The Missionary Review of the World — May 1894
KINDNESS OF "THR CU"GRCH AT HOllE AND ABROAD."
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVII. No. 5.-0ld &rieB.–MAY.–VOL. VII.' No. 5.-New SerIu.
THE TRUE CHARM AND POWER OF MISSIONS.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEl!'.
That which constitutes the value 'and virtue of incense is an invisible, impalpable, and subtle principle, called perfume or odor. A similar charm, supposed to invest acceptable offerings, gave them the name of "sweet savor offerings," and caused such expressions as the "savor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God," to be applied to unselfish service.
Comparison of many passages of Scripture will show that the essence of this acceptable savor is found in unselfishness, self-oblivion, or self loss. The savor of selfishness is offensive to God; and just as certain pungent, aromatic odors were supposed to overcome or annul the offensive smell of burning victims, the odor of a spirit that renounces all self-gain in an absorbing passion for His glory is represented as neutralizing what is distasteful to God, and so becomes the secret of all acceptable, sweet savor offerings.
Here lies, perhaps, the grandest of all arguments for missions-that they both demand and develop the highest self-oblivion. It is a peculiar mark of the incapacity of a worldly mind to appreciate spiritual truth and motive, that the very objections raised to missions, that commercially and selfishly they" do not pay," are in God's eyes the reasons for them. They make no appeal to the carnal, and hence evoke the nobler and more godlike principles within us.
The hope which inspires missionary effort is not the hope of seeing adequate results, such as in the material harvest of human enterprise justifies the sowing; God sometimes grants abundant returns, but not always, nor to the actual individual who has put forth the greatest measure of effort. The supreme hope of the true missionary is that he may witness for Christ to the unsaved so faithfully and fully that his Master at His coming may approve him with His own '~ Well done."
The hope thus set before us is so much above the sphere of time and
THE TRUE CHARM AND POWER OF MISSIONS
sense that it weans us from the world. It tends to make disciples unselfish and spiritual; to loosen the tie by which carnal objects are held, and make all else seem small in comparison with things to come. How can he who consistently studies for his Lord's approval lay up treasure here or plan for an easy life of selfishness? While preparing his soft nest the midnight cry may be heard. If the end of all things is at hand, what have we to do with treasures or pleasures, possessions or pursuits, which Christ's coming could interrupt, condemn, or bring to naught 1 If, step by step, human enterprise, worldly civilization, scholarly cultUl'e, or even churchly progress, can bring on the latter-day glory, we may have a pretext for building as though all we build were to last at least a thousand years ; but if all these things are to be dissolved and our best work brought speedily to the fiery ordeal, if only the gracious fruits of the spirit in our walking and working with God are to survive those trial fires, if all superficial success is then to appear as failure, let us spend our force and faculty upon what cannot be turned to ashes. And because, when this aim to be f.ound approved of the Lord at His coming really dominates the soul, we become uncarnaJ, unworldly, unselfish, it proves and approves itself as an aim inspired of God.
Here, then, is another vital link between spiritual life and the work of soul-saving. No form of service demands, for thorough doing, m'ore unworldly, unselfish devotion than missions. Much so-called "Christian work" is leavened with self-love, and may be prosecuted in the energy of the flesh, and perhaps its real inoontive may be found in the very worldly hope of rich returns and prompt payments in temporal advantage. The railway magnate may give large sums to build schools and churches in new settlements along the lines, and do it on commercial principles; for the church and school form a nucleus for population, and population means travel and transportation, and so revenue to the railway and larger dividends to stockholders. Much that we call "benevolence" is to God's eyes the cloak hiding the shrewd, calculating Shylock who has an eye to business.
The fact is itself an argument and an appeal that, so soon as the Lord's coming ceased to be felt to be imminent, and was projected indefinitely into the distance, the remarkable evangelism of primitive days which fed on this truth, declined and decayed, and has never been revived. It is but the few who flame with zeal for missions; the great body of professed disciples treat the work with apathetic indifference, or contend that it " does not pay!"
Cut to the core of this apathy, and you find simple selfishness. This carrying the Gospel to those in the far-off regions beyond is a work which in its very nature forbids us to expect any returns. These distant, destitute souls cannot recompense us ; we must wait for our recompense at the resurrection of the just, and at no point this side! The most frantic appeals for the perishing millions along the Congo, beneath the shadows of the Himalayas, or in the valleys of Korea, will be unheard and unheeded by those whose hearts are so electro-plated with greed that they have the ring of metal, and answer only to the touch of money. Of course missions do not pay, if "pay" means compensation to avarice, appetite, ambition, or any form of temporal self-interest and self-emolument. Missions are not a mint to coin sovereigns. Missions at home no doubt" pay." To evangelize London's millions applies healing salve to festering ulcers upon the body politic; to raise the condition of any great city guards the safety of our homes, life, liberty, property, temporal peace and prosperity, and pulls up anarchy by the roots. To evangelize the most remote districts of America's" great West" likewise" pays;" the returns are sure, though the harvest may take longer to ripen. Men who care nothing for the cross promote facilities for normal growth and healthy development in the remotest members because it helps the commonwealth; and it needs little thought to see that a thorn in the farthest extremities of the body inflicts such a pang on the whole body that the whole body stoops and bends, bringing every other member into service to pluck it out. And, therefore, city missions and all home work within our own borders appeal, more or less, to commercial enterprise and selfish instincts.
But mark the difference! A plea for South Sea cannibals or African Hottentots; for the half-idiotic Cretins of the Alps or half-brutal Maoris of New Zealand; for the stupid Esquimaux, or the stupefied opium smokers of China; for the chattering human baboons of Patagonia or the aboriginal barbarians of Australia; for the far:off Coreans or the exclusive Lama, worshippers of Thibet-an appeal for money and men to help uplift and save these needy souls has no hold or grip on selfish and unsanctified human nature. To give money for such a purpose is putting it into a bag with holes, never to see it again or any good from it. So, at least, say worldly-minded disciples.
We join no issue here. Missions to the heathen seldom do show adequate results in one generation. It is doubtful whether God means they shall. He puts before us this work as the most unselfish in which we can engage, and nearest in motive and spirit to that which brought our Redeemer to this earth. The spirit of missions is the Spirit of Christ because its essence is unselfishness; it gives to those from whom we cannot hope to receive, and bids to the feast those who cannot bid us again. Whoever by prevailing prayers, consecrated gifts, or personal work sets up the banner of the cross upon Satan's citadel, amid Brahmans and Bu:ddhists, Confucianists and" confusionists," Mohammedans and Jews, Parsees and Papists, fetish-worshippers and devil-worshippers, must, first of all, have the mind of Christ far enough to be emptied of self. He must humble himself and be obedient unto death; the carnal must die if the spiritual is to live,; the miser expires when the missionary is born; he who would save others, himself he cannot save.
It is utterly vain to try to prove to a selfish soul that it pays to give money, children, one's self, to bear the good news to the superstitious, degraded, half-imbecile pagan. Dr. Thomas Laurie's five hundred pages may. blaze with tributes to what missions have done for science-for geography, geology, meteorology, archreology, philology, ethnography; for natural, social, medical, and political science; for literature and culture, mechanic -arts and fine arts, history and poetry, commerce and common schools; nevertheless the more light you pour upon the selfish eye the more it contracts j and the carnal mind does not see that missions to the heathen are the most economical and practical investment for gold or lifeblood. To those who look from no loftier level than this world affords, it is worse than waste for heroic men and seraphic women to sacrifice themselves in such fashion, daring climate, disease, want, and even human brutes, to do their worst. Though a sweet savor of spikenard thus spreads amid the rank and rotten growths of paganism, yet the fair flask of costly alabaster is broken. Henry Martyn was a mistaken martyr. William Carey would better have stayed in Britain. Adoniram Jndson not only threw away in Burma his own precious life, but withdrew from civilization to a premature death three of the noblest women ever nurtured in refined society. Think of Harriet Newell dying on the Isle of France at twentyone, and Mrs. Grant in Persia at twenty-five j of John Williams beaten to death and eaten by Erromangan cannibals; of bishops Patteson and Hannington brutally assassinated; of Samuel J. Mills expiring on the sea in the service of Africa at thirty-five, and Nott broken like a reed in the first year of acclimation; of Levi Parsons' death at Alexandria, within two years, and Pliny Fisk wasting in Syria his splendid scholarship and wealth of languages, and, in two years more, following Parsons; of the young and brilliant astronomer Stoddard star-gazing in Persia, when he might have been the rival of La Place and Le Verrier r What if Morrison did give the Bible to China and Hepburn, t<1 Japan; if Livingstone did explore Africa, and Duff create high schools in India; if Peter Parker did push medical missions into China, and Clough gather the largest church in the world at Ongole ; if Eliza Agnew did become the mother of a thousand daughters at Oodooville, and Fidelia Fiske, at Ooroomiah; if Hogg and Lansing did make the Nile Valley bloom with plants of righteousness, and Cyrus Wheeler dot the Euphrates' banks with self-supporting churches; if William Duncan did bujld a Metlakahtla out of red Indians and Mason and Boardman organize the wild Karens into five hundred self.supporting parishes; if Mackay did celebrate his twelfth anniversary at Formosa with his twelve hundred converts, and Paton found Aniwa in barbarism, and in three years and a half left it a Christian island; what if the missionaries themselves, after a long period of trial, both of their powers and patience, cannot be drawn by any bait or driven by any terror from the work they love r To the worldly disciple the mission field is simply a necropolis, one vast sepulchre of blighted lives and buried hopes. The dust of nearly a thousand missionary martyn! enriches the soil of India alone. Hundreds have died on Africa's pestilential coast in process of acclimation. In the South Seas hundreds of saintly souls have given their bodies to be burned in cannibal ovens. " To what purpose is this waste 1"
Vainly does the selfishness that clutches the bag of temporal advantage wait for an answer. John may read the mystery ~here Judas cannot. The disciple who is not too far below the level of his Master finds enough explanation in his Master's example of uncompensated love and sacrifice. He remembers that it was One who at thirty-three laid down His life a sacrifice, who said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." These are what the Iron Duke called our" marching orders" j and if we fall in the unequal contest, we may at least have written above us a tribute like the famous inscription by which Simonides honored the Spartans who fell at Thermopylre : "Go, stranger, and declare to the Lacedremonians that we died here in obedience to their divine laws."
Because the blessed hope of our Lord's return has so refining an influence on character it is very mould and matrix of missions. Its whole tendency is to make us unselfish, to relax our grasp upon material treasures and carnal pleasures j to fashion us " not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life." It makes all time seem short and the whole' world seem small j' dwarfs the present age. into insignificance and lifts the peaks of the age to come into loftier ~ltitudes, on a nearer horizon, in a clearer view. It so magnifies the approval of the coming Lord as to make present compensation for .service and sacrifice appear trifling.
In the seven Epistles to the Churches, which open the Apocalypse, our Lord uses His advent as a perpetual admonition and inspiration. The Ephesians could well bear, have patience and not faint j the Smyrnese endure the ten days of tribulation j the Pergamoans hold fast His name and not deny the faith j the Thyatirans resist Jezebel's seductions j the Sardians keep up their watch and keep their garments white j the Philadelphians keep the word of His patience, and the Laodiceans, from lukewarmness wax ardent and fervent, for the Lord's coming was always at hand, when all trials would cease and all triumphs be complete.
Mr. Moody well says, "When this truth really takes hold of a man the world loses its grip on him. Gas stocks and water stocks, and stocks in banks and railroads are of very much less consequence to him now. His heart is free when he looks for the blessed appearing and kingdom of the Lord." Our brother hits the nail on the head with the blows of his simple Saxon hammer. Worldwide missions meet in worldly minds two fatal objections: the world is too wide and self is too narrow. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness, of riches, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, choke all growth in the grace of selfoblivion. Work is waste unless it pays in current coin. Charity is mistaken sentiment unless it "begins at home" and stays there. Fields
JAINISM
near by sown with corn and cotton yield better, surer, quicker crops than fields far off, where Gospel seed brings such slow, slim, uncertain har· vests. Marble mansions on the stately avenues of a metropolis are better investments than mission churches, schools, and hospitals, that are chronic beggars, always in a strait betwixt two-whether to give up the ghost themselves or make others give them more money. Strange indeed that even selfish eyes cannot see that it is a living, growing boy that wears out his trousers and outgrows his jacket, and that it is a prosperous work which needs more room and more help! Strange indeed that we have not learned nature's own lesson that it is the most precious seed that takes the best soil, the most costly culture, and the longest season to bring to harvest.
JAINISM.
BY REV. JOHN ROBSON, D.D.
The seventh century before the Christian era seems to have been one of religious ferment, development, and change in India. .The Aryas, who had entered the land from the northwest, had established themselves as the dominant race, and looked down on the original inhabitants as socially and religiously inferior. The nature worship, which they had originally held in common with their kinsmen of Greece and Rome, and w-hich, in the worship of Varuna, * had attained the highest theological and ethical conception attained by any natural religion, had become miserably debased. A system of ritualism and magic had killed out the simple worship that had been paid of old. Those who guided it-the Brahmans or praying ones-had usurped the rights of worship which had originally belonged to all, claimed to be themselves gods, and therefore a race by themselves superior to all other men. This claim they had strengthened by giving religious sanction to divisions of classes inferior to them. Next to them came the Kshatriyas, the royal or warrior caste ; after them the Vaisyas, the mercantile and agricultural caste. These were the twice-born or superior castes, while underneath them the once-born Sudras wereslumped together as a fourth caste. Thus society had come to be divided into four castes, and observance of caste law had been elevated above observance of the moral law.
While this priestly and social tyranny was being developed, philosophic thought was being developed also, and it was seeking to explain the origin and nature of the universe and the condition and destiny of man. The tendency of thought was pantheistic, though it had not assumed so decided a bent as in modern Hinduism. The doctrine of transmigration of souls had established itself as the best solution of the inequalities of human life.
* God of heaven (ovp"….). Karma, or the power in the acts of one birth to determine the condition of future births, was coming to be looked on as the supreme power in life; and deliverance from these repeated births was coming to be looked on as the great aim of human effort. How to attain this was thc problem that was exercising the religious thought of the time. The Brahmans taught that it was to be attained by sacrifice, and by worshipping them and the gods ; but others taught that it was to be attained by right life, anti specially by renouncing thc world and living lives of thc severest absti. nence and self-denial.
Among those who helpcd to give practical definiteness to tllis teaching was Piirswaniith, king of Aswasena. According to tradition, he had lived about two hundred years before the time of which we are writing. He gave up his kingdom, lived a hermit life in the desert or in mountain caves, and took the name of Jina, or conquerer-i.e., conqueror of worldly lusts and ambitions. Large numbers followed him, and were hence called * J ainas or J ains. Much is not known of his teaching. It was from Mahavlra, who lived two hundred years later, in the seventh century B.C., that the religion took its definite form. He was of the same royal house as Parswaniith, and became a follower of his; but in one respect he went beyond his master. Parswanath had carried his asceticism so far as to have no covering but a piece of white cloth; Mahavira carried his to the point of dispensing with all covering whatever. He did not, however, carry all his coreligionists with him in this new departure. Hence two sects sprang up among them, the Swetambaras, or "clothed in white,"
and the Digambaras, or " clothed in space. "t In the form which Jainism finally assumed these two are considered the last of a series of twenty-four saints, or Jinas, who have at various times appeared on earth. The name usually given to them is Tirthankara. With the exception of the two last they seem to be mythical, though in the myths regarding the first of them, Rikhal Deva, there seem some traces of historical truth.
We shall understand the teaching of Jainism better if we compare it with that of Buddhism, which arose about the same time. According to the dates now generally received, Gautama, from whom Buddhism sprang, was a younger contemporary of Mahavrra. The Jains claim that he reo ceived his teaching from their sage, but of that there is no evidence. It is much more likely that they both worked independently on the thoughts that were then exercising men's minds. What they have in common is the ideas of the age and the instincts of human commience. In working these out they are wide as the poles asunder. At the same time it is not • In Sanskrit the modification of the original vowel in a holy being's name by "a" indicates a follower or worshipper. Thus we have l'ai.hnava, a worshipper of Vishna,. Saiva, a worshipper of Siva,. Bauddha, a follower of Buddha: and Jaina, a follower of Jina.
t This theoretical asceticism is not now, as far as I have been able to observe, carried ont by even the religio1}S men of the sect. impossible that Buddha may have reeeived an impulse from the older Jainism that had come from Parswanath. According to tradition, the incident that finally decided his eourse of action was the sight of an ascetic who had conquered the desires of the world and lived in holy meditation.
It is interesting to notice that all these reformers were of the royal, not of the Brahmanieal caste. It seems as though the old warlike spirit were ehafing at the dominance which the latter had attained in religion, and were determined to break its yoke. It is to be noticed that the hatred of the Brahmans is much more strongly and spitefully expressed in the early Jain than in the early Buddhist books, and this seems another indication of an earlier origin. * To institute a full comparison between the two sys&ms would swell this paper beyond all reasonable dimensions. We shall, therefore, confine ourselvelil to a few leading points. Both systems are atheistic in the sense of not admitting any deity above the general system of the universe. Buddhism in its first teaching carried this principle consistently out by making no provision for worship, while J ainism, as we shall see, made such a provision in its very inception.
The final goal of man Buddhism teaches to be annihilation j J ainism, a state of stable ineffable bliss. The Buddhist conception of Nirvana was not originally either annihilation or a state of absorption into the soul of the universe, but a state of deliverance from all desires leading to extinction of being. It has latterly come to mean rather a final state of existence, free from all disturbing influence and free from the conception of some of the earlier Jain books.
It is in the teaching with regard to the attainment of this end, however, that the similarities and divergences of the two systems are most marked. Both teach that it is to be obtained through the observance of the moral code, and this code is given in a negative and positive form.
The negative code of the two systems present little difference. J ainism forbids, first, killing j second, falsehood j third, stealing j fourth, adultery j fifth, worldly-mindedness.
Buddhism forbids, first, killing j second, stealing j third, adultery j fourth, falsehood j fifth, the use of strong drink.
It will be observed that the only important difference is in the fifth command. J ainism seems to take in the Rweep of the tenth command of the Mosaic decalogue j Buddhism seems to have the limit of a religious order rather than of a religion. But we must remember that this part of Buddha's law was only for the laity. It was a step to the higher law, designed specially for those who renounced the world and entered the priesth(»d-as all could who wished-through which alone Nirvana was to be attained.
* so in Europe the :61'st symptom 'of the reform movement was the bitter attacks on the Roman Catholic priests. On the positive side- Jainism enjoins, first, mercy to all animated beings j second, almsgiving; third, venerating the sages (tirthankaras) while living, and wor. shipping their images when dead; fourth, confession of faults j fifth, religious fasting. Buddhism enjoins, first, charity; second, purity; third, patience j fourth, courage j fifth, contemplation j sixth, science. On this side it will at once be seen what a great moral superiority belongs to Buddhism. The first of its commands includes the two first of the Jain table. On all the rest Jainism is silent, and their place is taken by certain rules for religious practices. These last have practically found a place in later Bllddhism, but it has a far broader ethical basis than Jainism, and is calculated to build up a far finer moral character. Having a moral basis, and throwing the celibate open to all ey'ually, Buddhism has thus emancipated itself from caste and local restriction and attained the elements of universality. Jainism, on the other hand, by making the reverencing and worshipping of the tirthankaras a term of its moral law, has limited itself to a narrow sect. It teaches, in fact~ that only those saints and their worshippers who happened to be on earih at the time of their final incarnation have entered the beatific state. The Kalpa Sutra, in giving the narrative of the various tirthankaras, is careful to state the number that entered hliss along with each by virtue of his merits. Thus, according to Jainism, the only hope for final salvation is being again on earth when the next tirthankara shall appear, and worshipping him so as to share his beatitude. It is thUs not surprising that, while .r Buddhism has come to be a world religion, ainism has continued to be one of the narrowest sects of India. But it is this very narrowness which has enabled it to maintain itself in India, while Buddhism has been expelled from that land. Hinduism found in the latter a rival which could not exist alongside of it, which must either expel it or be expelled. Therefore, when thoroughly aroused, it expelled it from the" land of the Aryas." It found Jainism a sect which could exist alongside of it or within it without causing it much danger, and so had no difficulty in tolerating it. Thus it is that Jainism is now the only survival of what we may call the Buddhism movement once so powerful in India, and by its environment it has come to be little more than the name of a caste of Hindus. It is confined, in fact, to some of the Vaisyu, or mercantile castes-Seths, or bankers and wholesale merchants, and Baniyas, or shopkeepers-who represent more than any other the religious vis inertia! of India.
The Jains at present number a little over one million four hundred thousand. They are found chiefly in Rajputana, Guzerat, and Western India. They are mostly enterprising men of business, and a great part of the wealth of the commnnity is in their hands. In some of the native States they have obtained considerable political power through their wealth. In Udaipur, the oldest and most honorable of the Hindu States, the office of prime minister is hereditary in one of their families. Generally under English rule they have a security and prosperity greater than they ever enjoyed before. The English Government tends to protect commerce and to enforce bargains and sales. The mercantile community take advantage of this, drive hard bargains with the agriculturists, an9- so are getting a great part of the land under their power. The English rule is therefore popular with them, but by the Rajputs-the warrior caste, the modern Kshatriyas-and others it is sneered at as a" baniya-raj," a shopkeeper's rule.
If we turn' to the development of religion among them, we see all the corruptions which human nature would naturally bring into Ruch a system as I have sketched above. They adhere strictly to certain minor moralities and neglect the weightier matters of the law. The solitary moral precept in their positive code illustrates the whole spirit of their religion, and, in fact, gives it its distinctive, outward character among the various religions of India. It enjoins mercy to all animated beings. Animated beings include insects as well as men j and in the eye of a Jain the life of a flea is as sacred as the life of a man, and its destruction as great a sin. Some of their sophistical devices to get quit of vermin are rather amusing, but hardly bear repetition. One great act of religious merit is to feed ants and such like. A single handful of rice wiII thus supply the daily wants of hundreds of lives, whereas if given to a man it would not supply a single meal for a single life. Then mercy is restricted to not taking life by violence j it does not require avoiding giving it pain. A Jain has no scruple in mercilessly overloading his bullock 01' his horse and urging it with goad or whip till it falls down from fatigue. When it is too old to be serviceable it is a sin, against the law of mercy, to put it out of pain by shooting it, but it is no want of mercy to withhold its food till it dies, when the owner will weep over its fate. Mercy, too, does not forbid leaving a fellow-being to perish if you do him no positive injury. Almsgiving is, of course, commanded, but that means giving to religious mendicants or devotees. That is an act of religious merit, but to give to a starving, low-caste man is a stupid waste of substance.
With regard to truthfulness, the Jains are much the same as the average Hindu. Lying is considered an essential for the trader, and he will bring any amount of lying to the striking of a bargain j* but when it is struck he wiII loyally adhere to it, and will not falsify his ledger. Their ideas of chastity are also those of the Hindus j but it says a great deal for their regard for women that they are the only caste in Rajputana in which the females are in excess of the males. t • When the English officer in charge of the native state of A1wur during the minority of the late ruler was carrying out some improvements, he directed a row of pipal trees to be planted in a new bazar. Now the pipal tree is considered an abode of the gods, and no Hindu dare tellHes under its shade. At once all the baniyas in the bazar rOBe in rebellion and insisted on the pipal trees bein!( taken away. " How can we trade, " they said, " if we are not allowed to lie 1"
t Among the Hindns and Mohammedans the males were about 12 per cent in excess of the females at last census. Among the Jains the females were 2kl per cent in excess of the males. The need for worship among the Jains finds satisfaction chiefly in the worship of the tirthankaras or of their religious guides. Pilgrimages to the shrines of the former are one of the principal religious acts. This would seem, indeed, to be the foundation of their systcm. Tirthankara means "author of a firth," or place of pilgrimage. It is true the J ains say that their tirth is a moral tirth. None the less are the shrines sacred to the various tirthankaras visited by numbers of pilgrims. That especially of Rikhab Dev, the first of the tirthankaras, in the midst of the wild hill country of the Bhils to the south of Udaipur, draws annually thousands of pilgrims from all parts of India.
There are two classes of priests among the Jains, the Dhundhias and the Jatis. The former, who include females as well as males, are wandering ascetics. They have not much learning; they maintain their sanctity by their great care not to destroy insect life. They have always a cloth over their mouth, lest any insect may be drawn in by the inhaling of the breath. They carry a broom to sweep the ground before they sit down, lest they should crush any animal. As may be supposed, their company is more sought by insects than by men, but they are considered very holy.
The Jatis are somewhat superior to these. They have each their temple and parish, and must be instructed in the Jain holy books. They are celibates, and maintain their order by adoption. They adopt sons from all castes, mostly from Rajputs and Brahmans. I have not met any that were originally J ains. They are supposed to carry out in their own persons the requirements of Jainism, while the laity worship them and bring them gifts, that they may benefit from their merit. The first native of India that I was privileged to receive into the Christian Church belonged to this class. He was originally a Rajput, had been sold by his parents to a Jati in a time of famine, had been educated by him as a disciple, and at his death inherited his money and the diocese in which he was the spiritual head. He had' been trained up to all the tricks of the priesthood, and gave me an insight into some of them, It is one of the rules of Jati life to drink only water that has been boiled, so as to avoid destroying insect life; but they may not boil it themselves or order it to be boiled, as that would be committing the same sin. So when he went to one of his villages he went to the first Jain house, and asked if they had any boiled water. If they had not, he went on to the others; and if he failed to get it anywhere, he came back to the first house. They would by that time have it boiled and cooled and ready for drinking. He had not told them to boil it, but they understood quite well what was expected. They, of course, incurred the sin of destroying the life in the water, but that did not matter for them, as they were laity. Their priest was preserved from sin, and they benefited from his merit.
Certain fasts are enjoined on the Jains, but these, too, are observed by proxy, the Jati fasting while his flock worship him and bring him gifts.
MALAYStA
The fast is observed in public, the Jati sitting on an elevated daiS in presence of his worshippers, so that there may be no doubt as to the reality of the fast, and giving additional potency to the function by reading aloud the sacred books. But a cloth must be over the mouth to prevent insects entering, and this cloth can be conveniently arranged to hang down over the knees while sitting. Under it a good dish of provisions can be concealed, which may be slipped into the mouth without the worshipper's notice. My informant told me that such a fast had been the occasion of a bitter quarrel with a brother J ati. They had agreed that they would each take a certain amount of confectionery during the fast. He found the amount agreed on rather too little, and was faint at the end; when he discovered that his companion had taken double the quantity, and came through the fast quite fresh. This he considered a breach of faith, which made him break with him altogether.
In the midst of all this his conscience was working. He found nothing in the Jain faith to satisfy his religious craving; he felt that the whole system of the priesthood was one of fraud and a hypocrisy. Often when the multitude was worshipping him he felt so wretched that he wished he were a dog, and was sometimes tempted to commit suicide. He sought a satisfaction for his cravings in one of the secret sects of Hinduism, but its moral character disgusted him. He came to hear of Jesus Christ, found in Him all that he wanted, and ended his days a zealous teacher of His faith.
He has had few followers as yet either from among the priesthood or the laity. Christian missions have hitherto made little impression on the J ains; but the moral and religious needs of human nature exist within them, and if Jesus Christ be faithfully preached to them, they will come at last to recognize Him as the only one who can satisfy them, the Holy One who can give salvation to all who believe in Him in every age.
MALAYSIA.
BY REV. W. F. OLDHAM, PITTSBURG, PA.
To the southeast of Asia, stretching from Siam to Australia and from the Indian Ocean to New Guinea, is a vast archipelago, presenting a most inviting study to the geographer and ethnologist and of increasing interest to the Christian missionary. Here are found such considerable islands as Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Gilolo, and continental Borneo.
Through this archipelago runs a line of fire. Up through Sumatra, running the length of the island, throngh Java, Borneo, the Celebes, the Philippines, and then on east through New Guinea and north through Japan. Along this line is a spine of volcanic peaks rising to great heights and liable at any time to active eruptions. On both sides of tuis line of fire the land is wonderfully productive, and large crops are raised of such rich tropical products as pepper, nutmegs, sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice, gutta-percha, etc.
As a whole, the islands are exceedingly fertile and beautiful with a gorgeous beauty unknown outside the mid-tropics. The waters amid which they sit are mostly shallow, and the deep-green tints of the shallow ocean, the perennial verdure of the islands, the opaline tints on the lofty mountain-tops, and the glowing azure of the ofttimes cloudless sky present to the eye of the admiring traveller such a scheme of color as the earth can scarcely duplicate.
On these islands lives an estimated population of thirty-six millions of people. These are for the most part of two races, the Malay and the Papuan. The former, an Indo-Chinese, differentiated from the parent stock by centuries of residence in their island homes. In some respects inferior to their continental progenitors, in others they are superior. In the main truthful, brave, kind to their families, capable of friendship, though subject to terrific gusts of passion, and, when aroused, unreasonable and obstinate, the Malay race, in all its subdivisions, ought certainly attract more general attention from the Christian churches of England and America. A wave of Islamic conquest has swept over these islands during many centuries, and the large bulk of the Malay races own fealty to the Arabian prophet. The chief propagators of Islam have been the Arab traders, who, by marrying with the Malay chiefs' daughtexs and by superior commercial sagacity, obtain ascendancy in Malay communities. The Dutch officials, too, who rule the more populous islands of Malaysia, have too often been the friends and helpers of the Moslem propaganda. As it was in British India years ago, so it has been till recently in the Dutch East Indies. Godless men in the military and civil employ of the Government, disliking the Christian missionary's standard of morals, and preferring the looseness of Mohammedanism, have covertly, if not openly, thrown their influence on the side of the false prophet. As yet, however, of large sections of the Malay peoples it may be said they are but veneered with Mohammedanism. The old nature worship is yet strong with them; and I have seen in parts of Java, nominally Moslem women carrying offerings of flowers just as their heathen ancestors did. There has, however, of late years been a yery large increase in the number of Malay pilgrims to Mecca. The steamboat companies advertise widely, and the honor put upon the returned pilgrim or " Hadji" is such as to induce thousands to brave the perils and discomforts of the journey. The effect of this pilgrimage is, in the main, to deepen Moslem fervor. The pilgrims have suffered for their faith, and it becomes of larger worth. Their devotion brings them great honor in their own community, which is further reason why they should be devout. The Dutch Government begins to perceive that the deepening hold of Mohammedanis~ is likely to breed mischief. Whatever else the "Hadji" mayor may not learn on his pilgrimage, he does learn to hate the "Kafir," the unbelieving dog of a Christian. In the recent past a more active interest has been shown by Government officials at large in ihe efforts of the Christian mis:;:ionaries, while some of them, earnest, godly men themselves, are of great assistance to the Christian cause. The other race found in the archipelago is the "Papuan," from the Malay " papuwah-frizzled," referring to their" mop heads. " These are ocean negritoes, and differ markedly from the Malay in physical and mental characteristics. Physically the Papuan is not equal in prowess to the Malay, who has invariably driven him from the coast and the rivet banks to the interior high lands. Yet the Papuan is taller and more comely, and will ultimately probably leave the Malay behind, for he has more vital energy. Papuan slaves are often men of ability, and are pro. moted to high office. They have greater feeling for art than the Malays, and decorate their canoes, their houses, pots and pans, etc., with elaborate carvings in admirable taste. They have, unfortunately, a decided taste for human flesh j but from this they are being rapidly reclaimed, and they have the great excellence of being almost incapable of untruthfulness. Among these native peoples scattered all through the islands, and destined ultimately to greatly influence the archipelago, are thousands of Chinese. As a miner, as a cultivator, above all, as a petty tradesman, the almond-eyed stranger appears everywhere, and wherever he comes he easily secures a footing, and because of his superior industry and intelligence forges to the front. Any plan of evangelization of these islands which overlooks the Chinaman will be at fault. Law-abiding, orderloving, intelligent, the Chinese settlements throughout the archipelago should be seized as outposts in any wide scheme of Christian conquest.
The Dutch Government politically controls by far the largest part of the archipelago j and Dutch missions are, as we would expect, the most numerous and widely spread among the islands. The Church in Holland, however, has never risen to the height of the magnificent opportunity that God has laid at her doors. Indeed, God-given opportunities always far outrun the readiness of the Christian Church to use them j and the Dutch have been quite as responsive to the needs of the Indies as the British have been to those of the greater India they govern. The principal societies at work are: 1. The Netherlands Missionary Society, which began early in the century through its representatives Messrs. Kam, Buckner, and Supper. Kam, who first settled in Amboyna, was a notable man, and after valuable and heroic service he died in 1833. This society's usefulness lIas been much crippled by its defection from the evangelical faith. Rationalism, however it may commend itself to some of the scholars of the Church in Christian lands, never fails to throttle earnest mission enterprise. Happily a better state of things begins to appear j and men who are not Rcoffers at the "blood-theology" of evangelical Christians are putting new vigor into the society's missions. They number eighteen missionaries, with ten times as many native helpers, and twenty thousand converts. Next in numbers and importance among Dutch missions is : 2. The Dutch Reformed Missionary Society, which now numbers some six thousand converts. The notable thing about this mission is that it has gained its great conquests in the province of Djokjakarta, which was closed against missionaries. An elect lady, Mrs. Phillips, the wife of an official, converted, I was told, by reading an extract from one of Mr. Moody's addresses, threw herself into personal work for Christ among the natives around her j God blessed her testimony, and the result has been a great awakening and ingathering. Some of the dear brethren scarcely enjoy this attestation of the Holy Spirit to woman's effectiveness as a preacher j nevertheless, the Church in this unofficially evangelized province is the green spot in all Java.
3. The Dutch Missionary Society, with seven missionaries and some native helpers, is faithfully working among the Soudanese. Add to these several smaller societies. such as the Ermolo Missionary Society, the Java Comite, etc., and you have the entire force of Dutch missions at work in Malaysia. The show~ng is not reassuring. Vast populations are practically unreached. The activity of the Christian Church is far behind the Moslem propaganda, and Mohammedanism is fastening itself more deeply every year upon the people. The Dutch churches are doing what they can, but infected in part by rationalism, the wave of missionary enthusiasm does not rise very high j and though the Government in these later years is more sympathetic and helpful, there is loud and urgent call for other Christian bodies to go to the help of our Dutch brethren against Islam and nature worship in these populous islands.
Answering in part to this call, there are at work in the Netherlands Indies: l. The Rhenish Missionary Society, of Germany, with missionaries in Borneo (South), Sumatra, and Nias. The missions in the latter two islands are yery successful. Especially among the Battaks, old-time can· nibals, docs the Vord of God prevail.
2. The British Foreign and Bible Society. No words of mine can too highly praise the yigor and thoroughness with which this society, under the efficient direction of Mr. John Haffenden, is sowing these islands with God's Vord. Great revivals will surely come in the future, judging from the eagerness of the people to buy" gospels" and" portions" which, published in cheap and very portable form, tell in their own tongues to the various peoples of the archipelago the "wonderful things of God." The entire archipelago is traversed by these indefatigable colporteurs. Even into the Philippine Islands one of them penetrated, only to be driven away by the intolerant and unspeakably corrupt and evil liviI1g Spaniard Romish priests.
In North Borneo is Sarawak, the romantic kingdom of Rajah Brooke. Here is a splendid mission of the English Episcopal Church, led by the scholarly Bishop Hose. This mission, however, is confined to the Dyaks and Chinese, the king fearing trouble from the Malays should Christ be preached to them-an unworthy fear, from which may timo and the providence of God deliver all concerned! This English mission is found operating also in Labuan and in the Straits Settlements, which is an English colony.
Of all the missions in Malaysia the most successful seems to have been that conducted in the North Celebes region, where tens of thousands of islanders, before they were captured by the Mohammedan faith, came en masse into the Christian camp. They seem to have been received and baptized j but these tender though honest babes in the faith were not sufficiently carefully trained in the new faith, and seem to have taken on only such a veneer of Christianity as many of the Javanese have of Mohammedanism. Left to walk by themselves before they were able, many of them have lapsed. Some have gone to Islam j many live a low type of semi-Christian life. The Roman Catholics, ever on the alert to enter into other people's labors, have begun an active mission. The Netherlands Missionary Society is now endeavoring to repair the waste places. The Government, too, is growing helpful and sympathetic j but a great deal of work must be done over again before Minnehassa, the " pearl of missions," recovers the lustre of its early Christian days.
The American churches have done but little for Malaysia. India on the one side, and Japan r.,nd China on the other, have presented such populous continental areas that hitherto the efforts of American Christians have been but sparsely directed to this southeastern Asiatic archipelago.
While waiting for China to open, the American Board seems to have supported a few mission stations, but on the opening of the treaty ports in China these were abandoned, and the missionaries proceeded to China. Two young men, Henry Lyman and Munson, were sent to the Battaks of Sumatra. These pioneers were killed and eaten by the cannibal savages, and the project was abandoned. It is cheering to know that these same Battaks, since approached from the south by German missionaries, have largely yielded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The comparative spiritual destitution of this section of Asia was so impressed upon one of the churches of America-the Methodist Episcopal (North)-that in 1885 Bishop Hurst, then visiting India, appointed tM writer of this article missionary to Singapore. A mission on a selfsupporting basis was begun among the English-speaking people of Singapore, an island of great strategic and commercial importance. This island commands the Malacca Straits, and is the commercial entrepot of Southeastern Asia. It is one of the commercial navels of the world and floats the British flag. Its polyglot population of Malays, Tamils, Chinese, and Europeans is in close touch with all the surrounding islands, with China, with India, and with Europe. In the beautiful harbor of Singapore ride the ships of all the sea-going nations of the world. Chinese junks and Malay dhows jostle the ocean racers of England and France and Germany. A free port, knowing nothing of customs duties except on a very few articles, here come large cargoes of tobacco, hides, rice, tea, tin, rattan, coffee, india-rubber, and sugar. Commercial activity in foreign ports is usually accompanied by two things, moral laxity and mental alertness. The morals of Singapore are not high. The readiness of its people to receive new ideas is far beyond that usual in the East.
The American Methodist Mission, beginning work among the English.. speaking, founded a self-supporting English-speaking church. This church has never received a penny of support from without. Beginning with seventeen members, it now numbers over one hundred, and has given over a dozen mission workers to the varied enterprises that now cluster around it.
Parallel with the work in English has grown up a mission to the " Baba," or straits-born Chinese. These enlightened and progressive Chinamen, British subjects, seeing that the American missionary really desired to serve them, rallied around him, and were at the expense of providing for him school·houses and furniture at an expense of over $12,000. The English Governor, Sir Cecil Smith, of that class of enlightened rulers who have made the English name famous through Asia, quickly perceived the usefulness of the American educational missionary project ; and a large "Anglo-Chinese" school, numbering' from four to five hundred scholars, entirely self-supporting, is now located at Singapore. Another similar institution is fast growing up in Penang ; and through the prestige and kindly feeling generated by the schools our evangelistic missionaries are finding free access to the peoples around them. A medical mission, a Malay press, an orphanage, a Tamil church and school, and constant itinerant preaching among the Malays are all forms of activity in which the American missionaries are now engaged.
It would greatly help in the extension of God's kingdom among these most interesting races if some other branch of American Christians-say the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) or any other-would select some part of Sumatra, or, with the consent of the Dutch missionaries, some part of Java, or the Celebes, or East Borneo as a mission centre, and from there, in consultation with the Dutch and American brethren already on the field, project a wider and more insistent evangelism among these islanders. They will otherwise year by year be more firmly intrenched in Mohammedanism, with its inordinate conceit and intolerant and fierce bigotry. If anywhere in the mission world the King's business calls for haste it is in the fair and beautiful islands of Malaysia.
A MISSIONARY'S EXPERIENCE IN JAMAICA AND OLD QALABAR
A MISSIONARY'S EXPERIENCE IN JAMAICA AND OLD CALABAR.* BY REV. J. J. FULLER.
This is a jubilee meeting. Fifty years of Christian efforts; fifty years of Christian prayer; fifty years of Christian missions ; and fifty years of contact with young hearts and young minds-these have matured your insti- tution and kept it up until the present day. 'When I was told that this was your Jubilee, my mind went back to the fact that you and those that have gone before have had a hand in bringing about some of the great changes that have taken place in the countries of the world. Among the many nations and peoples with whom you have had to do or whom you have helped, . my nation and people, and my own native country, and Africa itself, have borne some of your good wishes, have seen some of your kindness, and have had some of your earnest prayer for the spread of the kingdom of Jesus Christ among them.
Fifty years shows a great difference in ~y own country, which is one of the British possessions in the West Indies-the island of Jamaica. Fifty years ago that land had, comparatively speaking, an unlettered people, just emerged, as it were, from the bondage of slavery. It was only then that schools were thrown open and that the children of the col- ored people of my home were permitted to take the Bible in their hands. It was not until slavery had been abolished that we were permitted to wor- I!hip God freely. Before then our fathers had to worship God in the dark night. They had to hide themselves in caves. They had to meet their missionaries on the banks of the rivers. They had to hide themselves in all sorts of corners in order to worship God. But by the efforts of mis- sions, and by your sending missionaries to heathen countries to preach the Gospel, you have not only benefited the peoples to whom you sent the Gos- pel, but the blessing has rebounded with tenfold force, and benefited Great Britain herself; because it was not until you sent missionaries that the awful deeds and cruelties of slavery were brought before the English pub- lic. And no sooner did England know what slavery meant and what sor- rows it caused, the families it scattered, the homes it broke up, and the way in which men were degraded and brutalized by it, than she at once put her shoulders to the wheel, and so the curse was removed from off the British standard.
I believe that it was in the year 1834 that Great Britain paid twenty millions of money for the abolition of slavery. The day when that Act was passed in England, the day on which it had the signature of the sovereign, • This remarkable address was delivered at the IlCtieth anniversary of St. Panl's Missionary 8oclety, In connection with the mercantile honse ofHltcheock, Williams & Co., London, England, January, 1893. Mr. Fnller is a native of .Jamaica, W. I., and was born in slavery, and has spent the latter part of hie liCe in Old aalabar. Bnt he wlll tell his own story.-ED. that very day I-then a boy-was one of those that were set at liberty. I was eight years old when England passed the Emancipation Act. I was there. I remember being carried by my mother to the office, so that my name might be registered. But it was in the year 1838 that the great day came j and I shall never forget it. Our parents had to serve a longer time than we did. It was only children of a certain age that were set at liberty when the Emancipation Act was passed in 1834. In the year 1838, on the 31st day of July, our missionaries-among them William Knibb and James Philippo-gathered the fathers and mothers together j and they thought that, if England had done such a great thing for us, we ought to give slavery a very respectable burial j and so we did. We had a firstrate mahogany coffin made j and, as some of our fathers were carpenters and cabinet-makers, they put all the polish they possibly could upon that coffin. It looked very respectable. And they had not only that, but a splendid grave, fit for a gentleman to lie in. We had all the implements of slavery-the whip, the torture iron, the branding iron, the handcuffs, a piece of the treadmill, the coarse frock, the coarse shirt, and the great hat (all things which were used ill slavery)-put into that coffin and screwed down as close as possible. At about half.past eleven o'clock, on the night of July 31st, there were fourteen thousand people and five thousand children gathered, and I was one of them. I remember that, as soon as the half hour came, the appointed signal was given all through the island, so that at that hour, I believe, every colored man that was to be found on the island of Jamaica was on his knees! And, as the clock began to strike the hour of twelve, William Knibb stood over the grave, and, at every stroke of the clock that sounded out the hour, he cried, " The monster is dying / The monster is dying / The monster is dying /" and when the clock struck the last stroke of the twelve, he cried, "THE MONSTER IS DEAD! BURY HIM!" We lowered that coffin into the grave, and that mass of human beings rose on their feet and sang the doxology : " Praise God, from whom all blessings flow."
And I can remember looking into my mother's face and seeing tears rolling down her eyes, while I, as a child, looked up and thought what a happy time it must be. As soon as they had sat down, all of us children rose on our feet, and we sang a piece that had been taught us j and that piece was: .. Send the glad tidings over the sea, The chain is broke, the slave is free; Britannia's justice, wealth and might Have gained the negro's long-lost right."
We sang that song j and I rememher our marching, five hundred of us, to the Governor's house, where Sir Lionel Smith read the proclamation of freedom to all.
Now, it is more than fifty years ago since that happened j but, within that time, during the fifty years that have just passed, let me say that God in His own way has given testimony to the truth of His promise, that where the Gospel goes that Gospel will prove the power of God to salvation. We turn to our own country of Jamaica to-day, and we find that, within this half century, God has not only removed the curse of slavery, but we have become a Christian people with Christian institutions. Folly, superstition, idolatry, and witchcraft, in which our fathers believed, have all passed away j and to-day there is not to be found upon the whole island of Jamaica, taking all the different denominations that are therein, a single missionary church-all have become self-supporting and independent of missionary societies.
One could scarcely expect such a great change j but not only have we become a Christian nation, independent of missionaries societies, but we have been taught by the missionaries who came to our country that freely we have received and freely we ought to give. So, on the island of Jamaica to-day, we have an independent Baptist Missionary Society of our own not at all connected with the society in England, and which sends ilie Gospel to the heathen afar off. This is the result of one half century.
It was supposed, you know, that the black man had not got any brains. They say that our heads are too thick. Phrenologists have looked at our heads and said that there are too many bones there j but missionaries that have gone to our country have felt that it is a very good thing that we have had a thick head, because, if we had not-if we had your soft head -all the brains would go! You know, when you get to our country, the first thing that you want is a " helmet. " God has put our helmet on without giving us the trouble of making one. But our missionaries have found out that the black man lacks only opportunity and privileges. If you give him them, God can develop that man as well as any other.
Our missionaries, I say, have tried it. In the island of Jamaica to-day we have about two hundred and seventy Baptist churches. The Presbyterians have got their churches j the Church of England have got theirs j the Wesleyans have got theirs. Some of the two hundred and seventy Baptist churches seat two thousand people j and seventy of those churches are ministered to by young men, well qualified in our colleges, and who are now preaching the Gospel side by side with their European brethren. So much, friends, for the success of the Gospel in our land. Then we have Suuday-schools, high schools, grammar schools, and colleges of all the different universities. God has honored the men who went to our land and preached the Gospel, and given them encouragement by showing them that Africa, with all her supposed degradation and all her real degradation, is capable of receiving the Gospel j and if we give it to the Africans, He who said, "Go into all the world," has promised that He will be with His disciples.
I just say so much with regard to my own country j but I have myself been engaged in mission work for forty-five years. Some people say, " You do not look that yourself'" but I have had forty-five years' experience in a savage country. When the Baptist Missionary Society started their mission on the West Coast of Africa, my father was one of the first who went out to carry the Gospel to the land of our forefathers. Soon after he left I felt a determination also to join the mission and go out to Africa; and, in the year 1845, I landed on the 'West Coast of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea and in the Bight of Biafra. When we landed there was no Bible, no written language. None of the people had ever heard the name of Jesus Christ. The natives there were all savages, naked, degraded, and depraved. Everything that repelled the eye and sickened the heart presented itself before us as we landed. We saw human sacrifices. People say that the Africans are cruel. I have not read of any heathen countries where cruelty does not exist; but it is what they are taught. In Africa, when we got there, we found that the people believed in some future. What that future is they knew nothing of. Because of this belief not a king died but so many men and so many women were put into the grave with him. There was not anyone that died in that country without somebody being accused of being responsible for it, and they administered to the person poison for witchcraft. There was not an infant child whose mother died but the child was put alive into the coffin with its dead mother and buried. In one part of the country there was not a twin child born but the poor mother of the twins was flogged to death, and the children were put to death immediately, because the witch doctors said that they were cursed. The people believed this; and they had carried on such horrid customs for centuries. When we got there we found that this was the condition of the people. They were running about perfectly naked. They were without hope and without God in the world. Within a short period of the missions having been established among them the people had their language put into a written form, and they had the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, translated by Alfred Saker and by the Presbyterian missionaries. To-day we have men that have been trained there preaching the Gospel among their own people. We have churches formed, and we have schools that have been established. The people are being taught to read and write.
I remember the scene when we landed in Africa. I had scarcely been there a month before one of the kings of Calabar died. A horrid sight was brought before us in the many people that were put into his grave with him. The grandson of that king that died soon after we landed in Africa, is to-day one of the elders of a Presbyterian church; and if you go into his house you will find that every morning the open Bible is on his table aud he is conducting family worship. The old custom of burying the living with the dead is wiped out and gone. I remember going into t.he Cameroons, and after I had opened my window in the morning, looking across the river, I saw many canoes with people dressed up in all their war dresses, and their .spears and swords were brandished in the sun. They had their war caps upon their heads. I took my glass and looked, and I found that the decoration on the bows of all those canoes was nothing else but human heads. I went up to the chief and said to him, " What do you do this for 1" He looked at me very much astonished that I should ask him such a question. He said, "What 1" Pointing across the river, I said, "Look yonder." "Why 1" he said. " What about that 1" I said, "why do you do such cruel things 1 It is not right. " He said, "You people come into this country, and you live here, and you say that you are good people-and that is true enough-but do you tell me that, when I die, my sons arc to put me into an empty grave alone, and nobody with me 1" When I told him" Yes," he looked at me and said, "You are a fool." Then all his sons came up directly and said, " What is the matter, father 1" And he told them. He said, "This man, who has como to live in this country, says that when i die you boys will put me into an empty grave, alone, with "no one with me." And they looked at me and grinned their savage grin; and they turned away and said, " Father, do not believe him. He is a fool and he is' a foreigner. What does he know 1 Let him alone." I stand here to tell you that that same chief lived on until the old custom of burying people with the dead was completely abolished. In his town, about fifty yards from his own house, stood a little chapel, and the preacher in that chapel was none other than one of his sons, who was preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If God, in such a short time, can produce such a change, surely prayers for missions and for the extension of Christ's kingdom in the world have a proof that they are being answered by God, when we think of the present condition of the people, and think of what was their former condition, when we saw them in their degradation as naked savages. The other day I had a letter from the church in the Cameroons to say that they had built a chapel for themselves that will seat one thousand people, and that the membership of that one church had grown to seven hundred; that the people had collected for themselves among themselves no less than £999, and had established fifteen different stations in different parts of tho country since I left, in order to spread the Gospel among their own neighbors. I say that Africa, with all her degradation, and with all her ignorance, desires to have the Gospel; and if it is given to the people, they, of themselves, in their own country, will spread that Gospel if they only know and hear the truth preached to them. I believe that the time will come, and that the time is not far off, when Africa, with all her degradation and darkness, will rise. We remember. that fifty years ago, up the Congo River, no one had ever heard the Gospel, and we looked upon it as a hard soil to work; but to-day the Scripture is being translated into their own tongue, their young men are being taught to read the Bible, Christian churches are being formed, and some of the cruelties that the missionaries met when they landed first in the Congo are gradually being removed; so that the time will yet come when we shall see a great change in the work of God among the people in Africa. I remember standing at my door and seeing one of the chiefs coming across. As he was coming I looked at him. He was a great man, a man of position in his country; but the only covering that he had was the fibres of the plantain tree combed out and a great cap on his head with parrots' feathers. He had a great bullock horn across his breast, and he walked as stately as ever. Several of the princes were following him behind, all of them being dressed in the same way. I called to this man as he passed my door. I said, " Mikani," and he looked round, but he would not answer. I called again, but he wonld not answer. I called a third time, llnd one of his followers turn~d upon me and said, "What do you want?" "Why," I said, "I only want to speak to him. I want to ask him a question." The man said, "He will not answer you." "Why? What have I done?" He replied, " Why, the man has just been into his superstitions, and he has sworn that for nine days he will not speak to anybody except by signs. At the end of nine days he will go back to the place where he came from, and after that he will converse as of old." I thought it was of no use to trouble him any more, and I let him go. After the nine days were over I went .to his house. I saw him sitting at the door; and just as I got to his house I saw this bullock's horn that he had across his breast hanging across the threshold of his door. I looked at it, and then I looked at him and said, "Do you mean to tell me that. a big man like you, in such a position as you are, believes in such a foolish thing as that?" The man was rather insulted. "'Vhat do you mean?" he said. "Why," I said, " look at that thing. Do you mean to say that that thing has any power in it ?" I said, " Let me take my penknife and open it, and I will show you what is in it. " There was nothing in it but some red clay, parrots' feathers, dogs' teeth, pieces of the skins of animals, some of his own hair, and a little bit of his own toenail. I said, " I know what is in it. Do you mean to tell me that you believe in that stuff ?" He answered, " Believe it ? Yes. " He said, " If I have that thing hanging at my door no witch will dare to come into my house. If she comes, before she crosses the threshold of my door she will be dead." I said, "You do not believe that rubbish, do you ?" " -Well," he said, " I do. And that is why you missionaries all die. You come into this country, and the witches know that you have not anything to keep off the witchcraft, so they kill you ; but they will not come near me, because they know that I have got something to stop them. " Well, I made it my business to visit that man day after day and try to convince him, but it was no good. I could not do anything. Six months after that I was sitting in my little study room, and I heard the drum that tells of death. And I knew what it waS. When a chief dies the sound of that drum tells the tale, and the missionary has to be immediately on the move. I took my hat directly and started up and got to the chief's place. I said, " Mikani, who is dead?" He hung his head down for a minute, and then he said, " One of those princes that were with me on that day." "Why,"
THE REV. JOHN L. NEVIUS, D.D
I said, "you told me that the man that had got that thing would nbt die. Did not that prince wear one of these horns ?', " Yes." "Did he not have a cap~" "Yes. " "Did he not have that same horn~" " Yes." "Then, how is it," I said, "that he is dead?" And the poor fellow hung his head down for a moment. Then, lifting up his head, he looked full into my face for a few moments, and he was silent. Last of all I saw him stretch his hand, and he took hold of the horn as it hung across the door, and removed it from its place, and flung it across the road, and he said, " I will try yours." Where is he to-day, friends? Go to the Cameroons, and you will see a native minister there preaching the Gospel; but on the right hand of that native preacher, who is preaching the Gospel, sits a gray-headed man, and the very look of that man's face tells us of his inward happiness. That is the same man. He has tried and found that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved but the name of Jesus Christ. He is the head deacon of the church, and the membership is now about seven hundred. There is a congregation of perhaps a thousand gathering together there now. I remember that upon my landing in 1845 these people were rank savages and brutal in every act, and not only so, but they were naked savages; and to-day we see them clothed and in their right mind, and thc congregation with their dark faces and their bright eyes are worshipping the same Saviour that we love ; and when I see this I know that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will win its way wherever it goes.
Thus, friends, I think I have told you enough to Rhow you that your prayers have been answered and your efforts been accepted of God. I will only ask you to pray more and do as much as you can for Africa, for she has still got her millions that need the Gospel to-day.
THE REV. JOHN L. NEVIUS, D.D.
BY REV. GILBERT REID, WARSAW, N. Y.
On the death of the well-known and revered missionary, Dr. John L. Nevius, it may be profitable for his fellow-workers to pause for a moment and recount briefly the work which he has done. The worth of his work demands more than a passing reference. Though only in his sixty-seventh year, he was numbered among the veterans for the unusual amount of his mIssiOnary experience. He was drawing nigh to the round number of forty years in the missionary service, when he bowed his head as he sat talking in his study at his home in Chefoo, and yielded up his spirit to God who gave it. A gentle passing away, like a calm breath of a summer's breeze-a falling asleep.
Dr. Nevius is first to be remembered for his work in a literarY line.
DR. NEVIl:S ON A CHINESE ,"VHEELBARROW BEFORE HIS RESIDENCE AT CHEFOO. CHINA."
ltl94.) THE REV. Jo.HN L. NEVIUS, D.D
One o.f the mo.st po.pnlar and co.ncisely co.mprehensive boo.ks o.n China was o.ne which he wro.te early in his career, called" China and the Chinese," first published by the Harpers, and no.w issued by the Presbyterian Board o.f Publicatio.n. In Chinese the leading treatise o.n theology was prepared when he was a yo.ung missio.nary at Ningpo., and lacked o.nly the latter topics of systematic theo.lo.gy-a deficiency which he hoped to meet befo.re he clo.sed his labo.rs. Ano.ther bo.o.k in Chinese o.n "Entrance to. Truth" has been used fo.r many years no.t o.nly by o.ur o.wn Presbyterian Missio.n, but also. by the missio.uaries o.f o.ther societies, in the initiative rudimentary stages of Christian instructio.n. A very valuable pamphlet in English o.n " Metho.ds o.f Missio.n W o.rk" has been carefully studied fo.r its fairminded and bro.ad-minded investigatio.ns, based o.n tho.ro.ugh experience: Already we understand that parts o.f this are to. be reissued by the Bo.ard o.f Fo.reign Missio.ns as a guide, o.r at least a suggestio.n, to. o.ther fields o.f o.ur Church. One o.f the last results o.f his study was a bo.o.k o.n " Demo.niacal Po.ssessio.n," which, we understand, will so.o.n be published j and which, we kno.w, will present the mo.st co.mplete and careful examinatio.n o.f this very difficult pro.blem. Other literary effo.rts attest his ability j and we o.nly regret that he cDuld no.t live to. co.mplete the wo.rk, so dear to. his heart, o.f aiding in the revisio.n o.f the Mandarin version o.f the Scriptures. No. sentence o.f his, either in Chinese o.r English, was penned witho.ut tho.ught, and every tho.ught was actuated by a stro.ng desire to. be fair and .true.
Seco.ndly, let us no.tice his wo.rk as a Christian instructo.r. This he was rather than an educatio.nalist. The Bible was his text-bo.o.k, and no.ne o.f his teaching was secular. If he taught theo.lo.gy-and as such he was witho.ut a peer-it was always a biblical theo.lo.gy. Bo.th in the Ningpo. and Shantung missiDns he was frequently appo.inted to. train men fo.r the ministry j and many o.f o.ur best native pasto.rs rejo.ice to. call him "teacher." When in late years he fo.und himself surro.unded by a gro.wing evangelistic wo.rk, he set apart the summer and winter mo.nths to. special instructio.n, either o.f leading inquirers o.r o.f his cho.sen classleaders. I remember, during my first summer in China, as a guest at his ho.me, the large"number o.f callers fro.m amo.ng the fo.reign residents, so.me o.f who.m were" men Df the wo.rld," who. came to. see his class, and went away to. praise it and so. co.mmend the who.le missio.nary undertaking. This teaching idea he carried into. all o.f his evangelistic effo.rts, and every statio.n o.f Christian co.mmunicants and inquirers was a Sunday-scho.o.l, with every o.ne a teacher and every o.ne a scholar. He emphasized the wo.rds in the – Master's final co.mmissio.n, " teaching them Christ." This idea, clear and simple tho.ugh it be, has been made such by Dr. Nevius more than by any Dther man.
In connectio.n with this we no.te no.w his evangelistic wo.rk. By the pro.vidence o.f Go.d he wa.s led into a section o.f the co.untry fruitful o.f conversio.ns, nearly a week's jo.urney fro.m his ho.me at Chefo.o.. Hence his evangelism took the form of " country itinerations." During this period he was generally absent from home half of the year, more often in the spring and autumn months, but twice, at least, during the cold winter days, stopping at chilly Chinese inns, or riding from station to station of poor country Christians with the thermometer near to zero. It is impossible to outline this work, so carefully unfolded in his " Methods of Mission Work." Its chief feature was the effort to utilize every native, and then establish a church without the support of foreign funds. It was selfdevelopment and self-support, but always under the guidance of the Spirit, and by a study of the Bible. That work was practically transferred to others prior to his last return to the United States, and is now managed by native pastors or other of our missionaries, centred at the station of Wei-hien. Dr. Nevius built on no other man's foundation; and the foundation which he laid was strong and " in Jesus Christ."
One of the openings to this evangelistic work came through the relief rendered in the famine of 1879 and 1880. Not that those relieved became the inquirers, but that such a display of benevolence commended the Christianity which taught it, and broke down centuries of prejudice. In this famine-relief work Dr. Nevius was especially successful in the system adopted, and one which has guided others in similar work during later years. It was a system of common sense, kind to the needy, but guarding against tricks, deception, and confusion. Dr. Nevius was an exegete and a theologian. He was also level-headed, a man of affairs.
In this same practical line was his work of introducing foreign fruits into China. Agriculture was his recreation, but as such it was far other than mere playing. The result indicated the care, the wisdom, the patience, and the toil. Many a person has gone to view his garden in Chefoo who never cared for any other kind of missionary undertaking. In fact, this often annoyed and chagrined him, to have persons ignore all his efforts in evangelistic instruction, and compliment him as a fruit-raiser and horticulturist. Nevetheless, it shows that every faculty and knowledge can be made useful in the missionary work, not only as an amusement to one's self, but a benefit to others.
We will only notice one other feature of his work-viz., his success as an adviser and missionary speaker. We refer especially to his efforts in this country. Very few have excelled him in influendng young men to become missionaries; but never with the assertion, that it was another man's duty to be a foreign missionary. Anyone who desires to appreciate his candor, his breadth, his fairness, his judiciousness, should read his article in the MISSION ARY REVIEW of May, 1893. on " The Student V01unteel' Movement." We quote only one sentence: "I have been in the United States on furlough three times, and paid many visits to theological semin~ries, with a view to gaining recruits for foreign missions, but have never dared to use the least. pressure in urging a student to be a missionary. " As one who was led through him, first to think of the claims of
AFTER TWENTY YEARS. :J47
foreign missions, and then to decide to go as a missionary to China, I can testify 1.0 the truthfulness of this attitude of his. How helpful were his conferences with the students! How sympathetic his suggestions to the perplexed mind! And this same quality remained with him iu China, where all missionaries were glad to consult ]lim. If he had only been stronger physically, no better man could have been found to take the place of Dr. Arthur Mitchell as Secretary of the Board. But, alas! both of them are gone; and all through life we shall miss them, rejoicing only because we are not of those" who have no hope," trying to reverence their names by following more their fine Christian spirit.
AFTER TWENTY YEARS. * THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN 1873, 1883, 1893.
A few notes on the advances made in the last twenty years by the Church Missionary Society may be helpful to friends of missions in every land.
First, as to the number of missionaries. The subjoined table is indeed most significant : 1iJuropean M!'ssi07laries on the Roll: 1873. 1883. 1893.
Clergymen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 203 222 329 Laymen ……………………… 15 34 71 Women ……………………… 11 15 134 Total. ….. , ….. 229 271 534 Even excluding the women, the number has nearly doubled; t and it will be observed that while the increase in the first decade was only 19 clergymen and 19 laymen, the increase in the second decade was 107 clergy- men and 37 laymen. The proportion of university men has also greatly increased. In 1873 they numbered 44 ; in 1883, 65 ; and in 1893, 158.- The number of missionaries reported in May, 1873, as added to the roll in the preceding twelve months, was seven; in 1883, twenty-one; in 1893, eighty-nine. The 1873 Report mentions" 1 graduate from Cambridge accepted during the year;" the 1883 Report mentions 3 graduates accepted; the 1893 Report, 16 graduates.
The native clergy and teachers appear in the statistical tables as follows: 1873. 1883. 1893. Native clergy……………•….. 143 240 284 2,582 4,042 " lay teachers……..•••..•• 1,830 493 892 " female teachers ……….. . 375 Total………….. 2,348 3,315 5,218 * Reprinted from a Church Misslouary Society tract.
t The figures are for May last. The autumn reinforcements have made further large addltious. It will be seen that the increase in the native clergy has been slow of late. This is mainly due to the large number of deaths in the last decade ; but it is. true that the nnmerous ordinations in West Africa and South India in the former decade find no parallel in the latter. But the lay and female teachers have multiplied rapidly; and this little table will show some of our missionary brethren who have fancied that native agency was being neglected in favor of European agency, how little foundation there is for their fears.
The distribution of missionaries at the three periods is very interesting. In the following table we omit women, because we could not estimate the growth in the Indian staff without including the C. E. Z. M. S. aud I. F. N. S. : Distribution of .Hissionaries–Men only-Ordained and Unordained.
1873. 1883. 1893.
West Africa….. __ . …………… 17 10 18 East Africa………………. _… 1 22 37 Palestine, Persia, Egypt, etc.. . . . . . 9 14 23 North India (including Punjab and Sindh)…………………. 66 73 116 Western India………… ……. 12 10 13 South India…………………. 44 28 45 Ceylon………………………. 12 19 20 Mauritius, etc……………….. 6 4 5 China……………………….. 18 24 44 Japan… …………………… 2 9 24 New Zealand…………………. 17 18 15 Northwest America ………….. ,. 12 18 29 North Pacific………………… 2 7 11 TotaL ……………… 218 256 400 Of course the increase is most marked in those missions which were in their infancy in 1873, such as East Africa, Persia, Japan, and North Pacific. Putting them asidc, we find that of the older missions, West Africa and South India, though they have more men than ten years ago, have only returned to where they stood twenty years ago; that Western India, Mauritius, and New Zealand are about the same; and that the real increase has been in North India, Ceylon, China, and Northwest America.
At first sight one would expect that the doubling of the missionary staff would mean a doubling of the expenditure. But this is not the case. We should be very glad if it were. The amount expended per missionary means, a great deal more than the amount each missionary costs. The more efficient a missionary is the more will his work develop on all sides, and the more will money be needed. It is so at home. An active clergyman spends more in his parish than an inert one, because he does more. So in the mission field : the higher the expenditure per head rises, the better. But the reason why ithas not yet so risen in the C. M. S. missions is that the increase in the staff has been so recent and so rapid. Many of the missionaries are still in the language-learning stage, and cost little more than their small personal allowances. As they grow in efficiency the work will cost more, for it will mean native evangelists and Bible-women, schools, rest-houses for itinerating, medical appliances, and a host of other things.
There are, however, two other reasons why the total expenditure has not grown so fast as the staff. First, a good many of the recent additions are at their own charges. We have now 15 men and 53 women who are honorary, and 5 men and 9 women who are partly so, without counting those who are specially supported by individual friends of the society. Secondly, an increase in women costs less than an increase in men. A single woman's allowances are less than those of a single man, and less than half those of a married man.
Still the increase in the expenditure is large. The average of the four years preceding 1873 was £155,644. '" The average of the four years preceding 1883 was £202,200. The average of the four years preceding 1893 was £244,844. These figures include expenditure on special funds. The corresponding amount for last year, ending March 31st, 1893, reckoned in the same way, was £255,917. For the current year it is estimated to be £265,759, including only those special funds which directly aid the General Fund, such as the Extension Fund, the Mid-China Fund, etc. And the estimates lately passed for the year commencing next April amount, after allowing for considerable probable savings in various directions, to £274,955. , Thus we are spending now over £100,000 a year more than we spent twenty years ago. This is the kind of fact that makes one wonder. No one at that time, nor for years after, could have anticipated it. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
Let us next look at the reports, and try and realize a little of the progress in the field in the twenty years.
Take India first. We do not expect to find in old and well-organized missions the startling progress displayed in newer fields. Yet the development of the India work in the twenty years is in many ways striking. In 1873 French had lately started the Lahore divinity school, the first of its kind in the country. Now we have divinity schools also at Calcutta, Allahabad, Poona, and Madras, besides the simpler institutions for training native agents in the southern missions which existed before. In 1873 the society's attention had not been specially drawn to the non-Aryan Hill tribes, although the Santal Mission was already bearing promising fruit. That mission has since been largely developed, and the Gond and Bheel missions have been established and converts been gathered in.
But the Punjab shows the most remarkable growth. In 1873 the society had only one medical missionary-in the Punjab or anywhere else- * Multiply these amounts br five to a.certain the llumber of dollars. indeed, not one when the Report was issued, for Dr. ElmsIie was dead and his successor had not yet gone out. Now the Punjab has 10 medical missionaries. In 1873 the staff for Amritsar consisted of 2 men, the Revs.
R. Clark and a. Hoernle, and Mr. Bateman alone was beginning to itinerate in the district. Now, for the same area of work, there are 15 men; and still more remarkable is the extension of woman's work under the C. E. Z. M. S. That society has now 33 ladies within that area, the oldest of whom had only just gone out in 1873, besides 9 single ladies connected with C. M. S. and all the wives. Batala, Tarn Taran, Ajnala, Jandiala, Fathgar, Narowal, Bahrwal, Clarkabad are all new names within the same district-i.e., the great plains surrounding Amritsar. The two great girls' boarding.schools at Amritsar, the boys' boarding-school at Batala, the splendid book-shop at Lahore-the two latter the result of Mr. Baring's liberality-are among the more conspicuous developments. Another generous benefactor, George Maxwell Gordon, had in 1873 but recently joined the Punjab Mission; and now, we have not only the bright memory of his example, but the Lahore divinity college chapel and the missions at Pind Dadan Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan as the fruit of his munificence ; while, partly owing to his inspiration, Sukkur and even far-off Quetta have been occupied.
South India does not show such developments as these, because it was more fully worked then; but 1873 was the year which saw the native Church in the C. M. S. district.s of Tinnevelly fairly started in selfadministration under Dr. (afterward Bishop) Sargent; and the Telugu Mission has spread in all directions since that year.
Five new dioceses have been established in India in the twenty years; and of the 7 bishops who have been consecrated for them, 4 have been C. M. S. missionaries-viz., French, Speechly, Hodges, Clifford, without counting Sargent, who was an assist.ant-bishop without a diocese.
We never rest our case upon statistical returns of converts and adherents, for they so inadequately represent the real progress achieved; but the fact that the native Christians connected with C. M. S. have risen 70 per cent in the twenty years-viz., from 69,000 to 117,000-is a fact whose significance is indisputable; while the native agents of all kinds have almost doubled in number, from 1600 to 3060.
Next look at China. In South China, in 1873, C. M. S. had 3 missionaries-viz., 1 at Hon Kong and 2 at Fuh·chow ; and there was 1 F. E. S. lady at each of those two cities. Now, several brethren, and sisters too, live in the interior of Fuh-Kien; widespread itineration has been organized in Kwan-tung; and Pakhoi has been occupied in a corner of China untouched by any other mission. C. M. S. has 20 men and 8 women on the South China staff, including 4 medical men; and the splendid band of 28 C. E. Z. M. S. women has developed the Fuh-Kien Mission in a wonderful way, not only since 1873, but since 1883. In 1873 C. M. S. had 26 native age~ts in South China, and less than 300 Christians. Now the agents are 268 and the Christian adherents over 10,000. Mid China does not show a growth equal to this j still, Mr. Hoare's college at Ningpo, Dr. Main's great mission hospital at Hang-chow, and the village work in the Chu-ki and Tai-chow districts are extensions worth notice j in addition to which there is Mr. Horsburgh's Interior Evangelistic Mission in the distant province of Sz-chuen. The development of woman's work also must not be omitted. In 1873, and again in 1883, C. M. S. had one single lady in Mid China j now it has 20. Again, up to just before 1873, China had had but one English Bishop. The consecration of a C. M. S. missionary, Bishop Russell, to the newly formed quasi-diocese of what was then called North China, is an item in the 1873 Report j and since then another C. M. S. man, Bishop Moule, has succeeded him in that portion of his sphere now called Mid China, while a third C. M. S. man, Bishop Burdon, presides over the southern diocese of Victoria, Hong Kong.
Pass over to Northwest America. In 1873 the consecration of Bishop Horden had just marked the first step in that development of the Church which has now carved eight dioceses out of the vast mother diocese of Rupert's Land; and a large part of this work has been distinctly the work of C. M. S., which almost entirely supports 4 of them and helps 3 others. The society's expenditure in those great territories has risen from £6000 to £16,000 ; and it is emphatically true of the many tribes and languages comprised in them-from the Crees and the Sioux right away to the Tukudh and the Eskimo-that " People and realms of every tongue Dwell on His love with sweetest song."
And this is without passing the Rocky Mountains. Cross them, and we come to a mission which then consisted of only Metlakahtla and Kincolith, but which since then has sent the Gospel to tribe after tribe of the interior, has established itself in the islands, has brought into the Christian Church the fiercest of all the races of that coast-the Hydahs of Queen Charlotte's Island-and now, despite many trials, presents, under Bishop Ridley'S wise and devoted leadership, a bright spectacle to all who love true and pure missionary work.
Weare now among the younger missions; and what shall we say of Japan ~ In 1873 the first English missionary in that wonderful land had just come home sick, and the second was alone at Nagasaki. It was in the Report of that year that the sudden burst of new civilization in Japan was recorded. The public edicts against Christianity which had adorned the Government notice·boards for two hundred and fifty years had just been withdrawn; and the expansion of the C. M. S. Mission from one man to five was resolved on. In 1883 the 5 men had increased to 9 men and a woman (as usual, not counting wives) ; and there were 350 converts. Ten years more and the staff had become 24 men and 19 single women; 7 Japanese had been ordained (in the C. M. S. ~Hssion alone, besides others) ; and the Christian adherents are 2450. Moreover, they have combined with the Christians attached to other Anglican missions, and have formed a real native Church with its own canons, etc. j and its total membership exceeds 4000. It was- in 1883 that the archbishop selected a C. M. S. missionary (Poole, of South India) to be the first English bishop in Japan; and in 1893 his successor, Bishop E. Bickersteth, has arranged for the appointment of two additional bishops, specially for portions of the C. M. S. field, and nominated by C. M. S.
Pass from the most radical and forward of non-Christian countries to the most conservative and stationary, and view the Mohammedan lands of the East. Persia, in 1873, was not recognized as a C. M. S. mission field at all j and although Dr. Bruce had been there three or four years, his name stiII remained on the Indian list. Not ti1l1876 was the Persia Mission formally adopted. The year 1883 saw an extension of its work in the occupation of Baghdad j and 1893.sees fresh and important plans formed for further development. Egypt is very far from being a stationary country since the British occupation; but that occupation began in the year reviewed in the 1883 Report, and it was in that very year that the new "Egypt Mission" first appeared on the society's list. Palestine, too, though stationary enough so far as its Moslem rulers are concerned, is now yielding to the forward movements of the day; and nowhere does a C. M. S. mission show more marked development than in that sacred land. In 1873 only Jerusalem and Nazareth were occupied by 2 ordained and 2 lay missionaries. Two years later, Bishop Gobat handed over to the society his stations and work; other extensions have followed; Jaffa, Gaza, Ramallah, Salt, Nablus, Acca, and Haifa were successively occupied; and now the 4 men have become 13 men and 22 single women. All our missions in Mohammedan lands received an impetus from the Mohammedan Conference arranged by General Lake at the C. M. House in 1875. They are striking examples of the society's new development in woman's work. No less than 30 ladies are now employed in them, whereas even in 1883 there was not one. So also with medical work. In 1873 there was no C. M. S. medical missionary in those countries; in 1883 only 1 ; in 1893, 4, and 2 more going out.
And what shall we say of Africa ~ Of West Africa we need not speak. Our recent extensions are not much more than revivals of developments begun at different times in past years, but checked by various difficulties. But East Africa is the most signal instance of unlooked-for progress in the whole period. In 1873 John Rebmann was alone, old and blind, at Rabai. There he was found by Sir Bartle Frere, who, on his return to England, came to C. M. S. in June of that year and urged the establishment of a freed slave settlement, to found which Mr. Salter Price went out in the foUowing year. But 1873 is still more memorable as the date of Livingstone's death, which instantly roused both England
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER CONVENTION A.T DETROIT
and Scotland, and led to many African expeditions, both missionary and otherwise. Then, in 1875, came Mr. Stanley's challenge to Christendom to send a mission to Uganda. What need we say more ?-except that the one C. M. S. missionary of 1873 has multiplied to fifty in 1893.
Mter such a retrospect, the question is, .Are we to stand still! Surely the Divine Word to us is, Go forward,. and the promise, Oertainly I will be with thee.
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER CONVENTION AT DETROIT.
BY D. L. PIERSON.
It is significant that the largest and most representative Student Convention ever held should be also the missionary gathering having the largest number of accredited delegates that ever met in America, or perhaps in the world. Ten years ago such a convention would not have been possible, but now by the Spirit working through men thoroughly on fire with missionary zeal, and by the organization of Volunteers, the flame has spread with marvellous rapidity all over our land, and one of the results is seen in this recent convention.
The history of the movement is too well known to need repetition here. The organization has outlived much unfavorable criticism, survived many perils, overcome many difficulties and much opposition, and continues to increase in numbers and effectiveness. And now, in its eighth year, this is probably the most effective agency for spreading, fostering, and utilizing the missionary spirit that anywhere exists.
The first Volunteer Convention met in Cleveland in 1891, and was one of extraordinary practical and spiritual power. It marked a crisis in the history of the" New Crusade." Before that time the mistakes natural to youth characterized the movement, and even friends regarded it with suspIClOn. Since then, however, its policy has been developed and the organization perfected, so that the Detroit Convention stands unique among missionary gatherings, and indicates a firmly established and undeniably successful enterprise. It was attended by more than double the number of students, from twice as many educational institutions, as at Cleveland. Conceive of twelve hundred young men and women, from nearly three hundred institutions of learning in the United States and Canada, representing the flower of our land, coming together for the purpose of considering the great question of the speedy evangelization of the world, and prayerfully to seek light as to their place in this great work, and preparation for it j and with them, to impart inspiration and guidance, gathered also the leaders of missionary enterprise from all· over the world, including fifty representatives of various missionary agencies, fifty returned foreign missionaries from almost every heathen, papal, and Moslem land, and many other missionary speakers and Christian workers-conceive of all these conditions, and a slight estimate may be formed of the forces pres- ent to make this convention a power in the heart and life of each delegate. Among the principal speakers were Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, Drs. Arthur T. Pierson and A. J. Gordon, Miss Geraldine Guinness, R. E. Speer, L. D. 'Wishard, and Dr. Judson Smith, besides mauy others, representing all varieties of experience and degrees of enthusiasm, from various lands and different departments of the work at home and abroad.
The method pursued in the convention was probably the only one feasi- ble for the presentation of the many phases and spheres of work under consideration. The mornings were given to the consideration of the organi- zation and its methods and the preparation of the volunteer, the afternoons to simultaneous sectional meetings for the discussion of different forms of mission work in various fields; and the evenings to the claims of mis- sions and the spiritual conditions of success. It being impracticable to give in these pages more than a brief and general glance, the reader must be referred for details to the printed verbatim report which ·is soon to be published.
One prominent characteristic of the convention was the spirit offervent prayer which pervaded the proceedings. Prayer opened, closed, and per- meated all the discussions and transactions, consequently it was an in- tensely spiritual convention, and the work of the Holy Spirit in separating and preparing His workmen was, of all things, made most emphatic. An- other featnre, closely allied to this, was the fact that Jesus Christ was ex- alted as Lord and Saviour. In His name were the delegates welcomed, and in His name urged to go forward conquering and to conquer, preach- ing His death and resurrection, living His life, and abiding in Him. Be- cause Christ was the unifying principle which made all hearts one, perfect harmony pre,-ailed throughout, although representatives from nearly forty denominations and missionary agencies, and missionaries young and old, and each having strong personality, were brought together on one common platform. Not a note of discord was heard from beginning to end. It was a magnificent demonstration of the true basis of Christian union, the living unity found in love and allegiance to one Lord, and in the contem- plation of the great work He has commanded.
THE PURPOSE AND WORK OF THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT was clearly defined and forcibly presented in a number of brief addresses, which served to remove the prejudice of ignorance, restore confidence, and commend the principles of the movement to the minds of all interested. The watch-cry of the Volunteers, "The evangelization of the world in this generation," the command of Christ, "Go make disciples of all the nations," and the mot- to of Neesima, " Let us advance upon our knees," were hung up in large letters before the assembly, servlDg to impress the eyes of those present as they have already moved the hearts of all Volunteers, expressing their desire, aim, and spirit.
The purpose of the movement, as stated by Mr. Mott in his masterly report of the Executive Committee, is to lead students to a thorough con- sideration of the claims of foreign missions upon them, to foster this pur- pose, to unite Volunteers in an aggressive movement, to maintain an intel- ligent interest at home, but especially to secure a sufficient number of qualified men and women for the work of evangelization of the world in this generation. The declaration card, reading, "It is my purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary," forms a simple basis for membership and organization. One of the perils of the movement has come from the misuse and misinterpretation of this card. It is not a pledge, but the statement of a purpose toward the accomplishment of which men study and work, looking for God's continned guidance, and only changing their purpose as they more clearly see His will. Without this "declaration" there coulq be no firm basis for the movement. It leads to a definite decision, helps men to remain firm, and enables them to do more for missions during their preparation. Results show that a definite and early decision is best.
The work of the movement has been carried on in the educational schools of the United States and Canada by means of travelling and corresponding secretaries, etc.
Mr. D. W. Lyon gave as reasons why bands should be formed in every institution: (1) To give mutual stimulus to members; (2) to gather information j (3) to discuss reasons for going j (4) to secure power in united prayer. The bands also form a basis for enlisting new men, and hold ,important relations to the college, the movement, and the churches.
The results are seen (1) in the fact that the movement has now 32,000 members in 477 different institutions of the United States and Canada. It has also extended to Great Britain, where there are 700 Volunteers, and to Scandinavia and elsewhere. (2) In all of these places it has exerted a marked/influence in increasing the knowledge of missions, reacting beneficially upon other departments of religious study and work, and increasing the spirit of consecration. (3) It has been the means of increasing the number of those expecting to go abroad. (4) It has doubled contributions to missions in colleges and seminaries in the last three years. As a practical result 686 Volunteers are already in the field, and of the British V01unteers at least 90 per cent have sailed immediately on completing their course of study. More missionaries have sailed from America in the past two and one half years than in the preceding five and one half.
Among the points of policy emphasized by the Executive Committee were (1) efforts to establish the movement in new sections and among new classes of institutions, especially in young women's colleges; (2) more thorough supervision of work already begun; (3) more earnest, prayerful pressing of the claims of the unevangelized upon fellow-students j* (4) a more comprehensive course of study outlined; (5) increase in contributions; (6) keeping in closer touch with Volunteers already on the field, and (7) most of all, absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit for light and life.
The PREPARATION OF VOLUNTEERS was ably discussed and much valuable advice given. Dr. Judson Smith, of the American Board, emphasized thorough intellectual furnishing as essential to any great work. Education gives breadth and ability to use one's powcrs, training every faculty to its true end. The call for cultured as well as consecrated intellects is urgent. The missionaries must be able to master the language, to study the people among whom they labor, to organize churches and train native ministers and teachers, to give instruction in schools, colleges, and seminaries, and to translate the Bible and create a literature. All this demands mental training. Volunteers should not delay, nor unduly hasten to enter the field. Time to prepare is implied in the call. God wants our best. Dr. Geo. W. Knox added that a man who shirks work may be called to cobble shoes in the United States, but he is not called to cobble them in China, and that while God nses among the heathen the" foolishness of preaching," we are nowhere told to give them the preaching of foolish. ness.
The practical preparation was outlined by Rev. H. P. Beach, of Springfield, Mass. The Volunteer is to be " all things to all men." He advised him among other things (1) to become acquainted with the officers, polity and policy of his board; (2) to study his chosen field as to its strategic points, the climate, people, religions, the work accomplished, and the successes and failures as pictured in missionary biographies; (3) to know some· thing about keeping accounts, practical work of gardening. carpentry, etc.; (4,) to study the 1aws of health, dentistry, preparation of the dead for burial etc.; (5) to be able to use the camera, printing-press, and magic lantern, and know how to start industrial, normal, and kindergarten schools; (6) to study to be an organizer and pastor, but, above all, to be skilled in personal work. This last point was frequently urged by the missionariesthat the most effective way of winning souls is hand-to.hand, heart-toheart work, and they added that men should begin at home and not wait to reach the foreign field.
The spiritual preparation for the work was powerfully presented by J. Hudson Taylor, of the China Inland Mission. He urged the students not to be dependent for a blessing upon any human agency, bnt to seek the filling which will surely be followed by an overflowing. To know God we must know His Word. Mr. Taylor testified that he had never put his trust in God's word and met with a disappointment. We must seek to be * Keith-Falconer said when about· to start for Arabia: "While vast continents are shrouded in almost ntter darkness, and hundreds of millions sn1!'er the horrors of heathenism and of Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to .how that the circumstances In which God has placed you were meant by Him to keep you out of the foreign field." such men as God can use. Take time for communion with God. Do not wait till your concert is over before you tune the instruments. There was never but one life of perfect development-that of Christ, from the cradle to the cross j but all true Christian life now develops backward: it begins at the cross and moves toward the cradle, growing toward childlike trust, docility, and humility. Be insulated from the world if you would receive and retain God's electrifying power. One can- not go to a heathen land without growing either in grace or sinfulness. " Satan may hedge us about, but he can't roof us over"-cannot pre- vent our looking up. If any cloud comes between us and God, it is our own fault. No one need go to foreign lands to preach theism, ethics, or philosophy-these are already well developed-but we must go to preach Christ and Him crucified, and this we can do only after a personal knowl- edge of the glorified Son of God in our hearts j we must be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us deeper than any from apologetics j it must be from experience. Such were some of the golden thoughts expressed.
The PHASES OF WORK were discussed in sectional meetings by those who have had varied experience in many different lands. The evangelistic work was presented by H. N. Frost, of the China Inland Mission, Rev. Spencer "Walton, of South Africa, Rev. Gilbert Reid, of China, Rev. F. G. Co·an, of Persia, and others. To do this effectively the missionary should be " boiling over with the Spirit, and steeped in the Word." The best evangelists are those most filled with the love of Christ. This is far more necessary than a theological training. The most important work of the missionary is the training of native agents, and they make the best evangelists. For this work there should be a close spiritual contact between the native and the missionary, that the former may receive help in his difficulties and learn to know God's Word and be brought nearer to Him. In most countries itinerating can be done only part of the year. It is a method especially adapted to reach the lower classes and those occupying country districts. The missionary spirit of the past was marked by large expectancy, mobility of station, and absence of anxiety, and these should always mark the work of an evangelist. The true policy is to strike the great centres, and from there reach the outlying districts. Christ exemplified what a true Christian should be-a light-bearer, a life-giver, and an expression of Divine love. His law was diffusion, not concentration.
Educational work was treated of by Rev. Robert A. Hume and Dr. Boggs, of India, Dr. Wainwright, of Japan, Dr. Dennis, of Syria, and othcrs. The one end with all missionaries is to establish the Gospel in heathen hearts. Educational work is but one means to this end. Its object is to impart spiritual life and powe1·. Educational influence extends throughout the life of the pupil, it gives an opportuni~y for appeal to a bigoted and conservative community, forms a basis for occupation, makes a centre for Christian teaching, awakens interest in parents, and quickens a desire for better things in the heart of the pupil. It is a method for the rescue of the children from their degraded homes, and gives them intellectual and religious training. It also reveals the capacity of the pupil for other work, and develops the powers for distinctive service as missionary agents. It gives an opportunity for hand-to-hand contact with pupils regularly, as is impossible even in home work. A diseased and stunted mind is as much an object of sympathy as a diseased and stunted body. Objections to educational work come from the conviction of some that but few workers come from the schools. This is doubtless often due to the fact that the evangelizing idca is not kcpt foremost, and because, as is to be deplored, non-Christian and even heathen professors are in some instances employed in Christian schools. It was, however, stated that in some schools in China education draws men into the ministry, and in the American Board schools at least conversions are more numerous in proportion to the number who come in contact with the message in this way than through any other methods. Besides this, educational work improves the capacity of heathen languages to express God's truth, and it nproots heathen ideas and implants new ones. The problems of the work assume very different aspects in different countries, and the work meets with various successes according to the field, the methods, and the agents.
Medical work was discussed by J. Hndson Taylor, Dr. Dowkontt, and Rev. W. R. Lambuth. The great need for more physicians, both men and women, was shown from the vast populations, destitution of medical aid, prevalence of disease, and barbarous methods of treatment of the ill and the injured. Medical missions are also the great entering wedge of the Gospel in many places. They break down prejudice, and present Christianity in a concrete form. Dr. Dowkontt said: "Christ commands it, sympathy demands it, wisdom dictates it, and experience endorses it. " There is a special need of women physicians with hearts of love to minister to their wretched, degraded, and secluded sisters of China and India.
The WORK ON VARIOUS FIELDS was considered in simultaneous meetings. China was found to be pre-eminent in the mind of most of those present. About twenty missionaries were present from this field, and over half of those present, expecting to go out this year, expressed a wish or design to go there. The claims of this great land were presented by J. Hudson Taylor, Miss Geraldine Guinness, and others. While the population of the Chinese Empire is nearly seven times that of the United States, the number of Christian workers is only one ninetieth of those in this country. Fifty years ago the prayer was that God would open the doors; now it is that He will send more laborers. There are seventy aboriginal tribes who do not speak Chinese; the languages of only three of them have been reduced to writing. There is not one missionary for every five hundred towns in North and 'Western China. The number of opium smokers is variously estimated as from 2,000,000 to 20,000,000. The women especially call for the Gospel. According to Chinese superstitions eighteen hells are open to receive them, but it is only by living five hundred virtuous lives that one of them may be born as a little boy, and after many more trials be enabled t() reach the lowest of the nine heavens. As reasons for going to China Miss Guinness stated (1) that 1,000,000 die each month without God; (2) that 400,000,000 are living without Him, with no peace for the present or hope for the future, and (3) that Christ wants His disciples to take His place there as witnesses. When Christianized, China will be a great -evangelizing agency; the native convert makes a natural evangelist. There is great need for literary men and women to reach the 2,000,000 of the literary class and to educate the common people. The Chinese have a great desire to be educated by Vestern men, and much encouragement is given by those in authority. Vork is carried on by social intercourse among the higher classes and by street preaching, tract distribution, and personal work among other classes. The greatest obstacle is the prevailing superstition, but seed has been scattered in chapel, school, hospital, street, and home, and much has fallen ou good ground. There are now 50,000 converts and 150,000 adherents, with 550 churches, of which over 100 are self·supporting. The language has been greatly enriched in power to express Christian truth, and the number of missionaries has tripled in the last fifteen years. Past achievements are the guarantee for future success.
Missions in the Levant were discussed by Rev. G. A. Ford, of Syria., Rev. F. G. Coan, of Persia, Mr. Sampson, of Greece, and others. Dr. Dennis emphasized the past and present strategic importance of these lands. (1) They represent 100,000,000 souls who need to be won back to the true faith. (2) Moslems have always recognized and despised an apostate church-Jesus must be made beautiful in their eyes. (3) Capture Turkey and you capture the head of Islam. (4) Languages offer a great v(lhicle for the truth. Arabic alone reaches 40,000,000. (5) The Levant is the training ground for missionaries for the whole of the Orient. The political situation in Turkcy is the great obstacle to mission work. The population is heterogeneous and the government alien. Persecution of Christians is prevalent, partly because a change of religion means alienation from the State. The great need is for men of intellectual and spiritual power together with tact and breadth. There is a spirit of nnrest under the ecclesiastical yoke. In Persia, at least, work among the Mohammedans has met with some success. Five hundred villages were reached there last year, and many hundreds of Mohammedans are seeking Christ. Educational work, especially that among the women, is very important and effectual in Syria.
Japan was represented by George V. Knox, D.D., and others. There is a need for men trained in special lines for Japan; not conspicuous leaders or men with preconceived ideas of methods or sceptically inclined -men with ability to do both educational and evangelistic work. An exact knowledge of the language and people, their religious philosophy and characteristics is important. Trained natives are efficient, and must be allowed to lead when qualified. Woman's work is especially important for teaching and visiting in the homes. Women of Japan are very conservative, but the girls are impressible. The present crisis in Japan is due to two political factions-one seeking to make the Emperor responsible to the Diet, and the other desiring to keep the present constitution. The former faction has advocated treaty enforcement, compelling foreigners to reside only in treaty ports, as a means of bringing about treaty revision in favor of new tariff laws. At present the Liberal party (not advocating the enforcement of the treaty) is in the ascendancy.
Korea, as was stated by Rev. F. Ohlinger, is a land practically without a religion. In India religion rages like a fever, in China it is multiplied a~d is a problem of domestic economy, in Japan it is a fad, while in Korea it is an accident and has a holiday. There are only seven temples worthy the name in the country. Itinerating may be carried on nine months of the year.
The need of missions in Papal lanis is unquestioned. Papers were read on this subject by Rev. H. M. Lane, Rev. J. M. Lander, of Brazil, and others. Brazil is to-day about what it was in 1610, when the Jesuits sought to convert the people simply in order to control them. The priests are leaders in everything except morality, in which they and the people are shockingly deficient. Republicanism is the result of thirty years' teaching by missionaries, and its overthrow would mean the demolition of much of their work. The chief difficulties are found in ignorance, unconsciousness of sin, indifference, and dislike to change on the part of the people. Eighty-seven per cent of them can neither read nor write. The Bible has been a closed book to them. They are, as a rule, tender-hearted and bright, but weak, lazy, and untruthful, while the intelligent class are cynical and sceptical or agnostic. The hope of Brazil lies in the interior. Woman's work in the homes is to be emphasized, and there is great need of literary men to create and translate a literature. The best preparation for success among them is a study of the Roman Catholic Church.
Africa calls for evangelists, industrial laborers, and physicians. All the continent is under European control except Morocco. The chief difficulties arise from Moslem and papal influence, and the liquor and slave traffic. Forty-eight out of the two hundred Volunteers present at this conference expressed an intention to labor in the Dark Continent.
India was the subject of discussions led by Rev. Robert A. Hume, Dr. W. B. Boggs, Rev. R. Thackwell, Dr. A. T. Rose, of Burma, and others. The statement made at the Parliament of Religions, that the motto in which the Buddhist glories is, " The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," was pronounced a prodigious mockery. Caste is the greatest enemy of brotherhood, and there is a marked tendency toward scepticism and a turning to the study of the early religions of the country. The best native workers are .from the depressed classes. India's greatest need is for zenana workers and medical missionaries, men and women. Twenty-five denominational conferences were held, also one of college professors for the purpose of discussing the question how to increase the missionary interests and assist the Volunteers in their several institutions. Sixty professors came together from forty colleges.
The EDUCATIONAL" EXHIBIT was prepared by J. E. Adams, of the Executive CommIttee, and was a very complete collection of maps, charts, books, periodicals, and tracts from this and other lands, and arranged topically as to fields, religions, phases of the work, and missionary societies.
Space forbids us to touch, in this paper, upon any of the admirable addresses delivered in the eveni~g sessions of the convention.
The final meeting was a fitting conclusion to a great convention. The question was, What would these twelve hundred Volunteers carry back to the two hundred thousand students whom they represented ~ The points emphasized as the substance of the teachings of the convention were to study, work, pray, give, and begin now. Fifty-two Volunteers declared their intention to enter the foreign field this year, going to China, Africa, India, Japan, Mexico, South America, Turkey, Siam, Korea, Alaska, and Jamaica. Some of the reasons for going were: "Because I can't stay away;" "Because God wants me there;" "Because more are ready to take my place here than there;" "Because I have given my life to Christ to be used where there is the greatest need;" "That I may not build on another man's foundation ;" " Because the need is greater than in my own State (Texas)." A cablegram was read from Messrs. Wilder and White, former secretaries of the Student Volunteers and now in India : "India needs to.day one thousand spirit-filled Volunteers."
Thus the Convention eame to a close-a great convention in numbers, speakers, interest, spirituality, impressiveness, and, we believe, in results. There may have been some mistakes; if so they were few and scarcely noticeable. Dr. Knox, of Japan, justly mentions one or two possible criticisms. "Only China of the great mission fields was fully brought to the attention of the hearers in addresses at the general meetings. The presence of J. Hudson Taylor and Miss Guinness no doubt largely accounts for this. Also there was not a clear and full presentation of the difficulties of the work. One fears great disappointment for many a Volunteer when he comes to learn that, after all, the chief obstacles to evangelization of the world in our generation are not numerical, but intellectual, moral, and spiritual." But the results of the convention must be far-reaching, lasting, and beneficial to the progress of missions, the student world, the Volunteer Movement, and the individuals who attended. At the farewell meeting thirty-one stated that they had come to a decision to enter the mission field, during the Convention. Doubtless there are many other resultR not so tangible, but quite as lasting and important. The Convention has had the effect of increasing general confidence in the Movement, and of creating a larger sympathy with it in the hearts of those in charge of missionary interests at home and abroad. There was a definiteness of purpose and a union of
'rtm BABIS OF PERSIA
hearts in loving allegiance to our Lord and Saviour which increased the spirit of prayer and consecration. There was nothing of fanaticism, no overheated excitement or undue, crude zeal, but deep sanctified earnestness considering questions of the greatest importance. The combination of intellect and spirituality, of experience and energy was calculated to insure the best results. All points to the fact that the missionary spirit is not dying out, but is widening and deepening, and is bringing more men and women face to face with their responsibility for serving their" own generation by the war of God."
THE BABIS OF PERSIA.
BY PROFJ:SSOR M. Y. DE GOEZE.
May 16th, 1892, was a day of much sorrow to many thousands of men in Persia. On that day " God, who had become man in the person of Behfw'allah, left his human body and returned to heaven, but not before he had exhorted the true believers to prepare themselves for a better life, by doing everything in their power to ennoble their fellow-men and make them happy." BeM is the Christ of the Babis, the new sect who believe that their religion is to supplant all others, and who, while they do not deny that Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed were great prophets, yet maintain that God has inaugurated a new era with the advent of Ali Mohammed and BeMo'allah. The Babis have their origin in the Persian belief that a new Imam would arise to bring peace to men. In the first half of the present century, a young Persian named Ali Mohammed became impressed with the idea that he was a second John the Baptist. He taught that another, stronger than he, would follow him; and his disciple, Beha, claimed that honor after Ali's death. The new sect has experienced all the horrors of martyrdom in a degree scarcely less violent than the early persecutions against the Christians; and they deserved it just as little. The Bayan, the Babis' Bible, does not interfere with any government; but it attacks beliefs held by all other religions. The Bayan says that there is no hell after death, but that unbelief is hell, and belief, Paradise. The Bayan also says that the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran all had a mission to perform; but, now, human intellect is able to receive a better religion. The ritualism of the Mohammedans has been largely changed. The kibla, or direction in which to turn during prayer, is abolished. A fast is, however, ordered in the last month of the year, exempting only travellers, children, and pregnant women.
One of the most notable reforms of the Babis is the higher status they confer on women. Their women may take part in festivities, and appear in public without their veils. Brotherly love, courtesy to inferiors, and charity, are insisted upon. Begging is strongly prohibited. The Babis hope for the inauguration of the millennium. But while the Western Utopians hope to attain this object through the State, the Bab looks to religious means. The Bayan is also very inimical to an ignorant, superstitious, and overbearing priesthood. Auricular confession is an abomination to the Bab, slavery is against God's will. Outward distinction in dress is not admissible. The most radical dogma of the Bayan is: " We know nothing whatever of our state after death, God alone knows it."- ])e Gids, Amsterdam.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II."-:INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED DY BEV. J. T. GBACEY, D.D.
How Pagan Rome Became Ohristian. gan and Christian Rome," * which casts Dr. George Smith, in his lectures at a great deal of light oil. the miSSionary * Rutgers College, just published, says: processes by which ancient Romc be- " The greatest event in the history of came Christian Rome. the world is the conversion to Christ of First of all, this volume casts new the Roman Empire. The revolution light on the order in which the influoccupied three centuries till it was com- ences of missionary effort affected sopleted – externally by the coup d' etat ciety. It has long been the custom to of Constantine; internally by the Nicene content oursel ves in foreign missionary work with beginning with the lower theology." Baumgarten says the history of the classes, and some people have come to world he.s had its foundations for the think that Christianity furnishes forces last eighteen hundred years on the Acts which must always make the" pot boil of the Apostles. The brief essay which from the bottom. .. We do not underbears the record of their " Acts" has rate this uplifting and humanizing been studied as affording models and power of the religion of Jesus on the precedents for missionary work. But lowly. Nor does Lanciani. He says, it is necessary to get all the incidental "That is certainly a noble picture information possible throwing light on which represents the new faith as the development of the Christian his- searching among the haunts of poverty tory and civilization, of which that and slavery, seeking to inspire faith, book furnishes the germ. Nor is it hope and charity in their occupants; always good to stick too closely to prece- to transform them from things into dents, even when they are apostolic. human beings; to make them believe It is sometimes better to strike out for in the happiness of a future life; to ourselves in a way indicated by our alleviate their present sufferings; to own environment. Macaulay said, redeem their children from shame and H The time has come to pay a decent, servitude; to proclaim them equal to honorable, and manly respect to our their masters." forefathers; not by doing as they did ·But it is doubtful if we have not under other circumstances, but by doing eliminated factors in the original exas they would have done under our cir- ample, which would suggest that from cumstances." It is possible, as we the start Christianity, in any land, think, to over·imitate apostolic pattern might expect to affect all orders of the in some things; and all the more cau- people simultaneously. Without negtion should be exercised because of the lecting the illiterate and humble, may difficulty of finding out just what apos- not missionaries expect to strike at the brain of heathendom first as well as tolic example was. This line of reflection is intensified by last? the flood of new commentary that We have all along known, from the comes with every day from all depart. persons named in Paul's epistles, what ments of human investigation. A prom- Lanciani states, that the" Gospel found inent illustration of it is before us in its way to the mansions of the masters' Rudolfo Lanciani's newest work, "Pa- nay, even to the palace of the Cresars. ,: But we come to find that the" discov- * "The Conversion of India from Pantamus eries lately made on this subject are to the Present Time, A.D. 193-1898." By George Smith, C.I.E., LL.D. New York, Chicago, and • "Pagan and Chri8tian Rome." By Rudolfo Toronto: Fleming B. Revell Company. A Lauclani. Boston and New York: Bonghton, notice of this book will appear hereafter, MUllin & Company, 1893. Profusely illustrated. startling, and constitute a new chapter been associated with perverted notions in the history of imperial Rome." We concerning religion, and others which find evidence of prominent persons con- have been associated at least with reo nected with important families of Rome ligious customs not involving error. It concerning which ecclesiastical records is widely known that at least one very have been silent. Relatives of the Fla. learned and devoted missionary in CI~ina vian emperors, not mentioned by any is of opinion that ancestor worship ecclesiastical writers, are among the may be elevated to teach the immortalconverts to Christianity named in the ity of the soul and preserved as deepenrecords of the Roman historians and ing the honor which the Bible says biographers, notably Flavius Clemens, should be paid to parents. and, thus Petronilla, and two Domitillre. The stripped of its idolatrous features. becase of Acilii Glabriones is mentioned come an ally of Christian morals. In by Suetonius and Tacitus, who say he the transformation of pagan into Chriswas a convert to Christ. That he was tian Rome it seeme that the Church acnot an indifferent person would appear cepted existing lites and customs when from the facts of his career. His fam- not offensive to her principles and moralily attained celebrity as early as B.C. ity. It was the custom, for instance. 191, when AcHius Glabrio conquered to keep the standard weights and measthe }Iacedonians at the battle of Ther- ures in the Roman temples. This inmopylre. When Pertinax was elected stitution of the ponderaria migrated emperor, he declared in the Senate that from the temple to the Church when the Acili Glabriones were" the noblest the temples were closed. A.D. 393. race in. the world." Manius Acilius, Thus, too, the custom of having baths who was consul with Trajan A.D. 91, in connection with the temples was was put to death by Domitian in 95 carried over to the churches. Senators for being a Christian. The names of and municipal magistrates administered many others, the flower of the Ro- justice in the classic Roman Curia, and man nobility, were found to have in 1130-85 they did the same in the been Christians. We have known churches. that heathenism, when pressed, seeks compromise with Christianity. Tiberius There were other customs and sym· sent a message to the Senate. asking bolic features which we would certainly that Christ bc included among the class among doubtful expedients for gods; and Lampridins says in his day imitation in foreign fields. Would we it is now come to be believed that the convert Orpheus wat.ching his flock into temples dedicated by Hadrian in every the Good Shepherd; or represent on the city to the ., unknown God" were de- church pavement, as Pius IX. did. voted to Christ; and that he was pre· Galenus and Hippokrates compounding vented from declaring them to be to medicines at Sienna ; or place Hercules Christ lest "the other temples might in ivory, as in St. Peter's; or set up be deserted and the entire population images of the sibyls, as the early Church turn Christian." All this goes to prove did, because of the popular notion that the influence which Christianity at an they had prophesied the coming of early date exercised over ruling and in- Christ? To us these have been trans· fluential classes of the Roman world; formed into mere mythical art or poetry, and it began to exercise this influence owing to the distance of the removal; at the beginning of its career, and main- and we ourselves in a poetic and artistic tained it steadily till its CUlmination way preserve customs and practices under Constantine. which are a survi val of classic idolatry.. There are customs which have outlived Another important question in mis- the suppression of pag!ln institutions. sionary circles is how far to conserve Italians still call Pentectlst Pasqua rosa, local and national customs which have and the Pope blesses the" golden rose" on Quadragesima Sunday; and in the is little doubt that we can turn into sixth century the Slavs celebrated Pen- tecost with the half-pagan and half-bar- new channels much that is national or barous rousalia. All these are easily traceable to the feast called Rosaria, racial; and we will have enough re- which the ancients celebrated at the sepulchres. There were, therefore, cus- form work to do when we confine our- toms and practices of the classical age so deep rooted that even after sixteen selves to essentials. The missionaries centuries they are noticeable in our modern Christian civilization. in India are making much of already- There is the other lesson of warning established usage in popular assemblies and failure. It has been said that ancient Rome had two populations of and holidays, wresting them out of the equal size, one alive and one of marble. The Roman Church did not abandon hands of the opposition and turning this custom of erecting statues; and hence we have them in so many Roman them to Christian ends. A.t any rate, Catholic churches to-day, with all the ex votos to which the ancient heathen whatever view we adopt there is much had grown accustomed. food for thought in the facts set forth Much else that was objectionable and that remains till now of saint wor_ by L'anciani as to the mild, impercep· ship is distinctly a survival of heathendom. We may well take warning lest tible changes wrought in three centuries the heathen shall make a large impression ou the new Church which we are which made Rome Christian instead of developing from their midst. pagan, or-shall we say it ?-has left But the marvel of the transformation remains as au encouragement amid all it half pagan till now. J. T. G. difficulties of our time. The Gospel that could couquer Rome can conquer Symposium.-J apan. any heathendom the world has seeu or will see. "Rome," according t::> an old REV. H. LOOMIS, ¥OKOHAMA.-The saying, .• contained as many churches condition of things in Japan is not as as there are days in the year," which bright as hitherto. The anti foreign Lanciani says was entirely too modest, agitation resulted in the dissolution of as there were certainly not less than a the Diet by the emperor; and it rethousand. A.nd these were transform- mains to be seen whether the country ed temples. "The experience gained will sustain the Government or not. through twenty-five years of active eKploration in ancient Rome, both above But we are not discouraged; and and below ground," says our author. some departments of the work are quite "enables me to state that every pagan hopeful. We are sure that this state of building which was capable of giving affairs will not be permaner:t, and that shelter to a congregation was trans- God will bless the labors of His servants formed, at one time or another, into a here in the future as He has in the past. church or chapel." REv. JAMES I.SEDER, TOKYo.-Chris- It is a practical question how far we tian work is being vigorously pushed shall conserve customs of the heathen forward. The work of the churches in society out of which we bring the new and about Tokyo, while encountering native Christian Church. With which considerable opposition and difficulties, of them can we make friends? There is nevertheless prospering moderately. From many points the Christian papers bring good tidings of renewed zeal and activity in the churches. Prayer-meet. ings are being more generally attended than for some time back. In most churches united and protracted efforts are being put forth by way ot revival meetings. Nor are these labors in vain in the Lord. One pastor writes of 22 probationers just received. Another reports 7 just baptized. Similar reports come from a number of other places. Only yesterday a missionary returned ferously cried out that, "It is against from a tour in Chiba ken, and tells the the Japanese Constitution and law to writer that he had just p1'eached in a preach Christianity." This caused a Buddhiat temple which is now without f~u:(luS uproar, and presently a 11uma priest. The idols were still in their 1(. f men, whose appearance was by accustomed place, but the people said 0). ~eans assuring, were making their the temple had been built for the wor- way through the crowd toward the ship of God; and as the Christian preachers. Being repeatedly urged by preachers said they would preach about the native pastor to follow him to the the true and living God, they should upper rooms of the house for safety, be heard. Afterward the people could they both made good their escape withchoose whom they would thereafter out injury. Threats of killing continued worship, God or Buddha. A goodly for some little time; but finally the disnumber attended and very respectfully turbers left, the meeting having been listened to the glorious Gospel. May completely broken up. Another misthe Spirit lead them to a right choice I sionary had an experience very similar Now and again we read of a new church only a short time ago, the persecutors. or chapel erected and dedicated to the saying they would not leave the place service of God. Sunday-school work as long as the" foreign enemy remained also is looking more and more hopeful, in the house." with increased attendance and interest_ Nor is the opposition confined to mis- A spirit of greater earnestness seems sionaries alone. Japanese are almost to be spreading among the churches. equally subject to them. In another But on the other side there is also a paper my eye just falls on the followspirit of greater opposition arising ing: "The Doshisha College had a among the Buddhists. Most likely they public meeting at the Gionza in Kyoto, would make no outcry nor bestir them- at which over 2000 persons attended. 'selves were not Christianity making de- After the meeting was closed at 9 A.M., cided inroads upon the religious terri- Otsuka Eitaro, a first-year student, was tory once all their own. InChiba ken a attacked by four men as he was going Swedish missionary, we hear, recently out. They inflicted slight wounds on ,uffered personal violence and inj ury his head, and fled when his companions at their hands. At another place the came to his assistance. The police Japanese pastor had given public notice have caught one of them, who is a Budof a Christian meeting for the evening, dhist priest. " and that a foreign missionary would speak. About 700 people gathered. In Tottori ken a native Christian Stirred up by priests, they began to preacher recently stirred up the people throw stones and other dangerous mis- considerably by declaring that "the siles, and would not allow the meeting will of God is above the law of. any to be held. The police appeared pow- earthly monarch." The incensed citi· erless. 'rhey advised the preacher to zens have appealed to the police. They dismiss the meeting; and as there seemed regard the Emperor of Japan as the no other way out, it was reluctantly "son of heaven;" hence to have done. uttered the foregoing sentence was greatly disrespectful if not disloyal to Less than a week ago & missionary the ruler of this land. For this very went out to Tanashi, a small town some reason the photograph of the emperor 25 miles from Tokyo, to fill a series of is nowhere on sale in the capital, as it appointments. An evening service had is regarded as wo sacred for publi<: been announced by the Japanese helper, gaze. Nor is this view held only by and he also spoke firilt. For about half the so·called lower classes; but to this an hour the large assembly' listened day it obtains among wealthy and eduquietly, until some Buddhist priest voci- cated people, being held either in sin. cere faith in the old superstitions or in understood Hotoke to mean Buddhism; insincerity. Missionaries cannot be too 7 boys attached the word to no reality ; careful how they speak even to Japanese 4 thought it meant the soul of man, Christians on the subject of their em- while 7 could make no reply.
peror. Still the truth may and must " .As to the third question, 25 believed be told, but always in love and to save. that man's soul lives after death, 81 be- Japan has made immense progress in lieved that death ends all, and 12 could.
matters of education during the past not answer. In answer to the fourth three decades. And yet the present question, 24 boys and 3 girls declared ignorance and indifference of the people, their belief in the existence of a soul, 5 so far as religious knowledge is con- of them basing their belief upon per- cerned, is a factor which enters very sonal experiences; but 48 boys and 14 largely into the causes retarding Chris- girls denied the existence of any souL tian progress in this land. The follow- Twenty-five others believed in the ex- ing from a recent paper gives some idea istence of a soul, but not in its immor- of the religious ideas of the children tality_ "
here: :M:ost interesting and important prac- "Mr. Togi, once an officer of the tical conclusions can be drawn from the Department of Education, now Super- above answers. It will be seen that intendent of the Higher School in Akita, nearly all these boys and girls still re- Il.ttempted to ascertain the religious gard their" imperial ancestors" as the ideas of the children of his school by a object of their worship and highest practical experiment. He chose 118 reverence. The large majority do not pupils, 19 of whom were girls, and the believe hi immortality, which has only average age of all about 14 years. To been brought to light through the Gos- these he propounded the following pel. Over half even deny the very ex- four questions: 1. What is Kami istence of the soul. The teachings of (God)? 2. What is Hotoke (a name giv- Buddhism are extremely vague. Most en to Buddha)? 3. What becomes of children (and adults may logically be man after death? 4. Is there a soul ? included) have little conception of a If so, what kind of a thing is it? future life or of future rewards and These questions awakened much seri- punishments for moral conduct in the ous thought; and he tabulates their present life. With such conceptions answers as follows: To the first ques- of liCe and its moral obligations in the tion, 82 boys and 15 girls replied, • By minds of the people, we can only won- Kami is meant our imperial ancestors der that the moral condition is no worse and benefactors reverenced by us.' Six than it really is. It will, moreover, be boys and 3 girls replied, • Kami is a seen that the work is still immeasurably spiritual Being outside of mankind; , great and the field "white unto the 1 girl, a Roman Catholic, added that harvest. " Christianity is here to stay 'He is the Creator of the universe.' and to conquer, and is gloriously march- One boy said that Kami meant • gohei ' ing forward ; but there are still " re- (a kind of paper cut in narrow strips gions beyond." May past success and and hung in temples to represent the Spirit and command of Christ arouse Kami). Three boys replied that there the Church to still greater achievements, is no Kami, while 8 gave unsatisfactory greater faith, greater self-sacrifice and answers. To the second question, 55 persevering prayer I boys and 16 girls replied, • All deceased persons are Hotoke.' Eleven boys and REv. DAVID S. SPENCER, NAGOYA.
1 girl said that by Hotoke they under- It is exceedingly interesting to note stood Shaka, Amida, and other virtuous the comments of the Buddhist press of sages who have influenced the spirits Japan since the conclusion of the of men. Seventeen boys and 1 girl World's Congress of Religions at Chicago. and in view of the rise of the reached its culmination. The movemixed residence question. ment toward Europeanization is sure to start again. With tha~, Christianity Buddhism is much divided. Some is again to go forward. We must be sects are at war within themselves, and on the alert. The nineteenth century others are at war with each other. They is going; what awaits us as the twentiare more completely divided and more eth opens ?" hostile to each other than is the Christian Church, in spite of their occasional The same magazine, in another slurs at Christianity because of its article, confesses that mixed residence numerous sects. They are clearly con- is sure to come. Scholars advise it, scious that the Buddhist forces are not business men need it. The only hope prepared to contend successfully with for Buddhism in such an event lies in Christianity, and various efforts at re- keeping aloof from politics and gi ving form appear. As these expressions of special attention to religious growth. Buddhist opinions to Buddhists must be or interest to all who are watching re- 2. The Dento speaks more hopefully ligious movements in Japan, I quote for Buddhism: "Many fear that with from some of these magazines as trans- mixed residence Buddhism will go unlated into the columns of the Japan der. But truth is conqueror at last. If Mail, making occasional comment: Christianity is truth it will conquer. The truth, however, is not in Chris- 1. The Bukkyo, an independent maga- tianity. Science shows that. Experience zine, has a leading article on "The makes that clear. Yet Christian meth- Necessary Work of Buddhists. " "The ods, some say, make Christianity forcountry is now afflicted with crime and midable, and the foreign religion is procalamities. Buddhists therefore should tected by foreign governments. But if be up and doing to help and to cure. our hundreds of thousands of priests are But more than this. Speculative Bud- faithful, what can the foreign preachers dhism, which has for a long time been in do? And the fOrty millions of the Japthe ascendant, must give way to prac- anese people are practically our defendtical forces. Christianity is beset on ers. The treaties must be revised_ all sides; Buddhism has the popular Let mixed residence come." Yes, we heart. Let it avail itself of this advan- reply, let it come. And with it must tage. Growing before all eyes is the come greatly increased advantages for question of mixed residence. [Allow- Christian work. While Buddhism is ing foreigners to reside in the interior well intrenched in some sections and by of the country. whereas up to this time no means dead, it will be found that it they have been compelled to reside only has already lost its power over the in the foreign concessions connected great masses of the forty millions of with the open ports, unless employed the Japanese, especially over the whole by Japanese.-D. S. S.] That is full younger class. Let the reader note also of momentous consequences. Mixed the coloring of nationalism in the above residence must come, sooner or later. quotation. Now, in our strength, is the time to prepare for this event. When foreigners S. The Nonin Shimpo is not so confiare admitted into all parts of the coun- dent of results as other representatives try. the ministers of Christianity will of the popular faith. It speculates enter with them and work freely. We upon the fate of Buddhism after the should be prepared to meet them. A incoming of foreigners after this mood : Christian reaction is sure to come. The "The first elIect will be Christian agformer extreme Europeanization of the gressiveness. The Japanese are povpeople has been checked. Conservatism erty-stricken as regards religious ideas. has been revived. But the endeavor Nine tenths of the people do not know to preserve national peculiarities has what Buddhism is. [And this after Japan has had about thirteen centuries' experience of Buddhism.-D. S. S.] because of personal immorality, etc.
At the beginning, with mixed residence The world moves I foreigners will prevail over WI. Bud- EVANGELUITIO WORK. dhism will decay and disappear. Of course con1lict is not desirable, but it REV. T. P. POATE, JAPAN.-I landed seems to be inevitable. Christian evan- in Japan in the fall of 1870. At that gelization means poison to the nation. time the work was carried on under Remember the ruin of Poland and of great disadvantages. The drag·net of Hawaii through Christian peoples." the Gospel could not be used; it was 4. The Kokkyo finds much fault with , fishing with the rod and line. But the recent Buddhistic methods. "Ancient period of sowing was now well.nigh ,customs have too much weight with done, and God drew near to His Church Buddhist associations. The habitual in blessing. It was, as is already reading of the ritual and Buddhistic known, during the week of prayer in Scriptures at religious gatherings wea- 1870 that this blessing came. The quick- ries the people. Popular addresses ened ear of faith heard the tinklings of should be substituted. Biographies the golden bells of the great High Priest of Buddha and of the founders of the who dwells unseen, yet not unknown, sects should be presented at the meet- within the veil. Over the meetings in ings. If the people will not come to the oHis sevenfold might brooded the won- temples, gather them if possible into drous Paraclete, and from rent hearts private houses and teach them there." came "that unimaginable groan, the It will be seen that this is simply im. birth.pang of souls born into the king- itating Christian methods. And they dom of light, that yearning known to go farther than this in some sections, all the people of God which finds its establishing Sunday·schools, gathering utterance in the cry, 'Lord, save souls, and teaching the young, and the poor or I die I '" Then the Spirit of God in night schools, organizing Young moved upon the hearts of the heathen Men's Christian Associations with Chris· who were present. and one after an- tianity left out. have popular preaching other confessed Christ. Yet more, for services, and take up a collection, as if the first time in the history of the em- they were really Methodists. This im. pire Japanese knelt in prayer to God itating process has been going on for that He would pour out on them and sometime. their race the Holy Ghost. These 5. The Daido Shimpo enters a strong meetings were carried on for several complaint that" the Buddhists always weeks, and out of them grew the First lag behind in social progress, when they Church of Yokohama, now numbering should be the leaders. A national reo about 800 members.
action is coming. Back of the present From this time the work grew apace.
anti·foreign nationalistic mood a great It was founded on and nourished by pro·foreign feeling is developing. Bud· the Word of God. In accordance with dhists should get their power well in the universal rule of Protestant mis- hand, because national secularization is sionaries, the Scriptures were translated near. " into Japanese. Two translations (in The prophecy of a retum of the pro- some respects 8. regrettable thing) were foreign feeling is not without founda· made-the one a Baptist;the other by a tion. committee. Each had its work. The It only remains to note the organiza- Baptist translation reached a class of tion, in one of the prefectures, of a large people unable to read the mixed charac- association for the purification of the ter of the committee's version, while priesthood. One of the recent acts of this was well suited to the wants of the this association was to decide that 220 great middle and upper classes. Out priests were unworthy of their position of the press poured in ever.increasing volume a stream of Christian literature God, and went north on January 10th, which was carried everywhere by col· 1880. A little church was soon gath· porteurs. The branches of the true ered, and as we lookeu on the blank, Vine shot forth and filled the land, and desolate heathenism of the place our the tender grapes gave a good smell. hearts were led out In prayer to God And the Lord of the vineyard sent forth for a hundred souls. That prayer has more laborers. I had been engaged in been answered well-nigh threefold. Our educational work for a number of Methodist brethren came in, and then years, in the employ of the imperial my dear brother Rev. E. Rothesay Mil· Government, when in 1875 I was led ler ; and though this be literally Rock into direct work for the Lord. The Province (Iwate ken), the power of the claims of that work grew more and more Spirit is making it into a fruitful field.
pressing, and at length, in 1879, I sev· In the spring of that same year I bap- ered my connection with the Govern· tized a man named Seino Tomonoshin ment and gave myself wholly to the at a place called Farukawa. He had preaching of the Word in connection been a hard drinker, a great sinner, but with the American Baptist Missionary on him came the Spirit of God, con- Union. vincing him of sin. He dared not sleep Shortly after there came a call from at night, fearing that he might wake up Morioka, a city 325 miles northeast of . in torment. The message of God's love, Tokyo. At that time the provinces of the of sin laid upon Jesus, of the blood that northeast were in almost utter darkness; cIeanseth from sin, came to him, and he no Protestant missionary was to be received it as a little child. His wife found in all that district, yet a certain saw the change in her husband, and she work had been done by members of the too believed. He wrote to me in Yoko· Greek Church. Among those brought hamil., and asked me to stop in Sendai, to Christ by their means was a young on my next trip, and baptize her. 150 man named KUdo. He was not, how· anxious was he that I should not fail ever, satisfied with this form of Chris· that he even telegraphed to me. Now, tianity. Though the Greek Church Sendai is the largest city of the north.
gives the Bible to its members and I had not thought it possible to open recommends them to study it, still work there, but God opened a wide and prayer for the dead, the invocation of effectual door. When I reached Sendai the saints, and a mass of superstitions Brother Seino at once sought me out; too numerous to mention disfigure the and I shall never forget how the tears faith. He came to Yokohama to study, came from his eyes and the joy that and there met with some of ollr believ· shone in his face. His wife was bap- ers, who taught him the way of God tized, and in the fall another church more perfectly. He learned with joy was organized in Sendai. The work that he needed not the intercession of grew rapidly, and I am afraid that I got the saints nor of the Virgin Mary, but proud. I said to myself, I shall have could come to God through the one the first self·supporting Baptist church; :Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus. Fail· and then there came trouble, division ing health compelled him to return and strife; and how sad that is! It home. He was attacked by consump· seemed as if all was going to pieces: tion and did not live many months, but but then I learned what the Puritans he tol:1 his friends of what he had called" the soul.fattening blessing of learned, and the result was, repeated fasting." We fasted and prayed, and letters to Dr. Brown asking for a teach· the Lord lifted upon us the light of His cr. Till my appointment there had countenance.
been no one to send, for the mission I went one day down to the river practically consisted of two ladies and rather sad at heart, and as I passed by Dr. Brown. I hailed the call as from a Shinto temple I noticed that some "matruri" or festival was going on. five ports were opened to foreign trade The priest was praying, and I caught in China, and nearly that time since ac- what sounded like my name. In J ap- tive Protestant missionary wl)rk was anese my name is Pato. I thought begun in the land. But the widespread that I must be mistaken, but on draw- riots throughout the empire during the ing nearer heard it again. Out rang in last year makes it necessary to consider sonorous tones, " Ama terasu no mi kami whether mission methods do not tequire yo, negawaku wa mi tsurugi wo motte fresh adaptation.
kam Eikokujui Poto to ni mono wo ha- " The genius of the Chinese people is rai tamaije;" which, being interpreted, pre-eminently to listen to their rulers, is, " 0 Goddess that dost illuminate the who are expected to take paternal in- heavens, with thine august sword drive terest in everything that pertains to their out that Englishman Poate. " You smile, welfare. If the rulers oppose Chris- and so did I; for my heart was glad. tianity. suspicions abound on every For whenever Satan rages God is side; if they approve, then all classes work.ing, and I knew of a surety that are stimulated to friendship and inquiry.
Emanuel, the Golden Prince, would " One immense hindrance to mission- come, riding in His chariots of salva- ary work in China is the hostile attitude tion, to the aid of His Church. I re- of the mandarins, the gentry and the turned to Yokohama. and one day a educated classes. For millenniums the telegram came from the church: Chinese have been taught to consider "Go Sei Rei. go kouri ni natta" (" On themselves vastly superior to every na- us hath the Holy Spirit descended"). tion under the sun; and as their educa- And when I visited that church next I tional curriculum to this day is still un- fonnd that it was even so. T hey had changed,there is springing up annually a waited on God in prayer, and lie had fresh crop of scholars in absolute igno- heard them. The spirit of envy and rance of the outside world, and with the hate had been cast out, and in its stead same intense pride and prejudice as of reigned the spirit of peace and love and old. For, centuries, too, the Chinese of a sound mind. Government has systematically opposed all intercourse with foreigners to the ut- most of their power, as they regard it Ohristian Work Among the Higher full of peril. OIasses of Ohins. ., Again, for many years, owing to the Twenty-nine missionaries in China, Taiping rebels having taken up a Chris- representing as many societies, sent out, tian name, the authorities of China in the form of a circular, some time since looked on Christian literature as only an Appeal for the Society for the Diffu- fit for wicked rebels, and therefore bc- sion of Christian Knowledge among the came still more hostile. In the course Chinese as an especial agency for reach· of years this feeling showed itself in all ing the higher classes in that country. the Government dispatches of manda- This society sustains two monthly mag- rins, high and low, where the vilest ru- azines in Chinese, one religious and one mors against Christians, however false general. Missionaries from different and malicious, were duly recorded, sel- parts of the empire contribute to the dom inquiring into their origin, their columns of these, and they are, together truth or their falsehood. Lately these an- with other literature, distributed from ti-foreign and anti-Christian references the civil service examination centres were collected from Government dis- and from other centres, to the number of patches and standard works-into which ten in each province. This committee they had also crept-and republished make the following, among other im- in a cheap form; and new publications,'
portant statements: based on these supposed facts, were ,," It is now exactly fifty years since issued to stir up the whole land against Christianity: thinking thereby to benefit "Meanwhile the natural increase of .the popUlation of China is at the rate their country. Such was the main and of about three millions annually. As scarcely any improved methods arc yet immediate cause of the riots, which last- introduced for the support of these Im- mense numbers, and as the Chinese ed, with some intervals. for more than a have not discovered how to produce means of support faster than the natural year. increase of popUlation, as Christian na- tions have done, they must either perish "During all this time it was useless or become every day more wretchedly poor even than they now are, and this for missionaries to approach the higher dire poverty leads to corruption and crime. In fact, the unemployed abound classes, so they have labored patiently throughout the land, to be swept away in periodic famines, while the vast naton among those that would hear them- ural resources of China remain unde- veloped. We must strive for the estabmostly the poor-and we are glad to lishment of righteousness and salvation in the land. Few of the Chinese know record 40,000 communicants among how this can be accomplished; but God has given us that. knowledge. We these. Had the higher classes been as must help them."
accessible, enlightened, and friendly as From the report just at hand we gather information to the effect that they are in Japan and in other mission they have established depots in Peking, Moukden, Tientsin, Shensi, Nanking, fields, we might reasonably expect pro- and Chefoo. They arranged last year to present to all the great mandarins of portionately a far greater number of the empire a copy of Dr. Faber's ~Teat work on" Civilization," in five Chmese Christians in China than there is, and volumes. They sent 60,000 copies of their pUblications to the ten maritime we should not have had the riots, which provinces. Not all of these were sold. The Chinese are poor, though many are have so greatly imperilled the mission rich. The poor have to pay 36 per cent to pawn-shops, and sometimes 100 per cause and excited fresh opposition where cent, to tide them over temporary dUn- culties. Thousands upon thousands colit had almost died away. lect in mat sheds at every great city H One great lesson of the riots is, that in the winter, in order to attend the free soup.kitchens,and this only means prac· the reformation of one class in a nation tically slow starvation. China thus caunot go on peaceably without simul- presents an amount of suffering which taneous enlightenment of the other class- far surpasses that of any other country. es, otherwise it must inevitably end in Most of this might be easily removed. persecution. riots, or revolution. There- It is the object of this ChristIan Knowlfore something must be done to prevent edge Society to try to help the Chinese further collision and disaster besides ap· to such knowledge as will result in the pealing to force. improved condition of the country. For wantof political insight, China has " True, the most prejudiced are more lost within thirty·five years, in northopposed to us than ever because of our east Manchuria, a country as large as increasing numbers, but many of the France; and in the south she has lost highest authorities are compelled to in- Burmah, and in Annam tributary States quire carefully into the matter, and larger than France. For lack of comthere is au increasing number growing mercial knowledge she has £80,000,000 friendly and anxious to know the whole less foreign trade than India, and even truth about our work. The emperor little Japan has trebled her foreign trade, and the highest authorities are begin- while China has only dOUbled hers. ning to learn that these anti·Christian rumors are false, and that Christians are The Secretary, Rev. Timothy Richgood people whose object is to benefit ards, Shanghai, will gladly furnish in· China and not to stir up rebellion aud formation on t.he prospects and plans strife. The edict and proclamations of this admirable organization. If it which have recently made their appear- shall accomplish a tithe as much as the ance are very satisfactory; though is- similar society has in India. it will be a sued under foreign pressure, they are great blessing. all valnable documents and point ill the right direction.
" The empire being at peace. foreigners are engaged to write books for them on all subjects. Its leading men are studying many questions of reform, and among these religion. It seems hardly possible to overestimate the stupendous importance of the present opportunity, when a fourth of the human race is compelled to meditate a change in its religious policy, with all that that involves! The hand of God is in the matter, showing clearly that past labor has not been in vain.
i894.j
IlI.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Siam and Laos, Malaysia," Unoccupied Fields,t Buddhism.:f: . MISSION WORK AMONG THE LAO!!. not to be intimidated by his bonds. , Most of the obstacles since then have BY REV. DANIElL McGILVARY, D.D. been some petty annoyances to be ex· pected, and such as hav.e acted as a Chieng Mai, Lampoon, Lakawn, Praa, wholesome tonic. Nan, Chieng Hai, and Chieng Saan are the capitals of provinces of the same For long years only two ordained name in the north of the Kingdom of missionaries were in the field. In 1883 Siam, to which they are tributary. Rev. Dr. Peoples and others arrived, They occupy the valleys and plateaus followed ne:l!;t year by Rev. Chalmers of the upper tributaries of the Maa Martin. Since then the growth of the Nam, separated from the lower plain church has been remarkable for its by mountains and rapids. They are steady uniformity. For three years the governed by a line of native rulers who yearly accessions to the communion of receive their appointment and their in· the church was about ninety. For the signia of office from Bangkok. last seven successive years the acces- sions have been 110, 129, 180, 190, 241, Having first obtained consent of the 299, and 303 for 1893. Our present viceroy, permission to establish a mis· adult membership is 1586,. total bap. sion station in Chieng Mai was granted tized 2707. The mother church at by the Siamese Government, and the Chieng Mai has sent out eight colonies, mission was formally opened by the and still has an adult membership of writer and his family April 3d. 1867, 719, and Dr. Dennis in his latest work M.r. Wilson and family following in makes the Presbytery of North Laos 1868. The warm reception that the the banner presbytery in the General missionaries received from all classes, Assembly. Probably a greater promi. the baptism of the first convert, the nence has been given to the evangelistic bright prospects of the mission so soon work than in most missions, and in clouded by the changed attitude of the .this we have largely used the native viceroy and the martyrdom of Noi talent available. From the beginning Sunyah and Nan Chai, the tragic death of the mission the preaching and pas· of the viceroy soon after, the kindness toral work have been magnified. For of his successor, the present viceroy, a long time this was from necessity. counteracted by the hostile acts of his Our small force precluded some depart· brother, the second in command, lead· ments of mission work. What was be· ing to the appeal to Bangkok and the gun from necessity has been continued Royal Proclamation of Religious Toler· from conviction and experience of its ation from the young king in 1878, are success. We have endeavored to reach matters of history and need not be reo the present generation first; and no peated. The death of the brother soon subject has such constraining power after was another of the many Provi· over men who are conscious of their dential interpositions in behalf of the guilt and sin as the Cross of Christ. mission. The only case of persecution The Laos readily admit that there is no since then was the imprisonment for provision for pardon in Buddhism. eight months of a valued assistant un· "I would embrace any religion that der false charges, but really on account offers pardon for sin," said an officer of his religion. From his prison cell from ChiengToong. met on a late tour. he wrote consoling letters to his family From the first, too, it was evident * See pp. 332 and 884 (present. issue). that a large field for medical work was opened. The ordained ministers stood t See p. 877 (present issue). :I: See pp. 326 and 367 (present issue).
FIELD OF MON'l'HI,Y SURVEY
lI,ghast at the demand for foreign medi- Rev: Nan Tah. He is one of the most cine which they had created, but could learned men in Buddhistic literature, not supply. A missionary station is which gives him great influence among not complete without a physician. The hil:l people. In manner and tact he is healing of the body and the remedy for all that could be desired, instant in seathe soul, as in the Saviour's ministry, son and out of season, and is himself a have acted and reacted on each other. bright example of the power of the They are the counterpart and comple- Gospel which he preaches. ment of each other. When there is no physician the miuister has to become a Besides him the annual report for the quack and treat cases for which he is closing year mentions about thirty nanot qualified. When this work is turned tive ruling elders who have devoted over to an accomplished physician he much time to evangelistic work during can devote his energies to his own spe- the year. The report adds, " They go cial work. The consecrated physician before, we follow and reap the harcan easily combine the preaching of the vest." Besides the influence of these, Gospel with. the medical work. The the church is growing by the vitality in reverse is not always possible. Among its native members. Most of the male the IJaos the medical missionary has an members lead in public prayer, and ideal field for influence. The evangel- mauy of the women in their own prayeristic and the medical work combined meetings. Family prayer is generally have laid the broad foundation for all observed, and they do not hesitate to our other work, and given the solid urge the subject of religion on their basis on which it stands. In the pio- people. In all of the sub-stations naneer work in the broad field already tives lead the Sabbath worship. An opened and opening in the east and the officer from Lakawn, sixty-five miles to north, we must look to the consecrated the southeast, became a Christian-a physician to be preacher and healer. church was soon organized, and a call With his medicine and surgical case and made for a mission station, to which his Bible, he is welcome alike to the resi- Dr. and Mrs. Peoples and others since dences of chiefs and governors and to responded. When the station in Lamthe homes of the poor. The extent of poon was opened, one hundred and its inflnence may he seen by a single twenty members were already waiting statement. Dr. McKean, medical mis- to be dismissed to the church then orsionary in Chieng Mai, reports five thou- ganized. The churches in Chieng Saan sand cases treated last year at the sta- aud Chieng IIai and Papow and Chieng tion, and three thousand vaccinations, Dow, all in distant provinces, have thus bringing eight thousand souls un- grown up under native labor, with only der the direct influence of the Gospel. an annual visit from the missionary. In a tour of Iive months last year the They have called in vain for the settlewriter distributed cighty.eight ounces ment of a missionary. of quinine gratuitously, or otherwise, giving us a welcome in some places With the evangelistic and medical where the people would have been in- work as a basis, as soon as we had force different. We would emphasize the to open schools, Christian parents were fact that just now THREE MEDICAL MIS- waiting to put their children in them. SIONARIES are NEEDED for our IMME- The Girls' Boarding School was the DIATE WORK. Shall this appeal be first. It has had a succession of faithmade in vain? ful teachers. Under its present princi- pal, Miss Griffin, assisted by Miss Allie Special mention should be made of McGilvary, it has completed a prORperthe influence of our native Christians ous year. The Boys' Boarding School in advancing the work. First among was commenced later by Mr. Coilins, these is our native ordained minister, who is now assisted by Miss C. H. Mc- GUvary. One hundred and fifteen pupils were enrolled during the year. One of whom, a son-in·law of Nan Intab, of the most encouraging features of the first convert, was ordained. these schools Is that all the girls and nearly all the boys come from Ohris- To all of these schools we look for a tian families-not to learn English, generation of better educated Ohriswhich is not taught, bnt to receive a tians, and, above all, for a strong force Christian education. Most of the pu- of Christian ministers and workers to pils are either communicants or non- evangelize their own and neighboring communing members on entering, and tribes. The first duty of the foreign the communion roll is constantly en- missionary is to lay the foundations, larged from these schools, t~oenty-tl.ree translate t,he Scriptures, and give a having been added during the fall term. Christian litcrature, then to train work- The influence of the pupils reacts on ers and act as bishops in superintending the families and villages from which and directing the work. they come. A prosperous school at Lakawn, under Miss Fleeson and Mr. Our Sahbath-schools have one feature 'l'aylor, was commenced soon after the worthy of universal adoption. They station was established, and now a boys' embrace the old and the young, men school is in operation under Mr. Taylor, and women; in other words, the church who also superintends the Industrial and congregation studying the Scrip- School, leaving Dr. Peoples frec for tures. evangelistic work and the medical work in the absence of Dr. Briggs. Even A font of Laos type prepared by Dr. Utc last station at Lampoon has a good Peoples is a success, and the press in beginning in school work. Chieng l1ai under Mr. Collins is send- ing forth the printed Word of Gi>d. Last "nd not least, before we were The Gospel of Matthew revised, and ready for it, the evangelistic work had Acts translated, by Rev. E. B. McGilfurnished pupils for the Theological vary, have been published, and the Training School. Rev. Nan Tah was Gospel of John is now ready for the prepared for the ministry by the mem- press, while Mr. Wilson has translated bers of the Chieng Mai station in the in- the Psalms. The whole of the Scriptervals of other duties. A strong need tures are accessible to those who read had long been felt for an organized ef- Siamese, as most of Ollr Christians do. fort, and in Mr. Dodd, since joined by Mr. Irwin, the right men were found. Hitherto we have referred to the work Our ruling elders and others, who have in the Siamo-Laos States in the north of proved themselves efficient workers, Siam, which gave it the title of Nortlt have been encouraged to enter the Train- Laos Mission. Rccent explorations in ing School. It ha!! one feature of a the regions north of the Kingdom of model theological school. The teach- Siam have shown tbat the title NORTH ing is practical and biblical as well as Laos Mission is a misnomer. The easttheoretical, the Bible being the princi- ern and northeastern portion of British pal text-book. A portion of each day Burma and a large number of districts is devoted to evangelistic work, and on and towns subject to Yunnan, China, Sabbath the pnpils are sent out two by are inhabited by the Kerns and Lus, two, and the first school hour in the two large and numerous branches of week is devoted to hearing a report of the Laos family, who might be called their work, with criticisms and practical the Burmo and Chino-Laos. This is suggestions from teachers and feIIow- doubtless the original home of the pupils. Ttoenty-five were enrolled last whole Siamese and Laos family. These year, and at the last meeting of pres- tribes have retained more of their origbytery in December jive of the pupils inal characteristics, while the Siamese were licensed to preach the Gospel, one have developed a type of civilization of their own. A tour was taken the first flve months of 1893 by the Rev. Robert Irwin and thc writer, passing through the provinces of British Blll'Dla to the baptism of twenty·two, the first of the Sip Song Panna, a confederation of Lu Moosur race who had embraced the States under the jurisdiction of China. Gospel, was a red·letter dsy in my life. We visited about seventeen districts and Ch Boo Kaw, the first Moosur convert, towns, in all of which the Kern and Lu has since gone to his rest, exhorting his dialects of the Laos are spoken, and the people with his last breath to embrace written character is the same as that the Gospel. Besides the Moosurs, there used in our mission. The extent of the are the Kooies, the Kaws, the Maaos, race to the north, the large area in the Yows, the Ka Hoks, the Ka Lohs, which the Laos language is spoken, and the Lanteens, the Tai Luangs, the Ka the openness of the field were a revela- Moos, and Lemates and other tribes. tion to us. A missionary had never Like the Karens of Burma, but few of been in the region before, and the name these Hill tribes are Buddhists, and we of Christ was unknown. It is stating have reason to believe that many of the fact mildly when we say that we them are waiting for the Gospel. None were well received throughout the of them have written languages, and as whole region. We had a most cordial yet we have had to preach to them welcome from both rulers and people. through an interpreter in the Laos lan- guage, which most of the men under· The length of the tour precluded a stand but imperfectly. Their contiglong stay in each place, but we had uity to China has introduced the opium everywhere eager listeners to the Gos- vice among them, but they are hospitapel mesaage. Chieng Hoong, in north ble and industrious, and those not adlatitude 22°, the chief city of the Sip dicted to the use of opium are, for Song Punna, was the limit of the tour heathen tribes, moral. to the north. This confederation formerly paid tribute to Burma and China, The Presbyterian Mission of Siam and but the present Chow Fa of Chieng Laos together embrace the whole coun- Hoong was placed in authority by Yun- try from the Gulf of Siam to China, nan. The Laos race extended much and the Laos race alone must comprise further north and also east and west of three or four millions of people. How Chieng Hoong. There we crossed the shall that whole region be evangelized? Cambodia River and visited a number We need only the men and the means of towns to the east and south, and re- to occupy the whole field. crossed it at Chieng Lap. In two of the towns which we visited we were At the meeting of the Presbytery of invited to hold worship in the residence North Laos in 1892 a call was made for of the Chow Fa, where we found largv eighteen workers, not including those and attentive audiences. It was sad to needed for Nan and the Laos provinces leave so many places where they were and Hill tribes north of the Siamese disappointed at our short stay, and boundary. The Wood River Church, urged us to come again. Nebraska, has sent usfi'D6 workers, now on their way. Of these Mr. and Mrs. The length of this article, already too Shields will join Dr. and Mrs. Briggs long, allows the mention of only one at Praa, the new station opened by the other important fact. The whole re- famine. The other three, Rev. J. L. gion abounds in numerous Hill tribes Thomas, M.D., and wife, and Miss inhabiting the mountains on both sides Hatch,· and also Miss Wilson, go to of the Cambodia and its tributaries. Lakawn, and Mr. and Mrs. Phraner We have an interesting work already are waiting to establish a station in begun among the Yahoos or Moosurs. Chieng Hai when a physlcian can be Two of the most interesting months of obtained. my thirty.six years of mission life were spent in viaiting on foot the MQOSurs on MO'l'e than eighteen are still needed, of. the hills west of Chlt,ng Hai; and the whom at least three should be physi- cians, to occupy Rahang, a large town on the Southern Laos border and Nan all the men of His time and all other on the east, and the Burmo-Laos and times.
Chino-Laos and the Hill tribes in the Was Buddha His name?
north. For speedy and large returns No. It is the name of a state of for labor and means expended, it is mind.
doubtful whether a more promising Its signification ?
field is anywhere open to the Church. Illuminated ; or He who has perfect, We most earnestly request the prayers wisdom.
of the Church for laborers and success Did Buddha discover the cause of in giving them the Gospel. We would human misery ?
sound the Macedonian cry, " Come over At last He discovered it. As the and help us." Who will hear in it a light of the rising sun scatters the call, "The Lord hath need of thine" ? shades of night and reveals everything " The Lord hath need of THEE" ? to view, so the light of knowledge rose in His mind, and He saw clearly the Siam and Laos. Area 250,000 square causes of human suffering and the miles; population about 6,000,000, con- means of escaping them. sisting of one third Siamese, one third Laosians, and the remainder Chinese Did He have to make great efforts to and Malays. The prevailing religion is attain this knowledge? Buddhism. The Presbyterians (North) •have in the Laos country 10 ordained, 5 Yes; He had to conquer all the de- medical, 6 lady missionaries, and 1 or- fects, the desires, and the appetites dainednative; 8 churches and 1600 com- which deprive us of the sight of the municants ; and in the Siam Mission, 7 truth. ordained, 2 medical, 4 lady missionaries, and 1 native evangelist; 7 churches and What is the light which can disperse 330 communicants. The American Bap- our ignorance and drive away all tist Missionary Union also has a work troubles? in Bangkok chietly for the Chinese. The knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, as Buddha r:aIls them.
What are those truths? (1) That misery always accompanies existence; (2) that all modes of exist- ence result from passion or desire; (3) Unoccupied Pield8 will be the subject that there is no escape from existence of a paper in our June and July issues. except by destruction of desire; (4) the means of obtaining the destruction of desire.
Buddhi8m has been said to be the re- When we are in possession of the Four ligion of one third of the human race. Noble Truths, at what do we arrive?
Probably not over 100,000,000, how- At Nirvana.
ever, are in reality Buddhists. What is Nirvana?
The state of perfect repose, the ab- sence of desire, of illusion, of pain, the The following are some extracts from complete annulment of everything a Buddhist catechism: which constitutes physical man. Before What is a Buddhist? attaining Nirvana, man can be inces-'
He is one who professes to be a fol- santly born again; when he has attained lower of Our Lord Buddha. it he cannot be born again.
Was Buddha a God?
No. Buddhism aims at the destruction of Was He a man? sin as a disea.se and the practical ea;tinc- In form He was a man; but internally tion of the soul; Christianity compasses He was not like other men-that is, in the destruction of the disease and the mental and moral order He surpa~e~ 8alvation of the soul.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
What shall atone for sina of omis8'ion the population; and therefore any stateon the part of editors and compositors! ment of the number is only an CIItimate. In the February issue of this REVIEW, Rev. H. V. Noyes in 1889 published a page 136, second column, third para· paper in the Oltinese Recorder, January graph, the somewhat astounding state- and February numbers, on .. Mohamment is made, that" of the nineteen medans in China." He gives the numprovinces of China proper, only Hunan ber as 20,000,000. Two thirds of these and Kwang·se have permanent mission were stated to be in the Northwest and stations." One little word-" no"-be- Southwest Provinces. The number ing omitted before the words .. mission stated to be in these two provinces is stations" turns the sentence completely greater than the wltole popUlation of the round. It should have read, "Only provinces. After the protracted war Hunan and Kwang-se have no perma- that was there to suppress a Mohammenent mission stations." The next sen- dan rebellion, more than half of the poptence, which gives the needy popula. ulation were found to have perished durtion of these two provinces, shows that ing the twenty years of war. I think the previous sentence must be wrong; 15,000,00() a large estimate for the present but we confess the blunder without Mohammedan population in China. The being able to account for its escaping Chinese are Oonfuciani8t8 as a nation. three proof-readers! Canton, Swatow, When these false religions are vaunted Amoy, Tamsui and Taiwanfol) in For· by anti-Christians, I do not like to see mosa, Foo Chow, Shanghai, Hankow, any undue credit given to them." Ningpo, Cheefoo, Tientsin, Pekin, etc., are well-known permanent mission sta- The MiBBiona7'1J Herald hints that a tions. movement is on foot among Christian Endeavor Societies to hold missionary Dr. Happer, the veteran missionary extension courses, following the lines from China, kindly calls attention to a that IlSve been followed to eKtend the few points in which there is a difference advantages of the universities to the of opinion; also a few typographical public. Study and investigation of the errors in the February REVIEW. As claims of foreign missions, under God's we care for accuracy far more than our blessing, cannot fail to be of vast beneown" consistency," we give Dr. Hap- fit, commensurate to the importance of per's letter: the topic. We have often thought that a plan not unlike that of the" uni- .. On page 136 and second column, versity extension" courses might be second line, the number of missionaries pursued with immense profit. Courses is stated to be 500 instead of 1500. [Dr. of lectures by the prominent authorities Gilbert Reid, in" Peeps into China," on missions might be arranged in varipage 188, gives 490 male missionaries. ous accessible centres. There is no Manifestly an error, as the China Inland reason why such men as Drs. Ellin- Mission alone has 600.-ED.] These I wood, Clark, Baldwin, McCabe, Gorregard as mistakes of the printer. Let don, Mudge, Gracey; Bishops Baldwin me call your attention to two items of and Nicholson; returned missionaries, errors on points that are of special in- such as Drs. Dennis, Happer, Mackay, terest now-viz., as to the number of KnOK, Butler, Boggs, and others tempo- Mohammedans and Buddhists in China. rarily or permanently at home again- You state, on page 136, first column, in a word, every man and woman who the number of the former to be 30,000,- is competent to speak in behalf of mis- 000. This, I think, is too .large an estimate. There is no reliable census of 8ioll&-~hould not be heard, and in cir· dental expenses, the pastors using their cumstances the most favorable. A sin· own discretion in regard to an offering gle address at a distance involves poor Sabbath morning in their own churche9 economy of time; but a series of ad· for their own denominational boards. dresses at contiguous points, and arrang· ed foi at successive times, might bring The Hermit Nation-Thibet. untofd good at a very slight cost of money or energy. Why not have a On Tuesday afternoon, January 7th, bureau of missionary lectures? Not a 1890, during the Week of Prayer, I money·making scheme, but a provision made an address at Mildmay, in Lonfor extending the blessing of informa· don, on "Prayer as a Power in the tion suffused with spiritual power! Opening of Nations to the Gospel." I gave several illustrations, from Turkey. Apropos of this matter, we have be· Siam, Sandwich Islands, etc. I felt fore us a program of the Missionary moved to say to that very devout band Institute in connection with the Illinois of disciples there gathered, that it was Christian Endeavor Union. It may my conviction that there should be help others to give the following items definite, united, believing supplication of information: for the immediate opening of T hibet to the messengers of Christ: whereupon RULES OF THE EXTENSION COURSE. there was a season of prayer for this par· ticular object, and prayer of unusual 1. An application to the Christian power and earnestness. Endeavor State Superintendent of Mis· sions, signed by the presidents of all I have naturally watched with very Christian Endeavor societies in the special interest the subsequent developtown, with the approval of their pas· ments in Thibet. And now not only do tors, and a pledge of the active super- we find that that heroic woman, MIss vision of the course by the Endeavor Annie Taylor, has been penetrating the societies. Thibetan frontier~ from Sikkim, daring poison and assassination, but actually 2. Arrangements for a mass meeting reaching to within three days' journey of the evangelical churches each night of Lassa, the capital, and claiming for selected for the addresses. Sunday God every foot of ground her feet trod evenings are preferred, if possible. on! And now a Thibetan pioneer mis- sion is organized. Miss Taylor appears 3. Missionary sermons to be preached in Britain to secure a dozen men to go by the evangelical pastors each Sunday out to Darjeeling, India, and master the morning prior to the mass meetings. strange speech of the Lama worship· pers, so as to be ready to enter when 4. Arrangements for a Union confer· the two-leaved gates open. ence and prayer service for missionary workers on the afternoons prior to the Just now another link in the chain is mass meetings. supplied. God seems to be using the same means to open Thibet that He 5. Assurance of the active co-opera· used at Philippi's jail to open the door tion. of the missionary societies in the into Europe-the earthquake I We local churches. quote a recent account : 6. Payment of the travelling expenses, "The calamity which has befallen and free entertainment of the speakers. Thibet would seem to afford the oppor- tllnity which Christians have long 7. Ample notice through the local waited for. For years that country press both before and after the meet- haq been most jealously guarded against ings. the intrusion of even transient visit- ors. Only at long intervals, ann after 8. An invitation to all Christian En- great efforts, have travellers succeeded deavor Missionary societies and churches in the district to· send delegates to the meetings.
9. No collection to be made at the mass meetings, except for actual inci· in even passing through the country; Christian truth. FQr despite the pOltie and it has been utterly out of the ques- fancy which invests non·Christian re- ligious systems with an aureole of sanction to establish any missionary enter- tityand beauty, they have been weighed prise in it, though there have been prep- and found wanting in power to meet the deepest wants of mankind. Whatarations made to avail of the least ever their rightful place may have been opening. under Providence in the education of humanity; whatever the virtues they " Now comes the news that a great are calculated to promote among peoples earthquake has destroyed several Bud- in a certain stage of mental'or material dhist monasteries, causing large loss of development; however beautiful the theory, or elevated the ethics, which life, and the Grand Lama himself ap- some of them embody or enjoin-we cannot accept them as a substitute for pears to have perished in the catastro- Christianity or withhold its higher ligh~ from those who sit beneath their phe. This last occurrence can hardly shadow." fail to shake rudely the system of pure There is much curiosity felt to know Buddhism existing in Thibet, and to who the author of this article is.
prepare the way for the preaching of the Gospel.
.. The missiouaries who have long hovered upon the southwestern boun- dary of the country will hardly fail to avail themselves of such a providential opening. For this familiarity with the geography and local peCUliarities of the situation- in Thibet are essenthtl pre- requisites to a successful prosecution of the work, and we expect to hear that it has been entered upon at the earliest moment."
A late number of the London Quar- The monetary crisis imperils all misterly Review pays a remarkably generous sion work. The Presbyterian Board but just tribute to the work of foreign was threatened in March with a debt of missions. The anonymous writer claims $150,000. The Church Missionary Sothat philology, geography and ethnog- ciety was $175,000 behind. Mildmay raphy, comparative religion and cog- and the Y. M. C. A. of London each nate sciences have all been greatly in- $25,000 in debt. debted to those who have gone to bear the Gospel into the depths of continents That was a most notable conversion hitherto untrodden by Europeans, or to the ranks of the Salvation Army in into territories where death threatens the case of Prince Galitzin, of Russia. the intruder. After cordially conced- On a recent tour round the world in ing the material advantages of mission- the interests of the Imperial Geographary work, the writer adds: "It is too ical Society of St. Petersburg, he was late to speak of efforts as futile or fanatic in Washington in October, 1893, and which have literally girdled the globe there he attended a Salvation Army with a chain of missionary stations, and meeting; he was much impressed, and, those who now speak scornfully of mis- returning another evening, became It. sions are simply men behind their age." convert, and has since consecrated him- Then the grand opportunities for world- self and his life to the work of the wide missionary work are emphasized, Army. He prcposes to carryon Salvaand these remarkable words are added: tion Army work in Siberia, and has ., The heathen oracles are dumb, their gone to London to consult with Gentemples are decaying, their philosophies eral Booth with respect to his plans. are undermined, their creeds are honey- He is tall and stately, forty-five years com bed with distrust under the advance old, with refined features and expresof Western civilization, and the one sive eyes. He says, "I have given up supreme question is Whether their place my life to God and the Salvation Army. is to be filled by the adoption of an ag- I am so thankful that I have at last nostic morality or by the acceptance of found a use for myself and my income." Robert Louis Stevenson, writing from On the other hand, the editor has a the South Seas, says that he was preju- letter from a correspondent who in· diced against missions, but that his quires whether the REVIEW is only a prejudices have been annihilated. Pre8byterian organ! And he says that " Those who deblatterate against mis- a Wesleyan friend of his complains sions have only one thing to do, to come that "there is nothing in the REVIEW and see them on the spot." No fair- about the Methodists and their work."
minded man can see for himself the To show how groundless this com- work of the missionaries in foreign plaint is and how ignorantly it is made, lands and not come to the same conclu- we call attention to a letter of our val· sion. uable Methodi8t associate editor, Rev.
J. T. Gracey, D.D., to whom the com- Rev. Dr. F. F. Ellinwood, in a letter plaint was submitted. His reply may to the New York Wo1'ld, nailed to the at least serve to show what a Methodist doorpost the lies of a certain Dr. Ruel thinks of the undenominational charac- B. Karib, concerning the cost and char- ter of the REVIEW. He says: acter of Presbyterian missions in Per- " I have heard no intimation till now sia. He triumphantly exposes these as of any lack in the pan·denominational flagrant falsehoods, and reveals the character of the REVIEW. Methodists whole animus of their author, remind- certainly have no right to complain, ing us of the famous retort: "The nor have I ever had a hint that they allegation8 are fal8e, and the alligator did. I do recall no article ever sent by know8 it." He also says that other in- a Methodist that has not appeared in dependent testimony shows him a fraud. full, while many other contributions A native Persian, licentiate of Pittsburg have not been used on account of length Presbytery, present at the ministerial or for other reasons. Rev. Dr. S. L. gathering where Dr. Karib was "investi- Baldwin and Rev. Dr. Sutherland, gated," testified that for gross immoral- both secretaries of Methodist boards, ity he was driven out of Persia.- And furnished articles last year. Bishop so another assault on missions is traced Thoburn, of India, was a contributor; to an infernal source. so was Dr. C. W. Drees, Superintendent of Methodist Missions in South America. Mr. W. ~ Sherman, of Washington, Dr. O. W. Oushing reviewed Dr. But- Ind., sends to the 'Volunteer fund the ler's book on Mexico, both author and generous sum of $26.10, and accompa- reviewer being Methodists. Rev. O. P. nies it with a letter, in which he says, Hurd and Rev. H. C. Stuntz, both of .. My heart has been greatly gladdened India, are Methodists. My own brother, by the perusal of the January number a Methodist preacher, Consul at Fooof the REVIEW. Your bold and cour_ chow, China, and Mrs. Gracey furnished ageous words against the popular in- articles. The index of authors in the last iquities of these perilous times and in two volumes shows about one eighth behalf of the coming kingdom are es· Methodists. The April number, 1892, pecially exhilarating. I am exceed- International Department, was wholly ingly eager to have this thoroughly by Methodists and about Methodist misevangelical journal in thehands of many sions. Mr. HeU Ohatelain, one of our of the Lord's poor saints. Accordingly most learned contributors, was for a time I send you a draft on New York for connected with Bishop Taylor's West the volunteer fund." Our brother has African work, and Miss L. M. Latimer, our thanks for the donation, but even with Methodist work in Mexico. Rev. more for his helpful words of encour· James Mudge, D.D., served the same agement. This REVIEW aims to be denomination in India for ten years. absolutely faithful to the truth and the Hev. David S. Spencer, of Japan, Rev. kingdom of our Lord. J. E. Robinson, of India, both preRid. ing elders, have contributed to the last two volumes, 8S has Dr. Masters, of San Francisco, and Mr. Meakin, of the famed Budgett Methodist family of Wesleyans in England. Rev. John R. Hykes, Methodist missionary in Central China, now Bible Society's agent at Shanghai, furnished a ten-page article. I have not in this enumeration gone outside of the past two volumes. nor bought a large tract of land of the SuI· exhausted even these, nor referred to tan, near the Jordan, and intends to my own contributions and editorials. found there a large Jewish colony. Life and property in that region have Methodist missions have been kept as been more secure for the last fifteen years owing to the military station eswell to the front as Methodist authors tablished there by the government, elected in their contributions. If these which has also built a bridge over the Jordan to facilitate communication behave not been made strongly denomi·. tween Jerusalem and the valleys beyond the river, Whence the Holy City obtains national, it is doubtless because of t.he most of its cereals.
undenominational character of the mag- A curious relic of British mission azine. But this holds of other authors work exists in Russia, near Patigorsk, as well. Baptists (North, South, Cana- and within sight of the range of the Caucasus – viz., the little colony of dian), Reformed (Dutch), American Karras, an old mission station of the Free Church cf Scotland. At present Board, and other denominations are it is chiefly inhabited by Germans, and freely represented in our pages, not ex- the church services are held in that lanceptionally, but continually. And the guage. There are, however, still left a few children of the mission converts smaller societies have not been neg- who can speak English. Among the lected, nor have "independent" mis- community are persons of Circassian and Tartar blood, whose fathers were sionaries or societies, such as the China the fruit of the old mission. This col- Inland. In whatever else the REVIEW ony is independent of all ecclesiastical superiors, and is ruled in aocordance has succeeded or failed, it certainly has with the ordinances of the Free Church maintained its claim to be ecumenical of Scotland. The mission was origiin its character ; and it has reason to be nally commenced in the reign of Alexgrateful that not only so many denom- ander I., and suppressed in that of his inations have furnished its contributors, successor Nicholas. but also that theso repres~nt so many missionary sooieties in all parts of Amedoa, and several in Europe, while every section of the missionary world has taken part in the authorshIp of its pages. I am not writing a prospectus, but reviewing un fait accompli.
"Meeting, as I do, annually a hundred missionaries a year for a week at the Jnternattonal Missionary Union, f;:om all parts of the world and of all sooieties, and in constant correspondenco with missionaries of all shades of opinion to the ends of the earth, I think I have never heard from anyone of them a tint or suggestion that the REVIEW was not broadly charitable and fair. Whatever critioisms come do not touch the question of denominationalism."
For those who oare for a mathemati- The girls' seminary at Wellington, oal estimate, the following may be in- Capo Colony, has a faculty of twenty teresting : instructors, and numbers on its alumnre more than a thousand descendants of The late Rev. R. Steel, D.D., of Syd- English, Dutch, and French settlers. ney, New South Wales, estimates that, This school was founded some twenty in one hundred years, at a cost of $10,- years ago, is entirely self-supporting, 000,000, some threo hundred and fifty and its pupils have competed successislands have been evangelized, with fully at Cape Town in the university five. hundred thousand now in the and government examinations. Miss churches. This would be at the rate Abby Ferguson is the principal, and it of five thousand convertR a year, and at may be questioned whether a.ny one an expenditure of only $20 for eaoh agency is doing more for Africa's evansoul redeemed. gelization and enlightenment. The graduates of the school are scattered all A report is abroad that Baron Ed- ·over Africa south of the Soudan, as mond de Rothschild, whose presence at wives of missionaries, ministers, or Constantinople has been of material ad- merchants, or themselves teachers of vantage to his colonies in Palestine, has schools. We have always felt the warmest in- ly waited for. This story of faith, prayterest in the great work of the Euphrates er, heroic devotion, suff&ing almost to College at Harpoot, in Turkey in Asia, martyrdom with abounding joy in God, which has exercised so beneficent an in- is just what is needed for this degenerfiuence. ate day. It sounds like the Acts of the Apostles. We propose to make extracts Its field is all of Northeastern Turkey and further references to its contents in Asia to the Persian border and the from time to time. Meanwhile, let southeastern part of Russia; the terri- every man and woman who would. tory in which it is the only higher in- know more of a life hid in God and reetitution of learning, covering 200,000 vealing His power read these pages. square miles, with a population of T.b.ey will be read with tears of joy. 5,000,000, about one fourth of whom are Armenians. Of books which deserve mention, we call especial attention to Murdered Mill· The college seeks to give a compre- iIJ'TUJ, a very condensed and comprehenhensive, practical, Christian education sive plea for medical missions by George to its pupils, and to introduce the Gospel D. Dowkontt, M.D., of New York into the old Armenian Church, which is City. Within sev~nty-six pages here arousing to the importance of an edu- are compressed facts which might be cated and morally upright clergy. spread over volumes. Dr. Cuyler's keen pen furnishes a striking introduc- Rev. J. L. Barton, for eight years a tion. Dr. Dowkontt wastes no time in missionary in Turkey, now succeeds apologies, but enters in. media8 res. He Rev. C. H. Wheeler, D.O., as president. shows that the atrocious and absurd and cruel system of native medical treat- The McAll mission work in America ment in Africa, China, India, Siam, etc., has suffered a very great loss in the is virtual murder, and demands on death of Mrs. Frances Lea Chamber- every humane and Christian principle lain, who for so many years has been our prompt interposition. He shows intimately connected with this work. also the connection of medical work She died on February 16th, in Califor- with missions, and how it is the key to nia, where she had gone with her hus- many a difficult position. E'DfII'1Ibody band in pursuit of health. She was a ought to have this little book, published woman of remarkable character. Her at the office of the Medical Miasionary executive ability, wedded to a feminine Rewrd. 118 East Forty-fifth Street, sympathy and a fervent spirituality, New York. made a rare combination of gifts and graces. Her holy enthusiasm and con- The managing editor acknowledges secration had been the motive power of $5 "from a friend" in Chelsea, Mass.• the machinery of the auxiliary of which which will be devoted as desired, to the she was president; and when she was help of one who is seeking to enter the withdrawn, it seemed as though no one mission field. could take her place. Her husband has furnished a beautiful tribute to her, The Sabbath-school army in the in the shape of an account of her last United States claim 12,000,000 children, hours, and which appears in the McAll and half that number in Great Britain, Rewrd. She died beautifully, as she studying the same Bible lessons. In had lived. India, China, and even in Egypt, are fonnd 2,000,000 more who read the same Part 1. of The Story of the Ohina In- Bible verses weekly. land Missiun, by Miss M. Geraldine Guinness, and an introduction by J. Hudson Taylor, hJ!.S been issued by ~Iorgan & Scott,London ; and Part II. will be eager-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLJGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEONAlID.
Extraots and Translations from Foreign and teachings, but a confession of Periodioals. Christ the Saviour. The man confesses concerning himself that he is a sinner, BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, who feels hill need of a Redeemer; con- MASS. cerning Jesus Christ, that He is the only, all·sufficient Saviour, to whom one NETHERLAl!oo1)S INDIA. commits himself and trusts Him, whom one will serve, Him alone, Him en- -We in Christendom have become so tirely, through a life according to His very wise in the laws of nature that we Gospel. Missions do not aim, may not do not seem to have very much more aim, at the propagation of any particuse for the God of nature. Our God is ular church doctrines, but at the imvery apt to be either a helpless essence plantation in the convert's hearts.of an residing in things, with no power of act- active Christianity brought by Jesus ing with personal energy upon them, or and kept alive by Him."-Maededeelinelse a deistic mechanic who has framed Den '/Jan weDe bret NederlandBche Zendelthe world and stares at it from outside, inggenoot8chap (Reports from the Netherletting it go as it may after being once lands Missionary Association). wound up. But outside of our overdone wisdom, the Father is still wont to " The Bible at the Batavia Exhibition. reward the simplicity of faith with the -After a postponement of twelve days, fruits of faith. Herr CHRISTIANSEN, to prove the truth of the peculiar Indoof Sumatra, writes: "The Lord does Dutch proverb, 'Hast u lang eaam' not leave Himself without witness [Make haste slowly], the Exhibition was among our Christians, of which I could opened on August 12th at 11 A.M. by adduce various examples. One Sunday His Excellency, the Governor·General of I had preached upon James 5 : 14–16. Netherlands India, amid the pomp and Without any solicitation of mille the vanities that generally attend such occa· elders, the same evening, proceeded to sions. the home of a Christian child that was sick unto death. in order to bring the "The day was observed as a Bank message heard into practical applica- Holiday in the majority of the business tion. They moved the parents to con- houses, and everyone took the opporfess their sins, and prayed with them tunity to make the day as jovial as posfor the recovery of their child; and be- sible; but neither on this day nor since hold, in half an hour it was well. Nor have I noticed one man the worse for is this the only case among us, though drink, nor in any way behaving himit is the most striking. in which the self unseemly. The native industry prayer of faith has saved the sick after sheds, well filled with interesting modhope had expired."- Berichte der Rhein· els of their many ingenious inventions iachen MiaBionB- GeaelZschaft. -houses, tools, weapons, cooking uten- sils, clothing, etc.-form an attractive -" Missions form churches formed and interesting resort for foreigners; out of hc;iathens and Mohammedans. and the contents of the foreign indus- Whoever abaudons the heathen worship try sheds are inspected with wonder by received from his fathers, or turns away the natives and Chinese. from the false prophet, is received on confession into the Christian fellowship. " An interesting collection of the Holy Where missions are well understood and Scriptures, in more than forty languages intelligently guided this is no confession and dialects, testifies to the extensive of articles of belief or of distinctive ideas and most important work of the Brit-
EXTltACTS AND T:RANSLATIONB
ish and Foreign Bible Society in emanci- endeavors to argue away the truth of pating the souls of the enthralled mill- the divinity of Christ; the Bengalee ions 1ri these regions. It is the most approaches with bows and flattering important exhibit in the foreign indus· unction offered in broken Englis!J., in- try shed for the welfare of India's mill· spects the Bengalee Gospels, and quietly ions, and yet the most despised and sar- laying them aside, passes on with the castically criticised. promise to return another day; the Baba·Chinaman inspects, questions, " Situated in the midst of a sea of in- beats down the price, reads a chapter toxicating drinks, and facing the central or two, and out of 'kasihan' (compas- open space used as a drinking saloon, the sion) for the seller purchases one or two Bible stand is ' a light in a dark place.' copies; the Chinese immigrant (sin- On one side, facing the drink exhibits, keh) smiles and chatters, and if you are two cases filled with open Bibles in happen to mention the name of' Yaso' different languages, and in the centre a (Jesus), tells you that you speak Chinese missionary map of Netherlands India, very well, waves his hands in the air, with the stations or depots of the Brit· and again smiling, moves on clumsily ; ish and Foreign Bible Society marked the Frenchman. with his pseudo polite- with arrows; above this map, in letters ness, defends himself behind the pale six inches long, is the text, < The Word of Rome ; the psalm-loving Dutchman of the Lord endureth forever,' and un- seeks a psalm-book; the member of the derneath the map the text, ' Wine is a new school (Moderns) seeks the Old mocker, strong drink is raging; and Testament only; the unbeliever dis- , whosoever is deceived thereby is not parages the utility of Bible dissemina- wise,' both texts being in the Dutch tion, and obnoxiously cursing and jeer- language. Fronting the drinking saloon ing, orders a 'bittertje' (gin and bit- are two large book-cases, also filled up ters) from one of the waiters in the with open Bibles; and between these is drinking saloon opposite. a board twelve feet by fi ve covered with the Dutch national colors-orange, red, "Many other nationalities visit. the white and blue-and with the name of Bible stand, and it would tire the reader the society printed consecutively upon to relate all that happens from day to these colors in Dutch, English, German, day. About 30,000 tracts and booklets and French. In front of these are three have been given away at the Bible stand; tables cove:red with open Bibles in many and it is sad that no efforts are made languages, from among which ten to by the Dutch Chris~ians to reach the thirty Bibles, New Testaments, and thousands who attend this show. I can- portions are sold to different individuals not find a single person who is willing every day except Sundays. to help me distribute tracts; the gen- eral opinion that dominates the Chris- "It is very interesting to notice the tiana here is that it injures the European different characters that pass by, and pre8tige. This semi-Christianity has a to hear their peculiar remarks. The chilling influence upon the lives of the calm, grave, business-like Armenian unconverted thousands of Batavia, and comes and asks for the New Ararat consequently empty chairs are conspic- Armenian Bible, and handles every uous in the churches, and the Sunday portion of the Holy Scriptures with is the great feast day of the week and is great reverence; the superstitious, fanat- desecrated by 'corso-carnivals,' horse- ical Mohammedan, with his troubled races, horse and other cattle shows at the features, spits upon the ground, and Exhibition. etc. I do not wish to phari- will not touch the Book of the' Kafirs ; , saically judge our Dutch friends, but I the indifferent, joke-loving, superficial wish the readers of these lines to pray native makes the unanswerable defence, for' Java's million8.' "-A. W. HURST when asked to buy, 'Tidak ada duwit ' Bo:a.ur, in the J£alagBia J£688a(J6 (M. E.). (I have no money) ; the sarcastic Arab
&ENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
-What cowards European officials adulterated Christianity; nay, that in in the East Indies, British or Dutch, are the papacy we cannot fail to recognize apt to be when it comes to honoring a sort of anti-Christianity; that the their Christian profession in the face of modern Catholic missionary work espagans or Moslems I They are thus pecially presents itself as an antagonist earning the contempt of their subjects, of the pure Gospel, and that it is a duty who cannot understand how a man can to assume toward it not merely a defenprofess a religion and yet be ashamed sive but an aggressive attitude. The of it. The MaanillJericltt of the Nether- discussion of this question was of such lands Missionary Society, giving ac- a temper as might well have afforded count of Brother Wijngaarden's baptism the Catholics an example. 'l'here was of his first converts at Deli, remarks: nothing apparent like blind hostility or " To' Brother Wijngaarden's regret, the bitter hate, but a zealous endeavor to Controller, who was his guest. left Deli distinguish even in aduZterated Christhe day before the baptism, in order not tianity the Christianity. and in proselyto set an offieial stamp on the proceed- tizing energy the element of missionary ings by his presence. And yet by his zeal. At the same time it was clearly withdrawal he led the Battaks to sup- recognized that a friendship with Rome pose that something was going on which is impossible; that every compliance is he would Hever not see)' (1 use the interpreted as weakness, and every con- Dutch word here identical with our cession is sure to be abused. Accordfamiliar English word.) "Repeatedly ingly this was the conclusion: (1) public officers, higher and lower, have There must be no refusal to Catholic very cheerfully consented to be pres- missionaries. even when making aggresent at Mohammedan ceremonies! How sions upon a Protestant fiold, of the love much more rapid would be the advance due to all lllen; (2) but all intimacy of Christianity in our East Indies if- with them should be avoided; (3) not a while doing all honor to the religious foot of land should voluntarily be reneutrality which the State must of linquished to tbem; (4) but all permitcourse observe-the European officials ted means should be used to check their were at liberty to exhibit their personal advance; (5) and where possible the sympathy and were not ashamed of ground should be preoccupied. On the their Christian profession." whole, it is clear that here so much, not to say everything depends upon the THm CONTINENT. circumstances and the persons, that the truly evangelical missionary will ;not -At the Bremen Missionary Confer- bind himself to certain inflexible rules, ence, among other points, it was also but in each particular case will solicit discussed What attitude is to be as- wisdom and guidance from above_ sumed toward Roman Catholic mission- Would God we might do all this so aries. The excellent Cal~oer MonatBhliit- completely as to give every singleter remarks: .. There, also, there are minded, even if not every zealous two opposing views. The one begins Roman Catholic the impression that with this position: The Catholics, too, fundamentally there is a more genuinely are Christians; their baptism is recog- Christian and apostolic course of connized by us also; we cannot but rejoice duct pursued in the evangelical misover every heathen who becomes a Cath- sions than in his own !" olic; there are among the Catholic missionaries many sincere and self-sacrific- -The &enska Mi8siomfih'bundet (Swcing men. The conclusion is that we dish Missionary Union), the organ of should assume toward them as friendly the Waldenstrilmian free churches, has and respectful an attitude as possible. 43 missionary agents, almost double The other view emphasizes the position that of 1888. The income for 1892 was that the Roman Church presents an $82,000. The three stations on the
le84.] ENGLISH
Congo have increased to five, with sev· are carried on. Let the Congo sweep eral out-stations. "The stations are away one life after the other, the ranks equipped with a number of stone build- are ever filled afresh-nay, more workers ings; transportation is arranged for; offer than can be used. Multiplied as the training of the natives, younger and are the exertions and privations involved elder, to work has been taken in hand; in the calling, they do not deter; the schools are provided for both sexes, number of the missionaries keeps growchildren and adults. There are 193 ing. Although the missionaries of the school- children, 78 church – members. China Mission, the Holiness League, About a dozen native helpers are labor- and the Alliance Mission are sent out ing; an evangeliot training school has without any assurance of a fixed supbeen established in Diadia. which also port, receiving only so much as suffices gi ves them more general instruction of for the simplest necessities. yet one misa simple character. God's word is zeal· sionary–Carlson, of the Holiness League ously proclaimed at the principal and -whose heart has been pierced by the out·stations as well as in the neighbor. wretched lot of outcast Chinese, out of ing Villages. Translations are proceed. this saves enough to maintain an asying, and a native paper is issued."- lum, into which he transports them on Pastor BERLIN, in Allgemeim Mi88ions· his back. There is here a wealth of con- Zeitachrift· fidence and joy of faith which may well put many to shame. Obedience to the -The Union has also missions in Lord's will even to death, heedfulness Algiers, the Ural :Mountains, Caucasia. of the Lord's intimations and directions China, and is about establishing one in in great things and small. burning zeal Cashgar. It has abandoned its Persian for the salvation of souls, life in and mission, and has transferred that in from the Word of God, unwearied con- Alaska to American Swedes. The two tinuance in prayer and intercession- Swedish missionaries murdered in China here is the strength of these men and were of this society. women. They direct their eyes even to the ends of the earth; no work is too -The Swedish :Mission in China, great for them; no difficulty holds founded in 1887 by Eric Folke, has ad- them back; no danger intimidates vanced rapidly, favored by the peculiar them. Though a good dem of enthuinterest felt in Sweden for China. Its siastic extravagance may be interminincome in 1888 was $1392 ; in 1892 it gled with all this, there is yet abunwas $5832. It works in close union dance of holy fire glowing here ; and, with the China Inland Mission. therefore, we may well confide that these labors and sacrifices will also bring gain -Herr Berlin, after subjecting the for the kingdom of God. In missions, various Free Church missionary move- too, it is seen that God can overrule t.he ments of Sweden, with their slight errors of men, and turn into bl8ssing measure of organization at home and for the world what has been done for abroad and their comparative neglect of he ho nor of His name." preparation, to a temperate but searching criticism, nevertheless adds: "One English Notes. thing must not be overlooked in these forms of missionary activity. :Much as BY JAMES DOUGLAS, BRIXTON, LONDON. there is in them at variance with the plan of missions as hitherto developed (Jentral London Mission.-It is with among Germanic Christians [a term in- special pleasure we record the advance cluding Germans, Dutch, Scandinavi- of this enterprising mission which has ans, and Anglo-Saxons], yet it must be as its object the occupation of the Cenacknowledged with what personal de- tral Soudan. Three of the missionaries votion and enthusiasm, with what zeal are left at Gabes, where a new training and heroism of self-sacrifice these labors
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
):lome has been opened, while six others united because equally baptized in the occupy the training home in Tripoli. .. One Spirit." What led to more than Mr. Hermann Harris, the Moses of the one fervent expression of thanksgiving expedition, left Gabes on January 17th was the cheering fact that from ¥ay for Kano, taking with him Mr. Dick. 1st, 1894, the residence of British sub- This journey is immense, and involves jects will be permitted at Yatung, in the passage across the Desert of Sahara Thibet, in accordance with the commer- to the populous negro kingdom of cial treaty newly passed between the Sokoto. Another detachment of this British-Indian Government and that mission contemplates reaching the cen· country, so long closed against the tre of the Soudan by way of the Niger. foreigner. The public meeting on the Mr. Holt has made the proposition, and evening of the same day was of a most two young men have offered to accom- enthusiastic description. Exeter Hall, pany him. The cost of carrying this if not packed, was almost filled. Miss scheme into effect is estimated at £400. Taylor gave a lengthened account of The intention is to start by way of the Lord's dealings with her, and ex- Lagos, and to pass through Ibadan, plained how the land of Thibet had been Oyo, !lorin, and Rabba, and thus to laid as a heavy burden from the Lord reach Sokoto, the largest of the negro on her heart. The meeting, While kingdoms of the Central Soudan. This deeply touched by the narrative of her mission is closely connected with the adventures in Thibet and the degree to Pentecostal League under the leadership which the element of personal danger of Mr. Reader Harris, the headquarters entered into it, were even more affected of which are Speke Hall, Battersea, by the honoring testimony which she London, S. W. I may add that the bore to the Lord's presence with her Pentecostal League is interdenomina- through all. No danger, or suffering, tional in its spirit and aim. or privation could even for the moment damp her joy or break her peace. In Persia.-It is reported that the work- Thibet, amid the absence of every outers among the Moslems in Persia are ward cOllfort, she carried heaven in her being much cheered; that the young own heart. Christians are showing increased zeal for the spread 0 f the Gospel, while the num- Five of the band-two from Scotland, ber of Mohammedan inquirers in regu- two from England, and one from Norlar attendance at the Persian services on way-gave brief, earnest testimonies, Sundays is sufficient to afford the mis- after which the whole band united in sionaries great thankfulness. singing" Anywhere with Jesus." Be- fore the meeting closed Pontso gave an The Thibetan Pioneer MilJJlion.-This address in the Thibetan tongue, which missionary bark may be said to have Miss Taylor interpreted. been formally launched on Friday, February 16th, 1894. In the afternoon North Africa Mi88ion.-This mission a gathering for prayer was held in the has wonderfully developed and sprcad smaller room of Exeter Hall, which was within a brief space, and much precious largely attended. All the members of seed has been sown for which only a the Thibetan band were there, along small return is apparent as yet. " Bewith Miss Annie R. Taylor and her fore the first missionaries landed in Al- Thibetan attendant Pontso. James giers in 1881 there were no Protestant Mathieson, Esq., presided, and Dr. missionaries or Bible agents to the Mo- Maxwell, a missionary veteran, said a hammedans or heathen from Egypt to few words of stimulating address. The the Atlantic, and from the Meditermeeting, however, mainly consisted of ranean to the Senegal, Lower Niger, a continuous stream of intercession, in and Congo, a district more than one .which brethren and sisters equally hundred times larger than England. Now there are nearly eighty missionaries of the North Africa Mission, besides suffice, though he had but a moderate several who have been initiated by it, force at his disposal, to check the horand who are working independently; rible operations of those slave raiders and several more sent out by societies who had desolated the heart of Central stirred up by hearing of North Africa's Africa during past ages. In the second needs and God's blessing on this mis- place, the possession of Uganda meant sion. Altogether, counting the agents the opening out of the Eastern Soudan. and colporteurs of the Bible Society, Bishop Tucker contested the idea that there are over 100 laborers for God, the Soudan could be penetrated from where, in 1881, there was not one among Suakim from the north-the true door the Moslems. ·The Gospel of John has was, in his view, through Uganda, and been translated into Kabyle, and the it was by this passage that the eighty Gospel of :M:atthew into Riffian by the millions of people living there would Bible Society ; other portions are trans- be reached, civilized, and brought unlated into Kabyle and are being print- der the influence of Christianity. ed. " Large tracts of country, however, in North Africa are still unevangelized_ Bulgaria. -While Bulgaria cannot be The vast Salwra, which has a few scat- described as an unoccupied field, its tered millions of Berber and Arab in- spiritual condition, according to Basil habitants, has no missionary. Egypt Keuseff, a native, now in missionary itself has 540 towns, with a population training in England, is deplorable. He of f~om 2000 to 40,000 each, without describes the Greek Church in Bulgaria any regular Gospel agency. "All that as "dead and indifferent ;" the clergy has been done is as nothing to what re- as "ignorant and immoral;" the inmains to be done before the peoples of telligent class as " sceptics and infidels." North Africa are evangelized." Mr. Keuseff recognizes the work done by American brethren in spreading Mr. Edward H. Glenny, the honor- Gospel truth among the people, and the able secretary of the above mission, has service rendered by the British and recently returned from a tour in Moroc- Foreign Bible Society's translation of co. He says, "The impression formed the Scriptures and by that society's colon my mind by visiting the cities and porteurs. But he feels that the great towns of El Koar, Fez, Mequinez, need demands an accession of help, and Larache, and Arzilla, and by travers- would be glad to hear from anyone ing 300 or 400 miles of country in North who would be willing to join him in Morocco, was to deepen my feeling of evangelizing that land. "The language the utter hopelessness in which the fol- of Bulgaria is phonetic and easy to lowers of the false prophet are sunk; a learn. The climate is one of the healthihopelessness which enters into every de- est in Europe." Besides, there is ., ampartment of life-religious, political, ple scope for all kinds of evangelistic and social; and yet when we compare work." Mr. Keuseff's address is Cliff our experiences with a few years ago, College, Curbar, Sheffield, England. how thankful we ought to be that the country is as open to the Gospel as it Priestly defectionfrom Rome in France. now is I" -We are somewhat startled to learn that at the present time there are, in all Bi8hop Tucker on Uganda.-In the parts of France, priests who have lost course of a recent address on Uganda, all confidence in the papacy, and desire delivered in Durham, Bishop Tucker, to step out into Gospel light and liberin regretting the death of Sir Gerald ty. Professor L. J. Bertrand, who is Portal, spoke of some of the resultant now staying at 21 Upper Woburn Place, advantages of Great Britain's possession London, W. C., is the director of a of Uganda. First of all, it meant free- work the object of which is to extend dom for the slave. The presence of a to all French priests wishing to leave British representative in Uganda would Rome a helping hand. Mr. Bertrand will never ask the Emperor of all the says, " There is at the present time a Russias where it may set its foot." great movement among the priests of France; and I have lettcrs from all -The latest and best estimates put parts, and even from Rome. jesuitically down the population of the world as defying me to gi ve names and addresses. 1,479,700,000. Of this horde 826,000,000 All the same, well-known priests, first live in Asia, 357,000,000 in Europe, canons, abbots, proCessors, and semina- 164,000,000 in Africa, and 122,000.000 in rists write to me, ,. Go on with your North and South America. In the face work. You have chosen the best way of these large figures, the population of for a religious reform, which we all the United States does not seem so imwant iu France. Put fire to the very mense after all. nest. As soon as you succeed you will seA that if we love and adore Christ we -Of the 1,480,000,000 of the earth's hate the Gltu1·c!t. But what can we do? inhabitants, the Emperor of China holds We know nothing of the world; we sway over 400,000,000; the Queen of are fit for nothing in the world; and England rules or protects 380,000,000 ; the Concordat says explicitly that a the Czar of Russia is dictator to 115,- Reman priest cannot be a Protestant 000.000; Francc, in the republic, dc· pastor without his B.A. degree and pendencies and sphercs of influence, four years at the Protestant theological has 70,000,000 subjects; the Emperor seminary! • .. Thousands of French of Germany, 55,000,000; the Sultan Roman priests would leave their Church of Turkey, 40,000,000; the Emperor to-morrow if they were not to be obliged of Japan, 40,000,000; and the King of to beg for their daily bread." With Spain, 27,000,000-two' thirds of the respect to Mr. Bertrand's work, known population of the globe under the govas the (]J}uvre des Pr6t1'es Gonvertis, it ernment of 5 rulers. should be noted that it does not exist for the benefit of unfrocked or disgraced -A Kentuckian who visited Korea priests, but for the guidance and help presented to the king a bottle of whiskey of such as, through compulsion of en- as a sample of the chief product of his lightened conviction, wish to leave the native State. Christian people in Ken- Church of Rome. tucky have since sent to the king a beautiful copy of the Bible to show that THE KINGDOM. the State has something better.
-" The universe is not quite com- -A miserly man, who insi~ted that plete without my work well done." he was a proportionate giver, explained later that he gave in proportion to the – The times are hard, but heathenism amount of religion he possessed. is harder. -General Sickels, speaking of the -Baptist tobacco costs more than disposition to denounce rich men as if Baptist missions.-The Kingdom. they were public enemies, says, "No- where in all the world have men of -Once upon a time, when at Con_ wealth done so much for religion, edustantinople, the Russian Minister Bou- cation, philanthropy, and patriotism tineff remarked with majesty, "Imight as in the United States." as well tell you now, Mr. Schauffier, that the Emperor, my master, will never -Upon the fly-leaf of a Bible was allow Protestantism to set its foot in written the following words: "Lay Turkey," he received this fully ade- any burden upon me, only sustain me ; quate reply, "Your excellency, the send me anywhere, only go with me ; kingdom of Christ, who is ~y Master, sever any tie but that one which binds me to Thy service and to Thy heart. "
– William Dulles, Jr., treasurer of the Presbyterian Board, printed this apt sentiment from Dr. Livingstone on manner, and general appearance were a financial statement recently sent out: true gentlemen." •• I will place no value on anything I have or may possess, except in rela- -The native account of the last martion to the kingdom of Christ. If any- tyrdom in Madagascar concludes with thing I have will advance the interests these touching words: "Then they of that kingdom, it shall be gi ven, or prayed, '0 Lord, receive our spirits, kept, as by giving or keeping it I shall for Thy love to us hath caused this to most promote the glory of Him to whom come to us ; and lay not this sin to their lowe all my hopes, both for time and charge.' Thus prayed they as long as eternity. May grace be given me to they had any life, and then they diedadhere to this." softly, gently; and there was at the time a rainbow in the heavens, which -In 1881 Dr. Southon, of Scotland, seemed to touch the place of the burnwas sent to Ujiji, Africa. On his way ing." there he passed through Urambo. The king sent for him, and showing a large -Dr, Hamlin, the veteran miBBionary, tumor on his arm, which, by pressing said recently, .. You take a poor, mil>- upon an important nerve, had caused erable beggar, as I have known some him much pain, asked, " Can you do instances-a beggar who has become anything for this?" The doctor re- converted, and apply to him that iron plied, "Yes, I can take it all away." system of tithing which the OrientsI "But will it not hurt a great deal 1" wol'ld loves and always has loved, perasked the king. "No," replied the haps always will love, and make that doctor, "I shall put you to sleep, and beggar, as the one condition of enjoywhen you awake all will be done." ing the privileges of the Gospel, give " Do it at once, then; I have not slept one tenth of what he begs, and as much for a long while." Afterward the king more as you can make him give, and in said, .. You must not leave us ever. a short time he will not be a beggar; Here is land, here is wood, here is every- in a short time he will support himself, thing, only do not leave us." and be in circumstances comparatively comfortable." -Rev. A. J. Wookey, of the London Missionary Society, in making the jour- -The Egyptian washes before he ney to his field at Lake Ngami, Central prays-he washes his feet, even; and Africa, tells how at one camping place every holy place has a provision of " a poor little old fellow turned up at water for the purpose. He washes his the wagon from the forest, from whence hands and his teeth before and after he he had heard the whips. One of his eats. So particular is he in this matter, ears had been cut off close to his head that when he cannot get waler for his by the Batauana. I gave him a bit of ablutions the sand of the desert is held meat of a koodoo which had been killed to be sanctified for the pmpose. The yesterday. He did not roast it as usual ordinary Egyptian child is not allowed at the fire, and when asked why, he said to pray or eat without first dabbling its that his wife was in the forest, and he hands in water. Yet it is allowed to would eat it with her in the evening. live for months without having its head His little woman, he called her. It and face, or its body generally, once did one good to find such thoughtful well washed with soap and water. love even in a poor waif of humanity such as he. " WOMAN'S WORK.
-" The intelligence and refinement of -Helping Hand gives this as an exthe Fijians surprised me," said a recent ample of the inhumanity of heathenism: traveller. "I saw men who in spirit, "Better raise her or not? What do you think?" The questioner was a Chinese farmer: we had been preach- own suffering and healing they got in· ing in his village, and he followed us struction, intnition, insight, inspira- away from the crowd to make this 1m- tion. It made them ministers. "
portant query. Farmers at home are -At least in some respects Africa sometimes in doubt in regard to animals would appear to be the paradise for a trifle deformed whether or not to raise women missionaries. For" nothing is them; but did you ever know a farmer feared from them, and they are allowed in America to go about asking advice to go in and out at their pleasure. Their on a point like this? "I have a female presence more than once has spared child and she has six toes on a foot; valuable lives to the Congo work. The many of the neighbors tell me I better missionaries in Africa count the work not raise her; her feet can never be of one woman worth that of twelve made to ·look well. What do you men, since they can go anywhere, even say?" The" neighbors" were many among the fiercest tribes. Their moof them Buddhists, who were earning tives are never questioned, and they are merit by vegetarianism, thus not caus· listened to with the greatest respect." ing the death of any animal; but their merciful creed had not included girl -Woman has a large sphere In China babies in the list of animals to be as well, for" It may be truthfully said, spared. I noticed a simIlar contrast a in general terms, that the salvation of few days ago. The body of an infant the women in all Oriental countries de·· floated by the boat, and some of the pends on the women of Christian lands. men thought it a huge joke, poked it This arises from the peculiar ideas of with a bamboo pole, and indulged in propriety and modesty prevalent, which heart-sickening merriment. forbid women holding any social inter- course with men who are not members -Mrs. Ballington Booth makes this of their own immediate families. Our declaration concerning the" slum bri- people, accustomed to free American gade" of the Salvation Army: ., These usages, do not realize how strict these girls do not go down among the poor ideas are. On one occasion Dr. Woods, for a few weeks or simply to study of Tsing Kiangpu, was called in a case them. They go for life. They ostra- of extreme need to see a woman with cize themselves from society. They disease of the feet. The first visit he scrub floors, they mind the children, paid, in order that he might make an they wash the dead, they go where the intelligent diagnosis, he was allowed police dare not go except in squads. to see his patient, feel her pulse, and The power of a great supernatural love, ask questions in the presence of the which God has planted in their hearts, family; but on his second visit what sustains them." was his surprise and amusement to see -" With Him the twelve and certain a foot thrust through a doorway, with women which had been healed of evil a curtain hanging down in front."
spirits and infirmities, . • • which min- -Mrs. Elizabeth W. Andrew and Dr.
istered to Him of their substance." Kate Bushnell have again sailed for "Healed to minister I These women India, Burmsh, China, and Japan, being had known they were sick, and came sent out by the Women's Christian with their record of suffering to Him. Temperance Union "to form local They knew they were sinners, and that unions, to strengthen and develop those no sanitary report on the state of their already existing, to set forth the plans hearts could fully describe the deep and purposes of the work by schools of and long-seated evil. They went to methods wherever opportunity offers, Him and were healed of evil spirits and and to preach the unsearchable riches infirmities. A wide area is covered by of Christ to the untaught and the un- that word • infirmities.' Through their saved." This statement appears in a recent drance, for the Moslems fail to dis- paper by Mrs. Kennedy, of the Presby- tinguish between our Christianity and terian Woman's Board, upon woman's theirs."
mission-" Go Tell": .. More than one -Twenty-five years ago the 'women half of the active laborers in the field of the Methodist Church organized for' are women; the exact figures being 214 world-wide work, raising only $4547 ministers; male lay missionaries, 42; during the first twelve months. Ten total, 256; women, 367. These last years later the income had climbed to are found on every field, dismayed by . $66,844; ten years later still to $225,- no danger, deterred by no hardship, 000, and last year to $277,304. The braving the rigors of northern winters totalfortwenty-five years is $3,139,757. or the baleful heat of torrid summers. So, why should not they celebrate, re- They have gone into homes and been joice, thank God, take courage, and welcomed where the feet of Christians push on with tenfold greater zeal? had never before been allowed to enter.
They are crowding to the front in rapidly increasing numbers. What, OUR YOUNG PEOPLE.
think you, is the significance of the fact that of the 56 new missionaries sent to -It would be difficult to find so much the field last year, 16 were wives of Christian common sense packed into so missionaries, and 21 single women? brief a space as is contained in an ad- Surely the' Go tell' of the risen Saviour dress upon ., Necessary Practical Trainis bearing rich fruit in this our day and ing," given at the Detroit Student Vol- unteers Convention by Rev. H. P. generation. " Beach, of the Springfield, Mass., School -The Ladies' Kaffrarian Society is for Christian Workers. Would that an independent ally of the Scottish Free every young man and woman propos- Church foreign mission enterprise in ing to enter the foreign field might read South Africa. It has made the girls andheed I and young women of Kaffraria its special care, and has now 170 receiving -One department of the Epworth Christian training in its school at Em- League has a beautiful name, that of gwali. The society has also provided . " Mercy and help." What it stands for an assistant for Mrs. Forsyth at Upper is set forth by one chapter which " dur- ing the last year made 258 calls upon Xolobe. the sick, aged, and needy. A sewing -Miss Ella O. Kyle, missionary in society was formed, and garments were Egypt, recently received $500 from a made for a family of motherless chil- wealthy lady friend whom she met in dren, and also clothing for a child wishthis country last year, and will use the ing to attend Sunday-school. Watchers money in the mission school, where it were furnished for the sIck. An old will greatly assist the work.-Xenia lady who had no means of support was Gazette. aided by having her house rent paid, -The English Church Society has in eatables carried' to her, and her chores Palestine alone, and not including mis- done. A. pound social, in connection sionaries' wives, 21 women engaged in with Christian Endeavor, was given, its work. All these" encounter special the proceeds for the benefit of the poor."
difficulties, owing to the watchfulness -Hon. Chauncey M. Depew thus and suspicion of the Turkish officials ; tersely defines the functions of two) and the deeply interesting letters which Christian associations: "The Young reach us from time to time are mani- Men's Christian Association is the re- festly safer in manuscript than in type. cruiting station of the churches. The The condition of the women in the Society of Christian Endeavor-doing Eastern churches is also a terrible hin- the work in the interior 'of the church -is the citadel of the Christian camp and for that of 3 orphans in a Chrilltian inside the lines." school in China.
-Flower committees are good al- ways; but during these hard times jIotl'r UNITED STATES. committees are even better_ -The gifts of Endeavor societies to -Captain R. H. Pratt ranks with the the American Board and the Woman's late General Armstrong among the Board during 1893 amounted to $13,535. foremost friends and benefactors of the American Indian, and his Carlisle -The society of the church at Ocon- school, with its more than 600 Indian to, Wis_, has agreed to give at least $100 boys and girls, gathered from 56 tribes, for missions during the present year_ is no mean rival of Hampton. The in- Miss Reinhardt went out from this society to Mosul, Turkey, a few months dustrial feature holds a prominent place ago_ in the course of training ; the discipline -The Presbyterian Young People's partakes of a military character, and Society of Grand Island, Neb_, has the boys are dressed in cadet uniform. pledged $25 for the support of Miss Besides, good homes are found for them Julia Hatch, who went from this church in the region, chiefly upon the farms, to Siam_ The Juniors have also pledged where both sexes can learn English and $10. be taught to work. Last year 376 boys and 245 girls were out, and requests -The Young Ladies'Mission Band came in for twice the number. of Portland, Me., celebrated its decennial February 14th. Its membership is -Say not the negro is lacking in over 300, making it the largest junior intelligence, whcn, at the recent conferauxiliary in connection with th'l Wom- ence at Tuskegee, this declaration was an's Board. The band raised last year adopted: ., We believe education, prop- $601. a gain of nearly $100 over any erty, and practical religion will eventprevious year. During its brief hIs- ually give us every right and privilege tory 3 members have entered the ser- enjoyed by other citizens, and therefore vice of the Woman's Board, 2 (Mary that our interests can best be served by Morrill and Anna Gould) as missionaries bending all our energies to securing to North China, and Alice Kyle as a them rather than by dwelling on the member of the staff of workers at the past or' by fault-finding and complainrooms in Boston. ing. We desire to make the Tuskegee Negro Conference a gauge of our prog- -At Birmingham, England, a num- ress from year to year in these things ber of factory girls (members of the in the Black. Belt." Girls' Letter Guild) recently gave .a tea to 250 poor children, many of whom -The Germans in New York City were shoeless and stockingless. number 583,000; in Chicago, 406,000; in Philadelphia, 188,000 ; in St. Louis, -The Belfast, Ireland, Young Wom- 167,000; in Milwaukee, 135,000; in en's Christian Association Institute re- Cincinnati, 120,000 ; and in Cleveland, cently held its annual meeting, and a 103,000_ The total number of foreignmissionary statement was made; the born Germans in the United States is present position of affairs being 4 mem- 9,250,000.
bers in the foreign field-in China, India -Does Rome really want the whole and Africa-4 engaged in home mission earth and all that is therein? It looks work, 5 in training, and 1 in treaty_ that way; and this is a specimen of Over £215 was raised last year by the her greed: Forty-five of the 61 alder- members (58 of whom hold self-denial men in the Chicago City Council are boxes) which was sent direct for the Roman Catholics, as are also 90 per cent support of missionaries and candidates, of the police force; 80 per cent of the fire department; 67 per cent of the Ing Society within the last forty-two teachers in the public schools, while 80 years has ~ded in 49 States and Terriper cent of the pupils are Protestants. tories 2445 churches, and the amount expended is $1,892,918. For 429 par- -In Mr. Moody's Bible Institute, sonages the amount is $151,563. Chicago, the students enrolled in 1893 were: Women, 195; men, 381; tran- -St. Bartholomew's Church, New sients, 85. Denominations represented: York City, of which Dr. D. H. Greer is Women, 10; men, 35. Thirty-one rector, started a mission that proved to States of the United States, Canada, be successful, and Mr. Cornelius Van- Turkey, India. Japan, Scotland, Ire- derbilt bought thrce lots for $75,000 at land. England, Germany, Sweden, 205-209 East Forty-second Street, on Switzerland, Denmark, Russia, Persia, which a building was erected by his Norway, Bohemia, West Indies, South mother, Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt, Africa, Hawaii, and New Zealand were at a cost of $225,000. Then Mr. Vanrepresented. 'fhe previous work of the derbilt presented a $10,000 pipe organ, attendants was: Pastorate, 24; evan- and the past year built on a lot directly gelistic, 13; licensed local preachers, east, that has been purchased and will exhorters, etc., 13; singers, 4; Young be added. In the basement are a res- Men's Christian Association secretaries, taurant, eight bath-tubs, andalaundry. 20 ; home and city missions, 11 ; foreign On the first floor a rescue mission hall missionary, 1 ; secular occupations, 111. holds over 1000 people under the direc- tion of Colonel H. H. Hadley. There -The New York Society for the Pre- is a medical clinic in connection with vention of Cruelty to Children cele- the parish house, a savings bank, boys' brated recently its anniversary. In his club, girls' club, carpenter shop in the annual report, President Gerry says: basement, cooking school, kindergarten, " Nineteen years have elapsed since the gymnasium, type-writing school, dressrescue of Mary Ellen from her cruel making school, and 3 Bible schools, stepmother caused the interference of 1 Bible club, and a summer garden on that great friend of humanity, Henry the roof of the building for amusement. Bergh, in behalf of an ill-treated little So here is a literal bee-hive containing girl. At his instance sprang up this about 5000 persons. institution. Not only was its influence felt in the Empire State, but east, south -The lIethodist Episcopal Church and west similar societies were formed, reports 221 male missionaries in the until to-day there is an unbroken chain foreign field, 205 assistant missionaries extending across this continent in every (of these 196 being wives of missiondirection, from ocean to ocean." Dur- aries), and 153 women sent and susing the years of its existence the society tained by the Woman's Board. The has investigated complaints involving distinct missions number 24, and 7 of the care and custody of 233,000 chil- them in Protestant Europe. The churchdren, over 27,000 convictions have been members are 69,887, and the probationers secured, and 40,660 children have been 49,400. Of these thousands India suprescued and relieved. plies 17,135 full members and 33,343 probationers; China, 6021 and 4684 ; -The Southern Baptist Convention South America. 1464 and 1158; and is embarrassed by an overabundance of Mexico, 1721 and 1364. Nearly 35,000 applicants for missionary work, and church-members are in Germany and says: "Our committee on new mis- Scandinavjan countries. sionaries has recommended 10 as suitable and worthy to be sent. The num- EUROPE. ber of those who apply is great. We ha'DIJ ceased to count them. " Great Britain.-The London Tele- graph. gives the amounts which have -The Congregational Church Buildbeen left by will to religious and Chltr. Huahine, Raiatea. and the neighboring itable purposes for six years. In 1888, islands, to the Paris Missions Evange- 1889 and 1890 these amounts aggregated liques. The latter now announce that about $5,000,000. In 1891, $6,000" the L. M. S. has made them a free gift 000; 1892 fell below the other years, of all the mission property on those reporting only $4,000,000 ; but in 1893 islands, charging only a small sum for the amount rose to $7,000,000. some furniture, which was the private property of their missionaries. – The National Bible Society employs 110 colporteurs in Japan in the sale of -Dr. McAll, who died in May last, the Scriptures. was the founder, and for many years pastor of London Road Chapel; and -The Shipwrecked Mariners' Society the members felt that a memorial of maintains 1000 stations, relieves annu- some description ought to be placed in ally about 10,000 sailors, fishermen and the chapel. Accordingly a committee their dependants, and since its organiza- was appointed, subscriptions were intion fifty-five years ago has given aid vited, and the sum of about £40 was to nearly 460,000 persons. During the soon collected. It was decided that the terrible gales of a few months since 143 memorial should take the form of a tabvessels, 911 men, and 993 widows and let. This is now in place, and on the orphans were helped at a cost of about centre panel is cut and gilded the in- £4000. scription: "To the honored memory of Robert Whitaker McAll, D.D., -During the year 1893 the S. P. G. F.L.S., first pastor of this church, board of examiners accepted the offers founder, and for twenty-one years diof 5 clergymen and 23 laymen for mis- rector of the Evangelical Mission in sion service. Of these, 13 were from Frauce, created by the French Govern- St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, ment Chevalier of tp-e Legion of Honor. 6 from Cambridge, 4 from Oxford, and Born 1821, died 1893. Co-worker 1 each from Trinity College, Dublin, and with God." the theological colleges at Dorchester, Salisbury, Warminster, and Lincoln. The Continent.-According to re- In addition to clergy accepted at home, cent statistics, the Roman Catholic 70 clergy, including 16 natives, were Church in Belgium has 229 cloisters placed on the list of the S. P. G. abroad; with 4775 monks, and 1546 nunneries 31 were added in Africa, 10 of whom with more than 25,000 sisters. In 1866. were natives. there were 178 cloisters with 2991 monks, and in 1880, 213 cloisters with 4120 -During the year 1893,63 new mis- monks. The number of nunneries in sionaries reached Shanghai, in connec- 1880 was 134:6 with 21,600 inmates; in tion with the China Inland Mission. 1866 it was 1144 with 15,000 nuns. The There arc others on the way, bringing rapid increase down to 1880 is largely the number up to 86, and at least 100 owing to the fact that the members of young men evangelists are still needed. the orders expelled from Germany went to Belgium, whence many returned to -The London City :Mission employs Germany since 1878. With these 30,000 482 missionaries, who visit systemati- monks and nuns, and a host of priests, cally all the year round among the poor etc., besides, this tiny corner of Europe and outcast. Last year 3,667,680 visits ought to blossom with piety and all man· were paid. The work is undenomina- ner of good works. tional. More than 500,000 men are regularly visited by the agents of this mis- -The Evangelical Society of Berne, sion. Switzerland, has just held its annual meeting. From the reports it appears -Some years ago the London Soci- that a good work is being done by a ety, on account of the vicious med- band of 27 ministers and evangelists, dling of the French Government, was obliged to make over its missions in who go about through the hills and with it is found nowadays the centre of mountains carrying the Gospel to those disturbance and peril as touching British who cannot go to church to hear. tule. For ten years a National Congress Eighty-five Young Men's Christian has met annually to discuss (for speech Associations and 80 Young Women's is free in the great peninsula) and to Christian Associations have been started formulate demands. The ·cost of the by the society, and a large number of standing army is much too great, the young men are being trained as evan· number of Indians in high civil offices gelists. is much too small, and proVincial coun- cils ought to be in which natives shall -The feeble Presbyterian churches have greater prominence, etc. And all in Spain were largely supported by a this desire and determination come as Mrs. Peddie, a Scotchwoman who has the fruit of the education in Western recently died. Speaking of what Prot- ideas bestowed by the British rulers. estantism owes to the discovery of the New World, somebody pertinently sug- -In Madras Presidency about 1000 gests: "Spain has been neglected by separate works came forth from the tourists and missionary societies. It press last year, in more than 20 lanwill not do to forget the debt we owe to guages. For the whole of India the Columbus and the land which sent him number was 7125. Of thesc 1580 were forth. The daughter-land and Church upon religious themes, 989 related to should not decline to share her purer language, 928 to poetry, 336 to science, faith and higher prosperity with the 252 to medicine, 225 to law, 203 to phifoster-mother. losophy, and 172 to history and biog. raphy. It should, however, be added -Hall Caine, in the Pall Man Maga- that a vast majority of these publications zine, says Russia's reasons for expelling consist of but a few pages, and are of the Jews are, first, religious; second, trifling value, if not really worse than national; and thirdly, and almostexc1u- worthless. sively, economic; for: 1. He is a voluntary alien-a Jew, not a Russian- -By the death of John Elphinston, separating himself by dress and custom of the Bombay Civil Service, for years from the people among whom he lives. Collector and magistrate of the Ahmad· 2. His personal character is revolting. nagar district, and of Sir Henry Ram- He is dirty, heartless and impure. 3. say, during forty-four years Commis- His religious character is hypocritical. sioner of Kumaon, in North India. we He uses his religion to hoodwink his are reminded of how much Christianity God and to deceive his sovereign. 4. owes to the lives and deeds of hundreds He is grossly ignorant and fanatical, and thousands of the representatives of and has resisted and misused all efforts the paramount government. Both were to educate him. 5. He is a bad soldier. devoted friends and most liberal sup- He fiees from military service. He joins porters of missions, the latter in partichimself to the Nihilists and other ene- ular being the real founder of work in mies of the government. 6. Above all, Almora, as well as for years by far the he is an immoral trader, a cheat, a base largest giver. usurer, a friend of the drink traffic, and he has one morale for his dealings with -Rev. D. S. Rivington tells how in, his Jewish brethren and another for his a remote village of Bombay he found in. dealings with Christians. a temple of Vishnu the tomb of a man who had died ten years previously, and ASIA. on the tomb, as an object oj worship, a large copy of the Bible in Canarese. A India.-Among both Hindus and Mo- stranger theological medley could not hammedans agitation for" home rule" well be conceived-a Christian tomb and is steadily increasing, and in connection a Bible enshrined in a Hindu temple, guarded by an image of Vishnu, and reopening and anniversary of the Tamil slong with the idol receiving the wor- church."
ship of Hindus I The Hindu has gen- -The Church Missionary Society erally so much religious sentiment that has 4 mission circles in South Indiahe is able to dispense with logic and viz., Madras, Ootacamund, Tinnevelly, consistency of faith as well.-Indian allU Telugu country; and these are Witnes8. looked after by 105 European and na- -An Indian magazine states that at tive clergymen. The number of Chris- Dewali, in the Punjab, gambling is re- tians who have been brought into the garded by the Hindus as a" religious fold is 58,000; and there are besides duty," and has been enjoined upon these over 8000 under instruction pre· them by the priests from time imme- paratory to baptism. The society has morial as a theological dogma, the idea in its schools over 22,000 children. The being that the souls of those who do not financial return shows that the native indulge in " jooa" will enter the bodies congregations gave during the year of donkeys. In the Occident the idea Rs. 38,000 to meet their congregational is mostly reversed; but to avoid calam- expenses, and for different religious and ity in the East "the simple-minded charitable objects.
Hindu, the few educated ones excluded, -Eighteen years ago there were but tries to play the destructive game as 2 Bible-women in the Neyoor District, much as possible, so that by accumulat- South Travancore. Later on a few ing the whole benefit derived from such Christian women would go out on Sun- playing he may be able to get rid of the days in couples to the nearer villages, donkey life in the world to come." fearing the scoffs and ridicule they knew -The Independent observes: "The they would meet with. Now there are banner Conference of the Methodist 25 who go forth Bingly day by day, and Episcopal Church in the number of are not only welcomed in the villages, SUll(tay-schools is not in the East. the but regret is expressed if for any reason West, or the South-not in this country they are kept away. Fourteen addiat all. It is the North India Confer- tional villages have been visited during ence. Those who think the Gospel has the past year, making a total of 61, and made little progress in India need to still the cry is, .. Come and teach us." rub their eyes and wake up to the In one house a mother and two daughfacts." The number of Sunday-schools ters said they had quite given up the in this Conference iii 518 ; of Christian worship of idols. In another, an old scholars, 9408; of non-Christian schol- woman, kissing the hand of the visitor ars, 11,921 ; or a total of 21,329. and looking earnestly into her face, re- peated with great fervor, "Jesns God, -The London Society has a woman my life, save me a poor sinner !"
.. who almost rivals the late Mrs. Doro- -This is the showing of the London thea Baker in the length of her service. Rociety for Travancore, from a com- Mrs. Addis and her husband founded parison of 1892 with 1893: Agency: the Coimbatore Mission in 1830. They Increase of 55 native agents, from 750 labored together till 1861, and then re- to 805. Evangelistic and pastoral de- tired to the hills, where he died in 1871. partment : Increase of 642 baptized, Since then she has sold over £10,000 from 23,654 to 24,296 ; increase of 2510 worth of goods sent from England to in entire Christian community, from aid various missions, and has collected 50,637 to 53,147 ; increase of 264 church- more than £1000 for the Bible Society. members, from 6466 to 6730. Educa- Last year, although she had reached the tional department: Increase of 49 great age of eighty-five years, she trav· schools, from 363 to 412; increase of elled down to Coimbatore to attend the 790 boys, from 12,209 to 12,999 i increase of 368 girls, from 4184 to 4552. memory of her father and of his father. Contributions of native Christians: It is a valuable lesson to the Chinese to Increase of Ra. 597, contributions, from tell them that all those buildings are Rs. 18,832 to Rs. 19,429. Medical mis- erected in memory of parents. They sion: Increase of 7031 cases, from 26,- seem to think that foreigners are de void 194 to 33,225. Press: Increase of 1075 of all tilial feelings because they do not pages printed, from 3,307,236 to 3,308,- worship at the graves. 311.
China.-Dr. Ashmore believes that AFRICA . .. the evangelization of the Chinese is more important than that of any other -A Baptist toiler on the Congo race; for as far as all human standards writes thus of trials endured: .. The are concerned they are so far beyond missionaries' houses at this place are any other heathen nation that there is poor, but better ones are in process of no comparison to be made… erection. My own little abode was 20 X 14, with mud walls and a thatched roof -The following proclamation was of grass. Even tlJis was not excluissued aWhile ago in the province of sively my own, for besides my two girls, Honan, China: .. Should anyone be- who lived with me, there were lizards. come bewitched by the foreign doc- centipedes, and other small creatures. trine8, and not be willing to sacrifice One Sunday morning, as I was dresseither to Confucius or to the spirits of ing, a snake fell from the roof down his ancestors, he must be severely dealt beside me, but no -harm was done." with by his clan. His name must be But she heeds not such trifles, for erased from the family regis.ter, and his " this is the scene where the Gospel of whole family driven from the province… our Lord Jesus Christ has triumphed, and in hundreds of huts, which are not -Rev. Arnold Foster recently found worthy of the name of homes, women, the following prayer po~ted on a house strong men, and children are rejoicing in Wuchang: "A young man named in Christ. The 24 schools and 5 churches Cheng Yu, living inside the Gate of Mil- are centres of light to the heathen, 10, itary Conquest, reverently implores the 15, 20, and 30 miles around in different God of Thunder to display his awful directions. Native evangelists and teachmajesty and to forgive the writer's sins ers are constantly winning souls, and of ignorance and to enlighten him as to often we have marvelled at their zeal, what they are ; he will then gladly obey courage, and fearlessness in the midst his parents and elders, and will be very of God's enemies, who persecute them careful of all kinds of grain. He now and plot against their lives." puts out this promise to reform. Will benevolent and right-minded people, -Out of 40 men and women sent to as they pass by, read this confession as Africa by the International Missionary a means to restoring the writer to health ? Alliance during the last flve years, 11 He offers his grateful thanks to all who have died. The tirst year of residence do so. .. It seems that this young man is most fatal. had some affection of the eyes which he believed was caused by some sin on his -Bishop Taylor has 43 white missionpart. He confesses he does not know aries at his .. self-supporting" stations what is the god of thunder whom he in Angola and the Congo Free State, toblindly adores. gether with quite a force of native evan- gelists and teachers. Twelve died at -When Mr. Whiteweight, of the their posts last year. English Baptist Mission, was home last year, he received about $16,000 from a -Lovedale Institution has an attend- Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, for school ance of '782 pupils of all grades. These building, chapel, etc. It was given in represent almost a score of tribes, and not a few come from regions hundreds .. large population roundabout makes it of miles away. This seat of learning a very favorable centre for missionary has a KafIir church, with 800 members, work.
whose pastor, Rev. Pambani J. Mzim- ba, " is a splendid specimen of what the THE ISLaNDS OF THE SEA. grace of God can achieve in the Afri- can race. " The congregation is almost -The Hon. C. R. Bishop has deeded entirely self-supporting, and out of its to the Kamehameha school in Honolulu poverty has undertaken to build a $10,- all his property on the island of Molokai. 000 house of worship, has raised $3000 The property includes 90,000 acres of from the field, and seeks the rest in land, stocked with cattle, horses and Scotland from friends of the Free sheep.. Mr. and Mrs. Bishop had pre- Church. viously given munificently to this insti- -The Rev. J. D. Hepburn, of the tution.
London Society, who died on the last -Not all of the heroes and heroines day of last year of malarial fever, was are of European stock. Mrs. L. Kaaiathe apostle of Khama's people, the wahia, the wife of Rev. S. Kauwealoha, Bamangwato. From 1870 till 1890 he both of them native Hawaiians, went labored uninterruptedly at Shoshong, with her husband in 1843 to the Marand when Khama moved his capital to quesas Islands as missionary under the Palapye, he went also, but retired, bro- Hawaiian Board to those cannibal ken down in health, in 1892. Not only islands, where she remained for forty was the conversion of the tribe largely years without ever returning to her nadue, under God, to him, but the new tive land. Part of the time she lived mission to Lake Ngami.owed its origin almost alone, separated from other misto his enterprise. sionary families. Her hands and her -The waters of Lake Nyassa are heart were occupied with labors for the ploughed by no less than 7 steamers, natives, by whom she was greatly honsome engaged in traffic, but mainly en- ored and loved.
gaged in the service of the King, carry- -In Fiji there is a circuit which has ing glad tidings to the benighted. 16 ministers, 310 local preachers, and -From OentraZ Africa we learn that upward of 7000 members, with 27,000 Baron Von Soden, the new Governor· adherents. Of the ministers, all but General of German East Africa, has one are natives, and the single European decreed •• that all missionary societies is quasi bishop of the populous diocese.
settled within the territories under Ger- New Hebrides.-Rev. J. W. Macken- man protection, without distinction of zie writes from Efate : •• Sabbath before nationality, shall enjoy exemption from last was a grand day here. 'l'he sacra- import duty and from the excise of con- ment of the Lord's Supper was dis- sumption for an amount not exceeding pensed, and 18 church-members sat £120 per annum. " down for the first time. The whole -The Universities Mission has opened number of communicants present was a new station in the Yao country, in 150.
P~rtuguese territory, at II place called -The West Indies include many Unangu, some 50 miles east of Lake islands under British, Dutch,and French Nyassa, and about 200 north of Blan- rule, and the republic of Hayti. The tyre. It is quite a large town, set on a total area is about 100,000 square miles, hill, with thousands of houses, many and the population 5,500,000, while 16 of them large and well built. The sta- societies are at- work with over 120 or- tion is expected, from its situation, to dained missionaries and 500 native help- prove exceptionally healthy, while the ers. The communicants number 75,000.
The Missionary Review of the World — 1893 Index
z893
YOLo VI NEW SERIES VOL. XVI OLD SERIES JANUARY TO DECEMBER, 1893 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ARTHUR T. PIERSON ASSOCIATE EDITORS A. J. GORDON J. T. GRACEY D. L. LEONARD D. L. PIERSON, MANAGING EDITOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS C. C. STARBUCK AND JAMES DOUGLAS 'Printed in the United States PUBLISHERS FUNK AND WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON NEW YORK TO:ttONTO x893 By FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY.
1893.J INDEX
DEPARTMENTS.
I. LITERATURE OF MISSIONS. II. INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. J. T. Gracey, EditOl;'.
m. DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR. A. R. Wells, Editor.
IV. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. Editor·in·Chief. V. MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. VI. GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. D. L. Leonard, Editor.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS. C. C. Starbuck. BRITISH NOTES. James Douglas. ORGANIZED WORK, STATISTICS AND NEWS FROM THE FIELD. D. L. Leonard.
AUTHORS.
PAGE PAGE ASHMORE, REV. WILLIAM, D.D ..••. ' . . . . 611 HAMLIN, CYRUS, D.D •••..•••.. 48, 122, 417, 725 BAIRD, REV. W. M ……………………. 531 HAPPER, A. P., D.D ………………… ,49, 96 BALDWIN S. L., D.D ………………….. 141 HARD, REv. C. P………… ………. ….. 46 BARON, REV. DAVID ………………….. 938 HARTZLER, REV. H. B ………………… , 26 BARNUM, H. N., D.D …………………. 732 HARVEY, REV. McLEOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 BARTON, REV. J. L ……………………. 843 JESSUP, REV. WILLIAM ………………… 498 BEABD, A. F., D.D ……………….. 413,680 JOHNSTON, REV. JAMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 JUDSON, EDWARD, D.D ………………… 161 BULLEN, MRS. M. J …………………… 489 KENNEDY, REV. JAMES ……………517, 595 BUNKER, ALONZO, D.D ………..••.• A9, 326 KNOX, G. W·., D.D ………………….. 737 CHALMERS, REV. JOHN, M.A., LL.D…….. 36 KOLB, REV. J. B ……………………… 860 CHAMBERLAIN, GEORGE W., D.D …….. 41, 836 LATIMER, MISS L. M ………………….. 180 CHATELAIN, HELl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 766 LEONARD, REV. D. L …………… 266,818,838 COBB, H. N., D.D………… ………….. 58 CRONKHITE, REv. L. W ……………. 261, 430 (See also General Mi88Umarv Intelligence.) CUSWNG, CHARLE! W., D.D ……………. 285 LINDMAY, PROFESSOR T. M., D.D……. 241, 329 DENNIS, J. G., D.D ………………….. 763 LUCAS, J. J., D.D …………………….. 685 DE SCHWEINITZ, REV. PAUL ………… 222, 858 MCALPIN, REV. R. E ………………….. 693 DODD, REV. W. C. . ……….. ………. 515 MACFARLANE, SAMUEL, LL.D…. .. ……. 481 DOUGLAS, REV. JAMES ………………… 569 McKINNEY, A. H., Ph.D ………………. 648 McKITRICK, A. G ……………………. 507 (See also British Notes.) MARTIN, REV. CHALMERS ……•…..•….. 382 DOWSLEY, REV. A….. … .. …………. 761 MATEER, REV. S..UlUEL ………………. 589 DREES, C. W., D.D …………………. 50 MATHIESON, J. E …………………..172, 420 DUNLAP, REV. EUGENE ……………….. 501 MAYo, REV. W. L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 825 EASTON, REV. P. Z ……………………. 750 MITCHELL, J. M., LL.D….. ………… . •. 620 EDWARDS, REV. F., B.A… ………….. 17 MORNAN, REV. W. J ………………….. 565 ELLINWoOD, F. F., D.D ……………. 255, 672 NASSAU, R. II., D.D ………………. 527, 926 FENN, REV. A. R …………………….. 577 NEVIUS, J. L., D.D ……………………. 386 FERGUSON, MISS A. P ………………… 423 NICHOLS, REv. C. A ………………….. 210 FORD, REV. GEORGE A……………….. 906 NORTON, MRS. M. B…………………… 211 FULLER, .A., D.D ……………………… 842 PATON, J. G., D.D……………. ……… 52 GALE, REv. J. S ……………………… 658 PAYNE, A. W ……………………….. 890 GILMAN, E. W., D.D …………………. 53 PENTBCOST, G. F., D.D………………… 26 GORDON, A. J., D.D., 101, 166, 269, 321, 584, 754 PI&R50N, A. T., D.D….. 1,81, 119, 401, 488, 561 831 801, 918 GRACEY, J. '1'., D.D…. ……………….. 83 (See also Editorial Department.) PIERSON, D. L …………. 221,484, 60S, 775, 915 (See also International Department.) POST, G. E., M.D …………………….. 641 GRACIIY, MRS. J. '1'…. …………… …. 39 RABINOWITZ, JOSEPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892 GRACEY, S. L ………………………… 845 RRID, REV. GILBERT …………………. 444 GREENE, J. M., D.D …………………… 201 RIGGS, J. F., D.D ……………………. 721 GRIFFIS, W. E., D.D …………………. 701 SCHODDB, PROFESSOR G. H., Ph.D ..••••349, 742 GULICK, O. H., D.D …………………… 690 HAMILTON, J. T., D.D………………… 542 PAGE PAGE SlJIlllB, Rln'. J. I ……………………. 490 TYLER, REV. JOSIAH .. : …………….. 48, 426 BlIXTON, REv. W. D …………………… 189 UNDEBWOOD, H. G., D.D ……………… 818 BJUTIl, REV. A. H ……………………. 290 UPCRAFT, REv. WILLIAlI! M …….. ……. 450 SoUTHGATE, REV. C. M. …. . …. . . …. …. 113 VAN CLEVE, MRS. C. 0…. .. .. …. …. .. … 120 STARBuoK, BEv. C. C………………. 196,428 VARLEY, HENRy ……………………… 862 VINTON. C.C., M.D ……………………. 665 (See Ecctracts and Tran81ations.) WALTER. F. A ……………………….. 589 S'PBJIL, RoBBRT, D.D…………….151, 183,211 WELLS, PRoFEsson A. R………………. 57 STOBROW, REV. EDWARD .••• , •••••••••• 105, 302 STRONG, JOSIAH, D.D…………… …… 7 (See Department of Ohristian Endtavor.) STUNTZ, REV. H. C……………………. 276 WHERRY, E. M., D.D ………………… f~1 SUTHBBLAND, ALEXANDER, D.D……..510, 831 WHITEHOUSE, S. F…. .. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. ….. 110 THOBUBN, J. M., D.D……. …. ……….. 47 WIGSTONE, REV. J. P ………………… 177 THOXPSON, MISS A. Y…………………. 895 WILDE", REV. R. P ………………… 860, 918 TOWNSBND, W. J., D.D ………………… 344 WISHARD, L. D ………………..580. 809. 911 ZWEBJl(ER. REV. S. M ………………..54. 747 TRACEY, RBV. C. C……………………. 47 TmBOLBT, REV. E …………………….. 354 SUBJECTS.
PAGB PAGB Abys8inia· .••………• , ••• , •.•••••…… 70, 480 – TransvaaL………………………… 469 – The Chnrch of, George B. Schodde….. 742 – Tripoli ……………………………. 404 Afghanistan ……………………….714,791 – Tunis……………………………. 404 AFRICA, Monthly Concert. J. T. Gracey 483 – Uganda ….. 78, 188, 159, 2'n, 428, 461, 467, 479 – Christian Colony in. F. A. Walter …370. 581 – Eastern Miasions. C. C. Starbuck•..•. '" 196 689, 799, 873. 880 – Finding Bishop Harrington's Remains .. 456 – West. (See Liberia, sterra L«mt, etc.) – French Mission in Basutoland. A. T. 64, 226, 460, 639. 799, 869 Pierson.. .. .. .. .. .. …. ……………. 186 – Zambesla……………… .480. MO, 787,799 – Gospel in North, John Rntherf'nrd ….. 404 – Zanzibar………………………467. 469 – He:J.!th of Missionaries In Africa. Causes – Znlnland….. ••.•. 151. 480, 528, 607. 796, 799 – GENERAL lNTELLIGENOB, 275, 311, 898, 51Sll. 631 of Improved, R. H. Nassan..•….. , …. 926 – – Anecdotes and Incidents, 240, 811,399, 480 – Sigua of the Times in Sonth, Josiah – – Characteristics of Conntry and Peo· Tyler …………………………….. 48 pie…………………… 480, 719, ~86 – Uganda, Final Facts Respectin&" C. C. – – Converts………………… 639, 880, Il60 Starbuck… .. ……………………. 423 – – Difficulties and Opposition…801, 866, 880 – Voice from South, Miss A. P. Ferguson. 423 – – French Influence………………… 136 – World's Congress on, J. T. Gracey…… S40 – – Languages……………………528. 929 – Znlu and hi. Language, J. T. Gracey …. 5!28 – – Lepers…. …. … … .. …………. 720 – Abyssinia …………………… 70, 480. 742 – – Liquor Traffic ………… 159. 786, 799, 960 -l.Igerla …………………….. 404, 799 – – Methods of Work ……………..64, SOO – Basntoland..79, 136, 299, 470, 712, 7'20. 945, 946 – – Medical Missions.. .. .. .. … .; ……. 638 – Cape Colony………………….79, 219. 618 – – Needs … 68, 159,428,452.468.480.550, 640 – Central. (See Nyassa. Soudan, Uganda, – – Population. …………… .. ……. 468 – – Progress, 240,398, 899, 468, 470, 798, 880, 945 ZamlJe8ia)……. …….. 64, 79,399,45.2, 480 – Congo………..79,159.392.894,719,929,960 960 – East………………………. 196, 4711, 713 – – Religions ……………………. 464, 694 – Egypt. ………. .. …….~ ….. 64. 880, 895 – – Roman Catholic Missions …….. 719, 7'.JO – LiberIa…………………. 159,475.930,946 – – Salvation Army…….. .. ……….. 880 – Madagascar…..66, 449. 459, 467, 720, 787, 880 – – S.lf-support…………………. 480, 711 – Mashonaland ………….. .. ……….. 799 – – Slave Trade.•…… .449. 459. 4711,480, 51Sll – ~Iorocco……………………….. 404. 949 – – Women …………………. 472. 560.872 Afri~n Evangellst. An (Samnel Matbahatbe), – North. (See Morocco, Algeria, etc.) 801, 719 Josiah Tyler. ……………………… 426 -Natal…………………………….. 79 – Chief in England……………….. Ml, 640 – Ny8llsaiand………………65, 480, 551, 865 Africo-Malagasy Slave Tl'Il1IIc.••.•……449, 459 – Sahara ………………………….. 78 Ainn of Japan, Religion of the, F. F. El- – Sierra Leone………………..476. 798,880 – Soudan…… .. …………….. .486, 640 linwood ………………………….. llI5I5 – South. (See BMutgland, Zululand, Oape ALASKA, Monthly Concert. J. T.lIam- (Jolony, etc.) ..48, 159, 899,423, 426. 470, 640 iIton……………………………. 542 719, 880 – Latest News from ………. ' ………… 8&S – MetiakahtIa, D. L.BLeonard……… e18,ees – TAIlpayika……………………..79, "'99 PAtlE PAGE – General Intelligence..•..70, 150, 813, 892, 634 – Probable Future of. E. Tribolet …..354, 617 BUI..GIlRfA. …………………….71, 855 871,878. 874 — and the Bulgarians. Cyrus Hamlin.•….. 122 America. (See United States, Oanada. B VRMA ……………….. 77, 158, 397, 437 – Day is Dawning In, Alonzo Bunker… … 49 South, Oentrdl. etc.) – Missionary Statistics, Edward Storrow, ANECDOTES AND INOIDIINT8 •••.. 89, 231. 579, 633 302,717 – The Outlook In, C. A. Nichols …••…… 210 711. 865. 949. 952 – Priesthood and Sacrifice in, Alonzo Bun- – Africa………….•.•….. 240,311, 399, 480 – Cblna .. 76, 146. 319, 389,897. 559. 718. 798. 798 ker…………………………….. 326 – Protestant Mission8 in, L. W. Cronkhite. 430 871 – Something aliout the Pwos of, L. W. – India.•…. 220,396.471. 627.687,700.797, 871 – Islands of the Sea. 229; Japan…… 719. 952 Cronkhite ……………………….. 261 – Persia, 800. 950 ; Turkey ……………• 316 CAN.A.DA Home Missions In United Answered Prayer. Mrs. Bullen.. .• . ……•• 439 APPEALS. (See Needs.) .•.• ……………. SOO .States and, A. Sutherland ……… 510, 881 – Presbyterians in. (See Organized Work.) 152 – AMes. ……………………………. 640 Canadian Northweat, Home Missions in the, – Arabia……………………………. 747 – Bulgaria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .•.. . . . . . . . . . … 855 A. G. McKitrick…………………… 507 -Chile ……………………………. 848 – China ………………..69, 236. 461. 558. 798 Carey, Forerunners of, m .• A. J. Gordon .. 101 -Freedmen…………………………. 795 – India………………………. 293. 638. 869 – – W. L. Mayo…………………….. 825 -Korea…………………………….. 813 Caroline Islands. (See lliC1'Ot1Mia). …… 609 – Slam ………………………….. 854. 952 CENTRA.L AMERICA…SO, 309, 372, 950 A.RABIA, Enngellzation of. S. M. Zwe· – and the West Indies. Paul DeSchweinltz. 225 Cen~ury of Missions, F. E. Edwards…….. 17 m e r. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4 . 7 4 7 Ceylon. (SeeIndia.}… 140,219,238,302,305, 396 Arabs ……………………………….. 157 Armenia, Reform of the Gregorian Church. 62? Children, Work for …….800, 556, 707, 854, 959 J. L. Barton …………………….. 843 Children'S Work……………………392, 398 Asia Minor. A Summer Tour iu. (See Chile,Men Wanted for. (See South America.} 848 CHINA, Monthly Concert, S_L. Baldwin 141 TurUy.) ……….. ………………… 759 – Anti·Forelrn Sentiment in……..•••…. 930 Assam ……………………………… 451 – Letters from …………………… :. .. 878 At a Misslonary'S Grave, A. J. Gordon…. 269 – Missionary Progress in, John Chalmers.. 36 Attitude of Mo~lem Mind toward Christian· – New" Jesus Hall" In, S. F. Whitehonse. 110 – Opium Habit, Wm. M. Upcraft…….. 450 ity. Cyrus Hamlin.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 725 – Robert Morrison of, Editor.in·Chief.. 119, 631 A.VSTRA.LASIA, Missions in. Robert – Canton, 158, 220; Central Provlnces.. ltO, 619 ..:.. Formosa……………………..240, 391 Steel ….. …………•……………. 51 – Manchnria, 6-~. 477. 798; Mongolia, 76; Australia, Western Polynesia aud. Robert Shanghai. . .. . .. .. ………………… 718 Steel…… …….. ….. …. …•. … … 211 – Thlbet, 143. ~78, 472, 479, 859; Western.. 76 – First Mlll8lonary Conference In, J. T. – General Intelligence. .. 145, 146, 359, 897, 559 Gracey…………………………. 768 631, 638, 959 – General Intelligence……….57, SO. 462. 871 – – Ancestral Worship…………….717, 784 A.USTRIA ……………. '" ..•. 75, 156 – – Anecdotes and Incidents …76, 146. 319, 889 Bahamas. (See West Indie8.) ., ..••…….. 539 Baptist Missionary Centenary. (See Organ· 559, 718, 798, 871, 958 — – Appeals, Needs …… 69,286, 461.553, 798 iud Work.) ………………………. 539 – – Character and Customs of People..784, 845 Bernardo's Orphan~ges. London ……. . .. 556 Bible and the Vedas…………………. 626 864 – Institute Workers In Foreign Lands… . .. 537 – – Converts …•…..158. 290, 819, 477, 479, 879 – Work .••. 311, 558. 557, 639, 791, 880, 944, 949 – -Edncational Work …….•….820,889. 606 – – Higher Classes, Work among……… 607 952. 954, 955, 956, 957 – – Medical Missions•…. 239, 819, 397, 559, 638 – – The Outlook for, E. W. Gllmau, D.D. 53 707, 798 BOHElUlA ………………………. 715 – – Methods of Work …………. 147, 558, 607 Bombay Conference….54, 205, 276, 360, 448, 538 – – Native Contributions, 479, 879; Self- Bomeo…………………………….. 880 Boys' Brigade……………………….. 237 support ……. ………………….. 879 Brahmanism Past and Present. T. M. Lind- – – Opium Curse …..138.147, 150, 211, 220,398 say …………………………..241, 329 450, 796 Brainard, David. W. D. Sexton….. . . . . …. 189 – – Opposition…….158, 451, 784, 879. 930, 958 – – A. J. Gordon…….. '" …………… 3:39 – – Outlook.. . …………………..378, 638 BBrrtm Nons. (See Editorial Dept., Jan.- – – Progress ..36, 76, 139. 239. 319. 461, 477, 478 &pt.. andtJeMral Intelligmce Sept.-Dec.) 559, 619, 718. 789. 8'1'9 – Soefetlell. (See Organlud Work.) – – Women. … ….. …. … .. .77, 239. 472, 958 Buddhism…..67,471, 478,492, 536, ;60. 871, 879 -Awake, R. E. M·Alplne……………… 698 ChIn_In ~eli~…….. 120. 2M, /146, G33, 958 o. – and Chrlstlanlt1 CGJItraat~. W. n04d, 515
December
PAaE PAS. – and Canada. A. Sutherland.. ..•..•….. 831 EGyPT……………………….M. eso -Exclusion Bill………………… 609. 874 – Work among the Women of, Miss A. Y. – L~slation against. J. T. Gracey …….. 443 – Morality… …………. …………… 146 Thompsoa …. .. . .. .. …. .. ……….. 895 – Movement among Native Christians, A. Eliot. John, A. T. Pierson… . .. .. .. .. … .. 488 End of the Mormon Delnsion. D. L. Leon- B. Smith.. .. . .. .. … …. ………….. 290 – Quetltion and International Law, Gilbert ard………………………………. 266 England. (See Great Britain.)…………. 218 Reid …………………………… 444 English Notes, James Donglas….. .. ….. 138 – Ways, S. L. Gracey ………………… 845 Errors of Romaniem, A. T. Pierson. (See Christian Colony in Africa.. ••.•.•••.•….. 390 – Endeavor. (See Y. P. S. C. E.) Romanism.) …. …………………… 135 – Workers' Convention at Boston, C. M. Evangelization of the Islandl, Eugene Dan- Southgate …………………. …… 113 lop ……………………………… 501 Christianity and Buddhism, W. C. Dodds .. 515 Extracts and Translations from ForeigIl Citrllissions, 113, 218 ; Berlin. 816 ; Chicago, Periodicals, C. C. Starbuck…. …. …. 64 151, 714.; London….. . …140, 715, 955, 956 Facts Respecting Uganda. O. C. Starbnck .. 428 – – in New York ….11>1,391, 892. 474, 555. 556 FISI ISLAl'lDS (See Island8 oj the 684. 714 Sea.) .. .. …. … …79, 149, loo. 400, 560, 880 – – Question of Endowing Mission FINANOB OF MISSIONS.• 70, 235, 240, 312, 891, 474 – American Societies. (See Organizations.) Churches, Edward Jndson •…•…….. 161 –A.B.O.F. M …………. ……….. 311 Civilization. Progress of. (See Science and – – A. B. M. U… 156, 313, 554, 633, 795, 955 –Am. Bible Society……………..633. 712 .M',…ons.) ••• . ••••••••••.. 719, 875, 879, 880 – – Am. Home M. S ………………..71. 714 Colony in Africa. A Christian, F. A. Walter. 531 – – Am. Seamen's Friend Society…•..• " 714 Oomity and Co.operation in Mission•• 11, 74, – – Episcopalian …………………554. 795 – , – Lutheran……………………. 151, 684 458; in India……………… '" ….. 284 _ – Methodist …..71,152,285,313.394,473, 682 – – W. J. Townsend …………………. 344 – – A Note on, S. L. Baldwin…………. 213 715, 797 Conference in Bombay, J. T. Gracey … 55, 205 – – Presbyterians ……. 554, 632, 684, 795. 955 –Decennial, H. C. Sturtz .•….. 276, 860. 448 – – United Presbyterians……………… 794 — in India. National Social, J. T. Gracey, 292 – – Women's Societies…………314,632, 794 – -In Anstralia, J. T. Gracey…………. 768 –Y.P.S.O.E …………………….. 852 Confucianiam. 148 ; A. P. Happer…… …. 96 – British Societies……………….. 236, 627 Oongreaa of Missions. J. T. Gracey.1l14, 294, 921 –B. F. B. S ………………………. 135 – – E. M. Wherry…. .. …. . . . …. ……. 524 –B.F.S.S ………………………. 711 – 01 Religions…. ………… …. . .. .. . … 930 – – Baptist M. S. ………… 140, 894, 554, 476 Oost of Misaions. (See Ftna~.) ..611, 310. 319 – – C. M. S ……………………… 156. 632 – – London City MiISlon ……………… 715 636 –L.M. S ………. .' ……………… 219 CrOll Bearere' Missionary Readine Oircle.62, 881 – – Presbyterian of Scotland.. . . . . . . . . . . •. 458 –S. P. F. E.E……………………. 873 856 – – S. P.G………………………… 477 Cnba. (See Welt Indiu.) ……….. …… 539 – – Universities' M. C. A ……………… 639 Danger of Exces! In Charity, A. T. Pierson. 617 – – Wesleyans ………. .. ………..633, 872 Day i8 Dawning in Burma, Alonzo Bunker. 49 – – Zenana Society….. .. …………… 874 Decennial Conference in Bombay. (See – Oontinental Societies, Rhenish….. " . '" 796 – Native Contributions, Africa, 871 ; China, India.) DIFPlOULWII8 IN MISSION WORK. (See Op· 319. 320; India. 957; Japan ………693, 959 Focnsing ou Missions…. .. .. …. .. …… 457 poriti.on.)…. .. .. .. …. …. .. . . .. .. …. 792 Force in the Field…………………….. 630 – Africa, 801, 866 ; India. 317; Mexico. . . .. 635 Foreilln Mission Olnb. J. T Gracey……… 769 DiaaaterB…………………………….. 477 Foreigners in United State.. (See Unitld Divine Pattern ofMl8siona, A. T. Pierson .. 401 Dress, 'Native, lor Missionaries.. . . . . . . .. . .. 791 Statu.) Earthqnake in Alia :MInor…………….. 477 Forerunners of Carey. III., A. J. Gordon…. 101 East Indies. (See India. Malaysia, etc.)… 68 – – W. L. Mayo ……………………… 825 EDUOATION AND MIISIONS. A. J. Gordon. Formosa…………………. 240. 890, 391.000 FRANCE……………………….2.37, 306 584. 881 -McAll Mi88ion ……………….156,618,877 – Wm. Ashmore……………………… 611 – Seaman's Rest at Marseilles, D. L. Pier- – A. Dowlley.. …. …. . ……………… 761 – of Women in the Foreign Field. Indus- son ………………………………. GOII Freedmen……………….. , … , 284, 418, 795 trial, Mrs. J. T. Gracey…………….. 89 Gilbert Islands. …. .. ………………80, 555 -In MI8Iions, A. F. Faller•.. , . . . .. •…… 842 Giving………… 281. 470. 553, 685, 792, 872, 951 – Difficulties in……………………797, 868 God s Season, Man'! Opportune ROUT, A. T. -Alaska………………………… 70, 634 – Ohina …………… .. …….. 320, 889, 606 Pierson…………………………. Ml – India…..••…..•..282, 819,320, 46t, 478, 957 – Japan……………………….289, 320, 879 – Ullited State3. 238, 474; Mormons•••..•• tiM
1893.j
PAnE PA."B – – Buddhism ….67,471.478.492.536.760, 879 Gospel in Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . ••. 305 – – Caste. 558; Child Marriage.. .. …… 797 – in North Africa, John Rutherfnrd ……. 414 – – Converts ……………….. 158. 238, 317 Government and Missions •… 609, 777. 9~6. 946 – – Difficulties and Opposition •.. 317,628, 709 – Protection in the New Hebrides, J. T. 710,717 Gracey …………………………. 532 – – Educational Work. 282,819,320.461,478, 957 _ Relation of Missionaries to their. Cyrus – – Lepers.. .. .. .. .. .. …. .. ………78. 396 – – Medical Missions ……………..558, 713 Hamlin ……………………… 417, 937 – – Missionary Societies …••• .••.••••• 817 Great Britain. (See General Inteltig~ – – Mohammedauism … 157. 317. 478, 878, 956 – – Native Churches and Self·Support•• 279 Department.).. .. . ………………74, 636 Greenland, Monthly Concert, J. T. 539, 789, 878 – – Needs …… 157, 317, 318, 478. 626,709, 952 Hamilton ………………………… 542 – – Outlook….. . ………..819, 388. 627, 637 – General Intelligence ……………..309, 629 – – Progress..55. 104. 299.320.386,478, litt, 550 Hannington'l Remains, Finding of ……•.. 456 Hardships of the Mission Field………… 61 558. 637, 700, 709. 717, 792, 794, 797, 798 Ilarms, Rev. Lonis, James Douglas ……. 569 HA.W A.II …………….79,160,471.608. 952 870,878 Health of Missionaries in Africa, R. H. – – State Regulation of Vice••… 540, 610, 770 Hassan ……………………………. 926 – – Statistics………… 205, 288, 317, 626. 798 Heroines. OnrMissionary, J. T. Gracey …. 88 – – Sunday·Schools…. ……………. • 608 Hindu Reformers, Two, James Mudge ….. 494 – — Women …. 238, 478.050,718. 797,952, 957 Hinduism ……….60. 301. 818. 551. 626, 797, 878 – – Zenana Work…204.396,478.794.873, 874 Histury of a Great Petition, Mrs. M. B. Indians of North America. 235, 475. 476, 545, 954 – John Eliot. Apostle to the, A. T. Pier- Norton ………………………….. 211 HISTOBY OF MISSIONS. 629; India, 470; son……………………………. 488 – Metlakahtla. D. L. Leonard…. .. ..818, 888 Japan… ………. . ………….690, 701 – Missions in the Canadian Northwest. A. – Forernnnel'l of Carey ..•..•.•…….. 101, 825 – Louis Harms.. . ….. . .. .. . .. .. .. … ….. 569 G. McKitriek……………………… 1107 Home Missions. (See Mormons, Ohinese in Idolatry in India………………………. 81'1 Industrial Education of Women in the For- u: 8., etc.) …………….70,71.151, 218 eign Field, Mrs. J. T. Gracey….. .. •••• 89 -In United States and Canada, A. Suther· – Missions. (See 8elj-Bupport.) …712, 930,953 land……………………………. 510 Inquisition in MexiCO, Miss L. M. Latimer.. 180 International Missionary Union, J. T. Gra- INDI,. of To·day, James Johnston. …… 248 – Appeal from………………….. " …. 298 cey………………………..218,294,604 – Brahmanism, Past and Present, T. M. Islam. (See Mohammedanism.) Islands. Evangelization of the, Eugene Dun- . Lindsay……………….. .. ….. 241, 329 – Decennial Conference of Bombay. J. T. lap ……………………………… 1101 ISLA.NDS OF THESE,.. (SeeAUB- Gracey ………………… 54, 205, 448, 5ag – – H. C. Stuntz… .. .. .. …. .. .. . .. …. 276 tralasia, ilfalallsia, Micronesia, Poly- – – R. P. Wilder ……………………. 360 nesia. etc.)…………….. 240.310.477, 700 – – Henry Varley …………………… 862 – Monthly Concert. Samuel McFarlane .••• 481 – Forerunners of Carey. A. J. Gordon …. 101 Israel, Lazarus a Type of, Joseph Rabino- – National Social Conference, J. T. Gracey 292 witz……………………………… 892 – ObRervations and Experiences in. G. F. ITA. L Y… .. ……..75, 2.37, 306, 625. 877, 956 – Religious Condition of. J. M. Mitchell… 620 Pentecost……….. …………. …. 26 Jamaica. (See West Indies.) …………… 309 – Outlook in, C. A. Nichols…………… 210 ;rA.PA.N, Survey of Mission Work in, W. – Pastors-Teachers' Training, C. P. Hard.. 41 E. Griffi………………………….. 707 – Present Aspect of Missions, James Ren· – Buddhism Awake, R. E. McAlpine .••.•• 693 – Christianity in ………… .. ……….. 374 nedy .. .. ……………………. 517, 595 – Lepere of, D. L. Pierson………….436.698 – Romish View of British Government. – Missionary Glance. at. O. H. Gulick. …. 690 – Reinforcement in. J. T. Gracey……… 54 Samuel Mateer …………………… , 589 – Shinto, A. H. McKinney……………. 648 – Statistical Tables, Edward Storrow…… 302 – The Yellr 1892 in, G. W. Knox ………. 737 – Y. M. C. A .. In, L. D. Wi.hard ………. 911 – Y. M. C. A. in. L. D. Wishard ……….. 809 – MrssloN FIELDS. Assam, 451 ; Bengal.. 550 – GIi:NBBAL INTBLLIGBNCB …….. 239, 311, 898 – – Central Provinces…. …. ……….. 46 – – Buddhists……………………… 879 – – Ceylon…… 140. 219. 238, 302, 305, 396, 627 – – Church URion ………………..299, 639 – – Kathiawar, 238 ; Lodiana ……••… , 478 – – Converts……………………..159, 879 – – Madraa. 538.511;' Madura. ..• ……. '16 – – Edncation……….. 239.398,553,607.879 – – NorthernProvinccs, 477, 878; Punjab 716 – – Lepers ………………………. 436.698 – – Santhal. 700, 717; South…………• 157 – '- Mohammedan Invasion ………….. 879 – – Telugul. 158. 218; 'l·innevelli. 104. 700, 869 – – Opposition……………………706, 879 – GENERAL INTBLLIGBNOB … 281, 315. 396. 471 637. 789, 957 – – Anecdotes .. 220, 396, 471, 627, 637, 700. 797 871 – – Brahmanism…………….157. 241, 3~9
WDitX
PAGE l'A.GE MetlakahUa, D. L. Leonard………….818, 8S8 – – Progress, 77, 159,260, 873, 639,737,795, 959 MEXICO …. ……………….. 153, G53, 635 – – Shintoism ………………….. 229, 648 – – Self·SuppOl·t…………….. 559, 718, 742 – Inquisition in, Miss L. M. Latimer•….. 180 – – Statistics………….. ….. 398, 693, 7M – in the Toils of Papal Power, C. W. en.h· – – Women…………………….. 398, 540 Japanese Ainu, Religion of, F. F. Ellinwood 255 ing……………………………… 285 – Religious Preis, J. I. Seder. . •. . . ••• . . 490 – Twofold Curse of, J. M. Greene ……… 201 – in America……………………. 545, 633 MiCRONESIA …………… .. 80,609, 800 Java. (See Malaysia.) …….. ….. 640, 720, 865 Mission Churches, The Question of Endow- Jerusalem. (See Syria, Palestine.) … 237, 300 ing, Edward Judson…… … .. …….. 161 434, 699 Missionar, Memorabilia, A. J. Gordon…. 321 Jewish Gospel Work, Problems of, G. H. – Progress in China, John Chalmer… . . . . . 36 Missions, The Salvation of the Churcb, J. Schodde .. .. .. … …. . ………… .. 349 Jews. (See Iaraet.) …. 68, 226, 301, 316, 391, 477 E. Mathieson…………………….. 172 Mitchell, Arthur, F. F. Ellinwood..•…••.. 672 548, ti:xi, 636, 698 – Memorial Fund……. ….. ………. 854 – Attitude in Relatiou to Christiauity, Da· Mohammedanism. (See Islam, Turkey.) 68, 150 Tid Baron. .. . .. .. .. .. .. .. … … .. … 938 157, 234, 895, 551, 716, ,91, 793, 794, 87'0, 872 Karoi-uo·Michl (Shiuto), A. H. McKiuney.. 648 Keswick, Student Volunteers at, D. L. Pier· 879 Moody, D. L., and his Work, A. J. Gordon. 754 son………………………………. 915 Moravian!. (See Organization8.) … .•…. 371 Kingdom Come, Thy, A. T. Pierson ……. 801 Mormon Deln.ion, End of the, D. L. Leon- KOREA……. . ………….. 158, 239, 7'98 – Presbyterian Mission Work in, C. C. ard……………………………… 266 Mormons…………………….. 233,476, 554 Vinton ………………………….. 665 Morri.on, Robert, A. T. Pierson………… 119 , – Present Condition of, J. S. Gale …•…•• 658 Moslem Attitude to Christianity, Cyrus – "To·day" from, H. G. Underwood …… 813 Hamlin…………………………… 725 – Union of Presbyterian Missions in, W. – Cities, Christian Work in, J. F. Rigg…. 721 – ChUrch and State in Tnrkey and Per.ia, M. Baird ………………………… 531 LABRADOR, Monthly Concert, J. T. J. H. Shedd…. … …. …. .. ……. 777 Movement toward Reform In the Gregorian Hamilton …………………. 548,547, 935 Lapland……………………………… 156 Church, J. L. Barton ……………… 843 Laos. (See Siam.) Murray, A. W., of Samoa, Robert Steel… 188 Lazarns a Type of Israel, Joseph Rablno· Nationalities in United States……….. 70, 474 Native Agents, Training of, Edward StOI'- witz…………………………….. 89~ Leichenstein, Rabbi.. …………………. 537 row …………………………….. 100 LJlPERS, Work among the, D. L. Pierson… 434 – Christian Chinese, Important Movement – Africa, 720; Burma, 437 ; British Colum- among, A. H. Smith ……………….. 290 bia……………………………. 792 – Missionaries……………………….. 618 – India, 7'8, 396; Japan, 436, 698; Siam….. 307 Life in Mission Fields, Korea, 150, 713; Af· NECROLOGY- rica ……………………………… 799 – Armstrong, Gen. S. C., of Hampton, Va. 554 LIQUOR TBA.PFIC… 159, 160, 211, 560, 610, 627 – Bliss, E. E., of Constantinople.. .•• •• •••. 234 – Cameron, Dr., of China…………….. 139 720,800 – Clough, Mrs., of India. .. … _ ………. 538 Literature, Japau …………………….. 490 – McAn, R. M, of Paris………..•… 537, 680 London……………………. 60, 140, 315, 715 – Matthews, Richard, of New Zealand…• 800 Lord's Work in Spain, J. P. Wigstone….. 177 – Mitchell, Rev. Arthur ……….. 41'>6,537, 672 McAll, Robert, A. F Beard………… " 680 – Murray, A. W., of Samoa………… 160, 188 – Mission……………….. . 15f), 618, GU6, 877 – Pasha, Emiu, of Africa….. •… .. .. .. . 879 ]ol:adagascar …….. 66, 80, 023, 8(;4, 871, 946, 900 – PenneCather, Catherine, of England….. 4~0 lII'Idrid, Undenominational Midsion, A. R. – Porter, Jeremiah, of Chicago ………… 7ns Fenn………………………….. 577 – Thwing, E. P., of China…………….. 794 Manchuria. (See China.) John Ross. … 63 NEEDS. (See Appeals.) 630, 698, '091, 863, 8(,5, 872 lIIart.yrs ………………………… 630, 640 – Africa. . . . . .• ..65, 159, 428, 4,,2, 463, 4S0, 530 M,t. I.A Yt'lI… (See B()T'MO, Java, Su- – China, 461 ; India …………. 157, 317, 0;;2 matra.) ….. ……………….720,880, 960 – Medical Missions, 635; Iolande oC the MEDICAL l1ISSIONS in Syria and Palestine, Sea………………………………. ~80 G. E. Post………………… …. .. … 641 – South America, 635; Syria….. ….. 391; – General Intelligence…. 312, 386, 553, 632, 707 Negro In the United States, Present Con· 869, 876, 953 dition of the, A. F. Beard ………… 413 – Africa, 638; China ………. 2.~9, 319, 3M, 707 – India, 558, 713; Syria…….395, 6!1, 699, 707 NEW GUINEA .. 2g4, SCO, 400, 452, nco, 1'00 Methahathe, Samuel, Josiah Tyler……… 400 Mll!THODS tn Mission", ~. S. Dennis …•… 763 800, 939 – Africa, 64, 300; China, 147, 553, 607; NEW HEBRIDES.. .80, 160, 24'),·4CO, 4.2 Turkey…………………………. 721 560, 610, 632, 640, 800, 880, 953 _ Onr Government and Protection In the, J. T. Gracey …………………….. 532
INDEX
PAGE PAQB – Tbe Kanaka Slave Trame, J. G. Paton .. 52 – – French……. ………. .. …… . 79. 946 New "Jesus Hall" In China, S. F. WhIte- – – German …………….. '" ……… 796 – – Hermansbnrg ……………….. 547. 1169 house ………………………•….. 110 – – McAll Mission ………..156,618.636, 877 New Movement among the Students ot the – – Moravians ….. 65,79,80,222.807,009, 871 Old World, L. D. Wishard….••…••••• 580 380,471, 547. 858, 935, 948. 950 New York. (Sec City Mission•. ) – – Netherland……………………… 629 NEW ZEALAND .. .. 400,460,471, BOO, 943 – – Norwegian…………………….80, 144 Nicaragua…………………………… 2~ – – Paris ……………………….. 299, 470 Nineteenth Century one ot Preparation, – – Swedish….. ………… . . •. . . .. …. 156 – General: Josiah Strong…. …. …. …. …… …. '1 – _. Boys' Brigade………………….. 287 Northfteld Conferences, D. L. Pierson…… 775 – – C. M.R. C ……………….. 62. 381.856 Norway………….. : ……………… 144, 871 – – Salvation Army ……….287, 315, 636, 'l'96 Observation and Experiences in India, G. F. – – S. V. M …. 2.i!1, 336, 456,498,637,876, 915 Pentecost ……………………… 26 918,929 Opium Habit, W. M. Upcraft…………… 460 – – Snnday.School Association.. . . . •. ..•• 151 – Tramc…••…. 138, 147, 150, 211. 220. 398, 796 – – W. C. T. U., 233; Y. M. C. A, 75, 475. OPPOSITION from the Papacy•.•.•….. 557, 766 – (See Dijficultie,.) Africa …………. 880 580,795,809.901; Y. P. S. C. E ……57. 80 – China………………158. 461. 784. 879. 930 Oriental Churches……… '" …………. 75 – India. 628, 709. 957 ; Japan …. , ….. 706, 879 Orphanages. . . . . .. . …. •… …………… 556 OMANIZATIONS. (See Finances. Pupula· Our World, A. T. Pierson……………… 1.81 Outlook and Overlook. A Symposium.. …. 47 tion. Progre88 and Statistics.) . •72, 75, 81, 154 – J. M. Thoburn.. . . .. .. ….. . . . . . . … . … 47 – for Bible Work, E. W. Gilman ……..•• 53 476, 714. 717 – American Baptist M. U ••71. 281, 457. 476, 554 – in India and Bnrma, e. A. Nichols …… 210 684. 875. 958 -!nJapan. E. R. MiIIer ……………6O':'. 691 – – B. C. F. M……………..75. 479.954.957 – in Korea…. . . . ….. …. . …………… 818 – – Bible Society. . .. . . . . . •. •• . .. . .. . . . … 633 Overflow of Missions, A. J. Gordon …•..•. 166 – – Christian Literatnre Soc………….. 394 Palestine. (See Jelwalem. SVria.) ….307. 477 – – Colonization Soc ………………… 475 – – Congregationalists (Canadian)…….. /;3f) 716 – – Missionary Soc… .. .. …. .. .. …. .. .. 71 – Missions in, A. W. Payue .••.••.•••••.• 8119 – – Tract Soc…………………..555. 955 Papacy. (See Homanism.)…….. …….. 557 – – Friends ………………… 307.5<15. 556 – Mexico in the Toils of the. C. W. Cush· – – Lutherans ……. 151.312.473.634.797. 946 – – Methodists, 156, 314, 819, 476, 477; ing……………………………… 285 – Sonth America and the, G. W. Chamber. Canada………………………. 478 – – Presbyterians. North …. 157,286.531, 554 lain ……………………………… 41 Papna. (See New Guinea.) …. ………. BOO 684, 665 – – – South……… . ……. 235, 634. 875, 955 Parliament ot Religions … , .. .. .. . …….. 980 – – – Canada……………….. 151, 364, 554 Pastors·Teachers· Training, C. P. Hard…. 41 – – Reformed (Dutch)……………….. 314 Peunefather. Catherine, J. E. Mathieson … 423 – – Seamen's Friend Society. •••. . . . • . . . 234 Pentecost. Dr.• at Northfield, H. B. Hartz· – – Unitarians.. ………. ………….. 152 – – United Presbyterians …….. 283,477, 55G ler ………………………………. 26 – – Women's Societies. (See Ueneralln· Persecntion iu Caroline Islands…. .. . . . . .. 609 – of Russian Stnndlste …………….. 298, 949 telligence Department.) ..•. …•.314, 473 – in Africa ………………………880, 949 – British: – in Persia………………………. 716, 957 – – Baptists …………………….. 473. 589 PERSIA., Union of Moslem Church and – – B. and F. B. S……….. 135,791,877, 880 – – C. I. N …………………..320,477, 7'89 State in. J. H. Shedd………………. 7'77 – Converts ………………………….. 738 – – C. M. S ………….. 74,140,400.636, 869 – Dervish Panthei.m. . . . . . .. . . .. . . .. .. . … 716 – – International Medic.al M. S ….. , •… 476 – General Intelligence ……. 157. 300, 309, 951 – – London City Mission.. . .. . . . . . . . . . . • 715 – Persecution…… ………. . .. . ….. 716, 957 – – L. M. S ……………21,219.473,477. 700 – Problems………….. ,…. ………… 76 – – Mildmay M. to JewB…………..300, 698 Points on Plans and Policies, R. H. Nas- – – Presbyterians (Irish)……… ……. 238 – – Society for Deep Se.. Fl,hermen…… 153 sau ………………………………. 527 POLYNESIA. and Anstralia, Western. – – S. P. F. E. E '" . . ……………… 873 – – S. P. G…………………. 229, 236. 315 Robert Steel ……………………… 211 – – Wesleyan ………71.75, 219,220,793, 960 Poor Have the Gospei Preached to them. – – Anstralian…… . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . .. . . .. 160 – – Zenana Society………….. 204,314, 953 Cyrus Hamlin…. ………. ……….. 48 – Continental: POPULATIONS. (See Statistics.) Africa, – – Belginm….. . . … . . . . … .. •.. . .. ….. 816 468; South America ………… 68.635, 875 Portugal, The Gospelin ………. . ……. 865 – – Berlln………………..79.816. 467, 470 – – Setubal. Heli Chatelain …………… 766 Prayer, Power ot……………………… 700 PAGE PAGE Presbyterian Missions in Korea. C. C. Vin- – – of Japan. C. H. Kajiwara ……….381, 533 ton. (See Organizations.) ..• •………. 665 – – of China. Japan and Korea.. .. .. .. . … 131 – – – W. M. Baird…….•…………… 531 – Memoirs of Margaret Kennedy, James Prescnt Aspect of Missions in India. James Kennedy…. .. .. . .. . … …. ……. . . 381 Kennedy. . . . . . . . • . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 517 – New Era, Jo';ah strong ………….. 60. 294 – Religious Condition of the Negro in the – Stories from Indian Wigwams, Edgerton United States. A. F. Beard …. , …….. 413 Yonng………………………….. 538 Preparation. The Nineteenth Century one – Story ofDiaz. G. W. Lasher………….. 619 of. Josiah Strong.. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . • .. . . 7 – Story of Uganda, Sarah G. Stock…..•.. 131 Priesthood and Sacrifice in Burma. A. – Student Volunteer………………….. 381 Bonker………•..•.•……………. 326 – Winter in North China, T. M. Morris … 46!
Problems of Jewish Gospel Work. G. H. Pwos, Somethina: about the, L. W. Cronk- Schodde …. . . … . •…… , ………… 3i9 hite……………………………. 261 Progress ot Christianity… …. ••.•••.•••.. 631 Question of Endowing Mission Churches, – Civilization. (See Science and Xu/sWns.) Edward Judson…….. … .. ………. 161 719, 875.879. 880 Railway and Its Mission ……. 135, 875, 880. 959 PROGRESS or MISSIONS •••• 149, 471. 791. 796. 960 Reinforcements in Japan. J. T. Gracey…. M – Africa ……..240. 398. 468. 470. 719. 793. 880 – Sent Out .•..••..•…. 71. 235, 315, 473, 874, 952 – Alaska. 874; Assam…………………. 451 – for Africa, 61, 7!Y.l; India. 61; South – Bohemia. . . . … .. . .. .. . . . … .. .. …. . . .. 715 America. …………………………. Ii40 – China. John Chalmers ………………. 36 Relation of MiSSionaries to their Govern- – – 76. 189. 220. 239, 320. 390. 461. 478 559. 619 ments. Cyrus Hamlin…………… . .. 417 718. 789, 879 lleligioD of theJapane.ee Ainn. F. F. Ellin· – India….•. 26. 157. 238. 299. 301. 319. 336, 478 wood …………………………….. 255 550. 558,637.700.709.792.798,878, 958 Results and Prospects in Turkey, C. C.
– Islands of the Sea …………….80. 63~, 880 Tracey………………………… 4'1 – Japan……. 77. 159. 260. 373. 639,737.795. 959 ROKANISK. (See PaPat:V.)•.•• .135, 236, 795, 952 – Malaysia.. . • ….. . . . . .. … . . . .. .. … 629, 880 – on Exhibit. G. W. Chamberlain….. .. 836 – Mexico ………………… : ………. 635 – in United States, 474; South America. 836. 875 – Slam, Chalmers Martin……………… 382 -in Mission Work …………….719. 720.8(.0 – South America……………………. 635 – in Opposition to Missions………….. 870 -ThenandNow.A.P.Happer………… 49 – Superstition in……………………… 715 – Turkey. C. C. Tracey……………. .47. 877 Romanists. Missions to, W. J. Mornan….• 565 – Woman's Work ……………… 232, 556 Romish View of the British Indian Gov- Prospectus for 1894, A. T. Pierson………. 934 ernment. Samuel Mateer ………….. 589 Protestants of the World, Statistics …….. 392 RVSSIA, Evangelical, P. Z. Easton…… 750 – Missions In Burma, L. W. Cronkhite…. 430 – General Intelligence……..307. 394. 507, 790 PUBLICATIONS NOTICED- – Dliteracy in………………………… 636 -Ainu of Japan. JohnBatchelor………. 137 -Jews in…………………548.557,698.716 – American Board Almanac……… . . .• .. 138 – Persecution ………………75, 298. 316, 9019 – An American Missionary in Japan, M. Salvation Army…. •……… 237, 31~. 636. 796 L. Gordon.. … .. … ……… ………. 137 Samoa ……………………. 160.400.799, 960 – Child of the Ganges, R. N. Barrett…… 138 – A. W. Murray of. Robert Steel.. ……… 188 – Divine Art of Preaching. A. T. Pierson.. 138 Seaman's Rest. Mal'8eilles. D. L. Pierson.. 602 – Foreign Missions after a Century, J. S. – Work for the….153. 234. 306, 313. 400,548. 714 Dennis…………………………… 763 Self-Denial Week, J. J. Lucas…………. 685 – Forty Years among the Zulus. Josiah Self·Supporting Missions, A. Fuller……. 842 Tyler…………………………….. 857 – by Missionaries…… … . . …. .. …….. 872 – Genesis and Growth of Religion. S. H. SCIENCE AND MISSIONS. " .135, 317, ~99. 459, 476 Kellogg ………………………….. 138 477, 700, 875, 830, 959 – Gist. A Handbook of Missions. Miss Shinto, 229 ; A. H. McKinney…………… 648 L. R. Gracey ……………………… 619 SIAM AND LAOS ………67, 397,553,558 – Gospel of the Kingdom, C. H. Spurgeon. 533 717. 798, 952 – GreatCommi8sion. M. T. Lamb ………. 381 – Recent Progress in, 558, 611; Chalmers -Hinduism in Relation to Christianity, Martin…………………………… 382 John Robson ……………………… 857 – Appeals from, 855 ; Needs.. ………… 558 – Holy Spirit in Missions, A. J. Gorden… 533 Siberia………………………………. 557 – How they Say it In Mluionary Lands….538 Signeof the Times in Sonth Africa, Josiah – India and Malaysia. J. M. Thoburn….. 138 Tyler ………………………….. 48 – Lives and Work of Rev. and Mra. Ben- Slave Traffic……………449. 459. 479. 480, /ill!
net, Ruth Ranney ……………… '" 462 SOVTH AMERICA, Missions in, – Madagascar and Its Missionaries, W. J. J. B. Kolb……………………….. 860 Townsend. … ……. ……………. 462 – Charles W. Drees ………………….. 50 – Map of Free Church of Scotland Mis- – Romanism on Exhibit, G. W. Chamber- sions, Geo. Smith.. ………………. 381 lain …………………………….. 886 PAGE PAgE – New Missions. 711. 541; Needs. 635; – Progre.s……………….557. 636,842, 877 Population. . . . . •• . . •. . . . . .•. . .. 63, 635, 875 – Self·Support………………………. 796 South Sea Islands. (See I8landl of tM Sea.) Uganda, Final Facta Respecting, C. C.
SPAIN .•••…•.•.••••••.••…••..••.•••• 237 Starbuck…………………………. 428 – Madrid Undenominational Mission. A.. Undertile Southern Oros8 (Australia). Robt.
R. Fenn .•…•….•.•.•……•……. 577 Steel. …………………………… 51 – The Lord's Work in. J. P. Wigstone .. 177 UNITED STATE8. (See OIty and STATISTICS. (See Organwtions. Finance. HOlM Mi8rions. Mormons. and Organ- Populati01l8.) . .•• 1, 72, 75, 81, 154, 232, 476 izations.) 714,717. 791 – Denominations in………………….. 633 – Africa, 468; Burma……………… 717. 302 – Foreign Population of ……………… 545 – Ceylon, 140; China………………… 478 – Home Missions iu, A. Sutherland……. 510 – Comparative… . .. .. .. … . … . .72, 154, 302 – Worle among Chinele in, A. Sutherland 831 – Great Britain, 154; Italy…….•……..• 956 – Sunday.Schools in.. .. .. .. .. …. .. …… 875 – India. 205, 235, 302 ; Japan, 398, 693, 704; Volunteer Movement. (See Student Volun· KorelL ……….. , …. . ……….670, 798 uers.) – Mexico. 635 ; Uniwd States, 545, 633; Watchwords of Missions, A. T. Pierson…. 878 New Guinea … ………………….. 560 WEST INDIES. (See Ouba. Jamaica.
– Protestant World …………………… 8112 etc.)…………………………… 6•• 589 – Siam, 8B5; South A.merlca, 685, 875; – Monthly Concert, Paul De Schweinitz… 222 Spla ……………………………. 877 – :M:oravians in the………. …………. 871 – Young Men's Christian Association…. , 580 Wilder. R. P…………………… 694, 918. 937 Stldent Volunteer Movement..587, 876, 918. 929 Wives of Missionaries… ……………… 713 – – – J . L. Nevius………………….. 386 Woman's Work. (See General Intelligence –D. L. Piersou ………………….221.456 Department.) . …………………….. 713 :.. – A Letter to, Wm. Jessup………….. 498 – for Missions, A. T. Piersou….•……•. 858 – – at Ke.wick. D. L. Pierson ..•…….. 915 – By Faith, J. T. Gracey …………….. 88 Stundlsts of Russia ……….298,557,610. 949 – Missionary Conference. J. T. Gracey…. 371 Sumatra. (8ee Malayria.)……….. … 629. 640 – In the Foreign Field. Industrial Educa· Sunday·Schools In India, 608; in United tlon of. Mrs. J. T. Gracey………….. 39 States ……….. . . . … .. ……. 151. 875 Women in Heathen Lands……………… 632 SYRI". (See PalestIM.) . …….237. 707,877 – of Egypt, Work among the, Miss A. Y.
– Evangelical Missions In, G. A. Ford…. 906 Thompson.. .. . . .. … … .. ……….. 895 – Medicsl Missions in, G. E. Post……… 641 – Africa, 472, 560. 872; China, 77, 289, 472 ; TESTIll[ONIBS to the Value of Mlosions …77, 299 India. 204, 238,478, 550, 713; Japan, 898.
311, 472, 5.51, 560, 632, 688, 872 540 ; Korea, 289 ; New Hebrides. 472; Then and Now. A. P. Rapper…………. 876 T u r k e y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 THIBET ………….. 143, 378,472,479, 950 World, Our. A. T. Pierson……………. 1. 81 – Recent News from, Paul De Scllweinitz.. 859 World's Congre.s on Africa, J. T. Gracey.. 840 Tlly Kingdom Come, A. T. Pierson……. 801 – – or Mis810ns……………………610, 618 Tierra del Fuego …………………….. 876 – -…..J. T. Gracey …………….214. 294, 921 Training of Native Agents, Edward Stor· – – – E. M. Wherry …………………… 524 row .. …………………………… 105 – – – (Paper by A. T. Pierson)………. 801 – School for Missionaries………….. … 476 – – – Woman's Branch, J. T. Gracey .. 372 Trluidad .. .. . … . .. .. .. …. .. .. .. .. .. .. …. 364 – – on Peace and Arbitration. J. T. Gracey 849 TURK.EY. (See Syria. Mohammedan· – – Parliament of Religions" ……….. 930 11m, Armenia.)…..157, 311,316, 395, 477, 636 Work among the Lepers, D. L. Pierson …. 434 770, 954 Young Men's Christian ASlociation in – Christian Work In Moslem Cities, J. F. London, 75 ; In United States….. 475, 795 Riggs …………………………… 721 – New Movement among Old·World Stu· – Missions in, H. N. Barnum ………….. 732 dents. L. D. Wi.hard……………… 580 – Summer Tour in Asia Minor………… 759 – in Japan, L. D. Wishard……………. 809 – RelUits and Prospects in, C. C. Tracey.. 47 – in India. L. D. Wish..d……………… 911 – Union of Church and State in. J. H. Young People's SocietyofChristian Endeav- Shedd……………………………. 777 or. (See Department of Oh"istian En· -Educational Work ………………816.783 deavor.) ….. …………………….. 57. 80 – Dl1IIoultles and Opposition, 378, 538, 609. 716 Zenana Missions ……….204, 396,478,558, 554.
770 556, 794, 873, 874, 953 _Jews In Constantinople …………….. 548 Zuln and his Language, J. T. Gracey…… 528
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1888
PROSPECTUS OF THE REVIEW FOR 1888
JOINT EDITORS: J. M. SHERWOOD, A. T. PIERSON, NEW YORK. PHILADELPHIA.
VOL. XI. No. 1.—Old Series.—JANUARY, 1888.—VOL. I. No. 1.—New Series.
TEN years ago the Rev. Royal G. Wilder, who had spent 30 years in missionary work in India, unable longer to continue in that field, established this REVIEW at Princeton, N. J., on an independent basis, and has conducted it until now with remarkable energy and ability and won for it a very high character in all missionary circles. Failing health constrained him a few months since (he has since been called to his rest) to relinquish, with great reluctance but entire acquiescence in God's will, the further conduct of it; and at his earnest request Rev. A. T. Pierson and Rev. J. M. Sherwood consented to assume the editorship and regular issue of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW, beginning with January, 1888. In accepting the sacred trust, we realize the responsibility connected with it, and are anxious not only to carry on the work, so happily begun, but to enlarge the scope of the magazine, and broaden the field of its influence. Hence we propose at the start greatly to enlarge it, making it a monthly of 80 pages, give it a fine mechanical appearance, enlarge its scope, increase its literary and intellectual attractions, and bring it into harmonious relations with all the great missionary agents and movements of the age-in a word, to make it THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD in fact 'as well as in name-a Review truly Representative of the Spirit, Policy and Work of Modern Missions in their Unity, Entirety, and Universality.
THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD will embrace the following departments and features : I. LITERATURE OF MISSIONS. We shall studiously aim to give to the REVIEW a high literary and intellectual character, putting it in this respect on a par with our best Quarterlies and Literary Monthlies. The Missionary literature of the world is already rich in materials, and is rapidly increasing in breadth and in the power of inspiration and instruction. The annals of the past, and all new materials in this department, will be laid under generous contribution to impart value and interest to the pages of the magazine. The ablest pens available, and from all parts of the wide field, will be enlisted in this service. Essays, addresses, biographies, missionary sermons, travels, discoveries, missionary life, and discussions of the vital themes and questions relating to the policies and methods,
which will arise from time to time in the broad field of the world's missions, will combine to inform, interest and inspire the friends of the cause.
A sharp eye will also be kept on the current issues of the press, at home and abroad, and whatever appears in books and periodicals of special interest to missionary readers will be brought to the attention of our patrons. Each month will present a resume of current discussion and press contributions to the Literature of the missionary work.
II. MISSIONARY ORGANIZATIONS. As far as space will permit, a detailed account will be given in each number of some specific part of the general field and of the particular societies operating on it, so arranged and apportioned as that the entire missionary field of the world shall be embraced in our report of each year, and due attention given to all important missionary organizations and agencies known to exist. Thus a bird's eye view of the universal life and operations of the grand missionary cause will be given in each volume. It will be a yearly Epitome of the History of Modern Missions.
III. CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. The editors will put themselves en rapport with all the chief Missionary Societies, Missions, and workers in all lands; they will establish Editorial Correspondents in every part of the field, so as to insure the latest and most reliable intelligence from every available quarter, and co-operate with the friends of missions everywhere in pushing the Missionary Cause to the front, and in imparting increased power and efficiency to the vast machinery of missions. They will strive to make THE MISSIONARY REVIEW a focal light and guide to "the whole sacramental host of God's elect." moving in concert for the subjugation of the world to Christ.
IV. PROGRESS AND FRUITS OF MISSIONARY WORK. This department will contain a comprehensive account of the leading missionary events of the month, embracing the receipts, disbursements and operations of the various societies; items of special interest from the various fields; facts, statements, experiences and appeals bearing direct on the missionary cause, and whatever else will be of special interest to all engaged in the work. This will furnish a practical Summary of what has been attempted and accomplished during each month throughout the entire field of operations.
v. STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS This department will be emphasized and made of the utmost interest and value to the friends of missions everywhere, and especially to pastors and those who conduct the Monthly Concert. It will be a unique and leading feature of the REVIEW. No pains or reasonable expense will be spared to obtain the fullest, and latest, and most reliable figures and statistics of the world's entire missionary operations, both in the Home and Foreign fields, and so to classify, arrange and tabulate them as to make them of the highest practical value. The labor in this department will be immense, but the result will be worth more than the price of a year's subscription to every pastor, every public library, every missionary society, and every intelligent friend of the cause of Missions. We mean to make the REVIEW an authority on this subject.
VI. THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS will be under the special charge of Dr. Pierson, who, in addition to being the pastor of a large and efficient church, possesses special qualifications for this service. His best endeavors will be put forth to make this important service increasingly attractive and profitable, and to suggest topics and methods in aid of pastors and others in the conduct of it that will make the REVIEW an indispensable aid to them, and to every church which observes the «Monthly Concert of Prayer for Missions."
VII. INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. This will be under the editorial charge of Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D., of the « International Missionary Union," who will be able to make it highly conducive to the general purpose and scope of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VIII. EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS of special interest to missionary circles. These will be brief, condensed, and on a great variety of topics, which we have not space to discuss at length and yet shall wish to express an opinion upon.
If this ideal of the editors can be realized-and we believe it can be -THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD, with God's blessing- for whose glory this work is undertaken by them-may become a great power for good. World-wide in its field and scope; independent of local and ecclesiastical boundaries and prejudices; fearless and independent in its expression of opinion and in its advocacy of methods and policies; consulting the highest interest of the Cause in its widest relations; having an eye on the entire field, and lending a helping hand wherever needed; and presenting a current history of that work, which is «the glory of the age," in all its departments and agencies and results, it must possess an interest and a value far above that of any other missionary magazine of the world.
We congratulate the friends of missions that we have been able to secure as Publishers of this Review, Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, 18 and 20 Astor Place, New York, by whom it will hereafter be published.
This enterprising House is too well known in the book world, and in religious circles, to need any introduction or indorsement from us.
We expect to issue the January number at an early date, and succeeding numbers on or before the middle of each month in advance, to be in ample time for the Missionary Ooncert.
NEW YORK, OCTOBER, 1887.
J. M. SHERWOOD.
A. T. PIERSON.
SALUTATORY
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
SALUTATORY.
[EDITORIAL.] CICERO says that the orator, in the exordium of his address, should establish between himself and his hearers a mutual understanding, and get with them upon a common ground.
The same law applies to the editor and author. It is highly important, that, at the very outset, the writer and reader should understand each other; and therefore we give these opening pages of this Review to a word of salutation and explanation addressed to all our readers.
Led, as we believe, by the Providence of God, we undertake to carry on a good work which originated ten years ago in the mind and heart of a beloved returned missionary from India, *and which has, by his hand, amid much physical suffering, been carried to its present stage of growth and success. God's workmen are constantly changing but His work goes on. We have yielded to what seemed a providential pressure thrusting us unexpectedly into the gap left by the necessary retirement of the previous editor from the control of the Review, and we shall seek to perpetuate and perfect what was originally designed and has been so far, and so well, developed under his care.
It does not always follow that even a good work needs to be carried on : sometimes it reaches completion, and addition is superfluous. In this case we conceive that to discontinue this Review would be disaster. So far is it from a finished structure, that thus far only the cornerstone has been laid and the foundation built; the scaffolding is not yet ready to be removed, and we are beginning a new story with such modifications as the building demands as it advances.
There is now room for more of the literary, the æsthetic, the intellectual; a demand, as circulation increases and a firm financial basis is secured, for the best labor properly compensated. We have no less aim than to make this Review the commanding Missionary Magazine of the World, sparing neither labor nor money to make it one of the foremost agencies for the evangelization of the world and the information, organization and co-operation of disciples in the direction of world-wide missions.
That such a Review is needed, we should be ashamed to argue. There are two great, potent factors which must enter into the solution of the problem of missions-the tongue and pen. The printing-press multiplies them both a thousandfold. It gives volume and compass to the voice, like the trumpet of a Titan, and it scatters the products of the pen, as though it had at command the hundred-handed giants that helped the Titans. Great is the power of type and of printers' ink! Surely we should leave out a whole division in mustering our forces, if, in going forth to a world's conquest for Christ, we should neglect the printed page.
Facts are the fingers of God. There is no logic like the logic of events; no demonstration like the demonstration of the Spirit. Apathy, and even antipathy, toward the work of missions, are turned into positive and powerful sympathy, when a true disciple learns how mightily God has wrought and is working with the little missionary band. Men, like James Hannington, who once were indifferent to foreign missions because they were ignorant of them, have, like the martyr bishop of Africa, found that a simple knowledge of the wonderful work of God's Providence and Spirit, even among the most depraved and degraded tribes, has lit a flame in their souls that could neither be quenched nor confined; a flame that has grown into a fire, a conflagration-consum- ing selfishness and worldliness; displacing the carnal lusts-appetite, avarice and ambition, by a divine ardor and fervor, passion for souls, and zeal for the glory of God.
To put such facts before the reader, in the most truthful and telling form, comprehensively and attractively, is one of the foremost objects of this Review. We shall aim to exhibit the miracles of missions, which are at once signs of Christ's messiahship, manifestations of the Power of God, wonders of the Spirit, and works possible only to Deity.
To secure a proper and perpetual stream of such information, we shall seek to secure a large number of tributaries. First, we shall, as fast as we are able, select a large and competent corps of editorial correspondents, who shall sustain a close relation to the Review, and by whose contributions these columns will be enriched. Next, we purpose to find at least one commanding personality in every great missionary territory, and especially at great strategic centers, who shall be as a living link between the Review and the various fields of Christian effort. Furthermore, we hope to secure able contributions from men and women of learning, piety and consecrated spirit, whose opinions compel respect, whose statements are accurate and authoritative, and whose suggestions are sagacious and practical.
The need of such a Review of missions is pressing. The demand is immediate and imperative. With all the existing channels for conveyance of information and the exchange of views, there is yet a wide gap to be filled. The work of missions is world-wide, and we need a missionary Review of the World; the need of man is universal, and so must be our survey; the whole church is called to this grand crusade, and the Review must be unsectarian and undenominational, gathering the whole army, with all its tribal standards, closely about the Tabernacle and Ark of God; the Christian nations are all united in the work, and hence the Review will be international; and as even the best methods are liable to be defective, and custom is often, as Cyprian says, only the" Antiquity of Error," a true Review will be critical though not controversial, and will aim, not only at a wide view, but at a close, careful, candid review.
The time is now especially ripe for such an undenominational, international, independent missionary organ, as a means of expression and impression, communication and co-operation, education and evangelization. Missions are comparatively modern. The Church slept for more than a thousand years; then slowly awoke to the sense of a world's destitution and her own obligation. Let us remember that it yet lacks five years of a full century since in Widow Wallis' humble cottage at Kettering, that first Missionary Society was organized in England, that was the pioneer of the whole host now numbering over one hundred organizations. And already, and within the lifetime of some veterans still living, the network of missions has overspread the globe. Surely it is time that in this special department there should be abundant and adequate agencies to put and keep before the reading public the entire progress and prospects of the grand campaign which is now conducted by all Christendom against the strongholds of the Pagan, Moslem and Papal world!
Such is our word of Salutation. The primary object of this Review is not money-making, but the informing of disciples, and the quickening of our whole church-life, the promotion of an intelligent interest in the work of missions everywhere and the inspiring of an unreserved personal consecration to the work. We desire the fullest support of a large constituency of readers, in what we undertake as an unselfish labor of love for the sake of Christ and His Church. As the circulation of the Review increases and its income allows, more and more will be expended upon the periodical itself, that we may give back to the reader and subscriber the largest returns for his investment; and it is our fond hope that by the abundant blessing of God upon our labor, direct and indirect results may follow, on the largest scale, in furthering and hastening a world's evangelization.
Gladstone says that eloquence in the orator is "receiving from the audience in a vapor what he pours back upon them in a flood. " We shall depend largely upon our readers for the inspiration in our work; and we hope that whatever is received from the subscribers to this Review by way of its support, they may find comes back to them in abundance; that, like the water poured on the roots of the cocoanut tree, which returns in the sweet milk of the cocoanut itself that falls from the top, there may be not only an equivalent rendered but something sweeter and richer by way of recompense.
IN MEMORIAM: REV. ROYAL GOULD WILDER
IN MEMORIAM: REV. ROYAL GOULD WILDER.
Born Oct. 27, 1816, Bridport, Vt. Died Oct. 10, 1887, New York City.
THIS heroic man, the originator and for ten years the editor of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW, closed a life of service and suffering by a blessed entrance into glory, on the very day on which, to his successors in the editorial work, the REVIEW was formally transferred. He only tarried long enough to see the transfer completed and to bestow his blessing on the new administration, and then took his departure for the better country.
It is no mere tribute to a predecessor, however, that impels us to erect to him, in this first number of the new series, a memorial tablet. Though his kingdom came not with observation, and no trumpet was sounded before him, the veteran who, having passed his allotted three score and ten, has been honorably retired from earthly service and gloriously promoted to a heavenly sphere, was no common man. His name belongs high up on the roll of missionary heroes, among the "King's mighty men" and valiant ones, and we gladly open our series of missionary biographies with a pen profile of Royal Gould Wilder.
Few there be that find their way to their sphere of service through such a strait and narrow path. His was no "royal road to learning." He was one of twelve children, and the family knew what it was to struggle against poverty. The father's name was Abel, and he was born in Maine, near Portland, and by trade a ship-carpenter, but was also a shoemaker and farmer, ready to turn his hand to any employment to get bread for his wife and children, but unable to provide luxuries-even those of an education. His mother, Hannah Payne, descended from Robert Treat Paine, was of a high family and of rare ability. Her father was a school teacher until he was sixty, and she grew up amid education and refinement. Shortly after marriage she with her husband removed to Vermont, and during the year in which Royal was born there was a great revival, and his father and mother joined the church that same year. Afterward they moved again to Franklin County, New York, then regarded as somewhat "far west." It is certain that the family endured great hardships and were very poor for a long period of years-during the entire boyhood of Royal. In course of time the natural increase in the value of property, hundreds of acres of which were cleared by his father and brothers, bettered their circumstances, and to-day the three brothers and three sisters who survive him are living in comfortable homes, showing those elements of character which insure worldly success.
Royal went to district school in winter, and was the first to enter an "academy," as he was the only one to enter a college. With a keen relish for reading, before he was ten years old he devoured every religious book that came in his way, and even the papers of whatever date. His father's library was very small, but what it contained was not trash, and the young lad grew strong on such books as the "Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Saint's Rest."
When he determined to seek an education, his father could give him no help. His time and a cow composed the curious capital which was Royal's only dependence; and in the academy at Malone it was the beef from that cow that kept him at school the first term. Many a time he cut in one day two cords of wood, to relieve his father's financial distress or his own.
His first money he earned by selling melons at Malone, and the half dollar he got he kept his hand on, even in his pocket as he ran home, till a stumble compelled him suddenly to withdraw his hand, and away went the precious coin down a hole. Royal was not a boy to give up easily, and down he went on hands and knees, and dug away till he recovered his lost half-dollar. The incident was typical and prophetical of his future; only what he digged for was not silver or gold.
At thirteen years, began his religious life as an intelligent, conscious experience. He had been brought up to pray, and on one occasion, at least, had found the value of prayer. Going through the woods to find his brothers, and carry them dinner, he got lost and wandered about dazed and bewildered, coming back continually upon his old track. Then he knelt down and prayed for guidance; rose and determined to trust in God and go straightforward, following one direction; presently he emerged from the thicket, coming out into the very field where his brothers were at work. Here was another typical and prophetical incident. He got into many a tangled thicket afterward; but never did he forget Him who had led him out into light and safety, and in answer to prayer he was guided in every new experience of darkness and danger into a larger liberty and success.
Though he first consciously found Christ as a Saviour in time of revival, his religious life was singularly free from emotionalism. He had no sudden transitions nor violent revulsions of feeling. Mainly through an awakened conscience, a calm but quick sense of duty, and the study of the Word of God, he came to accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord. At that time his sister Hannah joined the Baptists, as that sect prevailed in the neighborhood where the family lived; but he preferred the Presbyterian fold, and at sixteen united with Dr. Parmelee's church at Malone. Never but once had he uttered an oath, and he never forgot it. His religious frame though always calm, was never cold; he was moved more by love and less by fear, more by deliberate judgment and choice than by sudden impulse or glowing enthusiasm. He knew he must found his whole Christian hopes upon the new nature regenerate in Christ; and believing that God had wrought in him the new creation, he enjoyed a quiet assurance seldom disturbed by doubts.
He studied by night by the light of pine knots, and worked by day to get the pine knots for his fire and the books for his study, until he entered Middlebury College in his twentieth year.
When he left home, his capital in life was less than ten dollars, most of which he had saved, and a dollar of which his mother gave him the morning he left home for college. He walked the entire distance, working his way over the lake by helping in the loading and unloading of the boat, and going barefoot part of the way to save his shoes. The same habits of frugality and economy and bodily exertion followed him through life.
From first to last he was a patient plodder. So desirous was he of a training for a useful life that he was willing to work from five o'clock in the morning till breakfast, and from noon till school again opened; that he might pay his board, cutting hay in summer, and splitting wood in winter, to earn the right to be a full-grown and well-equipped man. In college it was the hand on the axe-handle and the bell-rope that helped him through. When he was graduated in 1839 he had worked his passage; but he had won deserved honors, for, with his classmate, Foote, he stood-they two at the head of the class, and, strangely enough, they two had been born on the same day.
When he turned from the flattering prospects of a high position at home to spend his life among the pagans of Asia, he left a path that might have led him where one of his schoolmates, Mr. Wheeler, afterward came-to the Vice-Presidency of the nation. Foote, his twin honor-man, said to him: "Wilder, why bury yourself among the heathen?" Mr. Wilder was singularly attached to Mr. Foote, and for years they corresponded. Foote rose rapidly in his profession; very successful as a lawyer, he amassed wealth, and married a woman of unusual beauty. But death, in the midst of his prosperity, smote wife and daughter, and poor Foote blew out his own brains!
Mr. Wilder taught in Mississippi and Vermont; and then went to Andover for a theological course. There he found a missionary band, like the famous "Haystack band" of Williams, with the same constitution and covenant. Only twelve belonged to it, and even the professors seemed to feel little interest in it, but Royal Wilder became a member, heard Dr. Grant of Persia and Dr. Scudder of India, and others, speak on the great needs of a lost world, and so the missionary was preparing and maturing for his work. Here he had his first and last period of doubts about the Divinity of Christ. They were incident to the transition period when the mind was budding into full independence. Henceforth he was to feel too much of the Divine life of Christ in himself and see too much of the Divine power of Christ in others, to doubt that He was the Son of God. He was graduated from Andover in 1845. At the last, R. S. Storrs, Jr., was his classmate-and when he with five others of his class became missionaries, they all went to India, leaving Storrs to remain behind and become the Corinthian column of the Congregational Church in this country, while they departed for the regions beyond.
His missionary life was the final flowering of a gradual growth. No sooner did he believe himself to be a disciple than, like Dr. Duff, he began to feel the value of other souls and a yearning to save them. The idea of a mission to the heathen world was slowly and steadily taking form within him; first consciously turned toward the lost in other lands by reading Jonathan Edwards on Redemption, the story of "Henry and his Bearer" especially interested him in India.
During his college days Mr. Wilder became acquainted with a family living near West Rutland Village, Vt. In this family he found deep piety and a love for missions. The aged grandfather said, he thought he had not missed reading a page of The Missionary Herald for twenty years.
At the time of the departure of missionaries for the Sandwich Islands a collector visited this home to solicit funds. The devoted mother gave something, but her sad countenance that day showed her deep disappointment that the gift was not larger. As she gathered, with her nine children, for family prayers, she asked God to accept of one or more of her children for missionary work. A daughter in that group says of this incident-"that prayer struck me." This daughter was the one chosen to help cheer Mr. Wilder in his great work. For some five years the two were many a time alone at communion services. She shared with him the anxiety of the first months at Kolapoor when almost in despair of striking rock for the foundation of his church. She suffered with him the violence of the people who one night hurled a large stone through the window pane across the cradle of their little girl. She was his companion in such experiences as meeting a snake in the parlor, finding a scorpion on her son's coat, seeing a panther while on her morning walk, living for weeks in the mountains without seeing a white face. But she had also the joy of starting the first girls' school in a kingdom where not a respectable woman or girl could read, and of welcoming to the communion table, as the first native convert in Kolapoor, a woman.
Mr. Wilder's intention was to go to the Walled Kingdom. But Dr. Anderson, then Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M., wanted him for Ahmednuggur. The greater need was to Mr. Wilder always the louder voice, and so he went to India. From the day of his connection with the Andover Band he had no hesitation in promptly, cheerfully following the leading of God.
When his vessel was ready to sail, he departed from Malone, and his departure was the means of a revival in which many were added to the Church. His father rejoiced to give up his son to such a great work as was before him. His mother, to whom he had been particularly devoted, and for whose sake he had walked from Middlebury to Malone to spend vacations, was dead.
The vessel rounded the Cape of Good Hope and consumed 121 days in the passage to Bombay. Mr. Wilder had given three months, at Newark, Delaware, to the study of Mahratta, and, after another three months in India, Mr. Ballantine, being called away, asked him to preach. The invitation was a joke, but Mr. Wilder actually accepted it and did preach. The native Christians were astonished and said, "We prayed for him."
In Ahmednuggur Mr. Wilder spent six years. The day he reached there, he found a seminary with from fifty to eighty boys. Very soon after his arrival, this seminary was put under his care by a vote of the mission. Within a year there were six city schools, and, within three years, twenty more village schools. Fees had been given to induce attendance; he did away with fees, and had a larger and better school.
He went to Kolapoor in 1852. This city was especially holy in Brahmin eyes, and never had been contaminated by the presence of missionaries. The day he got there the leading Brahmins petitioned for his banishment. But, undismayed, he got a foothold and worked five years for his first convert. His school was the entering wedge of all his success. At the time of his coming he found in Kolapoor 44,000 inhabitants, and only one school, in a back street, with twelve boys in it. When he left, a college building, at Government expense, costing $200,000, had been built, and «Father Wilder" was asked to make the address at the opening. He was too busy to comply, but his associate, Mr. Seiler, made the address, and took as his theme, "The Evidences of Christianity."
The cholera drove him from India in 1857, and by a remarkable Providence, he sailed the very day after the breaking out of the great mutiny of the Punjaub. Some of his nearest European neighbors were killed in that massacre.
To this period belongs his well-known disagreement with the American Board. He was an ardent advocate of schools and edncation, and next to actual conversion he placed the education of the Hindoos. He zealously urged the hiring of pundits and native teachers where Christian teachers could not be obtained, and refused to curtail his schools and school-work because he could not get just such teachers as he wished. This got him into a difficulty with Dr. Anderson, and resulted in the abandonment of his mission and his dismissal from the Board. Backed by his Presbytery and friends in this country, he returned to India in 1861, and went back to conduct his work on an independent basis. For twelve years he labored, supported by no Board or Society. However low the funds ebbed, he would never give up. At one time, in distress for means to carry on his work, he and his devoted wife covenanted to commit all to God anew in prayer; and the next morning's mail brought eleven hundred rupees from an unknown donor in Calcutta; and to this day the source of that benefaction is a secret. The mission received cordial support from Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Bombay; Col. Phayre, Robert Arthington of Leeds, and others. But it was sustained wholly by voluntary gifts. These years of simple trust, leaning on God, were the happiest years of Mr. Wilder's life, and became the basis for his subsequent and enthusiastic .advocacy of the voluntary principle in missions.
In this enterprise he was largely aided by the English, because they thoroughly respected him, and also by the natives themselves. Sir Bartle Frere and other prominent Indo-Europeans have said that Royal G. Wilder did more for the present system of national education in India than any other man. From 1861 to 1869 he was a constant contributor to the Bombay Times and Gazette on that subject, and wrote the editorials for the former paper relating to educational matters. He was prominent in memorializing Parliament and inducing the Indian government to establish the present system of national education. The money obtained from his contributions to the Indian press aided, in no small measure, in the support of the mission that he conducted for so many years at Kolapoor.
At the date of suspension of schools by Dr. Anderson, Mr. Wilder's scholars numbered some 500 boys and 100 girls. He writes of this: "Our deepest conviction from all past experience assures us that the loss of these schools involves the sacrifice of our most effective agency for prosecuting our missionary labors. If our Deputation could exchange places and labor with us for a twelvemonth, we cannot, for a moment, doubt that they would advocate these schools with all the persistency and authority with which they now oppose them. Our friends in India have manifested a very kind interest in these schools from the first, and it may gratify them to know that their generous contributions have wholly supported them. Not a farthing of their expense has come from the home funds of the Board, since their origin." Before Mr. Wilder came home in 1857 the schools were reopened. While at home the mission was abandoned. His appeal, published at the time, gives the reason for his returning as an independent missionary. Upon reaching India he found that his beautiful church, the only one among 252 heathen temples, had been sold and turned into a Mohammedan mosque.* He was remarkably helped in getting the site for his second church. He closed the year 1863-the second after his return as an independent missionary-with a native church of eight communicants and four baptized children.
In 1855 an intelligent man visited him from the Putwardhun States, and showed so much interest in the truth, that he gave him a Bible, hymn-book, catechism and the creed. He returned to his country and was lost sight of for nine years. In a report of 1864 Mr. Wilder writes: "On our recent tour he was the first man to visit us at Sanglee, brought all the books carefully preserved, and read and repeated from memory portions of Scripture, the creed, a tract of eight pages, and the entire cathecism of forty pages; avowing his faith in the truths and doctrines thus learned."
After building a home and church Mr. Wilder devoted himself with renewed energy to village work. The report of 1872 speaks of the interference of the S. P. G. His characteristic firmness was shown in this experience. This was a sore trial to him, and in the Appendix to the Report of 1871, his reasons are fully stated for his course.
Mr. Wilder was very anxious to stimulate in native Christians a desire to work for souls, not because paid for doing so but from love to Christ. In 1873 he writes: "Only four of all our converts receive any support from the mission, and these, small monthly sums of Rs. 8, 7, 5 and 3 as Christian teachers. "
The property of the Kolapoor Mission he gave in 1871 to the Presbyterian Board, and in 1875 left the field of his labor, partly from considerations of health, and partly to educate Robert and Grace in this country. The time between his sailing for India and his resignation from the Board covered a period of nearly thirty-two years.
During those thirty years he had preached in more than 3,000 cities, towns and villages, had scattered over 3,000,000 pages of tracts, had gathered in schools over 3,300 pupils, 300 of whom were girls. In a parish of 4,000,000 of people he and his wife were the only persons to take care of their souls. Beside all this work he had been on committee for translation and revision of the Bible; and was one of the committee in the Mahratta language, spoken by 16,000,000 people. Up to the time he left India he had already written and published commentaries on three gospels, and had edited and translated many books.
His hand was not forgetful of its cunning, even as his tongue did not cleave to the roof of his mouth. Every nail in the roof of his church building at Kolapoor he drove with his own hammer, and when the houses went up to shelter converts' families he led in the work. In the early years of the mission, he wrote many articles for the press, chiefly on educational subjects; and it is said by those in high official position, that his anonymous letters in The Times of India influenced Parliament in adopting measures for the education of the masses. He was offered a very influential position in the educational department.
His whole policy in India was to watch for the opportunities to plant and support indigenous primary schools. He cared for no high colleges. His ruling passion was to lift up the masses. He graduated salaries of teachers according to the number and progress of their pupils, thus indirectly striking a blow at caste by setting a premium on numbers and proficiency, without reference to the class from which pupils came. He encouraged only a moderate allowance to helpers, on the ground that natives could not support men who received large salaries. Like Wheeler on the Euphrates, he felt that by the tithe system ten believers might support a teacher or preacher who was willing to live on their level as to expense.
Whereas when he first went to Kolapoor there was not in the kingdom one respectable woman who could write or read, only recently they have sent to this country for a governess to go to the palace itself.
Of incidents, this one may illustrate the power of direct prayer. One day he had preached in some eight villages. Disputations and popular indifference had made him feel discouraged, and thus wearied he sat under a tree to rest. While here a coolie came from his home, bringing provisions, bread, etc., and also the overland mail. The mail was the most welcome. Among other letters was one from a dear friend in Philadelphia. It contained words of warm sympathy and encouragement, and more than all, this assurance: "Brother Wilder, we are praying for you by name every Wednesday evening." The effect of this letter and the blessing which came with it were immediate. He rose from under that "juniper tree" with fresh realization of nearness to God. He walked two miles to a large town. He went, as was his custom, directly to the Pahtil-the head man of the town. He was in his court-room, surrounded by some fifty clerks, but received him in a polite, cordial way, and upon learning his errand ordered all the clerks to drop their work and listen. After Mr. Wilder had talked about an hour they urged him to continue, and before he closed those learned men were wiping the tears from their eyes. This is one of the choicest experiences in his life, showing the power of the simple story of Christ's love. No wonder he believed in special objects for prayer and gifts. His convictions of Missionary methods, both at home and on the field, seem to have been rooted into his very nature by deep personal experience. This was so of his conviction that native churches should have native pastors; that native churches should be self-supporting; that native Christians should be trained to responsibility, and taught to keep on a level with their neighbors, that they might win them, and show them that they had not become Christians to better their temporal condition. The prayer-meetings were largely reporters' meetings. From the Christians were expected accounts of services, interviews, discussions, etc. Sometimes he would call on them by name for their report of the week. These reports suggested very definite subjects for prayer. This was true also of the women's prayer-meetings conducted by Mrs. Wilder. Praying in meeting was a part of their Christian life.
Mr. Wilder was, so far as known, but once in peril of his life. On the outskirts of a village a mob gathered around him, and demanded money. Though mou:p.ted on his horse, the leader of the gang had hold of the bridle; so, for a few minutes, the missionary seemed completely in the power of the fierce men. With seeming Cf'mposure he entered into a conversation with them. Their interest increased; he held their attention until he noticed the grasp on the bridle gradually loosening. Watching a favorable moment he spurred his horse and with a boun~ was out of their reach.
On his return, in 1875, he himself crossed the Continent and left his luggage and property to come by sea. Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, his goods were lost in the vessel's wreck. But among those lost effects was his whole manuscript on the Kolapoor kingdom, with full diary of his missionary work.
During later years his home has been in Princeton. There his parlor has been the Sabbath afternoon gathering place for the students, and the training school for missions.
In 1877, he started THE MISSIONARY REVIEW. The readers of that Review will not need to be reminded of the causes which led to its establishment. Even before he went to the General Assembly and presented his vigorous, incisive criticisms of the methods and expenditures of the Presbyterian Board, he felt there was need of a periodical that would review missions from a point of prospect more elevated than any denominational one, and the REVIEW became the channel for the expression of his personal convictions founded on a long and large experience, and a means of presenting the status of all missions of all denominations throughout all heathendom and nominal Christendom.
He yearned to return and die in India, and nothing held him back but his waning strength and the REVIEW. But so soon as he felt that the REVIEW was provided for, he determined, notwithstanding his keen bodily suffering, to sail for Kolapoor. "My whole soul," he said, "would leap, could I go back. Could I not place twenty missionaries there at once?" That humble Presbyterian Church at Kolapoor was very dear to him, for in its construction his own hands as well as heart were engaged for months. When the church first built by him, was sold to the Mohammedans, and a mosque built on the old site, it is characteristic of his quiet persistence to have bought ground and placed the new church as near as he possibly could to the site of the old one, and his efforts to obtain that site make a very interesting story in themselves.
To the last his heart went out to Kolapoor, and he charged his son Robert to settle about fifty miles from there, in a district peculiarly destitute, where, when he once told the story of the cross, the people with weeping followed him quite a distance, yearning to hear more.
His dying eyes were fixed on Jesus. When the death of his daughter, in 1861, was referred to, and he was asked: "Do you expect to meet her in heaven?" he said, "Yes; but it is my Saviour about whom I think most."
In looking over Mr. Wilder's life, we are impressed with the singular appropriateness of the motto he chose for the REVIEW: "Nil desperandum, Christo sub duce," as applied to his experience.
As a young man, he was extremely retiring and bashful and painfully sensitive; and at times he has, to very intimate friends, expressed his amazement that God had used him, and accomplished through such material His work. It seemed almost incongruous to him that one so timid and shrinking should be thrust into such severe fighting in the forefront of battle.
Of the tender side of his nature few can form a true estimate. These things do not appear in any public reports.
His life closed very beautifully and appropriately when his work was done. The last Saturday, Oct. 8, he sent proof to the printers to complete the closing number of the last volume of his REVIEW, and on the very day when the final arrangements were completed for its transfer to other hands, "he was not: for God took him."
MISSIONARY PROBLEMS IN INDIA
MISSIONARY PROBLEMS IN INDIA. [EDITORIAL.-J. M. s.] IN the Andover Review for September, the Rev. Edward A. Lawrence gives an elaborate and valuable article on this subject, the gist of which we condense and reproduce, for the benefit of our readers. Written by one on the ground, and in an intelligent, and impartial spirit, his views and statements are entitled to respectful consideration. The "Problems" he considers have a world-wide interest and application, and to solve them for India, is, in effect, to solve them for the whole missionary world.
The Problems here discussed are I. Mission Oo-operation; II. What shall be the Treatment of Oonverted Polygamists? III. Who shall be Employed as Teachers in Mission Schools? IV. Instantaneous Baptism.
I.-MISSION CO-OPERATION. The organized union of different mission societies, which happily exists in Japan, and in Amoy, China, has not yet extended to India. Still there is no division or bitterness of feeling. In the main, the field of the several societies is well defined and generally respected. 'fhe Irish Presbyterians occupy Rajputana, the American Methodists, Oudh and Rohilcund; the American Presbyterians labor in the Punjab side by side, and on friendly terms with the Church Missionary Society; while the American United Presbyterians, alike in Egypt and the Punjab north of the Lahore, are fortunate in being almost without competitors. In the south, the Lutheran Missionary Society in Trevancore, and the Church Missionary Society in Tinnevelly, amiably divide the end of the Oape. The bounds of the Madura Mission of the American Board have been settled by agreement with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, dividing the field between them. In Madras, Oalcutta, and Bombay, and in a few other places, there are Monthly Mission Oonfederacies, where members of most of the missions gather for paternal intercourse and discussion. While the general Mission Conferences, like that of the Punjab, or of the whole country, held decennially-the last at Calcutta, 1883-have gone far to prove to the heathen world that Protestants are really united in spirit and aim.
The Presbyterian family take the lead in the movement for organic union. For years past, the Dutch Reformed, the American, Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, have met in a general alliance, seeking to accomplish in India what has been done in Japan. At their last meeting in Bombay, committees were appointed to press forward the work of union, and it was decided to establish a periodical for that purpose.
The evils of sectarianism are nowhere so serious as in great heathen cities, where missions compete, and sometimes conflict, one with another. The natives fancy the divisions greater than they are, and the converts sigh for a national church, and complain of the burdens imposed by reason of differences.
The City Evangelization problem, which astounds and confounds the Church at home, is pressing heavily on the Church in heathen cities. Says Mr. Lawrence: "It is difficult and painful to express my disappointment with most features of mission operations in the Presidency cities of India. The educational work, indeed, is excellent; in some cases, unequalled. The Christian College in Madras, at the head of which is Dr. Miller of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, may well rank as the best institution of learning in India. But other forms of work languish. Not only that: in many cases the fat school-kine have swallowed up the lean evangelistic kine, and there is an actual famine of God's preached Word for the heathen. One great reason for this neglect of important branches of work, one explanation of the weakness or restlessness of the native churches in these cities, and of the fact that in the three where so many societies concentrate there is but one native church which is strictly self-supporting-the Congregational Church in Bombay-is to be found in the rivalries and confusions of sectarianism.
In Calcutta, matters are still worse. The Bengali Christians have able and fluent leaders among them, some of whom show their sincerity by great labors and self-denial. Several are successful lawyers or government officials, who devote their spare time to gospel work, or even take charge of some church. One of these laymen has just been ordained to the preaching office by the Presbytery of the Scotch Free Church Mission."
But the question of lay baptism is exciting earnest attention. A test case has been brought for trial before the Presbytery of the Free Church of Scotland, but not yet decided. Even such men as Ram Chandra Bose, well known in this country, favor lay administration of the sacraments.
"It is plain that some change in these city missions is needed before these great centres will become centres of Christianity. It is equally plain that we cannot expect to stereotype and perpetuate in the Eastern church the divisions which mark the Western church. The selfish desire of any mission board to keep its work intact and not to be swallowed up in a great union movement should be rebuked by Christians of every denomination, and the dangers of disorder and license should be checked by earnest sympathy with the aspirations of the native Christians on one side, and by earnest co-operation between all mission bodies on the other."
II.-THE TREATMENT OF CONVERTED POLYGAMISTS.
To us in the home field, this question seems very simple, but in India, and on other mission fields, it is a complicated and knotty problem.
"The opinion of missionaries on this subject is much divided, and the matter has been discussed at various conferences. An excellent statement of both sides of the question is made in the 'Indian Evangelical Review' of April, 1886, by Rev. J. J. Lucas, who has taken pains to inform himself of the opinions of many leading missionaries. My own impression, formed from conversation with a large number is, that a majority of the missionaries in India, especially of those longest in the field, would decline to advise a man to dismiss one of two wives, and that many of them would baptize him, in that state, while protesting against polygamy as unchristian. The Madura Mission not long ago decided to baptize converted polygamists who had acted in ignorance of Christian ideas, in cases where there was no way of separation without injustice. Of this decision the American Board has expressed its disapproval. But Mr. Jones, of that mission, avows the belief that the policy of refusing baptism to such candidates must in time be reversed."
To over sixty representatives of different missions, Mr. Lucas sent the following question: "Would you, under any circumstances, baptize a convert with more than one wife, allowing him to retain his wives ?" And an affirmative answer was received from the great majority.
Yet, Mr. Lucas himself opposes baptism in such a case, because of the apparent sanction given to polygamy, the temptation laid in the way of inquirers, the formation of two classes of Christians within the church, and the injury done to the church itself. Yet he would not ask the husband to put away either wife, but he would say, "Wait. Your first outward step towards Christ must not be marred by a cruel wrong and flagrant injustice. Wait, holding fast your faith, and time will bring a change." And still he admits that the majority of missionaries, if left free to act, would go further than this, though leaving much to be determined by the circumstances of each case. Mr. Lawrence was assured by old missionaries, that their opinions in this regard had been changed by long experience on the field.
III.-WHO SHALL BE EMPLOYED AS TEACHERS IN MISSION SCHOOLS.
Great trouble and perplexity are experienced in this matter. Hindus are hostile to the work of missions, actively so less perhaps than formerly, but have still to be carefully watched. Mr. Lawrence relates his experience in addressing a school of boys and girls in Bombay. He was obliged to use a Hindu teacher as interpreter. He spoke of the evils of idolatry, of the position of women, and of what each member of the school should do in opposing these evils. To his surprise he afterward found that the interpreter had added his own comments: to his words about idolatry he had added the remark that these were the sentiments of the speaker, not his own. The teacher had to interpose and say emphatically that they were the sentiments of the mission, and should be those of the scholars.
"It is supposed that a Hindu or a Mohammedan, secretly, perhaps, inclined to Christianity, will not do much harm while teaching mathematics or the languages from text-books chosen by the mission. It frequently happens, indeed, that the heathen teacher is himself converted while connected with the school. A Mohammedan boy in a school in Bombay came recently under the favorable notice of a government inspector, who, in commending him, expressed his purpose to find a place for him to teach. The boy left the school and was not seen there again. On being questioned as to the cause of his leaving, he said that he was afraid he should be made a teacher, and if he became a teacher, that meant becoming a Christian. But it is gratifying to find that the number of Christian teachers is constantly increasing, while that of non-Christian is constantly decreasing. In 1871, of 4,201 native male teachers in the mission schools, 2,206 were Hindus or Mohammedans. In 1887, of 5,943, but 2,462 were non-Christians. A much greater reduction may be expected during the present decade."
If only Christian teachers are employed, many schools must close, and the instruction given in others be far less efficient than now. The aim therefore is to secure at least a Christian head master or mistress, and Christians for religious instruction, while other positions are filled with Christian teachers as fast as practicable.
But for the present, Hindu teachers in part are inevitable. None desire more than the missionaries themselves to supersede them entirely, and none will so rejoice when a sufficiency of competent Christian teachers can be had. And to this end, says Mr. Lawrence: "Nothing can serve better than the Normal schools in charge of the Society for Vernacular Christian Education. In its excellent institutions which I visited in Dindigul, in South India, and in Ahmednagar, in West India, it receives to be trained as teachers Christian young men sent by any mission. And to the missions of the American Board it has furnished many of the best teachers in their employ. One of the greatest needs of India is devoted, well-trained Christian teachers, and anything which can increased their number is worthy of all the aid that can be given."
IV. INSTANTANEOUS BAPTISM.
This question has assumed prominence and importance largely by the remarkable conversions attending the preaching of Rev. Mr. Knowles, an English missionary, and his colleagues of the North India M. E. Conference, at the Hindu festivals. Mr. Knowles holds some peculiar views as to the gift of the Holy Spirit, on condition of faith, which leads him to press an immediate decision upon his hearers at these great religious gatherings of the Hindus. All who come forward and publicly declare their belief in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, he will baptize at once, taking their names and homes, and seeking to follow up the work thus begun. Hence the number of baptisms made of those who up to that hour were Hindus in full caste relations, is very large.
The same question is pressed in the Punjab, where the American United Presbyterian Mission has been very successful. Whole villages have come to Christ, and called for immediate baptism, and the United Presbyterian missionaries have granted it, with full admission to the church. The Methodists defer such admission, and the Church Missionary Society prefers, as a rule, not to grant immediate baptism.
There are serious objections against this policy. Many hearing the gospel for the first time get no just idea of its requirements. Their conversion to Christianity is liable to be so only in name and form. The danger is of getting into the mission churches a mass of Hinduism in reality, under the outward rites of Christianity, to say nothing of the scandal which their relapse into their old faith would bring upon the Christian life and faith. The evils of such a hasty admission into the church-membership without due consideration and teaching, are serious and damaging, even in Christian lands, and where public sentiment is comparatively strong and on the right side. What must they be in heathen lands, and even in India, where the church is feeble, and public sentiment for the most part hostile?
"In reply, it is urged that Christ has made distinct promises to those who are not ashamed to confess Him; that when this is done publicly, and with public explanation of the preacher, the church may claim the fulfillment of the promise. It is true, moreover, that Hindus universally attach great importance to Christian baptism, regarding it as a decisive act, which involves the breaking of caste and excommunication. If anyone goes so far as to take this step, so important in his own eyes, why should he not be baptized, followed up, instructed, and, at the proper time, received into the church? And is not this the way, after all, in which the bulk of the people of India are to be brought to Christ-not by preliminary education, which can reach but a few at a time, and may draw men away from Christ instead of towards Him, but by conversion, with instantaneous baptism to seal the act, followed by subsequent training in Christ? If the conversion of Indians occurs by masses, instead of as individuals, must it not be in some such manner, the old barriers giving way suddenly, and great bodies of the people becoming disciples of Christ while ignorant of Him except as their Saviour?"
There is great force and pertinence in these questions. Experience must, in the main, settle the matter in India, and in other mission fields. It is admitted, by the best informed, that very many of the Hindus acknowledge the truth of Christianity, and are looking for a widespread movement among their people. Immense and rapid changes are the order of Providence all over the Heathen, Pagan and Mohammedan world. It seems morally certain that only by some grand mass rising can India ever be brought to Christ. "For, of the majority of Hindus, even more than of other peoples, it is true that, like Wadsworth's clouds, 'they must move all together, if they move at all.' "
We have thus condensed and given the substance of this valuable article, largely in the words of its author. In reviewing it we are impressed with the fact that the Problems which press on the mission church in India, press also, with more or less modification, on the Christian church of America, and of other Christian lands. It is our firm conviction that the great lesson of the day of Pentecost has yet to be learned by the modern Church of Christ. While that glorious manifestation of Divine power was largely supernatural, yet there was a general expectation on the part of the mass of disciples-there was united, continuous, and importunate prayer on the part of the infant church, and a believing waiting for the fulfillment of the Master's promise given on the eve of his departure. Hence it was no surprise. They were "endued with power from on high" in answer to prayer, and thereby fitted for the emergency and the work it laid upon them. And they did not hesitate, in reliance on Christ's promise, to baptize on the same day the thousands of professed converts, though among them were some of the very murderers of our Lord.
And what did the disciples do when driven from Jerusalem and scattered abroad, but go straight into the great cities of the Roman world—into the very centres of idolatry, and heathen superstition, and philosophy, and corruption, and wickedness-and boldly plant in the midst of them the banner of the cross, and preach "Jesus and the Resurrection," to Gentile and Jew, to philosophers and peasants, to the high and the low, and straightway gather converts into Christian churches, and push on from city to city, and from province to province, till they entered Rome itself, and even invaded "Cæsar's household." Their simple reliance was "the gospel of the grace of God," which they carried in their hearts, and preached in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power, confident that Christ would verify his ascension promise, and that the Cross in the hands of the Eternal Spirit was, of itself, without circumlocution, or previous training, or litany, or visible machinery, able to convert the soul to Jesus Christ. It was the policy of faith-the policy of simple trust in God and the power of the gospel-and it wrought wonders. It went everywhere, "conquering and to conquer." And the nearer the church of our day, both at home and in the missionary work abroad, approaches this apostolic method, the more will God honor and bless her instrumentality. In no other way-on no other principle-can the mountains of unbelief and difficulty be removed; the infinite masses of vice, ignorance, irreligion, and
BIOGRAPHY OF MOFFAT
indifference, which now lie and fester in the great cities of the world, be reached and penetrated by the light and influence of the gospel, and the world of guilt, ungodliness, hostility, infidelity and agnostic materialism, be shaken, upheaved, cleaved assunder, and the Son of Righteousness find entrance. If this world shall ever be won to Christ, it will be by Pentecostal seasons of power and ingathering; by tidal waves of grace that shall sweep the earth from pole to pole, by sudden simultaneous movements and forces in the moral and spiritual world, that shall be irresistible and general in their majestic sweep, challenging the faith of the Church, overawing a guilty world, and "converting a nation in a day," in fulfillment of prophetic promise.
BIOGRAPHY OF MOFFAT.
The Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat, by their son, John S. Moffat. With Portraits and Illustrations. New edition with Preface and Supplementary Chapter. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. 8 vo, pp. 484.
[EDITORIAL.-J. M. S.] THE name of Robert Moffat has been dear to us ever since we read his thrilling "Southern Africa," more than forty years ago. The leading facts of his life have long been familiar to missionary readers; but in this Life we have the outlines fitly filled up by the hand of filial love. The picture, as now completed, only enhances our estimate of the man and of the importance and enduring value of his work.
Dr. Wm. M. Taylor, in his brief Preface to this new edition, which has just issued from the press of the Armstrongs, well says: "The name of Robert Moffat deserves a high place on the honor roll of modern missionaries. It is not so well known, indeed, as that of his son-in-law, David Livingstone, but it may well be held in reputation as that of the pioneer, without whose labors those of Livingstone and others would have been far otherwise than they were. When he went to South Africa in 1817, he found tribes of idolaters and savages, constantly at war with each other and with the white men, utterly ignorant and degraded. When he left it in 1870, churches had been called into existence, a permanent body of native pastors had been reared from among the Bechwanas, and the whole region had become largely civilized and Christianized."
On the day after his funeral, which occurred in August, 1883, the following leader appeared in the London Times, which is so remarkable, coming from such a source, that we venture to reproduce the substance of it. It is not always that the secular press bestows such just, discriminating, and lofty praise on our heroic missionaries and their achievements.
"Dr. Robert Moffat, who was yesterday laid in the grave, has left an abiding name as a pioneer of modern missionary work in South Africa. He was born in 1795, a year memorable as that of the foundation of the London Missionary Society, and in 1816 he entered on his career as one of the Society's missionaries. His first purpose was to proceed to the South Seas, but his final choice was the vast and yet unexplored field of the central region of South Africa. His chief work was among the Bechwanas. His picture of what they were when he first knew them would hardly now be recognized, so entirely have they changed under the new influences which Moffat was among the first to bring to bear on them. He found them mere savages, idol-worshipers, constantly at war among themselves and with their neighbors, ignorant of the arts of agriculture, and in the utterly degraded state for which we must seek a counterpart now in the more distant tribes whom the message of civilization has not yet reached. It was Moffat's mission to civilize as well as instruct, to free those with whom he was brought in contact from the curse under which they seemed to lie, to raise them to a higher life, and so to fit them to become recipients of the sacred message of good tidings which it was his main ultimate purpose to announce. His success within the limited field to which he confined himself-a field which has been now far overpassed by the subsequent labors of other devoted men, most notably by those of his own son-in-law, David Livingstone—was very marked. His first care was to make himself thoroughly master of the language of those to whom he was sent. For fifty years, he has declared, he had been accustomed to speak the Bechwana tongue; he reduced it to written characters, and, as an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, translated the Scriptures into it. The Bechwanas, under Moffat's guidance, became new men. Mission work grew and spread among them; what Moffat had begun to do was taken up by other hands; a permanent body of native pastors was created from among the Bechwanas themselves, and the whole region was raised out of the savage state in which Moffat had found it, and became in no small degree civilized as well as Christianized. To effect this, and to make it possible for others to effect it, was the chief business of Moffat's working life. He went out to South Africa in 1816. He left it finally in 1870. During that long interval the dark continent was attacked and explored in all directions. Scientific travelers and missionary travelers were busy pushing their way into regions to which Moffat never penetrated. It is Moffat's honor to have been the first in the field, to have laid, as it were, the stepping-stones by which his successors have been able to outstrip him; to have borne the burden and heat of the day in early missionary work, and at once to have given an example of devotion to his noble cause and to have furnished proof that the ground was not barren, and that even in South Africa the good seed might be trusted to spring up and to bring forth abundant fruit.
"It is the fashion in some quarters to scoff at missionaries, to receive their reports with incredulity, to look at them at best as no more than harmless enthusiasts, proper subjects for pity, if not for ridicule. The records of missionary work in South Africa must be a blank page to those by whom such ideas are entertained. We owe it to our missionaries that the whole region has been opened up. Apart from their special service as preachers, they have done important work as pioneers of civilization, as geographers, as contributors to philological research. Of those who have taken part in this, Moffat's name is not the best known. Moffat, it may be said, has labored, and other men have entered into his labor. Livingstone has come after him, and has gone beyond him, and has linked his memory for ever with the records of the South African Church. Speke and Stanley have become household names where Moffat has been unknown or has been forgotten. In his own simple words, it never occurred to him, while working among the Bechwanas, that he should obtain the applause of men. His one care was for those among whom he had cast his lot. He was an enthusiast, of course-a man would be worth little for missionary enterprise if he were not this at all events. But he was an enthusiast with a clear sense of the right means to employ for the accomplishment of his unselfish task. He had a message to deliver of love and of peace, and he must prepare men to receive it by instructing them in the arts of peace. The progress of South Africa has been mainly due to men of Moffat's stamp. In him, as in David Livingstone, it is hard to say which character has predominated, that of the missionary proper, or that of the teacher and guide. Certain it is that apart from the special stimulus they felt as proclaimers of the gospel message, they would never have thrown themselves as they did into the work to which their lives were consecrated. It was by no zeal for the spread of civilization on its own account that they passed weary years laboring and teaching among savage tribes, amid dangers of every kind, amid privations of which they themselves made light, but which only a sense of their high spiritual mission could have prompted them to face and undergo. One part of Moffat's work has been to prepare the way for others. He has given, so far, what promises to be a lasting stimulus. It is another question whether his own work will endure. . . . It is the missionary alone who seeks nothing for himself. He has chosen an unselfish life. If honor comes to him, it is by no choice of his own, but as the unsought tribute which others, as it were, force upon him. Robert Moffat has died in the fullness both of years and of honors. His work has been to lay the foundation of the Church in the central regions of South Africa. As far as his influence and that of his coadjutors and successors has extended, it has brought with it unmixed good. His name will be remembered while the South African Church endures, and his example will remain with us as a stimulus to others and as an abiding proof of what a Christian missionary can be and can do."
How this life work was performed; what a world of difficulty and opposition he encountered; with what tireless and persistent energy he wrought for more than half a century; amid what perils, hardships, discouragements and heroic endurances he stood at his post, this intensely interesting volume sets forth, modestly and lovingly, in fuller detail. Mrs. Moffat shared in her husband's work, and spirit, and missionary career. "Both," says Dr. Taylor, "were of such stuff as heroes are made of, and their names are worthy of a place in the peerage of faith, beside those which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has ennobled by his praise."
Robert Moffat was the child of poor, hard-working, and pious parents in Scotland, to whom he owed much of his shrewd sense, industry, frugality and ability to turn his hands to anything. He learned to be a gardener, but at 16 left home for a situation in Cheshire, where he speedily attracted the notice and sympathy of his employers. He was soon after converted and joined the Wesleyan Methodists, and quickly thereafter resolved to be a missionary. But parents, employers, and others, tried to dissuade him from his purpose. But he persevered at the cost of his place, but soon found employment with a Mr. Smith, a Scotchman of Covenanting descent, who entered heartily into young Moffat's plans. So likewise did their daughter Mary, some months Moffat's senior. She had been carefully and religiously brought up and schooled at the Moravian Seminary at Fairfield, whose traditions are so full of missionary romance. Here she spent some happy years, and had engaged in home-mission work. She was strongly drawn to Moffat, as he to her; and both earnestly devoted themselves to work among the heathen. This union of heart and work at home was subsequently renewed in Africa, where, for a long and eventful period they worked together as husband and wife.
As the biographer says, Moffat did not become a great missionary by virtue of his collegiate opportunities. He valued learning highly, but he had no chance to become a great scholar. But he had a knack of seizing what was essential to him, and a gift for forgetting what was useless or secondary. His studies, in face of the greatest difficulties, completed, he was accepted by the London Missionary Society, and would have been designated for the South Pacific with the venerated Williams, had it not been for his youth-he was only twenty years of age. Says the biographer: "During the discussions in the Missionary Committee as to how the present band of men was to be distributed, it had been first proposed that Williams and Moffat should both go to Polynesia; but this was overruled at the suggestion of Dr. Waugh, who deemed that 'thae twa lads were ower young to gang thegither;' so they were separated. On these small links hang our lives."
Moffat was not long in South Africa before he gave proof that years are not the only gauge of wisdom and self-reliance and tact in management. His first difficulty arose from the caprice of the Governor, who refused, on account of disturbances, to allow the party to proceed beyond the limits of Cape Colony. Moffat at once set himself to learning Dutch, that he might the more efficiently do his work when he did reach Namaqualand. At last the Governor gave his consent; and for more than a year in Namaqualand, and for more than five-and-forty in Bechwanaland, his life was one ceaseless labor and difficulty and danger, fearlessly faced. He was builder, blacksmith, carpenter, thatcher, ditcher-for he dug canal after canal to bring water to his garden and field-gardener and dairyman by turns-and everything to which he set his hand he did well-even down to darning and sewing, which he was thankful that his mother had taught him how to do.
His life at the Oape, and in Namaqualand, however, was but a preparation; his real work began at Kuruman, where he was assisted by his wife (Miss Mary Smith having joined him at Cape Colony, where they were married), whose noble character and remarkable gifts are brought out in the volume by means of her letters. She was helper, inspirer, and a strong supporter.
Soon after their settlement at Kuruman, Mrs. Moffat writes to her parents: " At present Moffat is applying himself with all diligence to the language, as the particular object of his destination here. He finds immense difficulties from the barrenness of the language and imperfect interpreters, but he is naturally too persevering soon to lose courage. This is his sole motive for undertaking a journey at present, in order to become familiar with it by being for a time out of the habit of speaking Dutch with our own people here.
I think it will also be of advantage to me in that respect; having so much to employ my time with at home I have little chance of learning much of it. You beg of us to pay particular attention to the instruction of the rising generation, but alas, we have no opportunities of doing this: the people instead of desiring that their children should be instructed, are afraid of their becoming 'Dutchmen,' so tenacious are they of their old customs and habits, and if a boy and a girl venture to come they are soon laughed out of it. Perhaps if we gave them a meal of meat every day or a few beads, we might have the place crowded-but on no other condition. Oh! how we were affected on reading an account of Madagascar, when we thought of the difference between that people and this; they so desirous and these such despisers of instruction. As to some of these people having correct notions of God and of heaven, death and hell, as has been asserted, you must not believe it; for daily conversations convince us that the wisest of them have most corrupt notions on these subjects. We are astonished at their dreadful stupidity about these things. My beloved parents, we have much need of your sympathy and prayers, and those of all other Christians. Could we but see the smallest fruit we could rejoice amidst the privations and toil which we bear; but as it is, our hands do often hang down."
Their faith was put to a very severe test. They toiled for years without any visible fruit. But though disappointed, neither were disheartened.
" 'Mary,' he said one day to his wife, 'this is hard work.' 'It is hard work, my love,' she replied; 'but take courage, our lives shall be given us for a prey!' 'But think, my dear,' he replied, 'how long we have been preaching to this people, and no fruits yet appear.' Mrs. Moffat rejoined in this manner: 'The gospel has not yet been preached to them in their own tongue wherein they were born. They have heard it only through interpreters, and interpreters who have themselves no just understanding, no real love of the truth. We must not expect the blessing till you be able from your own lips and in their own language to bring it through their ears into their hearts.' 'From that hour,' said Mr. Moffat, in relating the conversation, 'I gave myself with untiring diligence to the acquisition of the language.'''
At the close of the year 1822 Moffat wrote his brother: "I shall now give some particulars of our present situation. The most important is the cause of Christ. Alas! we still hang our harp on the willows, and mourn over the destiny of thousands hastening with heedless but impetuous strides to the regions of woe. They turn a deaf ear to the voice of love, and treat with scorn the glorious doctrines of redemption. This often causes our hearts to languish, while our eyes fail with looking upward.
"It is, however, pleasing to reflect that affairs in general wear a more hopeful aspect than when we came here. Several instances have proved the people determined to relinquish the barbarous system of commandoes for stealing cattle. They have also dispensed with a rainmaker this season. We rejoice in this, because his services and presence must ever form a strong barrier to the spread of the gospel. "We prayed and hoped that a good season would thoroughly convince them that the power of giving rain belonged only to God, but He whose footsteps are in the sea has been pleased to order it otherwise. The season has been so dry as to destroy their corn, except a little which happened to be sown on ground a little marshy. Nothing, however, has been said as to the cause of the drought. We continue on friendly terms with them, though we have also much to suffer, especially from thieves, who pester us on all sides."
God chose his own methods of bringing his servant into favor with this people and giving him a powerful influence in their affairs. The Niantatees, a terrible horde of marauders, came pouring down upon the western Bechwanas, who, if driven back, would have no option but to perish in the foodless and waterless wastes of the Kalahari. The people were panic-stricken. The dreaded enemy drew nearer every day. And still nothing definite was known of their purpose or strength. Moffat, choosing a few companions, plunged into the wilderness, and after perils innumerable (seeing nine lions in one day) accomplished his purpose and hastened back and warned the people, and roused them to action, and gave such advice, and exercised such strategy and commanding ability as resulted in saving the people from destruction. His forethought, coolness, courage, and sagacity excited the admiration even of these savages, and led the grateful people almost to worship him.
From this time on the mission brightened and the influence of the Moffats widened and deepened. Mrs. Moffat writes home to her father about this time: "To hear of the steady and growing piety of these sable children of Adam, together with the increase of Divine knowledge in the minds of others, must be reviving to the hearts of all who love the cause, but especially to such as are so nearly connected with this mission as yourself. Our gracious God has been very condescending to spare the lives of His unworthy servants to witness some fruits of missionary labor-a felicity we frequently despaired of enjoying in this lower world, where crosses and disappointments seemed to form so large a proportion in our cup. We now often wish you could be with us, to witness for yourself what we see. . . . The converts are going on well, and though the general commotion in the minds of the people has in a great measure subsided, we have solid reason to believe that there are many persons who are the subjects of an abiding conviction of their position as sinners before God, and are in the constant and diligent use of the means of grace, which we doubt not will be effectual through the Spirit in leading them to the Saviour of sinners. The Spirit of God has commenced His operations, and surely He will go on."
We have not space to follow Moffat through the long and fruitful years of his toil and sacrifice among this people, nor to describe his manifold labors in the wide field of Southern Africa exploration, civilization and Christianization; nor his intercourse with and influence on the career of David Livingstone, who married his daughter Mary; nor yet his great work in the matter of Bible translation and the circulation of the Scriptures as agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, laying the foundation of a Bechwana literature; nor his visit to England in 1838, and the wonderful interest he awakened in his native land; nor of his return to Africa and subsequent career there, till in a ripe old age, he returned to his native shores in 1870, and until the day of his death, worked on unceasingly in behalf of the cause to which his life had been devoted.
A single parting glimpse we give the reader.
"On Sunday, the twentieth of March, 1870, Robert Moffat preached for the last time in the Kuruman church. In all that great congregation there were few of his own contemporaries. The older people were for the most part children at the time when they had first seen the missionaries. With a pathetic grace peculiarly his own, he pleaded with those who still remained unbelieving amid the gospel privileges they had now enjoyed so many years. With a fatherly benediction he commended to the grace of God those who had been to him a joy and crown. It was an impressive close to an impressive career. Many years must pass before that service can be forgotten in Bechwanaland."
We note a single trait of Moffat's character. He was not a man of one idea; was not wedded to a system or preconceived methods, but studied to adapt himself to the existing condition of things. While he insisted that no civilizing processes were of any effect without conversion, he despised no means of gaining influence in order to lead the heathen to better modes of living, to improved methods of agricul- ture, and to thrift and settled habits.
" He was first a missionary; but he was also a great' captain of industry,' a man who, if he had devoted himself to any form of worldly enterprise, would probably have made a colossal fortune. He could govern men. He knew how to attach them to him, and could gauge their capacity with the eye of a master. He could direct each to the exact task suited to him, and, what is more, keep him heartily at it. Impulse and will went together, and he seldom missed his aim. A mere stripling of twenty-one, he tamed the redoubtable Africaner, and made him a humble follower and helper; he subdued Moselikatze, the warlike Matebele, and made him feel that the missionary was essential to him. His simple manhood and fearlessness, with great natural tact and independence, enabled him always to appeal to that side of their nature which was most open to him. And he could wait. It has been well said that the courage necessary to face indefinite perils, such as those to which Moffat was constantly exposed-especially in the first portion of his career-is greater than that which supports the soldier in the midst of excitement of battle. What a probation was that of the long years in the dry and waterless Kuruman, without the token of a single impression being made on any human creature! Shamelessly the people stole; neither grain could grow to ripeness, nor cattle or sheep be left in the fold, or a tool allowed to lie where a bit of work was being done, or a canal made, without the risk of the water being diverted before it reached the mission station. Many a time on returning from their out-door labors, or from a service, they found a stone in the pot instead of the meat they had left to cook. But all undismayed, Robert Moffat and his heroic wife toiled on, assured that their reward would come."* And come it did. He lived to see great changes wrought in South Africa and to lay the foundations of the South African Church with his own hands. The progress of South Africa has been mainly due to Moffat and men of his stamp. In him, as in Livingstone, it is hard to say which character has predominated, that of the missionary proper, or that of the teacher and guide. His mission largely was to prepare the way for others. He has given a great and apparently lasting stimulus, and laid Africa and the whole missionary world under great obligations.
On one point we think Mr. Moffat's testimony bearing on the policy of missions is entitled to serious consideration. We quote from an admirable paper in the Leisure Hour for November, 1883: "Much might be added in illustration of Dr. Moffat's extreme versatilIty in acquiring every industry or art which the exigencies of the place might demand of him. His treatment of the bodily ailments of the natives who came to him was almost prophetic of the medical missionaries, of whom so much has happily been heard in later days. Enough, perhaps, has been said to indicate the manifold resource and adaptiveness which helped to establish the memorable mission to Bechwanaland.
" The question of the bearing of civilization in such circumstances upon the work of evangelization is a weighty one, and the testimony of such a veteran missionary as Dr. Moffat would not fail to be of the greatest value. It is one, also, on which he has spoken with no uncertain sound, for the facts were pressed upon him at an early period of his work among the Becnwanas. After twenty-six years of missionary work he writes: 'Much has been. said about civilizing savages before attempting to evangelize them. This is a theory which has obtained an extensive prevalence among the wise men of this world, but we have never yet seen a practical demonstration of its truth. We, ourselves, are convinced that evangelization must precede civilization. It is very easy in a country of high refinement to speculate on what might be done among rude and savage men, but the Christian missionary, the only experimentalist, has invariably found that to make the fruit good the tree must first be made good. Nothing less than the power of Divine grace can reform the hearts of savages, after which the mind is susceptible of those instructions which teach them to adol'n the gospel they profess."–Leisure Hour.
"One of the great attractions of this biography is, that it faithfully presents Mrs. Moffat alongside her husband-a heroine in every sense of the word. There was no work in which she did not share-no enterprise or adventure however perilous-in which she did not take her part. For years she made it her work to accompany him in the wagon, when he meant to be absent for more than a couple of days, for the double purpose of insuring that he should have ordinary comforts (which in bachelorhood in Namaqualand he had been apt to overlook), and that she should learn what she could of everything. Moffat had laid it down as the result of his three-year-long single-life experience that, 'A missionary without a wife in South Africa was like a boat with only one oar. A good missionary's wife can be as useful as her husband in the Lord's vineyard.' She over and over again undertook journeys to the Cape without Moffat (whom she would not permit, for her sake, to leave his work for a moment), and with faithful Bechwanas and Hottentots only for attendants, who never failed her. She combined missionary help with attention to family matters, and conveyed back printing materials or other goods, which were needed and waited for. Once, when she was ordered to the coast for her health, she persisted in going alone.
Unfortunately this time they found the Orange River in flood, and could not get across. For a whole month in ill-health she had to wait on the bank in the hot weather. But she never got disconsolate or even depressed, and her power of taking the best and most hopeful view of things amounted almost to an art. This is how she tells of her suffering: " 'I was in company with Mr. Hume, who rendered me every possible assistance, but my health being in such a delicate state, I could not but suffer much from the extreme heat and exposed situation, and was severely tried. Frequently were we tantalized with the prospect of being able to ride through "to-morrow," but as sure as to-morrow came the river rose again, till all hope was gone, and we came at last to the conclusion to cross on a raft. . . . There were eighteen wagons altogether, and with hard labor we got everything over that dreadful river in less than three days without a single accident. How much have we to be thankful for! And it was gratifying to find that, for all I had endured, I was no worse, but rather better. Perhaps being obliged to take it easily was in my favor.'
"This so entirely expresses the character of the woman as she appears to us throughout these pages-patient, courageous, equal to any emergency, gifted with power of command such as few men have, and yet tender and true to every claim of womanhood-that we can only praise her sufficiently by saying that she rose to the same heights of unconscious heroism as her husband. To read of her must prove an inspiration in many a home."*
THE CHRISTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS
THE CHRISTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS. SIR MONIER-WILLIAMS, Professor of Sanskrit in Oxford University, is universally recognized as an authority in all questions relating to the literature and faiths of the Orient. At the late anniversary of the Church Misssionary Society in London, he delivered an address which is so remarkable, that notwithstanding its appearance in other forms, we desire to give extracts from it a permanent place in this REVIEW. He says: "An old friend, a valued missionary of this society, founder of the James Long Lectures on the Non-Christian Religions, said to me a few days before his death: 'You are to speak at the anniversary of the Church Missionary Society; urge upon our missionaries the importance of studying the non- Christian religious systems.' Unusual facilities for this study are now at our disposal; for in this Jubilee year of the Queen, the University of Oxford has completed the publication of about thirty stately volumes of the socalled Sacred Books of the East, comprising the Veda, the Zend-Avesta of the Zoroastrians, the Confucian Texts, the Buddhist Tripitaka, and the Muhammadan Kuran-all translated by well-known translators. Our mIssionaries are already convinced of the necessity of studying these works, and of making themselves conversant with the false creeds they have to fight. How could an army of invaders have any chance of success in an enemy's country without a knowledge of the position and strength of its fortress, and without knowing how to turn the batteries they may capture against the foe? Instead of dwelling on so manifest a duty, I venture a few words of warning as to the subtle danger that lurks beneath the duty.
"In my youth I had been accustomed to hear all non-Christian religions described as 'inventions of the devil.' And when I began investigating Hinduism and Buddhism, some well-meaning Christian friends expressed their surprise that I should waste my time by grubbing in the dirty gutters of heathendom. After a little examination, I found many beautiful gems glittering there; nay, I met with bright coruscations of true light flashing here and there amid the surrounding darkness. Now, fairness in fightmg one's opponents is ingrained in every Englishman'S nature, and, as I prosecuted my researches into these non-Christian systems, I began to foster a fancy that they had been unjustly treated. I began to observe and trace out curious coincidences and comparisons with our own Sacred Book of the East. I began, in short, to be a believer in what is called the evolution and growth of religious thought. 'These imperfect systems,' I said to myself, 'are clearly steps in the development of man's religious instincts and aspirations-interesting efforts of the human mind struggling upwards towards Christianity. Nay, it is probable that they were all intended to lead up to the one true religion, and that Christianity is, after all, merely the climax, the complement, the fulfillment of them all.'
"Now there is unquestionably a delightful fascination about such a theory, and, what is more, there are really elements of truth in it. But I am glad of the opportunity of stating publicly that I am persuaded I was misled by its attractiveness, and that its main idea is quite erroneous. The charm and danger of it, I think, lie in its apparent liberality, breadth of view, and toleration. In The Times of last October 14, you will find recorded a remarkable conversation between a Lama priest and a Christian traveler, in the course of which the Lama says that 'Christians describe their religion as the best of all religions; whereas, among the nine rules of conduct for the Buddhist, there is one that directs him never either to think or to say that his own religion is the best, considering that sincere men of other religions are deeply attached to them.' Now to express sympathy with this kind of liberality is sure to win applause among a certain class of thinkers in these days of universal toleration and religious free trade. We must not forget, too, that our Bible tells us that God has not left himself without witness, and that in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him. Yet I contend, notwithstanding, that flabby, jelly-fish kind of tolerance is utterly incompatible with the nerve, fibre, and backbone that ought to characterize a manly Christian. A Christian's character ought to be exactly what the Christian's Bible intends it to be. Take that Sacred Book of ours; handle reverently the whole volume; search it through and through, from the first chapter to the last, and mark well the spirit that pervades the whole. You will find no limpness, no flabbiness about its utterances. Even skeptics who dispute Its divinity are ready to admit that it is a thoroughly manly book. Vigor and manhood breathe in every page. It is downward and straightforward, bold and fearless, rigid and uncompromising. It tells you and me to be either hot or cold. If God be god, serve him. If Baal be God, serve him. We cannot serve both. We cannot love both. Only one name is given among men whereby we may be saved. No other name, no other Saviour, more suited to India, to Persia, to China, to Arabia, is ever mentioned-is ever hinted at.
"What! says the enthusiastic student of the science of religion, do you seriously mean to sweep away as so much worthless waste paper all these thirty stately volumes of Sacred Books of the East just published by the University of Oxford? "No-not at all-nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we welcome these books. We ask every missionary to study their contents and thankfully lay hold of whatsoever things are true and of good report in them. But we warn him that there can be no greater mistake than to force these non-Christian bibles into conformity with some scientific theory of development, and then point to the Christian's Holy Bible as the crowning product of religious evolution. So far from this, these non-Christian bibles are all developments in the wrong direction. They all begin with some flashes of true light and end in utter darkness. Pile them, if you will, on the left side of your study table, but place your own Holy Bible on the right side-all by itself-aU alone-and with a wide gap between.
"And now, I crave permission at least to give two good reasons for ventur- ing to contravene, in so plain-spoken a manner, the favorite philosophy of the day. Listen to me, ye youthful students of the so-called Sacred Books of the East, search them through and through, and tell me, do they affirm of Vyasa, of Zoroaster, of Confucius, of Buddha, of Mohammed, what our Bible affirms of the Founder of Christianity-that He, a sinless Man, was made Sin! Not merely that he is the eradicator of sin, but that He, the sinless Son of man, was himself made sin. Vyasa and the other founders of Hinduism enjoined severe penances, endless lustral washings, incessant purifications, infinite repetitions of prayer, painful pilgrimages, arduous ritual, and sacrificial observances, all with the one idea of getting rid of sin. AU their books say so. But do they say that the very men who exhausted every invention for the eradication of sin were themselves sinless men made sin. Zoroaster, too, and Confucius, and Buddha, and Mohammed, one and all, bade men strain every nerve to get rid of sin, or at least of the misery of sin, but do their sacred books say that they themselves were sinless men made sin! I do not presume, as a layman, to interpret the apparently contradic. tory proposition put forth in our Bible that a sinless Man was made Sin. All I now contend for is that it stands alone; that it is wholly unparalleled; that it is not to be matched by the shade of a shadow of a similar declaration in any other book claiming to be the exponent of the doctrine of any other religion in the world.
" Once again, ye youthful students of the so-called Sacred Books of the East, search them through and through, and tell me, do they affirm of Vyasa, of Zoroaster, of Confucius, of Buddha, of Mohammed, what our Bible affirms of the Founder of Christianity-that He, a dead and buried Man, was made Life? not merely that he is the Giver of life, but that he, the dead and buried Man, is Life. 'I am the Life.' 'When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear.' 'He that hath the Son, hath Life.' Let me remind you, too, that the blood is the Life, and that our Sacred Book adds this matchless, this unparalleled, this astounding assertion: 'Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.' Again, I say, I am not now presuming to interpret so marvelous, so stupendous a statement. All I contend for is that it is absolutely unique; and I defy you to produce the shade of the shadow of a similar declaration in any other sacred book of the world. And bear in mind that these two matchless, these two unparalleled declarations, are closely, are intimately, are indissolubly connected with the great central facts and doctrines of our religion: the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension of Christ. Vyasa, Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, are all dead and buried; and mark this-their flesh is dissolved; their bones have crumbled into dust; their bodies are extinct. Even their followers admit this. Christianity alone commemorates the passing into the heavens of its divine Founder, not merely in the spirit, but in the body, and 'with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature,' to be the eternal source of life and holiness to his people.
"The two unparalleled declarations quoted by me from our Holy Bible make a gulf between it and the so-called Sacred Books of the East which sever the one from the other utterly, hopelessly, and forever-not a mere rift which may be easily closed up, not a mere rift across which the Christian and the non-Christian may shake hands and interchange similar ideas in regard to essential truths, but a veritable gulf which cannot be bridged over by any science of religious thought; yes, a bridgeless chasm which no theory of evolution can ever span. Go forth, then, ye missionaries, in your Master's name; go forth into all the world, and, after studying all its false religions and philosophies, go forth and fearlessly proclaim to suffering humanity the plain, the unchangeable, the eternal facts of the gospel-nay, I might al- most say, the stubborn, the unyielding, the inexorable facts of the gospel. Dare to be downright with all the uncompromising courage of your own Bible, while with it your watchwords are love, joy, peace, reconciliation. Be fair, be charitable, be Christ-like, but let there be no mistake. Let it be made absolutely clear that Christianity can not, must not, be watered down to suit the palate of either Hindu, Parsee, Confucianist, Buddhist, or Mo. hammedan, and that whosoever wishes to pass from the false religion to the true can never hope to do so by the rickety planks of compromise, or by help of faltering hands held out by half-hearted Christians. He must leap the gulf in faith, and the living Christ will spread his everlasting arms be- neath and land him safely on the Eternal Rock."
To this remarkable testimony, we add that of Professor Max Müller, who, in addressing the British and Foreign Bible Society, said: "In the discharge of my duties for forty years, as Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Oxford, I have devoted as much time as any man living to the study of the Sacred Books of the East, and I have found the one key-note -the one diapason, so to speak-of all these so-called sacred books, whether it be the Veda of the Brahmans, the Puranas of Siva and Vishnu, the Koran of the Mohammedans, the Zend-Avesta of the Parsees, the Tripitaka of the Buddhists-the one refrain through all-salvation by works. They all say that salvation must be purchased, must be bought with a price ; and that the sole price, the sole purchase-money, must be our own works and deservings. Our own holy Bible, our sacred Book of the East, is from beginning to end a protest against this doctrine. Good works are, indeed, enjoined upon us in that sacred Book of the East far more strongly than in any other sacred book of the East; but they are only the outcome of a grateful heart -they are only a thank-offering, the fruits of our faith. They are never the ransom-money of the true disciples of Christ. Let us not shut our eyes to what is excellent and true and of good report in these sacred books, but let us teach Hindoos, Buddhists, Mohammedans, that there is only one sacred Book of the East that can be their mainstay in that awful hour when they pass all alone into the unseen world. It is the sacred Book which contains that faithful saying, worthy to be received of all men, women and children, and not merely of us Christians-that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. [EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] "Let the dead bury their dead! Follow thou ME.
Go thou and preach the kingdom of God." -Matt. viii: 21, 22; Luke ix: 60.
WORDS of deep meaning are those words, "life" and "death." The difference between them is the difference between holiness and sin; the distance between them is the distance between Heaven and Hell.
We are in a world of Death. It is full of the dead-those who have neither spiritual vitality nor sensibility; who lack all true spiritual life and all proper sense of the powers of the world to come.
God made man, like an ideal house, in successive stories. On the earthward side, the body, identified with matter; next above it, the intellectual, affectional and moral nature, higher up and nearer God; then above all, and crowning all, that which constituted the very "image of God," -the spiritual nature, the oratory and observatory, nearest to Heaven.
The fall of man shattered the whole house, but it left the upper story in absolute ruin. The spiritual image of God was effaced, while the whole man was defaced. That observatory that looked out upon the celestial scenery, became at best "a death chamber." The noblest, highest, divinest affections, affinities, and capacities of man were left in a state of decay; and so this world became the abode of the dead.
Yes; and the dead are burying the dead. All human history, without God, is one long burial. What is burial? It is the magnifying of the material and mortal; it is lavishing care and cost upon the body, when the invisible spirit has departed, and putting it out of sight and contact of the living. So are the ways of the world. That unseen reality and personality which we call soul, is habitually neglected, while lavish attention is given to the body; and selfishness, that it may revel in ease and indulgence, seeks to bury out of sight and touch of the living, the want and woe, sorrow and suffering of humanity.
The sayings of our Lord, which introduce these paragraphs, are far more comprehensive than may at first appear. Christ is not denying to a son the privilege of fulfilling the last sad offices of filial love to a deceased father. A soul has reached the crisis of history and destiny, and stands trembling and wavering upon the verge of a decision upon which hang eternal issues. To go just now, even to a father's funeral, with its elaborate ceremonial and tedious period of formal mourning, would prove a diversion that might prevent conversion, dissipating serious impressions and convictions. What if that son, drawn back into worldly associations, should lose all interest in things divine; and going to bury his father, should end in being buried himself ! But let us mark the grandeur of the scope of those two words of command: "Follow thou me !" "Go thou and preach the kingdom of God!"
Christ is the Lord of life. He came to give life and to give it more abundantly-not to bury but to revive; not to commit to the sepulchre but to call the dead from their tombs. "Follow thou Me !"
and so get life; then, "Go thou and preach the kingdom of God," and so give life.
We have intelligently chosen these words as the motto of this MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD. Taking the two accounts as presenting the whole incident in its spherical completeness, we find here the entire duty of every human being, comprehensively expressed: first to be a follower of Christ, and then a preacher of Christ; receiving life from the dead, to go forth bearing the potent message of salvation, and so imparting life to the dead.
Our Lord thus sounds, in these sayings of His, the silver trumpet of evangelization, and down through the aisles of the ages, with growing clearness, rings the clarion peal. It is time that it had reached and rallied the whole church of God to the universal assembling of the Lord's hosts, and the universal onset of the army against the foe.
Evangelization is the one word that deserves to be emblazoned on the banners of the believing host. The one immediate, imperative duty of every follower is to become a "herald." To bring this gospel of life into contact with every living, human soul in the shortest possible time and the best possible way-that is evangelization.
The scheme is so grandly colossal that it fills the whole word of God, and reaches round the whole world of the dead. Like the wheel of Ezekiel's vision, it is so high that it is dreadful. Its rim rests upon the earth, but reaches to heaven.
God's gigantic plan of evangelization embraces the whole family of man. That family consists at this time of fifteen hundred millions of souls now living upon earth. More than one-half of this vast number have never yet had a copy of the Word, heard the sound of the good tidings, or even seen the face of a missionary. There are some thirty millions of evangelical Christians within the territory of a nominal Christendom; and the problem is how to bring those thirty millions into contact with the seven hundred and fifty millions who have not the gospel within the space of a generation's lifetime!
How can it be done? That is the absorbing question. We should utterly despair of doing it but for one fact: The Captain of our salvation has commanded it, and the existence of the order is the warrant for obedience, and the assurance of success. Let the whole church but take the attitude of obedience, and we should see wonders of achievement that would astonish us.
It is, nevertheless, very plain that the methods now employed by the church of God are inadequate to this great work. All Christendom sends to the foreign field to-day less than seven thousand workmen, of whom more than half are unordained laymen and women. The native Christian churches contribute some thirty-three thousand more, of whom nine-tenths are laymen. We have, therefore, a total of forty thousand Christian disciples scattered among the millions of Pagan, Papal, and Moslem communities. Were these evenly and equally distributed, it would still give every worker, male or female, native and foreign, ordained and unordained, a parish of 18,750 souls to reach with the gospel in the space of about thirty years, the lifetime of a generation.
"What are these among so many?" And with all the obstacles of foreign language and hoary superstitions to surmount before there could be even an approach or access to them. Our missionary workers-nay, even our missionary stations-are like stars set in the centres of vast vacancies. And, therefore, it is that with over 100 missionary organizations belting the globe, the unevangelized population of the world grows faster than the church; population strides more rapidly than evangelization can keep up with it; and there is to-day a larger number of unsaved souls on earth than during any previous decade of years.
Where lies the core of this difficulty? We have forsaken the standard set up for us by our Lord and adopted by the primitive church. To every human being our Lord's double message is "Follow me, and preach me." The command is representative. The only qualification necessary for preaching the kingdom is to be a subject in it; and every follower of Christ must be a fisher of men.
This is the doctrine of the New Testament, and this was the practice of the New Testament church. Our Lord laid down the law of evangelization: ALL ARE TO GO, AND TO GO TO ALL. The occasion on which, upon that Galilean mountain, He said: "Go make disciples of all nations," was, without doubt, the occasion on which he "was seen of above five hundred brethren at once," commissioning all disciples to make disciples.
And they accepted the commission. The persecution that followed Stephen's martyrdom scattered the disciples abroad, and they went everywhere, preaching the word.* Observe!-not the apostles, for they are expressly excepted, as remaining at Jerusalem. Philip, though only a deacon, not only evangelized but baptized. The careful reader of the" Acts of the Apostles" finds there the acts of a great many beside the Apostles. He finds there a vital truth of Scripture side by side with a vital fact of history. The obvious intent of our Lord was that every follower should be also a witness, warrior, worker, winner of souls. The so-called "ministry" properly exists in the interests of law and order, sound doctrine and safe polity; but does not properly exist as a clerical caste, drawing a line of division between the followers of Christ in the matter of work for souls. Neither the world nor the church can afford to confine or entrust this work of evangelization to a class. The world needs all disciples as heralds, if all men are to hear the gospel; and the church needs all her members to be workers if she is to fulfil her great commission, or even escape the dry rot of indolence and inaction. Growth there must be where life is, and action there must be where growth is. What we do not use we lose. Current alone keeps the stream from stagnating and freezing.
Go thou, whoever thou art, if thou followest the Lord, and preach the kingdom of God. This is a universal duty, an individual responsibility. It is not necessary to change our sphere, but only to pervade our sphere with a new spirit of life. "In whatsoever calling he is found, let every man therein abide with God."* Let him use the shoemaker's shop, the carpenter's bench, the merchant's desk, the artist's studio, the market stall, the senator's chair, the kitchen or nursery, the throne or palace, as the pulpit from which to preach Jesus. If, like Wesley and Whitefield, Moody and McAll, you can reach the multitudes with your voice, thank God for the privilege. But if not, perhaps, like John Pounds of Portsmouth, you can win the confidence of street gamins by a hot roast potato, or, like Maria Millis in the humble nursery, teach infant lips to pray, and sow in a child's heart the seeds of a mighty passion for souls that shall yet sway, with resistless persuasion, the Lords and Commons in Parliament! These opening words of salutation from the editors to the reader, are not the result of any sudden, transient outburst of feeling. Here are crystallized the solemn convictions reached or wrought by a quarter of a century of study and thought upon this great theme. Before the church stands a great problem, for which the Scriptures furnish the only practical, possible solution. The whole church must accept the duty of telling the old, old story. Each of us is his brother's keeper. Every hearer must become a herald. This is the theory of evangelization in a nutshell; and we have only to put this principle into practice, and the wisdom of our Lord's words will be demonstrated; we may thus bring the gospel to the ears of every living member of our ruined race before the bells of God's great clock of the ages shall ring in the natal hour of a new century.
"Go THOU, AND PREACH THE KINGDOM OF GOD."
A VIOLENT thunder storm once preserved the town of Basle from the shells of the Russians and Hungarians, who were besieging the place. The pious people, in gratitude, founded a training-school for Christian Missionaries. This was the origin of the Basle Missionary Society, which has sent out over five hundred devoted men to the heathen.
*1 Cor. vii.
MISSION WORK IN PAPAL EUROPE
MISSION WORK IN PAPAL EUROPE.
By WILLIAM CLARK, D.D., FLORENCE, ITALY.
[Dr. Clark has a right to speak on the subject which he here briefly intro- duces to the notice of our readers. During the past twenty-five years he has resided in Papal Europe and made its institutions, especially those of an educational character, a matter of special study. The female college which he has established at Florence is an important mission agency and deserves the sympathy and aid of American Christians, and especially of the friends of female Christian education. Previous to this-from 1850 to 1860-he was in the service of the A. B. C. F. M. in Turkey, having charge of the Bebek Theological Seminary, out of which grew Robert College.-EDs.) THE moral and spiritual transformation of Central and Southern Europe must be done for women and by women. Establishing evangeli- cal schools of higher female education is the great mission agency to be employed, and the agency the most successful of all others. It is not by any denominational propaganda arrayed against Popery, or by Protestant Mission Boards of England and the United States sending their forces into these countries with their agencies of sect. I have been intimately conversant with mission work in foreign and Papal lands for nearly forty years, and, with all my experience and observation during this long period, I am fully convinced that true and successful mission work can never be accomplished, especially in Papal Europe, by a strictly denominational agency. I speak what I know when I say that the greatest obstacle to the work of a true religious reform in Papal Europe for the last twenty-five years has been the introduction of different religious denominations, and the sectarian spirit that has characterized them. To do true Christian work in Europe, churches must leave sect at home, and carry alone the essentials of Christian salvation and Christian character.
In 1866, Hon. George P. Marsh, our honored Minister in Italy for thirty years, wrote me thus: "Garibaldi is right in saying that Italy must owe her salvation to her women. No country has produced, and none now produces, nobler women than this, and there never was a crisis when such could render greater service to the cause of humanity and truth than now." The union and independence of Italy, that have taken place since that time, have proved a powerful incentive in ennobling and quickening the life of woman. Nowhere is the regeneration of Italy more marked than in Italian female life. They now ask earnestly for a new and improved system of higher female education. They wish schools and colleges for women similar to those in America. Our system of higher female education has been made known in all these countries by the Expositions at Vienna and Paris. My classmate, Hon. John D. Philbrick of Boston, our Educational Commissioner at those expositions, made such a beautiful exhibit of our female schools and colleges as to make our system of female culture so popular that it is everywhere desired in all these countries, and desired as a system to take the place of the Convent system, with which from year to year they are more and more dissatisfied.
Establishing evangelical schools of higher female education would be setting up a great agency that would be attended with immense results, an agency having no sectarian taint to poison it, and most cordially welcomed by the people. In Italy, for instance, this agency affords us a rare opportunity of doing a most noble work for Italian young women of the higher classes, in bringing a high and ennobling religious influence, as well as a high culture among those who really have the destinies of their country in their hands.
The great obstacle to the regeneration of Italy, is woman. Educate woman, and bring her under a true religious influence, and Italy will quickly become a truly enlightened and a truly evangelized country. And this work is feasible, if means and lady teachers can be obtained among Christians of America. The present is a time so favorable for instituting a great enterprise and an undenominational mission agency, that I cannot but urge it upon the attention of Christian women in America. I have heard many Italians express deep regret that, in all Catholic Europe, there was not one superior college where they might send their daughters for a higher culture. Is not this fact a sad one, especially when we consider how much high Christian culture there is among the women of America and England? Is it true that this culture is really Christian and benevolent in its character? Why, then, are not greater efforts made to extend it among other nations? Establish, for instance, schools in Italy bearing the stamp of our culture and our religion. This would be the noblest possible way of doing mission work. It is not enough that we boast of our higher female education at home; we must consecrate it to the good of other nations.
We want $10,000 to make a college, already established in Florence, Italy, an agency of great good to all the Papal States of Europe. Similar schools we wish to establish in all the principal cities of Italy, Austria, France and Spain; and such schools will bring these countries into the kingdom of Christ. To the importance of this work we have the testimony and endorsement of the best men of all Christian nations. Lord Shaftsbury, J. B. Braithwaite of England, Sir William Muir, Prof. Calderwood of Scotland, Mark Hopkins, Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock, Mrs. ex-President Garfield, and many others in our own land-all these speak of this agency as mission work of the highest importance.
Many years ago Mrs. Emma Willard, of Troy Female Seminary, gave $3,000 to establish a school for young women in Greece. This school, nobly sustained by Mr. and Mrs. Hill, has educated more than 20,000 Greek young women.
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
James Hannington. By F. C. Dawson, M. A. A. D. F. Randolph & Co., N. Y.
This is a graphic story of the life and work of the first Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa. It has already gone through six editions in England, 'and two here. It is a thrilling narrative. There are many incidents of great interest in the volume; but the central figure is the manly, unselfish, heroic Hannington, whose martyrdom so shocked the Christian world. The reading of the book has suggested so many useful and instructive thoughts that it is the purpose of the editors to give hereafter a special article on the subject of this memoir.
The Cross and the Dragon. Rev. B. C. Henry of Canton. A. D. F. Randolph & Co.
Few books of 500 pages contain more interesting and useful matter. Mr. Henry is an acute observer. He has eyes and ears and knows how to use them: and he has the rare quality of being able, both by his tongue and pen, to reproduce in vivid, graphic style, those matters which are most apt to enchain the attention of the hearer or reader. This book will be one of the standard books on Missions.
Siam, or The Heart of Farther India. By Mary L. Cort. Published by Randolph.
This book, in size and style, corresponds to The Cross and the Dragon, and is not unlike it in value and power to interest and instruct. Few people know what a unique country and people are presented in this book, about which so little has been known until of late. The supreme king, Chulalangkorn, is a wise, intelligent, charitable monarch: like his father before him a patron of art, science and literature. In this empire all practical hindrances seem removed to missionary work. There have been no marked results which can be expressed in figures and statistics, but the gospel seems to be slowly but surely preparing for a great conquest. We advise everybody to read Miss Cort's book.
The Dragon, Image, and Demon: or, the Three Religions of China, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Iaoism, giving an account of the Mythology, Idolatry, and Demonolatry of the Chinese. By Rev. Hampden C. DuBose, fourteen years a missionary at Loochow. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. 12mo, pp. 468. 1887.
We give the full title of this book as explanatory of its contents. The work is profusely illustrated, and is gotten up in gorgeous yet appropriate style. Written by one who knows whereof he writes; who is familiar, from study and observation on the ground, with the system of religion and philosophy which he describes; and who has taken pains to gather information on a great variety of points little understood by the Christian world, it will prove a valuable addition to our missionary literature. The work is of interest to the general reader, as well as in all missionary circles. Even the London Saturday Review says of it: "It is a book likely to be widely read. Of the author's minute description of popular and household deities, and the mass of legend connected with them, the book and its curious illustrations can alone speak. Mr. DuBose has much to say that is fresh and suggestive, and he says it with force and conviction."
The Crisis of Missions: or, The Voice out of the Cloud. By Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D. D. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 12 mo, pp. 370.
Like all their issues, the publishers have given this little book an attractive dress, befitting the character of the work. It is a marvelous book, in its power to inform, impress, and electrify the reader. The grouping of inspiring facts; the rapid action of the discussion; the intense glow of missionary feeling; and the irresistible array of motives and argume~ts and
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK
Providential movements, all conspire to challenge the reader's attention, thrill his soul, and cause him to hear "the voice out of the cloud," as he never heard it before. If our beloved associate had not written the book, I should use still stronger language. I am not surprised that the reading public are showing their appreciation of it by exhausting six editions of it in one year!
Woman and the Gospel in Persia. By Rev. Thomas Laurie, D. D. Adoniram Judson. By Julia H. Johnston.
The Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions of the Northwest, located at Chicago, is publishing a series of brief works entitled" Missionary Annals." The first in the series was a Memoir of Robert Moffat. The two, whose titles are given above, form Nos. 2 and 3. Others are in preparation. They are neatly produced, and sold at a small price, only 30 cents in cloth. .
The plan is an excellent one. Its execution will greatly widen the circle of missionary readers and create a demand for larger works. The materials for the sketch of Dr. Judson were drawn from Dr. Wayland's memoir of him, from Dr. EdwardJudson's "Life" of his father, and from "The History of Baptist Missions." "Woman and the Gospel in Persia," is an abridgment of "Woman and her Saviour in Persia," by Dr. Laurie, and was generously prepared by him and presented to the Board which publishes it.
n.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK.
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
THE seventh annual meeting of the Board was held at Springfield, Mass., Oct. 5-8, 1887. It was a remarkable assemblage, both as to number and character—one hundred and sixty-five corporate members and over 800 ministers. The discussion of two reports from the Prudential Committee was long and earnest, and resulted in an overwhelming vote sustaining the policy of the Board. Still it was not unanimous, and the outcome of the trouble it is impossible to predict.
The editor of The Independent, who was present, gives the following as the substance of the action of the Board:
"1. That the Board, acting through its Prudential Committee, will hereafter as heretofore assume and exercise the right to judge and determine upon the qualifications of all persons applying to it for appointment and support as foreign missionaries. 2. That, in the judgment of the Board, the Word of God teaches that the moral conduct of men in this life, whether living and dying in heathen or Christian lands, is determinative of their condition and destiny in the life to come, and hence that this Word excludes the hypothesis that any persons who in this life have failed to secure the great salvation through Christ will, after death, have another probation in which salvation will be offered to them, and by them may be obtained. 3. That all persons applying to the Board for appointment and support as foreign missionaries, if holding as a positive faith or a probable hypothesis the doctrine of a second probation or that of this life continued into the next life, are to be regarded as not possessing the proper qualifications for such appointment and support, since, in either case, their position is contrary to the Word of God, and is calculated in its natural effects to impair the power of that Word over human hearts."
The report of the year's missionary operations was highly encouraging, and the several papers submitted by the Secretaries, particularly "The Appeal of the Hour," by Secretary Smith, and "The Message and Messenger," by Secretary Clark, were inspiring in the highest degree. We regret that our space will allow but a bird's-eye view of the year's results.
RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES.
From churches, individual donors, and Sunday-schools, $218,427.58. From the four Woman's Boards, $148,530.82 (from Woman's Board of Missions, $89,304.60; from Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior, $55,248.12; from the Woman's Board of Missions for the Pacific, $3,678.10; from the Woman's Board of Missions for the Pacific Isles, $300); a total of donations of $366,958.40. From legacies, $98,414.59, and from the income of the permanent funds, $11,071.28; making the total receipts from these sources, $476,444.27.
From the Swett bequest, set apart to meet special calls for a brief period of years in the evangelistic and educational departments of our missionary work abroad, $154,319.96 has been appropriated for the purposes named, including, for Japan, $43,745, and for China, $34,762.83.
From the Otis bequest, set apart for new missions, $48,808.31 has been devoted to work in West Central and East Central Africa, in Shanse, in Northern Japan, and in Northern Mexico.
These amounts, added to receipts from ordinary sources, with balance in the treasury at the beginning of the year, $1,381.49, make the total $680,954.03. The expenditures of the year amounted to $679,376.90, leaving a balance in the treasury of $1,577.13.
GENERAL SUMMARY. 1886-87.
| Item |
Number |
| Number of Missions |
22 |
| Number of Stations |
89 |
| Number of Out-Stations |
891 |
| Number of Ordained Missionaries (11 being Physicians) |
168 |
| Number of Physicians not Ordained, 8 men and 4 women |
12 |
| Number of other Male Assistants |
10 |
| Number of Women (wives 164; unmarried, besides Physicians, 107) |
271 |
| Whole number of laborers sent from this country |
461 |
| Number of Native Pastors |
155 |
| Number of Native Preachers and Catechists |
393 |
| Number of Native School-teachers |
1,164 |
| Number of other Native Helpers |
325—2,037 |
| Whole number of laborers connected with the Missions |
2,498 |
| Pages printed, as nearly as can be learned |
18,650,000 |
| Number of Churches |
325 |
| Number of Church Members |
28,042 |
| Added during the year |
2,906 |
| Whole number from the first, as nearly as can be learned |
101,089 |
| Number of High Schools, Theological Seminaries, and Station Classes |
55 |
| Number of Pupils in the above |
3,623 |
| Number of Boarding Schools for Girls |
41 |
| Number of Pupils in Boarding Schools for Girls |
2,318 |
| Number of Common Schools |
878 |
| Number of Pupils in Common Schools |
34,417 |
| Whole number under instruction |
41,151 |
CONCLUSION.
Such is the brief record of that great work which the Board sustains in twenty-two missions among unevangelized people in all parts of the earth. In almost 1,000 populous centres a force of 2,500 laborers, foreign and native, is preaching the gospel in twenty-five different languages, and conducting a great evangelistic and educational work. Fifteen new churches have been organized, and out of a total membership of 28,000, nearly 3,000 have made profession of faith this year. In ninety-six high schools and colleges 6,000 picked youths of both sexes are in training to reinforce the native agency, besides 34,000 pupils under Christian instruction and influence in common schools. And above all, the Christian character of the native converts is assuming greater depth and earnestness, and their share in evangelistic work is steadily increasing in value as well as in amount.
THE FIRST MONTH.—The financial beginning of the new year is favorable, the receipts being more than double those of the first month of the preceding year; amounting to $30,668.57, of which over $22,000 is from donations.
American Baptist Union.
THIS Union represents some 600,000 or 700,000 Baptists in the Northern and Western States, and is the second oldest foreign missionary society in the country. Its 73d annual meeting was held in Minneapolis, Minn., May 27-28. We give an abstract of its annual report.
Its first field was Burmah, where it has planted a vigorous and self-supporting Christianity, which, with its admirable system of schools and its missionary spirit, is making constant inroads on heathenism. Since Upper Burmah was opened to the world by the overthrow of King Thebaw, the Union has been sending missionaries into that kingdom. It has also a strong mission in India, among the Telugus, thousands of whom were gathered in during the remarkable awakening in South India some years ago. Besides these missions the Union has others in Assam and Siam, China, Japan, Africa (in Liberia and on the Congo), and in Europe.
The European missions are in Sweden, Germany, France, Spain, and Greece, where their membership foots up more than the Asiatic and African missions. In Sweden and Germany the work may be said to have passed the missionary stage. There are regular churches, ordained ministers, and associations of churches and ministers. In Sweden alone there are 460 churches, a gain of 26 the past year, 483 preachers, and 31,064 members. In Germany there are more members (33,451), but fewer churches and ministers. The latter number 450, of whom 300 are unordained, and the churches count up to 168 only. The work of the year was very successful, if we may judge from the fact that there were 3,473 baptisms in Sweden, and 2,530 in Germany. An effort is being made to reach the Finns, of whom there are about two millions, who are said to be in a state of dense spiritual darkness. They seem anxious to know the truth and be saved. The amount of contributions in Sweden last year was $79,187.
Germany received $5,628 from the Union, raising among its own churches $98,900. The German Baptist Union, consisting of 13 associations, embraces missions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Russia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Denmark, and Africa. The mission was begun by Johan Gerhard Oncken, a German who married and settled in England and became an Independent. Traveling in Lower Saxony, as an agent of a Bible and a tract society, he organized a Baptist church in that kingdom and became its pastor. This was in 1834. Next year he was appointed missionary of what is now the American Baptist Missionary Union, and he went all over Germany and Denmark preaching and baptizing. From this beginning have sprung all the churches and missions in connection with the German Baptist Union. There is an association in Austria embracing 5 churches, 62 stations, and 930 members; one among the Poles, with 8 churches, 52 stations, and 2,624 members; two in Russia, with a total of 18 churches, 183 stations, and 5,026 members; one on the Baltic with 4 churches, 9 stations, and 1,206 members; one in Denmark, with 22 churches, 101 stations, and 2,181 members; and one in South Africa, with 3 churches, 16 stations, and 676 members. Of the 58,108 members which are returned from the Asiatic and African missions 26,574 are in Burmah and Siam, showing an increase for the year of over 700. A special difficulty in the work in Burmah is the fact of the division of the population in language and race characteristics, requiring distinct missions to the Burmans, the Karens, the Shans, the Kachins, and the Chins. And these separate missions are to be found in the same territory, in the same towns and cities. In Henthada, for example, there is a Burman, a Karen, and a Chin department; and the Karens are sometimes divided into the Red-Karen, Bghai-Karen, and Paku-Karen departments, and there are still other varieties of Karens. The majority of the members in Burmah are Karens, who are an inferior people and were formerly slaves to the Burmans. The total of baptisms in Burmah last year was 1,794. The appropriations from the Union aggregated about $100,000, to which the mission added about $35,000 for churches, schools, and general benevolence. The missionary force is 107, and the number of ordained and unordained ministers 513. Of the 510 churches, 310 are self-supporting. In the 7 stations in Assam are 1,922 members, gathered in 30 churches, of which four are self-sustaining. The field in India is among the Telugus. This was for many years a fruitless mission, but it now reports more members than the Burmah mission, and was the most fruitful mission last year in the list of the Union, returning 1,000 of the 1,668 net gain of all the missions.
The mission in China reports 1,516 members in 18 churches, of which 4 are self-supporting. There are 519 members in Japan, with 13 churches, only one of which pays its own expenses.
The African mission is yet in its infancy. A few years ago the mission received the Congo mission from the Livingstone Inland Mission, an undenominational organization, which had its headquarters in Cardiff, Wales. There are now seven stations on the Congo, one being at Stanley Pool and one at the equator, above the Pool.
The following is a summary of results for the seventy-three years of the Union's operations:
| Members in its mission fields |
125,530 |
| Number of churches |
1,265 |
| Number of preachers |
1,730 |
| Baptisms last year |
9,342 |
| Income of the Union the past year from all sources |
$406,639 |
The American Missionary Association
HELD its 41st Annual Meeting in Portland, Me., Oct. 25-27, 1887. Items from its Annual Report: The receipts of the year cover all the expenses of the year, wipe out the debt of $5,000 with which the year began, and leave $2,193.80 with which to start out on the coming year.
EDUCATIONAL WORK IN THE SOUTH.
Total number of schools planted in the Southern States is fifty-four. Six of these are chartered institutions, fairly entitled to the rank of Colleges. Sixteen are Normal and Training Schools. Thirty-two are common schools, scattered throughout nine different States. In these schools are 246 instructors and 8,616 pupils.
CHURCH WORK.
| Number of Churches |
127 |
| Number of Missionaries |
103 |
| Number of Church members |
7,896 |
| Added during the year |
1,197 |
| Scholars in our Sunday-schools |
15,109 |
These statistics show a substantial gain over last year. Seven new churches were organized.
There has been during the year a quiet Christian work throughout the South, which has borne gratifying fruits, over 1,000 having confessed Christ for the first time. The Sunday-school enrollment has increased by nearly 2,000. They contributed this year for benevolence, outside of their own work, $2,322.51, and for their own church purposes, $16,014.50, making a grand total of $18,337.01. This was an increase over the previous year of $610.96 in their benevolences, and $3,075.61 in the total. This is an average contribution of $2.32 per member for every man, woman and child in these churches.
INDIAN WORK, chiefly in Nebraska and Dakota. The following is the summary:
| Churches |
5 |
| Church members |
370 |
| Added during the year |
43 |
| Schools |
18 |
| Pupils in Schools |
608 |
| Missionaries and Teachers |
61 |
CHINESE WORK.
| Missions |
17 |
| Missionaries |
28 |
| Pupils enrolled |
1,044 |
| Hopeful conversions |
150 |
| Given up to idolatry |
211 |
RECEIPTS.
| From Churches, Sabbath-schools, Missionary Societies and individuals |
$189,483.39 |
| Estates and Legacies |
52,266.73 |
| Income, Sundry Funds |
10,561.07 |
| Tuition and Public Funds |
28,964.81 |
| Rents |
478.10 |
| United States Government for Education of Indians |
17,357.21 |
| Slater Fund, paid to Institutions |
7,650.00 |
| Total |
$306,761.31 |
The total disbursements for the year have been $298,783.80, a decrease in the expenditures of last year of $13,467.
Foreign Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
FROM 52d Annual Report, closing Sept 1st, we glean the following facts and figures:
In Japan the advance is rapid. In Africa, notwithstanding the political disturbance at the lower end of the Missionary Jurisdiction of Cape Palmas, the workers are brave and true and the work is being systematically prosecuted; not only in the localities with which the Church has been familiar for years, but also in the regions beyond. In China, the evangelistic work, largely conducted by the native clergy, as well as the parochial work among the converts, and that of the day and boarding-schools and St. John's College, and the medical mission, each has its own story to tell of diligence and encouragement, notwithstanding the publications during the year which have given the impression that the work in China is suffering. Bishop Holly makes his own report of the labors of himself and of his little band of clergy in Haiti. It is a story of energetic labor amid discouraging conditions and with limited resources. All of these statements will be fully borne out by the particulars that will be submitted. Still the call is for more workers. The fields are indeed white unto the harvest. We thank God that the whole Church is praying, in the Litany, that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers into his harvest.
Analysis of Receipts for Foreign Missions in the Last Ten Years.
| Year |
Whole No. of Parishes* |
No. of Parishes Contributing to For. Mis. |
Receipts from Contributions |
Receipts from Legacies |
Total (Appropriations) |
Receipts from Contributions (Specials) |
Receipts from Legacies (Specials) |
Total (Specials) |
Gross receipts for the year |
| 1877-8 |
2,900 |
1,170 |
$91,539 67 |
$17,974 98 |
$109,514 65 |
$24,456 92 |
$6,000 00 |
$30,456 92 |
$139,971 57 |
| 1878-9 |
2,900 |
1,163 |
95,846 02 |
16,709 86 |
112,555 88 |
35,771 96 |
275 00 |
36,046 96 |
148,602 84 |
| 1879-80 |
2,900 |
1,217 |
†117,042 45 |
27,458 33 |
144,500 78 |
17,583 47 |
— |
17,583 47 |
162,084 25 |
| 1880-1 |
3,000 |
1,230 |
‡136,993 18 |
22,977 06 |
159,970 24 |
25,788 05 |
— |
25,788 05 |
185,758 29 |
| 1881-2 |
3,000 |
1,487 |
128,945 80 |
31,168 41 |
160,114 21 |
13,233 84 |
500 00 |
13,733 84 |
173,848 05 |
| 1882-3 |
3,000 |
1,375 |
§116,772 63 |
28,230 82 |
145,003 45 |
13,927 05 |
— |
13,927 05 |
158,930 50 |
| 1883-4 |
3,000 |
1,389 |
111,299 20 |
9,638 70 |
120,937 90 |
7,843 68 |
6,200 00 |
14,043 68 |
134,981 58 |
| 1884-5 |
3,000 |
1,412 |
103,223 31 |
76,087 47 |
179,310 78 |
17,017 16 |
2,000 00 |
19,017 16 |
198,327 94 |
| 1885-6 |
3,450 |
1,996 |
137,982 82 |
12,929 30 |
150,912 12 |
14,355 58 |
100,400 00 |
114,755 58 |
265,667 70 |
| 1886-7 |
3,450 |
1,814 |
126,410 74 |
6,926 42 |
133,327 16 |
21,781 79 |
— |
21,781 79 |
155,108 95 |
*From Church Almanac. †Including $4,250, specifically contributed toward paying off the Mexican Loan. ‡Including a single gift of $13,200, and also $2,000 for Mexican Loan. §Including $2,481.50 for Mexican Loan.
This table shows the exact resources for Foreign Missions of the Board of Managers since its organization in 1877. During the decade there have been but three years in which the contributions for the general work have exceeded those of the past year, and in two instances that excess is accounted for in the table. At the same time the amount received from legacies available for the work of the Society in Foreign Lands is much less than in any other of the ten years named.
The total receipts of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society for the year were $402,440.52, a decrease of $1,732.45 from previous year. The receipts for Domestic Missions were $219,439.33.
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.
ABSTRACT of the 50th annual report presented to the General Assembly at its meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, May, 1887.
No less than eight of the missionaries of the Board have died during the year, while seven ordained and three medical missionaries, and six lady teachers, have permanently withdrawn during the same time. To strengthen the posts weakened by this depletion, the Board has sent out during the year seven ordained missionaries, of whom six were married, eight medical missionaries, of whom two were ladies, and eleven unmarried ladies.
Work has been prosecuted among 11 tribes of American Indians, and the Chinese and Japanese in the United States; in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil and Chili; in Africa, among the inhabitants of Liberia, and those of the Gaboon and Corisco region; and in Asia in important centers of influence in India, Siam, China, Japan, Korea, Persia, and Syria. In addition to this the Board has rendered substantial assistance to the evangelical work in Papal Europe through approved societies on the Continent. There have been in commission during the year, 173 ordained missionaries, 30 laymen, mostly physicians, and 296 ladies. Besides these, the missionary force includes 134 native ordained ministers, and 154 licentiates, which, with 756 Bible readers, catechists, etc., makes a total force in the employ of the Board during the year of 1,543. Three hundred and ten organized churches are on the roll, with 21,420 communicants, of whom 2,791 were added during the year. These churches report contributions to the amount of $28,552. The aggregate attendance on schools of all grades was 23,329.
In the various fields occupied by the Board there has been much to encourage, and yet not a little to perplex and disturb. In some of the missions, the Holy Spirit has so sealed the truth upon the hearts and consciences of the people that precious ingatherings have been witnessed, and the joy of harvest experienced. In others it has been a time mainly of diligent sowing and patient waiting. When the deep poverty of many of those gathered out of heathenism is remembered, the contributions of native Christians for the support of the Gospel during the year indicate high attainment in the grace of Christian beneficence. In some parts of the field a noteworthy advance has been made in the measure of government favor accorded to our missionaries, as in China, Japan and Siam, showing that the mission work is commending itself to those in high position, and that the door of access to the nations is constantly widening. On the other hand, the restrictions of the French government, in the territory occupied by the Gaboon and Corisco Mission have become so severe, as virtually to tie the hands of our missionaries, and to drive them from the field. After repeated efforts to secure some modification of the restrictions imposed, the Board has felt constrained, at the urgent request of the brethren on the field, to take measures to transfer that mission to another evangelical body, should the way be clear, and secure a foothold, if possible, within German territory.
RECEIPTS FOR THE YEAR.
| From Churches and Sabbath-schools |
$360,231.51 |
| Woman's Boards |
248,649.59 |
| Individual and miscellaneous sources |
72,006.65 |
| Legacies |
103,269.84 |
| Total |
$784,157.59 |
| Expenditures of the Board |
$722,494.90 |
| Add the debt of last year |
57,853.28 |
|
$780,348.18 |
| Leaving a balance in treasury of |
$3,809.41 |
This shows an increase last year of $55,618.14, although $34,696.39 was a special gift for the debt in the previous year's receipts.
The Assembly resolved to aim at the raising of $1,000,000 for the current year for foreign missions.
EXPENDITURES AND STATISTICS OF THE MISSIONS.
For missions among 11 tribes of Indians, with which are connected 15 American and 13 Indian preachers, 2 Indian licentiate preachers, 3 American laymen and 35 women, 15 native assistants, 1,741 communicants, and 13 schools, with 422 scholars, of whom 194 are in boarding-schools—$28,839.79.
For missions to the Chinese in this country, with stations in New York, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and other places, in connection with which are 4 ministers, 8 female teachers (unsalaried teachers not enumerated), 7 native assistants, 286 communicants, and 17 schools, with 779 scholars, not including pupils in Sabbath-school—$17,909.57.
For mission in Japan, at 4 stations and several outstations, with 12 American and 11 native ministers, 15 licentiate preachers, 2 American laymen and 31 women, 2,178 communicants, and 11 schools, connected with which are 1,184 scholars, of whom 200 are in boarding-schools—$63,166.27.
For 3 missions in China, with 13 stations and over 150 outstations, 36 ordained Americans and 15 ordained natives, 35 licentiate preachers, 8 American laymen and 49 women, 144 native assistants, 4,306 communicants, and 94 schools, with 1,983 scholars, of whom 572 are in boarding-schools—$102,626.57.
For mission in Korea, with 1 American minister, 2 American laymen and 3 women—$8,868.63.
For 2 missions in Siam and Laos, at 4 stations and 14 outstations, 11 American ministers, 4 native licentiate preachers, 3 American laymen and 17 women, 23 native assistants, 676 communicants, and 14 schools, with 380 scholars, of whom 112 are in boarding-schools—$37,928.20.
For 3 missions in India, at 25 stations, 13 outstations, with 35 American and 19 native ministers, 31 licentiate preachers, 2 American laymen and 57 women, 216 native assistants, 1,033 communicants, and 9,671 scholars—$113,317.21.
For 2 missions in Persia, with 5 stations and about 100 outstations, 10 American and 32 native ministers, 35 licentiate preachers, 5 American laymen and 30 women, 120 native assistants, 2,052 communicants, 115 schools, with 2,731 scholars, of whom 230 are in boarding-schools—$61,430.83.
For mission in Syria, at 5 stations and 86 outstations, connected with which are 13 American and 4 native ministers, 32 licentiate preachers, 1 American layman and 23 women, 143 native assistants, 1,440 communicants, 119 schools, with 5,172 scholars, 270 of whom are in boarding-schools—$55,248.22.
For mission in Liberia, Africa, 7 stations, 3 American and 3 native ministers, 1 American layman, 1 woman, 1 native assistant, 284 communicants, 5 schools, and 157 scholars, of whom 88 are in boarding-schools—$3,669.17.
For Gaboon and Corisco Mission, at 6 stations and several outstations, with 5 ordained American and 3 ordained native ministers, 2 licentiates, 1 American lay missionary and 9 women, 14 native assistants, 688 communicants—$20,216.79.
For missions in Brazil, at 9 stations and several outstations, with 10 American and 6 native ministers, 2 licentiates, 1 male and 12 female missionaries, 29 native assistants, 1,895 communicants, 21 schools, with 518 scholars, of whom 42 are in boarding-school—$50,640.59.
For mission in Chili, at 3 stations, 8 ministers, 1 native minister, 4 native licentiates, 6 female teachers, 11 native assistants, 449 communicants, and 3 schools, with 260 scholars, of whom 27 are in boarding-school—$23,089.59.
For mission in U. S. of Colombia, at 1 station, with 2 American ministers, 3 female missionaries, 5 native assistants, 66 communicants, and 1 school, with 50 scholars, of whom 10 are in boarding-school—$5,798.99.
For mission in Guatemala, at 1 station, 2 female missionaries, 12 communicants, and 1 school, with 26 scholars—$4,536.72.
For mission in Mexico, with 6 stations, and about 100 outstations, 8 American and 27 native ministers, 21 licentiates, 12 female missionaries, 29 native assistants, 4,314 communicants, and 20 schools, with 620 (partial report) scholars, of whom 51 are in boarding-schools—$80,597.82.
For missions in European Papal countries—France, Belgium, Italy, etc.—$4,354.70.
For Home Expenses—printing, salaries, miscellaneous—$36,727.93.
| Total receipts |
$784,157.59 |
| Total payments (including debt of $57,853.28) |
780,348.18 |
| Balance, April 30, 1887 |
$3,809.41 |
Financial Exhibit of All the Boards of Presbyterian Church, 1886-87.
| Board |
Balance, 1886 |
Debt, 1886 |
Receipts |
Expenditures |
Balance, 1887 |
Debt, 1887 |
| 1. Home Missions |
— |
— |
*$640,258.03 |
$604,937.02 |
— |
$21,687.77 |
| Sustentation |
$8,180.45 |
— |
13,198.00 |
16,423.60 |
$4,954.85 |
— |
| 2. Foreign Missions |
— |
57,853.28 |
784,157.59 |
780,348.18 |
3,809.41 |
— |
| 3. Education |
— |
2,600.92 |
67,149.59 |
84,657.10 |
— |
14,906.59 |
| 4. Sabbath-school Work |
— |
24,511.42 |
49,751.29 |
50,175.36 |
— |
24,935.49 |
| 5. Church Erection—a. Churches |
18,794.73 |
— |
84,080.14 |
97,343.79 |
15,837.36 |
— |
| b. Manses |
26,297.00 |
— |
1,022.46 |
10,737.34 |
9,767.12 |
— |
| 6. Relief |
5,685.92 |
— |
142,009.10 |
120,619.23 |
— |
21,389.87 |
| 7. Freedmen |
— |
6,200.81 |
115,203.83 |
123,134.26 |
— |
14,131.24 |
| 8. Aid for Colleges |
— |
— |
53,279.66 |
53,279.66 |
— |
— |
| Totals |
$58,958.10 |
$134,800.93 |
$1,950,109.69 |
$1,941,655.64 |
$33,868.74 |
$97,050.96 |
*Includes $13,368.28 for investment.
United Presbyterian Church.
Abstract from the 28th Annual Report, presented May 26, 1887.
The Board report a year of unusual interest. "Every department of the work has shown the signal presence and favor of God." In the Indian mission, 1,934 professed Christ. The native church increased from 2,176 members in 1885 to 4,019 at the close of 1886. A marked advance was made also in Egypt. At home additional interest has been shown. Women's Missionary Societies increased from 501 to 593; members from 13,585 to 15,004; and contributions to foreign missions from $10,765 to $13,803.
MISSIONS.
There are two—one in the Punjab, or northwestern Province of India, and the other in the Delta and valley of the Nile in Egypt. In the former, the mission embraces the eight districts, Sialkot, Zafarwal, East and West Gujranwala, Jhelum, Gurdaspur, Pasrur and Pathankot with their several hundred villages. The latter has the districts of Alexandria, Cairo, Mansoora, the Fayoom, Lower, Middle and Upper Thebaid, and is in as many as possible of the 12,293 town and villages that are in them and the country at large.
GENERAL SUMMARY.
Missions 2, Stations 121, Foreign Missionaries 16, married women 16, single 20, Physicians 2. Total foreign laborers 54. Native ordained ministers 20, licentiates 9, other workers 346. Total native workers 375. Total of all laborers 429. Churches 31, Average Sabbath attendance 7,759. Communicants 6,161. Increase during the year (India 2,030, Egypt 311) 2,341. Baptisms 2,881. Sabbath-schools 138. Sabbath-school scholars 5,625. Other schools 192. Scholars in them 9,219. Contributions for church purposes $5,587. Appraised value of mission property $325,701.
RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES. The receipts for the year were:
| Source |
1886 |
1887 |
| To balance brought forward |
— |
$400.00 |
| Presbyteries |
$43,342.46 |
48,339.56 |
| Sabbath Schools |
5,706.28 |
8,536.89 |
| Ladies' Societies |
6,796.19 |
8,803.48 |
| Individuals |
9,801.64 |
5,002.07 |
| Women's Auxiliary Bds. |
— |
1,626.76 |
| Interest |
884.43 |
1,994.99 |
| Bequests |
18,705.54 |
8,737.92 |
| Gibson Trust Fund |
716.23 |
902.13 |
| Total |
85,952.77 |
84,343.80 |
The Expenditures for the year were for the Egyptian Mission $37,620.45, for India $30,351.04, for sending out, returning, and new missionaries $4,325.60, for salaries and children of missionaries at home $5,056.02, for other necessary home expenses $1,899.07, for payment of debt to Quarter Centennial fund $5,091.62, and for payment of debt to Egyptian mission $3,248.70, making a total of $87,592.50. The contributions of the church were less by $3,648.70 than the expenditures.
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
III.-CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
ONE of our esteemed editorial correspondents, Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D., writes us in the following inspiring words:
A World's Missionary Council.
THE MISSIONARY REVIEW will, if God prosper the enterprise, fulfilling the hopes and prayers of its conductors, become in some sort a realization of a certain broad and beneficent idea lately breathed in a published volume. One of the editors of this REVIEW, in a book entitled "The Crisis of Missions," proposes in the serene boldness of faith, the plan of holding an Œcumenical Council of a new order, a Pan-Christian Conference in behalf of Missions in every part of the world. A "World's Missionary Council," he calls it.
The idea is inspiring. There is a tonic audacity in it. It has the spirit of the beginning of the era of modern missions. It might have been William Carey's proposal. Its motto well might read, "Expect great things from God."
THE MISSIONARY REVIEW is already in purpose something like a fulfillment of such a noble dream. It offers to be a council in perpetual session, to consult for the spread of the Gospel throughout the whole earth. It will do what it can to bring about, in God's good time, the actual convening of Christendom in a council to concert measures for the speedy evangelization of the world. The reflex influence upon present Christendom of an effort to make itself commensurate with mankind would be such a strengthening of the things among us at home that remain, and that, without such a forthputting like this of power to save, are themselves ready to faint—such a strengthening, we say, as would mark an historic epoch in the advance of Christianity comparable to that of the Protestant Reformation—comparable, but, perhaps, superior.
May that God who has promised His Son the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, graciously accept each successive number of this REVIEW as one more prayer of His expecting Church,
THY KINGDOM COME!
China Inland Mission.
Letter from J. Hudson Taylor, our London Editorial Correspondent:
LONDON, Nov. 1st, 1887.
DEAR DR. PIERSON:
May I, for Mr. Radcliffe, as well as myself, reply to your kind letters about Editorial Correspondents? We are both so circumstanced that, while we should be very willing to be occasional correspondents, we could not undertake to write at regular intervals, or to any large extent. For myself, I must also add that perhaps half my time is spent in China and half in England.
We are both in hearty sympathy with you, and would gladly do anything in our power to help you. May the Lord make the REVIEW more than ever a blessing and a success.
Yours, faithfully,
J. HUDSON TAYLOR.
One of our editorial correspondents, Dr. H. H. Jessup, of Syria, writes a private letter, but it is of such public interest that we venture to print it. It was in acknowledgment of a copy of the little book on missions recently sent by the author to his old friend in Syria.—A. T. P.
BEIRUT, SYRIA, May 9, 1887.
MY DEAR BROTHER PIERSON:
I have just received a copy of your excellent book, "The Crisis of Missions," with your card, and write to tell you how highly I value the book.
Your preliminary word, that "the spirit of Christ is the spirit of Missions," is the keynote to the whole book, and should be the keynote of the life of every Christian disciple. One of the problems which I cannot solve, and which I shall be anxious to have solved when I reach the kingdom of glory, is this: "How will those Christians who say that they do not believe in missions explain their position to the glorified Redeemer?"
There can be no question as to your position on this great subject. I trust every young man and woman in our colleges and seminaries will be enabled in some way to read this stirring volume. But perhaps I was hasty in writing that sentence. For supposing that they should read it, and be stirred and thrilled by it as I have been, and hundreds of them should be led to say, "Lord, here am I; send me." "Churches of Christ, here we are; send us:" and all this in addition to the 1,500 mentioned by Dr. McCosh in his letter who have already decided to go, what would be the effect on the churches? Of one thing I am sure, and that is, that while a few "Thomas" churches might doubt and even despair, the great body of Christ's own children everywhere would be set on fire with the conviction that now is the Crisis; that God hath verily spoken to his people; that the silver trumpet has sounded the note of advance; that the church must either rise to the duty of the hour, or be swept aside, and another church be raised up to do the work.
I have just had under my roof that devoted man of God, Major General Haig, long in India, and now from England, who has just journeyed all around the west, south and east coast of Arabia, looking for openings for planting Missionary and Bible Stations; and his reports which are appearing in the Church Missionary Intelligencer are like the journals of an apostle.
The fact is that the last bolts and bars with which Satan clinched the gates of heathen empires centuries ago are dropping to the ground, and the rusty hinges are creaking open while the imprisoned nations stand wondering and waiting for the liberty of Christ.
Let us continue, my dear brother, to lift up our voices and call on our brethren and sisters everywhere to go forward.
I was greatly moved, when a lad, by reading Dr. Enoch Pond's "World's Salvation." But the facts and figures of that book, as I recall them, were far less stirring than those of your little volume. The darkness and the want then existed and were well described, but the open doors were few, and the actual call for men quite limited. But now the 1,500 candidates preparing to go could find work ready to their hands in Japan, or in Interior Africa.
The church's ear seems to be heavy and the church's hand to be shortened, while the Lord is calling louder and louder, and His mighty providence is moving on.
For years I have been waiting to hear Brother Moody's voice on this great subject of Foreign Missions, and now that he has thrown his heart and help and voice into the work, the Lord has granted a rich blessing. Your plan of apportioning out the unevangelized world among the Christian churches is a grand one. See how the nations of Europe are cutting and carving the continent of Africa for their own commercial objects! It is time that the whole world were thus taken possession of for Jesus our King.
We are working on quietly here in Syria. Our last annual report shows a greater advance than in any previous year, in additions to the church and in all other departments of our work.
Yours, affectionately,
HENRY HARRIS JESSUP.
Japan.
Rev. James H. Ballagh writes:
YOKOHAMA, May 4, 1887.
REV. DR. PIERSON:
Dear Brother—Knowing well your interest in mission work in general, and also something of your interest in particular in Japan, through your acquaintance with native brethren, now members of your church or residents of your city, I take the liberty to present the claims of an interesting field of work for assistance. It is to ask aid for help in erecting a church building at Tokosuka, the naval station in this part of Japan, and where most of their ship-building is carried on. There are extensive dry docks and works there, several marine hospitals, a fleet of vessels, and a considerable body of marines, besides a very live and enterprising population. Iniquity is also very active. The brothels are large, and thronged at night like a fair—the veritable Vanity Fair of "Pilgrim's Progress." To the outside world it is interesting as being a most beautiful land-locked harbor in an inner bay of Yedo bay, near Perry and Webster islands.
At this place the French Romanists had a fine chapel when they commenced work at the navy yard, but it has been sold for old lumber on their loss of influence in Japan. There is now an active Protestant Church of our United Church of Christ in Japan with 76 members. It is only of two or three years' growth. The work was commenced mostly under Dr. Saiki's influence, and, though himself a Congregationalist, he threw his influence in favor of a Presbyterian Church being established here. The Church meets in greatly straitened quarters at present. As the town is small, lots expensive, and few houses to let, the Church desires to build a suitable chapel. One thousand dollars will secure land and erect a modest building. $500 we hope to be able to raise here, and they would like an equal amount in gold from America. Their pastor, the Rev. Ito Tokichi, is an indefatigable worker and an excellent Christian man. The membership is largely doctors—naval physicians—and their families.
Hoping that some practical manifestation of the hearty interest which American Christians take in the establishment of Christ's cause in Japan may result from this appeal,
I am sincerely yours in Christ,
JAMES H. BALLAGH.
Revised Edition of Dr. Judson's Burmese Bible.
The following extract from a recent private letter of the Rev. Dr. Jameson, Baptist Missionary in Burmah, to his seminary classmate, Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D., will be read with interest. The date is Rangoon, Aug. 31, 1887:
"I am here for two weeks on the proofs, for I have agreed to give half my time to watching the new edition of Dr. Judson's Burman Bible through the press. I read each form seven times. Once correcting copy, and three times for typographical and other errors—besides verifying corrections. Of course I have good native help. But they need me as much as I need them. When I go back to my own district, I take my work along. For example, on that jungle trip, I corrected eight pages of the quarto for copy. After the Bible was printed, Dr. Judson made many changes in spelling, and the spelling of the Bible must be corrected from the dictionary. The whole must also be newly punctuated, and Dr. Judson's own corrections of the text must be made. When I am away, I leave the work in the hands of the Burman proof-readers, who do their best, and these forms I read only five times. But no form is put to press except when I am here. I will send you the next form with an English word in it, that will tell you where we are. When you receive it, you may comfort yourself with the thought that we are through that Book [Deuteronomy], probably."
India.
Communication from Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., Madanapelle, India, one of our editorial correspondents:
A Brahmin on the Bible.
In 1870, after three years of baffled effort, a lot was obtained in the bazaar street of the native town of Madanapalle, Madras Presidency, India, and a free reading room was erected and opened by the missionary in charge, Rev. J. Chamberlain, M.D., of the Arcot Mission of the Reformed Church of America. It was designed to obtain a hold of the educated young men of the place. Well-stocked with newspapers, periodicals and books, and with copies of the Bible in seven different languages on the tables, and with Scriptures, tracts, Christian books and school books for sale, it was thrown open for their use on every week-day and evening, with the exception that on Wednesday evenings there was to be a Biblical lecture, which all were invited to attend.
On each lecture evening a parable, a miracle, a biography, a prophecy, a sermon on Christ, a historical account—as of the creation, deluge, Joseph in Egypt, the exodus, etc.—was taken up and illustrated. While it was endeavored to make the lectures attractive as a literary treat, the bearing of each subject on the gospel of Jesus Christ and His salvation was never lost sight of.
From the beginning the room was always crowded on these occasions by intelligent heathen. At the close of one of these Bible lectures by Dr. Chamberlain, a Brahmin—one of the best educated in the place, not a convert—arose and asked permission to say a few words. In a neat address he urged upon his fellow-citizens the importance of availing themselves of the advantages offered for their intellectual and moral advancement, and in conclusion gave the following remarkable testimony to the Christian Scriptures:
"Behold that mango tree on yonder roadside! Its fruit is approaching to ripeness. Bears it that fruit for itself or its own profit? From the moment the first ripe fruits turn their yellow sides towards the morning sun until the last mango is pelted off, it is assailed with showers of sticks and stones from boys and men, and every passer-by, until it stands bereft of leaves, with branches knocked off, bleeding from many a broken twig; and piles of stones underneath, and clubs and sticks lodged in its boughs, are the only trophies of its joyous crop of fruit. Is it discouraged? Does it cease to bear fruit? Does it say, 'If I am barren no one will pelt me, and I shall live in peace?' Not at all. The next season the budding leaves, the beauteous flowers, the tender fruit again appear. Again it is pelted, and broken, and wounded, but goes on bearing, and children's children pelt its branches and enjoy its fruit.
"That is a type of these missionaries. I have watched them well, and have seen what they are. What do they come to this country for? What tempts them to leave their parents, friends and country, and come to this, to them an unhealthy climate? Is it for gain or for profit that they come? Some of us country clerks in Government offices receive more salary than they. Is it for an easy life? See how they work, and then tell me. No; they seek, like the mango tree, to bear fruit for the benefit of others; and this, too, though treated with contumely and abuse from those they are benefiting.
"Now look at this missionary! He came here a few years ago, leaving all, and seeking only our good! He was met with cold looks and suspicious glances, and was shunned, avoided and maligned. He sought to talk with us of what he told us was the matter of most importance in heaven or earth, and we would not listen. But he was not discouraged. He started a dispensary, and we said, 'Let the Pariahs take his medicines, we won't;' but in the times of our sickness and distress and fear, we had to go to him, and he heard us. We complained if he walked through our Brahmin streets; but ere long, when our wives and daughters were in sickness and anguish, we went and begged him to come, even into our inner apartments; and he came, and our wives and daughters now smile upon us in health. Has he made any money by it? Even the cost of the medicines has not been returned to him.
"And now, in spite of our opposition, he has bought this site, and built this beautiful room, and furnished it with the choicest of lore in many languages, and put in it newspapers and periodicals, which were inaccessible to us before, but which help us now to keep up with the world around us, and understand passing events; and he has placed here tables to write on, and chairs to sit on, and lamps for us to read and write by in the evening; and what does he get for all this? Does he make money by this free reading-room? Why, we don't even pay for the lamp-oil consumed by night as we read.
"Now, what is it makes him do all this for us? It is his Bible. I have looked into it a good deal at one time and another, in the different languages I chanced to know. It is just the same in all languages. The Bible—there is nothing to compare with it in all our sacred books for goodness and purity and holiness and love, and for motives of action.
"Where did the English-speaking people get all their intelligence, and energy, and cleverness, and power? It is their Bible that gives it to them. And now they bring it to us and say, 'This is what raised us; take it and raise yourselves.' They do not force it upon us, as the Mohammedans did with their Koran, but they bring it in love, and translate it into our languages, and lay it before us, and say, 'Look at it; read it; examine it, and see if it is not good.' Of one thing I am convinced: do what we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christians' Bible that will, sooner or later, work the regeneration of this land."
Death of Rev. E. P. Swift.
Rev. G. W. Scott, of the Reformed Presbyterian Mission, India, writes Sept. 17, 1887:
The Rev. Elisha P. Swift died at his residence, Gujranwala, North India, Aug. 16th, 1887. His health began to fail about a year ago, when he had a fall while out in the district. Still he kept on with his duties, whether the weather was hot or cold, wet or dry, realizing that he was approaching the gates of death, preaching as a dying man to dying men. He was taken sick while in the district looking after the Christians he had baptized with his own hands, who were scattered through the towns and villages of western Gujranwala, many hundreds in number; for in some months he baptized as many as three or four hundred persons. His co-laborer, the Rev. J. P. McKee, was with him to the last. About a month before his death he was confined to his house with carbuncles, caused by diabetes, which caused him great pain. Yet he bore all with Christian patience, knowing that the Hand which afflicts is able to heal. His death was a peaceful and quiet one, surrounded by his wife and children, whom he leaves to mourn his loss. His funeral procession was a very large one, attended by several hundreds of people—the majority being from the Hindu and Mohammedan classes. These people, while opposed to Christianity, had learned to love the "man of God," and followed his remains to his last resting place, which is in the Church of England graveyard, close to the city of Gujranwala.
Africa.—Nothing was known of the interior of the Dark Continent until within a few years; now Africa is girdled with Christian missions. Between thirty and forty societies are working there. On the eastern coast the English penetrated to the great lakes, walking over the burning sands a thousand miles on foot, to plant the standard of the Cross. On the Congo River the Baptists of our own country have recently taken charge of the missions founded by Mr. Guinness, and their work is to be pushed into the interior—into the centre of cannibalism. Truly "Ethiopia is stretching out her hands unto God." The island of Madagascar, on the eastern coast of Africa, has been so largely Christianized that the natives of late gave some ten millions of dollars to Christian missions and evangelistic work.
To-day thirty-four missionary societies are at work in Africa, and all its 200,000,000 souls are practically within the reach of Christian missions; thirty-three societies have begun work in China, and all its 350,000,000 souls may be visited with the message of the gospel; more than fifty societies have entered India, and the light is dawning upon its 250,000,000; Turkey and Persia and Japan are filling with mission churches and mission schools; practically, the whole world is open, and the grandest day of opportunity for the kingdom of God that the earth has ever seen has fully dawned. If the cry of the lost nations reached the ear of those young men at Andover, with whom our work began, and would not let them rest, how that selfsame cry, to-day repeated from every people and land, and grown more articulate, must thrill the very heart of Christendom, and command instant and glowing response!—Judson Smith, D.D.
India.—The Church Missionary Intelligencer shows how the British Government and the East India Company were shamed out of their base patronage to Indian idolatry. Sir Peregrine Maitland accepted from the East India Company the office of Commander-in-Chief of the Madras army, and a seat in the Council—an office worth $50,000 a year—only on the condition that he should not be required to have any official connection with the idolatry of the country. He knew how the company had catered to the heathen ceremonies of India, even making large grants for their support. A few days after his arrival in Madras he received from the company's office in London a document sanctioning the appointment and payment of dancing girls in a certain Hindu temple, to which he was expected to affix his signature. He resolved to throw up his lucrative appointment and return to England rather than put his hand to any such scheme. The company declined to excuse Sir Peregrine, and, although comparatively poor, he sacrificed his $50,000 and returned to England. The annual festival of the goddess Yayagathal, the protectress of a part of Madras, was approaching; and the annual ceremony of marrying the East India Company to the image of this goddess was to be performed with great pomp. The goddess was borne in procession around the "black town," and then brought to government headquarters; a high official of the company came out, with a handsome cashmere shawl as a bridal present to the idol, and an ornament to be put around the bride's neck, the latter being used in native marriages in place of a ring, while repeating the words, "With this I thee wed," etc. The East India Company and the idol Yayagathal were thus pronounced husband and wife. Two missionaries in Madras united to caricature the scene. One wrote a minute description, the other with graphic pencil made a telling sketch of the nuptial scene. These were sent home. Bishop Blomfield carried them to the House of Lords, held them up to view, and declared that if the connection between the East India Company and the idol system of India was not abolished, he would send the letter and the cartoon broadcast throughout the land. This was sufficient. The absurdity and degradation were potent. Probably a petition signed by all the missionaries in India would scarcely have been so effective.—The Church.
There were in British India, according to the census of 1881, no less than 207,388 widows under fourteen years of age, and 78,976 of these were under nine. They can no longer legally be burned, but their earthly sufferings are worse than burning. Their widowhood is viewed by all Hindus as the punishment for horrible crimes committed in some previous existence. They are closely confined to the house; forbidden all companionship; confined to one meal a day, which they eat in solitude; obliged to conceal themselves in the morning, lest the sight of them bring bad fortune on the beholder; cursed, abhorred, suspected of every crime—and all this for life. Yet the doom of these innocent children is only the door-mat theory brought to its completeness. Because there is no one man living who has the right to tread them under his feet, they are trodden under feet of all.—Harper's Bazar.
There are in India 135,000 lepers—men, women and children—victims of the most terrible disease known to humanity. This society seeks to proclaim to them the blessed gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as far as possible, to relieve their dreadful sufferings, and provide for their simple wants.—Mission to Lepers in India.
At Lucknow, where so many were murdered during the Sepoy rebellion 30 years ago, 2,000 children, nearly all of Hindu Mohammedan parentage, recently marched in a Sunday-school procession. Two men in Dr. Chamberlain's hospital, on leaving for home asked for copies of the Testament read and explained to them while there. Being told that they could not read it, they replied, "When a peddler or tax-man comes around we'll make him read before we buy anything or pay our taxes." Four years after this, Dr. Chamberlain visiting a town some miles away, these men brought their whole village to him to be baptized.—The editor of The Star of India writes to The Independent: "There are no less than 36 missionary societies represented in India, besides ten or more private missions. The English Baptists were the first to enter this field (passing by the early Danish Missionary Society which sent the first Protestant missionaries to India in 1705), and the Disciples of Christ, whose mission dates from 1883, the last. All branches of the Church are represented. Europe and America, Great Britain, the Continent, the United States and Canada—all are here, laboring hand in hand for the uplifting of India. According to the statistical summary for 1885 there were 137,504 communicants representing the fruits of these missions."—In the Imperial Gazetteer of India, Dr. Hunter, Director-General of Statistics to the Government, says Christianity is now the faith of over two millions of the Indian population—a number twelve times as large as that of those who follow the teachings of Buddha. Whereas in 1830 there were only 27,000 native Protestants in all India, Ceylon and Burmah, in 1871 there were 318,363. The Government expends £170,000 per annum in supplying the spiritual wants of the troops and civil service.
Madura. There is worshiped by the natives a deity whose name means "Prince of Darkness." "They sacrifice to devils." The name of the village is "Temple Village," but it is a heathen temple. The ideas of these heathen, and even their language, are degraded by association with idolatry. (Compare "Hawaiian Islands," by Anderson, p. 291.) By religion they understand idol worship. When you tell them of Jesus living and dying 1800 years ago, they say their gods are 18,000,000 years old. When, on outbreak of war, the native disciples heard of the Missionary Board as straitened, they gave their jewels; one man gave a silver chain, worth half a year's savings, and children brought their toe rings and earrings and gave them to the mission treasury.
Revival in the Punjab. A remarkable work of grace is progressing in the English Church mission in Punjab, chiefly in and about Amritsar. Several prominent men, as well as people of low caste, have been reached. About 150 low-caste converts were baptized the previous year, but now the work seems much more extensive. Nothing like it in vigor and growth had ever been seen before in that region. The ingathering of low-caste people is affecting the Hindus, Sikhs, and the Mohammedans, and several of these higher classes have been reached. The missionary at Amritsar writes of the remarkable interest manifested in the simple story of the gospel: "Our compound resounds from morning to night with voices repeating to each other the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Creed, with bhajhans and bits of the Gospels." Much of this is the result of medical missions.
Japan.—English Books in Japan. The great spread of instruction in the English language in Japan has led to a great demand for English books. Over 85,000 English books of all classes were imported last year, as against 40,000 in 1885. The import of American books increased from 59,000 in 1885 to 119,000 in 1886. Sir F. R. Plunkett, British Consul at Tokio, remarks upon this: "An argument against a large import of educational works has hitherto existed in the fact that foreigners have no claim to the protection of the Japanese copyright, and any work that gained extensive popularity was sure to be pirated by Japanese publishers, and cheap editions of it issued that could be profitably sold at far less cost than the imported originals. This difficulty has been and can be got over by the co-operation of Japanese booksellers, and in this way not only is the benefit of copyright obtained, but the books are sold at lower prices than were formerly obtained for them by European booksellers in Japan." A large demand during the year for printing paper is traced principally to the publication of numerous translations of English works on law, political economy, history, and other educational subjects.—London Globe.
Japanese on Hawaii. The number of Japanese who have emigrated to Hawaii within two years is 2,859. Only about 100 of them have returned to Japan, and about the same number have died.
Greek and Roman Catholic Missions. The following statements respecting these missions are by Rev. J. Hartzler: "Bishop Nicolai furnished the statistics of the Greek Mission in Japan for 1886, as follows: Bishops, 1; foreign priests, 3; native priests, 11; deacons, 2; theological students, 104; whole number of native members, including baptized infants, 22,546. The Roman Catholic Mission in Japan reports: Bishops, 2; missionaries (all French), 59; native priests, 3; churches and chapels, 100; theological seminaries, 2; theological students, 72; catechists, 284; schools and orphan asylums, 69; pupils in the same, 3,340; total native membership, 32,294."
The Bible. The Bible is to-day translated, either wholly or in part, into 287 languages and dialects, including all that are widely spoken; so that the message of salvation from the printed page may reach nine-tenths of the entire population of the globe. The adherents of the religion of Jesus Christ to-day outnumber the followers of any other faith in the world. Christian missions number more than 2,000,000 adherents on heathen soil, and at the present rate of increase will include 20,000,000 before this century closes. Obstacles are not all overcome; the hardships and perils and heroisms of the work are not all past; Christian faith still finds itself often tried and courage is put well to the test, and checks and defeats enough attend the work to prove that the evil spirits of hate and murder are not yet exorcised: that still "through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God."—Judson Smith, D.D.
Increase of Protestantism. So extensive have been the defections from the established Greek Church in Southern Russia that the Holy Synod have appointed a commission to investigate the matter. This commission has now reported, acknowledging that these defections are great, and accusing their own clergy for their failure to discharge their clerical functions. The remedy for what they deplore seems to them to be greater zeal in attendance upon church services, more preaching, and more attention to church music. This report is substantial evidence of the power of Protestantism; and even the effort to withstand this new movement is very likely to help forward a needed reformation in the Greek Church.
Spiritual Progress in Persia.—The Church at Home and Abroad has an intensely interesting report of what has occurred in Persia within the last two years. This was the field of the old Nestorian Mission of the American Board, and is very dear to us still. A year ago it was reported that a larger number had been received to the church within the twelve months than during any former year. During the last winter more converts were won than in any of the first twenty-five years of the mission, though that period was marked by some memorable revivals. In Western Persia there are now 1,932 church members, in place of 713 fifteen years ago. During the revival which followed the Week of Prayer, the number of inquirers was over five hundred. This revival was conducted wholly by native pastors. Of the seventy-nine students in the college at Ooroomiah, seventy are followers of Christ. The western mission has ninety-four village schools, with over two hundred scholars. Dr. Labaree reports that the Moslems of Persia are more accessible than those of any other land. They are receiving large editions of the Bible, and those who have accepted Christianity, though a small company, have shown remarkable steadfastness and zeal.
An Egyptian papyrus, forty-two feet long and containing all the chapters of the "Book of the Dead," has been received and unrolled at the Sage Library, in New Brunswick, N. J. It was secured for the library by Rev. Dr. Lansing, a well-known missionary in Egypt. Experts pronounce it to have been written nearly 3,000 years ago.
The Bible in the Last Fifty Years.—The last anniversary of the British and Foreign Bible Society falling in the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria's reign, the speakers naturally reviewed the progress of the Bible cause during the last half century, and made some striking comparisons. The Earl of Harrowby, President of the Society, said:
"Fifty years ago our receipts were £100,000; now they are nearly £225,000. Fifty years ago the Auxiliary Societies amounted at home to 2,370; now they are over 5,300. Abroad you had 260 auxiliaries and branches fifty years ago; now 1,500. Fifty years ago the annual issue of the Bible and portions of it from this Society was 600,000; now it is about 4,000,000. The cheapest copy of the book, half a century back, was issued at about two shillings; now the price is sixpence. The cheapest Testament then was tenpence; the cheapest now is Lord Shaftesbury's, and the price is a penny. And that is not done by any grinding of the people who produce these works. One of the first questions I asked when I had the honor of being called to occupy this chair was, how were the workpeople treated who manufactured the cheap Bibles; and by the testimony, not only of ourselves but of the outside press, I have assured myself that there is neither overwork nor underpay. Fifty years ago the Scriptures were circulated in 136 languages; now they are circulated in 280. Fifty years ago fourteen fresh languages of Europe had been honored by Bible publication. Now the Bible has been published in twelve fresh languages in Central Asia and Siberia, twelve in India, fourteen in China and Mongolia, nineteen in the Pacific, thirty in Africa and thirty in America. In this fiftieth year of the Queen's reign there is only one great language which has not a complete translation of the Scriptures, namely, the Japanese language."
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
IV. INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MISSIONARY UNION."
FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL MISSIONARY UNION.
The International Missionary Union is an organization composed of returned missionaries of all Evangelical churches, whether at home temporarily or permanently. It seeks to promote mutual sympathy and co-operation of missionaries in their work, and holds annual meetings for the discussion of important questions connected with the work and the diffusion of missionary intelligence. The fourth annual meeting was held Aug. 10-17, at Thousand Island Park, the entire body of missionaries being entertained without cost by the Thousand Island Park Association. The forenoons were devoted to business, covering discussion of methods and recommendation of measures calculated to increase missionary efficiency. The afternoons consisted largely of presentation of incidents, statistics and facts bearing on specific topics of missionary interest, while the evenings were given to more formal platform addresses.
The "Seventy" missionaries present were as follows:
From India: Miss Dr. M. A. Anderson, Congregational Church; Rev. and Mrs. Chandler, Congregational; Miss M. J. Frith, Canada Baptist; Miss E. Gibson, Methodist Episcopal; Dr. and Mrs. J. T. Gracey, Methodist Episcopal; Rev. A. Hazen, Congregational; Rev. G. J. Martz, Evangelical Lutheran; Mrs. Rev. G. H. McGrew, Methodist Episcopal; Rev. James Mudge, Methodist Episcopal; Mrs. Stella Nichols, Evangelical Lutheran; Rev. C. W. Park, Congregational; Rev. Dr. J. L. Phillips, Free-will Baptist; Rev. D. W. Thomas, Methodist Episcopal.
From Turkey: Rev. Dr. H. M. Barnum, Congregational; Rev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, Congregational; Rev. L. O. Lee, Congregational; Rev. and Mrs. J. G. Leonard, Congregational.
From Bulgaria: Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Belden, Presbyterian; Rev. and Mrs. D. C. Challis, Methodist Episcopal.
From China: Mrs. Mary D. Culbertson, Presbyterian; Rev. J. G. Fagg, Reformed; Rev. Benj. Helm, Southern Presbyterian; Rev. and Mrs. Spencer Lewis, Methodist Episcopal; Rev. John Murray, Presbyterian; Rev. Dr. Speer, Presbyterian; Rev. and Mrs. C. A. Stanley, Congregational; Rev. and Mrs. J. L. Stuart, Southern Presbyterian.
From Assam: Rev. M. B. Comfort, Baptist; Rev. T. J. Stoddart, Baptist.
From Italy: Rev. Dr. Cushing, Methodist Episcopal.
From Jamaica: Rev. Dr. Douglass, Canada Methodist.
From Japan: Rev. and Mrs. W. C. Davidson, Methodist Episcopal; Miss Julia Gulick, Congregational; Rev. Dr. D. McDonald, Canada Methodist; Rev. and Mrs. J. M. McCauley, Presbyterian; Rev. J. H. Pettee.
From Siam: Rev. Dr. Wm. Dean, Baptist; Rev. and Mrs. Dr. S. R. House, Presbyterian; Rev. and Mrs. Lisle, Baptist; Rev. Dr. S. Mattoon, Presbyterian; Rev. J. Wilson, Presbyterian.
From Germany: Bishop and Mrs. J. F. Hurst, Methodist Episcopal.
From Mexico: Miss L. M. Latimer, Methodist Episcopal.
From Burmah: Rev. and Mrs. C. A. Nichols, Baptist.
From Ceylon: Rev. and Mrs. T. S. Smith, Congregational.
Missionaries to North American Indians: Rev. and Mrs. Egerton R. Young, Canada Methodist; Rev. and Mrs. Dr. Geo. Young, Canada Methodist; Rev. and Mrs. E. Arnold, Methodist Episcopal.
Persons under appointment to foreign fields: Rev. H. F. Laflamme, Canada Baptist, India; Rev. J. F. Smith, Canada Presbyterian, China; Rev. J. P. McNaughton, Canada Presbyterian, Turkey; Miss Dr. May Carlton and Miss E. J. Hinckle, both to be sent to China this autumn under the auspices of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Thirteen mission countries were thus represented, besides which one native of Armenia, one of Japan, and a Karen took part in the exercises. Missionaries from Saskatchewan and Ceylon clasped hands in the fellowship of a common cause. Veteran and volunteer inspired, either the other. The utterances of Dr. Dean were rendered weighty by the fifty-three years of self-sacrifice and toil behind them. His address on "The Translation of the Scriptures into Chinese," will be found on another page in this Department.
Dr. Leonard had preached in Tarsus, Iconium and Cappadocia. Miss Gulick of Japan was born of missionary parents in Honolulu. Mrs. McGrew of India was born on mission soil in Buenos Ayres. Rev. Dr. Phillips and Rev. Mr. Smith of Ceylon claimed India as their native land, being of the second generation of missionaries.
Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, after more than forty years of missionary service, and with the weight of seventy years upon him, intellectually demonstrated that his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated. He was appointed by the A. B. C. F. M. to Constantinople in 1837, and was the father of Robert College. The manner in which he secured for the erection of this College the most desirable of all the sites commanding the view of the Bosphorus, makes a story of thrilling interest, and gives him the highest rank for diplomacy. For seven years he held on to a pledge of Ali Pasha, who, under the influence of a protest from the French Ambassador, crowded on by the head of the Jesuits, and a like protest from the Ambassador of Russia, goaded on by the Patriarch of the Greek Church, was openly declaring that it was not possible for the pledge to be redeemed; because the property was so related to that of these powers, that the college could not be erected on that commanding site. But notwithstanding all this, he held his position, until at the end of seven years he received a note from Ali Pasha saying, "You may begin the erection of your college as soon as you please." He had outdone the diplomacy of the head of the Jesuits and the French Ambassador, as well as of the Greek Patriarch and the Ambassador of Russia, and had secured from the Sultan himself by Imperial Volition a permit to build the college. This was infallible, and neither Ali Pasha nor any one else would dare call it in question. But this was not all. An order was given to allow all the material brought from England and France to enter duty free.
Here were men and women who had hazarded their lives for the Lord Jesus. The "beloved physician," Dr. S. M. House, had been gored by an elephant; Jonathan Wilson, a pioneer to the Laos mission, was imperilled, when his converts were slain by royal order. The younger brother and sister Lewis, of far Western China, had faced the fury of a Chinese mob that plundered and destroyed their chapel and their home, compelling them and their colleagues to set off in native boats on a 1,500 mile journey down the great Yang-tse-kiang to the sea. Here were those whose hearts had been kept from fear when 2,000 in a day were dying of cholera in the capital city of Siam, where they lived; men who had given bread to the famishing thousands in North China, saving many lives at the risk of their own; those who had ministered to the lepers and outcasts of India. Some had lived with the savage Santals in their jungle homes, and with the red men of our continent in their wigwams. Others, on their mission-preaching tours, had traveled in wheelbarrows, in sledges drawn by dogs, in palankeens, in jinrikshas, in birch-bark canoes, on elephants, on camels, and hundreds of miles on snow-shoes. One member had been speared by Malay pirates, and another, like Paul, had been shipwrecked and cast ashore on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. But whatever else had been their experiences or deliverances, all could speak of the blessedness of the Master's service, and of souls once without God and without hope turned from darkness to light and rejoicing in the Saviour they had found.
THE THEMES DISCUSSED.
"The place of higher education in mission work" was presented by Rev. Mr. Smith of Ceylon, who gave an interesting account of the development of the educational work of the American Board in that island. The prevailing view seemed to be that when there appeared to be a general desire among people for higher education the missionary should endeavor to meet it with Christian schools, where English should be taught, if desired. Astonishing statements were made of the eagerness among many to learn English. On "The voluntary desire of the heathen for the Gospel," and "Remarkable instances of Divine grace, as manifested in the lives of converts from heathenism," there were narrated incidents drawn from personal experience and observation of so valuable a nature, it is a pity they could not have been preserved in a permanent form. So great was the interest in some of these topics that the discussions were prolonged several hours. Even then not a tithe of the important questions was so much as touched upon. Bro. Davidson, of Japan, gave a vivid sketch of the wonderful revival which recently swept over that empire. He hoped that in fifteen years Japan will be Christian. Turkey, partially dismembered, was served one evening. Dr. Barnum, speaking of eastern Turkey, said that there was the cradle of the race. "The cradle does not need rocking, for the people are all asleep." "We jog the cradle now and then, and the occupants are beginning to open their eyes and yawn." Bro. Challis, of the Methodist mission in Bulgaria, told something of the outlook in that country. He compared the people, with their liberty-loving spirit, to Americans, and expressed firm faith that, in spite of the designs of Russia, God would overrule to give them independence and freedom.
One evening was given to addresses by missionary ladies on different phases of woman's work, and a special woman's meeting was held one afternoon. On Sabbath morning the large tabernacle was filled, when Bishop Hurst preached an excellent and inspiring sermon from "Whoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed," etc. The "mountain" was heathendom, and "whoever" was the Church, which should remove it by the power of faith. The theme was "God's day our day for the salvation of the world." The audience numbered over three thousand. The bishop also delivered, one afternoon, his excellent lecture on "Protestantism in Mexico." At the children's meeting on Sabbath afternoon there were several short and spicy talks and an exhibition of curiosities, singing in a dozen or more languages, and presentation of natives of foreign mission fields who were in attendance.
TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES INTO CHINESE.
BY REV. WILLIAM DEAN, D.D.
THE entire Bible was first translated into Chinese at Serampore by Joshua Marshman, D.D., in 1807-8, with the aid of Joannes Lassar, an Armenian, born at Macao, who was a good Chinese scholar. Dr. Marshman went out to India under the patronage of the Baptist Missionary Society of England. He was born in Wiltshire 1768, sailed for India 1799, and died at Serampore 1837, at the age of 69, having had 38 years for missionary work.
A similar translation of the entire Scriptures was made at Macao and Canton by Robert Morrison, D.D., who went to China in 1807, under the patronage of the London Missionary Society, and died at Canton 1834, at the age of 52, having 27 years of mission work in China. In addition to the Scriptures, the Chinese dictionary of Kang Hi was translated into English by him, in six quarto volumes—a great and important work, to aid subsequent missionaries in the acquisition of the Chinese language.
In Morrison's version of the Scriptures, William Milne, D.D., translated the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Job.
Dr. Milne was born in Scotland, 1785, went to China in 1813, under the patronage of the London Missionary Society, and died 1822, at the age of 37, after nine years in the China Mission. During these few years he acquired a good knowledge of the language, had the superintendency of the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, performed an important part in the translation of the Scriptures, and prepared some of the best Christian tracts we have in Chinese.
He is the man who (before the committee), when asked if he would be willing to go out as an assistant to the mission, replied, "I would be willing to be a hewer of wood or a drawer of water to help to build the Lord's house;" and perhaps no man ever did so much in so short a time for the Chinese mission as William Milne, the little Scotchman.
Another translation of the Scriptures into Chinese was made by Walter H. Medhurst, D.D., and his associates, which was called the Shang Ti mission. Dr. Medhurst went out as a missionary printer, under the London Mission Society, and became a prominent preacher and writer in Chinese. He was born in London, 1796, went out, in 1816, worked efficiently 40 years for the Chinese in Batavia and China, and died on landing in England, 1856, aged 61 years.
Another version was made by Charles Gutzlaff, D.D., born at Pyritz, in Prussian Pomerania, 1803, went out under the appointment of the Netherlands Missionary Society in 1826, landed at Batavia, visited Rhio, Singapore, Siam, and finally became Chinese Secretary to the English Government of Hong Kong, where he died in 1851, at the age of 48 years.
He was a man of portly form, quick motion, rapid speech, possessed a practical knowledge of various European languages, and a ready use of the Chinese colloquial and written language for missionary work and political purposes. His hasty action was not always promotive of the nicest accuracy, and his multitudinous labors did not allow of the most finished completeness in all.
Another version of the entire Scriptures in Chinese was made by Elijah C. Bridgman, D.D., Walter M. Lowrie and M. S. Culbertson, completed at Shanghai, which uses the term Shin for rendering the words Elohim and Theos. This, in most cases, has been a distinguishing mark between the versions made by the English and American missionaries. The former mostly use Shang Ti and the latter use Shin as the term for God.
Dr. Bridgman was born in Belchertown, Mass., 1801, and went out under the American Board to China, 1830; he died at Shanghai in 1861, aged 60 years; 31 years were spent in China, and he was the first representative of the A. B. C. F. M. Society in their mission to China, and to the end was a faithful and honored missionary. Dr. Culbertson went to China in 1844, finished the translation of that version, and died the day before they commenced printing it. He went up suddenly like Elijah in the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. One of his associates reported his departure by saying, "A translator translated." Josiah Goddard made an excellent translation of the New Testament in Chinese—some think the best extant—with some portions of the Old Testament also. His mission work began with the Chinese in Siam, and ended at Ningpo, China. Dr. Goddard was born at Wendell, Mass., 1813, graduated, the first in his class, at Brown University in 1835, graduated at Newton in 1838, sailed for the East the same year under the patronage of the American Baptist Board, spent a year at Singapore in the study of Chinese, landed at Bankok in 1840, removed to Ningpo in 1848, where he died in 1854, at the age of 41, after 16 years of efficient missionary service, in translating the Scriptures and preaching the gospel to the Chinese. Some may have labored longer to do less work. Men's lives are measured, not by the years they live, but by the work they do.
William Dean published two editions of the New Testament and one edition of the Pentateuch in Chinese, with a commentary on Matthew and Mark, Genesis and Exodus. Dr. Dean was born at Eaton, N. Y., in 1807, sailed for China in 1834, labored for the Chinese in Siam till 1842, when he removed to Hong Kong; returned to Bankok in 1864, and ended his missionary work in 1887, at the age of 80. He was 50 years in the service.
In 1843 a Convention of missionaries assembled at Hong Kong, to consult with reference to a new translation of the Scriptures in Chinese. There were present Medhurst, Dyer, and Stronach, of the London Society; Bridgman, Ball and Bonney, of the American Board; Dean, Shuck and Roberts, of the American Baptist Board; Bishop Boone, of the Episcopal Mission, with others, who spent days of prayerful endeavor to harmonize on some general plan of Scripture translation.
First there was a want of agreement on the proposition to make the Textus Receptus the model of a new version. Some thought we should make the original Hebrew and Greek the standard for a new translation in Chinese. Then came up a question regarding the rendering of the terms θεος, επισκοπος, βαπτισμα, on which there was a want of harmony of sentiment, so that it proved necessary to divide the Convention into classes, or for each one to go on in his own way, and look to God for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead him to understand the meaning of the original text, and call in the help of native scholars to aid him to express it in idiomatic Chinese. In this way a number of versions, in a variety of style, have been prepared, and some portions of the Scripture have been made to harmonize with the Mandarin and the colloquial of the local dialects, and some have been Romanized, or the sounds expressed in Roman letters as used in English words, and the Chinese women taught to read them easier than to learn to read the complicated and multitudinous characters of the Chinese written language. One objection to this mode of learning to read is found in the fact, that learning to read Chinese in this way would limit the reader to one dialect or province, whereas learning to read in the Chinese way, prepares one to read in Chinese in every province, or wherever the Chinese language is written, as in Cochin China, Japan, and all over the world, where you find a Chinaman who can read his own language; the form and signification of the written character is the same, however the spoken dialect may differ.
In preparing the various translations of Scripture into Chinese, other persons, whose names are not mentioned above, have rendered important aid. Such men as J. R. Morrison, Chinese Secretary to the English Commissioner and the Government of Hong Kong; G. T. Lay, Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and various other missionaries, such as David Abeel, James Legge, Walter Lowrie, George Smith Bishop of Victoria, and, indeed, all missionaries to the Chinese, may have contributed, in some measure, to aid in giving the written word of God to the people for whom they labored orally, and all translators have depended upon Chinese scholars for the idiom and style of the language by which the idea is expressed.
LIQUOR ON THE CONGO.
AMONGST the resolutions of the Missionary Union none deserves more persistent and prominent advocacy than that relating to the International sanction of the introduction of Rum into the Congo Free State. The extension of European Colonial possessions and protectorates in Africa means a fearful extension of the use of intoxicants in the Dark Continent. We are assured, besides, that the article furnished for the Congo is a specially vile compound prepared for that market. A representative committee of missionary societies laboring in Africa have published a pamphlet entitled "The Liquor Traffic and Native Races," to be had of the secretaries of these societies. The Bishop of London presided over a meeting in London last spring which condemned the traffic and the government protection it has received. A meeting of members of the House of Commons, held to consider the subject, resulted in the expression of their readiness to aid in suppressing this trade and of the sanction the governments give it. Public meetings have been held in Manchester and Cambridge with like result. Bishops and Archbishops, and leading men like Canon Farrar, have entered the arena to oppose this great evil, which blasts the progress of civilization and missions, and hinders the elevation of the people. Archbishop Johnson, a Negro of Lagos, west coast of Africa, and member of the Legislative Council, is appealing to Africans to circulate petitions all along the coast, and the king of Belgium, with other prominent persons, encourages this West African remonstrance to the trade. It is high time the voice of the people of America was heard on this subject. The missionary societies might very properly take the initiative in a public meeting in Boston or New York. A remonstrance should be sent to our own government, that it may feel the force of public sentiment in the case. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London, have addressed the following letter to the Bishops of the British Colonies and dependencies:
"My Lord: The attention of the Church has been recently drawn to the widespread and still growing evils caused by the introduction of intoxicating liquors among the native races in the colonies and dependencies of the British Empire, and in other countries to which British trade has access. Part of the mischief is certainly due to other traders than the British, but British trade, as exceeding in volume that of many other countries put together, is mainly responsible. This mischief cannot be measured by what we witness among our own countrymen. The intemperance is far greater; the evils consequent on intemperance are far worse. Uncivilized people are weaker to resist, and are utterly unable to control temptations of this kind. The accounts given of the numbers that perish from this cause and of the misery and degradation of those who survive are painful in the extreme. And besides the grievous wrong thus inflicted on the native races, reproach has been brought on the name of Christ. The English missionary who preaches the gospel, and the English merchant who brings the fatal temptation, are inevitably associated in the minds of the heathen people, and by many not only associated, but identified. It is asserted by travelers of repute that in many parts of the world the moral character of the natives gains more by the preaching of Mohammedanism than by the preaching of the gospel, for the former tends to make them sober.
"The evils of intemperance in the British islands have, as you are well aware, long engaged the attention of the Church at home. The report of the Lower House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury in 1869, and that of the Province of York in 1873, in each of which a large mass of evidence from every class of society was got together, had a painful effect on the public mind at the time, and they have served as trustworthy manuals on the subject ever since. The formation of the Church of England Temperance Society has organized and concentrated the efforts of those Churchmen who have been deeply impressed with the necessity of combating intemperance, and that society is daily growing in numbers and in influence. Owing to these and similar endeavors made by both Churchmen and Nonconformists, drunkenness has been and is still being diminished in these islands, and there is every reason to believe that before long public opinion will demand of the Legislature that steps should be taken to remove, wholly or partially, the temptations which now make it so difficult for weak men to lead sober lives.
"It is not for us nor for the bishops at home to suggest to your lordship or your clergy the best means for dealing with similar evils in our colonies and dependencies, and in the heathen countries in your own parts of the world. But we have felt it our duty to bring to your notice the painful accounts that have reached us, and to assure you of our warmest and most earnest sympathy with any efforts that you may see fit to make to deal with the serious difficulty. You may have the means of influencing your Legislature; you may do much to form public opinion; you can at least make it plain to all men that the Church is not, and never can be, indifferent to this great sin. In whatever you may be able to do in this matter you may be assured that the Bishops at home are supporting your action with their earnest prayers, and, where co-operation is found possible, with their most hearty co-operation."—EDWARD CANTAUR, W. EBOR, F. LONDIN.
A GENERAL MISSIONARY CONFERENCE IN LONDON IN 1888.
IN October, 1878, a General Conference on Foreign Missions was held in London. Upwards of 150 members represented nearly 40 distinct missions. Six American missionary societies were represented in the number. Much information was elicited, and considerable missionary stimulus was given.
Arrangements have been begun for the holding of another such conference in London, in 1888. Forty European Missionary Agencies are represented in the call, and the American societies are to be invited to send delegates. The Committee say that they "are most solemnly impressed with the conviction that there has never been a time, since the days of the apostles, when it was of more urgent importance than it is now, that all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity should labor 'in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace,' in order that 'the gospel of the kingdom of God' may be carried out into all the world and preached 'unto every creature.' They, therefore, entreat that earnest and continued prayer may be offered unto God by His people, that it may please Him in all things to direct their efforts, as a Committee, on behalf of the proposed Conference, and eventually to grant such an outpouring of His Holy Spirit upon its meetings, that His cause shall mightily prosper, and His name be exceedingly glorified in the ingathering of great multitudes in every part of the earth, into the kingdom of His dear Son Jesus Christ."
The Committee have classified the ends aimed at under three heads, viz.:
1st. To turn to account the experience of the past for the improvement of the methods of Missionary enterprise in the foreign field.
2d. To utilize acquired experience for the improvement of the methods for the home management of Foreign Missions.
3d. To seek the more entire consecration of the Church of God, in all its members, to the great work committed to it by the Lord.
The following Topics have been suggested for consideration, subject to modification:
I. MODES OF OPERATION IN THE FOREIGN FIELD.
1st. Self-Support and Self-Government in Native Churches.
2d. How to Educate Native Evangelists and Pastors, and to stimulate the higher life and enthusiasm of converts for the conversion of the heathen.
3d. How to adapt Missionary methods to the different states of Civilization or Barbarism among heathen nations: (a) Education. (b) Woman's Work. (c) Medical Missions, etc.
4th. How to adapt Missionary methods to the different forms of Religion among non-Christian peoples; especially those having sacred books.
5th. The providing of Christian literature for Converts in all parts of the Mission Field.
6th. The proper treatment of such questions as Polygamy, Slavery, Caste, the Marriage of Infants and of Widows, etc.
II. METHODS OF MANAGEMENT AT HOME.
1st. Comity of Missions, or their relation to one another and to their respective spheres of labor; and the apportioning unoccupied fields to different Societies.
2d. The Choice and Training of Missionaries with reference to different spheres of labor.
3d. The nature and extent of the Control to be exercised over Missions by Committees or Churches at home.
4th. Support of Missions, and Finance.
III. THE MUTUAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND MISSIONS.
1st. The reflex influence of Foreign Missions on Home Evangelization and Church life.
2d. The duty of Christians, in their personal and collective capacity, to obey the Lord's command to "make disciples of all nations."
IV. A POPULAR SURVEY OF THE RESULTS OF MODERN MISSIONS AND OF THE GREAT WORK WHICH REMAINS TO BE DONE IN "THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH."
V. THE CONSECRATION OF COMMERCE.
The Rev. James Johnston, F.S.S., has been appointed Organizing Secretary of this Conference, and has, by request of the Committee, come to the United States to secure, if possible, a good representation of the American Societies at the Conference. Dr. Johnston needs no introduction to the American churches. He was appointed to draw up the report of the Imperial Commission on Education in India, and is the author of important pamphlets, amongst which is that entitled "A Century of Protestant Missions, and the Increase of the Heathen during the Hundred Years," which has already run through an edition of several thousands. Mr. Johnston can be addressed care of Dr. Gilman, Bible House, New York.
Amongst the subjects discussed was "Methods of arousing interest in Missions among Home Churches." Rev. W. H. Belden opened this discussion with a valuable paper on "Simultaneous Missionary Meetings," and Dr. Spear spoke on "The Consecration of Wealth."
The following officers were elected for the ensuing year:
President, Rev. J. T. Gracey, D.D., Buffalo, N. Y. Vice-Presidents: Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., Rev. S. L. Baldwin, D.D., Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D.D. Secretary, Rev. C. W. Park, Birmingham, Conn. Treasurer, Rev. W. H. Belden, Bridgeton, N. J. Executive Committee: Rev. J. L. Phillips, M.D., Howard, R. I., Rev. E. R. Young, Rev. J. Mudge, Rev. M. B. Comfort, Rev. B. Helm, Rev. H. N. Cobb, D.D., Miss C. H. Daniels, M.D.
The following Resolutions were adopted during the session:
THE STUDENT MISSIONARY MOVEMENT:—Having learned that large numbers of students in the higher institutions of learning in this country and Canada are proposing to devote themselves to the Foreign Missionary work in obedience to the Saviour's last command, we wish to express our gratitude to God for this new proof of His own determination to secure the speedy coming of His kingdom among the nations.
And furthermore we wish to express the profound conviction which we have, that this uprising of laborers greatly emphasizes the responsibility of the churches at home; that it calls upon all who love the Lord to give these candidates for service a large place in their sympathies and prayers; and also to devise liberal things by their contributions, not merely for the support of a large number of new missionaries, but for greatly enlarging the sphere of missionary labor, and for speedily carrying the gospel to every creature. "How shall they believe in Him of Whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?"
QUEEN VICTORIA'S JUBILEE—Resolved: That the International Missionary Union of different evangelical denominations do offer on this Jubilee year our sincere and hearty congratulations to Her Most Gracious Majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India, on the signal prosperity, extension and glory of her reign. Some of our members saw her ascend her throne, and we would most gratefully acknowledge the great kindness and protection which we have enjoyed from officers of Her Majesty's government in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the islands of the ocean, where we have been called to preach the gospel of Christ. And we do supplicate Almighty God to continue the bestowal of His distinguished mercies upon Her Majesty, Her Royal family, and Her wide extended domain. May grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ be and abide upon Her Majesty forevermore. Amen.
BIBLE TRANSLATION—Resolved: That this Union, having heard from Bishop Hurst of the most interesting races of Indians in Mexico now numbering eight millions, who are an honest, independent race, friendly to Protestantism, and yet who have no translation of God's word, do hereby overture the American Bible Society to take such steps as will lead to the translation and publication of the word of God in the leading dialect of this most interesting race; and that our Secretary forward a copy of this resolution to the Secretary of said Society.
ON DR. TOURJEE'S OFFER—Resolved: That the International Missionary Union, having heard of the kind offer of Dr. Tourjee, of the New England Conservatory of Music, to furnish free instruction in music to missionary candidates, and believing that both vocal and instrumental music constitute an important auxiliary in all our work among the heathen, cordially recommend to such candidates the special training of the ear and voice with a view to acquiring and improving whatever of native melody they may find in their several fields.
ON LIQUOR ON THE CONGO—Resolved: That as missionaries of the various denominations in the International Missionary Union, we protest against the wicked and disastrous policy of allowing the introduction of intoxicating liquors into the free Congo State, and that we suggest to the secretaries of all missionary societies to exert their combined influence to induce the governing powers to change their policy to one of prohibition.
ON THE OUTLOOK ABROAD—Resolved: That the members of the International Missionary Union returning to their respective fields abroad be constituted an Outlook Committee, and requested to report to the Union, through the officers, movements of promise, signals of danger to missionary interests, and tokens of cheer in foreign lands, thereby increasing the efficiency of this Union and strengthening the bond that binds us together as one in the work and hopes of the Gospel.
PROGRESS AND RESULTS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
V.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS-MONTHLY BULLETIN.
IT is a sign of great good that not one man has yet been asked by the editors to accept a close relation to this REVIEW as editorial correspondent who has not cordially responded in the affirmative. Already we have secured Dr. J. T. Gracey, Dr. Josiah Strong, Rev. D. L. Leonard, Rev. A. P. Happer, D.D., of China; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.; Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M.D., and Rev. John Forman, of India; Rev. and Prof. Geo. Wm. Knox, of Japan; Rev. Geo. W. Chamberlain, of Brazil; Rev. J. Hudson Taylor and Mr. Reginald Radcliffe, of China Inland Mission, and Rev. H. H. Jessup, D.D., of Syria. We expect to enlarge this list until we shall have at least one competent correspondent in every great missionary land in the world.
The Eighth Annual Convention of the Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance was held in Alexandria, Va., Oct. 27-30, 1887, and addressed by Rev. J. E. Grammer, D.D., and Rev. F. M. Ellis, D.D., of Baltimore; Rev. Jos. Packard, D.D., of the Theological Seminary; Rev. R. A. Goodwin of Petersburg, Va.; Rev. Wm. E. Griffis, D.D., of Boston; Rev. H. A. Nelson, D.D., and Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., of Philadelphia, and Rev. G. W. Chamberlain of Brazil. Papers of a high order of excellence were also read by Messrs. T. J. Villiers of Rochester, E. R. Chadwick of Bates Seminary, Isaac I. Gorby of Union, Benson Sewall of Bangor, Robert I. Fleming of Garrett, D. A. Murray of Princeton. So earnest, prayerful and consecrated a body of young men is not often brought together. We look for great results.
AFRICA.
—Cairo. The University of El Azhar. Dr. E. W. Blyden differs from Gen. Haig, in thinking the Mohammedans very active in propagation of Islamism among the Nigritian and Soudanic tribes.
—Madagascar. In the capital, Antananarivo, the Protestant school has 2,387 pupils. . . . The Queen recently attended the opening services of two Christian churches at Ambokimanaga. In fourteen years 700 Protestant chapels have been built in Madagascar, making the number now 1,200. There are 8,000 Protestant communicants, and all the churches are self-supporting. In the Protestant school at Antananarivo 2,387 children are in attendance.
The statement made in the Roman Catholic Review that the German government would allow but one missionary society (the R. Cath.) in its East African territory cannot be correct. From three societies seven missionaries have already gone to Zanzibar.
—Soudan. Emin Pasha pleads for British sway over the equatorial provinces of the Soudan. The missionaries unite in the plea. It is thought it would be a death-blow to the slave trade. Stanley's force found E. Pasha on the south shore of Albert Nyanza, and in health.
—Congo Baptist Missions. Rev. T. J. Comber, the courageous, untiring pioneer, so useful and so beloved, who was penetrating toward the interior, died on board the "Lulu Bohlen," while anchored off the Loango.
An Evangelical German East African Missionary Society has just been formed in Berlin, "to preach the German evangelical faith, and prepare the way for the introduction of German civilization into East Africa, where this year only Englishmen and Frenchmen have been at work." Whether the primary object is the advancement of Christianity or of German civilization does not yet appear.
—Professor Stewart, of Liberia, says it is estimated that for every missionary that goes to Africa 70,000 gallons of liquor are sent to that country. Who shall estimate the wretchedness and degradation of an African heathen under the power of rum and tobacco? And what a greed for blood the liquor dealers must have who, not content with killing 70,000 human beings in this country, extend their work of destruction across the sea!—Cent. Presbyterian.
CHINA.
—Nankin. The North China News states that a benevolent gentleman in the United States has subscribed $300,000 for the establishment of a university at Nankin. It is hoped that the amount will be increased by contributions to $500,000. Several missionaries are interested in the undertaking, which promises to be of great advantage to China, and incidentally to the cause of missions in that empire.
—Dr. Happer returns to China, having secured $100,000 for his Christian college, and $5,000 more toward endowment. He finds it hard, however, to get the money subscribed fast enough to go on with the buildings.
—Dr. Williams, after thirty-two years in China, thinks that half a century more of Christian missions will evangelize and even Christianize the Empire. Mr. Burlingame testifies that intelligent men of China put no faith in popular religions; and Dr. Bartlett adds that "this Gibraltar of Pagandom may become its Waterloo."
—A Christian missionary, on entering a new field in China, was kindly received by the Mandarin, who promised to do all in his power to help him. "I have not heard your doctrine," said he, "but I have seen it. I have a servant who was a perfect devil, but since he received your doctrine he is another man, and I can now trust him."
—The New Version of the New Testament prepared by Rev. Griffith Jone, of Hankow, is said to be superior to any other, and it is confidently expected that it will be adopted as a basis of a union version for all China. Such a book will be in a language spoken and understood by three hundred millions of people. Unlike India, China has really but one language, and if once the Bible were satisfactorily translated into that language the result may be something such as the world has never before witnessed. The book has worked wonders before. It will doubtless work wonders again.
—Tientsin. Mrs. Bryson says: "Some little time ago we commenced a special service for women at three o'clock on Sunday afternoons in the rooms used as a class-room for Mrs. King's medical school in Tientsin. We are getting regularly from twenty to thirty women and a large number of girls. The service takes the shape of a Sunday-school, our older and more intelligent members teaching the others. The women seem to be much interested in the service, and I trust that God's blessing will rest upon it."
—The Spirit of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church for October states that "the Chinese Governor of the large island of Formosa, in starting a College, has chosen a missionary to inaugurate and organize the institution. Such a step would have been regarded as a miracle one generation ago."
—"The North China Herald" of Sept. 10 publishes in a letter from Tientsin, where the great statesman of China, Li Hung-chang, has his official residence, the following statement, viz.: "A letter was recently addressed to Mr. Smithers, the American Consul of this place, requesting that he should see H. E. Li Hung-chang in regard to the location of the College which Dr. Happer is laboring to establish at Nankin, and requests His Excellency to memorialize the throne on the subject, giving all the particulars, that the future institution might also have imperial cognizance. As the Chinese are always partial to knowledge and learning, the Viceroy readily assented to the proposal. But he requested that, as the institution was to be founded at Nankin, the parties should address a written petition to the Viceroy at Nankin on the subject, and also present a copy to him, after which they would jointly memorialize the Emperor on the subject."
—In Canton, with its 1,500,000 inhabitants, are now opened fifteen Christian chapels, where the missionaries and the native ministers preach the gospel not on the Sabbath day only, but daily, and from two to four hours each day, to audiences varying from fifty to several hundred. After the sermon, Chinese evangelists continue the services. Free conversations and discussions follow; rooms are at hand for private conferences, and Christian books and tracts are kept in readiness and disposed of in large numbers. The preaching halls are thronged during the hottest months—July, August and September—and from noon until three o'clock—the hottest part of the day. Tens of thousands of visitors to the city have heard the gospel in these chapels and have carried it hundreds of miles into the interior. The missionary encounters these in the most remote places on his inland tours, and sometimes listens with surprise while they repeat the substance of the discourses which they have heard. The dialect used by most of the missionaries, in preaching, is the Pun-ti, or pure Cantonese, by which they have access to twenty millions of people.
FRANCE, in order simply to be prepared to cope with other nations, has within five years built 45,000 school-houses, at a cost of $80,000,000! What might not Christian America and England accomplish for missions, if the opportunity were appreciated! It is said that if a rod 71 inches long represents the income of the Presbyterian Church, one inch would stand for their gifts!
—McAll Mission in Paris. The attendance at the services has increased largely during the past year, although the number of stations remains the same. The McAll Mission Record says: "The missionary schooner 'Annie' having again been placed at the disposal of the Mission, a very interesting campaign was organized on the coasts of Brittany. Of this work Mr. McAll writes in a private letter: 'Brittany, so long supposed to be completely enthralled by Popish teachings, is now evidently open for the proclamation of the Gospel, and the people—a race much resembling the Welsh in many things, as well as origin—are kindly disposed. To them the message of divine love comes as a new and strange discovery, in contrast with the almost idolatrous ritual to which alone they have been accustomed.'"
JAPAN.
—Rev. George Wm. Knox, of Tokio, writes: "In the Tokio First Presbytery, the additions on profession of faith were more than 240 during the six months previous to April 1, an increase of 15 per cent. In the Tokio Second Presbytery over a hundred adults had been baptized. He himself took a trip of 250 miles to the north. At Sendai, the most influential city in the north, the Miyagi Presbytery was organized with five churches. Large meetings were held in the theatre, and most attentive and respectful congregations were present. Similar meetings were held for lectures at three other towns en route, and in all much interest was manifested. Opposition seems to have died away, and the best part of the people unite in saying that Christianity is a necessity for the further development of Japan."
—Tadmor in the Desert, or Palmyra, City of Palms, is a beautiful type of the Church of God among the gentiles, a historic parable of foreign missions. A great stretch of wilderness lay between Jerusalem and Babylon, arid, barren, without rest or food. King Solomon, Prince of Peace, had the pure water from the springs on the high hills conducted along the plains, and made "rivers in the desert," a very Elim for palm trees and springs of water, and called it "the City of Palms." It was a new Jerusalem transported into the wilderness, and making it blossom as a rose, providing a rest and a refreshment for the hungry, thirsty, weary pilgrim. What a figure of what the true Prince of Peace is doing to-day in the wilds of pagan lands!—bringing the streams from celestial springs to turn the deserts of sin into the Palmyra of Pilgrims.
—London Missionary Society. In fifty years the communicants in the missions have increased from 6,615 to 70,561, and the native preachers from 451 to 7,168.
—The Moravians have an important mission on the Moskito Coast, Central America, among a mixed population of Indians, Creoles and Spaniards. Begun in 1849, down to 1881 it had been quite successful, there being at the beginning of that year about a thousand communicants. A great awakening occurred, and all classes were most deeply moved. Bands of Indians at work in the forest, away from the mission stations, were seized by an overpowering conviction of sin, children at the stations knelt and prayed for forgiveness, and an almost universal awakening followed. It seemed to come spontaneously; it continued without special effort of the missionaries, and there was great excitement, which the missionaries labored to subdue as much as possible. The result of the revival was the adding of 1,500 or more to the list of communicants. Tested by time, conversions proved genuine; few have fallen away. A spirit of consecration possesses the older members, and the field of mission work is greatly extended. The natives no longer say that God does not love the poor Indian as he loves the white man, but rejoice in the revival as a special manifestation of God's grace toward them. Not a few heathen and dissolute characters were thoroughly converted and reformed.—Independent.
—The statistics of Presbyterian missions from the report of 1886 show the total number of communicants in the mission churches to be 20,294. This shows a gain during the last decade of nearly 136½ per cent.
—Some statistics appear in a recent issue of the Siglo XIX, of the City of Mexico, which will surprise many who regard an acquaintance with the Spanish language as merely an accomplishment. That it is of great use is proved by the tables submitted and the growth of our commercial relations with Mexico and South America. English is found to be spoken by 87,000,000 of people throughout the world; Spanish by 63,690,000; German by 53,000,000, and French by 43,000,000. Thus Spanish is second in importance, as a commercial language, being the only means of communication with a large percentage of the population of the earth. We must, however, take into account the fact that a larger part of them are of inferior importance to the bulk of the population of the United States, and of the other countries; yet it still holds that a vast extent of territory exists in which nothing but Spanish is spoken.
MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
VI.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
VI.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
THE following letter is from Dr. James L. Phillips, Chaplain State Institutions, Howard, R. I., a medical missionary "from Midnapore, Bengal, India, now at home on furlough, but earnestly hoping to return to his work abroad, in which it has pleased God to grant him 17 years, and very happy years, too."
REV. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.:
Dear Brother—I learn that you are to take up and carry on Mr. Wilder's Missionary Review, and I am delighted to know this. From the first number I've read it eagerly, and have done what I could to introduce it to friends in Europe and India. I most earnestly hope that by God's blessing upon your labors it may continue to hold its high place as a thoroughly independent, undenominational, faithful and fearless review of all missionary enterprises, home and foreign. So far as I know, it stands without a peer, in its own special province, in Christendom.
I should like to know the plans for the future conduct of the REVIEW, with a view to getting our pastors to subscribe. Some of our people have been taking it from the first, but hundreds more ought to.
Could you devote space in THE REVIEW to the Monthly Concert of Prayer for Missions, which has fallen into sad neglect during these 20 years? I am continually hearing of Congregational and Presbyterian churches—the two churches that observed it most faithfully years ago, when I was a student in this country—that do not even have the Missionary Concert. In this State the Baptists are keeping it up, I think, better than any other church.
My proposition is: Let THE MISSIONARY REVIEW consult with The Gospel in All Lands, and draw up a Programme for the Missionary Concerts of 1888, so that our pastors may have ample time to read up and be ready. As dear Dr. Duff used to say, "the hitch is with the pastors." What an added power we should gain in all our missionary work, at home and abroad, could we establish, and faithfully sustain, in our American churches such a grand CONCERT OF PRAYER, by taking up each month the same general topic, and instructing, interesting and inspiring our congregations with it! I cannot doubt that British Christians would join us in this good movement, for they have held up the monthly concert better than we have in America. Could we not have something like the International Sunday-school lesson—the same verses of Scripture studied in many lands and languages? For months these and kindred thoughts have been revolving in my mind; and the reading of such books as your noble "Crisis of Missions" only adds fuel to the fire already kindled. If there be a work in which sect-lines must more and more disappear, it is this great work of the world's evangelization. Christians must come into close fellowship with Christ, be more loyal to His government by keeping His great and last commission, before the "greater things" he spoke of can appear. Believe me, my dear sir,
Yours, with high esteem and very sincerely,
JAS. L. PHILLIPS.
This letter was followed by another from the editor of Gospel in All Lands:
NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 1887.
My Dear Dr. Pierson—I have just learned that you will have charge of the Monthly Concert Department of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW. I have been arranging the topics for the Monthly Concerts for 1888 to be treated in Missionary World and Gospel in All Lands, and a letter from Dr. J. L. Phillips urges me to see if Gospel in All Lands and MISSIONARY REVIEW cannot agree on topics for next year. I propose those on the enclosed paper. Several are the same as those adopted by the Presbyterians North and South.
EUGENE R. SMITH.
1888.
January—The World.
February—China.
March—Mexico, Central America.
April—India.
May—Burmah, Siam and Laos.
June—Africa.
July—Islands of the Sea, North American Indians, Chinese and Japanese in America, etc.
August—Italy and Papal Europe.
September—Japan and Korea.
October—Turkey and Persia.
November—South America.
December—Syria.
[The above arrangement will be adopted.—EDITORS.]
THE WORLD FIELD.
IN looking at the great field of missions, we are first of all overwhelmed with its vastness. We talk of continents as covered with the death shade, but how vague are the terms we use.
Let us take Connecticut as the unit of measurement, with its area of 4,700 square miles. It is contained in Dakota 47 times, and Japan is about as large as Dakota. And now we begin to get some definite conception of the Island Empire of the Rising Sun that is just now attracting the attention of the world by changes so radical and revolutionary that the like have never before been seen.
But Japan, large as it is, is very small in comparison with other heathen and pagan lands. Japan could be contained in India 10 times, and even India could be contained nearly three times in China; or, to be more accurate, you might carve out of China two empires like India, and have left enough to make seven more like Japan, or three hundred and thirty like Connecticut. And yet out of Africa you might construct China and two Indias besides!
Next we are impressed with the vastness of the vacancies where as yet no gospel light has shone. Great districts that are themselves empires have never yet been approached by the heralds of the Cross. When Samuel Hebich reached Calicut in 1834, the whole coast from Bombay to Cochin was as yet unoccupied, and looking inland, Bangalore, Bellary, Belgaum were the nearest stations, each between one and two hundred miles distant. When Robert Moffat landed in Africa, in 1817, the greater part of that Continent's interior had never been trodden by a white man's foot. And even as lately as Stanley's passage across the continent, ten years ago this summer, he came out at Banana, at the Congo's mouth, having, since he left Zanzibar, seven thousand miles distant, seen no man who had ever heard the gospel! About the same time two missionaries of the China Inland mission went from Bahmo in Upper Burmah to Chun-King, in China, one thousand miles, without finding one gospel station.
A third thing that impresses us is the wonder-working of God in connection with the history of modern missions. The days of supernatural signs in the church were the days during which the church was one great evangelistic body. When evangelism began to decline, the dark ages came rapidly on; and only since evangelical faith was revived and the church reformed, and so prepared again to take up the work of world-wide missions, have the days of manifest supernatural influence returned. We do not hesitate to say that the history of modern missions is a history of modern miracles—manifest workings of divine power, as convincing in their way and as peculiarly adapted to the present age as any miracles wrought in the days of the apostles. Single men, like Robert Moffat in Africa, Robert Morrison in China, John Williams in the South Seas, Wm. Johnson in Sierra Leone, Zeisberger and Duncan among the Indians, have been permitted to see results that as plainly show the hand of God as when the paralytic took up his bed and walked, or Lazarus came forth in grave-clothes.
A fourth impression is made upon us by the long study of missions, viz., that if a man or woman wants to make the capital of life yield the largest interest, here is an investment worthy the full engrossment of all the aims and powers of manhood and womanhood. To some, a life given to Christ in the great field of foreign missions means a life buried, wasted, thrown away. And it is so, if the standards of the world as to money-making, selfish indulgence, aspiring ambition and worldly emolument are to be taken as the measure of success or failure. But if a higher point of view is once got and held from which to survey life, it is not so.
Follow Moffat in his fifty years of consecrated toil, the apostle of Africa. Not only did he lead the way as an explorer, even for the heroic Livingstone, but he translated the Bible into the Bechuana tongue, dialects of which, varying but little, are spoken over almost the whole of the Dark Continent south of the equator! We have no proof that to any person it was ever given to render into Saxon the whole of the Scriptures. Bede was engaged on "John" when he died; Wickliffe and Coverdale had helpers. But Robert Moffat was permitted to translate the whole word of God into the pagan tongue of South Africa—an achievement which, had he done no other service, puts him among the most distinguished of the world's benefactors.
But Moffat is but one among a host of men and women whose lives have shaped the destiny of whole continents. The quiet work of the preachers and teachers at Beirut is permeating not only Syria but the whole Arabic-speaking world. Bishop Taylor in Africa, leaning only on God, going almost single-handed among the most barbarous tribes, and making the very chiefs tributary to his mission work; Dr. Clough among the Teloogoos, baptizing ten thousand in less than two months, and breaking down caste in his noble schools; Royal G. Wilder, "burying himself" among the heathen, that in thirty years he might preach in 3,000 villages and cities, scatter three million pages of tracts and gather 3,300 boys and girls into Christian schools—these are examples of "wasted life." If so, let our lives be wasted. Such a buried life becomes the seed of a harvest that neither time can measure nor man estimate.
II. SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS.
The first Protestant sermon preached west of the Mississippi was preached by Samuel J. Mills, the father of the American Board. Desiring to get out of this "pinhole," he went abroad. He had before said: "I cannot suffer my influence to be limited by Atlantic, Mississippi, great lakes, or gulf."
Miss Tucker (A. L. O. E.) went to India as a missionary, leaving the field of authorship for the comparatively obscure field of mission work. Judge Tucker, of Futtepoor, was her brother. He served long in India, giving to missions $200 per month. To those who remonstrated as to his liberality, he replied: "Here are 86,000,000 adult population; 5,000 die daily; every day's delay means 5,000 souls!" At the entrance to the station he had four stone tablets erected. On two, the Ten Commandments; on two, John iii: 14-18. After the duties of his office were fulfilled, he preached Jesus. "If every hair were a life," said he, "I would give them all to Him." He fell in 1857, at the hands of the mutineers. On his sitting-room walls were inscribed: "Fear God," "Love your enemies," "Prepare for death."
The gospel is still foolishness to the Greek. He mistakes the twilight of the morning for the twilight of the evening; what light he sees in the gospel he thinks is the last lingering, fading ray of a declining day, instead of the precursor of a splendid noon.
Post-mortem Gifts. "Father was wont, at this season of the year, to look with great anticipation to the great missionary anniversaries. I desire to act as his steward and pay in his behalf his ordinary annual contribution, which I enclose."
"W. E. D."
"SACRIFICE IS GOLD IN HEAVEN."
Bishop William Taylor: "I feel such a yearning in my soul to help the Lord Jesus to convert this world, that I would gladly be multiplied into a thousand workmen, and then live a thousand years to help on this work."
John Wesley loved to scatter every penny above his scanty necessary outlay. In 1782, his income was £361 19s. (about $1,820); of this he spent for clothing some $30, and gave away the entire remainder with his own hands. His book steward the same year, by his directions, gave away $1,185 more. At the end of his days Wesley wrote: "For upwards of 86 years I have kept my accounts exactly. I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction that I save all I can and give all I can—that is, all I have. I never put sixpence out at interest since I was born; nor had I ever a hundred pounds together, my own, since I came into this world." He regarded riches as a "necessary evil," a "serious danger."
A very fine article on Foreign Missions may be found in "Appleton's Encyclopedia," from the pen of an eminent writer.
There is needed a far larger recognition on the part of Christians of the duty of a personal instead of a proxy evangelization. "You see the day is past when the Church could say, 'Silver and gold have I none,'" said Innocent IV. complacently to St. Thomas of Aquinum, as he pointed to the masses of treasure which were being carried into the Vatican. "Yes, holy father," was the saint's reply, "and the day is also past when she could say to the paralytic, 'Take up thy bed and walk.'" It is not simply gathered treasure, whether of gold, or of social position, or of culture, which can make the Church able for her duty, disarm distrust of her among all classes, and fill her with power for the compelling of the millennium. It is scattered treasure which will do it. It is as each one of her members does and keeps doing his share and hers of the priestly ministry of personal interest and invitation. Why should you be willing to sit in one corner of your empty pew on Sunday? Why should you not be restless until even from the highways and hedges you have compelled them to come in—shown by divine deed that God's house is for all, and at least done your share toward the disarming of any possible distrust?—Dr. Wayland Hoyt.
It is never safe to make an exception a rule of conduct. One of the best illustrations of this fact was given by the Rev. Dr. Lorimer, during the Minneapolis meetings, in a little dialogue, which, if not veritable, is certainly suggestive. Talking with a man who had professed to be converted, a minister said: "Have you joined the church?" "No; the dying thief did not join the church, and he went to heaven." "Have you talked to your neighbors?" "No; the dying thief did not talk to his neighbors, and he went to heaven." "Have you given anything to missions?" "No; the dying thief never gave anything, and he went to heaven." "Well, my friend, it seems to me the difference is that he was a dying thief, and you are a living thief."
France: The Paris City Mission, started at the time of the Exhibition in 1878, in 1880 fairly commenced work with a staff of three missionaries, subsequently increased to 13. Latterly, funds have failed, and the number has been reduced to six. The income has ranged at different times from $3,200 to $3,600. One-third of this money is raised by pastors and congregations in connection with which the missionaries labor; the rest by private subscription.
India: Bengal.—Ten native young men have responded to the call for missionaries to preach to the Bengali coolies in Fiji.
Ahmednuggur.—It is said that the A. B. C. F. M. is going to establish there a college to train young men in English.
Japan: The first Japanese missionary student to the Basle Mission is Geusi-Igutsi, who was instructed and baptized (John) in China. The missionaries who have had opportunities of closely observing him have great confidence in him.
Korea: There is a call for a woman to work among the native women, and the government will encourage schools, though open preaching of the gospel is yet somewhat restricted.
North American Indians: At the late Indian Conference at Mohawk Lake, it was said that the effect of the recent orders of the Indian Bureau forbidding the use of any other language but English in the native schools would close some twelve to twenty Dakota schools where native teachers are at work. Another order stops the government boarding-school children from coming to Sunday-school! What do such orders mean?
Palestine: The opposition of the Turkish Government to the Mission Schools in Palestine, so far as the education in them of Mohammedan children is concerned, has culminated in an order from Constantinople forbidding the attendance of Moslems altogether; and one father has been thrown into prison for sending his child to a Mission School.
Persia: Persia has had a remarkable spiritual awakening, beginning with the Week of Prayer. The revival extends to several villages. Many lukewarm Christians were greatly revived, and sinners of all grades, young and old, converted. Places of worship have been found too small to accommodate the crowds. Mr. Labaree, of Oroomiah, reported the work still progressing and spreading. In several towns there are from twenty to forty, and even sixty inquirers.
Scotland: Free Church of Scotland sends out 109 missionary workers, of whom 30 are laymen and 30 women.
Syria: Beirut.—Two young men, members of the Senior class in the college, offer themselves to African missions. Dr. Jessup commends them highly. They have taken all the deprivations and difficulties into account, and make no stipulation as to the nature of their work or the amount of their pay. Their familiarity with Arabic would be of great help.
Thibet: The United Brethren have recently established a station at Leh, the chief town of Ladak, or Middle Thibet, a province of Cashmere. Many persons who at Kyelang have been brought to the knowledge of the truth have returned to Leh. Permission to reside there was given to these missionaries by the maharajah, at the request of the Marquis of Ripon. The town is situated in a fine, open valley, surrounded by lofty mountains, and is close upon 11,300 feet above the level of the sea. The winter has been spent here by Mr. and Mrs. Redslob and their family, who, by reason of the climate of this elevated station, have had much sympathy with the ice-bound missionaries of Labrador and Greenland.
III.—MISSIONARY TEXTS AND THEMES.
The field is the world.—Matt. xiii: 38.
1. World-wide extent, and the period, all time.
2. Two kinds of seed, the word and the children of the kingdom.
3. The harvest is to be sure and abundant.—Is. lv: 13.
4. The results will be rapid and marvellous.—Amos ix: 13.
5. All mainly depends on prayer.—Matt. ix: 38.
"Missions, Past and Prospective." In the "Bampton Lectures" by Anthony Grant, 1843, the following is the outline of the argument:
1. The adequacy and tendency of the gospel to gain universal sway. Its adaptation to mankind at large is contrasted with other religions, as adapted to a limited area; there is not one so much better than others as to pay to attempt to propagate it extensively; and when this is done it is only as a defensive measure to prevent decline.
2. The Universality of the Message and tendency to unity. He well says that "The gospel is not to be in all places at all times, nor in all places at one time; but in some place at all times and in all places at some time."
3. Christianity is not a spiritual influence on the soul of man, solely; but rather a spiritual and visible institution in which souls are gathered unto the Lord and nourished unto eternal life. Body, soul and spirit benefited. The gospel is communicated through external and visible system, which is threefold, viz.: 1. The conveyance of spiritual blessings. 2. The education of man as a social being. 3. The perpetuating and propagating of truth.
The New Testament contemplates both voluntary and commissioned agents for preaching, combining the authoritative teaching of the Church with that of the written Word of God.
Preaching, teaching, living, are to go together: Non magna loquimur, sed vivimus.
"There is no question as to whether or not missions are binding upon Christians. Missionary effort is not a matter of choice but of obligation. Indeed, it is as much an obligation as baptism or the Lord's Supper. Christ gave very few detailed instructions for the guidance of his Church. He left her policy to be shaped by the Holy Spirit. But one definite injunction He did give, and that his last as the risen Saviour: "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." This is not merely a commission for baptism. It is the outline of a policy—the missionary policy of the Church. It presents to us a command, a duty, a statement of the principal object of the Church's existence; with the encouraging promise, in view of the immense obligation, of power commensurate with the task—"Lo, I am with you alway." Missions are not optional. "Make disciples of all nations," is as binding as "This do in remembrance of me."
The Chinese are proverbially dull when first reached by the story of the gospel. Yet one woman in Shanse, though a cripple, came a long distance for a second visit to the missionary, and when asked what she remembered from the previous Sunday's talk, replied: "I am old, and my head is thick, and I have no memory. I only remember two things: That God is my Father in heaven, and that his Son Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins."
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
VII.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
British Contributions to Missions in 1885. Rev. W. H. Scott Robertson has summarized and analyzed them as follows: Grand total, including dividends, interest and rents, $7,936,870, an advance over 1884 of $71,990. He includes Roman Catholic contributions, $33,440. It appears from his tables that the Christian world raises over $11,000,000 a year for Protestant Missions, while Romish Foreign Missions receive but $1,325,850, little over one-eighth of that sum. (Missionary Review, Feb., 1887.)
—While the Church of England in 25 years has spent on Foreign Missions $50,000,000, seven times that amount has been spent on Home enlargements, improvements, etc. From a careful examination of the statistics of Christian Missions, the Quarterly Review states that during eight years the ordained missionaries from Protestant Christendom have increased fifty per cent., and the total income seventy per cent.
—Foreign Missions in 1885-1886, as reported in Wilder's Statistical Tables:
| No. of Societies |
102 |
| European Ministers |
40,371 |
| American " |
83,420 |
| Total |
123,791 |
| Year's gain |
1,703 |
| Home Communicants (Europe) |
16,934,077 |
| " (Am.) |
11,856,134 |
| Total |
28,790,211 |
| Year's gain |
53,564 |
| Year's growth in Communicants |
386,958 |
| Less than last year by |
51,772 |
| Foreign Miss. Income |
$10,297,238 |
| Year's loss |
74,463 |
| Whole cost of administration |
830,000 |
| Year's increase |
21,355 |
| Per cent. of income |
8.78 |
| Increase in percentage |
.98 |
| Workers from Christendom (ordained) |
3,035 |
| Year's gain |
60 |
| Workers (laymen) |
1,167 |
| Increase |
435 |
| Workers (women) |
2,444 |
| Increase |
24 |
| Total workers from Christendom |
6,647 |
| Native workers (ordained) |
3,307 |
| " (not ordained) |
30,293 |
| Year's increase of native workers |
1,890 |
| Total No. of workers |
40,246 |
| Native communicants |
950,162 |
| Year's increase |
148,134 |
| Per cent. of increase |
18.74 |
These tables, of course, only approximate the truth. But some things in them are noteworthy. 1. The year's growth in communicants at home was nearly 52,000 less than the previous years (1884-5), and only 1.35 per cent.; abroad it was nearly 150,000, and nearly 19 per cent.
2. The total of workers has risen from 37,837 to 40,246, but still all Christendom sends but 6,647, while the native churches provide 33,600, five times as many. Christendom sends one out of every 4,332 members to the field; the native churches give one out of every 28! At that rate Christendom would have to-day one million workers in the foreign field, or one to every 850 of the unevangelical population of the globe!
—"The Independent" takes note that Dr. Daniel Dorchester has just made a fresh study of statistics, which are not specially flattering:
The total yearly receipts from all our American Home and Foreign Missionary Societies in 1850 were $1,232,123; in 1860, $2,525,549; in 1870, $4,225,952; in 1880, $5,939,845. Since 1880 the average amount has been about $7,000,000 yearly. The increase has thus been large, being four-fold for Foreign Missions and six-fold for Home Missions in the thirty years from 1850 to 1880.
But when we come to count the members of the Protestant churches we have a different story. The number of church members are given by Dr. Dorchester as having been 3,529,988 in 1850; 5,240,554 in 1860; 6,673,396 in 1870, and 10,065,963 in 1880. Now, assuming these figures to be correct, we have 35 cents per member given in 1850 for Home and Foreign Missions, 48 cents in 1860, 63 cents in 1870, and 59½ cents in 1880. In the last period there has been a falling off, and there has been no adequate increase since 1860. It must be that there is an immense number of church members reported who give absolutely nothing for missions; and it must be that the interest of those who do give is much less than it should be. An average of less than sixty cents in a year is vastly less than what ought to be given.
But when we come to the property test, the case is still worse. Supposing the church members to have just an average amount of the wealth of the country (we do not doubt they have more), in 1850 they gave to missions one and one-tenth mills to each dollar of their property; in 1860 this sum was reduced to nine-tenths of a mill; in 1870 to eight-tenths, and in 1880 to six and a half tenths of a mill. Thus we see that while the total gifts have increased five times, the amount given by each converted dollar has been reduced nearly one-half. This is very far from a creditable showing, and proves that not near as much sacrifice is made for the cause of missions as forty years ago.
The one great duty of the Church is to convert the world to Jesus Christ. Are the effort and the self-denial adequate which give sixty cents a member per year, and two-thirds of one-tenth of one per cent. of property?
—Foreign Missionary Organizations raised last year in the United States $3,898,944. The total gain in communicants was 22,069.—Wilder's Tables.
—Since the Methodist Board of Church Extension began its work, in the year 1865, it has helped to build 5,805 churches. It has collected and disbursed nearly $3,000,000.
—Presbyterian Growth. From the narrative of the state of religion to the last Assembly we learn that the additions to the membership during the year were over 52,000 on examination and 29,000 on certificate—the most fruitful year in the Church's history. The Boards received $1,915,987. Foreign Missions had the largest receipts ever known in the history of the Church, $784,157.59. Of this the Women's Boards contributed $248,649.50. The growth of the contributions of the latter is a remarkable exhibit of what can be done by "organizing the littles." In 1871 they reported $7,000. This amount has gone up by the following strides during subsequent years: $27,000, $64,000, $87,000, $96,000, $115,000, $124,000, $136,000, $170,000, $176,000, $178,000, $193,000, $204,000, $224,000, $248,000.
—Moravians have a noble missionary record. During the last century 25,000 of them have been sent to "the regions beyond," while $300,000 have been expended yearly, and nine vessels been kept busy in the interests of missions. This small band of disciples may well put us all to the blush by their sanctified liberality and self-consecration.
—Roman Catholics in China.—The Chinese Recorder gathers from a table of statistics of Roman Catholic missions the following facts: "There are in the various provinces of China 483,403 Catholic Christians, 471 European missionaries, 281 native priests, 2,429 churches and chapels, 1,779 colleges and schools, with 25,219 scholars, and 33 seminaries and 654 seminarists. In Corea, Japan, Manchuria, Mongolia and Thibet there are 130 European and 15 native priests, 227 churches and chapels, and 77,254 Catholic Christians. In the Indo-China peninsula there are 694,286 Catholics, and in India 1,185,538 Catholics. The grand total for these Asiatic countries is 2,440,486 Catholics, 2,639 missionaries and native priests, 7,293 churches and chapels, 4,469 colleges and schools, with 112,359 scholars, and 76 seminaries, with 2,746 seminarists. These countries are divided into 67 vicariates apostolic and 4 prefectures apostolic. Six of these vicariates are worked by the Jesuits. Most of them, however, are under the charge of missionaries of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris and the Seminary of Foreign Missions of Milan."
—There are 40,000 Wild Indian Children in this country. Of this number, all told, there are but 12,000 gathered in the Government and Mission schools, leaving 28,000 children to whom no school opens its door, and to whom no Christian missionary comes. There are at least sixty whole tribes upon whose darkness no ray of Gospel light has ever fallen, as pagan and as savage as were their ancestors when the first white man landed upon these shores!
—Perhaps the power of God has been manifest in the islands of the Pacific more than in any other part of the world. In the Sandwich Islands one pastor baptized 12,000 converts in 45 years. In the group of islands called the Philippine, the Society, the Friendly and the Caroline, the natives were savages and cannibals of the worst type; but they have exchanged their savage life for the life inspired by the gospel of Christ; and in those groups of islands there are nearly 200,000 native Christians. In the Fiji Islands, also formerly a centre of cannibalism, out of a population of 120,000 all but one-seventh are said to be attending the Wesleyan meetings, and the most of the remainder belong to other meetings; so that church-going there is quite universal.
—The Salvation Army, entering India five years ago, has now 120 English and 80 native missionaries.
—The Imperial Academy of Sciences has recently completed the publication of a translation of the New Testament into the language of the Calmucks. This, it is said, is the first attempt to make known to the Calmucks the text of the Christian Gospels. The initiative is due to the British Bible Society, by which the work of translation was confided to Prof. Pozneieff, of the Chair of Mongol and Calmuck Literature in the University of St. Petersburg. Two hundred copies have been sent to Astrachan and sold to the converted Calmucks of that province. The rest have been sent abroad for distribution in Asia by European missionaries.—St. Petersburg Dispatch to the London Times.
—The Australian Church, under the direction of the Bishop of Sydney, has resolved upon the establishment of missions in the English portions of New Guinea, which portion is about equal in size to the whole of Great Britain. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel has appropriated £5,000 to aid the work.
—The "Ragged Sunday-schools" in London have 40,000 scholars and 4,000 teachers. Its president was the late and honored Lord Shaftesbury. His son succeeds him in the work. The income of the society, consisting wholly of voluntary contributions, amounts to $80,000 per annum.
—There are 400 Mormon bishops in Utah, 2,423 priests, 2,947 teachers, and 6,854 deacons. Salt Lake City is divided into wards of eight or nine blocks each, and a bishop is put in charge of each ward. Under him are two teachers, whose business is to learn the employment and income of every resident of the ward and report the same to the bishop. Then the bishop collects the tenth of each man's income and turns it in to the church authorities. The Mormons are as adept as the Roman Catholics in getting their hands into the pockets of believers.
—Two hundred and fifty millions of women depend for the Gospel upon the women of the Protestant Churches of America. Nine-tenths of the contributions to foreign missions are given by one-tenth of the church membership, while only one-half of the membership give anything. The average amount per member is fifty cents per annum—only the seventh part of a cent per day for the conversion of a thousand millions of people. An average of five cents a week from every member of the Protestant churches of the United States would bring into the treasury during a single year $16,500,000. Ninety-eight per cent. of the Church's contributions for religious purposes is spent at home, while only two per cent. is applied to the foreign mission field. There are 75,000 ministers in the United States, or one to about every 600 persons, while only one is allotted to half a million in heathen lands. There are 1,500 counties in China without a single missionary.
—There are about 600 native newspapers in India, all of which, with the exception of about half a dozen, are bitterly opposed to Christianity. Societies are now being organized for the dissemination of the skeptical writings of England and America. An important society is in operation from Lahore, as a centre, while another has its headquarters in Benares. The pictures of the gods best known to the Hindu pantheon are even lithographed in Germany and England and sold in Calcutta! Native rajahs interest themselves in circulating Hindu tracts, and have adopted shrewd methods to carry on their work. The Rev. Mr. Craven says he knows of one rajah alone who is printing at his own expense 2,000,000 of Hindu tracts, and intends to distribute them at the large fairs of North India. The missionaries, however, keep close watch over these antagonistic forces. They too are enlarging their operations rapidly. But the churches and societies which they represent should adopt far more liberal measures to furnish the millions of natives to whom they are sent with sound Christian literature. The passion for reading has struck every part of India. The people will have books and newspapers. It is for the western Christian world to say what their fibre shall be.—Dr. Hurst, in Harper's Magazine.
—The Chinese Recorder gives the following statistics of Christian missions in China to Dec. 1, 1886:
| Number of societies |
37 |
| Total number of missionaries |
919 |
| Men |
446 |
| Wives |
316 |
| Single ladies |
157 |
| China inland mission (men) |
92 |
| Various Presbyterian societies (men) |
93 |
| Methodist societies |
70 |
| Congregationalist societies |
53 |
| Episcopalian societies |
39 |
| Americans |
164 |
| English |
230 |
| Other nationalities |
52 |
Of the single ladies nearly half are American. Others are not named.
—The China Inland Mission has 43 married and 129 unmarried missionaries. Including wives and 117 native workers, the entire force numbers over 300. They are asking for 100 more for this year. Their operations have been continued for years, and the hundred new men are called for by way of celebrating the majority of the society.
—The Japan Mission of the Presbyterian Board are asking for ten new men instead of a hundred, and the question is whether the Presbyterian Church is able and willing to grant their request. What will the synods, the presbyteries and the churches say to their petition?
—The Chinese Governor of the large island of Formosa in starting a college has chosen a missionary to inaugurate and organize the institution. Such a step would have been regarded as a miracle one generation ago.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
VIII.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
A WORD TO OUR PATRONS.
Enterprises are nowadays so commonly started with supreme reference to pecuniary returns that it seems like an affectation of unselfishness to claim any other and higher motive in the wide circulation of this REVIEW. Nevertheless, the editors are conscious of no ulterior end but the arousing of the Church of God to a more vigorous prosecution of the missionary campaign. And in our effort we desire the warm, sympathetic co-operation of all our subscribers. We undertake the work with a deep persuasion that it is God's work laid upon us, and we care for no reward beyond the consciousness of His approval. We mean to make this REVIEW indispensable, if we can, to all who love the cause of Christ, and especially to all who wish to know the needs of a world-wide field and the progress of the Kingdom,
We wish to establish between the Church at home and the workers and warriors on the outposts a line of communication, which shall also be a line of supplies; to create and foster a living bond of active and intelligent sympathy; to know what is doing and needs to be done—what needs are met and what lack is felt; to mark progress and trace causes of defeat, to canvass methods and criticise defects, to prevent waste and relieve friction, to promote co-operation and allay antagonism, to stimulate giving and especially self-giving—such are some of the many glorious results we aim to further. The wider the circulation of the REVIEW the more rapid and widespread the success of our measures.
We want those whom God has blessed with means and a generous heart to put at our disposal a Fund for gratuitous distribution to those who cannot afford to pay for the REVIEW. For example, in this country and in England, there are some three thousand young men and women who have signified their desire and intent to go to the foreign field when their studies are completed, if the way shall open. Many of them are poor and self-dependent. Can any man or woman make a nobler appropriation than to put at our disposal such sum of money as may enable us to send the REVIEW to such young persons free for one year?
While at Rochester, two young persons came to one of the editors, who made an address there on Nov. 15, and said: "I have just read your book, 'The Crisis of Missions;' it has decided me to give myself to the foreign field." A similar scene occurred at Buffalo, next day, and at Alexandria, Va., a few weeks before. If some man or woman who cannot go himself, or herself, can, by the free distribution of such a missionary organ as this, make missionaries, what offering can be more acceptable to God? We are willing to be custodians of such benevolence and see that it is made just as powerful as it can be in furthering the work. And if there be any who cannot give, will they not at least pray that our work may prove to the churches the world over even a greater blessing than our hearts could dare to anticipate?
The fund is already started by a gift of $100 from the editors and $100 from the publishers, and a considerable addition will be made from arrears of subscriptions on THE MISSIONARY REVIEW, all of which Mr. Wilder put at the disposition of the editors. We want to raise $5,000 for this purpose.—P.
The recent meeting of the American Board at Springfield, Mass., was in many respects the most eventful one since its organization. It was generally felt that the meeting would be a battle-ground between the new theology, with its post-mortem probation, and the older, more conservative, and, we hesitate not to say, more Scriptural and evangelical position held by the Reformed churches for centuries. Happily, as we think, the issue of the battle was on the side of the old and not the new theology. The landmarks which the fathers set up will not be removed, and Dr. Storrs' manly and Christian letter, accepting the presidency of the Board—a letter too long to be reproduced in these columns—covers, to our view, the whole case.
In this letter of acceptance, he expresses the opinion that the question of the "new theology" is, for the present, practically settled, so far as the Board is concerned; and adds that a withholding of funds from the treasury, "if that should unhappily come to pass," would not change the convictions on which the decision was based. He frankly gives as his belief that it would be unsafe to allow the same latitude of opinion in the missionary field which local churches here occasionally allow, whether properly or not, to those who transiently minister to them. There is a loyal and royal ring in words like these: "This society exists for a purpose wide as the world, solemn as the Cross, connected with eternal issues. It is always responsible to the Lord of the Gospel for what its messengers proclaim in His name."
Dr. Noble of Chicago one year ago expressed on this subject, comprehensively and briefly, the practical bearings of the whole question. He said, in effect, that there are two ways which we may pursue: we may either spend our time and energy speculating as to whether mankind will have probation after death, or we may give ourselves to the endeavor to secure their acceptance of this great salvation in the present probation before death. "As for myself," he added, "I propose to give all my thought and powers to securing for men a present salvation." To all of which let all the people say Amen!—P.
In New Jersey, the week between November 13 and November 20 was kept as one of simultaneous meetings in the interests of Foreign Missions. The whole work was in the hands of five members of Synod, Rev. Dr. Augustus Brodhead, of Bridgeton, being Chairman. He lived long enough to make the arrangements and was then called up higher.
All-day conventions were arranged for in every one of the 219 towns in the State where there was a Presbyterian church. The convention was not held on the same day in every place, but some time within the week. Fifty-eight places were designated as centres, provided with special speakers at the evening meeting. The plan of the conventions was uniform: A morning prayer-meeting, followed by an open meeting for familiar conference as to the mission field, its work and workers; in the afternoon, separate meetings of ladies', young people's and Sunday-school societies and bands, and in the evening the main meeting, with at least two specially prepared addresses.
To our minds, this simultaneous meeting is one of the grandest plans ever adopted to arouse, concentrate and vitalize the interest in the great foreign Mission work. We hope to see the day when, throughout the whole land, simultaneous meetings shall be held, and, like the three annual feasts of the Jews, all the tribes go up to take part, bring offerings and carry back a new inspiration and blessing. The movement is timely, popular, grand, effective, and promises results far beyond our present calculation.—P.
MRS. WILDER, widow of the late editor of The Missionary Review, and Grace E. Wilder, the daughter, sailed for Kolapoor, Western India, on the 26th of Nov., under the auspices of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. Miss Grace was born there, and the mother spent thirty years of her life there in missionary work in connection with her devoted husband. She had a school of 300 girls, at one time, and gave Christian education to a large number of the native women of India, who regard her in the light of a mother. Denied the privilege of going back to her work, after twelve years' absence, in company with her venerated husband, she, after his death, begged to be allowed to go back with her daughter and resume active work there, as a Bible reader, on her own charges. Her first love is still fresh and strong, and poor India, for whom she and her life companion sacrificed so much, is dearer to her than her native land, and even the sons whom she leaves behind. The daughter inherits a full measure of her parents' spirit, and, having rendered her father important help on The Missionary Review, and received rare training for the work, consecrates her life to the same blessed service. And one son, now in Union Seminary, New York, who has gone among our colleges lately and helped to kindle the missionary spirit among the students, will follow his aged mother and youthful sister as soon as his studies are completed.
What heroism have we here! The timid maiden and the solitary, aged widow, parting with children dear, the comforts of a good home and the dust of her loved one, and braving the winter storms of ocean, embarks joyfully for her long voyage, to carry once more the message of redeeming love to her sisters in India, and with trembling voice to repeat to the children the sacred lessons she taught in early life to their mothers!
The God of the widow and the Father of the fatherless preserve and speed them on their glorious mission and spare them to sow the seed of an abundant harvest! Just before his death the husband and father said to the writer: "I consider it a privilege and a joy inexpressibly great to have been permitted to spend forty-two years of my life in the service of Christian missions, and my one desire to-day is, now that you have kindly relieved me of this Review, to be spared to go back to India and lay my worn-out body to rest among the people there, whom I love. Yes, I would gladly start, even if sure I should not live to get there and my body find a grave in the deep."—S.
"THE day is breaking,
We are living, we are dwelling
In a grand and awful time!
In an age on ages telling;
To be living is sublime.
Hark! the waking up of nations—
Gog and Magog to the fray!
Hark! What soundeth? 'Tis creation's
Groaning for its latter day."
Yes, the time is hastening. God is rolling on the ages with awful sweep and force. He is crowding a whole century of opportunities into a day. He is bringing the world together, so that the Church may compass it, know it, traverse it, a hundred-fold quicker and better than in former generations. Competent engineering authorities assure us that in five years we shall be able to go round the world in forty days; and go in all the comfort and with all the security of our modern civilization! And are not such facts the voice of God, speaking out of the cloud to His people to go forward?—S.
WE beg our friends and patrons to be a little lenient in their judgment of this our first number. The call to the editors was sudden and unexpected. It found them both full of work, and yet they dared not decline what seemed a call of Providence. We have done what we could, at short notice, and with the material and help we could command; and yet we have not realized our ideal. We hope to improve as we get familiar with the work and gather in a vaster and more select amount of material. We expect also to enlist competent pens to aid us in the Literary department, ensuring greater variety and ability. We have also arranged for assistance in Statistical matters, and fuller information from our Editorial Correspondents. The editors are mainly responsible for this initial number.—S.
As it is pleasant to know whose thoughts one is reading, the following rule will be adopted: All editorials will have the initial of the writer. The names of other writers will be given in connection with their contributions. To Parts I., V. and VIII. both editors will contribute. Dr. Pierson will conduct Part VI., while his associate will be responsible for Parts II., III. and VII.
Through an oversight, Dr. Pierson was not credited, as he should have been, for Mr. Wilder's Biography, on pp. 7-16. An excellent likeness of Mr. Wilder will be found in the number.—S.