonlight, and I could easily see how the practiced hand brought the cloth heavily down at a particular angle on the stone, so that the work was rapidly and effectually done. It struck me that. I had never seen or heard of a settled European missionary in India washing his single change of raiment before. Why need such an elementary style of life be adopted? Then I had a new view of the elastic and wonderful devotion of the Army. In particular districts its officers wash in rivers or tanks, be they clean or foul, that they may the more effectually become one with the poor people, who have so washed their clothes from time immemoriall The simple cloth and jacket and turban are hung up to dry 'and put on again without any ironing."
One of the fruits of this poverty is the necessity for begging, of which Mrs. Keer writes without concealment. "The Army begs at each port on board the ships, and is so poor in its headquarters that it would really be a cruelty in me to misrepresent them. The men-officers, and frequently the women, if not in ill-health, coming from India to Ceylon, travel steerage-deck-entirely, and it is awful with a lot of coolies on board in a storm! The hardships of the Salvation Army in India no one can fathom in imagination. I am glad I bave seen a little of their sufferings. I am ever increasingly filled with wonder at tbe Army." She berself wrote on October 30th, 1893, that she had not had a shoe or stocking on since she arrived on the 13th, but that, however, she was unable to eat the hot curry of the people, but had cold fish and tea. After a few days' experience in the work, and having slept two nights in a mnd hut, Mrs. Keer wrote: "By this time I utterly and forever had decided that this was the way to do, if you wanted to get at the people." All this, however, she believes to be worth the cost. "Wholesale crucifixion to likes and dislikes, and a determination never to come down from the cross, would be the only way to begin and continue. Yet, certainly, Europeans can't do continuously all that natives do. The Army has had to modify much, but it still is, far out of sight, a native thing beyond any other mission in the land." "As Ambai said to me: ' No one knows what they will haye to go through when they come to India j but all who do the work say it is lovely, and worth the cost of personal feelings. The life at headquarters, being sort of English, none of the village officers enjoy.' For my own part, I do think village life in some ways less unpleasant than life at these headquarters in a sort of a fifth-rate European style, mingled with some objectionable native conditions." "The Salvation Army is the hope of India because it lives crucifixiou and holiness."
The Army in India would seem not to be overlooking the necessity for proper training. Village young men and women are gathered into the training garrisons or are stationed out in villages under the immediate eare of some experienced officer, and weekly or oftener are gathered at some district center for regular instruction. The understanding, at least in Gnjarat, is that cadets will receive no salary, and only such sustenance as can be raised among their own soldiers. Of course the organization is monarchical. "A ride of some twenty-eight miles from Poona," says "Bchold their ·Walls," page 26, "brings us to Major Yuddha Bai's headquarters, where she reigns and rules as Queen Ahsolnte. Her division contains at present 4 sections, with some 13 corps manned by 24 officers, 10 candidates, 149 soldiers, and a miscellaneous following of some 305 recruits.' , This would seem to he in miniature the organization of the whole Army, over which the general is supreme, and throughout which his jnftuence is unmistakably felt. "Behold their W aJls/' page 8. " Throughout the whole of our Indian territory rang the battle-cry: • General expects evel'y man to do his duty.' So Madras answered the call by gathering her forces together and starting the campaign with a half night of prayer. And it was this little muster, while hearts were melted and weighted with the load of eternal tlIings, that formed the daring plan of capturing one hundred prisoners from the enemy. God was great, their cause righteous, so they must expect great things, yea, do great things; so they resolved to add to their jubilee honors by raising fifty soldiers and bringing fifteen cadets to the Training Home. So with faith that laughed at impossibility, backed by prayer and hard work, they led an attack on the forts of darkness, capturing 124 prisoners, recruiting 71 soldiers, and swearing in 22 cadets. Glory to God !"
The optimism of the Army's work finds ample expression in its reports, as does also its consciousness of self-sacrifice. " Behold their Walls," page 6. "Between that ever-memorable year 1882 and this 1894, stretches a vista of twelve years. If the area of those twelve years could be focused on paper, brought panorama-like before the eyes. of the world, what a sublime spectacle would it present! What spanless oceans of unselfish, loving service, what spanless seas of victories, gilded and garnished by unvoiced sufferings! How full of those tender sunlight and shadow touches, that waken music in our hearts, when we read the story of Him who walked by Galilee." Or" A Year of Grace," pages 49 and 50 : "No one who has given any time to examining the fabric of heathendom, colossal tho it be, can hesitate to believe that it is daily approaching a complete and universal collapse. In a few decades at most Buddhism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and fetishism will be as completely wiped out of existence as the Druidism of Great Britain. Looked at from a lteathen standpoint, Christianity has somewhat lacked the enthusiasm, the coloring and demonstration which the Oriental mind associates with ilie declaration of his religious convictions, and it has maintained a foreign element, or aspect, which has been distasteful to the national prejudice. In these respects the Salvation Army has appeared wonder· fully to supply the missing link, and has presented Christianity in such a manner as very largely to obtain non-hostile consideration."
These quotations from the official reports of the Salvation Army are set down out of kindliest sympathy with the Army, to give a clearer under- .standing of its work, with which all friends of missions have great sympathy, and for which they desire every success, however solicitous they may be as to particular features of the Army's operations and methods. It must be borne in mind that Major Jai Bhai, who has been in India about thirteen years, has had a longer experience than that of any other Salvation Army officer in India ; so that there has in reality been time for no one of the leaders of the Army in India to enter very fully into an understanding of the thought of India and the life and language of her people. And there are some features of the work of the Army which, in the judgment of many, it would be desirable to have modified. One objection made in India to the work of the Army, writes a careful observer from Calcutta, is that " it does not insist on baptism (and that is the only thing that keeps back many natives. Hindus can do everything Christian except be baptized or take communion without breaking caste). In their reports of conversions, they count everyone who says he accept.;; Christ asidl:l from his willingness to be baptized. It is a question whether in native communities the Army does not do distinct harm by recognizing as Christians those who refuse to obey so ,definite a command as to be baptized." In his little book on " Christian Service among Educated Bengalese," Rev. Robert P. Wilder speaks of an interview with Mrs. Booth-HcUborg, in which he told her of the way in which many students who seemed to be on the threshold of making an open Christian confession, fell back on the plea that the Salvation Army does not baptize, and asked: "Are not the friends and members of the Salvation Army Christians ~ If they do not regard baptism as essential, why should I regard it so~" Mrs. Booth· Hellborg's defence was: "If baptism were so important, God would have revealed its importance to my sainted mother and to my good father. "
"I do not think," adds Mr. Wilder, " that the Salvation Army leaders and sympathizers in Europe and America realize how seriously they injure Christ's cause in India by disobeying His plain commands concerning baptism and the Lord's Supper. Missionaries in India are practically unanimous in the belief that baptism is the test for educated Hindus. A Babu mar cease worshiping idols; he may neglect the Hindu Shastras and read the Bible; he may believe in Jesus and confess Him openly by word of mouth-all this will not make an outcast of him; but the moment he is baptized persecution begins; then, and only then, he Is regarded as really a Christian by his Hindu friends. "
Complaint has been made against the Army also because of its trans- grelilsion upon territory already comparatively well occupied by other mis- sionary societies, and for its apparent willingness to enter into competition with these other societies, even to the extent of diverting their converts and native helpers, while there are still large regions wholly unoccupied.
The report for 1894 states that" the Tittuvilli District has been the most successful of our fields so far." And yet of this very district Mr. Duthie, a missionary of the London Missionary Society at Nagercoil, writes : " Tittuvilli. let, me remark, is a small district under a native pastor, whose head station is six miles from Nagercoil. It is a rice·growing part of the country, with a considerable number of pariah villages. The IJondon Missionary Society has been working there for many years. The pariahs there were in slavery when the missionaries came, and were set free by them many years ago. Much labor and money have been expended upon these people. Every village has been visited by our preachers hundreds of times, and great numbers in the courS6 of these years have been brought under the influence of the Gospel. We have now in Tittuvilli 15 congregations, 1773 adherents, and upward of 1000 children in our schools. Tittuvilli and Nagercoil districts have had more Christian workers for many years than can be found in any other country districts of India of the same size. Let this fact be noted. Yet this is the locality upon which the Salvation Army has been concentrating its forces for the past three· years, their work in numerous other places having been abandoned.
" But I proceed to state a few particulars illustrative of their methods of working in Tittuvilli; and, that there may be no mistake, I give names of places and people as far as possible. At present the Salvation Army work is carried on there by about fifty·seven officers or agents in fifteen villages, only four of which were purely heathen. In every one of the other eleven the London Missionary Society has been working for many years. The people of one village, called Velankadu, consisting of sixty-seven adults, was reported in the War Cry two years ago as having become entirely Christian. According to the 0'1"1/, they had all become Salvation Army' heroes j' but when inquiry was made, soon after the statement appeared in print, not a Ollristian could be found in the place. Up to this time, also, that village is entirely heathen. The headquarters of their work is at a village called Talikudi, which has been a London Missionary Society center for many years. They have a meeting-house there within two hundred yards of the London Missionary Society chapel. Fifty-six of our people have joined them, of whom fifteen are employed as ' gurus,' or agents, and in that one village, while the London Missionary Society has one evangelist, two schoolmasters and two Bible-women, the Salvation Army officers are nineteen in number.
" In Puliady there are no heathen, all are London Missionary Society Chris· tians; yet recently the Salvation Army went in there also and conducted meetings. At South Arasankuli, which has but one street, where the London Mis· sionary Society has been working for a long time, meetings were held on October 3d by Major J aikodi. Flags were displayed in three places. one fiag being opposite the London Missionary Society chapel. The two 'gurus' working there were formerly in London Missionary Society employ. One, called Asseer, got four and a half rupees j present pay in Salvation Army, seven and a half rupees. At Chekkadi the London Missionary Society has forty Christians. The heathen there number about thirty-seven. The Salvation Army has begun work in that village also. In fact, as our native missionary states, where there is a Christian congregation, and eRpecially where there are people who have backslidden or have been excluded from the London Missionary Society communion from any cause, there the Salvation Army goes and begins operations.
" As to their methods of working, a favorite plan is to visit just before the London Missionary Society worship begins; to express a desire to have prayer in a house; and in this way to make attendance at the regular service a matter of difficulty or impossibility. Sunday work, after worship, is allowed, which no doubt is a recommendation to some. Moreover, efforts have been made which have been successful in several instances, 1 regret to say, to entice our London Missionary Society agents, as in Coimbatore, to join them on promise of higher pay. A dis· affected deacon (Varempettan) of one of our churches has been taken on as a • guru,' and draws seven and a half rupees per month. Rival schools are established in some parts within a. quarter of a mile from the London Missionary Society schools.
" Our native pastor complained 0. short time ago to Yesubatham, staff-cap. tain, of some of these things, and particularly about their enticing away our agents by offering them higher pay. The reply was that he was not aware that anything of the kind was going on, and that he should make his complaint to officers of lower grade.
" As to TittuviIli, truth compels me sorrowfully to say, after two or three years' experience, that instead of being what Christian workers everywhere would rejoice at, a valuable evangelistic agency to' raw heathen' in thousands of places in India as yet untouched by the Gospel, the whole method of Salvation Army proceedings there is well calculated to provoke strife, to cause divisions in Christian congregations, to unsettle Christian workers, to foster the caste spirit. to lead to the disregard of the Lord's day and the ordinances of the Lord's house, Christian people at home and elsewhere, who support the Army, being mean. while led to believe, by a system of reporting which has been &hown over and over again to be utterly hollow, and worse, that the Salvation Army is gloriously marching on to victory, • raw heathen' in t7wu3ands being swept into the Chris- tian ranks, when, in fact, no such thing takes place. But to collect a crowd by means of torches, a band~ shouting and dancing, is, in this country, and espe- cially among the easily excited pariah people, the easiest thing possible. The abandonment of idolatry and becoming steady, patient disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ is a different matter altogether."
This same difficulty and other possible perils of the Army's work are kindly but firmly treated in an earnest and dignified letter, which was issued in 1889 by the missionaries of the nine societies at work in Madras.
.. The work of the Salvation Army in India has been much extolled by some , critics, and attempts have been made to claim for it a measure of success far greater than that which has followed the missionary work of the societies; but such attempts have been made on wholly insufficient grounds.
.. The statistics of the Army for India have not been tabulated with exactness, and its official reports have not placed before the public all the facts on which a true verdict should rest. While we earnestly desire the success of every mis- sion agency, which in the spirit of Christ seeks the salvation of India, we are compelled to state that in South India the work of the Army has not been suc- cessful. Recent statistics, and statistics are the approved and applied test of the Army itself, show that its adherents, few of whom are really the result of its own work, are decreasing in number. It has swelled its ranks with the converts of other churches, who have not been improved by the transition, and many of them hltve again returned to their own folds. The whole of its work has been done within areas under process of evangelization by other societies, and only where churches have been planted and work firmly estabIlshed by other mission agencies have Salvation Army agents planted themselves, and only to exert a disturbing infiuence on existing churches. By such a course only, unjust and objectionable as it is, has it been possible for the agents of the Army to exist in India. Compelled by their rules to seek local self-support, they have found it easier to exhibit their need and appeal with success to Christians than to appeal to Hindus, and in this way they have diverted funds from other Christian work. Only the merest fraction of their support has ever come from non·Christians. Tho there are many districts in which from want of laborers no missionary work is done, the Army has carefully avoided these. It has been compelled to seek the common necessaries of life first of all, so that the choice of fields has been determined not by the spiritual needs of Hindus, but by the material needs of the Army.
" It has been affirmed that the agents of the Army have been able to come into closer sympathy with the natives of India than missionaries do, and that they have done this by discarding the dress and customs of Europeans. Both these statements are incorrect. For at least two centuries the Englishman has been a familiar figure in India. To this generation he is now almost as familiar as the Mussulman. To Hindus his dress seems to be even attractive. While no Hindu dreams of adopting the Mussulman costume, thousands of Hindus are now adopting the English dress; it is impossible, therefore, that what is familiar and attractive can at the same time be specially repellent. All who know anything of human nature will agree that not by a particular dress, but by intelligence and true sympathy, do we find access to the hearts ot men. Soul must touch soul. And eating curry and rice with one's fingers and wearing long hair are poor substitutes for a knowledge of the language and thought of Hindus. We are certain that the weight of intelligent testimony entirely confutes the Salvation Ai'my statements on this matter.
.. Following the assumed success of the Salvation Army, the question has been raised, 'Could not a cheaper European agency be employed with advantage in the mission field?' To this we reply that any European agent who is efficient and who is duly maintained will be useful. With regard to the Army, however, we would point out that the cost of its European agents in India has never been made known. Further, it should be noted that the number of deaths among them has been exceptionally large, and the number of those laid aBide by sickness very great as compared with other mission agents. By death, by sickness, or by retirement from mission work, the number of its agents has baen terribly reduced, and we attribute this alarming waste and unnecessary wear and tear to the way of living imposed on the agents of the Army. Again, the average stay 'of these agents in India is notoriously brief, and since most of them have never become acquainted with the vernacular, their value as effective agents is more than doubtful. The plan of operations which the Army has adopted, and according to which its agents are compelled to work, is such that while all the disabilities and risks peculiar to life in India are needlessly multiplied to them, there has been no compensating gain in efficency or in power; and since Christianity is not Hinduism, why an English evangelist in India should resemble a Hindu beggar is not evident.
"In eaprit de corp8 and in completeness of consecration to the work which they are sent to do, the agents of the Army have our sincere respect; and because we desire to see the Army no longer a parasite, but a powerful and permanent missionary agency, we would urge attention to the following points-viz.: " 1. That a higher standard of intelligence be fixed for its European agents. "2. That begging, as now practised, cease to be compulsory. " 3. That they be not compelled to denationalize themselves by renouncing European dress and customs. " 4. That its work be dune in fields chosen in consultation with other societies, so that unnecessary friction and waste may be avoided. " 5. That its agents receive an allowance sufficient for their support. " 6. That, since influence is cumulative, the itinerant system be less violently practised, and agents be permitted to remain for a longer period in places where they are calculated to be useful."
The Army is not unaware of these criticisms, as passages like the following from "Behold their Walls" indicate: "Vith a heart broken, melted, and permeated with this Calvary love-this Christ essence-Commissioner Tucker was commissioned by General Booth to build a wall of salvation around India. And in spite of the caviling, envious Sanballats (critics), Tobiahs (churchmen), the Ashdodites and Arabians, of difficulties, sicknesses, hatred, and persecution, a fair and goodly wall is being raised, a grand portion of which already encircles sun-bedazzled Hindustan, and embraces many a village in storied Ceylon. So the walls are rising, the burned stones from the heaps of rubbish are being revived, while our poor little two-legged Sanballats (critics) waste their precious God-given time and talents in writing columns for the devil's manual of misstatements and distorted truths. We wish them joy in their dirty work."
NEW FORCES FOR MISSION WORK
It· is greatly to be desired, however, that the Army will not so flatly refuse advice kindly proff!Jred to it by men of as great earnestness of spirit as its own officers, of much deeper acquaintance with India, her languages, her religions, and her people, and with a much longer missionary experience. The true friends of missions believe that the Army has a place in missionary work, that it stands for some valuable principles. Some of them agree with Mrs. Keer that "sad harm has been done to converts by missionaries who taught natives European ways. A harvest of extravagance and worldliness is now being reaped in native Christian circles in cities, directly traceable to this mistake. " The Army stands for neglect of hampering conventionalities, for the instinct of victory, for simplicity of method, for the need of a present and complete salvation from sin, for an indigenous, self-denying, self-supporting, selfextending Christian organization. It needs to be careful, however, lest its divine impulse degenerate into martial enthusiasm j its self-sacrifice into self-satisfied and pharisaical asceticism. It should work with the other missionary societies rather than as their competitor and antagonist. It should beware of mistaking a change of clothing or of song and dance for a living faith in Christ. It should inquire whether much of its militarism is not as European as the ways of which Mrs. Keer complains, and is not likely to be as fruitful of harm. It is felt by many, also, that the Army needs in India wiser and stronger management. The discipline of the Army needs to be better adapted to the needs of the country, and there seems to have been wanting that harmony of view among its Euro. pean officers which is the condition of the fullest blessing of God. Many friends and helpers of the Army's work, also, have been unable to suppress a feeling of regret at the boastful tone of "Behold their WaIls j" and while they pray that the Army's work may be ever more and more successful in every land, they do not fail to add the petition which has been the strength of the Moravian Church, "From the unhappy desire of being great, good Lord deliver us. "
NEW FORCES FOR MISSION WORK.
BY ERNEST B. GORDON, BOSTON, MASS.
The present century is westering to its close. It has been, by com· mon consent, the very culmination of all the centuries, prolific beyond previous conception in all fields of human activity. It has been also a century in which the Divine hand has made itself felt as never since the apostolic era. It has been a century of opportunity. It has been a century of expansion. It has been a century of intensive religious experience, too, as well as of extensive missionary operation. It rose upon a world lying in the shadow of death. Darkness was upon the face of the deep'. Whole continents were not so much as explored, t4I say nothing of being opened and evangelized. It closes upon a world clear in every direction to the advance of Christendom-a world the farthest points in which can be reached in a few weeks by Christian agencies. It closes with a missionary movement unparalleled in its successes-a movement whic~ is yearly gaining strength and tidal propulsion; for India is trembling on the brink of a landslide; Japan, after reaching the farthest point of reaction, is turning again with redoubled energy toward Christ; Africa is ablaze in a hundred points-in Uganda, in Basutoland, in Madagascar ; Russia is being honeycombed with a vital nonconformity; China is entering upon an era of Renaissance in which the patient labor of a generation of missionaries will doubtless now reap its full harvest. World over the fountains of the great deep are breaking up. 'VorId over one finds indications of great, solemn, incomparably important changes. Christianity, in fulfilment of the Divine program, is becoming a universal religion. The Gospel of the kingdom is being rapidly witnessed to throughout the world.
When we turn, however, to the home agencies in this earth-wide work of evangelization, we find much that is discouraging. America and England, in common with the commercial world at large, have been suffering from serious and long-continued financial depression. From such epidemics Christians are, of course, not quarantined, and the practical effect on the operations described above has been that which naturally results from shrinkage in income and retrenchment in plans. Not a missionary board but has been aftlicted with the incubus of deficit. Not a local church but has received its quota of circulars describing the pressing urgency and sore need of the executive committee directing at headquarters. The resources of the churches are ample. The wealth of Christia~s has been too often dwelt on to need restatement here. It is in sense of obligation and in extent of spiritual vision that their poverty lies. Without an enrichment in these directions it is doubtful whether the repeated recurrence of these periods of distress can be warded off.
Pending such an enrichment of the inner life of present-day Christianity, we must cast about for other means of carrying on the appointed work. It is an open question to the writer whether or not, in view of the extraordinary changes in the world since the days of J ndson and Martyn, the method of conducting Christian missions is not in a large degree archaic. Conditions were such in the early part of this century as to make unavoidable the substitution of "send ye into all the world" for the received version of the passage. Such an interpretation is by no means so pertinent nowadays, when the whole world is open to alien residence and accessible at the shortest notice. To distribute Bibles in Rome fifty years ago meant imprisonment or worse; to disembark on Japanese soil meant the loss of one's head; to undertake mission work in three countries out of four was equivalent to martyrdom. Long distance w.ork was then a necessity. It behooves us now, however, in view of these changes, to inquire whether we are really working with the right end of the lever. Is it not possible that the distressful financial situation has a lesson in it for the Christian Church ~ And may not that lesson consist in a new emphasis on the personal equation, the return to a literal and personal interpretation of the great commission ~ This doubtless may seem hazy and impractical to many readers. Consider a moment. The last federal Congress passed legislation looking to the imposition of a tax on incomes. This, as all know, was set aside by the courts. Suppose, however, that the law had stood, that the assess- ments had been drawn up, and that one could have gotten free access to the lists. What a story would they not have told us! 'Ve should have there read of hundreds of thousands of incomes contribnting less to the work which Christ set us to do than to the Government at Washington for its new ironclads and improved ordnance. If we could get more precise information, we should learn that all up and down the land are scattered Christian men and women, with incomes little or large, yet sufficient for support, whose interest in this great epoch- movement is confined at most to an annual subscription and to a diligent I attendance upon missionary meetings. To such we address ourselves. They constitute the reserve force, the landwehr, which should be called into immediate action. The representative system cannot last much longer: A missionary propaganda conducted solely by proxy will soon be felt to be an anachronism. We need a new RefOl'mation, which shall emphasize the universal missionary function as the German Reformation did the universal priesthood of believers. A general movement, a Christian diaspora, can alone cope with the gigantic needs of the situation. The destruction of Jerusalem scattered'the brands which.fired the whole Roman world. The exile of Stundists has in our day been instrumental in the diffusion of the Gospel through much of Central Asia, Siberia, and Asia Minor. Is it possible that Christians of England and America need the heavy hand of persecution before starting on the mission which has been entrusted to them as to chosen children ~ The paid missionary should be to the Christian Church what the picket is to the main army. Steadily has he advanced; farther and farther has he pushed toward the enemy's lines. Has he now the requisite support- ing column at his back? Have the numerous outlying regions which he has reconnoitred and cleared been occupied 1 Is the work of the Chris- tian Church accomplished when she has thrown far out in front her thin line of missionaries ~ Are there not thousands with sufficient to support themselves comfortably in Palestine, in Japan, in Egypt, and elsewhere, who are instead taking their ease in the quiet and safety of the home Church? Now and then one finds independent workers in the field-in the Church Mission in India, for example, and in the China Inland Mis- sion ; but could not these be multiplied by hundreds if the situation were clearly brought before the minds of home Christians? Would it not be possible to establish a League of Self-supporting Volunteers, to organize a Bureau of Information which should supply intelligence of the particular needs of different fields,. and advice concerning cost of living, safety of person, climatic conditions, opportunities for Christian companionship, etc.? Could not volunteer substitute teachers in this way release for more distinctly evangelistic work those engaged in teaching history and mathematics and English in mission schools? Could not such enlist for short terms-five or ten years-not committing themselves necessarily for life residence?
Everybody knows how ubiquitous is the trader in the remoter regions of the earth. Scarce a tribe in Africa but has rued his coming; scarce an island in the South Seas that is unacquainted with his cheap manufactures and illicit liquors. It is not so generally known how largely men of culture, wearied with civilization, have betaken themselves to the wilderness. We know how Stevenson loved Samoa, choosing it as both home and burial-place before his Scotch birthplace. Tahiti offered for years a like refuge to the brilliant Pierre Loti. Madagascar became the adopted home of Le Conte dc Lisle. Olive Schreiner lives with her husband far up in the great Karoo of South Africa. Lafcadio Hearne has married a Japanese wife and settled down in a Japanese village, and Count Tolstoi has left the brilliant life of Western Europe for the isolation and monotony of Russian village life. Surely Christians have a higher, a more urgent motive to expatriation than the nefarious profit of the trader or the caprice of an ennuied litterateur. Surely, if the Pauline spirit has not entirely died out of the Christian Church, some may be found who without the entanglement of official connection stand ready to reinforce as volunteer anxiliaries the impaired regular forces of Christian missions.
Such a movement could be greatly facilitated if we could disillusion possible volunteers of the supposed universal formidableness of the missionary life. It is a mistake to suppose that missionaries are always and everywhere subject to hardship and suffering. Undoubtedly this was so in the inception of the missionary movement of our century. Doubtless it is so in many quarters now-along the fever-haunted coasts and riverbottoms of Africa, in the intolerably crowded cities of China, and in the thrice-heated plains of Southern India. On the other hand, there are fields for missionary labor which have a charm and attractiveness far surpassing that of the home-land itself. Of the uplands of Ceylon, for example, one could say, in the appropriate words of an Arabic inscription upon the Taj : "If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." Indeed, this fact is now so generally recognized that Ceylon is becoming one of the favorite resorts of the idlers of winter-time, a sort of Asiatic Riviera or California. And speaking of France, where could one find a more promising field spiritually than among her people, weary of Romanism, disenchanted of the Sodom.apples of pleasure-seeking, ready to consider and accept the way of life 1 What would not the McAll Mission give for a contingent of one hundred newly enlisted self-supporting workers for the evangelization of French cities-a sort of lay order like the Tertiaries of St. Francis 1 And from the point of view of personal expenditure and personal discomfort (tho it may seem unheroic, indeed, to dwell on this), where would one suffer less than among the kindly peasantry of Normandy and the Limousin 1 Then consider Italy, with its multitude of unfolded and uutaught. Why should Christian men and women, who perchance are without especial cares and responsibilities, prefer taking an interest in missions at home, in New York or Chicag9, to taking a part in missions in Florence or Rome 1 Are there not great possibilities of usefulness here 1 Could we find a sturdier stock than the peoples of Piedmont and Lombardy 1 Could we find more necessitous ones than those of Sicily and Calabria 1 Are there no Christians wintering in Asheville and St. Augustine who could spend their spare months in Naples and Girgenti to the greater glory of God and to the hastening of His kingdom? The ·Winter Mission of English Christians among the English-speaking people of India is a precedent which could be followed elsewhere. And, not to mention other European fields, what shall we say of Greece and of Spain, so long closed to missionary effort by religious exclusiveness and bigotry 1 Are not these countries purposely open for those unable to undergo the dangers and hardships and persecutions of the back provinces of China and the Hinterlands of Africa 1 If one should draw up a list of places fitted for such volunteer effort, what a category of Edens he would have! Not to recall again the numberless European fields, there would be the lovely islands of the Hawaiian group; Samoa, with its great hotels at Apia ; Darjeeling and Simla and Naini Tal, in the foot-hills of the Himalayas-of gloriously even clime, under the shadow of the gigantic Alps of Asia j Utacamund in the Nilghiri Hills, with its marvelous rose-hedges and sunsets; Hakone, Kyoto, Nikko, and a hundred other places in Japan-for Japan should be a veritable stronghold of the independent mission. No mission-field has a more tractable people, none is more delightful iu climate, in historical association, in present-day interest j none has a larger community of Englishspeaking people (save India), and missionaries are-we speak from personal acquaintance-of all people, the most neighborly, the most Christian, the best informed. No country has a smaller criminal residuum, in no place is life safer. European women can go through the loneliest roads in the country wit.hout fear. What opportunities at every tea-house to teach the way of Jesus, as Jesus Himself taught it by the well of Sychar ! Where could a volunteer colporteur, with bag and bicycle, find better openings for effective work than along the great highway of the Hokkaido, with its innumerable villages, its passing traffic, its journeying wayfarers 1 Further, it is a peculiarly opportune time for such enterprises in the Sunrise Kingdom. The new treaties have made the interior accessible as never belore since the first opening of the country, and recent events have resulted in a gratifying subsidence of the anti-foreign feeling of the J oi faction. Nowhere, again, could one have a greater choice of climate, if this should happen to be a consideration. The cold and snows of Yezo and the sub-tropical vegetation of Kiushiu indicate the wide stretch of the climatic arc. We can, indeed, conceive of no happier place for a joyous missionary service than in this land, under the long shadows of Hiyesan and of Fujiyama.
We have pleaded for a new exodus, an outpouring into the ends of the earth of those who are able to go, like the medireval vavasor, who furnished his own horse, lance, and armor. Yet there is a final reserve (we say it in spite of traditionalists of missionary policy) which has been brought into play with little success as yet perhaps, but which with proper management can be used with real effect. We refer to the mission supporting itsclf on the field. Objection will be immediately taken j yet we have high precedent, for did not the greatest of all apostles write that his own hands ministered unto his necessities ~ And if Paul could sew tentcloth in the intervals of his evangelistic work at Thessalonica and Athens, might not, for example, men trained at Princeton and Amherst write correspondence for American papers while laboring in the high places of infidelity in Paris and Vienna ~ The writer knows of a Russian journalist, converted in a Baptist mission in the former city, who is an efficient coworker in his spiritual birthplace, and even succeeds occasionally in introducing the Gospel surreptitiously into his contributions to the home papers, spite of the keen surveillance of Orthodox censors.
And, again, in more distinctively pagan lands are there not opportunities which American ingenuity could avail itself of for the futherance of mission work ~ We speak not of China and India, where the illimitable ocean of economic competition would soon drown all such efforts. Yet even here, in outlying dependencies, much might be done. Why, for instance, could a self-supporting mission, organized by Christian farmers of Kansas or Nebraska, not be established in Korea V One could hardly want better conditions-an inexhaustible soil, high prices for products (for butter, cheese, potatoes, and such supplies generally are imported to the East from California, Switzerland, and Australia), a ready market in the treaty ports of China and Japan, and the Nippon-Yusen-Kaisha steamers to carry produce to these points_ When the land has finally quieted down after its experiences of yesterday, and has become straightened out by the efficient administrators of Japan, it will be, in the writer's thinking, no worse a home for Americans than the alkali, drought-afllicted, storm-torn prairies of our country. Surely in the interim of five years which men require for the mastery of their new language, such employment would be welcome to many and a source of sufficient income to defray the outlay of the preparatory period. There is no Quixotism here. We believe the farmer has his place in the missionary economy as well as the physician, the school-teacher, the translator, and the theologian. This is especially true of South Africa, It is a common enough thing for a brace of Scotchmen to settle in the highlands of Pondoland or Gazaland, there to build houses and plant vineyards. This they do with no ulterior purpose beyond the m,ere getting of a living; but surely 1here must be Christian artisans and farmers who could do the same thing, while making their final aim the evangelization of the populations of degraded blacks all about. The Cape General Mission and the Baptist Mission in' South Africa have both received, we understand, from Sir Cecil Rhodes, large tracts of land for such colonization. We doubt not, if Bishop Taylor's experiment could be tried in these temperate and lovely highlands of South Africa, it would meet with a success besides which that of the Congo Mission would be accounted partial and meager. And finally, to say nothing of the possibilities of such enterprises in Argentina and Chili, we believe that before long the most beautiful spot on the planet, the Yale of Cashmere, will be opened to a movement of this sort. One envies the life of the twentieth century, Protestant, Benedictines, who shall organize a self.supporting community for the evangelization of the Mahommedans of this Avalon? Life in partibu8 infidelium would then be (whatever it may be in the fetid cities of India and China) full of the accessory joys which nature brings.
We throw out these suggestions because we believe the times ripe for a forward movement of this character. The dawn of the new centuries is to nations what the opening of the new year is to individuals. We are about to burst, with hearts of expectation, as Magellans and Drakes of time, into the silent, undiscovered sea of a new century. Christianity must prove to the world that she is of the future as well as of the irrevocable past. If the world shall see in tM Church a mere congeries of social clubs, as it too often is in English-speaking lands, or a State official supported for semi-police purposes, as she evidently is on the Continent of Europe, woe, then, to Church and to world, for the one has failed in her appointed work, and the other has lost its unspeakable opportunity and hope. If, on the other hand, by her activities, by her self-sacrifice, her other worldliness, she shows herself conscious of her mission as the representative of Christ before all men, as the temporal agency of the Holy Spirit in the evangelization of the world, new recognition will be accounted to her and to her Lord in the years that are upon us. No legitimate means to such ends, therefore, are to be contemned. The Salvation Army-so bizarre, so uncouth, so all-conquering-is before our eyes, an omnipresent warning to any who may be hidebound in their worship of conventional methods. It will not do to deter recruits, to object to experiments. It will not do to refrain from encouraging and stimulating both. Every form of effort in every field is the program of the new years, for repentance and remission of sins must be ,preached in His name among all nations.
BARElLLY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. 4.1
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED A.ND CONDUcTED BY BEY. J. T. GIIA.CEY, D.D.
The Bareilly Theological Seminary. ished his education and was much in- terested in mission wOl'k, but was early BY REV. T. J. SCOTT, D.D., BAREIJ,LY, called to the better world. In this hall INDIA. is a large beautiful symbolical paint- This institution is situated at Bareilly, ing, six by eight feet, consisting of five a city of 180,000 inhabitants, and the emblems-the Bible, the cross, an olive capital of Rohilkund, one of the North- branch, a crook, and over all a crown, western Provinces. It is the first suspended in radiance. This painting Methodist theological seminary found- and a life·size portrait of Ernest Kip- ed in Asia. The need of an institution linger were sent out by the parents.
for training native preachers was soon This seminary has at present a small manifest in the history of the mission, endowment of $50,000, with buildings but not until 1872' was the mission able valued at $16,500. The institution is to undertake the work. A timely gift chartered or .. registered," as it is of $20,000 from Rev. D. W. Thomas, called in India, under the Government then of the India Mission,·and who for- of the Northwest Provinces, and has tunately had some private means, en- its legal Board of Trustees, who care for abled the old India conference to take the institution and its funds.
this enterprise in hand. A small na- The course of three years' study is tive preacher's house was used for the substantially that of any such institu- lecture·rooms, while some cheap build- tion in the United States, except that ings that had been erected for some not so much is made of Hebrew and native Christians employed in an ex- Greek. The teaching staff at present perimental industrial school, were util- consists of two foreign missionaries and ized for students' dormitories. The five nati ve professors and teachers.
school opened with a class of eleven. Connected with the seminary is a Four years later Mr. Philo Remington, normal department for training teach- of Ilion, N. Y., gave $5000 to aid in ers for the mission primary and higher the erection of more permanent build- grade schools. The preparation of ings, and with this sum duplicated by Christian teachers for the mission the Mission Board, Remington Hall, schools is an important work. The full the central building, WIIS erected. It is course of study takes four years. This a brick structure consisting of a cen- normal department also serves as a .tral cruciform hall, surrounded by four preparatory department of the semi- class-rooms filling in the building as a nary for such students as may be de- square, with a large library and read- ficient in secular knowledge. Many ing-room on the top. To the left of pastor.teachers have gone out from this this building is Butler Hall, erected in department.
1890, in honor of Dr. Wm. Butler, the An important part of this institution founder of this mission, by funds con- is the Woman's Training SchooL Most tributed by many admiring friends. of the students who enter the theologi- This structure is one story, uniform in cal seminary, from the cnstom of early style with the central building, lind marriage, are married men. Early in consists of two fine lecture halls. To the history of the seminary the experi.
the right, in 1898, Ernest Hall was built, ment was successfully tried of training uniform in style and size with Butler the wives of the students to cooperate Hall. It was erected by Rev. E. S. with them in evangelistic and pastoral and Mrs. E. R. Kiplinger, in memory work. The wives who cannot read are of their son Ernest, who had just fin- taught and then trained in what is callcd the Bible·readers' course. This fits dents come from tracts bordering on them to enter the homes of Hindus and the Hindustani territory, and such men Moslems and give instruction in Bible can preach in at least one more lan- truth to women and children. They guage, thus reaching at least 50,000,000 can also aid the pastor in instructing more. The energy with which the the women and children of his charge. work of this mission is spreading 'l'he importance of the training given among these millions makes more mani- to the wives of the students cannot be fest the importance of this school. In over·estimated. In India women espe- the year 1894 more than 17,000 souls cially must work for women. In the were added to the Christian community towns and villages the preacher cannot in North India alone. The workers address mixed audiences, as in Chris- who have gone out from the school are tian countries. Men alone assemble to scattered in a population equal to that hear in public places as a rule; and in of the United States. }Ien are needed the homes pastoral ministration cannot well trained in doctrinal and pracbe as unconstrained as in Christian tical morality, who can act as pastors countries. Hence, the great need of for the incoming multitudes of Chriswomen trained to reach women in India. tians. Striking evidence is to be met indicating that caste is fast losing hold This department of the seminary is on the more intelligent classes. The beset with some difficulties. The wives great deep of this vast population of not only manage their domestic duties India must soon break up. Antiof caring for children and preparing Christianity stands ready to capture the food of the family, but they have the multitude who must soon abandon their regular school hours. The diffi- the old faith. Hence the need of such culty of managing the children when an institution in training evangelists to the mothers are studying suggested the meet the crisis. An intelligent faith kindergarten department in more recent ready to give an answer for its hope years, which is suitably organized and must meet an intelligent skepticism. is under trained teachers. Now, While The Church should make of this school the mothers are at their studies, the something worthy of this great opening. children are being trained in kinder- Some testimony to the importance of garten drill. Here, then, is the en- this institution is here recorded : 8emble of a unique theological seminary, where the husband is trained as preach- Bishop Foster pronounced this the 'er, pastor, and evangelist, or as a teach- most important missionary enterprise er and lay evangelist, and his wife is in India. Bishop Ninde said he was trained so as to cooperate with him in strongly impressed while in India with evangelistic and pastoral work, and the invaluable aid this school affords their children have the advantage of a the workers. Bishop Thoburn, " Our regular kindergarten. theological school has become more than ever a necessity to our work." At the present date the attendance at Dr. Ellenwood, Secretary of the Presthis institution is about 80 men and 50 byterian Board of Missions, says: "A women. There have gone out 205 friend said to me, of all the higher ingraduates of the three years' course, 77 stitutions he had seen, the one belongon a partial course, 61 from the nor- ing to the Methodist Episcopal Mission mal school, and 192 from the woman's at Bareilly seemed to him best adapted department, making a total of 535 to meet the widespread wants of a mistraip.ed mission workers sent out. This sion. " Bishop Mallalieu was most proseminary has a great opportunity in the foundly convinced of the immeasurfield represented. The students are able importance of the Bareilly Theotrained in the Hindustani language, logical School. which is understood by 100,000,000 people. Besides this, some of the stu- The endowment so far has mostly taken thc form of permanent founda- dead wall. One is almost afraid of tions for scholarships. A thousand dol- men becoming nominal Christians when lars invested gives the support of a hard put to to avoid the trouble of argu- man and his wife. A few endowments ing it out."
of $500 for single students have been The best material is the Siamo·Chi- given. At present the Board of Trus- nese race, which has sprung up as a tees are calling for a few thousand dol- result of the abundant immigration of lars to build additional dormitories, and Chinamen who marry native wives.
$40,000 to enlarge the endowment to These, whose devotion to ancestral meet urgent present need. In no place worship and other forms of Chinese can a suitably endowed theological superstition has been naturally weak· seminary accomplish more than in this ened. still retain much of the Chinese great mission field. energy and grit, and what work has been done among them has afforded the best results. The Japanese have been Gospel Work in Siam. compared to plastic clay which can be molded; the Siamese to sand, which BY J. E. BUDGETT MEAKIN. lacks in itself the cohesion necessary for the sculptor, and the Chinese to .. I believe there is no country more granite. which withstands all tools but open to unrestrained missionary effort the best, but which lasts forever. For than Siam, but I believe that there can many years the American Baptists car- bardly be a country in which it is hard- ried on an intermittent and desultory er to make an impression." work among the Chinese in Bangkok, Such was the summary by one of the forming also several outlying stations, workers in Bangkok of what he had and altho they seem now to have aban- been telling me about the special fea- doned the field, the native converts tures of the task before him. Complete are going ahead themselves; but un- religious liberty is guaranteed by gov- til the Baptists formally renounce ernment, and missionaries can with lit- operations here, tho they have no tle difficulty settle wherever they will, representative on the spot, others while traveling is free to all, and the hesitate to enter the open door. They treatment that well-behaved foreigners need at least a dozen workers in receive at the hands of the natives Siam, and the cause is losing ground as leaves nothing to be desired. The real long as they hold back. The Roman difficulty is to make an impression on Catholics have extensive missions here, the lethargic minds of the people, and it is from among the Chinese that whose impassive inactivity is never most of their converts are drawn, but more marked than in connection with while the Baptists are nominally at religion. None but those who have work among them, the American Pres- tried it know what it means to address byterian Mission, the only other society.
II crowd or II succession of individuals engaged here, has a most commendable without an objection being raised, but hesitation to take up this important without the leas.t signs of an impression branch. The Chinese in Siam are not having been made. "It is like bom· a mere handful; the whole country is barding an earthwork," said one of the saturated with them, and in their hands missionaries; "one's shots are buried, is almost all the trade and commerce and nothing is seen. It would be are· but that with Europe.
lief even if one hearer' got mad' about What Siam owes to the missionaries it. There is a point to which the already it would be difficult to state.
Siamese will yield, as if they would do Half a century ago she was one of the so to any extent, but when you get to most backward of Asiatic countries, the important moment of all you find a ruled despotically, and unbenetited by the progress of the outside world, to as well as at one or two stations nearer which, with the exception of China, the Gulf of Siam. To a great extent her doors were absolutely closed; but their work has been educational. and the messengers of the Gospel, who were by no means one of the least important waiting to enter China when that results of it was the request, many should become possible, who reached years ago, for one of their number to her shores in Chinese junks, succeeded assume the direction of the schools in so impressing the people and their which the government was then estabrulers that in due time treaties were lishing. Hospitals have also held a willingly entered into with their gov- prominent place in their operations, so ernments, and Siam was opened up. that most of their men are styled doc- Then there came to the throne a king tors by the natives. Street preaching who, while a Buddhist priest had and colportage are likewise employed sought a missionary for a tutor, and with success, however meager the imhad proved no unapt scholar, under mediately apparent results may seem. whose rule the old order fell, and Siam In several places a very real work is entered the race of nations. She has being done by independent workers yet far to go to take her place from among the brethren, and I had among the foremost, but she has made the pleasure to meet with one good rapid strides, and is distanced only by Christian doctor adding mission preach· Japan among the nations of the farther ing to the labors of a private practice. East. That her progress has not been '1'he Roman Catholics are hard at work what it might have been can only be in many parts, and that with apparent attributed to an increased experience good success, for the natives see no of Western ways and Western men, great difference in calling the goddess who do not commend themselv~s as of mercy Mary, and in changing one men who love dollars and hate the no.· set of priests and rites and superstitions tives. It is the same old story here as for another. The Romanists are, not, in every newly opened country, the however, liked, and make but poor greatest obstacle to the spread of the headway among the Siamese them- Gospel is the example set by men of selves, tho the self-denying and devoted the oationalities with which the name lives led by many of their missionaries Christian has unfortunately become place them in great esteem personally. identified-men who cannot sufficiently Their popular name is "Big-foot peo· run down the missions and missionaries, pIe," by one native explained to me as whose presence CWits reilections on the having reference to their custom of Iives they waste ('n wine and women kissing the toe of the Pope, and by anand wagers. I feel that as an indepen- other as indicative of the way in which dent resident abroad I both can lUld they tread down the people, for in Siam must say what the missionaries do not the foot is considered the most unworoften care to, much as I deplore the thy member. One of their methods is facts. Exceptions to the rule there are to make settlements of converts, acindeed, and mission work owes more quiring the land, and making it unto them than folks at home imagine. pleasant for all but their own people, The really Christian man of business or or those who are willing to join them. the official wields an imiluence quite They also mingle in political and legal distinct from that of missionaries. questions when these serve their pur- poses, thus getting into very bad odor. Mission work in Siam is practically Wherever they are they erect fine in the hands of the American Presby- churches, a necessity in a creed in terians, who maintain a considerable which the ceremonial plays so imporforce iu Bangkok, and have a most im· tant a part. portant work some distance up country in the tributary State of Cheung Mai, The favor with which the Protestant missions are regarded, on the other whatever to be of the nature of sin, re- hand, is very evident. They have all garding perfection as the destruction of along shown themselves the true friends every natural inclination, can easily be of the people, and quite recently one understood. Work among such people of them was asked to make special in· is like building in a swamp; there is quiries during his travels into any no ground to go upon, no moral basis, causes of local complaint, and to report no fulcrum. With many there is not them at headquarters, a task which for even a belief in God, while Buddha obviotJ.s reasons he felt bound reluc- himself is not considered as a personal tantly to decline. While calling with influence. Sin is regarded as entailing a missionary on the Minister for the In- its own punishment, and evil is only to terior, His Royal Highness brought up be averted by the propitiation of con· the question of a site for a new mission trolling spirits. Even when a man has station in a distant province, about got so far as to believe in the sacrifice which the local authorities had raised of Christ, it is difficult to make him see difficulties, offering to personally se- the necessity of a moral life, if not to cure the best available place on an ap- work out his own salvation.
proaching visit to that part. He then Though the more liberal education went on to express his opinion on the of the late king did not make him a methods employed. "I think that a Christian, it enabled him to see the great many missionaries make the great folly of much that was bound up with mistake," he said, "of abusIng the re- Buddhism, and as its head in this coun- ligion already existing. If instead of try he instituted a reformed creed, this they would bring their philan- closely approaching that of the mod- thropic and medical work more to the ern Japanese and of Buddha's Western front, and show what the love of Christ admirers. Its followers are practically has led them to do for the poor and atheists who acknowledge Buddha only suffering, they would not fail to gain as a great moral teacher, whose system the people's real esteem, and then of ethics they adopt, while they dis- would be the time for them to listen to card everything supernatural, and all the words of Jesus." the intermingled cult of spirits. But The religion already existing in this this has only affected the few, and su- case is a corrupt inheritance of Bud- perstition of every sort is as rampant dhism mingled with a little Brahman- as ever. The one prevailing idea is the ism and a good deal of spirit worship. necessity 01 "making merit" byerect- It was said by one of the king's broth- ing temples, feeding the priests, mak- ers that 80 per cent of the people were ing pilgrimages, liberating captive ani- ignorant as to what Buddhism really mals, etc., but practical deeds of kind- was, for to begin with they make an ness and self-denial, or of provision for idol of Buddha, presenting worldly pe· the sick and poor, as met with in China, titions as to a god to one whose highest seem hardly known. Ancestral wor- virtue was that he knew nothing of ship forms no part of the Siamese creed, this world. Were they genuine Bud- but its place is in some measure taken dhists, they would at least make some by the necessity under which sons are attempts to follow the moral precepts of making merit for their mothers.
of that creed, but of these they know This is one of the real difficulties the next to nothing. having received it only missionaries have to meet, as men con- as im ancestral legacy, and the grossest vinced of the truth of Christianity can immorality prevails. Even the exter- see no hope for their mothers, espe- nal observances of Buddhism are but cially if they are already dead, and imperfectly known, and the benumb· some who have been convinced have ing, deadening results of a religion yet refused baptism on this account.
Wllich holds all affections and emotions A feeling based on so noble a trait is not to be rudely uprooted, but it has to up under Christian infiuence, on acbe reckoned with. count of the baneful effect on the whole character of a life spent beneath the Yet, after all, these questions will pall of Buddhism, notwithstanding that have to be ultimately faced by the na· one of the most active converts had tive workers as they are raised up, for been for years a priest. .no country has ever been thoroughly evangelized except by its own people, Incident!! of the Struggle in Ja.pa.n. and all the foreigners can hope is to be made the means of setting the work on BY DAVID S. SPENCER, NAGOYA, JAPAN. foot and to welcome the first· fruits, the seeds from which will furnish the wait- It is my purpose to record UDder this ing soil. So the question as to the heading some facts and incidents which quality of the native converts becomes have come under my knowledge, in of even more importance than their order that others may the better undernumber, and I was glad to find that a stand the nature of the work of win· fair proportion of the Siamese became ning Japan to Christ. It will be seen soul·winners, especially in the province that heathenism dies hard; that the of Nakawn, where I was assured by bringing of a country to accept the one who had just returned from a visit teachings of Jesus as its guiding princi· to them, "the converts take to evangel- pIe is not a small task. There is nothing istic work as ducks take to water." A whatever in these incidents which curious feature, however, is the way in would at all discourage a Christian' which a Siamese on conversion, at once man, for the battIe is not ours, but the hands in the name of his wife also, Master's. A thoughtful worker says even tho she has never yet heard a again and again to himself, ., Why do word of the Gospel. One good man of the heathen rage 1" In spite of .perse· whom I heard had been so impressed cutions, boycottings, mobs, riots, and with the way in which a certain con- the machinations of bad men and devils, vert enjoyed his new·found faith, that and even the mistakes, the unfaithfulwithout going into details he at once ness of professedly good men, the cause put down his name as a convert, to- of Jesus goes right on conquering the gether with those of his absent wife worl:l. "Our God is marching on." and family. The jubilant convert himself had not yet been bapti7.ed, but I On October 8th, 1893, I dedicated the was told by a Presbyterian missionary church at Komaki. The morning ser· that he had" alreaiIy developed Meth· vices passed off without event, there odist proclivities," bursting out in his being but few present, and of these near· prayers with responses, repetitions, and ly all were Christians. A few Buddhist exclamations, an additional proof, add· lookers-on lingered about the door; but ed my informant, that denominational a crowd of Buddhists gathered in the distinctions were greatly matters of evening in a house they had secured for temperament. the purpose on the opposite side of the street, and as soon as our evening ser· During my stay in Bangkok I have vices began, they began to show signe had the pleasure of intercourse with of life. While Hatanoshin Yamaka was several of the Lord's own people gath- speaking a crowd of them came in, ered from among this nation, and the filled the room and sat down, mixed traveling Christian knows no greater with the Christians and those who did joy. Space will not permit my recall· not oppose us. They frequently inter· ing the pleasant times I spent with rupted hy remarks, questions, and the some, or what I learned from them, but like; but as they could Dot throw Ya·. the opinion was strongly expressed to maka off the track in this way, they tried me by a foreigner that for future work- another pIau. At a preconcerted signal ers we must depend on men brought all arose, caught the lamps and extin- ing and correction. The last I knew he guished them. scattered the oil on the was still in the hands of this priest, worshipers, smashed the lamps, the practically a prisoner for his faith. in windows, the doors, and the front of the Lord Jesus. Nothing is yet known the house, wrenched the clock from of him, or of what the outcome is likely the wall, and broke up the meeting. to be. I could give many similar cases.
There being an insufficient number of The workers in the Methodist Prot- policemen present to control the mob, estant Church desired in the fall of 1894 it was thought best not to try to go on to rent a building in Nagoya for use as again that night. But the police were a chapel or kegisho, in addition to what advised that a meeting would be held they were already using. The section the next night, and that violence must of the city in which they would locate be controlled. The police came, and so was chosen, and a house was finally did the Buddhists, in large numbers. rented of an old man living in the The latter tried to disturb the meeting neighborhood. Of course all business again, but they were completcly out- had to be done through native workers generalled, and we won a victory. of that mission. The contract was Two young men had for a long time drawn, signed and sealed, and the been secretly attending our Christian money paid over. The man was of a services at the Shinsl1iro Church, hiding Buddhist family. The Buddhists heard in a back room in the dark to hear the of his transaction, and came to him to preaching, and quietly withdrawing protest that such a thing was wrong ; thereafter_ They had had an earnest but the owner took the ground that desire to know the truth, and our work- under the Constitution he had the right, ers there had taught them. Finally the as a free man, to rent his house for any young men asked me to baptize them. lawful purpose to any law-abiding man This could not be dOlle publicly because or set of men. Then the persecution '
of the opposition of their friends. I began. These Buddhist opponents held talked with them carefully upon the a consultation meeting in the temple, to possible consequences of their receiving which they called the owner, and there baptism, and warned them that they argued, threatened him, and used all would have to meet persecution. They efforts except force to compel the man declared that they did not fear on ac- to yield, but to no purpose. He held count of possible persecution, but were that the renting of his house for Chris- prepa.red to receive it, even to the dea.th tian. purposes was within. the class of if necessary, but thought that they allowable actions under the constitution, should be permitted to receive Christian and he would not yield. Then stronger baptism. I baptized them one night measures were adopted. A house op· last fall in the hotel where I was stay- posite his was secured by the Buddhists, ing. The next day they announced to and an indignation meeting held of the their respective families that they had people of the neighborhood to decide become Christians indeed, and had set- what should be done. It was proposed tled the matter by receiving Christiau to deport the old man, but some thought baptism. Both were subjected to per- this a wrong thing to do, as it would be secution, in one case severe. The fa- a mean thing on their part to inflict such ther of this young man was unrelenting, a man on any community. Another vicious. He demanded that the son proposed that they get a large kettle recant at once and come back to the and soak him or boil him in it till he family faith. Threats were made, dif- would do as he ought, and follow the ferent forms of penalty were imposed, dictates of their pure and holy religion.
and finally the father brought the son This meeting was continued for some to Nagoya and put him in the hands of time, and served as a sort of boycott of a noted radical Buddhist priest for train- the owner from all around him. Finally 80shi (a class of ruffians hired to intimi- hood, capable of being manipulated by date by forceful measures) were hired the priests, the Christians lost all they for the purpose of systematically perse- had expended, and were compelled to cuting the old man till he should yield. give up the project for the time. Tbe These 808hi followed the old man, search- battle has to be won on some lines inch ing his house with clubs in hand, so that by inch. he was obliged to hide with his friends in the country for safety. But he did Makoto Komatsubara ("Little Pine not yield, and this method of pressure Woods)" and his wife, Tazura, became falling to accomplish what the priest Christians in the city of Shizurka some wanted, they approached the old man's ten years ago, and joined the Canada wife and compelled her family to say Methodist Church. In youth this man that if he did not repent and take the had been a heavy drinker, and had sufhouse back from the Christians they fered a heavy penalty of his sin. Faith would take from him the wife with in Christ changed him, and he became whom he had lived for years. the moth- a temperate man. His family and er of his children, the companion of his friends, however, did not favor his beyouth. The storm grew so thick that coming a Christian. Better go on the old man could stand it no longer. drinking and die Ii drunkard than have He could endure personal inconvenience, anything to do with Yasu Kyo. He even ;mlIering ; but to lose his wife was recently removed with wife and chilmore than he could bear, and the oppo- dren to Nagoya, and united by letter nents, through her friends, had control with our Second Methodist Church. of the situation. He finally came back The intense summer heat has caused to the missionary weeping, threw down him to become ill, and his ailment has the money and asked for the contract. taken the form of brain disease, resultbegging them to ask no questions for ing in insanity. I have watched the conscience' sake. The Christians took poor man with intense pity. Perfectly the m(mey, gave up the house, and harmless in action and physically well, marked the strength and the methods he is a strong ,man paying the price of of the Buddhists. sinful pleasure. The older brother and older sister of this man have, since his In Nagoya, a city of 200,000 people, all sickness, turned against him because of burying grounds are connected with his profession of Christianity. They the templcs, of which there are some declared that unless he would openly 2000 Buddhist with some 5000 priests. renounce his faith in Christ they would exclusive of Shinto temples and priests. not own him as a brother. In Japan Up to the present, when a Christian dies an older brother has certain rights and he must be buried in a potter's field, a power over a younger. They greatly answamp Bome distance from the city, in noyed him. but neither he nor his wife which only beggaIs were formerly would yield to their demands. The buried. Though a man may be a legal brother became furious, said the whole owner of a lot in a Buddhist burying· cause of trouble was Christianity. ground, he cannot be buried there ex- When he could no longer afflict the sick cept as a Buddhist. The mother and man because of his insanity, they, the child of our devoted pastor, Brother H. brother and sister, violently persecuted Yamaka, a graduate of Drew Theologi- his wife. She was compelled to cease cal Seminary. together with all Chris- attending church, tho she stoutly detians dying here, have had to be buried clared her faith in Jesus. She conin that swamp. At one time the Chris- tinued for some time to send the chiltians purchased a plot of ground for a dren to our Sunday-school, but finally burial·place ; but as it requires the con- the opposition became BO great that she sent of three different parties, one of could not even do this without danger, which is the people of the neighbor- P FUHKIEN PROVINCE o CHINA FORMOSA Copyright, 1895, by Hun & EATON, New York.
From" Missions and Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis copal Church." and the children ceased to come. I province. Archdeacon Wolfe has won called to see her recently, but the house distinction; the two Drs. Baldwin, one she had occupied was vacant. Her of the A. B. C. F. M. and one of the troubles had multiplied, her husband Methodist Board, together with Dr.
probably hopelessly insane and in the Maclay and Bishop Wiley, were found- hospital for confihement and treatment, ers and leaders here. The hospital and her little child had died, and the perse- general medical work of the two Amer- cution for Christ's sake had become so ican Missions are of great value.
strong, that she had been compelled to take the remaining children and go back to her father's house for shelter Notes from the Field.
and protection. Her husband's family CHINA.-Rev. W. M. Hayf's, writing has money enough to care for her and from Tungchow, near Chefoo, China, the husband well, but she can get none under date October 7th, 1895, says: without renouncing her faith in Christ. .. The events of the past five months Three days ago I saw Mr. Komatsubara, are almost the reverse of what nearly a harmless lunatic, his family driven everybody expected and predicted last away, and he in the hands of strangers. spring, and should I have written of the outlook at that time, it would only October 1, 1895.
have been another confirmation of THE MAP OF FOOCHow PROVINCE.- Paul's conclusion that .. prophecies shall fail." Progress seemed imminent The map which we present of the Foo- last spring, but the intervention of Rus· chow Province,or Fukien Province more sia, France, and Germany convinced precisely, will be of interest and use to all China that change was not yet a neceswho desire to locate the scenes of the sity. The Conservatives are in power massacre of last summer, and the sta· again, anti-foreigners are being pro· tions where missions of the Methodist moted to office, and many of the people Episcopal Mission and others are at are trying to persuade themselves that work. It is placed at our service China beat Japan, after all. The streets by the courtesy of the publishers of of this city last week were placarded Missions and Missionary Society of with immense pictures presenting the the Methodist Episcopal Church, for high dignitaries of China meting out which work it was specially drawn, justice to the despised Trojan. aud which is nea.rly ready for market.
It consists of three volumes, an exten- BURMA.-Mr. F. D. Phinney, Super- sion by Rev. J. T. Gracey of the original Intendent of the American Baptist Mis- work by Dr. J. M. Reid. The new vol- sion Press, Rangoon, Burma, in a per· umes comprise the history of seventeen sonal note under date of September 1st, years of work, 1878-94, not in the orig- 1895, says: .. There is a turning tow- inal publication, and cover a period of ard Christianity on the part of the Bur- astonishing development of the Society mans that is as pleasing as it is surpris- and its work, both at home and abroad. ing. There have never been as many Hunt & Eaton, 150 Fifth Avenue, are baptisms right along as ~here are now.
the publishers, and will receive orders It is the custom of the Burman church for this work at once. to have the ordinance of baptism ad· The American Board, the Church of ministered at the close of the morn- England Missionary Society, and the ing preaching service, between that zenana mission of the latter church all and the Sunday-school. These bap- have Buccessful missions in this prov- tismal services come with marked fre- ince, which contains a population of quency, and the candidates are nearly 15,000,000. Some eminent names are aU adult converts from Buddhism, one found in the list of missionaries of this here and another there in the villages in this district who come in to the That is something which is almost un- city to join a church. The reports are known in Burma. coming from a.ll over the field that the way in which the Burmans listen is Every American, irrespective of re- different from all the past. They have ligious preferences, must have intense more of interest, read and talk more in- interest in the missionary force in East- telligentlyand with less of bigotry, and ern Turkey, and every Christian should' more priests are throwing off the yel- be given much to prayer for the preser- low robes than ever before. You want- vation of the lives of such noble men ed to have me tell you what the people and women in peril. We say in peril, are doing and what they are thinking not because they will probably be delib- about, and I have told you. Fifty vil- erately assaulted, but because the Sul- lages in a lump on the frontier, the most tan is unable to keep the police of the degraded of the peoples of the country, empire if he WOUld, and the fleets of the are asking for teachers and preachers. Dardanelles are paralyzed because Eu- The Roman Catholics have tried their ropean Christian powers are incompe- best to get teachers into these villages, tent, and we use the word deliberately. but have been told most emphatically They are incompetent to devise a way that they will have Baptist teachers or out of the imbroglio that will not in- none. The Catholic villages in this part vol ve their flying at each other's throats. of the country are not creditable to The ~ame of empire from the Grecian the name of Christianity. Our native ArchIpelago to the North Pacific shore churches are doing more for themselves line is the most extended known in cen- than ever before, and home and foreign turies, and it is pretty plain that if the mission circles and societies are being kingdom of Christ IS advanced it will formed among them, and are doing be because political powers as lIsual good work. A few years ago a mis- will be driven along the paths of the sionary party, a Karen preacher and his Divine purpose despite the lack of moral family, were going over into Northern principle or any other principle domi- Siam, and when past the frontier were nating them. .. It is not by might nor simply blotted off the face of the by power" that Christ's kingdom makes earth. It was many months before a advance. trace of them could be found. They had been murdered for their money, and It is a matter of regret that we find buried. The local missionary society our space too limited to present a be- (Karen) which had sent them out called coming review of several timely books for volunteers to take up the work to which will help on the kingdom of our which they had been sent, and had to Lord. Revell Company have just issued choose between the volunteers, for there .. Persian Life and Customs," by S. G. 'were more volunteers than could be Wilson, the best book of general infor- sent. mation on the subject within our knowl- edge. It is lucid in style. comprehen- U This morning I witnessed the bap- sive in the ran&,e of topics, and as tism of two pupils in our Baptist col- entertaining as it IS instructive. .. From lege here. The spiritual tone of the far rormosa," by Missionary Mackay, college is decidedly good, and the pro- is a revelation of that island by the most portion of professing Christians in the eminent authorities, living or dead, on upper classes probably above that in things Formosan as a whole. .. Ram- some American colleges. This is Chris- bles in Japan," by Canon Tristram, is tian education for a certainty. We are an entertaining account of what this not troubled here, as are the missionaries eminent divine saw and learned in the among the Hindus of India, with organ- land of the Rising Sun, with the aid of ized opposition to bazaar preaching on his daughter, a resident missionary of the part of those who have received all some years in that land. He seeks to their education in mission schools. compare Buddhism of Japan with that of Ceylon and of China. All these books are well illustrated.
A. better book to study at the begin- ning of the NewYear, to get a forceful. fresh and inspiring survey of the past and outlook for the future, than Rev. Dr. D. L. Leonard's" A Hundred Years of Mis~ions" (Funk & Wagnalls Com- pany) it would be difficult to name. It is a thoughtful and unique treatise worthy of permanent place in mission- ary literature.
FmLD OF MON1.'HLY SURVEf"
I1I.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY D. L. PIERSON.
Monthly Topios for 1896.* Russia and the Greek Church. Abyssinia and Eastern Sects. JANUARY. NOVEMBER. Outlook. General Survey. South America. The Mormons. FEBRUARY. Young People's Work.
The Chinese Empire.t DECEMBER. Confucianism and Taoism. Formosa. Syria and Palestine. The Opium Traffic. The Jews. Educational Work. MARCH. NOTES HERE AND THERE. Mexico. Central America.. There is at present a state of unrest West Indies. throughout the whole world, Christian City Missions. and heathen, civilized and savage. .. Wars and rumors of wars," outrages, APRIL. financial instability, and in many cases the half·suppressed mutterings of a India, Burma, and Ceylon. general anarchy are disturbing the Hinduism, etc. peace and prosperity of nations the Woman's Work for Woman. world over.
MAY. In the United States the financial crisis is scarcely over, the missionary Siam and the Laos. boards are still weighed down with a Malaysia. heavy load of deht, and the Christian Buddhism. church-members are slow to respond to Unoccupied Fields. their earnest appeals. Strikes and gen- eral friction between labor and capital JUNE. are every-day occurrences. Utah, just entering upon statehood, seems to many Africa t and Madagascar. to bring forehodings of an unhallowed haven for polygamists and those of The Freedmen in America. loose moral principles. Many fear The Slave Trade. strained relations with England he- cause of the Venezuelan difficulty and JULY. the Alaskan boundary dispute. All these things affect missions directly or The Islands of the Sea.§ indirectly. The mission boards are en- Circumpolar Missions.~ deavoring to hold their ground, tho North American Indians. lacking sufficient support; in some cases The Liquor Traffic. there is even an advance to new terri- tory. Foreign missionary rallies arc AUGUST. awakening many slumbering Christians, and are scattering information as to Papal Europe. the great work of God in the world's Roman Catholicism. evangelization. Bihle Work. Dr. Ebenezer Erskine says, in regard SEPTEMBER. to the future of the negro, that four facts have come to be regarded as quite Japan. settled : "1. That the negro is here to Korea. stay, and that his future home is to be Shintoism. Medical Missions. Chinese and Japanese in the United States.
OCTOBER.
Mohammedan Lands, and Relig- ion.
* It is our intention to have one or more arti- cles on these subjects, in the months to which they are assigned, together with references to other articles in previous number.. Those desiring to contribute are requestsd to h~ve their article in our hands two months previous to the month to which their subject is assigned.
t Including Tibet. t Except North Africa and Egypt, which are assigned to October.
§ Including Australasia.
,I Alaska, Greenland, Labrador, etc.
,. Turkey, Greece, Arabia, Persia, North Afri- ca, and Egypt. chiefly in the Southern States, all plans hold the government, of which they for his transportation to other countries have for a. time gained the upper hand. being regarded as impracticable. 2. Should they succeed, we may hope that That the negro is capable of improve- the last closed door of the Neglected ment. He may be educated and Chris- Continent will be opened to the Gospel. tianized. 3. That the negroes are im- Venezuela is in difficulty with England proving in their worldly circumstances; and Peru, and other republics are by that many of them are becoming land- no means at rest. owners; that others are entering into business, or becoming mechanics or The whole civilized world is stirred tradesmen. 4. That the negroes as a with indignation and horror at the class have not improved in morals as massacre of thousands of Christians in they have in their material condition. Asia Minor. Rumors of a partition of To save this race and to save the nation Turkey, the deposition of the Sultan, from their demoralizing influence, Chris- etc., are occasionally heard; but while tians of all Evangelical denominations it seems that order is being gradually must take hold of the work of their restored in the disturbed districts, the Christianization and the moral and in- solution of the Armenian problem has dustrial elevation of the race with a by no means been reached_ The Turk strong hand and a firm and persever- and the Kurd have not paid the penalty ing faith. " for their active and passive criminality. and judgment will doubtless descend Less than 250,000 Indians arc now to upon them from heavenly powers if not be found in the United States (exc1usive from earthly. of Alaska). They are scattered through 20 States and 5 Territories, of which As everyone knows, the situation Indian Territory contains the largest iG critical in the extreme. The Mosnumber (71,856) and Texas the fewest lems seem determined upon the de- (290), The Indians are susceptible to struction of the Christians, and only the religious impressions when they can be providence of God and the fear of the protected from contaminating outside results has prevented the massacre of influences. They are willing to be civ- missionaries and all en masse. 'l'he ilized and Christianized; they have limit of Armenian patience seems to at least fair industry and capacity for have been reached, but they are for the self-support. Over 32,000 Indians are most part powerless. The causes of now taxable and self-sustaining citi- their dissatisfactions with Turkish rule zens. These do not include 5 civilized are many and long standing. Besides tribes, numbering 68,371. Educational personal extortion and outrage, the mission work is being carried on among burden of taxes has brought the Arthem by Methodists, Presbyterians, Bap- menians to poverty and famine. A tisl.S, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Russian officer, Colonel Lazareff,* gives and Friends, in addition to Government some facts relative to the" varied and and independent schools. The missions original" sy~tem of taxation imposed on are situated chiefly in Arizona, Indian Armenia. Here are a few of the as- Territory, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Mon- S€ssments: tana, Washington, and Nebraska. Interesting and successful work is being 1. An exemption task paid for redone by the Methodists and Church lief from military service, amounting to of England among the tribes in British about $1.50 per year, imposed on every America. member of the family-children, aged and crippled not exempt. If a head South America is for the most part, of a large family is unable to pay the as usual, in a state of unstable equilib- tax, he is punished by arrest and flogrium. Colombia has experienced civil' ging, and his household goods or cow war. Liberalists in Ecuador seek to " Translated in the Literary DigeIJt_ must be sold to satisfy the tax collec- tent recognized leader. There seems, tor. however, little probability of any im- mediate disturbance on a large scale. 2. A tax on the land and crops-from The future is still uncertain; but the $1 to $6 per acre, according to the qual· outcome will doubtless be overruled ity of the land.,. and one eighth of the to the glory of God. We expect a value of the harvest. widened opportunity for the spread of the Gospel as soon as the immediate 3. Everyone having an orchard pays effect of the war-the excitement, ani· about $22 annually. mosity, and general disquiet of the peo- ple-has passed away. 4. Hay tax: $2 for eight loads. 5. For each cottage a tax of $1.50. The Japanese Christians are still 6. For a stable, from $1 to $3. somewhat inclined to break loose from 7. A mal'riage tax of 50 cents on the the guidance of foreign missionaries, and bridegroom. to conduct the evangelistic work without 8. A sheep tax, 20 cents each. outside aid. The missionaries are con- 9. A tax on every male over fourteen vinced that this would be a mistake, as for the maintenance of roads, fortresses, the native Church is not yet estab· and barracks. lished on firm enough doctrinal basis. There are also numberless taxes ou The new treaty opening the empire almost every conceivable occupation more freely to foreign residents is a and on each tree standing in one's lot. great gain, and will doubtless be speed- Besides these there are excise taxes on ily taken advantage of. Japan's danliquor and other articles of consump- ger from infidelity and over self·confitilln. The Kurds are free from nearly dence is great, but the people are not all of these taxes, paying only for one unaware of the benefits of Christianity, third of their sheep and being allowed and the Christians are advancing to forto make their own returns to the asses- eign missionary work in their dependens;)rs. These facts fully expJain the de- cies. A war is threatened with Russia crease in the Armenian population and which it is earnestly hoped will be Armenian emigration. With such a averted, as this would probably be more system, manifestly designed to ruin and injurious to missions than the conflict Bta1"1!6 out tIM Armenians, Turkey hard- with China. ly requires, in order to attain her object, recourse to such additional meth· Siuce the war has ended, the prosods as the late wholesale massacres. pects of missions in Korea have been The years 1894 and 1895 have cer- brightening. The Government is still tainly been most eventful in the history somewhat unsettled, but is friendly to of Ohina. While she has held together missionaries, who are constantly and for more than forty centuries, and has confidently praying for reinforcements by her conservatism defied the modern of workers and greater harvests of ideas of progress and civilization, she souls. The former indifference of the has now lost a part of her territory, and people has given way to a Willingness may be compelled to open her doors to to hear the Gospel, which amounts ill the advance of the heralds of a Chris· Bome cases to eagerness, and large contian civilization. The war with Japan gregations can be gathered without diffihas proven a serious matter to China; culty. Some of the leaders in the Gov- Japan seems on the road to prosperity, ernment have declared their conviction while her neighbor and old enemy is that only as the Christian religion pertorn with riots and even rumblings oi meates the mind of the people can Korea rebellion. The whole empire seems to expect to be lifted out of ber deplorable be honeycombed with secret societies, condition. The king, in an audience which are ready to rise in open rebel- with Bishop Ninde, expressed his gratifilion, massacre the foreigners, and seize cation that so many American missiona· the government had they but a comparies had been sent to Korea to teach and apologize for or to urge the importance to heal his people. New centers are of medical missions. He who is ignobeing occupied by the small mission rant of their claims is either so lacking force on the ground. Japanese Bud- in information as to scarcely belong dhism is beginning to assert itself at to this century, or is so oblivious to the capital, which has been invaded by the sufferings of his fellow·men in a large number of Japanese, and a new heathen lands as to make him beyond Buddhist temple will soon be seen aris- hearing or beneath notice. The teach· ing on the site of an ancient marble er, the preacher, and the healer should pagoda in the center of this city. In conquer heathenism together in the view of the present opportunity, the name of Christ who combined in his missionary force in Korea is lament- work these three spheres of activity. ably small. But while Christians may believe in medical missions, the practical results Work in Formosa was interrupted do not evidence a realization of the for some time by the excitement of the great need for more medical missionpeople at the cession of the island to the aries-not while it remains true that Japanese. Quiet has, however, been in the United States there are 4090 restored, and the work is progressing physicians to every 2,500,000, and in quietly but certainly. We may confi- China only one to the same number. dently hope that before many years the whole island will not only be civilized, The missionary outlook, however but Christianized. The story of the dark and lowering the clouds may seem marvelous transformations here is of in the immediate horizon, is brightthe most intense interest.* bright as the promises of God. It is hoped and believed that the Christian The outlook is bright for Tibet. The world is becoming more aroused to the disagreement between the members of duty, the necessity, and the privilege of the original Tibetan Pioneer Mission is witnessing in the uttermost parts of th" being used by God to set two missions earth. While there are attacks here instead of one watching and praying and there upon missionary purposes and for the opportunity to preach the Gos- policy, there are, on the other hand, pel in this Buddhistic stronghold. The many honored and capable witnesses negotiations between Great Britain and from secular circles who are giving no Tibet give hopes for an open door in uncertain testimony to the value and the near future. need of missionary work. There is a call at home for more men and more One result of the impotence and fail- money, and abroad for new stations ure of the Chinese Government has been and increased facilities for work. that the Dalai Lama, who, contrary to the usual Chinese custom, has been al- The broad facts of the state of the lowed to attain the age of nineteen, has world require to be often placed before claimed for himself the temporal as us, and they utter their pleadings as we well as the spiritual supremacy in his look at them. There is about one own country, and has informed the Christian minister for every 900 persons Chinese minister resident at Lhasa that in Great Britain. and to every 800 in the he owes no allegiance to the emperor. United States; one for every 200,000 in This may have an important influence Japan, one for every 250,000 in Africa, on Tibetan missions, as it has been one for every 300,000 in India, one for greatly owing to Chinese power and every 400,000 in South America, and one authority that Tibet has been hitherto for every '700,000 in China. Are the closed against foreign travelers and forces of the Christian Church wisely teachers. distributed? If all Christians lived for the worid's conversion, great residential There is now little need to either changes would shortly take place.
* Read ." From Far Formosa," by G. L. Mc- :Kay. F. H. Revell, New York, $2.00..
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
In view of the conflict of statements ism has taken possession of them. The as to the Sunday issues of newspapers men from Bach, from Gossner in Ber- in Japan, from a private letter of Rev. lin, from Hermannsburg, from the Mora.
H. Loomis, for twenty years agent of vians, have rarely been university men."
the American Bible Society at Yoko- Mr. Allan W. Webb writes from hama, dated August 21st, 1895, we make this extract : Geeling. Victoria: "In regard to the publication of •• Within the last ten years the inter- Sunday newspapers in Japan, I am in- est in foreign missions in Australasia formed by one of the staff of the Japan has increased immensely. Prior to that Mail that the Nippon and Yomiuri there were but few of the children of Shimbun issue a paper every day alike; our own land in foreign tlelds. The but the others print an edition Satur- Wesleyan missions in the South Seas were recruited from Australia, but be- yond that the Australian churches had day afternoon or evening, and there is hardly any if any representatives. no issue Monday morning, because Sun- Since then our own sons and daughters day is a day of rest (underscored by Rev. have gone to China, India. Korea, New Mr. Loomis). My informant gives his Hebrides. New Guinea, and Equatorial opinion that this is the custom through- Africa and South Africa, and the enout Japan (as in Tokyo and Yokohama). thusiasm grows instead of diminishing. He also thinks that this has been the course adopted by the publishers of Had the funds of the respective socieach newspaper from the time it was eties been larger, many more would first started" (in these twenty-three have been sent out. The financially years). crippled state of the colonies tells upon missionary enterprises as well as upon others. Yet there are evidences of the fact that our faith in the God of mis- sions is strong enough to face growing The authority of Rev. Mr. Loomis, a responsibilities.
cautious man in all his statements, is " The training home for female for· sufficient; but this from one of the eign missionaries, under the charge of staff of the Japan Mail, the largest Mrs. Warren. has in it at present eight paper in Japan, should settle the ques- or nine young women destined to protion. Virtually the 550 papers and ceed to different parts in the service of periodicals in Japan these twenty-three the churches. years observe the day of rest. .. The Australasian branch of the China Inland Mission has just accepted eight young men candidates to go out in September. " The Ku Cheng massacre awakened Professor Howald Osgood, of Roches- universal grief throughout Australia. ter. promises to say something to our While the secular press was crying out, readers soon on " the electric connection .. Wherefore this waste?" the heroic between a belief in the Bible as the veritable Word of God and a belief in the mother of two of the martyrs (Mrs. duty and success of missions." And Saunders. a resident in Melbourne) was rejoicing in the honor the Saviour had put upon her and her daughters in per- mitting them thus to suffer for His he well remarks that "when a man name. begins to doubt the possibility of foretelling, and the foretelling found in the The Australian Board of Missions has Bible, there is no possible basis for mis- charge of the work of the Church of sions except in a desire to improve the England in Australia and islands admorals of others; but that is not strong jacent. Its last report says: .. One enough to move his purse. If mis- word fittingly describes t1).e work of sions, home and foreign, are the ther- this board-the word progress." A self· denial effort in the year 1894 con- tributed largely to the cheering results mometer of the state of the churches, reported. The most important mission is the New Guinea Mission. In 1891 it it would be a good idea to compare all suffered a serious loss in the death of that has been done by graduates from its pioneer leader, the Rev. Albert tije Qerp}an universities since rational- Maclaren. It has now a staff consist.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
lng of two ordained ministers and four "During the past five weeks some lay workers, with five South Sea Island five hundred Moors, Jews, and Spanevangelists. The Rev. C. King, M.A., iards have died in Tangier from cholera. its head, appeals for more workers. He The Moslems say that a little man is requires at least half II dozen European riding about on a white horse shooting missionaries aud forty colored teachers. arrows at different people, and those who are wounded suffer from cholera. The BeHenden Ker Mission is devoted Very many of them refuse to take any to the aboriginals of Northern Queens- medicine, saying it is useless, and addland. The Rev. E. R. B. Gribble is at Ing that the followers of Mahomet who its head, assisted by three lay workers die of this sickness are sure to be aud two colored laborers. The success saved." of this mission and the prospect of its extension lead to a pressing of its Oentral Ohina Ohristian Missionary claims: and the aboriginal mission is that on Lake C.)ndah under the Rev. Oouvention. J. H. Stahle. The religious results of this mission are not very striking, but The seventh annual convention of the the Gospel is elevating morally and so- missionaries representing the Disciples cially this degraded people. of Christ in China was held in May last The Melanesian Mission has its own in Nankin. bishop, Dr. Cecil Wilso? In t~is .mission there are 8929 baptIzed ChrIstIans, This society supports work at five of whom 1111 have been confirmed; there are 12,183 persons under instruc- stations, all in the valley of the Yangtion in 122 schools with 381 teachers. tse: Shanghai, Nankin, Wllhu, Chll- The staff consists of the bishop, 10 white clergy and 9 native clergy and Cheo, and Luh-Hoh. 3 European lay workers. In spite of the war, the cause of Christ In addition to these the board carries bas made good progress. At its comon mission work among the Chinese mencement cOUldderable hostility was resident in the Australian colonies. The agents include Mr. Cheok Hong shown toward all foreigners. One of Cheong, an educated and refined gentleman, who has passed through a regular our missionaries, while traveling theological training, and who speaks through the country, was stopped by a English with perfect purity and ease. In addition to Mr. Che3ng there are group of soldiers and rather roughly nine other missionaries to the Chinese. Night schools are vigorously and suc- handled. After debating the propriety cessfully worked in connection with this mission. of throwing him in the river, they finally The Baptists of Australasia have released him. Later, by the efforts of chosen East Bengal as the field of their the officials and the wide circulation of operations. About twelve years ago a revival of missionary interest resulted their proclamations, the people were in the sending forth the first ladies for zenana work, and since then these mis- made to understand that there is more sions have gl'own year by year. There than one foreign country, and that none are over eight millions of people in the district in which they work. South but Japan had rebelled-so the procla- AustraJia has Faridpur, Victoria, Mymensing, New South Wales, Noakha:li, mations read. Tasmania, assisted by South AustralIa, Paboa, and New Zealand, Tippera. Even many of the officials bave ap- There are twenty-five European la- parently not yet learned that American borers six of them men, the rest wom- and European countries do not pay en, with a full stall' of native assistants. tribute to the .. Son of Heaven" at The work among the Garos has been most successful. Last year 144 were Pekin. Now that peace is declared, baptized. There are now about 350 converts connected with the mis3ions. some are saying that the Americans haeI The Rev. Silas Mead, M.A., and the injured t.he .. great country's" people Rev. W. T. Whitley, M.A., are about to visit this field. in aCapluifnoirsnhima eanntdtheelseEwmhpereer,oranbdadthuai-t as Our correspondent in Tangier, Mo- rected them to put a stop to tbe ravrocco, Rev. N. H. Patrick, writes: ages of the Japanese; that the Amed- cans were unable to do so by force of arms, and so had bought them oft' with several hundred millions of dollars.
The ease with which the mandarins have quieted the suspicions of the peo- ple in this district and turned their hos- tility into friendliness is proof that their statements of four years ago and since were false, that they could not control the people and prevent riots. The few instanc.es of ill will since t.he proclamations are the exceptions. One of our number, on visiting an inland The latter during the year provided for 257 in-patients and 86 opium pacity. was seized as a Japanese spy. tients. At the two dispensaries there were seen 4012 new cases and 6512 old The offer by our viceroy of fifty taels ones.
for every Japanese bead made some We have prayed most earnestly that God might overrule this cruel war for people very patriotic. Thll gentleman the furtherance of the Gospel. We believe we are entering upon a new era placed in this unpleasant predicament in the history of mission work in this land. had his passport with him, however, The governor-general, Chang Chihand as soon as the magistrate heard of Tung, has already taken steps to reor- ganize the army of this region on Westthe alIair he took: prompt measures for ern models. lIe is also building a ma- . cadamized road through his capital his release, and caused the informer to (Nankin), and seems determined to in- troduce many improvementR. We trl}st make a public apology. that as the Chinese adopt Western ClV- ilization they may be led to see that There were twenty-one baptisms dur- that which is the source of all that is best in Western civHization is the reing the year, and there are in addition ligion of Jesus.
between twenty and thirty inquirers. E. T. WILLIAMS. NANKIN, CJJINA, May 19, 1895. One old gentleman, sixty-two years The editor owes it to himself and his of age, is a retired official. For many readers to say that the sentiments of years past he has been an earnest seeker Dr. Jessup's article In the December after truth. He read a great many number do not represent his own, as to Buddhist books in search of peace and the fulfilment of prophecies touching hope. but found nothing satisfying un- Israel, etc. til a few days ago he accepted Christ. As this is a Re1JieUl, there is n, manifest A native physician living on a small propriety ill allowing contributors to island in the mouth of the Yang-tse present their own views, even when on Kalng came all the way to Shanghai to minor matters they do not altogether urge one of the missionaries to visit his accord with those of the editor; and home and preach the Gospel there. He this has been the policy pursued, unless was first interested in Christianity by the divergence touches fundamental reading a copy of "Martin's Evi- truths. But while giving Dr. Jessup thus full dences, .. and was led to the present step opportunity to represent his own opinby reading in the Ohung-Si-Kiao.HlIJui, ions untrammeled, the editor cannot for- Pao an account of the conversion of the bear to add at least a demurrer. This leader of a vegetarian sect on the neigh- method of dealing with prediction, in boring island of Tsung·mlng. our opinion, makes havoc of all proph- A certain Mrs. Liu, of Shanghai, was ecy. Dr. Jessup seems to us to contraa most violent persecutor of her daugh- dict himself. In one paragraph he ter, who had become a Christian. Last makes Israel only another namefor tlle year she wag taken ill, and a Bible- ohU'I'ch of God, and on the next page he an refers to the final salvation of Israel, woman, Mrs. Lee, visited her frequently. as a body now maintaining its separaand showed her much kindness. But the thin~ that softened Mrs. Liu's heart tion, etc. Again, he says that if the was seemg the Bible-woman kneel on prophecies referring to His kingship are her dirty floor and pray for her. Her to be taken literally, then, as •• Messiah was to be an earthly king, He hall never prejndice being removed, it was not come." Of course He has never yet long before she had followed her daugh- ter into the church. A more curious case is that of Miss Young, who was said to be possessed of a devil. She was a terror to the whole nei.ghborhood. I shall not attempt to explain her con- dition, as Dr. Nevius's book, just pub· lished, goes very thoroughly into the wlwle question. It is sutlicient to say that the Chinese all regard it as devil possession. This girl was chained itl her hDme; yet the fil'st time she heard the message of the Gospel she was won- derfully calmed, and restored to her normal condition. She is now sitting at the feet of Jesus, "clothed and in her right mind," and has also led her younger sistm; to Christ. These are some of the triumphs ot the Gospel during the past year. En- couraging reports were also received from the boarding-school and the hos- pital. _…. come as an earthly king-that is re- of the secretaries, that always form the served for His second coming. staple of the diet, did not fall behind the usual standard of merit. The No- For ourselves we have found it abso- vember MiBsiona;ry He'l'ald is always a lutely necessary to observe the distinc- thesaurus of missionary literature-a tion Paul makes between" Jew, Gentile, volume in itself. and Ohurch of God," which are never confused in the New Testament; and Dr. Palmer's report on finance, of to observe also the distinction between course, awakened great interest, urging the offices of propbet and priest, what that before March 1st, 1896, the $115,- Christ fulfils from His incarnation to 000 debt with which the fiscal year His second advent; and the kingly began be wiped out-a pity, indeed, which He is to fulfil in the glory of His that such a grand board should be half second coming. paralyzed by a debt that equals one fifth of the annual appropriation to its Probably some of our readers will be work! stirred up to present more fully the counter argument under the impulse of A " Disciples Union of the Order of Dr. Jessup's paper. the Double Cross" is now organized-a movement for world-wide medical mis- The Maroh of Events. sions. The name is taken from a device representing two crosses, one overlying The eighty-sixth annual meeting of the other, and the extremities of which the A. B. C. F. M.. in Brooklyn, in Oc- bear respectively the initials of the tober, under presidency of the vener- words" body" and" soul." able and beloved Dr. Storrs, was, of course, largely attended. The presi- This new International Order has dent announced a conditional gift of been recently established by Dr. George $25,000 from a nameless giver for the D. Dowkontt, of New York, and condebt, and thns early a stimulus was sists of four guilds: the Physicians', given to the subscriptions for this ob- Students', Nurses,' and Helpers' guilds. ject. The board mectings have been The purpose is to affiliate all Christian models in their way of interesting and physicians, with those who are studying inspiring missionary gatherings. Tho the art of healing for both body and soul, presence of such men in the chair as and all who are disposed to aid by pray- Dr. Hopkins and Dr. Storrs, the ad- er, work, or gifts, in a great internadresses and papers of such masters of tional association. F. G. Strickland, missions as Drs. Anderson and Clark of Hiram, 0., is corresponding secreand Smith and Treat and Means, and tary, and will reply "to any inquiries. the noble addresses of the fOIemost mis· We have thus one more organization to sionaries from the great fields of the be known as the D. U. O. D. C., the world, have combined to make these oc- main end of which is to send medical casions like the annual gatheriugs of missions to the foreign field. the tribes in the Holy City in ancient times. Since the Andover controversies The map and chart used in our Nocame in to interrupt the harmony, these vember (1895) issue were kindly loaned meetings have never regained their for- by Miss Guinness from her very valuamer prestige and spiritual power, bnt ble book, "The Neglected Continent." they are still a noble contribution to the The book is now so well known that cause of missions. On this occasion Dr. acknowledgment is scarcely necessary. Farnsworth, of Turkey, Dr. Chauncey Goodrich, of North China, and others The Church Missionary Society, like them gave variety and charm to which represents the evangelical porthe meetings; and the splendid papers tion of the Church of England member· ship, gives in its latest report details of of the late C. H. Spurgeon. Anyone world wide operations during the ninety- who Is disposed and qualified to enter sixth year of the society's existence. on this work may communicate with 'fhe total receipts amounted to £272,000. Mr. Duncan at Metlakahtla, Kitchikan, One way in which the increase in the Alaska. missionary force has been effected is by the addition both of honorary missiona- The thirteenth Mohonk Indian conries and of missionaries specially main- ference, again meeting at Mr. Smiley's tained by their own families, or by in- Grand Hotel at Lake Mohonk, had one dividual friends, or by small societies. hundred and fifty guests this year to 'fhese now number one hundred and consider the needs of these much-negfifty-four. In most cases, these con- lected and long.oppressed natives of our tributions to support the donors' " own country. This modest annual confermissionaries" are independent of, and ence is quietly doing untold good in additional to, their regular subscrip- moulding private opinion, public sentitions, and they come chiefly not from ment, and even governmental legislathe wealthy, but from the rank and file tion in behalf of the Indian trioos, and of the society's supporters. helping them upward in their manly struggles toward education and Chris- This, the greatest missionary organI- tianization. The Indian problem is one zation in the world, has impressed us, of the perplexing questions of our day, after much observation of Us methods, demanding the utmost resources of as deservedly outranking all others philanthropy, statesmanship, and Chrisamong all the denominational boards in tian wisdom. The Y. M. C. A. is doing the apostolic character of its methods noble work among them; various eduand spirit. It has a very large num· cational institutions, like those at Carber of missionaries in the field, and yet lisle, Pa., and missionary efforts put keeps out of debt; its prayer services forth in their behalf, have all been are most frequent and fervent, and its greatly owned of God, notwithstanding harmony wonderfully maintained. No the prejudice awakened in the red man reader of the Ohurch Missionary Intel- by political and commercial wrongs. ligencer needs to be told what a power that pamphlet is in its intelligent. advo- These Mohonk conferences gather tocacy of missions, or how pure and ex- gether such men as President Gates of alted is its tone. Amherst, ex-Commissioner Morgan, Commissioner Browning, Superinten- Annette Island, Alaska, given to dent Hallman, General Whittlesey, William Duncan for his New Metla- Herbert Welsh, Dr. Riggs of Santee, kahtla by the United States, is now in· Captain Pratt of Carlisle, ex·Senator volved in the boundary disputes, as was Dawes (author of the Dawes Bill, stated in our previous issue. providing for lands in severalty), Gen- eral O. O. Howard, Dr. Sheldon Jack- There is great need of a fully qualified son of Alaska, Commissioner Harris, medical man, who should be married, Superintendent Skinner-in fact, the and who with his wife would be willing best counsellors on the Indian question heartily to throw themselves into the which the country can provide; and a evangelistic work of that most interest· few full-blooded Indians add a practical ing mission. Mr. J. D. Bluett, who proof of what can be done by education from 1884-94 was associated with Mr. and piety in making the red man a rep- Duncan as medical missionary, was with resentative citizen and Christian. great regret obliged to go back to England. There need be no difficulty as to —, stipend if a suitable man can be found. An American would be preferable. Mr. The Zenana Bible and Medical Mission. Duncan's views aro identical with those At the annual meeting, at London, Eng., in April, under the presidencyof Lord Kinnaird, a most encour- is a serious blow to our work. This republlc. said to be the most advanced aging account was given of tile year's in Central America, seems in religious liberty to be putting the clock backoperations. Progress and blessing were ward. The Central American Mission has agents in the interior, some learnmanifest in every part, while fresh ing the language, others doing good work. openings were arising all round. "Surrounding republics are in a de- The Rev_ A. R. Cavalier gave a brief plorable spiritual condition. Fields abstract of the report. The medical ready for the seed, but very few to work at Benares, Lucknow, and Patna sow. Why this part of the continent Las grown wonderfully. Baptisms has been so long neglected by the Protare reported from many stations, while estant churches of the States is a questhe government inspectors report most tion often asked by visitors from Eusatisfactorily of the educational work. rope and other parts.
Mr. W. T. Paton's financial state- "In connection with the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society we are seek· ment showed that the society has now ing to give the Gospel to the people in reached an annual income of £20,000 ; this place and along the railroad, as with twenty-four new missionaries, fur- also the coast. At Bocas del 'I'oro we ther funds are now required. have a mission, also the lH.ethodist Free Church. But thenatives are in igno- The Dean of Norwich moved a reso- rance of the pure Gospel of Christ. Oh, lution of thankfulness for the extension that some Elijah would arouse the of the work, which was seconded by churches in the States to nriae and take Mrs. NikambC, a native of Bombay. possession of these countries I A more needy or promising field cannot be The Rev. G. H. C. Macgregor moved found. B,r all means prevent overlapa resolution in favor of extending the ping at thIS time of day. The field is village mission work in India, and Miss too large, time too precious for this to Fallon, from Allahabad, sp()ke from be continued. Our business is to cover personal experience regarding the value the field as speedily as possible_ Alas I of such work and the need to extend it there is still a tendency when new among India's villages. ground is broken to rush in. All the churches would do well to pause before .Joshua Heath Sobey, Baptist mis- Paul's words: "Not where Christ was IIlready named, not building upon ansionary, writes from Port Limon, Costa other man's foundation. They shall see where no tidings of Him come. And Rica, C. A., September 22d, 1895 : they who have not heard shall under- stand." .. We have been in this country now over seven years. For some years I In her annual address to the World's was the only Protestant missionary in the country. Woman's Christian Temperance Union, .. Our work has been chiefly among in London, June 19th, Miss Frances E. the English-speaking. My helper. Rev. J. Hayter. is learning the Hpanish with Willard spoke in pari as follows: a view to work among the natives. Before either the British or American Bi- " The missionary societies are our ba· ble societies had agents in this country sis of hope, and will be for many years to we were privileged to circulate thou- come. There are 280 of these associasands of copies of the Scriptures, both tions with 9000 missionaries from for· in Spanish and English. eign lands, and native preachers and teachers to the number of 55,000. Four- " The British and Foreign Bible So- teen million dollars are annually inciety kindly responded to our appeal. vested in missionary work, and in round The bishop and priests don't like the numbers 3,000,000 of human beings are Bible, and do their utmost to keep the directly associated with these missions people from possessing a Cl'py. 'Vhen either as members or close friends. possible they burn the book. In places The Scriptures have been translated where we have labored for years, and into 220 languages spoken by Dlnc with some degree of success, the bishop tenths of the human race, and 160,000,- threatens to build a Roman Catholic 000 copies of the Bible have been circuchurch in every such place. Four are lated sin(',{l this century begsn. Four already ordered, so you see we have fifths of the Continent of Africa are alprovoked them to works. A system ready under European control. Forty which produces results such as we see compels to the conclusion that the papal church needs the Gospel of Christ as much as the so-called heathen. One great need with us is suitable places to conduct worship in. The government l1as prohibited open-air services. This missionary societies, 700 foreign mis- the same stupid, God-dishonoring thing sionaries, and 7000 native preachers are as of old, when the people of Lystra deat work, and about 1,000,000 of the clared that the gods "had come down population are already under Christian in the likeness of men. " As the bishop passed through Pungo Andongo, a king influences . ft'Om the interior came to open up trade; .. The opening of China and the in- so he arranged a cot in his own room for the repose of his majesty. Next dependence of Korea are events of great day the king said to Mr. Shields, the significance in the work we have be- missionary: "I heard in my own counfore us. Japan has risen like a star try of the bishop with the long beard. from the horizon toward the zenith He is not a man at all ; he is a god come among modern nations. Her Red down to men. Last night when he Cross Society and the army order in- came into the bedroom I saw him take viting the missiollaries to furnish every off Ws head (wig) and lay it down by soldier with a copy of the New Testa- his bed, and yet he had a head same as ment are indications that the Japanese before. I was scared nearly to death, are not lovers of war, but may_ be ex- and trembled all over. If he had pected to combine with the Western touched me then I would have died. powers, so much admired by the Island He is the god that piled up these great Kingdom of the East, to substitute ar- bitration for the sword. .. The least-known country of the world has been Thibet, but by a new treaty with Great Britain through her Indian Empire, the first open treatyport has been established beyond the border of that mysterious realm, whence the Mahatma will soon vanish under Pungo mountains. If I could have got the light of Christian civilization. gut of the room I would have run for my life, but the god was between me " A young Englishwoman, a physi- and the door, and I couldn't get out. cian, has been escorted from India to When I go home to my people I will Afghanistan by a special embassy from tell them that I saw a god, and came the Ameer, and has made an impres- near to the end of my life." He could sion so favorable by her ministrations not be induced to risk his life in that among the women of the court, that room again. there is every reason to believe that she will be followed by others of her class, There is a tree of death in Java. and that mountain kingdom will come The natives call it the Kali Mujah. Its into touch with the electric shock of breath would kill birds and even huthe new century. man beings. One day when Rev. E. S. Ufford was chasing a bird of paradise, "This heritage of ours, the planet he noticed that it dropped suddenly to earth, has now been practically explor- the ground, under a tree. He examed in every nook and corner, and every ined the tree, and began himself to feel place will soon be so near to every strangely, as the odors from its leaves other place that communication can be began to be inhaled by him. His head had from the centers of civilization to swam, and ringing sounds came to his the circumference. The darkest, sad- ears as though he were being chlorodest spot, the' open sore of the world.' formed. He hastened away from it, is the Turkish Empire, from which but procured a specimen and sent it to happily many branches have alreadl America, which, it is said, is the first been knocked off, and others are practi- one transplanted in our soil. .. What cally sure to be-first of all hapless Ar- a striking illustration this is of the tree menia and Macedonia. Whatever evil of death, which has been planted in our tends to its own cure heaps up its own fair America by the distiller I It has retribution-prophesies its own remedy; leaves for the blighting of the nations. the blood of the Armenians revealed I see the young, the middle-aged, the the wound. The sick man of Con- old, chasing the birds of pleasure, and stantinople will find its territory closing closely round him, his maligned power will recoil upon himself, and Christian education and civilization may be trusted to lift even the Turk, the most malevolent member of our great family circle, to the level of decencv and afterward decorum among the nations of the earth. "
Bishop TaylorarraJgns heathenism as then falling down beneath the dark shadow of this baleful tree, to die there, victims to the treachery of a few. Mrs.
never to rise again. Would that we Stewart (wife of Rev. Mr. Stewart, who was killed), with her children and maid, might lay the ax at the root of this were up the mountains, where my daughtree !" ters and their friends usually spend the l!ummer, and I suppose the maid and Among the victims of the Chinese some of the children have escaped. I think, from what I know, they were massacres were the Misses Saunders, most likely attacked at night."
and their mother shows the martyr " The elder Miss Saunders found her medical knowledge very useful. She spirit in rejoicing to be accounted studied further in China under Dr.
worthy to suffer in giving them up to Gregory, a medical missionary. From death for the Lord's sake. Her con- eight to twelve daily she received pa- tients, dressed their limbs, and preversation about it is beautifully saintly. scribed for them. Then after lunch she A few facts about these heroic daugh- went out with Miss Elsie Marshall, a ters may interest our readers : friend, who used to preach, and my daughter to prescribe for the listeners. They were born at Brighton, Eng- By this means they got hold of the peoland. At the time of their confirmation ple. Then they always took a Biblp- they began to seek a field to work for woman with them, because she had the Lord. Mr. Beauchamp and Mr. more ready command of the language, Hudson Taylor fired their hearts with and the Chinese trusted her more, and the stories of the woes and wants of the so they worked from day to day."
heathen, and they both decided to dedi- This elder daughter passed her second cate their lives to this work of missions. examination in the language last May, In 1892 they got the chance they had after being out fifteen months. The been waiting for, and were accepted as younger daughter passed her first ex- workers if they would first qualify amination last Easter, and was prepar- themselves by some additional study. ing for the other. The elder was This they consented to. The eldest twenty-four and the younger two years daughter spent six months in the Mel- her junior. Great success has attended bourne Hospital gaining medical knowl- the work of the Christians in China.
edge, which has been invaluable to her. At this particular place, Kucheng, there Then they got training in theology. On are five hundred Christians. Mr. Stew- October 16th, 1893, they left Sydney for art baptized eighty last time he held a China. Their home has been at Ku- baptismal service. It is a glorious work.
cheng. Of course little is known yet Miss Gordon worked with the Misses of the actual massacre, but something S':mnders, and shared their fate. She of the state of affairs prior to the event. should have been away during the mas- Those Vegetarians, the avowed enemies sacre, July and August being the holito law and order, have been causing day months. Mrs. Saunders'S daughmuch trouble. They are the rabble, the ters hoped to come home on furlough, scum of society, the nihilists of China. but had dedicated themselves to their The morning papers stated that they work. Indeed, if the mother could acted under the direction of the man- have sold her property she would darin, but these ladies have testified have gone herself, aud has not given that the mandarin was very kind to up the idea of going even now_ She them, and promised to protect them. declares she would go to-morrow if " May not the seeming kindness, and she could dispose of her property. the assistance in their murder, be just Mrs. Saunders frequently referred to another instance of the duplicity of the the "glorious deaths" of the victims, Chinese character?" was the question anti counts them" privileged to die for put to the mother. the Lord." She says: "I do not think " The duplicity of the Chinese char- of their bodies. I think of them in acter is no worse than the duplicity of heaven. If I had two other daughters some Christians' character," she replied I would send them to follow in the footwarmly. "I stand up for the Chinese. steps of their sisters," was her noble at- They are not to be judged by the work testation. One of the last sentences of their rabble any more than we should penned by Miss Lizzie Saunders to her if the strikers had perpetrated outrages. mother was as follows: The respectable Chinese are a fine peo- " Lord Jesus, Refiner and Purifier of ple, and I exonerate them_ My daugh- souls, cleanse and make holy for Thyters and their friends had onl,t returned self; and in the trial of faith which is home, after going away tIll it was more preciou8 than gold which perish- thought safe to return, and bave fallen eth, we can remember that He said, ' If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.' nothing except to indoctrinate Korean But it was not possible. If it had youth in a new and composite faith in been possible where would all those which Buddhism, Shintoism, and fraghosts be that will rejoice because their ments of other beliefs and unbeliefs are robes are washed white in the blood of heterogeneously mingled, the Koreans the Lamb? They could not be in glory would be as well off without such teachshouting Hallelujah to the Lamb that ing. Christian missionaries, like Dr. once was slain, and if the cup could Baird and his fellow-workers, can at pass from our lips we would go empty- least give to Korea a positive and defihanded to the gate of heaven. We nite gospel of salvation. The missionwould never know the joy of living ary in that country is hedged about alone with Jesus. He is unspeakably with peculiar difficulties, no doubt, but precious. He comes so near. I love this is nothing new. We have only to Him so. He draws one with cords of study the acts of the Apostles to see all love that never fail, never break, never the hindrances of modern missions long hurt. " ago exemplified. It will never be easy work to convert men from sin to God, Anyone seeing the comfortable home but the salvation of a single soul is the young ladies abandoned when they priceless in God's sight. left" The Willows" to labor in China would know that only devotion to their A very prominent and discriminating work would induce them to make the change. Both were beautiful girls. The elder was an excellent pianist, and both were well fitted to shine in society, and had every inducement to give themselves up to a life of pleasure.
They chose differently.
friend of missions writes: About Korean Missions.-Rev. Mr. "I have been reading Henry Nor- Baird, of Fusan, says the new Bud- man's' People and Politics in the Far dhism of Japan takes all it can from East. ' It is very brilliant and instruc- Christianity and other sources to arm tive, but of course from the point of view of a ' Britisher ' and a club man; itself with new aggressive and propa- and his criticisms of missions and mis- gandist methods. Emissaries, of the sionaries are ignorant, prejudiced, and new Buddhist creed in Japan are visit- untrue. I will just indicate the pages ing the old Buddhist monasteries in on which they are found, as others may want to turn to them and refute them- Korea, endeavoring to persuade, them I saw in the Outlook a protest against to adopt the m~thods in use in their own them-pages 280, 281, 282-304, 305, 306, country, and offering to take Korean 307, 308. " He quotes the phrase as applied to youth thither to be educated. 'fhese them, 'ignorant declaimers in bad Chioffers have been accepted by some of nese,' and endorses it. 'Protestant mis- the Korean officials, and when the sionary tracts are distributed bearing young men are suitably indoctrinated, coarse illustrations of such biblical inci- dents as the swallowing of Jonah by they are to return as propagandists of the whale and the killing of Sisera by that faith among their own people. Dr. Jae1.' 'Moreover, … the Protestant Baird does not think that there is a sin· missionaries have circulated the whole gle Japanese Christian in Fusan, and Bible in Chinese. But they have re- cently seen their error.' 'There are says that the entire Japanese influence some men among the Protestant misthere is anti-Christian and immoral. sionaries of the highest character and Japan owes to the introduction of devotion. . •. These, however, are a Christianity, and of the civilization small minority.' 'At any rate, in con· sidering the future of China, the miswhich owes all its greatness to Chris- sionary influence cannot be counted tianity, its elevation to a new level as a upon for any good.'
nation. Yet, with the perverseness of "This is his conclusion of the whole human depravity, there is a tendency to matter, and with this last he dismisses the subject. It makeE any intelligent blend all religions into new combina- student of missions very indignant, and tions, which certainly never has worked vitiates his testimony on every branch well. If missionaries of Japan can do of information upon which he wrote."
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEON.UlD.
Extracts and Translations from Foreign twelve centuries been under the civil· Periodioals. izing power of the Buddhist religion and the Confucian philosophy, while BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, the Malagese have been worshiping rude idols, the Tribune pronounces MASS. these a hopelessly savage people, and gives the French carte blanclw to work MADAGASCAR. their will on them! France is very much obliged to it, and as for truth, -The New York Tribune informs no one looks for it ou such a subject, the public that great interest has been in such a quarter. felt in Madagascar since the official and wholesale acceptance of Christian- Our English race has professed Chrisity by its people, and that many have tianity for about thirteen centuries, and looked upon it as a fulfilment of the this has exercised a powerful and adprophecy that a nation shall be born in vancing influence on the softening and a day, and that hopes have been enter- puriflcation of our manners. Yet are tained that lbdagascar might become we to·day in reality anything more an enlightened and progressive power than imperfectly reclaimed barbarians? like Japan,but that her people, not- The Germans have been called Chriswithstanding their acceptance of Chris- tians for something over a thousand tianily, have made no real advance in years, and can anything better be said civilization, and remaining savages of them? A work thnt is laid out for have met the fate which seems reserved eternity may well require an reon to acfor all savage peoples, by falling under complish. Therefore if the Malagese, the dominion of a civilh.ed power_ in a body, were to accept Christianity to-morrow-and that not to please the This is a specimen of the kind of in- Queen, but of their own motion-they formation as to missions that may be would remain less than half civilized expected from one of our great news- for genera.tions yet. The declaration papers. The" official and wholesale" of the Tribune, however, that they acceptance of Christianity consists in have made no real advance in civilizathe more or less nominal adherence of tion, signifies nothing whatever except about 600,OOO-largely computed-out that the editor wishes to please the of a total population of about 3,500,000 French and the unbelievers. It is ut- -that is, of about one sixth. It is terly contradicted by facts. To say true, the real and nominal Christians that the two central provinces-which belong almost exclusively to the ruling almost alone come in question-have races of the Hovas and Betsileos, form- made no real advance in civilization, ing about one third or perhaps one half even though weighed down by slaveI'Y of these. There has, therefore, been and despotism, under the influence of no "official and wholesale" acceptance a thousand schools, and the constant of Christianity even by the dominant proclamation of the Gospel of purity, race. And yet because the barbarous righteousness, and humanity by sev- Hovas and BetsiUios, surrounded and eral thousand preachers, is to contrainfluenced by an equal number of far dict the nature of the human mind, and more barbarous tribes, over whom they the testimony of scores of observing and exercise a little more than nominal au- conscientious men. However, as it is thority, have not, in a single generation, at present of much more consequence themselves remaining half heathen, to please the French than to tell the made Madagascar a highly civilized nation like Japan, that has for some
EXTlU.CTS AND TRANSLATIONS
truth about the Hovas, the Tribune is the J()Urnal des Mi88ionl, referring to wise in its generation. the proposition made by some English CHINA. men-heathen, evidently, not Christians -" Turning from the [Kucheng] massacre to its causes, the question be- -to guard against trouble with China comes a little perplexing. Indeed, It will be wise to suspend our judgment by forbidding Englishmen to go to until the results of the commission are made known. But the theory wbich China as missionaries, very justly reat first found favor in the public press, that this sanguinary plot was due to re- marks, that it is for the governments, ligious fanaticism, will not bear eXlUIlination, and must be dismissed as untena· and not for the missionaries to deterble; for religIous fanaticism in Chinn is conspicuous by its absence. Race mine how far they will concern themfanaticism is strong; contempt and hatred for foreigners are common enough, selves with outrages upon the missionand are almost universal among the cultured gentry and official classes, the aries, but that the question whether li~at£ and the mandarins; but, as the Rev. George Cockburn, of the Church Christian men and women shall proof Scotland Mission at Ichang, now at home, In a letter to the Abe,·dun. Free claim the Gospel throughout the world Pres8, says: "No people are so latitudinarian. You may have any relig- depends on the authority of Christ, and ion, or no religion, and you will offend none of their prejudices. This is the not of human governments. No Christestimony of all who come into close personal contact with the Chinese. tian man could possibly hold himself Anti-foreign and not anti-missionary feeling is the potent influence at work. bound in conscience to obey a law of Gradually, the best-informed organs of opinion in this country are coming to his government forbidding him to go see this-notably, the Times, in an article which appeared on August 13th. abroad as a missionary. It would be Indeed, the indignation meetings held by the foreign communities in various beyond its legitimate competency, It treaty ports in China disprove this theory of religious fanaticism. The entire might as well be proposed to forbid community, as with one voice, has de· clared its conviction that it is the safety, the preaching of Christianity at home. treaty rights, and liberties of foreigners generally that are threatened, and that That will probably be the next step. it is the mandarins who are the offenders and need to be taught that their The old pagan worship of the State a3 wily plots can hoodwink no one. This will grow clearer to the treaty powers supreme in everything is making rapid as they proceed to investigate the situation, and we may safely leave this side progress; but England will probably of the question in the hands of the British Government."-The Oll/ron.ick. be the last country of Christendom to -Professor F. HERMAN KRUGER, in succumb to it, the last in which the reign of AntiChrist will be established.
However this may be, the history or the Church is one long series of ad- vancements won against the will of the State, and she would cease to be the Church if this should cease to be true of her. "We ought to obey God rath· er than men." When Christians cease to be refractory fanatics in the eyes of the world, they are no longer Chris- tians. In everything temporal, they are bound to be submissive and obedi- ent, but when Cresar undertakes to check the very essence of the Church, which is diffusion through the world, he becomes the deputy of the great enemy. .
.. , It is very singular," said a learned Chinese, who believes in Christ, 'that foreign ships came here, and all said they were better than ours. Foreign steamers came, and all are glad to travel in them. Kerosene came over, and all. sal9. "This light is better."
Foreign calico was imported, all round
GENERAL lUSSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
about began to use it for clothes. For- tal.phrases."-Dr. FABER, in Zeit8clwift eign needles were imported, all agree fUr Misswnakunde. that they excel ours; but the foreign doctrine came, and nobody wants it. It -" The Western powers are greatly is very singular.' "-Da'TUJk Mi88io'TUJ- indebted to Japan for having destroyed so many illusions as to China, illusions Blad. kept up for years back by interested foreigners, and which unhappily have – " It appears that it is the sex of not been seen through by their excelthe adult victims of the tragedy of lencies, the foreign ministers. Facts Kucheng, who, except Dr. Stewart, now speak a distinct and very serious were all women, that has particularly language. for such ears as can hear. provoked criticisms in certain circles of The missionary work"-this was writthe United Kingdom. It was also a ten before the outrages in Fuh-klen genuine consolation to learn by testi- and Sze-chuen-H has thus far not been mony of Dr. Gregory, that they died hindered by the war. Since the murinviolate; but the predominance of the der of Mr. Wylie in Manchuria at the feminine element in many of the Eng- beginning, we have nothing of simila'r lish and· American miBBions is none the occurrences. There are even indicaless an abnormal thing. The woman tions that the miBBionaries are beginought to remain the helper of the man ning to be regarded by the mandarins in missions in heathen countries as well with more intelligence and therefore as elsewhere; it matters little whether with more respect than formerly. The as wife or transient inmate of a family; French patronage of the Roman Cathobut to confide to young women quite lic missions may appear to involve alone, whatever their number, an evan- some danger to China, but Protestant gelizing post in a heathen city, appears miBBions cannot appear so, divided as to us decidedly opposed to the part they are among several treaty powers. which Providence has assigned to the The repJesentatives at English and weaker sex. On the other hand, the American diplomacy have foresight and good which ladies, placed in these cir- tact enough to recognize and also to accumstances, accomplish, is undeniable, knowledge the great political signifiand it would be hard to refuse their cance of some 1500 Protestant missionservices for the simple reason that there aries, whose sphere of influence emare too many of them compared with braces the whole empire. A transforthe numbers of the stronger sex in the mation of China is only possible with work. We see then only one way of help of the energetic cooperation of meeting the difficulty, it is that the Christian missions, for nothing else will men go abroad in sufficient numbers to ensure a speedy and extended influence re-establish the equilibrium. God on the masses of the people. May God grant that this may come to pass soon!" direct all to the salvation of the mil- -Revue des Mi8sions Contemporaines. lions. "-Ibid.
-" To me it seems impossible that -In a later letter Dr. FABER remarks: China should flourish again unleBB the "Meanwhile, peace has been concludpalace can be delivered from the gov- ed, but on neither side do the armed ernment of women and eunuchs, and preparations which are going on seem unless polygamy among the mandarins to indicate any hearty confidence in its and men of rank can be abolished. continuance. Perhaps these prepara- Moreover, idolatry and ancestor-wor- tions are In view of the possibility. ship are cancers that consume the mar- that M Hung Chang may be overrow of the land. This is true, notwith- thrown and the old conservative party standing the opposing assertions 01 the come to the helm. At this distance we antagonists of missions, who endeavor can get no trustworthy accounts of to veil their malignity under;sentimen.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATION••
what is going on in the palaee. The world is their pat"lsh, for whieh they Emperor is stlll too young not to be are O/flMJJerabl6. We are neither lack- dependent on those around him. The ing in the capacity of religious enthu.
Empress dowager appears to be more siasm and the courage of self-sacrifice, taken up with herself and her own nor are we lacking in the necessary glory than with any thoughts of moth· money in the land; we are lacking erly care for the 400,000,000 of the only in a right organization of our people. Prince Kung also appears evangelical strength for aggressive de- powerless. ,Li Hung Chang has more velopment, and in a recognition of our enemies than formerly. Despite the missionary obligation to the whol6 world, great services which this great states· an obligation to be restrained by no man of China has rendered to his na· patriotic limitation. We Germans come tive country, there now allpears in his late into the mission-field, yet we CO'lm, past policy one portentous failing. He and that with so much the greater has not. known how to train for the weight. May God graciously so order higher range of the public service men it !-Pfarrer KRANZ, in Zeitsclvrijt fU1'
of professional skill and of firmness of MiBBionskunde.
character. There is a lack everywhere -Considering that the Unitas Fra· in the cabinet, among the imperial offi· trum and the Halle missionaries went cials in the provinces, in the army, in out so long ago, it can hardly be said the navy, in the technical schools, of that the Germans come late. What is serviceable, reliable men. II evidently meant is, that German Protes· -" Some days ago I received from a tants are late in coming to a general rec· friend In Hongkong a letter in which ognition of their duty.
he related that a secretary of the Church "If we will bear well in mind the Missionary Society, who was there on vices and irregularities which deformed a tour of inspection, delivered in a the Gentile churches of Paul's time, great hall a discourse on the missionary especially the Corinthian Church, we obligation. In it he portrayed the should be spared many temptations needs of the heathen and the enormous and disappointments. The apostle's greatness of the missionary field, and deep intelligence of human nature, and then said that England and America his knowledge of the natural life, even must do the work commanded by among the Christians, shows itself in Ohrist, 'for what can we expect from the following passage: 'Lest, when I Germany?' We German missionaries come again, my God will humble me feel this criticism bitterly, above all, among YOIl, and that I shall bewail because, measured by what has yet many which have sinned already, and been achie'Ded, there is much truth in have' not repented of the uncleanness, it; but yet is not wholly true. I can· and fornication, and lasciviousness, not give up the hope and the faith that which they have committed.' We mis- we in the future can yet expect grest sionaries out of the Western lands are things from Germany even for mis· too much Inclined to treat the Chinese sions. Only let the land of Luther converts as if they were of our sort.
first rightly recognize her missionary Doubtless we are to regard them a8 our obligation, let the genuine Christians brethren in Christ, but we should Done in Protestant Germany gather them· the less learn from the apostle to dis· selves in a decisive confession of the tinguish children from those of full one Lord, and recognize one another age. For thousands of years the Chi· mutually as brethren, and over against nese Inheritance has been Idolatry and the world as responsible bearers of the worldliness. It is unreasonable then Gospel, then they will soon become to expect of them that strength of faith conscious that not the narrow bounda- and spirituality of view which may rea- ries of Germany, but the whole great 80nably be required of us. It is ex-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
traordinarily difficult for them to reo room, the house being then set on tire. nounce superstition in every form, .. The nurse and Miss Nellie Saunders when everything about them is steeped died endeavoring to protect the chilo in supeNt.ition, not. easy to be open and dren. 8.Jld their bOOies also wale left in honorable, pure and clean, where every· the burning house." By the heroism body is just the opposite. We must of the second girl, Kathleen, the eldest first convince ourselves whether there girl, who was badly wounded, and the is any Christian life at all in them, and three young ones were rescued from thon we must follow the example of the flames, being carried or dragged to the great apostle of the Gentiles, and the house where the American lady, have confidence that this inner life Miss Hartford, was staying. " The will grow, and that God is faithful, younger Miss Saunders was killed out· through whom they have been called side; and the five C. E. Z. M. S. ladies into the fellOWShip of His Son. He were attacked outside their own house, will fulfil His work among the Chi· Miss Codrington alone escaping death. nese, as He fulfilled it among the Co· rinthians. The Gospel is A POWER of Since apparently all Is quiet now at God; and so long as it abides among a Fuh·kien, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Martin, and congregation, this will also reveal this Miss Boileau return to the mission at power in the renewal of the heart and once, and the two new men appointed to life of every member. "-Dr. ERNEST it, the Revs. F. E. Bland and J. A. Cut· FABER, retranslated from Zeitschrift fillr ten, accompany them. For the present MiMiomkunde. the nine new ladies designated for the work are detained, tho it is hoped they -Pfarrer KRANZ remarks that a man may yet sail this year. who can both speak and read the Chi· nese of cultivated conversation (Kuan· In response chiefly to urgent requests hoa) is no nearer ability to read the from Ireland, where Mr. and Mrs. written classical Chinese (Wenli) than Stewart were so well known. a Xu· a man who can speak and read French clteng Mem01'ial FUnd has been opened. 1Iuently, is able to read Latin, of which Funds have freely come in; but no ap· the French is a profound modification. peal for money has been made or will There are, moreover, three grades of be made. Wenli, the most compressed of which cannQt be read without a commentary. West Indies.-Accordlng to the Bish· The least compressed is that of novels, op of Sierra Leone. who has just reo which seem to be as popular In China turned from the West Indies. good as with us. The middle Wenli is offi· openings exist there for the enlistment cial and commercial. of missionary recruits for Africa from the negro population. An earnest ap· English Notes. peal for Europeans to lead parties of African evangelists into the Temni and BY JAMES DOUGLAS. Mendi countries has been received, and the committee of the Church Mission- OhU1'ch MiBBiona'l'1J &ciety.-Details ary Society would welcome three or have arrived from Fuh·chow of the four men of suitable gifts should they Ku·cheng massacre, which were de· be led to offer themselves for this exlivered in London at mid.day on Satur· tensive work. day, September 14th. Happily the ac· tual murders had not combined with West Africa.-In sequence to what them the nameless horroN suggested we have just written, it is pleasing to by some of the wild telegrams. Mr. find that as the result of a missionary and Mrs. Stewart were not burnt alive, Tccruiting comps.ign undertaken by the but were killed instantly in their bed· Rev. W.·'E. Humphrey, Principal of the Fourah Bay College, and the tutor, the Rev. E. T. Cole, about 100 young
ENGLISH NOTE••
men offered themselves for missionary PrCflbyterian Ohurch of England.- work and were interviewed. After An interesting account Is given of Dr. deductions were made on various Lyall's farewell address, given recently grounds, 60 were left, 9 married and in his native village in Berwickshlre, 51 unmarried. Among these it is hoped prior to his leaving for China once a few at least will be found suitable to more. He explained who" the Black occupy under tried teachers some new Flags" are, the Chinese bravoes, who, stations either in the Temne or Mendi in contrast with their countrymen on countries, or both. the mainland, have been able to put under some kind of arrest for the mo- W68tern India.-Two Parsees, a ment the march of the Japanese from brother and a sister, have been baptized the north to the south of Formosa. and ha ve renounced their Zoroastrian- These men are villagers for the most ism. The sister first came to the knowl- part who have become habituated to edge of the truth; and as far back as war because of the necessity imposed November, 1894, applied for baptism, upon them of being ready at any hour but was deterred by her brother, who to repel the incursions of the mounthreatened to put an end to his life, taineers that watch their opportunity to should she carry out her purpose. The prey upon the villages. scales have fallen from his eyes, and together with his sister he has made Dr. Lynll also gave an account of the avowal of his adhesion to Christ. mission hospital in Swatow-the largest in China-which has an average of 180 The Bhit Mi88ion.-Ditllcult and slow in-patients all the year through, and de· exceedingly is the work among the tailed the growth of the native churches Bhils in the Bombay Presidency. The in that region, three of which are selfrecord as it now stands is 24 baptisms supporting, each baving an ordained after fourteen years' labor. pastor.
Society for the Propagation of the Gos_ Wesleyan Missionary Society. – A pel.-This society is doing its best, brief sketch is supplied in the "Misamid much that is discouraging, to hold sionary Notices" of David Tonga, now the fort in the extensive and sparsely with the Lord. In the little kingdom populated province of Manitoba. An of Tonga, for a quarter of a century, endeavor is made to place a clergyman he has been the foremost Tongan, the wherever needed if a guarantee be late King George alone excepted. He given of £60 or £80 toward a salary of was a born leader of men; and his rank £140 or £160. The total amount raised as II BOul-winner is illustrious. When in the diocese itself was £14,250. It is very young he began to preach, and deeply to be regretted that the mission his first convert was his own father. college has a debt of £9500. Early in the seventies he became a dis- trict minister, receiving a circuit ap- Bloemfontein.-The work of the So- pointment in 1876. He had numerous ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel seals to his ministry, He was also one in this diocese, while subject to excep- whose faith shone grandly forth under tional fluctuations, has its clear quota trial. Neither persecution, nor the of encouraging results. Fifteen Basu- spoiling of his goods, nor the breaking tos have been received into the mem- up of his beautiful home, nor banishbership of the church recently after a ment made him to swerve or so much most careful test. It is felt by the as dimmed his hope. Such men are workers that these have come to them bright lights in their day, nor has their to call them forth to seek that others shining ceased when they theIDSelves in Basutoland may hear and receive the are lone. words of life.
&ENJil:&A.L HIlI8rONARY INTBLLIGJilNCJil_
ltatUt1C1 of the JUllionary Soo1et1el of·the [TlI'II811 tabl. blelude only Mieeionl to non-Christian and non-Protestant peoples, and 80 they omit the United States_ The tlgures are derived almost wholly from annual reports, and relate in the main blanks, and hence where official tlgures were not at hand, conservative estimates have been made_] ~ Missionaries_ Native Laborers. – J… N£JIlIIl OJ' SOOl1IITI'JliI. !.;i 'el_ l ! 0 ~ i g .; .sa~ 'E +l ~ 0 a 'E ~ ~~ 0 ~ ~ ..g"… 3 0 ~ ~~ )l ~ r,..
——————- American Board _…………….. -. _. _… -. 1810 $716,837 187 17 187 180 572 242 2,847 Baptist Missionary Union ……..•….•..•. 1814 681,256 185 34 157 115 491 255 1,680 southern Baptist Convention ………••.• ,. 1845 …. 125,417 40 35 16 91 80 89 Free ~aptist …………………………… 1886 25,611 9 23 10 12 54 28 218 20,000 3 5 2 3 13 1 6 ……….. Seventh·Day Baptist…….. ,… 1842 Christian (Disciples)………•…•.•.•••.••• 1875 88,514 19 3 18 9 49 3 60 American Christian Convention •..•…..••. 1886 27 3 15 Lutheran, General Conncil ……..•…••.• ,. 1869 5,000 4 …. 1 3 19 2 145 Lutheran, General Synod•…•…………. 1837 5 19 3 203 20,892 8 …. 8 50,000 10 …. 4 Methodist Episcopal …………………… 18U 992,807 242 46 2'Jl 148 687 323 S,S46 Methodist Episcopal, South…•.•..•….••. 1846 214,324 53 4 47 5 111 57 201 Methodist Protestant……..•………..• , . 1882 15,806 I; 1 6 3 15 3 17 3,200 2 …. 2 ……… Wesleyan Methodist ………… 1887 3 7 …. 10 …….. .. Protestant Episcopal .••…•.•• 1885 269,491 42 27 22 19 110 81 424 Presbyterian………………………….. 1837 865,709 248 48 260 168 724 241 1,996 132,338 Presbyterian, South.•….•. …………… 1861 50 7 41 30 128 29 141 24,06lI cnm~rland Presbyterian•..•.•……•….. 1828 4,034 5 …. 56 16 3 24 17,168 . 8 Associate Reformed Presbyterian, South..• , 1879 3,900 .. 33 9 4 10 Reformed presbyterian (Covenanter)…….. 1856 ~ 18 … 84 Reformed Presbyterian (Gen'l SyLod) …… 1836 5 II 6 I; 8 …. 37 5 …. 3 ….
United Presbyterian…………………… 1859 132,807 32 1 80 31 94 25 498 30,620 Reformed (German)…………………… 1878 111,288 6 …. /; 2 13 9 41 Reformed (Dutch) ……….. , ………….. 1836 9,608 Evangelical Association …•••••••••.•••..•. 1876 ,8,600 27 5 26 18 76 43 348 20,000 German Evangelical Synod.. ………….. 1888 32,661 3 …. a …. 6 …. 14 36,488 11 …. 53 United Brethren………………………. 1863 :1,416 7 …. 31 237,497 Society of Friends …………. …………. 1871 135.120 16 10 4 6 36 14 26 Canada Baptist……………………….. 1866 11 34 11 19 75 9 82 Canada Congregationalist……………… 1881 11 …. 11 10 32 10 162 Canada Methodist…………………….. 1873 1 …. …. 1 2 4 33 …. Canada Presbyterian………………….. 1844 " 23 32 88 82 80 33 13 80 35 111 6 61 – – – – – – – – – – – Twenty-Six Other Societies………………… 35 95 -171 9, 435- – 10 -360 434.711 126 Totalll ………….. ……. i'I ……….. …… $5,472,772 1,441 365 1,280 1,0701 4,129) 1,46613,177 United States and Canada for 1894-911.
work done in non-Catholic Europe, while covering that in behalf of Indians, Chine!!e, and Japanese In to 1895, tho sometimes the year includes a part of 1894. The aim has been to leave the fewest poBBible ~ ~ :i .~ . ..J. o" . I">< ot ~ ~-;;- ;j~ ",,'" .~.. !S~ .8 l!lS i'" ""<".""",: t~ Countries in which ~ .; j Missions are Sustained. o ell 0 1jO '0 0 :p ill "<": ~ ~ ~ ell ;e; E-t — – – —- —- —- – 3,418 1,266 44,413 3,~66 141,129 1,165 48,874 Africa, Turkehi India, China, Japan, 2,121 1,054 102,351 244,000 1,240 25,321 4,484 10,000 BuMrmicarohn, eIsniadia,exCichoi,nSap, aJianp, Aanu,stAriaf-. 180 199 3,493 581 15 707 272 14 729 51 1,519 94 3,216 rica, France, SEaln. China, Japan, A rica, Italy, Mexico, Brazil. India (Southern Bengal), 19 2 100 8 140 2 37 Ohina (Shanghai).
109 30 875 101 1,750 10 919 India, China, Japan, Turkey.
22 28 220 10 800 2 40 Japan (Tokyo, etc.).
164 198 1,763 350 4,484 102 1,893 India (Madras).
222 12 5,905 1,200 14,370 199 5,393 India (Madras), West Africa.
4,033 510 43,855 8,855 97,000 1,446 40,813 China, Korea, Japan, India, Africa, 312 Bulgaria, Mexico. South America. 136 7,804 1,277 16,332 45 1,116 China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.
32 14 87b 47 800 14 648 Japan (Yokohama).
17 2 250 10 600 5 208 Africa (Sierra Leone).
584 206 7,762 241 17,000 142 6,082 Africa, China, Japan, Haiti, Greece.
2,720 719 37,065 3,897 105,000 912 32,942 India, China, Ja~an, Korea, Africa, 270 931 ChSiynrai,aK, Poererasi,aJa~paan,nlAshfrAicma,eGricreae.ce, 40 38 2,653 160 8,000 27 Italy, Mexico, raz!l.
10 617 40 1,200 4 150 Japan, Mexico, Indians.
19 11 245 54 500 4 91 Mexico (Tampico, etc.).
52 10 ~ 8 500 10 596 Northern Syria, Asia Minor.
4.~ 9 582 274 1,317 11 283 India (Northwest Provinces).
592 247 10,901 1,283 23,000 247 12,608 Egypt, India (Northwest Provinces).
54 41 1,960 235 4,500 2 218 Japan (Tokyo, Sendai, etc.).
419 269 5,197 408 12,000 155 5,694 India, China, Japan, Arabia.
20 17 727 118 1,200 1 25 Japan (Tokyo, Osaka).
64 12 460 25 1,165 17 572 India (Central Provinces).
62 23 6,491 280 17,000 15 1,250 China, W1lst Africa.
157 40' 793 77 1,800 27 834 Mexico, .Alaska, Jamaica, Ohina, Japan. 194 35 3,215 408 10,000 68 1,086 India (Telugns).
8 1 20 8 250 2 95 Africa (West Oentral).
168 106 6,070 225 12,000 556 2,812 Japan (Tokyo), Indians.
172 283 2,774 141 7,000 88 5,210 China, India, New Hebrides, West Indies. – -795- – -127 – – -4,0-04 – -31-5 – -8,5-00- – -56- -2-,73-8 17,306 5,669 304,111 28,437 761,936 6,683 203,402 THE KINGDOM. the Christian scholar-from the strong woman, who could lift a patient from -At the Episcopal Triennial Con- one bed to another, to the refined and ference held in October in Minneapolis highly trained lady, capable of setting Bishop McLaren preached a sermon the standard of woman's morality and which may fairly be called tremendous intellectual life at a high and sacred upon the Mission Love of our Lord pitch." Jesus Christ, from the text: "But when he saw the multitudes, he was -The same speaker remarked that moved with compassion on them, be· " he was often discouraged at missioncause they fainted, and were scattered ary meetings by hearing prayers offered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd" for the opening of doors-when during (Matt. 9: 36). Here he found the the last thirty years no less than 700,- Christian motive, and held with great 000,000 people, formerly inaccessible to vigor and earnestness that such love the Gospel, had been made accessibleshould throb in every breast. and by the prayer for labor(lrs, when the Volunteer Student movement had -The House of Bishops, in their let· provided the workers. These were, ter to the Episcopal Church, declare therefore, not prayers. Prayer was that the large gifts of a few laymeu asking for what you have not got and cannot stand as the measure of the gen· want to get. What, then, is the real erosity of the Church, and make the honest prayer for 1895? '0 Lord, statement: .. We can never hope to open my purse.' That is what you are rise to the measure of our opportunities wanting; what you have not got." and of our obligations to meet their., until every baptized man, woman, and -Just such weak-kneed pastors can child shall give freely, systematically, be found by the score and hundred in conscientiously. to the support of the every denomination as the Assembly Gospel and kingdom of our Lord Jesus Herald had in its eye: "A Presbyterian Christ. " pastor notified his congregation re, centIy that he felt that the church was -Dr. John Talmage, who died not not called upon to do anything in the long since, after forty-five years of present emergency of our missionary missionary life in China, when asked boards. At the close of the service one about the sacrifice of a foreign mission- of the members of the church came to ary, replied: .. The missionary of him and said that her mother desired Christ knows no sacrifices. His work to make an offering for the Relief Moveis all joy, nothing but joy. It is a sac· ment of $200, and wanted to know rifice to be shut up in this land away whether it should be sent independently from my foreign field and the blessed or through the church. and said tbat service of offering salvation to the there were others in the congregation heathen." who felt that they also ought to give for this cause." -At the centennial anniversary of the London Missionary Society Dr. -Our colored brethren are waxing Lindsay, of the Free Church, suggest- practical, and are proving their faith ed that .. mission work should cover a by their works. for at a negro confervast variety of men's and women's ence recently held in Selma, Ala., the powers and gifts consecrated to the ser- following questions were discussed: vice of Jesus Christ. But one depart- "Evils of Excursions," "The Mort· ment of the work should not 'blow gage System and Its Evils," " Do the cold' upon another. In these days we People Practise their Religion through were learning that a missionary might the Week 1" "How can we Secure be man or wQman, evangelist or educa- Better Homes among our People?" tionalist, hospital nurse or high-school " Are the People Wasting their Money mistress-from the Christian artisan to in Useless Lawsuits?" "Hindrances school for little Arab chndren on the to Success." Nne.
-And Booker T. Washington, of -Rear-Admiral Kirkland, who not Tuskegee Institute, is helping them long since put himself on record as esforward in the good way, for he says: teeming the missionaries in the Levant "I have recently spent several weeks "a bad lot," has himself since been with the senior class in studying men found so lacking in capacity, or so instead of books. Each member of the " derelict, " as to be detached from duty class has gone into the country and and ordered ,home.
studied a family I finding out the num- -" The day that I arrived to receive ber and age of the family; whether in consecration, when that venerable pia· debt or free from debt; whether or not neer bishop, Bishop Kemper, was the the crop was mortgaged; whether the presiding bishop, and my heart melted land was owned or rented; how many into tenderness, after the consecration acres cultivated; the kinds of crops, he laid his hand upon my head and whether or not it was one or a variety; said: 'My brother, do not forget those the kind of food consumed; whether wandering red men whom Jesus Christ or not the cultivation was poor or wishes us to bring home.' That after- good; the number of fowls, cattle, noon, by another singular providence pigs, dogs, cats, etc., owned; the ed- of God, the Rev. Mr. Hoffman, that ucational conditions and opportuni- pioneer missionary of Africa, came to ties; the moral and religious condi- me and said: 'The last thing before I tion, noting especially to what ex- left Africa our African Christians tent poverty atIected the moral and re- placed in my hands $75, the result of ligious life. Some of the class have their own earnings, and they send it to gone into the city of Montgomery and be their gift to any heathen people of made the same kind of study of 27 fam- America for whom the Church should ilies there in the lower strata of life, establish a mission.' And the first dol- making a special study of the methods lar ever received by me for Indian mis- of religious worship in certain churches sions came from converted 1>lack men in Montgomery, especially with a view in Africa. "-BiBkop Whipple.
of finding out how much connection there -Truly, in Jesus Christ we are all of i8 between the loud ',Amen&' and' Hal- one spirit. The news of the Ku·cheng lelujahs' in elturch and the mural, in- massacre created a great sensation in dustrial andfamily life oftheindi'Didual. Australia, which had given to the mis- This whole study has proven intensely sion two of the martyred women. One interesting and profitable, especially of the most remarkable meetings held the sound, healthy remedies that indi- in Sydney was that of the Chinese resi. viduals in the class suggested for pres· dents there, heathen as well as Chrisent weakness and evils. It.is proposed tian, which filled one of the largest to extend the investigation next year halls. The speakers were all Chinese. stm further." Their aim was to express a sense of -According to Robert E. ,Speer: their feeling of shame, sympathy, and "This [missions] is the world's one determination to erect a public memocertainly triumphant movement. It rial to the martyrs. It is said that the cannot fail. Emerson declared, forty memorial wm take the form of a capiyears ago, that what hold the popular talized sum to provide for spreading faith had upon the people was ' gone, the Gospel among the Chinese in AU!!- or going.' He asked why we should tralia and in China through the Church drag the dead weight of the Sunday· Missionary Society. school over the globe, and lived to see his own daughter holding a Sunday. -One who ought to know declared publicly the other day that Presbyte-
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENOE
rians constitute one fourth of all "the -Mrs. Charles Green, of Baltimore, evangelical missionaries who are striv- is having built at Old Orchard, Me., a ing to spread Christ's kingdom in the "seaside rest" for missionaries of all world. " If this be true, what honor churches when recruiting from their and what responsibility are accorded to labors. They will be expected to pay that church. 75 Cents a day for lodgings, with every comfort. Their meals will be free. -The occupation of the explorer is The place is being beautifully fitted up, not yet by any means gone, for affirmed and will probably be dedicated early in Professor 1. L. Tobley, in an address June next year. before .the London Geographical Congress: .. Leaving out of account the -Upward of 500,000 of the native very imperfectly known regions of women of India were relieved last year Central Asia and the interior of the by the medical staff and appliances of northern parts of both North and South the Lady Dufferin Fund. The number America, as well as the similar areas of has gone on increasing annually at a Africa and Australia, there is an aggre- rapid rate. It is nearly ten years since, gate area of about 20;000,000 square in obedience to the charge laid upon mUes of the surface of the globe as yet her by the Queen-Empress, the govquite unexplored. This aggregate is ernor-general's wife formed the fund made up as follows: which bears her name. It has in that time employed 73 women doctors of vari- Africa… . •. . •. . . . •. . . . . 6,500,000 square miles. ous degrees of qualifications, has estab- Au.tralia ……………, 2,250,000 .. lished 57 hospitals and dispensaries in North America………. 1,500,000 various parts of India, and has trained 262 South America. .. . •. •… 500,000 women in the several medical colleges. A.la……………….. 21;0,000 I.land….. • •.• .. … •• .. 500,000 -In New England, notably in Ver- Arctic regions………. 3,500,000 mont, women are increasingly employ- Antarctic regions•……. 5,000,000 ed as evangelists and pastors for desti- tute fields. They go in couples, they Total …………… 20,000,000 live among the people, visit much, and have charge of all the services during WO~IAN'S WORK. the week and on Sunday. Among the number during last year was one of the -A widow of Cleveland, 0., pos- daughters of the editor-in-chief of this sessed of wealth and deeply interested In missions, supports 13 foreign mis- REVIEW. sionaries, and now she is making a mission tour around the world, thus deep- -In October last the Lutheran ening her own interest in the work and Church, General Synod, set apart 6 cheering those who in every land must deaconesses who had completed a course receive her with joy. of training to take charge of the Mother House in Baltimore. Five of the num- -When the native Christians at ber were trained in Kaiserswerth, Ger- Benito, West Africa, were dismissing many.' their three missionaries, they prayed: .. May they be preserved from storms ~ -The Methodist Woman's Foreign at sea, be kept in health, have moon- Missionary Society met in St. Louis light on their journey, meet their October 27th, to hold the twenty-sixth friends in peace, and may their friends annual meeting. Eighteen returned be willing to let them return. " missionaries were present, and 20 had been sent out during the year, 8 going -A woman of the Danish nobility, to India, 10 to China, 1 to Japan, and Duchess Schimmelmann, has renounced 1 to South America. Six are medical the pleasures of the court, and is labor- graduates. The report of the treasurer ing as an evangelist among the poor was as follows: Received from . and destitute fishermen along the coast. She proceeds from place to place in her own yacht.
1896.J GENERAl.. HISStONAlty tNl'Et.t.lGENCE
New England branch •………..••……,4O,1fa1 people's societies of the Lutheran Church in Illinois. In addition to this, New York " ………••••……. 50,000 the society paid $150 toward the build· ing of its church. Philadelphia ……………….. 28,089 Baltimore .. … .. .. . .. …. …. 11,886 Cincinnati …. .. .. .. .. .. .. …. 37,~ Northwestern" ………………. 66,404 -The Roger Williams Free Baptist Des Moines ……………….. 24,116 Society of Providence, R. I., raised Minneapolis …. .. ………. . .. .. 8,908 more than $250 the past year, over half Topeka …. …. …. .. .. …. 13,m Paclllc .. .. …. ……. .. •.. 5.938 of which was given to foreign missions.
Colnmbia River" .. .. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. .. 2,891 This society has 60 members, and the Total………………………….$289,227 money was raised by the envelope srs- -The New York branch of the tem and by personal subscription. No above·named society issues this pledge " pay socials."
to be signed by its members: "Because -Even the hens in Tennessee are to I believe it to be my Christian duty to be given the privilege of adopting the Inform myself of the spread of Christ's Harris plan of a weekly contribution to kJn,gdom in the world, I hereby prom- missions, for a number of Junior En· ise to spend at least one half hour each deavorers in that State have obtained week in reading missionary literature. " per~ion from their parents to have for missionary objects the proceeds YOUNG PEOPLE. from all the eggs laid on Sunday.- -TheEndeavor societies of New York CongregationaZiBt.
City contributed nearly $50,000 to mis- -The Epworth Leagues of Texas sions last year. The SOCiety in the Six· have pledged themselves to support 3 teenth Street Baptist Church supports married missionaries of the General 3 foreign missionaries. The largest Board this yeai'. The Leagues ot Ala· amount reported is from Mount Morris bama. will support Miss Worth, who is Baptist Church-$1425. The Navy now on her way to Japan. The St.
Yard society reports a large number of Louis League Union assumed the ex- missionaries working in the uttermost penses of Miss Willie Bowman at the parts of the earth without money and Scarritt Bible and Training School for without price. One band of 15 on the ODe year; the Epworth League of St.
United Slates steamship Cluwleatun has Paul's Church, St. Louis, paid Miss Ida very recently raised among themselves Worth's expenses for two years; the $500, and are about to open a Christian Kansas City Union met the expenses of Endeavor home at Nagssski, Japan, one student last year, and has pledged the first in Asia. Many of the societies itself for an equal amount this year; have adopted the Fulton plan of 2 cents while the leagues in Nevada and Lex· a week,. and are giving regularly. ington aided still another student.
-The Congregational Juniors of Brighton, Mass., had a good time at UNITED STATES.
their thank·offerlng meeting, October -Scan the appended table and learn 20th, when 23 mite-boxes were brought how it .. happens" that New York in, containing $18. This sum was in· City is such a moral storm center. creased by the CODtents of the birthday jug, $21.50, making $39 in all that Germans…………………………. 403,784 these Juniors have given within seven Irish…. …. …. . .. . .. . •• … . •.. … … . 399,348 months for missions. Unclas8i1!ed and miscellaneous……… 173,120 Bnssians and Poles… …………….. 80,235 -The Lutheran Y. P. S. C. E. of ltaJiBJUl.. .. .. .. .. .. •.. • .. .. .. •.. .. .. . .. 114,324 m., Lena, French… ……………………….. 16,289 is pledged to pay *75 an- Hnngarians.. .. …. .. …. …………. 15,555 ( nually for five years for the support of Bohemians. … …….. .. .. …. •… . .. .. 12,287 Rev. Will M. Beck, who expects to go Total foreign popnlatlon.•••.•.••••• 1,154,900 to Africa as a mi88ionary of the young American born, including nejp'oes.. 300,299 – Utah hal gone Republican by a and held as a part of the Dominion of Small majority, though as it appears, Canada, and so he and his much-enonly because of the preference and In- during converts are still under the vexfiucnce shown for that party by the au- atious rulings, to escape which a few thorities of the Mormon Church, whiCh years ago they forsook home and all holds the balance of power and wields they had.. it only to further its own schemes. The cloven foot was revealed during EUROPE. the campaign, when the ruling priesthood Issued an order that no .. saint" -Last year £28,454 was raised and should accept the candidacy for any expended in the London Missionary office without having tlrst gained the Society's mission·tlelds abroad,· the permission of the ecclesiastical authori- larger part of this representing direct ties. contributions for the support of church ordinances and the propagation of the -The American ltfiB8W'IWIf1J (Congre- Gospel. gationalist) for October is a delight to the eye, as well as a feast to the heart -The Chinese Christians of Hankow of a lover of his kind. sent· their congratulations to the Lon- don Society to which they owed the -The Presbyterians have been be- Gospel, on the occasion of its centenstirring themselves most vigorously of ary, in the form of an address and motlate to payoff their great miSSionary toes in four pieces, worked in gold debt. In particular the synods of D- cord and variegated silks on satin scrolls linois and Ohio have each been holding or banners, and these of the largest a congress of missions, and in New size ever known to be used. York City, November 15th, was held a great gathering, which was addressed -A new temperance socIety, under by ex-President Harrison, ex-Secretary the supervision of leading medical of State J. W. Foster, and Rev. F. E. men, has been formed in France, the Clark. members of which propose to study the means of extirpating alcoholism, to -Major W. H. Clapp, who is an exterminate its effects, to propagate a army officer, and for several years has knowledge of the evil in all social cenbeen in charge of Indian agencies, holds ters, to group the greatest possible the red man in high respect and esteem. number of citizens together who wish He declares: ., I never saw nor heard its disappearance, to raise public opinof a drunken Indian among the three ion against it, to set an example of temtribes over whom I have charge," perance by abstaining from alcoholic and yet they have abundant op- drink, and to teach children the prinportunity to obtain drink. They do ciples of temperance. not seem to care for it. The tribes of which I speak are the Arickarees, the -Alas, the poor prisoner of the Vati· Gros Ventres, and the Mandans. The can, how grievously he is cribbed, cab· Arickarees have never been at war with ined, and confined! For, as the Weltthe white people, and their boast is minater Gazette has it: .. The Pope's that they have never killed a white person is sacred and inviolable. Any man. They are very honest, and noth- attempt upon his life is punishable in ing has ever been taken from stores that the same way as an attempt upon that have been left open and temporarily of the king. The Supreme Pontilf is without an occupant." entitled on all Italian territory to sov- ereign hOllors. He is allowed to retain -Recent intelligence is to the effect his own guards, a sum of $625,000 is that William Duncan's New Met1akaht- paid for his civil list. He retains inla, on Annette Island, which was sup- alienable sovereignty over and possesposed t. be in Alaska, is to be claimed .&ion of the Vatican, the Lateran aud Castel Gaudolfo and all their appurte- interwoven with the woof. Magnifi- nances and precincts.. •. The Pope is cent it is in its extent, in the variety of accorded a private postal and telegraph its resources, in the wonderful history 5enioo under his own control, and en- which has been "Wtought upon it. It tirely free from that of the civil power. is a robe of Oriental magnificence that All tbe papal training-schools and col- has been dipped and soaked in blood.
leges in Rome arc exempt from the In- But it is. to bear, as certainly as God terference of the State." liveth, as certainly as the cross was -The Hungarian House of Magnates, raised on Calvary, as certainly as the after having deliberated for the fourth human soul remains sensitive to Divine time on the Freedom of Worship Bill, inspiration-it is to bear by and by, and and by 118 against 112 votes, adopted not far hence, the monogram of Christ the provision whereby it is rendered on all its glittering expanse.-Dr. R. S. permissible to leave or join any com- Storr3.
munion, ·or to make declaration of not -It is a new experience for us old professing any particular creed. The residents in Syria to look out upon rail- House then passed by 120 to 113 votes way trains passing in the distance and tbe clause permitting conversion to see the French locomotives dragging Jude.ism, thus removing the last ob- their burdens up the cogged track over stacle to Liberal legislation dealing Lebanon toward the Bukaa and Damas- with ecclesiastical alfairs.-Reuter. cus. The passenger train is ten hours ASIA. in passing over the 120 miles, scaling Lebanon at an elevation of 5000 feet Islam.-Atrocious slaughters in Sas- above the sea. The road. was opened soun, in Trebizond, in Constantinople, August 4th, and already the freight and now in Harpoot, in which the tratHc is so great that three freight Turks are the butchers and the Ar- trains a day cannot meet the demand. menians are the victims! Then, as if As we arrived August 12th from New this wholesale bloodshed were not suf- York, we have not yet been over :the ficient, in the last-named city these road to Damascus; but Dr. Crawford Bame furious fanatics must needs fill to tells me that the ride from Damascus the brim the measure of ill-desert by up the river Abana to the fountain of destroying the bulk of the buildings of Fiji, and on to Zebedany, under the the American College, inflicting a loss dense shade of poplars, and by the roarof some $100,000 I Lord, how long? ing river, is most refreshing and de- Ah, that united Christian Europe lightful. The ride over the heights of might smite and subdue and compel Lebanon is no less so, with its bold to decency at least; and if need be, scenery and magnificent views of the set up a joint .. protectorate" over the distant sea and the rocky mountain entire Turkish Empire. It is high time gorges_-Rev. H. H. J688Up_ that the feet of these savage and red- India.-Indian Mohammedans are handed intruders ceased to profane the loyal subjects of the Queen-Empress, and sacred places of our faith. they also sustain close relation to the -Men think that Turkey is to put Sultan, who is in a sense the head of an end to the propagation of the Gos- Islam, tho not exactly the representa- pel in that great empire. The Turkish tive of the caliphs or successors of Mo- Empire always seems to me, as I look hammed. The loyalty of the Moham- at it on the map or in its history, like a medans of India has been quickened vast. magnificent Oriental rug. stamped and strengthened by England's long- with splendid and stately figures, em- continued friendship with the SUltan.
blazoned on every side with heroic com- Should trouble arise bctween England bat, and with threads of gold and silver and Turkey the Mohammedan subjects of the Queen will regret the occur- lessors by the educated young men of renee; but they are too well aware of Bengal."
the advantages of British rule to risk -During the past year the railways much for the sake of the Sultan. The of India carried over 130,000,000 pasquestion has already occupied the at- sengers and 20,000,000 tons of goods. tention of Mohammedan papers in India, Their aggregate receipts were 280,000,- and the intelligent and temperate style 000 rupees, or nearly $100,000,000. of discussion is an assurance that England's just advocacy of the cause of -The last report of the Arcot (Re- Armenia will make no trouble in this formed Dutch) Mission tells what large country.-Indian Witne88. anfi solid gains have been made in thirty years. Between 1864 and 1894 -Let a man lose caste, and his pun- the out-stations have increased from 6 to . ishment is at once banishment from the 118; the churches. from 7 to 23; navillage well. Let that be inflicted, and tive pastors, from 1 to 9; catechists, the temptation to purchase readmis- readers, and teachers, from 37 to 172; sion into caste, with its privileges of the communicants, from 291 to 1996; free access to water, is very great. Let while the adherents have increased a man become a Christian, and from nearly sevenfold. The native contributhe attitude of his neighbors toward tions have increased from 175 to 275'7 ' him you would think he had committed rupees, and the pupils from 322 to 4856. matricide. From the day of his bap- The past year has also been one of prostism, he or his wife will have to tramp perity. The out-stations have increased through the blazing sun, with a heavy by 13, the communicants by 37, and waterpot, to some distant supply of the total gain In the Christian commuwater whenever they want to bathe nity has been about 500. or cook. Sometimes it happens that the man will have secret friends kind – Writing from Kalimpong, the head- ' enough to bring him water now and quarters of the Thibetan Mission, Mr. again after dark, and save him his jour. Cecil Polhill·Turner gives us a very inney for that evening; but no one out teresting account of the progress of here will endure that sort of help for events. The little party of missionaries long. In their eyes it is only empha- is still waiting patiently for the opening sizing the fact that they are pariahs, of the country, and fully occupied and they will leave a village rather than meanwhile with the study of the sustain treatment to which they, as Thibetan language. Kalimpong is de- Hindus, are peculiarly sensitive. scribed by Mr. Polhi1l·Turner as "a quiet, little country village, admirable -Principal Morrison thus writes re- for study, and, in the winter especially, garding the large number of students frequented by Thibetans bringing wool who have enrolled themselves in Church straight from the closed country." of Scotland Mission College for the ses- sion 1895-96: "Our numbers are again China.-A missionary asserts, that up, our total being considerably larger some of the Chinese have such wonder· than that of any other year in the his- ful memories that they can recite chap- tory of the college. There are in the ter after chapter, and some of them First year class, 137 most of the New Testament.
Second 183 -During the past year, the Ameri. can Bible Society sold and distributed Third 60 In China Bibles and portions thereof' to the extent of 385,875 copies. Fourth" 170 550 Ours is the largest mission college in -This is the statement of G. S. Mi- Bengal, which shows the confidence ner, of the Foochow Methodist Mission: that is placed in our missionary pro- .. In 1893 I had 3 day schools, in 1894, 16, and now I have just 100, with about WorId; and his book in behalf of 3000 pupils. Within the past six Western civilization, which he wrote ·months we have brought fully 2000 from his studies and travels in Ameri- children under Christian influence for ca, had a considerable effect in restor· the first time." ing the dynasty to the throne, of which -Some two years since two Swedish the present Emperor is a member. Permissionaries were slain by a mob at haps his greatest benefaction was the Sung'pu, China. A report now given founding of a school, known as the in Ohina'8 Millions shows that the blood Kewgijiuku University, which is secof these martyrs was not shed in vai!!. ond only to the Imperial University at It seems that a Ohinese woman read of Tokyo, in point of numbers and rank the faith and patience of these mission- of scholarship. Mr. Fukuzawa comes aries, and was so impressed by what from the common people, and is known she was told that she traveled to an- as the" great commoner;" and What other city in order to ask the mission- shows above all the character of the aries about the religion which could mlln is that he has never allowed himproduce such fruits. "What is it," self to be carried away by his success, she asked, "that makes you Jesus and has modestly refused to accept decpeople so different from us? We call orations, honors, or even the peerage you' foreign devils;' our people have from the Mikado.-.New York Intkpenmartyred two of your teachers who dent; only did good to our people, and you -The Presbyterian Church in Japan show no revenge and receive me as a is about to undertake foreign mission- friend." She was told that this was ary work. At the recent meeting of the teaching of Jesus, who died for us the synod, the mission board was di- when we were enemies. This woman. rected to begin work in Formosa as who was termed" the Chinese Queen soon as possible. President Ibuka, of of Sheba," continued for two weeks Tokyo, and President Ogimi, of Steele with the missionaries to learn of their College, Nagasaki, were appointed to faith and doctrine, and then returned visit Formosa, examine the field, and to her own city to tell her neighbors: report to the mission board, while $3000 .. These Jesus people know how to love are to be raised among the Japanese their enemies." churches for this new work.
Japan.-Yukichi Fukuzawa is the -Rev. J. D. Davis writes thus to the .. Grand Old Man of Japan," tho he is Pacific of one of the darker phases of some twenty years younger than the the situation: .. A few of those who members of that more famous trium- have been among our most earnest, virate-Gladstone, Bismarck, and LI faithfnl workers are resigning their Hung Chang. More than any other places and leaving the ministry. We man, he has brought Japan to that posi- have not a single pastor at present in tion which she now holds among the the great centers of Tokyo and Kyoto. civilized nations of the world. Thirty- Our Doshisha University ha&.'opened five years ago he visited America, and with about 400 students, but the classes on his return home introduced the in the higher departments are all small. 'Webster Dictionary to his countrymen, We have only 25 in the theological dea book that is considered the founda- partment, as against 85 three or four tion of Japan's intellectual power; he years ago. There is, however, a growalso introduced English into all the ing conviction of the barrenness of these ' schools. In days when Japan was di- extreme views and an earnest seeking vided into two parties-one for and the on the part of many of the pastors and other against foreigners-he advocated evangelists for the presence and power the opening of his country to the New of the Holy Spirit." -Mr. La.fcadio Hearn in the Octo- British South African Company has yet ber .Atlantic has an impressive article to pay its first dividend, but its capital on .. The Genius of Japanese Civiliza- stock, held at £2,000,000 to start with, tion. .. He finds nothing permanent, is now £16,000,000.
everything shlfting-sa.ndals of straw, -The new Moravian Mission in East dwellings cheap and frail, the greater Central Africa grows apace. The part of the 60 capitals the empire has fourth station in Nyassaland has been had have completely disappeared, etc. fairly commenced. Mr. Theophil -Advlces from Formosa. are to the Richard reached Utengula, Merere's effect that the Japanese are gradually present capital, on March 18th. He subduing the tribes that are opposing was alone, for Mr. Kootz, his compan- occupation of that island. The natives ion, had been det.alned on the road by are making a stubborn resistance, but an attack of fever, and did not arrive are steadily being overcome. until the 21st. Meanwhile, Mr. Richard AFRICA. had several Interviews with the" Sul- tan," who gave him a friendly recep- -The Congo Railway continues to tion, and permitted him to choose a site make steady progress; trains are now for the mission. running 65 miles inland toward Stanley Pool. -The Universities' Mission is severely stricken by the recent loss of three of -The Christian Alliance proposes to its statt-Blshop Maples, Its gifted and plant a line of stations 1000 miles long, devotejl leader, who, with Mr. Joseph from Matadi to Lake Tanganyika, on Williams, was drowned by the capsizthe eastern boundary of the Congo Free Ing of the steel boat on Lake Nyallsa, State. This will require the opening and Rev. G. W. Atlay, who was killed of 40 stations, and the sending out in by the Owangwara. the next three years of at least 100 new men to open them. -The stroke of lightning which end- ed the career of Menelek II., Negus of -The transcontinental telegraph line Abyssinia, removed one of the most inproposed by Mr. Rhodes several years teresting and energetic of African ago-to cxtend from the Cape to Cairo princes. He was of the Sholl. tribe, and -was not, when first proposed, regard- claimed lineal descent from King Soloed seriously by the general public; but mon and the Queen of Sheba. When it already extends, it seems, from the King John was killed by the Mahdists Cape to Blantyre, in the Shire High- In 1889, !Ienelek, who had long ruled lands, and during his present visit to the Shoas, achieved the sovereignty over England Mr. Rhodes wlll probably or- the other Abyssinian tribes, and was der, he says, .. a further 500 or 1000 recognized as Negus by the Italians miles" of poles and wire. The south- when they advanced inland from Mas- ern end of Lake Tanganyika is to be Bowah. Menelek was friendly to Eurothe first objective point, and thence the pean arts and civilization. He Importline will proceed along the western ed Swiss engineers and artisans, who bank of the lake, through Congo terri- built stone houses, bridges, wagon tory, to British posts in Uganda and roads, a flour mill, baking ovens, and a. along the Nile. blast furnace for smelting iron. He in- -Mr. Stanley sa.ys that more than duced his people to engage in various 200 English companies are operating in handicrafts by his personal example.
South Africa, and largely on the capi- While he lived, the Italians met with tal furnished by the subSCriptions of many difficulties in their colonial humble investors. Some of these com- schemes; now that he is dead, there Is panies hllve not paid dividends yet, but no one to: ettectively dispute their ascen- not one of them has made shipwreck in dency In the Abyssinian hlghlands.- the bankruptcy court. The great Zibn', Herald.
The Missionary Review of the World — November 1895
~be 1Reglecte~
(tontinent.
UAL NEEDS OF KEY TO TIlE BLACK MISSIONARY SOUTH AlIERICA MAP OF SOUTH AllERIC!. maybe Judged by the darkness Date of Founding this map. All cen- Wk. In S. America. tres where American 17'65. Moravian Missionary or European Protes- tant missionaries are Society (9). statioued are 1815. West IndIan Confer- shown by the white dots ence (Wesleyan) (11). numbered to 1821. London MIssionary refer to the Key. (The Society (12). boundaries of 1824. British and Foreign the fourteen States of Bible Society (14). South America are 1836. American Methodist Episcopal North (5). indicated m white, 1840. Plymouth Brethren (16). as also the principal 1844. South Americau Missionary Society (10). rivers.) 185.,). Dr. Kalley's Churches" Help for Brazil" (8). All parts printed 1856. American Presbyterian (North and South) (2 and 3). black are either Ro. 1:l61. Society for the Propa,ration of the Gospel (13). man Catholic, hea- 18M. American Bible Society (15). then,or uninhabited. 1875. American Methodist Episcopal, South (4). The population of 1879. Southern Baptist Convention (1). South America is 1880. Bishop 'raylor's Mission (7). estimated at 37,000,- 1889. American Episcopal (6). 000. Of tltese pmb- 1889. Salvation Army. ably le88 than 4,000,- OOOhave been t·eacheel FALKLAND I! by the Gospel, leaving 33,000,000 wholly un- ", evangelized. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF' THE WORLD.
VOL. XVIn. No. 11.-0ldSerie&.-NOVEMBER.-VOL. VIn. No.ll.-NBIII&riu.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-XXV.
WHAT JOHN WILLIAMS SAW IN THE SOUTH SEAS.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Two specific predictions in the Old Testament seem specially to refer to missionary labor. One is this: "The isles shall wait for His law," which has been literally fulfilled in the South Sea archipelago.
John -Williams, who is most closely identified with this wonderful story of missionary heroism and success, is known as the "apostle of the South Seas." Born June 29th, 1796, and murdered at Dillon's Bay, Erromanga, November 20th, 1839, his life covers only fortythree years, but it abounds in proofs of the Divine interposition and wonde.r-working. At twenty years of age he offered himself to the London Missionary Society, and was sent to Eimeo, one of the Society Islands, whence he removed to Huaheine, and afterward to Raiatea, the largest of the group. After five years of apostolic success, he visited the Hervey Islands and founded a mission at Raratonga. Continuing to reside at Raiatea until he learned the language of the Society Islands, he then returned to Raratonga, where he prepared books and translated a portion of the Bible. In a vessel of his own building he conducted a four years' exploration of nearly the whole of the South Sea Archipelago, establishing the Samoan Mission. Then he spent four years in England-from 1834-38 -publishing his Raratonga Testament and his narrative of adventures in the South Seas, raising $20,000 for a new missionary ship, planning for a high school at Tahiti, and a theological school at Raratonga for the training of native missionaries j then returning with sixteen additional laborers, he visited Samoa, sailed for the New Hebrides to plan a new mission, and fell a martyr on the shores of Erromanga. Such is the outline of that marvellous life which we are now to trace, somewhat in detail, as a missionary career crowned with apostolic 'success and abounding in moral miracles.
Many islands in this archipelago are belted with coral rock from two t<l'
THE lIIRACLES OF mSSION!
twenty yards in width, against which the waves dash with terrific violence; they burst against this rocky bulwark, curling their foamy crests over the top of the reef, and spread in harmless vengeance upon its surface. What an apt symbol is this coral belt of the ramparts of superstition and idolatry which encompassed these islands! The moral darkness of the people was so deep that the idea of the true God had almost disappeared from their minds, and also the conception of the brotherhood of man, which is so akin to that of the Fatherhood of God. These ferocious savages were constantly engaged in desolating wars, and their cannibalism was but the crown of a system of iniquity, the like of which has seldom been found elsewhere. Even the printed page would blush to present a true picture of their licentiousness before the rays of Christian light touched and transformed them. It is a shame even to speak of those things which were done of them in secret.
Women were barbarously treated. Their condition was very low.
They were under the bondage of a Tabu system similar to that which pre- vailed in the Hawaiian Islands. They could not eat certain kinds of food, or live under the same roof with their tyrannical lords. Children were cruelly strung together by skewers, and old people pierced with javelins or beaten to death with clubs. There were among the people two captivities: one to the gods, and the other to the king's servants. The first rendered one liable to be offered up as a sacrifice; the other, to have his house entered, and to suffer the greatest depredations without even the right of remonstrance. Of course wars among such a people were very sanguinary. Female prisoners were generally put to death lest they should become mothers of warriors. Captive children, with spears passed through their ears, were borne in- triumph to the temples, and the skulls of other conquered foes were beaten in and their brains spread on bread-fruit leaves as an offering to the gods.
The mission work, which extended through twenty-two years, was, as has been hinted, a triumphal progress.
The Mauruans, who formerly attributed every evil that befell them to the anger of " evil spirits," learned to worship the true God, and pointed to demolished Maraes and mutilated idols as proofs of the great change. In some cases the spears used in warfare were converted into balustrades for pulpit stairs, and no vestige of idolatry remained. Oro, the war god, and other grim-looking wooden idols were degraded into props for the roof of cooking houses or wood sheds. It was a common thing for- the temples to be destroyed and the idols to be burned or surrendered to the missionaries as trophies. In Aitutaki not a single idolater remained, and a large chapel was built nearly two hundred feet in length. Recitations in the catechism, prayers to God, and grace at table displaced unsightly gestures and obscene songs. A people that eighteen months before had been the wildest Mr. Williams had ever seen had become mild, teachable, diligent, and kind. The rapidity and thoroughness of these changes have probably no parallel in all Christian history, and furnish a striking fulfillment of the prediction, "As soon as they hear of Me they shall obey Me j the strangers shall submit themselves unto Me" ( Ps. 18 : 45 j 2 Sam. 22 : 45).
A little more than a year after the discovery of Raratonga the whole population had renounced idolatry and were erecting a place of worship six hundred feet in length ; and at a meeting held, the chiefs from Aitutaki were the principal speakers. The means which God used made the work more astonishing. Two humble native teachers were the instruments of this wonderful change before a single missionary had set foot upon the island. And yet it. was at Raratonga that Mr. Williams, in 1827, met the greatest concourse he had seen since he left England; the people, walking in procession, dropped at his feet fourteen idols, the smallest of which was about five yards in length.
Mr. Williams drew up an elementary work, translated the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Galatians, which were printed a few months later, and from that time the progress of the people distances all comparison. The manner in which the Raratongans spent thcir Sabbaths shames most other Christians : A preparatory prayer-meetillg at sunrise, conducted by themselves; a service of worship led by the missionary at nine O'clock, prior to which they met in classes of ten or twelve families each, distributing among themselves 1;he portions of the sermon which each individual should bring away, carefully noting the divisions of the discourse, and marking opposite to each the chapters or verses by which it was illustrated.
A code of Christian laws was adopted. The inhabitants had alwaYIil been systematic thieves, and before the introduction of Christianity their punishments were little more than acts of vengeance. The friends of the aggrieved party would take from the offender by force any article of value, destroy his trees and crops, break down his house, and sometimes murder the thief himself. Christianity brought with it a proper code of laws, with judges and juries, in place of this method of private revenge. Theft, trespass, Sabbath-breaking, rebellion, marriage, adultery, and "land-eat· ingt> or the forcible and unjust possession of another's land, were all regulated or restrained by law, and deliberate murder was punished with death. Plurality of wives became unlawful ; wedlock was honored with becoming ceremonies. The Raratongan women were completely transformed, even in outward appearance; they became more industrious, neat in person, modest in manners, faithful in their households, and helpful in all Christian work.
The chiefs themselves commonly led the way in the conversion of the people, and sometimes in the advocacy of the Gospel by public addresses. Knees bowed in prayer to God, and tongues were unloosed in supplication on islands which had never before known prayer to Jehovah. Sometimes the public destruction of idols was attended by vast crowds, and presided over by the chiefs in person, who disrobed the gods of their gaudy trap- pings and flung them into the fire. In some cases all the relics of idolatry were destroyed throughout an island in a few hours, and the erection of a place of worship for Jehovah immediately succeeded. When Tamatoa and his followers arrived at Opoa, a multitude met them on the beach, shouting welcome in the name of their gods, and expecting to receive war captives; but as the chief's canoe approached, a herald shouted back: " We have brought no victims slain in battle i we are all praying people and worship the true God i'! and holding up the books which the missionaries had written, cried : "These are the victims, the trophies with which we have returned."
Soon after the arrival of Tamatoa at Raiatea the inhabitants were told of the work of grace at Tahiti, and urged to yield to the Gospel, and about one third of them agreed to the proposal. Tamatoa shortly after being taken very iII, one of the Christians proposed to destroy Oro, the national idol, lest perhaps Jehovah might be angry with them for not having done this before. After consultation, a courageous band proceeded to the great Marae at Opoa, took the war god from his seat, tore off his robes, and fired his temple. The heathen party, determined to fight the Christians and destroy them, built a sort of wicker cage of cocoanut trunks and bread fruit trees in which to burn them alive. The Christian natives spent hours in praying and planning defense against the fury of these foes. Their attack upon the Christians was turned into a panic, for they were seized with consternation, and after a short resistance threw away their arms and fled for their lives. Instead of meeting with such barbafous treatment as they would have inflicted had they been the conquerors, they met at the hands of the Christians not only mercy but loving kindness. A feast was prepared at which nearly a hundred large pigs, baked whole, were served with bread fruit and other vegetables, and when these defeated heathen sat down to eat they were unable to swallow their food, so overwhelmed were they by the astonishing events of the day. One of them arose and said: "Let everyone act as he will i but, for my part, never again to my dying day will I worship the gods that could not protect Us in the hour of danger. Tho we were four times the number of the praying people, , with the greatest ease they have conquered us. Jehovah is the true God. Bad we been conquerors, they would now be burning in the house we made for the purpose i but, instead of injuring us or our wives or children, they have set for us this sumptuous feast. Theirs is a religion of mercy. I will go and join myself to this people."
Such was the effect of this address that everyone of the heathen party bowed his knees that very night in prayl31' to Jehovah, for the first time, and actually united with the Christians in returning thanks to God for the victory which had been accorded to those whom they had sought to destroy. The next morning, after prayers, all parties united in destroying every Marae in Tahua and Raiatea, so that in three days more no vestige of idol worship could be found in either island, tho at this time there was at neither of these islands any missionary !
A most affecting story is told of a spiritual beggar known as Buteve. There were six or eight stone seats, held in much veneration as connected with ancestors or great chiefs, and formed of two smooth stones, one serving as a seat and the other supporting the back; and here, in the cool of the day, would be found certain persons ready to chat with any passer-by. Mr. Williams noticed a man getting off one of these seats and walking upon his knees into the center of the " parent path," shouting, " Welcome, servant of God, who brought light into this dark island! To you we are indebted for the Word of Heaven." He asked this cripple what he knew about heaven, and found his answers so intelligent about Christ and His atonement, the future life, the approach to God in prayer, and the work of the Holy Spirit, that he said: "Buteve, where did you obtain all this knowledge ~ I do not remember ever to have seen you where I have spoken ; and, besides, your hands and feet are eaten off by disease and you have to walk upon your knees." Buteve answered: "As the people return from the- service I sit by the wayside and beg for a bit of the Word; one gives me one piece and another another, and I gather them together in my heart, and thinking over what I thus obtain, and praying to God to make me know, I get to understand." _Thus a poor cripple, who had never once been in a place of worship, had picked up crumbs from the Lord's table and eagerly devoured them.
These natives, rapidly converted, became evangelists, and made tours of the islands to bring others to Christ, and sought to leave no heathen settlement unvisited and no idol remaining. They proved to be prayerful, zealous, and successful, faithful and singularly benevolent, so that their gifts averaged far beyond the gifts of members of Christian churches in the most favored lands in proportion to their ability.
Once, when Mr. Williams explained how English Christians raised money to send the Gospel to the heathen, the natives expressed regret at not having money to use in the same good work. He replied: "If you have no money, you have something that takes the place of money, sometaing to buy money with;" he then referred to the pigs that he had brought to the island on his first visit, and which now every family possessed; and suggested that every family should set apart a pig for cau8ing the Word of God to grow,. and when the ships came, sell the pigs for money. The natives eagerly followed the suggestion, and the next morning the squeaking of the pigs which were receiving the" mark of the Lord" in their ears was everywhere heard. On Mr. Williams's return to the island, the native treasurer put into his hands one hundred and three pounds, the product of these sales. It was the first money they had ever possessed, but every farthing was given to the cause of Christ.
At Aitutaki, Atiu, Mangaia, and Mauke all these changes were due to 806 THE MlRAOLES OF MISSIONS. [November native missionaries, no European missionary ever having resided at either island.
The eagerness of the people to welcome missionaries probably has had no parallel. When Mr. Williams went to Savaii, he was met with extravagant joy, which the South Sea Islanders invariably show 9Y weeping. He learned that Malietoa, with his brother and the principal chiefs and nearly all the inhabitants of their settlement, had embraced Christianity and built a chapel holding seven hundred people, which was always full j and that, in the two large islands of Savaii and Upolu the Gospel had been introdu~ed into more than thirty villages, and the great body of the people were only awaiting Mr. Williams's arrival to renounce heathenism. When he met Malietoa, the chief remarked, " My heart's desire is to know the Word of Jehovah." In the afternoon Mr. Williams preached to not less than a thousand persons, and was followed by the chief himself, who urged all Savaii and Upolu to embrace this new religion, and pledged his whole soul to encircle the land with the Word of Jehovah j and when Mr. Williams proposed to return at once to his native country to bring back more missionaries, he replied, "Go with all speed j get all the missionaries you can, and come back as soon as you can j but many of us will be dead before you return." What pathos lay in that short plea!
The public renunciation of heathenism was often accompanied with most interesting ceremonies. For instance, every chief of note had his Etu-some species of bird, fish, or reptile iu which the spirit of his god was believed to reside-and the way to desecrate the Etu so that it could no longer be regarded as sacred was to cook and eat that in which the god was believed to dwell. For example, the Etu of one of the chiefs was an eel, and an eel was caught, cooked, and eaten, in order to evince his sincerity. Seeing that no harm came from such acts as these, like the inhabitants of ancient Malta, the spectators changed their minds' and said, " Jehovah is the true God."
In the museum of the London Missionary Society is a relic which Mr. Williams himself brought from the South Seas, and known as Papo. It was the god of war attached to the leader's canoe when he went forth to battle, and was held in great veneration, tho only a piece of old rotten matting about three yards long and four inches wide.
The apostle of the South Seas, in concluding his own narrative of these remarkable experiences, says that he was especially impressed with the rapidity of the work i whereas at Tahiti, fourteen or fifteen years of toil and anxiety passed before a single conversion; and at New Zealand the Church Missionary Society wrought for nearly twenty years before the natives showed any general desire to be taught j at the Navigators' Islands, in less than twenty months chapels were erected and the people clamoring for instruction.
,!he new religion was so highly esteemed by all classes and the desire for the missionaries was so intense that at many stations the people built places of worship, and, having prepared food on Saturday, came together at six o'clock on Sabbath morning, sitting for an hour in silence, and repeating this silent waiting on God a second and even a third timy during the day. Truly the isles did" wait for His law. "
When Mr. Williams first visited Raratonga, in 1823, he found them all heathens; when he left them, in 1834, they were all professed Christians; and, in the stead of idols and Maraes, were three spacious places of Christian worship, with an aggregate of six thousand attendants. He found them without a written language, and left them reading in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. He found them without a Sabbath, and when he left them there was no manner of work done on the Lord's day. He found them ignorant of the nature of true worship; he left them with family prayer every morning and evening in every house in the island ; and what was true of Raratonga was true of the whole Hervey group. In ten years' time a dark and bloody idolatry, with all its horrid rites, gave way to the triumphs of the Gospel. To the close of his life he witnessed one series of successes. Island after island and group after group were successively and rapidly brought under the influence of the Gospel, till no group or island of importance could be found within two thousand miles of Tahiti, in any direction, to which the good news had not been carried. When the late Bishop of Ripon laid down the story of Williams's missionary career he said: "I have been reading the twentyninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles !" Surely those who feel no interest in the work of missions either have not the Spirit of Christ or are ignorant of the facts of missionary history.
Mr. Williams's death was the result, undoubtedly, of misapprehensions. Injuries received by the natives of Erromanga from the crew of a vessel which shortly before had landed there had irritated them, and the sight of foreigners awakened resentment. Mr. Williams, when approaching the shore, was struck with a club by one of the natives, then pierced with several arrows, and his body was drawn into the bush, and probably the greater part of it eaten by these cannibals.
In 1889, the fiftieth anniversary of John Williams's martyrdom, a monument to his memory was erected at Erromanga; and the man who laid its corner-stone was the son of that very savage who dealt. the deadly blow; while, at the same time, another son of this murderer and cannibal was preaching the Gospel in Australia !
THE IMPORTANCB OF FRONTIERS
THE IMPORTANCE OF FRONTIERS.
BY REV. W. G. PUDDEFOOT.
There is no question before the churches of America of greater importance than the home missionary work on our frontiers. In proportion as we attend to the work at the front, every benevolent society goes forward, or stands, or retrogrades. Had the churches kept pace with the growth of the frontiers there would not only have been an abundance of men for the foreign field, but no lack of money to have sent them.
The great mass of church-members have the most vague idea about the frontiers. The time was when the frontier was well defined, and was supposed to have settled about twelve miles from Boston. After a long period it stretched away into Western Massachusetts, and then the churches of Massachusetts and Connecticut began to think of missions to the heathen in America.
Within a generation men have proposed calling a conference in Ryracnse "the northwestern," but an old gentleman hinted that it might be possible that conferences would yet be held farther north and west, and the name become a misnomer. Within the last twenty-five years the frontier has seemed to recede as fast as does the horizon as the traveler walks toward it, and to-day men are heard saying, "We have no frontier j all the land is taken j" but the real facts are, we have more frontiers than ever, and there is much land to be possessed.
The land is settled in spots, and each new settlement sees new frontiers to be conquered. Where the fathers had a well-marked frontier, the sons have four, and, paradoxical as it may seem, our frontiers are in the interior.
One of the great obstacles for successful evangelizing of the land is the fact that 70,000,000 are scattered over a field that can support 1,000,000,000. Settlements are constantly formed that grow into great cities with all the luxuries of modern life, and yet within a few miles the wilderness spreads out in all directions, growing wilder as it recedes until it begins to meet the next center of civilization, and this in hundreds of cases.
In the beginning of this century Detroit was the largest and most important city west of Albany. There was no Buffalo, but a place called Buffalo Creek j and long before Chicago was started men were doing business at Sault Ste. Marie and at Sugar Island. I sat at breakfast a short time ago with Dr. Bacon, whose father was the first white boy born in Detroit.
Detroit was a stockade fort j most of its popUlation composed of English traders, half-breed French Canadians, and Indians. Before that boy died, Michigan had a popUlation of nearly 2,000,000, and the country over 50,000,000. The frontier of to-day is in many instances as it was in Peter Cartwright's time. There are large settlements twenty years old that saw the first buggy last year, and where the minister needs to go armed, on ac- count of the wild beasts he lllay meet coming and going from his church services.
Maine is a frontier State with much land to be possessed. Alabama and Georgia have millions of acres of virgin soil and primeval forest yet to be settled. Some States such as the Dakotas were settled at the rate of a thousand miles a day north and south, and three miles westward for some time, while the five settlements in Oklahoma were en masse " yet rapid as were these developments, the great Northwest was faster. Texas yearly has It gulf stream 70,000 strong pouring in upon her. One part of the country will have 70 per cent. Scandinavian, another almost 80 per cent. German, while still another is Russian. On the frontiers in New Mexico and Arizona we have old Spain and Protestant churches, often seventy and a hundred miles apart. County after county is without a church, so that to-day we have towns, villages, and hamlets by the thousands without a church.
To take the number of church sittings and the popUlation of the country, and show how everyone can go to church on Sunday may be very comforting to people that do not think. Hundreds of thousands could not get to church were they to start with a fast horse and ride all day, while thousands are born, grow up, and die without once hearing a sermon. There is no civilized land on earth to-day in the condition of ours in regard to church privileges, and where crime of a serious nature has made such rapid growth.
The Superintendent of Home Missions in Canada wrote to me in answer to my question as to the number of unchurched towns in the Dominion of Canada: "Not one that he knew of had not some church," was his reply. Canada, with her 5,000,000, had eleven murders last year. We had reported through the Chicago Tribune, which makes a specialty of these statistics, 9800 homicides. Life is cheap on the frontier; and, apart from violence, the poor settler often literally dies for those who come after him. The loneliness of the women especially on the great ranches and prairie farms often leads to insanity and early death. Thonsands of our city roughs to-day were born and raised in the outposts of civilization where no Gospel privileges exist.
Last winter I had a letter from a friend who keeps a reading-room in the Rocky Mountains. One day a bundle of papers was sent out by a freighter to leave at the lonely homes on the ranches. A letter came back from one poor woman, saying the reading had saved her from suicide. Another man, writing to me, says: "I am building a church in His name -the first in 9000 square miles. Very little money in this region; one of my members does all her sewing with thread that she gets from the cotton flour sacks. A man who had managed to get a little wool geared his grindstone so as to spin it, and is making stockings on his grindstone. This man gave us eight days' labor for the church." Little as the peopIe care for the Church under ordinary circumstances, when dcath co~es they like to have a minister. Let me give you a recent case. The man has traveled 25 miles. His horse is bespattered with mud. There are no bridges, the roads are mere trails. He pleads with the missionary to go with him. The missionary is an invalid. He asks, "How can I go 1" " I have brought a thick strap, and I will buckle it around my waist, and you can hold on, and I will ride slow over the bad places and through the rivers. We ain't quite heathens, but we are pretty near. I won't ask you to say much; just read a bit and make a prayer," and away goes our missionary to carry the consolation of God to this stricken family. Thewife and mother is dead. The grown-up children are weeping around the coffin. For the first time they hear the words: "Let not your heart be troubled," and beside the grave the triumphant questions and auswer of St. Paul : " 0 death, where is thy sting ~ 0 grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." They want to know more, and beg for the missionary to stay and tell them about it. Back in the little cabin is the missionary's wife. She has gathered a class, and they are going to have a Christmas tre3. Some of them have never heard of such a thing.
One young woman wants to know whether there is any connection between Christ and Christmas Day. "Why, we keep Christmas Day to commemorate His birth." " Yes ; but there never was any Christ, was there 1" ""Vhere were you born, dear 1" "Here in this State ;" and then for the first time she hears the story of redeeming love. Had this happened in China or Japan we should not think it strange; but here in America, where there are over 21,000,000 church-members, with millions of dollars to spare and a country to save, it seems strange indeed. Within a month I have seen people on the frontier who had already been to church on a week day driving ten miles to Ilcar the Gospel again that night. On Sunday many came twenty -miles, some attended three services. In a hundred different places you can find the people ready to put out chairs and furniture to make room for a service in the house, so crowded that they cannot sit down. Women and men weep as they hear the old hymns, and beg the minister to come again. Like the exiles by the rivers of Babylon, they wept when they remembered Zion.
The poverty in the new settlements is almost past belief. They often pay 3 per cent. per month intereet. In hundreds of homes there is nothing to eat but flour and a little milk. Fresh meat is a luxury not thought of. It is in the great farming districts of the frontier where the most good can be done, and often where it is most neglected. The towns and villages Qf the newer parts are in a constant state of flux. In the great lumber regions, where there are tens of thousands of men, scarcely anything has been done for their spiritual welfare.
The miners, too, are shifting people, and live too often where vice of every kind-is made alluring, and the Church too feeble to cope with it, or not there at all. In the Southwest we have over 400,000 Mexicans speaking the Spanish language, ignorant, superstitious, and mostly left to themselves. Utah is another great field white for the harvest; indeed, there is not a Western State or Territory to-day that could not profitably employ from two to three hundred missionaries, and not one of them need build on another man's foundation.
It is true that eight new churches are built and dedicated every day in the year, while one thousand new post-offices are added yearly j but many of these churches are built where they are not needed; they are built too often to preach an " ism," and not the Gospel. The Church has property valued at $670,000,000, but the added wealth of the nation is more than that daily. And grand as are the proportions of the Church's growth and her riches, it still remains true that there are more places to-day upon the frontiers without a church than at any previous time in our history. Churches expend thousands on decorations, thousands for music for hundreds they give to missions. It costs more to run an average city church than the denomination to which it belongs gives for the support of missions in a great State. There is not a great denomination in our land but has members whose incomes are more than the amount given by its entire membership for missions.
Five hundred thousand dollars for wedding presents to a couple that don't need them, and 500,000 church-members can't raise as much in their love for Jesus for home missions! In looking over the gifts of the churches fifty years ago the amount seems small compared with the great aggregates of to-day; but when compared with our ability, we don't give as much with all our array of figures. Meanwhile, the missionary has to pay the deficiency out of his meager salary, or, what is often ha~der for him to do, drop his work or be kept from the growing fields that invite him.
Take the brightest view that we can, pile up the gifts to home and foreign missions, add all the expenses of the churches for all departments, add $34,000,000 for gifts this year to colleges, and then remember that two cents per day from every church-member in the United States would come to more than the whole amount and leave millions to spare.
The frontiers of any country are its weakest places morally, and its most dangerous characters are there. This is true on the borders of old countries, much more so of ours. When the great denominations get enough of Christ-Spirit in them to rejoice when anyone of them raises His standard in a new town, and say with Abraham: "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, for we be brethren," then new light will break out over the frontiers ; but so long as we see new churches being erected in New England in towns of 1200 inhabitants, where there are five or six already, just so long will the frontiers cry in vain for us to come over and help them; and until Christians give their Lord's cause at least as much as they spend on luxuries, we shall be paying out, as we now do,
BRAZIL THROUGH AN EVANGELIST'S EYE
four times as much to care for the criminal as we do for his reformation. But once let the church-members of the land rise to the sublime sacrifice of two cents a day for Christ, and then " will the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose j" but that time will not come until the man in the pulpit is at least interested enough in missions to take one annual collection for them.
BRAZIL THROUGH AN EVANGELIST'S EYE.
BY REV. D. G. ARMSTRONG.
The humble parentage of great events is one of the surprises of his- tory. The cackling of geese saved Rome. A vagrant spark has wrapped many a beautiful city in flames. A pebble from the brook delivered Israel from the Philistines. A storm of wind dispersed the Spanish armada and saved Protestant England from papal dominion. A cordite cartridge went whistling to the heart of a recent liberal ministry. The history of Brazil also furnishes a notable instance of this connection of great issues with trivial circumstances. In the year 1567, on the shores of the beautiful Bay of Rio de Janeiro, where now stands the large and important city of the same name, an insignificant battle was fought whose issue was fraught with mOllientous consequences. It was the battle· between the Roman Catholic Portuguese and the French Protestant Huguenots. For some time after the discovery of Brazil by a Portuguese navigator little was done toward its occupation and colonization. About the middle of the sixteenth century the Huguenots of France, whose religious convictions had b~ought them into disfavor with their crown and countrymen, conceived the plan of establishing a colony on this vast unexplored continent, where they should have freedom to worship God. Admiral Coligny favored their plan and aided them by providing ships and soldiers. The colonists established themselves, first on the little island of Villegagnon, in the bay of Rio, and thence went across to the neighboring mainland. They succeeded in winning the confidence of the natives, and, in spite of many internal dissensi.ons, were obtaining a firm foothold in this new territory. But at this juncture the Portuguese, who had meanwhile planted a colony farther up the coast, incited by envy and by Jesuit priests, began a war of conquest and extermination. They attacked first the French fortifications and drove the colonists to the mainland, where, in the short, sharp, bloody encounter just referred to, the French were defeated, and the hope of Protestantism perished on the South American continent until revived by the arrival of Christian missionaries less than half a century ago. An insignificant battle, followed by three centuries of Romanisma result of awful significance to Brazil and South America! Sappose the issue had been decided differently! What room for speculation upon this acorn of possibilities, like the historical acorns imbedded in the careers of Gustavus Adolphus and Napoleon Bonaparte! Certainly the destiny of Europe would have been changed had these two important struggles issued differently. What might the outline of Brazilian history have been had the event of this first battle left the tracing pencil in Protestant instead of papal hands! Have we no right to believe that a country so vast in extent, so accessible and resourceful, with a soil so rich and productive, a landscape so varied and beautiful, and inhabited by a people not sparingly endowed with natural gifts, might have attained to a higher place among the world powers, and discharged a nobler mission had she not been dwarfed and blighted and cursed by the Romish Church ~ Professor Agassiz, in his very interesting book on the fauna and .flora of Brazil, . ~rites as follows: "There is much that is discouraging in the aspect of Brazil, even for those who hope and believe, as I do, that she has before her an honorable and powerful career. There is much, also, that is very cheering, that leads me to believe that her life as a nation will not belie her great gifts as a country. Should her moral and intellectual endowments grow into harmony with her wonderful natural beauty and wealth, the world will not have seen a fairer land." Why this want of harmony between nature and man, between man and his Maker, between possibilities and actualities ~ Nay more; why a want of harmony with her sister nation, the great republic of North America, in development, in social and moral progress ~ The shores of both are washed by the same ocean, both have received lavish blessings from a kind Providence, and both entered the arena of history about the same time. Why, then, this disharmony in destiny and development ~ The only satisfactory answer is that one was committed to Protestants and the other to Romanists. Three centuries of Romanism, and to-day-what 1 Irreverence; no Bible, no Sabbath; religion and morality divorced.
The reader will observe that we are concerned in this article not with Romanism in her ideal form as exhibited in the life and teachings of some distinguished prelate, nor even as modified and held in check by close contact with a dominant Protestantism, but with Romanism pure and simple, where her sway has beeu undisputed for centuries and no restraint has been laid upon her influence over the people in molding and directing the social and moral life of the nation. We dare not enter here upon the exposition of the gigantic social evils that exist in Brazil, for which the gross and notorious immoralities of the priesthood are largely responsible. We shall here be concerned with a practical consideration of Brazil's religious condition as revealed in some general characteristics.
Irreverence? Can the gentle reader imagine what name one of the States of Brazil bears ~ A glance at the map will show Espirito Santo (Holy Spirit). Many a town in the interior of the country has the same name. One can imagine the holy horror with which the missionary-1tears the brakeman on the train call out, " Next station, Holy Spirit." Ask a friend how he is, and he answers, "Very well, grapas a Deus" (thank God). Speak to an old negro in passing, and he responds, " Sao Ohristo"-i.e., " May you have the blessing of St. Christ," thus revealing his theology in his salutatiou, as in his ignorance he means to classify Christ along with St. Paul, or St. Patrick, or any other saint of the Roman calendar. One hears frequently a gambler, after a night at the gaming table, remark th&t he has been very successful, "grafas a ])eus" (thank God). The object worthy of true reverence, God, with His titles and attributes, is treated in a light, thoughtless manner, while one frequently sees the men on a street car take off their hats as the car passes a Romish church, whose chief claim to sanctity is its being the receptacle of the wafer and images of Christ, the Virgin, and certain saints. Hence a prime nece8sity i8 to awaken the consciences of the people to the awful majesty of the Divine name and the guiltiness of him who, willfully or thoughtlessly, in pleasantry or in passion, takes that name in vain.
No Bible.2 Yes, it is strictly true that the people in general have not the Word of God, except, of course, where and since its circulation has been effected by our Protestant Bible societies, the American and English both having representatives in Brazil. The Bible is a prohibited book; the people are told by their priests that reading it will have an injurious effect in unsettling their minds and raising doubts as to matters that should be accepted without question because taught by Mother Church and Father Confessor. It is often distressing to hear the people contend for their religion with sophistries drawn from human experience and Romish books, without a single reference to the Word of God. The priests have tried to forestall the sale of the Bible by circulating the malicious slander that the Protestant Bible is a falsified book, notwithstanding the translation commonly used by the missionaries was made by a Romish priest and differs only in minor details from another translation that has the sanction of Pope Pius IX. But, in spite of this opposition, the good seed of the word is being scattered broadcast over the land, and from time to time springB"up in some thrilling instance of conversion to testify that the labor is not in vain. I recall going once to a town where, on account of the bitter opposition, I could not obtain 'a house for a public meeting. Content to mingle with the people in private intercourse, I at last sold a Bible and several books treating of religious subjects. On my return to this place some weeks later, one of the young men who had purchased the Christian literature had meanwhile been made chief of police, and through his help and protection I obtained a house and held in safety a public meeting that wa~ well attended. Brazil's great need is not the schoolhouse, advancement in the arts of modern civilization, and such like, but the Bible, to teach her that "the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul."
No Sabbath? True, in many of the large cities, like Rio and Sao Paulo, all the chief stores are closed and many of the wheels of business are stopped on Sunday j but this is not due to any religious motive or any recognition of man's moral obligation to keep the Sabbath. It is due only to the force of circumstances. The clerks and operatives combined and demanded of their employers one day in seven for rest and recreation, and the employers were forced to yield. But instead of spending their forced leisure in the refreshment of mind and body, both employers and employed while away the day in dissipation and pleasure, attending the theater and race-course, and perhaps walking through the streets in some idolatrous procession headed by Romish priests, thus ending the day more jaded than if it had been spent in the routine of business, and ill prepared for the week's labor. In the interior towns there is literally no Sabbath, not even a suspension of business. All the stores are open, and trade is generally more brisk than on any day during the week, as the people from the country come in, avowedly to mass, but always take special care to bring their wares and produce along with them and to do the week's trading. If there is to be a dance or a concert of any kind, Sunday night is generally chosen. At the celebration of the mass, no religious instruction is imparted, tho sometimes a distinguished priest will avail himself of this occasion to discuss a current topic of interest. The presence of a few Protestants in his neighborhood is also very likely to furnish a priest with " juicy matter for homiletical exploitation." The Sunday of worship and religious instruction is still a desideratum for Brazil except where Protestant influence has introduced it. The effect upon the nation, both morally and socially, of this failure to observe a day of rest and worship is incalculable, for, as Mr. Guizot well says, "Social stability requires character; character requires religion ; religion requires worship ; and worship requires a Sabbath." Edmund Burke ascribed the horrors of the French Revolution to the abolition of the Sabbath by the French Government. The overtaxed nerves and overworked brains of that high,strung, hot. blooded people plunged them into an unparalleled abyss of cruelty and excess. It is doubtless due only to the Brazilian's constitutional indisposition to haste, to doing to-day what may possibly be postponed till to-mor· row, that has prevented through all these years It similar uprising of his overtaxed nerves and brains.
Religion and morality divorced? This is a very grave charge; is it a just one? Let us see. It is very common to meet people who enjoy the reputation of being very religious. They go to mass regularly, take part in all the processions, are well versed in the peculiar doctrines of the Romish Church, contribute their money liberally, help the poor, and, in short, display an unusual religious zeal. Does it follow that they are likewise very moral and upright? Perhaps a business transaction would be a conclusive answer, as one is likely to carry away the impression that he has the worst of the bargain. Take, for example, the priests, who are very attentive generally to their round of religious ceremonies and duties, but whose lives are grossly and notoriously immoral. Many of them make no secret of keeping paramours in their homes, and their shameless inter· course with the women is a common subject of remark. On one occasion, while I was engaged in preaching to the people, an assault was made on my life by a band of drunken ruffians, led by the priest of the village, who had given them liquor from his own shop with which to incite them to this deed of violence. It frequently happens that, where Romish influence is particularly strong, a whole community will be set against the Protestants, whose lives are without reproach and who are seeking only to do good, while in this very place the same influence has exalted the most immoral men to the highest positions in Church and State. Many a time has the priest spent the time allotted for his discourse in abusing the few humble, harmless Christians worshiping quietly in another part of the town, tho he had not a word of censure or warning for the notorious sinners before him, who doubtless were the chief supporters of his church. We have here an explanation of the singular fact that in those papal lands where Romanism seems to have the strongest hold in the affection and devotion of the people the proportion of crime is greater than in Protestant countries. For example, the rate of illegitimate births in London is 4 per cent. ; but in Paris it is 33 per cent. ; in Brussels, 35 per cent. j in Munich, 48 per cent. ; in Vienna, 51 per cent. Religion and morality in the Romish system may meet and embrace each other in a given individual-the probability is they will not. I do not affirm that the papal Church in Brazil, any more than Ellsewhere, openly makes light of good morals and a holy life, or formally rejects the fundamental truths of God's Word. No, she dare not do this ani still seek to palm herself off as the Christian religion. Just here we find the difficulty that causes so many to hesitate in condemning as apostate a Church that makes such high pretensions, claiming apostolic sanction, appealing to her many charities, and citing the lives and teachings of many eminent saints within her communion. Can a church with such a record and with so many professions of attachment to Christ and His religion be false and apostate ~ The proper way to deal with such objections and to consider the Church of Rome is to examine not her ostensible, but her real nature; not her professions, but her practices; and thus looking beneath the surface, to find if, under a profession of Christianity, there is not something in doctrine or practice that in effect makes void the Christian truth and life. Applying this test that searches the real character of Romanism and is not baffled or diverted by her ostensible nature, the arrogant pretensions and great swelling words of vanity, we are bound to believe that she has actually made a mock of virtue and put a premium upon vice j and instead of operating as the light of the world, and making herself felt throughout the earth as a preserving salt, she has, on the contrary, corrupted it by the teaching of errors, the sanctification of abuses, and the hatred and scorn exhibited toward the faith and purity of the saints. Coleridge, who was himself a Romanist, has left this remarkable testimony : "When I contemplate the whole system as it affects the great fundamental principles of morality, the terra finna, as it were, of our humanity i then trace its operation on the sources and conditions of national strength and well- being ; and lastly consider its woeful influences on the innocence and sanc- tity of the female mind and imagination, on the faith and happiness, the gentle fragrancy and unnoticed, ever-present verdure of domestic life, I can with difficulty avoid applying to it what the Rabbins fable of the fratricide Cain, after the curse : that .the firm earth trembled wherever he strode, and the grass turned black beneath his feet" (Shedd's edition of Coleridge, vol. vi., p. 103).
From these general features of Brazil's religious condition I turn now to call attention to several obstacles one encounters in the practical work of evangelization.
I mention, first, family and national pride. The traditions of the past, social and political as well as religious, are connected with the Romish Church. Hence many of the oldest and most aristocratic families are un- willing to sever their connection with that which has become sacred and venerable with age. There is to-day many a man in the Romish Church of Brazil solely because his father was there. This pride has deluded many into the belief that the Church herself is all right, and that the undeniable corruptions are the work of the clergy. The literal meaning of this is that.we will hold on to our Church at any hazard! Another obstacle is the system 'of spon8ors, by which nearly the whole population, of towns and districts is bound together in a network of artificial ties. A child at its baptism has sponsors along with its natural parents. At marriage. other sponsors are appointed. Thus, these numerous ties, supplementary to those of consanguinity and affinity, bind each man and each family so closely to nearly every other man and family of the neighborhood that oftentimes those who would otherwise attend the Protestant services are kept away by the fear of giving offense to some one of their numerous connection, who, perchance, is a strong Romanist. The Church of Rome has gone to the spider and has proved no sluggard in learning his ways.
The other obstacle I wish to mention is a prevalent infidelity, found not only in Brazil, but in all Romish countries. The human mind at last revolts against the slavery, the mass of absurdities and superstitions, and the frightful abuses and immoralities, as well as the preposterous dogmas of the Romish system, and unfortunately, tho naturally, rushes to the other extreme of infidelity, skepticism, and atheism. As a distinguished theologian has said : "By a fatality of error which seems to be characteristic of this grand apostasy, the Church of Rome is at once the patron of atheism and the parent of superstition." In the rebound from religious shams and a galling bondage the mind will not brook restraint, but converts its liberty into license and rushes headlong into wild excesses, forgetful of its own limitations and necessities, seeking rest in its own speculations and in the deductions of an impotent philosophy. Confounding two things so dissimilar as the Church of Rome and the Christianity of the New Testament, these free-thinkers indisciminately denounce both. They treat with contempt any effort to bring them under the power of a religion that bears the faintest resemblance to that from which they have just escaped. Hence the great disadvantage one labors under in papal lands from the verbal and apparent similarity between Rome and Christ, between the vital organism of Christian truth and that which is an empty shell, without the informing spirit and power of godliness. An apostate Ohristianity is Satan's masterpiece!
The question is sometimes asked: "Well, with what success do you meet in your work ?" "Are you making any impression upon the people and gathering, many converts 1" Only the careful observer who has lived in Brazil for some years and can look beneath the surface at the undercurrents of thought and action is competent to answer properly such questions. The cursory traveler would be impressed with the crowds that accompany the religious processions on feast days and throng the churches on the occasion of some imposing ceremony, and he would be surprised at the comparatively small Protestant congregations. Thus, he might at once infer that Romanism was still overwhelmingly triumphant. But a longer experience and a more intimate acquaintance with the people would disclose the fact that a large proportion of those who attend the processions and the churches are infidels and free-thinkers, entirely out of sympathy with the priests and their religIOn. They are willing t{) be found in such company for the excitement and pleasure. One never sees in Brazil the harmless social diversions and sports that form so attractive a feature of American and English life and act as the safety. valve of society; and as edncational and literary facilities are very limited, life would be dre~rily monotonous were it not for the constantly recurring feast days and the elaborately arranged processions and church ceremonies. These break the routine of business and serve to divert the minds of the people. The Church engages to provide amusement, and, in fact, has so entwined herself with the civil, social, and domestic customs and life of the people that the civilization of a Romish country gravitates about the Church and is regulated and controlled by her shaping, powerful hand. Hence, if one could analyze the crowds in the processions or at the festivals, he would be surprised to find how few are devout Romanists and how many are merely seeking excitement and pleasure and the society of the women who, attired in their prettiest costumes, are always present in large numbers. I should also add that many break with the Church as the dispenser of religion who are unwilling to avow openly their alienation, and thus expose themselves to an inevitable" boycott" and lose their means of livelihood. From this exposition of the Church's seeming popularity some idea may be formed of what it costs a humble man or woman to come out boldly on the Lord's side-the setting aside of cherished tradition, the endurance of social ostracism by friends and relatives, and the sacrifice of business interests and prospects. When we add the claims of the papacy to be the true
BEFOBHS IN CHINA
Church of Christ, and the plausible sophistries by which she seeks to support her pretensions, we readily perceive how loth men will be to run counter to their customs and prejudices and embrace a new doctrine and order. To dislodge Romanism from the carnal heart of man, which she can allure so well with her seductions, and where she has entrenched herself so strongly, is a slow and most difficult task-one that can be accomplished only by patience, tact, and persevering prayer. But, thank God, the Saviour already has His blood-bought trophies in Brazil, and they are numbered by the thousands! So far as I can judge, the evangelistic outlook is brighter and more encouraging now than it has ever been.
Is there not a lesson for us Americans and for the world in the fact that an overruling Providence allotted Brazil to the papal Church, and the United States of North America to the Protestant ~ These Western continents appeared above the horizon about the time Protestantism was born in the throes of the great Reformation, when the papal power was supreme and possessed of the fairest of earthly regions. At this juncture the two contending systems were transplanted to the virgin soil of the New World to work out their respective destinies and exhibit their respective natures and tendencies untrammeled by the prejudices and pre-existing institutions of the Old World. Three centuries have rolled by. In our free and glorious republic we have the product of Protestantism j in Brazil we see the fruit of Romanism! "By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ~ Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit j but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. " With this unmistakable and Divine object-lesson before our eyes, when Rome has the preposterous audacity to invite us, with soft words and arrogant pretensions, to seek rest and the solution of all our problems within her bosom, shall we go ~ God forbid !
REFORMS IN CHINA.
BY REV. GILBERT REID, CHINAN FU, CffiNA.
For months the eyes of the whole civilized world have been turned to the two nations of the Orient, Japan and China, with augmented glory to the former and shame to the latter. To the Christian what is of more importance is the increased volume of prayer which has ascended to the Sovereign over all-more, if anything, for China than Japan-because of the weakness and peril in which the former has been placed. More than ever could Christians in China thrill with hope when they think of this power coming to their aid. But will China learn from these lessons and begin to reform ~ Will she, as well as the missionary, look up to the true God and throw aside her errors, evils, and misfortunes f We dare not
REFORMS IIi CBIl'I'A
prophesy, but we believe that these are d!lYs of providential interposition, hastening on the coming of the kingdom.
One thing we may safely do, and that is to examine calmly the ques- tion of the reforms in China, for which intelligent men are looking with dubiousness or wonderment. While ranking personal conversion supreme, I now deal with reform just as it receives attention at home.
First, then, let us notice the reforms which are needed. In China, both among foreigners and Chinese, there are two conceptions of reform. One class is inclined to emphasize material reform j the other, moral re- form. One class dreams longingly for more wealth j the other for more honesty. One class advocates a stronger navy and army, trained according to the Occident, railroads, mills and factories, new roads, mines, and currency, increased trade and commerce j the other class, beginning with virtue, would eradicate the present peculations and corruption, adopt a better judicial system, establish schools and universities, bring in new professions, advance religious instruction, and then, subordinate to all, encourage every factor of material growth.
Of these two classes we emphatically plead for the second. Better the old conservative civilization, slow and heavy, with the ever-increasing opportunity for missionary ingrafting, than a new civilization wherein military glory is sought and military defense made supreme. Better the quiet workings of the leaven of Christianity, as seen the last thirty years, than a feverish ambition for wealth, with the increased development of the already existing mercenary proclivities of the people.
No j reform in China, as in Paris, London, Chicago, or New York, means the destruction ji"lJt of vice, dishonesty, fraud, and lawlessness. Without this starting-point I dare not hope for any permanent improvement as a result of the war. The overruling power of God must surely be for things moral, spiritual, and divine, and without an overruling power of God I for one look for no blessing from this needless unjustifiable slaughter of life and waste of money. It -was only the other day that the British minister, himself a Roman Catholic, remarked to me : "China, first of all, must learn honesty and adopt honest methods. "
In true reforms, then, and with a correct mutual inter-relationship, we specify the following: 1. A change of official custom, so that bribery and extortion would be forbidden, and wherein every officer, high and low, would have a definite and increased salary, beyond which no one should step with safety. 2. The establishment by the government all over the land of schools for teaching Western branches and for emphasizing ethics as one of the branches, and the resuscitation of the educational commission for sending young men to be trained abroad. 3. Change in the laws of the land, the opportunity for appeal without the necessity for bribery, the removal of the custom of extorting confessions by means of cruelty, and the gradual establishment of a respected profession of barristers acquainted both with Chinese and foreign law. 4. 'the extension of religious toleration, so that a man could hold office without any religious re- quirement. 5. Along with all these, I would favor the material improvement-hardly to be called reforms-such as railroads, mining, improved agriculture, factories, and, if necessary, a navy and army. Moral first and material second.
Secondly, we are to consider who are the Chinese to initiate and favor these reforms. The American, living amid republic institutions, is apt to look to the creation of popular sentiment. This, to be sure, is an aid in China not to be despised. The people have a voice, even tho the system of government be monarchical. Of the two great Chinese philosophers, Confucius and Mencius, the former emphasized the power and duties of the ruler, while the latter the right of the people. To initiate anything pertaining to the country, the all-important factor is the ruling classes. Others may bring pressure to bear, even to the point of revolution j but the men in power, and placed there by the decree of God, are the responsible agents to be moved. They, so far as China is concerned, are the ones to start reforms. H they are corrupt, as most people suppose, they mnst begin with themselves. Hence the first moral reform which we have indicated is that pertaining to the officialdom. With this unchanged, the country will be unchanged.
H reforms a century and more ago could take place in British officialdom, why may it not come to-day in China ~ An a priori argument, however, is not enough. China can't be studied by analogy.
Looking at the leading men in China to-day-and if reforms come, they must probably come through such-we mention certain names and make certain specifications.
First of all, the name which occurs to all is that of the Grand Secretary and Viceroy, Li Hung Chang. He has been for years conspicuous for his progressiveness. He was the one who advocated the navy, a railroad, the telegraph, and Western medical science. All save the last are in the line of material expansion, and this has been about the proportion of material and moral reform in his own mind. While thus extolled as the man of progress, he has had around him a herd of corrupt officials. He has never sought to rid the nation of this corruption, but has himself amassed wealth. His conscience has never been equal to his brains. Hence his foes and the mass of the censors have denounced him and all his satellites as rolling in corruption and bringing ruin to the country. In talking with a foreigner who has been with him for years, and expressing my fear that the changes which Li would bring if he should succeed in making peace would only tend to augment the corruption, his reply was, "Li has learned much of late, and knows pretty well the men ~round him j he will not allow such corruption again, but will make real changes. "
A rival of Viceroy Li in the provinces is the viceroy now located at Nanking, Chang Chih-tung. For years he was regarded as anti-foreign, while seeing the necessity of foreign inventions. Some two years ago, when visiting the city where he was then a viceroYt I learned that he had not yet received the American consul, altho he was at the same time building a massive foundry and cotton-mill. As for moral reforms, he has always been regarded as personally incorruptible, but never exerting himself to check it in his subordinates. Since the war he has shown greater friendliness to foreigners as such, and might almost be called more pro-foreign than his former rival, and more opposed to corruption. Aside from his visionary and somewhat fickle disposition, he may be put down as one of China's reformers. In all this Rev. Timothy Richard has exerted an influence for more than fifteen years.
The rival of Viceroy Li in the counsels of the court has been the imperial tutor, President of the Board of Revenue, and now member of the Grand Council, Wung Tung-ho. In point of Chinese scholarship he ranks ahead of even the other two. He has been opposed to the railroad and to spending money on an army and navy. He has. been, hence, the great anti-foreign leader. At the same time, he has been a man of upright habi.ts, not working for money, and anxious to see the government rid of its existing peculations. Largely through him edict after edict rang forth through the winter against the corrupt military officers, as well as against Li. He was head of the war party, because he believed the attack and inroads of Japan were unjust. As for being anti-foreign, I may say that, when I saw him in my first interview in early March, I was never treated with more courtesy, this distinguished official dressing himself in his robes and escorting me on my departure clear from the guest hall to my cart on the street. I certainly reckon him as a moral reformer, and properly convinced he may yet favor material improvements from abroad. With him I would also place a former imperial tutor, now seventy-five years of age, Li Hung-tsao.
High in the government is Prince Kung. Before his retirement in 1884 he was considered pro-foreign and a friend of Li. At that time the censors got at him, along with three others in the Grand Council, and denounced them all for peculations in connection with certain mines in Yunnen province. From the experience of the war he is still more in favor of change, and would probably include therein moral reforms.
Above all these I have mentioned are the emperor and his aunt, the empress-dowager. The latter has been the advocate of peace and the former of war. Of moral reforms I would have more hope from the young emperor aided by the imperial tutor.
Thirdly, and very briefly, we may consider the aid which missionaries, and, in fact, all Christians, may render. First, there is prayer, and this power, backed by God's promises, is incalculable. Let us all " continue instant in prayer" for China's regeneration, and so of reform. Secondly, there is the spiritual leaven of the heavenly kingdom, and as the leaven affects the whole lump, so the kingdom is affecting the whole empire.
A TREE WITHOUT BOOTS
With the experience of the war I am sure masses of the people can now be led to inquire the way of salvation. Thirdly, direct influence on the officials themselves. More than ever is such work needed. It is a crisis in China, and men actuated by the highest spiritual motives are wanted to counsel, exhort, and aid, as Providence, hearing the prayers of His people, shall guide and command. Denominational boards may shrink from such work as not their legitimate function, but it is a duty none the less for the Church. It is also a calling for the missionary that these men in power may see that their truest friends are those who are not ashamed to call themselves the ambassadors of God to save, through the Divine redemption and the Spirit's regeneration, both individuals and nations. Then will the song sung 2300 years ago be fulfilled, "Gentiles shall come to His light, and kings to the brightness of His shining."
A TREE WITHOUT ROOTS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
The REVIEW, having received from the learned author a complimentary copy of the essay noted below, * ought not to neglect taking some notice of it. Undoubtedly much in this paper is valuable and sound. We note some points. The religious faculty, tho not always much developed, is an essential part of the human constitution. The essential postulates of religion,' martyrdom, miracles, prophecy, high morality, the apprehension of a future state, pure and self-devoted lives, the brotherhood of man, and to some extent the Fatherhood of God, are found expressed and influential in religious documents of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Persia, China, and other countries. Some men out of the line of either Testament, like Socrates and Buddha, have uttered thoughts which the world will not easily let die. There are accumulating evidences that God will have all men to be saved, and that many souls in all lands, even as weighed down by unworthy superstitions, have felt His renewing power.
On the other hand, outside of the Greco-Roman ideas, of Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, few systems of moral and religious apprehension have been developed, and fewer still have survived in any continuous influence on the life of mankind. Those less coherent systems were not crushed, but died of their own incoherence.
There are many other things in the essay of great value as illustrating the SJlrit of God struggling with tho sins and low conceptions of mankind, * Essay on the Ancient Religions of the World, before the Great Anno Domini, contributed to the Tenth International Oriental Congress, held at ('",neva, September, 1894, by Robert Needham (Just, LL.D., Honorary Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Hertford. Printed by Stephen Austin & Sons, 1894. winning many anticipatory victories, and preparing the way for a final and conclusive victory under the leadership of Christ.
The essay, however, has some serious faults, and we are obliged to say that in our view the faults much outweigh the merits. Not to mention a comparatively trifling one, the somewhat pedantic and oversolicitous spirit of classification, which does not give a very strong impression of clean cleavage, of striking always through the main joint.s of the subject, tho certainly more successful than a classification once made by Dr. Cust in the Intelli9~r, the author seems to have made an extraordinary rebound from a position of rigorous orthodoxy, or even hyperorthodoxy, to something that might almost be designated a modern Marcionism, not, indeed, as teaching a greater and a lesser God and a phantasmal Christ, but as using a tone of most contemptuous disparagement toward the Jewish race, which is necessarily reflected on the Old Testament.
Before remarking on this, however, we will remark on these words: "All expressions of abuse, or disparagement, or praise of the subjects discussed are out of place; all contrasts of one with another, favorably or unfavorably, are equally avoided. There is not the least reason for attributing to the writer any laxity or haziness in· his own religious persuasions; quite the contrary ; they are dearer to him than life, but they are placed on one side in this discussion as they would be in solving a mathematical calculation," etc. Now, this appears to us a wholly false position. Of course a Christian believer, if gathered with a large company of unbelievers to consider religious phenomena scientifically, will use good sense and courtesy, but it is hard to see why he should conceal his own belief, and,. so far as occasion serves, the grounds of it. Assuredly unbelievers do not conceal their unbelief and the grounds of it. Who ever heard of a scientific meeting, at which, if the discussion turned on religion, an unbelieving member held himself bound to a colorless neutrality? Why, then, should a believer be bound to it 1 This seems both spiritless and unscientific. Moreover, it is impossible. The whole tone in which a real Christian treats of religion will of absolute necessity show him to be a Christian. The almost complete success, therefore, with which the author of this essay has succeeded in discharging all Christian complexion from his religious science is not precisely the strongest evidence of a faith dearer to him than life. He does, indeed, so far forget his non-religious attitude in discussing religion as to refer to Christ as the Divine Wisdom who assisted in the creation of the world, and who appeared in "the great Anno Domini. " But this passage is so detached from the essay at large as to sound somewhat perfunctory and formal.
The author, however, when he comes to handle the Jews, forgets all his previously assumed obligations of courtesy and neutrality, and pours out on them, and by implication on much of the Old Testament, a torrent of disparagement, we might almost say of contemptuous abuse, which might well delight the heart of an Ingersoll. Every disparaging epithet addressed to them by Moses or the prophets, when contrasting their actual character with thll high ideal to which they are called of God-epithets, therefore, which simply show them to be a true specimen of mankindevery such style of address is uRed by him as implying a contrast of inferiority to the human race at large. He describes them as " a nation of slaves"-as if every people of Europe had not until lately been a slave nation. The most that an aristocratic English family ventures to boast is that the shape of its instep shows that it has had no slave in the line for four hundred years. The author, while dwelling with scornful satisfaction on their successive states of vassalage to neighboring great powers, which, nevertheless, as he knows, had very little to do with their internal development, has nothing to say of the lordly consciousness and exploits of warlike valor which illustrate the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, and which gleam with lurid magnificence in the closing agonies of Jerusalem. He puffs at the kings of Israel as " petty rajahs," and computes that their dominions would make two good-sized Indian districts, such as he has had the honor to help administer. We believe the smallness of Palestine is pretty well understood, and had supposed that the Old Testament brought out with sufficient distinctness its great political and military inferiority to Egypt, or Assyria, or Persia. Nor, we believe, has the Christian world had to wait for Dr. Cust to inform it that the greatness of Jewish kings rests mainly on the trust which they had to guard, and is not to be measured by the standard of mere physical bigness, which, in consequence of the author's Indian experiences, seems to have laid as overmastering a control on his imagination as if he were a Mr. Jefferson Brick holding forth on Independence Day. Small as the Holy Land is, how· ever, we believe that it is a good deal larger than either Attica or Latium, neither of which territories exactly suffers by a comparison of its historical significance with the biggest of those Indian provinces which have contributed to Dr. Cust's sense of his own importance, as has sometimes appeared before in a manner a little verging on the ludicrous. Never having had the honor of administering an Indian province, ·or even district, we criticise easily a temptation to which we have never been exposed. However, we know of no law of the kingdom of God which forbids the author of this essay to approve himself as enjoying as high a place in the history of mankind as David or Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah or Josiah. Whether he has this, posterity will decide.
The author attacks and reviles the poor Jews on every side. The trifling initiatory excision of Judaism is magnified by him into a portentous mutilation which ineffaceably brands its adherents as belonging to the ignobler races of mankind. Because the Israelites agreed with most of the ancient races of mankind in expressing the sense of sin and the need of self-devotion by animal sacrifices, and because their peculiarly deep sense of sin caused these sacrifices to be developed into peculiarly large proportions. he scoffs at them with a tone of lofty superiority which reminds us just enough of Paul's mention of " the weak and beggarly ele- ments" to startle us by its utter incongruity with it. '
The author does not seem able adequately to give vent to his scorn of the Jews, to his sense of their immeasurable inferiority to their neighbors, Eastern and Western. Nothing that they are, have, or do can please him. It is even a count in the indictment against them that nobody but themselves used their written character, tho he does not make apparent of what earthly consequence this fact is, inasmuch as the character is easily learned, and as the Old Testament has acted chiefly on mankind through its innumerable translations. He carps at the Hebrew language because it is so inferior to many others in subtlety and symmetry. This inferiority is undisputed. It was not appointed to enshrine the wide range of sec- ondary ideas, or even all the ramifications of spiritual maturity. And by the very fact of its comparative unsusceptibility on this side, it has all the better, by its intuitive simplicity and vivid figurative distinctness, and by a uniformity correspondent to the nature of religious emotion, established in the center of mankind those deep foundations of primary relig- ious thought and feeling on which the great Christian fabric has been built up, and without which it would certainly tumble into cureless ruin. And even when the necessities of a wider spiritual development, appointed for all mankind, made requisite that the Gospel of the kingdom should be expressed in the ampler proportions of the Greek, it was a Greek that could only be fitted for its sacred charge by becoming thoroughly colored and imbued with the simplicity of Hebrew intuition, which even then could not remove a certain pagan chill from the new tongue, until at last the New Testament, having fashioned Christian tongues, could then ponr itself into vehicles combining Hebrew intuitiveness and warmth with Hellenic amplitude. But of all this Dr. Cust says not a word. The Hebrew is ill adapted, certainly, for metaphysics, altho we have been informed by Dr.
Schaff that the elder Thiersch once held a conversation in Hebrew with a Polish Jew on the Hegelian philosophy. It is probably still worse adapted for reproducing the pessimistic mysticism of the Hindu Upanishads. But it was not providentially appointed for this. Why' does not Dr. Cust object to it that it would be with great difficulty that anyone could render into it the astonishing vocabulary of our athletic world ~ It has nobly served and still nobly serves its one great appointed end, which is, in the words of the Athenceum, as the great and simple language of a great and simple people, to embody eminently the temper of wise wonder in view of this universe of ours, and of noble humility before that God" in whose great hand we stand."
It redounds, 'in Dr. Cust's view, by no means to the honor of the Old Testament as compared with the sacred books of other lands, especially of the extreme Orient, that while the Jews are supposed to have borrowed some- what from Zoroastrianism, the great conceptions of the East borrowed nothing from them and did not even know of their existence. What a fatuous conclusion! Then if it should appear that there are ootional inhabitants of Mars, we could comfort ourselves that we are at least immeasurably their superiors, inasmuch as until lately we knew nothing of their existence, and have not even yet borrowed anything of them! Dr. Cust must have been hard pressed for a stone to throw at t.he Jews when he can use such a style of reasoning. Not to say that the latest studies, those of James DarIlletester, appear to leave it probable that the later Mazdeism is a cross between the earlier Mazdeism and Judaism, does Dr. Cust mean to deny that it would have acted like a clear wind passing over a heavy sky.if India could have been purged of her nebulous confusion between the Creator and the creation by a faith in the living God coming upon her from the Old Testament ~ It is certain at least that eminent Hindus begin now to signify that their religion is doomed ·unless it can in some as yet incomprehensible way reconcile its historical continuity with the theism of Israel and of Christendom. As to China, would Confucianism have become that arid system of mere social ethics, constantly tending to degenerate into mere social etiquette, which it now is, if, for the vagueness of an impersonal heaven, its founder had laid hold of belief in the living God, Creator of heaven and earth ~ Would the profound and sublime speculations of a Lao tse, coming at so many points nearer the Gospel than perhaps anything else outside of the Gospel, have degenerated into a system of vulgar jugglery, had this great sage been able to root it into historical deeds of the self-revealing God ~ No one denies, certainly no Christian, that the Old Testament of itself is incompetent to redeem the world. The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than the greatest of the prophets. But it is none the less true, as has been well said, that the Old Testament, with the New, is written from the nucleus of human nature. And the Old Testament alone gives its historical place in the world to the kingdom of God. Christendom has no meaning without Israel. If Jesus is not the Messiah, He to whom Israel looked forward, He is only a vagrant and transitory phenomenon of religious hallucination, as, indeed, those so-called Christians, who, like the Gnostics of old, divide Jesus from the Christ, seem to be coming to regard Him. This is certain, to treat Christ as the wisdom of God, and at the same time to pour contempt upon the Jews for having in the Old Testament accounted themselves as centrally placed in the world, is, as says the prophet to Israel, to " limp" between two incongruous and incompatible positions. Certainly at this present, Christendom is central in the world, mentally, ·morally, religiously, and civilly; and Christendom is sprung out of Israel. Undoubtedly there may be found in Eastern and Western religious philosophies abundance of deep and valuable religious thought, which, absorbed and digested in the consciousness of the Church, will greatly enrich it. As saith St. Hilary, truth, by whomsoever spoken, is of the Holy Ghost. Yet it is none the less true that, as was once reo marked by that great admirer of the East, Max Miiller, to Principal,Fair. bairn, it is a great advantage when the Bible can be treated coordinately with the other religious books of the race, inasmuch as only in that way can its immeasurable superiority over them all be adequately displayed.
Dr. Cust's professed reverence for" the great Anno Domini" turns to something that sounds very much like mockery in the bitter remark, borrowed from Voltaire, and certainly very slightly mitigated from his hatred, not only of Judaism, but much more of Christianity : "It is a comfort to think that none of the elder religious conceptions of the world were intolerant, .or propagandist by the arm of the flesh, or were possessed with that evil and aggressive spirit which became the feature of the conceptions dating after the Anno Domini." Now, what does this mean but that the coming of Christ, of its own proper force, developed a spirit of evil and cruel aggressiveness in the world, which is a true characteristic of his religion and shows it to lie on a lower plane than the earlier religions ~ This certainly is the natural inference unless Dr. Cust had taken pains to say that this persecuting spirit was a stage through which Christianity must pass, but which was alien to its true nature and which it is fast overcoming. Yet so far from taking pains to say this, he has taken pains not to say it. The remark retains in his mouth the unrelieved malignity of a bitter sneer.
To this malicious declaration of Cust we count it enough to oppose the words of the illustrious Italian theologian and philosopher, Vincenzo Gioberti: "Voltaire is fond of repeating that Christianity is the only religion that has kindled religious wars ~ that the blood shed by it has been immense. Most true. But this is just what proves the greatness of Christianity ; because the abuse corresponds to the use, and the corruption of the best is the worst. This engendered a phenomenon till then unheard of-war for ideas. Before Christ men used to fight only for gain, for ambition, for power. After Christ, they fought ofrell for the consubstantiality of the Word, justifying grace, etc. This scandalizes the lightminded- Voltaire, Gibbon [Cust], etc.-but it is sublime. Good is found in the very evil of Christianity and progress in its regress. "
It is very evident that Dr. Cust interprets the religious neutrality which he was bound to observe at this convention in a very peculiar sep-se. We will venture to say that there was not an unbeliever present who would not have been ready to say to him: "My dear sir, if you are a Christian, I can only hope that the number of such Christians as you may rapidly increase."
The author would do well to bring some important points of his scholarship nearer to date. Thus he tells us that Cyrus was not an idolater, notwithstanding that Cyrus's proclamation, discovered several years ago, which he issued on entering Babylon, boasts of the devout worship which he rendered to all the gods of Babylon, and the care which he took of their temples. Indeed, it is now known that genuine Zoroastrianism was not restored in Persia until the time of Darius Hystaspis. So also he
REV. I!Hl!lLDON JACKSON. D.D
boasts in behalf of Buddhism, that in spite of all our Crusades and Inquisitions, it has a far greater number of nominal adherents than we, as if the high authority of Dr. Legge and other Orientalists had not shown that the number of Buddhists in the world cannot at the outside be put beyond 100,000,000, except by throwing in the whole population of China, who, apart from the monks and nuns, and probably a small number of laity, do not dream of calling themselves Buddhists, altho they very commonly call in the monks to celebrate the imposing funeral rites of their religion.
This essay is too vituperative of the Jews and too sneering and bitter in various allusions to Christianity to be well entitled to a place in science j it is too large in its praise of various pagan systems, and too scant in its praise of the Gospel, to be well suited for a Christian tract j and it is traversed by somewhat too many expressions of reverence for the Redeemer and the prophets to be well suited for circulation by a Freethinkers' club. On the whole, without impugning the author's good faith in declaring that his Christian belief is dearer to him than life, we must in all frankness say that he has, as appears to us, evolved a document which is fitted for nothing so well as for the use of" the foolish people who are serviceable neither to God nor to His foes."
REV. SHELDON JACKSON, D.D. PIO~"'EER MISSIONARY TO ALASKA.
BY OSCAR E. BOYD, NEW YORK:.
Dr. Jackson was born at MinaviIIe, New York, May 18th, 1834. He was educated at Union College and Princeton Seminary, and was ordained to the ministry in 1858.
He began his missionary life in Indian Territory among the Choctaw Indians the same year. Failing health compelled him to leave this mission and seek a colder climate. He became a home missionary in Wisconsin . and Minnesota. His zeal and success in his work quickly carried him into the front ranks, and he was appointed general missionary of Southern Min- , nesota, and tshortly afterward to the general superintendency of that vast field embracing Western Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Utah. and Idaho. Over one hundred churches owe their existence to his labors.
While working in this field his sympathies were awakened to the- hope- less condition of the women and children of the Indians, the Mexicans, and the Mormons. The ministers of the Gospel were unable to reach them. If reached at all, it must be through the agency of woman j thus the teacher became a necessity in order to prepare the way for the minister, and to be an aid in his work by mingling with the people in their homes and by daily teaching the Gospel truths in connection with the elements of an ordinary education. With his usual zeal Dr. Jackson began to plead by pen and voice with the women of the Presbyterian Church that they organize for the purpose of raising money for the support of teachers. These appeals, combined with those of other zealous and enlightened missionary workers, resulted in the organization of the Woman's Executive Committee of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in December of 1878, whose marvellous success in raising funds for missions is one of the miracles of this missionary period.
Dr. Jackson is not only the founder of missions in Alaska, but is also their untiring promoter. In fact, he might be called the embodiment of all Alaska missions. He has intimate knowledge of every station and of the workers. His writings abound with information regarding the resources of the country, the manners and customs of the people, and their need of the Gospel. His presentation of these needs is so earnest and convincing that his hearers are not only impressed by his pleading, but thrilled with desire to give liberally.
When his attention was first called to the needs of the people of Alaska, he planned to visit them as soon as Providence opened the way. The Board of Home Missions made this possible by sending him on a journey of exploration into the northern limits of Montana and Idaho. Upon his arrival he learned that nothing could be done there because of an Indian outbreak, and he determined to push on to Alaska. Gaining the Board's permission, he passed on to Portland, Ore., and was there further encouraged to go at once by Rev. Dr. LiIidRley, who had made several personal attempts to open up missions in Alaska, but had not been able to secure a permanent missionary. Dr. Jackson took with him Mrs. McFarland, and after seeing the wretched condition of the natives, he left Mrs. McFarland at Fort Wrangel and returned to the East fired with zeal for the relief of these degraded people. His appeals were first made to Presbyterians, who responded generously and opened the first missions in· Alaska. Other denominations soon awoke to the need of work there, and began to consider the calls to establish mission stations. Great wisdom was needed at this time to so direct affairs that several stations be not opened on the same field. Dr. Jackson arranged with the different denominations willing to undertake Alaskan missionary work, and by common consent a portion of the. vast territory was assigned to each. His wisdom and open-hearted frankness in the arrangement of the details of this scheme won all parties. All who know him know well that he is one of the most unselfish of men, and that he has no private ends to advance in his undertakings. His joint offices of United States Agent of Educa- , tion for Alaska and General Missionary for the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions gave him rare opportunities to develop this scheme, while his ardor and undaunted energy fitted him to overcome all obstacles in the way of its accomplishment, many of which would have disheartened other men. His long and perilous journeys, so unostentatiously made over land
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN NORTH KOREA
and into far Arctic seas, are characteristic of the man. No thought of personal danger or isolation hindered the accomplishment of his object.
During his first visit to the Arctic Eskimo he saw the necessity for in- troducing into that desolate region the Siberian reindeer, and thus saving f•tohremneartliyvefsurfnriosmheda food famine, which was inevitable. The walrus, which the chief food supply of the natives along the coast and . islands of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, had been nearly exterminated by whalers. who wantonly shot them for their ivory. By far the greater number of these huge mammals, which were destroyed for their tusks only, were not utilized for food, but were simply left to perish. This destruction of their main dependence made it an imperative necessity to introduce some other. The moss which grows in such quantities in all this region was found to be the same as that which is the chief sustenance of the rein- deer in Siberia. The conditions of climate being similar, it seemed certain that they could be introduced with every hope of success. With this thought in mind Dr. Jackson returned East, and at once began to impor- tune congressmen, politicians, ministers, editors, and everyone whom he could influence until he secured an appropriation from Congress, and the beginning of this most iIllportant undertaking was assured.
In his next trip to this region he secured by purchase sixteen reindeer and turned them loose' upon one of the Aleutian Islands. The next year one hundred and seventy-five were purchased in Siberia and taken to Port Clarence, July 4th, 1892. These increased until in September, 1894, there were five hundred and eighty-eight domestic reindeer in Alaska.
Thus there has been started a nation-saving food supply, the value of which to the future inhabitants of this region who can tell. When these few hundreds of reindeer have increased to many thousands, and the people are assured of their daily food, then will we begin to see the magnitude of this conception of Dr. Jackson. If he had done no other thing than this, his name would deserve the praise of all lovers of humanity.
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN NORTH KOREA.
BY REV. SAMUEL A. MOFFATT, PYENG YANG, KOREA.
The persecution which arose at the time of the stoning of Stephen, resulting in the scattering of the Christians from Jerusalem and the wider heralding of the Gospel, with the establishment of the Church in many places, finds its counterpart in a measure in the persecution of the Pyeng Yang Christians. * In this latter case the Japan-China War has caused the troubled state of the country which followed the persecution, as the Roman occupation * MIsllIOlfABY REVIEW, September, 1894. of J udma caused constant unrest in Jerusalem. The Lord knows better than we how best to make all things work together for the carrying out of His plans and the establishment of His Church among the heathen, and so i~ this case" all were scattered abroad except the missionaries" (apos- tles), and they" went everywhere preaching the ·Word."
The sequel of the persecution, and the way in which God is yet bringing good out of j,he turbulent times in Korea, will be of interest to those who delight in the work of " calling out a people for 1Iis name."
The persecution with the severe beating of Kim and Han, two faithful witnesses of the power of the Gospel, took place under the administration of one of the powerful and well-known Min family, who was then governor of the province. Our little flock was scattered, and the enemies of the Lord prophesied a repetition of the bloody massacre of the Roman Catholics which took place nearly thirty years ago. Fear took possession of those who had begun to inquire into the truth, and for several weeks none but a faithfnl few dared to come near the missionary's lodgings where services were held. Those wore days of fervent prayer and strong supplication, and the faith of the few was visibly strengthened.
The Lord heard us, and soon, through the mediation of the God-fearing American Minister, meted out punishment to the persecutors, and compelled the haughty Min to return the money which had been extorted. News .of this spread quickly through the province, and great was the surprise and exultation of the people that some one had been found who could secure the punishment of one of the Mins. Curiosity to know what this Jesus doctrine is was rapidly growing, and the Lord had His plans for sending His witnesses throughout the province that they might herald the good news unto all these inquiring ones. Already Japanese soldiers were in Seoul. Already the Christians who had gone to the country had scattered books here and there, and had returned. Soon war was declared, the palace was taken by the Japanese, and the Chinese soldiers poured in from the north and took possession of Pyeng Yang. The hearts of all were failing then for fear, but in tho midst of it the oourage and faith of the Christians showed strong and clear, and never before had the name of God been so widely proclaimed in Pyeng Yang. People in fear and trembling sought the Christians and the missionary, asking what they should do, and day after day women came to the wife of our evangelist, one of them remarking: "It is good to come here; it is so restful, for everywhere else all is confusion and fear." Then came the Japanese march on Pyeng Yang. Under the expected bombardment of the city the Chinese general kindly gave me an escort of troops as far as his scouts had gone, and I went to Seoul to await the issue of the battle. Koreans by the thousands had fled, and when the Chinese rout took place, after the battle on September 15th, those who remained fled in wild confusion.
Han and Kim, who had shown such courage under persecution, now showed their faith in God by remaining through the battle, protecting the property and still witnessing of the truth.
The Christians and their families, inquirers, and those who had only heard the name of God and of Jesus, and had witnessed the persecution and the punishment which followed, and the steadfastness of the Christians even under trial, were all scattered in every direction, and wherever they went they carried news of the Jesus doctrine. In the villages in which they settled the Christians assembled their families for prayer. Fathers and mothers, wives and children who before had scoffed, who had reviled them for becoming Christians, now listened to the preaching of the Word, and knelt as prayer was offered unto the only living and true God in the name of His Son Jesus. Some of them have since asked to be received into the church, while probably all have become friendly to the preaching of Christianity. The mother of one of the Christians had in her hasty flight snatched up some clothes, and with them a tract which her son had been reading. In the country village she ran across this tract, and immediately asked her son to read it to her that she, too, might learn to fear no more.
One of the Christians with his family fled to a village where a most earnest inquirer lived, a place which I had visited a short time before, and where tracts had been sold. He was heartily welcomed by. those who had become interested in the truth. They provided for his physical needs, while he set himself to instructing them in spiritual things. Be had been there several months, and in company with the inquirer referred to above, had gone from village to village and house to house proclaiming the good news. In two places they gathered the men for services on Sunday and more thoroughly instructed them. This spring Mr. Lee and I were able to visit this place, and our hearts were made glad as we listened to the accounts of the labors of these men and saw what the Lord had done for them. Each humbly gave all the praise to the other, one saying that he had only gone about sowing the seed while the other had followed and cultivated the field. It was our privilege and joy to enter into their labors and reap the harvest. We enrolled thirty most hopeful, sincere, and earnest catechumens. They have been meeting every Sunday for several months in these two places, fifteen miles apart, have evidently been studying the Scriptures to some purpose, as their intelligent questions plainly showed and as was evidenced by the lives they were living and their joy in Christ's service. As they came from various villages, each man brought a little sack of rice on his back, and this the good wives.and mothers of the Christians in the central villages cooked for them that they might stay all day without expense to their host. We held a number of services with them and met many inquirers. We heard their plans for building churches, for which they had already begun the collection of money, and we rejoiced that the work was being undertaken on the basis of self-support. It was an iI),teresting fact that these Christians had not been interfered with by the Tong Haks, who had arisen in rebellion and who were producing great confusion in that province. They recognized the fact that Christians are the true friends of oppressed Korea. We were in this village in the very midst of the Tong flak excitement, and were visited in a most friendly way by three of the leaders, one of whom I had known before. We held our services in the largest building in the place, which had been used by the Tong Haks as their headquarters, but which was offered for our use. We pointed them most plainly to the only real remedy for the oppression and injustice against which they have arisen, and we were given close attention. While not able to countenance their position, and unable to approve in the slightest the methods they have taken in order to rid themselves of their unjust, wholly unprincipled and cruel officials, yet seeing the so-called "rebels" in their own villages, hearing others describe the raids of the soldiers who march through the country, beating, murdering, and pillaging the inoffensive and helpless people, and knowing as we do the thoroughly corrupt practices of the officials and their underlings, our hearts go out in sympathy toward the poor, misguided Tong Haks, who are more sinned against than sinning.
Since we left there reports have been received of the continued activity of the Christians, and 1 write this on the eve of another visit to them, when I shall hope to baptize a number, organizing them into a church.
In another village to the north of Pyeng Yang a similar work has been going on. Just before the persecution one of our catechumens had invited me to his house that I might preach to his fellow-villagers. Spending a few days with him some twenty men began to assemble· regularly on the Lord's Day to study God's Word. The persecution in Pyeng Yang, with the report that the officials had ordered the arrest of the Christians in this village, caused some to drop out, hut others firmly adhered to their determination to serve Christ. They came to Pyeng Yang, received counsel and encouragement, and soon after were rejoicing over the victory which the Lord had granted. This village being near the main road, it, too, was invaded by both the Chinese and Japanese armies in turn, and these Christians also were most of them scattered that they, too, might more widely witness of Christ. Later, coming back to their homes, they again took up their work. Some of the women became sincere and firm believers, as also several boys of from fifteen to eighteen years of age. Among the latter were two who had been greatly distressed by evil spirits. Over these prayer was offered, a number gathering and, with strong crying and great faith, appealing to God to drive out the evil spirits. Their prayer was answered, and that whole neighborhood bears witness to the fact, that whereas before those two boys were possessed of evil spirits, now they are clothed in their right minds. Those Christians, too, began to plan for a church. They collected some money, and with the aid received from t.he Pyeng Yang Ohristians bought a house and have converted it into a church, the first chu1·ch in Korea wholly provided for out of native funds. This house was said to have been greatly disturbed by the presence of numerous evil spirits, and so they were enabled to get a good strong tiled house for a very small sum, $24 in silver being the price paid for it. I have just returned from a visit to this village, where I baptized seven men and received sixteen more as catechumens upon public confession of their sin and of their desire to serve Christ as they grow in knowledge of His will. This gives us art enrolment of forty-one believers, in- Cluding catechumens, besides a number of women, whom I have not yet been able to meet. The Lord has done great things for this people, and it is a joy indeed to hear them give thanks for the way in which He has led them and relieved them of all their former fear of evil spirits.
This is the kind of work for which the Lord has been preparing, and we bless Him now for the persecutions and troublous times through which He has led us, only that He might work out His own most wise purposes.
As I write this I have been interrupted by my teacher, who hands me a letter from another inquirer twenty-three miles in the country, who writes that in his village there are now twenty men who wish to become Christians. The work is growing faster than we can follow it. Already my plans are laid for visiting three other places, and I do not know just when this call can be heeded. However, the work is the Lord's, and I thank Him that it is His work, and :know that He will provide for it. Inquirers come in daily from all over the two provinces saying they have heard of this doctrine from the men who were scattered from here. They are getting books, they are awakening to a sense of sin, and are going back to gather together all who will join them in the worship of God and in the study of His Word. One man who met me to-day walked in eighty miles on purpose to find me and learn of this doctrine. Oh, for a baptism of the Spirit that we may be used of the Lord for the gathering of His people-a work which He is accomplishing here at this very time!
From Brother McKenzie, a. Nova Scotian Presbyterian located in the western part of Whang Hai province, comes news of like precious blessings and of a similar work of the Spirit. He was there when the Tong Haks rose, ami at first they were suspicious and unfriendly, not knowing what Christianity was.
Last winter he wrote me as follows : " I know you all have borne me continually on the arms of faith and prayer before the Father above. I feel satisfied if that were not so, and so many praying for me in America, that my life were not spared till now. Twice I made ready for death, expecting to have to leave in a few hours. I am thankful if friends who visited me in the darkest hours saw no fear, but I could tell of the power of Jesus to bear us over life's troubles. The darkest hour was brightened by His presence. Saw Kyung Jo started out in the night to see a leader of the rebels who formerly was a friend. He found to his surprise a Testament in his possession. On into the night they conversed over the book, Saw showing him the deeper meaning of God's Word and who Jesus was. He promised his protection. Several times lawless bands came to our neighborhood to wipe out the name of Christ from the land, but were prevented, so that when the crisis was over the passing bands only came to see the foreigner. Far and near they came for medicines and books. One man bought fhe or six Testaments besides a dozen others for his friends to read. Tong Haks and anti-Tong Haks, Christians and anti-Christians joined in erecting a pole near the house I live in to unfurl the banner of Jesus, white with St. George's cross. As it was unfurled we joined in singing, ' All hail the power of Jesus' name.' All were glad to have the banner of peace waving over the village. They first suggested it themselves through our wonderful deliverance and peaceful appearance in the midst of such trouble, while others from far and near were filled with fear:'
The Lord had taken them through these experiences for a purpose, and all these troublous times were to be made to work out His plans. Under date of March 1st Brother McKenzie again wrote: "We are waiting for the snow to clear to begin building the church, the first Korean church with Korean money alone. Already 1000 nyang ($40) is signed by them, besides all the wood given and work gratis. The contract is given out, 800 nyang for the woodwork alone. We would ask you to save up your spare papers and magazines to paper the church. Three Tong Hak chiefs are studying in their homes the Jesus doctrine, and have contributed to the church.
"Ten houses cleaned their homes of tablets last New Year, and no longer worship them nor sacrifice. Sixty or seventy meet twice on Sunday and at prayer-meeting on ·Wednesday night. Their lives are indeed reformed. Every day inquirers come from far and near. Next Sunday we make a new move, going to a near village to preach in a large sarang offered for our use. The women can be in an adjoining room listening. Several boys who can sing will go with us, besides Saw Kyung Jo and one or two others. I purpose securing similar privileges in as many villages as possible, and send them out by twos or more. The Sabbath is well observed in about ten houses. The church will be on the spot where devils received homage a year ago. We have started a school. God has converted a carpenter and farmer who knows Chinese, and he is chosen as teacher. His wages are 250 nyang, five bags unshelled rice, and a suit of clothes. I went this morning on the track of a tiger who visited our village last night and took off a dog. I tracked him to the mountains and got near him, when he roared and ran, leaping from rock to rock. He was within a few yards of me, and only that he disappeared so quickly behind the rocks I would have shot him. I am hoping to get his skin ere I am through with him. If so, I hope to build a church with it. He was quite a monster, and has frequently visited our village this winter.
THE JEWS IN PERSIA•
•• The Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. The prayers of God's people have done it all."
Thus it is that God is working in Korea. Thus it is that He is establishing His work, and one of the most hopeful features of it is that the nat;ives themselves are diligently preaching wherever they go, and that from the start it is planned on the basis of self-support. With such a work developing wit,hin two days' journey of this city, the Pyeng Yang station, consisting of but two ministers (a doctor is under appointment), calls loudly for another man, that one of us may give his time to the work in the farther north around Eui Ju, which is a six days' journey from here, one hundred and seventy miles. There, too, we have two hopeful churches and many inquirers who have not been visited for a year and a half, a young native evangelist alone looking after them. May the Lord send more laborers into this field white already for the harvest.
THE JEWS IN PERSIA.-II.
BY s. G. WILSON, TABRIZ, PERSIA.
The eccentric Wolff visited the Jews in Persia in 1823 and in 1828-33. In 1844 the London Society for the Jews sent out four missionaries, with Bagdad as a center. In 1846 Mr. Stern, of this company, took up his residence in Ispahan. A state of anarchy compelled his withdrawal. In 1852-53 he again visited Persia. In 1866 this mission was suspended.
Work for the Jews has been carried on as part of the work of the Presbyterian Mission in North Persia, and of the Church Mission Society at Ispahan.
Beginning our review of this work at the northwest, our mission has an evangelist among the Jews in Salmas. In Oroomiah some interesting events have occurred among the twenty-five hundred Jews. In 1875-78 there was a movement among the Jews. About twenty-five families rejected the Talmud and traditions. This made a commotion, and the new party was cast out of the synagogue. Persecution followed, and some were fined. They afterward came to the missionaries, wishing to put themselves under the instruction and protection of the mission. A school was opened among them. The government opposed, to prevent our getting a foothold among them. In 1888 this work had a fresh impulse. A boys' school was opened. A sewing and Bible-class was organized with thirty or forty Jewish women in attendance, and a girls' school with thirty-two pupils. The government closed the school for boys, and only half of the girls dared to continue. In 1892 the first fruits of this work were reaped in the baptism of four young Jews, who stood firm, tho beaten and expell~d from the synagogue. An evangelist is working among them in Oroomiah. In Nakada, Suldooz, an evangelist preaches to the one thousand Jews as well as to the Armenians. Once a story was circulated that they had celebrated the passover by drawing a picture of Jesus on the cross and maltreating it. The Mussulmans collected and nearly tore down thcir synagogue. I was invited to this synagogue one evening. It is a plain, mud-plastered room, with a raised platform in the center, upon which I and the rabbis with open Bibles sat down, and about fifty Jews stood around. I attempted to show them Jesus as the Christ, but one cried one thing and one another, like in the theater at Ephesus, and soon it became evident that they were nearly all tipsy. The more sober ones said, " Come in the morning," which recalled Peter's proof of the sobriety of the apostles.
In Upper Kurdistan, including Soujbulak, Mianduab, and Sokkus, there are about two thousand Jews. In Soujbulak we have a school among them. There I attended morning prayers in their synagogue. On the doorpost, inclosed in a glass tube, wert) the Ten Commandments. In one corner were benches for circumcision and the bier. Each worshiper had portions of the Law bound on his arms and forehead with leather cords, and thrown over his turban a thick white veil, which hung over his shoulders. The service, led by three or four rabbis, consisted of prayers from the Psalms and Talmud, and of reading from the Law. Each man held an Old Testament in his hands, and they read in concert or responsively, with frequent hearty amens to the prayers. The attitude varied, being sitting, standing, or bowing prostrate. The climax of the service was reached in the procession of the Law. The manuscript roll was inclosed in a cylindrical case covered with scarlet broadcloth topped with two silver pomegranates, with pendent silver bells, such as hung from the high priest's robe. It was carried in p'rocession through the synagogue, each one devoutly kissing it j the women who had previously held aloof coming forward to take part in this ceremony.
In Mianduab a peculiar case occurred. Rabbi Benjamin had also opposed us. In his school I had had discussions with him, in which he strongly maintained his position. Afterward he was led to profess his faith in Jesus as the Messiah. He thus preached in the synagogue and aroused opposition. His income from the people was cut off, consisting mainly of his fees as teacher and priest and his portion from every animal slaughtered. His wife desired to drive him out of the house. He appealed to us for support. Having been deceived by some" loaves and fishes" converts, we insisted on his finding some means of supporting himself. Meanwhile, the Jews persecuted him. Once they took him to the river and ducked him, thinking to exorcise the evil spirit which the Christians had put into him. Finally he yielded to their threats and went back to Judaism. The Jews immediately presented him with a sum of money, a donkey, and an aba (cloak). He went into a vineyard, bought a quantity of grapes for winter use, loaded them on his donkey, and covered them with his cloak. Coming out of the garden, he was detained for a few minutes, and when he bethought himself of his business, donkey, grapes, and cloak were gone, having been stolen. He remarked, "That is a punishment to me for denying Chl'ist."
In Teheran * considerable work has been done toward evangelizing the Jews, and some have become Christians. In 1875 there were special signs of encouragement. A hundred Jews attended the church services. A school was established which has continued with success until the pres- ent time. Great opposition developed in 1883. The Jewish rabbi who was assistant teacher was compelled to withdraw with his pupils. The principal was threatened with death and hIS scholars beaten. Many left from fear. He, being a Christian, appealed to the government for protec- tion. His persecutors were arrested and fined.
In 1886 a letter was written from the Jewish chief rabbi of Jerusalem to the Shah, complaining against the Protestant school as turning away Jews from their faith, and especially accusing Rabbi Baba, the teacher, of doing harm by inducing many t9 come to school. Baba was thrown into prison by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was cuffed and beaten, his head was shaved, a chain put on his neck, and his feet made fast in the stocks. Direct appeal on his behalf being linavailing, the good offices of the English and American legations were besought for him, and his release was secured. Other Jewish converts were persecuted at the same time. Baba's father, a physician of note, was imprisoned, but a high official whom he had cured procured his release. This persecution was instigated by' a hostile Jewish rabbi in concert with an oppressive chief of police; but retribution soon overtook them. Within less than a mouth this officer was imprisoned, bound with the same chain, and treated in the same manner because he had accepted a bribe to release a prisoner. He was fined two thousand tomans and dismissed from office. The persecuting Jewish rabbi was turned out of the city and was not seen for days.
One of the teachers in the Teheran school was Nurullah, a baptized convert. He had studied in the Shah's college. Afterward he studied in the Hebrew Missionary Training School in London, spending his vacations in Morocco. He returned to Teheran, and later to Ispahan, where he has a school of forty-five boys, supported by the London Society for the Jews.
Jewish evangelization in Ramadan began to bear fmit in 1875 under Pastor Shimoon. A considerable number of Jews during 1877-80 professed an interest in Christianity. Popular slander reported that a powder mixed with their tea by the preacher persuaded them to become Christians. According to their own statement, forty men, besides women and children, accepted Jesus as the Messiah. They met with much persecution. Ostracized from social intercourse, excluded from the baths and schools, their business was interrupted and their shops were threatened.
* See Bassett's Eastern Missions, pp. 167, 238, and Foreign Missionary, 1886, by Dr. Torrence.
THE MOHAMMEDAN UNlVElU!ITY IN CAIRO
Appeal was made t:> the authorities in Teheran to put a stop to these persecutions. Repeated orders were given. One order of the government declared, "Let thc Jew choose the Christian faith or a Christian the Jewish faith, they should not incur opposition or molestation from anybody. Give such exertion and attention to the matter that hereafter eternally no liindrance shall be placed in the way of those certain individualR of the Jews and Armenians who wish to enter another faith." Notwithstanding these and repeated orders persecutions continued. Several of the prominent Jews were arrested on a false charge, imprisoned, and fined. The chief officer went to them repeatedly in prison and beat them, saying, "You have become filth, turn now and become Mussulman." They answered, "If you cut off our heads we will not deny Jesus." Word of these troubles was telegraphed to Teheran by Pastor Shimoon, and the following day the imprisoned brethren were severely bastinadoed. Inquiry was made from the Foreign Office at Teheran. The governor, enraged at this, called the pastor, reprimanded him for sending word, and having taken seventy tomans from the Jews, commanded the pastor to telegraph to Teheran a message of satisfaction with the governor, and that no money had been taken. On his refusal he commanded him to be bastinadoed. His feet were bound to the stick, but Ibn the entreaty of Dr. Raheem, a Jewish brother who was in favor, he was released. The congregation next addressed a complaint against the governor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning the dishonor put upon their pastor. The latter, fearing further violence, took refuge with the Khan of Sheverine, and afterward fied to Teheran. There he laid his case before the Annual Meeting. After a short time he returned with a proper order for his protection.
Shortly after this Rev. Mr. Hawkes went to reside in Hamadan and open up a regular station. Of these baptized Jews, some turned out timeservers, some became Babis, some, as Dr. Agajan, died in the faith, some continue to this day faithful. The younger converts who have been trained iII:, the schools are much more stable. In 1892 I had the privilege of hearing their recitations, preaching to their congregation and communing with them. The work for this remnant of Israel seemed full of hope.
THE MOHAMMEDAN UNIVERSITY OF CAIRo.-The Azhar at Cairo is the great university of the Mohammedan faith. It was founded A.D. 1000, and from 10,000 to 12,000 students are always in attendance, gathered from all parts of Africa. There are 321 sheiks or instructors. The instruction is very superficial, and largely consists of committing to memory and reciting, the subject being the Koran and the traditions founded on it. When their education is finished, some of the students return home, while others, who are to be missionaries, join a caravan, and soon disappear into the heart of Africa.
INTERNATIONAl, DEPARTMEN'r
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEY. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
'rhe Utility of Protestant Missions in partial, that the character of the Mexi- My Native La:nd. cans may be bf.ttcr understood.
1. Speaking in general terms, the * BY JUSTO M. EUROZA. MEXICO CITY. Mexicans are of medium height and are MEXICO. well proportioned. They have low, re- 1. Genel'al .Aspect of the Oountry. ceding foreheads, s:>ft. expressive black eyes, strong teeth, beautifully white 1. The Republic of Mexico is situ- and even, thiele, straight black hair, thin beards, and dark skin, almost oliveated between 14° 80' and 82° 42' south tinted. Deformity is rarely found among the Indian tribes. These are by latitude and 88° 54' 80" and 119° 25' no means repulsive in appearance. The women are usually beautiful; some 80" west longitude from the meridian are fair, with rosy cheeks, and these charms are enhanced by a soft voice, of Paris. pleasing manners, and natural modesty.
2. It is a 'Very mountainous country; 2. The five senses are well developed, especially that of sight, which remains its Cordilleras are a continuation of the good while life lasts. They seldom suffer from skin diseases or stomach Andes. running the entire length of trouble. As they enjoy excellent health, it is not uncommon for them to live to the country. In their sloping to the be a hundred years old.
seacoast, fertile and extensive table- 3. They are very temperate as regards eating, but unfortunately very much lands are formed. given to strong drink.
8. In this wonderful country three 4. The Mexican mind is capable of cultivation in every branch of human distinct climates may be clearly de- science. We boast of good mathemati- cians, renowned architects, sublime fined: (1) The hot country, extending poets, and, among the Romanists, good theologians. '1'he best proof we ha.ve from the coast to an altitude of 8000 of the intelligence, natural talent, and real genius of the Mexicans is this feet above the sea-level; (2) the tem- fact; the conquerors of Mexico, While they undervalued, oppressed, and deperate zone, extending from 8000 to stroyed the conquered nation, had nevertheless to confess that they pos- 5000 feet; (8) the cold zone, which in- sessed a high state of civilization.
cludes all those places having an alti- 5. The Mexicans, like all families of the human race,are at times ruled by tude of more thah 5000 feet.- passion; but are neither so impetuous nor vehement as the people of some 4. It is this difference in altitude other countries.
which causes such differences in prod- uc~. < Gold, silver, copper, iron, zinc, lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, sulphur, cobalt, opals, turquoise, topaz, garnet, amethyst, etc., are found in i~ mineral regions.
Many valuable woods are found in i~ forests. In the hot zone abundant crops of coffee, sugar· cane, tobacco, and cotton are produced; while in all par~ of the country the common cereals may be advantageously cultivated.
II. Okaracter of tke Ywican People.
In treating this most delicate subject I desire to be perfectly just and im- * The author of this article is presiding elder 6. By Dature they are slow in all their movements, and for Int»icate work reof Hidalgo District Mexico Methodist Episcopal quiring much time and attention they Conference, and is the first Mexican ever lIlIIde are possessed of an admirable amount presiding elder. of patience. Their resignation amounts latter destroyed by a course of thorough, to heroism, and their gratitude toward systematic training. their benefactors is great. They not only lack confidence in foreigners, but III. Institutiona. are deceitful and even treacherous with 1. Scarcely had we passed the horrors them; but this is the logical result of of the war of conquest when it became the way in which their conquerors necessary, in order to avoid certain abused their good faith and loyalty. evils and abuses, to form a colonial gov- ernment; but instead of preventing 7. Naturally they are grave, taciturn, these abuses, they increased, and and dignified. To them virtue is a brought about such oppression and duty which brings its own reward, tyranny that the result was the cry of while vice must be severely punished. independence raised by the never·to·be- forgotten Miguel Hidalgo of Costillo. 8. One great distinguishing char· 2. Years of war and bloodshed folacteristic of the Mexican is his lack of lowed this outburst. and when, in New interest in temporal things. Gold is not Spain, the throne of the Spanish kings an idol to him; he earns it by the sweat tottered and the public mind was fully of his brow, and scatters it freely and persuaded of the immediate triumph of ungrudgingly. the insurgent armies, then Iturbide changed his political creed and entered 9. The indifference of the Mexicans, the ranks of those who fought for the not only as pertains to temporal neces· independence of Mexico. sities of life, but for those for whom When independence was fairly won they labor, causes them to refuse to do he placed himself at the head of affairs, the work required of them; hence they and with fond dreams of a monarchy have the name of being lazy. But the caused himself to be proclaimed Emhonest fact is that in this beautiful coun- peror of Mexico. For this he was contry there is no one more industrious demned to death by a people who were than the pure· blooded Indian. born to be sovereign and free. S. From the ruins of the ephemeral 10. Respect for parents and for old empire of Iturbide the Conservative age is innate in the llexican. The love party arose with renewed determination of the parents for their children is great, to fight incessantly to dominate the as is also that of the wife for the hus- public mind, appealing to the darkness band; but, alas, the husband is too apt of fanaticism to oppose the high aspito care for other women too. rations of the Liberal party. For these desperate struggles between brothers 11. Their courage bursts into daring no one is responsible save the enemies in time of danger, but this extraordinary to free thinking and dignity among daring is easily quelled by the stern the Mexicans: these latter having been glances of the ones who are over them. corrupted and downtrodden by their This may be easily explained by remem- conquerors for more than three hundred bering the shameful treatment to which years, allowed themselves to be ruled they were subjected by their con- by ignorance, superstition, and fanati· querors. cism-tbe crowning work of villainous priests who, in the name of God, sought 12. They are superstitious, like the to annihilate from the Mexican mind ignorant people of all nations. Their all thought of independence. exaggerated and boasted propensity to 4. At last, in spite of unheard·of diffiidolatry is equal to that of any pagan culties, the republic arose with its country. Let it be distinctly under- admirable constitution; and if a few stood that all of the above refers to the ungrateful sons of Mexico, in their despure.blooded native Mexicans, not to peration, yielding to the ambitious those whose blood has been mixed with that of European nations. Undoubtedly there is much…,that is good in the Mexican character and little that is bad. The first may be cultivated, and the schemes of some Europeans, sought to religion. Some were social vultures, wipe ont the republic and establish in now they are transformed into harmits stead an imperial throne for a de- less doves; some were tyrants in the luded prince, it only proved more dis- home, now they are tender parents, astrous for them, bringing down on loving husbands and wives, worthy themselves the censure of all, making citizens, and within the sphere of their them a curse in history. ability participants in the actual prog- ress. These changes are due to the 5. To-day Mexico with her reform influence of Protestant missions, for laws, which originated in the brain of wherever these are established the conher own eminent sons, has begun a new version referred to takes place among era of existence. The independence those who before had professed the and sovereignty of indi vidual conscience Roman Catholic faith, 'W hether it be are one result of these laws. The among the high mountains, Or in the Mexicans may embrace whatever relig- villages, or in the great centers of progion they choose and be protected therein ress and learning. by law. 4. It seems unnecessary to say it, but, 6_ Taking advantage of the above, following the plan I have adopted, I Protestants have sent their representa- must say here that the influence of tives to preach the" glad tidings" of Protestantism sanctifles the home, perthe Gospel of Peace. To.day there are fects society by the self-denying pre-_ twelve different Protestant missions cepts of the lowly Nazarene; and by represented, all of whom have begun the education of the masses, respect for work since 1871, and whose progress is the powers that be, promotion of the most apparent to everyone in Mexico. spirit or liberty. and the teaching of the principles of equality and fraternity, IV. Influence of Protestantism in Protestantism is and ever will be the Memco. grand support of the existing political institutions of Mexico. 1. Here, in this priest-ridden country, it is not to be supposed that Protestant V. Practical ReauZta of P'rotll8tant missionaries will be received as In Missions in Mexico. pagan. countries. Romanism, frantic because of its decline, seeks to preju- In conclusion, it remains for me to dice the popular mind against Protes- give two or three facts. tants by saying that they are working for the annexation of Mexico to the 1. The great majority of the inhab- United States; but this and similar itants of this country are pure-blooded ideas are confined to a few fanatics who Mexicans, whose character we have still have simple faith in what is taught already outlined in this article. This them by the Catholic priests, those great majority remains indifferent to enemies of progress, who claim for them- the institutions by which we are govselves the honor of being God's repre- erned; and. generally speaking, they sentatives on earth. are sunken in the ignorance and super- stition left them by their conquerors in 2. In spite of their cowardly and place of their former freedom and cruel attacks, the educated people, the riches. With this people plunged in great Liberal party, the thinking people, abject misery, Mexico never will prosdeclare that in Protestantism there is per, for no country has ever prospered something superior in every way to that while under the power of the Roman which is taught and practised by ROo Catholic Church. . manism. 2. The intelligence and aptitude of S. To the careful observer of social the Mexicans, their proverbial tenacity revolution in this country this fact is and patience (when these. are necessary) presented in all its splendor in the rad- when well developed and educated, in ical change in the mode of living among evangelical schools, will give to Mexico those who have embraced the Protestant such worthy men as Juarez, men of miles above the city of Agra, in January, culture like Manuel Altamirano, and 1888. It had been debated for some others whom we will not mention here. time whether it would be wise to ent~r such a field. Some thought that it 3. When the Mexicans rise above their would be useless, as Hinduism was so present condition, when they are taught intrenched and the people so bigoted the healthy principles of science and that there would be no converts, and virtue, when they feel themselves to be the time of the missionary and the equal to all mankind and cbildren of precious funds of the mission would the universal Father, when they are only be wasted. Others thought that thoroughly Protestantizcd, then and it would be a good thing for Methodism not till then will Mexico, with her "bank- in India, which had been successful in ing, scientific, and beneficent institu- other fields, to come in contact with tions, take the place that rightfully IIinduism at the center, and, so to belongs to her on account of her national speak, beard the lion in his den. One prosperity. of our good missionaries had had a mar- velous dream about the place. He tells The Liberal party has done much for us that he was awakened three times the people-brought them liberty and one night by a voice saying to him disreligious freedom; but it canrwt bring tinctly, "Send some one to Muttra." about their 8piritual regeneration. The So distinct was this impression that he forming of the character of the future awoke his wife and told her of the wongeneration is not in its hands; this is derful communication; and as soon as the work of Protestantism, whose mis- opportunity offered he hastened to lay sion it is to diffuse the doctrines of before his -brethren what he had heard Christ and push forward on the work in that strange way, and to urge that of elevating the people. the mission be opened In this strong- hold of Hinduism. I also had a strong Thus, dear reader, Protestant mis- desire to go to Muttra. It is difficult sions in Mexico are and always will be for a man to analyze all his motives, useful, and merit your support and your but as far as I can, at this distance, prayers. after seven years have passed, read the thoughts that were then predominant The Founding of the Methodist Epis- in my mind, it was an impression most copal Mission at Muttra, India. singular and mysterious, such as I had never had before. that there was some BY REV. J. E. SCOTT, S.T.D., PH.D. special work that the I,ord had for me to do at Muttra. I had never been in .. Forasmuch as many have taken in the place. There was no worldly Inhand to set forth in order a declaration ducement for me to go. I had a wife of those things which are most surely and child. The mission owned ~no believed among us, even as they de- property there, nor was it likely that it livered them unto us, which from the would be able to purchase property beginning were eye-witnesses, and min- there very soon. It turned out that isters of the word, it seemed good to there was no house even for rent. me also, having had perfect under- There was a small travelers' bungalow standing of all things from the very where I alone found sbelter for a week first, to write unto thee in order that or two. Then we were able to rent a thou mightest know the certainty of couple of rooms in a large house; but those things, wherein thou hast been the hot weather coming on, we were instructed. " driven out of that by the heat into a house in the cantonment, from which I was transferred to the town of we were in turn driven by the military Muttra, a place of 60,000 souls, the birthplace of Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, and a hotbed of modern Hinduism, standing on the right bank of the sacred river Jumna, 30 authorities, who required the house for fore was but a field of sand became a their officers. center of life and industry. In the middle of the year before, I had suc- But now notice how the Lord will ceeded in taking over a small school in provide. A committee came and selected the heart of the city. The teachers the best and really the only desirable were all Hindus, and there were no site anywhere near the city, and said, Christian pupils. That was to be the .. This is the place," and took the next Central Christian Boys' Boarding train for home. I said, " 0 Lord, this School. Soon the hired house became is the place." But when I hunted up too small and another was taken, and a the owner I found that he was a rich Christian headmaster employed. Con- Hindu priest in the city, and that be verts coming to us, the boys were sent would not part with his ancestral prop- to the school. Then we cast about for erty to anyone, and especially not to a site on which to erect a suitable boys' Christians; but still something seemed school-house and hall for evangelistic to say that that was the spot where we services in the city. The best site, it would found our mission. It so turned seemed. was tbe one just in front of the out, for in a few weeks the priest made house in which the school was held. the astonishing proposition to rent me A Mohammedan oWll/'!d it. It was the land I desired fore"er, and soon right in the very heart of the city. the perpetual lease was executed and Temples and mosques were all round registered. Money was borrowed, and it. The Mohammedan said he would by the end of the year we were living sell. He paid off a mortgage held by a in our new house overlooking the city Brahman on it, and sold the whole site of Muttra. Just at that time a benevo- to me. This made some stir in the city. lent gentleman living in the city of A petition was sent to the government Chicago was anxious to find a suitable protesting against tbe transaction, but place to found a deaconess' home and as the land was bought fairly no objectraining school as a memorial to his tion was made on the part of the govparents. His attention was called to ernment. But there was no money to the new mission at Muttra, and he at build. In a strange way the same friend once sent the money, and directed that intimated his willingness to help; or the home and school be built; but rather his mother-in·law turned her where was a site to be had? The place thoughts toward this enterprise as StlJtwas the rest of the priest's laud adjoin- able to serve ItS a memorial for his Ing the mission house, already built. daughter, a young lady who had re- But upon being interviewed he declared cently been taken home. Through her that he would not rent or sell; and, munificence Flora Hall was erectel! in indeed, could not, as the land really 1893, in the very heart of the city of belonged to a minor, and he could not Muttra. In the mean time, the girls' sell it away from him or in any other school was growing, and it was becomway dispose of it. To show his oppo- ing necessary to erect a suitable schoolsition, he, one rainy Sunday, threw up house for it. God has promised to a mud wall between that portion of the supply all our need, and soon word land and ours, and planted a great came from our aged sister, who had number of fruit-trees, and said that built Flora Hall, that she would also henceforth that would be his garden ; build the new Gracie Hall, in memory but in a few days, strange to say, he of another dear departed granddaugbter. changed his mind, and rented that land Work was started among the soldiers to us on the same terms as the otber, in the station, and soon it became adand so we were free to build. By the visable to build a chapel for them. end of 1889 the new building was ready The land was secured lree from the and occupied. Dormitories were soon military authorities, and soon a chapel, erected, and the place that a little bereading and prayer-room and coffee heart of a heathen city to Sunday- shop were erected. Tents were needed school. Do missions pay? If the for evangelistic work. and large camp- heart of a millionaire could only get meeting tents, in which hundreds of one real look at it, and take in its sig- people could be gathered for Gospel nificance for this world and for the meetings, were provided ; and so from next, he would throw all his gold into nothiug, inside of seven years, has the lap of Jesus, and say, "Blessed sprung up a well-equipped mission. Lord. give me such an opportunity to do good." But houses are nothing without souls. ,Have there been any souls saved? A Bless God, every man has a chance proper question. It is enough to say to do good. The work is not all that Muttra has become the center of a done here. Who will build boys' dor- presiding elder's district; that around mitories ? Who will send money to it lie five circuits in which there are employ much-needed evangelists and more than a thousand Christians, where teachers for these poor people, who are seven years ago there was not one; that themselves too poor to pay? Who will the schools are filling up with Chris- erect a few simple school-houses and tian girls and boys; that" Flora Hall" chapels for these people? Who will is full every day with scholars and send a few scholarships for the board- twice on Sundays with hearers of the ing-schools ? There is plenty to do• Word; that there is not only a training .. He that doetn these sayings of Mine school for women, but also one for shall be likened unto a man who built men; that every department of mission his house upon a rock." "Inasmuch work is being carried on, and that on as ye nave done it unto the least of every hand there are inquirers who are these, My brethren, ye have done it seeking the way of life. Last January unto Me." was held on the hill, that six years ago was only a sand-heap, the third session Prc>gress in Brazil. of the Northwest India Conference, which reported nearly nine thousand EXTRACTS FRO}! A LETTER OF REV. baptisms during the year 1894, and stated that within the bounds of the W. A. WADDELL, ARRANGED BY REV. Conference, where there were none when Muttra was opened, there are W. A. CAURINGTON_ now more than 35,000 Christians; and the cry ie, 8tilt they come! Progre88 in Supporting PasWr8.-In 1890 Rio and Sao Paulo churches sup- "Not unto us, not unto us, but ported pastors. unto Thy name, 0 God, be glory." Every day two large Troy bells ring To-day Rio, Sao Paulo, Jabei, Botuout the glad sound from the towers of catu, Sorocaba, Rio Claro, Mogy Mirim, "Flora" and .. Gracie" halls, letting and Cabo Verde support pastors. Guarathe people know that Christ has come. pU3va, Corityba, Araguary, San Carlos, Christ has come to Krishua's strong- Rio Feio, Santa Cruz, and Faxim would hold. He has come to stay. He has were there men available to serve them. come to these priests of Muttra, and will never leave till all the impurity Reason: the eagle and the stirred-up and greed and worldliness is driven nest. from the place and from the hearts of men. Come with me on Sabbath Progre88 in Supporting Students for morning. I will show you a sight that the Minist1'f/.-In 1890 all students for will make your soul rejoice. It is a the ministry were supported by mislong procession of white-robed girls sions. and boys on their way through the To-day all theological students (five) are supported by the church, which pays all current expenses of the theo- logical seminary. Some (follr) students who are preparing for the seminary are studying in connection with the .seminary ; others in the Mackenzie College accessions have been made. Mr. Fin- (five); still others are with different ley's work in Sergipe, Mr. Kolb's in ministers (three or five). Of these Bahia, and Mr. Rodger's in and about preparatory students some are sup- Rio have held Rio PreSbytery up to old- ported by the church, some by the time figures of growth-64 per cent in missions. three years. In S110 Paulo Presbytery growth has been about what it should Pl'ogresa in Joul'nalism.-In 1890 the be in old churches, 18 per cent in three missions had a paper apiece-the domes- years. Here most of the growth has tic mission board one, the young men been in fields where foreign workers as- of the church another, while two or sisted. Minas Presbytery as a presby- three more semi· private enterprises were tery has stood stilll and but for large between life and death. To-day the gains in a single field would have gone various mission papers have been back seriously. dropped, and all efforts concentrated on a general journal and a child's paper, Taken as a whole, the synod increased, supported entirely by Brazilian fnnds. according to official statistics, between June 30th, 1891, and June 30th, 1894, Other Enterprises. – The Brazilian from 3780 to 4365, or 15 per cent. It Boards of Foreign Missions, Church is probable that the gain was a little Erection and Ministerial Relief are be- larger. ginning to receive s:Jme attention. The Tract Society is getting on a Bound The :fact seems to be that in their zeal footing. to boom the financial movements the pastors forgot some other things, and Financially there has been an advance with the losses due to the death of all along the line. This great advance many workers, a serious check was felt. is not due to any increased ability on the part of the Church, but to an in- Relation to the Misaion.-By means creased willingness on the part of the of battles and compromises we are ap- members, stimulated by an increased proaching the basis of a free church and zeal on the part of the Brazilian minis- a free mission. We will get these some ters. Had the missions been able and time. willing to meet all the wishes of their ordained and licensed helpers, nothing A Note from Mount Hermon, would have been done. In the north, where there has been no tendency on Miss Charlotte H. Brown, writing the part of the mission to withdraw from Shebaa, Mount Hermon, Syria, help, the contributions of the Church have diminished. under date of August 5th, 1895, says: Spiritual Progres8. – 1. Discipline. .. I feel as if I knew now more about The various acute crises of this transi- tion period have resulted in the righting medical mission work than I ever did of some old wrongs, and the opening, if not cleaning and healing of some old before, and if all medical missionaries sores. Unfortunately impersonal zeal for the purity of the Church, joined are so besieged as Dr. Mary Eddy is, with charity that is sensible, is even rarer in Brazil than in the United States, I pity them. We have just spent three and discipline has degenerated into a series of quarrels. weeks together in a village several 2. Evangelistic progress. This pre- hours away, and now she has gone for sents a sad picture. The Presbytery of Pernambuco has presented no statistics a week to another place, and I have during the past three years. It is in- 'ferred from what iii k.:nown that few come here to this village, high upon the slopes of Hermon, to pass the remainder of my summer, the nearest Americans at present being three or four hours away .
.. Kufair, where I have just come from, has been touched by the Ameri- can fever, and it seems strange to hear those ignorant men and women, most of them unable to read their own lan- guage, talk of .. America," .. New York ~"hi"cFhotrht eWiraiyentte~r"s and .. Brazil " from come. As to which is larger, "America" or .. Fort Wayne," many would not be able to cfally the last meeting, when perhaps tell. three hundred assembled-a good-na· tured, but rather noisy crowd-around H The regular dispensing-days were the ladies, the organ, and the two Syri. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but an teachers of the schools in the Village. some CRses had to be treated every day, and each time the numbers increased, " The buzz, the hum, the stir in the until the crowd was so great that time Sunday-morning meetings, when people and strength did not suffice. As word crowd into the school·room from the spread to the surrounding villages of Greek church, are something one has to the doctor's fame and skill, people be· experience to appreciate. First the gan to come in from aU directions, ar· girls and then the boys have to be sent riving. a very few on animals, most out to make room for the incoming walking, reaching the housc before we older people, and many of t.hem then were out of bed. The doors had to be stay outside and make remarks. I kept bolted till the hour for seeing the have come to the conclusion that the people. These had to be let in grad· most effective missionary work is done, ually by a discriminating assistant, a not in a crowd hard to control, but young Syrian woman who has proved with the few, whose attention can be herself invaluable. A doctor's assistant gained and lleld in some quiet little must have certain qualities in this coun· private meeting; and so the doctor, try (and I suppose in all countries), for with her one or two patients at a time in her own room, can really do more she must be able to discriminate be· good perhaps than one Who sits outside tween the people who can and those and talks to a restless, impatient crowd. who cannot pay the six cents for treat· ment, the poor being received if they "I had hoped to tell you a little of bring papers from the priest, the teach· this interesting village, some 6000 feet er, or the sheikh; she must be quick above sea·level, with its clustering of eye and ear to help, and she must houses on the steep hill·side, its ice-cold have a strong arm also, to be able to fountains, its Moslem and Christian in· quickly push the door and bar it when habitants, but space and time forbid." people insist with all their strength upon coming in before their turn. James Liddell Phillips, "My part was to read and talk to Only a hurried line could be inserted the people as I had opportunity, and partly through real eagerness, and partly When the news reached America of the through the desire to win my favor, and so use me as a go·between to allow death of Dr. Phillips, of India. Dr. them to be seen out of turn, I always found them ready to listen to my story Cyrus Hamlin presently after wrote as or my portion of Scripture. Some· times a few at a time were anowed in follows: "Our beloved Brother Phil· the wide hall that ran the length of the house, sometimes a good many would lips has left us and gone up higher. be there at once. a most forlorn groupwomen with sick babies, all sorts 'Of The Master came and called for him. people with poor eyes, from the goat· herd from Ain Attar to the women I have a sweet and savory remembrance from Meinas who kept 0. badly in· flamed eye covered. Several people of him. He was affectionate, impul· troubled with partial paralysis were also treated, the "lightning wheel" sive, full of life and vigor, earnest in being a never·failing source of enter· tainment to the onlookers. Several his Master's service, working to do pitiful cases of leprosy also were pres· ent. and an opportunity was granted to good to all men as he had opportunity, point them to Christ, the Physician of the soul. especially to those of the household of " At home you have lectures. can· faith. IllS name was in his forehead; certs, international meetings to entertain you; the people of Kufalr had for three he has had the white robe given unto weeks the excitement of having In their him; he has become 0." king and a priest midst two American ladies (one a doc· tor) and a baby organ, with almost unto God and the Lamb. Hail to thee, nightly meetings, either in the house or at the grape-press near, for singing and Brother Phillips I" India has become prayer, all of them well attended, eape· a mourner, and the tribute to the worth, the spiritual loveliness of character, and the active usefulness of Dr. Phillips pour out over the pages of the press from one end of Indio. to the other.
The India Su,nday.&hooZ JournaZ says that during his thirty·three years of mission life he opened up a new district to Christian influence. He committed come to this country, remain till they the Santali language to writing, and become naturalized. then return as citi- saw many hundreds of Oriyas and San- zens of the United States permanently tala brought to Christ. When he left in tbeir native land. This is a matter India he received the thanks of govern- that so far interests persons on many ment for his work among the Santals. mission fields,that we venture to quote He had a working acquaintance with from the report of Dr. Samuel L. Beiler, sCleral Indian vernacular tongues. D.D., Vice·Chancellor of the American The Calcutta Missionary Conference, University, Washington, on the result the largest body of missionaries meet- of an interview of a committee who ing monthly anywhere on the globe, waited on Secretary Gresham concern- held a special memorial service, at which ing protection to Armenians who have Rev. George Kerry presided, and ad- been naturalized here and returned to dresses were made by eminent men. Armenia. Dr. Beiler addressed the At the time of his death and since communication, from which we make 1890 he was the Secretary of the India the extract, to Secretary Leonard, of Sunday-School Union, by appointment the Methodist Missionary Soeiety, and from the London Sunday;School Union. the whole appeared in the Ohristian He was seemingly ubiquitous, from the Ad'/lOcate. All that is relevant to the Himalayas to all parts of the Continent illustration now sought to be furnished of India, and far away to Malaysia. is the following: Humanly speaking, he was too young " There is a class of Armenians who to die. come to this country and are natural- He was the son of Rev. Jeremiah ized, and then return to Armenia and Phillips, D.D., who went to India in claim protection 8S citizens of the 1886 with Mr. Noyes to open a Free United States. Concerning such there Baptist mission in Orissa. James Lid- was an attempt at a treaty some years dell Phillips was born at Balasore in ago, but while it was pending a differ- 1840; his mother died when he was ence in the construction of one clause six months old. From 1852 to 1865 he arose. The clause was that a natural- was in America, receiving his educa· ized Armenian (that is, naturalized in tion. He then entered upon the work this country) who should return to Ar- among the Hill tribes in Santal. He menIa and remain there two years received his degree of J'lLA. and M.D., should then forfeit all rights as a citi- and later LL.B. ; and his own college, zen of the United States, and thence- Bowdoin, conferred on him the degree forth be treated as again a subject of of Doctor of Divinity; but he worked Turkey. The Turkish Government among his brethren and all others as construed this as meaning those who plain Mr. Phillips, simple in character had returned before this treaty should and life as thc children whom he had be fully enacted. Our Government in· always loved, and loved to the end. sisted that it should be prospective also, He died June 25th, 1895. or apply to all who should return in J. T. G. the future. The Turkish Government refused to sign the treaty as thus con- Adopted American Oitizenship. strued, and there is no treaty to this day covering such cases. It is not There seems considerable misappre- known yet that any such persons were hension both at home and abroad as to killed or injured in the late troubles.
the right and the obligation of the If there were, contrary to the rights of United States to protect its naturalized such persons under the provisions (gen- subjects when within the territory eral) of international law, our Govern- whence they came to this country. ment will certainly look after such Many suppose that Asiatic peoples may cases. There have been, independent of the late reported massacre, C8.8eS of ar- about three Armenian priests who hon- rest and imprisonment of such natural- ored Mr. Knapp; and by following the ized and returned Armenians, and our cablll misprint last month, the noble Government has protested against it, devoted Miss Mabel C. Hartford, who holding that all Turkey has a right to barely escaped martyrdom at Kucheng, do is to send such persons out ot her was rendered Hartwell. Miss Hartford domains. Turkey now denies the priv- has arrived in this country; she suffered ilege of return to Turkey of these natu- a great shock, and needs rest.
ralized Arm()nians on this clear ground. The opium question, in its relation to First, the United States, in the face of the native Church, was also discussed. a treaty with China, has denied admis- The Church in China gives no uncer. sion to this country to the Chinese, on tain sound, and opium-smokers are dealt the simple ground that they are Chi- with. Japan has prohibited opium to nese. Second, on an appeal case, under her people. The fact was referred to this law, the Supreme Court of the that the use of opium was on the in- United States decided that it was con. crease in the United States, and that it stltutional, as it was one of the essen- was more extensive than was supposed, tial rights of sovereignty to say who and that there were opium plantations should or should not come within its in the country. domains. Turkey simply takes the same grounds, and denies admission to Great Britain's threatening attitUde Turkey to these returning Armenians, has seemingly brought China to terms simply on the ground that they are Ar- in the degradation of the viceroy remenians. Our Government can only sponsible for the Szchuan riots. Many insist that Armenians who have re- think, however, the riots will not cease turned, or may return with the consent until the government is still more strictly taken to account, and civilized Or knowledge of the Turkish Govern- nations take for each offence a slice from her territory. This would be felt ment, shall not be held In Turkey for by the government as no money indemtrial and imprisonment under Turkish nity will ever be, or any other penalty laws, but shall be sent out of the coun- which falls chiefly upon the people. try as we propose to send the Chinese out."
In these times when China is much Even the degradation of an official is In evidence, a great many people be- not sufficiently severe.
sides those interested in missions will find it a great convenience if they have Oonstantinople Riots.
Miss Burt's map of China on the wall The Armenians, perhaps somewhat for ready reference. It is on cloth, has encouraged by the sympathy manifest- the stations of forty-six Protestant mis- ed toward them in England and Ameri- sionary societies, all the provinces de- ca, have been in conflict with the Con- fined in bold boundaries, and a compen- stantinople police, and the result has dium of much valuable information. been over one hundred killed and more Address Miss M. Burt, Springfield, 0., wounded, and the end is not yet (Octo- and secure the revised edition of this ber 4th), though the Turkish authori- map. ties believe they will have no trouble in restoring order. The Moslems, espe· Not" many infallible proofs" come cially of the lower class, show no hu- from the compositor's room. Our Ar- manity in their treatment even of un- menian brethren must have been sur- armed and peaceful Armenians. The prised to find that in a compiled article city is being patrolled by troops, and in a mid-summer number" Armenian" no such terror has existed since the was turned into •• heathen," in a phrase days of the Greek revolution.
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
III.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY D. L. PIERSON.
South Amerioa,* Frontier Missions,t the Mormons.
SOUTH AMERICA. matchless network of natural water- way it affords, this river has been called What has been said (p. 614) in our the Mediterranean of South America_ August issue regarding Papal Lands The soil of its basin, one or two million and the Papacy is eminently true of square miles in area, and fertile enough South America. There we find Ro- to supply the inhabitants of the world manism at its worst, and the difficulties with food, is for the most part covered of coping with it very many and great. by sombre, primeval forests-pathless, All the republics except Bolivia and impenetrable-the largest extent of ar- Ecuador have now some Protestants boreal growth in the world. working in them, and enjoy more or less religious liberty-generally speak- Titicaca, the largest lake in the New ing, l1!88. In all this continent is 4700 World south of the St. Lawrence bamiles long and over 3000 wide, a stu- sin, belongs to this stately and colossal pendous contine'nt, 7,000,000 square continent. It is 170 miles long by 70 miles in area-over twice the size of broad, and could float Cyprus, Crete or Europe-containing one eighth of the Corsica, at an altitude of 200 feet above land surface of the globe, the most mag- the summit of Mount Etna. Its lonely nificent system of river drainage in the waters have no outlet to the sea, but world, a coast line 16,500 miles long, are ~uaJ'ded on their southern shores by ~lgantic ruins of a prehistoric emand a: rOl(ky mountain backbone of ex- pire, silent palaces, temples, and for- tresses-mysterious monuments of a traordinary magnitude and sublimity. long-lost golden age. Lying away in the Southern Seas is South America, well called, from a In the great song of redemption, tbe spiritual standpoint, the "neglected con- chorus of renewed humanity, can the tinent." We give the following sum- millions of a continent like this be mary of the continent and work from dumb and God not miss their jubilaa pamphlet of the South American tion? Evangelical Mission of Toronto, Ont.: Can one eighth of the globe be left In the far northeast its tropic Orinoco out of the reckoning of the coming surpasses, by 100 miles, even the flood kingdom of Christ? Can the spiritual tide of the Ganges. In tlie sub·tropic state of its 37,000,000 people be immasouth, the Rio de la Plata is 150 miles terial to Him? What is that state? wide as it sweeps into the sea, after its Who are these people? What has 2200-mile course, and pours into the been done to bring them "into the ocean more water than any other river way of peace" ? in the world-but one, for South America possesses a mightier stream than SOUTH AMERICA'S SPIRITUAL STORY. these. The whole of France, or of the Ottoman Empire, might lie in the lap South America is divided into fourof the monarch Amazon, the largest teen great countries, and includes repriver in the world-equal to the Indus resentatives of almost every Tarietyof and the Nile put together. From the race and language-from the degraded Fuegians of Cape Horn, who, when * .. The Neglected Continent," Miss Lucl, discovered. had drifted so far from Old World traditions, that they retained no Gninness ; .. Spanish-American Republic8.' word for God, and the Indian tribes of Theodore Child; .. Adventures in Patagouia." "sad, calm aspect" scattered on the Titns Coan; .. Allen Francis Gardiner," J. W. pa.mpas plains or among the virgin Marsh. Also pp. Z7 (January), 802 (present forests of the Amazons, to the Angloissue). Saxon and Latin leaders of civilization in the free republics. The negroes and t See pp. 422 (June), 601 (Augnst), 808 (present half-castes of the north and central Issue). States, with the Mestizoes (a mixed race of Spanish, or Portuguese and Ind- ian blood), are numbered by millions, while the imported Chinese coolie classes, and foreigners from almost every country under heaven, drawn hither by the fabled silver wealth of churches in the Guianas on tIle north- Ecuador, Peru, and the Argentine, east coast, and the scattered centerH on complete the tale. The Spanish and the Atlantic borders of Brazil, one may Portuguese element is politically domi- say that the continent is almost unnant, while the .. redmen" constitute touched by aggressive Protestant misthe main stock of the population. sionary effort. . Discovered A.D. 1500, by the Portu- Venezuela, more than nine times as guese Pedro Cabral, South America has large as England and Wales, two and been for nearly four hundred years part a half times larger than Germany (arca of the parish of the Pope. In contrast 593,943 square miles), with a populawith it the north of the New World, tion of 2,323,527 men and women, has Puritan-prosperous, powerful, pro- only one missionary. gressive-presents probably the most Colombia. larger than the total area remarkable evidence earth affords of of Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Greece, the blessing of Protestantism, while the Roumania, the Orange Free State, Bulresults of Roman Catholicism left to garia, Servia, Switzerland, and Belitself are writ large in letters of gloom gium (area 504,773 square miles), more across the priest-ridden, lax, and super- than three times as large as all Japan, stitious south. Her cities "among has nearly 4,000,000 people, and only the gayest and grossest in the world," three missionary stations of the Amenher ecclesiastics enormously wealthy can Presbyterian Church. and strenuously opposed to progress Ecuador, called after the equator, on and liberty, South America groans un- which it lies, has no missionary, and der the tyranny of a priesthood which, never has had. Quito, its capital, the in its highest forms, is unlllumimid by, highest city in the world, with 30,000 and incompetent to preach, the Gospel souls; Guayaquil, its principal com- of God's free gift, and in its lowest is mercial eenter, and all its 1,270,000 illproverbially and" habitually drunken, habillmts scattered over an area of 120,- extortionate and ignorant." Altho the 000 square miles, are wholly unevanspirit of the age has, in our nineteenth gelized as yet-unless ceremonial can century, transformed all her monarchies save, and the wafer-god be divine. The into free republics, Ecuador still pro- present struggle for a change of governhibits any but Romish worship. ment in Ecuador has as one of its objects Only the fringe of this continent- the emancipation of the people from more than sixty times as large as the priest rule, and the proclamation of re- United Kingdom-has been touched by ligious liberty. It is hoped, therefore, the message of free 8alvation. On the that the door of Ecuador may soon bo frozen rocks of Fuegia, fifty years ago, opened to the Gospel. Allan Gardiner and his immortal band Peru, with its 2,621,844 people, its of companions, to the undying honor 650 schools, its magnificent railways, of the South American Missionary· So- well-equipped army and navy, and ciety that sent them forth, kindled a world·famed products (If bark, silver, spiritual beacon light that to·day shines and ~uano, has but twelve missionaries right around the world. Four thou- withm its borders. India has one missand miles away, in the deadly tropics sionary to every 165.000 souls; Peru, of Guiana, t,he heroic MoravIan breth- twelve missionaries to nearly 3,000,000. ren died and died till deathless blessing Bolivia, an enormous inland State for multitUdes sprang from their tombs (area 567,680 square miles), modelled, -both extremes of the continent prov- like all the Routh American republics, ing the lowest of earth's races capable on the constitution of the United States of becoming new creatures in Jesus of America, with its president-elected Christ. Between these two extremities every four years-its congress, unlver· thirteen different missionary agencies sal suffrage, and 2,019,549 souls, bas have undertaken labor in this great received one or two passing visits from harvest field. 'rheir entire efforts are itinerant colporteurs of the noble Amerirepresented on. the black map which can Bible Society, but has no resident appears as a. frontispiece for this issue. missionary, and never has had. lIave they been commensurate with the Brazil, which alone is larger than tbe whole United States (area 3.209,878 needs of tve sphere? By those efforts judge whether or no square miles, 296,000 more than the South America merits the title" neglect- United States of America, and more ed continent." than three times exceeds all British India), has 14,002.335 people, of wbom THE BLACK MAP Am> ITS MEANmG. not more 2,000,000 can possibly hear the Gospel from Protestant, missionaries Omitting the group of Christian there working, leaving 12,000,000 in
AMERICA'S SpmITUAL
The above diagram (915 squares) represeuts the npoepvuelraytioonne of South Amenca-37,OOO,OOO. Each square=40,OOO persons. of the 400 Mi88iouarles in South America could reach 10,000 persons, only the central White squares would be evaugelIzed.
Black squares=unevangelized population.. 827 !l25x40,OOO= 37,000,000. l White.. =partially evangelized popu- f lation •. ., •• 98 DIAGRAlII (No. I).
COUNTRY AND POPULATION. POPULATION UNREACHED.
GUIANAS, 890,000 (partially evangelized.) PARAGUAY, 400,000–5 ml88ionaries. 850,000 unreached In Paraguay. URUGUAY, 750,000–5 mleslonari;". EcuADOR, 1,260,ooo-no missionaries. 700,000 Uruguay.
1,260,000 Ecuador.
BoLIVIA, 1,450,000.. . 1,450,000 nnreached in Bolivia. no mlSSlOnarles.
PERU, 3,000,000 ••..•.•. 2,910,000 unreached In 9 missionaries. Peru.
CHILI, 3,300,000 2,690,000 unreached In ChilL 61 missionaries. 3,730,000 unreached In ARGENTINE, 4,000,000 the Argentine• 27 missionaries.
COLOlllBIA, 4,200,000 12 mi88ionaries.
BRAzIL, 16,000,000 14,S40,000 unreached 116 missionaries. in Brazil.
DIAGRAlII (No. m.
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE SPIRITUAL :NEEDS OF THE TEN REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA, Reckoning that each Missionary could evangelize 10,000 persons. The above diagram (915 squares) represeuts the population of South Amerlca-87,OOO,0iJ0. Each square=40,OOO persons. If everyone of the 400 Missionaries in South America could reach 10~OOO persons, only the central ,Vhite squares would be evungelIz{·d.
rt Black squares=unevanl;elized population.. 827 9215×40,000= 37,000,000. White" = partially evangelized popu- lation .. .. .. 98 DIAGEA)! (No. I).
COUNTRY AND POPULATION. POPULATION UNREACHED.
GUIANAS, 890,000 (partially evangelized.) PARAGUAY, 400,000—5 missionaries. 350,000 unreached in Paraguay. URUGCAY, 750,000-5 missionaries. ECUADOR, 1,260,OOO-no missionaries. 700,000 "Uruguay.
1,260,000 Ecuador.
BOLIVIA, 1,-150,000 1,450,000 unreached in Bolivia. DO missionaries. 2,190,000 unreuched in Venezuela. YE"EzeELA, ~,200,OOO 2.910.000 unreached in 1 ll1i~sionary. Peru. PEne, 8.000.000 2,690.000 unreached in Chili. g lllb~ionaricB. CHILI, 3,:lOO.()00 {jl lllb~ionurie8.
ARGENTI"E. 4.(~lO.OOO 3,730.000 unrouched in the ArgentIne. 2i' llli~::,iollarie8.
COL01fRIA. -t:.!OO.OOO 4,080,(KXl nnrearherl in 1:2 mi:::;!::iollarics. Columuia.
BUAZIL. 10.00n.noo 14,840,000 11llrcarhcd 11ti 11li~~iullarks. in Brazil.
DIAGRA" (~o. II). DIAGRAM SHOWING 'l'HE COMPARATIVE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE TEN REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA, Reckoning that each Missionary could evangelize 10,000 persons.
FmLD OJ!' MONTHLY SURVE!"
Brazil only, wholly unevangelized. of the caption of this article, attention The rest of the wide, dark spaces we is called to the following translation of leave to utter their own plea. a part of an article which appeared in the Monitor Oatlwlico of October 7th, Persecution is suffered in many parts 1894 (this journal is the official organ of the Archbishop of Bahis): 'Peoples of the country at the hands of priests nations, as well as individuals and fam: ilies, seek and invoke the Virgin Mary, lind people. We give the following because she has been the tutelar angel of the fortunes of humanity, the bow communication, just received from of promise suspended between the two testaments. Lima, Peru, which tells of a recent .. , In truth, who more than she has persecution in the interior of Peru: interested themselves in the felicity of .. Tumult has arisen. Prefect urges men, even in this world, than the glorius to leave. Advise us." We cannot ous queen of angels, who hypothecated tell how serious this may be, and are all . the treasures of her most loving anxiously awaiting further news. Their heart, who sacrificed her own Son, the last letter, dated August 5th, informed life of her life, so that G:>d might be us that both were seriously ill in bed, Mr. Jarrett with smallpox, and Mr. reconciled with men I Peters with similar symptoms. .. , In the hours of deepest agony for .
In appealing to the British Consul- men, behold her always at His side, in- General of Peru he laid the trouble be- terceding with her Son for men, and fore the President, who has telegraphed to the Prefect of Cuzco, thereby hoping always ministering to them the means to prevent any fresh outbreak; but of regeneration and moral tranquility.' Cuzco is many miles inland, and practically ruled by the priests, who Insti- .. The balance of this article narrates gated the mob, therefore their lives are the ~lorious character and attendant still in danger, and we cannot tell if blessmgs upon the devout use of the they will be able to maintain their ground. rosary. " Recommended most highly by Leo This is the first attempt to open a permanent mission in the interior of XIII. in an encyclical as the most pow- Peru, and we request the prayers and erful and most efficacious means of resympathy of all who desire to see the alizing the moral equilibrium of famwork of the Lord prospering in this needy land.* ilies and nations. " In view of the foregoing, it would Is Romaniam Ohristian? is a ques- seem incrediable that Romanism could tion asked by Rev. J. B. Kolb, of Bra- be termed Christian. It is true that she does teach some of the essential zil. In answer, he writes as follows: doctrines of the Scriptures, but this is simply to save appearances and 10 de- .. December 8th was a notable day in lude. Altho the encyclicals and pastile city of Bahia, Brazil-notable in torals of Pope and bishops are sown the fact that the whole city was given with Scripture quotations, they do not over to the adoration of the Virgin weigh anything, like the small dust of Mary. During the previous night bells the balance, in comparison with the eswere tolling, bombs and rockets explod- sential and practical doctrine and pracing, all to announce the grandje8ta; of tice of the Church respecting the Virthe succeeding day. The Feast of the gin. Intelligent and well-informed Immaculate Conception of the Virgin men will affirm, with all the intensity has taken a deep hold on the popular of deep conviction, their faith and consympathies. To raise a voice against the Virgin, or, as she is more properly fidence in the power of Mary to save termed, • Our Lady,' is to bring down them. So far as the masses are conupon one's head the most bitter re- cerned, the article cited above exactly proaches and persecution. However, expresses the conviction and belief of this is not to be wondered at. when from pulpit and press the glories and the popular heart. Divine attributes of Mary are being .. The last element in the perfection constantly proclaimed. In justification of Mariolatry was the declaration of * Any friends desirous of further information, the 'Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,' thus putting her on an equal- 01' wishing to help forward the Gospel here, may addre.. A. R. Stark, care of British Consul, ity with her Divine Son. Callao, Peru; or Dr. GuinneBB, Ha.rley House, .. Surely, the wily adversary has r,ti~~~~ !te:d'~giB ~~~K~atlY needed to main- made this people believe a lie, and has so bound about this people the meshes of his net that there can be no possible egcape, exceptiug by coming out from the midst of her and accepting the plain, simple truths of the Gospel of our ers as were incorrigible. Brigham Young, commenting on this doctrine, Lord Jesus Christ. These blinded said: .. I have known a great many ones merit our sympathies and prayers. men who have left this church, for May the Holy Spirit break the scales from off these blinded eyes!"
whom there is no chance whatever for THE MOlU.t:ONS. exaltation, but if their blood had been Interest in the Mormon question has spilled it would have been better for been recently revived, owing to the ap- them." . " .. The wickednes8 and Ig- proaching entrance of Utah into the norance of the nations forbid this pdn- rights of Statehood. The wisdom of ciple being in full force, but the time permitting this step is still doubtful in wilZ come when the law of God will be in the minds of many, but all hope for the fullforee. This is loving our neighbor best results from an apparently favor- as ourselves; if he needs help, .help able beginning. l!im; if he wants salvation. and it is •• Mormonism is not essentially a re- necessary to spill his blood on the earth ligion ; it is a secret political institution in order tbat he may be saved, apiU it."
in the form of a secret order, with ex- II Will you love man or woman well ceedingly worldly ends in view." enough to shed their blood? That is Its thorough organization is said to wluJt JesU8 OMist meant. I could refer rival the papacy, and is as nearly per- you to plenty of instances where men fect perhaps as anything human can have been righteously slain in order to be; but the doctrines, having been add- atone for their sins." Seven months- ed at different times and under different after this one hundred and twenty-nine conditions, are so much at variance emigrants were II .blood atoned" at with one another as to defy any at- Mount Meadows by a force under com- tempt to include them all in any sys- mand of Mormon priests.
tem. The Adam-deity doctrine was first Opportune II revelations" came, how- preached by the II Prophet, Seer, and ever, at various times to grant desired Revelator" in 1852. This is his lan- privileges in financial and social spheres. guage: .. Now hear it, 0 inhabitants Their II god is progressive," they say, of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and •• and able to meet' emergencies as they sinner. When our Father Adam came rise." A new emergency has recently into the Garden of Eden he came into arisen under the Edmunds law, making it with a celestial body, lind brought it expedient for them to annul the mar- Eve, ono of his wives, with him. He riage revelation, or at least to suspend helped to make and organize this world.
it, or in some way (nobody seems to He is lIichael the Archangel, the An- know just how) to render it inopera- cient of days, about whom holy men tive II for the present." have written and spoken. He is our Polygamy has secured loyalty to Father and our God, and the only God Mormonism of those born under it, with whom we have to do. Every man since one is compelled to uphold it or upon the earth, professing Christians or confess his illegitimacy. It also se- non-professing, must hear it and will cured to the Mormons desired Ilecluslon know it sooner or later."
from Christian civilization, since de- This doctrine holds out to the faith- cent people wish to keep far from such ful the hope of becoming gods, as the a community. following rhyme by one of their poets The doctrine of blood atonement was shows: invented by Brigham Young as a pro- " • . • 'Tis no phantom that we trace tection against apostasy and opposition Man's ultimatum in life's race; of infidels. This fearful doctrine fast- This royal path has long been trod ened upon faithful Mormons the duty By righteous men who now are gods, of shedding the blood of all such offend- As Abram, Isaac, Jacob, too, First bebes, then men to gods they grew_
I'DIiLD OF MONTHLY
As man now is, onr God once was ; and commandments to Individuals, As now He is, so man may be, churches, rulers, nations, and the Which facts unfold man's destiny. world; to appoint, ordain, and estab- So John asserts: • When Christ we see lish constitutions and kingdoms; to Then we like Him will truly be.' appoint kings, presidents, governors, Ah, well, that taught by you, dear Paul; Tho much amazed, we sec it all ; or judges, and to ordain or anoint them Our Father, God, has ope'd our eyes, to their several holy callings ; also to We cannot see it otherwise. instruct, warn, or reprove them by the You're right, St. John. supremely right, word of the Lord" (" Key to Theol- Whoe'er essays to climb this height Will cleause himself of sin entire, ogy," p. 73). Of course it is impossi- Or else 'twere useless to aspire." ble for a man who claims such powers The Mormons worship a deified man to be loyally subordinate to the consti· instead of an incarnate God. They set tuted authorities of our country, or to the living priest before the crucified be willingly subject to our laws or to Christ, and tithes and offerings over conscientiously and faithfully teach his against regeneration. They teach that people so to be.
the faithful must" gather" into seclu- And the men under such a leader, or- sion, in opposition to the command of dained by him to "the priesthood and Jesus to " go into all the earth." But apostleship after the order of the Sons then their motives are different and op· of God, are His representatives or am- posite. bassadors to mankind. To receive The Mormons seem to have a peculiar them, to obey their instructions, to faculty for seeing things in reverse po- feed, clothe, or aid them, is counted the sition. Brigham Young once said that same in the final judgment, as it aU had .. the Presbyterian God is the Mormon's been done to the Son of God in person.
devil, and vice versa." He recognized On the other hand, to reject them or his reverse attitude toward Christianity. their testimony or message or the Word Mormonism can hardly be called a of God through them, in any matter, is union of Church and State. If that counted the same as if done to Jesus were all, there might be a dissolution Christ in His own person.
of that union so as to meet the require- "Indeed, such ambassadors will be ments of our constitution, but with the final judges of the persons, rulers, them the Church is the State, or the cities, or nations to whom they are State is the Church, as you please. sent. And all merely human religions There is an identity of Church and or political institutions, all republics, State which is an essential feature of States, kingdoms, empires must be dis- Mormonism, and which cannot disap- solved," etc. (" Key to Theology,"
pear until they abandon the whole p.73).
business in good faith. From this very significant language, It is a theocracy recognizing no right taken not from a platform address, but of the governed tq participate in the -from one of their standard books, which affairs of the government either by per- is now and has been for more than sonal vote or representation, and claim- forty years published for the instruc- ing for its leader Divine prerogatives tion and comfort of the Mormon peo- and entire exemption from the duties ple, it must appear very clearly what and obligations of citizenship under is the mission of the Mormon Church any earthly government. He is sup- and its priesthood. Such a pretentious posed to be God's vicegerent, and as system, boldly asserting its powers and such is superior to all constitutions and prerogatives, and publisWng far aRd Iaws of this or any other nation. He wide its purposes concerning the insti- .. holds the keys of revelation of the tutions under which it is tolerated, Oracles of God to men upon the earth, would have been stamped out of exist- the power and right to give laws ence by any monarchy, it not upon the first publication of. its program, cer- these valleys to me" and told me to give tainly upon the first effort to enter ac- them to wbom I pleased. Anyone tively and aggressively upon it. who goes to a government Jand office for his title is a traitor to the kingdom The people of the United States have of God, and will be treated as such." given little heed to the hostile attitude To this remarkable utterance the audiof Mormonism, and have been slow to ence, led by the eight apo~t.Ies who believe and disinclined to resent their were present, responded " i men. " insults to the flag. It is but ten years since they hauled down the flag which When one of the State presidents said had been unfurled by loyal citizens on to a missionary in Utah, "You are a July 4th in Salt Lake City. Had it citizen of the United States and not of not been for the military force and the this kingdom, and therefore have no large number of non· Mormons in the rights to the privileges of citizenship city, the insult to our national emblem here," he was but expressing the alien woul$! have been carried to the last ex- character of Mormonism and the imtremity. About the same time they possibility of a man's being a loyal citihauled down the Stars and Btripes zen and a Mormon at the same time. from a mission house and trailed it in The principles and purposes of the Latthe dust, and in its stead ran up a filthy ter-Day Saints are so hostile to our fragment of a rag carpet. In another American institutions, that it Is imposof the smaller cities of Utah, the Mor- sible to hold to the one without despismon city authorities refused to allow ing the other. They cannot dwell in the 1lag-the property of the city-to peace together. be run up on the pole that stood in the public square, or to be used in any way It would be a pleasant, a grateful whatever on July 4th; but on the 24th, privilege to be able to believe that the the anniversary of their entrance 'into Mormons have abandoned theIr fundathe Salt Lake Valley, they unfurled it mental principles, discarded the whole to the breezes and marched in grand theory of Mormonism, and become loyal procession to the bower where their citizens. They have a constitutional orators predicted the ultimate conquest right to their faith and worship; but of "the kingdom" over the Govern- they have no such right to maintain an ment of the United States, and rejoiced alien and hostile government, to perin the hope that the 4th would then be petuate practices which are at variance forgotten, and the 24th take its place with the laws and customs of our comlas a national holiday. try, to abridge the common rIghts of citizenship, to inculcate principles To those who were familiar with the which are destructive of domestic peace teaching and spirit of Mormonism these and social purity, or to deny to any demonstrations were no surprise. It law-abiding citizen the privileges and was never their custom to regard Inde- Immunities guaranteed to every such pendence Day as worthy of their notice. citizen by the Constitution. The birthday of these great facts in natIonal life, freedom of religious opin· They need a more extended pupilage Ion, liberty of thought and speech and under the wholesome and generous auworship, and a government •• of the thority of the Government, the educatpeople, by the people, and for the peo- ing influences of the churches and the pie," stirs no cmotion of pleasure in a schools, and the contact with intelligent Mormon heart. and enterprising Gentiles in social and business relations which have alreadY Their prophet, on July 22d, 1875, accomplished, by God blessing, so much said, while addressing a large mass· for Utah. There are about 170,000 meeting of !Iormons: "The Govern- Mormons in the United States, most of ment of the United States has no right whom reside in Utah.-Preabyterian to a foot of land in Utah. God gave Bom'd Pamphlet.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Correspondents will please observe thing that establishes right, honorable, that the editor's permanent address is and pacific relations among men pro· changed to 1127 Dean Street, Brooklyn. motes the kingdom of God, which il:l righteousness and peace, as well as joy The March of Events. in the Holy Ghost.
The deputation of the A. B. C. F. M., The mission press in Turkey is kept referred to previously, sailed September under constant surveillance by the ab- 12th for Japan, from San Francisco. surd and often comical apprehensions The practical questions to be adjusted of the government. "All the manuare not controversial, but economical. scripts must be submitted to examina- They concern the expediency of the con- tion at Constant,invple before being tinuance or withdrawal of the mission· printed. Some are rejected or returned aries; and, if they are to remain, their In a mutilated condition, while those relati ve position as to the native Chris- accepted are kept a long time and the tians and workers._ Rev. J. H. Pettee printing delayed. Books that have resuggests six topics to be covered by the ceived the sanction of the government investigation: The nature and tendency may be seized and destroyed at any of the theological movement; future time upon a foolish pretence, such as the co·operation of the mission with the coloring of a map in a geography. Two Kumiai churches; relation to the Doshi- men were imprisoned and their books aha; the property question; the desira- confiscated, not for selling their geogbility of enlarging the miosionary force raphies, but for procuring them for the in Japan, and the changing of meth· governors at their request." ods of work. Dr. D. O. Greene, of the Japan Mission, published not long ago All this reminds us of a recent occuran account of the declaration of inde- rence in Russia, when a cable despatch, pendence on the pilrt of the Home Mis- in cipher, from a family in America, sionary Society. Japanese Christians read, T1'Y again, and was interpreted to are desirous to assume the responsibili- mean that another attempt should be ties of the evangelization of their own made to blow up the Czar! country, and to be no longer a burden on the American churches; and this is Japan has had a serious visitation of most commendable. The deputation cholera. The terrible disease made its should be followed by earnest prayers. appearance among the troops at Pesca- dores, Port Arthur, and Chin Chow, its The compact between Salvador, Nica- germs having been carried home by reragua, and Honduras provides for a turning soldiers, and the government United RepUblic of Central America, made strenuous efforts to check the mainly in the interests of defence and spread of the disease, but the situation permanent peace. Executi ve power is was greatly complicated by the fact to be lodged in a diet, with one deputy that the plague germinated from over a from each legislature and one member dozen localities simultaneously. from each repUblic. How far this political movement is to affect missions, The Oongo Railway. which is all that specially concerns this REVIEW, will appear later on; but no Work on the Congo Railway is being such union, if secured in the interests pushed. Kimpise, the half-way point of mutnal wellbeing, can be other than between tide-water and Stanley Pool, helpful to all missionary work. Every- will be reached by another year. The remaining portion c~n be ):milt muc~ more easily, as the dIfficultIes of englneeri-ng will be much less. The Eng- to us to be without excuse or even lish Baptist Missionary Society reports pJausible pretext. and to be one of the in the Congo Basin a line of stations great outrages of the century. 1000 miles long. This region, unknown twenty-five years ago. has an area greater than that of all India. Already in ten of its one hundred languages the While some boards are retrenching. Gospel is being preached. It has been some are strengthening cords and traversed in all directions. and the only lengthening stakes. For example. at religion of the people is a degrading a recent board meeling in Fort Wayne, fetishism well called devil worship. Ind., the United Brethren In Christ Cheers rang through the House of voted, thirty-nine to.one. to open a new Commons when it was announced that mission in Japan thIs year. They al- " Her Majesty's government have come ready have on hand for the work four to the conclusion that it is necessar~ to or five native preachers and teachers, most of whom have been educated in make the railway to Uganda." The this country. They have es!ablished British protectorate is to be extended this year a mont~ly ~agazme! T~e over the territories between Uganda Search-Ligltt, for dlssemmating .mte,Ihand the East Coast. The railway will gence throuO'hout the denommatIOn open the continent, both to travel and upon the subject of missions. It has to commerce. It is practically the also been determined to build a home route to Uganda over which Bishop or sanitarium for missionaries on Mount Hannington went to his death that 'the LAefirciceastear~adbotoveoFpreenetuopwnin, WcoenstnCecotaiostn. proposed railroad will follow.
with the Rufus Clark and Wife Train- ing School at Shaingay. West Africa, IJ, EJrench operations in Madagascar can- medical department, in which to place not but awaken lively interest among two physicians with a view bo~h. to all friends of missions. The first con- instructmg graduates of the trammg flicts with Hova forces were generally school in a regular medical course and to service among their own people. these victorious for the French, but the cli- . physicians befng at liberty also ~o pracmate was their foe; and the Christian tise medicine in the mission statIOns.
queen has done her best to avert war.
She is said to have given utterance to her convictions to an English corre- spondent, thus: Siam is to follow the example of "I and my people must go forth to Japan in establishing a. parliamentary do battle with that great nation. Tho system of government. The king rewe may have less men and poor arma- serves the right of choosing the memments to withstand them, yet shall we bers of Parliament. and of nullifying trust in God and our righteous cause its action, and of abolishing it; but to sustain our hands and keep us a free perhaps, after it has once been set up, people and kingdom. I trust in my it will find means of enlarging its own people and in God, who I daily pray powers. The king has been much imwill guide us. It is better that, as a pressed by the success of the Parliafree nation, we should disappear, or be ment of Japan during the past four exterminated, than become the servile years, and especially by its submission subjects of France. or any other for- to the authority of the Mikado. The eign power. I ask all of you who are population of Siam is only about 8,000,- Christians to pray for us in this deep 000. but it is not so homogeneous as that trouble, because, tho we desire peace of Japan. It consists of four or five above all things, we are obliged to fight. races and of a variety of castes living We have wronged no one, we would under a. social system which must make make war on no one, and all we now liberal institutions difficult to work; ask is to be allowed to live at peace but these innovations show that Siam with all men in the land that God has is sincere in her desire to gain the good given to our forefathers and to us. Let will of other powers and keep up in the French keep their land ; we shall keep ours. Then we shall be glad to be good friends with them. as with all Christian people the whole world over."
The movement of the French seems the march of the ages.. Distribution of Bibles in Ma.ny La.nds. Progress of Ohristianity in the United According to the seventy-ninth an- States.
nual report of the American Bible So- The census rcport on religious statis- ciety, the society has distributed more tics just printed shows that 20,613,000 volumes of the Scriptures in China dur- people belong to churches, including ing the year than in any preceding year spiritualists, theosophists, altruists, since it began its operations within the etc. There are 165,177 congregations. and 142,521 edifices. The value of all confines of the Celestial Empire. In church property used exclusively for purposes of worship is $679,630,139. Japan, too, a great work has been done There are 111,360 regular ordained min- isters. Five bodies have more than among the soldiers of the .Tapanese 1,000,000 communicants, and ten more than 500,000. The leading denomina- Army. tions have communicants in round num- bers as follows: Catholic, 6,250,000; Uore than one million and a half lIethodist. 4,600,000; Baptist, 3,725,- 000; Presbyterian, 1,280,832; Luther- Bibles, Testaments, and portions of the an, 1,230,000. There are 130,000 Jew- ish communicants, 13,500 Russian or- Bible were printed by the society within thodox, 10,850 Greek Catholics, 8742 of the Salvation Army. In number of the period treated of in the report. and communicants and value of church over one million of them were printed property, New York leads, and Pennon the presses in the Bible House and sylvania follows. hut in the number of more than half a million were printed organizations and church edifices, Pennin foreign lands. Through purchases sylvania is first and Ohio second. The of additional volumes, the total num- increaRe in the value of church property ber printed and procured by the society since 1870 has been $325,146,558, or amounted to 1,958,674 copies. Of nearly 92 per cent, while the number these, 947,103 volumes were issued of churches has increased 42 per cent. from the Bible House, and 634,025 in The increase in the number of organiforeign lands. Of the volumes issued zations is 126 per cent. from the Bible House, 101,196 copies were sent to foreign lands, and are not The testimony of the United States couuted among the issues in foreign countries. Minister to China, Mr. Denby, should The work in the home field has not be put on record, as recently received been neglected by reason of the unlooked ·for success met in distant lands, at the Department 01 State. He says: and of the iS8ue of 947,103 volumes from the Bible House, 845,907 have " I think no one can controvert the been for the home supply. The num- fact that the Chinese are enormously ber of familics visited by the American benefited by the labors of the mission- Bible Society and its auxiliaries was aries. Foreign hospitals are a great 516,798, of which 119,244 were found boon to the sick. China, before the to be without the Scriptures. Desti- advent of the foreigner, did not know tute families were supplied to the num- what surgery was. There are more ber of 34,299, and individuals in addi- than twenty charity hospitals in China. tion to the number of 19,982. which aTe presided over by men of as great ability as can be found elsewhere In the year 1890, upon the completion in the world. Dr. Kerr's hospital at of the fourth resupply of the United Canton is one of the great institutions States, the Board of Managers entered of the kind in the world. The Viceroy. upon the most extensive and important Li Hung Chang, has for years main· work which it has eyer undertaken- t.ained, at Tientsin, at his own expense, namely, "The Bible for every child a foreign hospital. In the matter of who can read," and solicited the co- education the movement is immense. operation of pastors, Christian parents, There are schools and colleges all over Sunday.school superintendents, and China, taught by the missionaries. I teachers. "The importance of this have been present often at the exhiwork," the report says, "has been em- bitions given by those schools. They phasized by the various ecclesiastical showed progress in a great degree. bodies, and cordially approved by the The educated Chinaman who speaks Sunday-school associations in almost every State, yet it must be confessed, altho there has been steady advance in this supply. the demand for Bibles for the children has not come up to the expectations of the managers." English becomes a new man. A long book existed only in Arabic, which few time before the present war the Em· in India understand, or in ambiguous peror was studying English, and, it is paraphrases. Now that it Is in torm to said, was fast acquiring the language. be read by the common people there is Nowhere is education more sought than a panic in the camp of Islam. Two in China. 'fhe government is, to some Mohammedan copyists engaged on the extent, founded on it. There Is a Chi· translation have abandoned Islam in nese imperial coJIege at Peking, the disgust. • The Word of God I it is not Tung-Zoen, presided over by our dis- even the word of a decent man,' they tinguished fellow-citizen, Dr. W. A. P. said. This translation is the outcome Martin; also a university, conducted of the events referred to in this maga- by the Methodist mission. There are zine for February in the editorial para- also many foreign orphan asylums in graph, • A False Prophet,' and indi- various cities, which take care of thou· cates a most encouraging break in the sands of waifs. The missionaries trans- solid ranks of Mohammedanism. The late into Chinese many scientific and converts to Christianity are a unit in philosophical works. A former mis- their testimony as to the character of sionary, Dr. Adkins, translated a whole Islam. It is • earthly, sensual, devil- series of school readers. Reflect that ish.' " all their benefactions come to the Chi- nese without much if any cost. Where The following, printed by the 0 hU1'cl~ charges are made they are exceedingly small, and are made only when t~ey .A.dvocate, deserves to be preserved and are necessary to prevent a rush, whlch, in this vast population, would over- hung up in some conspicuous place for whelm any institution. There are va- rious anti·opium hospitals, where the frequent meditation: victims of this vice are cured. There are industrial schools and workshops." THE BIBLE.
Lord Macaulay said in his speech It was never known who composed the following description, found in in the British House of Commons, Westminster Abbey, nameless and dateless: lIarch, 1843: •• That to discountenance .. A nation would be truly happy if it a religion which has done so much to were governed by no other laws than those of the blessed book. promote justice, and mercy, and free· .. It is 80 complete a system that dom, and arts, and sciences, and good nothing can be added to it.
government, and domestic happiness, .. It contains everything needful to be known or done. which has struck oft the chains of the .. It gives instructions to a senate, slave, which has mitigated the horrors authority and direction to a magistrate.
of war, which has raised women from .. It contains a witness, requires an impartial verdict of a jury, and fur- .servants and playthings into compan- nishes the judge with his sentence.
ions and friends, is to commit high .. It sets a husband as a lord of the household and the wife as a mistress of treason against humanity and civiliza- the table, tells him how to rule and her how to manage. tion." .. It prescribes and limits the sway The Baptist Mi88ionM'1J Magazine of the sovereign, the ruler, and the au- thority of the master, commands the says: subjects to honor, and the servant to obey, and promises the blessing and .. A deadly blow has been struck at protection of the Almighty to all that 1Ylohammedani&m in India by the trans· work by its rules. lation of the Koran into simple, idio· matic Urdu, the language of the com· .. It promises food and raiment; and mon people of a large part of Northern limits the use of both. India. Mohammed forbade the translation of his book, and his superstitious .. It points out a faithful and eternal followers ha ve believed it could not be guardian to the departing husband and put into any language except Arabic, father, tells him to whom to leave his the language in which it was written. fatherles,q children, and whom his wid- The translation into Urdu is the work ow is to trust, and promises a father to of an able Mohammedan convert to the former and a husband to the latter. Christianity, and it has caused consternatIon to the defenders of Islam. .. It teaches a man to set his house in The power of Islam has bcen that its order and know his will ; it appoints a dowry for his wife, and entails the rijl;ht of the first·born, and also shows fiber of his being. There was a ring how the young branches shall be kept. in his voice and In his crisp sentences which attested his sincerity, and a .. It defends the rights of all, and re- manliness in his bearing which won for veals vengeance to every defaulter, him instant respect." over-reacher, and trespasser. .
.. It is the first book and the oldest book: in the world. .. It contains the choicest matter, In the archives of the Presbyterian gives the best instruction, affords the Board of Foreign Missions, in this city, greatest pleasure and satisfaction that there has just been found an edict prowas ever enjoyed. .' mulg'!-ted by the Emperor of China more than half a century ago, it being " It contains the most ancient an- dated 1844, with relation to the treattiquiti€s, strange events, wonderful oc- currences, heroic deeds, and unparalleled wars."
ment to be accorded to all those within Rev. Dr. Behrends on June 9th paid the domain of the Chinese Empire who a fine tribute to Henry Martyn Scudder, professed the religion of the " Lord of D.D., his predecessor in the Central Heaven." The edict was called forth Congregational Church, Brooklyn. As by disturbances which had arisen to his life generally, character, and through some misbehavior of the missionary career, he says: French Catholic missionaries, and in the .. It was a long life, beginning in course of which many of the innocent 1822 and coming to its earthly close on had suffered at the hands of the natives.
June 5th, 1895 It was a cosmopolitan The edict was in the form of a memolife. He was born in Ceylon, educated in New York City, spent twenty years rial of Keting, Imperial Commissioner in India, held pastorates in Jersey City, and Viceroy of the Canton and Kwang- San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Chicago, Se provinces, to the Emperor. Among labored for scvcral years in Japan, other things contained in this document crossed the Pacific once more for the health of a dear daughter, who died in is the following statement, which, in Southern California, tarried for a sea- view of recent events, will be found of son in Chicago, and then went to Win- deep interest: "Now, according to the chester to wait for the end. It was a request of the envoy of the French navaried life in personal experience, cov- tion, Lagrene. that the virtuous profesering the whole range between ecstatic sors of the said religion in China shonld gladness and bitterest anguish, during be exonerated from blame, it appears all of which his cheerful courage and suitable to accede thereto; and it is sunny faith never suffered eclipse, proper to request that henceforth with though for two years his constant prayer regard to all persons, whether Chinese had been that the Lord would take him or foreigners, professing the religion of home, for he dreaded that his disease the Lord of Heaven, who do not cr('ate might make such progress as to render disturbance nor act improperly, it be him helpless and bed-ridden. From humbly entreated of theimperJal benevthat he was most mercifully spared, olence to grant, that they be exonerated and his mind was clear to the very last. from blame. But if such persons re- It was a very busy life, for he never sume their former ways, and indepenspared himself, but worked to the ut- dently of their professions commit other m(Jst limit of his energy. He was an crimes and misdemeanors, then they Oriental scholar of no mean ability, a will be dealt with according to existmaster in Scripture exposition, an able ing laws. With regard to the French and instructive preacher, a devoted and and the subjects of other foreign nasympathetic pastor. His fellowships tions who profess the aforesaid religwere wide and ~enerous. He had no ion, it is only permitted them to build taste for theologlcal subtleties, and no churches at the five ports opened for patience with dogmatic controversy. foreign commerce, and they must not Yet he was intensely and emphatically improperly enter the inner land to difevangelical, and on the doctrine of the fuse their faith. Should any offend incarnation he firmly and enthusiasti- against the regulations and overstep cally maintained the ancient and uni- the boundaries, the local officers, 8.Il versal faith. He had a passion for soon as they can apprehend them. shall souls, an enthusiasm for humanity immediately deliver them over to the which made him democratic in every consuls of the di1lerent nations to be punished; but they must not rashly fossils. The Japanese are a bright, inmdict upon them the punishment of tellectual people, lovers of the beautiful, and are much more open to the claims death. " of the Gospel than are the Chinese.
Sunday Papers in Japan. The Pope of Rome is planning to send more missionaries to Jltpan. The Mika- do has appointed Christian chaplains in In the July issue of this year, pages his army, and he has on more than one 517 and 558, will be found two con- occasion shown his kindly feeling tow- trary statements as to the Sunday issues ard Christianity. The whole of his em- pire is as open to the preaching of the of the papers and periodicals published Gospel as England or the United States. In Japan. As frequently must happen There is indeed a crisis in the affairs of where different members of an editorial Japan-a place. as Dr. Pierson puts it, staff draw information from different "where opportunity and responsibility meet. " The Christian world should sources. condicting testimony appears improve the opportunity and meet the now and then. In this case the state· responsibility by sending hundreds of ments were so diametrically opposed missionaries into this white hatvest field. that careful inquiries were made to It takes an American from four to six years to learn to speak the Japanese lanlearn the facts. Professor Stanley says: guage correctly. It is one of the most .. I based my statement on what I had difficult languages in the world. The or had not seen while several years a best way, therefore, to prepare misresident of Tokyo, ag also on two peri- sionaries for Japan is to reach the Jap- anese in this country with the Gospel. odicals' statements in this country this When converted, they become enthusi- year. " astic evangelists, and are eager to return The authority for the counter state- to their native land. About two years ago the Hanson Place ment is Rev. J. D. Davis, at A. B. C. Baptist Church, of Brooklyn, opened a mission for the Japanese young men F. M., and the well"known professor in the Doshisha seminary, one of the best who are in this cluster of great cities. authorities on Japanese matters. He There are about 400 of them, and dur- ing these two years more than 90 have says that the other statement-that of accepted Jesus Christ as their. Saviour. 600 papers, none of them issues a Sun· From this mission two have already day edition-" is so utterly at variance gone to Japan as missionaries, one at with all he has ever seen or heard, that his own expense, the other supported by a good Christian woman. Two more he does not believe there is a paper In are at Northfield preparing to gCl, and Japan which does not issue a Sunday several are ready to present themselves edition. To be certain, he asked a whenever the way shall be opened. Japanese student in Oberlin College, Twelve of these bright young men have been baptized into the Hanson Place who substantiates his own statement, Baptist Church, and in giving their exand says that he has never hcard of any periences they showed that they knew such regard for the Sabbath, tho a few what they were about. Their views of dailies may issue only six copies week- Christ and the Bible were clear cut; there was a deep conviction of sin and a ly." The bulk of testimony, as we are hearty turning from it unto the Saviour; sorry to conclude, confirms Dr. Davis's and every one of them knew just why position. Dr. Knox says: "Newspapers' they wanted to join the Church. are issued on Sunday as on other days." This is the only mission for Japanese in New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey Citv, and the time has come when it I Rev. A. C. Dixon, D.D., of Brooklyn, ought to be enlarged. We have, there- fore, rented a house, 54 Sands Street, sends us an interesting bit at news : "FOR CHRIST .AND JAl'AN." near the Brooklyn end of the Bridge, and opened a" Japanese Christian In- Just now the most interesting heathen stitute." We.desire to make it a home country in the world is the Mikado's for the Japanese Christian youn~ men, empire. By its valor and resources in an evangelistic centre for reachmg the war it has stepped to the front with unsaved, and a training school for Japcivilized nations, and Japan hereafter anese Christian workers. It seems to will not be classed among the national me that we have a sort of apostOlic college for the evangelization of Japan. This is an age of reading circles and clubs. Let the idea be applied more About $2000 a year will be needed to definitely to missions. Foreign miscarryon the work as it should be. We sions are not supported, simply because expect large returns in the way of con- the Ohurch does not know about flu W01'k versions among the Japanese, but :still in order to feel about it. Set the laf/~er returns in the future through Church to reading on missions, history, biography, peoples, religions, state and theIr work in Japan. Mr. Frank Tishiro, need of the work, duty, etc. All this one of the converts, gives all his time can be done best by method. Form circles in the churches, organize someto the work of the mission, and among thing, give certificates or seals. With his fellow-Ohristians are several very the reading will come light and inter- est and giving." spiritual, earnest soul-winners. There is scarcely a meeting without a conver- To all which we have often said, sion." " Amen.
Dr. Dixon closes with an appeal for From Vitolla, Turkey-In-Europe, funds to carryon this work, which has in view the twofold object of reaching the Japanese in America and of preaching the Gospel to the whole em- pire of Japan.
No wonder a process of demoraliza- June,3d, 1895, a correspondent writes tion goes on in India through drink to the editor of the Voice: sent from England. There passed through Madina in one week, as shown .. My RESPECTED 8m : Please pardon your slave if I do not this letter trans- late precisely into your language, asfrom the posted daily returns in Liver- sisted by my lexicon. pool, 900,000 cases of gin, 24,000 butts "Many Christian newspapers, In America particularly, upbraid our race, of rum, 30,000 cases of bra~dy, 28,000 and our must gracious ruler, the Sultan, cases of Irish whiskey, 800,000 demi- because on account of the, what you johns of rum, 36,000 barrels of rum, call, Armenian .ontrages, concerning Christians In our country. 30,000 of Old Tom, 15,000 barrels of ab- .. These severe censures are not sinthe, 40,000 cases of vermouth; and equitable to my mind and to my patriyet we send missionaries to elevate and otism. Let us look. You say our Sul- tan treats the Armenians with cruelty, save this same people I but how have your Christians treated Dr. Oyrus Hamlin, long an American the first owners of America? I mean the Red Indians named the aborigines. missionary in Turkey, was sitting at You have four hundred years of persemeat with a Turkish governor, when cutions which you celebrate with yOUl' Columbian Exposition. the latter took a piece of roast mutton .. You have also one war of four In his fingers and politely passed it to years, where 1,000,000 Ohristians were the missionary. "Now do you know by their brother Christians killed. what I have done 1" asked the gov- What is one small village of rebels killed 1 ernor. "Perfectly well," replied the .. Then you had some of African slamissionary. "You have given me a very. worse degraded and cruel than delicious piece of roast meat, and I Moslem slavery, 4,000,000 slaves. have eaten it." "You have gone far " Slave-sellers are not benevolent and humane very. from it [have missed its real meaning]," said the governor. "By :that .. Statistics from America say that one half of the money for the support act I have pledged you every drop of of the United States is taken from immy blood, that while you are in my ter- post on intoxication drink, and 100,000 yearly die, caused by this vice. Our ritory no evil shall come to you. For Sultan kills a small village of heretics, that space of time we are brothers." traitors. In your Koran, which I ad- mire, there are such words like this: • Take the beam out of your eyes and Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D., missionary quickly you are able to see clearly and to India, asks: . take the mote out from your kinsman's "Why do not missionary societies eyes.' take up the' Reading Circle' idea more fully? There is a grand thing in it. " Your obedient slave, " HAMDI-NuZRET."
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGJ!:NCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extraots and Translations from Foreign up to the mountain-sides on either Periodicals. hand, these are covered below with BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, mulberry groves, cotton plantations, MASS. and trim tea grounds, which arc often disposed in artificial terraces, which CHINA. sometimes also bear corn. Higher up, -" JAP HAN CmONG, one of the as far as the mountain will consent to pastors of the Amoy American Re- be • clothed,' grow woods, among formed :Mission, is probably the senior whose leafage the light leaves of the ordained native pastor in China. Two camph:.Jr·tree, the reddish leaves of the years ag.) he celebrated the thirtieth an· tallow-tre:J, and the dark-green lea.es niversary of his ordination, a great oc- of the arbor 'CitCJ occupy a conspicuous casion in the town in which he is set- place; but there are also found cedars tled, marked by kindly words and gifts and cypresses. And where the wood from missionaries and from Chinamen, sinks into shrubbery, it frequently con· non· Christian Chinamen as well as sists of azaleas and similar plants, which Christians. He is pastor of the church we grow in greenhouses or windows at Sio·khe, the western center of the fronting the south, and which in the American Reformed Mission, where flowering time afford a spectacle of they have a large hospital. His high dazzling beauty. There are also found character, spotless reputation, good groves of roses or jessamines. On the judgment, and kindly feeling and man- whole, there are many very beautiful ner have jnstly won for him a place in landscapes in China. Nor are there the affection a:ld esteem of all who wanting wild mountain regions of an know him, and even exceptional Influ- Alpine character. Deserts there are ence with Chinese officials. He is one none; but, on the other hand, there of the noblest fruits of the Gospel in are dreary and melancholy marshes, China. His wife is like-minded. Their and the coasts are often flat and tire- lives and work have been of signal ser· some.
vice to the cause of Christ. "-The "While plant life is thus richly de- Ohronicle. veloped in China, the opposite is true ._" There are," says the Dansk Mi8- of animal life. There is certainly no sions-BEad, .. more building stones in region on earth where it plays so slight the Great Wall of China than in all the a part and is so scantily represented as buildings of England and Scotland to· here. The greedy and reckless children gether. What are the pyramids of of men have consumed or expelled the Egypt to this ?" beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. "-Ibid_ -" Let anyone place himself in the middle of one of the beautiful river -The Blad mentions, as a corre- valleys of China, southward of the sponding work in literature, answering • Yellow Earth,' the soil of the valley to the general "voluminouGness" of is clothed with light green or yellow Chinese matters, the "Conversations· rice-fields, through which the water- Lexikon" composed about 1403, in the course winds like a glittering silver rib· course of four years, by a committee of bon; along the stream, or on either 2000 scholars, and existing (unprint- side of the valley. wave the delicate ed) in 22,937 volumes. A similar but leafy crowns of the bamboo reeds, bow- briefer one, printed in 1726, contains ing to the slightest breeze. If we look only 5000 volumes. A copy of this
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
latter has lately been added to the Brit- my people happy, every one after his ish Museum Library. condition. This have I endeavored The Blad remarks that, after having after with steady solicitude, incredible advanced beyond the Immovable Chi· zeal, and unwearied toil, so that now l nese types, we are now returning to am broken and worn out in body and them by our stereotype plates. soul. Kings, dignitaries, officers, sol- diers, people-in short. all of every rank -The present Muntchu Dynasty, show their devotion to me by lament- which, as we know, has governed ing that my years are so advanced. If China since 1644, seems to have fur- my long career is now. drawing to an nished some very capable and excellent end, I leave life with contentment."
emperors, especially Kung. hi, who The Chinese emperors have always reigned from 1661 till 1722, and who, at least had a high ideal of public duty, after a reign of sixty·one years, died at and many of them seem to have made the age of seventy. His last will and not unsuccessful efforts to fulfil it.
testament, given in the Dansk MissioruJ. This goes far to explain the long en- Blad, is the more impressive as it is said durance of the nation.
to answer very truly to the character -" The Church at Home and Abroaa of the man and of his reign. " I, the affirms that nothing has stood so much Emperor, who honor Heaven, and in the way of China's prosperity as whose calling it is to undertake ameli- her disinclination or incapacity to read orations in the State, issue this ordi- the signs of the times. I allow that the nance and say: Never among rulers, disinclination and incapacity of the who have governed the world, has there Chinese to read the signs of the times been anyone without feeling himself has been great-very great; but it must bound to honor Heaven and resemble be said in excuse of them that the avahis forefathers. The true way to do ricious policy of foreigners, especially of this is to treat men afar with kindness, the English and French, could not fail and men near by according to merit. yet more to strengthen the Chinese in Thereby one brings about repose and their indisposition to learn of the outabundance for the people, he makes the landers. Righteousness and good-will, goods of the world his goods, the heart when joined with patience and firmof the world his own heart; he fortifies ness, do not find the way barred even the State against coming dangers, and into the heart of a civilization which, obviates future calamities. I have like the Chinese, has been said"-with lived long enough: I have owned as very. decided exaggeration-" to have, many riches as are found between the for three thousand years, taken no step four seas ; I am the father Of 150 sons either forward or backward, and which and sons' sons, and of many more is represented by a mass of population daughters; I leave the kingdom in embracing nearly the third part of the peace and gladness, therefore my pros· total population of our planet. We perity may be called great; and if noth- see this, among other facts, by the uning even yet occurs to cross it, I die expected solution of the long-disputed content. Altho I do not venture to question of the audiences demanded by say that I have bettered evil morals, or the foreign ambassadors."-Missionary helped every family to superfluity or J. GENAIIR, in Be1'ichte de:r RheiniBchen even every man to necessities, even as Mi88ionB- GC$dlBcha,ft. I, moreover, cannot be compared with the pious rulers of the earlier dynas- _" Whatever one may think as to ties, yet I believe myself able to give the question whether, as Rocholl ex- -assurance that during my long reign I presses it, China and Japan will ever have aimed at nothing else than to pro- accept the Christian religion • as such'
cure the realm deep peace and render –i.e., as State r~ligion-one thing, how-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
ever, remains certain for us; even if in Lord; and the Lord Himself says (Luke Eastern Asia there should no longer be 12 ; 47); • He that knew his Lord's will sal vable peoples, yet there are at all and did it not, shall be beaten with events salvable 8ouls, and on them the many stripes.' "
might of the love which rests on the -The Danish Missionary Society havfaith in Jesus can and should approve ing taken up work in China, the Blad itself. To seek them out and to gather has been publishing a series of articles them in; to grasp the hands of the sink· on China, in every aspect equally thor· ing, to lay them at the feet of the great ough, popular, and interesting. They Physician; and where the hand of love deserve to be translated into English in cannot reach, to interpose with the arm full, omitting only the local Danish of prayer-this must, from day to day, references. be more and more recognized by us as our holy duty. There are yet many .. Chinese boys come to school richly sheaves lying out upon the tield, which endowed by ancestral inheritance with should be gathered into the garners. an unbounded reverence for consti· • Pray ye therefore the Lord of the har- tuted authority, and for the teacher's vest, that He will dri'1Je out (eklJalto) la- authority in particular. They come borers into His harvest.' "-Ibid. prepared not only to obey, but to wor· ship you. Mind, they do not come -Concerning those easy-going Chris- prepared to love you. Love on the tians who think that it lies entirely part of a pupil covers in Europe a mulwithin their own good pleasure whether titude of sins on the part of a teacher; they will do anything for this work but the Chinese boy never loves his abroad, Herr GENAHR says: "In the teacher. The very idea of it is unin- Book of Judges, fifth chapter, twenty- telligible to him. He does not love his thIrd verse, we find: "Curse ye Meroz, parents. He reverences them."-Ohisaid t.he angel of the Lord, curse ye nese Rewrder.
bitterly the inhabitants thereof; be- -In China the form of life seems to cause they came not to the help of the have been 80 extraordinarily developed Lord, to the help of the Lord against as almost to have destroyed the sub· the mighty." In lin old book we tind stance of it. Indeed, the ReC<:Yrder goes the following questions and answers on to say; "Chinese boys, who are all upon this verse: singularly deficient in the matter of "Who has commanded to curse emotion and feeling, have generally an Meroz ? Answer: The angel of the amount of :.esthetic feeling which you Lord. rarely find in European children• .. What had Meroz done? Nothing. There is inborn in Chinese boys are· .. How? why, then, is Meroz cursed? fined sensibility to the impressions of Because she has done nothing. form. Witness, for instance, their deli- .. What should Meroz have done? cate perception of what is pretty lind Come to the help of the Lord. graceful in rites, ceremony, and eti· .. Could not the Lord, then, have quette. It is for you to take advan- succeeded without Meroz? The Lord tage of this :.esthetic feeling, which in did succeed without Meroz. the case of the whole Chinese nation " Then has the Lord met with a loss forms the essential basis of both rellg· thereby? No, but Meroz. ion and morality. They have no true " Is Meroz, then, to be cursed there- religious feeling, no genuine moral sen- for? Yes, and that bitterly. timent, such as you know European "Is it right that a man should be children possess as their Christian birth· cursed for having done nothing ? Yes, right. Their religion is all reverence; when he should have done something. their morality springs with them not " Who says that? The angel of the from an inborn God·consciousness, but,
ENGLISH NOTES
as it was with tile Greeks of classical !tovement initiated by the Church Mis-.
antiquity, from an inborn, !esthetic sionary Society over seven years ago, feeling of propriety and good form." that society has furnished an object- This may remind us of what James lesson of what faith, under God, When Parton says, evidently with complacent supported by courage, can accomplish.
approbation, of Thomas Jeft'erson, that During this period no suitable candi- religion was with him not a conflict or dates, no qualified missionaries have an agony, but" a supreme etiquette." been refused on financial ground8; the consequence has been that the number :English Notes. of missionaries, exclusive of wives, has lIY JAMES DOUGLA!!. increased from 333 to 634, and the number of single lady missionaries The Kumaon Mi88Wn.-This branch from 32 to 193, while the receipts last of the London :Missionary Society's year exceed by more than £20,000 those work, since its establishment forty-five of any former year.
years ago by the late Mr. Budden, has Bouth &aa.-Thenew steamshipJohn grown most promisingly, including to- Wi1liams is proving of immense service day all the usual round of Christian to the agents of the London Missionary agencies. In addition to schools for Society. By her means a long run to boys and girls, boarding-houses, wom- the northwest out-stations has been en'shome, orphanage, and hospital, the safely and satisfactorily accomplished list includes a flourishing and well- in forty-four days, ,ess than half the managed leper asylum, out of 121 in- time required by the former bark, bemates of which 94 are Christian. Miss sides allowing longer time for each Budden, now in England, hopes on her visit. Captain Hare reports that" teachreturn to be free to push forward the ers and people were delighted with the work in.to Bhob, along the borders of ship; and the only discomfort the dep- Thibet. utation had was the quickness with Addre88 by a Samoan Queen.-The which they passed from one station to address delivered by the Queen of another." It was literally "from isl- Mantua, on the occasion of opening a and to island. " Before the excitement new church in the capital town of the of one visit had time to subside, they group, May 26th, 1895, is now reo were at a fresh destination.
ported in full in the organ of the 1,on- Medical Mi88Wn8. -The estimated cost don Missionary Society. It is full of of the Church Missionary Society's praise Godward, and has as its chief medical missions for the current year is burden manward the inculcation of £5170. Last year over 4500 in·patients brotherly love. " My last word to YOIl and. over 370,000 out patients were is to urge you to accept and obey treated. This means more than the Christ's new commandment, which He saving of many lives and the imparting gave to His disciples and to us each of much physical benefit in various and all: 'Love one another.' How ways. As the report points out, the can a people be blessed if God's Word medical missionary is an evangelist first is not obeyed? And this is His special and a physician afterward. By his command to us, to you all, that we means much misconception about ChrIs- should all strive to have love, the one tianity is removed, while hundreds of to the other. May God bless and help thousands are brought under a hear- you all to obey Him, and then will true ing of the Gospel, and often become blessedness come to these islands of themselves bearers of the truth to parts Mantua." of the country whither no missionary The FO'1"1J)ard MOtJem(Jnt in the Churclt has ever come.
.Mi~ionary Society.-In the Forward Upper Congo.-The Rev. J. H.
GlllNERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Weeks, of the Baptist Missionary Soci. never pass from Korea to work here, ety, reports the baptism of the first and 'Vice f!61'Bd" because there is no ho- Bangala converts, four youth who for mogeneity of race or language or any- six months have given proof of saving thing whatever. The Church has to chango of heart. As three of these are open an absolutely ncw field of work town lads, free born. they will, by rea· here. Who will open it Y Please re- son of the status of their families, be· member our needs in your prayers."
come men of position and influence. One in OhriBt.-In the Presbyterian missionary organ an interesting account Madaripore.-Three new chapels are is supplied of the power of Christian to be erected in this district in connec- love in the mutual relations of Chinese tion with the operations of the Baptist and Japanese Christians in the Pesca- Missionary Society. Of these two will dores. When the Japanese took posbe memorial chapels-one in memory of session of Makung, the inhabitants, the late John Chamberlain Page, and among whom was a group of believers, the other in memory of the late Mr. retreated to the north of the little isl- Sale. Both Mr. Sale and Mr. Page lao and. Afterward, the Chinese returnbored hard for many years in the Back· ing to Makung, the Christians asked ergunge and Furreedpore beelB, and that their church might be restored to their names are still fragrant in the them; and this being granted by the memory of thousands.
" The Oongo for 0 l;,ri8t: the Story of Japanese, Divine service was held in it the Oongo Mi8sion." -Such is the title as in former time. No sooner did the of a new work published by S. W. Christians in the Japanese force learn Partridge & Co.• London, price lB. 6d•• of this Chinese Christian church than and written by the Rev. J. B. Myers, they came to join them in their wor- Association Secretary of the Baptist ship. In each case the New Testament Missionary Society. The work on the and hymn-book in .. character" help to Congo has, in several places, passed the make the service interesting to those to pioneer stage, and there the harvest is whom otherwise it would be in an un- already in course. The most promis- known tongue. The plan adopted is ing feature in the movement concerns to hold a Chinese service in the morn- " the evangelistic efforts of the native ing, the Japanese attending, and in Christian churches. This especially ap- the afternoon the service is in Japa- plies to the little church of San Salva- , nese, to which also the Chinese Chris- dor, the male members of which have tians come. Mr. Barclay writes of for seven years devoted themselves to " this beautiful Christian union" with the gracious work of making Christ a glad and thankful heart.
known in the neighboring towns and Soutlt Afriea,-An S. P. G. mission· villages. A further feature of promise ary of mark has just fallen in South in the work is the extent to which the Africa, who, after devoting many years duty and privilege of contributing to to the work of the Church in Natal, the work of Christ have taken hold on had just volunteered to take part in the converts. the more arduous work that has to be Manchuria.-Tidings long delayed, done in the diocese of Lebombo. We owing to the disturbed state of the allude to the Rev. H. T. A. Thompson.
country, have arrived from the Rev. As a man of means, he laid his gifts as F. W. Doxat, S. P. G. missionary in well as his life on the altar. Ordained Newchwang. He writes: "Oh, I wish in 1881, he was stationed at the famous we had missionaries here! The time mission of Springvale in 18S6, and of suffering before us would be times since 1892 has labored with much suc- of BOwing, if there were only some one cess at Euhlouhleui, where his school to carry the seed. Korean workers can and church were as an oasis in the wil· demess. Mr. Thompson did important -Dr_ R. N. Cust says: "Prayer and service in translating into the Zulu praise to the Lord of heaven and earth tongue the Book of Common Prayer and reading and teaching of the Word and the Bible. of God are heard at every hour of the day in all the chief languages of the THE KINGDOM. world, in every part of the world ac- cessible to the Anglo-Saxon, by every -Can a Southern Presbyterian, asks race of mankind, black, brown, yellow, The Mi88ionary, who is lukewarm on red, or white, under the leadership of tbe subject of foreign missions, be English-speaking missionaries." loyal to his church when on her banner, from the day of her organization, -Is it not perfectly erroneous to talk she has affirmed that preaching the of the failure of missions, when they Gospel to every creature is the g·reat started with 120 despised Galileans, and end of Iter organization , when now there are at least l20,OOO,000 of Protestants, and they have in their -St. Theresa was aged and indigent power almost all the wealth and almost in the extreme, but with only three all the resources of the world !-Archsous for a beginning, she set out to deacon Fa'l"l'ar. build an orphanage. When taken to task for her "folly," she answered, -It is said that the Christian natives " Theresa and three sous are nothing, of the South Sea Islands prepare their but Theresa, three sous, and God are Sunday food on Saturday. Not a fire everything. " is lighted, neither flesh nor food is cooked, not a tree is climbed, nor a. ~He who plants missions, and he canoe seen on the water, nor a journey who conserves that which others have by land undertaken on God's holy day_ planted, are among the immortal bene- Then it might not be amiss to import factors of mankind. He who in mod- some shiploads of them into Christenern times announces the name of Christ dom to show the saints how to carry to men who have never before heard themselves on the Sababth. the incomparable word, ranks with the disciples and apostles who announced -A. writer in the Foreign Mission the name that is above every name. Journal (Southern Baptist), from the Livingstone is the spiritual father of startling, but eminently sound postu- Africa, and is in the list with Moses, late, « The Missionary a Human Being." who personally touched but a corner in sets forth to make reply to some critithat great land. The law·giver went cisms, which tho common are absurd. to Egypt to get God's people out of Surely, never before have Christian Africa, but Livingstone explored the missions been brought into public no· Dark Continent so that those people tice so often and with such prominence might re-enter and occupy the almost as for a month or two since, and in conunknown equatorial regions.-Ohicago nection with the troubles in Turkey Advocate. and China. Criticisms have been sharp, but the answers have also been abun- -Instead of the cry" world-wide dant as well as fully adequate to the evangelization I" which acceptll no fur- occasion. The value of this discussion ther responsibility and awaits but little in adding to the hosts who look and laresult, I would substitute the motto, bor for the word's redemption can .. World-wide victory I"-the world scarcely be overestimated. for Christ; the Church in every land; every church a witness for Christ; -In particular, one of the wiseacre every church more and more trium- critics essayed to laugh down by a carphant, till Christ, through the Church, toon in a. noted comic paper those who shall rule over aU I-Edward A. Law- would carry the Gospel to the ends of rence. the earth, and the legend; .. Our church charities cannot see the misery man, as a surgeon who undertook cases under their own noses at home." that would not be risked in Philadel- Whereupon the Independent and the phia. In this country, he estimated that Dr. Kerr might get. $75,000 a year. ohurchman proceeded so to belabor Yet that missionary, • the peer of any living surgeon in the world to-day,' him with facts and logic as to make who hilS treated three quarters of a his case pitiful in the extreme. million patients, lives on a slender sal- ary for the sake of Christ and the so- -The Illustrated MiBBionary Nll1JJs is called celestial." responsible for the statement that" it is not perhaps generally known that, -We must wait and look afaT to find counting clergy and ministers of all de- aught more significant than the recent nominations, Bible-women, catechists, proclamation of Li Hung Chang, the etc., . there are as many missionaries eminent Chinese statesman, who stands working among the 4,000,000 of Lon- next after the Emperor himself. It don as there are among 800,000,000 of leaves nothing to be desired as a testiheathen and 200,000,000 of lIohamme- mony to the moral worth of the misdans abroad. Therefore if the cry of sionaries and the value of tbeir work. outcast London is loud and stirring, the These words contain the gist of his tesbitter cry of outcast heathendom is 250 timony: .. Now having examined the times as loud and 250 times as pierc- doctrine halls in every place pertaining ing. .. And yet, tho similar statements to this prefecture, we find there have can be made as to New York, Chicago, been established free schools where the and every large city in Christendom, poor children of China may receive inthe smart cartoonist commiserated struction; hospitals where Chinamen above is pained to note that .. Our may freely receive healing; that the ch'ITch charities cannot see the misery missionaries all are really good; not under their own noses at home." , only do they not take the people's pos· sessions, but they do not seem to desire -Count Tolstoi, the Russian philan- men's praises. Be it known that forthropist, calls attention afresh to the eigners here renting or otherwise setfact that the martyrs to wrong-doing ting up halls do so to save and to help far exceed the martyrs to right-doing. the poor and that there is not the least He says: " In 1800 years 380,000 peo- underhandedness. .. ple suffered voluntary or involuntary martyrdom in the cause of Christ. -Bishop Galloway condemnll .. him Count now the martyrs of the world. who canonizes the man who goes to You will see that for one martyr to Africa to save the negro, and ostracizes Christ there are a thousand martyrs to the man who stays in Chattanooga to the world-martyrs whose sufferings save the negro." That is aimed at the have been a thousand times more cruel. center of the target.-North and West. In the waTS of the present century alone 30,000,000 men have been killed." -It is truly comforting I and even Add to these all the victims of lust for hope-inspiring I I to learn that after a wealth, and fame and pleasure, of dev- year's effort on the part of the Chicago ilish passion and animal desire, and Methodist preachers to persuade the how insignificant the number of those Pope, who simply dotes on the freedom who have lost their lives for Jesus' of conscience which Catholics enjoy in sake II this land, to use his good offices to miti- gate the sharp pains and penalties visited -" Those who scorn our missionaries on Protestants in certain States of South may be forgiven on the same petition America, to hear straight from the lips that Christ-offered for His murderers- of his Holiness that, if Indeed there be viz., • They know not what they do.' intolerance down there, it is purely a Our consul-general in Canton, China, pointed out Dr. Kerr to a newspaper civil matter with which he cannot med- a salary of $18.000 a year. And yet dle (ah, no I), and that, moreover. he our sisters can scarcely expect that such has actually written thither to ascertain openings await their coming in all misthe facts in the case. sion fields.
WOMAN'S WORK. -Chaplain McCabe, under the title "A Faithful Steward," tells how a Methodist saint. Mrs. Adeline M. Smith, -In the department of " Women and of Oak Park, Ill., administered an es- IvIiBBions," Gi8t relates the following : tate valued at $125,000, and left by her .. In a company the question was reo husband. By prudent care and ecocently asked, • What event of this cen· nomicalliving she increased it by more tury is most important and far-reaching than $10,000, and distributed the whole in its power for good to the human to various churches, missIons, etc., at race? ' Answers followed in quick home and abroad, including large sums succeBBion: • Discoveries in medical to establish a Biblical Institute in Tokyo, science,' 'New interest in sociology,' Japan, and in Mussoorie. India. and a • Explorations in Africa,' 'The appli- hospital in Nanking, China. cation of electricity to the service of man.' When there was a pause one -Regions Beyond for April contains said, • The higher education of woman, an interesting sketch of women's forand her service in giving the Gospel to eign miBSionary societies in Great Britthe secluded women of the world; in ain. It says: "The women of Great a word, the organization of woman's Britain and Ireland are sending to wom· en, by meaus of 12 different organizaboards of missions.' "-Tlte Helper. tions, 770 women, of whom 38 are medi- – Woman'8 Evangel (United Breth· cal workers, 20 being fully qualified ren) urges concerning September 29th : doctors. These reach 20 different " We want to make this a 8pecial wom- countries, employ about 2000 native an's day-we have a special object in helpers, and manage 900 schools, in view. All of our collections on this which brsnch of their work 64,000 girls day are to be used in the building of and women are brought under Chrisour sanitarium in Africa. The women, tian teaching. It is impossible to reckyoung people, and children are asked on the thousands of lives they dally to raise $1000 for this purpose, to be touch and infiuence in their evangelispaid through our association. We have tic, zenana, and medical work. a nucleus of $250. What if we should bring an offering on woman's day ag- -A.nother noble woman has died at gregating $750, and our 'Bome of the post of duty. The Society for Pro- Rest' for our missionaries be assured!" moting Female Education in the East bas lost one of its earliest and most ac- -The Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- tive missionaries by the death of Mrs. Sionary Society is pushing a good work. Buckley, of Cuttack, Ori888. Mrs. It is erecting at Newton Centre, ncar Buckley was appointed to take charge Boston, a building for the young wom- of an orphan Bchool in Berhampore. en taking at the Newton Theological OriBSa, in 1841, so that at the time of , School a course of study preparatory to her death she had compl~ted over 53 foreign missionary work. It is a three- years of active service in miBBionary story builuing, colonial in style, and work. Among her pupils were girls equipped with all needed privileges for rescued from the Khonds, who stole or study by day and rest by night, while purchased female children, whom they the class-rooms of the school furnish fattened to sacrifice alive to the goddess opportunities for instruction. of the Raldi fields. She was permittcli -An American woman, Mrs. Ellis, to see much fruit from her labors among is physician to the Queen of Korea, at them. and to train many of them to be teachers to their own people.-The pel's. They have made dolls for the Ohurchman. Christmas manager of the primary de· partment of the Sunday-school, and YOUNG PEOPLE. have prepared games and a large scrap album to make other little people -The Christian Endeavor Union of merry. A very important association the Maritime Provinces has just held is the Earnest Watchers' Circle, whose its sixth yearly meeting, about 400 dele- work it is to avoid scandal and help gates being present. During the past others. This circle has given a year's year 84 new societies had been enrolled, subscription of the Silver Cross to the making the whole number 595. Of King's Daughters room, and visited and these Nova Scotia has 381 ; New Bruns- provided for the comfort of a poor wick, 162; Prince Edward's Island, woman who is bed-ridden, money for 62. The total membership is about which was raised at a lawn social."- 37,000. During the last' year 2500 as- The Temple Magazine. sociate members passed into the ranks of the active membership, and $7000 -Alice M. Douglass, in Woman's were raised for missionary and other Home Missions for September, names Christian work. " one hundred ways for little people to raise mission money." Let children -Some Methodist young people of and youth scan the list carefully, select Washington, D. C., recently held a what will :fit their case, and go to service with a unique program. One work: of the officers spoke on the topic, .. Look up," another on " Lift up." an- By making and selling: Dish cloths, other, "Read up," another, .. Brush sweeping caps, holders, pin-balls, pinup." The secretary's talk was on cushions, lamp lighters, glass wipers, .. Write uP." the treasurer's, "Pay emery bags, book marks, needle books, up," the Junior superintendent's, slumber robes, broom-holders, shaving "Grow up," while the president eon- cases, hair combers, hemstitched wash cluded the exercises with a brief ad- rags, clothes bags, wristers, knit reins, dress entitled" Summed up." pine pillows, slipper cases, bread cloths, hairpin cases, " scratch-my· backs," toil- -According to this statement, Rev. et sets, sachets, kettle holders, splash- Russell Conwell's young people must ers, flower-pot covers, boxes for burnt constitute a veritable hive of holy ac· matches, book covers, paper weights, tivities: "The Doork.eepers' Circle of knit garters, Christmas wreaths, Christ- boys has provided birthday cards for mas cards, Easter eggs, Easter cards, the primary department of the Sunday- card cases, photograph holders_ school, raised money for an open-air By selling: Old rags, hair-combings, fund, given a package of horse-car flower seeds, soap grease, paper bags tickets to a poor woman who could not to the grocer, vegetables, fruit, cur- have a vacation during the summer, rants, hens' eggs, milk from mission and has carried to a number of poor cows, old papers, old boots and rub- children packages of good things at bers.
Christmas. The Ever-Ready Circle of By gathering and selling: Wild flow- young girls meets once a week, except ers, herbs, berries, teaberry leaves, cat- during the summer, holds a little pray- nip, plantain, chick weed, pepper grass, er-meeting, learns the commandments, cresses, sassafras root, cat-tails, thistle reads the Bible, and dresses dolls for puffs, autumn leaves, potted ferns~ the children of the poor. The Little pressed ferns, flr and pine for pillows, Pilgrim Circle is a society of young wild rose leaves for sachets, dultz, girls who try in their spare moments to snails, scallop shells, sand, soil for lend a hand at home and also to gain plants, feathers from fowls.
control over unruly tongues and tem- By "thank offerings," the placing a: penny in your mite-box, under the fol- -Oberlin is increasingly proving lowing conditions, thus thanking God itself to be the paradise for missionathat blessings increase and faults de- ries home on furlough and their chilcrease; and by fines for your faults. dren who must be educated in this Every time you are honestly rebuk- country. Just now 8 adults are resied, read a book, favorite plant blooms, dent here, with 45 boys and girls, while receive a present, forget to say" thank enough more have recently departed, you," speak cross, speak ungrammati- or are soon to arrive, to raise the numcally, use a slang phrase, an oppor- ber to 70 for the current year. These tunity for doing good is wasted, forget represent 7 countries-Africa, China, to close the door gently, receive a re- India, Japan, Mexico, Micronesia, and ward of merit, receive a letter, are Turkey-and 14 missions of the Amerispoken kindly to, have a new friend, can Board. Judson Cottage will hold are deservedly praised, can speak a scarcely half who desire to enter, and good word for an acquaintance, learn several thousand dollars are imperaa new chapter in the Bible, learn a new tively needed for the new building. song, can' play a new piece of music without a mistake, etc. -Theodore Roosevelt. in the Sep- tember Forum, speaks thus wisely on -AI!, a missionary possessed of a racy the enforcement of law; "In the end style, and who is sure to write what the we shall win in spite of the open oppoyoung will be sure to read, Rev. L. D. sition of the forces of evil. in spite Morse may be named, whose letters ap- of the timid surrender of the weakly pear quite often in the Messenger and good, if only we stand squarely and Visitor (Baptist, St. John, N. B.), un- fairly on the platform of the honest ender the title "Sights and Sounds in forcement of the law of the land. But India." if we are to face defeat instead of vic- tory. that would not alter our convic- UNITED STATES. tions and would not cause us to flinch one hand's breadth from the course we -The Boston street-car company this have been pursuing. There are prices year gave to the poor 20,000 tickets for too dear to be paid even for victory." free rides on the electric cars. -The influence of the work done -It is stated that Cambridge, Mass., among the Japanese in San Francisco has been eight years without a saloon. is far-reaching. The majority of young Its population is over 80,000. The se- men coming in personal contact with cret bars have been rooted out, and it missions sooner or later return to their has long been difficult to procure in- native land, and in many instances toxicating liquor in the city. Mean- carry back with them new purposes while, the valuation of the city increased and high ideals. At the present time from $59,703,000 to $76,282,000, and 4 young men who were converted in the same rate of taxation produces this city are practiSing physicians in $130,000 more than formerly. The Japan. Others are teachers in Japaonce 122 saloons have been turned into nese schools. One is professor in the stores or dwellings. Government Agricultural College at Osaka. Others are evangelists among -Booker T. Washington, Principal their own people. of Tuskeegee (Ala.) Normal and Industrial Institute, has won a notable vic- -At the last annual meeting of the tory for himself and his race, in receiv- American Missionary Association. Proing an invitation to make an address at fessor T. S. Inborden said; "What has the Atlanta Exposition. He has al· this society done for the negro? It has ways Ipaintained that the best element caused some of our Southern boys and of the South would recognize and hon- girls to put a part of the English Bible or the negro as soon as he proved himself worthy. into the African language. It has New York, and hopes eventually to or- made college presidents of some of our ganize a church of converted Chinamen.
bootblacks. It h!l.S made preachers of EUROPE. truth and righteousness out of our ho- tel boys. It has made college profes- -Between 5000 and 6000 tons of sors of the first order out of cotton- opium are sent from India to China anpickers. It has given us lawyers and nually, as an article of English trade, doctors of whom you cannot be asham- from which the Indian Government deed. It has filled hundreds of public rives at the present time an annual revschool-houses with teachers who give enue of about $82,000,000. And what honor to thcir profession. " is this but an enormously large and odorous fiy in the ointment of British -After 81 years of most laborious Christianity, which grievously pollutes and devoted service, and at his own re- the air of this lower world, and smells quest, Dr. M. E- Strilby retires from to heaven. his place as Senior Secretary of the American Missionary Association, a so- -Look, indeed, on that picture, but ciety which has no peer for benefits also on this. The spiritual vitality of spiritual and intellectual conferred upon the Church' of England is undeniably the Freedmen. proven by the large number of faithful men in her communion who at much -Luther Sunday was inaugurated sacrifice of worldly gain give themby the General Synod in 1888, and since selves to the ministry of the Word. then 12 annual offerings have been The Rev. J. W. Ingram, the head of made, each one larger than the preced- Oxford House, writes of the spiritual ing, until the sum total for 1894 was needs of the East End of London and over $10,800, the entire 12 offerings ag- numbers of young men who are ready gregating over $70,000.
-It is pleasant to find the following to give themselves to this work. He in the .A8lle'Tl/JJl1l He'rald, in an article says: under the headIng, "The Embargo .. It is the pick of the universities, Lifted:" "One of the most distressing lhe captains of the boats, and men who consequences of the heavy deficit with are the life of the universities who want which the Board of Foreign Missions to come into East London work. We closed its last fiscal year was its action will provide 10UO men if you will pro- declining to send any new missionarIes vide stipends for them. They only ask to the field unless special funds were food and lodging; and if you will give provided for the purpose. To the them that they will come and work for praise of God's grace and the honor of you."
the Presbyterian Church we now re- A church which produces such men as cord the fact that provision has been these need not fear that IdiQ1Jod will ne made for 82 mi~Bionaries under appoint- written on her temple walls. She ril- ment, leaving but 2 or 3 still to be pro- mains established in the hearts of the vided for. This has been done without people and endowed with the Holy any pressure from the board other than Ghost, and will not suffer from any a statement of the facts." form of disestablishment and disen- -The first Chinaman to enter the dowment which Parliament may enministry in New York State is Hui Kin, force upon her.-Indian Witness.
who was ordained recently at Univer- -The North Africa Mission hopes sity Place Presbyterian Church. He .. the coming winter to increase the has been educated under the care of the number of missionaries in Egypt. It presbytery, and has been very success- is just over three years since the first ful in mission work among his country- party of our workers went there. They men. He will hold Chinese services In have been encouraged by the entrance they have gained and by the number San Sebastian. This event was un- who come to talk on religious matters, precedented in the land of Isabella.
but need more help to enable them to The more than 1000 male students of go out on the waterways in the boat the university were astounded at the that has been provided to facilitate our presence of the two girls taking their conveniently reaching the villages of examinations. Once, when tbey had the Delta. It is hoped that 7 new occasion to visit the university library workers may be sent out this season to refer to some books, the students from among those who have been study· formed two lines on each side of tbe ing Arabic here. It is proposed also staircase, threw down tteir caps for to send 3 more new workers to Tripoli the girls to walk upon, and, as they and 1 to Tangier-11 in all, all of whom passed along, sung the Royal March.
have some knowledge of Arabic gram· After a week's examinations came the mar. The new session for the study of climax. Four grades are given: apro..
Arabic, etc., began on September 2d bado, bueno, notahle, and 8ob'1'e8aliente.
with Bome 6 or 7 new students who will The last means .. overleaping every· commence their labors. These, with thing," and testifies to a most unusual those now studying, who will not be degree of attainment. In every exami· ready to go out till after Christmas, nation these Spanish girls received 80- will bring our numbers up to 12 or 14." bre8aliente. The professors were much -In this great work of instruction astonished, and especially when they the Society for the Propagation of the found out that the girls had been taught Gospel is bearing a very prominent part by a woman. What this incident means not only in Asia, but also in Africa, for Spain it would be hard to estimate. America, and the West Indies. There It is a missionary triumph of the first are now 87 English colonial and mis- magnitude.-Euhange.
sionary dioceses, the bishops of which -It is an interesting result of the control education in no less than 53 Ian· work of the Waldensian Church in Italy gnages, having 680 ordained mission· that from Girgenti, one of the most aries under them, of whom 119 are na· bigoted and intolerant towns of Sicily, tives of Asia and 38 natives of Africa. there has just gone the first evangelical There are in the Society's colleges about missionary from Italy to China. Other 2500 students aud 2300 lay teachers, Waldensian pastors have entered upon mostly natives employed in the various mission work, but they have gone from missions in Asia and Africa, in the the native churches of the valleys of schools of which 38,000 children are Piedmont. This Is the first fruit of under instruction. These facts show their work farther south. The Wal· to what extent the Society for the Propa. densian theological school at Florence gation of the Gospel is assisting the has 155 students, 106 of them coming gQvernment in the great work of edu· from the Waldensian valleys, and from cation.-MiaBion Field. their number 2 missionaries have gone -One of the most noteworthy of our to the Zambesi and 1 to Lessouto.-In- American missionary enterprises is Mrs. Alice Gordon Gulick's girls' school at dependent.
ASIA.
San Sebastian, Spain. This noble in· Islam.-It is a sad reflection, well stitution is rapidly proving to the chiv· says the Bishop of Hereford, that more alrous Spaniards that women are capa· than 1800 years after the death of our ble of as lofty intellectual attainments Lord, over all those Asiatic districts as themselves; Two of Mrs. Gulick's in which He preached, and in the very girls this year took the degree of Mas· home of His birth, for a man, woman, ter of Arts at Madrid University, hav· or child to be a believer in Christ is to ing completed the required studies at be exposed to the risk of nameless atrocity and outrage, and to death and seeking instruction in lieu of a silver shame. bracelet which she brought. This " maid" lmd counted the cost, was -It is stated that in 1822 the Turks quite prepared to "forget her ornamassacred 50,000 Christian Greeks in ments," if only parting with it would the Island of Chios; in 1850. 10,000 secure that knowledge for which she Nestorians and Armenian Christians in was prepared thus to deny herself.- Kurdistan; in 1860, 11,000 Maronites &rvicejol' the King. and Syrian Christians in Lebanon and Damascus; in 1876, 10,000 Bulgarian -A Russian Hebrew is said to hav!> Christians in Dnlgaria; and in August, devoted a large sum to establishing a 1894, 16,000 Armenian Christians in Jewish university in Jerusalem, ;.n Sassoun. This makes a total of 97,000 which special attention is to be paid to official murders. It is not too much to the Semitic languages and Hebrew litassume at least 3000 uncataloged, un- erature. official murders of Christian subjects during the last 75 years by the Sublime -In a recent article the New York Porte. At a low estimate the grand Observer says: "The Bible itself is a total would be 100,000 Christians Wall- missionary In Arabia. Its Oriental tonly murdered by Turks since 1820. character makes it acceptable. Books are greatly valued by the Arabs, and -The mills of the gods grind slowly, the Old Testament, with its stories of but they grind to powder. Let the Abraham, Ishmael, and Job, is pargood work of disintegration and demo- ticularly pleasing. The New Testalition go on in the Sultan's domain. It ment is acknowledged as God's Book, is pleasant to recall that during the as having come down from heaven, and century Turkey has lost a very large an inevitable result of an honest study part of its territory. Greece, Cyprus, of the Gospels by the Mohammedan is, Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Montene- at least, a logical conviction that the gro, Batoum, and all North Africa, we prophet has fearfully misled his follow- – may almost add Syria. are free from Turkish government. There remain ers. Nothing can be more encouragonly Albania and Roumelia in Europe, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Arabia; ing, therefore, than the fact of continand Turkey's hold on these is very weak. ually increasing Bible sales."
-May the recent dreadtul barbarities -" The Arabian Mission Field Rein Armenia prove as fruitful in good port Number Fourteen, April 1st to . :results. The Lebanon massacre in 1860 June 30th, 1895," has for the opening opened up the sympathies of Christians sentence: "The best thing to report for . in England and elsewhere, and soon 30 thi~ quarter is the reinforcement of the schools had 3000 children under in- mission, not only by the arrival of Dr. struction. The work of Mrs. Bowie Worrall, who fills the place so long Thompson and all associated with her pleaded for, but also the engagement has borne abundant fruit in Damascus, of two additional native helpers, made Beirut, and Tyre, and in no other coun- possible by the grant of the American try have the efrects of the Church Mis- Bible Society." The book sales for the sionary and Female Education societies quarter were as follows: In Busrah, been attended with more cheering re- 22 Bibles, 40 Testaments, 406 portions, sults. Beirut has a large and important 468 Scriptures, 84 religious books, and training school, in which 70 boarders are 116 educational-total, 668; in Baheducated as teachers, many of whom rein, 24 Bibles, 44 Testaments, 556 porare greatly valued in their own and ad- tions, 624 Scriptures, 125 religious joining countries. Not long ago a bookS, and 129 educational-toml, 878. young girl came to the boarding.school A large proportion of these sales was to Muslim; Christians come next, and , some of the sales were to Jews and ligious Reforms," etc. In one of her . Hindus. lectures to a large audience she con- demned in unmeasured terms the vices Iodia.-The Revue des Mi88ions Oon- which are at present eating into the tempo1'uines has it that at least in some vitals of Hindu society, and advocated sections the Hindus much desire to have the days return of the precious very eloquently the cause ot female EllSt India Company. which by its offi- cers guarded the wealth of the pagan education. She belongs, we are told, temples. So much so, indeed, that to the Arya Samaj, and is traveling in ," last year the notabilities of the city the important cities of Upper India of Iirupali petitioned the viceroy to with the object of rousing the Hindus take charge of the preservation of their of those places to their sense of duty in temple possessions, and native journals matters of religious and social reform, on all sides vehemently urge the same and insisting upon them to ameliorate measure with regard to all the temples. the condition of their women by giving The reason for this is that it is every- them education on all lines.-Indian where acknowledged that the priests, Me88enger. preoccupied solely with their own self- interest, speedily diminish the wealth -In 1893 no less than 21,213 persons of the temples to which they are at- perished from snake-bites in India, and tached, and the people believe the only 117,120 of these venomous reptiles were remedy for this state of things is again slain. to commit to government the adminis- tration of these affairs. The viceroy, – Where is the romance of mission- however, returned a categorical refusal ary life in India during the summer to the petition." solstice, according to the statement of Rev. S. C. Kinsinger, of the Lutheran -A new society known as the Maha General Synod Mission, Guntur? "At _ Bodhi has been created for the purpose first one does not suffer much from the heat. The heavy walls-two and a of reinvigorating Buddhism. Its gen- half feet thick-protect one from the eral secretary is Mr. A. Dharnapala, hot blast. After a time, tho, the wind who represented Buddhism at the Par- warms them through. Then they be· liament of Religions in Chicago last gin to emit their pent-up heat. The year. With Calcutta as headquarters bungalow seems like a dry house then. and with corresponding members Everything inside it becomes warm. throughout Europe and Asia, the society Whatever one touches feels hot. Then proposes to make _known to all nations a person becomes about as uncomforta· in a thoroughly modern way" the sub- ble as he can well be, and there is no lime teachings of the Buddha Sakya escape from the situation. If he sits Muni, and to rescue and restore the down on a chair it Is hot. If he picks light of the holy tree at Buddhagaya, up a book it is hot. When he sits where the Buddha attained supreme down to the table the dishes are all wisdom. "-Standard. hot. Should he seek refuge for a little while in a bath-tub when he comes out -Some of our North Indian contem- he finds the towels hot. If he takes a poraries speak highly of an Indian clean white drill suit from his tin-lined woman preacher, by name Pundita boxes, where they are kept, to protect .Surendrabala Devi, who is evidently them from being devoured by white trying to follow in the footsteps of ants and other Insects, it is hot. In the Pundita Ramabai. She Is described as evening when he retires his night of good education and a fiuent speaker, clothes are hot He lies down on the and has lately been delivering l'tirring bed, but the bed clothes are hot-actu- addresses in and about Lucknow on ally hot-as hot as if they had just such subjects as " Public Good," " Re- come from the ironing board. Some times relief is sought by dipping the itors. We constantly come across the bed·clothes into water just before reo effects gf his life and conversation in tiring," etc. villages which he has no official con· nection with." -But, besides, there is torrid heat of another sort, and even harder to bear, -This is how they" take up a col· and which a missionary of the Ameri· lection" in South India! Easter Mon· can Board hints at in these words: day was set apart for an " ingathering "After the missionary, pastors, and service" at Zion Church, Madras, and preachers had formally received these theRev. W. W. Clark reports : .. Words people to the Christian faith, had laid cannot express the readiness and cheerout the site of the church with prayer fulness with which all the members reand an address, and had visited the sponded to this appeal. All sorts and houses of the different familles to en· varieties of articles, such as sheep, turcourage and instruct them, I returned keys, fowls, ducks, cotton, linen and to my tent and said to myself, ' This is woolen goods, fancy articles, brass ves· delightful, but oh, the storm that is sels, jewels, vegetables of all sorts, going to break over these poor people! books and refreshments were brought. What shall I do? what can I do to These were all arranged in a large help them? t Instead of resting peace- shamiana or tent, which was erected in fully, the missionary agents and new the church compound. A short thanksconverts have to brace themselves for a giving service was held in Zion Church, fight-a long, bitter, and cruel fight. after which the congregation moved to Eight of the ten years of my mission· the shamiana, where all the articles ary life have been spent in Mandapasa· were exhibited, and afterward sold by lai station, and I assure you, with the auction to the members and friends asexception of the few weeks spent at the sembled under it. This was the second hills, no month has passed that I have service of the kind in the pastorate, and not been in hot water. With 4000 I am glad to say it proved a success. Christians in 120 villages, if the wave About $70 were realized from the sale of persecution is b<laten back from one of the offerings, as against $40 in the village in one part of the station, it previous year. " rolls in with power and force on the Christians of another village in another China.-The Chinese in Singapore part of the station. " number about 100,000; Yokohama, 100,000; Sumatra, 100,000 ; California, -Mr. Rowland Bateman, of the Nar- 100,000; Cuba, 60,000; Peru, 60,000; owal Mission, in North India, writes of Siam, 25,000. In all in foreign parts, Chowdry Mansabdar Khan, who was probably not much less than 1,000,000. baptized about two years ago: "Man· sabdar Khan is a pe1'S6tJ. of considerable -A retired Episcopal bishop of importance, both in and out of the China, the Rev. S. E. J. Schereschew- Christian circle. His baptism and his sky, has recently left America to com· change of life since it took place have plete the translation of the Bible into been and are a constant theme of con· Chinese from the original tongues. He versation among the Mohammedans. has already finished the stupendous He is an elderly man, not easily moved, work of translating the whole Bible an enthusiastic horse·breeder, and into Roman characters, and on his arspends most of his time day and night rival in China will begin the task of reamong his mares. But tho he cannot producing the manuscript in Chinese take his eyes off his pets, he is always characters, after which it will be print. ready, and able, too, to give a reason ed. Since his health compelled him to for the faith that is in him, and to press give up active missionary service 13 the truth of Christianity upon his vis- years ago, he has been engaged in this work, and its completion will probably the recent atrocities in the Foochow tak-e 3 years more. region we are compelled to recall the ·-Dr. Hu King Eng is the first Chi- long catalog of wrongs inflicted upon nese woman with a medical degree from Chinese in this country, including sevan Occidental institution to practise in eral cases of wholesale slaughter, of China. She is about to inaugurate a which the one at Rock Springs, Wyo., new era of woman's work among worn· is a specimen.
en. About a year ago she graduated Korea.-The Oentral Ohristian Ad- from the Woman's Medical College of vocate says: "Bishop Ninde has had Philadelphia, and since then has take:Q. an audience with the King of Korea, a post-graduate course and dispensing at the special solicitation of the king course at the Polyclinic in that city. himself. No bishop ever before stood She has made a special study· of dis- in the presence of royalty In tbe Hermit eases of the eye and ear. Her work Nation. The notable feature of the will begin in Foochow at the Woman's conversation was the utterance of the Hospital. She will also try to build up king. 'There are many, many Ameri- a regular practice among her country- cans in Korea. Weare glad they are women, some of whom would almost here. Thank the American people; rather die than be attended by a man. and we shall be glad to receive more The doors of rich and poor would be " teachers. ", It happens that there open to a woman, and a great influence are scarcely any Americans in Korea could be wielded for good by a woman but' teachers. ' If the king wants more who is at once missionary and physi. of them it is significant, to say the clan. Tho Dr. Hu King Eng is a pure- least. "
blooded Chinese, she never was a hea- -The Korean cost9mes of both men then. Her grandfather was one of the and women are described as pictufirst native converts in Foochow, and resque; consisting of padded socks, her father one of the first native minis- trousers fastened together at the ankle, ters ordained in China.-Evangelical a short jacket with long silk ribbons in Ohurchman. front, and twisted paper sandals. The -If anybody is of the opinion that women add to this a short skirt tied Christianity is a failure in China, let very high above the waist. The hair him read What Eugene Stock has t~ is simply arranged, plastered down and say in the Westmin8ter Gautte. He tied in a knot, at the back of the head .. points triumphantly to the 13,000 for a woman and at the top of the head Christians connected with the Church for a married man ; bachelors wearing of England in the northern part of thc theirs in a pig·tail, tied with a ribbon province of Fuh·Kien, where the re- bow at the end, in the manner of school· cent massacre occurred, to an equal girls of the West. The children of number belonging to the American Korea are said to be pretty, but with Methodists, and a smaller body to the their faces whitened with chalk, and American Congregationalists. To the their hair oiled, parted in the middle, south the English Presbyterians and and plastered down on each side, one Congregationalists have much the same may suppose that they are kept whole- report to give. 'And then,' adds Mr. somely ignorant of the fact of their Stock, , we have only looked at one of good looks.
the 18 provinces of China, and the ex- lapan.-The Rev. J. C. Ambler tensive operations in other provinces of writes from Tokyo as follows: "A the China Inland Mission In particular postal card recently received from a reare not touched upon.' .. turned soldier tells of the deep impres- -Alas I that as often as we American sion made by a Christian village in Christians are inclined to wax hot over China, where the Chinese treated the Japanese soldiers quartered upon them around. About 22,097 patients from with a courtesy in marked contrast to that in other places, illustrating very over 420 districts and villages were clearly. as he stated, the principle of Christian love. Upon a recent trip I treated in the out-patient department was much impressed by the composi- tion of the company of Japanese who in the last year. . knelt together at a communion service. There was a farmer who is a notorious -Mr. Wilcox:, of Groutville, writes instance of wonderful reformation, ow- that some Christians now in Zululand, ing to the power of Christ. There was formerly connected with Groutville and a reformed maker of seals, whose wife Mapumulo, . have been building a was once a dancing girl; but both are school-house and chapel, employed , now earnest Christians. Besides these, t~eir own teacher and preacher, and the wife of the chief of police in the have lately sent for a church bell. At place, and a clerk in a rich store, all another point on the banks of the exemplary Christians, were there as- Tugela an interesting work has been I sembled together." opened by a boy only sixteen years of age, who is holding several meetings a AFRICA_ week. Mr. Wilcox adds: II I know of 8 places where they are only asking that a missionary may visit them occa- sionally and help in starting schools."
-The following table of distribution -African chieftains are able to disexhibits the growth of the work of the tinguish between true and false friends. American Bible Society in Egypt dur- When lIsidi, once king of the Garening 30 years : ganze, was urgenly pressed by the Arabs not to allow Mr. Arnot to settle From 1865 to 1874, inclusive…… 6,630 copies in his kingdom, bringing the gravest charges against the white man, Msidi " 1875" 1884," 45,586 " replied that he did not know an Eng- lishman, never having seen one, but he : " 1865" 1894, .. …. 116,474 " added: "One thing I know; I know you Arabs." With this knowledge in , During this same period the British:and his mind, Msidi was willing to receive the missionary in total disregard of the Foreign Society also has accomplished charges made against him.
a great work, through its own colpor- -Great is the rejoicing in Pretoria, the capital of the South African Reters, and also through the cooperation public, over the completion of the Dela- goa Bay and Pretoria Railway reached 'of the Church Missionary Society, and that city.
:to some extent of the Presbyterian Mis- -When a deputation of the leading men of the colony recently waited upon sion. Probably the total distribution Mr. Cecil Rhodes, to insist that the government prohibit public entertaineffected by the British Society has not ments on that day, in his reply the pre- ~very greatly differed from that of the mier said: "Without entering into the religious part of the observance of the :American Society. So that it would be Lord's Day, as a politician I believe one of the chief mainstays of good govquite safe to say that during the 30 ernment is religion, and the most im- portant factor in connection with religyears as many as 325,000 copies of the ion is thestrictrobservance of the Lord's Day." . Bible in whole or in part have been scattered through the land.
-The Church Missionary Society has issued an urgent appeal for funds to build a new hospital and dispensary in Cairo. The committee have given a grant for the site and for houses for the doctor and lady nurses, but a fur- ther sum of at least £2700 is needed for the hospital and dispensary. Already a good work is being done in connec- _tion with the medical mission, not only among the poorer inhabitants, but among the fellaheen of a large district