The Missionary Review of the World — December 1898
F . Dl< P . CASTELLS AND ms ATTENDANT IN
PHILIPPINES. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: VOL. XXI. No.12.-0ldSerie8.-DECEMBER-VoL. XI. No.12.-NewSerUs.
THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATIONAL, MISSIONS.
BY REV. S. H. KELLOGG, D.D., LL.D.,t LANDOUR, NORTH INDIA.
In discussing the general question of EDUUATlONAL MISSIONS, two or three points need to be emphasized at the beginning. First, let it be understood, that it is not a question as to whether we may hope that men may sometimes be saved by education instead of by the Gospel. I have never heard of any missionary who held such a view. Nor can we admit that the question is fairly put, as sometimes it is, whether we shall give our strength to education or to preaching the Gospel. As Christians, loyal to the teaching of Jesus Christ, and ill the light of the clear evidence of history, we can not admit that secular education has in it any saving power. For saving men there is no alternative to the Gospel. Education is by no means even a security against immorality.
Again, the question is not whether it is necessary to educate men in order to predispose and enable them to accept the Gospel. The teaching of holy Scripture, and the experience of centuries, alike show plainly that it is never necessary to educate men in order that they may become Christians. Intellectual culture is JlO necessary preliminary to saving faith; it may even prove a hindrance. 'rhere is nothing in secular education, as snch, which tends to make tllen love and trust God, believe in His Son, and break the power of iud welling sin. The uttermost result of mere secular education is culture, and the power * This periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Hule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Association and the Philological Society of England :-Change d or -ed final to t when so pronounced, except when the e affects a preceding l:lOUlIU.-PUBLISHERS.
t I first entered India in 1865 with a strong prepossession against educational mission work, such as is very common among those just entering the mission field, as also with many excellent friends of missions at home. It was thus somewhat of a trial, when immediately on arrival at my station I was put in charge of one of our Anglo-vernacular high schools; but I nevertheless felt that my brethren were only reasonable when the"- urged that I should at least try to learn something of this work by personal experience, before making up my mind finally on this subject. For a year or two I remained in this position, after which I was relieved for other work~ and have never since been in such a position. The result, however, of many years of experience in India, has been considerably to modify what I now regard as the rather extreme position which I was at first inclined to take. I propose in the present article to set forth the view which I take at present.-S. H. K.
THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATIONAL MISSIONS
which culture often giv3S; but culture is quite another thing from holiness, and has no necess::ry connection with it. There may be much of either where there is none of the other.
Furthermore, the answer to the question as to the duty of educa- tional mission work does not, as some seem to think, logically depend upon the view one may take of the purpose of this dispensation, one way or the other.* Surely that question does not affect the duty of carrying the Gospel as speedily as possible to all nations. Missionaries engaged in educational work, who hold that the purpose of missions is elective, are as earnestly desirous, as any who differ with them, that as soon as possible Christ shall be preacht to all peoples. All heartily agree that this is the will of God, and that, however the kingdom of God is to come on earth, it will in no case come until this is accom- plisht.
But it must be admitted that in every land we are to bring the Gospel, not merely to some classes, but to all classes; and that it shall be presented to men of every class so as hest to gain access to their hearts and understandings. If, then, there be in any land individuals or classes who utterly refuse to listen to the Gospel as preacht in. the street or market, or to allow the missionary to enter their houses, but who will send their children to mission schools to be taught secular learning, while not forbidding us to give therewith also the Gospel, is it not dear that if we are to become" all things to all men, that we may by all means save some," we are bound to use such means as shall give ns access to them: In the nse of the phrase" preaching the Gospel for a witness" no little loose thinking is often concealed. A witness is only a witness when understood by the hearer. I believe that in the majority of cases in nOll-Christian lands, such" witness" as is required of us, is not borne in any true sellse by simply passing through a village of ignorant heathen and reciting John iii: 16, or some similar declaratioll of the Gospel. The words have in(leed struck the outward ear; but in India, as in many other nOll-Christian lands, the minds of the masses are so completely prepossest by erroneous ideas, that the very words we use in announcing the Gospel have to the people a meaning * Many believe that it is the plan of God to fulfil to the uttermost all the predictions con- cerning the kingdom of God on earth, simply and only by the means amI instrumentalities, evangelistic and providential, which are now in operation: and regard this so-called -, conversion of the world" as the object of this dispensation. There are others, a smaller. tho of late years rapidly increasing number, who believe that the earthly triumph of God's kingdom, which all ngree in expecting, is not to be attained, according to God's plan, in this present dispensation: but will be ushered in. by the return and glorious personal appearing of the Lord J eRUS Christ. Such believe that the purpose of this present dispensation is strictly elective: and that God is at present visiting the Gentiles only that He may" take out of them a people for His name," Acts xv : 14: and that when throughout the world such a testimony shall be given to the Gospel as shall accomplish this, then" the end" of this present age shall come, Matt. xxiv: 14. Now, very strangely, it seems to be imagined by many, who, like the writer, take this latter view of th" divine plan, that if all this be granted, then the case is at once settled against educational missions.-S. H. K. so totally different from the one we attach to them, that no little patient explanation of the Gospel day after day is needed, to enable a man to grasp the real meaning of the words he has heard.
N ow if, through the influence of a false philos(i)phy, or of books mistakenly regarded as of Divine authority, the very words we use in preaching have'come to a sense utterly foreign to the Gospel, and errors regarded as axiomatic truth debar access to the mind; and if, as is eminently the case in India, such erroneous ideas may be corrected, through secnlar teaching received iu onr schools and colleges, who shall say that it is inconsistent with the mission of the evangelist to give such teaching? How can it be rightly maintained that the educational mission which seeks by secular education to accomplish this, is at variance with the Biblical conception of" preaching the Gospel for a witness to all nations?" Such missions in many instances may rather be essential to any true" witness."
ACCE::3S TO CULTURED CLASSES.
We are now prepared to ask whether educational missions are justifiable, in fact as well as in theory. We llIay distinguish between such mission work as merely aims at giving an elementary education, sufficient to enable one to read God's IVord, and such other educational work as aims at giving a high-class general education. As regards the former, there can hardly be allY serious difference of opUllon. Whenever adequate provision is 1l0t otherwise made for teaching a people to read, it is evidently the duty of the missionary to provide so far as possible means whereby men shall be taught to read the Word of God.
As to the duty of a missiou to undertake higher education, the case seems to lie thus: If ill any laud through existing social and political conditions, it is found impracticable to reach men with the Gospel by public preaching or by honse to house visitation, while by means of such Anglo-vernacular schools and colleges as most lIIissions maintain in India, Syria, and elsewhere, the missionary can without hindrance bring the Gospel to bear daily on multitudes of the people, especially the young, who otherwise would not hear it, then it seems clear that he ought to do it. Even if, as in India, the masses can be reacht by street and bazaar preaching there yet remain important classes who can uot be so reacht, but who can be reacht through high-class schools and collegcs, then common sellse would seem to teach that such institutions we onght to have. It was this consideration that led Dr. Duff and other fathers of our India missions to establish the schools and colleges which are to-day such a prominent featnre of mission work in India. During the past half cenLury the Gospel has by this means been expounded to hundreds of thousands who, but for these institutions, would never have had any intelligent notion of the Gospel. This fact clearly justifies the establishment and maintenance of this department of missionary labor.
It is true that the higher classes of India, who will not listen to the street preacher, have latterly become accessible in other ways, as by public lectures and by house to house visitation. The good work of this kind done hen' by President Seeley, Dr. Pentecost, and Dr. Barrows, is familiar to all who are interested in India missions. It is possible that, in view of this, it might now be expedient to devote a smaller proportion of labor and money to higher education in India, but it must· not be forgotten that this present accessibility is due largely to the influence of the educational work of this generation. In Lahore, for instance, where I have repeatedly been delighted by the close and intelligent attention of so many edncated native gentlemen, I should certainly never have had such large or such intelligent audiences, except for the forty years which the late Rev. Chas. W. Forman, D.D., gave to the Anglo-vernacular educational work in that city. Rev. Dr. McKichan of the Scotch Establisht Church Mission, Principal of Wilson College, Bombay, has recently written in a letter much to the same effect: So great do I feel the opportunity of proclaiming the Gospel of Christ to these students, that I long for the multiplication of such institutions throughout India, and mourn the want of them in important centers, such as Poona, where missionaries find extreme difficulty in getting into touch with the real centers of Hindu life and influence, just for want of a missionary institution as a basis from which to operate. In Bombay, Wilson College forms a center for evangelistic work amongst the educated classes, and anyone who desires to reach these classes is more likely to draw an audience in the Wilson College than in any other place in Bombay.
Our mission is to bring the Gospel not only to the millions of the rude and ignorant, but to the much smaller number of the educated classes.* I am therefore convinced that ill most of our missions there is clearly a place of the highest order for educational mission work. as essential to the thorough evangelization of the people.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.
In the India of to-day, the need for such institutions as a necessary part of the missionary propaganda, is the more emphasized by the fact that in a high and incrt3asing degree, the influential classes are coming more and more under the illfluence of the English language and literature, and in particular with all that is most Antichristian in our modern scientific and philosophical literature. Such names as Huxley, Spencer, and others are as familiar to the educated * But this number in India is rapidly increasing. In colleges giving the B. A. degree there are now about 30,000 students; and in the two highest classes of the high schools, about 70,000 more. The number taking the B. A. degree in the decade ending 1891, was more than three times the number of these in the previous decade. See India Evangelical Review, Jan. 1897, p. 304. classes in India, as in America; and probably the greater number of those who have become more or less acquainted with English, have come to believe that these men have finally settled the question against Christianity and the supernatural, and they share the opinion of too many superficial skeptics at home that modern science is essentially and inevitably Antichristian. Confronting such a state of mind in a large section of society in this or any other non-Christian land, can we say that we ought to ignore it, and content ourselves with a work purely and exclusively "evangelistic" in the narrow sense of that often grievous~y misused word? Shall we pursue our work in precisely the same way as if no such state of things existed?
Moreover, the Antichristian spirit of modern India is using high Anglo-vernacular education for its own ends, and is establishing large high-class schools and colleges on an avowedly Antichristian Lasis.
COLLEGE OF THE ARYA SOMAJ, LAHORE, INDIA.
An illustration is the Mohammedan College ill Aligarh, N. W. Provinces, founded by that eminent Mohammedan gentleman, lately deceast, Sir Syad Ahmad. Anothcr example is the large college of the Arya Somaj, in Lahore. This has 410 students, the largest number of any college in Lahore, and prepares men to pass B. A. and other examinations of the Punjab University. The avowed aim of the institution is to promote the philosophical and religious principles inculcated by the late Pundit Dayanand Saraswati, founder of the Somaj. 'ro this end, in addition to the stndies required to pass the various examinations of the university, all students must devote three, and Sanskrit students four, periods a week to the study of the Arya doctrines. Than the Arya Somaj, Christianity has no more deadly enemy in India. In its active and unceasing hostility to all missionary effort, it can only be compared with Islam. The question then returns to us-should we allow men who graduate from such colleges to remain under the impression that to the Antichristian argument drawn from modern science and philosophy, evangelical Christians have no answer to give, and that science has vanquisht Christianity? Ought we not ilL the persons of living teachers and preachers of the IVord rather to show that, so far from being destructive of faith in the Gospel, it is qnite possible for an edncated man to accept honestly all that is accepted by the concensus of scholars as settled fact in science, and yet believe none the less firmly that J esns Christ rose from the dead the third day, according to onr Gospel, and therewith all the other great truths as to man's ruin, and redemption, which Christ and His apostles so indubitably taught?
Finally, as to India and other mission-fields, where, as the fruit of missionary work, there are millions of Christian converts, it should be rememberetl that, inasmuch as the Christian community is as yet comparatively poor and weak, we are bound to see to it that Christin.n young men from our native churches have the opportunity of getting a high education of a distinctively Christian type; and that they be not driven to attend either the government institutions, where all religious inflnence is excluded, 91' such avowedly Antichristian institutions as those above mentioned. If such young men are rapidly becoming an important factor in our Christian communities, mission high schools and colleges become an imperative necessity. And if maintained for them, surely we should be only too glad to welcome to them young men who may not be Christians.
THE AUI OF EDt:CATlONAI, MISSWlS.
It may remain an open question as to what proportion of the missionary effort the Church should spend in this kind of work in allY particular country; but it seems perfectly clear that there is a place for such work in India, China, and the Turkish Empire, not in place of evangelistic labor, but to make possible such labor among the educated classes. 'This being granted, the question arises as to the princi pIes on which mission schools and colleges should be conducted. The answer is simple. All such institutions should be conducted with the conversion of the students as the ultimate aim. No doubt such institutions may and do serve an important pnrpose apart from actual conversions in preparing the way for and making possible direct efforts to bring Illen to Christ. The missionary may well comfort himself with this thought, if direct fruit in conversions be few; but he will not do well to rest satisfied with this prpparatory work. IVe should let it be known that while we labor for the intellectual and moral advancement of the fltudents and for their temporal success, yet that is not the chief end for which we are working; but that, above all else, we desire to lead them to a true faith in God and in His Son Jesus Christ as the only Savior of lost men. Some will reproach ns with aiming at "proselytising," but in that reproach we may well glory, if only it be understood that we seek to bring men not merely to an intellectual and nominal acceptance of Christ, exprest, perhaps, in baptism, but to a living and transforming faith in Christ.
From this it follows that in every mission-school or college the Bible will be taught, as in point of fact it is. To this will be added, as the attainments of the students may warrant, the study of evidences of Christianity. Furthermore, the missionary teacher will bring before his students those arguments for the truth of Christian theism, and of the Christian revelation in particular, which may be suggested in any course of scientific and hi~torical and philosophical stndies.
KIPLOY::'IEXT OF XOX-CHIUSTLX TEACHERS.
Here emerges the often-discust qnestion of the propriety of employ- ing non-Christian t'eachers in mission schools. It goes witholl t saying that if it be possiblc to man a school or college throughout with Christian teachers, this is by all means the most desirable. But even ill India, where more aJ vance has probably been made than in any otber mission-field, this is qnite impossible. ,Vhat, then, is uur duty? I should answer, first, that, in any case, the Bible or any work in exposition of the Christian religion, should be taught by Christians only. It Joes not, however, seem lIecessary that where Christians can not be obtained, non-Christians shoulJ be excluJeJ from teaching purely secular branches. It is true that such teaehers will not be able to make use of any of these secular studies for an apologetic purpose, but this lack can well be snpplemented by the lllissionary principal and his associated Christian teachers. Tho we may regret the necessit.y which compels us to employ a l3rahmin 01' a :Iohammedall to teach language or science, yet it seems that this is a less edl than would be the alternative-necessary in India at least-of closing nearly all our mission-schools and colleges.
Again, granting that it is right for missionaries to give more or less of their time to secular education, the question arises as to what branches of secular knowledge should ,,0 selected as most likely to prove helpful to their aim and hopc. Certai II branches of study will at once occur to everyone as of especial valne in this connection. Such, for instance, is history, which presents snch overwhelruing and incontrovertible evidence of the power of Christianity, even whell very imperfectly and partially received, to elevate the moral standard and to purify the family, social, and political life of a nation. For those sufficiently advanced one may also emphasize, in this connection, the value of philosophy and of mental and moral science. In many mission-fields, behind the false thinking and consequent wrong acting in matters of religion, lies a false philosophy-in India, usually palltheistic-on which is based a no less false psychology and a pernicious system of ethics. To the false we must oppose the true.
In these days it seems also especially desirable that science should he taught in mission-schools and colleges to all sufficientlyadyanced. So confidently is it asserted by a certain class of educated men, that a sincere acceptance of the discoveries of modern science is wholly in·· compatible with faith in Christianity, and so widely is this view ac- cepted by the educated in a land like India, that it becomes of great importance that the young· men should be made to understand how utterly mistaken is this common notion. They need to know that, as the late George Romanes has said, the great advance of scientific knowledge in our day has done far more for Christianity than against it. III his" Thoughts on Religion," edited by Canon Forge, astron- omy, chemistry, electrical science, geology, biology, and even mathe- matics, when studied with the eye on the mathematics of nature, all bear consentient testimony to the falsehood alike of pantheism and materialism, and point unmistakably to the existence of a Supreme Being, who is not merely the material ground of being, not merely a vague impersonal" Power that makes for righteousness," but a God who is living and personal, the Creator and Lord of all. Christian teachers need to press these things on the educated men of non- Christian lands, and to let them clearly understand that these and other sublime and momentous inferences from the phenomena of the universe, have been regarded as inevitable by a large number of the greatest scientific men of our day. They ought to know that such men as Clerk l1axwoll, Lord Kelvin, Balfour Stewart, Young, Seochi, MiYart, and many of their peers have not been ashamed to express this conviction. Too many seem to think that Professor Huxley and Herbert Spencer have finally closed the question as against Christianity. They ought to know that these men hold no brief to speak for the great body of scientists as to the relation of scientific discovory to Christian faith. In the hand of an earnest missionary there is no department of knowledge from which more or less rich tribute may not be brought to Christ.
It is unfortunate, however, that in India the educational missionary does not find himself at liberty to exercise an unrestricted _choice as to the subjects he will teach, or the text· books he will nse. The curriculum is necessarily fixt by the requirements of the great universities. The chief aim of the young Hindu or Mohammedan in entering an Anglo-yernacular high-school or college is to gain a certificate or diploma as having past such and such a university examination. He knows that if he apply for a situation, this is the first thing that will be askt of him; and that if he were to attend any institution which ignored in its schedule, t~le conrses of study prescribed by the universities, then, however proficient he might be in many things, he would have very little chance of obtaining any lucrative position. Still this, perhaps, does not matter so much as might appear at first sight; for the missionary who is in earnest can make all things more or less perfectly serve his purpose. It is indeed possibl,e that the university authorities may prescribe as subjects for examination, text-books which are directly hostile to Christianity. An illustration of this occurred only within the past two or three years, when Huxley's" Lay Sermons" was assigned as one of the books to be studied by candidates for university degrees in the Northwest Provinces. The matter was, however, soon brought to the notice of the propel' authorities by the missionary body, andche textbook was changed. I believe that, in like circumstances, this would generally be done. In North India, we have an association of missionaries of all denominations for the very purpose of guarding missionary work in its relation to government and university authority.
RELATION TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS AND AUTHORITIES.
It must be admitted that, in India, in the relation of our schools and colleges to govel'llment and university authorities, there is some danger that the missionary character of the school or college shall fall into the background. The danger arises largely from the fact that the requirements for the various university degrees demand the hardest work from the student. In the government schools and colleges, the whole time is given to the subjects prescribed by authority, while this can not be done in mission-schools if they are to maintain their missionary character. A certain proportion of time and labor must be given to the Bible, and perhaps other subjects, in addition to the regular curriculum. Naturally, most students are more or less jealous of time so taken from that which might be given to the studies prescribed for degrees.
Besides this, most missionary schools and colleges in India receive pecuniary grants-in-aid from the government. The continuance and amount of such a grant, depends on the success of its students in passing the prescribed university examinations. The missionary is therefore under strong pressure on all sides, to make the utmost of the secular-as contrasted with the religious-side of his teaching. He may not yield to this pressure, but I think no one could wholly escape it. It will doubtless be suggested that, in that case, it were best to give up the government grants. But judging from past experience and the present outlook, the means furnisht from home for foreign missionary work, would never allow this, as the declinature of the government grant would involve the closing of most mission-schools and colleges in Iudia. There is no reason to believe that the boards at home could possibly make good the amount of these pecuniary grants, in case they were given up. But even tho by not drawing Dl.lFF MISSION COLLEGE , CALCUTTA, IJUU..
pecuniary aid from govern men t, we should escape the !H'cs8ure from t he governm ent inspector, we should still be nuder pressnre from the young men whom we wish to draw as students. Other things being equal, these will go where there seems to be the best chance of obtaining the coveted nni-ersity degree. j nd if we increase the proportion of time given to distinctly religions teach in g, presnmably we shall not be able to pass so many studen ts in the annualnniversity examinations, and young men will conclu de that they would better go elsewhere.
THE BIBLE ANl> CHRISTIAN TEACHINC.
The difficulty, in fact, seems to Le one from which we can not escape in the present condit.ion of things in Indi a. 'fhat it is not insuperable is plain from the general experience of ~lallY mission high schools and colleges in India. Thus we read in the last r&port of the Bengal Mission of th e Free Ch urch of Scotland: The foundation of the religious and moral training given to their students in the Duff College and High School, is the r egular Bible lesson. This is g iven by the B engali Christian t eachers in the school classes a nd by the missionaries in the college classes and the two highest school classes. A ttention is m a inly given to the life and work of Christ as presented in the four Gospels, and to the effects of that life and work as presen ted in the Acts of the Apostles a nd in the writings of the Apostle to the Gentiles. The best papers written in competition for the Miller Scripture prize, showed very careful and thoughful study of the Bible. At the same time we strive to have all our teaching pervaded by the spirit of Christ, and much is done to keep the claims of Christia nity to the front; as by putting Ohristian litel'ature in the h a nds of our students, byencouraging their attenda nce a t the Beadon Square open-air services, a nd the services at the Y. M. C. A., and above all by private personal intercourse with individual inquirers.
The latest report (to the government as granting aid) of the Madras Christian College, of which the Rev. Wm. Miller, D. D., LL.D., for many years has been the honored principal, contains an address deliv- ered at the prize distribution in March, 1897, by His Excellency the Governor of .Madras, in which he refers in terms of commendation to the fact that for the sixty-one years of its existence this college has been faithful to the Christian principles on which it was founded. The nobility of the aims of the founders of the college is d~scribed in the language of their recently publisht historical sketch: In all its changes and in all its growth it has been faithful to the principles on which it was founded, in 1837. Now, as then, it aims at preparing for the glad recognition by India, of the way in which the God of all the earth is leading mankind to Him. Now, as then, it gives the foremost place to the study of the facts, and the inculcation of the principles in which Divine love toward man is shown. Now, as then, what it most desires is to make education an instrument for opening men's minds to moral and spiritual and Christian truths, and thereby to take a IlUmble but useful part in the mighty work which Christ began and which His body, the Universal Church, is bound by every means within her power to further.
After reading the above, the government addeu with manifest approbation: These aims are reiterated by the present council in the closing words of last year's report. The influence which the Christian College has exercised and exercises over the life and conduct of the people of Madras is strong and wide-spreading.
In Wilson College (Bombay), of the Establisht Church of Scotland, we find the same policy steadily pursued. Principal McKichan says, in reply to a letter from me asking for precise facts: The Christian public needs to have the fad continually presented that the teaching of the Bible forms a prominent part of each day's work, in every class. The first college hour is devoted to religious instruction, the Bible being the text-book. On Sunday evenings in the college hall we have a religious service with a lecture or address to the students. This meeting is well attended, and the attendance MADRAS CHRISTIAN COLLEGE. was never steadier or more encouraging than during these seasons of plague visitation.
I can also testify from personal knowledge to the place which the Bible and Christian teaching occupies in the Forman Christian College ill Lahore. In the prospectus for this year, we fIud such a full course of Biblical and religious instruction covering the whole four years'
course, as I am sure is not approacht in any college in the United States.
THE COST OF EDUCATIONAL MISSIONS.
Much has been made of the costliness of educational missions, as contrasted with itinerant and evangelistic work. That these institu- tions cost very considerable sums, no one will deny. But they are not nearly as expensive as those of the same grade at home. More- over, it must not be forgotten that, ill lndia at least, a large part of the expense is met by income, not from the home church, but from government grants, the fees of students, and the contributions of Christian friends in India. Here are the figures drawn from the reports for 1887, of three of the leading mission colleges in India: In Duff Mission College and the attacht high ~chool of Calcutta, which together have 919 students, of the total expenditure, the students contributed in fees in 1897, Rs. 22, 7fY7. * Rs. 6,000 more were given as a grantin-aid from the government, making in all Rs. 28,707 derived from India. With this ~um were met all the expenses of t.he school for teachers drawn from India, and all other local expenditures, as well as the salary of one of the six missionary teachers from Scotland. The total expense, therefore, to the Free Church of Scotland, was represented by the salaries of five professors.
The Christian Mission College and attacht High School of the same church, in Madras, is a much larger institution, having at present 1,589 students, of whom 141 are Christians. The Annual Report of the College gives the total expense for the preceding year, as Rs. 133,403. Of this total amount however, only Rs. 25,525 (about $9,(00) came out of the treasury of the church at home. The remainder, Rs. 105,778, was met by the fees of the students, amounting to Rs. 69,195, by a grant-in-aid from government of Rs. 28,185, and other miscellaneous local sources. t In the Punjab, the chief mission colleges are St. Stephen's College (Anglican) at Delhi, and the Forman College of the Presbyterian Mission in Lahore. In the latter, according to the last Report to the General Assembly (1897) the number of students was 299, of whom 37 were Christians. The tuition fees received amounted to Rs. 15,275. These, together with the government grant and other local sources of income, sufficed to meet all the expenses of the college for Indian teachers, taxes, etc., and in addition, Rs. 7000 of the Rs. 17,000 paid by the Board at home to the missionaries engaged in the college; leaving only Rs. 10,000 (about $3,330) of the total expense to be met by funds drawn from the home church.
It may. be added that in the various Anglo-vernacular high schools of this same" Lodhiana Mission," between 3000 and 4000 boys and young men were receiving a Christian education, and the treasurer of the mission informs me that the education of these costs the board at home only about Rs. 4,200 per annum, i. e., less than forty-four cents a year per * There are about 3 rupees in $1.00.
t It will be of interest to add, that the very extensive b·.lildings of this mission college as shown in the accompanying photograph, which cost, I was told in Madras, several hundred thousand rupees, were erected wholly at the personal expense of the missionary principal, the Rev. Dr.lIfiller, who has thus given not only his personal service, but his fortune to the missionary work. scholar. But at least a haJf of this, taking into account the amount of time spent by the missionaries and Christian teachers in instructing the students in Christian truth, was expended, not in secular teaching but in the direct teaching of the Gospel; so that the total expense to the American Presbyterian Church of the secular teaching given, is less than two cents a month per scholar!
In estimating the significance of these figures, it ought to be noted that although in each of the instances given, the whole salary of the foreign missionaries engaged in this work has been charged against the schools or colleges, there is probably not one of these educational missionaries who is not doing other missionary work- evangclistic or literary-quite distinct from his educational work.
The late Rev. Dr. Chas. W. Forman, to whose life;long devotion the Forman Christian College owes so much, was accustomed after the FORMAN CHRISTIAN COLLEGE, LAHORE, INOlA.
day's teaching was done, to go out almost daily into the bazaar to preach to the motley crowds that he would meet there. Rev. Dr. Mc- Kichan, principal of Wilson College, Bombay, in addition to his onerous duties in the college, is engaged in the retranslation of the Bible into Mll.ruthi. Such illustrations might ·oe multiplied indefinitely. Hence in fairness one should not charge all the salaries of theRe missionaries as a part of the expense of educational work.
In a word, then, I believe that the common argument against the maintenance of such institutions, on the ground of their great relative expensiveness to the mission treasuries, has been prest by many much more than the facts will warrant. From the considerations and various facts presented, I therefore conclude, quite contrary to my own early impressions, that there is a distinct place for high-class schools and colleges in India, and I doubt not in many other mission fields. RELATIVE IMPOHTANCE OF EDUCATIONAL WOHK.
The question still remains, however, as to the proportion of her strength in men and means, which the Church should devote to this as compared with other forms of work. I readily place in the foreground as regards importance, the general preaching of the Gospel, whether in the bazaar or by house to house visitation, to the great mass of the population who, through poverty or indifference, remain outside our schools. The relative importance of evangelistic work in the villages has become much greater in late years than it was thirty years ago, when I first entered the mission neld, because of the extem,ive movement toward Christianity among certam low caste village populations of a large part of North India. When God sets before us an open door, we are bound to enter, and in the light of this new providence, we must shape our policy. If it has really come to this, the decreast contributions at home, therefore, and the consequent severe" cuts" on our mission expenditures almost seem to show, that the Church, alas! is not willing to give as formerly to foreign missions, so that we must cut off some part of our work; then, much as I should regret the necessity, I think that retrenchment should sooner fall on our high schools and colleges than on the extension of the village work. But ought the Church to force us to consider such au alternative?
But whether or not any limitation of our educational work be necessary or expedient,* it would be nothing less than suicidal for any missiou in India to make any such sweeping reduction in the matter of the higher education, as should in effect debar a large part of our Christian young men from obtaining a high education conducted upon distinctively Christian lines. It would be 'a grievous wrong, and disastrous to the young Church of India if, by a general abolition of our Anglo-vernacular educational institutions, we should drive such Christian young men as desire a high education into institutions in which there is no religious element, or where the whole atmosphere is necessarily Antichristian.
RESUI.TS IN CONVERSIONS.
As to the immediate results in conversions by means of educational • Formerly the government of India, needing to raise up a large army of competent employ"es, greatly favored and fostered Anglo-vernacular education. But of late years the supply has so outrun demand that no small part of those otherwise qualified fail to obtain the coveted positions, and doubtless feel themselves grievously wronged. These young men do not realize that, as a rule, the native of India has not yet shown that he can be trusted in places of high responsibility, as can the average Englishman. The natural result is that a large and, I fear increasing, number of the educated young men of India are not in heart very loyal to the government. In consequence the government seems inclined, by severer educational tests and stricter conditions of grants-in-aid, to put some check on this over·supply. It seems to me an open question, whether the political situation does not call on missionaries also to put some limitation on our own work in English education, either by increasing the fees required or by decreasing the number of higher institutions. The only answer of any weight which I have heard to this suggestion is that those who come out of our missionschools and colleges are at least likely to be more loyal to government than those who come out of native or government institutions.-S. H. K. mISSIOns, as compared with other forms of mission work, it must be admitted that if this be the only question to be considered in judging the cxpediellcy of any typc of mission work, then educational work must go. There is no doubt that of the million or so of Protestant Christian converts ill India, the great majority have Ilot been the . immediate product of our high-class educational work. But I, for one, utterly delly the justice of the test. Very sad and mischievous is this craze of our day for statistics, which shall tabulate" tangible results," and which leads those who are affected by it to disparage both men and metllO(ls if they can not exhibit a large roll of converts. But this argument from the fewness of baptisms proves too much. Thus judged, other work, too, will have to go. Bible translation, such as that in which I have been engaged for the past five years; explora- tion, like that of Livingstone; alld zenana work, can not usually show immediate and large results ill the conversion of men and women. Must they, therefore, be abandoned? '1'0 such a question only one answer will be given. Why thcu should any insist upon judging the value of educational missions solely by a test which will not be allowed against other forms of mission labor?
The truth is, that llot it word in the New Testament warrants llS in judging any Christian's work, or any type of work, by this sole test of visible, immediate rcsult in the conversion of men. Not this, but faithfulness to the "Master ill making known His Gospel in any of such various ways as His provi<1cllce may illdicate–this is the test by which men and methods will be judged at the last day. We shall, therefore, <10 wisely to judge these in this way now. 'l'his generation needs much to be reminded that" one soweth, another rcapeth," as our Lord reminded His disciples. The history of the Church is one eloquent and instructive exposition of that text. Liyingstone had no long roll of converts before he died; yet what life in modern times has been more fruitful in bringing about the turning of 11l1l1dredR of thousands to the LoI'll? So the faithful translator spending days and years over grammars awl (lictionaries and in <1iscussions of words and idioms, doubtless has not often seen in his lifetime llluch fruit of his labor in conversion of men. Yet, where had been onr millions of converts in all non-Christian lands but for the work of such? Is it not just and right that educational work should be judged in the same way? And may wenot, according to God's Woru, confidently anticipate that the missionary traveler, translator, grammarian, and others, to whom is not gi ven the joy and cncouragemcnt of seeing many actually saved by their own immediate labors, may yet in the last day apply to themselves the promise to restore Israel: " Then shalt thou say in thy heart, Who hath begotten these, seeing that I have been solitary and wandering to and fro-and who hath brought up these? .Behold, I was left alone; these where were they?" (Is. xlix: 21.) BENEFITS OF :EDUCATIONAL WORK.
In a word then, we decline the proposed test as settling anything.
Judging by all history, missionary educational work, through its steady presentation of the Gospel and the illumination of all secular wisdom with the light of God's lo,e in Ohrist Jesus, is sure to be the ultimate occasion of the ingathering of multitudes into the Ohurch of Ohrist.
Nor must it be forgotten that, other things being equal, the converts we are granted as the immediate result of our missionary educational work, as educated men, are likely in the end to signify far more for the building up of the Ohurch of Ohrist in power, than the conversion of a far larger number of the illiterate. God forbid that we should lightly reckon the salvation of even the most ignorant, or that wc should seem to disparage the power of the Holy Spirit to use, as instru- ments, the most unfit and unlikely to promote the growth of the Ohurch. It is never to be forgotten that the apostles themselves seem mostly to have been men of presumably a very moderate education; and the Lord used publicans and fishermen wonderfully in establish- ing His Ohurch. But let us not, on the other hand, forget for a mo- ment that for the widest, grandest work of all, and to reach the largest number in all ages, the I~ord called out an educated man from the.
school of Gamaliel, and made him the Apostle of the Gentiles, and through his epistles, the chief instructor of the Ohurch ill the mystery of Christ for all the Ohristian age.
Mr. John R. Mott, after his recent visit to India, gave his impres- sions in the following weighty words: We confess that we started on this tour somewhat disposed to look upon educational mission work as less important than directly evangelistic work. A careful study of the subject in four or five mission countries has led us to attach the greatest possible importance to educational missions. No country has done more to deepen this conviction than India. Without doubt, educational missions have opened a larger number of doors for the preaching of the Gospel than any otheragency. They have furnisht the most distinguisht and able converts. They have done more than all else combined to undermine heathen superstitions and false systems of belief. They are to-day the chief, if not the only, force to counteract the influence of the secular character and tendency of the government institutions of learning. In the interest of the ultimate success of the missionary enterprise we believe that educational missions would be abundantly justified, if they were doing nothing but teach science, history, philosophy, ethics, and political economy in their right relation to Christ. Sir Charles Aitchison,* in urging the Church to promote educational missions, reveals the real significance of the whole subject: "Now if ever is the Church's opportunity. If the breach that has been made is filled up-if, in place of Hinduism, we have Agnosticism, or even a positive but unchristian theistic belief, with which physical science is not necessarily in antagonism-the Christian Church will have to do all the sapping and mining over again; while instead of the crumbling old fortresses of heathenism, we shall have in front of us strong fortifications, held and defended with weapons of precision forged in our own arsenals…. Nothing imprest us more than the mighty influence of such institutions as the Duff College, the Forman Christian College, the Lucknow Christian College for Women, and the MaCras Christian Col- .. ;Ll}te lieutenant-governor of the Punjab, now retired.
THE EDUCATED CLASSES OF INDIA
lege." Institutions like these should be multiplied, and the amount of money expended upon them greatly increast. Occasionally we still hear persons interested primarily in direct evangelistic work speak disparagingly of educational missions. As well might the life-saving service disparage the lighthouses. * CQ)UTY IN EDUCATIONAL WORK.
In closing, a word may bfl in place on the question of inter-denominational comity in educational work. It is matter for regret that there has not been of late year~ that jealous regard to this principle in India, as respects other classes of mission work, that was happily the custom in my early years in India. I am glad to say, however, that in educational missions, the principle has thus far been regarded in a most gratifying degree. Common sense should suggest that where any Christian denomination is sustaining a high-class school or college in any city or large town, for another denomination to erect another similar institution beside it, would be an inexcusable waste, both of men and of money. Not only so, but it seems to me that in view of the claims of other forms of work, it is not wise to start such higher educational institutions in too close proximity to one another even in the same province. It is to be hoped that the wise policy which has thus far generally prevailed among the various missions in India, engaged in educational work, may on lIO account be abandoned. Surely, there is no sufficient reason why various bodies of essentially identical articles of faith and practise. should each maintain a staff of missionaries to train men for evangelists. So more and more it is coming to pass that the different Presbyterian bodies in North India, especially missionaries of the Canadian Presbyterians, and the U. P. Church of Scotland, Rajputana, are sending their young men to the American Presbyterian mission in Saharanpnr for theological training. Despite any .difficulties of detail, the present writer strongly believes that snch union should in this case, and others, take a more formal shape than hitherto, in contribution of teachers and of money from the different bodies interested) as also in the representation of each or the board of directors.
THE EDUCATED CLASSES OF INDIA.
BY ROBERT P. WILDER, M.A., KOLHAPUR, INDIA.
1. THEIR NmIBER.-There are in India 30,000 students in colleges which grant the B.A. or some professional degree, and 70,000 more in the two upper classes in the high schools. The number is steadily and rapidly increasing, as is seen from the following figures: 1873-1883 1881-1891 Passed the Entrancl1 Examinations.. .. … 23,472 41,467 Graduated as Bachelors of Arts………. 2,391 7,159 *Indian Evangelical Review, Jan. 1897, article'" Dominant Impressions of India." It is estimated that there are at least 3,000,000 of English speaking natives in India.
II. 'rHEIR LocATIoN.-India has five universities. The largest is in the capital of the empire. There are 24 colleges and 74 high schools in the city of Calcutta. Madras comes next, then Bombay, Lahore, and Allahabad. In addition to these university centers there are many cities containing educational institutions, such as Delhi, Agra, Lucknow, Poona, Nagpur, Bangalore, etc III. THEIR INFLUENCE UPON THE NATIONAL LIFE.-We doubt if in any other country in the world the educated classes wield a mightier influence over the masses than in India.
(1) The majority belong to the higher castes, and these would be influential even if illiterate.
In South India out of a total of 3,366 in arts colleges, 2,325 are Brahmins. Out of 667 graduates in law, 495 are Brahmins. In professional colleges out of 98i students, 680 are Brahmins. There are four times as many Brahmins as non-Brahmin graduates from the Madras Univerity, tho the Brahmin population is not one-fifth of the non-Brahmin population.
(2) These Brahmin students are taught western science and philosophy. lIence they exert a powerflll influence upon the masses, of whom only one in nineteen can read or write. Thus these men possess the aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of learning. 'I'hey occupy government positions. They know the language and literature of England's rulcrs. They are the recognized leaders. If these men are '['heists, Illtuitionists, Transcendentalists, Agnostics, and Theosophists, what can we expect of their followers?
MORAL AND ltELIGIOUS CONDITION.
IV. In considering the subject of the moral and religious condition of educated men in India our thoughts shall center upon the II;ndus, since only seven per cent. of the students in colleges are Mohammedanso In the Punjab, however, Mohammedans have advanced in education more rapidly than IIindus. A Brahmin educator dwelt in glowing terms upon the rapid progress of education. In 1852 there was but one school in his city of 44,000 in11alJitants. There are now several high-schools and a college in the city, also hundreds of schools in that district. After congratulating him upon the intellectual progress of his people, I askt about the moral condition of the educated youth. With downcast face he replied: "Sad, very sad. '['hey have lost faith ill Hinduism, and they have lost respect for their parents and teachers." Last year there appeared in the Indian jJ1irror a series of articles in which the students of India were eompared with those of Great Britain. The following passage- will show what a Hindu thinks npon this subject: Undisciplined, pert, given to levity and ribald conversation, irreverent, irrepressible, self-assertive, our present-day students are certainly not what they should be, nor are they the future hopes of our country. Honest folks positively dread to send their boys to public schools for fear of the contamination, physical and moral, to which the lads will be exposed. . .• The blame for what we see should be laid to the account less of the students than of their parents or preceptors. . .. Passing an university examination seems to be the aim and end of all our regard for our boys. . .. It is the" healthy home influences, and the education he has received in the public schools and colleges, that has built up the Englishman's proud and uncompromising character. From early youth he has been taught to believe in the national religion, in the greatness of his country, in its laws and institutions, but, above all, he has been taught to believe in his own capacity for infinite development~ Dr. Martin, officiating director of public instruction, speaks of the lack of discipline among the pupils in some schools and colleges, and adds that "The real remedy is to be sought for in some kind of moral or religious instruction." The lieutenant governor is" inclined to agree with Dr. Martin that, if any system of moral instruction could be devised which would be acceptable to the native community, the effect would be beneficial to the rising generation of students."
Religiously the educated classes fall into three broad divisions. l. The majority are ind"ifferent to religion. Prof. S. Satthianadhan, M.A., LL.B., says: The one sole ambition of an educated Hindu is "to get on" in life by securing the best-paid government post within his reach. As a consequence we have a great deal of apathy and indifference characterizing the educated classes. . .. There would be greater hope for Christianity in India, if there was more downright, honest opposition to Christianity from the educated classes.
This indifference is due to distl'llst of all the religions because they have learned to distrust Hinduism, or to ignorance of the Christian faith, or to lack of time for investigating the claims of the various religions. Many are at heart far away from the faith of their fathers, yet they cling to Hinduism as a 80eial system even tho religiously it has no command over their reason or eonseience. These are adrift Oll the sea of Agnosticism.
2. '1'hose who are hostile to ChriiStianity.-'1'his hostility is due in many cases to a false patriotism, in others to pride. It is humiliating to abandon so ancient a religion for one that they regard as modern, and which they regard as the religion of their conquerors. '1'hese men try to lead India back to tho Vedie faith. We find them attempting to start a medical school according to the old Hindu Vaidya Shastras, and to give medieal degrees such as Vaidya and Vaidya Raj. They try to foster a superstitious regard for the old Indian Rishis, and are zealous in upholding Hindu festivals. They also defend idolatry. An honorable LL.B. of the university of Bo~bay, recently publisht the following in It leading paper: We are not one of those who view image worship as a gross superstition, and who want to sweep off idolatry from this country..•. Idolatry is the principal form of worship which can be followed by the generality of the people, and it is simple madness to say that there is something immoral or absurd in worshiping an image of clay.
These men oppose not only religious reform, they are equally bitter against social reform. Their opposition is due in many cases to partial or distorted views of Christianity. In government, Hindu and Mohammedan colleges they have no opportunity to learn what Christianity really is, and the lives of most Europeans do not commend the Gospel to them. The opposition is also due to the impetus given recently in western lands to the study of Hinduism. They interpret this to imply that European savants believe in the religious excellence of the Hindu Shastras.
3. The seekers after truth. This is the smallest class. These men are musing over their own needs and India's degradation. Some try pilgrimage and penance. Some seek satisfaction from Vedic and philosophic literature. Some join the reform movements such as the Brahmo Somaj and the Prathana Somaj. They advocate social as well as religious reform. At the National Social Conference in Calcutta one said, "The Shastras were very good ill their way, bu t they were now in the nineteenth century, and as the age had changed, they should keep pace with the times." Another remarkt, "They mnst rise above prejudice, and cast aside fetters placed on them by the Brahmin legislators of old." They protest against Hindu marriage scandals and priestly chicanery. One writes, "What is the standard of character one expects in a priest? None, absolutely none. So far from the priests having to mend our lives, we have to mend them first or to end them." One of this class had thrown away his sacred thread and wa.nderell without a religion for four years. When I first knew him he was living with a Brahrno, but he gave up the Brahmo Somaj, 3.nd was drifting, drifting away from Hinduism and Brahmoism, but he was willing to read the Bible and attend church. Many of these seekers would finu the Savior if the truth were presented to them fully, constantly, and in the power of the Spirit. But, unfortunately, there are as yet very few Christian evangelists devoting their entire time to this class. The teaching they receive in government and Hindu colleges, and the books they read in the bazaars and in the louging honses, shake their faith and sear their consciences. Since they know English all the infidel and immoral literature of Europe and America is accessible to them. Some of these seekers place Christ on the same platform as Krishna. Others regard Jesus as superior to all teachers and incarnations, but not as divine. Some are convinced of His divinity. Of these a number vani8h through fear of consequences, since they know that a public confession of Christ by baptism JIleans loss of position, property, and relatives. Some are baptized, In Southern India the Christians are one in forty of the total popu- lation, but one out of every twelve graduates from the University of Madras is a Christian. In the Bombay Presidency there are twenty-one colleges and professional schools. Of these only one is under Protestant Christian control. Of the 186 professors in these institutions, only fortyfour are Christians. A yet more significant fact is that of the 3,189 students, only thirty-five are Protestant Christians. In nineteen of these institutions there is no Christian work done. One of the two remaining is Homan Catholic. In seventy-six high schools of the Presidency there are 6,394 scholars in the two upper classes. Of these only eighty-five are Christians, Other parts of India are also very needy.
India's students present a magnificent field for Christian wotkers who have tact, time, and spiritual power for grappling with their difficulties.
CHRISTIAN WORK AMONG THE STUDENTS.
V. Much is done for the students and educated men of India by the teachers in mission schools and colleges. On every day, or on every other day, a period of time is set apart by each mission college for Bible instruction. In addition, lectures are delivered in college halls and other buildings at stated intervals. From GOO to 1,000 non- Christian students attend the Gospel meetings held every week in the Calcutta College Young Men's Christian Association building. Similar work is carried on in connection with the Young Men's Christian Association in Madras, Bombay, Lahore, etc. In Poona we began our work by hiring a large natiye theater in the heart of the city. The opening address was on "Sin," another of the series was on "God," another on the "Atonement," another on "Vedantism and Christianity," and another on "Christian Work in American." The average attendance at these meetings was about 400. At the close of the series we distribntKl cards, and on each card was our address and the hours when we would see these students for pri yate interviews. '['he address giyen was that of a Brahmin Wada in the heart of the Brahmin quarter of the city. Here we rented three rooms, one large one for Bible-class work, and two small ones for personal interviews. The students came in such large numbers that we organized a Bible class, which has been continued with more or less regnlarity for two years and nine months, and the average attendance has been between 30 and fiO. After the first baptism we were driven out of this Brahmin Wada, qecause the man baptized was a relative of the owner of the building, but the Lord led us to better rooms ncar by, and here the work has been going on tho every effort has been made to stop it by discnssions, boycotts, stoning, and attempts to set onr hall 011 fire.
Occasionally we have gone back to the native theater, our object being to reach a larger number and to draw new men into our Bible class. Thus far we have had no outf'ide attractions for the men, such as lectures on secular subjects, reading-rooms, or social entertainments. Our thought has been that if men will come in good num bel's to hear the simple story of the Gospel, why should we spend our time and strength on other matters. 'rhe Gospel has thus far drawn them, and we believe it will continue to draw them without any other inducement. 'IVe have fonnd music a great help. We selected sixteen of the best hymns, anrl printed them on a four page hymn sheet, and while singing these hymns the students have followed the words on the sheets which we distribnted among them. OIle means of securing a good audience is to issue tickets of admission, allowing none to come except those who possess the tickets. It is wonderful what a rnsh there is for these tickets. Sometimes we have reserved seats for the city fathers, and thus have been able to call on them when we present the admission cards to them. On one occasion a principal of a high school askt for 2::; tickets for his masters and te.achers. It is our custom to open our meetings with prayer, whether they be in the hall or in the theater.
~~. The pen is a mighty instrument in evangelizing educated men, and literature of a right kind is a powerful agency. 'IVe have distributed quite a number of pamphlets and tracts among these men. Our university graduates with literary gifts can do much for Indian students by preparing Christian books for them.
3. Educated men can be reacht in their homes or in student messes. In fact, if a man gains the cOllfidence of the students, they will invite him to their homes or boanling honses.
4. In my jlldgment the most important method of all for reaching students is by means of primte interviews in tlie hOllle (!f the evangel- ist. There are several advantages in this method. In the first place, qniet. In the Hindu horne, or ill the mess, it is almost impossible to have an uninterrupted interview. In the second place, in one's home one has no fear of spies. In the third place, in one's own house helps are near at hand, hooks of reference are within reach to meet any inquiries or difficulties.
A few words as to what we think is required of the worker.
(1) Accessibility. If a student goes two or three times to the worker's house and finds him absent, he may never come again.
(2) Time. It takes time to deal with these men, for personal interviews can not be rusht through.
(3) Sympathy. It is all important that a man be won and held. Formality, impatience, irritability, ridicule, or unfairness in argument are most disastrous in effect. 'J know an intelligent and opep-hearted student who said that he was lost by some m.issionaries because of their unfairness in argument.
(4) Knowledge not only of Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Brahminism and modern unbelief, but also, and I may say chiefly, knowle:1ge of the Bible.
(5) The power of the Spirit. Jn speaking of a missionary a Brahmin student said, "He has got something, I see it fa his face. I am willing to become a stone if I can get that." If we are fully saved, men will find that out. A present salvation appeals to them, salvation from the power of sin as well as from its penalty.
CHRISTIAN MisSIONS IN THE HOLY LAND
The success of such work depends chiefly upon prayer. Often before our Sunday evening meeting several of us unitedly waited on God for His blessing, and Thursday evening of each week there was a prayer-meeting in our house to pray especially for the student work.
We have had in Poona several days of prayer under the auspices of the Poona Missionary Oonference, and on these occasions the work among students has been specially remembered.
VI. HELPERS.-It is very difficult to carryon snch a work alone.
Mr. Moorhead has been associated with me, giving his whole time to the work. lIe helpt not only in taking the Bible-class occasionally, but also in the personal interviews. Other missionaries frequently came to the hall to speak to the men individually and collectively. Some of the most earnest native Ohristians haye helpt u~ as ushers in the large theater meetings, and as doorkeepers in onr student hall; also by giving publicly their own testimony as to the saving power of Ohrist, and by engaging in personal work.
I shall close this statement by giving the words of a veteran worker, the Rev. J. J. Lucas, D.D., who has labored in India about thirty years, and has been engaged in educational work in the northwest provinces. He says: I would like to see a man assigned for special work to every large college in India. He should have had I~xperience of work of this kind at horne, and his fitness tested before going out. He should work the first year in the field in association with some one who has had experience. Part of his time the first year should be given to the study of one of the vernaculars-the one spoken by the students among whom he is to labor. He should have a reading room, lecture hall, and office convenient to the students. The influence of such a man would soon be felt. Not only would the college feel the influence of his presence, bnt, I believe, every part of our mission work wonld feel it and wonld be blest by it. I am sure the missionaries in India would welcome snch men.
CUHISTIAK MISSIONS IN TILE HOLY LANn.*-I.
BY HEV••1. };LDElt CFMMIKG, JUl.
We have seen in Palestine four departments of mission work which are quite distinct, but each of them of much irn portancc.
1. Worl.: among the 1l1o~lellls is even more difficult here than else- where. It is barely pract.icable in the face of the fanaticism which . prevails. The stern opposition of the Turkish authorities is added to the ignorant and unreasoning intolerance of the people. Most Mus- sulmans hate all men of other religious creeds, alllI would sweep them from the face of the earth if they could and dared. Un t there is here and there an opportunity for work among their children, which is not without fruit. There is a remarkable work in Beirut which is quite *Extracts from lettp;rs written from Damascus and Messina, February and lIarch, 1898. exceptional in its character and influence. I refer to the large school conducted by Miss Taylor, whose work among the women and girls is not only tolerated, but is almost welcomed. The girls all seem most happy in their attractive home; and we learn that any contemplated interference is at once waived aside with the remark, "It is only Miss Taylor." Where lies the charm? Not certainly in too feeble a management, or too indefinite a stand. Her work among Moslems is an oasis, for which many give thanks.
Are there not cases and times, in which men seem so long to have resisted the grace of God, that they have become hardened, and the opportunity to accept is withdrawn? In the Apostolic days Paul testified that it was needful that the Word should first be preacht to the Jews; but, he 'added: "Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, 10, we turn to the Gentiles." (Acts xiii: 46.) In some cases, this point seems to have been reacht in Moslem districts. Missionaries should not always go on, breaking their hearts over hopeless work, but neither are they hastily to judge it hopeless. Many Moslems here read the Bible in secret; many listen willingly to the proclamation of the Gospel. God will guide in every case.
2. The UJork among the Eastern churches aptly illustrates these general remarks. Some missionaries told us that their present missions took form on the discovery that Moslems had made themselves inaccessible, so that they had turned to the Armenian churches, the Greek Ohurch, the Syrian Oatholics, and others more accessible. The spiritual condition was of these Ilative churches, then very low, and the missionaries sought to teach them a deeper life of devotion than they had hitherto known. After all, it was not very different from the "Keswick work," which is so much in evidence now. For a time their efforts were not very well received. There was much misunderstanding, and not a little jealousy, so that, 40 years ago, the patriarch of the Armenian churches puLlicly denounced, from the altar in Oonstantinople, the efforts of the American Board of Foreign Missions to bring light and blessing to Asia :lVIinor. The friction continued, more or less, till the recent massacres, which have done much to bring together in sympathy the helpers and the helpt. The troubles of the last few years showed the Armenians who were their friends. And already a spirit of inquiry and earnestness is now manifest and fruitful. The schools are well attended, the churches filled with most patient and attentive hearers, and interest in spiritual things is much more deep than for mallY years. Including the Bulgarian branch, about 16,000 children are at the schools ill Asia Minor and about 12,000 church members are enrolled. Ther':) are over 1';'0 American missionaries in the field.
Still more remarkable is the college work done by the American missions, aiming at higher education and the training of native min- isters. In Syria, missions have a vast network of schools, with no fewer than 15,000 pupils. The Syrian Protestant Oollege is a wonder- ful institution to find so far from home. It is not unlike a Scotch university, with a large staff of professors, some of whom have names known in more than one hemisphere, and all are men of high culture and much vigor. The mission, under the guidance of the Dr. H. H. Jessup, has a large printing press work, which turned out over 23,000,000 pages in the year 1890. The iJessup family, consisting of two brothers, with many members of the second generation, seems the backbone of American mission work in a large district extending from Beirut to Sidon. One pleasing feature is the union of the Ohurch of Scotland with the American mission in their work. Mr. Mackie, who is evidently highly respected in the community, acts as preacher and pastor of the mission, and superintends the school work of the Scotch Mission to the Jews. The venerable Dr. Orawford and the Rev. J. Phillips, of the Irish Presbyterian Mission in Damascus, have under their care 417 schools and a large congregation of Arabicspeaking Ohristians.
3. jJ{edical Missions. This work appeals to a wider constituency than any of those already described, and has no doubt been adopted in many cases as a solution for the difficulties encouutered. It is but justice to add· that no other mission has surpast this in the personnel, and the vigor of the agents employed. The Ohurch of Scotland Hospital in Smyrna carries on a vigorous work, which may soon be extended to other places. Dr. MacKinnon and the Edinburgh Medical Mission has just succeeded in building a new hospital at Damascus as a jubilee memorial. It is much larger than the hospital in Smyrna, and has many modern improvements. Under the splendid management of its present head it may be expected to be of the greatest benefit to all Christian work in this district. May it be the place of healing for many" sick people taken with divers diseases and torments," and may it be blest to the spiritual cure of many" who are possest of devils."
4. Jewish Work.-There is a large Jewish population at all three stations that we have visited-Smyrna, Beirut, and Damascus. "Touching" other nationalities at a hundred points, they are still" separate" from all. They live in their own "quarters," walk their own way, and have little or no domestic intercourse with any outside of their own people. One of the most remarkable sights of our tour was a visit to a court in Smyrna, in which 200 Jewish families live. Here we were surrounded by a crowd of women and lads eager to get books and Testaments from the missionary who accompanied us. Most interesting, too, are the Jewish schools both for girls and boys, large m number, apparently well taught, and attended not only by children, but in some cases by full-grown men. 'l'hc chief characteristic which I noticed among the Jews was their lack of spirit. The prolonged persecutions to which they have been subjected have broken their spirit, not, alas! before God, but before man. One of them said: "I wish but I have not courage." The schools have a wonderful effect on the Jewish children. Their lives arc macle happier, and their hearts toucht by human love, so that they come to have deeper thonghts of God and gratitude to the Lord Jesus. ]n Damascus, they' are watcht with lynx cY,es by the Jewish community, and when old enough, are often removed to their own .Tewish schools, with the hope of undoing the work of the missionaries. This work is not hopeless; it is not even depressing. There is much in it to cheer and not a little to make the heart glad, bu t it requires faith and prayer at every step, and a constant remembrance of the promises to them who love the people of Israel. In Damascus the Jewish commllnity is divided into Pharisees and Sadducees as in olden times. The older men are ritualists, but the younger men are full of skepticism. The hope of the one is in being the sons of Abraham, the others are not sllre that there is any ground for either hope or fear.
]1.
The number of Jews ill Jerusalem is a matter on ,,,hich there has been much di versi ty of statement. The estimate has ranged from about 10,000 to nearly 80,000. Rev. Joseph Jamal, of the London Jews' Society, who, as a native of Jerusalem, has every opportnnity to know the facts, gave me the result of a careflll inquiry macle last year by the Rev. A Kelk, the leading representative of the same society in Jerusalem. There are two causes which have led t.o the different estimates. One is the confusion between the Jews who are living within the wallR of the city, and those without. The latter are again divisible into those in the immediate neighborhood, commonly known as the" Colonies," and those much further off, at Jaffa, Carmel, and elsewhere, known as the "Agricultural Colonies." 'fhese last are not to be reckoned as belonging to Jerusalem. The other cause for uncertainty as to nllmbers is that the totals have been concealed by the Jews themselves since they are subject to a heavy personal tax. The statement furnisht to me gives as the number within the walls of Jerusalem 23,363. There are, besid es, 30 " Colonies" in the immediate neighborhood (at ~iloam, near the DarnascllR gate, the Montetlore settlement, etc.). SOllie of these colonies (!ontain only 30 or 40 Jews, while others nUlllber 3,000 alHl under. III all there are 24,419 Jews in the colonies near Jerusalem, so that within and without the walls, there were last year 4'1,782 Jews. 'l'hese receive, according to their need, what is called the "Halooka," contributions to which are made by Jews in various parts of the world. A large number spend all of their time in the study of the sacred books; and are supported entirely by the" Halooka," or by their own private means.* Most of the general business in Jerusalem is done by Jews, or is at least divided between them and the Germans.
)IISSION WORK AMONG JERUSALEM JEWS.
As to the state and prospect of missions to the Jews in and near the Holy Oity. As might be expected, the Jews are nowhere more fanatical or exclusive than in Jerusalem. They, or their fathers, have gone there from religious motives, and they are distrest and indignant at the state of the land and their own position in it. They band themselves together to pray for the intervention of the God of Abraham; and it is only natural that they should be sensible to the fact that much of their income is from Jewish sources, and depends on their faithful adherence to their national creed and worship. Not only so, but they have become well known to each other and to their leaders; the eye of suspicion is on everyone who is known to have dealings with Ohristians; and strong steps are taken to prevent any from apostatizing.
Under tllese circumstances there are two main channels open to missionary work. One is among them through medical aid in dispensary and hospital. This method is now prominent throughout Syria. It received a few months ago a serious blow in Jerusalem, through the death in a hospital of a Jewess, whose body was refused burial by the rabbi, because she died under Christian care. 'rhere was great excitement, and the new hospital is at present without inmates. This hostile attitude, however, will probably not long continue, and patients will come whether Jew or Gentile.
The other open channel is i5chools for the young. These are largely attended and give a singular impression of happiness among the children, much more than schools elsewhere. Excellent relations exist also between the teachers and the parents of thc pupils. The Ohristian work done in this way is indirect, and it is slow in sho,,:ing results; but the missionaries do not seem disheartened; and hope that they are on the verge of times of blessiug. It is a sign of the influence of this work, that not long ago, the rabbis of Jerusalem found it necessary to issue a clterem or formal warning and curse against classes for Ohristian inquiry attended by young Jewish men who have been finding their way to missionaries. I was personally much cheered· by a visit paid me by a young Jew who had elsewhere been baptized by Jewish missionaries of my own church. He had been converted after his baptism, and, returning to Jerusalem in great joy and pcace, had found there his father and uncle who were zealous for the faith • For further particulars on this interesting subject, I must refer to an interesting pamphlet on" The Condition and Prospects of the Jewish Population in Palestine," printed by Spottiswoode & Co., London, by Dr. Masterman, late of Jerusalem and now of Damascus; and to a year-book pubJisht in Jerusalem (in unpointed Hebrew) by J. Lung. of their forefathers. They first sought hard to pervert the young man; but when they could not do that, they disowned him. Meantime he supports himself by honest labor, and visited me to inquire how he might live nearer to the Lord.
It is not easy to make any true estimate of the position with regard to the Moslems. Many things combine to make it probable that they look with considerable uneasiness to the future. 'Traditions are afloat among them which partially reach the ears of the Christians. They hold Jerusalem and the Holy Land with a tenacity strengthened by the joint incentive of fanaticism and fear. '1'hey hold the Jews in an iron grip; but it is the grip of the man who holds a wild beast, the grip approaching the courage of despair.
I was told that one of the chief ecclesiastical authorities of Islam was askt why the Golden Gate had been so long walled up. He replied that it was their tradition that if that gate were opened a prince of Israel would enter in triumph and capture the city. He was ignorant of the fact that one of the Hebrew prophets had foretold something of the same sort, and when shown the passage III Ezekiel (xliv: 23) no words could express his astonishment.* THE INFLUENCE OF THE HOLY LAND.
1. On coming into Palestine I was prepared for a conflict within on coming to know what seemed in S0j11e respects to be "Christ after the flesh." To have the habits of one's life regarding Christ as the unseen, risen, and glorified One, suddenly modified, and the humanity of the Lord forced into an undue alld almost painful prominence, seemed to me something that might strain one's faith, and lower, rather than raise, one's thought and heart. That was avoided by an unexpected experience. Everywhere one went about looking for sOrlie one who might at least touch a chord of dim resemblance. Was he like that? It was perfectly vain. Here, even less than at home, could we find such chords touched upon. 'rhe mystery of the Incarnate Redeemer seemed deeper, as we lookt upon His people and His land. Not at Bethlehem, not at Bethany-nowhere was there any one nearer to His likeness than at home. Faith escaped the expected conflict because of the" flesh" nothing could be seen.
2. But this very fact made one's first feeling largely one of disappointment. Jerusalem at first seemed so small. That impression was corrected, however, when we rode around it, on the other side of the valley of Hinnom and on through the valley of Jehoshaphat, and found it larger than we had supposed. But the dirt, and the intricacy of its streets; the noise and crowding of its motley inhabitants-and * Speaking of lIlohammedan traditions and fears, it is surely not inappropriate to remind the reader that "the times of the Gentiles" during which Jerusalem is to be trodden under foot are to extend 1260 years (Rev. xi: 2,3), and that the domination began when the city was taken by the Saracens in A. D. 638. The years of prophecy should therefore run out at the close of the present year.-J. E. C.
EDUCATIONAL MISSION WORK IN PERSIA
surely was there never such a blending of nations and costumes as here; the falsity and impossibility of many of its alleged holy places; the absurdity of many of its traditions; the tawdry tinsel decorations of its holy shrines; the bad taste and incongruous self-assertions of its new buildings-all these do their utmost to disillusion the least sensitive. All the nations, save the English and American, are guilty in this last respect; but the Russians are the greatest sinners of all. The new hospice and other buildings in the northwest; the church on the slope of Olivet in the cemetery; and the tower which disfigures the top of the mount, are the most offensive structures ever placed on holy ground. They are, however, only too well seconded by such awful work in stone, as the Rothschild colony on the west side of Hinnom. It is sadly true that ecclesiastical tradition on the one hand, and national pretense and blundering on the other, have done their best to destroy Jerusalem. More than Roman or Saracen or Orusader did, these have done. Yet they conld not sncceed, because Jerusalem is imperishable and still survives.
3. Yet, casting such things aside, there is enough eltle to stir the soul. In the temple area, center of all, is the rock on which David erected his altar, on which Araunah had his threshing floor; there is the cave beneath in which the father and sons found shelter from the destroyer; the rock, perhaps, Oll which Isaac was bound in the land of Moriah. Just outside 01' the Damascus gate, to the north of the city, is a green hill, which presents to the south its rocky edge, in which two caverns in the limestone still give a vivid appearance of a skull. It is, very many believe, the hill of Golgotha where "they crucified Him." Beneath, close beside the hill, is a garden, and the lone chill sepulcher. Never again can I think of the Oross without seeing the picture which our Lord saw from it. Never can I think of the resurrection morning, without there rising before me the picture of that quiet sepulcher, empty. I have seen the place "where they laid Him." "He is not there. He is risen as He said," and yonder, not far off, is the mount on which" His feet shall stand in that day. 0, Jerusalem, Jerusalem!"
EDUOA'l'IONAL MISSION WOHK IN PEHSIA.
BY ROBERT E. SPEER, NEW YORK. Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.
There is no system of popular education in Persia. The public school is unknown. Outside of Tabriz and Teheran the only teacher is the Moslem ecclesiastic, the limitations of whose knowledge make the instruction which he is capable of giving most meager all(~ pitiable. Of history, of even the simplest elements of science, of mathematics, he knows nothing, and attempts to teach nothing. Yet all the education which a Persian receives, unless he goes to the shah's colleges in Teheran or Tabriz, or enters one of the so-called religious colleges, he gets in a village school taught in the street, or ill a court, or in the masjid, or mosque, by a mollah, whose curriculum includes the Persian alphabet, the rudiments of arithmetic, a parrotlikc knowledge of the Arabic Koran. No attempt is maue to teach writing or reading, save the Persian alphabet. Some have maintained that not less than seven-eighths of the population are illiterate. For the girls there are no schools at all; while of the results of the boys' education, Dr. Wills says: "The repeating from memory of a few prayers and passages from the Koran, with some verses of poetry, is all that remains to a villager generally of his education." Therc are no higher or grammar schools. The ecclesiastical colleges to be found iu the larger cities, are frequented ill the main by prospective mollahs, who study there the Koran, Persian literature, anu the nonsense of Eastern philosophy.
A few Persian young men have been sent to Europe for their education, and some of them are among the most capable men of to-day, but the experiment has ended sadly with many others. The onl~· serious attempt at higher eUlIcatioll in the country has been made in the shah's college at Teheran, the Tabriz school being largely discredited. '1'he college has military, medical, and language departments, and another called" science and art," but the departments overlap, and the physical laboratory is a curiosity room, of which no use is made. There are many pieces of apparatus, such as arc found in the laboratory of a village highschool at horne, mixt up with odds and ends, including a set of artificial limbs and bandages, which the late shah considerately took off the hands of an adventurer, who had brought them to Teheran, while on the most conspicuous place on the walls hung a missionary map of thc world, issued by the American Board in ] 846, with Mark xvi: 15 printed above it ill large letters. The annual cost of the college is 24,000 tomans. The director of the college told me that the new shah intended to establish several similar institutions in other parts of the country. While neither the discipline nor the modes of instruction in the shah's college are ideal, there is a real opportunity given to any Persian boy whu may be admitted to learn several modern languages, and to get a general smattering of knowledge. Armenian, Nestorial~, or Jewish boys have no such government assistance. They must depend upon the sacrifices of their own people or the mission schools.
The aim of the mission schools is to raise up Christian leaders. It is no part of their plan to give a general education for education's sake; but in attempting to train men for Christian leadership, they have provided for the limited numbers they are able to take, the only thor- oughly effective agencies, and the only schools of any kind for girls save among the Armenians. Mission policy assigns to educational work a limited field, but within this field it aims to make it as Christian and as thorongh as it can be made.
Of the schools of the Church Missionary Society in Julia, near Isfahan, in the south of Persia, I can llot speak, nor of the Roman Catholic schools in Teheran and Salmas. The Homan Catholic missionaries are very secretive. Protestant missionaries are sometimes blamed for not giving the Homan missions due credit for their work, and for withholding Christian fellowship from the Catholic missionaries, but they do not deserve such reproach. It is the Catholics who hold aloof, and are suspicious, hiding their work and plans. Of these the Protestants make no concealment. I visited the Catholic missionaries in Teheran, bnt the>y refnsed to give any information, or to let me see their school, and denouneed as their enemies the American missionaries, who had always maintained a kindly attitude. In Oroomiah they were socially very pleasant, on aecount of their obligations to Dr. Coehran, but were searcely more communicative. The Archbishop of Canterbury's mission to the Nestorialls maintains two schools in Oroomiah-one for boys, the other for girls-both of them conducted in accordance with the high Angliean ideas of the mission.
In each of the fOllr stations of the American Presbyterian Mission are two schools, the oldest of whieh are Fiske Seminary and the Oroomiah College, among the Nestorians. For more than a generation these two institutiolls have been pouring out regenerative influenees amollg the Kestorians. The people themselves have come to speak of those village8 as " dark villages," where their power has not been felt, and of others as "light villages." In the early days of the mission the purpose was to get two men from each village and stamp them for Christ. While in the Fiske Seminary, as it is now called, after Fidelia Fiske, thnt remarkable woman was content with nothing leSS than the absolute transformation of the charaeters which came under her influence. It was not so much large numbers that were sought. '1'he aim was for quality, intensity, enduring influence. One hundred and twenty-two men were graduated from the eollege prior to 18'10, of whom 80 gave all their time to Christ's service. Since 18'18, when the college was reorganized, there have been 110 graduates, of whom 44 also took a theological eonrse, and 12 a medical. The average eost of the edueation of the students in the shah's college last year was abont 100 tomans ($100). In the Oroomiah College the annual cost for board was 9 tomans, and for instruction 10 tomans, the pupils in the main paying for their own board. In Fiske Semina.ry the co.st for board was less than four tomans and for instruction one. Among the Armenians of Tabriz and the province of Azerbijan, of which it is the capital, the mission has two schools, with aims similar to those of the schools among the Nestorians; but the Armenians wish education as a preparation for business, not for Christian service, and the commercial and political drift of the people is so strong that Christ's interests take with them now a secondary place. In Tabriz the Armenians have some well-equipt schools of their own. One of their merchants gave recently a magnificent building for the Arme- nians in one quarter of the city, but there is nothing evangelical in these schools. Armenians, Europeanized in Russia, were in charge, and the spirit of secularism was contracting. From the mission schools in Tabriz and Teheran, the centers of greatest life among the Armenians in Northern Persia, all the influences for the gracious enlightenment of the people must come, and are coming. The activity and movement in the Gregorian Church is itself, as the acting bishop of Tabriz frankly admitted, largely due to the incitement of the evangelical mission work. I met in Teheran the graduates of the boys' school there. They were all young men, ambitious, active, teachers, merchants, bankers, doctors, supervisors, emancipated from their old superstitions and with evangelical sympathies. .
The missionaries have not yentured to open any schools for Mohammedans. In Tabriz and Oroomiah the fanaticism of the peo- ple is so great that no Mohammedans attend the schools opened there for Armenians and Nestorians. In Teheran and Hamadan, however, many Moslem children attend. The missionaries in the capital hesitated at first to take them, but the president of the late shah's council, the Amill-i-dowlph, requested it in writing, and now two- fifths of the boys and one-sixth of the girls are Mohammedans.
Nasr-i-din Shah himself, visited the schools several years before his death, to show the favor in which he held them. '1'he girls' school especially interested him. After going over it thoroughly he was taken to the dining-room and kitchen. He had made no comment as yet, but then he lookt about him admiringly, and simply exclaimed: "Clean, clean!" In Persia at last he had seen two un-Persian things, a just conception of woman and cleanliness. It was only of the latter that he spoke. Perhaps he did not see the former at all.
THE JEWS AND FIRE-WORSHIPERS.
The Jews and the Gnebres, or fire-worshipers, constitute an insignificant part of the population, but they, too, are reacht. One~fifth of the boys in the Teheran school belong to these classes, while 60 of the 85 boys in the Hamadan school are Jews. 'fhere are about 20,000 .rews in Persia, and they seem more accessible to the Gospel than the Jews of Palestine, or than Jews at home. Many of them have already received it. They are eager often for training, usually with the purpose of using it to become doctors. In parts of the land most of the physicians are Jews. But some seek to serve their Savior. I shall never forget a talk with omi of them one soft moonlight night, under the poplar trees in Teheran, the dainty light gleaming on the snows of Mount Demavend. He was a Jewish boy, and he lived in a little room by the sch001, where he cookt his own food. Milk and bread he ate for breakfast, tea and cheese and sometimes something cookt for supper. He said he was lonely, and that he had to pray much-especially for the Christians in America-rising at halfpast four in the morning for it, and he said also that his secret was that he wanted to preach Christ. " It is the best work ill the world," he added. "' Christ gave all. He ought to have all. We must all die, let be by sword, by gun, by water. Why not liYe aBel die for Christ? I hope, by grace of God, to be His servant and give all of life to Him." Child of a lonely race, preparing in loneliness for what will be a lonely life in this Moslem land! When will his people find their national life again in finding in Jesus their Messiah?
'1'he Armenian community in IIamadan has been less contaminated by the worldly influences which are robbing the Armenians elsewhere of more of their most attractive and noble qualities, and the Faith Hubbard school for girls ill the midst of them has been given an unlimited field among their girls and women. The Armenian women are very attractive. Many of the foreign residents in Bagdad have found them so, and taken wives from among them. They possess the capacities of the Armenian men, and are free from some of their faults. '1'hey are right who advocate strong efforts to save the nation from secularism and cynicism through its women.
In addition to these schools of higher grade under constant missionary supervision, the village school has been fostered in Persia, especially among the Nestorians. In the local school of the mollah, boys are taught narrowness and bigotry and little else. Whenever possible "illage boys who will come, especially in Christian or semi- Christian communities, ought to be taught something else. In his authoritative l)ut overgrown book Oil Persia, Mr. Curzon, the present British under secretary for foreign affairs, says that if he were to undertake the reformation of Persia, he would ]Jot incorporate a new company in London, but would organize a coup d'etat ill the village schools. 'fhe trouble is, however, that the government could not supply teachers if it wisht to establish good village schools. The problem is in the hands of the missionaries, so fill' as it is in the hands of any, and they do not conceive it to be their duty to establish and maintain a public-school system in Persif),. '['he schools they establish have a twofold purpose. Where the children are from Christian homes, they secure to the next generation of the native church the elements of a simple education. They constitute, where the children
EXPELLED FROM THE PHILIPPINES
are from unevangelical or heathen homes, an evangelizing agency, giving to the children a knowledge of the Gospel, and gaining an opening and a foothold for the native evangelist or the itinerating mIssIOnary. Where this purpose can be carried out in neither aspect, wise missionary policy declines to establish a school. The only extensive development of a village-school system has been among the Nestorians in the Oroomiah plain and adjacent regions. In this field, the average number of schools maintained per year for the first decade of the work (1837-1847) was 24, with 530 pupils; for the se,"ond decade (1847-1857),50 schools, with 948 pupils; for the third decade (ltl57- 1867), 51 schools, with 1,096 pupils; for the fourth decade (1867- 1877),58 schools, with 1,024 pupils; for the fifth decade (1877-1887), 8 t schools, with 1,833 pupils. For the year 1896 there were 117 schools, with 1,564 boys and 846 girls-·2,410 pupils in all.
This educational work strongly affects the imagination. To see hundreds, exactly 3,241 boys and girls, young men and women, in the schools I have mentioned, with several hundreds more in other village schools; to learn of the possibilities of life before them as illustrated in the lives of those already trained and sent out; to hear girls fresh from dark homes singing in queerly accented English, " Lord, ve come; Lord, ve come in our childhood's early morning j" or Moslem boys, just learning to read the Gospel of John, say, with the strong emphasis on the last word which characterizes the first attempt to read, " In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God," make a deep impression on anyone who is at all sensible to impres. SIOn.
EXPELLED FROM 'rHE PHILIPPINES.
F. DE P. CASTELLS. Formerly Agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society in the Philippines.
Early in 1881, and soon after my conversion, I read an article in a Spanish Protestant paper describing the spiritual condition of these islands. The writer, Sefior Alonso Lallave, was then unknown to me, but his words kindled in my heart a longing to go there, tho then it appeared to be a forlorn hope. Three years afterward I entered Dr. Guinness's London Institu te with a view to qualify for foreign mission work, and the idea of my going to the Philippines still held me fast. My time of preparation was almost up, and I had not applied anywhere for engagement; but one day intelligence came that the British and Foreign Bible Society needed a man-a Spaniard-ror • the very sphere in which I yearned to labor. I wrote immediately, and was accepted. Sefior Lallave, who had unwittingly led me to this, offered himself also with a like result, and the Society resolved that we should go together. This man, as I soon discovered, was most admirably fitted for the work. He was an ex-friar of the Dominican Order of Preachers, and had spent twelve years as a parish priest in the Philippines, in which capacity he had mastered the Pangasinan dialect. His conversion dated from 1867. A person in Spain had sent him some religious tracts by mail which convinced him of the errors of his church. Being a conscientious man, he did not try to stifle his new convictions but communicated them to others, where- upon he was denounced to his superiors, was arrested, degraded and thrown into a conventual dungeon in Manila. Then some old friend pleaded in his behalf, and he was sent under guard that he might be tried afresh by an ecclesiastical court in Spain. When the vessel was in Singapore, however, he managed to slip into a boat and gain the shore, where he at once became a free man. Soon afterwards news reached him at that port that Spain had become a republic and liberty of conscience had been proclaimed for the first time in iis long history. Overjoyed at the report he went home, where he had the pleasure of meeting those brave pioneers of the Gospel, Rial, Alhama, Cabrera, and others, most excellent men, whose hearts had been tempered in the fire of persecution and exile, and he soon was appointed minister of a church in Seville. 'Twenty years were passed in this work, and during this time, far from forgetting the scene of his former labors, he translated nearly the whole of the New Testament into Pangasinan.
After we were engaged by tho Bible Society, Sefior Lallave proceeded to Madrid to see his version of the Scriptures through the press, and I went to Malaysia, where, hy working among Malays, I was able to perfect myself in this language, and to acquire some most valuable experience. At length my companion came, and together we sailed for Manila, where we were landed on March ;Wth, 1889. Here we saw a purely Levitical city, of narrow and crooked streets, full of friars and nuns, of churches and conYents, of crosses and shrines. Processions were held frequently, when a 11umber of men carried some large wooden images about the town 011 lifters, the priests coming behind in magnificent golden robes, then a band playing, then the crowd with lighted tapers in their hands, reciting some sort of prayers, and then a strong military escort. We had barely arrived when we witnessed one such proeessioll, and the program said that it was in honor of "St. Joseph, the Chaste Husband of the Mother of God!" And as it filed through the streets, the forts were thunderillg a royal salute; and a thousand rockets were flying across the sky. If there is a place where the papal church finds herself at. home, it is in Manila-in the Philippines. In the morning it is the church bells that wake the people from their beds, and the peal of these goes on through the livelong day. The city has close on 300,000 inhabitants, three-fourths of them living in houses made of ((ttap, or palm leaves. The ordinary means of conveyanee used by the natives throughout the Philippines is It cart drawn by sluggish carabaos, or buffaloes. In 1889 the Manila-Dagupan Rail- road , the only one t here is, was in course of construction, and I h ad the pleasure of a short ri de on t he first locomotive ever landed there.
Once in ~la j' uila, we t ook up I our quarters at a hotel, and were surprised to learn that our comin g had been fore- stalled by the local press, par- t icularly by the clerical 0 r g a 11 , which inserted a paragraph that Legan thu s: SO~IE'I'HING A USUAL MODE OF CONVEYA:;OC li: IN T HE PHILI PPINES . TDf E LY.-The 226th article of the P enal Code in force in these islands r ead s thus: "Whosoever shall perform publicly any acts of propaganda, preaching or other ceremonies, contrary to those of the of:licial religion, will incur t h e pena lty of correct ional imprisonment, etc."
We very soon made fri ends among the nati ves, aud Illy kllowledge of Malay made the acquisitioll of Tagalog comparatively easy. We felt somewh at llampered, but we resolved to apply at Ollce for permission both to in troduce and to circulate t he Scriptures, whi ch we did. U nfortunately just then I fell ill, what my sickness was, I ll ever founel out. All I kll OWis that I had some suspicious symptoms and that I had been given up for dead. A kind English physician, who was staying at the hotel, took care of me and said that I recovered because of my youth. I was scarce well again, whell my companion sickened in the same mysterious way and, after twelve days of carcful n nrsin g by myself, died. Many people felt sure that he was poisoned. " This is the way the friars have always managed t o dispo~e of our benefact ors!" mallY of the natives exclaimed. The discovery which I made about t hat time, that the man who waited 011 ns at the hotel was a detective in disguise and a disreputable man, also made me suspi cions. Several times the friars had come beggillg fo ], admittance to th e sick room, but the patiellt obj ected to snch visitors and I resisted them. Once in his delirium, the sick man said: "Why (]on't they stand off and let me see H im ?" He seemed to think of the friars standillg between himself and God, and hence hi s protest. But whell he died, the question was: Where call we bury him? The proprietor of the hotel urged me to remove t he corpse at once, an d the authorities declared that 110 heretic could be buri ed in th c city cemetery, as that was holy soil. After much trOll ble, however, the British consul kindly allow ed me to bury him in the ground appropriated for non-Catholic foreigners, and so, despite a heavy downpour of raill, the corpse was removed that same evening, to be buried 011 the following day in the presence of several friends. '1'he idea of an ex-monk dying unreconciled with the church created a profound sensation, as the comments of the press testified.
'l'he events just described had produced in me a sense of desolation and danger, but now again I urged my request for permission to work openly. '1'he censors, who were either friars or bigoted laymen, demanded samples of my books, and I complied. 'rhey then promist a reply within a wec·k. At the end of that week I received nothing save a rellewal of their promise, which in like fashion was renewed many times over, with the idea, it would seem, of using np time, and of tiring me out without any formal answer on their part. Far from allowing this to interfere with my duty, however, I all along endeavored to do with my might" whatsoever my han<l fOlllld to do." For not only did I hold weekly services in English at the homes of prominent foreigners, bn t I occasionally held them in Spanish, and in the homes uf natives, and imported some Spanish Bibles and some Pangasinan Gospels by mail for several who professed to accept the truth. There being 110 version of the Scriptures in Tagalog, I made some manllscript copies of fragments rendered by myself, and these I gave away privately. I append one of them, John iii: 16, that it may give an idea what the language is like: Pagkat pinakasinta nang Dios ang sangdaigdig na pinagbigyan sa Anac niang bugting upang anglahat nang sumasampalataya sa Kaniya ay houag mapacasama bagkus magkamit nang buhay na walang hangan.
In Pangasinan the same text reads thus: Ontan so panangaroy Dios ed mundo nia, ta initdan toy Anac ton bogton, piano ganagana ya manisia ed sicato, ag inatcy, no ag macaala na vilay ya andi angaan.
As the censors lleclined to give me a reply in black and white, I had now determined to petition the captain-general, who was no other than the now famous General ,,-eyler. Again, however, the adversary frustrated my plans. Humors were set afloat which represented me as the head of a conspiracy, and in conseqnence I was arrested and imprisoned, The charge was easily disproved, but on the third day of being in prison, the judge informed me that I was accused of a new crime, that of "propagating doctrines contrary to the official religion," and that he would let me out on $;')00 bail, I being still unller police surveillance. '1'he prosecution dragged its weary conrse for three full months, during which time I liyed at the hotel, honored with a police guard at my door; ultimately I was acquitted, the evidence being llcclarcd insufficient. But simultaneously with this, and without my knowledge, I had also been prosccuted " administratively" for being a "pernicious person," which llleant that, guilty or irlllocen t, they intended to expel me from the country. And, having known this, I called on the civil governor, who happened to be a Cuban, and effccted a compromise, I leaving tho islands by the first steamer, and he sheh'ing the prosccution. On the 23d of December, therefore, I was saying' "good bye!" to Manila from on board a vessel, pained by my failure, 11l1t yet believing that I would, as I still pray I may, see the Philippines brought under the influence of the Gospel of Christ. Some weeks after my departure I learned that the supreme court had refusc(1 to indorse my acquittal, and had ordered a new trial, with what results I can not say.
MISSION.RY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
n.-MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
GOSPEL WORK FOR ISRAEL.
BY PROFESSOR GEORG];] H. SCHODDE, PH. D., COLUMBUS, O.
In the l'athanael, Nos. 1 and 2, of Vol. xiii, the bi-monthly publisht in the interests of the evangelization of Israel, by Professor Strack, of the University of Berlin, there is found, from the pen of Pastor de Ie Roi, easily the leading living authority on this subject, an excellent and accu- rate report of what has been done during the past two years for the Gospel cause among the" lost sheep of the house of Israel." We condense the leading data in the following: 1. Gre2ct Britain, with its London Society and 171 workers, easily leads in this department of mission activity. It labors largely among the constantly increasing hosts of Israelites in England. There are 16,000 Jewish children in the public schools of London, and 80,000 Jews in the city, where there are 40 synagogues. In the parliament there are 8 Jews, and in the army 60 Jewish officers. In the ranks of the English clergy there are no fewer than 200 Jewish proselytes. During the past two years the London Society has erected a new building and improved the old, devoted especially to providing for the wants of converts. Since the establishment of the Palestine House, in 1831, no fewer than 70 missionaries and evangelists have gone out of this house. The mission schools have had 1,300 pupils, of whom 80 and more are engaged in Gospel work. A recently establisht "Labor Home" gives converts an opportunity to earn a living. The society labors largely in the East End of the city.
The Abrahamic Society, closely allied in work with the London, recently celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. The Ladies' Union for Israel, establisht in 1893, now numbers 700 members. Even a children's society, called Beehive, has been organized, reporting now a membership of 3,000, with an organ entitled Jew'ish j"Iission Advocate, and an income of £250. These societies also confine their work almost exclusively to England.
The British Society, in commemoration of its fiftieth anniversary, publisht a memorial, entitled" Memoir of Gospel Triumph among the Jews," giving full account of its work. Its organ is The Jewish Herald. The annual income is between £7,000 and £8,000. In connection with it there has been organized a Hebrew Christian Union, to aid converts. The Mildmay Mission of John Wilkinson, in the twenty years of its activity, reports 140 baptisms. The chief work of this society is the distribution of Hebrew New Testaments. In 1895 it disposed of 117,000 copies, of which 76,000 found their way to America. The total number distributed to date is over one million copies. The society publishes a jargon sheet, entitled Dihrc Hizomim. The City Mission Society of London has nine of its men at work among the Jews of that metropolis. The Barbican Mission is also very active, while the Parochial Mission has establisht a medical mission for the Hebrews, and publishes a paper called Church and Synagogue. The East London Society, in the 18 years of its existence, has baptized 500 Jews. The Jewish Christian Testimony Mission has opened a mission house in London, and has decided to aid the work of the Jewish reformer Lichtenstein, in Hungary, and Rabinowitz, in Russia. The list of the Hebrew Christian Prayer Union of London reports a membership of 1,195. This body has an organ in the Friends of Israel.
GOSPEL WORK FOR ISRAEL
The Philo-Judroan Society confines its activity to Jewish women, and can look back to a work of 68 years.
In Scotland the state church takes care of the work among the Israelities in this country. Its headquarters are in Glasgow. The socie- ties under the auspices of the Free Kirk, the United Presbyterians, and the Irish Presbyterians, labor among this people in foreign lands. A number of women recently ef'Ected a central society, called The Wo- men's JC1c-ish Mission Association.
II. In Germany there are a number of Jewish mission societies, and Germany is also the seat of the activity of quite a number of non-German societies. The chief German organization of this kind is the Central Society of Leipzig, the life and soul of which for a generation and more, was the lamented Delitzsch. His periodical Saat auf Hoffnung, is still the leading scientific journal in the whole domain of this literature. His successor at the university, Professor Buhl, is one of the editors. The Berlin Society for 1895 reported 16 baptisms. An Institutum for the study of Jewish literature and Jewish mission problems is maintained by Pro- fessor Strack, of the Berlin University, and this institution has sent out a number of laborers to the Jews of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately the other Instituta of this kind, of which about ten were organized in 1883 and later, have been discontinued. The Swiss Society of the Friends of Israel has its men in Strasburg. A separate society was lately organized in Geneva, with a special organ entitled Le Boir Israelite. In Italy only the London Society is represented. The French Society, headed hy the well-known scholar, Pastor Kriiger, confines its work to Paris, where non- French societies are also represented. The Jews of Holland are quite orthodox, and the Netherland Union for Israel has three men at work among them, while the London and other English societies have also sent their missionaries. Le Ladder Israel seeks to interest children in this cause, and the society called "Excelsior" consists chiefly of young men and women. In Denmark only one Jewish missionary is at work, and he is a convert. In the three Scandinavian countries there are strong societies for this species of GORpel work, who all labor abroad. Rather strangely the Protestant churches in the Austro-Hungarian empire have no Jewish mission of their own, altho, next to Russia, it has the largest Jewish contingent among the nations of Europe. And with the exception of Russia there is no country that reports so large a numher of converts to Christianity from Israel as does this. All the work is done hy foreign societies. In Vienna the average number of Jewish baptisms per year is 400; in 1895 the convert number was 435 who joined the Catholic, and 70 who joined the Lutheran Church. In all the large populated centers of this empire the work is going on quite vigorously in varions ways and methods. In Rumania the London Society has been successfully active for years, with fully a dozen stations. Naturally the great mission field of this kind is Russia, with its millions of conservative and Talmudic Jews. The Russian Church resorts to methods that are often not defensible to gain converts from the Jews, and of the 8,597 Jews baptized by Russian popes between 1870 and 1887 probably not a few were practically compulsory. Yet Protestant societies also report large gains from this source. The London Society's missionary, Dr. Ellis, baptized 302 Jews in 5 years in ,Varsaw. The work of the Jewish-Christian Rabinowitz, so auspiciously begun a decade ago, is not so promising at present, largely on account of the peculiarities of the leader. In Turkey the var-
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
ious societies have found a promising field, three of their associations working in Constantinople, where one man alone in the last two years baptized 43. In Jerusalem, Damascus, and other cities of Asiatic Turkey, especially in Palestine, the work is vigorously pusht with varied success. The medical missions are in most cases the most successful. Even the Jews of distant Persia, East India, Tunis, Algiers, Australia, and other distant lands are not forgotten, altho the laborers are few. Abyssinia with its hundreds of thousands of Falasha, or black Jews, is still closed to Christian mission enterprise. In America work of this kind is done by a large number of societies and various denominations, especially in the large cities of New York and Chicago, and fully a dozen of journals in the interests of the C/Luse are issued. In British America considerable activity has also been exhibited.
The article in question, covering 35 pages, closes with these words: "Our survey has shown rich evangelical mission activity among the Jews. There is, indeed, room for criticism in regard to certain active details; but so much is certain, that not since the days of the apostles has there been such zeal shown for the salvation of Israel as there is exhibited in our own times."
~-~——– CHRISTIAN AND POLITICAL FORCES IN SYRIA.* BY PROF. SAMUEL rYES CURTISS, D.D.
1. The possession of Syria and Palestine by peaceable means still engages at least two great powers,France and Russia, and is the dream of the Jewish party known as the Zionists. The hope which animates the Zionists is partly religious and partly political. Indeed, it is along the line of Old Testament teaching and Old Testament prophecy as interpreted by opprest Judaism. But France and Russia seem to use religion for political ends. Do the Maronites need a church which the natives can not provide? French gold flows freely into the country. The most commanding sites in Lebanon and other parts of Syria and Palestine are crowned by Maronite or French Catholic institutions. Education, whether collegiate or primary, following in the wake of Protestant institutions, and seeking to displace them, furnishes free instruction and free text-books. Other inducements are held out when necessary. A Eoumptuous press, which has every appliance for printing and binding,attempts to eclipse the American press by its beautiful typographical productions, while a line of classical Arabic literature, rejected by the American press because contrary to the spirit of Christianity, is freely issued by the Jesuit press. No foreign people are nearer the ideals and desires of non-Mohammedans of Northern Syria than the French. But this work of subsidization leaves the people where they are, and simply strengthens in them the terrible vices of cupidity and cringing dependence.
What means the Russian occupation of the country, from one end to the other, by hospices, open to pilgrims and travelers during a brief season of the year for a nominal sum? What is the meaning of Greek schools, where instruction is given in Russian, and the subsidization of the Greek Church,if not in the line of political aims of Russia in Syria and the Holy Land? Neither France nor Russia, whether working directly through the emissaries of the Greek or Latin churches, or through the • Condenst from The Indep€ndent,
CHRISTIAN AND POLITICAL FORCES IN SYRIA
native churches, is quickening the moral sense of the people or placing before them higher ideals. Corrupt forms of Christian faith have a tremendous hold on the Syrians, because they appeal constantly to their self-interest, and are in harmony with the most ancient Semitic ideas still regnant to-day.
A nominal Christian commits a murder, or is guilty of some other gross crime. His religious connection makes him in all respects the member of a clan. Abhorrence of his act and a desire for righteous retribution has no place among his coreligionists, or fellow-clansmen. Here is one belonging to the same party in trouble. The powerful ecclesiastical machinery, which has the ear of the pasha, is invoked, and the guilty man goes free. What has the Protestant to expect who leaves anyone of the non-evangelical bodies at the bidding of con!'lcience? Simply that if he has a case at law, tho clearly in the right, he must fail to secure justice for lack of proper influence, and must suffer the loss of civil rights. Now, when money and political influence, the most potent factors in the Orient, are at the command of the Latin, the Greek, and the Maronite churches, is it any wonder that the progress of Protestantism is slow, especially when we consider that these non-evangelical Christian religions have vastly greater numbers, and almost unlimited financial resources? "Vhat can Protestantism do? It represents no political aspirations, either American or English. It has limited resources. It is working directly counter to the low moral ideals of centuries. Through the regenerating power of the Gospel it is seeking, not to win a country for an English-speaking people, but to make men, women, and children new creatures in Christ.
II. It is safe to say that in no foreign country, nor in any mission field, are there abler, wiser, or more consecrated Christian workers than in Syria and Palestine. The two main evangelical forces in this country belong to the Church of England and to the Presbyterian order. The evangelical character of the work done by our English brothers and sisters is indicated by the prominence which they give to regeneration, and the characteristics which we expect to find in living Christians. The Presbyterian Mission has had a noble history, altho its work rests on essentially Congregational foundations, laid by the American Board more than seventy-five years ago.
All classes in Syria and Palestine are now reacht by the Gospel, altho details may not be given. If it were not for the loss of civil rights and the great dangers sometimes incurred, the profession of evangelical Christianity would be by hundreds, rather than by units as at present. Even among the Jews a solid work is being done. There are many genuine converts, known to those who have lived in the country for years. The means used in the evangelization of Syria and Palestine by different societies and enterprises are: evangelistic, publishing, educational, medical, and industrial.
1. Syria and Palestine present a particularly difficult field for evangelistic work. Street preaching is prohibited by law, and as halls and theaters can not be secured for the purpose, the missionary is much hampered in evangelistic efforts. But nevertheles>l there is a feeling that more should be attempted on evangelistic lines. The development of self-supporting churches has been rendered impossible thus far by the feeling of dependence natural to the people, and fostered by non-evangelical Christian sects. The American Presbyterians, with Beirut as a
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
center, report 2,390 church members, only one self-supporting church, and that is now seeking aid in America. Self-support must come from the development of a consecrated, gifted, native ministry directlyresponsible to the churches and supported by them. The Church of England, whose bishop resides in Jerusalem, has about 1,000 members. Besides, there are the Irish Presbyterian Church, with headquarters at Damascus, with 160 members; the Free Church of Scotland, 54 members; the Friends, 36 members, and the Lutherans in Beirut, 150 members, making a total of 4,700 native Protestant church members in Syria and Palestine.
2. The edncational work, from the necessities of the case, has received the most emphasis of any department. The British Syrian Mission, composed of ladies who are members of the Church of England, is doing a wonderful work through its fifty-two schools, and 3,9!7 scholars from ninety communities. The training of the mind is made subsidiary to the formation of Christ in the heart. The children, through their hymns and Bible stories, become effective missionaries. One can but admire the strength of character, the love and devotion manifested by cur English sisters in this work. The Presbyterian Board has 6,391 scholars in its schools of all grades; the Church Missionary Society, 3,000; the Friends of Brummana, 1,005; the Irish Presbyterian Church, 900; the Free Church of Scotland, 420; Church of Scotland Mission to the Jews, 350; Lutherans, 260. There are also independent schools, sustained by voluntar:; contributions and by teachers living in whole or in part on their own means. Among these is Miss Jessie Taylor'S orphanage for Moslem and Druse girls at Beirut, with an attendance of 186; the Tabitha Mission at Jaffa, with 210 scholars; the Female Education Society, with 62 scholar~, making in all 16,521. At the same time remember there are many scholars not here enumerated.
3. The work of the American press is conspicuously evangelical. Through its publication of the Arabic Bible, in whole and in part, and its issue of tracts and religious books in Arabic, it is a powerful auxiliary, not only for all evangelical Christians, laboring in Syria and Palestine, but also wherever the Arabic language is spoken.
4. lJledical m.issions, so greatly in favor in these more recent years, form an important part of the work represented by the different societies at the conference. The staff of physicians and surgeons at the Syrian Protestant College is famous for some of its me~nbers throughout Syria. It is said that when one of them was dangerously ill prayer was offered for him not only in Protestant but also in other churches of Beirut and in the mosques. There are medical missions in connection with all the larger missions in this country. Hundreds of communities are reacht, ami tens of thousands of patients are treated annually.
5. Industrial mission schools are ably represented by Dr. Ford, of Sidon. His school teaches masonry, carpentry, shoemaking, and tailoring. An agricultural department is to be added. It has proved to be very nearly self-supporting. It is found that such training tends to remove some of the greatest obstacles in native character with which missionaries have to contend. There can be no doubt that industrial training will soon win a permanent place among the missionary societies. A most beneficent branch of missionary work to be started by Dr. Theophilus Waldemeier, famous as one of the fifteen captives who cost the British Government in the war with Abyssinia for their release fifteen million pounds. He is soon to establish homes for the insane, who are bound in chains to rocks and put in caves.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF JEWS IN RUSSIA
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF JEWS IN RUSSIA. * 1. The number of the Jewish race in Russia must amount to considerably over five millions. That figure is the computation for the Jewish residents in the Pale of Settlement, t and as there are large numbers of Jews privileged-or condemned, as in the case of Siberian exiles-to reside outside the pale, there are in all probability at least five and threequarter millions, at a low estimate, in the' Russian Empire.
2. Jews in Russia do not possess equal rights with other subjects. Tho Russia is made up of a variety of races, in which the Slav element is sometimes inconsiderable, yet all possess equal civil rights, provided they are members of the Greek Church, that being the state church. The special disabilities under which the Jew suffers are not, however, placed upon him because of his religion, tho many Jews so represent it. They are placed upon him in order to handicap his superior intelligence over the Russian peasant. The synagogue is as much tolerated as is the Roman Catholic Church-the clergy of which likewise suffer certain disabilities.
It is true that if a Jew is baptized into the Greek Church he attains every right of a Russian citizen, but this does not prove that persecution of the Jew is on nlig·ious grounds. He is then regarded as a true Russian, and no longer willing t.o use his brains, as one of a foreign race, to exploit the native.
Whether Russia's policy in dealing with her Jewish subjects is far-sighted or not; whether her use of her church as a nationalizing element is opposed to the spirit of Christianity or not, no one can gainsay the fact that her position is both patriotic and intelligible. A foreign race within her borders is so far superior to the natives, both in mind and habits, that unless hindered, it would in time absorb all property and leave the native none. Therefore she places special restrictions upon this particular race, over and above those restrictions which attach to all non-orthodox communities. This, then, is the ground of Russia's policy toward the Jew.
3. Vhat are these disabilities? Briefly and generally they are as follows: Jews may not leave the Pale of Settlement unless they are merchants of the first guild (a privilege involving taxes of about £100 a year), graduates of universities or higher educational institutions, soldiers who served under Nicholas 1., chemists, surgeons, and midwives. Jews may not reside within fifty versts of the frontier, unless resident or possessing property there before 1858; they may not reside on open land outside the cities and market towns. Jews, however, who were resident in villages before the" May Laws" of 1882, may remain there, but are prohibited by another law of 1887 from removal to another village. Restrictions are placed 0 n their ownership of land, and only this year (but strictly for patriotic reasons) the spirit trade was taken out of their hands, and made a government monopoly. Limitations are also made in regard to the proportion of Jewish youths and girls in colleges and universities.
A milder 7'egime has set in under the new czar. Not much has * Condenst f.rom an article by Samuel Wilkinson in The Friend of L.rael.
t The Pale of Settlement consists of 25 provinces (26 including Courland, where, however, no new settlers are permitted), on the western frontier of Russia, 10 of them forming the kingdom of Poland.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT
directly been done to remove existing restrictions (tho the manifesto granting free pardon to escaped conscripts boded well) ; but there are cer· tain indications which all point toward a less vigorous enforcement of the laws militating against the Jews. Exactly what influence wealthy Jews have used with the Russian government in this direction I cannot say, but altogether, apart from such influence, Nicholas II. has his hand firm on the rudder, and has his people's good at heart. The tide has set in in favor of more liberty for Germans, Poles, and, I believe, Jews also, even tho local outbreaks of hostility may still from time to time occur.
4. There is an incalculable amount of abject poverty in the towns of the Pale of Settlement; Inoreover the black hue of the country (when not covered with snow), the absence of small cottage gardens, trim hedges, and neat country roads, give a joyless, depressing aspect to the landscape, which harmonizes with the aspect of the Jews themselves, who wearily stand or tramp about with characteristically careworn faces. For all that, it is a fact that moderate and even considerable wealth is often concealed b,ehind these poverty-stricken exteriors. Not all Russian Jews either, have the pallid, cadaverous, sunken cheeks of the pious Chasid.- many are fine types of healthy manhood, body lithe, cheek ruddy, and eye sparkling.
5. Family home-life and general morals suffer from two causes: firstly from the subtleties of the Rabbinic and Talmudic theology, which is sometimes little less than a school of deceit-how to keep the law while breaking it, how to sin with a good conscience; such seems to be its teaching, and some of the most outwardly observant of synagogue ritual are the most lax in honesty and morality. The second cause is from the so-called" emancipation" of certain Jews from religious restrictions, when they become mere selfish, godless worldlings.
All Jewish sects in Russia may be said to accept the Talmud with the exception of the Karaites. * The Chasidim are a numerous sect founded about 1740 by one Israel Baal Schem, a Jew of Podolia, who claimed implicit submission as the representative of God upon earth. This sect submit themselves to their priesthood, the Zadd'ikhim, and regard them as inspired. One such Zaddik I visit~d in Bjalestok. To some extent they reverence the Talmud, but their basis of faith is the Book of ZohaT. t In the northern part of the Pale the orthodox Jews seem more intelligent, tho very fanatical, and if in the southern provinces there is greater ignorance, there is no less fanaticism. Darkness, gross darkness, reigns. There is "a zeal for God but not according to knowledge." ,. From the sole of the foot unto the head there is no soundness in it," and yet in the darkness-religious, moral, social-there are true-hearted souls.
II. There is some Gospel work among the Jews of Russia, with many hopeful signs of God's Spirit stirring the dry bones here and there as an incentive to sueh effort, but there is room enough in this dark, dark field for a hundred times more. Doors are open already and are opening wider every year.
*The Karaites are a small sect chiefly resident in the Crimea, claiming great antiquity.
But it is believed they date only from 750 A. D. They utterly reject the Talmud and all Rabbinical traditions, and adhere only to the Old Testament. Hence their name, which means Textuaiists.
t The book" Zohar" professes to have been written in the first century, but has been proved by its contents to belong to the thirteenth century, at which time it first made its appearance.-Enc. Rrit.
1898.J THE PRESENT CONDITION OF JEWS IN RUSSIA
(1.) Bible Distribution by Colporteur"s Sales is not a specIal effort to reach the Jews, tho they are not excluded. As there are comparatively few Jews in Finland or the divi'lions of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Khar- koff, Rostoff on the Don, the valley of the Volga, and Siberia, we may omit references to these places, and yet even in these districts Jews become purchasers of the 'Vord of God. At the North, the Bible Society has two workers in 'Vitebskand Wilna, two in the neighborhood of Riga, one in Courland, two in Dorpat, and three in Minsk. In Minsk about 16,000 Scriptures were disposed of in 1896. In the same year, in the Odessa division, about 53,000 books were distributed, viz., in Bessarabia, the Crimea, Kherson, and Podolia. Jews would also profit more or less by the society's circulation of Scriptures in Tiflis, in Transcaucasia, and especially in 'Varsaw. In Russian Poland copias of the Scriptures in Jewish languages were eagerly purchast by the Jews. The work among the Jews is often a difficult one, but in spite of many hindrances, nearly 22,600 Hebrew and Biglot versions were circulated. (2.) llfissiona'ry TVork ,in Stations.-The London Jews Society has long enjoyed a special permission to carryon mission work among the Jews in Warsaw. There is also a depot, but its returns of sales and gifts of Scriptures are small. The British Jews Society has now two missions in Russia, both in splendid centers. Dr. Frohwein conducts a dispensary in Wilna, and Rev. George Friedman labors in Kovno. The Lutheran Church has pastors in 'Vilna, 'Varsaw, and Kischenew who are friends of Israel. They also maintain a home for Jewish girls in St. Petersburs-.
In 'Varsaw Brother Rosenzweig works on the lines of the American "Hope of Israel ~Iission." He endeavors to be a Jew to the Jews and a Christian to the Christians, and without question gains access to many orthodox houses, llnopen to an ordinary missionary. Joseph Rabinowitz belongs to no society or church but the church of Christ. His work amongst his people in Russia is unique. The service in Somerville Hall, Kischenew, has something of synagogue ritual in it, but a very full Gospel in the preaching. His name is widely known in Russia, and his writings are extensively read. (3.) The Circulation of 21fissiunary Literature in Russia forms part of missionary work. Of the three Jargon or Yiddish Mission periodicals, Berith Am ( "Covenant of the People"), edited by Professor Dalman of Leipzig, Tigvvath Israel ( "Hope of Israel"), edited by Pastor Gaebelein, of New York, and Dibre Hayomim ("'Vords of the Days "), edited by Rev. Henry Goodman of the Mildway Jewish :1ission, a large propor- tion are sent to Russia for circulation and through various agenicies find willing readers. (4.) Free New Testament Dist1"ibui'ion, coupled with missionary work in depots, and itinerations, has been prosecuted most vigorously and extensively by the Mildmay Jewish Mission. Russian law, although it does not permit mission work pure and simple, sanctions the free distribution of God's Word, and also freedom to explain the nature of,the contents of the book. Over 200,000 Testaments and portions have been circulated in Russia during these twelve years. The depots at'present in use as centers for periodical itinerations are Warsaw, Odessa, Minsk, and Berditschew. Itinerations are the only possible practical way of evangelizing the Jewish field, and New Testament distribution, wisely carried out, must produce permanent and ble~-;' results. In hundreds of villages, where one never can hope to locate missionaries, the little Book is read. Many are indifferent, some violently hostile, some forgetful, but nevertheless there are the ones and twos who prize it, and to whom it becomes the source of life eternal.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
IlL-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
War Measures and Missionary Meas- rich nation. That it should be able ures. to place four hundred millions of its bonds (ten-twenty's) at three per BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D. D. cent., and a hundred millions on temporary certificates, is still more There is something pitiful in the emphatic as to our wealth; but cond:tion of the treasuries of the that when it called for the two-hunmissionary societies lookt at in the dred-million dollar loan, seven light of the financial status of this times that much money was subcountry, as exhibited in the war scribed, one's eyes stand wide open with Spain. The Methodist Epis- with wonder. Fourtb:m hundred copal, Presbyterian, Congrega- millions of dollars, lying loose tional, Baptist, and other mission- enough to be tendered to the govary organizations, have been teas- ernment on call, takes one's breath. ing their constituents up to the heroism (!) of paying debts aggre- 'Ve are told that there are many gating perhaps less than two mil- comparisons of our country which lion dollars, while the war expenses must be made, not with any other leapt at once from nothing to one one country, but with all the "rest million and a quarter of dollars a of mankind." 'Ve are laught at day, and in a few weeks appropria- across the ocean for saying of so tions of three hundred and sixty- many things in America, that they one million dollars were made, or are the "greatest in all the world." thirty times as much as Great Brit- 'Ve are not content to measure ourain and America contribute in a selves with anyone country, but whole year for the evangelization with all countries combined. We of the world outside their own have half as many miles of railway boundaries. The sort of civilizing as all the "rest of the world." We agency which cost that much for transported on these railways in the elevation of a population nu- 1892 one and a half times as much merically less than is contained in freight as all the rest of the railthe city of New York, would stand roads of "the world" put together in poor contrast with results of the did. Our steam marine registers fifteen millions a year of all the one-third of the entire steam regisforeign missionary societies of ter "of the world." In l896 we Christendom. raised more than one-fourth of the entire cereal crops "of the world." But that is llot chiefly what we 'Ve have more than one-half of the desire to point out just now. It is, telegraph wires "of the world." rather, the financial ability of the Our postal system carries a little population of this country, as con- less than one-third of all letters sent trasted with the paltry contribu- by post in "all the world;" our tions to the betterment of the thou- mechanical appliances comprise sand millions of people "outside more than one-fourth of the methe bulwarks " of Christian civiliza- chanical equipment of "the entire tion. That the government should world." John Shafroth, in a conbe able to issue a two-hundred-mil- tention in the House of Representalion dollar war loan in a time of tives in May last, in his address war, at the lowest rate of interest dealing with these facts, said the at which any nation ever did such people of the United States, in rea thing, indicates that this is a very spect to their resources and capacity Again, much has been said of the of performance, can no longer be Aladdin's lamp, which enables us, compared with any other single all at once, to put two-hundred nation; the comparision must be thousand equipt soldiers on the made with the entire" rest of the field, double our fleet, strengthen world." He was arguing to show fortifications, mine harbors, buy that the United States is, in fact, a ships, and much else. But what if world-power, and as sueh must some paltry tithe of such skill in have a world policy. combination and energetic concen- tration could be manifest in the Now, what we want to ask is, if churches of the land for the worldsix or seven millions of dollars an- kingdom of Jesus Christ? nually contributed to the progress of Protestant Christianity through ,Ve might remind ourselves of the missionary societies, looks in the fact that struck all Europe as the least as if we had a "world- much as anything else about our policy" in this direction. If, as war phenomena-that American Mr. Shafroth asserts, we constitute soldiers exhibited ability to take one-twentieth of the population of " the initiative." It was the" cour- "the globe," and own one-fifth of age which forgot all rules of milithe capital of "all the world," have tary practisf', and by its sheer irrewe any decent conception what we sistibleness, "that accomplisht the ought to be doing for a thousand impossible at San Juan and EI millions of "other folk," who are Caney. It was "the men behind not so much as nominal Christians, the guns," which made the world yea, who have never heard wheth- wonder and admire. Is there not er there be a Savior of the race? as much" moral fiber and personal courage" in the ranks of the Church The assistant secretary of the to carry every San Juan and EI treasury before the Social Science (Janey of heathenism? ,ViIl the Association said in August last, "A Church try what the government rich treasury and a potential ability of the United States tried-raise to add almost without limit to its and send forth its men, and riches, must have played a great fling them on the opposing forceR, part in robbing men and comman- with the simple "Go in," with ders [Spanish] of courage and hope, which Grant commissioned Sherand must have been important ele- man? Over-much prudence may ments contributing to the down- become prudery. ,Vill we raise the fall of Spanish power, and hringing money and commission the men, Spain to sue for peace." and push them to the front to •• find a way or Inake one ?" Again we ask, if the riches of this American nation were in any It may be all true that Chrisdecent proportion concentrated on tianity gets on, on a powder-cart, the evangelization,or even the civil- but the sober thought of mankind ization or the thousand millions of at the end of this century is exthe ,. rest of the world" which are prest by the government 11fesheathen or semi-civilized, what senger, the official press-organ of would be the moral effect of that the Russian Government, to wit: fact alone on those same thousand "The theory of war is a false and millions of people, when they be- lamentable theoI'y, which civilizacame aware of the fact ? Would it tion begins to identify with the denot be an "important element" struction of mankind." And yet contributing to the downfall of bar- the world treats as it might a fake, barism and the false faiths of "the the serious proposal of the Russian whole world?" government for a conference on ties would be glad tu enroll women armaments. Russia herself has an in at least equal numbers with army on a peace-footing of a mil- missionary men, to put heathen lion men. It is said it could mobil- on a peace-footing through Jesus ize more than two millions, and has Christ. Every Englishman pays a reserve of seven millions to aug- three dollars annually for the ment it to nine millions! The Mes- army, exclusive of the navy; every senger above quoted, says there are German the same. If every Meth- five-and-a-quarter millions of men odist in the United States would under arms in the world at the pres- contribute that much to missions ent moment, and possible reserves it would equal the entire annual to make over forty-four millions. income of all foreign missionary All this, to police the nations called organizations of Christendom. But Christian, to enable them to cut suppose now we are hearing so each other's throats; a force of much about Anglo-American al- which, it is said, "were these sold- liance that the one-hundred and iers entrusted with the task of an- twenty-millions of that alliance, nihilating mankind, thirty-two would give a hundredth part of that persons would fall to the lot of sum per capita to evangelize the each of them." Vhat would be the world through Protestant and result if the churches had on the Roman Catholic missions together, field, or in reserve at homp., an ag- it would make a splendid advance gressive force a thousandth part on what they are giving. as numerous as this army force? Is it overmuch to give one mission- Surely it is time Protestant ary to save life for every thousand Christendom organized a "Warsoldiers commissioned to take life? Board," to comprehend the data of Weare inspirited by a few thou- all the fields and forces and resoursand volunteers willing to take the ces, and to layout some great plan, mission field, but Russia alone col- other than the" go-as-you-please" lects every year over 280,000 young way of occupying fields and scatmen as recruits from all parts of tering forces which up-to-date that gigantic empire, to keep her marks missionary nlOvements of army on a pussible war-footing! the world. The nineteenth century The vast armies of the greater na- has mustered battalions and regitions of Europe are estimated to be rnents, and squads, and turned maintained at an annual cost of a them out in an indiscriminate thousand millions of dollars, irre- scramble, the twentieth century spective of the fleets which compose ought to see them organized as an the navies of Europe, and we affect army. suspicion when Russia mildly suggests that some measure of disarma- Ve now stand perplext how to ment is desirable! Vouldn't all the move men to the front, the probforeign missionary societies of lem chiefly thrust on us by the stu- Europe rejoice if one fiftieth part dent volunteer movement. The of this cost of maintaining police proposition tu send all approved of the world were afforded them to applicants forward, made by Dr. create conditions of peace, which Leonard, Secretary of the Methowould render so large a part of dist Episcopal Missionary Society, army and navy needless? has elicited a lively discussion and a symposium filling twenty pages These men are young, vigorous, double-column and fine print in the the flower uf the physical manhood November number of the" Gospel of Europe. The missionary socie- in All Lands" (Eaton & Mains,New York), well worthy the earnest study of all persons interested in nently only since November, 1895, . mission work. when Rev. S. A. Moffett and Dr. J. Hunter Wells located here, while As a symptom, these discussions in May, 1896, Rev. Graham Lee and are hopeful. We are rounding out family arrived from Seoul. In the the year 1898 with this number of same spring Dr. Douglass Follwill, the REVIEW. The churches as a of the Methodist mission, the others whole take an optimistic view of mentioned being all Presbyterians, the situation which confronts arrived, followed a little later by them. We share in that hopeful- Rev. 'V. A. Noble and family. In ness; no word of an optimistic na- this way the two stations continued ture have we ever spoken or writ- for a year, until now the Presbyte- ten that we wish to recall. rians have been reenforced, while our Methodist brethren are strug- But we are appalled with the op- gling along with more work than portunities which confront Chris- they can possibly attend to. The tendom at the door of the twentieth history of the establishment of century; yet not at the problems work here, and of its remarkable themselves, but at the overtower- growth, is in print in various jour- ing ill-acquaintance and sluggish nals and pamphlets. Of Dr. and indifference of Christendom itself Mrs. Underwood's visit some ten to its obligations, its environment, years ago; of Rev. .Mr. Appenzel- and its resources at this crucial ler's at the same time; of the won- hour. The nation is said to have derful work of Dr. Hall, deceased, just discovered itself. Bishop whose deeds for Christ are recorded Fowler, of the Methodist Church, in a volume edited by his wife, and told the British 'Vesleyan Confer- of the conscientious self-denying ence the other day, that Spain put labors of Rev. Mr. Moffett, those dynamite under our prow, and who run may read. blew us into the air, "and we came down everywhere. " Is there noth- This paper is intended for a brief ing short of the dynamite of Prov- review of the main features of the idence to make the Christian work here in Pyengyang as it now churches "come down everywhere? " That single torpedo appears. In the two years of perunder the Maine blew in our faces ten millions of Filippinos. The pro- manent occupancy, tho much of pulsive force that may be needful the planting work, notably that by to awake us to a world-policy of Dr. Hall, and ~he itinerating by Evangelism, we may await-but Messrs. Moffett and Lee, was not without some apprehension, if done before the number of we fail to appreciate our privileges church adherents had grown and adjust ourselves to our duty. from less than one hundred to more than three thousand, Missions in Pyengyang, Korea. and the number of churches, or meeting places, from three or four J. HUNTER WELLS, to about one hundred. This in- cludes both stations. This growth Missionary effort which records has been the result solely of the active work of only two years' dura- power of the Holy Spirit acting tion, can not. be expected to show through thDse brought to the Truth, very large results in any respect, who, as soon as they saw it, went and that view which takes cogniz- and told. their brethren. Some very ance of numbers only, is the interesting and edifying examples most erroneous of all. Pyengyang, of missionary labors by natives, Korea, has been occupied perma· who have traveled from town to town, teaching and preaching the sume the importance or lead that Good Tidings, without money and it did when the country was opened without price, and without sugges- to the Gospel at the point of the tion except what they found in the lancet, but the direct and indirect Scriptures, could be cited. This results of the Word preacht to phase and feature of the work is these 17,000 differen t persons can not deserving of special mention, for as be truly estimated, or overestima- a consequence, in all this section, ted. A surgical feature of interest, under both stations, there are but from my hospital, is the scores of two Koreans who receive money blind restored to sight by the operfrom America toward their salaries ations of iridectomy, and the reas helpers, while none of the lead- moval of cataract. Something ers in the scattered hundred over a hundred such operations churches,receive any pay not pro- have been performed. vided by the natives. When it is known that the average wages The feature of self-support alhere are but four dollars, gold, ready mentioned is illustrated by per month, and that for gentle- the fact that for the Christmas celemen who serve us as teachers, it bration one of the churches in will be seen that to provide all these town contributed 30 dollars, silver, places, and to build churches and to buy Christian books to be preschools, as has been done by adher- sented to unbelievers who would ents of both stations, requires con- accept them [and those who distributions from the native Chris- tributed them after the service had tians here, far larger, in proportion, to climb on a house and hand the than the church people of America books down one by one, the demand give to their own work there. was so great]; and to present each of the thirty odd prisoners in the The work here in all lines has jails and dungeons of the city with been one of very small beginnings, some money and a book-this by and there was much sowing on what permission of the governor; of seemed to be rocky ground, long the giving, not long ago, of 100 before the reaping of the last two silver dollars toward a church years commenced. There has been building; of the request by a conno sudden spurt, but steady ad- gregation, under charge of Dr. vance all along the line, tho the Underwood, for a missionary to lack of workers has prevented any come to them, they agreeing to special attention to anything but furnish a house and many of the evangelistic and medical work. In necessities of life; and of this same the latter department there has congregation glvmg some 100 been something over 17,000 patients dollars, silver, to India during seen in the two dispensaries and famine time, 50 dollars, for the small hospital, during the past two same purpose, having been sent by years. This, with the population the Christians here. All these of the city only about some 40,000 things occurred without suggestion people, with the surrounding re- or help from the missionaries. gions, tributary, having only about 500,000, if that many, shows a re- Another remarkable feature of markable attendance to this form the native Christians here is the of Christian beneficence and effort childlike faith and simplicity with for Christ. The evangelistic spirit which they accept and practise the is so prominent, and propagation of truth of the Scriptures. the Gospel so easy, that dispensary and hospital work does not as- Numerous instances of their at- tempts to cast out what they thought were devils or demons, by prayer, and in other cases by its outward and inward features. prayer and fasting, are of record. Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, who .Many of the cases were benefited saW it two years ago, characterized and tho never traced or investi- it as the most wonderful she had gated, but what could be easily ever seen in connection with the diagnosed and classified, yet in no Gospel. Mr. W. Henry Grant and instance have the people been dis- Mr. R. E. Speer have been here and couraged in their methods, for who can speak for themselves. It is the knows, but that after all, they may Lord's work and He has blest it. not be nearer the true way than It is only in its beginning, and its we think? successful issue will require the prayers of God-fearing men and The unity of the two Christian women, for not only the Koreans stations here, the plainly prevalent come out of darkness, but for spirit of Christ which, seen of all strength from on nigh for the Iuen, animates the members of each missionaries here who' have to station toward one another especi- shepherd this flock, and it is for this ally, and of the very evident one- purpose, mainly, that this letter is ness of purpose of the two stations, written. is a feature whose influence and weight in shouldering this work CENTRAL CHINA CHRISTIAN must not be left out of considera- MISSION.-Rev. W. P. Bentley, tion. "The priest, like people," writing from Shanghai, China, was quoted in one of our meetings says: "The tenth annual meeting of during the week of prayer, for on the Central China Christian Misthat truth hangs many future con- sion was held in Nankin, May 11 to sequences. 18, 1898. The work is carried on under the auspices of the Foreign An external feature worth men- Christian Missionary Society of tioning, is the flying of the Korean Cincinnati, 0., U.S.A. Theforeign flag from many of the churches workers number twenty-five. The and from scores of Korean houses native staff about the same. The on Sundays. Thisis merely one of stations occupied are Nankin, their own doings, and is not uni- Vrehn. Chu-ch,lO, Lin-cheo-fu, and versal, but holds pretty well here Shanghai. Three sets of meetings in Pyengyang. The Korean flag were held; one for the natives, one is rarely raised on any other oc- for both natives and foreigners, casion. and one for foreigners only. All were gotten through within the Since the time mentioned in the same week. It was noted that in first part of this letter, the Presby- the mixt meetings the natives deterian station here has been reen- ferred a good deal to foreigners, forced by Rev. N. C. Whittmore, but in their own meetings they who arrived about a year ago, and gave evidence of the power and lately by Rev. MI'. and Mrs. Baird, judgmpnt to manage their own experienced missionaries trans- affairs. ferred from another part of Korea, and Rev. Wm. B. Hunt, and Miss " The past year's experience con- Margaret Best. Dr. Mrs. Hall, to firms the belief that the Chinese whom Pycngyang is no new field, Ohristians are liberal. They give will soon join the Methodists, while most liberally to work which they Dr. Miss Fish will come up from feel is their own, and their contri- Seoul just as soon as house-room butions increase in proportion as can be provided for her. This com- they are thrown upon their own repletes the brief review, with the ,personnel of the work in some of sources. The spirit and practise of tion to them, thert they have been laboring under the idea that these self-support are growing in the are outside matters. They have mlSSIOn. A very interesting exam- not exerted their influence for good, and any ill feeling existing pIe occurs in a new station-Lin- among the pecple against Christ- ians has easily led to trouble. cheo-fer. It is not strange, then, that mis- "The members here have all been sionary troubles are occurring more and more often. The high received within a few months, and authorities of all the provinces are have been told that they must be now specially commanded that, whenever missionary cases occur, absolutely self-supporting from the they must particularly instruct the start-altho they are very poor local officers to act in good earnest to give proper protection; and and number only about a dozen. whenever missionaries wish to call They already conduct their own upon the local officials, these must not of their own free will and accord services. They are allowed tempor- cut off, or decline to have commun- arily to meet in the mission (rented) ication with them. Such inter- course will lead to mutual trust, premises, but are making arrange- good faith, and confidence. The native Christians will then not ments to build for themselves-if cause trouble, and the people will only a hut-to start with. If this be admonisht that they must not for trifling reasons create disturb- instance prove a success, it will be a ances. In the event of a sudden uprising among the people, if the valuable lesson to all China. officials of the place deal with the "Every station reported many matter on an impartial and equita- ble basis, it will not be a matter of conversions, and an increast Inem- difficulty to prevent a calamity be- fore it has actually broken out. bership. In fact, the past year was The Tartar generals, viceroys, the most successful in the history and governors, therefore, must strenuously instruct the officers of the mission-about fifteen years. " under their respective jurisdictions, that as occasion arises they are to Decree of Emperor of China. satisfactorily and carefully devise PUBLISHT IN THE OFFICIAL PE- a plan of action in the premises.
KING GAZETTE, JULY 14, 1898. As to the cases still remaining unsettled, let such action he taken The propagation of the Christian religion, as practist in foreign as is necessary to bring them to a countries, is provided for by treaty settlement without loss of time and stipUlations. We have repeatedly as in future will prevent missionary issued our instructions to the vice- troubles again occurring. roys and governors of the various provinces to see that satisfactory Should there be any lack of enerprotection is accorded to mission- gy shown in taking precautionary aries, in the hope that the people and the Christians may live peace- measures to prevent trouble, the ably together. delinquent officials will be severely punisht in accordance with the new But during the present year, the rules framed and submitted to us missionary case at Chiang Pei Ting in Szechuan, and the cases at other by the yamen of foreign affairs. places have not, as yet, been settled. In the province of K wang The Tartar generals,viceroys, and Si, at Yung An Chou, another case governors, also, will not be allowed of murder of native Christians has in such cases to shift the responsioccurred. At Shashih, in Hupeh, bility imposed on them upon any a case has also occurred in which one else. foreigners are involved. In a word, the local authorities have We will administer and uphold not been able to show their respect- the law in the discharge of our ful indebtedness to us and carry duty, and let it not be said by the out the specific injunctions which we have solemnly enjoined upon officials that they were not duly them; and whenever cases have cautioned beforehand. arisen involving Christians and non-Christians, if they have not This decree is promulgated for peen, careless and s-iven no I1tten- the information of the public. Such an order as the above was transportation of goods, money, never before promulgated by any or mail through a carrier system emperor of China. It emphasizes which has grown up through ,hun- the treaty provisions, and com- dreds of years among the "hongs," mands officials to afford protection the great merca;ntile firms in all to missionaries, and to give audi- parts of China. This system is ence to them by which they will be safe, but not "speedy," unless able to make direct representations through special inducement. It is of difficulties in their work. Per- a purely voluntary business, and is haps its greatest force is in the conducted in a way that must com- prestige it give,; missionaries. Ro- mand the patronage of the public man Catholic missionaries may or perish. If it is not satisfactory abuse the privilege; it is to be hoped it is less remunerative. The rates Protestant missionaries will be ex- on mail matter vary with the distremely judicious in the use of it. tance to be covered, just as our ex- -[J. T. G.] press charges do. The system of carriers, whether of men as run- Difficulties of the Imperial Postal ners, or boats, or whatever else, has been slowly built up, until it is Reform in China. a greatly ramifying, completely organized, and well operated sys- The news from China indicates tem of carriage. that the Progressives have been turned down by the dowager em- If the government undertakes to press. The cable itemizes the back- establish an imperial postal system, set threatened to tho imperial pos- it is somewhat parallel to the Unital system, which was imtugurated ted States government undertakover a year ago, after painstaking ing to establish a national" express preparations through a long series company." It would conflict with of months. It can scarcely be a the operations of the existing cormatter of surprise that formidable porations, and would certainly antagonism should be developt to provoke opposition. Now, in China, the reform. Letus seeif we can make these "express companies" have clear just where the shoe pinches. been built up through centuries, and have vested interests which China has not been without a far- they will stoutly defend in such reaching and reliable postal service ways as are open to them. for strictly imperial communication with every part of the empire; It so happens that all these postal but to that the public was in no " hongs " in China are in the hands way admitted. It was for gazet- of natives of one city, Ninpo, in ting officials in every part of the the province of Chekiang, and" no country on government matters. native of any other part of China, has the slightest chance of being There was no pm;tal service for admitted to the guild," says the the people of a national, or even United States consul at Chinkiang. provincial kind that was connected with the government. Perhaps This "hong" postal system is what was can best be illustr:ated thus in the hands of a close corporby our own express companies. ation which has in it, as Consul These have provision for carrying J ones says, "vested interest which mail matter, letters, papers, books, has }i,een built up through generaand it sometimes occurs that better tions of hard labor, and they naturservice is had than is furnisht by ally resent the establishment of any the postal authorities. Much like service which threatens to deprive this express business is a system of them of their business." The g~vernment, unfortunately, er we studied questions of farestablisht postal rates which were reaching prop~rtions. With what in excess of those of the "expretls companies," the "hongs." The patience he dealt with details, and customers of the" hongs," with the ultra-conservative instincts of the their relation to questions of policy Chinese, regarded the new departure with the utmost suspicion, and progress none could know but when it was inaugurated, Feb. :l, 1897. If they can nut be conciliated those who watcht him closely and they become a ubiquitous power to stir up preJuUlce against the toiled with him. We write fervidgovernment scheme, and even to overturn the administration. ly, for our admiration of him grew Death of Rev. S. W. Duncan, D. D. to affection for him. The Baptist Rev. Samuel Duncan, D.D., For- Union, its missions, his entire comeign Corresponding Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary munion, will feel that something Union, died Oct. 29, at midnight, in Brookline, Mass. This will be akin to calamity has struck them the occasion of great sorrow far beyond his society and his commu- in his "taking off." The Missionnion. He could not be cribbed and confined by any denominational ary Officers' Conference will sorely boundaries. His ra4iant face was a benediction in itself; his broad miss him. The world is the poorer brain obliged his dealing with broad questions in a broad way, and his without him. The Baptist Standdeep devotement of all he had to devote to God and men, made him ard, Chicago, says: "The death of a tower of strength. As missionary secretary he was an Atlas with Dr. Duncan comes as a severe blow the world on his shoulders-a world already on his heart. He had cour- to the denomination and especially age born of conviction and consecration; his charity could not be to the Missionary Union. Called fenced in. He was a natural leader, and a logical one; no official posi- from the pastorate because of hiE tion was necessary to make him n force; any epaulets he wore were splendid fitness for the position of honored in his wearing them. He was a master; a living contradic- foreigh secretary of our great fortion of the suggestion that breadth and thoroughness do not go togeth- eign missionary organization, hc er in the same person. It might be said of him, as was said of another, brought to his work the energy, thc " n'ilLil quod incepU non perfeeil." knowledge, the executive ability, The writer knew him by association as a neighbor city pastor, and the abounding conviction of the in important conferences on great missionary problems when togeth- dignity and value of the foreign mission enterprise, that stampt him at once as an almost ideal man for the position. His grasp of the missionary situation, which grew with each of the six years of his service, was exemplified in the masterly reports which he was ac- customed to submit to the Mission- ary Union at its annual meetings.
That of last spring, which surveyed our Asiatic mission fields, was a veritable missionary state paper.
In order to perfect his information upon certain matters pertaining to these mission stations, he started upon his trip around the world, whence he returned only to lay down his work." J. T. G.
The American Missionary As- sociation at its meeting in Concord, N. H., Octoher 26, passed the fol- lowing resolution: "'Ve believe that no solution of the Indian prob- lem can be reacht until the present tribal system be unrecognized, fol.' plowing and sowing the fields government reservations be abol- belonging to the monasteries, and isht, and the present appropria- thus provided them with bl.'ead for tions fol.' the material SUppOl.'t of the year to come. the Indian be discontinued. Recog- nizing that our government bears a " The Al.'menian Protestants have friendly attitllde toward these re- just celebrated the semi-jubilee of forms, we would l.'ecommend both the coming of the American mis- that a committee be appointed to sionaries to Van, as the Armenians visit the president of the United of Aintab recently celebrated the States, secl.'etary of the interior, jubilee of the evangelical work in and others who may have pal.'t in that city. One of the Armenians the administl.'ation, to ul.'ge imme- of Aintab writes us to say that the diate action, that the policy now missionaries have brought great theoretically held by the govern- matel.'ial blessings to the province, ment shall be put into execution." for, first, on the occasion of the great famine, then on the occasion Relief Work in Armenia. * of the cholera, and, finally, dur- ing the recent business and other The following translation of an distresses, they have given prompt editorial in an Armenian news- aid to the destitute, the sick, paper of Oonstantinople is of and the sufferers. Now they special interest as indicating the are very nicely caring for 300 view taken of the work of Ameri- orphans of both sexes, whom they can missionaries by the Gregorian regularly send to the Gregorian Armenian community: church. The churches of Van also have had new life given them "Under date of Feb. 20 they through the presence of the Arwl.'ite to us fl.'om Varr that the mis- menian orphans, who are under sionaries there have impartially the care of the missionaries, and and wisely distributed the relief who come to church respectably sent for the destitute. The distri- drest, and together with the chilbution of oxen was no less helpful dren of the Greg0rian school sing to the people than that of the the sweet chants of the church. woolen and cotton clothing. To The children are able to join in the thirteen missionaries were given 42 singing, because they practise the oxen; to individuals, 91 oxen; to singing of the chants in the orphan- 122 villagers, 1,091 oxen; in all, age. Occasionally, also, the chil- 1,224. With these oxen was also dren are sent to church for confesgiven seed, and so it became possi- sion and communion. ble to plow and sow a good many fields. "Under date of Feb. 8 they also write to us from Van that lately "It was touching to see with the Latin fathers began to diswhat kissing and caressing the vil- tribute relief to all those who would lagers l.'eceived the oxen given accept the Oatholic religion. In a them; and no wondel.' the villagers few days they had in hand a few wel.'e glad, for by the help of these hundl.'ed converts. The work is animals the fields given over for a still going on, but not with its time to bal.'renness will once more original al.'dor. We should be glad become productive. The monks if anyone of the Dominicans or supplicated blessings on the donors Jesuits would give us infol.'mation who had supplied them the means on this subject. We hope that our correspondent has been mistaken • The Independent, April 21, 1898. in his information."
93tl FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
IV. -FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Syria and Palestine,* The Jew8,t Educational Missions.t BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
Judaism and Ohristianity.§ ors." The Written 'Vord was al- most entirely a Jewish production; ,V. BY REV. T. GIDNEY, If.A., and it tells us, in type and in his- tory, how the Incarnate Word In many respects the Jewish race came from heaven to earth to seek is the most remarkable of all the and to save the lost, and was born races of the earth. With the pos- one of their own race. &ible exception of the Chinese, the Jews are the oldest people in the The Jews may be traced hack to world. What a marvelous history Ahraham, who was the founder of they possess! a history written in their race and nation. A.s a race, advance in their prophetical books. and as a body of religionists, the And what a religion they had-so Jews have thus lasted some 3800 strange, so full, so typical in its years-as a nation their end came numerous rites-that, had it not at the destruction of Jerusalem by been a preparation for the religion Hadrian, 135 A.D., when Jerusalem that was, in the fulness of time, to was finally trodden down of the grow out of it as a flower from its Gentiles, and the Jews led away bud, it would have heen meaning- captive into all nations (St. Luke less, irrational, and burdensome. xxvi: 24). We can not rightly speak The Jews were the chosen race of the Jews of to-day as a "nafrom whom the Christ, the Redeemer of the 'VorId, the Seed of tion": i. e., a race of people inthe Woman, was to come, and thus the channel of communication of habiting a certain territory, and Divine grace to mankind at large. united by cOJ,pmon political institu- Christians are verily their "debt- tions. The Jews have no country, no king, parliament or other form • See also pp. 141 (Jan.), 535 (July); 903, 920 of government, no laws, no policy (present issue). of their own. (Hos. iii : 4.) They' are scattered throughout the world, NEW BOOKS: "Jerusalem the Holy,"' Edwin citizens of every country under S. Wallace; .• Through Egypt to Palestine," heaven. They are an international Lee S. Smith. race, but not a nation. There can be no douht that they are aspiring to RECENT ARTICLES: "'Vomen in Palestine," a national life once more. Coloniza- Biblical World (Feb); "Jewish Colonies in tion schemes for Palestine, "Zion- Palestine," Contemporary Review (May); ism," and such like movements are 4, Christian Educa.tion in Syria," Indepe1wnt straws indicating the way the wind (Aug. 25); "Returnof the Jews to Palestine," is blowing. Nineteenth Century (Sept.). The kistory of the Jews since thl.l t See also pp. 620, 622 (Aug.); 918, 923 dispersion is somewhat difficult to. follow, seeing that it is wrapt (PNe:;n~~~~~); .. History of the People of up in the history of the many Israel" Carl H. Co rnhi l l; .. Miss i~o.,n..s to th~ nations amongst whom they have Jews , and" Sites and Sc enes," T. Gid- sojourned. In order to acquaint ourselves with their history we ney; "The Hope of Israel," F. H. Wood. must study the history of the RECENT ARTICLES: •. The Jewess as She worId at large. Thus, the Jews of Was and Is" Ladies' Home Journal (Janu· Poland, which is the home of the wandering race to-day, are as disary); '" Modern Judaism" and H Jewish °910nization," Meno'rah (December '9'1); ~. Zwnism," North American Re"iew (August). Also (Monthly) The Scattered Natlo.., The Hope of Israel Jewish Missionary Intelligence, Jewish MissiJnary Herald, Jewish E"a, The Friend of Israel, Trusting and Toiling, The Peculiar People.
t See also pp. 52 (Jan.); 265 (April); 881, 897, 909 (present issue). RECENT ARTICLES: H Education in Hawaii."
Educational Review, (January); .. Missionary Educational Work," Church at Hom€ and Abroad (September).
§ Condenst from The Student Volunteer (British). March 1898. tinct from the Poles as the Jews been doomed; ever since the dewere from the Babylonians during struction of Jerusalem, which was the end of the Jewish dispensation, the Babylonian captivity. Oil and they have absolutely ceast. Mosa- ism is extinct, and also the old water will not mix, neither can nor Jewish religion, never again to be will the Jews be fused into the na- revived. Synagogue ritual is very different from that of the temple. tions of the earth. (Num. xxiii: Fasting and prayer have super- seded burnt-offerings. One of their 9.) In Egypt, in the wilderness, in prayers on a fast-day runs: Canaan, in Babylon, and during o Lord, may the diminution of my blood their long-continued and present and fat by fasting to-day be acceptable as if dispersion, every city where Jews the sacrifice had been slain on the altar. have congregated has had its There is no Passover Iamb killed; Ghetto, or Jewish quarter-either a shank-bone of mutton, placed on the table, has taken its place. Their because the Jews would not min- own law, which they read, tells them that without shedding of gle with their Gentile neighbors, blood is no remission (Heb. ix : 22 or because their neighbors would and Lev. xvii: 11), and yet they. have no blood wherewith to appear not permit them to do so. 'The in the presence of their God! Chris- Jews are as distinct a people to- tians have a temple: a house of God, not made with hands; eternal day as when they came out of in the heavens. We have a High Priest, Who, when He had offered Egypt. Anti-Semitism is as rife Himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, ascended into the now as it was in Persia in the days courts of heaven; but the Jews have no temple, no priest, no sacriof Ahasuerus. The Jews are an fice_ They are without the esindestructible race. As Dean Mil- sential means of drawing nigh unto God in His own appointed way, man eloquently said: seeing that they reject His Son Jesus Christ. * The Jews are as Perpetually plundered, yet a I way s dead spiritually as they are nawealthy; massacred by thousands, yet tionally. springmg up again from their undying stock; the Jews appear at all times, and in The number of the Jews is about all regions; their perplexity, their national ten millions, of whom about eight immortality, is at once the most curious millions are in Europe; the rest in problem to the political inquirer, to the re- Asia, Africa, America, and Ausligious man *a subject of profound and awful tralia. Of the European Jews, adlniration. Russia, Austria, and Germany (i. e., ancient Poland), account for 7,000,- This continued existence of the 000. Old Poland is thus the Jewish Egypt of to-day. Russia has four Jews, notwithstanding the efforts and a half millions of these Jews, and is one of the very few Eurowhich have been made to exter- perm Stutes which have not yet emancipated them. Therefore, as minate them, is a mighty proof of the Russian Empire contains half the truth of the Bible.t And thus * John xiv: 6,40; viii. 24.
our debt to the Jews is intensified. Very different indeed is the re- ligion Df the Jews of to-day from Old Testament Judaism as sketcht in Leviticus. That Book and its multifarious religious rites and ceremonies are as dead a letter to Jews as they are to Christians. They cal'. not observe them if they would, they would not if they could. The first covenant waxt old and decayed, and vanisht away forever, to make roonl for the new and better covenant (Heb.
viii: 13). Ever since that great day when the veil of the temple was rent in twain, sacrifices have * History of the Jews, Book xviii: vql. iLl p.3t 9D8e. nt. … an d I s. x I'" I: 1" II. XXVlll., H the number of Jews in the world, the eighth century. "Karaite" is from a Hebrew word meaning it is evident that the Israelites who "Scripturist." They adhere prin- cipally to the Pentateuch, and re- enjoy rights of citizenship are still ject the Talmud. They are the "Protestants" of Judaism. They in a minority. But, owing to the number about 3000, principally found in the Crimea, but a few also anti-Semitic policy pursued in that in Russia and Syria.
country, an exodus is now going There are also to be found Jews on. In Europe to-day the Jews' who are such by rel'igion, tho not languages are J udreo-German (Yid- by descent: namely, the Black dish) and Judreo-Spanish. Jews Jews in Cochin (China) and on who speak the former are called the Malabar coast of India; the Ashkenazim, from Germany {"Ash- Beni-Israel in Bombay; and the kenaz," Genesis x: 3), the latter, Loango, or negro Jews, in Africa.
Sephardim, from " Sepharad" The Falashas of Abyssinia are (Obadiah 20), supposed to be Spain. supposed to be descended from im- They are principally found in Hol- migrants posterior to the time of land, Spain, Turkey, Palestine, Solomon, Jewish authorities main- and North Africa. They are the tain that the Falashas are Jews by "aristocracy" of the Jews. The faith only; they also hold that the Jews in Palestine and Syria speak Karaites are not of Jewish but of Arabic, and those in Persia either Tartar origin.
Persian or Judreo-Persian. Hebrew BOOKS OF REFERENCE.
is the language of their devotional "The History of the Jews," by Dean Mil- man (3 vols.). London: John Murray, 1866. books, tho not understood by the Indispensable to any serious study.
generality of Jews. "History of the Jewish Nation," by the Rev. Alfred Edersheim, D.D., revised by the The Jews are divided into four Rev. H. A. White. London: Longmans & Co.,1896. Important, learned, and valuable. sects: Orthodox, Reformed, Chas- Exile to the Fall of the Roman Empire.
sidim, and Karaites. "The History of the Jews," by the Rev. H. C. Adams. Religious Tract Society, 1887- The Orthodox (Talmudists or war with Rome to the present time. Rabbinists) are found principally in Poland, and in the East gener- " Israel and the Gentiles," by Dr. Isaac da ally. Most of the Jews in London Costa. London: Nisbet & Co., 1850. Comare Orthodox. They believe b the pletehistory of the Jews from the Exodus. Old Testament and also in the Talmud, in the coming of the Mes- "The History of the Jews," by Professor siah, and in the return to their own H. Graetz (English translation, 5 vols). Lonland. They correspond to the Phari- don: David Nutt, 1892. Best history from a sees of old. Jewish point of view.
The Reformed Jews are found in "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages," by Europe (except old Poland) and Israel Abrahams. London: Macmillan &, America. They answer to the Co., 1896. Social and synagogallife, etc. Sadducees, and reject not merely the Talmud, but also the inspira- "The Jews, or Prediction and Fulfilment;' tion of the Old Testament. They by S. H. Kellogg, D.D. London: Nisbet & have given up the hope of a Mes- Co.,1887. Embraces the whole Jewish quessiah and the return to Palestine. tion, and ought to be carefully studied.
The Chassidim are a large but "Israel Among the Nations," by Anatole decreasing sect in Russia, Rou- Leroy-Beaulieu (English translation). Lonmania, Galicia, and Hungary. They don: Heinemann, 1895. A valuable book, are really a branch of the Orthodox from a Christian point of view. Jews, and attach much significance to the study of the Cabbala. This "The Jews in Ancient, Medieval and Modsect was founded as late as 1730, by ern Times," by James K. Hosmer. London: Rabbi Israel Baal Shem, who was Fisher Unwin. 1886. called Zadik (righteous) and pretended that the Messiah would "The Life and Times of Jesus the Mescome out of his family. siah," by Alfred Edersheim. D.D. London: Longmans & Co., 1894. A splendid book. The Karaites are supposed to have been founded by Anan-ben- ""The Works of Josephus," conlprising the David, of Basra, near Bagdad, in Antiquities and the Wars of the Jews. In· dispensable. Whiston's edition.
"The Home and the Synagogues of the Modern Jews" (The Religious Tract Society) is the best book we know on the subject.
"Sketches of Judaism and the Jews," by the Rev. Dr. McCaul. London: wert- heim, 1838: and his" Old Paths." Mackintosh, 1868, are learned and invaluable aids.
"The Jewish Religion." by M. Friedlander. London: Kegan, Paul & Co., 1891. Reliable and full, by a Jew.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
V.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Maroh of Events. form in the corrupt system of gov- ernment would be of great /!,dvan- A few weeks ago the" Awaken- tage to missionaries as well as to ing of China" was one of the-chief the Chinese. Freedom of speech subjects of internatiol:'.al and mis- and the introduction of western sionary interest. To-day the indi- civilization would aid in the preach- cations are that China has settled ing of the Gospel, but would like- back into her old lethargic condi- wise bring a greater influx of tion as far as her progress in west- infIdelity and the vices of the west. ern learning and scientific progress Superstition, vice, and bigotry offer is concerned. Altho many rumQrs great obstacles to Christianity, but have been rife as to the death of primitive civilization, when accom- the emperor, K wang Hsu, the pros- panied by intelligence, industry, pect of his reinstatement at Eng- and honesty, is rather a help than land's demand, the appointment of a hindrance to its progress. The a new emperor by the dowager em- crisis of the country is acute; parpress, etc., etc., there seems to be tition seems imminent at times, 110 certain knowledge as to the con- but may never come. The people dition of the emperor's health or generally are not patriotic and care the immediate outcome of the crisis only to serve their own selfish ends. in Peking. One thing, however, is Flood, famine, plague, and riot are certain, namely, that the reform also adding to the troubles which movement in China along the line vex this land. of western ideas, has had a set-back and the time for the emergellce of What is needed now in China is the "Flowery Kingdom" from a a man with brains, tact, honor, and state of semi-barbarism has not yet will-power, who shall take control arrived. Doubtless, the reforms of affairs, save the country from its proposed by the emperor and his enemies at home and abroad, and advisers were too radical to suit lead in the much-needed reforms. the taste of the majority of his sub- There seems, however, to be no such jects and an attempt to enforce man available. them might have incited further rebellion. The empress dowager, "Te know not what the end may who is now in her sixty-fourth year, be, but firmly believe that God is a woman of strong character, tho rules and will shape the events of evidently unscrupulous. She b this vast empire for the progress of probably more in favor of reform the Kingdom. than she is given credit for, but is opposed to radical and immediate The advance of England in the changes in the corrupt political Nile Valley threatened even as serisystem in vogue and to the opening ous complications with France as of the country to the wholesale did the conflict of interests with adoption of western ideas. It may Russia in China. The dispute be that she fears her inability to will, however, probably be amicaenforce reforms at present. bly settled. The capture of Khar- tum has opened up the Nile Valley The effect of this crisis upon mis- and establisht a Christian power sion ">'Grk it i"s impossible clearly in the heart of Eastern Sudan. to foresee since it can not be told The Sirdar, Sir Herbert Kitchener, what a day will bring forth. Re- is said to have suggested a memo- rial to General Gordon in the form of a native technical college and medical school at Khartum. The In the United States, the Indians Church Missionary Society stands have been attracting attention. A ready to establish a medical mis- small uprising of Pillager Indians sion there as soon as permission is in Minnesota was caused by the granted. This would be a still rascality of political agents and by greater boon to the Sudanese than "firewater" sold to them by the the college. Christianity is a more white man. Many believe that sure forerunner of civilization than it might have been quelled by civilization is of Christianity. Two Christian conference without the ladies have already promist $1,500 use of troops and the shedding of a year toward a medical mission, blood. The Kingdom, a paper puband Douglas M. Thornton, Dr. lisht near Leech Lake, Minn., sug- Harper, of Cairo, and Rev. Dr. gests that if John G. Paton, single- Sterling, of Gaza, have been selec- handed, could work such marvelted as the pioneer missionaries. ous transformation in bloodthirsty savages of the New Hebrides solely The pilgrimage of the German by the power of love, there ought emperor to Jerusalem has been to be moral power enough in Chrisbrilliant in the extreme from a tian America to convert the remworldly standpoint, but has done nants of the American aborigines. much to deplete the Turkish treas- Indian wars have cost the United ury. The emperor has doubtless States over $110,000,000 since 1831, political aims aud intends to make and thousands of lives have been the sultan pay dearly for the" hon- sacrificed. We venture to say that or." A member of the " Young if half this sum had been spent on Turkey" party justly criticises Christianizing them the results this visit on the ground that while would be very different. starvation stares numberless subjects of the Porte in the face, mil- The Mohawk Indian Conference lions of dollars will be uselessly (Oct. 14) adopted a platform that squandered by their ruler and his recognizes the reforms adopted by Christian guest. If the emperor's the government in the reservation heart is susceptible to pity, his pil- system, giving of rations and ingrimage might have a different crease of educational facilities for outcome if it were taken incog. men and women. Nevertheless, under the guidance of sorne of the the Indian problem is still far from missionaries who have riskt their solved. More care is needed in lives in the sf'rvice of Armenia. the appointment of suitable men as Indian agents and inspectors and Mohammedan and Turkish su- superintendents of Indian schools. premacy is over in Crete. Disor- The platform closes with an appeal ders have been quieted and the to the people of the United States "powers" have at last shown to demand that the Indian "bureau some use for their existence. There be taken out of politics and that is one less scene of disorder on the the work of the bureau be entrusted planet. Turkish troops have been to experts until its work be accomsent home, and Prince George of plisht and that it then be dissolved. Greece will be governor until some There is especial need of reform scheme of autonomy is introduced. with a view to the expediting the This step in advance shows what allotment of the land in severalty, might be done for the rescue of and the rendering of Indians every- Armenia. where accountable to the courts with a right of appeal to the same. One of the unique conventions of fit is to be secured. Already Dr. A. October was a meeting of Christian J. Diaz has returned to his native Indians held in South Dakota,com- land and several missionary socieposed of the Congregational and ties are awaiting the proper time Presbyterian churches among the to come for taking up work there. Dakota Indians. The leaders in church work gather in this annual Mormonism is another imporconvention to compare methods tant subject in American politics and receive inspiration. Among and religion. Mormon missionthe subjects this year were: "What aries are preaching throughout the Indian Customs Hinder the Prog- East, and are so successfully hoodress of Religion?" "The Relation winking many people that not only of Education and Christianity;" are they securing converts in " The Reason for the Falling Away Brooklyn and other cities, but even from Religion of the Citizen Indi- Christian ministers look upon them ans;" "The Sanitation of Dwell- as merely a political sect who have ing-Houses ;" "The Effect of a discarded polygamy, and with it all Single or Mixt Diet;" "When is that is immoral and un-Christian in War Justifiable?" This conven- their svstem. One New York paper tion of over one thousand Indians refused to publish an accurate and is one of the brighter signs in the judicious reply to an interview upoutlook for the solution of the In- holding Mormonism, on the ground dian question. that it would engender discussion! It is time that Christians in the The territorial expansion of the East awoke to the true character United States will not be far ahead and purposes of Mormonism. To of the missionary expansion of the this end they would do well to subchurches. Already Puerto Rico has scribe to The K-ins1nan, publisht been occupied (Oct. 18) and plans in Salt Lake City. ",Ve hope to have been m~de and steps taken have some thorough articles on the for needed sanitary and education- subject of the" DoctrineE and Pracal improvements in the island. -tises of Mormonisnl," in an early Dr. H. K. Carroll went thither, at issue of the REVIEW. the request of the government, to inquire into the moral and relig- A warm advocate or' both Home ious conditions. It is hoped and ex- and Foreign Missions has recently pected that able and earnest mis- past away, in the late John Hall, sionaries will not be long in begin· D.D., pastor of the Fifth Avenue ning to preach there the Gospel Presbyterian Church, New York, of Christ-not of envy and strife, and president of the Presbyterian but of love and peace. board of Home Missions. Dr. Hall died on September 17th, at the age The Cuban question has been of 69. He has 'long been in touch practically settled with Spain, and with many forms of mission work, it is expected that the United States and his church has given largely to will control the island from the be- the work at home and abroad. ginning of 1899. Already many reforms have been instituted in It is with true sympathy and Santiago by the able administration sorrow that we record the death on of General Leonard Wood. But October 18th, of Rev. Peter J. religious and moral reform must Zwemer, who went out six years accompany political and education- ago, to preach Christ to the negal I1dvance, if any permanent benelected peninsula of Arabia. His un- servants~the English Christians seem to tiring and self-sacrificing labors in have a dreamy belief that we have a succesthat trying climate of the Persian sion of such men-men strong in ability and Gulf sapt his vitality and his fur- strong in faith-to-day also. ~We have not; lough came too late for earthly rest at least I am not familiar with their names. and recuperatjon. He arrived in John Bright said a quarter of a century ago: New York shortly before his broth- " It is not to be believed that India is always er, Rev. S. ]I. Zwemer, returned to to continue to be a fat pasturage for young his field. He was obliged to go im- Englishmen," but that is the belief permediately to the hospital where a sistently acted upon, to the exclusion of few weeks later he went to his rest equally able or abler men of Indian birth. and his reward. Arabia, as well as his family and friends, will deep- India, an English weekly, representing ly feel his loss. the views of Sir Wm. Wedderburn and the II. ten righteous men" in our parliament, British Rule in India. urges upon us the danger of neglecting Indian questions, and of losing the control of these One of our English correspondents, questions, through the pressure of other im- James E. Mathieson, Esq., of Lon- portant business, or the unwillingness of the don, takes strong exception to Dr. Home Indian office to interfere with the au- Kellogg's article, quoted in our Di- thorities in India. If this neglect is congest Department for April, on the tinued, we may ere long look for a tremend- "Ruin of India under British ous explosion in India, or God's righteous Rule." Mr. Mathieson strongly judgments for our accurst opium crime and believes that the British race is in the oppression of India, and for the emascugreat danger of a decline and fall, lation of China through that vice. brought about by effeminacy produced by the spread of luxury, and In this connection it is idle to point to by the judgment of God for op- certain improvements in the social conditions pressions of peoples brought under of India, which have been brought about dur- British rule. He says: ing the period of English rule. People will not discriminate between two things abso- As a wise governor-general of India early lutely different, the British people at large, in this century said, "It must always be a represented by the rulers of the nation for grave question whether a people would not the time being actuated by motives of on the whole prefer to be ill-governed by worldly expediency and selfishness, and the those of its own race than well-governed by much smaller body of the true Christian those of another." community, whose hearts are touched by Divine grace to try and remedy the wrongs In a proclamation made by our queen after of India and other peoples, and to bring to the mutiny, in 1858, was contained a solemn them the Gospel. To the latter, and not to promise that natives of India would in future the former, we owe the abolition of the burnhave a large share in the offices then held ing of widows. infanticide of female children, almost exclusively by natives of this coun- murder by the thugs, the juggernaut festival, try. This promise has been shamefully and cruelties, etc., etc. Who commenced broken. A government, such as our Indian the system of education? Was it the Indian government. which can persist in poisoning government? No; it was the missionaries China and the East with opium, solely for who showed the way in this great reform revenue, is capable of any enormity, and its also. All reforms in India (as too much also capabilities in that direction have been over at home), have been forced upon an unwilling and over again demonstrated in its shameful government in the interests of the peoply by and dishonest dealings with the native prin- men whom they hate, and usually despise. ces, e.g., the rulers of Oude, and more recently with the heir to the Punjab. A book, As regards the oppressive taxation, land whose publication our queen herself author- tax raised upon the people again and again, ized, "Sir John Login and Duleep Singh," salt tax, which makes this indespensable gives us a picture of shameless rapacity, commodity twice or thrice as dear as at the which does not stand alone in Indian gov- beginning of the century. See what is said ernment annals. And because there was in India for April 1st. raised up in India earlier in this century a group of noble soldiers and civil What brought about the American revo- lution? The attempt to impose a tax upon the American colonies. Would Britain dare to-day to exact a tribute from Canada or Cape Colony or the Australasian colonies? She knows better than that. But poor India, gagged and dumb, has to contribute to the spending money of men in Great Britain the stupendous annual subsidy of twentymillions sterling.
REVIEWS OF MISSIONARY BOOKS
VI.-REVIEWS OF MISSIONARY BOOKS.
Israel. schools and orphanages, thus getting hold of the children. Their mission is to establish JERUSALEM, THE HOLY. By Edwin Sherman Roman Christianity and their methods are Wallace. Bvo,360pp. Illustrated. Flem- very effective. ing H. Revell Co., New York, Chicago, and Toronto. The Armenian and other Oriental churches are for the most part poor and not progress- This brief history of ancient and ive. modern Jerusalem by the recent United States consul for Palestine The Church Missionary Society carries on is an exceedingly attractive and work among the people of the city and vicin- interesting book. Mr. Vallace ity. It has abont 20 workers, has a boys' writes from the sympathetic stand- boarding-school with 70 boys, conducts a day- point of a Christian, and with the school, and has gathered about 130 native advantage of five years' residence Christians. in Jerusalem. While the history is much condenst, and many details of The London Jews' Society has a boys' interest are necessarily omitted, the school, a girls' school, and a house of industry narrative and description is full of for manual training. interest, and gives an exceptionally accurate and complete idea of the There is a German Evangelical community city and its surroundings, past and numbering about 200, with orphanage and present. The chapter on the Jews hospitals. (Their church has just been dediin the modern Jerusalem throws cated by Emperor William). much light on their condition, character, and customs, the coloni- The Moravians have a lepers' hospital west zation and nationalistic movements of the city. and the Christian missions among them. One-half of the 85,000 Jews American missions are those of the Chrisin Palestine live in Jerusalem. tian Alliance, which has three lady mission- Christians ill .Terusalem number aries and three or four independent workers 8,630, most of whom are Greek among the Jews. orthodox (4,OOO),and Roman Catholics (3,200). Protestants number Mr. 'Vallace concludes by point- 500, and Armenians 600, the re- ing out the fulfilments of prophecy mainder being Coptic, Greek Cath- that have taken place and are takolic, Abyssinian and Syrian Chris- ing place in .Terusalem, and affirms tians. Vhile justly criticising his conviction that the Jews will those who come to .Terusalem to be the chief inhabitants of Palesproclaim their peculiar religious tine in the future. yagaries, and affirming it as his conviction that" Jerusalem is over- Fifteen photographic reproducmissiona:-ied," Mr. Wallace speaks tions and four maps illustrate the cordially of the Protestant mis- book. A general index would add sionary work there and testifies to its value, tho this lack is supto the Christlike lives of the mis- plied in part by full chapter" consionaries. The following facts are tents. " gathered from the chapter on "The Christians in Jerusalem: " THE MESSIAH AND HIS PEOPLE ISRAEL. By A. C. Gaebelein. 16mo, 64 pp. (paper). Hope The Greek Orthodox Church have several of Israel Mission, New York. monasteries and convents, a girls' and a boys' school, and a hospital. Their aim is to Rus- In this suggestive and compresianize rather than to Christianize the people. hensive little pamphlet the superin- tendent of the Hope of Israel Mis- The Latin Churc4 works chiefly through sion discusses, especially for .T ewish readers, the relation of Jesus to Is- rael, as disclosed in Old Testament prophecy and in New Testament history. In the statistics of the Jewish population of the world, Mr. Gaellelein estimates the num- ber at 12,428,500, one-half of whom reside in Russia, Austria, and the neighboring districts. He also gives some interesting Palestinian away with the necessity of any ex- statistics, and closes with a brief tended use of the imagination. statement of the principles of the Hope of Israel movement. Books Received.
SITES AND SCENES. By Rev. W. T. Gidney, M. MISSIONS ANn POLITICS IN ASIA. By Robert A. 12mo,200 pp. (paper). London So- E. Speer. 12mo, 271 pp. $1.00. Fleming ciety for Promoting of Chnistianity H. Revell Co. amongst the Jews. DOWN ON THE HILLS OF T'ANG: Missions in The assistant secretary of the China. By Rev. H. P. Beech. 12mo, 181 London Jews' Society, from whom pp. Map and statistics. $1.00. Student we quote an article in our" Field Volunteer Movement, N. Y. of Survey," has issued two booklets or handbooks of great inter'lst and THE LAND OF THE LAMAS, or the 0'8cning of value for reference. "Mission to Tibet to the Gospel. By Rev. . W. Le Jews," contains "reasons, facts, Lacheur. 8vo, 63 pp. lllustrated. 25 and figures" of live interest. cents (paper). Christian Alliance Pub- " Sites and Scenes," Part I., "A lishing Co., Nyack, N. Y. Description of Missions to Jews in Eastern Lands," is a comprehen- THE ILLUMINATED BIBLE, Teachers' Edition. sive tho necessarily limited sketch Illustrated. 8vo. The American Bible of the London Society's Oriental House, New York. missions, Abyssinia, Galilee, and Northern Palestine, Persia, Damas- ONE HUNDRED YEARS; A Short History of the cus and Syria, Smyrna and Anbo- Church Missionary Society. By Eugene lia, Arabia, with bibliography. Stock. ltmo, 188 pp. One shilling net. These handbooks contain much in- Church Missionary Society, London. teresting and valuable material on the subject of Gospel work for JOHN G. PATON'S Al'TOBIOGRAPHY. Edited by Israel. his brother. Vol Ill. Illustrated. 12mo, 99 pp. Fleming H. Revell Co. 5Oc. SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP is a booklet publisht by the London Prayer Union for Israel. GEORGE MULLER, The Modern Apostle of This is a short but strong plea for the Faith. By F. G. Warne. 12mo, 278 pp. chosen but apostate race. Illustrated. $1 00. The same.
INDIA, THE HORROR STRICKEN EMPIRE. By GOD'S METHODS W,TH MAN. By Rev. G. George Lambert. 8vo,480pp. Illustrated. Campbell Morgan. Chart. 12mo, 188 pp. $1.50. Mennonite Publishing Co., Elk- $1.00. The same. hart, Indiana. WHEREIN? Malachi's Message to the Men of There are thousands of children To-day. By Rev. G. Campbell Morgan. in India left destitute and orphans 12mo. 75 cents. The same. through the ravages of famine and plague. Mr. Lambert's book is PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY IN THE AN~ publisht with a view to giving a vivid picture of the horrors attend- CIENT WORLD. A study in the History of ing famine, plague, and earthquake Moral Development. By R. M. Wenley. in the years 1896–97, and to create 12mo, 194 pp. 75 cents. The same. substantial interest in the survivol's. DIVINE PENOLOGY. By Rev. L. B. Hartman, The proceeds from the sale of the D.D. 12mo, 306 pp. $1 25. The same. book will be used in Christian relief work, thus purchasers will become MISSIONARY METHODS FOR MISSIONARY COMcontributors. While evidently hastily prepared and not issued in first- MITTEES. By David Park. lUmo, 76 pp. class style, this book gives the Charts. 50 cents. The same. only full and vivid description of these disasters. The five hundred THE FIRST HUNDREn YEARS 0" MODERN MISillustrations from photographs do SIONS. By James S. Ross. D.D. 8vo. 93 pp. (paper). William Briggs, Toronto. A HOLY GHO"T CHURCH. By Archibald G. Brown. A. B. Campbell. Edinburgh, Scot- land. MANILA AND THE PHILIPPINES. By Mar- g-heritt A. Hamm. 8vo, 218 pp. 50 cent•. (paper). F. Tennyson Neely, New York. IMPERIAL AMERICA: The Policy of Colonial Expansion. By Wm. C. Levere. 8vo, 128 pp. 25 cents (paper). Forbes & Co., Chicago. MILLENNIAL DAWN, IV., The Day of Ven.
~'£'.:'~at~~m~~:~~ ~fble 5~~.i'~~a~~a~~g: ety, Alleghany, Fa. THE "IENANA, V. 1898. Zenana Bible and Medi- cal Mission. London.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF OUR WAR WITH SPAIN. By John R. Musick. Illustrated. 8vo, 224 pp. (paper). 25c. J. S. Ogilvie, New York. How THE LORD BUILT THE CHAPEL. By Rev. Dwig-ht Goddard and Frances Goddard, M. D. 8vo, 42 pp. (paper). Methodist lUissioo Press, Fuchau, China.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
VII.- GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign Rochester past out of use ages Periodicals. ago. Indeed, many highly edu- cated Roman Catholic clergymen BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK. imagine it to have been invented by Lawrence Sterne. We are· We have just received a proof of assured, however, by R. C. pro- fessors of theology, that there is the difficulty of establishing a no reason to dispute its genuine- ness. Indeed, it appears that the negative. Some time back we de- original is still kept at Rochester.
clared that a certain form of impre- This imprecatory form of the pontifical, detacht as it is from cation, given as from the Roman the Greater Excommunication, and buried under an office only apperpontifical, was undoubtedly genu- taining to nuns, is probably un- known to the priesthood at large, ine, but was not in the pontifical, if it isnow used at all. There it is, however, and Messrs. Engall and for that we had ourselves carefully Neil have laid us under lasting obligation by their pains to correct examined every page of the three our very sincere but seriousmistake in denying it. great volumes of this, and were CHINA. able to testify positively that it -The Allgemeine Missions-Zeitwas not in it. We have found, schrift for May, 1898, rectifies vari- ous earnest misapprehensions about however, that our attention had China. Thus, altho the Chinese (originally from the Caspian) occuunconsciously flagged, precisely pied the present China ages before Christ, assimilating the native where it should have been alert. tribes, who, like themselves, were Mongolians, yet it was not until We have been advised by T. H. about 220 B. C. that the various Chinese kingdoms were finaIly ab- Engall, Esq., of Churchfield Road, sorbed by a central state, which has given to the whole empire the Acton, W., England, and nev. name of "The Middle Kingdom."
James Neil, M.A., of 4 Talbot Pond, It is a great error to suppose there is one spoken Chinese lan- Highgate, that. if we would re- guage. All the vernaculars of the vast nation are of one stock, not examine the Paris edition of 1852, speaking of the Tartars, Tibetans, hill tribes, etc. So are all the verwe should find the curse on page naculars of Germany, Scandinavia, and England of one stock'. Philo- 561, § 25, vol. I., applied, how- 10gicaIly they are one Teutonic language, but practicaIly they ever, not to ordinary offenders, are various tongues. So also in nor to heretics, but to abductors of nuns. This offense surprises even the Roman pontifical out of the studied moderation of language which it uses in the Greater Ex- communication itself.
Mr. Engall calls attention to the fact that the form of the curse which is usuaIly given omits the clause "Let these various maledic- tions come upon him, body and soul, night and day, in time and eternity, unless he shall have made good his offenses and come to amendment. Amen, Amen." The imprecation is essentially mitigated by this expression of hope for re- pentance, yet it remains savagely medieval. .
The protracted series of impreca- tions ascribed to Ernulphus of
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
China. Even in the same province of Christians took place. In this there are sometimes two vernacu- century Catholic missions have re- lars. The linguistic unity of the vived, but are so entangled-in nation lies in the written language, China even more than elsewhere- which represents not sounds, but with a French protectorate, the ideas. Imagine the Arabic figures arrogant bearing induced by the increast to many thousands, and consciousness of enjoying this applied to all sorts of things besides powerful patronage has brought number, being equally intelligible great odium on Christian missions (tho with vast labor) to Germans, in China. As Hudson Taylor says, Italians, Danes, and Russians, each let Protestants beware of too much retaining their own spoken tongue, imitation of this example. and we shall have some conception of Chinese. -The present number of Chinese Catholics is computed at 581,775. -India is emphatically the land of villages. In China villages are -Commercial and colonial policy, numerous and important, but China says the Zeitschri/t, at once opens is eminently the land of cities. It the way to missions and hinders has 17,000 cities. their advance. The notorious opium war admitted Protestant missions, -" The Chinese are by birth Con- and has always branded them with fucians; in life, Taoists; at death, dishonor. Buddhists." It is hard to tell where one religion ends and an- -Bishop Anzer, of the Catholic other begins. In reality, Confucian- mission in Shantung, has, accordism is most deeply intertwined ing to the German foreign miniswith the essential religion of China, ter, unequivocally declared that which is ancestor-worship a good Germany must occupy Kiaotschun, deal intermingled with nature- if the Catholic mission is to conworship. tinue. " But," pertinently asks the Zeitschri/t, "is a mission that -James Parton has declared that exists under the egis of a foreign in Thomas Jefferson's mind relig- protectorate, a mission according ion was not a conviction or an to the mind of Jesus Christ? " agony, but a supreme etiquette. This is an admirable description of -Some one has described the Chinese religion. As Confucius missionary work in China as a himself intimates, to believe it is work in a land of common schools. wholly unnecessary; to practise it How whimsical I Government does is indispensable. It was only Chris- not support schools, nor require tianity on one side and the bar- schooling of its subjects. It instibarians on the other that saved the tutes examinations, and admits no Roman Empire from being cere- one to office that has not a degree, monialized into a second China. and has of late years establisht a few professional schools. This is -Under the Emperor Keurghi nearly or quite all that it does for (1662-1723) Catholicism came very education. Out of 20 men, on an near being acknowledged as a average only one can read; of 1,000 fourth religio licita. But the papal women, only one. Even then decisions against ancestor-worship, twelve years' schooling has been and other accommodations to known to leave a man capable of heathenism, called out violent per- making out only about half the secutions. Streams of martyr-blood characters of a hospital ca.rd hung were shed, but also large defections at the foot of his bed. -Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P., Tayumemavur. It is a genuine in a speech reported in the C. M. faith, more helpful, more spiritual, Intelligencer, expresses a confident and truer than the vague speculabelief that the great Christian tion of the Vedanta, and is pecutruths proclaimed through a num- liarly 'ramil in its concepticll and ber: of centuries by the Nestorian expression, and the verses describmissionaries have entered more ing it are treasured by the Tamil deeply into Chinese philosophy people to this day. Even now some than is thought, and await their of Manikka Vasaka's hymns are time of revival in their proper form. sung in the daily ritual of Saiva It must be remembered that there temples, and nowhere else can a were once Nestorian churches clearer view of the hopes and fears throughout the whole empire, and of the Tamil race be found than in lasting for some eight centuries. his poems."
INDIA. THE KINGDOM.
The Harvest Field, speaking of -AFTER THESE THINGS I SAW, an edition of the religious poems of a Tamil Hindu, remarks: "Those AND BEHOLD, A GREAT MULTITUDE, who are acquainted with Tamil literature know that the Psalms of WHICH NO MAN COULD NUMBER, Manikka Vasaka hold a very high place among the classics of the OUT OF EVERY NATION, AND OF language. Dr. G. U. Pope thinks that it is certain that he was the ALL TRIBES AND PEOPLES AND great reviver of Saiva worship in the south of India about the ninth TONGUES, STANDING BEFORE THE century, A. D., who spent his life as an 'utterly self-renouncing ascetic THRONE AND BEFORE THE LAMB, Saiva mendicant.' In the wellprinted volume before us the whole ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES AND of the poet's writings, together with word for word renderings into PALMS IN THEIR HANDS. Rev. ordinary prose Tamil, are given. vii :9. This assistance to the student is very necessary, as the musical This most thrilling passage Presverses of the great Tamil singers ident Charles Cuthbert Hall termS, are very difficult, and even with the "The Beatific Vision of an Evanaid of the 'construe' many points gelized 'Vorld," or, "the vision of are obscure. Some of the poems an ecumenical Inultitude," and contain denunciations of the Bud- adds: "I like that far-reaching dhists, but the most beautiful are word, ecumenical. It means 'out those where the 'devotion,' which of the whole inhabited world.''' characterizes other Tamil poets like Tayumanavar and Pattanattu -They tell us that at Manila and PilleiyaJ', is allowed its full scope Santiago it was "the man behind in fervent praise of the grace of the gun" who did the business. In God. Manikka Vasaka was a a recent address before the Ameri- Saiva Siddheurte, and his faith in can Society for the Advancement God was almost faith in a personal of Science, President Eliot said: God, comparable to the intense de- "'Vhen it comes to the pinch the votion to the Mouna Guru, which source of victory is in the personal illumi.nates the elaborate verses of initiative of each individual com- mander and private soldier and sailor. When all preparation is made, when all appliances have been perfected and brought to- gether, in the particular thicket and mined strait in which the work of the moment is to be done, it is the perceptive power and moral resolution of the individual whkh command success." Apply this Van Dyck, who had studied Arabic priuciple, which is so inspiriugly, for 17 years, becoming a very prince but also so solemnly true, to mis- among modern scholars, and he sion work and to all kinds of reli- completed the New Testament in gious activity, and what is the COD- 1860, and the Old Testament in clusion? 1865. As a result the Beirut Arabic Bible has been pronounced to be -The Congregationalist says: "the best version of the Bible in "It is stated on good authority existence." In other words, that that the late Mr. Bayard seldom one translation was the fruit of wrote a letter without attaching to more than a half-century of toil. it a quotation of a distinctively spiritual character, or else inclosing -A strong argument in favor of a leaflet that would carry some con- Industrial Missions is advanced by solation or inspiration to the per- a writer, who refers to the slow son addrest. If we could gather methods of native Indian weaving, up the total of these messages they and says: "The introduction of would constitute a series of services modern appliances to spin and to the world not unworthy to rank weave this cloth opens an unlimited with the dead statesman's best pub- field for mission industrial enterlic achievements. How refreshing prise, which would make mission it is when a man, in the midst of work self-supportiug and be an inmany cares and obligations, does calculable benefit to the people. not neglect those quiet, unnoticed This is not an untried experiment. ways of sweetening life for others. The Basel mission in India has had spinning and weaving factories for -When shall we attain to some- years, and conducted them with thing like fitness and proportion in practical German thoroughness, bestowing our beneficence, that is, having skilled laymen in charge. give most where the need is great- They have won a high reputation est? Last year, through the British all over India. These industrial and Foreign Bible Society, Russia factories are not only self-supportreceived less than 600,000 copies of ing, but support the entire eduthe Scriptures for a popUlation of cational work of the mission." 130,000,000; India, with a population of 280,000,000, slightly over -This is how it looks as scanned 500,000; China 560,000 for its 380,- through Scotch spectacles: "One of 000,000 people; while in England the most promising outcomes of alone, to a population of 30,000,000, the recent Spanish-American war probably over 1,200,000 copies were is the resolution of the missionary supplied. societies to enter at once into the islands from which they have -Every year the Scriptures in 85 hitherto been excluded. They are languages go out from the Bible not, however, going to rush into House in Singapore to all Malaysia. these new fields in a tumultuous and disorderly way. Seven missionary -Dr. Eli Smith, after 18 years of boards have been conferring tostudy of the Arabic, Hebrew, and gether with a view to harmonious Syriac, and a mastery of the Greek, action; and we have reason to hope and a full knowledge. of modern for a good time to Cuba, Puerto colloquial Arabic, began in 1848 the Rico, aud the Philippine Islands. translation of the Bible into the The only missionary society in the Arabic, and labored steadily for 8 United States which has declined years. On his death in January, to consult with the others as to 1857, the work was taken up by Dr. joint procedure has been that of ing up a self-reliant, self-propagatthe Protestant Episcopal Church." ing Christianity from the first -Free Church Monthly. would be very great."
-Concerning the same great MEDICAL MISSIONS. matter, the Indian Witness makes this most pertinent and sage sug- -The London Lancet has reacht gestion: "Preparations are being this conclusion: "We can imagine made by various missionary organi- no career more lofty or honorable zations to commence operations than that of a well-informed, capa- in the Philippine Islands at the ble, and courageous medical mis- earliest safe and convenient mo- sionary. A few hundreds of 'such ment. ",Ve venture to express men in the next half century would the hope that in so doing the mis- powerfully affect the history of takes made by all missions in China, India, and Africa. If men India will be avoided. Ought it not of commerce could give as good an to be a cardinal principle from the account of their work in these very first that whatever mission lands as men of medicine, the evan- work is done in the Philippines gelization of the world would be should resolutely aim to be on a hastened." self-supporting basis? Is it not worth while to work this experi- -Archdeacon Wolfe, who has had ment for all it is worth in a field experience of missionary methods new to Protestant missionary in China for a generation, says: effort? When one sits down in "I have no hesitation in affirming sober thought to consider the that if the C. M. S. had had a condition of affairs in India, it medical mission in this city (Fuis utterly discouraging to find that chau) during the last thirty-seven after a century of evangelical mis- years, we would have at the present sionary work there is not a solitary moment ten or twenty times the self – governing, self – sustaini~g number of converts to Christianity native mission, conference, or com- that we have at present." munity, in the whole land, and the prospe~t of having one in the near -To illustrate the comparative future is by no means as bright as need of medical missions in China, one could wish. Missions abso- the Inland l1ission publishes a black lutely must learn not to be so de- chart containing 4,000 white spots, pendent as they are upon foreign to represent the number of qualisubsidies. We should like to know fied and registered medical men to if the system workt for some time every 2,500,000 of the population of in China by the late Dr. Nevius has the British Isles. In order to reprejustified itself. His plan was to sent the proportion in China we have no paid native workers of any should have to blacken all the spots kind, but to get all the work done except one. As one is to 4,000, so under his supervision by such is the supply of surgical and medivoluntary labor as the Christians cal skill in China to the supply in themselves could give. It would Great Britain. be a great advantage if the missions about to be planted in the -A physician of Reading, Pa., Philippines could agree to work on Dr. Isaac C. Detweiler, has just some such basis as this. Even finished a decade, during which he tho the work should progress has given every dollar received slowiy for a time, the gain of build- from his practise to religious and philanthropic causes. For thirty- six years he gave a tithe of his in- come. Ten years ago, the Lord having prospered him, he decided body which manages all its affairs, to give all his income. His last by electing with practically no opcontribution was $225, with which position Miss Margaret J. Evans, to buy New Testaments to be dis- of Carliton College, Minnesota, tributed among the soldiers in she having been nominated by the Cuba and Puerto Rico. Association of that State. Surely, an honor to her well-deserved, but -These figures represent the even a greater honor to the Board. growth of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission for ten years: -On the banks of the W olta the missionary sphere is extending 1887 1897 from year to year. Our friends In·patients ………………. . 110 1,430 there count 178 baptisms. One of Out-patients ……………. .. 2,417 15,526 the most touching and typical con- Atte;]ded at homes……….. . 122 279 fessions was that of a poor woman recently baptized. "If I had known Total………….. 2,649 17,235 that I was loved," she said, "I should long ago have entered the Attendances at dispensaries.. 5,691 58,212 church. I have only really begun Doctor's visits… .. . . . .. .. . . … 1,326 to live since I became a Christian." 59,538 -Le JJfissionnaire. Total…… . . . . . … 5,691 -In these days of heroes and -Dr. Mary Eddy writes: "Ihave heroines near at home, it is well to returned two days since from a remember those abroad. Among long tour, nearly four months, as I such, according to the North China left Beirut February 16. Five Daily News, is Mrs. B. C. Patterweeks were spent in Cresarea son, M.D., of the Southern Pres- Philippi, visiting camps of Bedouin byterian Mission at Hsu-Chien, Arabs and villages on Mount Her- North Kiang-su. Although 80 mon. Here I treated 1,562 patients. miles from any other foreign Moving northward I journeyed woman, and with her infant exwith muleteers 35 days, visit- posed daily to the famine fever, ing the plain of Code Syria, while her husband was away help- Baalbec, then crossing Anti Leb- ing the starving, she has during anon to Nebk and still northward nine months had 8,000 patients the Syriac towns of Hafor, Suddad under treatment, and expected to im Doolab, Zeydan to Hamath. remain at her post during the Here we were fairly overrun with heated term, ministering to the patients. Large and small, rich sick and suffering.-Independent. and poor, everyone suffered with some form of eye trouble. ,Ve re- ·-A missionary writes from turned by Hums, thence to Riblah, China: "One Sunday morning our then up to Lake Yemmouni, where Presbyterian neighbor, Mr. Lowrie, we visited camps of goatherds far preacht for us on • The Great up on the mountains. Never have Teacher.' He contrasted Christ, we found such ready listeners. In who was the first man to teach a each place they implored eii to re- woman, with their own Confucius main longer and teach them, as and Buddha, who ignored and dewell as minister to their diseased spised her. Nor shall I forget the bodies." gladness and interest exprest by the women in our noon meeting as WOMEN'S WORK. they talkt over the sermon. 'Be· cause Christ's teachers have come -vVhen will these" perilous in- to us, it makes being a woman novations" come to an end! The ancient and conservative American Board has recently admitted a woman to the august corporate mean more,' said one. A single sociated with the Scottish Free illustration of the teaching in the Church, 59 with C. M. S., 47 with Chinese classics will say volumes the English Baptists, 41 with S. P. for the condition of women where G., etc. the leaven of Christianity has not been felt. Mencius is conversing -The number of women recently with his pupil, who asks, 'If a gone or ready to go to the foreign woman should fall into the water field under the care of the Church and the only way of rescuing her of England Zenana Society is 36, was to extend his hand, should he just half of whom are new missionattempt to save her or let her per- aries. Tho 72 stations appeal for ish?' 'Better to let her drown, ' re- reenforcements only 18 can be sent turned the philosopher, 'than to for lack of funds. contaminate your hand by her touch.' " YOUNG PEOPLE.
-Miss Macdonnell, the matron -The statistical returns relating of the Neyoor, India, Hospital, to Great Britain presented at the writes: "At present one of our recent International Y. M. C. A. nurses has been living for two Conference at Basel show considerweeks right in the home of a able development. At the World's wealthy Hindu family. Think Conferl;lnce in London in 1894 the what that means-one of our low- number of British centers of work caste Christian women sleeping (including auxiliaries) was 843, and eating with these high-caste while the membership was 87,464. women, reading her Bible aloud, At Basle 1,418 centers were resinging hymns, etc. Why, not ported, with a membership of 104,- many years ago, this same woman 160. In the English Unions (Engwould have had to get off the road land, Ireland, and Wales) the value while the other one past." of Association buildings has in- creast from £397,695 in 1894, to -A quiet, unassuming woman £460,027 in 1898. The Scottish Ascame into our office a short time sociations have also made great ago, and presented two crisp one- progress in this respect; thirty-one hundred dollar bills, and said that now occupying their own premises, she wisht this money to be applied the approximate value of which is on the payment of the debt of the £75,000. The English report stated Missionary Society. She did not that" at no period in the history desire that her name be publisht. of the Association have the gov- When a wish was exprest to know erning bodies manifested a more who she was, for private and per- loyal adherence to the fundamental sonal gratification, she declined to principles of the Union than is give her name or residence, and shown at the present time."-The said that the money could be Chri8tian. credited to "C. S."-World-wide Mis8ion8. -It was reported at a recent con- ference of the secretaries of the -The British and Foreign Bible Young Men's Christian Associa- Society employes 504 Bible-women, tion that, for the collegiate worl-: who reach, on an average, 31,000 there are 10 secretaries, devoting homes every week. Of these 452 their full time or a greater part of are at work in India, 13 in Syria, it. The railroad department has and 18 in Egypt. The largest num- increast its force from 3 to 6 secreber, 76, are in cooperation with the taries, and as a toh'n of their in- Wesleyan missionaries,·71 are as- terest in the work the corporations appropriated $150,000 for sustaining been added to the 2 flourishing it last year. Especial interest was English-speaking societies. manifested in the work of the Army and Navy Christian Com- -The Christian Endeavorers of mission, which is now to be incor- the Reformed Church in America porated as a permanent part of the have contributed money through International Committee's work, the regular denominational chan- nels, to erect 12 mission churches. 'V. and its superintendent, Mr. B.
Millar, is to go to England to make -The following outline of work special study of the work among done by a Durban, Natal, Christian the soldiers in the British Army. Endeavor society, looks like busi- The cost for 1898 will be about $80,- ness: open-air meeting every Sun- 000 for the general work and not day, a visit to the hospital with less than $70,000 for army and navy flowers and texts, meetings in the work. More than 20 Y. M. C. A. prison regularly, help in the South building enterprises are under way. Africa General Mission meetings -"It is not easy nowadays," re- at Town Hall Gardens, visits to marks the Indian Y. M. C. A. na- sailors, offering for support of national organ, "to get beyond the tive missionary in Pinetown.
influence of the world-wide brother- -Dr. Hartupee and his wife have hood of the Young Men's Christian just sent to the trustees of the Association. Even among the ad- Ohio Wesleyan University the venturous gold miners of the Klon- deed to a.piece of real estate worth dike, the only two American mis- $12,000, with the single condition sionaries who succeeded in forcing that it shall be used for the home their way thither during the past of the children of missionaries winter, despite almost insuperable while they are securing an educa- difficulties, found an association tion at the university. The house already establisht, with a reading- is a beautiful modern structure room kept open constantly, and erected a few years ago, and will meetings maintained among the be called "The Rachel Hartupee multitude of young men, who have Missionary Home. "
gone there greedy of gain and are subjected to sore temptations." UNITED STATES.
-It is stated that the Christian -At the recent annual meeting Endeavor movement is advancing of the American Board, held at at the rate of one society every Grand Rapids, Mich., it was rehour, or 800 members per day. ported that last year was the most prosperous one in its history; that -The reported contributions of is, there were more accessions to Sunday schools and Endeavor socie- the churches, more students in the ties to the American Board show a educational institutions, and larger gain for the past eleven months of contributions from the native $3,219 over the contributions for Christians, 47,000 of them having the same period of 1897. given toward the support of the Gospel not less than $118,753. Sec- -Christian Endeavor is keeping retary Barton estimates that, pace with General Kitchener in the judged by the rate paid for labor Sudan. A soldier Endeavorer from in foreign countries and by the Cairo, who was assigned to hospi- purchasing power of the money, tal work at Darmales Camp, has this contribution is equivalent to organized a society. In Cairo an more than. $1,000,000 in America. Arabic-speaking society of 20 has This summary supplies the essen- New York, in October, within the tial facts disclosed: space of fifty-seven (57) minutes and eighteen (18) seconds $96,824 Missions…………………………. 20 were subscribed for the work, and enough more later in the same day Stations.. …. .. . .. …. ….. .. . .. ……. 101 to raise the amount to $113,000, al- most twice as nluch as was secured Out-stations……….. …………… 1,271 at a similar gathering a year ago.
Places for stated preaching………. 1,617 -The annexation of the Ha- waiian Islands raises the question Ordained missionaries (17 being phy- of the ecclesiastical relations of the Episcopal Church there. Hitherto sicians)………………………… 169 the work of the Ohurch of England in those islands has been under the Physicians not ordained (besides 10 general superintendence of the Society for the Propagation of the women)………………………… 11 Gospel, and the Bishop of Hono- lulu, who has spiritual jurisdic- Other male assistants. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. . 4 tion, was appointed by the bishop of Oanterbury nnder the general Women (wives 168, unmarried 173)… 341 supervision of the society.
Total laborers sent from this country 531 -The American Bible Society has met with a serious loss in the Native pastors.. .. …. ……. . … …… 220 death of Albert S. Hunt, D.D., for 20 years a corresponding secretary. Native preachers and catechists…… 477 Dr. Hunt represented the Metho- dist Episcopal Church among the Native school-teachers…………… 1,713 executive officers, and was widely known throughout the country and Bible women…………………….. 260 universally beloved. His death was quite sudden from pneumonia, Other native laborers……… …….. 307 resulting from exposure to a severe storm,and leaves Dr. Gilman, senior Total native laborers…………….. 2,977 secretary, alone in the office.
Total American and native laborers.. 3,508 -Most of the missionary pion- eers have past away. Two, how- Churches………………………… 465 ever, are still living. Elias Riggs, D.D., of the American Board, who Church members………………… 47,122 went to Turkey in 1832, is still in active service in Constantinople. Added during the year… .. . … . … . .. 4,602 John B. Adger, D.D., who went out under the same board to Whole number from the first ……… 143,392 Smyrna in 1833, is now living in Charleston, S. C. In the same Sunday-school scholars.. .. … ……. 59,701 year John C. Lowrie, D.D., of the Presbyterian Board, still living, Theological Seminary and classes…. 18 went to India.
Students for the ministry…. .. . .. .. .. 316 -The Chicago Hull House has now 21 ttfternoon clubs for chil- Boarding and high schools. . . . . . . . . . . . 113 dren, 518 evening clubs for both children and adults, 28 regular Pupils (males 3,459). ………………. 7,029 classes, a children's choral society Common schools………. ………… 1,139 Pupils in common schools………… 46,963 Whole number under instruction….. 56,625 Native contributions ………………$118,753 -In fifty years the work of the Presbyterian Church has grown from 10 missions to 24, the stations from 19 to 108; ordained missionaries, 30 to 208; laymen, 10 to 51; married women, 29 to 204; unmarried, 2 to 164; ordained natives, 0 to 165 and 239 licentiates; native helpers, 7 to 1,335; communicants, 41 to 30,453; scholars, 513 to 30,- 460; receipts of the board, $77,751 to $841,553.
-The recent General Oonference of the Methodist Episcopal Ohurch, :3outh, wisely ordered that a missionary institute, or mass meeting, should be held once a year on each district. The presiding elder is charged with the work of superintending this institute. He is also required to preach at least one missionary sermon a year in each pastoral charge in his district.
-At a meeting of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, held in of nearly four hundred members, a ing for ten years at Singapore for kindergarten of 60 pupils, and a an opportunity of entrance. As large day-nursery. regards native languages, the so- ciety has nearly the whole New -The trustees of the John F. Testament in Pangasinan, and the Slater fund have arranged. with Gospel of St. Luke in Tagalog has Booker T. Washington and Mrs. been just printed." Washington to devote as much time during the next two years as -The English Church Army they can spare from Tuskegee to added 80 trained men and women holding meetings in the cities of to its staff last year, which now the Southern States. The purpose numbers 316 parochial evangelists, is to increase the interest of the 120 van evangelists and colporteurs, negroes in their own moral, phy- 65 social officers, 154 mission nurses sical, and industrial conditions. and rescue and slum workers, 77 Four groups of such meetings were associate evangelists; 48 vans were held during the first two weeks of conducted and 2,400 seven-day mis- September, with others following. sions. The gross income was $470,- As a specimen of the counsel the 000 last year. freedmen are likely to receive the foIIowingmay be read: "Ourraceis -The Universities' Mission to in too big a hurry. The preachers Central Africa carries on mission want the title of D.D. before they work scattered over some 250,000 know divinity. Almost every square miles. In the homes, graduate in the English course schools, and workshops there are must be addrest as 'professor.' over 3,000 children. The communi- We want a biography before we cants at Easter, 1897, were 1,722, have lived. Some want to take and the adult adherents of the mis- Latin and Greek who do not know sion over 6,600. The work is estabthe personal pronoun in English, lisht in 4 principal centers, in Zanzisome want llostoffices who do not bar, Usambara, Rovuma, and know how many stamped envel- Nyassa. On Lake Nyassa, which opes to give for eleven cents. Go was until last year a large slaveto the farm; stick to the farm. yielding region, the mission main- We do not want to govern the tains a church steamer. The workcountry until we learn to govern ers now number 187, including 2 the home." bishops, 26 English and 11 African clergy, and 29 women. EUROPE. -One of the greatest of Protes- Great Britain.-The British and tant missionary societies is that of Foreign Bible Society employs 724 the Wesleyan Methodists. From colporteurs in 23 different coun- the report submitted at the recent tries; in China, 200, who disposed conference, we learn that it has 363 of 477,236 volumes during 1897; principal stations, with 2,355 Russia, 67 with 200,850 copies; preaching places; that it has a staff India, 132, and 120,457 volumes. of 345 missionaries, assisted by This society has long been watch- 2,993 schoolmasters and other paid ing for an opportunity to carry the agents; and that during last year Word into the Philippines. "A it sent out 16 missionaries to India consignment of Spanish Scriptures and China, 11 to Africa, and 3 to has been sent to Hong Kong. the West Indies. Its income, too, Thousands of Spanish and Pan- is growing, being £5,600 above what gasinan Scriptures have been wait- it was two years ago. The num- ber of members in the foreign field is 44,640, with 23,544 others on 8,000,000 negro descendants of the trial. former slaves in North America, 7,000,000 are Protestants and only -The Zambesi Industrial Mis- 200,000 Catholics. In the Cape sion was formed six years ago for Colony the Evangelical missions work in East Africa, and, tho con- report 530,000 adherents, and the sidered by many to be a mere ex- Catholics only 3,000. Protestant periment, the following statement missions aim at making Christian of work accomplisht is sent forth: believers out of heathen people, "Spiritual, educational, and indus- training for secular work and intrial work is be'ing carried on at 10 dustries being the task of the state. centers, supervised by some 30 Eu- Protestant missions look first and ropean missionaries. The acreage above all things to the needs of the planted with coffee is about 750, of soul. Protestant missionaries have which460will yield acropduring the translated the Bible or portions of present season of from 35 to 40 tons. it into about 70 African languages At the various stations there are and dialects, and have thus made 115 head of cattle, 165 goats, and 55 tiiese literary tongues. Some 750,- sheep. In connection with the 000 Africans are in Protestant mission there are 11 schools, at churches, and 140,000 children in which, during the past year, there Protestant schools." were 926 boys and girls enrolleJ, with an average attendance of 673. -The continued falling off of Seven European teachers and BO Peter's Pence, on which Rome so native teachers are engaged in much depends for aggression, calls these schools. A training institute, out this utterance from Vice-Genfor the teaching of such handicrafts eral Schmitz, who has the matter as carpentry and blacksmithing has of collecting in charge: "The quesbeen built at Ntonda. There are tion of Peter's Pence has indeed two hospitals. During the months become a Catholic calamity, and is of March and April the patients a burning one. There can be no treated in connection with these doubt that the collections have were over 2,800, of whom 110 were greatly fallen off. The Holy Fathin-patients. " er needs for general expenses in the administration of the church, – The Continent. The Basel an annual income of 7,000,000 Missionary Society is one of the francs. Of this 3,000,000 are assured oldest and strongest of the German from a source which I will not menorganizations, dating as it does tion. Four millions ($800,000) must from 1815, and having an income of be obtained through Peter's Pence over $250,000; 147 European men from the Catholics of the whole and women in Africa, India, and world. Until two years ago the China; 18,903 communicants, and collections exceeded this amount, 17,285 In its schools. The native and the Holy Father was able to Christians (adherents) number 36,- give assistance to various objects. 315. But for two years the collections have no longer reacht 4,000,000 -Herr A. Merensky, of the Ber- francs, and have, indeed, scarcely lin Missionary Society, thus com- amounted to 2,500,000. If this state pares, or contrasts the missions of of things continues, the Holy Fath.,. Roman Catholics and Protestants: er, with the obligations upon him, "In spite of the solid unity of the will come into an extreme and most Catholic Church, their progress in precarious position. It is a condimissions does not compare with that of the Protestants. Of the tion of the greatest seriousness for is lined with a double row of ma– the church, and may become full jestic trees." The Indian Witness of danger." seems to indorse this statement, tho stating that it may be "a little -No wonder that Spain is poor. too eulogistic." She supports from her treasury 117,000 monks, nuns, and other per- -We complain at 80, wilt at90, sons under religious vows-nearly and read of the thermometer at 100 five times as many as the former to 105 degrees and deaths from sun- standing army of the United stroke. It may help us to sym- States.-Congregationalist. pathize with our missionaries to remember that they have not even ASIA. the comparatively bracing atmos- phere of 100 degrees in which to Syria.-The Russians are active carryon their taxing, wearing in Syria. In Tripoli they have 300 work of overcoming the awful boys in their school, and in the inertia of heathenism. Dr. Mar- Meena they have a girls' school with garet O'Hara, writing in April 3 Russian women, 2 native teachers, from the 'Voman's Hospital, In- and 240 pupils. They are also occu- dore, says: "The thermometer pying the Greek villages in the stood yesterday at 164 degrees in interior of the Tripoli field, being the sun at four o'clock in the after- determined to resist both Protes- noon, so you can understand how tant and Roman Catholic propa- necessary it is to get the work done gandism. "We can not hear," says before the heat of the day." Dr. H. H. J essup~ "that they have a firman or a permit for a single -Bishop Thoburn says: L Re- school. American schools seem to membering, as I do, the discour- be the only ones requiring 'per- agements of my earlier years, mits,' and they will soon be elimi- times when we did not find a hun- nated as a factor in the tribulations dred applicants for baptism in all of the Turk." our Indian field in the course of a year, these days seem to be golden -"Nowhere have I seen a band in their promise, and I can hardly of purer, simpler, more sweet, or refrain from crying to the Church more believing workers than those at home in sheer desperation for whom we have been privileged to help." meet with in Syria and Palestine. In grace and readiness and wis- -In the Central Provinces an dom, in much that elevates and invitation has been extended to strengthens the character and life, Bishop Thoburn by a German mis- I am persuaded that they are sur- sionary to occupy a field near his past by no body of missionaries station, where large numbers of anywhere."-J. ELDER CUMMING. the village population are disposed to accept Christian instruction. India.-" The finest bicycle path in the world is probably the Grand -In Bareilly District (Methodist Trunk road of India, extending Episcopal) there are 14,000 Chris- 'from Lahore to Calcutta, 1,200 tians and 20 pastors are entirely supmiles. It is level, and there is not ported by the people. The Ajmere a mile in the whole distance where Industrial School has 35 boys who even a lady would have to dis- are learning to weave cloth and mount. It is built of kunker, simi- blankets, to make date matting, lar to concrete, is without dust, baskets, rope, and reed chairs. and for nearly its whole distance ,-An important step has been of the present leaders· of new taken by the Church Mission- thought in China's new experience ary Society. That is the calling of intellectual life, have gained into existence of a special order of their knowledge from Christian missionaries to deal with what has sources, and have been directly or been called "the toughest problem indirectly under the influence of the Christian Church is called on to Christian teachers or writers." face "-namely, the assailing suc- cessfully of Mohammedanism. The -In Fuchau the Roman Catho- Rev. A. E. Johnston, now of Ben- lics have an orphanage in which ares, is to be set apart to start the 1,000 children have a home, and500 mission, and an appeal is being more who are too young have been made to others to join him. ·With placed in families to be cared for. 57,000,000 of Moslems in India, Great Britain has a rare opportun- -A missionary gives an exity and a "Serious responsibility pre- ample of what he calls Chinese sented to it. Apropos of all this, humanity. When passing along a the following statement made by street of a city he came upon a The Indian Standard. will be read crowd and found that a man about with satisfaction: "It has been fifty years of age had fallen in the remarkt lately, that a movement street to die-no uncommon occurseems to be going on among Mo- rence there. The crowd stood hammedans in India. There are around the poor man, shouting and signs of a stirring among those cursing, when one person called very dry bones. In Poona, several out, "Haul the fellow into the young Mohammedans of culture gutter and do not let him die in the have been approaching various of middle of the street, blocking up the missionaries to inquire about the way!" The missionary was the truth. Some of these attend a obliged to pass on, but returning Sunday Bible-class in connection an hour later, he found the man with the Presbyterian Church."- in the gutter dead, a fan over his Free Church Monthly. faee, and two candles burning at his feet, with the design of lighting China.-Hon. Charles Denby, for the soul-whither they did not four years, minister to China, has know. There the body lay until just returned, and in conversation night, and the people past by said: "An Englishman of note de- unaffected by the sorrowful sight. clared that missions were a failure. -Missionm·y Herald. I replied that he knew nothing about it until he had seen what -The Christian religion will they had accomplisht. Go to the some time make the Chinese one Methodist church in Peking on of the greatest people on the earth. Sunday-a church built to hold This is the belief of Rev. O. Eo 2,000, and see 1,000 or more chil- Goddard, who adds: "Faith in dren taken from the streets and Christ is the panacea for all their distributed into little groups, learn- mortal ills. They have never had ing a Sunday-school lesson from human sacrifices in their religious converts and missionaries." ceremonies, nor have they deified vice as other heathen nations have -Writing in a recent article of done. If their industry and econthe effort to influence the intellect- omy could be sanctified by divine ual and social life of China, Dr. B. C. grace, and the hope of eternal life Henry mentions this hopeful aspect madtl to throb within their breasts, of the matter: "Many, if not most Christendom could point with pride to the grandest achievement in hu- attention to medicine than Korea.
man history." For centuries the peninsula was the -An inhabitant of Laulung came fruitful source whence, on the one to ask the Basel missionary, Mor- hand, Japan came for medical genroth, to help him in a lawsuit. knowledge and China for drugs. The missionary refused, accom- Christ and Christianity in the charpanying his refusal with the gift of acter of a physician has special atsome religious writings. These tractions to the Koreans. There is were read by the Chinaman, and he a great demand for Bibles, and the became interested in Christianity, church papers are well subscribed and, wishing to know more of it, he to by the natives.-The Korean began regularly to frequent the Repository.
nearest Christian church, that of -A few months ago it was an- Hocshuha. It was five hours' walk, nounced that Messrs. Moffett and but he did it without complaint or Lee, of the Presbyterian mission, fatigue. In the meantime his law- had baptized 177 adults in the prov- suit was finished, and he won it. ince of which Pyengyang is the The use which he made of his vic- chief city. And now news comes tory was to go to the very mission- that on a second journey in the ary who had refused to assist him in same region these missionaries his litigation, and to offer him the have baptized 133 more, and that free use of his house to lodge a cate- there are 1,000 in the catechumen chist there and two colporteurs of classes.
the Bible Society.-Le Mission- -In a report to the Department naire. of State on the educational facili- Korea.-It is safe to say that the ties of Korea, Consul General Hor- Christian Church in Korea has ace N. Allen says: "The mission doubled its members in the past of the American Methodist Church year. There are now, in round maintains a flourishing school, numbers, 5,000 Protestants and 25,- originally started in 1886 under the 000 Catholics. The homes of the name of Pai Chai, 'Hall for Rear- Christians are clean, the people who ing Useful Men,' a name ~onferred inhabit them happy; wife-beating, by his Majesty. The Korean gova universal practise in Korea, has ernment places a certain number been banished. In one of the in- of pupils in the school, paying $1 terior cities the Christians have, silver a month for each, and also without foreign help, built a pays for a native teacher for each school to accommodate 100 boys. 50 pupils. In 1895 there were 50 Two thousand years ago, to the scholars, now there are 103, and last sick, the blind, the lame, the lepers, year there were 176. Japanese and the suffering of every kind, there Chinese children are admitted to was no touch like that of Jesus of the school, which has 2 foreign Nazareth. It will be an underesti- teachers, 4 native assistants; and 3 mate to say that 25,000 Koreans instructors in Chinese. The boys found relief from disease and suffer- are uniformed, and the poorer ones ing in Christian hospitals of Christ are taught trades in the mission in this country in 1897. Christian printing and bookbinding estabmedicine appeals probably in a lishment. The course is three years, special manner to the Koreans, be- followed by a regular college course cause of a national weakness for when desired."
medicine in theory and practise. Japan. – Seventeen daily and No country of Asia has paid more weekly papers are publisht in Japan in the English language, and by the Board in 6 localities in more than 100 on the Asiatic conti- Japan proper and 2 in Formosa. nent, while in all these countries Three places have become selfthere is only 1 German paper. supporting during the year, and there have been 32 baptisms in the -The late president of the lower aided churches. A large number house of parliament, just before of inquirers are also reported. leaving his official residence, in- Forty-eight out of a possible 68 vited his Christian friends to meet churches contribute for the support there for prayer and thankgiving. of this vigorous home missionary About 40 persons were present, in- work, and of the remaining 20 cluding a number of members of churches nearly all are directly the parliament. The president, in dependent upon the missions. the course of his remarks, said: " The fact that I have not, as I be- AFRICA. lieve, brought discredit upon myself nor disgrace upon the office -The conflict of the Nile is an during my short term of service is important one for Christian civilientirely due to the help which God zation. It has crusht a power has given me. On taking my seat which made commerce in that rein the house it has been my daily gion impossible. The gateway to custom before beginning the busi- Northern Africa is now open. The ness of the day to offer up a silent traffic in slaves is about to be prayer to God for help, and to ask stayed. A vast and fertile coun- His blessing upon myself and upon try is open to progressive enterthe assembly." prise. War is again God's thun- derstorm which clears the atmos- -A Yokohama weekly paper phere of the infection of paganism. says: "The Salvation Army has From this time there will pour into workt a great change for the better the Dark Continent a stream of in Yokohama, in the district form- civilizing influences, for Africa is erly known as 'Bloodtown,' the destined in the next hundred years paradise of loafers and loose char- to make a greater advance than acters. With gentle, but firm, in- any country under the sun. As a defatigable hands, the good men step toward redemption, well may and good women of the Army British Christians respond with enhave reclaimed one poor waif after thusiasm to the call of General the other, with but little outside Kitchener to subscribe $300,000 to assistance, and to-day the moral establish at Khartoum, in memory tone of 'Bloodtown,' through their of Gen. Gordon, a college and untiring efforts, has been so much medical school, where the sons of improved, that there is no longer sheiks may receive an education any justification for the term." which should qualify them to hold government positions. —:The Board of Home Missions of the Church of Christ (Presbyterian) -The Field of the Dead, as the makes a good showing in its fourth annual report, recently publisht. Gold Coast Mission might formerly Contributions for the year amounted to 2,891 yen, of which only have been called, is now becoming 435 yen is credited to foreigners (the yen equals fifty cents). Col- the most fertile and the most enlections for the three previolJ!! years were 562, 1,469, and 1,909 yen, couraging of all the missions of respectively. Work is sl.lstained Basel Society. In the dis- trict of Chi, Christianity has really become a power which has to he reckoned with, and in the territory of Akropong alone its adherents Lord Salisbury has now appointed form nearly a seventh of the whole Drs. Christopher, Stevens, and population, more than 4,000 souls Daniels as commissioners for this out of 30,000. In Akem there will purpose. After preliminary studies . soon be hardly a village where in Rome and India, the commissome Christians are not to be met sioners are to meet at Blantyre.- with. Here and there the heathen Free. Church 1l1"onthly. themselves help the converts in building chapels and houses for the -During a remarkable meeting teachers. ., One great enemy at Ekwendeni a collection no less which hinders conversions is remarkable was taken, amounting brandy. In some negro villages to about $30. The Livingstonia every second house is a depot for paper thus describes it: "The colthe sale of liquor. On the coast lection-a very varied one-conyou can get it almost for nothing, sisted of money, .£1 8s.; 11 often much more easily than good knives; 14 earthenware pots; 16 drinking water. But let us add baskets; 1 mat; 67 fowls; 2 sheep; for the honor of the authorities 2 goats; 105Th. beans; 97Th. flour; that the taxes on the sale of brandy 233m. maize; 34Th. potatoes; 62Th. have been increast in proportions pumpkins, and 3Th. 6 oz. of beads. sufficient to reduce the traffic vel''! The money does not include the considerably.-Le Missionnaire. European contributions, which amounted to .£2 18s. Od. The total -The lJIissions Magazin gives value of the collection, European the statistics of the Kongo Free and native, according to native State as 114 stations, 684 officials, prices, is .£6 Is. 5d." 223 missionaries, 1,474 whites; 882 being Belgians, 125 Englishmen, 91 -Mr. Coillard, Missionary of the Portuguese, 87 Italians, 71 Swedes, Paris Society among the Barotsi, 61 Americans, 40 French, 37 Dutch, now in Great Britain endeavoring 21 Germans, 20 Danes. to raise £8,000 for the relief of that organization, says: "Many have -The scourge of tropical Africa been the afflictions of the mission for Europeans is notably the mys- -the climate, the cattle plague (in terious "black-water" fever. Of a neighboring territory 800,000 head late the mortality from this cause of cattle died within a few weeks), haii become appalling in Central and difficulties of transport and Africa, and on behalf of the mis- finance. Nevertheless, the work sionary and mercantile interests in has gone vigorously forward. A that district the facts were sub- Bible-class for native young men mitted to Lord Salisbury, and a has resulted in eight becoming conference was afterward held at evangelists." He tells of the king the foreign office between the adjourning from the seat of justice under – secretary in charge of to read the Bible to his chief men. African affairs and representatives of these interests. The British -Bishop Tucker writes from Medical Association was invited at Uganda: "Since I came out six its recent meeting in Edinburgh to months ago, I have walkt more consider the situation, and they than 1,000 miles, and confirmed unanimously past a resolution more than 1,000 candidates. The urging the appointment of an country is now fairly quiet." adequate number of experts to investigate the whole subject. In -A French missionary in Madaaccordance with that resolution gascar tells of a little native church which has remained faithful amidst all the· changes consequent upon the war, and yet has no pastor, the evangelist in charge being only a woman.
The Missionary Review of the World — July 1894
G. L. )'lACKAY, T.OfSlJI, FORMOSA. REV. GI.4.)I CHENG H()A , FOn:'-'fOSA, FIR:'T CON
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVII. No. 7.-0ld &ries.–JULY.–VOL. VII. No. 7.-Ne1IJ SerieB.
THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF A NEW STANDARD OF GIVING.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Evangelization, like all work for God, has a financial basis, and, if that basis is rotten, unsound, unsteady, the whole structure is in peril.
One needs but to compare the prevailing practice of giving, or rather of not giving, with the teaching of J:!oly Scripture and the demands of God's work, to see that from the very foundations upward our whole system of so-called benevolence needs reconstruction. Such comparison becomes contrast at every point. It is only in rare and exceptional instances that there can be found any real conformity or approximation to the pattern showed us in the mount; and it is a sad fact that the current impression is that the biblicll standard is an impracticable ideal!
This whole matter must have radical treatment, for the evil is radical. We shall never reach it, therefore, until we are ready to eradicate the selfishness which is its root. Evils which are deeply rooted in the human heart are hard to exterminate. As the farmer is tempted to be content with breaking off, at the surface, an obstinate weed which should be pulled up, and which, if not pulled up, will only sprout again and gather new strength deeper down, making more difficult its eradication, so we are constantly prone to be satisfied with superficial remedies for evils which only grow stronger under our mistaken treatment.
The wrongdoing which we are now seeking to expose is not only radical, but respectable, and it hides behind respectability. This is the favorite refuge of all the most subtle social sins. Now that slavery is abolished in Britain and the United States, we all marvel that such a system could ever have found a cloak or its deformity and enormity. Human beings were put on the auction-block and sold like cattle. Maiden modesty was openly profaned to make appeal to the lowest passions of buyers; husbands and wives sold to different owners, and then taught to enter into new marital relations with other parties, so that all sanctity was lost to marriage; parents and children hopelessly parted, as unfeelingly as a calf
THE IMPERATIVE NEED OF A NEW STANDARD OF GIVING
and a cow-every nameless atrocity was p~rpetrated by a system that made merchandise of the bodies and souls of human beings; and a chief jus- tice (1) insulted his title by deciding that a black man had "no rights which a white man was bound to respect." And yet such an organized iniquity hid behind law, as legal; hid behind custom, as respectable; hid bchind commerce, as profitable; hid behind ethics, a!'! moral j hid behind even philanthropy, as benevolent, and behind religion, as pious! And to-day the drink habit, and the still worse drink traffic, find similar hid- ing-places j but the time will come when men will look back and wonder that ever in a "Christian nation such arguments and apologies could be allowed to shelter evils so outrageous."
Hung Fung, the Chinese sage, nearly a hundred years old, being asked by the emperor what was the great risk of the empire. answered, "The rat in the statue j" and he explained that the rat hides in the hollow, painted, wooden statues, erected to the memory of dead ancestors; and he cannot be smoked out, because that would desecrate the statue j and can- not be drowned out, for that would wash the paint off; and so the vermin can find secure refuge in the sacred enclosure. Everywhere social evils are the rat in the statue. Many a sin gets into the Church itself, and cannot be smoked out lest we defile the Church, nor drowned out lest we wash off from the Church the paint of respectability.
It has been hinted that this radical, respectable evil of withholding from God and His cause, is furthermore entrenched behind positive resistance to the plain teaching of Scripture. A senator of the United States shocked the sentiment of the community by declaring that the Golden Rule and the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount cannot be carried out in politics j but it is a fact that the body of professed Christians do not believe Bible teaching on the subject of giving. A tree is known by its fruit, and faith is proved by works. What our real creed is, character and conduct reveal. Were Christ's precepts really received by us, our whole present . system of giving would give place to another j and our present object is to deal fearlessly and faithfully with this whole question, studying only to show ourselves approved unto God. Missions are to-day threatened with a collapse, from the dry rot in the floor timbers of our financial system!
Paul committed to the Ephesian elders the crown of the beatitudes : "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, 'It is MORE BLESSED TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE.''' That is the law about which the whole conception of Christian giving must crystallize. Life has a double aspect: getting and giving-the receptive and the impartive sides. Both represent good, but giving is the higher. Yet it is obvious that there can be no giving until there is getting j but it is as true that the ultimate object of getting is to be found in giving. To enjoy what we receive is lawful, but not if it be final j we receive in order to impart, and the highest joy comes only when the blessing passes on to others. It is in the course of impartation that the stream develops and deposits its richest residuum. He who retains what he receives forfeits the" more blessed" experience. Now everybody believes it is blessed to receive, and some know that it is also blessed to give; but very few really believe it is more blessed to give, and hence the blessings imparted by us are everywhere but a fraction of what are bestowed upon us: the bulk of God's best gifts are wasted or worse than wasted on self-indulgence, or held and hoarded to be finally lavished on vicious pleasures by heedless heirs, or perhaps dissipated among greedy lawyers!
The grand lesson of God's Word is that the highest grade of living is giving, not of substance only, but of self. In Provo 11 : 24 we read, " There is that scattereth and yet increaseth : and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." In Mark 8 : 35 we have the corresponding New Testament lesson: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it : but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it." This is to the natural man not only a paradox, but the apex of absurdity. To increase by scattering and grow poor by hoarding; to save by losing and lose by saving is the climax of contradiction, yet here is to be found the summit of Divine philosophy.
God's law is impartation. "I will bless thee, . . . and make thee a blessing. " "Who comforteth us, . . . that we may be able to comfort others" (Gen. 12 : 2 ; 2 Cor. 1 : 4). We can understand this scriptural law only as we first perceive what is the depraved tendency of our sinful nature.
" The love of money is the root of all evil," yet that love of money is only one branch from a deeper root-the LOVE OF SELF. Selfishness is the great radical sin, of which all sins are ramifications; selfishness, the sum of all deformities, the parent of all enormities. Paul's awful catalogue of apostasies begins and ends with selfishness: "Men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. 3 : 2, 4). The corner-stone and capstone of wickedness is the same idolatry of self.
All men are therefore divisible into two classes: those whose supreme aim is to get, and those whose grand aim is to give. The former aim feeds and fattens selfishness till it becomes monstrous ; the latter starves selfishness that it may develop benevolence.
It has been hinted that selfishness is but a root-stock, having many branches. The three branches from which all the more minute ones spring are the three lusts : appetite, ambition, avarice, or the lust of pleasure, of power, of gain. To make the lesson the more startling, we take the one branch, avarice, and trace some of its" apples of Sodom." Let us see how greed paralyzes all true giving.
1. First, greed brings absorption. The law of selfishness is, Get all you can, and keep all you get. No wonder it makes monopolists and monsters, and that modern society presents the awful contrast of enormous accumulations looking down like Alpine peaks on abject want and hopeless degr~dation. Dives, everywhere, among dainties, with Lazarus at his gate, among the dogs j the one fattening on luxuries, the other starving for necessities. But what is worse, there is deliberate adoption of the policy of self-indulgence. The good gifts which God meant we should weave on love's magic loom into a garment to cover human nakedness, we calmly braid into a hammock of ease, in which we lie, pillowed on down, swung between the Church and the world, fanned with refinement and sprinkled with rosewater. A recent article in a leading secular magazine, on " How to Live on Seven Huudred Pounds a year," makes provision for house rent, food, clothes, education, travel, resthetic culture, and even worldly amusement, but not a penny allowance for charity! The theatre and opera are necessities, but to compassionate poverty and misery is optional. and may be left out of life's scheme entirely. Meanwhile, a woman advertises for a lost poodle, worth two hundred and fifty pounds sterling, whose diamond collar and silver chain are worth thirty-seven pounds more. A poodle that represents nearly three hundred pounds is a necessity, but to gi,'c anything to suffering is not needful! A professing Christian in America spends in one year on a new house for himself more than the four leading missionary boards of the world spend that year to evangelize a thousand millions of heathen.
Absorption means the sucking-up process, and suggests the sponge which drinks up what it is dipped in, and swells larger and larger, till it can hold no more, but never gives out anything except under pressure. Hundreds and thousands are mere sanctified sponges that soak up all God's gifts, and have to be squeezed hard to give out even a reluctant drop. What is a dead sea but a basin into which rivers pour their sweet waters only to stagnate, become bitter, heavy, acrid, because they have no outlet j and around such dead sea no plants grow, over it no birds fly, in it no fish swim. Life comcs into it, but turns to death! There are many dead seas in Christian congregations. God pours His gifts upon and into them, but there is no outpour in blessing to man! In the light of Christ's words, " Lay not np for yourselves treasures upon earth," it never seems to occur to some to ask whether a disciple has a right to hoard riches 1 II. Again, such absorption is idolatry, for idolatry is the intervention of any object between the soul and God, to hide or displace Him. One needs not to bow before stocks and stones or brute beasts, to worship idols. Whatever God sees to stand in the way of the supreme love and obedience due to Him constitutes an idol. No idol is so common and universal as SELF.
The law of all idolatry is assimilation of the worshipper to the object worshipped. If it be a brute beast, he becomes brutal, beastly j if a stock or stone,he grows dumb and senseless, helpless, irrational,like the wood or stone. And so, whatever be the idol, the worshipper comes to resemble it. " They that make them are like unto them j so is everyone that trusteth in them" (Ps. 115 : 8). This law is universal. He who practically worships horses, and is found absorbed in the race-course, gets " horsey"-has the smell of the stable, the look of the jockey. The dev- otee of fashion becomes the mere animated tailor's dummy or wax doll. Beau Brummel spent £~~r thousand dollars a year on his wardrobe; spent three hours sometimes in artistic tying of a starched cravat, and invited a score of friends to witness his feat. Such a man has no character, except what he wears on his back, and that is made at so much the yard, in the tailor's shop. How hollow and shallow grow the fashionable women at our watering-places, who have nothing to do from morn to night but to dress three or four times a day, comb or curl their hair, and study to give impression of a boundless resource of wardrobe and wealth! And the worshipper of money! A coin is hard and unimpressible ; it has a metallic ring. He who makes an idol of money gets to be hard, unimpressible, irresponsible; he gets the ring of metal, and ., drops into his coffin with a chink"! There was a manufacturer in Britain, who for a score of years spent his time in counting over his hoarded sovereigns, daily repeating the process that he might gloat his eyes over his treasure. Such a man worships the golden calf, and becomes a golden calf himself. Those who idolize worldly pleasure get to be frivolous and empty, incapable of seriousness and sobriety, like the crackling of thorns under a pot. Those who pursue fame, the bauble or bubble of reputation, become as a bauble or bubble, dazzling but unsubstantial, mere illusions of display. Even culture, made an idol, transforms a man into a bookish semblance of true manhood, stiff, stately, to be jealously guarded from all defiling contact with common folk, securely shelved behind glass doors!
III. A third result of greed is moral and spiritual atrophy. This word means, in medicine, an emaciation or wasting of the body for want of nourishment. In some cases the stomach, kidneys, liver, lungs shrink to one third of their natural dimensions. There is a corresponding emaciation of soul-a contraction of the intellect.ual and moral faculties, a consumption of vital powers, an absolute loss of function. Simple selfishness may atrophize the soul, until sympathy and sensibility are lost, and one can look calmly on sorrow and suffering unmoved. The benevolent impulses grow by exercise, and shrivel from want of true activity. Inaction becomes incapacity for action. True life grows by its very exhaustion, as the stream that pours from the spring leaves room for water to pour into it. To restrain noble action is to become incapacitated for noble action. vVhen one gratifies good and unselfish motives, he becomes magnanimous, great-souled. When he learns to concentrate all upon himself, the very process by which he hopes to enlarge, belittles, he becomes pusillanimous, little-souled. Indulgence of self seems harmless, but it is dangerous. Simply to say, "I want this, and, therefore, will have it," is destructive of the highest type of manhood. In the fable of the "Magic Skin" the wearer got every wish, but with every fulfilled wish the skin shrank, and held him the tighter, until with the last gratification life itself was crushed out. The fable needs no interpreter. The magic skin is selfishness; and every time self secures a new gratification, the power to enjoy is lessened, and the vital orgallB of the soul are cramped into narrower quarters. God's gifts, even in their so-called enjoyment, are perverted to self-loss and self-ruin.
There was a man who, as a foundling, was picked up on a doorstep and sheltered in an orphan asylum. There he found friends and a start in 'a successful business life. Afterward when he walked on 'change, a merchant prince, he refused help to the very institution to which he,owed all he was. Monstrous ingratitude! Yet" Nathan said to David, Thou art the man!" He who is indifferent to the cause of missions ,and says, "Missions do not pay," forgets the pit whence he was digged. Our Scotch ancestors were once cannibals, and counted: the herdsman a better meal than his herd, and a female breast a special luxury at a feast. He who scorns cannibals as too degraded to be worth saving, forgets that the missions he will not help, educated his forefathers for the manhood they have attained and transmitted.
The proof of this moral atrophy is found in the fact that many a selfish soul is to.day looking on the absolute, destitution of hundreds of millions, without a sympathetic pang that answers to their cry for help! Douglas Jerrold caricatured such iu the man who, hearing that it was desired to raise, in pounds sterling, "five and four naughts," benevolently said, " Put me down for one of the naughts /" He was one of those who give " nothing to nobody."
The terrible influences of habitual selfishness on character make heroic treatment of this whole question necessary. However respectable the evil, we must boldly ferret it out in its hiding-place, and drive it forth into daylight and compel ourselves to see its hideousness.
A gracious God has provided an antidote for all this inordinate and destructive selfishness, and His great remedy is GIVING-habitual, systematic, self-denying, universal giving-a life whose law is impartation, which is the royal law of love.
As we turn to consider this counter-aspect of the theme, let us tarry to learn a fundamental lesson. 'What is the primary object of giving? Most people would answer that God needs our gifts, or His poor do ; but the real reason why He calls for our gifts lies farther back than this, in our need of imparting. Psalm fiftieth contains a remarkable lesson on this subject. There the Judge of all summons to His court those who, in the matter of sacrifice, have entered into covenant with Him. It was an age when' the apostasy had begun, that ripened into such hypocrisy and formalism five hundred years later. As yet the offerings continued to be brought, but instead of being presented as the gifts of a grateful heart for mercies bestowed, they were brought in a self-righteous spirit, often by ungodly worshippers, who imagined they were putting God under some sort of obligation, instead of acknowledging a boundless obligation under which He had put them! Hear Jehovah's sharp rebukes. Does He need our gifts ~ "If I were hungry I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof." Hear Him again rebuke all ungodly and disobedient givers: "What hast thou to do to . . . take My covenant in thy mouth ~ seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest My words behind thee." Not only has God no need of our offerings, but He will accept none of them unless brought by a docile, obedient soul. He will take no "blood money" from him who consents to thievery or partakes of adultery. He will not have man think that He is " altogether such an one" as himself, to grecdily accept a gift becaU8e it is a gift,. and the Church is here taught a lesson that the Word of God gives no warrant for asking any impenitent and godless man for money to carryon Christian enterprises. God wants consecrated gifts, and never separates the offering from the offerer. We must, then, learn, first of all. thiB lesson, that the value of a gift., in God's eyes, depends entirely not on its amount, but on the character and spirit of him who presents it.
·What, then, is the primal purpose of our being permitted to give? Hear our Lord: "The poor ye have always with you, that whensoever ye will ye may do them good." "Vell wishing is benevolence ; well doing is beneficence; and the reason why poverty is allowed always to confront us, is that our benevolent will may find exercise in beneficent doing.
1. There is in giving first a salvation implied. Salvation is a big word; it includes salvation from penalty, which is justification; salvation from power of sin, which is sanctification; and deliveranc.e from selfishness and self· idolatry, which is service. Salvation means development, full growth; we need to be saved from the sin and crime of smallness, the hell of a heart that is a temple full of idols, and self the central deity. Man is naturally a snail, and his shell his little world, out of which he ventures only to pick up some dainty morsel, always returning again into his shell to enjoy it; outside of that shell he knows no world. To learn to give, as God gives, is to drop the shell, and find the world our sphere of service; and every precious gift is to be best enjoyed as we share it with others, equally in want, or pass it on to others more needy still. No soul is ever fully, gloriously saved who does not habitually give.
2. Again, giving recognizes stewardship. Some think it means one who " stews," cooks another's victuals. Probably it means the ward or guardian of another's work. The bottom idea i!'l that of a trustee of another's property. Hear Peter: "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4 : 10 ; compo 1 Cor. 12 : 6, 7). The root-conception is that all is originally and inalienably God's, and we ourselves belong to Him. Consequently we can have nothing in our own right. ·What we have wc holdhold in trust, not to hoard, or enjoy as we will, but to use as He will. The teaching of Scripture is eJ:plicit and undeniable. "vVhatsoever ye do, whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Not only is the" Lord's portion" His own, but all is His-we are to eat, drink, clothe ourselves, furnish our home, not for our pleasure, bllt for – His glory. That is the Bible rule, as plain as words can make it. The tithe system was the outgrowth ar..d acknowledgment of this stewardship. The Jew brought a tenth to God as a constant tribute to the Owner of all, and it represented not fne maximum, but the minimum-what the poorest must give. Many a Jew gave two, sometimes three, tithes of his whole income, not including voluntary thank-offerings. And then the firstfruits and first born, what a challenge to faith! How knew the farmer or shepherd whether he should ever reap the rest of his crop, or enjoy the further increase of his flock, when he brought these first yields to the altar? He made his first acknowledgments to the Owner of all, and then trusted Him for the rest.
The tithe system cannot satisfy God's claims. Fidelity has no fixed standard, for God's bestowments vary; and the ratio of our gifts must increase according to the ratio of God's gifts to us. He who gives one hundred dollars out of a thousand must surely give a larger proportion out of ten thousand or one hundred thousand ; for can God judge by what we" give, without reference to what we keep! Is he equally as faithful a steward who reserves nine thousand out of ten, or ninety thousand out of a hundred thousand, as he who keeps but nine hundred out of a thousand dollars? In oue case there may be great self-denial, in the others absolutely none. The Christian dispensation marks a grand stride in advance, in that it no longer recognizes even the tithe as adequate, but reveals to us more fully the fact that Redemption by blood covers all we are and have, and buys it anew for our Redeemer. The highest type of Christian feels that lw is himself the Lord's portion, and he cannot put God's money into a gluttonous stomach or on a self-displaying body.
,).nd yet Cyrus H. Wheeler has shown us what even a tithe can do, in those little churches along the Euphrates, where ten humble believers, each paying his tenth, make a self-supporting church, whose native pastor can live on a level with his people, because his living is as large as their average.
3. Once more, giving develops sacrifice, and sacrifice is the necessary element in all heroic discipleship. The purpose of the Gospel is to elimInate and finally exterminate sel£. This is "the offence of the Cross," which will never cease-self-abnegation-and this doctrine, however plainly taught in the Word of God, cannot be preached even to disciples without finding resistance. The first element in all religion is self-sacrifice j it is the essence of the religion of Christ. " Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow Me." Those are the terms. What is self-denial? A much greater attainment than most of us imagine. If a man uses tobacco and gives it up, he calls it " self-denial;" but that is not denying ,elf, it is denying tobacco. If a woman renounces jewelry, that is not denying self, but denying jewelry. Down beneath all these and like denials, self may survive prouder and more insolent than ever; the man may get compensation for his sacrifice of the weed in the pride of his self-discipline; and the woman may carry a more boastful spirit beneath her Quaker drab than iu her finery. The Pharisees thus deceived themselves, and grew proud of their humility and more self-righteous by their very austerities. Christ says" they have their reward," in the praise they sought; but to deny self is to root up the plant of which the indulgences we cut off are only the twigs. To kill self, to destroy the very idol and its shrine, and set up God in its place-that is a very different matter; it means a revolution in the whole heing. The empire where self ruled becomes the kingdom where God reigns alone and supreme.
So as to cross-bearing. We belittle the whole phrase by talking of our "many crosses," by which we mean our thousand little vexations. Christ means one cross. The Bible never speaks of crosses, and has not once the plural form. The one and only CROSS is that whereon the disciple is crucified to the world and the world to him-each made hateful forever to the other. In other words, he only bears the cross who, like his Master, knows entire loss of self; and who, like 'him, cannot save himself because he saves others.
Space compels an abrupt conclusion to this important discussion; but we must not dismiss such a theme without noting a few "corollaries" which belong to our" theorem."
1. We have an instinctive sense of the sublimity of self-sacrifice. As Froude suggests, the artist who, in the midst of his creative work, stops to calculate how much pay his statue or picture will bring him, finds his genius forsaking him, for it <:annot breathe such a stifling air when he descends to such a carnal plane. And it is an essential element in all true giving that we corrupt it with no selfish reckoning as to return, in kind. Missions do not pay in the coin selfishness values, but it is for this reason that this field of service is most blessed in our discipline toward Christliness. We bid to the feast those who can make us no recom- pense. 2. Sacrifice must not be evaded or avoided. All excellence is propor- tioned to self-oblivion. Giving to the Lord what costs me nothing forfeits the blessing. What is attended with no sacrifice He values not. If you " give so as not to feel it," nobody else will feel it, nor will you feel its benefit. You may call it benevolence when you get rid of half-worn garments, or buy off a beggar with a shilling, or purchase respectability by getting your name on the published" list of donors j" but God calls such giving by other names. The widow, who in her mites cast in all her living, He recognized as the first of all givers, because she kept nothing, and it cost her everything. There is too much of an eye to returns. We seem to think the offertory 'boxes in God's temple 'are automatic sweetmeat machines-you put in your penny and get out your caramels. The ointment has no odor without self-denial; and the odor constitutes the preciousness and sacredness of the ointment. The avoidance of self-sacrifice is therefore not success, but disastrous failure.
3. Hence a.ll need to give. The great question is not that of securing more money, but more contributors. Vhere the large gifts of a few, who are wealthy or generous, serve to hide the neglect and indifference of the many, they are a curse rather than a blessing. In chemical galvanism the volume of the galvanic current is not increased by enlarging the individual cell, but by multiplying the number of the cells. In the Church there may be a doubling of the amount given without any real increase of the Divine 1ife in the Church j but when the number of self· denying givers is doubled, the volume of blessing is greatly increased.
The secret of sustaining missions is simple, but it requires a deeply spiritual body of disciples to learn it and live it out. To regard ourselv~s as God's stewards; to think of nothing as our own; to become mere channels of distribution, never obstructing the outflow any more than the inflow j to cultivate self-denial rather than evade it j to deny self and not simply certain indulgences; to bury self out of sight and exalt God to the throne upon its ruins j to look with Christ's eyes on a dying world and choose to save men at the expense of not saving ourselves; to withhold nothing from God, and spend every dollar as trustees of His estate ; to hide no selfishness behind ot)1ers' genero~ity, but bring out all our witches that draw us from holy serving and suffering, and slay them before God-were such the law of life with Christ's disciples, what a basis would be laid for every good work of God, and what streams of ceaseless bounty would flow into God's treasury, and from God's higher treasury into our own souls!
What lesson nature teaches us on service! The royal cocoanut palm, with its majestic coronal of long green leaves-what a type of an imparting life! Its wood is very hard and is used for posts and paddles, clubs and spears; its branches for thatching roofs; its leaves for bonnets, baskets, fans; the shells of the nut for goblets, dippers and various utensils. The milk furnishes nutritious drink; the husk, fuel; the fibres are hraided into ropes and robes; the juice of the tree yields a healing balsam; the oil is useful for embalming and anointing. No other tree yields so much fruit; four hundred nuts are often gathered from one tree in a year; and the groves of palm are a grateful shade from the heat. It is said that the tree may be put to as many uses as there are days in the year!
Elizabeth Fry left on record the secret of her amazing usefulness: "Since, at the age of seventeen, my heart was touched, I believe I have never awaked from sleep, in sickness or in health, by day or night, without my first waking thought being, how best I might serve my Lord." Here was a true cocoanut palm in the Lord's garden!
MISSION WORK IN FORMOSA
MISSION WORK IN FORMOSA. * COMPILED FROM ADDRESSES BY REV. G. L. MACKAY, D.D., OF TAMSUI, FORMOSA. DELIVERED AT TORONTO, ONTARIO, FEBRUARY, 1894.
In the beginning" God created," not man. Geology testifies to creation. Two books, but the one Author-the book of nature and the book ot' grace. John tells us, " All things were made by Him"-by Jesus. He was prcsent at creation. This is the Jesus we preach in Formosa, as the Author of the new creation.
The island of Formosa is about 250 miles long, and about 70 or 80 broad. The Formosa Channel, which separates it from the mainland, is about 100 miles wide. There are two nationalities on the island-the Chinese or Mongolian on the west side, and the savages or Malayan in the centre and on the eastcrn side. About 4000 of the Malayan population in the Kap-tsu-Htn Plain are civilized, and about 100,000 are savages.
My work bcgan in Tamsui. Here thc first convert was brought into the kingdom of Jesus, and another soon followed; these were both young men, and they were just what I had prayed for. Our method of carrying on the work has been to travel around and preach Jesus and Him crucified. Every month I made a tour down the west side, and very often had to spend the night in dark and damp places. On one occasion we started, as we had supposed and intended, at a very early hour in the morning; we kept travelling on and on for miles, wondering that daybreak did not come. Beginning to fee.l cold on account of the heavy rains, we kindled a fire to warm ourselves, set out again over stones and weeds until we made fully ten miles more before daybreak. The fact was that it had been simply moonlight when we started, and we had mistaken it for the approach of daybreak ; but our mistake turned to good, for we met a man at the place of our destination who was just going to leave, but who stayed because we arrived, and was thus brought to ~ knowledge of the true God. And a further and greater result was the building of a place of worship there. We went to a village far down on the coast, where a delegate met us with a strip of paper bearing seventy names, inviting us to remain. We erected a chapel iu this village also. An earthquake turned it over a little, and the people cried out that the very earth itself was against the " foreign devil. "
On my next visit, while sitting in a small, dark room, I received a letter to this effect: "Now, you barbarian, with your followers, must • Dr. Mackay'. stations are chiedy grouped round about Tamstli and on the northeast coa~t thil second gronp, very numerous, being mostlr planted among the aborigines. Dr. Mackay reporta for 189il, 97 adult baptisms and a total full membership of 1751. There are two ordained native pastors and 56 preachers, besides 22 atudents iu the doctor's peripatetic college (the Itudente accompanying him in his tours), many of whom frequently preach. The native Chri.tianl gave ..bove 82000 In 1892 toward the support of their own churches. Tbe bospltal has been larrely blessed; d1U'ing the year 11,000 patients were prescribed for. either leave this village to-morrow morning, or you must sit inside of the house for three days. vVe are worshipping our ancestors, and cannot allow any outsider to remain in the village and witness our rites." We laid this matter before our Master, and decided to write to the party who had sent the letter, as follows: "vVe will neither stay in the house three days nor start away in the morning to leave the village; we depend on the power of our Master to protect us." A little while after the whole village was in a great state of excitement. ~ome were suggesting one thing and some another. Most of1l them proposed that we should be taken out and beaten, but others opposed this. The morning came, and I said to the students: "I do not wad yon to get into trouble, but I am going to stay here for life or for death." Everyone of them determined to remain at my side. Aftar breakfast we walked out through the village. The people stood in groups, angry and excited. A number of them had broken pieces of bricks in their hands, and they had stones piled in heaps, ready for use. Only one stone, however, was actually thrown; it was evidently intended to strike one of the students, and was thrown by one of the aborigines. We remained most of the day. On the third day we went to where the chapel stood. Fifty or sixty came to hear us, and some spoke in a friendly way to us. On the fourth day they seemed ashamed of their conduct. The savages in the island afterward claimed me as their kinsman and also as their great· grandfather. They said that their people had no queue, and, as I had none, therefore I must belong to the same race as themselves. We fixed up the chapel, and there preached Christ and Him crucified. We had one, two, and even three, hundred, many times listening, in that place, to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the world's Redeemer.
We went to another place further inland, among the mountains, and there put up a log church. Again, within sight of the lofty mountain ranges we preached Jesus to the people. The aborigines stood around the fires with us, and joined in singing praises to God in that territory of savages. One Sabbath, while at the place referred to above, I received a letter which read thus: " If you dare to come in again with your party, the savages declare that they will shoot you. They are determined to put you to death, and I would advise you not to come again." I went out to the service as usual that evening, and also decided to go about my Master's business again in the morning, irrespective of any letter sent by men, influenced by demons. When advancing toward these people in the jungle, and when on a peak, 1000, 1500, or perhaps 2000 feet high, we heard the shouts of the savages on the neighboring peak. This is a savage custom. We hailed them. They came 'out and looked for a moment, and then fired a volley, pointing their muskets upward. The leader signed, "It is all right." Since then five, ten, fourteen, sixteen years have passed away-yes, eighteen years. During my last visit to the place an old man eighty years of age came to me and said: "Do yon remember getting a letter from that place within the mountains? It was I who wrote that. I did my best to get
COLLEGE
+.
SAVAGES, EASTERN FORMOSA, WITH DR. MACKAY.
lB94.] MISSION WORK IN FORMOSA. >
the savages to put you to death. I did all I could. I dare not go to the savages myself, but live in these barren hills. I am very sorry for what I did. I ha'e listened to the Gospel, and now believe that Jesus Christ is my Redeemer, and I want to be baptized." All who know him declare that he is an entirely changed man. Even his face does not look the same, now that his whole body and soul is given to the Redeemer. Yes, his very countenance, at eighty, was changed. I baptized him and enrolled him as one of the converts in Formosa.
I and my students traveIled through many parts of this wild country. There are many changes in the islaud in twenty-two years. I love my native Canada, but not more than this beloved land. A bamboo like this that I hold in my hand is an old friend. I used it in fording streams, feeling the bottom where we were to step, and also supporting myself with it in travelling. We carried wild banana leaves to scrve us as umbrellas during heavy rains.
We went to one large city caIled Bang-kah, and tried to get an opening there. We succeeded in getting a house at the outskirts near an encamp- ment of soldiers. We put out over the door, " Jesus' Holy Temple." A soldier came and told us that we must get out of that place, as the ground did not belong to the owner of the house. I told the studeuts they would better Jeave. me. The soldiers got excited, and I found it absolutely necessary to leave, as the Jand belonged to the government and the house to the soldiers. I started to leave, and the city got excited, and the British con- 'sul came to see what the matter was. Dense crowds gathered. Some of the people threw bricks from the roofs of the houses. They reviled and hooted. The consul said to me, " You would better go down to Tamsui for the present, as it will be illlpossible to get in here for three years at least." Then I asked God to open up a way for us into that city. At nine o'clock we walked back and got into the suburbs on the other side, where I rented another house, getting the proper legal doculllents from the owner of the house before midnight. I put> up again over the door, " Jesus' Holy Temple." The people came from the streets and looked in for a moment. Some of them did not wait to give expression to their thoughts ; but others said, " He is a perfect devil out and out." A great crowd gathered, and they were getting excited. Very soon they began to send in beggars; some were sitting down, others standing and pushing us about. Beggars and lepers coming in in snch large numbers soon left us yery little space even for standing. The crowd was getting> more and more excited. I saw one or two from the places where we had been before, and extracted some of their teeth for them. We overlleard some saying, " He is not big; one blow would be sufficient." Day after day they were getting more aroused; and the third day, in the middle of the afternoon, they began to twist their queues around their heads and tie up their clothes around their waists, ready for actiou. One man threw a stone at the building, aud then-if you have ever seen an angry Chinese crowd! It baffles description. The Chinaman is easily excited, and is ungovernable, when enraged. Then they pulled the building down, carried it away, and took up even the very foundation. I directly walked with the students into a building right opposite. The owner of that inn came with tears in his eyes and begged us to leave. The British consul came again, and a mandarin, in his large chair. The mandarin told the consul to order me out of the city, but the latter said he had no right to do that. I felt that Jesus was my Master, and He had said, " Go preach the Gospel." When the consul started to leave they yelled and screamed at him with contempt.
I walked with him as he bravely stepped out of the city. The ~andarin then tried another way-begging and begging that I would also leave the city. I showed him my forceps and my Bible, and told him I was there in obedience to my Master. He wrote officially to say that he would put up a building outside of the city for me if I would go there ; but we had planted stations outside of the city already, and now we determined to plant our standard inside its gates. Finally, we had another building put up on the very site of the one tbat had been torn down, not an inch from it one way or the other. That also was pulled down, and then we erected a larger one near it, and that shared the same fate. But there now, in Bang-kah, we have a church with a spire! There is a great change. We see what God has wrought. Dark, proud, ignorant Bang-kah, with all its bigotry, welcomes the worship of the living God. Some of the same head- men who at that, time stirred up that mob of four thousand, who gathered around to kill us, called the people together a short tiI,lle ago, and said: " The missionary is now going to leave us to visit his native land, and we must show him what the meaning of our heart is. " Tbe people had done what they chose in village, town, and city everywhere when I travelled through at first, and I decided tbey should follow out their own free will, when leaving, though I neither w,anted nor needed any of their honors, even as I do not want them from Canada. They did it with a purpose. They as- sembled in the large opeu space in front of the tent where the mob bad assembled formerly ; aud many of the chief men ordered for us a grand parade, and came with eight bands of Chinese music, and banners and umbrellas of state, such as they would carry before the governor. They formed a procession, beginning in front of a large temple ; asked me to sit in a large sedan chair lined with silk, and went through the city with flags flying, and thus they insisted on carrying me through the town, and escorted us to the boat, wishing us blessing and offering gratitude to God.
There in foreign style they cheered us, while the converts sang what tbey knew: .. I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend His cause; Maintain the glory of His cross, A.nd honor all His laws," etc.
This showed the great power of God, the living God. We do not ack~owl- ~dge His power as we ought. I am afraid that many in Christian lands do not believe what they profess respecting the living God. At other places scattered about yonder we planted twenty or thirty churches, and then caine to a plain, travelling with the students among the aborigines on the east side. The people in one village 'said: "You have been going up and down through this plain for some time ; if you will come to ouI' place you will see what we can do." They fixed up a shelter with poles and sails, and we'remained there the whole night. At daybreak the leader decided to erect a place of worship, and the people, instead of going out to fish, went to get rafters for the building. There we taught them the Gospel. Would to God many of the people of Canada were there to see-fishermen going out in their boats singing praises to God, and the old women weaving and singing. They were taking in the plain Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is ever fresh. In a short time the whole village of these aborigines, men, women, and children, would meet j one would take a shell and blow on it, aI.1d then all would join and sing praises to God : " All people that on earth do dwell Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice; Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell, Come ye before Him and rejoice."
Here, back in Canada, I am quite at sea in the midst of ever-increasing machinery. There we have everything so simple–just the plain Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the plain asking for aid in His work-no ceremony about it. Yonder we are living back in the first century.
After that the people in another village came, and we soon had fifteen churches planted in that plain. We put a native preacher in each village, to preach Jesus Christ simply, and not waste precious time in declaring vain speculations, for we are not wont to spend our time on any such menevolved schemes. My students in Oxford College-not Oxford, England, but Oxford, Formosa-study the BibIe in the morning, at noon, and at night; we begin with the Bible and end with the Bible, and preach Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of men. We can trust these students to preach what they know of Divine truth. Some people may suppose that these aborignes, or the Chinese, cannot get a clear idea of the Gospel plan of salvation. They do get a very clear idea of it, because God intended that they should. One of them went to a place on the plain further down and labored there. For eleven years I had purposed going in that direction; but now receiving a letter from him to come down, I felt that I had a call to.go. I got a boat and went down at night, lest the savages might see us. Four hundred soldiers had been killed there. We narrowly escaped a similar fate. When the boat came up to the place of landing a man met us, and said: "You are Mackay, the missionary." A pony was brought for myself to ride on, and the students rode in an ox-cart. We got five villages to assemble, to Wb()Ill we proclaimed the truth day after day, exhorting and discussing. One night all the headmen assembled in front of the house and began to talk very loud. I asked what was the matter j and they said: "Nothing, only we are angry that we have been so long deceived with the worship of idols. " Who could sleep under such circumstances? I have spent many a sleepless night in Formosa, and I do not car~ how many more I spend for such reasons as these. Our Master suffered ten thousand times more than that. These people brought their idols in baskets from all around; and when they were piled in a heap, we sang again: " I'm not ashamed to own my Lord."
And then the heap was set on fire. Some of the people who were indignant at their having been so long deluded were shoving the idols further and further into the fire, so as to get rid of them the sooner.
In Northern Formosa we had twenty churches here, and twenty more there, and others further down; and after the French had bombarded us there we started twenty more. As we met eight Frenchmen in a ravine they were suddenly on their knees, pointing their guns at my breast; but their attention was turned at once to this white flag of truce in my hand. At that moment no American or British or German flag could have saved us as this flag of truce did. I have often thought that no flag of external forms of righteousness, or meritorious acts, Qr speculative theological dreams could save the perishing soul. The blood-stained banner of Jesus can save the sinner from pole to pole, and nothing but that. Young men attending the universities and colleges can do nothing without that banner.
We have thus established sixty churches and put a trained native minister in each church. I am enabled to be here because of the sterling ability of my first convert, whom I have entrusted with the oversight of the whole work in my absence. He has stood faithful to the cause for more than twenty years. When my second convert told his mother that he was going to accept the Saviour, she took a stone and nearly killed him; but now she is saved, herself. One of my converts is a Tauist priest, who accepted the truth. Some might say that the poor aborigines who have no minds may be simple enough to believe in Christianity; but here is a priest who was brimful of speculative philosophy, and he is now a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel has not lost its power. It is still the chosen instrument for bringing souls into the kingdom. .A.nother convert is a Bachelor of Arts, who might be seen in his graduating dress, standing six feet high; and he who used to lOOk down upon me with contempt now looks up to me with respect. When he accepted the Gospel he was so humble, so gentle, that all were impressed. He is a man of great mental calibre, and is now in a city of 50,000 inhabitants, preaching Jesus and Him crucified. He was a Confucian of the Confucians, but is now a defender of the glorious Gospel. Another convert is a young man, who two years ago went up to an examination where there were 3000 candidates, and his name came out at the top of the list. He, too, is a Confucianist no longer, but has accepted the Gospel of Jesus.
r would not spend five minutes teaching the heathen anything, before presenting the Gospel to them; but r would teach them afterward what may assist them in preaching the Gospel. The religion of Jesus Christ has pervaded the public mind so fully, that it would be impossible to trump up, in the northern part of the island, any such stories as that we missiona- ries were seeking to dig out the eyes of the Chinese children. What a change has been wrought there by the Gospel! The idea of a mandarin coming inside a chapel twenty-two years ago! But now they send in their cards and visit us with bands of soldiers !
For a long time we had trouble on account of the French invasion of the island. The French bombarded a town where we had a mission, and the shells fell all about us-some only a few feet away, but not one of us was hurt. Once we were intercepted by the French and taken prisoners. They blindfolded us and marched us for miles out of our way, but we escaped. Once on board a British man-of-war the balls from the French guns cut the air all about us, but we plllled out from the French lines and were saved. Once r wanted to go to the a.thar part of the island during the invasion. r applied to the British consul for protection, and then went, carrying the British flag, and the Chinese broke their ranks and divided before me. Once. as I have said, eight guns were pointed at my breast, for they took me for a German spy, but I held up a white flag of truce, and so again escaped with my life.
The natives had great resentment toward us after the invasion, and pulled down our churches and persecuted the converts terribly. One convert, an old lady with considerable means, had everything she had in the world stolen from her. Her house was demolished and her body was bruised black and blue, but she would not deny her Lord. A young man had his fingers joined by bamboo splits and tied till the blood oozed out of them ; they' demanded of him to forsake his trust, but he did not turn his back on Jesus. In another place they pulled down the splendid church and took every vestige of it off and buried it in a huge grave. They placarded it with these words, " Mackay, the black-bearded devil, is here." " Now," said they, "we have wiped out the work; now it is all gone." But they did not wipe it out. Men and devils cannot do that; as well try to wipe out the universe. All these trials they endured for the same Jesus, the same Spirit, the same Word. I cannot understand people being ashamed of the Jesus that the people of Formosa can love. Oh, that book, the Bible! It is full. It teems. You can never get to the bottom of it. I have found it a spring which never can be drained. There is no use in telling me that the Chinese are not faithful, that they are double-minded. There are people with double minds in more places than China. Of course they are not all sincere, neither are they here in America; but I never saw more fidelity to Christ anywhere than in Formosa, In the north I built not only Oxford College, for training native evangelists and teachers, but the girls' school, and a hospital. In some places where we tried to preach to the people the men just deliberately left and the women and children crept off into the house. You say that is discouraging when they will not stay to listen. " Discouragement!" Destroy that word! Blot it out of the Christian's vocabulary! With the living God in front of us, behind us, below us, within us, above us, where is the place for discouragement 1 I do not understand that word. Jesus says, "Go !" and" Come !" and no "ifs" nor "buts" nor "ups" nor " downs" about it.
I have found it a help to my work to minister to bodily ills. I extracted twenty-one thousand teeth in twenty-one years, and thirty-nine thousand in all; and have dispensed considerable medicine. Extracting teeth is cheaper than dealing out medicine, for after you have your instrument there is no outlay. The natives have lost all faith in their old doctors. Here is one thing that most people do not know-that a commander of a British man.ofwar helped the Lord's work wonderfully there in Formosa in its inception. More than can be told in words or put on paper he helped. He would repeat sentences and ask me to translate and repeat them to the natives. He said, " Tell them that I am a Christian. Tell them that I am on a British man-of-war of Queen Victoria, but I serve a greater king." May his name go down with Formosa-he stuck to it.
In one place where we went to preach, the chief man ordered the sails to be brought from the boats and to be stretched upon bamboo poles. Here we preached and sang. There is one hymn that always takes with the Chinese; it is about the shortness of life. " We come into the world with our empty hands and we leave it in the same way." This the Chinese have in proverb, which sentiment we have also in hymn. Some of you are rich and live in fine houses, but you will have to go with your hands empty. 'Ve are all marching on, all crossing the same narrow strip. What does it matter, it's only for a day and then we are off. There is a generation pushing us off the stage, and that generation behind us is in turn being pushed on. I have told you how, the first day I spent in one city in Formosa, I had the privilege of gathering together the idols of five villages, representing five thousand people, and casting them into the fire. " I have cast their gods into the fire, for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands." Yes, we truly" cast them to the moles and to the bats." We fling them into oblivion. Some were so disgusted with them that they split them up before bringing to us. How mighty the gcspel seemed ~mid such scenes as this !
OIlce, where we began to build a chapel, and the natives went in ba,nds to the mounta.ins to get timber for the rafters, they had to fight their way, weapons in hand, and many came home at night bleeding. Now, in that village-I repeat it-you could hear the fishermen, as they rowed their boats out into the sea, keeping melody with the oars, singing, " I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, Or to defend His cause."
I have heard them, and the poor old women in their huts singing, "There is a happy land"-the whole village worshipping God. When the people in the neighboring villages witnessed this, they said, ' , We must have something like this," and thus churches were established around, and so it came to pass that we have sixty churches in all and two thousand converts, and native pastors in each church.
Once we were confined in a chapel all night, with the savages from the mountains on the outside. They would creep up with long poles and try to fire the building. We had no human protection, but we had God, and if it had been His will everyone of us was ready to welcome death. As the morning began to dawn the cowardly savages skulked away to the mountains.
Once with two converts I started for the southern part, where we wanted to establish a church. We arrived near the small village just at dark. We inquired at a house if we could stay with them for the night. They shut the door in our faces. The next place we asked to stay, they said, ' , No place here for foreign devils.' , We inquired at another place, and the man said, after a long hesitation, "There's an ox-stall; you can stay in there." He did as much as give us each a bowl of rice, which we were thankful for. The ox-stall was very much like the old stall in this country, with upright poles. One of the converts with me was an old man who had owned rich tea farms, and had lost all for Christ's sake. He was not used to sleeping in an ox-stall, but it humbled him, and afterward he did better service as a preacher to his people. How all this does make one think of the Redeemer, who came down to do His best for us! The Lord of glory was rejected. It is of little consequence if we do not get quarters for the night. I hope no one will ever mention my name in connection with persecution in Formosa if he does not speak of those natives who with me carried the banner of the Lord Jesus. Over and over again I have seen men shed tears when they remembered the way they had treated us, when they thought how badly they had persecuted us. They are themselves astounded at what they did.
When you are young you think you can put off God ; but come with me to the city of the dead, and you will find the young at eighteen and nineteen there. "Shame /" is the word, that men in Canada will not believe Jesus. They ask me over there in Formosa if every living soul in Canada is a Christian and a zealous follower of Jesus. What can I say to them ~ In a large city toward the northwest of the island we searched for a little room to begin work in. We got a small room, where pigs were kept j we drove two pigs out, and got a man to come and clean up a little and w:Qitewash the place. A mob stopped the work for a while, and we rcmain~d out in the streets till they left us to go on with the building and cleaning. They spit on us and taunted us, but that was not anything. It is there, that to.day the converted Confucianist, a graduate, a B.A., preaches in a large church. Crowds come to converse with him.
An old man over seventy walked to our services on Saturday for three years and brought others with him a long distance. Some of the converts sent $10 back with him to help start a chapel where he lived. Talk about self-supporting churches, self-propagation! There is self-propagation in a score of churches in Formosa, and the work is but twenty-two years old. In each church is a map of the world, and through the week the native preacher announces that he will speak at night on Germany, or England, or America, or some other country, till they go through every country in the world. He tells them of Toronto and of the university there, etc.
I once fell in with an English Church clergyman at sea, coming from the Philippine Islands. He said, " I have just been speaking with a Baptist missionary and telling him that this missionary business is all stuff. You're a missionary, are you~" I said, "Yes." "Well, I want to tell you it's all bosh and sham. I've been at the Philippine Islands a while, and let me tell you you are just fooling away your time. One day a man will say he is a Chrbtian, just to get employment, and the next day he is a heathen, just to get employment. It's all fraud. " " Now," I said, " I have listened, and treated your statements courteously j will you do the same to my statements~" He said he would have to do so. I told him that men in Formosa were not saying they were Christians or heathen as it suited them, to get employment. They were not getting and keeping money there, but they were rather giving out their money. In one place they pay their pastor $17 a month. During the famine they took up a large subscription and sent it to their suffering brothers on the mainland. I told him, as I have told you, that there are double-faced people all over the world, who are characterized by duplicity, but they were not all so. Re admittcd that when he left, there were a few who came to see him off and were grieved to see him go.
I do not agree with the popular notions about the Chinese. I claim to know something of Chinese character, and think I have a good right to know their dispositions, virtues, vices, etc. j for my own wife is Chinese. The first five students who were baptized have remained faithful during these twenty-OM long years j and they have passed through many trials and persecutions. Whenever we arrived at a stopping-place they would always go and get water to wash our feet, and would help change our clothes and do our evening work, attending to sick people and preaching Christ.
Some will say that it is all very well to talk of converts in Formosa in a speech j but we all know the duplicity of the Chinese. I can say that I know of similar traits in many Canadians. Christian Chinamen in Northern Formosa are just as 1rue as any disciples that I know of anywhere. Four hundred of those converts in Formosa have come to the end of the fight, including men, women, and children j and they have fought a
AT BJ.:<u-;';:"a
MISSION WORK IN FOlUlOBA
good fight. I have stood beside death-beds in Scotia, my native land; I have seen men die in Canada, in Africa, in China, and I have found these foUl' hundred converts, who have died in Formosa, showing evidences of – the same faith in God. And the first convert, my main helper, still remains faithful, and is now taking charge of the whole work in my absence as a sort of bishop. Let us work on, press on for our Redeemer, for the time is short. "Not unto us, 0 Lord; but unto Thy name give glory."
Many of these converts have gone to their eternal home. Their names may be treated with ridicule, indifference, or slander; no such things can affect glorified saints. They have finished their earthly course, and are beyond the reach of harm. They breathed their last, trusting Jesus.
Where is the room for "waiting" in their case to see whether they backslide or not 1 Among the living also we have all classes-tradesmen, mechanics, scholars-men tried in all the ways in which we are tried here, preaching Jesus Christ and walking under His banner.
We add some extracts from a remarkable letter written by a Chinese con- vert, describing the departure of Dr. Mackay for home. He has labored in that island as a missionary for about twenty-two years; and his success has been very notable, impressing his personality on all the people in a most extraordinary way, to call forth such demonstrations.
"When Pastor Mackay visited the stations throughout Tek-cham dis- trict, converts and heathen crowded to show him honor and respect. At every station several hundreds came out to meet him, and then followed again when he was leaving, converts waving green branches, and heathen burning fire-crackers. The church people were very sad and could not keep back thcir tears. Indeed all were of one mind and unwilling to let him go, though they wished him a pleasant visit to his native Canada.
" All through Rap-tsu-lan district whole villages came out to meet him, and escorted him when he left, entreating him to return soon. On this trip it was not merely converts who came; throughout all North Formosa the heathen joined with converts to honor Pastor Mackay and wish him a safe journey. Men and women, old and young, wept much. They could scarcely bear to let him go even for awhile, because he has been in and out among Chinese now for twenty-one years, and everyone loves him.
" Throughout Tamsui district it was the same, hundreds expressing good wishes. Everywhere crowds and music and gunpowder, but in Bang kah City the greatest crowd of all. There in the procession were three mandarins, five head men, twenty sedan chairs, six horses, and many, many people, with drums and gongs and other things more than I could write about. Then they hired the little steamer to take Pastor Mackay to Tamsfii, and more than three hundred people came down with him. Little over twenty years ago Bang kah people were such determined enemies, verily wicked in their hatred. Now they have been even more enthusiastic than others in showing their good will ; that day all through the city the Chinese were praising Pastor Mackay and his teaching, not a single soul uttered an ill word. Thank God! because in all North Formosa the yery strongest fort of the enemy was Bang kah City. Praise our Jehovah, praise Him for what He has done !
" On the 18th, at two o'clock, there were more than seven hundred of the converts, men, women, and children, to see Pastor and Mrs. Mackay and the rest .go. Chinese had drums and gongs and firecrackers, for-
UNOCCUPIED FIELDS OF THI£ WORLD
eigners fired guns, and there were bands of music. All the foreigners boarded one steam launch, the mandarins and head men another, convertsmany in tears-took a third, old and young filled little boats, and the whole crowd-as many as the boats would hold, followed the vessel right out to sea, as far as they dared go. "
UNOCCUPIED FIELDS OF THE WORLD.-II.
BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, LONDON, ENGLAND.
Mongolia.-Passing from Thibet we naturally think of another section of the Chinese Empire beyond the Wall of much larger area, though smaller population-namely, Mongolia. This immense region, larger than China proper, consists of an elevated plain 4000 feet above the sea, unfit for the most part for agriculture, but possessing, in the north especially, grasslands in sufficient abundance to support the flocks of the nomad in- habitants. The climate is excessively cold and dry, the winter long. and from the reluctant soil a little wheat, oats, buckwheat, and millet are wrung. Mongolia has four divisions: (1) Inner Mongolia, which lies beyond the south of the desert of Gobi and the Wall j (2) Outer Mongolia, extending from the north of the Gobi to the Altai Mountains; (3) the country adjoining Koko-nor j and (4) the dependencies of Uliassutai.
The entire population is reckoned at 2,000,000, and consists of Kalmuks in the west, Buriats in the northeast, and Khalkhas in the centre. It re- mains to add that all that religiously obtains in respect of Thibet applies to Mongolia.
This vast tract of country has had, so far as is known, only one mis- sionary, "the lamented Gilmour," and still must rank as an unoccupied field. On inquiry, however, we learn that though" Gilmour" has ceased from his labors, it is not the intention of the London Missionary Society to allow his work to lapse. The intention is to put two, if not more, laborers into this field who, like Gilmour, shall itinerate and sow the seed of Gospel knowledge as widely as possible. No reason exists why Mon- golia should not be occupied. The door is open enough. The real diffi- culty concerns the immensity of the region, the severity of the climate, the sparseness of the p~pulation, the poorness of the country, the abound- ing squalor and filth, and the general depravation of type. Are there Christians who have love enough for Mongolia to come into line with these Mongol tribes, content, as it were, to go out of the world in order to save the world ~ At present there are no Prote&tant missionaries in all this vast region, including Koko-nor, but Roman Catholics are at work among the Ortus Mongols. The Roman Catholics are also at work among the Kalmuks of Kuldja.
Closely related to Mongolia is the extensive province of Manchuria.
But this country, while little known and still less occupied, does not strictly come within the sc<>pe of this paper, for at Niu-chwang, Mukden, and Kirin, Presbyterian missionaries have raised the standard of testimony. The Greek Church, also, is seeking to Christianize the Gilyaks and the Goldi, nomad tribes of the Lower Amur and Assuri.
Ili.-The populous land of IIi, however, is emphatically a field unoccu- pied. IIi, to which the Chinese have given the name of Sin-Kiang, or the New Province, comprehends what is generally known as Sungaria and Chinese Turkistan. There is nothing like unity of race in these vast domains. Sungaria, which is the open highway to China, Dr. Lansdell calls " an oUa podrida of races, languages, and religions." The Kalmuks are, as the Thihetans in creed, Lamaists ; the Turkish peoples, otherwise known as Uigurs, Dungans, Turanchis and Kashgarians, are followers of the false prophet ;/while the Chinese, who figure as the lords of creation, are Confucians or else Buddhists proper. To this number is to be added the Manchus, from whom throughout IIi the army in possession is drawn, and who are Buddhists of the Lamaist type. The population of Sungaria is reckoned at 2,000,000, but what the population of Chinese Turkistan is we have no sufficient means of determining. Probably it is double the above amount.
The chief races occupying Chinese Turkistan may be classified as follows: Kalmuks, Manchus (soldiery), Kirghese, and Turks. The Kirghese and Turks are the most widely spread-the former ranging over the mountainous land principally, " north, south, and west of Kashgar as far as the Pamirs," the latter forming the staple population of the cities and towns. The Kirghese are remarkable for their powers of organic resistance. The temperature of their blood is high, and they excel in withstanding cold, heat, hunger, thirst, and physical sufferings of all kinds. To complete the marvel, their wounds quickly heal. The wondcr is that with all these advantages they do not rival the antediluvians in longevity; but in this matter they fall short of our own dimensions.
The town population of Chinese Turkistan, whom we may designate Turks, seem to be a mixed race, the ground type being Mongol with an infusion of Aryan blood. Among them faces presenting the characteristic traits of the Caucasian race appear, aquiline with thick beard; but the prevailing features are Mongolian-projecting cheek-bones, little beard, large nose, thick lips, complexion swarthy, but devoid of the yellow tint of the Chinese. As a rule the race is hard-working and theft rare; but narcotics are much used-hemp, tobacco, opium, henbane, thorn-applethe result being that the nerves are enfeebled and madness common. So loose is the marriage tie that it can hardly be said to constitute a bond at all. For four or five shillings a wife may be bought at any time, and virtually may be divorced at will. Hence there are women among them who have had their thirty or forty husbands, and think no shame of it. Still lower in the scale of morality are the Dolan settlements along the Yarkand, a race of degraded physique, promiscuous social habits, and enfeebled intelligence. Such, after centuries of unresisted sway, are the fruits of Islam's rule. Can it be wondered at that the countenances of the people should lack expression, tkt the lustre of life should have died out, and that through the excessive stimulation of the flesh the spirit should soon subside wearily to exist, we cannot call it live, in the neutral zone of indifference?
The power of the false prophet, viewed from the standpoint of the permissive will of God, is one of earth's greatest mysteries. Why has that fleshly system, reared on the key-stone of woman's degradation, been suffered ruthlessly, over the whole Asiatic mainland, to lord itself over God's heritage? There was a time when almost the whole of Asia was an occupied field. Amru, who wrote about 1349, mentions twenty-five metropolitan and episcopal sees covering the entire continent. "Christians existed at Kashgar, at Yarkand, at Urumtsi, Suchau and Kanchu, at Tenduc, as well as in Manchuria and the country bordering on Korea." Missionary fervor and enterprise were by no means defunct even in the Dark Ages, when the Church of the West was locked in sleep; for then Nestorian Christians were carrying the torch of Gospel light to the ends of the carth. And when the light was diffused and churches planted in all parts, the forces of Islam came, like fiends let loose from the pit, and by brute force stamped out the cause of Christ in Central Asia, so that for centuries it was unsafe for one who bore the name of Christian even to travel in the land.
Happily now, though that bl'Utal faith remains the religion of the people, it no longer is the creed of the governors. We may infer, therefore, that Islam in IIi has seen its best days. Islam is mighty when backed by carnal weapons, and when, invested with rule, she can make her own terms with the " infidel." But those palmy days are over in IIi. The Chinese Mandarins have no interest in, no association with, the religion of the people; hence the field, though unoccupied, shows a door at least ajar. There is no reason why, speaking after the manner of men, this field should remain unoccupied. If Roman Catholics can carryon missionary work at Kuldja, there is no reason to believe that the Protestant missionary would be unable to find a footing at Yarkhand, or Kashgar, or Aksu, or Khotan. Dr. Lansdell is strongly convinced as to the feasibility of such an undertaking. The time is ripe for it. Islam has not now the sword to wield in IIi against the infidel. She is shorn, accordingly, of her argumentative power. Besides, the people are not soaked in their creed to the extent that Moslems arc elsewhere. They have been too often upset by Buddhists and others. There is not so much, therefore, of long-standing and fanatical prejudice to tear up. "Who will go and build again the walls of this ruined Jerusalem ?"
Nepal and Bhotan.-Both these countries come within our present scope, and as they adjoin and h/lve many features in common, we place them before the reader in their juxtaposition and total lack of the one thing needful. Nepal is confined almost entirely within the Himalayas and is a kind of parallelogram, the length from west to east being 450 miles aud the breadth from north to south on an average 100 miles. Thibet forms the northern boundary, Sikkim and Bhotau the eastern, while on the west Nepal is bounded by the English province of Kumaon, and on the south by the plains of the Ganges. The country is governed by the Ghoorkas, a brave tribe which about the middle of last century acquired ascendancy over the other tribes of the land, and wnose prince is sovereign. The area is estimated at 54,000 square miles, and the population between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000. Unlike Thibet, the tribes inhabiting Nepa! are not homogeneous in religion. Some are of Mungol origin and are Buddhists, but the majority are Hindu in faith and in descent. The country has been locked against the civilized and religious world. Sir Jung Bahadoor was a prominent figure while he lasted. For thirty years he was, as Joseph to Pharaoh, the prime-minister in the land, with this difference that he was greater than Pharaoh himself, the king being a mere puppet in his hands. This despot, after swaying the fortunes of Nepal for a whole generation, died in 1877. His wisdom was not equal to his strength of will and power to govern. The country was left by him very dark indeed, without a shred of education, slavery existent in its worst form-a land, too, closcd equally in the face of the merchant and the missionary, the geologist and the sportsman. We know of nothing that is being done for the tribes that dwell in this dark region.
The like applies to Bhotan, a country of much smaller area than Nepal, but possessing a larger population, the area being 20,000 square miles, and the population over 3,000,000. Since 1865 the independence of the kingdom has been seriously curtailed by the British occupation of the Dwars or passes, a measure taken by the British Government in selfdefence. Throughout the country the religion is Buddhism, and the government ecclesiastical and oligarchical. The nominal head is marked off from the common clay of earthly lineage as a vase too sacred to be pro. faned to common uses, and is, in fact, treated more as a god than a sovereign j but in place of the Dherma Rajah, the nominal head, is the Deb Rajah, the actual head, whose jurisdiction is circumscribed by a council of eight. The Bhotans, while miserably degraded and of dirty habits, given over to polygamy on the one hand and polyandry on the other, arl> said to be a fine race, ingenious in the construction of their houses and in other manual efforts.
Afgltanistan and Beloochistan, which, although politically separated, are normally one, constitute another large unoccupied mission field. The Afghans are excessively fierce, and in later times have degenerated from the high chivalry which formerly was an eminent trait in their character. They are described as being "most consummately deceitful, wantonly and ferociously babarous, revengeful and rapacious j" and while " always on the alert for war," yet" lamentably deficient in intrepidity and coolness, and quite unable to withstand the steady charge of a determined foe." The leading towns, Cabul, Peshawur, Ghiznee, Candahar, etc., are inhabited mainly Qy Hindus and Persians. The Afghans themselves scorn commerce, and are nearly all soldiers or priests. Mohammedanism prevails, and is of the most fanatical type.
Bounded on the north by Turkistan, on the east by tte Punjab, on the south by Beloochistan, and on the west by Pllrsia, Afghanistan consists mainly of an elevated tableland which reaches a height of 6000 feet above the sea, gradually diminishing, however, as it extends westward toward the Persian frontier, to half that height. The Indus is the principal river, which runs in a south-southwest direction between two immense mountain ranges, which rise in some parts to 18,000 and 20,000 feet. A feature of special interest in the geography of the country is the valley of the Cabul River, a valley containing three basins or plains, which are named respectively after the cities there located-Cabul, Jellalabad, and Peshawur. The population is mixed. The Afghans, who are the ruling nation, and believed by themselves to be sprung from Jewish captives, are spread over the whole of the tableland j but among them are settled Tajiks, Hindus, Khuzzilbashes, and Arabs, with a slight sprinkling of Armenians, Abyssinians, and Kalmuks, while the mountains are largely in the possession of other tribes. Afghanistan, which is autocratically ruled, has a population, including Beloochistan, which only numbers about 500,000, of about 6,000,000 or 7,000,000. * Siberia.-It is difficult to know how to assign this immense and thinly peopled region, the square mileage of which is 6,000,000 and the population 5,000,000. Deficient in solar warmth, it is yet more terribly shorn of the Gospel's vivifying beams. The Greek Church is horribly dead-a mere mumble of confession and sacrament. Still, of late years God has not left Himself without a witness in that sad, benighted land. Dr. Baedeker has repeatedly traversed the Siberian Continent with the view of opening the prison doors to them that were bound, and much blessing has rested on his evangelizing tours. Like another Paul the aged, he makes an appeal to the Timothies of our age which, we trust, will bear much fruit. "My time is running out j I am now seventy years of age j consequently I can scarcely hope to repeat my visit to Siberia. I, therefore, wish to stir up the holy ambition of my younger brethren to take up this glorious work of carrying the light into the darkest places of the world, where sin rules over men, and where nothing but the Gospel of redemption by the blood of Jesus can be of any avail."
Annam.-The kingdom of Annam, with an area of 200,000 square miles and a popUlation of 6,000,000, is virtually unoccupied, for there • The Waziris of Afghanistan have just come under the British Protectorate. The probabilities are that a missionary entrance will be effected from Bunnu, a medical station of the Church Mi.- .ion…,. Society. The way is paved by the translation of the Scriptures into .. Pushter."
MISSIONS AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
are absolutely no Protestant missions in Annam. In 1889 the Gospel of St. Luke in the Annamese tongue was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society from a translation made by M. Bouet, a French Protestant, who resided twenty years in the country, and is now chief Government Interpreter at the Paris School of Oriental Languages. This is the only part as yet translated into this tongue out of the whole Bible, and the country still awaits the preacher who shall make known its message of love.
Tonquin, with a population of 12,000,000, is in a similar condition to that of Annam. This, the most thickly populated district of the peninsula, has balf a million of Roman Catholics, but " no one to show them the' more excellent way '-the only way."
The like is true of Lower Cochin China, the Philippine Islands and Oambodia. For a time Mr. F. de P. CastelIs, of the British and Foreign Bible Society, circulated many Chinese and other Scriptures in Saigon, but after a brief stay illness obliged him to leave. From all these regions rises the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help us."
Arabia is not now entirely without Gospel agency. On the extreme southwestern coast is the Ion Keith-Falconer Mission of hallowed memory, while in Northern Arabia the North Africa Mission made a start in 1886 by sending a brother to labor among the Bedouin descendants of Ishmael. The brother in question has retired, but another brother and his wife are taking up the work, and are at the present time in training in Egypt.
(To be concluded.) MISSIONS AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
BY REV. EGERTON R. YOUNG, TORONTO, ONTARIO.
Parkman's fascinating volumes charm us with the recital of the heroic zeal and dauntless courage of the early ecclesiastics of the Church of Rome, who, in their efforts to save from a dark and debasing paganism the red Indians of North America, displayed such a spirit of self-abnegation and self-denial.
While most emphatically differing from some of their teachings and methods, we cannot but admire the spirit of sacrifice, of thorough consecration to their work, and the almost longing for the crown of martyrdom which characterized some of those heroic souls. Fearlessly and cheerfully they trod the then unknown wilderness for hundreds of miles, that they might reach the forest retreats of the fierce Mohawk, the timi.d and disheartened Hurons, or the bloodthirsty and then almost always victorious Iroquois. Where the pestilence raged among these savage tribes, these priests of Rome seemed almost ubiquitous. Utterly devoid of all fear, and apparently proof against contagion, they went where death held high carnival, that they might, as they fondly imagined, by performing their simple rites of baptism, and making the sign of the cross, open the portals of heaven to the expiring victims of small-pox or other loathsome diseases. Then when inter-tribal wars were prevailing, which was nearly always the case, and the terrible Iroquois were driving all before them, and many a forest glade was turned into a bloody battle-field, almost ere the echoes of the terrible war-whoop had died away, these Jesuit fathers and their co-laborers were to be found prowling among the dying and the dead, rapidly performing on the former the rites of their Church, and exulting in their delusion that thereby they had opened for them the gates of Paradise.
Traces are still to be found of the work of these early priests of the Roman Catholic Church. On the shores of the great lakes and in other parts of the Northwest some Indian missions still exist, as the surviving few of the many ouce established when the French was the dominant power on the northern half of this great American Continent, and the Indian tribes were numerous and powerful.
The missions to the North American Indians established by the Protestant churches are of a later origin. Among the earliest to enter the field were the devoted Moravians, whose self-sacrificing and persistent efforts to lead the Indians to a pure and simple Christianity form some of the grandest and most pathetic chapters of missionary toil in the new world. Very unfortunate and gloomy for the Indians were many of those years long antedating the Revolution, in which some of the best and bravest of that truly missionary church struggled so grandly to benefit both spiritually and temporally the poor red men of the forest.
The greed for land had entered into the hearts of the grasping white man, and so the poor Indian had to go. What cared they for his prior claims! Treaties, solemnly made and scrupulously kept by the natives, were unhesitatingly broken by the stronger race as soon as the land was wanted, and in spite of the entreaties and expostulations, and at times even tears of the Moravian missionaries, the poor Indians were remorselessly driven away from their hunting-grounds and the graves of their fathers. Broken-hearted and disconsolate, whole missions were obliged to retreat farther still into the then almOl;t unknown Western wilderness before the ever-advancing paleface, thankful if even there a few years of respite were given them, ere they were again compelled to sacrifice their all and again and again flee into the forest wilds.
The self-sacrificing spirit manifested by their Moravian missionaries, who accompanied these unfortunate tribes in their exile and shared their many privations, is beyond all praise. It is to be regretted that, in spite of such unremitting toil and effort, no abiding results remain. Hardly a vestige of their work continues to this day. The hardships of such conditions so told upon those once numerous tribes, that they are now like the tribes to whom Eliot and Brainerd ministered-annihilated. Amid the sadness and regret which come with the contemplation of the history of the red man, it is refreshing to read in old annals that, while several European nations were pa<rcelling out thc American Continents among themselves, and sovereigns were coolly giving charters" to court favorites" or "bands of ad,'enturers," iu some of them there were some injunctions or commands in referenee to the spiritual welfare of the Indians. For example, in the charter granted to the band of adventurers who, in the year 1607, selected that portion of the new continent which they called Virginia, in honor of Queen Elizabeth, as their colony, it was specifically ordered that they should" use all proper means to draw the savage and heathen people to the true knowledge and service of God."
It is also cheering to read among the reports which have come down to us, that in the early settlement of Maryland there were, among the first colonists, a number of devout and godly men, who, pitying the superstitions and degraded condition of the Indians, did much for their advancement in things temporal and spiritual. In one of the first lelters written back to England after the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, Mr. Cushman, one of the elders, mentioned the matter of Indian evangelization, and hopefully referred to " the tractable disposition of the Indian youths and the possibility of doing them much good."
Of the heroic efforts of Eliot and Brainerd I need not here write. The intensely interesting articles frcnD the pen of Dr. Gordon, already published in previous numbers of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW, have been an inspiration to multitudes. Their consecrated zeal and marvellous successes fired anew the hearts of such glorious men as Jonathan Edwards, Ge~rge Whitefield, and the two Wesleys. An eminent writer has declared that " the work of God among the Indians at that period was perhaps without parallel in heathen missions since the days of the apostles." David Brainerd, in writing of the wondrous work, said: "The power of God seemed to descend upon the Indians like a mighty rushing wind, and with astonishing energy bore down all before it. Marvellous were the results. Old men and women were in deep distress for their souls, and the most stubborn hearts were compelled to bow, and thousands were happily converted to God."
So profoundly impressed was John "Vesley with the scriptural character and genuineness of Brainerd's work among the Indians, that we hear him at one of his conferences with his ministers asking the question, " Vhat cau be done in order to revive the work of God where it is decayed ?"
In the reply, which is doubtless his own thought, among other things we read: "Let every preacher read carefully over the life of David Brainerd. Let us be followers of him as he was of Christ in absolute self-devotion, and in total deadness to the world and in fervent love to God and man. Let us but secure this point, and the world and the devil must fall at our feet." In Mr. Wesley's journals of 1767 he says, where he had, as desired, had a collection taken up for missions: "Will money convert heathen ~ Find preachers of David Brainerd's spirit, and nothing can stand before them j but without this what will gold or silver do 1" As an Indian mis- sionary himself Mr. Wesley cannot. be considered as having been a great success during the two or three years he spent in Georgia. Bound up in those early days in the trammels of a cold, dead formalism, destitute of that blessed spiritual" heart warming" which came to him in after years, and made his life and work so glorious, we hear him on his return voyage to England giving utterance to his sad thoughts in these words: "I went to America to convert the Indians j but oh ! who shall convert me? who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief ~ I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well j nay, and believe myself while no danger is near j but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. Nor can I say, ' To die is gain.' "
The honorable Hudson's Bay Company, which received its charter from Charles I., was expressly ordered to look after the spiritual interests of the Indians of the vast northern regions, where for over two centuries it held almost despotic sway. In compliance with this command, until a very recent date, many of the missions of different churches were in part sustained by grants of money from this wealthy corporation.
In the limited space of a MISSIONARY REVIEW article it is impossible to given even a brief resume of the whole continental field of missionary work among the Indians, and so in the space left at my disposal in this paper I will endeavor to confine myself to a cursory review of the Indian work as carried on by the Methodist Church in Canada. Other churches are doing grand work in the Dominion, and doubtless in future articles will have honorable mention.
The early pioneer Methodist missionaries who crossed over from the United States into the then new provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, now known as Ontario and Quebec, were deeply impressed with the degradation and needs of the poor Indians, who, wandering in the dense forests or on the shores of the great lakes, were the victims of the unprincipled vendors of the fire-watel". Once made drunk by the terrible intoxicant, the unfortunate hunters were then easily defrauded of their rieh and valuable furs. Poverty and !mffering the most deplorable naturally followed. For a time the government was apathetic and indifferent, and it seemed as if the whole raee of the red men would be annihilated by the rum fiend. Amid many discouragements the missionaries toiled, but for a long time the results were most discouraging.
h the year 1823 the conversion of an Indian lad, who afterward became the Rev. Peter Jones, gave the first real impetus to the work. The Rev. William Case, who had been one of the principal agents in his conversion, as he heard the once wild Indian boy in clear and scriptural language tell the simple story of his acceptance of Christianity, exclaimed with joyous emotion, "Now is the door open for the work of conversion in his nation." From this time onward for a number of years the work of evallgelizil1g the Indians was very successful. Whole bands of these wandering red men accepted Christianity, and a number of flourishing missions were established. The missionaries, true to their discipline, made total abstinence from all intoxicating beverages a necessary qualifica. tion for membership of the different societies. Thousands of the once drunken Indians became and continued total abstainers, often in the midst of the most persistent and dastardly efforts that were made to lead them astray. The Rev. Peter Jones, whose Indian name was Rah-ke-wa-quona-by, was a man of power_ Full of zeal and courage, under the guidance, and often in company with the Rev. William Case, who has most aptly been caned the father of Canadian missions, he went up and down among the Indian tribes of Canada, preaching the Gospel of the Son of God, which had so wondrously transformed him.
In those early days of that then new country's history, churches and even school.houses were hardly known outside of the few towns or villages j but" the groves were God's first temples," and so in some favored spots, under the sturdy oaks or beautiful maples, the tents were pitched and the primitive camp-meetings were held. vVith the multiplication of churches, these unique services have in their early effective methods passed away j but grandly did they serve their purpose in those crude times.
Not only did the early settlers from their lonely log-cabin homes come many miles through the forest roads to attend them, but the Indians, hearing that the" palefaces" were worshipping the Great Spirit in the woods, also were attracted to those leafy temples. The preachers of those days believed in all the verities of God's Word. They believed God and His ·Word-all of it. To them hell as well as heaven was a reality. They thundered against sin and its consequences, and spoke of punishment as well as reward. Multitudes of the unconverted went down before these faithful appeals, as those Boanerges thundered forth Jehovah's threatenings, and" reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. "
In these ministrations the Indians were not forgotten. Those among the ministry who could address them in their own language did so. Others, using interpreters to aid them, faithfully preached to them the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. Great success attended these efforts.
Amoug the Indian converts at these camp-meetings and similar services were a number of young men who afterward became successful ministers among their own people. To two of them only have we space here to refer.
John Sunday is our first example. His Indian name was Sha-wundais, and he was once a dark, degraded pagan of the lowest type. Acquiring a love for fire-water, which was very frequently given him by the wretched liquor sellers in exchange for his furs, he sank about as low down as ever a poor Indian could j but the Gospel had not lost its power to save, and 80 when Sha-wun-dais came under its influences, and was willing to be saved, it was not long before there was a marvellous transformation. The story of his conversion, as it was the writer's joy in boyhood days to hear him tell, was thrillingly interesting. In quaint language, often with his homely face wet with tears of gladness, he would say : " I kneel down to pray to God. I do not know what to say to ask for religion. I only say this: '0 Ke-say-man-ne-do Shah-na-ne-me-shim ! ' (' 0 Lord, have mercy on me, poor sinner ! ') By and by the good Lord, 'He pour His Spirit upou my poor wretched heart j then I feel He hears me, and I am happy in my heart. Oh, how glad I am! I look up. I look out at the trees j the same is everything NEW to me. I hope I got religion that day."
There was no doubt about it. John Sunday at once began to tell to his countrymen the story of his conversion, and to urge upon them the acceptance of this great salvation. For many years he lived a godly, consistent life, beloved by all that knew him. In England, where he was taken, thousands crowded to the missionary meetings where he was announced to speak. In that old land, as well as in Canada, he charmed the multitudes by his inimitable addresses, which sparkled with wit and yet were full of unction and power. He finished his course most triumphantly, and his body rests in the little Indian cemetery at Alnwick, near Rice Lake, close by the grave of his lifelong friend, the Rev. William Case.
Henry Steinheur was a native Indian convert who became also a missionary of great influence and usefulness. When a poor little, neglected pagan child he was picked up by the Rev. William Case, and brought up with loving Christian care. He developed into a bright and clever student, and at school and college acquired a broad and liberal education. When but a child he was found to be possessed of a very musical voice, and so with others was chcsen by Mr. Case to form a little company of native Indian children, with whom he travelled through various parts of the United States and Canada. Large audiences were attracted to the services, where these Indian children sang in their own language the sweet songs of Zion. Many hearts were touched and many erroneous impressions in reference to the poor Indians were removed, and multitudes who had been apathetic about the conversion of the Indians became interested in the subject, and an impetus was given to the work of evangelizing the red men rather than destroying them, such as it never had before.
When these singing tours and his college life were ended, Mr. Steinheur devoted himself most thoroughly to missionary life among his own people. He was a useful and a godly man. Not only in the old province of Ontario did he labor among the tribes there, but in the days of his man400d's prime he went far West, even to the Rocky Mountains, and there amid their glories, as well as on the great prairies, he faithfully labored, and not in vain, to bring many of the wild, proud Indians to the Cross. With the Rev. James Evans, the grandest, the most heroic, and the most useful of all our Canadian Indian missionaries, Mr. Steinheur labored among the northern Crees, whose hunting-grounds are far north of the now province of :Manitoba. In after years, when it was the writer's great ' privilege to labor in that same wild land, his heart was often gladdened by hearing some old Indians ask about Mr. Evans, that great miSSIonary who had given them his wonderful invention, the syllabic characters, by which they were able to read the great Book so easily. When the story of his sudden death had been told them, after a time of silence they would ask very kindly about Henry Steinheur, the missionary of their own race, who had been such a blessing to them, and whom they had loved so well.
Mr. Steinheur toiled during the closing years of his long ministry among the Cree and Stoney Indians, in the great Saskatchewan country of the Canadian Northwest. Wonderfully sustained by that Gospel which he had so long proclaimed to his countrymen of various tribes, he triumphantly passed away to his reward. Two well-educated and devoted sons have followed him into the ministry, and are faithfully carrying on the good work among their own people.
In a work so extensive, carried on in regions beset with so many dangers and where the toilers were" in perils oft," it is not to be wondered at that some, amid tragic surroundings, ended their career. The only wonder is that more fell not. One of the saddest cases was that of the Rev. George McDougall. His name had become a household word in the Dominion of Canada in connection with Indian evangelization. For over thirty years with indomitable zeal he had labored for the temporal and spiritual uplifting of the Indians. His mission fields were as large as empires. Neither the fierce, dangerous wintry blizzards nor the summer's exhausting heat could restrain his ardor and his courage.
Beloved by whole Indian tribes, and trusted by his Government as the wise, prudent counsellor to quiet and conciliate the restless, warlike ones, _e steadily rose in usefulness and commanding influence.
Sad and mournful and utterly inscrutable was his end. Caught in a blizzard storm not far from his place of refuge, he perished on the plains. Long days passed ere the frozen body was found. When discovered, it appeared as though angel hands had laid him out for his burial.
Thus they fall at their posts; but the work goes on. Sons rise up to take the places of the fathers. Thus it will be until the final consummation, when to His Son shall be given" tbe heathen for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession."
Haste, happy day!
NEW METLAXAlITLA
NEW METLAKAHTLA.
The Rev. Bishop Cridge and Senator Macd.onald. recently visited New Metlakahtla, where the inhabitants of Metlakahtla, B. C., headed by Mr. Duncan, have established themselves. Senator Macdonald was interviewed by a representative of the Golonist with thc following result. He said: " As to the present condition and the future prospects of the Metlakahtlans, the village site at Port Chester is a better site in every way than the old Metlakahtla, situated on a beautiful plateau, nearly level land extending to one thousand acres, with clean shady beaches oU three sides; which are highly appreciated by the Indians as affording facilities for launching and hauling up canoes, as well as for landing and shipping fish, wood, and other commodities. The soil is capable of cultivation when drained and cleared. The food supply is abundant, venison, salmon, and halibut to be had almost at iheir very doors. During our visit the beach was covered with millions of small fish, very good eating, and could be picked up by the cartload. The Indians appear satisfied with the change -no repining, no desire to go back to the old home.
" We questioned Mr. Duncan closely as to the reports about disaffected Indians retU:rning to old Metlakahtla, and he told us so far as he knew none of his people had left, excepting probably six in all, whom he would not have at the new settlement, and he could not say where they had gone to. About six hundred were at the new settlement, and about two hundred were working at the gold mines and canneries, who had not yet returned for the winter. The demand for men trained by Mr. Duncan is so great that they command from $2 to $3 wages per day.
" There is at the settlement one day school at present conducted by Mr. Duncan with the help of Indian assistants. The day we visited the school ninety-eight children were present. A building for an industrial school is being finished, with accommodations for sixteen girl pupils, boarders, and a male and female teacher, and a smaller building is to be erected for an equal number of boys. In the mean time, thirty young men have been sent to the industrial school at Sitka, where they stand out in bold relief from the other pupils for their good conduct and cleverness. The United States Government gives $1200 annually in aid of the day school, and will so maintain the industrial school also.
" As to industries carried on, only a saw-mill is operated at present, which has paid for itself in one year, and is found too small to supply the demand. The canneries, which have been getting their boxes from Portland, find that New Metlakahtla can supply better boxes much cheaper, and intend in future to get their boxes there, which means trade to the value of $20,000 and employment to a number of people. The logs are supplied, all the sawing done, the boxes cut and brand printed on by Indians, who are fully as expert as white men.
" As to buildings at the settlement, Mr. Duncan lives in a log-house; with an abundance of air and daylight coming through the chinks. Dr. Bluett has built a very neat frame cottage, which will be comfortable when finished. The.Jndians live in small houses at present, but will soon commence to erect their permanent houses on an improved plan on the new town site, in the laying out of which Mr. Duncan took counsel with Bishop Cridge and myself. It is intended to have a wide road on the sea front on the three sides of the village, a square of twelve acres in the centre, in which will be the church, day school, and two industrial schools. From this square streets for residential purposes will radiate. The most convenient part of the immediate water front will be for commercial purposes, and on a very pretty and well-wooded point will be the town hall and recreation grounds. There are also two large buildings, one built for a cannery, now used for a church and school-house, and one for the trade shop. A large building called the guest-house is erected on a convenient spot, where strange Indians can find shelter, with fuel, tables and benches. Such a building is a great boon, and is much patronized.
" Mr. Duncan gives the greater part of his time to the church and school. Dr. Bluett, a medical gentleman from England, who gives his services gratuitously, attends to the sick and takes some of the Sunday services (there being four). When Mr. Duncan is away, David Leask and others assist with the services. David Leask and John Tait manage the mercantile department, the former making periodical trips to Portland to purchase goods. The trade compares with that of old MetlakahtIa very favorably, being nearly double the volume, and goods of all kinds are 25 per cent cheaper than at the old settlement. Other industries are likely to be commenced.
"Mr. Duncan is trying to raise a capital of $20,000 to establish a cannery next spring. Dogfish oil will become a large industry, and already Indians are forming joint-stock companies for its development. Logging and cutting cord wood will be a remunerative industry. During our stay four steamers called for firewood. The manufacture of furniture has been commenced. In Frederick Ridley'S house we found a large turning lathe and mortising machine, and other tools of many descriptions, with which he was turning out bedsteads, wash-stands, tables, window-sashes, etc., which would do credit to any of our factories. He had received an order from Portland for furniture for which he was seasoning yellow cedar.
" There was an unexpended balance from the trade of the old place sufficient to purchase a stock of goods for the new. An agency was established at Portland, and unlimited credit could be had. The contributions in the States, all unsolicited, were nnder $4000, none of which have been put into the trade or industries of the place, but has gone tu assist in the emigration, building the guest-house, road making, and aiding the poor.
" The day after our arrival the Indians gave Bishop Cridge and myself a feast, as they call it. The food was well cooked and well served. A raised table was prepared for us, ornamented with a canopy of evergreens
A TRULY APOSTOLIC MISSIONARY, JAMES WILLIAM LAMBUTH. D.D
and flags. About four hundred persons partook of the feast, nice white table-cloths and good crockery on the tables. An hour previous to our entering the supper-room a salute was fired. After supper eight of the most prominent men made eloquent speeches, thanking us for coming to visit them, and referring to their present happy and united condition, with no allusion, strange to say, to their old home, the land grievance, or to any official or other person who may have treated them unjustly. They display the greatest patience and forbearance, and use such temperate language. Very few of us whites would under similar circumstances act with such commendable prudence. Between each speech a trained choir sang sacred songs, and throughout good order and harmony prevailed.
" Mr. Duncan does not desire a rapid increase j if he did, the population would be doubled in three years. He will not sanction or encourage more than can be conveniently absorbed and furnished with employment, and church and school training.
"As to provision for maintaining law and order, Mr. Duncan is a justice of the peace, and has commenced dealing with some lawless characters already, and will soon turn his attention to rooting out the whiskey traffic in Alaska as he did in British Columbia, and there is every prospect that he will acquire the same infltlence for good over the surrounding tribes which he exercised so wisely and usefully at old Metlakahtla."
A TRULY APOSTOLIC MISSIONARY, JAMES WILLIAM LAMBUTH, D.D.
BY REV. J. P. DRAKE, D.D., EDWARDS, MISS.
The telegram which flashed across continents and ocean April 28th, 1892, announced the death of one of the most remarkable men of his age. Accompanying the sad tidings was a stirring message to his brethren, which fell from the dying lips of the heathen's friend: "Tell the Church I die at my postr-the work to be done is very great. Send more men !"
That excessive work, though long sustained, had at last shortened his valuable life, none can doubt who knew the man and his marvellous career.
Descended for two generations from missionary parentage, James W. Lambuth was born at Demopolis, Ala., March 2d, 1830. His father, Rev. J. R. Lambuth, a missionary to frontier whites, Indians, negroes, and French Catholics, came to Mississippi when the subject of this sketch was quite a boy. Serious and thoughtful from childhood, he was thoroughly regenerated while a student at Oxford, at the age of twenty-one. Immediately he began planning for a useful career in life. He studied, first medicine and then law j but the voice of the Spirit pursued him with a call to preach.
Soon after beginning this life work-viz., in his twenty-fourth yearhe volunteered for the foreign field. His noble young bride was equally ready and consecrated to the work. In May, 1854, they sailed from New York for China, being sent out by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. These were among the first representatives in the foreign field of this then new division of the Lord's invading army.. None have ever proved more faithful-few if any so efficient.
Sailing over such a stretch of sea, doubling the Cape, gave them a voyage of nearly five months' duration, with many accompanying dangers. The hand of God was manifest in saving them from impending shipwreck in direct answer to prayer.
When they reached Shanghai, China, September, 1854, there were only three hundred native Christians in that vast empire of spiritual darkness. The outlook was the more unfavorable, as the country was much disturbed by the Taiping Rebellion.
By dint of faithful application, and of a wonderful readiness to acquire language, our missionary was able in six months' time to begin to preach to the curious natives, so as to be somewhat understood in the most difficult of earth's confused tongues. He soon became known as the" Jesustalking man," and won his way where others had utterly failed. With headquarters at Shanghai, he established many other preaching places and mission stations. " In Jesus' name" (his favorite phrase) he planned, he wrought, he spoke, he wrote till the work became well established. It was noticeable that nearly all who came into the Church under his ministry proved faithful as Christians. Many have already passed into the better land and welcomed their brother home. He w.as too conscientious and loved men's souls too well to drag them hastily and uninstructed into fellowship with the Church. Thus magnifying the ideal of true Christianity, his converts magnified the grace of God within them.
As usually happens to foreign missionaries in that malarious region, his health gave way, and he was ordered home in 1861. He found our land in fratricidal strife, but braved all dangers to reach the Southern home of his parents, who received him as one given back from the dead. As soon as sufficient health returned, he began pushing his way through contending armies, his faithful wife always with him, to get back to the work into which God had so distinctly called him. On foot, and in every possible conveyance, they made their way to Ncw York. Robbed of their little money for crossing the ocean, they finally procure passage with a shipmaster who is willing to wait for his pay. To return this Mr. Lambuth did hard extra labor, while at the same time sustaining himself and growing family at his own charges; for his native land was swept by the storms of war, and the Church which sent him forth could not maintain him in the field. After the war clouds dispersed better times came, and reinforcements were sent. Of these he became the great and trusted leader or superintendent. Thus" much was added to the Lord." .
In 1886 he planned a mission for Japan. He quickly perceived the effectual door which was opening here for the true light of life.
CHRISTWARD MOVEMENTS AMONG THE JEWS
Here, among a people of different languages and customs, he speedily became a ready and successful preacher of the same blessed Gospel. With the aid of his son, Dr. W. R. Lambuth, and Dr. O. A. Dukes (with their wives), he was instrumental in bringing our native Japanese membership in one year from nothing up to one hundred. For about six years he toiled with quenchless zeal for the Master in this new field of effort. Fourteen hours a day of preaching and explaining God's Word was his accustomed task.
More than a year before his death he had this most marvellous experience : While very sick he had a vision of one like unto the Son of man, who said plainly, " Old servant, it is time for you to be going home to rest." He replied, "Lord, let me stay a little longer to work for Thee. So many of these heathen are perishing in their sins. " The vanishing form said, "You may stay a little longer." He rose at midnight rejoicing, and shouted till the break of day.
Henceforth he labored on more diligently than ever and with greater success, till at last the Master came to give a final summons. He ceased at once to work and live, while, to use his own words, "inexpressibly glorious things were opening up before him, coming and going."
Three nations mourn him, while hundreds of redeemed souls greet him as their greatest human helper. In honoring such heroes, we honor ourselves. The secret of his good and great success was the faithful use of all the powers with which God had endued him, "looking ever unto Jesus. "
CHRISTWARD MOVEMENTS AMONG THE JEWS.
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, O.
The presence in Chicago during the ·World's Fair season of Joseph Rabinowitz, of Kishnev, Bessarabia, Russia, the leader for ten years of the unique, spontaneous, and independent Christward movement among the Jews of Southeastern Europe, who came to America at the invitation of Mr. Moody to participate in the great and glorious Gospel work in connection with the Exposition, in which Stocker and other prominent European evangelists also took part, has brought to the forefront in the religious world the noteworthy agitation headed by the learned Jewish lawyer of the East. The fact that this movement has prospered and developed for a whole decade, and continued to be a positive factor and force in the religious thought of the Eastern Jews, is evidence sufficient that it is not the mushroom growth of a night, but has in it the elements of permanency, and has become a fixed fact in modern evangelical history. When it first arose the venerable Professor Delitzsch greeted it as the dawn of a new day for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. While his ideals and hopes may not have been realized, especially not in the slow numerical growth of the open adherents of this new religious communion, the quality and character of the movement is of a superior kind. It is not the only move- meut of the kind that has spruug up in the ranks of Eastern Judaism dur- ingthe last decade, but it is the first and the only one that has a promise of a future. Rabbi Lichtenstein, of Tapio-Szele, Hungary, has also learned to see in Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah promised to lsrael by her seers and prophets; but he has not come so close to the heart of Chris- tianity as has the Ki,shnev reformer. Lichtenstein still refuses to be bap- tized, on the plea that he can serve Christ among the Israelites all the more effectively by remaining unbaptized; but Rabinowitz was b:.ptizcd half a dozen years ago in Berlin by Professor Mead, of Andover. Then the agitation inaugurated by the former has not led to the organization of a church or congregation of like-minded Israelites, while the preaching of Rabinowitz has. Lichtenstein has recently begun to labor among his people, with headquarters at Buda Pesth. He is working under the auspices of the English Mildmay Mission. A third movement of this kind was begun about eight years ago at Tomsk, Siberia, by a Polish refugee named Scheinmann, and Delitzsch gave an enthusiastic account of the movement in an article entitled" Eisaufbrnch in Siberien," in his Jewish mission quarterly Saat auf Hoffnung, 1887. Nothing further was heard about the man or his work, until in recent months German church papers were compelled to publish notices warning Christians against giving finan- cial aid to Scheinmann, who has been abusmg the prominence gained by his agitation for private gain. On the other hand, Lichtenstein and Rabinowitz have both been very active with their pens as well as with their tongues. The former has published a number of brochures, in which his views and how he gained them are found in interesting detail discussion. Rabinowitz has published several brochures containing the official confession of the communion headed by himself, as also a large number of sermons, lectures, and the like. He is a literary man, and before his conversion was a favorite correspondent of the I£ammelitz and other prominent Hebrew journals published in Russia. An interesting biographical sketch of the reformer, prepared by himself at the request of Professor Delitzsch, and translated into German by the latter from the original Jewish jargon, which he generally uses for his preaching and publications, has been issued by the Institutum Judaicum of Leipzig, where the other documents pertaining to this movement have also been printed.
The ideal and aim of Rabinowitz is one that is unique in Church his_ tory, although he regards it as a reproduction of the plan upon which the Jewish-Christian churches of the apostolic era were organized. He states that just as the Frenchman remains a Frenchman as far as nationality is concerned when he becomes a Christian, and an Italian an Italian, thus a Jew is to continue to be a Jew in his nationality, notwithstanding the fact that he has learned to accept Jesus of Nazareth. He accordingly aims at the organization of a national Jewish Church, in which the Christian Jew .shall retain those characteristics and marks which distinguish his nationality and race, and ao not belong to thoRe religious beliefs which are inconsistent with an open and full confession of Christ. Among these national traits he counts among other things also the observance of the seventh day as the day of rest and worship, also the rite of circumcision, which is to be retained in addition to baptism. Accordingly, too, Rabinowitz has not allied himself to any of the existing Christian churches, although his faith is positively evangelical and is based upon a full acceptance of the New Testament Covenant and its Scriptures. Years ago Delitzsch expressed the conviction that the Pauline standpoint taken by Rabinowitz would sooner or later lead him to accept the Pauline conclusions in reference to Sabbath and circumcision; but this step has as yet not been taken. That it has not been taken has estranged not a few friends of Jewish Gospel work, who at first enthusiastically welcomed the reformer and his ideas, but now fear that the agitation will end only in half-way measurism and syncretic compromise.
The confessional standpoint of the Kishnev Jewish-Christians is officially expressed in the thirteen Theses with which Rabinowitz begall his crusade, and is the Confession of Faith adopted by the communion. Both of these are exceedingly interesting documents, and give a clear idea of the religious atmosphere and surroundings in which these people live and move and have their being. To give these in extract at this place is certainly not a work of supererogation. In the Theses, after pointing out in the first five the deplorable condition of the Israelites in the East, the document continues : " 6. The material condition of the Jews cannot in any way be improved, unless the moral and spiritual status has been first bettered.
" 7. In order to elevate the people morally there is need of a deepseated regeneration, of a spiritual renewal. We must cast aside our false gods-namely, our love for money, as such, and in its place must plant into our hearts the love of truth, as such, and the fear of evil, as such.
" 8. In order to renew our innermost being and to aid us to love the truth and to hate the evil, we stand in need of a Helper, of a reliable and experienced man, of a Physician, whose personality and medicine have already stood the test of experience.
" 9. Such a Helper we must seek among the descendants of Jacob, and must select a man who loves Israel; one who has given up His life for the sanctification of the Divine name and for the sanctification of the Thorah (Law) and of the Prophets; a man who has become known to all the inhabitants of the globe, on account of the purity of His clean soul and His strong love for His people, the children of Israel; a man who has lived in a time when Israel had already accepted the traditional law, and had already taken its place among the nations of the earth; a man who, on"the one side, had thoroughly recognized the haughtiness of heart in his Jewish brethren, as they boasted of their noble descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their fathers, blessed of the Eternal God, and who were proud of their wisdom that had been given them in the Thorah received on Mt. Sinai j and who, on the other hand, saw through their stubbornness and their propensity, in good and prosperous days, to forsake the living God, their heavenly Father, and to choose new gods for themselves, such as the love of money and the supremacy over their brethren through science and Mammon.
" 10. The man who unites all this in Himself, after a careful search in the old books of the history of our people, the children of Israel, we have found in the one Jesus of Nazareth, who was slain at Jerusalem before the destruction of our last temple.
" 11. The wise men in Israel among His contemporaries were not yet able to understand His teachings, nor the blessed purposes of His work which He sought to perform for His Jewish brethren-namely, this, that He sought to lay the stress upon the observance of the prescriptions of the law pertaining to the heart and the head, and not on the minutire of outward acts and deeds, which are set to be changed according to time and place and political condition of the Jews. We, however, who are living in the year 5644, can say with a certainty that He, Jesus, sought only the welfare of His brethren, and offered peace to their whole race.
" 12. Therefore the strength of our love for our Israelitic brethren impels us to hold in reverence the name of this Jesus, our Brother. We should learn to appreciate His holy words, spoken in love and truth, as they are found written in the Gospels, and should impress these truths on our children in the schools, should speak of them constantly in the society with others, should receive the Gospel books as blessings into our houses, and should unite them with all the sacred books which have been left to us as a blessing from our really wise men in all generations.
" 13. We hope confidently that the words of our Brother Jesus, which were spoken aforetimes to our Israelitic brethren in righteousness, love, and pity, will find root in our hearts and bring forth the fruits of righteousness and salvation. These will change our hearts and make them love the true and the good, and then, too, the hearts of the people and the governments will turn toward us in kindness, to give us continuance and a position among all the other nations, which live in safety under the shadow of the Jaws of Europe, which have been given and written in the spirit of our Brother, who has given up His life in order to make the world happy and to remove evil from the earth. Amen. "
The official Confession of Faith of this J ndreo-Christian congregation is given in ten different propositions. Of these the ninth is the most important, as bearing on the relation sustained toward the Messiahship of Christ. The first eight are historico-dogmatical statements, based on the Old Testament., of the promised Messiah and the fate of Israel. Then comes the ninth, reading as follows : " The word of the Lord, spoken to Abraham, our father j to Moses, our prophet j to David, our king j and to His servants, the true prophets, has found its fulfilment and realization about seventy years before the
rJuly
destruction of our second temple; for thc Lord has taken pity on His peop1e, and has exaited the house of our salvation in the house of David, His servant, and has caused to shoot !orth for us a righteous branch- Hamely, the Lord Jesus, the Christ, who has come forth for us out of Bethlehem, the city of David, to be the ruler in Israel-He who is the exalted son of the Most High, to whom His Father has given the throne of David. He it is who rules over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there is no end j He has suffered and has been crucified and has been buried for our salvation, and arose again from the dead, and now lives, and, behold, He sits at the right hand of our Father in heaven.
" 10. According to the decree of the impenetrable wisdom of God, our fathers were struck with hardness of heart, and the Lord has inflicted them with a spiritual sleep, so that they resisted Christ, and sinned against Him from that day to our own, in order thereby to stimulate other nations all the morc to zeal and to contribute to the reconciliation of the world, since these people learned to have faith in Jesus the Christ, the Son of David, our King, when they heard His messengers of peace (Isa. 52 : 7), who had been cast from Israel in disgrace. But now since, in consequence of our sins against the Christ of God, the world has become rich in faith in this Christ, and in consequence of our unbelief the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled (Luke 21 : 24), and these have entered into the kingdom of God in their entirety, the time for our entrance has also come j so that we, the descendants of Abraham, become blessed through our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, may again have mcrcy upon us, and again may implant the torn-out branches into our holy roots-i.e., into Christ, and that in this way all Israel may partake of eternal salvation, and our holy city, Jerusalem, may again be built, and the throne of David may again be established forever and ever. Amen."
In addition to the above, the communion has also published a " Short Explanation of the Faith in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, in the Convictions of the National J ewish New Testament Congregation now being Organized." This document is of considerable length, but contains no prominent ideas not already mentioned, only preliminary historical statements, also of the faith as understood by Rabinowitz and his followers, the positive commandments, and the unity of God. In this document especially the national and Jewish characteristic features of the new communion are set forth, such as the retention of circumcision, observance of the seventh day, reasons for not connecting themselves with any of the existing Christian churches, etc. Further sources of information on this movement are the" Fortgesetzte Documente," and the" Neue Documente," published by Delitzsch, containing an historical introduction, a most interesting autobiography of Rabinowitz, and three sermon sketches or articles by the latter. An appendix gives the titles of sixteen publications, mostly brochures and pamphlets, by the leader of the movement.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
:Methodist Educational Institutions in people seemed to be shut off. A boys' Ohina-Historical Glance. day school was proposed by the young missionary as a possible agency by llY REV. F. OHLINGER, FOOCHOW, CHINA. which a breach might be made in the solid ranks of heathen society. The Drs. Maclay and Gibson were prob. mIssion readily gave assent and means ably the first among the Methodist mis- " to try school work once more in hard sionaries to China who took an active fields like the great city." A memorainterest in the education of Chinese ble" concert of prayer," a meeting that boys. They had at various times and has been held monthly by the Proteswith varying succeSs conducted a boys' tant missions at Foochow for more than boarding school in the mission com- a generation, took. place at about this pound. time. The subject was, Missionary Means and Methods. Schools came in Failing health and the opening of two for a due amount of attention, and one new missions (Central China and North after another of the senior missionaries China in 1868) so depleted the working denounced them roundly as" missionforce of the mission that the school had aryhot-houses," and the Christians that to be disbanded. The results of the were raised up in them as " hot-house school were generally pronounced Christians." "Indeed, one could not meagre and unsatisfactory, though the help seeing the difference between the mission had gained by it two of its best convert of the boarding school and men preachers, Yek Ing Kuang and Ding of the rugged, holy obstinacy and pug· Neng Ciek, and several of its best lay- nacity of a Ling Cing Ding." Finally, men, among them Ding Heng Mi, one a pause occurred in the meeting, and a of our first ordained local preachers, man of unusual stammering force, Rev. -one of our first Chinese lay delegates- J. Doolittle, took up the defence. In .elect to General Conference, for many a few moments the atmosphere of the 'years foreman of our press, and finally meeting had completely changed, and monitor in our Anglo-Chinese College. more than one confessed, saying: "I The Church should remember these forgot myself, and simply drifted into men as the first-fruits of her educational that line of remarks about our former work in China. Inasmuch as the ma- schools." The school at Hok Ing Dong jority of the pupils had proved failures was never opened, but in its place, after and the eminent usefulness of these few a careful survey of the ground gone could not be foreseen, confidence in over, of the difficulties encountered, mission schools sank to a low ebb. Re- and of the gradually changing circuminforcements were sent out in 1870, and stances and condition of the field, a one of the young brethren was appoint- school for the education of young men ed to our chapel in the city. This who felt called to the ministry, and church (Hok lng Dong) had been in a who had held and used exhorter's lideplorable condition, no additions to cense acceptably for at least one year, the membership having been received was opened in the old Boys' Boarding for years. The anti-foreign feeling I::ichool bungalow. A Boys' High that had culminated in the Tientsin School, for the education of our preachmassacre in the north, and subsequently ers' sons, was soon added, the mission found vent in the" Fairy Powder" riots paying a nominal sum ($2.20 per month) in the south, was strong in this centre to each pupil in the" Training School" of wealth and culture. " Open-door (Biblical Institute) and 50 cents to each preaching" could not be conducted with safety, and all approach to the preacher's son in the High School. " Many of our preachers are graduates With this aid all the pupils were to fur- of this school;" and now: "The ma- nish their own food, beds, books, and jority (or about four fifths) of our clothing. preachers are graduates of the Biblical This was quite an advance on pre- Institute. "
vious rules and conditions. It was also In 1888 the Boys' High School was made an essential feature of the schools united with the Biblical Institute as a that the missionary should not sit in preparatory department.
the school-room and have the whole re- The influence of this school was first sponsibility for its order and discipline, noticed in an awakening desire to open but that, as efficient workers had been boys' day schools at our more prosper- raised up in other departments of the ous inland stations. Confidence in edu- work by gradually placing responsibili- cational work grew apace. The for- ties upon them, so school-teachers eign missionary, tpe native presiding should gradually be trained to whom elder, and the preacher in charge were Christian schools might be entrusted at constituted examining committees, and any distance from the mission head- the responsibility for the work, charac- quarters. The great aim of those in ter, and reputation of the schools was charge of these schools was not to build placed on their shoulders. After some up large and expensive institutions, but failures and haphazard experimenting rather to give (to the native church) and they came into line as a permanent take a course of training on the difficult branch of our missionary work, and are problem of Christian schools in heathen still the best "feeders" of our higher China. It was emphatically a process institutions of learning. They cost the of " feeling our way." The missionary missionary society $10 each per annum.
at the head of these schools was not The effect of all this educational work withdrawn from the general work, might have been in a measure foreseen.
though the older missionaries and our During the last half of the seventies lamented Bishop Wiley frequently pro- voices were heard among the native posed to " set him apart for educational -preachers and some of the more intelli- work exclusively." But it was always gent laymen pleading for" greater edu- felt that the object and purpose of the cational advantages" for the Christian schools could not be reached unless the children of China. The missionaries one in charge continued in vital con- were not even willing to consider any- nection with the native church. He was thing further than the gradual develop- therefore not only pastor of a church ment of the schools we had. In De- and editor of a monthly paper, but cember, 1880, while two of the mission- usually also" missionary in charge" of aries were travelling in the work and one or two districts. By this means it the third one keeping up the schools was possible to keep a close watch over and general interests at Foochow, the the influence of the schools on the latter on a rainy afternoon took the rec- church, to hear criticisms and sugges- reation of which he felt a special need tions, and, on the principle of "going by visiting Mr. Ahok, a man whose abroad to get the home news," learn name has since become known through- how they were conducted and govern- out the Christian world. Mr. Ahok ed. When he left Foochow, early in asked the missionary into his private 1886, he bore this testimony from the room, and while enjoying the cup of graduates and pupils of the Biblical In- Chinese courtesy together, Mr. Ahok stitute, among them one presiding eld- said: "Teacher, I am getting old and er: "Over twenty persons owe their may not live much longer. You know promotion to the pastorate and elder- something of my financial circum- ship to your wise and faithful instruc- stances. The General Hospital on yon- tion. " His successors first reported : der island I shall have to continue to assist; but I can do more. I think, claimed, as he looked at it from all teacher,TIl buy this lot and building points of the compass: "It is a liberal above my store here and use it as my education just to look at it I" "Oppo· guest house while I live. Your bish- sition and kindly fear" sprang up in ops could be entertained there when unlooked-for quarters. The three famvisiting Foochow. I think I can get it ilies in the mission toiled long and dilifor $10,000. When I die it will be the gently before others arrived who were property of your mission to be used as both willing and able to assist. Bish. an Anglo. Chinese College." The mis- ops Wiley and Bowman were its first sionary left Mr. Ahok and returned, and strougest friends in the Board. amid a cold, drizzling rain, to his classes The former, baving episcopal superin the Biblical Institute. He could not vision of our missions in China, de· help wondering at the calm manner of clared its organization " a very marked Mr. Ahok, his un-Chinese reference to step of progress." Before it had cele· his age, and, most of all, what opening brated its first anniversary a strong God might be pointing out in tbis un- committee of native ordained preachers usual manner. Three days later the pronounced it .. an everlasting, firm Rev. R. S. Maclay, D.D., for many foundation-stone for our church." The years superintendent of tbe mission, principal reported to the church, say· but after 1873 superintendent of tbe ing: "Friends, Jesus Christ is in the mission in Japan, revisited Foocbow. habit of visiting the Foochow Anglo- When the brethren returned from tbeir Chinese College." The example of so " country trip" Dr. Maclay, in various many poor boys and young men paying meetings of the mission, related the ex· so liberally for an education stimulated perience of the Japan mission in educa- the native church along the line of self· tional work, expressing his strong con- support. Revivals took place on some viction that a system of higher educa- of the hardest fields, but, best and most tion conducted by the mission in Foo- timely of all, in the college itself. Be· chow would prove of great benefit to fore its second anniversary came round the work. In a meeting of the mission- the :l1issionary Board bad given its un· aries, with the native presiding elders, reserved sanction, the number of stu- Mr. Ahok and other laymen, on January dents had doubled, and another com· 19th, 1881, it was decided to open a mittee of native preachers had said on preparatory department in February. behalf of the whole conference: "The Mr. Ahok showed with much clearness Anglo-Chinese College is as a child just that the mission had delayed too long born, and pleases us greatly." in the matter, and that some oppor- The last word from the President. tunities and advantages had already Rev. George B. Smyth, is as follows: been lost. He nevertheless manifested .. The college has now one hundred and a deep interest in the movement, and thirty·two students, the largest attend· instead of purchasing the building he ance it has ever had. A good many of had spoken of as a guest house, he the boys are Christians, and they are placed $10,000 cash in the hands of the doing good work. Four companies of trustees. This was the first Christian six each go out every Sunday afternoon college ever established on Chinese soil, to teach in as many Sunday-schools." and it WaS founded by a Ohinaman! A Girls' Boarding School and anum· Others, however, soon followed at ber of Girls' Day Schools had been in Shanghai and other ports. A com- progress for many years before the mittee of native gentlemen connected opening of the college. To this board· with the foreign hongs raised $2000. ing school the Misses Woolston had de· On January 17th, 1882, one of the finest voted years of faitbful service, and sites in the east was purchased for their name will ever be associated with $14,000. The Rev. Joseph Cook ex- the first stage of Christian education in China. A woman's school had also to the great objects we have before US,. been attempted. These were all stimu- and it is gratifying that it is being orlated into new life, broadened and en- ganized and developed in harmony with larged by the revival of the interest in these great objects. The Peking Uni-· Christian education that had culmi- versity is the head and centre of this. nated in the founding of the colIege_ department of work. While organized The enthusiasm, often denounced as a upon an undenominational and inde- " craze," reached all our missions in pendent foundation, it is essentially and China, and soon each of the younger practically, and we hope ever will be, missions had not only a " college," but an invaluable aid to our mission York. a .. university." They took a •• high An endowment and the erection of other aim" to be sure, but have not shown needed buildings will be a direct COI!lany signs of coming short of it thus tribution to the work of evangelization_ far. Rev. C. F. Kupfer took a leading Here our preachers, teachers, doctore. part in the work in our Central China and intelligent men of business are to Mission, where we now have the Kiuki- be fitted for influential places in the reo ang Institute, the Chinkiang Institute, generated society that must replace the and the Nankin University. Miss Ger- institutions of the past. Hundreds of trude Howe has always taken the lead our youth, who will never pass entirely in the development of the means for through the courses of study, will reeducating the girls and women. It is ceive an impetus and inspiration that fair to state here that the W. F. M. S. will fit them for useful lives. Around and its agents are not slack in this line the university as a centre and an inof Christian work, but are everywhere spiration our schools are being better doing the best in their power to keep organized and are producing more satpace with the efforts of the parent so- isfactory results. Intermediate schools ciety. It seemed to be supernaturally are established at Peking, Tientsin, brought home to nearly all our agents Tsunhua, Taian, and Lanchou, while on the field in 1880 that, not only c'Oery the day schools are receiving more athuman mind but e'Oery faculty of that tention than ever before. One encourmind i8 sacr8d, and therefore worthy of aging feature of these country and intraining. Our faithful German Meth- land city schools is that the native odists have sustained Brother Kupfer's churches are manifesting increased inenterprises with characteristic liberal- terest by contributing for their support. ity. The buildings at Kiukiang and Most of our day schools are now en- Chinkiang are monuments of their quiet tirely self.supporting, with the excep- tion of the teacher's salary, while very generosity. encouraging amounts in money and In North China the lamented Dr. grain have been given for the boarding schools at Taian and Lanchou." Pilcher was largely in charge of the educational work from its inception to Miss Anna B. Sears has for many its present stage. He was one of the years ably conducted the work of edufirst to express confidence in the move- cating women and girls. Here also the ment at Foochow, and was not afraid women of the Church are coming up to coPY some of its essential features. nobly to the new demands of the old, In an eminent degree qualified for the empire field. Considering that China work of an educator, his early promo- has by her system of education always tion to higher service, however fitting, conquered her conquerors, that she was for the present frustrates our plans for several millenniums the schooland almost prostrates our hopes. The teacher of Asia, that she is the only status of the work is well expressed country in the world that favors an in a few lines from the senior mission- aristocracy of letters, the wonder is ary, Dr. H. H. Lowry: "Educational that it took us so long to decide how work bears a most important relation to approach her. And yet at one time the war of 1860 was the discovery that it seemed as if the whole missionary Peking is by no means so large a city body were to be rent in twain before as many of us had supposed! Now the "new departure" in educational that this capital has been occupied by work could be fully inaugurated. Dis- foreigners for nearly a third of a cencussion became violent and assumed tury, one would suppose that every- many of the features of the f'vexed thing of interest regarding it would term question." It was a hot though long since have been found out, and brief battle, and now that the smoke have been communicated to the world. has cleared away and higher education But while desultory descriptions of is almost universally acknowledged as special objIJcts and places have often a legitimate missionary agency, as the been published, it is a singular fact that tree is becoming known by its fruit, no comprehensive account of Peking both he that planted and he that W1- and its people, their peCUliarities and tered rejoice in great hope and expecta- customs, has ever been issued. tions. Twenty years ago there was no diffi- Peking and the" Great Wall." culty in inspecting the grounds of the Temple of Heaven, undoubtedly the BY REV. ARTHUR H. SMITH, P'ANG most characteristic structure in the em- pire. But the privilege was often CHIANG, NORTH CHINA. abused, sometimes shamefully so, and the lavish expenditure of many persons In the "more former days," that is who had no knowledge of the proper before the war of 1858-60, the city of way to deal with Asiatics, and no inter- Peking was regarded by almost all for- est beyond the single visit which they eigners who knew anything about it were to make, soon tended, if not to with a mixture of curiosity and awe. kill the goose with the golden eggs, at lt was the centre of the great empire least to stop the laying. Within a few which foreigners of all nationalities had years the finest of the many buildings been struggling, for more than three connected with the Temple of Heaven, hundred years, to penetrate, but which and the one most frequently representvery few had ever explored, those few ed in cuts, has been destroyed, by what almost exclusively diplomats or mis- was called in the Peking Gazette" lightsionaries. The former did not see ning." and until it is rebuilt, which much, and the latter, as a rule, did not will be no one kuows when, that great report much, though to this remark landmark is gone; moreover, it is genthere are a few conspicuous exceptions. erally hopeless to try to see the grounds, not to speak of the buildings. It is not strange that the Chinese who came in contact with foreigners should The great Lama Temple (Yung Ho have invariably exaggerated the great- Kung) is another spot which was once ness and grandeur of their capital. easily accessible, but is now closed, ex- .. The unknown passes for the magnifi- cept to such adventurous spirits as Mr. cent," and with a ready credulity, many Henry Norman, whose extraordinary of the Chinese statements were absorbed account of his proceedings there must by the foreigners to whom they were have impressed every discerning reader communicated, and so passed on into with that gentleman's total unfitness to current literature, where many of them deal with the Chinese. seem still to remain. With the end of the war all this was altered. So intel- The monks in this lamasery are a set ligent and discriminating a historian as of bullies, who have been totally de- Mr. Justin McCarthy remarks in his praved by the reckless waste of cash "History of Our Own Times," that upon their temple, which has indeed perhaps one of the principal results of some notable sights, but by no means worthy of the trouble to which th(l traveller must now be put, even Were be defined as places where one is" furthere no actual danger. There is noth- nished with shelter and vermin for the ing so attractive about an image sev- night;" if he objects to extortion by enty-two feet high, that one would care inn-keepers with connivance from every to be insulted at every court entrance, one else; if he considers one pile of nor is even the chanting of a choir of stones and bricks as good as another, yellow-jacketed boys to be put against and a1Jile of them ranged upon a range the fright likely to be caused by an at- of hills in the light of a monument to the tack on one's life. Putting aside these lunacy of the builders-if he is in this sights, then, o.s unattainable, we have frame of mind, he will do well to adleft the Confucian Temple, and the jure the Great Wall. It has been astronomical instruments in the Ob- lauded as the greatest work on the servatory. Each of these places is well planet, and stigmatized as the greatest worth visiting, and they have been fraud. The inscription in six lanoften described, so that what is to be guages (on a stone in the midway arch), seen can be readily ascertained in ad- which hardly anyone is learned enough vanee. We are not aware that the Con. to decipher, and which is of little infucian Temple has ever been closed to terest to any mortal when it has been foreigners, but the Observatory has deciphered, mayor may not be a great been so, and for long periods together, attraction. One must understand that although at present accessible. We the age of this particular section of the omit all mention of the stable of the wall is wholly uncertain; he must enimperial elephants, and the Examina- deavor to dissociate it from thoughts tion Hall, as these places contain noth- of the personal inspection of Ch'in Shih ing which may not be seen elsewhere Huang, the great Vandal of the third equally well. century before the Christian era, and he must not attempt to entangle the in- A view from the wall of the city is tricacies of the history of this special of course interesting, but with the ex· section of the great barrier. In short, ception of the imperial palaces, which he must have faith as a grain of musare much like other Chinese structures, tard-seed, and he will be enabled to see and a few dagobas, there are in the in review much of the history of the main only the same sights as in other empire. It is only of late years that large Chinese cities. the pass leading to Ch'a Tao (Forked Roads) has been put into tolerable re- There are two places of historical in- pair, so that it is possible to traverse it terest ,to foreigners in connection with without the agonies which were once Peking, one within the city and one inevitable. The Chinese had good reawithout. The former is the seat of the son for leaving it in a wretched condi- Russian Mission, which has been in ex- tion, as a protection against invasion istence in Peking since the days of from that quarter, although, as experi- Catherine in 1727, when a treaty was ence has so often shown, a most ineffecmade'between Russia and China, lasting tual one. But if we satirize the effort till 1858, being, according to Dr. Will- to keep out a savage race by piles of iams, the longest-lived treaty on record. stones and bricks, let us remember that The other spot is the Roman Catholic it was the best way known to those who Cemetery outside the P'ing Tse Gate, adopted it, and that to a gIeat degree which contains the remains and monu- and for a long period of time it was ments of some of the ablest men who successful. And if the wisdom of the ever 'set foot on Chinese soil, Ricci, ancient wall-builders of China is put Schall, and Verbiest. into competition with the modern legis· lators in the United States, who are Whether the Great 'Wall is or is not struggling to build up a Chinese wall worth visiting will depend much upon the visitor. If he objects to sleeping in inns, which, like those in Spain, may against the Chinese themselves, it may proof which both the original Bab and perhaps be ultimately made evident Beba have put forth in support of their even to these modern crude wall-build- claims is, that they are writing ma- ers, that while supposing themselves to chines-that is, that they can write be the "heirs of all the ages in the more verses on any given subject in a foremost files of time," they are in real- certain time than any other man. The ity more than twenty centuries behind Bab, for instance, it is said, in Ispahan, it, and that their work will not stand. wrote out one thousand verses on a given subject in three hours (according to another account he took six hours).
Wahabiism and Babism-Bibliography. One account credits him with writing a million verses, which another reduces [Having solicited from Rev. P. Z. to one hundred thousand, in the course Easton information as to the difference of his six years' ministry. One characbetween the religion of the Wahabis teristic of those I have seen is their and that of the Bab, and also having utter lack of originality, being merely asked for the titles of a few books that a hash of sentences, phrases, etc., from could be followed for further investi- the Old and New Testaments, Koran, gation, the answer received is herewith and other religious works, in a setting furnished to aid others interested in the of high-sounding words. subject.-J. T. G.] The principal work of the original "Taking up your queries of April Bab is the Beyan (explanation). Those 24th, I would say that Wahabiism and of Beba are the Kitab i Akdas (most Babism are antipodes-the one taking holy book) and Ikan (assurance).
its stand on the letter, the other claiming Browne, of Cambridge, who is to-day that the spirit is all in such a sense that the historian and expounder of Bablsm, the letter becomes a mere mass of wax, has translated two original Babi works, which may take on any shape that is .. The Traveller's Narrative" and" The desired. The Wahabi desires that New History of the Bab, " and enriched everything should be done now exactly both of them with valuable notes.
as it was in the days of Mohammed, Needless to say that many of the state- nothing less and nothing more; the ments made by the Babi writers are to Babi makes a tabula 'l"aaa of the past be taken c'um grano salis. To lie for and starts anew. One of the questions the glory of their leader is with the of greatest moment at the present time Babis, as with their predecessors, a is, Do we not find both these elements great virtue. Other valuable works ot in the Koran 1 Was not Mohammedan- Browne's are the articles in the JournaZ ism, if not from the beginning, at least of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1889 and during the lifetime of its founder, a 1892, his two articles on Sufiism and system of self-contradictions which Babism in "Religious Systems of the were bound to rend the body in twain World" (Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.), in the course of their development? and his last and in some respects most The letter which killeth on the one important work, " A Year Among the hand; the abrogation instead of the ful- Persians. " All these books can be got filment of the law on the other. Bab- through Macmillan & Co., who have an ism, like all other forms of pantheism, agency here in New York. Before claims that it contains "the roots of passing from Browne let me state that the roots of the roots of religion." while he has rlaced the Christian and As a matter of fact, like all other forms learned worlds under great obligations of pantheism, it is an atheistic system by his valuable works, he himself is which makes use of religion as a mask too much under the spell of panthe- to cover its infamous designs. ism to be a safe guide. How was it Now as to bibliography. The great possible, that when he had onGO had his eyes opened by such an experience works on the subject are: 1. Nasikhat as that of Kirman, he could be again Tawarikh; 2. Rawzatu's Safa; 3. Kideceived? Truly, there are none so sasu I Ulama. A summary of these blind as those who see. works, so far as they relate to Babism, is given in " The Episode of the Bab," Adding to the list two French works, pp. 173-98. Gobineau's "Religions et Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale" and Mirza Kazem I would suggest that it would be a Beg's articles on .. Bab et les Babys," good thing to apply to other missionin the Journal .Asiatique tor 1866, we aries for bibliographies of all lands and have sufficient to give us a pretty good religions, so that those extant might be idea of that branch of pantheism which perfected. " is called Babism. Now for the tree itself. For the general reader I would From Our Mail-Bag. say that the best work to give one a general idea of the system, the best be- -Rev. Charles W. de Lonza, of the cause everywhere accessible, is Moore's Methodist Episcopal Mission, presiding co Lalla Rookh," which, it is to be re- elder of the Ajmere District, Rajputana, membered, is nQt a mere work of fancy, India, writes: "I am struck, as other but based on historical facts. I know missionaries must be, with the marvelof nothing that gives a better idea of lous hold that Christian truth is taking what this system really is than Mokan- on the low or depressed classes in alna's soliloquy. most every part of India. Our society is not singular in this advance work, Von Hammer's" History of the As- but is paralleled by the Presbyterians sassins," which it is difficult to find in the Punjab, and the Baptists in the outside of the great libraries, is a book south. which should be not only read, but studied. It would be well if it could "The pressing question to-day is, be made a text-book in our higher What shall we do with these thousands schools, in order that the youth might on our hands? How shall we train know the danger to the State of nour- them and help to elevate them? They ishing such serpents in her bosom. cannot be expected to derive their sup· port from the mission, and yet as surely Now, and not till now, with eyes as they become Christians they look for wide open to the practical outcome of emancipation and release from some of the system, should one enter into that their old difficulties and oppressions. enchanted palace of the Mesnevi, the May it nat be the time now for Chris- Persian Koran, the mine of mysticism, tian missions to consider the industrial as it has been called_ There are two side of the question, besides the purely English translations of parts of this educational 1" monumental work, Redhouse's and Whinfield's. Begin with the former Rev. G. W. Morrison, of the United and read carefully "The Acts of the Presbyterian Mission Rawal Pindi, Adepts" before commencing on the Punjab, India, writes: "The work of Mesnevi. Of the two translations Whin- our mission in the Punjab has been field's is the more literal and gives ex- largely among the outcast races. tracts from all the books, While Red- Large numbers have been gathered inhouse's gives a translation of the whole about ten thousand, adult and infant. of the first book. Whinfield's intro- There are many discouraging features. duction, however, shows that he too Some of the people are given to eating has been deceived as to the character of carrion, and in some cases have been the work, and how necessary it is that charged with cow-poisoning to keep the we should have more than human wis- supply of carrion. Yet where we have dom to direct us. been able to reach them and to look after them properly, they are showing The orthodox Persian historical most encouraging progress. Our best Bible translation has gone on, and now.
workers, with few exceptions, are from with our committee completed by the among these people. Many noble men addition of Mr. Lambert, of the London who give less trouble in regard to moral Missionary Society, we are pushing conduct than those of the upper classes, ahead rapidly. Dr. Hooper has proved are found among these converts. We a most congenial fellow.worker. It make no effort to furnish support of would be impossible for a committee to any kind to converts. They are expect- work more harmoniously and smoothly ed to remain in their villages and go on than we have thus far. We shall put with their work. We give them schools to press some specimen portions of our for all who will attend." work in the course of a few weeks, to Rev. Hiram Bingham, the venerable invite the criticism of the general pub- missionary of the American Board to lic.
the Gilbert Islands, Micronesia, for " During the winter I did some work thirty-seven years, after having seen lecturing on Christianity to educated through the press in America his trans- natives in Lahore, Amballa, and else- lation of the Scriptures, in September where, and was greatly encouraged by last retired to Honolulu, where he and the audiences I had and the spirit mani- his noble wife find health reasons oblige fested. Such a work would have been them to remain. He asks that the na- impossible when I left India in 1876, tive catechists and preachers in the Gil- and is one of the very many evidences bert Islands be remembered in prayer of progress that has been made since.
by persons of Christian lands; and also And yet it is the same story still; so that prayer be made for the removal of many who are evidently convinced in- obstacles to Christian work in Hawaii, tellectually of the truth of Christianity and that Divine Provid~nce may direct dare not come out and profess Christ in all matters connected with the organi- for fear of consequences, which, as zation of a permanent form of govern- much as ever, may, in many cases, ment in those islands. mClin sore persecution, even assassina· Rev. K. W. McFarland, of the Ameri- tion. When one sees how much of vol- can Mission of the United Presbyterian untary self-denial and suffering these Church at Assiout, Egypt, writing us, faquirs here endure for the sake of a says: "The work in Egypt is moving false god, one cannot but wonder that along quietly, but encouragingly. In the Hindu character does not show our college here we had the largest at- itself rather more ready to endure suffer- tendance last year in its history. The ing for Christ's sake when once con- largest enrolment during anyone term vinced that He was what He claimed was 288, but the first term of this year to be."
there are 293. From these come our pastors, evangelists and teachers. Book Mention. " Our work is largely among the old Coptic Church, which has become very -The nineteenth volume of "By· illiterate, and is almost as far away Paths of Bible Knowledge," by Dr.
from the soul-savin~ Christian truth as Joseph Edkins, is entitled" The Early its Mohammedan neighbors." Spread of Religious Ideas, Especially in the Far East." Whatever Dr. Edkins writes is sure of a wide reading. He -Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D.D., writing has spent nearly fifty years as a mis- from Landaur MUSBoori, North India, sionary in China. Rev. T. Richards, of says, after recounting the items of seri- Shanghai, writing in The Mes8enger, ous and protracted illness of his fam- says many important facts stated in this ily and himself: "Despite all the in- book are not to be found elsewhere in terruption of so much sickness, the the English language. He thinks, tOOl that the question, Where did the high the American eye 8S to the relative poreligious ideas of the Chinese come sition of this country to the rest of the from? one of the greatest of the times. world, and in itself emphasizes the obli- -The 00nr;er8ion of India. from PantU!nUB to the Present Time, A.D. 193-1893, gation on us to.be a missionary nation. by George Smith, C.I.E., LL.D., with illustrations (Fleming H. Revell Com- -Folk Tales of Angola, by Heli Chatepany, New York, Chicago, and Toronto). The preface explains the occasion lain, late United States Commercial of this bOok. The first of the churches of the Reformation to become mission- Agent at Loanda, Angola, West Africa, ary was that of the Netherlands. The and author of "Kimbundu Grammar." earliest work among the Red Men of America was by the Dutch of Manhat- With two Maps and several Melodies. tan Island. The Reformed Church of America has one of the" most remark- 8vo, $3. To be had of the author, 118 able missions in British India, the Arcot Mission." One of the elders of this East Forty-fifth Street, New York. Church, Mr. NathanF. Graves, of Syra- This is the first volume in a proposed cuse, N. Y., established a ProfessorShip or Lectureship on Missions in the Theo- series of memoirs of .. The American logical Seminary at New Brunswick, N. J. This volume is an expansion of Folk Lore Society." Mr. Chatelain, the fifth in that course of lectures. Dr. George Smith is perhaps the most capa- during a stay of several years in Anble man alive to write on .. The Conversion of India." His" Lives" of gola, possessed exceptional opportuni- Carey, Martyn, Duff, Wilson, Histop, and Somerville WOUld, anyone of them, ties for observation of African life. As establish his reputation. He treats the Greek, the Roman, the Dutch, the a result of his labors, he has been able British, and the American attempts to convert India; the Roman Catholic to make a gathering of Angolan folk effort; the East India Company; and then in three lectures: "The Methods tales, which represent the traditional of the Evangelical Mission to India," lore of the West Coast In the same manthe " Results," and the" Prospects of ner as the Zulu collection of Bishop India's Conversion." Since Sherring's Callaway represents that of South Af- "Protestant Missions to India" there rica. has been nothing to be compared with this treatment of the subject of the The tales, fifty in number, arc print- Evangelization of India. This goes ed with Kimbundu text and English farther than that, and is more full of translation, on opposite pages, and are great seminal thought. illustrated by copious linguistic and ethnographic notes. In an introduc- -The World on Mercator's Projcc- tion the author gives a sketch of the tion. Size 8 ft. 6 in. X 4 ft. 6 in. geography, ethnography, and orallitcra- Papcr, $1.50; cloth, $2.50 (Congrega- ture of the province. The whole work tional House, Boston). This map puts consists of more than three hundred America where it belongs, in the centre pages, uniform in size and style with of the world. It has many decided ad- the" Journal of American Folk Lore." vantages over the old maps which divide differently. It is an education to The collection includes stories answer- ing to European Mlirchen or fairy tales, heroic narratives of an African stamp, and animal tales corresponding to those familiar to American negroes, to~ether with anecdotes and relations cvnsldered by Africans to be accounts of actual events.
As popular narratives givin~ an ac- curate representation of native hfe these offer the best means for comprehension of the habits, character, and ideas of the population of the West Coast, the source of the American negro immigra- tion; the relation of the material to the traditions and notions of the latter bringing the work within the scope of the American Folk Lore Society. The book has a relation to African ethnol- ogy, the author maintaining the sub- stantial identity. in point of mental conceptions, as well as physical char- acteristics, of the Bantu stock with the upper Guinea and Soudan negro, and the general homogeneity of African trv,ditionallore.
I1I.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Islands of the Sea,* Australasia,t Oiroumpolar Mi88ions, North American Indians.t MII!BION WORK IN THE ISLANDS OF Hebrides, where, after long sowing in tears, they are now reaping in joy. THE SEA. The Melanesian Episcopal Mission BY REV. JOSEPH NETTLETON. has for its special field the Banks, Santa Cruz, and Solomon Islands. The history of Christian missions in the Pacific is full of intercst. Its inci· This division of the many groups of dents are more romantic than any other islands among the various Protestant tale of remarkable adventure. The biog- missionary societies saves a great deal raphies of its pioneers are rich even to in men and in money, as well as in fricprodigality with the heroic and marvel- tion and needless rivalry. It is the lous. The wonderful romance of for- .. more excellent way," and has proved mer years is fast passing away or shift- itself to be such in practical working. ing toward New Guinea and the islands Roman Catholicism has intruded itself, along its coasts. The patient work of wherever possible, as a dividing element. teaching and building' up the Christian Certain great principles are common to life is quiet and intensely practical, but all the Protestant missionary societies, this work is being well done. The and variety is found only in special ex- Polynesian churches of the future will be self·sustaining, self-governing, and pression. self-extending. Settled communities One agency common to all is a verof Christiallil are now found where cannibalism and widow-stIangling once de- nacular Bible. This has been especially graded man and dishonored man's God. owned of God. The first work of the missionary in the South Seas was to re- For all the purposes of mission work duce the language to a written form, the islands are practically apportioned and then to give the people the Word in separate fields among the different of God in their own tongue. The books Protestant missionary societies. The of the Bible were generally printed one English Reformed Catholic Mission In by one in the islands, and revised on Honolulu and the Australian Wesleyan the ground. Then the American Bible Mission in Samoa are exceptions. Society printed the Scriptures in the Hawaiian language for the Sandwich The Hawaiian Islands were evangel- Islanders, and the British and Foreign ized by the A.merican Board of Com- Bible Society has rendered invaluable missioners for Foreign Missions, and help to the London, Wesleyan, and transferred in 1873 to the Hawaiian Presbyterian missionary societies. Evangelical Association. Without the Bible societies missionaries in the South Seas would have been like The Wesleyan churches of Australasia Belshazzar in the balances, miserably have successful missions in Fiji, the wanting. The Word of God was neces- Friendly Islands, Samoa, New Britain, saryas a Iltandard of appeal, where the New Ireland, the Duke of York's group, moral sense was perverted and so much and New Guinea. twisted that revenge and cunning were regarded as the highest virtues. Con- The London Missionary Society has science, like a compass that deviates a fine record of good work in the So- from the pole, needed to be adjusted. ciety Islands, Samoa, the Loyalty and Such a thing as a New Testament con- Hervey groups, and in New Guinea. science was unknown. A clever lie. where the cunning deceit made discov- The Presbyterian churches of Aus- ery impossible, was an excellent thing. tralasia carry on a mission in the New Thieving was not dishonorable in itself ; * See a110 pp. 108 and 130 (February).
*t See p. 30 (Janua1'J'). Bee pp. 507 and 514 (present issne).
l!'IELD OF :MONTHLY SURVEY
it was disgraceful only when done so ment was the' agency by which their clumsily as to be found out. Canni- eyes were opened, and they were led to balism had its root in human sacrifice. see their sin and to find the Saviour.
His religion taught the Fijian that the At the dedication of a new church a most acceptable offering he could make native chief said: "Thirty years ago to his gods was the dead body of his I saw the first two missionaries land on enemy. This was offered by the priests this island. What changes since then ?
in the temple compound, and then Instead of heathen temples we have cooked in ovens never used for cooking Christian churches. Instead of the old ordinary food. His cannibal fork was myths and songs, we have God's Word, used exclusively for the Bokola (human and can read it. Instead of the old sacrilice). His religion gratified his priests, with their cunning and deceit, worst passions. Widow-strangling also we have our own 'sons as Christian had its poisoned source in his religion. teachers. Instead of killing and eating Burotu, the elysium of the South one another in chronic war, we have a Seas, always toward the west, was for- Christian chief ruling over a Christian bidden to bachelors. They were doom- people. What brought these changes ed to wander in misery and hunger on about? Those two missionaries brought sterile mountains, forever seeking rest, the Holy Book and put it into our lan- but never finding it. The widow!! were guage. They came from white man's strangled to accompany their husbands, land. If the great chiefs in white man's to prove them to have been married land had sent ships of war to fire upon men. It was a point of honor with the us with shot and shell, we might have widows of the polygamist chief, if not been blown to pieces, but these changes from love, then from pity, to go with would not have come about. If the him to Burotu, for without them he great chiefs in white man's land had could not enter elysium. Conscience, sent an army of soldiers to cut us down pervelted by generations of such teach- with swords, we' should never have ing, could not be an infallible guide. A given up widow-strangling or cannibal- watch with the main spring broken ism, for we should have been cut to would be as good a standard of appeal pieces first. Yet what neither sword for knowing the time of the day. In nor cannon-ball ever couId have done has many thousands of cases the first con- been done by that sword of the Spirit, version from heathenism was to formal which is the Word of God." The hon- Christianity. They gave up cannibal- or that God has put upon His own ism, widow-strangling, and chronic Word, in the success of missions in the tribal wars, and were teachable as little South Seas, has been very striking to children. The great school book was those who have seen the Bible taking the New Testament, and in patiently the place of heathen myths and songs, learning to read, verse by verse, they and moulding the lives of Polynesians_ were spelling their way into conviction The following native boat song, trans- of sin, and their need of a change of lated into English rhyme, will show heart. The Bible, therefore, was need- these changes from the native stand- ed as an instrument or an agent of con- point. The missionary referred to is 'lJM'aion or the new birth. Meetings for John Williams, the martyr of Erro- religious testimony, where careful notes manga.
were taken in each case of the means " Tall were the trees, and sweet were the fruits used by the Holy Spirit to open the of Aana; eyes of the people to their guilt and But the Warriors came from Manono, danger, and to lead them to the" Lamb And with cruel spite in their power and might of God, who taketh away the sin of the Cut down all the fruit trees of Aana ; world," prove beyond doubt that in 60 But Williams came with the Gospel of Peace, per cent of the cases the New Testa- And tall trees and sweet fruits again grow in Aana. .
.. Clear were the streams, and sweet were the wa- arrowroot to pay for their Bibles, and ters of AlIna ; in six years the British lind Foreign Bible Society received £6399 38. lOa. But the Warriors came from Manono, from the South Seas in payment for And they dyed the clear flood with the heart'li Scriptures. These facts show clearly best blood Of the slain of the sons of Aana ; Bnt Williams came with the Gospel of Peace, that the Christian natives of the South And clear streams and IIweet waters again flow Seas love the Bible, and recognize in it one agency that God has honored in on Aana.
.. Green were the fields, and neat the houses of successful mission work. Aana; , Another agency common to all mis- sionary societies is a vernaeular minis- But the Warriors came from Manono, t1·Y. In no other part of the world has And the fields became red, and the war flame a native pastorate been developed 80 quickly or used so extensively as in the was fed, South Seas. Tbe people are given to With the wreck of the houses of Aana ; see that Christianity is not an exotic, or But Williams came with the Gospel of Peace, And green fields and neat houses are again seen on Aana.
" Cruel and dark were the old gods of Aana- a thing of the pale·faced foreigner, Like the gods once adored on Manono, brought simply to further the interests And they heard not the prayer, nor the shriek of of the predominant race, but native to their own islands, and watched over and despair, Which rose from the altars in AlIna; But Williams came with the Gospel of Peace, watered by Pauls and Apolloses of their And Jehovah.now smiles npon Aana." own. A native agent has often recon- The late King Thakorubau, of Fiji, ciled them to a message which, if taken was beset with many difficulties, but to them by the white missionary only, when he could free himself for an hour would have been rejected. Moreover, from his business affairs, he would say the chiefs are proud to see their own to his blind chaplain, Shem: "Now I countrymen in these positions, and are am disengaged, let us retire, that we greatly influenced in favor of self-sus- may hear what the Lord will speak." taining churches. It would be simply The king was the reader and Shem was impossible to provide European mis- the expositor. If the passage proved sionaries for populations 80 widely scat- a little difficult of explanation, the king tered over many islands and in small would say: "We can believe what God villages. The late Bishop Patteson speaks, for His Word is truth, even if said: "No church can take root with- we cannot fully understand it." out a native clergy." Each missionary When King George, of the Friendly society has its college for the special Islands, held the jubilee of missions, he training of native pastors. The London said: "A heathen nation has become Missionary Society founded a training Christian. Churches and schools are college at Malua, on the island Upolu, in all the islands. It the leaves of the in 1844. For fifty years that college trees and the stones of Tonga had has been supplying biblical and theologi- mouths, they would shout forth their cal training to about one hundred stu- thanks to God for what He has done dents. They generally remain four for Tonga. To His Holy Word Tonga years, and about twenty·live teachers owes all that it is and all that it hae." per year have becn supplied to various The Rev. F. Vernier, of Tahiti, islands for Christian work. The Church writes: "The Bible has been and stilI Missionary Society has its college on is the book of the natives. They would Norfolk Island, under the direction of not exchange it for all the bOGks in the the Bishop of Melanesia. The standard world. .. These testimonies might be of education is probably higher at this given from all the different groups. college than at others, before a native The poorest natives, like those of Ani- candidate receives ordination. Com- wa, will set apart their whole crop of paratively few have been ordained in Melanesia. The Wesleyans have had a He is sometimes intoxicated by his own flourishing college at Navuloa, in Fiji, success. Some of them, who could bear which has given them a continual sup- persecution with fortitude, have fallen ply of trained men for many years. through pride, when honored with suc- Captain Hope, R.N., writes of this cess, or when they have been unwisely college: "The whole establishment praised for their work. 'l'he real hope forms a model village, whose inhabit- of the future in the South Seas is in a . ants are trained to habits of cleanliness, soundly converted and well-trained na- order, and decency, as well as method tive pastorate. The white missionary and industry. We were much struck is temporalY, and in many islands his with the neatness and order which pre- work is done and out of hand. Self- vailed, and there seemed nothing to be governing churches now sustain their desired in the arrangements. We ex- own pastors. amined the students and wele much gratified with the practical nature of Extension is also common to all the the system pursued, and the intelli- societies at work in the South Seas. gence and proficiency of the young men. New Guinea and its adjacent islands They ale taught everything necessary will be very largely evangelized by for their position as village pastors." Polynesian agents. The training col- leges supply suitable evangelists. The Such testimonies might be multiplied, reproductive power of a mission is one but the real proof of efficiency is found good test of its success. If its converts in practical results. The men are every- become agents of conversion, aggressive where an elevating influence, intellect- evangelists spreading the Gospel, that ually, socially, and religiously. Re- mission will grow and prosper. The sponsibility compels them to think and London Missionary Society has appoint- to act with caution. The necessity of ed its Samoan and Raratongan teachers leading others develops manliness and to its stations in New Guinea. The independence. Often far away from climate is trying to them, and malarial the European missionary, they must act fever has proved fatal to many. They upon their own judgment in emergen- acquire the language quickly, and in cies that arise in their church life. school work and preaching soon be- They are not denationalized. They come efficient for all missionary purlive in good native houses with native poses. The work is ever extending, and furniture, and dress largely in native perpetual demands are made upon the costume. They prefer a loose black training colleges for reinforcements and coat for preaching, but all their wants additions to the staff of native evangelarc easily supplied by the native ists. The South Sea natives cannot live churches to which they minister. They inland. They attribute every sickness have an enormOUs advantage over the to being away from the sea. The Rev. European missionary in the use of local W. G. Lawes has commenced a college illustrations and native proverbs. They at Fort Moresby to train the New Guinea have a wonderful knowledge of the Bi- converts for evangelistic work in the ble, and quote it copiously and correct- interior of their own country. The misly. They have never to be pushed to sion at the eastern end of New Guinea the place of peril. As pioneers among has extended rapidly, for Samoan evanthe heathen they have been heroic, and gelists can work admirably along the many of them will wear the martyr's coast. The prospects of mission work crown. They require oversight and an in that part of New Guinea which is occasional visit from the European mis- specially under the care of the London sionary. A word of appreciation and Missionary Society is full of promise. encouragement is often a stimulus to The Wesleyan missions in Fiji have still greater devotion. The weak side also found their line cf extension in of the native pastor is often vanity. New Guinea, with Dobu as their centre. Sixty catechists from Fiji and Tonga the future of mission(with the light of have mastered the language, and are a great hope. meeting with pleasing success. Their great cry is for reinforcements, for Statistical Notes. many places are asking for teachers and wishing for Christian instruction. Of According to Wagner and Supan, in all moderu missions, New Guinea is the the last edition of Die Be'Dolkerung der most rapid and abundant in a fruitful Erde, of the earth's 52,000,000 square harvest. Dobu has only been occupied miles of land surface about 2,000,000 for about three vears. and Sir William belong to the polar regions, and only McGlegor, the British governor, says in some 760,000 to the oceanic islands. his report: .. At my first visit to Dobu, These same authorities estimate the in- a few years ago, the natives were a habitants of the globe at 1,500,000,000, howling pack of demons, and to-day and assign 7.420,000 to the various in- there is such a marvellous improvement sular tracts, with but 80,400 to the arc- that no man breathing could possibly tic and antarctic regions. Japan, Mada- believe the change that has been gascar, the Dutch East Indies, etc., are wrought, unless he had seen it as I included with the contments to which have." In the district which the Rev. they are adjacent. W. E. Bromilow superintends from Dobu, there are now 6839 attendants at The Eskimo are in almost sole posses- public worship. Very few have been sion of arctic North America. The, yet baptized, for they need much more number about 40,000. Greenland IS tl,laching than can be given in three the home of some 11,000, Alaska of years, before formal admission into 13,000, the Aleutian Islands of 2400, the Christian Church. The people Labrador of 2000, while 4000 are scat- clamor for teachers, and a glorious tered here and there from Bering Straits harvest is here awaiting the reaper's to Baffin's Bay. In Greenland and sickle. Labrador much the larger number have been redeemed from heathenism by the Elementary education 'Work is under- faith and patience of the Moravian mis- taken by all the missionary societies, sionaries, whose toils began as far back and day schools have been practically as 1733, and who have now nearly 3000 free all through the South Seas. Now communicants. In Alaska only a few ladies' colleges are giving a hi~her edu- years have passed since the glad tidings cation in many centres, and mdustrial were first proclaimed to these dull- schools give the boys the great advan- minded hyperboreans. tage of being taught useful trades. Missionaries in the South Seas were the The term American Indiam is com- first to preach the Gospel of peace monly employed to mean not the entire where chronic tribal wars prevailed. 12,000,000 aborigines who dwell be- They were able instructors in many tween the Arctic Ocean and Cape Horn, mechanical arts. They have prolon~ed but only those in the United States and life and modified suffering by healmg the Dommion of Canada, in number the sick. They were the first to make probably about 400,000. A.laska conknown the Divine Fatherhood or man's tains 30,000, the British possessions universal brotherhood. They have re- 125,000, and the various t!tates and Tersisted oppression and taught the dig- ritories 250,000. It is somewhat startnity of womanhood. They have lifted ling to be instructed by historians of up the sex which in every savage land the present generation that the red mQll is degraded, so that woman is now re- of this country never numbered more spected and holds a good social posi- than 500,000. How active and entertion. They have founded schools and prising thia handful must have been to a vast system of education, which is make such a tremendous stir from practically free, being graduated from Jamestown and Plymouth Rock even the infant class up to the college for until now! training native ministers. They have been the first to give a simple but Our British brethren have cared for suitable code of laws, and they have the spiritual interests of their contin- 'been pioneers of civilization. They gent of Indians fairly well. The govhave founded self-sustaining Christian ernment early fixed a rational Indian churches. The pioneers suffered great policy, so that wars have been rare and hardships, but their self-sacrifice, their evangelizing efforts have seldom suflove and heroism and sanctity have not fered mterruption. The Presbyterians been lost. Not only are their names a have gathered about 400 into their fragrant memory, but their deeds kindle churches. The Methodists sustain more enthusiasm, insphe faith, and brighten than 100 missionaries, and the nearly 4500 church-members are organized into 8 conferences; but the gr~ater part of AREA. POPULATION.
the Indian work, at least m extent.of 'Caroline…………. 560 85,000 Society.. .. .. …. .. .. 875 23,000 territory, is performed by the Enghsh GUbert…. …. …… 170 86,000 Church Society. Beginning in 1826, it Nowhere else in the annals of Chris- has now five grand divisions, each with tianity can a story be found more re- its bishop, and stretching from Hu(!son markable or more thrilling than that of Bay to the Polar Sea, The statIons the conversion of the islands to the Gos- number 56 held by 33 European and 17 pel; nowhere have the triumphs of the native clergymen, a total missionary Cross been more complete. The names force of 177, 2448 communicants, and FNiej~i Samoa, Madagascar, Japan, the Hebrides. Sandwich Islands, and the 14,076 adherents. Add the. re- sults from missions of other denomma- Society Islands are sufficient to bring tions and we have nearly 8000 Indian to mind the inspiring facts. In the churbh-members in Canada, and up- North Pacific, by a strange providence, ward of 25,000 adherents. idols were cast out just before the mis- In the United States almost all lead· sionaries arrived, and a six years' rc- ing churches are represented in labo~s vival followed in which 27,000 were re- for the various tribes, while t~e eVI· ceived into the churches. In another dence is convincing that the IndIan ~an group peopled by fierce~t ~annipals, be thoroughly civilized and ChristIan- devils incarnate, almost wlthm a smgle ized. }<'rom the fierce Sioux alone up- generation such an astounding moral ward of 4000 communicants.have been revolution was wrought that wars and gathered, There is a Dakot!l Presby- violence ceased, and out of a popula- tery composed wholly of these once tion of some 125,000 nearly 30,000 are wild and bloodthirsty braves, with 13 now church-members, and upward of native pastors, 18 churches, and 1222 1li0g0i~0u0s0 are regular attendants upon re- services in the. 800 places of members. In the Indian Territory the Southern Methodist Church has 181 na- worship. Madagascar IS umque ~s a tive preachers and 12,759 memhel's. mission field. When the foundatIOns Out of a population of abou~ 69,00~, of the kingdom had scarcely been laid, upward of 28 000 are commumcants m a bloody persecution broke out and the 785 church organizations, raged for five-and-twenty years, but so The interest felt in the islands of the receptive were the people and so 8ea, and the part they have played in mighty t~e truth, that th~ number of the world's history, are out of all pro· believers mcreased so rapldly that the portion either to their size or the num- 2000 converts increased to 40,000. Now her of their inhabitants, They are the London Missionary Society, the roughly estimated at 30,000, If yve Norwegian Missionary Society, and the omit a few of the most populous lIke English Friends together reckon 112,000 Japan, Java, the Philippines, etc,! the converts and 435,000 as largely redeem- popUlation does not equ~l tha~ of sl~gle ed from idolatry.
states in Ionfdtiah~ or provmces m Chma. The Dutch churches have heen The least continents is ten times larger than the largest .of the isla~ds. strangely remies in carrying the tidings The following table wIll present Im- of salvation to their populous posses- pressively to the eye these two related sions in the far East, though of late, facts : with the aid ()f their German cousins, AREA. POPULA.TION. they have put forth considerable effort.
Europe …………. 3,825,000 357,380,000 In Java the Netherlands Society reports Australia ….. , ….. ' 3,000,000 3'~~;88& f12r~0m00Isaladmhe.renTtshe gained in the main New Gninea……… 310,000 Rhenish Society is Borneo. . . . .. . . . . . . . . 285,000 1,600,000 MadI'Plcar……… ,230,000 3,r.oo,000 the chief missionary force in Sumatra, Sumatra.. ……….. 160,000 2,720,000 and has some 6000 communicants with 800,~ Celebes … , . . . . . . .. . 70,000 25 000 adherents, of Whom 4200 were Java ……………. OO,SOO 23,900, Cuba……………. 41,650 1,632,000 ba'ptized in 1892. In Celebes, espe- Hayti . . ……….. 28,250 1,r.oo,000 cially in Minahassa, the northeast por- Ceylon …………. 24,864 3,008,460 Formosa…………. 15,000 1,WIJ,000 twioo~n, most notable successes have been New Caledonia….. 7,750 63,000 Out of a population of .145,000, Jamaica…. … …… 4,200 639,490 about 120,000 have become In some.
Porto Rico………. 3,550 806,700 sense Christians. In Sangir also, so Trinidad …….. ,… 1,750 200,000 lately desolated by a terrible catastro- ISLAND GROUPS: ]47,000 40,450,000 ipnhhe~bimtaonrtes than a third of the 80,000 7,000,000 have forsaken their false Jap&n …………. .. 114,300 5,500,000 Philippines ……… . 92,000 gods. According to the cemus of 1890 West Indies …….. . 7,740 125,400 Fijl. ……………. . 6,640 90,000 the nominal Christians in all the Dutch Hawaiian ………. .. 5,300 75,000 New Hebrides……. possessions in the Indian Archipelago ~ numbered 277,450.
EDI'rORIAL DEPAR'rMEN'r
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
At the Foreign Mission Convention 3. Every disciple is a steward, and held in Toronto in February last, Dr. every honest calling a stewardship. Gordon and myself felt that the spirit- Property is God's-even Dorcas's needle ual interest rose to a higher flood- is a Divine instrument and implement. mark than either of us had ever before seen in any missionary gathering_ One 4. Need constitutes a claim on all who of the principal speakers was Rev. G. L. can supply it. Believers form a Divine Mackay, D.D., of Formosa. We felt brotherhood. Compare the prophecy that his addresses should have a wider of Agabus and the consequent help sent influence, and we sought to obtain ex- to the famishing. act and full reports of them. Such as we could get we have utilized in the 5. There is to be a distribution of la- June and present issues of this REVIEW, bor, so that no department of need shall having by his courtesy obtained also be uncared for and no disciple be withfine illustrations from photographs out a sphere of ministry. (Compare the made by his native helper, who is with institution of the diaconate.) him in Canada. 6. Lay agency in evangelization is to These addresses, as reported, do but be emphasized. Proclaiming the Goslittle justice to his power as a speak- pel is a prerogative of all believers. er. His unique personality cannot be Compare the Pentecost at Samaria unphotographed nor printed. It is as im- der Philip, the scattering of disciples, possible to express on the printed page etc. (Acts 8 and 11). as the aroma of a flower. Dr_ Mackay is one of the best examples of simplic- 7. The Church is to obey the law of ity, resoluteness, old-fashioned ortho- diffusion, not concentration. God sent doxy, and faith in the Gospel and in the persecution to break up centralization Spirit of God, that we have ever met; at Jerusalem and scatter disciples and his success proves that missionary abroad. methods are not likely to improve upon those of the apostles. As he himself 8. Sovereignty of grace is everywhere says, out there in Tamsui they are liv- recognized, as in Saul's conversion, ing in the fir8t century;, and we may preparation for, separation unto work, add, are seeing somewhat of the power as a chosen vessel. which was then exhibited. 9. Supremacy of grace is equally The Acts of the Apostles is a 'VocaZ prominent, confined to no spot, but book-it is full of Divine voices, meant making all places holy ; to no time, but for all ages. Take, for example, the making every day a Sabbath; to no following lessons taught there, for all persons, but lifting all believers to time; and let Dr. Mackay's work at For- priestly rank. A sacramental or sacramosa show that they can be embodied mentariau religion finds no support here. in modern missionary enterprise. 10. The universality of the Church is 1. The first and leading lesson is that taught in Peter's vision on the housetaught by our Lord Himself: "Ye top. Wbat a rebuke of caste, What a shall be witnesses unto Me." The one testimony to the essential dignity of great duty of the Church is universal man, and what a type of the Church is testimony-all taking part and uttering that all-comprehensive sheet! their witness to all men. 11. The power of prayer is the one 2. This dispensation is the acceptable grand force that rules in the spiritual year of the Lord-the great day of realm, and which every believing dis- Pentecostal effusion. ciple can command for God's work.
12. All true qualification for God's service is, at the lailt, Divine. It is a matter of the Spirit's anointing. Pris- cilla and Aquila, common tent·makers, became under the Spirit's unction the and in answer to their prayers he was teachers even of Apollos. raised up when given over by physi- cians. He has now, at least for the 13. God's providence and Spirit have time, abandoned his project, and is the charge of missionary work. Paul maintaining himself as a shopman in is forbidden to go into Bithynia, and is the Church Missionary Society bookcalled to Macedonia. At Corinth he is store. His companions (for there were assured that God has much people in three of them in all) have gone forward that city, and bidden to stay there, etc. into the country, though they have abandoned the idea of making the im· 14. 'rhe common verdict of spiritual pOl·tant journey referred to above. minds is to be taken as a voice of God. Compare the Council at Jerusalem. Surely the whole facts need to be known before we glorify this kind of 15. The programme of the kingdom enterprise. "Faith" is easily pressed is given in Acts 15. First, the outgath- to presumption. Can we afford to treat ering of the Ch~rch. Second, the re- slightingly the steady work of experiturn of the Lord. Third, the rebuild- enced missionaries whom God has blessing of the Tabernacle of David. Fourth, ed to hundreds of souls, while we comthe conversion of the residu!l of Gen- mend the imprudent and often reckless tiles. ventures and adventures of those who have not counted the cost and sometimes 16. The Regions Beyond constitute actually thrown away not only their own the great field of missions. The questiou lives, but the lives of those they have is one of destitution, and where the need carelessly led into an untried and unis greatest the call is loudest. known exposure? Africa, of all lands, has been the grave of hazardous but 17. The Holy Spirit is the presiding well-meaning pioneers. We feel that power in the true Church. Ananias great caution should be exercised even lied to the Holy Ghost. Those who in commending missionary enterprises. drew up the deliverance of the first Council said, ., It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us," as though He were one of the Council, as He was.
Our English editorial correspondent, Woman has a missionary apostolate. Mr. Douglas, writes, in the May issue, of Paul's words to the Corinthians, instead two young men going to Soudan via the of prohibiting her testimony, rather reg- Niger, in connection with the Central ulate it. She is forbidden to usurp au- Soudan Mission, and of the route they thority over the man; or to be disputaintended to follow. He does not tell, tious in public assemblies; but the idea however, that this route has never been that any Scripture forbids woman to taken by a European, and would require tell the Gospel story, or to teach the unmost careful preparation and African saved great saving truths, is a strange experience to accomplish it. Even perversion of the Word of God. While Bi~hop Crowther, African as he was, Christ Himself owned the Samaritan failed. though he tried it. Graham Wil- woman's preaching, and made Mary of mot Brooke wanted to do it, but well Magdala His first witness of His resurknew it would take some years to fit rection ; so long as Priscilla taught Apolhim for such a venture. The two young los and Phebe was a deaconness who lamen, whom Mr. Douglas mentions, reach- bored with Paul in the Gospel; so long ed Lagos almost penniless, and without as the sixteenth of Romans stands to either proper clothing or that indispen- qualify the apparent teaching of the sable safeguard, quinine! They at once Epistles to Corinth, can we have any fell sick, and one was thought to be real doubt that woman is man's authordying in the hospital, where the late ized co-worker in missions? And if such Bishop Hill and other missionaries of the false exegesis :Q.eeds any other correc- Church Missionary Society visited him, tive, is not mission history enough 2 In the REVIEW lately appeared the saka; Rev. E.:O. Harris and Mrs. Har- following: ris, Niffoo.
" Bishop Taylor has 43 white mission- Under ~pecial appointment in Liberia. aries at his' self-supporting' stations in Angola and the Congo Free State, to- D. E. Osborn, missionary carpenter; gether with quite a force of native evan- Miss Anna Whitfield, Monrovia Semi- nary.
gelists and teachers. Twelve died at Opening new Jl[is~ion~ in Zambesia. their posts last year. " Rev. Erwin H. Richards.
Rev. Ross Taylor has kindly sent the names and the stations of these mis- Sailed for Kimpoko, Oongo, April 25th.
sionaries, and we are glad to supply the Rev. William Rasurnssen ; Mrs. Helen readers of the MISSIONARY REVIEW with Rasumssen and Baby Harold; Crellis the fuller information for which this H. Jens6n and wife.
brief paragraph in the REVIEW has For White Plaim, Libe'ria, May 13th.
awakened a desire. He says: Rev. E. H. Greeley, Superintendent of Seminary; Mrs. Gleeley, teacher in .. Those marked as sailing this week Seminary. go out under the auspices of the Missionary Society of this Church, to Sailing for Loanda, Angola, May 26th.. take charge of the seminary at White Plains, Liberia, long ago abandoned, but J. W. Shuett and wife; Miss Louise which was once in successful operation Raven. under the superintendence of Annie Wilkins. They are the first white mis- The statement which appeared in the sionaries that said Society have sent to REVIEW originally was, as now ap- Africa for a number of years, and cannot pears, incorrect. The above list gives be counted as engaged in Bishop Tay- but twenty-two instead of forty-three lor's work." names as connected with Angola and Congo work, and of these we are in- Province of Angola, Southwest Ooast. formed that Rev.(?) Herbert Withey is a young man of perhaps sixteen, and that Rev. A. E. Withey, Superintendent. William Mead Is dead, Jnlia Mead is a Mrs. Irene Withey (General). Mrs. Will- child, and William O. White is a trader_ iam Schneidmiller, N'hangue-a-Pepo; Of course, Bishop Taylor would not Mrs. Charles W. Gordon, Dondo ; Mrs. wish us to mislead the public by count- William P. Dodson, Mrs. Catherine ing children as missionaries. It is to be Dodson, and Rev. Herbert Withey, Hen lamented that so high a death·rate has Barrett Station; Rev. Robert Shields prevailed among them.-EDITOR. and Mrs. Whiteside·Shields, Pungo- Andongo; Susan Collins (colored American), Canandua; Rev. Samuel J. Mead, Mrs. Ardella K. ~1:ead, :Mrs. Minnie Mead and child, John Mead, William Mead, and Julia Mead, Malange.
In the Oongo Free State and Oilongo. A recent writer has called attention to Paul's work in the school of Tyran- Rev. William O. White, Vivi; Miss nus as the conduct of a missionary train- Mary Kildare, Natomby ; Rev. William ing school, a kind of missionary labor, Snape, Isangila: Dr. Harrison, Kim- in which his greatest success and most poko; Henry Nehne and Mrs. Kah- satisfactory and permanent results were Nehne and baby, Mamby.
Native work in the Republic of Liberia. effected.
Rev. A. L. Buckwalter and Mrs. Mc- ., He appears as the head of a mis- Neil-Buckwalter, Cape Palmas and Pluky; Miss Alma Lawson, Cape Pal- sionary institute, in which he instructed mas; Miss Grace White and Miss Anna and trained and directed a staff of as- sistant evangelists, through whose la- White, Barraky ; Miss Agnes McAllister and Mrs. Jennie Hunt, Garaway; Mrs. bors in conjunction with his own the Nora Garwood and Miss Eliza Bates, most marvellous results were accom- Beaboo; Rev. J. G. Tate, Mrs. Tate and daughter, Sass Town; Rev. J. B. Rob- plished. I adopt the view that, when ertson and Mrs. Lena Robertson, Grand he withdrew from the synagogue to Bess; John Smith and Mrs. Smith, Wis- the school of Tyrannus, he took the twelve men who had previously known the baptism of John, and after their instruction by him were baptized into the possession of his fortune. he sought to name of Jesus, and who after Paul had lain his hands on them spoke with use it for the salvation of the common people. The Great Assembly Hall will tongues and prophesied, and all the other converts. From various places hold 3000 persons, and is often filled by in the Epistles and narrative we learn eager audiences in the cause of Chrisof many of his cOlp.panions in labors at different other places being with him tIan truth and temperance. Not far off is the People's Palace, where liberal for longer or shorter periods of the two years at Ephesus. From the statements provision is made for popular recrea- made to the elders who met him at a tion, etc., but under legal arrangements subsequent time at Miletus. it appears that a church was organized and a full which exclude all sale of intoxicating staff of elders ordained over the church. liquors from the precincts.
Now with such a staff of assistant evan- gelists assembled there with him in Mrs. George A. Paull, of Bloomfield, Ephesus, it is not supposable that the wondrous results as stated in our text, N. J., wishes the editor to say that the • All the :people of Asia heard the word article accredited to her on the" Little of Jesus, was effected by Paul's individual labors. I suppose that Tyran- Wives of India" was by Mrs. H. Ella nus, who was probably a teacher of Cook, of Bloomfield, 'and merely sent rhetoric, was converted and gave up forward in her behalf by Mrs. Paull.
his school and handed over the building to Paul for his evangelistic and church uses, and following the example of Dr. Stuckenberg, our editorial cor- Apollos, became a preacher under Paul; and that these bands of assistants, avail- respondent, has left Berlin, after hav- ing themselves of the facilities afforded ing charge of the American chapel there by the good roads to all parts of Asia for thirteen years. He has done a work Minor, went everywhere, preaching the there never to be forgotten, and heleto- Word. As Paul says, that he with his own handel provided his own support. he fore noted in these pages.
could not be absent from the city. l'he extent of the country precludes the idea that Paul's own individual efforts car- Pastor Benjamin 1. Greenwood, of ried on the work. Anatolia, as the re- London, writes: gion comprised in Asia Minor was call- .. An enthusiastic meeting was held ed, was some 270,000 square miles in extent, or more than five times as large at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, LOD- don, on May 1st (under the auspices of as Pennsylvania, with some five mill- the Pastors' College Missionary Society) ions of inhabitants." to welcome Dr. JohnG. Paton and hear from him an account of his labors on London has joined America in the cel- the mission field. Pastor Thomas Spur- geon presided, and the platform was ebration of the nineteenth anniversary of filled with various representatives of the birth of General Neal Dow, the well- the religious fraternity, including Dr. James Spurgeon, Pastor Charles Spurknown advocate of prohibition in the geon, Rev. W. J. Mayers, and others. matter of strong drink. On March 20th "After prayer had been offered by there was a crowded gathering in Exe- Dr. James Spurgeon the chairman wel- ter Hall, presided over by Lady Henry comed Dr. Paton to the Tabernacle (this being the occasion of his first vis- Somerset, and addressed by Sir Wilfrid it), and remarked that during the day Lawson and others. The fiags of both he had enjoyed the privilege of intro- nations were displayed. On March 22d ducing Dr. Paton to bis mother at West- a large meeting was convened in the wood. and they had also stood together at the hallowed spot where the body of Great Assembly Hall, in the East End, his father had been laid. He called to where Mr. Charrington carries on his mind the occasion when Dr. Paton had evangelistic and temperance work. He visited his father at Westwood, when was the son of the leading partner in a his father. in his usual happy- mood, had introduced the veteran missionary to brewing firm, but on his conversion he the assembled students of the Pastors'
withdrew from the business; and when, College as "the king of the cannibal on the death of his father, he came into islands." The chairman concluded by saying that if in this large building any der Vereinsbuchhandlung. Pp. iv. 53l. should fail to hear all that Dr. Paton (Protestant Missions, their Lands, Peomight say. yet it would be a • means of ples and Labors. By the late B. grace' even to see him. Gundert, Ph.D. Third, essentially enlarged edition. Calw & Stuttgart. .. The orphan boys from the Stock· Publishing House of the Union. Pp. well Orphanage having, at the special iv. 531.) An admirable compendium, desire of Dr. Paton, sung' The Morn- very full, very compressed, very dising Land,' he then addressed the meet- tinct, very impartial, and apparently extraordinarily accurate. It seems to ing. be all merits and no defects. At least .. In a brief notice it is impossible to we have thus far noticed only one error, on page 4, a slip of " 2 millionen mark" convey any accurate report of Dr. Pa- for .. 2 millionen pfund," corrected, ton's speech; suffice it to say that he however, by the details. pointed out that the marvellous transformation that had occurred in the in- The venerable author has not lived to habitants of the New Hebrides was the oversee the preparation of the third ediwork of but thirty-five to forty years, tion, but his. ample notes have been and it was the simple Gospel, and that digested and supplemented by missionalone, that had wrought this reforma- ary authorities of the first order-Protion. At a recent missionary meeting fessor F. H. Kruger, of Paris, Dr. R. he had attended, in consequence of Grundemann, Provost Vahl, and others. many thefts, It had been necessary to warn the audience to • Beware of pICk- This little work is as perfect a 'Iladli pockets;' he ventured to say that no mecum of missionary facts, in the most Buch caution was necessary among the lucidly digested form, as could be dereligious meetings at the islands of the sired. Besides Protestant missions, a New Hebrides where the Gospel had great deal of information is incidentally obtained a footing. From the depths given as to Roman Catholic. of depravity and cannibalism the people had in a few years been raised to a Dr. Joseph Parker says that the trinstandard of morality that would com- ity of evil in our day is this: "The world, pare favorably with that of so·called the flesh, and the devil, translated into Christian countries. present day dialect, means society, en- vironment and tendency." .. Dr. Paton then proceeded to give some vivid accounts of the direct and The Gross-Bearers' Missiona.ry Reading miraculous interpositions of God, for Oirele. the preservation of his life in times of imminent danger, and these were told Literature for 1893-94 as follows: with that same simplicity and absence I. Autobiographical-l. .. My Missionof vanity that characterize the written ary Apprenticeship," by Bishop J. M. account of his experiences in the New Thoburn, $1.20; 2. "The Story of Hebrides. He told how the blood of John G. Paton," $1.35. II. Theologimartyrs had been shed upon the soil cal-3. "Doomed Religions," by Rev. before any sign of harvest from the seed J. M. Reid, D.D., $1.20. III. Prophetof the Word could be discovered, and ical-4. .. The New Era," by Rev. in conclusion pleaded for the funds nec- Josiah Strong, D.D., 75 cents. IV. essary to equip and maintain the steam Periodical-5. THE MISSIONARY REvessel that is so essential to the effec- VIEW OF THE WORLD, to C. M. R. C. tual maintenance and extension of the members, $1.50, work he represented.
.. In response to this appeal, offerin~s to the amount of about £100 were collected before the meeting closed, which will doubtless be supplemented by further gifts from those whose interest in the work has been awakened or quickened by the meeting."
Rev. C. C. Starbuck sends a note of comment and review upon" Die Evan- gelische Mission, ihre Lltnder. Volker und Arbeiten." VonR. Gundest, t Dr.
phil. Dritte, durchaus vermehrte Au- flage. Calw & Stuttgart, 1894. Verlag
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDlTED BY BEV. D. L. LEONARD.
ExtralJts and Translations from Foreign opium curse in China, illustrated by a Periodioals. good many engravings in the Chinese style. BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, -Among the Battaks of Celebes "ly- MABB. ing" and "gossiping" are the same word. -Bishop French, as we remember, after ten years' occupancy of the see of, -We have received from Rev. R. A. Lahore, resigned it for missionary work Hume, of Ahmednagar, India, an exin Arabia; and Bishop Stuart, of New cellent, closely reasoned pamphlet of Zealand, has resigned the Jee of Waiapu, sixteen pages, presenting the various in order to take up missionary work in evidences for the Gospel against the ob- Persia. The memory of Raymond Lull, jections of Hindus. It is calm and whose great life Dr. Gordon has lately temperate in tone, but very cogent, only described to us, begins to germinate. taking such positions as can be well sustained, and preBBing them home. -" The Norwegian Church carries on work in five foreign fields. and -The first missionaries sent abroad although in comparison with other by an independent Swedish society went churches it is both small and poor, it to China in 1848. Since then a certsin raises over half a million kroners (£25,- predilection for China has always pre- 000) per annum for this purpose. This vailed in Sweden among the friends of devotion is reacting in quickened life mil!!Sions. at home."-Bomball Guardian.
-The AUgemeine Mi88ions.Zeitschrift -The Emperor Akbar, being once calls attention to a hitherto unnoted remonstrated with by the Mollabs for prophet of missions, Pastor Christian his friendShip with the Portuguese mis- Gerber, of Lockwitz, Saxony (1660- sionaries, answered: "I am not going 1731), who, in 1690, stirred up by the to adopt their creed; yet is it not illustrious Justinian von Welz, pub- worthy of thought, that the Moslems lished a treatise, co Unrecognized Sins spread their religion by shedding the of the World," including among these blood of others-these Christians, by .. sleepy indifference in extension and shedding their own 1" advancement of the kingdom of Christ and His honor," and especially exhort- -It is known how the French Goving student,s to dedicate themselves to ernment has driven the English misthe service of missions, adding practi- sionaries out of various Pacific isles, as cal suggestions respecting the carrying well as out of Tahiti. For this intolerout of this work. ance and bigotry, however, the French Protestants, as a body, are not responsi- -The Moravian Missions BZatt for ble. It is political rather than religious, January, 1894, speaking of Cape Colo- and is hardly greater than the coone Inny, says: "We have more and more tolerance shown by the German colonial occasion to feel that the English ele- authorities toward their fellow-Protment has lost its power in the colony, estants, the American missionaries in and that the rude, unrighteous Boer the Marshall Islands. Toward the Engparty has the reins in its hands." lish missionaries in German East Africa they are beginning to be more reason- -The Revue des Missions Oontem- able. But a narrow, blustering Chauporaine8 for January devotes its first vinism seems at present to have comfourteen pages to an exposition of the plete possession of both France and
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATION!!
Germany in their colonies. The Ger- rectors perceive, will either expose it to man Protestants, so far as interested in be suspected by the Malagese as treach- missions, protest unremittingly against erous to Protestantism if it identifies this. If the French Protestants do not itself with France, or by the French a8 speak out quite so boldly or continuous· treacherous to France if it identifies it- ly, we must remember their situation, self with Protestantism.
in the midst of a country half atheist, -Bishop Bompas, of Athabaeca, half ultramontane. They have ~poken speaking of his diocese, says: "The out, however, repeatedly, and so ener- chief characteristic of an Arctic life congetically as to bring on them bitter re- sists not so much in what is present as proaches, both Romanist and infidel. in features that are conspicuous by their As France, however, seems absolutely absence. No cities, towns, or villages, determined that there shall be no Eng- ~treets, roads, or lanes; no markets, lish missionaries in her Pacific domain, farms, or bazaars; no flocks, Qr herds, thc Societe de8 Mi88ions Evangeliques has or carriages; no money, whether coin been compelled to take up the work there or notes; no railways, mails, or telefrom which the English have been graphs; no government, or soldiers, or driven. The Journal now announces police; no prisons or taxes; no lawyers that the London Missionary Society has or doctors." The bishop thinks that in decided to surrender all its real property the stern magnificence of Arctic nature, in the islands of Huahine, Raiatea, Bora- varied by a few weeks of summer lovebora, and Tahaa to the Paris society, on liness, one is brought so near to the condition that it remains dedicated to Creator as to compensl1te for the lack its original purposes. The Paris breth- of many things. ren give 2000 francs as indemnity for movable property abandoned. "Our " ResUlt8 oja Di8appointment.-A col- friends," they say, "will join with us porteur went to an Indian village' mela '
in tbanking the directors of the London (religious festival), forty miles from hi'l society for a deci~ion which does honor home. In order to reach his destination to their brotherly spirit, and whicb he was obliged to swim across a swol- yields us a valuable assistance in our len river, and narrowly escaped with growing work." his life. We can judge of his disap- -Although Madagascar is an African pointment when, on arriving at the island, neither its fauna nor its flora nor «mel.a,' he was driven away after havits men are African. The Hovas, the ing sold only one Gospel. He returned ruling tribe, have not even been suffi- home weary and disheartened. thinkciently mixed with African blood to ing.his brave exertions had been all in lose the smooth, glossy hair of the Poly- vain; but on visiting the place a year nesian or Malay race. Their speech later, a man came up to him and said: also is of a Malay type. «Last year you sold me a Gospel. I and my brother have been reading it: -The Paris Societe des Mission8 Evan- The colporteur accompanied him to his geliques has been considering the ques· home, thirty miles away, and found tion whether it is its duty to establish a that not only he and his brother, but mission in the great island of which its three or four families besides were pre- government has so unwarrantably, as pared to accept Christianity. Sixteen l't'L Saillens has abundantly shown, persons were soon afterward baptized, usurped the control, externally, and and the number of Christians in that will undoubtedly endeavor to reduce it village has since doubled. God '8 ways gradually into a mere French province. are not as our ways; and He accom- We are glad to see that the society thus plished by means of one Gospel in a far has the good sense to hold aloof single year results which often are not from an intervention which, as the di- seen after years of patient labor. Let
GENERAl. MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
us trust Him with our failures; the it seems, are to be preferred. These reaping time will come when He sees men (allowing that there are such men) best. "-Awake. have kept Easter for years, and yet have -" In a scathing address, delivered to not found out that Christ is risen! an immense congregation in the Bal- They are not content to say: "My main Central Methodist Mission Hall Lord delayeth His coming," but must on Sunday night, on the subject of a say: "My Lord is dead; and therefore 'crisis'in political morality, the Rev. I may fearlessly smite my fellow·ser- P. J. Stephen said he candidly con- vanta, and eat and drink with the fessed that he had never had a kind drunken." Surely, if these things are thought for Sir George Dibbs sincc he said, it is time for the many .godly first came to the colony, because in near- bishops and priests of the Church of ly the first parliamentary debate he had England at the Antipodes to suspend read Sir George had designated Jesus other work until they have either con- Christ as 'that wretch who was put to verted or cast out these horrible blas- death nineteen hundred years ago.' The phemers among their own colleagues.
man who thus spoke, he said, was the Can this thing, however, have been premier of the colony, who went on really said? Must it not have been Sunday fishing excursions to prepare meant that the mere letter of the words his bills. What could be expected from of Christ would be the words of a dead a regime led by such a man? Would Christ, unless He speaks still by His in- Christian people rest and stand the pres- terpreting Spirit in His advancing ent state of things longer, or move Church? Until convinced of the con- themselves and wipe out the stain on trary. we must assume that this was the the country's honor? It was utter meaning. Let us know the truth.
selfishness for Christian people to be -" Charles Simeon, of Cambridge. satisfied with their present condition once said that Christians passed through and not to be caring about the toiling three stages. ]'irst, they thought of millions around them. It was the duty themselves, their privileges, their progof every man in the State to give to the rcsl't in the Divine life, their happiness State this moral support he possessed here and hereafter. Next. they thought and take his stand upon the law of God of others and the use they could be in and righteousness and common de- winning souls and building them up. cency."-Australian Christian World. Thirdly, they tlwught of the great plam – I t is hardly pharisaical, we think, of God. "-Periodical Accounts.
to boast that we are not as New South -" A missionary contributes to the Wales. Bob Ingersoll is kept by his Tra'IJancore Diocesan Record some recolblasphemies out of conspicuous office, lections of his work as a deputation in but we have never heard anything of England. He was particularly struck his so vile as this blasphemy of the with the self-deuial practised by many wretch Dibbs. A community which workers and givers: • In one place, a suffers such things to be said in its par- few days before a missionary meeting, liament and rewards the blasphemer 'by a poor woman came with fifty-two halfmaking him its prime minister is on the pennies. She had during the whole high road to suppress Christianity by year systematically put by a half-penny law, as Charles Bradlaugh advised. a week. During the same year, and in -At the Anglican Church Congress the same parish, a blind girl died, hold- in Tasmania, says the correspondent ing in her hand all the money she had of the World, warnings were thrown -viz" half a crown, her dying request out against atta~hing too much impor- being that when she was dead the tance to the words of " a dead Christ." – money should be given to C. M. S.'
A set of living sacerdotal blasphemers, Here We have the true spiritual kins- t,
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLA'rIONS
folk of the poor widow who received predo·Baptists, with the Dunkers, the our Lord's commendation, together with most rigorous of Baptists.
the statement that she had given more -" Jesus Cl.rist, the same yesterday, than all."-Awake (C. M. S.). and to-day, andfO'l'ever. This should be -The Revue des Missions Contempo. our watchword. JESUS CHRIST-in the 'I'aines for April quotes with approba- mutation of the times, in the coming tion from Dr. Pierson's article in Re- and going of the generations, in the view of the Parliament of Religions. fluctuating contests of intellect, He is -The Independent cites in proof of the one fixed point on which we rest, the excellent fruits of the Parliament of the never-setting sun which with His Religions the fraternal interview of the beams uninterruptedly illumines and Archbishop of Zante with the Methodist cheers our hearts, and the surest and Episcopal Conference in Calcutta. But most blessed goal, that gives to our surely that would have come to pass all whole thinking, acting. and aiming the the more certainly from a parliament of right direction. Happy all who build Christians. themselves up upon this ever-during , spiritual rock, that follows with them.'
.F'or he that hath the Son hath life."- -In the Endependent of A.pril 19th Evangeliach-Lutlwrisches Mis8ionsblatt. R. H. Stoddard has a droll passage, which we quote: ., Among the camp -" The proud title of 'The National followers, the congregation of Governor Church of India' is borne hy a little so- Penn, whose desoendants still flourish ciety in Madras, founded by the native at Stoke Pogis, I fancy th.at I discern physician, Dr. PALNI AHNDI. who is the mystic disciples of Count Zinzen- known to the present writer as an ear- dorf, who founded, if I am not greatly nest and sincerely pious man. His mistaken, one of their churches here- avowed intent is little by little to unite about. Was it the Old Swedes' Church? under its banner all Christians-at least And were they Dunkers ; and do their all Protestant Christians – of India.
bones moulder there now or in the lone- What moved him to this step? Chris- ly graveyard at Bethlehem?" It might tianity, he seems to have said, as brought be worth Mr. Stoddard's while to give by the missionaries. comes to us in the a little attention to Count Zinzendorf's multiform divisions of the English and life, and then he wouldn't weave to- American sects. We cannot understand gether such a comical conglomeration the distinctions between these sects, and of blunders, perfectly harmless and still less can we desire that this motley friendly, it is true. In the first place. variety should be grafted upon Indian Count Zinzendorf did not visit America Christendom. Therefore we will found for SOllle two generations after William a communion independent of all these Penn. Secondly. the Old Swedes' distinctions, one which seeks to set forth Church was probably formed, and per- a simple. confessionless Christianity.
haps the present house built, from one " We can easily understand how an io two generations before William Penn. earnest Hindu Christian is scandalized Thirdly, the Swedes' Church was Swed- by the divided condition of the Chris· ish, and Zinzendorf was a German. tian Church, especially as visible in the Fourthly, the church was not Moravian, English and American sects. These but simply Lutheran. Fifthly, how divisions seem orten petty enough, turn- could the bones of Penn's followers ing on mere questions of polity or cere- rest in Bethlehem, which was not mony. But the remedy appears suffi- founded till almost or quite all of them ciently unreasonable, being nothing were in their graves? But the drollest more than the establishment without blunder of all is the confusion of the any vocation, without any great fund Moravians, the most unflinehing of of thought and truth, of a new, color·
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V less community, which in reality only We need the flood-tide of blessin~. .AJt, signifies the addition of a new sect to one of the speakers said: "One some- the old. A religious movement can times sees the barges stranded on the never be evoked by mere negation, mud. They lie high and dry; but let showing only that men know what the flood-tide come along, and they will they do not want, not what they do_ float on the waters. So the churches Such It communion without a confes- are stranded and sticking in the mUd: sion is like a tree without a tap-root. If let the flood of God's fulness sweep such a National Church" (as appears to along, lind they wlll rise above the be the case) .. merely emphasizes her deadness, formality, coldness, and in- opposition to the existing missions, then difference which hinder the blessing."
it will be joined o.nly by such membe:s The Soutl~ MO'J'ocoo Mis8ion.-This of other c~mmun~o~~ a~ may "?ave thIS mission, which is sustained by friends or that pomt to crItICIse m theIr mother in Scotland, contemplates itinerating Church, often from. very person~ motives. Hh°lw long WIIlI?~?Ch ~~qUlelt.elhe- work on a more extended scale this ments 0 d toget ler – .J!Jv,J,nge ~sc – year. At present Mr. and Mrs. Wilson Lutherische8 MissWnsblatt. and Miss Rue of Mazagan are on a Mr.' journey in the interior. Nairn and Mr. Lennox hope soon to take an ex- English Notes. tended tour, visiting the chief towns and villages to the south and east of BY JAMES DOUGLAS, LONDON. Marakesh, healing the sick, preaching The Great Assembly Hall Thanksgiv- the Gospel, and preparing the way for ing lrfeetinga, April 11th, 1894.-It is future operations. Mr. D. Muir recentbefitting that we should note the large ly made a missionary journey from gathering of Christians of all sections Magador to Agidir, encountering Moin the East End of London to praise hammedans and Jews, and on the whole God for the wonderful revival in 1859, had a fairly friendly reception; but beand the salvation of myriads as the di- yond the opportunity for testimony no rect fruit of it in subsequent years. We more tangible result accrued. Miss Rue have attended no meetings of precisely speaks of reany access into the homes the like character before, in which of Mazagan, but of the absence of heartreminiscence played so strong a part, interest in the object for which they are and where the memory of other years entered. Thus far the South MoroCco overflowed so as to fill the channels of Mission is a record of patient continupresent desire. Converted in 1860, and ance in well-doing in hope of a reaping knowing no words in which to express that will come in due season.
the exalted sense of God's goodness The Madras Oity 2emple.-In connec- seen and experienced in that time of tion with the work of the Rev. Maurice revival, it was with profound emotions Phillips in l'ladras, there seems to be a we formed a unit in that great assem- distinct forward mO'Vement. Organized blage. Through that gracious revival opposition in the form of the" Hindu which swept from America to these our Tract Society" and" Hindu Preaching shores, it is impossible to tabulate the Society" has broken down. The room world-wide results which have accrued. taken for services is crowded, and the How many pulpits have been supplied, front space also occupied, so that alto- evangelists raised up, and laborers gether an audience of from one hundred thrust forth into the harvest – field I and fifty to two hundred is obtained The influence has spread out in ever- every evening. It is purposed now to . widening circles even to those who build a suitable preaching hall capable dwell in darkness. But we need a re- of accommodating five hundred per- turn of the Spirit of God in like power. sons, and to carryon in it all-day meet-
ENGLISH NOTES
ings, every day in the week, by relays after meeting. The' outward resultll of of preachers. To this bUilding, which the ten days' mission at the Old Church, is modelled after the plan of a Hindu Calcutta, were as follows : temple, the name of " the Madras City 1. Profeseed to have received a de1lnite bleSB' Temple" is to be given. Besides the large hall, the building will contain a ing ……………………………. 191 2. Wish to b~ baptized…… .•••••. ……•• 8 small reading-room, where the people 3. Wish to be con1lrmed. ••••• ..••• •. .•••.. 12 clIn sit down and read the Bible and 4. Wish to join a Bible OlaBB…. •••••••…. 84 Ohristian books, and a consulting room, 5. Wish to join Scripture Union… ..•. …. 66 where inquirers can meet the missiona· 6. Wi.h to engage ill de1lnite work for God. 34 7. Will Join Missionary Gleaners' Union…. 52 ries. The estimate of cost is £1000. 8. Will take Parish Magazine. .• . . . . . ••••.•. 30 9. Gave at Prai.e Meeting….••••.•.•• R•. 774.4 Pro8pecta in Uganda.-How bright these are was recently set forth in an A miSSionary writes concerning this inspiring address by Bishop Tucker in mission : ,. How can I say how richly Exeter Hall. The review leads one to blessed the work here in Calcutta has exclaim, ,. What hath Gpd wrought !" been? I have learned nowhere else The hunger for the Word of God in such lessons of the keeping power of that region has been met by the dis- Jesus, and of the fulness of the Holy tribution during the past year of some Ghost."
26,000 Gospels, 5000 Gospels and Acts The Oongo-Balow Misaion.-This mis· bound together, and 1500 New Testa- sion has been recently strengthened by ments. So intense is that hunger that the addition of two men and two wom- the Roman Catholic bishop has had to en. The farewell meeting was one of succumb and make the required conces- peculiar pathos and solemnity. It was sions. His words are: "After much impossible to doubt that these brethren hesitation I have concluded that it is and sisters had been definitely called of necessary for us also to distribute the God to the work, with such marked New Testament which the Protestants power of the Spirit was their testimony are spreading everywhere. • .• The given. Their names are Mr. E. A. Rus- chief reason is that we cannot prevent kin, lIr. D. Hayes, Miss Elliott and Miss our people from reading it." Thank Cook. Tidings have come of the de- God they cannot. In view of the facts, parture of the latest Congo martyr, the the progress made, the eagerness for the consecrated Gustav Haupt, who has Bread of Life. the foundations of a na- been called away when he seemed ripest tive Christian ministry laid, and the for service. In the course of a brief number of Protestant readers in Ugan- address, Dr. Harry Guiness stated that da something like 20,000, the fields are the Congo-Balolo Mission, which is now . indeed white unto harvest; and we but five years old, has now four sta- must feel, as Bishop Tucker observed, tions, one being a thousand miles from .. that with the blessing of God upon the coast. Last sear more than a hun- our work, and with the Holy Spirit dred natives confessed Christ in bap- poured out upon us from on high, we tism. It is interesting to learn that are within measurable distance of see· Gustav Haupt completed, just belore ing Uganda a Christian country." his death, a translation of the Gospel of Special Mission to India. -Great bless- John.
ing has rested on the special mission of Unoccupied Field8 in India.-South- the Rev. E. N. Thwaites to India and east of Calcutta there are over two his colleague, the Rev. Martin J. Hall. dozen tribes, comprising in all between The re.cord is that of a succession of six: and seven millions, who are totally Gospel triumphs. At Agra the power unevangelized. Our informant is Bish- of the Holy Ghost was realized, and op Thoburn, of the American Methodist after a long meeting, 160 stayed to an Episcopal Church. No doubt like facts
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTEI,LIGENCE
apply to the majority of the foreign lands: "Only the actual sight of misfields that are roughly assumed to be sions can gi ve one the least idea of the occupied. 'Darieties of missionary work, all valu- able and effectual in their way. But The TMbetan Pioneer Mission.-Miss when one has seen them, how one la- Taylor and her band of helpers have ar- ments the short-sightedness, of some rived, we are glad to know, at their critics at home who are always exalting destination for the present, namely, ono kind of agency and depreciating Darjeeling. In the voyage out prog- another! Let me quote for the hunress was made in the study of the lan- dredth time that favorite text of mine: guage, and there were also helpful 'Diversities of gifts, but the same times of definite Bible study. The pas- spirit;' , differenceR of administrations, sengers were much interested in Miss but tho same Lord,' 'diversities of Taylor's story of travel in Thibet, and operations, but the same God which those who know her will not need to be worketh all in all.' .. informed that she would make good spiritual use of the opportunity. -According to this statement from Rev. A. Baldwin, of Trans-Zambesi, THE KINGDOM. South Africa, not only depravity, but also defect in intellect, seriously hin- -" The outpopulating power of the ders the introduction of the Gospel: Christian stock" is already beginning "I only conduct one service, since it to work its wonders upon heathen soil. would be well-nigh impossible to get For, as one illustration, Rev. Samuel the people to assemble twice on the Sab- Howland, a missionary of the American bath; and again I think in their raw Board, writes in the Independent that a condition, one sermon is quite as much woman who recently died near Jaffna, food as they are able to digest in one Ceylon, though not a Christian herself, day; for it is largely true what one of was the mother of nearly 200 Chris- my boys said the other evening on my tians, including the fifth generation. asking him to tell me all he remembered Her husband was employed by the fa- about the morning's sermon; his reply ther of lIr. Howland, and through that was, 'We ha'De no memories, missionary, connection became a Christian. His 4 for we never think.' " sons and 3 daughters became Christians. Of the woman's descendants, 128 are -A man applied to Mr. Spurgeon for living, 10 of whom are in government work, saying: "I have not much learnemploy, and 10 in missionary employ, ing or brains, but the finest pair of legs including 4 pastors, 4 preachers, and 2 ever put on any man, and if the Lord teachers. can use them for any purpose, I conse- crate them to His service." He was -Dr. Judson Smith says: "What is sent to the outskirts of London, and acneeded in our foreign mission work is complished wonderful things. leaders; not the rank and file which the native agency will furnish to their -Anyone sent on God's errands is a own' great gain, but captains and gen- missionary. Whether the service be erals, and these must be trained men. great or small, in the home, in tlie lt is impossible for the missionary to be church, or in the uttermost parts of the too learned, too cultured, too eloquent, eanj;h, if it is work for God it is a mistoo versatile, too much of a scholar; a sion, and whoever performs it is a misphilosopher, a preacher, a statesman, sionary. We solemnly set apart those or a gentleman for the needs of his field going out to a foreign field. We may and work." be just as truly set apart to our work here. A successful missionary society -What Eugene Stock says of India must have missionaries at both ends of is equally true of all unevangelized the line.-M. P. E., in Missiona1'11 Link. -MissioMry Tidings gives the follow- ically urged, the design being to con- ing definition of the dift'erep.ce between nect Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, the heathen at home and the heathen and Hawaii with America. Add to thia abroad: "The former are, in a very importi:mt project the great Trans-Sibe- large measure, heathen from choice, rian railroad, to extend from the Baltic while the latter are heathen from neces- and the Black Sea 5000 miles to Yladi- sity. " vostock, a port north of Japan, and -All the incomes of all the missionary what important help may follow to the societies together, says the Archbishop spread of the kingdom of God !
of Canterbury, amount to about one hal! -The Missionary Herald thus annihi- the cost of the London School Board. lates the sapient critic: ,. A prominent -In China a certain Christian baker newspaper has recently reproached has written on the baskets in which his Anglo.Saxon missionaries with having customers' bread is carried these words: had little success among inferior races, "Jesus Christ appeared in the world • because they will not, as the Moham- 1894 years ago." This writing makes medan missionaries do, live among the people question him, and he has an op- heathen as the heathen live.' Moslem portunity of preaching the Gospel. missionaries, as ll. rule, do live as the heathen live. They make no call for -The Japanese number among their moral reformation in their converts_ numerous divinities the great bright These converts may have as many god of self-restraint, and him they wor- wives as they can buy or capture as ship with appropriate ceremonies upon slaves. They may lie and cheat, and their New Year. A strong iron box retain all their old mode of life without every New Year is given a conspicuous rebuke. One or two ceremonies may place in the home. In this each mem- be required, but these over, the converts ber of the family deposits during the to Mohammedanism may remain just as year the amount saved by an act of self- much heathen as they were before, and restraint or economy in a financial their mi~sionaries Ii ve just as they do.
transaction. If a gown, usually requir- What is wanted is missionaries who will ing nine yards, is cut from eight yards, not live as the heathen live, but will the price of the one yard saved is dropped lift them up out of their heathenism, into the self-restraint box. Or if a com- first of all morally and spiritually, and mon article is chosen when a superior then, as fast as possible, out of kraals one is desired, the price saved belongs and mud shanties and dirt, into a clean- to the same god. And, truly, would er and better life. It is absurd to ex· not a Christianized" self-restraint box" pect that missionaries who worY: for well patronized be an exceedingly valu- such resultA will win converts as fast as able addition to the furnishing of every do those who make no protest ag'linst Christian home? the vices and corrupting customs of paganism. " -It will evidently not be long until the whole world is brought into imme- -Again has Dean VahI, President of diatecommunication by telegraph. New the Danish :Missionary Society, per- oceanic lines are projected, and their formed a most valuable service to completion is simply a question of time Christendom by publishing his statisti- and money, which latter for a purpose cal review of missions to the heathen, of this kind will be easily obtainable. in a pamphlet of thirty pages, and giv.
A line from Eastern Siberia connecting ing more completely than can anywhere with this continent has been under con· else be found the figures for 1891 aDd sideration for some time. For several 1892. He names 331 .. missionary soci- , years the laying of a cable on the bed eties and agencies," of which 94 belong , of the Pacific Ocea!l has been energet- to Great Britain, 59 to the United States, 41 to Asia (for the most part Holyoke. In all 113 boarding pupils mere local organizations), 27 to Austra- have been in attendance, While several lia, 20 to Africa, 19 to Germany, 17 hundred have been connected with the to the Netherlands, 16 to Canada, etc. various departments; 30 Spanish girls He finds the total income of 1892 to be have graduated, most of whom have £2,695,188 ($13,475,940); missionar!es, taught in the evangelical schools of 5502 (wives not included); unmarried Spain and France, and 7 have married women, 2771; native ministers, 4285; preachers or teachers. native helpers, 39,782; communicants, 1,079,398, or an increase of 72,582 -One after another the theological over 1891. seminaries of this country are opening the1r doors for the admission of women, WOMAN'S WORK. and especially for such as would fit themselves for labor in the mission -To make missions a reality, let the field. The Cumberland Presbyterian women teach the children to know the Seminary at Lebanon, Tenn., is one of mission fields, the missionaries, and the the last to fall into line in this great results of missiollS.-J. A. Broadu8, matter. I).D. -The Mary J. Drexel Home and -Mrs. Wellington White recontly Mother-house of Deaconesses. in Philagave touching incidents of the incre- delphia, was erected in 1888 bv John dulity with which the poor, down-trod- D. Lankenau in memory of his wife. den women of China hear the good The home has a frontage of 250 feet, news of a God who saves women. and wings 200 feet in length extend from the ends of the building_ About -The missionary teacher's task takes 40 sisters are kept busy in works of on queer phases sometimes. Thus in mercy in the German hospital, the chil- China one of the older pupils had been dren's hospital, the home for old peotaken out of school to be married, and ple, the school for girls, the evening a year or two later was found by her 'school for boys, the kindergarten, etc_ brother, "half starved and abused by In addition, such outside institutions her husband, and he at once brought are cared for as a day nursery and chilher back. Poor little girl! Only six- dren's home in Germantown, a hospital teen, and such a worn, pitiful look. in Easton, and a home for old people in The girl begged her mother, who is the Allegheny. The sisters are consecrated matron of the school, not to let people to life service after a four years' probaspeak of her as a wife; she wants it all tion. forgotten. Her little one died when it waf! only three weeks old. After a wbile -At the recent anniversary of the the husband came to claim her; said (Dutch) Reformed Woman's Board of he didn't want her in the school eating Foreign Missions, Dr. Scudder said: oatmeal while he was down in the vil- .. Born with the Woman's Union Mislage eating chaff. He is trying to sell sionary Society of the United States, his wife to another man, and the teach- founded by !llrs. Thomas Doremus in er has had two encounters with him to 1861, the woman's movement now comkeep him from making his way into prises 75 societies, 50 of which are in the girls' court." our land, willi 20,000 auxiliaries and 5000 bands. The Woman's Missionary -Mrs. Alice A. Gulick has been for Society, unheard of forty years ago, is ten years at the head of a boarding- now a valued accessory of every deschool for tbe higher education of girls nominational board." in San Sebastian, Spain. She is now assisted by an able corps of four teach- -Th"! Woman's Missionary Society ers, graduates of WcUesley and Mt. of the Methodist Church, South, has 2058 auxiliaries, with 39,141 members, and 1185 young people's and juvenile partment for eight months: Calls made societies, with 28,996 members, a total on the sick and needy, 290; days spent of 68,297 ; and 11,033 subscribers to the in sewing and caring for sick and needy.
Woman'8 MiBBionary Advocate. 17; garments made for the needy, 34; -The annual meeting of the Canada bouq uets made for the sick, 72 ; amount Presbyterian Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, Western Division, was spent for groceries, etc., $40; paid held in Ottawa. The delegates in at· tendance numbered 217. The report taxes for a widow; employment found showed a total of 25 presbyterials, 569 auxiliaries, with 12,574 members, and for 4. A large amount of provisions 228 mission bands, with 5881 members. The total receipts for the year were and clothing have been distributed. $41,822. School books have been supplied a number of children. Three Bibles were given away. Flowers were sent to the Deaconess Home, Chicago, and to Sher- man Hospital, Elgin. .
-The Harlem Avenue, 'Baltimore, OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. Christian Society has raised $40 for the -The Young Men's.Era (Y. M. C. A.) China mission fund by the Fulton plan. for May 3d, the jubilee number, was Since last July it has given $27 to the extended to forty-four pages, and was Salt Lake City Church; $10 for disan issue which displayed remarka~le trict mission work, and $5 for home enterprise. Scores of faces and cuts of missions. Literature has also been disbuildings added SUbstantial value to tributed in the city jail.
the rich variety of articles, setting forth -Four missionary shit: have been the history of the Association and the built for service in the Micronesian Isl- various phases of its world-wide wl)rk. ands known as the Morning Btar, each A table of statistics gives 4614 as the serving for a term of years, and then number of local organizations, with being replaced by a stronger craft.
467,515 members. Of these 1192, with The first was built by the Sunday- 247,707 members, are in the United school children of the United States, States; 597, with 87.464 members, in and launched in 1856. It served until Great Britain; 957, with 58,797 in Ger- 1866, when it was succeeded by Morn- many; 744, with 16,222, in Holland; ing BtarNo. 2. This ship was wrecked, 78, with 15,909, in Canada, etc. The and in 1871 a new Star took its place.
number of countries represented is 40. In November, 1884, the present Morn- -The Newburyport, Mass., Y. lVJ:. ing Btar sailed from Boston, and is now C. A. held its second annual converts' doing a good work in Micronesia. She reunion March 13th, over 100 men usually sails from Honolulu in June, being present who have accepted Christ and is gone about nine months.
in the Association since 1891. Last -During a recent" self·denial week"
year 30 men joined the local churches, one little boy, who wished to do his and during the present season alone 100 share in saving money for missions, de- men have accepted Christ. cided that he might have something to -The Clarendon Street, Boston, Bap- give by going without part of his lunchtist Endeavor Society has been support- eon at school. In the basement of ing a missionary in Africa for three the school building there was always years, and recently completed its third spread forth a tempting repast, from annual gift of $600 for foreign missions. which the boys might buy what they pleased. This special boy was very -The following Items from some re- fond of finishing his own lunch with a ports recently made by the Epworth cake of sweetened chocolate, but this League, of Elgin, Ill., First Church, are delicacy he steadfastly denied himself of special interest. Mercy and help de- during the week. At the end of the time he said confidentially to his mother, much to aid in the elevation of the " It was pretty hard work sometimes. freedmen. The Congregationalists head The chocolate did look awfully good, the list with $12,000,000 ; the Methodists but I went ro'und behind the furnace come second with $6,000,000 ; the Bapwhere I couldn't see it and ate my lunch, tists rank third with $3,000,000; the and 'so I managed to get along, and Presbyterians appear next with $1,250,- now here's the money." 000 ; and the Friends are not far behind with $1,000.000. Besides, there is the -By the Sunday-school of the Sec- Slater Fund of $1,000,000, and some of ond Reformed Church of New Bruns- the Peabody Fund of $2,000,000 goes to wick, N. J., the thirteenth Sunday in the same object. each quarter is hereafter to be devoted to the practical study of missions in -The sad tidings have come that the the classes and by the school unitedly. American Board schooner Robert W. The four quarters are to be given to Logan is missing, and it is feared she is India, China, the United States, and lost. This vessel has not been heard Japan. A large map is procured, and from since last summer, when she sailed the teachers are notified by a missionary for Ruk from Yokohama, whither she committee as to where subject-matter had gone for repairs. There is now can be found for study. little hope that she will be heard from, as it is supposed that she must have UNITED STATES. been wrecked in one of the fierce ty· phoons. There were no missionaries on -Mr. Moody's Chicago Bible Insti- board. tute must be set down among the great forces which make for the world's evan- -By this statement from the Internagelization. These few figures will en- tional Missionary Alliance it will apable us in some measure to perceive how pear that this society is expecting great this versatile and indefatigable evan- things from God, and attempting great gelist is carrying the Gospel to the ends things for God in the immediate future: of the earth: Of 257 who have shared " We hope to be able to send a party of the benefits of that institution, 128 are from 30 to 40 to India, and about half evangelists, city missionaries, Y. M. C.A. as many to Central and Southern secretaries, etc., 69 are missionaries in China. We are also making arrange- 16 foreign countries, and 60 are pas- ments for the sending out of a third party tors of churches in 8 different denomi- of Swedes to Northern China, and a nations. new party of mi~sionaries to Brazil is almost prepared to leave for their field -Cyrus Hamlin has been called" the of labor. Mr. Howell, with 3 missionman with sixteen professions," nor do aries from this country, and 1 from these include the one of which he says England, will sail about June 10th. he is proudest-that of washerwoman. Altogether, the outgoing parties for India, China, and t:louth America likely -The First Congregational Church of Toledo, 0., claims an undivided inter- to leave within the next six months will est in no less than 5 missionaries in the number between 50 and 80 missionaries, home and foreign fields, and which by and the amount necessary for their outits liberal gifts are supported. Among fit and transportation will not be less them is Rev. J. L. Barton, President of than $25,000, in addition to the ordi-'
Harpoot College, Turkey. nary funds."
-It is estimated that since 1865 the -At the recent fo~ty-ninth annual Southern States have expended upon session of the Southern Baptist Conven . colored schools some $50,000,000, While tion these facts were reported: Unde r various churches and individuals in the ,the Board are 211 stations, 80 missio!}- North have added more than half as aries; ordained_natives, 25; unordained natives, 66; organized churches, 84; as certain .that the Church of England members, 3328; baptisms, 629; in- woulu. do its duty equally in respect to crease for the yoar, 718; loss, 226 ; net evangelization. The Eastern Soudan gain, 482. The receipts for the year had been closed since Khartoum fell were $106,332, including a balance at and Gordon perished; and if ever the the beginning of the year of $13,387. Soudan was to be reopened to Chris- The theological seminary of this relig- tian enterprise and the resources of civious body, located in Louisville, Ky., ilization, it would not be by way of devotes one entire day in each month Suakim or Egypt on the north, but to a missionary meeting. by the Soudan from the south.
-At the seventy-fifth anniversary of -This is the jubilee year of the South the Methodist Missionary Society, held American Missionary Society, original- 8 few weeks since, an item from an old ly founded as the Patagonian Missionreport read by the treasurer showed that ary Society in 1844. Its real founder the original idea of the society was to was Captain Allen Gardiner, with whose evangelize the American Indians rather pathetic death in 1851 it seemed as if than undertake work in foreign lands; the heroic efforts to obtain a missionary yet the latter has grown until the foothold in South America were finally church is now represented in every part wrecked, though in reality they reof the world. The receipts have in- ceived a new and sacred inspi'ration. creased from $823 in 1820 to $1,231,669 It is now proposed to observe July 4th in 1893. as a day of special thanksgiving and prayer, and to raise a jubilee fund to -In 1862 the General Assembly gave place every part of the work on a perthe Dakota Indians a Presbytery to manent basis, and to inaugurate a new themselves, without bounds. This mission to the Araucanian Indians of Presbytery is now composed of 17 min- Chili. isters, of whom 13 are Indians, and 18 churches, with 1222 members. -The Universities' Mission to Cen- tral Africa (Zanzibar and Lake Nyassa) -Of the 12,000 Canadian Indians on is able to make an encouraging report the Pacific Coast, 8000 have been bap- for last year. The number of Eurotized or attend Christian worship. The pean mIssIonaries, men and women, is Gospels have been printed for them in 4 85; of Africans, 109; total, 194; of languages. communicants, 1116; of adherents, 3551 ; of boys and girls in school, 2106. -Chief Sheuksh, of Kitkatla, North But a grievous loss has befallen the Pacific, was baptized not long since, mission in the death of Bishop Smythand received no less a name than Will- ies, of fever on board a steamer bound iam Ewart Gladstone I for Aden. He had started on a trip for the benefit of his health. He was ap- EUROPE. pointed Bishop of Zanzibar in 1883, and was a man of much zeal and executive Great Britain.-The income of the ability. British and Foreign Bible Society for 1893 was la1·g6·r than the year preceding -The British Syrian Mission received by $55,000, and reached the goodly sum an income of $25,000 last year, has 250 of $1,171,000, while the issues of Bibles, children under instruction in Beirut, Testaments, and portions aggregated Baalbec, and Damascus; and one half 3,664,456, making a total of 139,559,008 of the 18 women working in Syria revolumes since 1803. ceive no salary from its funds.
-Speaking of the determination of -While on a visit to Liverpool, Dr. the Government to maintain possession Paton, the New Hebrides missionary, of Uganda, Bishop Tucker has lately r~caV8d, among Qther substantial donasaid that" he only wished he could feel tions, £1000 from an anonymous friend. estantism, and seeking instruction in This is to be applied to the mainte- the new faith and practice. nance of the new mission ship. -The Protestant churches of Ger- The Continent. – In the May num- many expend the bulk of their missionber of The 0 lturclt at Home and Abroad ary energy upon South Africa, India, Rev. Alexander Robertson, of Venice, and the Dutch East Indies. Professor has a remarkable account of an Italian George H. Schodde, of Columbus, 0., village, Papigno, in the province of has kindly prepared the following sta- Umbria, with a popUlation of about tistical table, which will set forth the 800, openly rejecting the domination of work of all the German societies exceptthe Church of Rome, embracing Prot- ing two or three of the smallest.
., . .. ~ .~ ..~,~" ~ ;i .~ i ",- I .. .":l.."9;'E'" ~ Q)~ s~ '0 .g a;i !" l ~ 0 '$ ·~ll 0 <1l 0" .<:l .. 0 <: ,"0 "W. ~ '" – – – – – – – —- – – — — 0 Marks. Moravian .•..•…..••…… 493,7% 167 1'i~ 22,1 29 Ba.e1. …•••••••..•.•••••… 942,531 139 24 91,844 81,653 247 12,432 Berlin…………………. 329,285 72 34 26,435 13,157 319 4, 583 4 5W 24,687 11,979 140 Rh..ni.h ……………….. 487,909 93 16 North German ………….. 110,100 11 630 47,484 14,295 190 8,871 1 42 618 1,082 18 501 Gossner's ….. _………… 159,880 25 17 409 88,187 11,472 50 1,551) Leipsic ……………….. 347,166 37 1….7 526 14,520 6,916 178 5, 832 Herman!l"bltlr……… , ….. 194,391 61 21,566 10,837 66 ~,79 7 Scble.wlg-Ho stem……… 65,067 11 311 22 153 60 5 11 5 N ellkirchener ………….. 45,215 9 81 619 356 8 11 9 Evangelical Protestant…. 300 …… 6 German East Africa …….. 62,246 3 ..2.. 6 300 …… 2 2230o NeudettelslLu…………… 45,860 7 …… …… 3 21,3118 8 …. 50 Teachers. …… ………… S . … Morgenllind. Frallenv…… 1 90 12,947 '2 15 …… 165 's Women'. for China …….. 19,392 3 3 – – – – – – – – – – – – – Jerusalem's Verein…….. 55,060 1 1 – -8 – "'300 — Totals ………………. 3,392,68'~ 658 113 4,717 265,881 101,607 1,246 59,307 $843,170 ASIA. . mosques and their clean, inviting places India.-It is sometimes affirmed that of prayer, always facing Mecca. Ought the English go to India simply to make not the Christians too to have clean, money and carry it back to England. comfortable places of worship?
But, per contra, Mr. Robert Laidlaw -In the Bassein Karen Mission in has just given $75,000 to build a school- Burma each of the 91 churches is self- house in Calcutta, and Mr. Walter supporting. The missionary who laid Thompson has by will left $50,000 to the foundations urged the development promote public education in the prov- of lay workers in the church, and ince of Behar; and a native paper sug- brought about the unique custom of gests that their Maharajahs and Rajahs church discipline for covetousness.
can take a lesson from this public -Bishop Thoburn is authority for spirit. the statement that for the last three -The people of India are exceeding- years the Methodist missions in India ly religious, writes a missionary in the . have been receiving converts at the av- Baptist Missionary Magazine. The Hin- erage rate of 50 every day.
dus always first build a temple, and -The Methodist Woman's Foreign around this their houses cluster; the Missionary Society publishes a vernac· Mohammedans have their beautiful ular paper in Illdia fo).' the women of the zenanas, for which an endowment which are attended by 6873 pupils, and of $25,000 has been secured. This is in which 323 teachers are employed.
now published in 5 dialects. -The mission of t.he London Society -The Baptist Telugu Mission has in the Neyoor DistrIct, South Travan- received within four years an increase core, dates from 1805, and reports 12 of 57 missionaries, so that now there is European missionaries, 22 native minis- 8 force numbering 85. Of natives there ters, and 284 other native helpers, not are 66 ordained and 175 unordained including 521 teachers (a total native preachers, 17 colporteurs, 111 Bible force of 805). In the schools are 17,552 women and 161 other helpers; a total pupils; in the churches are 6730 mem- of 530. There are 1979 villages con- bers (of whom 385 were received in taining native Christians, and 210 of 1893). and the number of adherents them have stated congregations, with a is 53,147. The native contributions bnilding to meet in and a person in reached $4857 last year. The number charge. 'rhe 65 churches report 1509 of patients treated in the hospitals and additions by baptism. The present dispensaries was 33,225. .
membership is 48,829. In 17 boarding- China. — The Viceroy, Li Hung schools 551 male and 398 female pupils Chang, has invited Dr. Mackay, a are taught by a force of 60 teachers; physician of the London Missionary and in 12 caste girls' schools there are Society, to attend him personally when 42 teachers, with 659 pupils. The sick. village schools number 556, with 569 teachers, 4729 male and 2535 female -A missionary writes thus feelingly pupils. The total number of heathen of a national trait: "But oh, the noise scholars in all the schools is 1432, and of the moment I I seem to hear it yet.
of Christians, 7566.-The Worker. Roaring on board, and roaring on shore -The mission of the English Church -the din was deafening. Nothing can Society in Ceylon has 2797 Singhalese be accomplished in China without noise. and Tamil communicants, and 8005 It is a part, and not a small part, of the adherents. The number of baptisms genius and temperament of the people. was 158 last year. • If you give me permission to shout,' said a sufferer from toothache to a Eu- -The history of the Madura mis· ropean dentist, • you may extract them sion exemplifies several stages of mis- • all I' Prevent a Chinese boatman or sion progress. Native pastors of the coolie from shouting, and you thereby oldest period bear the names of prom- rob him of half his physical vigor."
inent American divines; those of the -There is a royal caste of beggars in middle period for the most part have Nanking. It was founded by Hung Bible names; and now the nationalfeel- Wu, the first monarch of the Ming dying is asserting itself, and most of the nasty. He did this because, having young'men have Tamil names.-Ind- once been in the mendicant line himian Witness. self, he wished to ohlige an old beggar -The mission of the American Board friend. " I don't want anything from named above, which covers 7000 square your majesty," said the latter, " except miles, embraces a population of over to have plenty to eat and wear, and 2,000,000 souls, and contains 12 sta- have nothing to do." The beggar had tions, 14 ordained missionaries, 18 wom- his wish. The caste of which he was en missionaries (married and single), the first chief live in certain large caves 14,810 adherents and communicants, in Nanking's walls. The police ap- the latter numbering 4109. The addi- points the head of the beggars. They tions by profession last year were 325. are well off, and their apartments are There are 189 schools of ali grades lofty and airy. -Rev. J. Hudson Taylor has lately diers and under·officers to aecompany us. About 1500 people followed us to made the statement that, of the whole the yamen, and the natives think about Thibetan race, only one third live in 10,000 followed us back. Mrs. Carlin that interior Thibet which is as yet shut was taken in and given tea with the up, while one third dwell in LadaJr, officia.l's first wife, while I was made to and other territoriel! subject to British sit upon the bench of judgment with control, on the northern frontier of him and sip hot tea. He asked me of India, and the remaining one third are my business in China, and whether I to be found on the Chinese side of the were scnt by my king, which I made Thibetan border. The significance of convenient to construe into an invita- this statement lies in the fact that While tion to tell of our doctrine." ThilJet may be closed as yet to the Gos· pel, two thirds of the Thibetan race are -What novel and perplexing prob- even now accessible to Christian mis· lems are thrust upon the heralds of the sionaries. cross in foreign lands! Bishop Corfe tells of a new departure among the Ko- -Rev. Hunter Corbett, of Chefoo. reans. Their hospitals are built in na- writes of baptizing a man whose age tive style, with the wards, like other was seventy·three, a widow of seventy- Korean rooms, without furniture. How nine, and another candidate of eighty- to nurse and how to perform operations eight years. At one station "a man upon patients who lie on the ground brought his father, aged seventy-five. were questions puzzling to the doctor. on a wheelbarrow a distance of five There has now been added to the hos- miles, to apply for baptism. When the pital at Nak Tong a" European wing," old man came before the session he said consisting of a ward for six beds. Two in substance, ' My memory has so failed, of the nursing sisters have been detailed and I am so stupid and ignorant that I for this wing. "The experiment," says cannot answer any questions; all I Bishop Corfe, "will give us great know is that I am a helpless sinner and anxiety. The adoption of European that I love Jesus and trust Him for sal- bedsteads and the heating of the ward vation.' The son promised to daily read with a stove are not matters of great and explaiu the Bible and do all he moment, though it will be long before could to help his father live near to the patients will rest contentedly off the Jesus." hot mud floor which they love so well. But the introduction of the nurses among -Sometimes the missionary is not male patients is another affair. Until without honor, even in the Celestial Em· now, Koreans have never had any wom- pire. Thus Rev. J. W. Carlin, of Ung en to nurse them, except their wives. Kung, South China, writes about open- Their horror at this breach of propriety ing a chapel with a service attended by on our part will give us much anxious 1000 persons: "In our house in the thought." afternoon was the highest military offi- cial of the city and his attaches, together -Not long ago a fire broke out in a with the highest civil official's children Formosan village, and two houses were and nephews, all on a visit to us for soon wrapped in flames. One of them about three hours, and we had op- was saved, the house of a heathen portunity for about one hour to tell Chinaman; the owner of the other " them of the origin, the way, and the house is a Christian, who happened to end of life. The official told me three be away from home. and as nobody several times he was glad I came here tried to save his" house, it was burned to live. and that he was happy to visit down. There was great laughter among me. This is his third visit. The high- the villagers at the Christian's misfor- est civil official yesterday invited our tunes. "That is the worth of your whole family to his yamen, sending solreligion." they said to him. A day or higher power to influence life than either two after, a company of men were seen the coldness of his skin or the empticoming across the fields, and when they ness of his stomach, to give the native got near it was seen that they were laden a motive to exertion, a craving for with wood, tools, and articles of furni· something higher than his present alture. The village was astir. What most animal existence-this is the aim was it? Who were the men? They of the missionary. It is the Church's were the members of the church to task to explain life to the African, to which their Christian neighbor be- show him how its ills may be avoided, longed, and had come from their homes, and its diseases cured by natural means some miles away, to rebuild his house, and human skill, and to bring him to which they did, while the villagers feel a higlwr power than witchcraft or gaped in wonder. Nothing like it had the' evil eye' ruling over all."-Rev. ever been seen. A. Hetherwick.
Japan.-The Episcopalian missiona- -The Wesleyan mISSIOnS on the ries feel the impulse toward a "recon- West Coast are divided into 4 sections struction" of Christianity upon Japan- -Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Lagos, and eselines. Rev. T. S. Tyng writes in The the Gold Coast. l<'orty·eight missiona- Ohurchman: "This Japanese Church ries, of whom only 7 are European, has its own constitution and canons, its have charge of Christian congregations, own synods, local and general, its own numbering nearly 60,000 souls.
Prayer-Book, substantially like those of -Some idea of the extent of the Britthe English and American churches, but ish possessions in South Africa may be differing in detail from both. Its whole gathered from the fact that the distance spirit and temper are thoroughly J apan- between Cape Town and Fort Salisbury, ese. No foreign bishop or clergyman in Mashonaland, is 1690 miles. A railcan take any part in its deliberations road extends north from the Cape to unless he signs a promise to conform to Vryburg, 774 miles, leaving 916 miles its constitution and canons, and no one to be traversed by post cart or ox can expect to do any successful work in wagon. Arrangements have lately been it unless he understands to some degree made for building another great extenthe Japanese spirit, and is willing to sion of the track. conform to Japanese methods." And he has good things not a few to say of -Basutoland is a country strictly the Japanese Christians. kept by the government for the occu- -From the statistical tables of mis- pation of its own native inhabitants, sionary work in Japan for 1893, lately settlement by colonists being prohibitpublished by Rev. H. Loomis, it ap- ed. It therefore offers a field for its pears that 643 missionaries are toiling in missionaries almost unique in South that field, of whom 228 are men and 216 Africa.
are unmarried women. There are also -Rev. James Hughes, of Kimberley, 206 native ministers, 665 preachers, president of the Baptist Union, has evangelists, etc.. and 367 theological procured 3 farms of 3000 acres each in students. The 377 churches have a Mashonaland and Matabeleland for mismembership of 37,398. The increase sion work among the natives; and 6 during last year was 1864, and the con- sites-3 for mission churches and 3 for tributions amounted to $32,000. parsonages. The Baptists of South Africa are making rapid progress.
AFRICA. -The London Missionary Society has -" To rouse the African out of his 16 meu and their wives at work in Cape sleep, to UUlke him feel that there is a Colony, Kaffirla;d, Bechuanaland, and Matabeleland. In spite of gravest hin- ars. The Roman Catholics report 130,- drances from wars, the elcit~ment of 000 adherents, 17,338 scholars, 641 nagold mining and vices brought in by tive teachers, and 114 European agents. Europeans, there are 2835 church-members and 7483 native Christians. -What a record for the churches of Niue, an island in the South Seas called -Two missions have recently been Savage Island by Captain Cook, because opened in the Dark Continent. One, of the character of its inhabitants I It after long months of search for a suita- has now a population of about 5000, ble location, has been fixed by agents of but there are 11 native pastors and 1646 the American Board at Mount Selinda, church-members. In the year 1892 Gazaland, in the territory of the South these churches sent from their own mem- African Company, and just across the bership 4 missionaries with their wil"es line from the Portuguese domains. to New Guinea. Besides supporting The other has been founded in the Bar- their own pastors, these Christians conotsi kingdom to the north of the Zam· tributed within the last y.ear $1500 to besi by the English Primitive Metho- the funds of the London Missionary Sodists, and only after a diligent and ciety for the carrying forward of mis~ painful quest of two or three years. sionary work.
-The Rev. W. P. Johnson, writing -Samoa has been desolated recently from Likoma, says: "When will peo- by the measles and other diseases conple understand that the natives do not joined. It is estimated that not less feel drawn to the white man qua white than 1000 persons have died. man, do not admire him, and if roused beyond an indifference, propped by -Rev. W. Brown writes from Duke love of what he brings, and fear of his of York Island, New Britain, as folsudden acts, hate him as unreasonably lows: "Our present edition of the hymnas the Irish do the Sassenach? book is almost done, and in my next letter I intend to ask for a new edi- ISLANDS OF THE SEA. tion. . .. Our people buy all their books now, and also slates, pencils, etc. -About one half of the 40,000 Ma- This year we received over £2 in that oris remaining in New Zealand belong way, and a new edition of hymn. books to the Church of England. One fourth would sell. Our missionary meeting are either Wesleyans or Roman Catho- subscriptions were fully £30 higher this lics, while the remaining one fourth year. Our total is now £130 for this represent the semi-heathen section that circuit." And this fact should be addeither fell away after the wars or never ed: "When the missionaries landed were brought in. in 1875 not a white man was resi- dent there. The language had not bQen -Four missionary societies are co- reduced to a writkn form, the people operating for the evangelization of were wild, naked savages; not a p(lund Madagascar, with its 3,500,000 inhabi- of copra had been made ; there was not tants-the London lIns~ionary Society, a sixpence on the island ; and, with the the Society for the Propagation of the exception of a little barter carried on Gospel, the English Friends, and the occasionally by a passing vcssel, there Norwegian :M:issbnary Society. Their was no trade carried on in the group. combined work includes 2096 stations, Now there are several large trading 88 missionaries, 75 'wives, and 16unmar- and planting firms in the islands; a ried women; 934 native ministers, with large proportion of the people near the 5836 evangelists. teachers, etc.; 113,910 mission stations attend Divine services communicants and 437,907 native Chris- regularly, schools are conducted, a littians; 1750 schools a~d 135,067 schol- erature is being slowly found, many of the people are truly converted to God."
The Missionary Review of the World — November 1890
THE DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM TO THE JEWS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIII. No. ll.-Old Series.– NOVEMBER. –VOL. ill. No. 11.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
THE DUTY OF CHRISTENDOM TO 'I'HE .JEWS.
BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK.
That most intelligent and devoted friend of missions, Robert N. Cust, LL. D., of London, has published recently in the Church Missionary Intelligencer, an able article on the changing phases of the non-Christian religions, in which occurs an interesting monograph on "Neo Judaism." Dr. Cust is a member, not only of the Administrative Committee of the Church Missionary Society, but also of the London Missionary Society to the Jews, and he is equally qualified to speak of the operations and the successes of both. More than this, he is a man who thoroughly acquaints himself with the character of those systems which he hopes to see displaced by the Gospel of Christ. He confesses that great success has not as yet crowned the efforts of Christian missionaries among the Jews, either in London or in the cities of the Continent and of northern Africa. But he is none the less certain as to the duty of the Christian Church. He states that the Jews now number not less than 7,000,000, and are, therefore, a much more numerous people than were ruled over by David or Solomon-more numerous, in fact, than Palestine could possibly have supported.
If Dr. Custis correct in this estimate-and he seldom errs in matters of fact-the return to the Holy Land must be hastened, or it can only be re-occupied by representation. For what race, unless it be the American Negro, increases so rapidly as the Hebrew? Wherever the environment is favorable, and he has an equal chance with others, the Jew is the most thrifty of men, not only in money-getting but in the number and healthfulness of his children. Where the native American imagines that he cannot afford to marry, and must be satisfied with the" club" instead of a home, the Jew rears a prosperous family, and in the end endows them with wealth.
That the Hebrew race have suffered great persecution during the past centuries, must be confessed to the shame of the Christian Church. They have found in Europe as well as Africa and western Asia, another and much longer Babylonish captivity. But that this has been wholly due to religious prejudice cannot be affirmed. The tone and implication of Shakespeare's" Merchant of Venice" must rest on a basis which, even in his time, was historic. Probably the prejudice and contempt entertained toward the race by their Roman conquerors was fully as strong as has ever been exercised by the most bigoted of Christian nations. Nay, the latter .prejudice may have been in part an heirloom of the former.
The strangest prejudice and the greatest injustice and oppression now visited upon the Jews, so far as the Christian powers are concerned, are found in eastern Europe, where the doctrines of Christianity have the slightest hold, and where governmental policy and the bitterness of industrial competition must be held responsible for the entire crusade. One million of Jews are now being banished from Russian territory, not because of their faith but because the Government does not regard them as desirable subjects.
One thing is certain, whatever prejudice exists against the Hebrew population in the United States, does not arise from differences of .faith. Their best friends, both in this country and in Great Britain, are found in the Christian Church-certainly in the Protestant Church.
Some months since, the question was sent out to different men of prominent positions among us, "What is the occasion of the prevailing prejudice against the Hebrews ?" , Generally the re.sponse given was, "We are not aware of any prejudice." . Several clergymen disavowed any feeling of the kind. But Rev. Edward Everett Hale was cre~ited with charging the hostile feeling to a difference of religious faith.
As the implication was that of a prejudice now existing on the part of the American churches, we must earnestly protest against it. Mr. Hale cannot be aware-possibly he has forgotten-that four or five years ago, U. S. Minister Strauss was chosen to represent our Government at Constantinople on the recommendation of the missionary boards, and that petitions from the missionaries in the Turkish Empire were sent to Washington asking that he might be appointed for a second term.
The hostile feeling against the Jews in this country grows out of business relations. It is not cherished by Christians as such, but by those who have had to do with them in trade, or by those who have been employed by them in manufacturing. The trades unions, largely composed of infidels and Nihilists, would probably be found to represent the most bitter of all the animosities that they encounter. Whether it be just or not, there exists a feeling that the chief oppressors of poor needle-women are Jews. The industries in which unfortunate and starving females engage, as a last resort, are mostly in the hands of this class of men, and when the ruinous rates at which manufactured garments are produced in the attics and tenement houses of desperate poverty corne to be known, it must not be thought strange if popular sympathy and indignation are aroused. Some Americans join in the same extortion, but their miserable plea is that .competition compels them to do what others do. As a rule, women do not "strike." They suffer on and die, and their employers prosper .and live on Fifth Avenue.
There are among our Hebrew citizens thousands of worthy and honorable business men who suffer unjustly from the prejudice which .other thousands of their race have brought upon them, and it is to be hoped, that on the one hand, public opinion will become more discrimjnating, while on the other, the example of the nobler Hebrew tradesmen will raise the standard of honor and humanity among all their race.
Another thing which creates prejudice against the Jews may be regarded as a mere accident of their phenomenal thrift. At the summer resorts they are deemed undesirable guests on account of rough and disagreeable manners. This is no proof that the average of the race is more clownish or swinish than other races. Quite as disagree- ,able companionship might be found among the Irish, or some classes of native-bom Americans, but the difference is, that these are not found at first-class hotels; with them, there is a different relation between manners and money. Financial competency reaches a lower stratum in Jewish society than in any other. It extends to classes among whom the gentle amenities of life are unknown, and even good grammar is wanting. And the same habit of overreaching, which has made the money, is carried into all the contacts and experiences of hotel life.
Now, it is quite time that the common notion that Jews are suffering from any narrow religious prejudice of the Christian Church were laid aside.
How is it in Mohammedan countries where a common rejection of Christianity might be supposed to draw both classes of rigid Monothists together in full sympathy? In no Christian country-not even in Russia-is there so bitter a hatred, so degrading a bondage for the ~ews as in northern Africa-particularly in Morocco. They are thrifty in money matters, even there. It is impossible to impoverish them by any ordinary measures of oppression. On some accounts it is for the interest of impecunious Moors, and even of the officials, to have such a class from whom to borrow money, and by whose energy business shall be kept from stagnation, but as to indignitIes of every kind, the treatment meted out to them is almost incredible. They must wear a prescribed attire, and dwell in a certain quarter, and submit to many special police regulations; while in taxation, the only question is how far the life blood can be drawn with safety.
It seems strange that in their wide range among the nations, these people who are not a nation, cling to the Mohammedans and the Christians. Though the world is open before them, and they do not seem bound by local attachments, they are never found among the heathen. Opportunities for money-getting have been great in the East; almost every other race of Europe and western Asia-ancient and modern-has been lured by the wealth of India or China or the southern Archipelago, but never the Jew. His financial counterpart, the Parsee, is everywhere found in the East, driving bargains with Jewish sagacity, in opium or in spices and coffee, but the Hebrew has never crossed their track. Even in those centuries where he has suffered the greatest disabilities in the proscribed "Jew quarters" of European or Levantine cities, it seems never to have occurred to him to join the rush of Persians, Pathans, Macedonians, Portuguese, Dutch, and English, after the wealth of the heathen Orient. He preferred to be snubbed and crushed by Christian and Moslem nations, and to find solace in that money-getting passion which, in the course of centuries, has become a nature.
Hertzog alludes to the fact that the Jew confines himself mostly to temperate latitudes; he is not found in the tropics of either hemisphere. And our readers hardly need to be reminded that he is always found in the cities. Who ever heard of a Hebrew farmer ?-at least this side of Bible times. The Nomadic character has forsaken him. He is no longer a keeper of sheep. Yet, no other race except the Hindu or the Mongolian has shown such tenacity of life and such unimpaired vigor. The Romans who crushed the national life of Israel, on the one hand, and t].}e Assyrians who enslaved and scattered the chosen tribes, on the other, have alike perished, while the seed of Abraham, driven everywhither, have survived and are more numerous and a hundredfold more thrifty than in the days of Solomon and his glory.
The financial power of Jewish bankers on the Continent of Europe has become proverbial. The author of La France Juive claims that French politics, as well as finance, are largely controlled by the same race. We have, in our day, seen a D'Israeli climb to the heights of power in England, and wield a magician's wand over Queen and Parliament, and finally win for himself a statue in the consecrated shrine of national heroes and statesmen.
On this side of the Atlantic, the main business thoroughfare of our great metropolis is exchanging the names of its old American firms for the names of German Jews. 'l'hey are sure to become not only a great financial power but a strong social and political element in this country. The logic of their twofold increase-by natural generation and by immigration-renders certain a great future development.
Meanwhile, there is reason to believe that a better state of feeling is springing up. If the Jew has been rather Ishmaelitish than Israelitish it is not wholly his fault, though it is in part. On both sides, there should be confidence, and among business men of the highest grade there is already a clasping of hands over the old "wall of partition.'" Dr. Cust quotes from an address, delivered this very year, by Dr. Adler (not Felix), in the great synagogue in Aldgate, in the presence -of the Lord-Mayor, himself a Jew, in which the Rabbi alluded to the influence exerted by that synagogue. "Many a soul-stirring service," said the speaker, "has been witnessed within its venerable walls. Whatever the event that moved the hearts of England's sons-when a great victory evoked national rejoicing; when a sovereign had been _stricken down by illness, and when it pleased the Lord to send him healing; when a joyous jubilee was kept, and when death had entered -the palace-every event was commemorated in the great synagogue with the voice of prayer and supplication, of praise and thanksgiving, proving that the Israelite then, as always, was steeped to the very lips with loyalty. Nor were the administrators of the synagogue unmindful of the needs of their fellow-men-though of other lands and -creeds. Whether the appeal came to relieve a famine in Sweden, or to diminish the sufferings of English prisoners in France, or a plaint reached these shores from the hunger-stricken children of Ireland- the authorities of the great synagogue were ever ready to aid and to succor."
The benefactions as well as the exalted character of a Moses Montifiore are fresh in the mind of every reader. And that love of fair play which is so strong in the character of Englishmen, is welcoming :such men as he to their confidence, and is appreciating the philanthropic efforts of the great synagogue.
Instead of clinging to an old religious grudge against the race, Christian London is the focal centre of interest ih their welfare. Mis- -sions to the Jews at home and abroad are multiplied, and the strong :prayer of faith is offered up by thousands of devout Christians that God 'Will redeem His own chosen people by the blood of an accepted Christ!
It must be confessed that the Christian Church at large has seemed to be apathetic in regard to Jewish missions, but it has been rather the apathy of despair than of indifference. There has been too great .a readiness to "turn unto the Gentiles" and to consider the engrafted "wild olive" the real tree. At the London Missionary Conference of 1888, Mr. James E. Mathieson quoted the late Dr. Schwartz as saying, '''You Gentile Christians take all the sweet promises to yourselves, out you leave all the curses to the poor Jews." And in continuing, Mr. MathieRon alluded to a custom of the Scotch ecclesiastical bodies .()f rising at the close of their sessions (though they usually sit in prayer), and singing with marked solemnity: "Pray for the 'peace .()f Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee," etc. "But they do not mean Jerusalem," he added, "and they do not mean the Jews: they mean the Established Church and the Free Church of Scotland." 18 Dot this something like "robbery for burnt offering ?"
But, however, the Church, a8 a whole, may have negleeted her duty, there have always been those who have God's chosen people in their hearts. Count Zinzendoof, the founder of the Moravian Mis- sions, took a warm interest in the Jews, and he had the great joy, in 1735, of seeing a prominent Jewish rabbi become a member of the' Moravian Church, and a successful missionary among his people. "Everywhere," says Dr. Fleming, Secretary of the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, "he won the esteem of the Jews, and not long since, a gift was sent to the Moravian Church at Herrnhut by a Jewish family who cherished the traditions of bless- ing through Rabbi Lieberkiihn."
The London Society, above named, has been at work for over eighty years. Nor is it alone. There are altogether eight Jewish missionary societies in England, five in Scotland, and one in Ireland. Together, these employ 312 agents. On the Continent of Europe, the societies number 27. America has seven, with 34 agents. Thus 48 societies with 377 agents are striving to win God's ancient people to· tlileir own Messiah. That their labors have not been wholly in vain is shown by the estimated fact that 100,000 Jews have been baptized in the last seventy-five years, and that with their children the number' of believers may be set down at 250,000. Among these have been many distinguished men.
Though these numbers are not relatively great, yet it is believed that the breaking down on both sides of an unrelenting prejudice, has been a far greater result and one which opens the way for blessed in-gatherings in the time to come.
There are certainly some valid grounds of hope for the Jews, even aside from the Divine promises. They are less tenacious of their old faith than they were formerly. Though still more or less clannish, yet they are more than ever disposed to break down barriers and be like other people. They are getting tired of the real or imagined stigma and reproach attached to their name. Each successive generation cares less for the old shibboleths and more for the privileges of social life without distinction of race.
It is seen that the prophetic situation is awkward. If the Messiah has come, who, and what was He? If He has not come, when will He appear? If sacrifice symbolized a promised Redeemer why is it not 'kept up? Why is the Moslem permitted to hold century after century, the only place of sacrifice, unless to show that its meaning is done away and its necessity gone? Perhaps it is in despair over such questions as these that multitudes of Jews are driven to Agnosticism., More and more Jews observe our Sabbath as a day of rest, and their Sabbath-schools inevitably tend toward Christian ways. It is well-nigh impossible to prevent their children from coming intosympathy with the Christian institutions and customs which prevaiL around them. Two or three years ago a liberal-minded and philanthropio Jew in Italy offered an immense sum of money to be devoted to the edu- oation of children in Russia, and recommended that Jews and Chris- tians be educated together. His idea was that the race distinction should be ignored, and that the young of his people should be allowed to become absorbed in the national life wherever they might be, and that gradually the distinction between Jew and Gentile should dis- appear. It may be, that social abs!)rption, intermarriage, the assimi- lating influence of the common school, the fading out of the Jewish pride and prejudice of race are to be factots in God's plan of recovery. Doubtless, they will have a part to act, but God's express will is that the Gospel shall be ,faithfully preached meanwhile, and that prayer be .offered for His people. '
Surely the Christian Church owes it to itself to present no higher consideration to promote the spiritual enlightenment of the Jews. We ourselves need this effort, if only tt> remind us continually how much we owe to the race that ga,ve us the Saviour of mankind-if only to keep fresh in memory the great missionary whom the Jewish race gave as the Apostle to us Gentiles. Our indebtedness for the Chief of the apostles will never be paid. The Gentile world, with its Christian institutions, is a monument of the great fact that it is possible to overcome the most inveterate Jewish prejudice, and to win the stoutest Pharasaic heart to Christ. If Paul could be converted and could convert thousands of others of his own faith, the Christian Church has no right to despair. Jew:ish synagogues were the first cradles of the nascent church in all lands. They opened their doors to the apostles for the planting of the first germs of truth, and Jewish converts everywhere gave character and steadiness to the ignorant Gentile church.
But, how shall the Jews of our time be reached? The London Society, as the result of eighty years of experience, answers this question under the following heads: (1.) By striving to win their confidence by removing prejudice: (a.) Never speak sneeringly or disparagingly of them; overcome the habit in ourselves and others. (b.) Manifest sympathy with them as a nation and as individuals. (c.) Win confidence by medical missions.
(2.) By preaching the Gospel as the apostles preached it-proving from their own Scriptures that Christ is the promised Messiah.
(3.) By encouraging a diligent, oandid, and prayerful study of the whole Bible-the Old and the New Testament in their connection.
(4.) By educating Jewish children. In a school supported by the Society, in Palestine Place, London, where 595 Jewish boys have been educated, the master, after 28 years of service, does not know of one pupil, who, after pursuing a full course, has relapsed into Judaism.
(5.) By assisting poor Jewish youth to obtain positions and Imcouraging them in seeking a subsistence.
(6.) By training promising young men as missionaries. tt should not be forgotten, as an encouragement, that the Jews are worshippers of our God, have a large portion of our Bible, are sharers of our civilization, speak our language, and are-or ought to be-our friends as well as neighbors, and are even before us, heirs of the covenant of promise !
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF MADAGASCAR. [EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] To an English boy, Robert Drury, wrecked near Port Dauphine, the Southeastern cape of Madagascar, we owe the first full account of the savages on this great island. He saw the captain and crew, who escaped with him from the angry sea, pierced with the lances of the inhospitable natives, till out of over a hundred only a dozen survived, and he himself was saved only to be enslaved. This was early in this century. He found the country divided among many warring tribes; might the only right, women and children carried off like cattle and made slaves; woman, so degraded that even the King's daughter, wife or mother, cringed before him and licked his feet. Heathen ceremonies of the most absurd and degrading kind were matters of daily occurrence. A wooden charm called an owZey, borne up by forked sticks, was worshiped with incense. Fortune tellers, or umossees, held the people in the bondage of superstition, and lived upon their ignorance and credulity. The Malagasy were the victims of magicians, and constantly fought and plundered one another, The arrival of a European vessel was the signal for wholesale crimes of lust and trading in human bodies and: souls. All who had slaves drove them to the seaside.
Half a century ago the Hovas held the interior portion of the island, and their King or chief, who was called Radama, had come to the throne in 1808. With these Hovas and their sovereigns the modern history of Madagascar is mainly concerned, Morally and spiritually the picture is very dark. From three to four thousand natives were sold, it is said, every year, and the spot where they caught the last glimpse of home, and the first glimpse of the sea that was to bear them into hopeless exile, is even now called the''weeping pZace ofthe Hovas." Though they had courts of law, bribery was so common that trial was a form and a farce. Honesty was scarce known, and children were trained to falsehood and deception as a virtue. Punishments were savagely cruel, devised to give long, lingering pain-burning by slow fires, drowning in boiiing water, poisoning by tangena, beating, starving, hurling over precipices, crucifying. 'fhe tangena was a substitute for trial, and thousands died every year from this poison, while those who proved their innocence by outliving the dose were wrecked in health.
The people were a nation of thieves as well as liars. Madame Pfeiffer's property was stolen while at the house of the Chief Justice, but }'ecovery was impossible, where even high officers stole. Even graves were robbed, bodies stripped, and every article of value buried with the dead was an object of ruthless plunder. The nation was so wedded to lying and thieving that Christianity was objected to because it taught people to be true and honest. They were so far lost to all virtue that they resisted any influence that promised moral improvement. .As to the homes of Madagascar, there were none. A native never I:lpoke ,of family or family ties. Madame Pfeiffer's travels had brought t.o her knowledge no people so immoral, and her pen refused to chronicle what her eyes and ears were compelled to see and hear. The worst vices were so universal as to seem natural. A man might put away his wife for no cause and take a fresh one as often as his caprice or passion led him; female virtue was of so little account that it did not ·even affect the legitimacy of offspring. Children born on unlucky days it was no crime to strangle, drown or expose to the trampling feet of cattle.
The Hovas were not an irreligious people-idols filled the land. ·Gods were so plenty that anything new, which they did not compre- hend, though it were a machine or a photograph, they deified. Their idols were conceived as having all power, but neither knowledge nor .goodness, virtue nor love; they were simply human greed, cruelty,mean- ness and malice, invested with almightiness! monsters of lies and lusts.
Among such a people-of whom the French governor of the Isle of Bourbon said, "You might as well attempt to convert sheep, oxen or -asses, as to make the Malagasy Christians "-among such a people the gospel has gone to win some of its mightiest triumphs.
The first obvious step that God took was one of preparation. He -gave Madagascar political unity. King Radama in his reign of twenty years"proved himself the Cresar or Napoleon" of his realm, making him- self master of the whole island except two districts in the South,and this rendered easier the spread of a new faith, as the unification of the Roman Empire had done eighteen centuries before. Radama was at ·once a general, a ruler and a reformer. He had with all his faults and vices a patriotic spirit. Contact with European civilization had becn sufficient to satisfy him of its superior type, and he first opened the -door to civilization and Christianity that he might secure the progress .and prosperity of his people. He made a treaty with Britain, abolishing the slave trade, though domestic slavery still prevailed in his own ,dominions; and seeing t~e benefits accruing to even heathen lands from the gospel of Ohrist, he welcomed the pioneer English mission- -ary, in 1820, to his capital Antananarivo, and kept his word, which pledged to him and others who might join him royal protection.
The missionaries reduced the language of the people to writing, and in teaching and preaching had all their time and strength employed. -God gave them the king's patronage; an adult sch,ool was opened in the palace court yard, and by his favor a central model school was -opened for training native teachers for the villages round about; and when murmurs arose against the missionaries, because their teachings lessened respect for the native religion, Radama had the independence ;and the indifference to go on with the work of education, at heart -caring nothing for the idols that the Hovas worshipped. In 1826 the first printing press was set up in the i.sland, and a new literature began to be created. The people were slowly waking from the sleep of ages. But at the death of Radama, in June, 1828, not'om~' convert had yet made a confession of Christ. The king himself was a progressive sovereign, but he was led simply by worldly wisdom. It was civilization and not Christianity, as such, that he encouraged. He was too intelligent to have faith in priestcraft and witchcraft, but too carnally minded to embrace Christianity or even attend preaching services.
And now opens the era of a most bloody and cruel persecution. One of Radama's wives, Ranavalona, took forcible possession of the throne, mounting it by murdering all rivals. If Radama was the Cresar, she was the" Bloody Mary," of Madagascar. From twenty to thirty thousand victims fell annually a prey to her cruelty. She was as reckless as Nero, as treacherous as Judas, and as selfish as Cleopatra. Her chief amusement was a bull-fight, her imperial journeys were·· destructive raids that left famine in their track, and her whole rule was that of a despot that cared neither for the liberty nor life of her subjects. She would waste tears over the death of a favorite bull, and lavish honors on its burial, such as not even the decease of her whole· family would have drawn forth. Had her reign been long, the island would have been a depopulated desert; and as it was, it has been calculated that half of the population perished under her. bloody sceptre. We purposely draw her hideous portrait that it may be seen what wasthe natural flower of the Madagascar society, and under what a deadly influence the infant church of Christ there struck down its tender' roots and unfolded its stalk.
There was everything, humanly speaking, to prevent the gospel from getting any hold in Madagascar. The soil was thick with the awful growths of a paganism of the lowest type; and a queen who had neither justice nor mercy was ready to pluck up the first plant of godliness, 01' burn over any field where the seed of the gospel might spring up. Among her first acts was the prohibition of all preaching and the breaking up o~ the schools. 4fterward, probably from motives of policy, she permitted the missionaries not only to make converts, but to organize native Christian churches, and, in 1831, twenty were baptized, among them "Paul," who had been a famous heathen diviner, but who had become a humble learner in the school of Christ.
As soon as the work of conversion thus began in earnest, the queen Bet herself resolutely against it. Her hatred and cruelty were so satanic' that a pall seemed to have fallen upon the whole people. The preaching went forward, and the queen was besought not to persecute the· new disciples. But it was all in vain. In March, 1834, a royal proc– lamation was made in the ears of a hundred thousand people drawn. up on the plain, Imahamasina, declaring war against the new faith•.. Converts were branded as criminals, and required to accuse themselves within one week on pain of death. Astonishing as it may seem, the, great body of these native disciples stood firm. Praying for help, trusting in God, they appeared before the judges and confessed their faith in Jesus. In these days of peril these Malagasy Christians spent whole nights in prayer, by their fidelity to an unseen Saviour exciting the astonishment of their very enemies. The queen contented herself in this case with degrading four hundred officers and fining two thou~ sand others. A week httor she demanded all books to be delivered up. As all literature on the island was the creation of the mission press, this edict was aimed against the Bible. But the brave Malagasy would not give up the Scriptures, which some of them had walked a hundred miles to procure.
The strong hold of the gospel upon the native J,J:ovas could be ac- counted for on no philosophy that excludps the power of God. Al~ ready twenty~four hundred of the queen's officers were among the con~ verts, and in the army the best and bravest soldiers were also soldiers of Christ. In vain were they placed in the most exposed positions in the battle: they still routed the foe. Thirty~thousand Hovas could read the Scriptures. Many cast away idols and superstitious charms.
Large congregations met at the capital and the influence reached hundreds of miles in every direction. No fault could be found in the Chi-istians of Madagascar, except that founl! with Daniel in Baby~ lon-they believed in their God. Wheu compelled to cease public labor, the missionaries worked privately, and besides teaching the people, published the complete Old Testament and" Pilgrim'S Progress." Then, driven from the island, they left the young church of Christ without a foreign mi~sionary among them, in July, 1836; and for twenty-five long years, persecution which had bared her red right arm continued to make it a crime to confess Jesus as Saviour aud Lord. .
Ranavalona 1., ather coronation in June, 1829, took two of the na- tional idols in her hands and said, "From my ancestors I received you; in you I put my trust, therefore support me.. " And, robed in scarlet.
and gold, those idols were held at the front of the platform to overawe the multitude while the ceremonies went forward. Here was a throne literally pillared on idols, as her reign abundantly proved.
There .were four eras of persecution, lasting respectively for fourr seven, three and. two years, together reaching from 1835 to 1860, with intervals of comparative quiet. The third was the most severe.
Christians met secretly in each other's houses, and traveled sometimes twenty miles to mountain tops, to praise and pray and read the word of God.
A woman of high family, Rafaravavy, became a sincere disciple and opened one of the largest houses in the capital for Christian worship. Despite the queen's hostile attitude, she continued to hold Sunday .evening meetings. She refused to reveal the names of her fellowworshipers, and the queen in a rage ordered her put to death. While -expecting cruel tortures, she retained her serene composure; the peacc {)f God filled her soul. Her life was spared, but her property in part ~onfiscated. She continued to meet believers, however, and the number of converts constantly increased. These persecuted disciples, bereft of human teachers, looked only to the Holy Spirit as teacher, and became themselves instructors of others who could not read. Their .quick sensibilities made them weep at the bare mention of Jesus. Rafaravavy's house was assaulted by a mob, and she was led away, as ~he snpposed, to execution, and put in irons; but a terrible conflagration that same night was snpposed to have alarmed the queen and .aroused her supe;stitious fears, and the penalty was delayed. At last .sentence of perpetual slavery was inflicted on all who had been seized in Rafaravavy's house, and Rasalama, another of the women, was speared while kneeling in prayer. Thus, on August 14, 1837, the first Mada- .gascar martyr died witnessing for Jesus. Two hundred converts were .enslaved for Jesus' sake at this time. Some of those thus enslaved to traders, afterwards escaped, but astonished their masters by returning to them accounts of their goods, with money obtained from sales. Fugitives hid three months at a time in forests. Wanderers often 'came into contact with lonely dwellings, where little congregations hitherto unknown gathered for Christian worship.
These are fragments of this remarkable story of Madagascar which read like the highest romance of Christian chivalry.
In 1839 some fugitives, on their way to England, stopping at Port Elizabeth, in South Africa, met with fellow-converts. Unable to communicate freely with these converted Hottentots, their Bibles be- -l'ame actually vehicles of converse. The Malagasy and Hottentots turning to the same passages in their respective translations of the Word, in this way made known to each other their sentiments. For .example, the Hottentot disciples pointed to Ephesians ii : 2 : "Among whom we all had our cop,versation in time past," etc. The Malagasy disciples responded by Eph. ii : 14, 15: "For He is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition." Also Gal. iii: 28: "Ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Again, the Hottentots pointed to John xvi: 33: "In the world ye .shall have tribnlation." The Hovas replied by Rom. viii: 35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation?" etc. When was e'Ver the Bible put to a more beautiful use even by the most mature Christians? Then they sang the same hymns to the Bame tunes in different languages. Verily, "Multm terricolis lin~um; celestibus una." Then the Hottentots made them a voluntary contribution to help pay costs of their voyage, and knelt on the beach commending them to God. And these were Hottentot" dogs" and Malagasy "asses!" How soon and strangely they had developed into Christian men!
When these fugitives reached England, in May, 1839, they wrote a letter to their suffering fellow-disciples at home, which for beauty and purity of Christian sentiment might have graced the fame of Paul, theapostle and writer of epistles. For three years they stayed on British shores, winning universal esteem and love, and furnishing an unanswerable proof of the reality of the gospel. When, in 1842, they returned to Mauritius, their mission station at Moka became the asylum for other fugitives from persecutions at Madagascar. The queen was only enraged by the escape of her victims. She became the more bloodthirsty. She ordered her soldiers, when they found any Christians, 4J;0 dig a pit, cast them into it, pour boiling water on them and then fill up the pit, and go in search of others on whom to wreak similar vengeance.
Meanwhile, the patience and fidelity of these poor disciples confounded their very enemies, and constrained them to admire and wonder at a power so mysterious that could take away the fear of death, even in forms so horrible. In July, 1840, nine perilons, recaptured out of sixteen who had fied, were put to death by the spear of the executioner, and among them PauZ the Aged, the converted conjurer and preacher. And still the Gospel made conquests in these, the darkest days.
Two years of respite from persecution passed by, and a second era of cruelty began about June 19, 1842. Two converts were seized while returning from a missionary tour among the Salaklava tribes, and tortured to induce them to reveal the names of their fellow-disciples, but in vain. These lambs went to the slaughter without opening their mouths to betray other believers.
A few months later the queen was wrought to fury by the act of some imprudent person who affixed to the wall of a house in the capital a leaf of the New Testament, underlining Matthew xxiii, 13, "Woe unto you," etc. Construing this as a personal insult, she required the unknown offender to confess in four days, under penalty of being cut into pieces as small as musket balls. As no confession followed, the queen arrested several Christians and selected two, whose bodies wereliterally chopped as fine as mincemeat, and then burned to ashes! And the only ground for attaching to these disciples the guilt of this offence was that they knew enough to read and write!
Strange to say, it pleased God that the only son and heir of this atrocious Jezebel should, at the age of sixteen, become interested in the very Christians who were the,objects of his mother's persecuting rage! Rakatond.-Radama was one ofthat illustrations of that paradox of heredity, that a lamb should be born of a hyena. His gentle spirit was the exact reverse of his mother's ferocity. Where she delighted in cruelty, he delighted in kindness; he hated blood-shedding even as she thirsted for it. Of course, the people soon found out where to go for sympathy and succor. He cut the cords of those who were bound, and released those appointed to death; and yet the natural affection existing between the son and mother prevented a rupture between them.
About tliis time, 1847, Ramaka, called Rasalasala, or the BoZd One, arose, a mighty preacher, the first in the Madagascar church. Prince Rakatond was drawn to hear him, and was so impressed that he had Christian teachers come to the palace to instruct him in the Scriptures and pray with him. So far as he could he prevented all executions, .or, at least, modified and mollified the severity of the sentence against accused disciples. Though he never seems to have become a convert himself, he often attended OhrIstian worship and befriended the converts in every possible way. His cousin, Prince Ramonja, older than he, yet singularly like him, and also a favorite of the queen, joined him in the chivalrous defence of the persecuted followers of Jesus. The nephew of the prime minister went further than these two royal princes, and openly declared himself a disciple, and so the gospel once more invaded "Ooosar's household." His uncle threatened him with the loss of his head, but he calmly answered, I l( am a Ohristian, and if you will, you may put me to death, but I must and will pray." He might be assassinated, but could not be in- timidated, as Ourran said of himself when conducting the defense of Bond.
To recount all the fascinating story of the Malagasy's sufferings would require a volume. But we seek rather to portray in outline the main features of this romance of missions. One of the most affecting memorials of this persecution may be found in the fragments of Holy Scripture afterwards brought home by Mr. Ellis. During this famine .of the written word, the more educated converts copiAd out portions .of the blessed book, and these were found, worn, soiled and rent, with the toru edges carefully drawn together and sewed with fibres of bark, .or repaired with pieces of stronger paper; and giving evidence that they had been buried in the earth or hidden in smoky thatches, to conceal them from the eyes of the malignant persecutors.
In 1849 a third era of persecution began with the a~sault upon Prince Ramonja. A kabar or business meeting was summoned at Andahalo. rrhe queen addressed a message to her subjects, asking «why it was that they did not give up praying," in view of the :severe penalties affixed to the crime of apostasy from the gods of Madagascar.
The Ohristians made mild but firm answer, refusing to recognize idols. Rainitraho, a noble of royal blood, was among Ohrist's conlessors, and his heroism was so contagious that the officers stopped the -examinations lest the whole people should be carried away with his example. Four nobles were burned alive, and f.ourteen others hurled from a precipice 150 feet high, and their families sold as slaves; 117 were publicly flogged and compelled to labor for life in chains; 1,700 were fined, and Prince Ramonja was degraded from his rank. The -prince royal was accused of being a Christian, but the queen was too indulgent to her only son to take notice of the charge.
No acts of violence could sway these simple Malagasy converts from Jesus. They calmly replied, "None of these things move me." They sang a hymn of "going home to God," as they were borne to ~,x:ecution, and prayers and praises ascended in the very flames that wrapped the stakes. Once, indeed, the flames were extinguished by a sudden rain, and a bow appeared, one end of which seemed to rest on the very posts to which the martyrs were tied. The spectators were overwhelmed with awe, but the fires were relit, and the martyrs gave up the ghost.
To the precipice near the palace, .JI.mpamarinana, fourteen prisoners were then led and hurled over its awful edge, bounding from ledge to ledge until they were broken on the granite rocks below, and one of them was heard singing as he fell. One timid woman, Ranivo, who was kept to the last, compelled to look over the edge of the cliff upon the mangled bodies below, in answer to the '6ntreaties of friends that she would save her life by apostasy from Dhrist, only begged to be hurled from the precipice too. And yet the word of the Lord had free course and was glorified. Converts was still gathered. Believers numbered thousands. In at least seven places in the capital secret meetings were held.
Rainiharo, one of the ministers who had placed Ranavalona on the throne and propped her persecuting policy by his influence, died, and this period of relentless persecution came to a close. The prince royal, Rakatond, now became associated with his mother in the government: The time now seemed to have come for the return of the expelled mIsSIOnaries. The London Missionary Society, to whose planting the gospel owed Its harvest in Madagascar, sent a deputation, composed of the veteran missionary, Rev. William Ellis, and the Rev. Mr. Cameron, to prepare the way for re-establishing the mission which for about eighteen years had been broken np.
Mr. Ellis found two parties on the island, led respectively by Prince Rakatond and by his cousin, Ramboasalama, the former favoring Christ~anity and all its noble institutions; the latterin league with idolatry and all its vicious associations. But Mr. Ellis found the church of Christ in the island stronger than before persecution began, and the knowledge of the gospel spread to the remote parts of the island. Not until his third visit, in 1856, did he reach the capital. But when he did, he found that just the fruits which the blessed gospel had produced in the most enlightened communities, it had borne in Madagascar. Disciples had there fought the same fight of faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, and burning with zeal for God and passion for souls. Closet and la:mily prayer were more common than among disciples in London; the word of God was daily searched as for hid treasure, and the meetings for worship were attended at all risk. . The fourth and last persecution may be traced to a plot to depose the wicked queen. June, 1857, was fixed as the time for carrying out the design. Mr. Lambert, a Frenchman, first sought aid from Louis Napoleon and the English prime minister, Lord Clarendon, in relieving the misery of the Malagasy. When the hope of foreign interference failed, he is said to have enlisted the co-operation of Prince Rakatond with some of the nobles and soldiers, in' the plan of revolutionizing the government by native aid alone. No violence was to be done to the queen's person; she was simply to be removed from the throne, and her son to be proclaimed king. But ou the eve of accomplishment the plot failed, and when the knowledge of the conspiracy came to Queen Ranavalona's ears, she refused to allow anyone to hint a suspicion against her son, and like Nero when Rome burned, fixed the guilt of the whole plot upon the poor innocent disciples of Christ. A traitor who had professed conversion gave the queen a list of seventy whom he charged with a share in the conspiracy. Prince Rakatond got hold of this list and tore it in pieces. But the bloody queen must have some victims for her new fever of rage, and so another kabar was called. Not more than three hundred Christians were found, as they had fled in bands so numerous as to put to flight the detachments of soldiers sent to capture them. The infuriated queen declared that her search should extend to the bowels of the earth and the very beds of lakes and rivers; but the more she raved the more calm and cautious were the followers of Jesus; only Prince Rakatond's energy and interposition prevented the destruction not only of hundreds of natives bUl of the six Europeans who were on the island, including Madame Pfeiffer, the traveler. They were, however, banished and barely escaped from the island with their lives.
Christians were pierced and tortured with spears and then beheaded. More than two hundred suffered punishment, most of them men of mark, and stoning was now for the first time employed as a new and cruel mode of execution. Iron necklaces were attached to the necks of others and they were thus linked together and compelled to constant companionship until death ended their sufferings; if one died the rest had to drag about this body of death-a revival of the hideous forms of ancient torture. Fifty-seven Christians were thus chained together and banished to a distant province. This was the last triumph of persecuting hatred against the little church in Madagascar. For thirty-two years Ranavalona had held her red sceptre. She had sought to trample upon and stamp out with iron heel the humble plant of renown that was growIng in the soil of this great island. But God used all this rage of this modern Jezebel to test and develop the faith and love of disciples. The tan.gena draught, the boiling caldron, the rice-pit, the awful precipice, the chain, the spear, the stone, the stake-all united in vain to compel these poor~ ignorant, persecuted disciples to disown their newly-found Saviour. For the first time iu the history of modern missions God permitted a. feeble church, just planted and scarcely rooted on pagan soil, to undergo It quarter of a century of persecution, having scarcely a parallel in violence and cruelty. That church was literally anu emphatically isolated; not only on an island, but cut off from sympathetic contact and communication with the Ohristian church in otber lands, and yet it more than survived; for a,t the end of that twenty-five years, when, if not plucked up by the roots, it might have been expected to be found feeble and half dead, it was strong and firmly rooted, and among its precious fruits were many of the soldiers, the nobles and even the royal household. Many thousand persons had been sentenced to various punishments by the" Bloody Mary" of Madagascar, for theirfaith; and yet when, in 1861, persecution ceased, the Christian popUlation was fivefold greater than before she began to exterminate them; and more than this-this Plant of Renown had spread its roots through the very soil of society, and its branches reached afar; the perfume of its golden blooms pervaded the very atmosphere; its fruits were to be found in every home. The whole community was undergoing transformation. The name of Christian had become the sign and synonym, the pledge and promise of truth, purity, fidelity, integrity-new virtues were growing, where vice had sprung up rank as weeds. A miracle had been wrought. A Supernatural Power had been at work. The Spirit of God had breathed new life into Malagasy hearts.
July, 1861, came and the queen died~ and Rakatond, as Radama II., became king. His first act was to proclaim his policy of toleration. The era of religious liberty had dawned for Madagascar. He proclaimed deliverance to the captives and the opening of prison doors to them that were bound. Exiles returned home, slaves were set free; it was a year of jubilee. Idols were banished from the palace, and to show his contempt he sent some Christians to burn the very shrine of one of the national gods, while he looked on to witness the impotency of the so-called" deity." Radama was a reformer, but not a Christian. He was tolerant of the gospel, and so he was of rum, and 60,000 gallons flooded the island in a week and debauched whole villages.
It was now safe for Mr. Ellis to come again and resume missionary work, and in November. 1861, he sailed for Madagascar. On his arrival, with Radama's permission, he secured the sites made sacred by the blood and ashes of the martyrs, for the building of churches; and so the houses of worship in Madagascar to-day are monmilents and memorials of the faith and faithfulness of those who there s~ered for Jesus.
!;Ir. Ellis's arrival was the signal for a triumphal march through the island. Delegations of disciples met him, and processions went ont to welcome the veteran missionary. Throngs of worshippers assembled. at early dawn. .A second service would begin by 8 o'clock in the morning. Every encouragement was now given to the devoted missionary from the hut of the poor to the palace of the king.
Radama II. fell a victim to a conspiracy within a twelvemonth. :ge who had never shed blood was strangled by assassins, in May, 1863, and his widow, under the title of Queen Rasoherina, ascended the vacant throne, the first constitutional ruler of the Malagasy. She reigned five years, and her subjects enjoyed full liberty of conscience. 'rhe work of evangelization went rapidly forward. Nevertheless the government was not Christian, and at her coronation, which was on Sunday, the priests and idols were conspicuously in the foreground.
Congregations multiplied and converts increased, and a native ministry was trained up, and a native Christian literature created. The thirst of the native Christians for the word of God was insatiable, and every mark of a Christian home was to be found in their domestic life. Marriage was honored and divorce discouraged. Contributions were liberal, aud the missionary spirit led to abundant labors to spread the gospel by both home and foreign missions.
The queen's health was failing, and before she died, it is believed, her mind turned from her old idols, which she had placed in her court and carried on her journeys. She died in April, 1868. Her youngest sister took the throne as Ranavalona II. And now, for the first time, Madagascar had a Christian as well as a constitutional ruler.
He who would see the marvelous change in Madagascar, need only contrast the coronation of the two queens-Ranavalona I. and Ranavalona II. One took place June 12, 1829. Then the Bloody Mary of Madagascar took two of the national idols in her hands, and declared: " I received you from my ancestors. I put my trust in you, therefore support me." And then the scarlet-clad images were held at the front corners of the platform to awe the superstitious multitude. On September 3, 1868, a Christian queen was crowned, and the ceremony befitted such a monarch. 'I'he symbols of pagan faith were nowhere to be seen. In their place lay a beautiful copy of the Bible, side by side with the laws of Madagascar. A canopy was stretched above the queen, and on its four sides were four Scripture mottoes: "Glory to God"; "Peace on earth"; "Good-will to man"; "God with us." Her inaugural address was interwoven with Scripture dialect, and instead of Ohristianity it was now idolatry which became a suppliant for toleration. And all this took place seven years after Ranavalona I. expired! Astrologers and diviners were no longer to be found at court; Rasoherina's idol was cast out of the palace. Government work ceased on Sunday, and the Sunday markets were closed. In the palace court services of divine worship were instituted, which are kept up to this date. Ohurches now grow rapidly, sometimes fivefold in a year. The Madagascar New Year, formerly an idolatrous festival, now became a Ohristian holy day; and the queen's address declared, "I have brought my kingdom to lean upon God, and I expect you, one and all, to be wise and just, and to walk in His ways." Just one month later Ranavalona II. and her prime minister were publicly baptized by one of the native preachers, in the very courtyard where, a few years before, the bloodiest edicts had been issued.
In the queen's examination by the native ministers, it transpired that her first serious impressions were traceable to a native Ohristian who, when she was a mere child, sought to impress her with the truth as it is in Jesus. It was Andriantoiamba, one of the four noblemen who were afterward burned as martyrs, who thus sowed the seed in that young heart that afterward ripened into the first Ohristian queen of the island. Two days before their baptism the queen and the prime minister, were wedded, and shortly after both publicly joined in the Lord's Supper, thus magnifying the Ohristian family and the Sacraments of the church of God.
Such an example was likely to be followed. Almost all the government·officers of high rank, and among them the chief idol-keeper, the astrologer of Rasoherina, came forward to receive baptism. Oongregations multiplied beyond all means of accommodation. One hundred new buildings were in demand; 37,000 persons attended worship, an increase of 16,000 in a year! On July 20 the cornerstone of a chapel, designed for the use of the queen and court, was laid in the very courtyard of the palace.
To-day in that palace courtyard the traveler may see a beautiful house of prayer. In gilded letters upon two large stone tablets forming part of the surbase of the structure, appears engraven the following royal statement, read at the laying of the corner-stone in 1869 : "By the power of God and grace of our Lord Jesus, I, Ranavalomanjaka, Queen of Madagascar, founded the House of Prayer, on the thirteenth Adimizana, in the year of our Lord Jesus Ohrist, 1869, as a house of prayer for the service of God, King of kings and Lord of lords, according to the word in the Sacred Scriptures, by Jesus Ohrist the Lord, who died for the sons of all men. and rose
THE INHERITANCES OF NATIONS ALLOTTED BY GOD
again for the justification and salvation of all who believe in and love- Him. ":For these reasons this stone house, founded by me as a house of prayer, cannot be destroyed by any one, whoever may be king of this my land, forever and forever; but if he shall destroy this house of prayer to God which I have founded, then is he not king of my land, Madagascar. Wherefore I have signed my name with my hand and the· seal of the kingdom.
" RANAVALOMANJAKA, "Queen of Madagascar.
" This word is genuine, and the signature by the hand of Rana- valomanjaka is genuine.
"RAINILAIARIVONY, "Prime Minister and Commander-in-Ohief of Madagascar."
If you should visit this island to-day, you would find four sacred sites occupied by memorial ehurches. .I1.mpamannana, the summit of the martyrs' precipice; .I1.mhohipotsy, where Rasalama, the first martyr, w~s speared; .I1.mhatonakan,ta, where so many were kept in prison; and Faravohitra, where the rainbow rested over the burning pile, and where the first stone of the church was laid exactly beneath the spot where the remains of the martyrs were found.
Is it possible to account for changes such as these, wrought within the space of sixty years by the simple preaChing and teaching of the gospel, unless the power of God is indeed behind the Bible? If there ever was a wonder that compelled even the sceptical and the unbelieving to exclaim, "What hath God wrought I" it is to be found in the story of Madagascar.
THE INHERITANOES OF NATIONS ALLOTTED BY GOD.
BY REV. A. W. PITZER, D.D., WASHINGTON, D. c.
"God's works of Providence are His most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all His creatures, ordering them and all their actions to His own glory."
Individual life cannot be detached from God and His overruling Providence; and nations rise, flourish, decay and die in accordance not merely with natural law and second causes, but also, in accordance with His eternal purposes and plans. Before man was created, or human history had begun, God had a fixed place for every nation and a definite phm for every man's life. Nor has this Divine decree· and Providence ever impaired the freedom and responsibility of the individual or the nation, nor is God the author of man~s sin, nor is the efficiency of second causes diminished.
The nations of the earth come to their separate places of inheritance on the globe, moved by various motives and impelled by different forces. Restless for change, greedy for gain, envious of their neighbors, ambitious for fame, filled with cruelty and thirsting for blood, the nations of the past and the present have freely worked ()ut the problem of national destiny. And yet, it was the Most High God, whose Providence divided to these nations their inheritance, and who decreed and settled the bounds of all kindreds, tribes and peoples; and to each and to all He said, "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." There is a philosophJt of history, but the Godless historian has never seen it-a philosophy of history human, yet divine-that m"akes full estimate of all human forces at work in the world, but fails not at the same time to see the mighty Providence of God in the onward march of all earthly things.
The Most High God located the nations of the old world and the new. He planted the Egyptian by the waters of the Nile, ,flowing from the ever-living lakes of equatorial Africa; He gave to the sons ()f Ham the "dark continent" teeming with life and filled with food; from central Asia His hand led out the people after the confusion of tongues at Babel to the Euphrates and Tigris; to India, to China, and to the islands of the great seas that wash the coasts of the Asiatic -continent. To the sons of J apheth, the Cimbri, the Tartars, the Medes, the Greeks, the Muscovites, He gave northern Asia, Asia Minor and Europe.
The ethnology of the lOth chapter of Genesis remains an unchallenged chart of the nations to this day. Fifteen hundred years after Moses incorporated in his writings this chart, and after he had sung this song, another descendant from the family of Shem, stood in the midst of Mars Hill and declared to the wisdom-seeking sons of Javan that God had made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath deterniined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.
God, then, has a purpose concerning this race and world of ours, and His overruling providence is silently, but irresistibly, conducting the races and nations along the great highway of human history. He plants and He plucks up dynasties, kingdoms, nations and empires, and orders, controls and governs all things according to the counsels ()f His own will.
What, then, is that supreme purpose of God, to the development and accomplishment of which, all agents and agencies, all forces and events, all kings and empires are made subservient and tributary? Surely it must be an object worthy of God Himself, and commensurate with His all-embracing and resistless providence. It is nothingless than the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth, in visible sovereignty and glory. Devout worshippers of the true and living God in all ages and lands have cried in prayer to -Him, "Thy Kingdom Come." In his last song, Moses tells the children of Israel encamped on the plains of Moab and in sight of the promised land, why it was that God had divided to the nations their inheritance and fixed the bound- aries of the peoples. He had taken Israel, the seed of His friend Abraham, as his possession and portion, and, in relation to their number and location on the globe, He had arranged all other nations and peoples.
The Kingdom of God is to come on earth through Israel; for sal- vation is of the Jews; and David's greater soil' is yet to sit on David's throne, and hence God's people, His portion must be the centre around which and for the sake of which, all national movements, great and small, shall revolve.
The little strip of land on the western border of the continent of Asia, not 200 miles from north to south, by less than 100 miles from east to west, washed by the Mediterranean Sea, almost in sight of the life-giving waters of Africa's great river, and touching to the west- ward, the isles and lands of the Gentiles, is the divinely ordained home of the chosen people, and the geographical centre of all human history until the Kingdom of God shall come in power and glory.
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome, all the nations of modern Europe have gazed with greedy eyes on this historic spot of earth.
Canon Farrar, in deAcribing this land, as it spread out in beauty before the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth, says, "Pharaohs and Ptolemies, Emins and Arsacids, judges and consuls, have all contended for the mastery of this smiling tract. It had glittered with the lances of the Amalekites; it had trembled under the chariot wheels of Serostris; it had echoed the twanging bow strings of Sennacharib; it had clashed with the broadswords of Rome; it was destined to ring with the battle-cry of the Crusaders, and thunder with the artillery of England and France. Here, Europe and 'Asia, Judaism and Heathenism, Barbarism and civilization had met and struggled for supremacy."
The careful student of history cannot fail to see that the destinies of the empires of the Old World were determined by their relations to this land and its wondrous people whom the living God had chosen for portion and possession.
If he in<iuired why this land and people were so important in the history of the race, the answer is easily given. From Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Malachi, by words and acts, God made Himself known to this people. He came into this earthly realm, and became a factor in human history. Israel received from God the truth unto salvation in trust for all the nations of the earth. They are the divinely appointed trustees of this sacred deposit-to hold this in trust and preserve it pure, for all the families of man, is their high calling and providential mission to all tribes and races and nations. The history of Israel, therefore, will have relations that reach out and embrace all lands and all peoples.
To the Egyptians, God gave the fertile valley of the Nile, that, here in the midst of this ancient civilization, the !!Qns of .Jacob, His chosen, might be developed from a clan into a nation, and be taught and trained in all the wisdoms and arts of this mighty and marvelous people.
To the Assyrians he gave the lands along the Euphrates and the Tigris, t.hat here might be founded an empire that should, as His minister of justice and judgment, at the appointed time, sweep the kingdom of the ten tribes from the land of their fathers.
He, too, ordained that Assyria should be wasted by Babylon, and that Babylon should become the hammer of the whole earth, and should carry His people, Judah, captives to that far-off land, that in the horrors of the seventy years' captivity they might forsake idolatry forever. And when God has accomplished His purposes concerning Israel with Babylon, then He raised up the Medes, who broke down her broad walls, and burned her high gates with fire, and Babylon became heaps of ruins, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment and an hissing without inhabitant_ The Hebrew pi'ophets depict with the utmost minuteness and clearness the relations of the nations to Israel, their providential places in history, and how God used them to extend on the earth the knowledge of that truth given to His chosen and covenanted people. Isaiah foretells the fate of Moab, of Damascus, of Egypt, of Tyre, of Assyria, and of Babylon. Daniel in vision, and under the symbol of a beast, beholds in succession, the empires of Babylonia, the Medo- Persian, the Greek and the Roman, and even the destruction of the old Roman empire, and the ten kingdoms of modern Europe, that continue until the return of Jesus our Lord, from the heavens.
God divided to all these nations their inheritance; He fixed their boundaries; He appointed their providential mission; He determined the days of their dominion, and the day of their destruction; their highest use and chief end were what service they rendered in the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Egypt furnishad the tempOl'ary home of the Israelites; the Babylonish captivity cured them of idolatry; the Persians restored them to their own land; the Grecians prepared the language to contain the Gospel of the son of David; and Rome builded the great highways whereon the apostles of our Lord carried the glad tidings to the ends of the earth.
Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the son of God, was the climax and culmination of the revelations of God to the Hebrew people; and when He died upon the Cross, the inscription over His head, testifying to His kingship, was written in the world's historic language!;l, the Hebrew, tIle Greek and the Roman. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles and the people of Israel, did whatsoever God's hand and counsel had determined before to be done. To this great central and germinal event all the ages had looked, and all nations had oontributed. The wise men from the east spake not for themselves merely, but for others, when they said: " Where is He that is born King of the Jews, for we have seen His 'star in the east, and have come to worship Him." God's kingdom must come on earth through Him, who is both David's son and David's Lord.
The Risen Christ, from His father's throne in heaven, exercises now an invisible, but resistless, dominion over all nations, kingdoms and empires, and the nations still come to their inheritance according to the divine appointment, and as they serve to make known on earth the sacred truth given in trust to the Jews, they prepare the way for the coming. Lord, by proclaiming the glad tidings of that kingdom that shall never end.
God still determines the appointed times of the nations and the bounds of their habitations, with reference to their relations to His son, Jesus Christ, and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. Many nations shall yet say: "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths;' for the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
So far as nations have had any history, since the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that history has been connected with and tributary to the extension and establishment of the Gospel of that Risen Lord among all the peoples of the earth: for that Gospel must be preached to all nations, as God's witness, before the Kingdom of Heaven can come in power and glory on this earth.
The movements of men and nations through eighteen Christian centuries have been guided by the divine eye, and controlled by the divine hand. 'fhe dismemberment of the old Roman empire, the rise of the kingdoms of modern l£urope, the growth of the Papacy, the career 'of Mohammed, the wars of the Crusaders, the darkness of the Middle Ages, the 'revival of learning, the persecutions of the Church by Rome-Pagan and Papal-the invention of printing, the translations of the Scriptures, the reformation of the sixteenth century, the exile of Christians for conscience sake, the use of the mariner's compass, and the opening up of new and unknown lands, were not less directed by the Almighty God of heaven, than Israel's march from Egypt to Canaan, and the times and bounds of the nations of the Old World.
Nowhere is the overruling providence of God more clearly seen than in this our land, and in the history of the people of these United States. Israel's God and our father's God divided to us this rich inheritance; and He has appointed our time and fixed our bounds, that we might not only seek the Lord ourselves, but should give His -Gospel, committed in trust to our custody, to all the nations. Morde- ~ai's question to Queen Esther comes with fearful emphasis to the rulers and people of this republic: "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whe'ther thou art come to the king- ·dom for such a time as this?"
Our forefathers brought with them to this new world that fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, that liberty of conscience to worship God that could not be enjoyed at home. With them came, too, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, the inspired and infallible Word of God; the family as the basis and unit of all true life in both Church and State; the sanctity of the oath unto God as the hope of a pure administration of justice in our courts; the divinely .ordained rest of the Lord's Day, not for a holiday but for a holy day -in short, they brought with them, not monarchy, nor anarchy, not .communism, nor atheism, not infidelity, nor materialism, nor papacy, but God-fearing piety and customs founded on the Word of God.
We have come to the Kingdom at such a time as this-a time when there are no longer any hermit nations, nor Chinese walls of ·exclusion; in a wider and deeper sense than ever before, every man may now say, "The world is my parish." Steamships supersede sail vessels, the engine does the work of a thousand men and horses, the :Bun paints our pictures, electricity illumines our cities and sends our words with lightning speed around the globe. All the ends of the .-earth are brought face to face in the great struggle for existence; .and all races and nations jostle each other on the broad highway .of life. Surely the Anglo-Saxon Christianity of America must have .a mission from the God of Heaven to all the races and nations of the .-earth. "The wheels of history are the chariot wheels of the Almighty, .a.nd with every revolution there is an onward movement toward the goal of His eternal purposes," to establish here on earth the Kingdom .of God in supernal splendor. .
The providential mission of this nation is to give the blessed Gos- ]>el of the Son of God to all peoples of the earth. The weary and :sin-stricken children of Adam, of every continent and island, of every tribe and tongue, in their darkness and degradation, look, with long- ing eyes to us for light and help and healing. "Come over into Mace- .donia and help us," is the despairing cry borne on every breeze and from every land beneath the skies-from China and Korea, from In- .dia and Japan, from Persia and Papal Europe, from the South Ameri- .can Republic and Mexico, from the islands of the oceans and the "'dark continent" of Livingstone and Stanley.
We hold the Gospel, not merely for ourselves but in trust for a
THE CONGO MISSIONS
lost world. We have the men and the money, the missionaries and the agencies, methods of transit and transportation, in more than abundance, to give the Gospel in ten years, as God's witness, to every nation under heaven. The supreme duty of this nation is to realize her sublime providential mission, and bear the blessed light of the Gospel to all the dark places of the earth, to the habitations of men now filled with cruelty. There is no second C~lumbus to be born~ noi' any new continent to be discovered. This is the "last days," and this "the ends of the earth," the light that shines across the' Pacific from San Francisco and Portland reaches to the very lands where first that light was kindled "Now or never," is the world to be eV2..ngelized by us.
THE CONGO :MISSIONS.
BY MISS HELEN F. CLARK, NEW YORK.
[Mr. C. J. Laffin went out to Africa llilder Bishop Taylor, but when his Congo Mission failed, he worked independently, though unofficially associated with the A. B. M. U. He sent us various notes from the Congo. He has just returned to take a medical course, then goes back to Central Africa. He has furnished Miss Clark with the facts and experiences of his three years' mission tour, which she here puts into form, under his supervision. The paper, being reliable and fresh from the Congo, cannot fail to be of special interest at the- present juncture.-J. M. S.] The question of evangelizing Central Africa is one that now en- grosses the attention of aggressive Christianity in both England and America. The best plan of work, and the character of the workers, is largely discussed among the various boards and missionary com- mittees; consequently any light that can be thrown upon these topics by missionaries who have been upon the field, and are, therefore, best qualified to give an opinion, is gratefully received.
Mr. Laffin spent his iiz-st few months in Africa in the vicinity of Vivi and Isangila, but afterwards pushed on up the Congo river 800' miles to the equator, stopping at Equatol'ville station, forming theacquaintance of various tribes along the banks of the Congo and lesser streams.
From the first he was keenly interested in the methods of work followed in the various mission stations which he visited, and carefully studied their every detail. Then followed much practical work Qn his o,*n part among the natives as he traveled throngh the country and mingled with them.
As an independent missionary, Mr. Laffin founded no station, nor reported his work to any superior, but to the great Master Himself, but wisely spent his time in examining the country and the conditions under which he must work, and in forming his own opinion as to the wisest and most effective way to prosecute that work.
The Africans he came in contact with are a peculiar people, and must· be dealt with in the utmost candor and with straightforward simplicity. With them no half-hearted work is possible; no clouded testimony in word or life will receive the 81ightest regard from them.
Nothing but sterling Christianity in word or deed will convince them that the Gospel you preach is true; but the testimony clearly borne, and the life that will bear the sharpest scrutiny, will bring a multitude of hungry hearts to God. Perhaps the work done is more satisfactory in Africa than in any other country, for the man or woman who is converted is converted in deed and in truth, and becomes at once as aggressive for the truth as the missionary himself. Mr. Laffin has vouchsafed the following interesting facts under the heads of "What has been done in Africa;" "What is being done," and" What can be done," which we give, as nearly as possible, in his own words.
FIRST-WHAT HAS BEEN DONE.
There are, at the present time, four societies prosecuting active work in Central Africa: the American Baptists, the English Baptists. the Swedish Society, and the Congo Balolo Society, who have a combined working force of about 80 missionaries in all, occupying 20 mission stations. Of these stations 13 are situated on the lower Congo and Cataract region, below Stanley Pool, and the remaining 'l are on the upper Congo and in the Balolo district. Thus far 'l churches have been organized-all among the Bakongo people-which aggregate about 1,500 communicants, with half as many more who profess conversion, but whom the missionaries are keeping on probation for a short time. Besides these regular stations, there are in this vicinity from 15 to 20 out-stations and preaching-posts, all manned by able native evangelists. It is but thirteen years since the first missionaries penetrated the Congo districts, and but ten of these have been spent in actually publishing the Gospel, for the first three were spent by the little band of sturdy English Christians in fighting fevers, and in trying to conciliate the hostile natives. Since that time, one tribe only has been, to a large extent, evangelized-that is to say, the Gospel has been preached the length of the land upon which this numerous and powerful tribe of Bakongo people live. The difficulties experienced by these indomitable pioneers seem almost beyond belief. During those first three perilous years the missionaries were driven from place to place and were not able to settle anywhere. They found it difficult to establish any communication with the natives~ since the black men regarded them with the utmost suspicion and distrust, and gave them almost no opportunity to acquire the native language. In the course of time, seeing that the strange whites were neither slave traders nor state officials, the suspicion of the natives finally gave way to confidence, and their would-be friends were allowed to found their station in peace, and to begin the publication of those good tidings which afterwards brought peace to so many troubled souls among them.
The greatest difficulty in reaching the interior has ever been in getting above the falls in the great river, about 100 miles above its mouth. To navigate the stream at this point is impossible. Therefore, all stores and baggage for the interior must be conveyed a distance ·of 250 miles around in sixty-pound packages, which the lithe and .agile natives bear upon their heads. The steamboats for the upper .congo were taken apart and packed in this manner, and rebuilded upon the upper side.
There are thirty-one steamers now running upon the upper Congo, three of which are missionary boats, the others belonging either to the Government or to the traders. Two more mission steamers are now in process of construction for the lower Congo, and one for the upper.
Stations have been established among three other tribes, but as yet only one convert has crowned their labors. Here the difficulty <>f acquiring the language hinders the missionaries. There is no written language, and the tongue must be acquired slowly and unsatisfactorily by mingling with the people as often as they will permit, and there is no missionary upon the field to-day who has mastered it sufficiently to talk intelligently, without having frequent recourse to an interpreter: In these distant stations on the upper river, isolated from @ne another, it has required a long time to gain the confidence of the natives, but the past few years have sufficed at last to convince these distrustful people that the white man really came to them from an unselfish motive, and he has now won their hearts, so that to-day these perse:vering workers have a firm footing in the three tribes, and are ready to branch out into large work as soon as their numbers are re-inforced by the arrival of new missionaries.
WHAT IS BEING DONE.
As to what is being done, perhaps the most successful of all the ~fforts put forth, is that of the native evangelists. This, of course, brings us back to the Bakongo people along the Lower Congo.
Of the members of these churches, a very large percentage-considerably more than half-are persevering, energetic, aggressive Christian workers-such workers as put to shame the feeble and childish efforts of many Christians in our own land.
To them, black man or white man, State official, of however high degree, or slave, of ever so mean a degradation, is either a "son of God" or a "son of the Devil." They know but two classes, and if you are not avowedly of the first, they immediately pronounce you in the second, and proceed to give you the Gospel on the spot. They fear no man, soldier or government-official, trader or traveler, brother African' or slave, and one of the first questions asked, upon formingone's acquaintance, will be, "Kanzi, ngeye mUJana' nzambi?" (are you a son of God?) If the -answer is in the negative, they very frequently respond, "B08i mUJana' mbungi /" (Then you are a child of the Devil.) After which they present the Gospel to you with all the eloquence and clearness of which their incomparable language is capable.
These workers are continually organizing themselves into bands of twenty or thirty, and with neither scrip nor staves, they go from village to village, preaching the Gospel, and often remaining away for weeks at a time.
The missionaries freely acknowledge that one native is worth threeor four white men as an evangelist. They speak with marvellous oratorical effect; indeed, they are said to be born orators. "A sermon that I heard from one of them," says Mr. Laffin, "waf> as fi,ne as ever I heard in either Europe or America, not only in point of delivery, but in its clearness of reasoning, and in its profound perception of spiritual truth."
These bands of workers go out invariably at their own expense. Besides these unpaid volunteers there are some 25 native evangelists who go individually to out-posts and preaching-stations, and who are nearly all self-supporting or are maintained by the native churches. The natives believe the Gospel at the mouths of their own people far more readily than they do from the missionary himself; consequently their work is of vastly more value in the general evangelization of a tribe than is that of the white man.
But the simplicity of the native evangelist is, as a rule, altogether spoiled by transportation to America or England.. A taste of European life robs him of his unconsciousness of self, and, thereafter, he looks down upon his kindred and will no longer associate with them, but must live as we live, and wants more luxuries than any missionary would allow himself. These people frequently travel half a day's journey, bringing their food with them, in order to attend divine service.
The loyalty of the native Christian to God's Word is marvellous. While the people are perfectly obedient to the Supreme Being, they will bear no dictation from us whatever. If we insist upon their conforming their lives to any precept or principle which we may lay down, they immediately begin to reason the matter with us. If therule be a scriptural one, they insist upon our finding the text, when we must read it to them and translate it into their own language. But if the scripture bears out our words, that is an end of all controversy; thereafter, it becomes a law to them, or as they style it in their own beautiful native tongue, "The Lord hath said it, and we must obey." On this account we are obliged to discriminate accurately in our teaching against what is purely a matter of custom with us, since they will learn nothing from us save that which is scriptural. But when they are told not to lie, or cheat in business, or to steal, seeing it in Scripture, they immediately desist.
As an illustration of this, I will give you· an incident in my own experience. Traveling through strange villages one day, I saw a woman by the roadside with a pawpaw beside her. I asked what she would sell it for, and she named a price; I bade the boy who was with me take it away for our noon-day meal. "No, no," she cried, "the pawpaw will not be ripe enough until to-morrow; go on down the road, sir, and you will find plenty more that are ripe enough to eat now." I then learned that she was a Christian. She had heard the Gospel from a native evangelist who had ollce come to her village to preach, and she had received the truth, and, although untaught in the principles of Christian living, yet by the Holy Spirit's help, had instinctively perceived the right.
When the surveyors for the Congo railroad, which is now being built, were laying out the road through a certain tract, one of them approached the chief of the neighboring tribe, and, as is customary, offered him a glass of rum. The chief thanked him for the courtesy, but declined the rum with these words: "That is what destroys the bodies alld souls of my people. As a Christian I cannot take it."
I come now to our last proposition:.
WHAT CAN BE DONE }N CENTRAL AFRICA.
The whole of the Congo Free State is now open to mIssIonaries. This district contains about 1,680,000 square miles of country, all of which is accessible through the Congo and ,its tributaries. This immense system of rivers affords at least, according to explorations up to date, 10,000 miles of navigable waterway above Stanley Pool. This district contains from fifteen to twenty different tribes, speaking as many different languages, and numbering in the aggregate, as near as may be estimated, from thirty to eighty millions of souls. The best known of these tribes, the Balolo, is calculated to number ten millions of itself. Many parts of the interior are said to be particularly healthy and free from malaria and fevers. Dr. Summers, in speaking of Luluaburg, calls it a very healthy place, and states that at night the thermometer will sometimes fall to the freezing point.
There is not known to be a single town in the interior, or Central Africa, that will refuse to receive a missionary, if once satisfied that he is a missionary. To them the yoke of a foreign government is so galling that the very sight of the men in its employ, as a rule, arouses all their enmity.
The Congo Free State obliges all vessels to fly its flag, and wherever the missionary goes he is marked as a State man, and only undeniable proof will suffice to convince them that the missionary is lIot an enemy in disguise. To them, words prove nothing, and deeds purporting to flow from an unselfish motive are an unsolvable .enigma; hence, it is only the" heroes," who can persevere without the slightest show of fear or alarm, and endure the suspicion and the consequent tribulations until their identity is established. This some- times takes a long time. In the case of the first missionaries on the lower Congo it required three years, and it has required almost as long a time for the faithful pioneers on the upper river to gain an .entrance and a footing.
In Africa, the women missionaries are the happier. Nothing is feared from them, and they are allowed to go in and out at their pleasure without molestation. Their presence in a party has more than once spared valuable lives to the Congo work. At one time a small party, including two ladies, sailed up an unexplored river, and at night-time they attempted to land and camp for the night. The natives immediately assembled, and ordered them off. They expostu- lated in vain, insisting that they were not foes, but missionaries de- siring to be their friends, but they refused to believe them, and they were forced to take refuge on a sand-bar for the night. In the morn- ing their men came out, and examining their boat carefully, and find- ing no arms or weapons such as the State men carried, finally permitted them to land and make friends with them, but averred that it was only the presence of the ladies that had kept them from killing them immediately on their approach.
At one time, in company with two blacks from a village where I had been working, I rowed up another river a distance of probably .eigM or ten miles, when, coming within sight of a strange village, We were surprised to hear a hasty alarm sounded, and instantly a multitude of the brown-skinned fellows rushed to the banks of the creek, armed with bows and arrows. Then, with a peculiar beating of drums, a message was telegraphed down the creek to the adjoining village, and from there the alarm was sounded on to the next, and the next, till at last the hoarse din died away to a faint sound, and finally hushed to our ears altogether, while up and down the river-bank were gathered the wild people eager to wreak their vengeance on our defenceless heads.
I surely thought it was all over with me, and the blacks by my side had settled themselves stoically to meet their fate, when far off came the hurried tang-tang-tang of a message swiftly sent back. The word had gone even to the village I had left, and instantly came the response: "Let him alone! He is a missionary!" Then the assembled blacks apologized, and treated us with the utmost cordiality and friendliness, saying: "We have no complaint againt the ambassadors of God." Weare always called by them "ambassadors of God," and native Christians are called" witnesses of Jesus Christ." The mIssIonaries in Africa, as a rule, count the work of onEl' woman worth that of twelve men, since they can go anywhere, even among the fiercest tribes. Their motives are never qnestioned, and they are invariably listened to with the greatest respect. Miss Silvey went about among the Bayansi tribe with perfect freedom, althongh they are by far the most formidable of all the tribes yet known. They are also the most inveterate of the cannibals, since they buy slave- children and slaughter them for the markets, as we do cattle. Miss Silvey spoke to them only through interpreters, since their speech. has not yet been reduced to language. Miss de Hailes and Mra. McKittrick work quite as freely among the Balolo people.
These inland tribes are, as a rule, a fine, powerful people. They are not Negroes but Bantus, and are of a choclate brown color, with thin, well-curved lips and fine features. They are wonderfully energetic, pushing and business-like, and, if converted, will make princely evangelists, since they fear nothing, and will make long journeys from home, remaining away many mouths at a time. While they are suspicious of the white men, they have no hatred for them unless they have done them an injury. Government representatives they count their mortal enemies, but the missionaries, when they are once known to be such, are invariably welcomed.
The missionary's first step is to gain the confidence of the people,. and then it is easy to win their affections, and his opportunity to preach the Gospel is unlimited. When they believe in you they believe your gospel, and are quickly won to God and to abide by His. Word.
At first they will give you two motives for not believing yC!u: 1st, The improbability of people doing anything from a purely unselfish motive. 2d, The impossibility of it. Therefore, they are not willing in the beginning to believe that Jesus could possibly have loved and died for them. But the life of a missionary among them, self-sacrificing and exhibiting unfeigned love for their souls, becomes at last incontrovertible proof of the truth of the Gospel, and they accept it gladly and fully.
But one· great question troubles them, that has troubled many Christians before, "If it is all true and Christ's unselfish love begets a, like love in your souls, why is it that you never came to us before, why do not more come now?" Christian reader, can you answer it ?'
One of these men said to me one day, "White man, my heart is hungry for something, and I don't know what it is." After he was converted I said to him, "Well, have you found out now what it was that your heart was hungering for?" "Yes," he answered, quickly; " It was hungry for salvation !"
, My advice to every missionary coming here, would be, not to try to educate the people, not even to make the civilization of these tribes
THE RO~IANCE OF GOEDVERWACHT
their initiatory effort, but to make their one effort, first and last and all the time, to PREACH THE GOSPEL !
Any child or adult will refuse to come to school after the novelty wears off unless paid for it, but when converted, they Clamor at once to be taught to read, that they may search the Scriptures for themselves.
It is most unwise to attempt to Europeanize them. It is far better to leave them Africans still, since the Word teaches them all that is required for purity and wholesomeness of life and morals, and customs are only galling and useless to a people so differently situated from us.
It would require, probably from twenty to thirty missionaries per tribe to equip Central Africa; after which, the work of the native evangelist becomes the main factor in the gospelizingof this darkened land.
The Jesuits, backed by the government of the Congo Free State, are coming into this region like a flood, from the west, and the Mo- hammedans are coming in almost equal numbers, from the east. Hence, whatever is done for the spreading of the Gospel here must be done quickly.
THE ROMANCE OF GOEDVERWACHT. BY REV. PAUL DE SCHWEINITZ, NAZARETH, PA. Goedverwacht is a Moravian mission station among the Hottentots in South Africa, almost a huudred miles due north from Cape Town. The Moravians began missionary operations, both in Guinea and in the Cape Colony, in 1737, but this particular station was not founded until 1858. Like many tales of fiction, so, too, the veritable romance of Goedverwacht is founded upon a most peculiar and very complicated testament, which became intricately involved with the history of the mission, and upon which for a time its very existence depended. In 1810, a certain wealthy Dutch farmer, by the name of Buergers, purchased a beautiful, well-watered, fertile valley, of some 900 acres, in the Piquet mouutains, and, by means of his Hottentot slaves, transformed it into a prosperous little colony, which now bears the name of Goedverwacht. Here Mr. Buergers lived most contentedly uutil the year 1838, when the emancipation of all slaves should take place. To his great displeasure he noticed that his slaves had become filled with spiritual desires, and, as soon as they became free, would forsake him and move to a mission station. In order to prevent this, Mr. Buergers chose six of his slaves whom he valued most highly, and told them, that if they would remain with him and care for him up to his death, he would will them his entire estate. He drew up his will accordingly, decreeing that these six slaves should hold the estate in common, but that it could not be sold until the last of the six slaves died, and then it must be sold and the proceeds divided equally among the living children of these six slaves.
This will was considered an insult to his white neighbors and relatives, but it was drawn up so skillfully, that all attempts to upset it proved utterly futile.
Thus, in 1843, six poor, despised Hottentot men and women, having faitlfully fulfilled all the conditions of the will, suddenly became wealthy real-estate owners. The property did not fall into unworthy hands. These six gathered to- gether their friends and relatives, and soon had a colony of over 500 souls, and they at once _proceeded to take measures to have their spiritual wants sup- plied. For this purpose, they applied to the Moravians for missionaries.
The Moravians in their work among these peoples, have always found it best to gather their converts into little villages around the mission-houses, which, for this purpose must, of course, stand upon ground owned by the Church. Owing to the peculiar conditions of the will, they could purchase no land there, and so had to serve these Hottentots as best they could from a neighboring station. However, a flourishing congregation of Christian con- verts was gradually gathered. – In the meantime, the six owners began to die off. It became apparent that the time when the estate must be sold, was fast approaching. If the Moravian Church could not purchase the estate, the flourishing mission-work would be destroyed. The surrounding white farmers could scarcely await the time when tJtey could avenge the imagined insult of making Hottentots equal landowners with themselves. They openly boasted of the sums they would pay, and de- clared they would resell the land to the highest bidders. The Mora-vians, with their scanty means, could not compete with the fat purses of these hostile farmers. The future looked very dark. The survivors of the six would gladly have secured the possession to the Church, but the courts had decided that, under the will they were powerless.
In this extremity, the good brethren put in motion the mightiest force of which the Kingdom of God knows. They and their converts prayed-prayed unceasingly, prayed in Africa and prayed at home, prayed constantly-for the roofs over their heads, and the ground under their feet seemed to totter and tremble. It was an invisible power, but it was silently at work.
In the meantime, the courts had decided that, according to the letter of the will, only the actually living children of the original six, and not their grandchildren, would be thp heirs of the estate. Further, that unless all the heirs were of age the estate must be sold at auction to the highest bidder.
Further, that even if all were of age, if there was a single one who refused to agree upon a price, it would again have to be sold at auction to the highest bidder. In either of those two cases the estate would be lost to the Moravians, and their faithfulla bor of years scattered to the winds, and the scene of their prayers, and tears and triumphs for Christ become the abode and property of godless men. On the other hand, the courts had decided that, if all the heirs were of age, and if all were unanimously agreed, then they could sell the estate at private sale for any price they chose, no matter how low, and to whomsoever they chose.
:::'inally the fate -of the entire mission depended upon the life of one old womaa, the last survivor of the original six slaves. At length, on December 28, 1J) j, old Christine, who for thirty-eight years had lived the life of a true Chri~tian, died in her ninety-third year.
At once the hostile-minded neighbors began to tempt the poor Hottentot heirs with fancy prices. What would be the fate of the mission? After thorough investigation, the court decided that there were thirteen heirs ac- cording to the letter of Buerger's will, and as one of these thirteen died after Christine, the three children of that one were also heirs. By the merciful overruling of Providence the life of old Christine had been preserved just long enough to permit the youngest of these heirs to become of age. The power of prayer began to be evident. But were these all willing to sell their valuable estate to the 'Moravian mission, and not only to sell it to the mission, but also
HIDDEN SPRINGS-oR HOW MISSIONARIES ARE MADE
for a price the church could afford to pay-which must be one far below its value? Upon this now hung the fate of this flourishing mission. The count- less prayers of the believers had not been in vain. The numberless difficulties and delicate negotiations cannot be detailed here. Suffice it, therefore, to say that a prayer-hearing God so ruled the hearts of these fifteen heirs that they voluntarily adopted the unanimous resolution to sell their estate to the Mora- vian Church for the moderate sum of £750 on Jme 30, 1889. Each heir re- ·ceived £51 and 15 shillings, of which nearly everyone at once returned £1 as a gift towards a church building, and some more. However, there is still a need for much more before all the expenses of the transactions can be paid ;;'nd th!" necessary church buildings erected. But the Lord, who won the hearts of the self-sacrificing heirs, will also move the hearts of Christians to give of their' means to upbuild this noble mission.
What is the" moral" of this tale? A prayer-hearing God can overrule the testament of one who cared not for the Church, can guide the decisions of {)ourts, can defeat the machinations of malicious men, can guide the hearts of poor Hottentots.
And further, when Christians at home are earnestly, and non-Christians are sneeringly, seeking for permanent results of missionary work among debased people, here is again a shining example of the precepts of Christ entering into and controling the practical life of converts. Imagine fifteen Ameri- {)an nominal Christians of all ages and conditions, not rich, but really poor, deliberately refusing a fancy price for real estate, when it could be honestly gained, and being satisfied with a very moderate figure, out of love for the Lord Jesus and pure loyalty to the Church. It would have been so easy to have simply put the estate up at auction and taken the highest bid, and no one could have acpused them of the slightest crime, as the world goes. But higher, more Christlike principles controlled these poor South Africans. See how Christ has transformed these poor, degraded, down-trodden, despised Hottentots! God bless their self-sacrifice to them and their children!
HIDDEN SPRINGS-OR HOW MISSIONARIES ARE MADE.
BY MARIA A. WEST, SARATOGA, N. Y.
In the deep recesses of the forest and mountain solitudes, far away from human sight and pen, God prepares the hidden fountains which send their pure, perennial streams down to.the valleys below, causing life and beauty, verdure and fruitfulness, to spring up on every side, and filling the rivers which flow onward to the great sea, to carry its blessings to the distant places of the earth, till the desert shall revive and blossom as the garden of the Lord.
And, as in the economy of nature, so, also, in the Kingdom of Grace, the most powerful and· permeating forces are often those that are secretly, silently working, nnheralded and often unknown, but set in motion by the Divine Hand which keeps the heavenly record, and marks the onward flow and fruitage, through time and through eternity!
A remarkable instance of this hidden spring of far-reaching influence, l}as recently been brought to light, and is especially worthy of mention at this time, when its power is strikingly illustrated.
In the year 1837, Mrs. Francis G. Clewe-born in the year 1801-and living at Genville, a village four miles from Schenectady, listened to the preaching of a missionary sermon, at Hudson, which, as she said, "Converted her tQ missions, as much as she was ever converted to Christ!" Her first query was, "What can I do? " The result was the formation by her, of a Woman's For-
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS
eign Missionary Aid Society. Perhaps the first one of the kind in these United States of America.
At the first meeting of this new-born society. she pledged one dollar, as her free-will offering to the cause. To obtain that sum, she walked four miles to Schenectady, secured some vests to make at one of the shops, and then walked home again with her work. And, at every meeting of the society, she never failed to bring an offering for herself and for each of her children, while they were still ~mall. One of her daughters died, but the gift in her name was still continued, with the words, "And this is for Ann." Her yearly offering sometimes amounted to $20,00, and was sent, now to the American Board, and then to another foreign missionary society, in which she was also interested. For this sacred purpose, Mrs. Clewesometimes reared "missionary chickens,'
sometimes planted a piece of land, or set apart a portion of her butter and eggs. And, during all those fifty or more years of her consecrated life, this "mother in Israel" continued to hold the missionary meeting of the society she had originated in her own home; even if none were present but herself and one of her children, a chapter was read, a hymn sung, and prayer offered-and this, not monthly, but every week! One of the original members of that little society is still living and testified that when Mrs. Clewe was too ill to rise from her bed, the same order was observed; and that she would "turn herself," and offer a fervent prayer for missions and missionaries throughout the world, and pleading that some of her descendants might thus be used of God.
September 9, 1889, she was called from the earth to the heavenly Kingdom, being 88 years of age, and, like a shock of corn, fully ripe. Her last earthly home was with a daughter in Schenectady. And now, a grandson of this noble Christian woman, of whom the world never heard, is appointed as a missionary of the American Board for West Central Africa; soon to depart with his young wife and little child for that "dark continent." To some in that city, where this young physician, in the opening of his career with all of earth's allurements before him, had every prospect of success, this decision seems the height of folly-like the throwing away of a life and all that makes life worth the living. They have not seen the silent working of the sacred leaven in divine preparation for this culmination. They little think that it will have its fullest manifestation and justificationon theday when' 'all the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and when Christ shall reign over all, for ever and ever."
The consecration of any life, in fellowship with Christ, receives added dignity and grandeur from partnership with Him, "who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, that He might bring many sons unto glory," and "see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied," When they shall come from the east and the west, the north and the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God-"A great multitude, whom no man could number-of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues." The glorious harvest-time of souls, when the "new song" shall arise: "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood-to HIM be glory and dominion, for ever and ever, Amen !"
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
M. Alfred Casalis, speaking of the Basutos, to whom he, like his father be- fore him, has now become a missionary, says: -''How can we fail to experience a closesense of unity with this little nation, so desirous of maintaining its unity and independence? It is undoubtedly, the influence of the Gospel which has alone protected it from partition and complete annexation to the invading neighbors who covet its land so greedily. .Are we sure that God may not have a great destiny in store for this pettv people? Whence shall come the missionaries capable of resisting the terrible climate of the Zambesi, ifnot from Lessuto-from that school oftheology modestly founded at Morija, and which, perhaps, in the near future, will give us a chosen band ()f native pastors? On the day when these 200,000 Basutos shall be Christians, we shall have at our disposal an incalculable force, a veritable Christian army, ready to carry afar into the interior of this Africa, still buried undera darkness so deep-the blazing light of the Gospel."
Pastor Schneller, of Bethlehem, writing, in the Allgemeine Mission3chrijt, says: "Talking lately with a priest of the Greek Church, I quoted something from the Acts. He retorted, 'You Protestants always make so much of the Old Testament and its Acts of the Apostles. Only quote some books of the New Testament, I know all of them.' The same priest, wishing to convince the people of the unsoundness of our doctrine of Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer, proved his point as follows: 'These poor Protestants! Why, they are for be- mg saved through Jesus Christ alone. DQYou believe that Jesus is able to save anybody whatever, without the help of saints? If He could, why must Judas Iscariot perish by the very side of the Lord? Why did He not save him? Why must the impenitent thief be lost by the very side of the much-praised atoning Cross? Why? Because they had not the saints! And the poor Protestants have not a single saint to help them, they have only Jesus and cqnsequently they are bound for hell.' "
Before our Anglican Church, to strengthen hersel'f against Rome, becomes too earnest for union with the Greek Church, she had better counsel her to re- vise her teachings of her clergy a little. Profe~sor Mahaffy says, that he can understand proposals to unite with the Roman Catholics, on one hand, or with the Protestant Dissenters, on the other, but, after traveling in the East, proposals to unite with the Greek Church, are, to him, an inexplicable marvel, uuleas, of course, as some parts of the Greek Church are said to have shown a disposition to do, she maintaining her own distinctiveness, welcomes the vivifying stream ()f Protestant warmth and enlightenment. At least she is not pre-committcd by an assumption of infallibility.
-"When, often, on the spot where Jesus did his greatest works, one sees how the Lord, together with his .Gospel, has become a stranger here; how, in the home of Christ, faith in Christ has been distorted into an unrecognizable caricature, it must come into the consciousness of every evangelical Christian, that, if anywhere in the world, our evangelical church has a great and momentous task to accomplish in the home of the Gospel, however great the difnculties may be."
"Almost every one in these lands," says Herr Schmeller, 'lknows only himself and his own interests, without regard to others, were they even members of his own family. His cold indifference represses the development of men that might have a benevolent interest in promoting the common weal, whether in village, city, or province of their native country. Where here are friends of the people, friends of the fatherland? The people have not even the idea of such a thing. The inhabitants of one quarter of a village or town only too often regard those of another quarter not only as utterly foreign to them but as hostile, which gives rise to perpetual feuds. To bring about unity or to carry through any unanimous purpose, is no more possible in a city or village than in the country at large. Yet, it is in just this state of disintegration that the Turkish government finds a strengthening of its own security, and it favors this accordingly."
-January 1,1888, the following were the missionary statistics of the Nor- wegian Miasionary Society.
Ordained missionaries, 41, (1 being a physician); 6 unmarried ladies, 1 layman, 16,555 church members, 87,500 school children, 44,000 adherents, 16 native pastors, 900 native teachers and evangelists, $81,050 contributions from Norway, and $12,000 from America. The fields of labor are Natal and Madagascar. The Schruder Mission in Natal, has 2 missionaries, 1 single lady, 352 bapt,ized members, 130 communicants, and 124 school children. Income, $1,505. The Santal mission h India, has 3 or4 Norwegian missionaries, and a revenue of $8,918. It now works independently of the Gossner Mission.
The sum totAll of Norwegian missionary contributions for 1887 (omitting the $12,000 from America), amounted to $91,841.76. The population being 1,913,000, this average, about 20 cents ahead.
-Herr Nather, of the Leipsic Society in South India, speaking of some famous- of bathing festivals on the banks the southern Ganges, the Kaweri remarks; "They avail for the cleansing away of ceremonial sins; for other than cere- monial sins the heathen do not really know."
-M. Teisseres and M. Allegret, missionaries of the Paris Society, after a stay of about a year with the American Presbyterian missionaries, on the Gaboon, were. in April, about leaving for the Congo, under a convoy furnished by the French government.
'-The Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift for June, 1890, in a detailed article treating of the present condition of Protestant missions in South Africa, says, that the Cape Colony is growing poorer. Much of it is incapable of sustaining ths growing population. Moreover, the almost entil'e withdrawal of imperial control has given the colonists opportunity to repel the laws restricting the manufacture and sale of brandy. This is one of the many ways in which England has done immense harm by being too eager to throw responsibility off her shoulders before the tid. She staggers "Under the too vast orb of her fate." The latest statistics of the Cape Colony, (1888-9), give: Christians of European descent,. belonging to established congregations, 267,817. Colored Christians, 234,329. Chureh sittings, 287,825. Average church attendance,172,428. Sunday scholars, 57,678. Nearlya quarter of thecolored people are baptized. Twenty different Protestant denominations are laboring in the country with 547 clergymen. The different churches receive from the colonial government, £190,432, yearly. Of this, about $150,000 may be counted for proper missionary work. The Boer (pronounced Boor) party, however, now in the ascendant, is unfriendly to these grants. Cape Town has 41,704 inhabitants, of whom 8,000 or 10,000 are Mohammedan Malays. Among the half-breeds of the west of Cape Colony, the Rhenish, the Berlin SOCieties, and the Unitas Fratrum are the principal laborers. The Berlin Society has 11 stations, 13 ordained European missionaries; 87 native helpers, 11,138 baptized adherents,' 3,918 communicants, 2,378 scholars. Contributions, $9,300. The Berlin Society (in the west), has 7 stations, 8 missionaries, 74 helpers, 4,335 baptized adherents, 1,843 communicants, 614 scholars. Contributions, $4,688. The Moravians have (in the west) 11 stations, 20 brethren, 2 native ordained missionaries, 239 helpers, 9,145 adherents, 2,218 communicants, 2,154 scholars.
The Brethren's Church, on July 9, 1887, celebrated the 150th anniversary of its first arrival in South Africa, 'Its work is still important and fruitful, but suffers under a growing difficulty. Not laboring in colonial villages, but in distinct stations, it finds its people sinking more and more into poverty, because of the scarcity of arable land. Their people are therefore widely scattered, many being in the diamond fields, whither they are followed by colored 'Diaspora laborers.' "
The Dutch Reformed Church of Cape Colony, which has 175,555 baptized white members, is coming, under Scottish and English stimulus, to show a much more animated missionary zeal. "Stellenbosch, with its theological institute, is very especially a focus of missionary zeal."
Among the others, the Wesleyan Missionary Society is most prominent. It has (in the west): 9 stations, 6 missionariE'S, 96 native helpers, 1,476 communicants, 1,467 scholars The South African Wesleyans are quite indepepdent of the British Conference. In the whole Colony, they have 71 stations, 156 churches and chapels, 55 clergymen, 1,198 native helpers, 16,840 communicants, 88,000 baptized adherents, 218 schOQls, 310 teachers, 13,803 scholars.
"But no other British society laboring in South Africa compares with the Scottish societies as respects capability, sobriety and diligence, combined with true evangelical piety."
The Free Church of Scotland haa9 stations, 10 ordained Europeans, 2 ordained natives,23 native helpers, 4,214 commnnicants, 12,113 baptized adherents, 3,510 scholars. Their institute of Lovedale (largely assisted by the colonial government) is a great force for education and indus· trial training.
The United Presbyterians have 11 stations, 12 missionaries, 60 native helpers, 2,307 communicants, 8,080 baptized adherents, 43 schools, 1,735 scholars.
-Of the 500,000 or more of Protestant Christians in India, 7,000 live in the city of Madras ~tself. South India is still the great seat of Christianity, its in- habitants being not Aryans but Dravidians, and, therefore, being related to Hinduism somewhat as the Turks are to Mohammedanism, which they have accepted, but which is not native to them, as it is to the Arabs.
-Missionary Lazarus says of the moral condition of the people of Madras an admirable example of south India at large), that, like Greece in Paul's day, the things that they do "are a shame even to speak of." But whereas Paul's admonitions show plainly that his converts had but imperfectly extricated themselves from "the moral chaos surrounding them," "it may be confidently said," declares Mr. Lazarus, himself a native of India, "that the native church of Madras has raised itself above the abominations of the encompassing hea- thenism. Devil-dances, drinking-bouts, quarrels and tumults, unchastity, prac- tised under the cloak of religion, and similar abominations, are absolutely foreign to the native Christians. Such exhibitions of godlessness as are common among the lower classes in Europe, are unknown to them. The Hindus have an immeasurable vocabulary of vituperation, but I do not remember to have ever met with a native Christian that made any use of it. No native Christian has been sent to the gallows, or convicted of crime before the courts." Mr. Laza- rus, it should be remembered, is here speaking only for the Protestants; cases of crime, among the native Christiahs, it would seem, are mostly of Roman Catholics, though among these also, it is rare. The Mohammedans in M&dras, though vastly less disposed to crime than the Hindus, make but a poor show compared with the Christians generally, and seem to sink out of sight, com- pared with the Protestants.
This great superiority of the Protestants, is, however, rather an inference of my own than a distinct statement of Mr. Lazarus, and may bean exaggeration.
"The native Christians, moreover, are as good as wholly emancipated from faith in astrology and palmistry, from child-marriages and compulsory widowhood, from neglect of the education of their children, from the foolish marriage-system involved in caste, from polyandry and polygamy, from perjury and prostitution, and other violations of the moral law, which are so general among the Hindus, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Even if no wider results had been reached, this alone would have been a great achievement, which must be ascribed to the steadfastness and faithfulness with which the missionary pioneers have administered their difficult trust.
"The more positive virtues are less satisfactorily developed, yet, I may venture to say, that for family virtue the Christians have established a solid reputation. Hypocrisy, however, suspiciousness, mutual detraction and backbiting, hardness toward the poor, prodigality, fickleness, pride of birth, are faults only too common among them. . . . If 'cleanliness is next to godliness,' our people have not yet discovered it, or at Ip,ast have not yet applied their discovery. In this respect they are inferior to the Hindus of the same social level. As to the English standard of moral obligation, there is much of it to which their apprehensions are not yet at all awakened." It should be remembered, however, that the English are by nature, a much higher development of mankind. "As respects the higher, active virtues, which our Lord pronounces blessed, poverty of spirit, sorrow for sin, forbearance, hunger and thirst after righteousness, compassion, purity of heart, willingness to suffer for righteousness sake, the whole moral scale, the highest that humanity can attain, of these we find in the native Christians only the first feeble shoots. There are, of course, honorable exceptions, which, in reference to deve~opment of character and Christian virtues, may easily stand comparison with European Christians, hut they are not man:r." "But when we consider the infection which lies in the air of India, together with the dullness and inertness of the people, and all the various forces, which join to work against the development of the moral sense, and also consider that the mass of the native Christians comefrom the most deeply sunken social stratum of the Hindus, there is certainly occasion for surprise and thankfulness, that the moral standing of the native church is so much higher than that of the Hindus. Thus, the last are higher than the first, as compared with the most of those who stand outside of Christianity."
"Docility, tractability, respectfulness, sobriety and meekness, trust in Providence, and careful discharge of religious duties, are, indeed, traits of our converts; but they are not peculiar to them. They were traits of the Indian character long before Christianity came hither. And it seems surprising that so eminent and learned a man as Bishop Caldwell should have described them as distinguishing traits of our Christians. They are genuine Indian traits, just as courage and capacity, sincerity and manliness, vehemence and violence and energy are genuine European, or, if you will, specific Anglo-Saxon qualities."
Mr. Lazarus thinks, that until pains are taken to secure a higher grade of catechists, we must make up our minds to a comparatively low grade of native Christians. He tells his fellow-missionaries some plain truths: "If the missionaries are to raise the native standard, they must take pains to learn how to speak elegant and accurate Tamil, a thing which, I am sorry to say, receives less attention here in Madras than in old days. Clergymen must not be content with their Sunday services. They ought to establish Bible classes for youth and grown people, as well as for children, and make these entertaining, so that they can mspire native Christians with a taste for an intelligent and thorough study of the Holy Scriptures, and in particular, of the life and work of our Lord. By these, and like means, there will !3pring up a clearer, purer and more thorough conception of what Christianity is, and this will thus exercise a growing influence upon the moral condition of the native church."
• Mr. Lazarus severely criticises the mission1l.ry schools of south India: "These schools are often Christian in name, but heathen in effect. Their main element is made up of heathen boys, and there is only a little fraction of Christian children. Most of the teachers are heathen, the rector is often a Brahmin. The director of the mission prefers heathen to Christian teachers; the former are 'wiser towards their generation than the children of light.' They are more creeping and busy; this is taken by the easily-believing director as humility and zeal; Oll the other hand, he cannot bear with the faults of 'the own children of the family.' What makes matters worse is, that the instruction in br Christianity is committed to the 'Bible teacher,' who is often a poor native Christian of the catechist class, who is nothing accounted of either his pupils or his fellow-teachers. Thus, the whole is under strong heathen mfluence; the Christian element is as a drop in the bucket. Think what it means to be eight hours daily, year out and year in, in contact with a hundred heathen lads and teachers, whose mouths overflow with abominations, and whose hearts are leavened with heathen rottenness. Such a contact cannot otherwise than strikingly infect and corrupt the young Christian's soul before he comes under the missionary's immediate influence. I speak from sad experi- ence.."
Mr. Lazarus is utterly opposed to the appointment of heathen teachers in Christian schools, in any case whatever. He also uses some plain speaking toward the English missionaries in South India: "The fault lies with the native Christians as well as with the whites, that there is so little mutual affection between them. Yet, the latter, as belonging to an older and more developed church, which is renowned not less for piety and philanthropy than for zeal and learning might be expected to be first to lay plans of love toward their weaker brethren. . . Impelled by the Saviour's self-sacrificing love, a messenger of God ought to be able to lay aside his pride of race, to overcome his prejudices, to condescend to the native level, and by free and familiar intercourse, to endeavor to lift the native Christians up to l1imself, and thus, with his Lord, to strive to develop the native church into a glorious church, not havin~ spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.' Only by the exercise of love can the mISSIOnary lead the church on and up. He ought, at least, to show himself as often in the homes oofort he native Christian s as at the dinner-tables of his c~untrymen. It is bettoc !"-:m to exercise his influence
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER
in modest native civility, than by a presence at games of ball or on croquetgrounds. It is pleasanterto see him befriending the poor, than doing homage. to the rich. In brief, all his works, all his walk, ought to be such as to call back into living remembrance the days when the Lord of heaven lived and walked in intimate converse with His own disciples."
Mr. Lazarus bears emphatic testimony to the inestimable good wrought by missionary labors in South India. But he desires, speaking the truth in love, to lay home to the hearts of some of the missionaries, considerations which they have great occasion to weigh, if they would see established in India a stable and richly developed native church.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
Tke New World of Central Africa; With a History of the First Christian Mission on the Congo. By Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness. London: Hodder & Stoughton. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell. $2.00. Central Africa, by means of God's wonder·working Providence, is in- deed, become a "new world," to us. And the great Powers of Europe have hastened to improve their opportunity to extend "the spheres of their ir:tluence" and establish their "protectorates" over its vast areas. This is well. This is a part of God's wise and comprehensive plan for Africa's enlightenment and regeneration. This secures the rapid introduction of civilizing agencies, the development of its immense resources, the protection of life, the extinction of slavery and civil and religious liberty to all its teeming millions. The Church of Christ, also, is astir to enter this new world with the missionary, the Bible and the school, and conquer it for One greater than Cresar. And this book is just what the exigency calls for. It tells just what we want to know. It shows, briefly and intelligently, what has been done and attempted for the evangel- ization of Africa. It is well written-written with a purpose; written by one whose whole heart, as well as that of her husband and family, is given to the missionary cause. It is pro- fusely illustrated. It gives us vivid pictures of the "dark continent." It gives facts of momen· 100us interest. Take this: "The Congo and its tributaries have been already explored to a length of 11,000 miles, giving 22,000 miles of river bank, peopled with native villages. In his journey across Africa, Stanley gazed on the representatives of tribes numbering at least 50,000,000, and to none of them has the message of mercy ever been proclaimed." And this: "From the last mission station on the Upper Congo, a journey of 1,000 miles would be needed to reach the near- .est stations on the east-those on the great lakes. Seventeen hundred miles to the northeast, lies the Red Sea, and there is no mission station between. Two thousand, two hundred miles due north is the Mediterranean, and no mission station between; while 2,500 miles to the northwest are the .stations of the North African nUssion, but no single centre of light between I Seven hundred miles to the west is the Cameroons Station, but the whole intervening country is unvisited; and in the south-west, the American Mission at Bihe, is fully a thousand miles distant. "-J. M. S.
Daybreak in North Africa. By Mrs. F. T. Haig. London: Partridge & Company. This is An account of missionary work in Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli. Our readers have heard from time to time from this region, from one of our correspondents, Rev.E. F. Baldwin, of Tangiers, Morocco. The mission here is but a few years old, and is but little known and feebly supported. 'The North African Mission had no child's play before it when it sought to carry the 'Gospel to Mohammedans in that part of the world where Mohammedanism had most completely triumphed over Christianity, and had, for more than a thousand years, held undisputed sway over Berbers and Arabs alike. The success of the Gospel even against such fearful odds is proof that Islam is not invincible. Here, as elsewhere, the testimony is that Mohammedan power is passing away. But eight years have passed since the effort began, and what hath God wrought I Mrs. Haig says, "At the present time there are 51 missionaries occupying 12 dilferent statious, in connection with the North Americar: Mission. beside a nnmber of in- .dependent workers [Mr. Baldwin, for one, who has been quite successful], several of whom be· gan work with the help of the Society, but afterwards preferred working on separate lines." The book is modestly and pleasantly written and well illustrated. It encourages hope and labor for Africa.-J. M. S.
A Friend of Missions in India. The journal of Rev. Henry S. Lunn. London: James Clarke & Company. Our readers will remember that a flerce and prolonged controversy has agitated the missionaries and friends of the London Missionary Society (Wesleyan,) for a year or two past,growing out of serions criticisms,which appeared in the Methodist Times (London), respecting the administration of the Society and the habits of living on the part of it. missionaries in India, etc. The anthor of this work, and the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, editor of the Methodist Times, were chiefly responsible for stirring up this severe controversy. In the last number of the REVIEW we gave the report of the Special Committee appointed by the Society to investigate :this whole matter.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
The chief interest which attaches to this book is the fact that It consists of "The Cyclo- • styled Indian Journal," in the form of twelve letters, which Mr. Lunn wrote while in India as a. missionary, "thirty copies of which he sent to thirty circles of friends in England." These letters of course, laid the foundation for the discussion and warfare which followed. And when, after his return to London, he wrote a series of anonymous articles to the Methodist Times on "A New Missionary Policy," which the editor strongly 'endorsed, the writer's identity with the letters sent home from India was seen by all who had read the Journal. Bitterness of feeling, at home and abroad, and angry discussion was the result. The missionaries demanded a thorough investigation and persisted in their demand, and, at length got it, and got a vindication. Hap- pily the war Is now ended, and, apparently, all parties are snbstantially satisfied. The lesson from It all isobvions, and should be laid to heart-Young missionaries are too apt to criticise those of age and long experience.-J. M. S.
A ThousandMiles on an Elephant. By Holt S. Hallett. Dedicated by the author to the Ameri- can missionaries in Burmah and Siam. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh and London. This book is the record of a tour of exploration by Messrs. Colquhoun and Hallett for a railway from Bur- mah to China, through the Shan States of Northern Siam. Dr. J. N. Cushing, whom the author designated as the most learned Shan scholar, accompanied the exploring party as interpreter. They met a cordial welcome and much helpful information from Dr. McGilvary and associates of the Preshyterian Mission to the Laos of Chiang-Mal. They there enjoyed a refreshing rest after their tedious jungle-travel from Burmah. Thence onward through unexplored regions of unwasted resources of commercial wealth, and opening an easy access to the hoards of superstitious spirit-worshippers of the Shan tribes in northern Slam, and leading to the unharvested fields of commerce in China, and giving to the disciples of Christ an open door to the uncounted myriads of her inhabitants when these explorations shall result in a living railway from India to, the middle kingdom.
The book is Wllitten in an attractive style, presenting a clear picture of the dwellings, character and customs of the people, the forests of teak timber and other wood that shelter herds of elephants and buffaloes, poniesand cattle, tigers and monkeys, chickens and peacocks,with rich fiE-Ids of rice, sugar, tobacco and tropical fruits. which include pineapple, pumelo, plantin, orange, lemon, mango, mangosteen, durean, custard-apple, and in great variety and rich fiavor the fruits generally found in the tropics. Extensive plains of fertile soil still remain uncultivated for want of facilities for the transportation of the productions. It has been intimated that the Burmah·Siam-China railway, for the extension of British trade and the civilization of" south-eastern Asia, may be classed with the Slez canal and tbe American Pacific railway as one of the grand works of tbe century. We think it in harmony with the call for a thousand missionaries for China, and the Christ-command to preach the Gospel to every creature.-W. D.
Personal Life of David Lit,lngstone. By William G. Biackie, D.D. London: John Murray. This is one of the hest worth reading of all missionary hooks. I am now reading it a second time aloud to my family. For fullness of detail, intense interest, graphic portraiture of character and freedom from exaggeration, it stands very high. And I would recommend all readers· ol the REVIEW to get it.-A. T. P.
Life of John Hunt: Missionary to Fiji. By G. Stringer Rowe, London. This Is one of the most kindling books I ever read. Mr. Hunt was a pioneer, and hurned .out his life's fiame in his holy zeal for God. He died October 4, 1848, at the age of 36, but he had lived a century, judged by the standard of effective work. This hook is full of the rarest inspirlition. It is one of the finest evidences of Christianity it has fallen to my lot to examine. He, who has any doubt of the Divine Power unto salvation, should read this book; and yet. valuahle, as it is, we have seldom seen a copy of It in any missionary library.-A. T. P..
H.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions.
A leaflet lies before me setting forth with personal and peculiar interest· the Students' Foreign MissionaryUnion because of its origin. of Great Britain, not yet one year old. Some facts concerning this organi- "It began in one Howard Taylor's zation will be of interest to the read- study, on his return from Northfield, ers of this REVIEW, because of the Massachusetts, and in the hearts and tremendous significance of a new prayers of a group of missionary men student movement abroad, and vol- at the hospital, shortly before he sailed unteers will regard the movement for China." A London correspondent goes on to say "Two large and influential meetings were lished volume of letters edited by her held in connection with its foundation: one at sister, under the title "In the Far' Spurgeon's Tabernacle, when he (Spurgeon) East." Miss Wilder's name is familiar delivered a grand missionary sermon on Mark to readers of THE REVIEW by reason xvi: 15, to as many London students as could of her occasional letters to that peribe gotten together (and the great building was odical, and to young women in our full to doors and roof), and one at Exeter colleges and connected with Y. W. C. Hall." A. She is known through her mes- sage to them, entitled, "Shall I Go?" The Union numbers 165 members, which has already reached its Fifth all men. London has 74 members, edition. Miss Wilder's pamphlet, "An Cambridge 6, Oxford 5, Edinburgh 32, Appeal from India," should be read Aberdeen 3, Bangor 1. Besides these with very great care in order to be there are some scattered members and understood rightly, and not' read merely, but pondered on-not because some fu. Ireland, making the total of of any obscurity on the writer's part, but rather by reason of the meaning 165 men. of statements-which meaning does The membership consists of all not lie readily on the surface.
students who accept and sign the fol- "The fact that our Saviour is using us in the lowing declaration: salvation of souls, and for hastening the day of His coming-that is certainly the reason "It is my earnest hope, if God per- for our staying in India. So we who are here mit, to engage in Foreign mission would say to you in America and Canada, this work." is the strongest appeal we can send you for coming to India. The presence of the moving The objects of the Union shall be: cloud was sufficient reason for the Israelites 1. To band together students who to follow. Does not the presence of God's feel called to Foreign missionary work. Spirit, as now felt in India, convince us that 2. To urge the claims of the Foreign He is calling a large portion of our volunteer Mission field upon Christian students band to work for Him here I" everywhere, and to advocate the formation of missionary associations in In refutation of the popular notion connection with the various universi- that Africa presents the greatest need ties and colleges where they do not al- for missionary workers, the writer ready exist. says, "Do you say there are large 3. For the furtherance of its objects tracts in Africa unoccupied? True. the Union shall use the following Yet, relative to its population, India agencies: Meetings of members, meet- must have some 119 more missionaries ings in universities and colleges, de- to equal the missionary force of putations, correspondence and indi- Africa." vidual effort, and the pUblication of an occasional paper. Miss Wilder has corresponded with On the ground of respect for and ap- missionary agencies of the Protestant preciation of the work of the authors denominations in India, and in brief of these appeals from different coun- extracts which she gives from letters tties, the appeals, though without any from various districts, a very adequate pretence to literary merit, should be. and true picture of India's needs is read with undivided attention, and in a receptive and prayerful spirit. presented~ Mr. Forman's views on Foreign missions are familiar to us through his From the Central Provinces one addresses delivered in our colleges, in 1886-87. Miss Geraldine Guinness, writes: author of "An Appeal from China," "I am persuaded in my own mind noticed in the last number of THE RE- VIEW, has already shown herenthusi- that the most eventful period in the asm for, and consideration to her history of missionary effort in this work in China, as disclosed in the pub- country is rapi~ly approa?hing. Th.e Lord is preparmg for a time of gI01:1- ous in-gathering. These souls will need the care of his children." Arcot Mission of the Reformed the answer to every difficulty, hin- drance or disappointment." Church: "Never, in my somewhat long ex- Unoccupied fields: "The Nizam's dominions are now perience, were the claims of India ap- open; population 10,000,000. Only a parently so urgent as now. A restless, beginning has been made in the Conaalmost feverish spirit of inquiry per- rese portion on the west. Much of vades the community." India is but nominally occupied. The region about Jhonsi and Bhopal is Madura Mission, American Board: said to have 10,000,000 unprovided for, "To-day, one brother has four sta- except for the mission at Jhonsi, and tions, another three, and two others a native worker of the American two each. How can they do justice . Board at Lalitpun. to the work? They are all driven to "In closing: To you who have finthe verge of desperation and ill-health. ished your course of study, and waver We thank God that we have recently not at the question of ultimate comreceived into our mission-circle one of ing, but of coming this year, I would· that large band of consecrated stu- say, Satan is taking advantage of our dents. How we long, and pray, and delays. Our aboriginal tribes, numwrite, and implore, that more be bered at some 50,000,000, now very acsent !" cessible, are said to be getting rapidly absorbed into Hinduism. In large Marathi Mission, American Pres- cities, where for years there has been much undermining of old faiths, inbyterian Board: fidelity, materialism, and theosophy "An earnest request has been sent are being pressed u1>0n the attention of the people, and there is danger of for sixteen new workers. In Kolha- seven unclean spirits coming in place pur State alone there are 1,097 vil- of one. lages; it would take a missionary a "We need you now. We pray God whole year to preach once around to to send you to us, filled with the Holy the village population of that single Spirit. It is useless to preach Christ State." to minds steeped in ignorance and idolatry, in any other way than in the From the Akola Field, Mrs. Fuller power of the Spirit."
writes: "The greater need is the quality of the men. We need anointed menmen who know Christ, who find in God Africa.-Progress. Letters from gether for the good of the country. the missionaries in Uganda say that There is still considerable bad feeling King Mwanga has been almost wholly and jealousy, but there seems to be no stripped of the despotic power which prospect now of the open rupture that he and his fathers for centuries have recently threatened. The parties have exercised. He is now of little import- taken an oath, signed by their leaderll. ance in his own country-white influ- agreeing that whatever their disputes ences are in ascendancy. The King may be they will not spill one another's can get nothing that he does not ask blood, but will depend upon sober for from his chiefs, who are under the arguments and arbitration to settle all control of the Protestant or Catholic their quarrels. religion. This is a great change for the young King, who awhile ago killed The Mohammedan party seems to a bishop, imprisoned white mission- be entirely defeated. Thus a remarkaries, and slaughtered native Chris- able change has been wrought in tians by the score. No heathen are Uganda, where a while ago the allowed to hold any office in the new Mohammedans ruled everything, and Government. Many of them are per- by their influence upon Mwanga and mitted to remain in the land, but there his successor, Karema, drove the is not a chief among them. The great whites out of the country and threatoffices, of which there are about six ened to retard the progress of white very important ones, have been enterprises and of all civilization in equally divided between the two Central Africa for half a century to Christian parties. come. Now the Mohammedans have been driven from power in a series of There has been great danger of bloody battles, their influence is enserious clashing between the Protestant tirely gone and the Arabs are fugitives, and Catholic sects. By the advice of Uganda is a British J?rotectorate, and both Catholic and Protestant mission- the white missionarIes, recently peraries they have, however, decided to secuted, are the power in the country. bury their differences and work to- Never before was the prospect so bright for the rapid extension of European of the most valuable concessions' influence and commercial enterprise granted her by Germany. The history in the African lake region.-N. Y. of English rule in India shows how Sun. adroit she is in turning the office of protector to her own advantage. [Uganda is the field where Bishop Hanning- The situation of Zanzibar was not ton was murdered by Mwanga, and where the likely to escape the attention of the- slave-stealers. Their interest lay in lamented Mackay spent his brief but heroic making the road from the villages which they depopulated to the coast as life. Stanley speaks in warmest terms of this short as possible. On the journey, however short it may be, many of mission, declaring it "a most remarkable suc- their victims died from fatigue and exposure to the sun. Zanzibar was cess." Of Mackay, in whose house at the near, and it was also convenient. There the dealers came from Europe sonthern end of Victoria Nyanza, he took who had commissions from the Turks and Egyptians to supply them with grateful rest, "sipping real coffee and eating slaves. There, too, vessels might be chartered to carry away the living home-made bread and butter for the first time booty to other ports. So Zanzibar early became a mart of commerce in the in thirty months," he says: "He has no awful traffic. The efforts of Germany and England have largely suppressed time' to fret and groan and weep, and God this trade in Zanzibar, and under the protectorate of England we may be knows, if ever man had reason to think of sure it will not be revived. The mar- kets will now be better occupied by 'graves and worms and oblivion,' and to be the trade in ivory.-African News.
dolefuland lonely and sad, Mackay had, when, Chi n a. – A great evan~elizing after murdering his Bishop, and burning his agency. – The Chinese, especially pupils, and strangling his converts, and those in the southern part of the em- clubbing to death his dark friends, Mwanga pire, are going out from China in all turned his eye of death on him. And yet the directions. They are not only going little man met it with calm, blue eyes that to many adjacent islands and those never winked. To see one man of this kind, more remote in the Pacific, but they working day after day for twelve years, are settling upon all the coasts of bravely, and without a syllable of complaint south-eastern Asia, pushing up an the or a moan, among the 'wilderness,' and to rivers, and in every place holding hear him lead his little flock to show forth tenaciously the ground on which they God's loving kindness in the morning and His settle. They are a great colonizing faithfnlness every night, is worth going a people, and, if only the Gospel is long journey for the moral courage and con- given to them, they will assist greatly tentment that one derives from it."-J. M. S.] in the redemption of the lands to Zanzibar.-The importance of which they go from sin and darkness. Zanzibar, as a key to Central Africa, was recognized early in the era of ex- They seem to be destined, in the good ploration. What New York is to the United States, what Liverpool is to providence of God, to become a pow- Great Britain, Zanzibar is to Equatorial Africa. In his first expedition erful evangelizing agency, and a great Stanley made it the base of operations, and he went there again, in 1879, to blessing to humanity. . organize his second expedition. It lies on the east coast of Africa, seven Bishop Thoburn, writing from Sindegrees south of the equator. Its chief markets and the seat of the govern- gapore, says of these Chinese colonment are on the island of Zanzibar, but the adjacent country on the main- ists: land is also under the Sultan's domin- "'fhe more I see of our mission work ion, and is also called Zanzibar. It is at this point that the caravans from the in this part of the world, the more do interior strike the coast, and from I bQcome confirmed in the conviction there the explorers, Burton, Grant, which I received the first time I Stanley, Cameron and others, hired visited Rangoon and saw the Chinese their carriers and set out on their ex- there; mingling as they were with the peditions, and to that place they re- Burmese, that God would use them as turned, and came once more into com- a great evangelizing agency all up and munication with civilization. It was Stanley's first business, in organizing the Congo Free State, to establish a chain of stations extending from Zanzibar to Nyangwe and the lakes. Under the new arrangement with Germany and England, the latter country has acquired the right of "protecting" the Sultan of Zanzibar, which is one down these coasts. They are not only converts are mostly gathered from the most energetic people to be found in this region, but, strangely enough, the poor, he argued that it was better they seem more accessible to the Gos- pel than any others; and those of them so. When a house is to be lifted, jackwho are born in Malaysia will be able to speak the vernacular of the coun- screws are put in at the bottom. If try in which they live, and this, added to their knowledge of English and the roof was grappled it would be only Chinese, will qualify them for usefulness on the widest jossible scale. the top that would be lifted. Strange are the ways 0 Providence!" -Spirit of Missions. Hawaii.-Rev. W. A. Essery, in a recent address in London, said: England.-There is much in the "The gospel has won the victory English papers of the increasing flow over heathenism in the Sandwich Islands. It was a peculiar joy to me of converts from the ritualistic section when I found myself in Honolulu. On a certain sunny Easter Sunday of the Anglican Church to the Church morning I wended my way to the old stone church, a large square sanctuof Rome. The activity of the priests of ary, built of blocks of reef coral that had been cut out of the sea for. this Rome is very great, and their boastful- purpose by the early converts. I ness is greater. But the Pall Mall Ga- stood in the pulpit and spoke to an zette concedes that the tide sets rapidly eager audience of the purpose of {lne way. In a recent issue it says: Christ's gospel, the many triumphs thereof I had seen in all parts of the " The conversion to Catholicity is recorded world, and exhorted them to cleave of Rev. Dr. Townsend, superior of a mission to the Lord. Where are the idols the house of Oxford University at Calcutta, and people worshipped a hundred years this so soon after a similar step taken by Dr. ago? More of them are preserved in Rivington, principal of a similar institution at the museum cases of the London Mis- Bombay. Itis also given upon good authority sionary Society than I could hear of that Drs. Tatlock, Beasley and Clarke, sta- in the islands to-day. All around me tioned respectively at Christ Church, Clap- were proofs of how the gospel had ham, Helmsley, Yorkshire and St. James', raised and civilized the community. Liverpool, will shortly enter the Catholic The entire money cost of converting Church. Since the beginning of the Lenten these islanders, which was done by season no less than 100 Anglicans have em- American missionaries, was less than braced Catholicity, and this in one parish the cost of one first-class British ironalone. At Brighton, a centre of ritualistic clad. Christ's gospel has been wafted activity, the number of converts is reckoned to New Zealand. Last Good Friday at 500 persons." twelve months I landed at Gisborne, in Poverty Bay; it was about three India.-Bishop Thoburn's picture o'clock in the afternoon. Going up over the same beach where Captain of the poverty of the people of Asia, Cook had landed a hundred years before I heard the music of a churchespecially of India, where families going bell; turning in its direction I came upon a wooden, weather-boarded live on five cents a day, and thousands church; stepping inside I saw a con- gregation of Maoris, the natives of of growing children go to bed hungry New Zealand. The clergyman had just started the service, men and every night, drew forth a chorus of women had their Bibles and prayer- books, and all were taking part in the groans and sighs as well as generous worship of Him whose sorrows are remembered on Good Friday. It was gifts. He mentioned, as a sample: a a simple sight but it gladdened the heart to find Christ's name honored in man who was paid $2.50 per month, the ends of the world. And so from these illustrations we learn that the whose wife, by hard work, added 28 missionary spirit is once more a power of life in the earth, and that the work cents per month to it. This had to of Christianizing the nations has actually commenced, and is making be divided among a family of five, real progress."
none of whom could have enough even Japan.-The new Constitutional of their own coarse food (rice mixed Government assumes control of affairs with weeds). "Five hundred millions of the people of this world," said the Bishop, "will go to bed hungry to- night. The tramps of this country would be 'swell' in any part of India." Speaking of the fact that missionary in November. The Parliament will a considerable interval, iinds the <Jontain many liberal-minded men. changes that have recently occurred There will be manifest in it four dis- so marked and suggestive that he is tinct parties: the Conservatives, the induced to indicate some of the most Conservative-Radicals, the Moderates, prominent. He writes as follows: and the Radicals. All of them, " On approaching the city from the west, in former years, there were however, have more or less ad- scarcely any buildings except the Russian convent and the Monteiiore vanced notions, and have no desire to Almshouses to intercept the ·…iew of the city walls; now the whole plain is go back exclusively to the old order covered with private residences and colonies of Jews, whilst near to the ()f things. The Moderate party is Jaffa Gate· are large numbers of shops called Kaishinto. It took its rise in already tenanted and numerous others in course of construction. This ex- 1882, and has been very active in the tension beyond the walls has become necessary on account of the rapid agitation for and adoption of the increase of the population. I am in- formed by Mr. Moore, British consul present Constitution. It is very pro- here, that within the last three or four years about 20,000 Jews have come to gressive in its aims, and favors "gov- Jerusalem for permanent residence in and around the city, and that of the €rnment by party, treaty-revision and entire population of about 70,000 it is estimated that nearly 40,000 are Jews. the reform of almost all departments of He also stated that the influx of Jews into other parts of Palestine during the government." The Conservative- recent years has been entirely without precedent. The principal streets,which Radicals came into recognition in 1888 but a few years since were almost impassable in rainy weather, have and have adopted as their motto, been paved with stone, a new wide street has been opened up through a "United in great things-differing in densely-populated quarter, and five hotels are now open for the reception small." They are, as yet,few in num- 6f the annually-increasing number of visitors and traders from all lands. bers, and not very influential. The " Public works of importance have Jihu-to is the real Radical Party. been executed, and others are in pro- gress. The road from Jaffa to Jerusa- I lem, at one time all but impracticable, has been reconstructed by an eminent -Appeal from Baptist missionaries. engineer-over it our own and other "At a conference of the missionaries carriage services are in full operation ()f the American Baptist Missionary -a good road has been formed from Union, held at Yokohama, June 11, Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and another 1890, it was resolved, in view of the from Jerusalem to Hebron; several great needs of this iield and the en- others are rapidly approaching comlarged opportunities for work in this pletion-from Jaffa to Nablous (She- <Jountry, to beseech God, and, under chern), 40 miles; Jerusalem to Jericho, Him, the missionary union and the 20 miles; Caipha to Nazareth, 20 Baptists of the north, for a speedy re- miles, and Nazareth to Tiberias, 18 inforcement of twenty-three men. miles. Jerusalem has hitherto been almost wholly dependent for its water "That there has been a crisis in Ja- supply upon its large underground pan is admitted by all, and this crisis cisterns for the reception of rain water, has not passed away in the late revul- which, after a summer's drouth, often sion of feeling against foreigners, al- proves insufficient in quantity and though, we believe, it has changed in almost unfit for use. The Governsome of its phases. The situation is ment is now about to introduce an more urgent and pressing than ever. unfailing supply from a spring of pure There remain as many souls to be water beyond Solomon's Pools-about reached; the work has been increased nine miles distant. A large flour mill, in difficulty, and our time for its ac- established by the Messrs. Bergheim, complishmentis diminishing.
[This appeal is urged by many "very startling and solemn facts."-Ens.] Palestine. – Anything indicative of an awakening and a revival of energy in the Holy Land, especially at Jerusalem, must prove of especial interest to every Christian who is watching "the signs of the times."
A correspondent of the London Christian World, now on a visit to the Holy City for the seventh time, after having proved both a great benefit try to commerce, are without preceand a financial success, others, with dent in modern times. Viewed in large steam power, are in progress of connection with the numerous and erection; soap factories have com- active efforts being made by various· menced operations, and at Jaffa steam religious agencies throughout the saw-mills have been established. conntry for the evangelization of the Colonies of Jews following agricul- people, and the conversion of the' tural pursuits, stated to be successful, Jews, these facts must encourage are located, one about five miles from every lover of God's ancient people to Jaffa, and a larger one at Limerin, hope that His set time to favor Zion is near Cresarea, originated and assisted fast approaching."-Exchange. by the Rothschild family. The beforenamed rmid to Jericho is being con- The Silver Law's effect on misstructed by the Government, who sions.-Strange as it may seem, the have taken up all the land available in Silver law seriously affects Christian the best parts of the valley for the de- missions. Weallknowwhatithasdone velopment of an extensive scheme of for the silver barons. It has made a agricultural operations, which, with fine market for their ore, and lined such a temperature, so fertile a soil, their pockets, not with their own coin, and well watered by the copious but with good, merchantable money. stream from Elisha's fountain, should stamped with the seal of the United promise abundant and remunerative States Treasury. It has raised the crops. Grapes, bananas, sugar-cane, price of silver, and therefore accomcotton, and various fruits and vege- plished the purpose for which it was tables have for some time past been forced through the two Houses at cultivated here with much success. Washington, It has enriched mine- The increased amount of rain which owners; has it blessed anybody else? has fallen the last few years in Pales- We will wait to see. Meantime, it is tine has had a most marked effect in having a disastrous effect on the mislarger and more abundant harvests sionary societies which make largeexthan hitherto known. penditures in foreign lands. By rais- lUg the price of silver it has so ad- "The most important results, how- vanced the rates of exchange for all ever, of all may be anticipated from those countries which have a silver the railway about to be constructed standard that a large percentage of between Jaffa and Jerusalem. As every dollar transmitted to the various rumors in former years have pre- fields is lost in discount. vailed which have never been realized, I called upon Mr. Frutiger, the banker, The dealings of the societies, it to whom the concession has been should be explained, with Mexico, granted by the Turkish Government, Brazil and other American countries, and was assured by him that the with India, China, Japan, Syria, Pernecessary capital had been subscribed, sia, and other Asiatic fields, are all and that the works would commence conducted on the silver basis. In makimmediately npon the close of the ing appropriations for the year, the sorainy season in the early spring, and cieties make them on the basis of an pushed on urgently to completion. exchange rate, averaged on the rates of The influence such a line of communi- the previous years. -While this rate difcation between Jerusalem and the' fers in different countries, it has avercoast may be expected to exert is in- aged less, the treasurer of the Presbycalculable, for as a natural sequence terian Board, Mr. Dulles, informs us, the harbor, which is now inaccessible "than 80 cents to the dollar for all to Mediterranean steamers, must be countries. " deepened and enlarged, and the rocky barrier which prevents ingress re- Now for the effect of the Silver Bill moved. on exchange. Mr. Dulles writes us: " It is contemplated to snbsequently "I find, by reference to my records, that on extend this line via Gaza and EI-Arish over the Short desert to Port Said and April 9th, our bills sold in Chiua at 77~ (this Ismalia on the Maritime Canal, thus connecting with the railway system is discount on the Mexican silver dollar); on of Lower Egypt for Cairo, Alexandria April 21st it had risen to 79~; May 28 to 82li; and Suez, and to the Fayoum and Upper Egypt. Such important action July 15th to 86jf; July 28th to 88.03, which is for the improvement of the Holy City and the development of the resources thelast date at which I had advices of actual of Palestine, and opening up the coun- sales; or a rise of 15 per cent. This will serve as an example. In fact, our estimates were made below 77, the first price above given; but assuming the variation as above, it means that when we contract to pay a native helper or incur any other form of expense for a given number of Mexican silver dollars, we must now, in order to meet our accounts, add 15 per the Church's history has recorded' a cent. to our disbursements of American gold. similar advance, although that ad- This is not a simple illustration, but the state- vance is relativelv small in the light ment of an actual fact." of the unexampled growth of popu- lation, even in non-Christian lands. The rise in India is somewhat less. The ten missionary organizations of On April 15th £500 yielded 6,832 the United Kingdom have become 65; rupees; on May 14th, 6,357: on July the 27 of all evangelical Christendom 21st, 6,140. The last· advices, says have increased to 185. The sum of Mr. Dulles, show that the rate is still half a million sterling raised to evanrising. Withal, the market is so gelize the world has grown fivefold uncertain, that 60-day bills cannot be -to two millions and a half. The sold at all. The rates in Mexico are living converts, then under 400,000, higher, even, than in China and India, now form native Christian communivarying from 15 to 20 per cent. ties three millions strong. The mis- sionary band, ordained and unor- What is true of the Presbyterian dained, was then 760 strong, and Board is also true of the American not 12 of these were women or Board and other societies. A note natives; now it is a host of nearly to us from one of the 'secretaries of 40,000, of whom 2,000 are women, bethe American Board says its expen- sides missionaries' wives: 33,000 are ditures are affected, "not only in India natives, and of these, 3,000 are orand China, but in Japan and Mexico dained. Besides all that Carey and as well-fields in which fully one-half his imitators had done to translate the of our total expenditures are made." Word of God, we see now in other 41 The Western Christian Advocate says languages the Old Testament, and in a "special appropriation of about other 64 languages the New Testa- $20,000 to meet the increased cost of ment. Our empire has grown till we exchange" in India will have to be have become responsible for a fourth made by the Methodist Missionary So- of mankind. The English speaking ciety at its meeting in November. race were only 22 millions when Carey The cost of the Silver Bill to the So- made his survey; we have increased ciety will be, the Advocate estimates, at the rate of nearly a million a year, fully $40,000. till in and outside of Christendom we are 113 millions. Our wealth has The outlook is a serious one for all swollen even more rapidly. Our the societies. A large increase in the mother-tongue, the Queen's English, incomes of the societies will be neces- has become the Christianizing and saryto pay the same bills as informer civilizing speech of earth, carrying to years. Says Mr. Dulles, speaking for the thousand millions who are still barthe Presbyterian Board: barians in the Hellenic sense, even as Greek influenced the hundred millions "It is early to calculate the etl'ects of a of the Roman Empire, that Divine revelation which, to all who believe it, change of 15 to 20 per cent. upon appropri- is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. Save in the ations of $900,000. Without entering into the very heart of Asia-Mohammedan, Buddhist and Russian-The Spirit of merits of the silver-question or venturing God has opened every door, as our fathers prayed.-Free Church (Scotprophecies as to the results, it certainly is un- land) Annual Report.
likely that silver will fall much below its pres· Farewell Meeting in Boston under ent value, and those who are considering the the direction of the secretaries of the American Board, in view of the early obligations of the Church to foreign work departure of missionaries for the several fields under the care of the must bear in mind the unavoidable demand Board. The missionaries were intro- duced by Dr. Clark and Dr. Smith, acupon them this year, and indeed in subsequent cording to the fields to which they were destined, and addresses were years, on account of the special change in the made by Dr. Herrick and Mr. Bartlett, for the Western Turkey Mission; by rise of silver. " Messrs. Hill and White for the Japan Mission; by Messrs. Lay and Jeffery Upon the churches the burden must for the missions in India, and by Mr. fall. It will not do to cut down former Ransom for the Zulu Mission. When appropriations by 15 or 20 per cent.; therefore, it will be necessary for them to increase their contributions by that amount. If last year a society appropriated $500,000, it must appropriate this year, to keep up its work, $575,000 or $600,000.
What a pity the extra percentage cannot be assessed on the silver barons! -The Independent.
The Missionary Age. The Victorian has been emphatically the missionary era. Since the immediately post-apostolic days, no half century of
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
the name of Mrs. Ransom was read, Dr. sent to the field since the last annual Alden stated that she was a daughter report is now 54, a greater number of Rev. Simeon H. Calhoun, formerly than has been sent out by the of the Mission to Svria. The Rev. Board during anyone year for the past James D.Tracy, of theMadura Mission, 50 years. The number of missiontemporarily in tIns country, extended aries appointed since the last annual the right hand of welcome to Mr. Jef- meeting of the Board is 63, 22 of fery, who goes to the same mission. whom are men, representing all the The exercises occupied two hours, Congregational theological seminaries and were listened to with the closest of the country, excepting Bangor and attention and deepest interest by a Oakland. These facts, taken with the large audience. Thirty-four mission- very handsome increase in the receipts aries were named at this farewell meet- of the Board during the past year, and ing, either now on the way or soon to the good reports of work. from all go to their respective fields; going out parts of the mission field, give abunfor the first time. The total number dant occasion for thanksgiving and of new missionaries that have been good courage for the future.
III.':"'-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Madagascar. where we hope shortly to build a dwelling- house, leaving the town of Ambatondrazaka to Antsihanaka, May 1, 1890. our friend and colleague, the Rev. E. H. Strib- DEAR EDITons:-Herewith I enclose a copy ling, thus extending the mission. We are of circular on the subject of a Cottage Hos- already about 100 miles, or four days' journey, pital, which it is proposed togo on with imme- from any other missionary, and a new hospital diately here iu the heathen province of Antsi- has become an absolute necessity. We intend hanaka. You will note that this mission is to to build a suitable structure to accommodate be extended by our removing a day's journey about sixteen patients, and this comparafurther north, where we hope to have much tively small effort will cost about £250. It is blessing on the work in future years. I need our earnest desire to build it without assishardly trouble you with details, other than to tance from the society, if possible, and so we say that the Christian public at home should are making known the present position of not be allowed to run off with the generally- affairs to personal friends, and to the friends accepted idea, which is false, of the "ad- of missions in general. To the former, we vanced religious and social condition of the would suggest this as a fitting opportunity for island," referred to in a letter received yester- affording encouragement to lonely workers in day from a Christian friend at home. The a far country, which, added to the far higher fact is that Madagascar is about one-third consideration of helping on the work of God, simply evangelized, and that one-third -about we hope will prove a sufficient inducement to three-fonrths-civilized. The work of deepen- help forward this particular object. Almost ing and spreading the spiritual life is only the whole of the working expenses (except now beginning in the above one-third of the the very important items of medicines and island. The work of evangelization and estab- medical appliances) have been obtained for lishment of new missions is being carried out the last two years without any help from the in about half of the remaining two-thirds, society, our patients paying more than twowhich, like here in Antsihanaka, is heathen, thirds of the expense of board and nursing; without missionary agencies at all; and the many of our native friends, too, having conrest is in "gross darkness." tributed to this object." The above is only a very general way of looking at it as a whole, but still it will give a LETTER FROM DR. BROCKETT. good idea of how things really are here. Brooklyn, July 28, 1890. With kindest regards, DEAR DR. SHERWOOD:-I was very much in- JAMES G. MACKAY. terested in that part of Dr. Pierson's letter, in your August number, which treated of the [We regret that space permits only important questions of education and evan- gelization in the mission fields, and the coman extract or two from the printed parative success of the two methods, education first, and then evangelization, or evangeliztlr circular accompanying this letter.- tion first, followed by Ohristian education. EnS.] As I have been for many years studying these questions carefully, with reference to the , .. And now to come to the point of our re- missions of most evangelical denominations, I port. Our present hospital served well for a beg leave to offer a few thoughts, which Inay beginning, .but is now too small for us. Further, the directors of the L. M. S. have agreed to our removing to a more healthy spot at Imerimandroso, a day's journey to the north, be of service in the settlement of the difficult who had the privilege of hearing Rev. Dr. J. problem. E. Clongh, the Apostle to the Telugns, tell of his experience in endeavoring to carry the 1st. I find in our Lord's missionary tours in Gospel to that [,,,ople, will ever forget how Palestine that He devoted His instruction this matter presented itself to him. The mis- and preaching to .. the common people, who sion to the Telugns was founded in 1836, and heard Him gladly"-to" publicansand sinners, in 1866, thirty years later, when Mr. Clough who thronged to hear Him, and almost trode reached Ongola, there had not been a hun· upon one another to listen to the gracious dred native Telugns converted. There were words which He spake." He opened no about fifty members of the single church there, sChools, rabbinical or other, for Pharisees and but some of them were Tamils, English sol- Sadducees, practised no asceticism like the diers or sailors, or men of other nationalities, Essenes, but the burden of his discourses was and not to exceed 25 or 30 were Telugns. concerning the Kingdom of Heaven. There was one native assistant, and sChools had been maintained for instructing the chil- I cannot find that the Apostles opened any dren of Brahmins. The missionaries were ex. school to instruct or propagate the Gospel cellent men, men of deep piety and learning, which they preached. Paul tells us that it and thoroughly in earnest in their efforts to pleased God that by the foolishness of preach- win souls. But, somehow, they did not sucing mlln might believe, and that not many wise, ceed. The Brahmins were very friendly, ana not many learned were brought to the knowl- often called on them to discuss questions of edge of the truth-that" He had hidden these science, and if pressed on the subject of perthings from the wise and prudent, and revealed sonal religion, would reply that they were exthem unto babes." Throughout the Acts and amining the Christian doctrines, and were the Epistles, whether they were preaching to very favorably impressed with them, but Greeks, Romans or Barbarians, the theme desired time to consider. They did not wish was Christ, as the Saviour and Redeemer from to mingle with the lower castes, but thought sin, and no time was spent in endeavoring to they should, in time, come over to Chriscivilize or educate the people before convert- tianity. ingthem. When Mr. Clough came to Ongola, in 1866, 2d. I think it will be found in all modern they pursued the same course with him, and missions that the great snccesses have been at first deceived him; but his faithful assistachieved by following in the line of Christ's ant had preached the Gospel to the poor outexample. In almost every Asiatic mission casts (pariahs) at one of the out stations, and field there will be found two distinct classes, had sent some of the converts in one Saturday often of different origin, the one aristocratic to Mr. Clough for examination and baptism. and lordly, generally the ruling race, educated The Brahmins heard of it, and sent a message after their fashion, and looking down with to him, begging him not to disgrace himself contempt upon their ignorant inferiors. In and them by having anything to do with these India, this class are the Brahmins, proud, in- low and degraded people. The Brahmins telligent, in some respects the superioI'S in could not visit him Or hold any intercourse inteliectual culture of even the best European with him if he thus polluted himself. Mr. a,pd races. Their inferiors, who are gi-ound down Mrs. Clough devoted themselves to the study to the lowest degradation, are the men of low of the Word of God and prayer that night. caste or no caste at all. the pariahs or out- They found that they had erred in respecting casts. persons; they humbly confessed and repented of their sins, and the next day openly went to Many of our missionaries and missionary one of the large tanks in the city, baptized societies have made the mistake of trying to these converts, and preached the Gospel to convert the Brahmins first. They were so re- the poor, who had gathered by thousands to fined and cultured, so polite, and took so witness the ordinance. The Brahmins were much pleasure in discussing-religious ques- furious: they showed tHeir displeasure by tions with the missionaries, and sometimes cutting his acquaintance and reviling him confounding them with their dialectic skill, publicly, but the common people heard him that the poormissionaries indulged high hopes gladly, and received the word with joy. Bapof gathering a church whose members should tisms were constant, and in the ten years all be converied Brahmins, and through whom (1867-1877) preceding the famine, the church the whole nation should ere long Le brought at Ongola alone had received 4,394 members to Christ. It has now been about a hundred by baptism. After the famine, and Mr. (now years since missionary labor was commenced Dr.) Clough's noble and self-sacrificing efforts in India. Has anybody ever seen or heard of to relieve the sufferingcaused by it, the people a church there composed wholly of converted began to press into the kingdom of God, and Brahmins, who, as being all of. the highest to take it by violence. In 1Si'8, 8,691 were caste, did not need to break its bonds and defile baptized in six weeks-2,222 of them in one themselves by associating with Sudras or day-and during the 13 years since the ,,-ork Pariahs? Converied Brahmins there have certainly been, but never those who came in cempanies and retained their caste. Those has gone forward steadily, till on the first of was the only God to be worshipped. Now, January, IS90, there had been during the pre- contrast with this the Karen Missions in Burvious year, in the thirteen stations of that mah. Beginning in 1828 with the baptism of mission, 3,340 baptisms, and the number of a single convert brought to Christ by Dr. Judliving members at that date was 33,838. A son's efforts, it spread through Tavoy, Moullarge majority of these are people of low caste, mein, Rangoon, Bassein and Henzada within or of no caste, but of late the higher castes a dozen years, and has now extended wherehave begun to come in, and some Brahmins ever there are Karens. These people were among them. Of course, schools were neces- very poor; they were cruelly oppressed by sary after this rapid evangelization, and they their Burmese rulers; they were illiterate; have been provided liberally. There are sem- had no written language, till the misinaries for training native preachers (many of sionari.,s reduced their languages to writing; these poor people have developed remarkable they were not idolaters, and while they had abflities, both asscholars and preachers); there some:ideas of a Supreme Being they had never are high schools for girls and boys, and sta- heard of Christ, yet they came to Him at once tion-schools for instruction in the vernacular. when they did hear of Him, and in such num- In some of the stations there are caste schools bers, that for three years and more, under the for girls, in which ·the Bible is tanght, and fierce Burmese persecution, the thOllsands very soon the bonds of caste give way. The who were willing to die for Christ could not girls in these caste schools do not seem to be receive Christian baptism. They have in sixty superior in intellect or ability to their outcast years become an intelligent and powerful peosisters. There are connected with the mission ple, advancing from semi-barbarism to civilinow 47 missionaries, f!7 of them women-IS are zation, education and administrative ability, in America or Enrope. There is pressing need till the Government of British India, whose of at least 20 more missionaries. The number subjects they are, are putting them into places of native helpers is 421, of whom 204 (67 01'- of honor and trust in the place of the Burmese, .dained and 137 unordained) are preachers. whom they have found dishonest and untrust- The appropriations of the Missionary Union worthy. This wonderful change has come for all departments of the work in 1889-'90 solely by the preaching of the Gospel of ,yere $67,972, of which about one-half was for Christ, and in their case evangelization preschools. Here, out of 54 years of mission ceded education. They have had comparawork, only 24 have been productive of large tively few American missionaries (they have visible results. now 57, of whom only 20 are men). They have 560 native helpers, of whom 125 are or- Take another instance, which illustrates my dained pastors and evangelists, many of them point still more fully-the Baptist missions in the peers of our pastors in city or country, Burmah. Dr. Judson entered upon his mis- 492 churches, with a membership of 28,000, and sion to the Burmese in 1813. No abler or more an adherent population of about 175,000. Over· devoted missionaries have been connected 40,000 have died in these sixty years. They with any missions in the world than Dr. Jud- carryon Home and Foreign Missions with son and some of his associates; they were great success. Of course they have schoolslaborious, patient and persevering to a degree over 400 of them, with 11,000 pupils, all receivalmost beyond belief, yet six years elapsed ing an elementary Christian education; ten or before the baptism of the first convert. At twelve academies-some teaching English, but the close of the first Burmese war (1824-'26) all giving instruction in the Scriptures; a theothere were not more than 30 converted Bur- logical seminary, a college, and two highmese living, and now after 75 years of very grade high schools (boarding}-one of them earnest labor, with a large force of mission- with over 400 students. Their native preachers aries constantly in the field, and 63 (20 men are well educated, and their schools have reand 43 women) now at work, there are only ceived the highest praise from the Govern- 29 Burmese churches, with about 2,000 mem- ment Commissioners and inspectors for their bers (probably 4,000 or 5,000 have gone to thorough and critical scholarship. They are heaven in these 75 y£>-&rs). The reasons of growing spiritually; aboU:t 1,850 were bapthis scanty return are not far to seek. The tized the past year. Three·fourths of missionaries are not in fault; they have done their native pastors and four-fifths of the their work faithfully and well. They relied schools, including the costly high schools and to some extent on schools, in many of which college, are supported by the native churches, English was taught. The Burmese were and every church has a chapel of its own, proud, intelligent, imperious, and cruel in built by native Christians. Their contributions temper, bigoted in their Buddhism, and looked to church and benevolent purposes, taking all down with contempt on all other nations, es- their churches together, average $1.75 per peeially upon the Karen tribes, whom they member, while in the missions, where they held in a sort of peonage. They were glad of have plans of systematic beneficence, they the schools, because their children coul~ learn come up to $3.25 per member, and this where English, though they hated the English peo- $50 a year is considered a liberal salary. Here" ple, but they insisted that the Lord Buddha most certainly, education followed evangeli· missionary life does not allow of much time zation. for writing, but I am going to do better in the I might go on to speak of the Mallegassy, who certainly were evangelized before they future. In the meantime I send you an article had anything more than the most meagre education, but are now rejoicing in many good written by my husband, Rev. F. E. Hoskins. schools; of the Kohls, of Central India, Goss· ner's converts*-in this mission, also, evangel- On.him has fallen Mr. Dale's mantle, and it ization preceded education, and indeed educa· tion has not proceeded very far yet; and of is a heavy one, eombined with the study of many other missions of a like character, did space permit, but the points I want to make Arabic. We are feeling especiaJIy burdened are these: at this tillIe, as word has COme to retrench 1. That among the nations who profess and maintain the systematized false faiths- Zahleh station ($554). Buddhism, Brahmanism, Tauism, Moham- medanism – and even, in a somewhat less If we ask which of the out stations we will .degree, the doctrines of the Greek and Roman Cathoftc churches, and who have' a written close, it is like asking a man which of his chil- langnage and literature defending and ex- pounding their respective faiths,. progress in dren he can spare best. With the present evangelization will be slow by any method, and education will help very little, if at all. state of the Government, if we close we will Comparatively little impression has been made in Siam, in the Buddhist portion of not get permission to open again. It is hard China, and in Burmah, upon the Buddhists, .and general scientific education, however com- fighting to hold what we have, and no pros- plete it may have convinced the intellect, has not touched the heart. The same is pect o~ getting more. Turks and Jesuits make equally true of the educational assaults which have been made upon Islamism among the a trying combination. Three girls' schools Turks and other Mohammedan nations. That system of faith has too strong a hold upon have been closed; each one had over seventy the weakness of human nature to be readily relinquished. It does not seem that either the pupils; $40 each would run them to the end adherents of the Greek or the Roman Church have been often educated into Protestant of the year. Can yon not stir some heart to Christianity. Indeed, the results of the educative process have very often found to enure help us? Think of the large sums that were to these religions, e. g., Cardinals Manning, 'Wiseman and Newman, and many bishops raised at Northfield. and other perverts. We have church buildings that need repair; 2. It seems easily demonstrable that our Lord'S plan was to begin missionary work. we do not see how they can stand another with the poor, the lowly, the illiterate and the sinful; to present the dying, risen and glori- winter. fied Saviour to those who are conscious of t.heir You must pray that we may have patience need of such a Saviour from sin; and when the Gospel has lifted them up to Christian under discouragements, wisdom in' facing manhood and brought them to work for the salvation of others, then Christian education many vexing questions, and a great outpoursteps in, and prepares them to lead the hardened idolaters, by the force of a holy example, ing of God's Spirit. to Him who alone can save them. In my sister's absence I have the little organ L. P. BROCKETT. you sent her.* • Syria. During the last ten days I have had a guest Zahleh, Aug. 19, 1890. who formerly lived in Zahleh, so we have had DEAR DR. PIERSON:-YOu asked me to be one of your" Editorial Correspondents." My over a hundred callers, everyone has had a.
* I think the missionaries of the Society for glass of sherbet, about half have been fed; the Propagation of the Gospel, who have ab- with a little maid (Jeannette) to look after, sorbed tbis mission, overrate the conversions among the Kohls. They took over only 7,000, do you wonder that I do not write more? But and their latest report gives only 11,954 communicants. The 32,000 were only adherents. notwithstanding all, I have read the REVIEW for July and retailed its contents to my caIlers.
How we wish you could have extended your mission tour to Syria! You mustspend some time with us when you do come. Our home is near to the grand old ruins of Baalbec.
For some years I have been gathering suo perstitioI!s of these people. Very odd, and of course have their infiuence; and if sueb articles would be acceptable to you, will send one.
Mr. Hoskins is away for the day. Since Jan. 1st he has traveled more than 1,500 miles, 1,200 of these in the saddle, in all weathers and all hours of the day. Yours sincerely, Mas. F. E, HOSKINS.
Moravians not Lutherans.
Nazareth, Pa., Aug. 20, 1890. In the August number of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW (page 634), in the "Table of the Evan- gelical Lutheran Foreign Missionary Work," we find as the 27th Society (sic) the Moravian Church included among the Lutheran Mission- ary Societies, with the foot-note: .. The 110- * This little parlor organ was sent as a help in carrying on Sunday-school and prayer ser- vices. It was given by Bethany Church, Phila- delphia.~A. T. P.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
ravians have the same confession of faith as stuecke des christlichen Glaubens klar und the Lutherans." einfach ausgesprochen sind. Die Freiheit der " Gewissen unsrer Geschwister wird dadurch This is a very inaccurate and misleading in keiner Weise gebunden, insonderheit in statement. The official statement of the doc· solchen Laendern, wo die Augsburgische Kon· trine of the Brethren's or Moravian Church, fession nicht dieselbe Geltung hat, als in as determined by her General Synod, contains, Deutschland. ") among many other statements, this paragraph (freely "trausJated): "In common with all The peculiar position which the Moravian Christendom, the Moravian Church subscribes Church holds among the continental churches to the doctrines enunciated in the so-called makes it necessary for her to take some Apostles' Creed, and acknowledges further notice of the Augustana in order to retain her that in the 21 doctrinal articles of the Augs· legal standing and to carry on her work un· burg Confession the chief points of Christian trammelled. As a matter of fact the Moravian belief are clearly and simply defined. The Church technically has no "confession" of freedom of conscience of our memhers, how· her own, and binds herself to no confessioR of ever, is in no wise infiuenced by this state· any other church, while in all essential p<>ints ment, especially not in those countries where she agrees with the creeds of all Protestant the Augsburg COnfession is not of SO much Churches. She gladly co·operates with any importance, as in Germany." Results of the Protestant Church that will work with her. General Eiynod of 1889 : However, Moravians, as such, are in no sense of the word Lutherans, and Moravian mission (" Die Bruederkirche bekennt slch daher mit work has nothing whatsoever to do with the der gesammten Christenheit zu den im apo· Lutheran Church, although the Moravians stolischen Glaubensbekenntniose enthaltenen gladly and thankfully acknowledge that they Lehrsaetzen, und erkennt weiter, dasz in den have frequently received aid both from Ger· 21 Lehrartikeln der Augsburgischen Konfes· man and American Lutherans sion als dem ersten und allgemeinsten Be· kenntnis der evangelischen Kirche, die Haupt- PAUL DE ScHWEINITZ.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Kingdom of God in the Land of planet on which changes of most sig- its Origin. nificance in the tife of races of men, have, in recent years, taken place most [Condensed from an address of Rev. George rapidly, you must leave behind the F. Herrick, D. D., of Auatolia College and great cities of this land and of Europe, Marsovan Theological Seminary, at the 7th and pass over into Asia. Annual Meeting of the InternatIOnal Mission· ary Union, June 12, 1890.] I. GLANCE AT RECENT OTTOMAN mSTORY. Occidental life is proverbiaIlyrapid; Oriental life, we are all sure, is ex- Reference is not now made to tke ceedingly slow. We travel by ex- press a thousand miles a day. The restless and aspiring empire on the Asiatic still plods on horseback along ememe margin of Asia. I do not a bridle path, or, more recently, in assume to tell of India, where, accord- a springless wagon, over his twenty- ing to those best informed, the English four miles in twenty-four hours. He language has already become the lan- smokes his nargileh, and takes no note guage of all arms of the Government of time. He scratches the ground service, of travel, of all schools; the instead of plowing it; he threshes one vehicle of a progress whose silent his grain as his ancestors did 3,000 and bloodless revolutions are in happy years ago; he puts off his shoes contrast to the numberless revolutions and wears his hat when he enters a that have characterized the life of dwelling; he pulls a saw instead of India for thousands of years.
pushing it, he builds a city with mole I point to the fact that, twenty-nve tracks through it, and if he makes years ago, the Ottoman Empire posstreets at all, it is an after-thought, sessed a territory fully as large in and he burns out the needful spaces; Europe as in Asia, and almost equally by his watch it is always twelve o'clock as large in Africa. The dismember- when the sun sets. And with all this, ment of the empire in respect of terri- if you would find the portion of our tory and its depletion in respect of population, within a qnarter of a hopeful indication of possible entercentury, has been with a rapidity that prise seen in Turkey in modern times. would be startling if we could be Meantime Russia – that essentially startled with anything which is at Oriental Power illy domesticated as once distant and Oriental. yet in Europe-has played her game with singular fatuity in South-eastern Roumania and Servia are inde- Europe. There is no Power, great pendent kingdoms, Montenegro and or small, Slavic or Greek, German, Bulgaria are independent princedoms. French, Italian or English, that will Greeceis enriched by some of Turkey's consent to see Constantinople in the fairest provinces in Thessaly and control of Russia. We should not de- Epirus. Egypt is as much under spise those smaller States, anyone British control as India. Syria is of four can mass a trained army under European protection. England of a 100,000 men, and little Greece holds Cyprus, Austria dominates Her- can launch a fleet that would rival zegovina and Bosnia, Russia has ac- our own navy. But there is one quired Batoum, the most important Power, viz: Austro-Hungary, to which Black Sea port, and Kars, the key it is a question of life or death to keep fortress of Asia Minor. Russia out of Constantinople. The great northern Power may count on In place of 44,000,000 of pop- Austria's opposing her march southulation, the Ottoman Empire now ward and westward by the full force has about 23,000,000; the proportion of her army and her navy. It is of Moslems to Christians has greatly almost equally impossible for Russia changed. They were about equally to push far into Asia Minor on the divided; ?ww the Chritsian population east. She may take and hold Erzroom is but little more than one-fourth of easily enough. She may, perhaps, pass the entire number. Van and even Harpoot, where the Christian population is proportionally The seeming strength of Turkey large, and she may, if she will, push on during the years which followed the to the Euphrates, but she may not Crimean war was fictitious and de- pass on into the heart of Asia Minor. lusive. The semblance of prosperity There, from the Black Sea to the was kept up by immense loans at ruin- Arabian Desert, and from the Euphous rates. "Let the evil come when it rates to the Mediterranean, the Ottowill, so it be not in my day." So runs man people will live, and an Ottoman the Oriental proverb. Turkey was Power will rule for long years to come. rushing on to bankruptcy, at the very Nor is it easy, in the light of history, moment when she was constructing or on principles of justice, to see how an iron-clad fleet, and building palaces the Turks can be driven from Constanon every eligible site at and near Con- tinople, where they outnumber all stantinople. She did not build roads other races put together, or from nor develop her mines, nor undertake Adrianople, their ancient capital and commerce or manufactures, nor es- a Moslem City. tablish schools, except on paper. For two years after the commence- The record of the last disastrous war ment of the present Sultan's reign of twelve years ago is well known. Turkey exhibited the farce of Consti- Strangely enough, ever since then, the tutional Government, played at a policy of the Government of Turkey Parliament with representation from has been studiously cold toward Eng- the different races. But all this was, land, and friendly toward Russia. in the expressive language of one of the ablest mi.nisters our Government We must not fail to give the Turks ever had at the Sublime Porte-HoN. the credit of covering Asia Minor, within the last ten years, with a net work of carriage roads, built without the aid of foreign capital-the most Horace Maynard, "for EUl"opean con- and acknowledge the obligations of sumption." friendly European powers ?"
II.- TURKISH PATRIOISM. "That is all very well for you to There has, under the present Sultan, say," replied my friend, "but for us been a reaction against the liberal the problem is not to be solved in that ideas that prevailed during the years way."
following the Crimean war. Many "Do you mean to tell me," I asked good things can, with truth, be said of again, "that you would prefer to per- the reigning Sultan. He certainly de- ish, as an independent people, rather sires to secure justice and the welfare than owe your continued existence of all his subjects, but he is not a and your future prosperity, with what- liberal man, as we use the term. He ever that would necessarily imply of does not see that the traditions and European influence, to th,e aid of responsibilities of his House, with all Christian nations ?"
that these imply, constitute the load ,'Yes," he promptly answered,"that of lead which leaves him hopelessly is precisely what I-what all faithful weighted in the race with the rulers Mussulmans-mean."
of his age, even with the rulers of Can any true American fail to feel States which have been erected out of a thrill of responsive sympathy with what was just now his own domin- the patriotism, the devotion to ances- ions. If he would but cultivate a tral faith, which underlies that an- relation of real friendship toward swer? And does not such a spirit fur- Christian and especially Protestant nish a new incentive to bring the bless- and English-speaking' nations, the ings of our own civilization within Ottoman State might yet justify its the reach of every race in western place on' the arena of material, com- Asia-not to impatiently force a Chris- mercial, and even of intellectual and tianity, weighted with the gravest e),- moral progress, in western Asia. rors of teaching and of example, upon One chief reason why the Ottoman Moslem races, but, watchfully keep- Turks have been so greatly misunder- ing step with the unfoldings of God's stood and maligned is that we, of the providence, to exhibit before Moslem 'Vest, in defiance of a wise maxim, eyes, at all points, the winning graces none too often quoted, have never of truly Christian example?
taken the pains to see and consider We should never forget that when the Turkish problem from the stand- Islam rose, in the first half of the sev- point of the Turks themselves. Less enth century, it was confronted by, vituperation and wholesale, and really and was a protest against, some of the unjust, condemnation, and more con- most corrupt forms of Christian doc- siderateness would greatly benefit trine and worship, some of the worst every party in interest. caricatures of Christian living, in Some time since, in conversation Arabia and northern Africa, that the with an enlightened Turkish official, world has ever seen.
on the Bosphorus, I criticised the un- Those reckless raids from Europe wisdom of his government in deliber- into Asia, called, in bitter irony, "holy ately keeping foreign capital from en- wars," in the eleventh and following tering Turkey, to construct railroads centuries, violently repelled Moham- and develop her mineral resources. medans from Christianity. How could "But," he replied, "if foreign capital they do otherwise? The expulsion of be welcomed the interference of the Moors from Spain, early in the foreign powers must be accepted sixteenth century, under the greatly too." over-praised Queen Isabella-is any "What harm can it do to govern- 'right or justice discoverable in that ment or people," I asked, "to receive movement on the Christian side, ex- ,eept the right of might? The author worldly men; examples-that is, more read, some years ago, in Turkish, cer- . than 10,000 members of evangelical tain trenchant articles of historic cri- churches in Asia Minor now–of his- ticism, from the pen of an enlightened fellow country~en who are true, liv- and acute Turk, which presented a ing disciples of their master. Evan- long array of facts from the history of gelical worship attracts, it does not Christian Europe, in a fashion not repel the Moslem. Protestant Chris- likely to win Moslem minds to an ac- tian doctrine does not, like the bald eeptance of Christianity. "orthodoxy" of the Eastern Church, And not only in the earlier years, set his reason continually at defiance.
but all down through the later centu- We must not, however, suppose that l"ies, in all western Asia, the Moslem, the Turks officially recognize the right with his clear-cut doctrine of God, or contemplate the contingency of and his sharp recoil from every sem- Mohammedans becoming Christians.
blance of idolatry in worship, with his To this degree, religious liberty is not sobriety and his generous hospitality, yet a fact. Still, in the face of dif- has pointed, with a certain contempt, ficulty and opposition, scarcely con- to the Christians around him, as less ceivable by us, some Mohammedans sober, less truthful, less hospitable, have become Christians, have lived less manly than himself, with a form and died as shining examples of Chris- of religious worship redolent of idola- tian confessors as the early ages ex- try, while his own is simple and pure, hibited. To-day there is, in a town even if it be exposed to the charge of of Asia Minor, a young Turkishwoman lifeless formality. who witnesses a good confession in the We do not say the Moslems' charge house where she was born, enduring against Christil¥lity and Christians is repeated beatings and living down cal- true. Clearly it is not true, but it is umny by Christian gentleness-who not strange the charge is made. The told her Christian sisters, only in ans- vitality and the vigor of the. Christian wer to their inquiry one day in meet- races, their better morality, their men- ing, why her arm was in a sling, that tal and moral elasticity under centu- her brother's last beating broke it.
ries of oppression, is one of the marvels Once, in conversation with one ~f of God's government of Asia. Why the most liberal and best educated do the Christian races remain in kindly Turks of the present age, a man who neighborhood to the Moslem races, has, at one time or another, filled all through western Asia, but to be to nearly all the highest offices of the them in the coming years, the means ~tate, I referred to a well-known of the largest blessing? And who are case of religious persecution that had to be theagents, and what theagencies, recently occurred. He drew me up for which those races have silently sharp on the expression, "religious and sullenly waited for so many gen- persecution," and said, "No religious ,erations? persecution is possible under our Gov- m.-OUR GRAND OPPORTUNITY. ernment. A man's faith is his own, It was, in God's providence, com- between himself and God only, and mitted to American Christians, to re- Government cannot interfere with it."
~stablish vital Christianity in the land "What, then, shall we call the ~f its origin. Call it duty, call it high case?" I asked.
privilege, thEl responsibility, the un- "Why," he replied, "it is perfectly "dertaking, is ours, to put the Bible into plain. The man renounced his ances- Moslem hands and then set before his tral, the national, faith, in which he ~yes living examples of a true and a owes duties to the State. All right, so pure Christianity by which alone the far. But he has publicly avowed his Bible is illustrated to the conviction of renunciation, and declared himself a Christian. In so doing he has com- we that we should withstand God!" mitted a civil offence, and it is, for this The Church of Christ sends out her alone, that he is arrested and pnt un- challenge, "You can do nothi-.g der discipline." against the Truth but for the Truth !"
That is, being a Christian is all right Nearly sixty years ago the Turkish for a born Moslem, if only he will never Government demanded that those say he is above a whisper. pioneer missionaries, Goodell, Schauf- fler and Dwight, be sent out of the In the meantime, as the years have country. Our ambassador, Commo- passed, the Christian races have reo dorePorter, communicated the order. sponded, more and more widely, to evangelical influence. It has pene- "Do you order us to go ?" they asked: traLed all parts of the country. Ameri- "No, I only notify you of the de- can Christian philanthropy has, mand of the Government, and of my through the several departments of inability to protect you," the work, planted the Christian home, "Then we notify you that we de- the evangelical church, developed cide to stay," they replied. Christian education, created through Political events, which shook the the press a periodical and permanent throne and resulted in the destruction Christian literature in the several lan- of the Janizaries and the introductiou guages, begun to establish Christian of European forms of law, hastened philanthropic institutions, and every- on and the missionaries were forgot- where fostered, together with loyalty ten. During all that crisis, and up till to the' existing Government, ideas of the close of the Crimean war, the freedom and of justice. American cit- leading mind, the most imperial presizens have established institutions, an ence at the Turkish capital, was that extensive Bible-house, churches, high- Christian Statesman, Lord Stratford' schools, colleges and seminaries. They de Redcliffe, of England. have acquired property in a hundred As evangelical influence extended different places all over the country. among Armenians, Greeks and Syri- These business interests have become ans, the persecuted Protestants found the care of our Government through aid and comfort from the Turks, as its-official representatives. The power the Jews who rebuilt the temple found of the United States flag is second to aid and protection from Cyrus. none. The Turks have no reason for Twenty years ago, in the Koordislt jealousy of the great republic across mountains, above the city of Mosul, a the sea. Illiberal men, in the govern- young Arab Koord, a born Moslem. ment and out of it, are jealous of was dipping deep into Mohammedan evangelical progress, and wish it had lore, at the feet of a famous teacher, not gained so strong a foothold in the his total wardrobe, a shirt; his food, land. But many Turks see that ,they the coarse bread of the tribe; his bed, also may profit by those ideas that the ground. He committed the Koran Protestant Christianity everywhere to memory, he acquired a most involves and develops, viz: The su- thorough knowledge of' Arabic, of premacy of truth and justice, the in- Moslem law, tradition, history, sciviolability of the individual consci- ence, and interpretation. He found" ence, and individual and social edu- one day, the binding of an Arabic cation and elevation. Bible which had been destroyed. Afterwards, when a teacher at Mozul, IV.-DIVINE INTERPOSITIONS. he sought, found, bought a Bible in Arabic, read and studied it, was in- The modern history of western Asia structed in it by Deacon Michah, as is a history of divine interpositions, Apollos by Aquilla, accepted Christi- These have been so accentuated, that anity as true, accepted Christ as his. men of the world, however highplaced, may well exclaim, "Who are Slaviour, was obliged to flee his part come, found him interested in anti- of the country, came to the Bible trans- quities, of which there are specially lators'room,in the.Constantinople Bible fine relics near where he had lived.
House, and aided in giving the Bible to In fine, we made ourselves as agree- the Ottoman race, a special aid very able as we knew how, not forgetting few men living could have given; to give His Excellency a cordial invi- found of God, led of God, and taken tation to visit our college and other home-to God when,the work was done. schools. "I was just about to mount Permission was asked to print the my horse to do that wnen you called,"
Biblein the Osmanly, and was refused. he said. "Ah, indeed," we replied, After long months of argument, of "then, our call and invitation are propositions and counter-propositions, quite opportune!" They were indeed.
the Board of Censors unwittingly did Thus forewarned, all was in readi- the greatest possible service to the ness at the college to receive the Gov- spread of God's Word, by condition- ernor with all respect. We showed ing the permission on the placing of him all through the buildings; he ex- the statement of the fact of Govern- amined classes, asked to see our text- ment permission on the title-page of books. Among our books he found every copy; and the time when the one of his own composition, and, nat- final version was launched was fixed urally, was not displeased with the by the Author of the Word Himself. It delicate compliment. He visited the was just as the last war closed, just as girls' boarding-school, enjoyed the the last sharp crisis of the Eastern choral singing, and, as he mounted question was attracting all eyes, that his horse at my door, he leaned over, God, by his Word, in the language of and said, "I have been greatly pleased all the people, sent forth His challenge with all I have seen; you may rely on to the Cabinets of Europe, set His wis- me for a report every way favorable.
dom face to face with their folly. And I wish we had such schools in every between that time and this, inquiry city."
concerning the Bible has become as And he meant what he said, as after common among TUl:ks, as before it echoes clearly showed. God's special was rare. They inquire from curiosity, guidance was conspicuous at every it may be, but many do buy and read point of this incident.
God's Word. V.-THE OPPORTUNITY MET.
Four years ago, just as Anatolia The evangelical centres in Turkey College was organized under that now number more than 300. These name, a demand was made through are the centres of influence, extending the local government that we procure from the extreme western border to· from the central government at Con- the farthest east, and from the Black stantinople a formal recognition of Sea to the Arabian desert. The in- our college. Meantime, one morning fluence of the evangelical press is the we learned that the Governor-General leading influence in the department of had come to town over night. We literature. The newly established, hastened to call upon His Excellency, and rapidly growing girls' boarding and invite him to visit our schools- schools, have already revolutionized all the difference in the world from the country in respect of female ectu- which side the invitation comes. In cation.
the court-yard of the house where the But there, as everywhere, the col- governor was entertained were horses, lege is the leader; and Robert College saddled and ready for mounting. We on the Bosphorns, and Syria Protest- were received in audience, praised the ant College at Beirout, and Euphra- public-spirit he had shown in the tes College at Harpoot, and Central province from which he had recently Turkey College at Aintab; and now. the last four years, Anatolia College at guiding all in the interest of His Jllarsovan, in the heart of Anatolia- church, is, by our hands, re-estab- these are the challenges of Christian lishing His Kingdom in the lands of America to the darkness of Asia. Its origin.
Once the comparative importance of The work will not stop for discus- educational and evangelistic agencies sion and criticism. The army of God was a subject of animated discussion will march right onward, and with in missions and missionary societies, accelerated step; and the legacy we .and among the churches of this coun- will commit to those who come after try and of Great Britain. This dis- us will be to hand on our Lord's com- -cussion is a thing of the past. Edu- mission, "Go, make disciples of all the cational work, as represented and led nations," and the testimony and as- by Christian colleges–colleges in- surance we will offer to the diffident tensely Christian and Biblical-is shall be, that the Master ever fulfills His promise to be with His chosen, pressed, and to be pressed to the ut- amid all toil and conflict. Great will most possible-that is, just as far as be the multitude, who, with no alloy resource.9 can be obtained with which of sin, will chant the Hallelujahs of to carry on the work. On this all are the heavenly choir. . agreed. There is no consensus of The Brussels Anti-Slavery Oonference. those interested in the evangelization -of the world which is more perfect; The Christian world has occasion to .and the economy of administration of rejoice in the late Brussels Conference these institutions may be shown by the of signatory Congo powers, and to statement that the actual sum used to carefully study its proceedings. Per- run Anatolia College is one per cent. haps it is not too late-it is rather ·of the cost of running Yale or Cornell doubtful if it may not be too early-to University. The American Christian pass in review what it did. College-these three words are used .advisedly-The American Christian King Leopold of Belgium was the college is the hope and light of Asia. official source of the Convention; but This institution, with its Biblical in- delegates from Great Britain, Austriastruction, with its thorough culture, Hungary, Belgiuin, Congo Free State, with its pervasive Christian spirit, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, with its development of manly, self- Italy, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, reliant Christian character; this in- Sweden and Norway, Turkey, the stitution, in which the preachers and United States and Zanzibar, were the teachers are prepared for their present. work, in which men of affairs are trained for the responsibilities that are The object of the Conference was coming upon them in all eastern lands plainly as possible stated in the circuin this fl.nd the next generation: this lar of invitation issued by Leopold, American Christian college is the which was "the necessity of effectively pledge of a Christian home, of a per- preventing the slave-trade in the inmanent and self-propagating church, terior of Africa, the capture of slaves of all true progress and harmony of destined for sale, and their transport races, of the gradual realization of by sea, which can Qnly be stopped by free and just government in those the organized display of force greater lands of Asia, for ages and centuries than that at the disposal of those who oppressed and groping amid the dark- take part " in the traffic. ness which has enveloped them. This was not the first Convention of Seen or unseen by our eyes, God, the great Powers held to consider the by His Word in every language, by main question. What is known as the Christian example, by education, Berlin General Act had already pro- vided that "All the Powers exercising rights of sovereignty, or any influence 6, ThQ Liquor traffic. 7, General Proin the territories in question,undertake visions, and 8, The Custom's regulato watch over the preservation of the tions of the Congo Valley. native races, and the improvement of their moral and material conditions THE SLAVE TRAFFIC. of existence, and to co-operate in the suppression of Slavery, and especially 1. The maritime trade in slaves was in the negro traffic; they will protect first considered as the part where and favor, without distinction of na- united action could be made most ef-· tionalities or worship, all religious fective if agreement could be come to. The sensitive point here was on the· scientific or charitable institutions and "right of search," whether on the high seas, or in territorial waters, over all undertakings, created and organized sailing vessels,under any Hag, suspect-· ed of being engaged in the slave-trade. for this object or tending to instruct France was specially sensitive on this· point. She, after a month, suggested the natives and make them under- a series of new measures for the pre- vention of the abuse of the French stand and appreciate the advantages Hag, and for checking the crew and passenger-lists at places of departure, of civilization." call and destination. The British government proposed a compromise, It had been fUrther provided that, subjecting only vessels of 500 tons, and under, to the right of supervision and "In accordance with the principles of detention on the high seas, which was agreed to, unless slavers of over 500 the law of nations as recognized by tons shall hereafter be discovered.
the signatory Powers, the slave-trade 2. The suppression of the foreign market was also a delicate and difficult being forbidden, and the operation part of the general question. It is the existence of slavery in foreign counwhich on land and on sea furnish tries which keeps alive the maritime traffic. Abolish that in countries outslaves for the traffic also being consid- side of Africa and the motive for the slave traffic on the high seas is extinered as forbidden, the Powers which guished. The eastern market for exercise, or shall exercise, rights of slaves must be broken down, as a part sovereignty or any influence in the of the general plan to destroy the territories forming the conventional African traffic in slaves. basin of the Congo, declare that these territories cannot serve either as a It is readily seen that this touched market or as a means of transit of most delicate lines of diplomatic slaves, of whatsoever race they may courtesy. Had Turkey been invited be. Each of these Powers undertakes to this general council, to learn that to employ all the means in its power the combined European Powers would to put an end to this traffic and to interfere here and thus with her terpunish those who take part in it." ritorial authority ? Was anyone of these Powers to find in this Congress a It was, however, recognized that dictator domineering its independence as a State? This was, indeed, a delithese most excellent provisions and cate matter. The Conference could do no less, however, than deprecate the understandings were too inoperative, influence of such domestic slavery, and it thus brought the force of Euroand the British House of Commons, in pean public opinion to bear directly March 1889, said so. In August of that year the Queen of Great Britain said in her speech that the King of Belgium had consented to call the Conference of which we now write, and it convened in Brussels November 18,1889.
The three great topics which it traversed were the slave-traffic and the means to suppress it, the importa- tion of fire-arms and the liquor traffic.
The chapters of the work as completed deal with-1, Places of capture of Slaves. 2, The Caravan routes. 3, The Maritime traffic in slaves. 4, The Countries of destination. 5, Institu- tions created for the purpose of insur- ing the execution of the general act.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
()n Turkey and Persia in the matter l.-The territory to be regulated ()f slavery in those lands. The rash- in the matter of fire-arms extends n€ss of this influence is manifest. through 42 degrees of latitude (from 20 degrees north to 22 degrees south), An effort was made to provide for from coast to coast, and a hundred the regulations of caravans for the miles seaward. prevention of slave-trading expeditions. It was sought to exact security 2.-The principle of prohibition is from the chiefs and organizers of laid down, with exceptions. The ~aravans, and for the examination of arms are to be deposited in Govern- ~aravans at their places of destination ment warehouses and taken out only inland, as well as on the coast. No se- on permission, and are not to include curity from caravan organizers, how- the most improved weapons. €ver, was feasible, as these caravans seldom return to their starting points THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. with the same elements. They are renewed from place to place among the If the rights of humanity are to be tribes they pass, remain long at the conciliated with the interests of trade, ~entre, and return to the coast at dif- so far as such interests are legitimate, ferent points. The security, how- as the Conference proposed to attempt, ever, it was agreed, is to be demanded the liquor question had to be dealt ()f those who had already been con- with. The Conference distinguished demned for slave-trade.offenses. between regions where no traffic in liquors had begun and those where it FIRE-ARMS. already existed. For the first of these, the British delegates proposed absolute But slavery was only one feature of prohibition, and for the second, a the great task to which the Powers heavy duty on the importation of had pledged themselves to each other, liquor. The Conference agreed to the when they undertook "to watch over prohibition in the cage of races with the preservation of the native races, whom at present no trade exists; but and the improvement of their moral it was not so easy to reach a concluand material conditions." sion on the other cases. The powers had themselves agreed to Free Trade in From 80,000 to 100,000 muskets and the Congo Basin; how could they then rifles, mainly the disused arms of Eu- now agree to a duty on liquor in that ropean standing armies, are imported districr, and yet, how could they keep annually into Zanzibar alone, and this great channel into the interior of these fire-arms are bartered to Arab Africa from becoming contaminated traders for ivory and other inland with the liquor traffic, unless they products. If the negro is to be pro- prohibited or restricted by the impotected from the slave hunter this slave sition of a duty? The races of the hunter must be disarmed. That was second class, or those among whom a the argument. But there are great traffic in liquors is already established, trade interests which require arms it was agreed that there should be al!l for their conduct and defence. France impost of l~d. or 3 cents per quart, here, was zealous for total prohibition this duty to be subject to advance at throughout Africa. Others would the expiration of three years. limit the territory. Two things seem to have been decided upon: V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY SECRETARY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
Brazil. to a republican form of government The year 1890 is the most eventful without bloodshed, renders it proper of all years in Brazilian history. The that the November concert of prayer fact that an empire has given place for Brazil should be largely an occasion for thanksgiving. Civil liberty is fol- standpoint. Whoever will examine lowed as it always has been by liberty our constitution will there read that ()f conscience. There is now perfect the Apostolic Roman Catholic religion ~ualityofreligious privileges among is the religion of the State; that the Emperor, Senators, Deputies, and all all sects. the public officers, are obliged by pub- The following outline of the pro- lic and solemn oath to maintain and defend it, and that the criminal code clamation of religious freedom issued establishes punishments for any of- after the establishment of repub- fence against it.
lican order will show how completely " A people that, by its fundamental the new authorities have overthrown law, gives special privileges to Roman the assumptions of the Papacy. Catholicism, and seeks by oath to "The text of a decree of the Provisional . guarantee it; that requires its profes- Government of the United States of Brazil of .January 7, 1890, states in substance: sion as a condition of holding office; 1. That Federal and State authorities alike that considers penal all offences against it, ought to be regarded as profoundly religious, eminently Cathare prohibited to expedite laws, regulations, olic. But an observer, looking only or administrative acts establishingor prohibit- at our political Constitution and penal ing any religion, or to create distinctions code, would infer that Brazil is a dis- between inhabitantsof that country on account sonant chord in the infernal chorus of ofreligious and philosophicbeliefsor opinions. imprecations against the Catholic 2. That all religious denominations have Church.
equal rights ~o liberty of worship, and to gov- "But," continues the writer, "let .em themselves in accordance with their us look on the other side of the picture.
respective creeds without being constrained in Whoever reads the history Qf Brazil the acts, private or public, which pertain to in these latter times will learn that the the exercise of this right. Government destroyed, by an edict, 3. The liberty hereby instituted shall em- the religious orders, J?rohibiting the brace not only individuals in their personal receiving of any nOVItiates; that no .acts, but also churches, associations, and insti- country pays such insignificant sal- tutes in which they may be Joined; to all of aries to its church officials; that two which belongs the right to organize and main- bishops were shamefully imprisoned tain their corporate existence in conformity for observing faithfully the Pontifical with their creeds and policy, without the Bull; that the priests are hindered on interference of the Government. every hand in the fulfillment of their duties; that any act directed against 4. That patronage with all its Institutions the Church is applauded; that a .and prerogatives is hereby abolished. bishop, respected even in Protestant countries, here has not the privileges 5. That the legal capacity of churches and of the most humble citizen. As to religious denominations to acquire and admin- the churches, some are already fallister property is recoguized within the limit ing into ruin, while others are comof the laws concerning mortmain, securing pletely stripped of their parapherto each their possession of their present nalia." properties, as well as their houses of worship. The writer goes on to show that the Over against this full and complete guaranty of freedom, the following attitude of the press is no more favorquotation from a Brazilian Catholic paper of ten years ago will show what able to the Church than the Governthe ideal empire was supposed to be in those bygone days. It is a jere- ment. With the exception of five or miad uttered by a bigoted Catholic editor over the inroads which had al- six Catholic papers in the whole em- Ieady been made upon the old regime • f intolerance and oppression, even pire (there is the difficulty) the press under the mild and progressive sceptre of Dom Pedro II. of the country is either indifferent or . "What is the religion of the Brazilian people?" says the writer. openly hostile to the Apostolic Roman " At present, this country (Brazil) is Catholic Church• in an abnormal and contradictory Yet, bad as the case seems for the Catholic, the writer spurns the idea that Brazil is, or is to be, a Protestant country. "Here and there a Protest- ant Church, frequented by a few dozen souls, is all that we see of Pro- position, viewed from a religious testantism. It is clear that with such a state of affairs soon there will be no ernment. This fact doubtless pre- religion at all in Brazil." vented Brazil from becoming a repub- Well, the evil has not mended, as lic during that series of revolutions in seen from the writer's standpoint, and the Spanish States of Central and to an enlightened American reader it South America which followed as a seems that just such specimens of result of Napoleon's usurpation of narrow bigotry as this must have power in th(l Spanish Peninsula.
been the very means of bringing about The home revolution, which oc- the fulfillment of all dark prophe- curred in Portugal in 1820, led the cyings. people of Brazil to demand a govern- More than-was predicted has been ment quite distinct from that of the fulfilled. Doubtless, it is in the mother country, and in 1822 it was power of the priesthood to obstruct declared an independent sovereignty, the extension of Protestant freedom under the heir-apparent, Dom Pedro L and enlightenment to a greater or less A year later the Portuguese court em- extent, but the civil authorities are on barked for Portugal, no more to re- the side of equality, the press willcast turn, and in 1825 Dom John formally its influence in the same direction, abdicated in favor of Dom Pedro I., and the whole spirit and drift of the and the independence of Brazil was age are against the hierarchical as- acknowledged by Portugal.
sumptions which have so long cursed In 1831, Dom Pedro I., alarmed by the country. another movement toward republi- Now that Brazil has joined the large canism, as he thought, abdicated in group of American republics, with favor of his son, Dom Pedro IL, then all the religious freedom enjoyed by five years old, and embarked for the most highly favored, a glance at Europe. Some injudicious republican its eventful history will be in place. agitations which occurred during the The country was discovered in 1499 regency prepared the country for an- by the Spaniard, Vincent Yonez Pin- other trial of monarchy, and on the con, though it was first settled by the 23d of July, 1840, Dom Pedro II. was Portuguese under Alvarez Cabral in proclaimed emperor.
1500. Other small Portuguese settle- This remarkable man, thus pro- ments were made between 1500 and claimed the sovereign of a vast empire 1550. of 3,288,000 square miles, or nearly as Rio de Janeiro was settled in 1558 large as Europe, doubtless owed his by the French as an asylum and a long reIgn to the enlightened and mission field for the Huguenots. By liberal policy which he was wise the adverse influences of shipwreck enough to adopt.
and the treachery of Villegagnon, the While the Spanish-American repub- leader of the colony, it was utterly lics were tossed with political convul- broken up, and Protestantism, as well sions, Mexico alone having experienced as French influence, was swept out of over fifty between the years 1821 and the country. 1867, Brazil, with quite as much real Brazil came under the power of political freedom as they, held on her Spain in 1578 by the assumption of peaceful way. Dom Pedro became em.
the crown of Portugal, but was re- peror at the age of fourteen, and con.
stored in 1648 on the accession of the tinued to reign for nearly fifty years.
Braganzas to the Portuguese throne. Few sovereigns have been able to In 1807, upon the invasion of Portu- maintain a sceptre so long in the gal by Napoleon's army, King Dom midst of a mercurial people, and sur· John VI., appointing a regent at Lis- rounded on every side by nations with bon, fled to Brazil and established which revolution seemed to be the- there the seat of the Portuguese Gov- normal condition of political existence._ But in late years the more advanced priesthood has so long been associated of the Spanish republics have attained with habits of profligacy and vice. and to greater stability; the increase of the hollow sham of mere official sancwealth, and the multiplication of tity, that the intelligent classes have manufacturing and commercial il;l- become infidel, while every form of vestments have rendered the ruling error-8piritualism, Theosophy, Nihilclasses more conservative, and their ism, and even Mohammedanismrapid and prosperous development have been imported; and a paralysis has spurred the aspirations of Bra- of general indifference has settled upzilians for complete freedom. At the on the country. same time, the gloomy outlook. of a possible reaction toward It tyranni- Yet, there are not wanting many incal absolutism under the probable stances of encouragement, especially successors to Dom Pedro's throne, led in the country districts, where the in- Brazilian statesmen to the conclusion fluence of foreign contact has been that the opportune moment had al- little felt. In the last reports of the ready come for a Republic. Brazilian Mission of the Presbyterian Board (North). there is evidence that The world was, therefore, suddenly the most fruitful source of results is startled by a peaceful revolution, the native ministry. The chief inwhich had been precipitated in the gatherings of converts into the quiet evening of Dom Pedro's reign. churches during the last year were in rather than wait for the dubious congregations ministered to by native morning of a bigoted and impracti- pastors. And the argument thus furcable sovereignty in the hands of his nished for the education of young nafanatical daughter. tives for this important field is strong and significant. Thus, under the pressure of an irrepressible longing for liberty, on the The Northern Presbyterian Mission part of the people, there have been reports at the close of 1889, 9 churches three notable embarkations of royalty and 5 ordained missionaries, -8 nativQ for Europe. First, in 1825, when Dom preachers and 22 teachers. The num- John VI. acknowledged the indepen- ber of communicants is 1,009-153, or dence of the Brazilian Monarchy under about 11 per cent., having been added his son, Dom Pedro 1. Second, in 1831, during the year. when Dom Pedro I., alarmed at the appearance of republican tendencies, The great educational centre of this abdicated in favor of his five-year old mission is at Sao Paulo, where 395 puson, Dom Pedro II., and, with what pils of all grades are under instruction. seems a cowardly desertion, left him Under the efficient management of alone and returned to Europe. And, Dr. Lane and his associates a noble last of all, when Dom Pedro, nearly work has been accomplished during 60 years later, was obliged to renounce the year. Dr. Chamberlain, who has a sceptre which he had swayed with labored in connection with the Sao rare moderation for half a century, Paulo institution for many years, is and sail away an exile to the land of now in this country raising funds his fathers, to find there so soon a to endow it as a college for the traingrave for his empress as well as for ing of native ministers and teachers. his life-long hopes. The success gained by the few native pastors during the year is too instruc- Brazil enjoys now perfect freedom tive to need enforcement. of opinion, but it is rather late to reap the harvest which might have been A NATIVE MINISTRY. gained years ago. Other things being equal, a native The cause of religion has so long preacher familiar with the idiom of suffered discredit, the idea of the his mother-tongue, and at one with the people in all his habits of thought, can reach his countrymen far more ons mission in the Argentine republic, effectively than a foreigner. Besides, at with five ordained missionaries and least three natives can be supported as 15 native preachers. Eight stations cheaplyas one missionary. If we add are occupied,.of which Buenos Ayres to this, the fact shown in the Brazilian is the chief. I reports, that four-fifths of the con- In Uruguay there is but 1 ordained verts have been won in the out-stations missionary, but 8 native preachers are under native preachprs, we have a at work; 7 stations are occupied, the pretty strong argument for the educa- largest of which is Montevideo.
tion of more Brazilians and for the Paraguay, Brazil and Peru are also building up of a strong and efficient occupied by the Methodist Episcopal college and theological seminary. Church, each with OIie station. In While at Sao Paulo a given number all these South American missions, a of men shall be trained for the first total membership of 882 is reported, rank of preachers and leaders, it is also 688 probationers. The total num- felt that an institution of a different ber of adherents is reported at 8,935.
grade and, perhaps, having something The missions are apparently charac- of the industrial element, should be terized by remarkable vigor, and all opened for the practical preparation friends of the cause will rejoice that of a clsss of men of lower grade of an influence so directly opposite to the scholarship to be employed in evangel- droning and stagnation of the Rom- istic work in the interior districts. ish church for nearly three centuries Probably this diversity of education past is now awakening these south- should be observed in all the South ern races.
American republics. The enterprise with which the mis- The old order of things is every- sions are carried on is shown by the where passing away. The days when fact that the mission reports $222,290 ignorance was the safe cover for in church property-viz: in churches, religious oppression have gone. Under $190,290, and in parsonages and or- the new impulse imparted by republi- phanages, $32,800, can institutions, schools and colleges The contributions reported in the will be multiplied by Government, and missions in 1889-90 are reported at they will be indifferent in religion ex- $11,205 for self-support, and $13,666 cept so far as they are infidel. for other purposes-a total of $24,871.
The Roman Catholic Church, by a Of conversions 89 were reported, and radical and politic change, will either 335 baptisms of infants. These vigor- compete on the ground, or will im_ ous missions are represented by only port well educated 'priests from Eu- 6 ordained missionaries. " . rope, and Protestantism must not be THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH open to contempt as the repreSenta- (SOUTH).
tive of an ignorant ministry. Some Missions in Brazil begun in 1875. The men must be well prepared, others first Conference was held in 1887, at must not be out of relation and sym- Sao Paulo. There are 7 local preach- pathy with the rural masses-all ers, and 288 church members. Eleven should be filled with a devoted.spirit. Sunday-schools with 33 teachers OTHER SOUTH AMERICAN MISSIONS. and 339 pupils are reported. Three Of the flourishing mission of the church buildings at Rio, Piracicaba Southern Presbyterian Church in Bra- and Juiz de Fora are valued at $52,938.
zil and the missions of the Northern Contributions dur-ing the year amount- Presbyterian Church in U.S. Columbia ed to $2,221. Bishop Granberry's re- and Chili, there is not space to write port credits the Woman's Missionary in the present article. The Methodist Society for all the educational insti- Episcopal Church (North) has a vigor- tutions of the mission, viz•• 2 colleges,
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
with'4 missionary teachers, and 13 as- the inhospitable shores of Terra del sistants and 143 pupils. Fuego, grew the South American Mission. His heroism roused all the MORAVIAN MISSION IN SURINAM, DUTCH best manhood, as well as the most de- voted Christian sentimentof England. GUIANA. It was resolved that, by the grace of God, so noble an attempt should not In this interesting Mission 17 sta- fail. It was another of the many in- tions are reported with 71 "mission- stances in which sacrifice and death ary agents," and 377 native helpers. have brought forth more abundant The communicants are 8,313, baptized fruit than a long and laborious life adults, 7,408; baptized children, 8,901; could have accomplished. By the re- candidates, new people, etc., 1,640. port of 1888, the South American S0- Total, 26,262. The missions carried on ciety received contributions, amount- by all Protestant societies in the three ing, with legacies, to $70,000. They Guianas are all attended by peculiar came generally in the form of indivi- hardships. These hot and malarious dual gifts. and from every land in countries have been settled from time which Englishmen wide. to time by the captives rescued from slave-ships. In fact, they were, in It will be remembered that the the early days, regarded as rendezvous late Charles Darwin, after actually for all refuse and castaway classes of seeing the work done in Terra ael humanity, and the population consists Fuego, became a supporter of the S0- -of colonies of English, Dutch, French, ciety. and Spanish, with every cross and grade, with bush-~egroes (the larger The work takes on a wide variety. -class), Indians and Asiatic Coolies. It is directed largely to the Indians in Terra del Fuego, Patagonia, and Para- The susceptible and half-savage guay, but also to chaplaincies in the bush-Negro, on the banks of the low ports and for the seamen of all nations. .and marshy rivers, affords the hope- It embraces the Falkland Islands, ful, because fruitful, field of labor for Terra del Fuego, Wollaston Islands, 1he self-denying Moravian. the Argentine Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Chili. Of almost equal interest with the mission in Surinam, is that of the Mo- The Earl of Aberdeen is its presiravians on the Mosquitoe Coast. It dent, and many eminent names of reports 12 missionaries, and 490 com- England, both clerical and lay, are municants. among its vice-presidents. It has 1 field superintendent, 29 clergymen, THE SOUTH AMERICAN MISSION. and 5 native helpers.
The romance of missions will not' The annual reports of the society, esdie out till the name of Allen Gardner pecially those relating to work among shall' be fotgotten. Out of the melan- the Indians, are deeply interesting. choly circumstance of his death with that of six associates, from starvation, while trying to found a mission on VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
.Important Official Documents From from Downing Street, London, under Sierra Leone, West Africa. date of August 28, 1890. We have not space to give the documents entire, The Editors of this REVIEW have but quote the main facts which conbeen both surprised and shocked to cern the Christian public, and espereceive a copy of sundry official com- cially all the friends of missions. One munications "relating to some Ameri- of these documents is from Dr. Ross, ('an missionaries who have latelyar- Colonial Surgeon at Freetown, and rived" at Freetown, specially directed another from Sir J. G. Hay, Governor to us by order of Lord Kuntsford of Sierra Leone, transmitting Dr. Furthermore Dr. Ross states that he understands these "missionaries. Ross's lengthy report to Lord Kunts- intend going due east into the interior, guided only by a compass;" that they ford, of the home Government, Lon- have been "living as the natives, in the hope that by so doing they will don, and one from him through his sec- gain the confidence of the people;" that they "have been eating native· retary, transmitting the whole corres- food, cooking and washing for them- selves and even collecting their own pondence to the editors of the MISSION- fuel, in this rainy weather." Of course· that they should expose themselves to ARY REVIEW, calling special attention fatal fever and should actually court death by such manner of proceeding to their contents, and "to a notice, is not strange.
headed the 'Soudan Missionary Move- Such is the purport of the commu- ment,' which appeared at page 555, of nications referred to; and the Editors of this REVIEW feel compelled to say the REVIEW for July, 1890." in this connection, that up to this time These documents inform us that sun- they had never had the least intima- dry "American missionaries .have lately arrived at Freetown with a tion that this "Soudan Movement" view of proceeding due east into the was characterized by any such fanat- interior for evangelizing purposes;" that "three of their number have al- icism. We felt that, like other move- ready died," and that "the first inti- ments originating among well meali- mation Dr. Ross had of their being ill was by receipt of a letter ing but inexperienced persons who from Mr. Kingman, reporting that are young in years, it needed a head, two deaths had occurred in the 'Mis- wise counsel and sound discretion. sion House' that afternoon," (July 9th). Even now we see no reason to recall a.. "On Inquiry," continues Dr. Ross, "I gathered that no medical man had word of commendation of the singubeen asked to attend the deceased, the lar unselfishness and heroic consecrawhole party being staunch believers in the 'faith-healing' doctrine, nor had tion that appear to have marked these any medicine been taken." Further- pioneers, but we confess to being asmore Dr. Ross "remonstrated with tounded at the statementscontained in Mr. Helmick, another member of the this correspondence. Itis a sad affair, p~rty," but could not obtain from little less than wanton suicide. To him any satisfactory promise that they persist in such a policy would not would in future depart from the course they were adopting, nor did he only ruin this whole movement but' mention that there were any more inflict a lasting damage onall missionpersons suffering in the house. To ary enterprises and compel sensible prevent this. neglected tropical fever from assuming a virulent and con- people to wash their hands clean of tagious form, the bodies were at once buried by his order and the sanitary all abetting such supreme folly and policeman sent to disinfect the house, practical madness. Certainly the destroy all infected bedding, clothing, editors of the MISSIONARY REVIEW OF etc. On the 10th of July Mrs. King- THE WORLD, have not the slightest man was found in the last stages of exhaustion from neglected fever, sympathy with such disregard of all which had then assumed a malignant proper precautions, not to say defiance type, she having been ill nine days before; and in spite of all that could be of all sanitary and social laws. done Mrs. Kingman died on the even- From the inception of this moveing of the 11th.' "Mr. Kingman was ill also and visited by Dr. Ross, who ment we have said to these western strongly urged him to take medicine. Finding Mr. Trice ill, Dr. Ross re- brethren, "move slowly; gel compemoved him to the hospital, and at last tent medical advisers, and experienced prevailed on Mr. Kingman to be treated, on the ground that his "action explorers, .that you may not risk endangered the whole coummunity." health and life by needless exposure." Dr. Ross felt "compelled to keep the God not only gives a "spirit of power missionaries from going into any other house than their own, and stopped and of love, but of a 80und mind 1'" all communication with other white poeple." We repeat the advice. Call a halt! their own lives dear unto themselves, bui and let it be fully understood that no have obediently gone forth to proclaim the man or woman goes to Tropical Africa joyful Message. to throwaway life on a theory, and -endanger the lives of others by pro- "Our beloved friends believed that nothing moting infectious disease. was too precious for their Saviour, and have made the supreme offering of their lives, and, A. T. PIERSON. standing to-day, where we may again see the J. M. SHERWOOD. broken body of the Christ and hear His words 'As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I On receiving these communications you, ' we are confident that there are -many the Editors felt bound to transmit a who will gladly offer themselves and take the (lOPY to the brethern in Kansas, who place of these messengers who have been are more closely connected with this called home, and, by His grace, plant the ban- movement, expressing also our sorrow ner of the Cross in -darkest Africa. -and apprehension as to the disastrous effect of such a course as that pursued "Asking that continual prayermay be made in Africa, not only upon this, but all to our Lord so that indeed He may speedily other mission enterprises. We have a send His messengers to the uttermost parts of reply from Geo. S. Fisher, Esq., dis- the world, I am, claiming all responsibility for these peculiar views, and saying that these "In the hope of His coming, sincerely thine, pioneers had no such views when they "GEORGE S. FISHER." left the west, but on their way a certain well known advocate of " faith heal- The National Missionary Convention ing" in New York City got hold of them and infused into them his views which met at Indianapolis Septem- <If the subject. We mention this in ber 3d to 9th, inclusive, was, in some ·order to attach responsibility to those respects, a remarkable gathering; not -to whom it 'belongs; and that responsi- in point of numbers, for but a few hundred visitors were there, and resibility, in our judgment, is a very grave dents of _the town were largely kept out of the city by the excessive heat. <lne. But there were signs of the Holy In response to our inquiry, Mr. Spirit's presence and power. Mr. Robert E. Speer, traveling secretary Fisher sends us also the following more of the Students' Volunteer Movement, -cheerful news concerning the surviv- and GeorgeS. Fisher, Esq., of Kansas, as well as Augustus Nash, of Neors.-3. M. S. braska, and Rev. T. C. Horton, of St. Paul, were among the leading spirits. "Ourvery latest Information is to the effect that, Mr. Kingman and Mr. Trice, the colored After watching the Convention with man, have both recovered, and that the others a careful eye, and noting the addresses have had no sickness whatever. They are now made and the tone of general feeling, waiting until the arrangements can be ef- we were constrained to acknowledge :fected so that they can leave Freetown, cross that there were signs of a Higher the Kong Mountains, and enter upon their Hand than man's in the whole miswork, if the Lord will, and enter among the sionary movement of which this is one Mandingo tribes." expression.
Also the following, which we read The band of intending missionaries with many "falling tears:" that we found there, were nearly all young-under thirty years. Moved "The enclosed letter is sent out with some by the awful destitution of a hundred :faIling of tears, but with much peace of heart, millions who, in Africa, are utterly for none who are conversant with the history without the Gospel, they have felt of the spreading of the Gospel in the dark more needed there than here, and have lands, will be surprised orcast down by reason practically offered thelllseives to go ~f these words: abroad to the Regions Beyond-most of them to the Soudan, some to China "'Except a corn of wheat fall into the and other lands of the Orient. No ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it <iie, it bringeth forth much fruit.' This scripture has indeed been fulfilled many times in the history of the early church, among the lllartyrs, and those who have not counted doubt there is some zeal that needs to so that this snall be a gift to the be tempered with knowledge-no Lord's cause for His servants' use doubt a good deal of imprudence that when at home for a season to gather experience will correct and chasten. new strength for further toils. Dr. A.
There is excess of enthusiasm that J. Gordon, of Boston; D. L. Moody, should be restrained, and impulsive Esq., S. P. Harbison, of Pittsburgh; activity that must be wisely guarded. Dr. Munhall, and a few others, will But there seems to be also a passion for be asked to act as counsellors in the souls, a self-surrender to God's work, completion of the plan; and it is not a certain abandon of confidence in his designed to ask any help from a~yone Word and guidance, that we would but leave to those of ~he Lord's people gladly feel were more general in dis- who may feel so inclined to assist in ciples of more mature years. We rearing the cottages. The ground is· should say that not less than fifty already paid for, mostly by one indi- young men and women were present, vidual; and already unsolicited con- whose faces are set toward the deso- tributions have been made to the ex- late regions of the earth, and who are tent of $650. Any who are so disPosed only waiting for the door to open. may send contributions to the editors of There were present several of these this REVIEW and they will be promptly young men who have been traveling acknowledged. Ultimately, after the through the States, mainly o( the cottages are built, a report of the work West, presenting the needs of the per- will be printed and sent to the par- ishing millions, and urging consecra- ties contributing, with pictures of the tion of men and of money to supply houses erected. A. T. P.
their need of the Gospel. These "trav- A Remonstranoe that Should be Heard. elling secretaries" have gone like primitive disciples, carrying nothing "Pardon me, if I seem presump- in their purses, and their unanimous tuous, but do you think the' Presby- testimony was that they ~ave lacked terian Church is moving in the right nothing. Some who heard them wit- direction in its efforts to remove the ness, publicly confessed that, though heavy indebtedness of the two Boards? they had been prejudiced against the Does it not seem that a curse, rather movement, they felt constrained to than a blessing, will follow one form say this is the Finger of GOd. A. T. P. adopted, viz. : cutting down the meagre' salarie.s of our missionaries, and leav- The Home Rest for Missianaries at ing them with no escape from this. Northfield, Mass. iron rule? Is not this 'muzzling the ox which treadeth out the corn?' I By a strange fatality a part of our do not know when anything has so editorial note on this topic in our last burdened me as this mismanagem!'nt issue was left out. We said further on the part of the Assembly. Surely, that these 15 acres of land are to be some better plan could have been laid out in a sort of park, to be named adopted there. This is something like Livingstone Park, in honor of. David 'making bricks without straw.' Livingstone, and it is proposed to erect a few economical and conven- "In my own mind it is clear that ient cottages on these grounds, to be this great debt could have been made furnished rent free to returned mis- the means of rousing the Church to sionaries who are at home for rest and a sense of its responsibility as nothing recuperation. It is desired to have else could have done. It would have these cottages free to those who oc- called out a special day of preaching cupy them without reference to de- on the subject of missions-humili- 1'I.0mination; and to enlist various ation and prayer-aday of collections. benevolent people in their erection, for the debt alone, making at least two Sundays of the fifty-two to be de- voted to the great work of the church. The letters one reads from missiona- ries on the frontier a,re pitiful; and if the church does not hear will not God avenge II "Pardon me, but I feel I am only saying what many must feel. I do awakening in this country. His 00- not like to seem to criticise over-much, dresSB evinced considerable familiarity but it makes me sick at heart to be at with the present situation of things in ease in our luxurious churches and India, and appreciation of the diffi- notice the indifference, the want of culty and importance of the mUwion reference to this, the most, crying evil he had undertaken. I have known; for it is from thosepoor missionaries that part of the money Among other things he said: already collected (?) is wrested–not voluntary offerings, but oppressive "There are 5,000,000 Hindus, young men, taxation, in a sense. " who speak English. We aregoing to reach them. They have never been evangelized. Oc- The above letter is from one -of the casionallya lecturer like the Rev. Joseph Cook largest and best known givers in the will drop in among them; but he is gone in a denomination, and we publish it, first, week. What they want is preaching every because such a munificent giver has a day for six months. All has been touch and right to be heard; and again, because go sofar. We go to preach and not to prove the this church and other denominations Gospel. Disabuse your minds of one thought. ought to know how their principal We don't propose to convert India. Weonly benefactors look on such a mistaken policy as retrenchment; -and thirdly, intend to do our share. It we come back because we feel in absolute accord with these sentiments. God will never without having made any visible impression, bless any policy which is practically we won't feel disappointed. Fifty blows may robbery both of Him and His poor be necessary before the rock of heathenism is and faithful servants, It cannot be split. We hope to strike one of those blows. our duty to do wrong, and we believe The Hindus say that as the English go to this course, whenever and wherever India they drop their religion in the Red Sea, adopted, is dishonoring to both the hoping to lind it there as they go back. The church and to God. There must be people of India are profoundly religious in some way of meeting a crisis like this their way. They look on our missionaries as beside doing an' aditional wrong. being merely men who are hired to conquer This policy reminds us of the man who their religion with our own, just as they were borrowed money to pay a debt! and politically conquered by the English. They the fact that at this time of the judge our religion not by our missionaries but world's history a great denomination by the English people among them, sevencan Bound the cry, Retrench! while tenths of whom are there to trade and not to every call of God says Advance! is it- set a religious example. Belf a melancholy sign of the times. We know one city where a craze for "We will go first to Calcutta., where we will expensive church-buildings has led to open an evangelistic mission and begin on the the abandonment of large and com- English themselves. From them-having by modious edifices for others that cost the help of God brought them to a condition enough more than the old to pay thill where they can exemplify and reflect the debt by the excess on each building. Gospel-we will proceed to evangelize the Eng, lish-speaking Hindus. After them, Provi- EDITORS. dence permitting, we will evangelize the half- breeds. We hope to make a break among the Dr. Pentecost's Farewell Words. high castes. Don't think we are pl"oud be- cause we are going to work among the high We were present at the farewell castes. We have chosen them because nQ service in Dr. Meredith's church in work of evangelization has ever been done Brooklyn, of which he was formerly among them. Finally, we are doing this work pastor. He gave an outline of his strictly at our own expense. If anybody feels plan of evangelistic work in India. He moved to chip in and help us pay our current is sanguine that a great break in expenses, all right. But we are not begging. heathenism will begin there, which Persoually I will pay my own expenses. We will be followed by a wide-spread are a voluutary mission, repreaenting no society and no fuud."
May he not be disappointed in this bold undertaking! May India be moved as never before! He needs and asks and deserves the earnest prayers of Christendom. He remains a month in England and then sails for India. Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, who have aided him in his €vangelistic Alloa, Scotland, has recently gone to his reward, in his eighty-seventh work, will accompany him in this year. He set an example of benefi- cence which will be fra~ant in Scotforeign tour. J. M. S. land and in all the Christian church for many years to come. His liberal- The Tribune (New York), in a re- ity toward foreign missions is very cent editorial entitled, "Why Foreign conspicuous; but scarcely less so to- Missions Languish," exhibits the most ward all home missionaryschemes also. surprising ignorance of the subject. AUoa, where he built up his fortune, The very reverse is true. Instead of witnessed its dispensing in all good being in a languishing condition the works. He supported missions in the cause of foreign missions was never destitute neighborhoods, provided for so active, so promising, so full of en- the free entertainment of infirm minterprise, so far-reaching and world- isters at Criefi' Hydropathic; and gave, wide in its scope and plans. The great as few men since apostolic days have English societies in 1889 expended given, great sums to God's cause. He $13,000,000 in the work; and our has spent a vast fortune of $1,000,000 American societies full $6,000,000! on missions; and, out of the small anmore than in any former year! Does nuity reserved to keep him from acthis look like languishing? tual want, he managed to give, at the time of my visit to AUoa, another Quite as false is the reason assigned 250 pounds sterling; and, as a letter for the decline of missions. It argues from Dr. McAll informs me, his last they "languish" because the Gospel if! act of giving was the sending of $500 presented so as to repel rather than more to the same great work of French attract, by men not properlytrained. evangelization. He was an office- It is sure that the prevailing methods bearer in the United Presbyterian of mission work are radically wrong. Church, and one of the brightest orna- Now thousands of the ripest scholars, ments of that beautiful body of breththe broadest culture, the most distin- ren, of whom we may say on personal guished gifts, the noblest educators, knowledge that it contains some of the and the most eminent and useful men noblest examples both of piety and of in the Church to-day, are found in the generosity which the United Kingdom foreign field! Methods radically wrong furnishes. That dear old saint gave that have civilized and evangelized not grudgingly nor of necessity, but whole nations, converted millions of cheerfully. Self· denial became to him souls in heathendom, established a habit and a delight for Christ's sake. schools and colleges, and hospitals, To press his hand and look in his eyes and Y. M. C. A.'s all over the world! was one of the rare privileges of that Does not the Trtbune know these recent tour of missions in Scotland. facts? Such stupendous ignorance is He was the patriarch of givers, and, enough to bring Horace Greeley up we trust will have a numerous spiritfrom the grave to weep over the pa- ual progeny who shall emulate an per he made so grand a power for good. example that has few rivals since the This attack on missions is a very feeble days of Barnabas of Cyprus. echo of Canon Taylor's charges two years ago, the falsity and grossness of A. T. P. which were abundantly shown by testimony that could not be set aside. Bishop William Tay:or seems to be The Tribune is late in reviving a man of great common sense. He these exploded charges.-J. M. S. says that on the dead level of heath- enism all genius is excluded; any in- A Princely Giver's Death. ventor is liable to the charge of witch- craft, and the poison draught is the David Paton, Esq., of Tillicoutry, inevitable doom of one who im- Canada, and for years residing in proves upon the crude implements of his ancestors. In the South of Africa the men wear two coats, one of red paint, the other of grease well-rubbed in; and women dig, hoe, gather crops, carry burdens and do other hard work. To educate an African without chris- tianizing him is to train a polite loafer. He instanced the educated native known as "Hodge," who, with a tine culture, turned to Paganism, put on
ORGANIZED lIIISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS
the breech-clout and took six wives tian church, he will again let loose this and set up a harem. The educational system of false religion to drive out plan must include all industries that an infernal rum traffic let in by prepare for a life of self-support. The Christian nations! Already are 300,- short and sure cut is to be found in 000 mounted followers of the False rearing in Africa Christian industrial Prophet said to be overrunning th{l homes, adopting about 12 children Dark Continent. under five years of age. Young chil- A. T. P.
dren are not yet heathen and must be The India Sunday-school Union, prevented from becoming such. It is having secured the hearty' co-opereasy to get boys but not girls, to adopt. Girls are a marketable commodity for ation of the British Sunday-school polygamous purposes. The only way Union, has been planning a large ex- tension of its work. Dr. James L. at present is to redeem them from this Phillips, 17 years medical and educapolygamous slavery by a virtual pur- tional missionary in Bengal, has been {lhase. They are sold in infancy for appointed general-secretary of the the future harem of these polygamists, India Sunday-school Union, and sailed and if not redeemed will be claimed ~ven after adoption and education. from New York for Europe. He will A young and pretty girl was thus speak in behalf of this promising movement in the chief citIes of the adopted by a missionary's family and United Kingdom during September iirained as a converted woman, and and October, and then embark for -one day claimed as the betrothed wife Bombay, where he will enter upon his -of a rich polygamist. She was al- work, attend the Punjab Sundayready pledged to a converted young school Convention at Lahore in Thr man connected with the mission cember, and reach Calcutta for the .and presents were freely given to annual meeting of the India Sunday- -secure her release from the prior con- School Union in December. All India iiract. Apparently she was released seems ripe for Sunday-school exten- sion at this time. and the marriage consented to. But afterward under pretext of a visit to It has been our privilege to make the her parents was, with her husband, acquaintance of this beloved brother induced to go to their home, and -on entering the village her young while home on a furlough. Failing husband was literally hewn to pieces, to find us at the office, where he called and she was tied to a tree and whipped to say good-bye, he left us a very kind every two hours till she consented letter from which we make an extract: to go and live with this wretched pagan. That is a glimpse of woman's "Now I go back to my dear India, condition in the dark continent. where I was born, as general-secretary Meanwhile all the work of missions of the India Sunday-school Union, is threatened by the awful flooding of with headquarters at Calcutta. For Africa with rum. Hamburg alone two or three years I shall be on the -exports by two companies annually move constantly all over India, organ- .200,000 tuns of liquor, not to speak of izing and pushing Sunday-school what France, Spain, Portugal, Eng- work. My post is a new one. I am land and New England are doing to called back to India by my brethren ]lOur into that land an Amazon river of all the churches. Our Sunday- -of rum. If Mohammedanism were let school Union there, as here and in Eu- loose, it would soon put an end to this rope, is international and inter-debusiness, for Islam's banner is the nominational, like the evangelical banner of total abstinence and pro- alliance work in the U. S. A., with hibition. It may be that as God at the which I have been connected as gen- beginning let loose Mohammedanism eral-secretary at Philadelphia for a as the scourge of idolatry in the Ohris- year." J. M. S.
VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
SPecIAL'l'IELDS. square miles, including 30 towns and 3,579 vil· lages, and containing a population of 3,286,889, INDIA. of whom 2, 835,382 are Hindus and 284,889 are American Marathi Mission. Mussulmans. (A. B. C. F. M.) Stations, 5; outstations, 107; missionaries, REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1889. 27 (of whom 11 ordained, 1 lay, 9 missionaries' Stations at Bombay, Ahmednagal', etc. wives, 6 other ladies); n~tive helpers, 302 (of This mission covers a territory of 16,9i4 whom 18 pastors, 21 preachers); churches, 33; ordained); churches, 22; communicants,. communicants, 2,115 (1,197 male, 918 female); 2,466; additions not reported fully, about 300: added on profession, 192; schools, 127; pupils, schools, 40; average attendance, 583; Sunday- 8,280,(2,461 male, 819 female); Sunday-schools, schools, 19; average attendance, 626. 124; pupils, 4,718 (of whom 1,688 Christian); Jlatients treated at dispensary in Raburi, new, Malayalan Mission of the London Mis- 5,052; old, 9,428; total, 14,480 (of these, 12,045 sionary Society, South Travancore. Hindus, 2,059 Mussulmans, 76 Parsees, 41 R0- man Catholics, 259 Protestants). The report for this mission comes to us in four parts: the Trevandrum, Quilon and Ne- PROGREIlS IN TWENTY YEARs. yoor districts and the mission seminary.
Number of churches, 1869, 22; 1889, 33; net In the six stations there are 9 ordained mis- gain in twenty years, 11. Received on pro- sionaries; 18 ordained native ministers; 22S fession of faith, 1869, 53; 1889, 192; net gain in other native helpers; 273 congregations; twenty years, 139. Number of communicants 5,659 church members; 521 admissions; 718- at close of the year, 1869, 677; 1889,2,115; net candidates; 311 schools; 10,560 boys under in- gain in twenty years, 1,438. Contributions by struction, 3,504 girls-total scholars, 14,064; native Christians, 1869, 1,651 rupees; 1889, patients registered iu mission hospital anddi&' 4,630, rupees; net gain in twenty years, 2,979 pensaries-Protestant Christians, 13,874; Ro- rupees. Number of schools, 1869, 35; 1889, 127; man Catholics, 1,698; heathen, 12,116; Moham- net gain in twenty years, 92. Number of medans, 676-total, 28,SfU. Publications, by pupils, 1869,667; 1889,8,280; net gain in twenty London mission press, periodicals, 52 numbers, years, 2,613. 116,600 pages; tracts, 33, S23,100 pages. South Travancore Tract and Book Society has. From this it will be evident that the number published since 1833, when it was formed by of communicants on the church rolls, the con- the union of tract societies long existing at tributions of native Christians, and the num- Nagercoil and Neyoor,442,549 monthly maga- ber of schools, have trebled in the last twenty zines, 181,200 tracts, 28,500 catechisms, 13,500' years. The number of pupils is five times as books, 3,146,900 handbills, and 260,000 Glad IDany as then attended our schools. News for Children, in Tamil-4,072,649 publi- cations. American Madura Mission, South India. Basel German Evangelical Missionary- Population of district, 1,775,000. Stations Society in Southwestern India. at Madura, Pasumaleli, Battalagundi, etc. Canara, Coorg, South Mahratta, Malabar. Stations, 7; out-stations, 25; missionaries, 36 Stations, 24; European miSSionaries, male, (of whom 13 'ordained, 1 lay, 13 missionaries' 66, female, 40; native agency, pastors, 15" wives, 9 other ladies); native helpers, 448 evangelists, 106; other helpers, 27; teachers,. (of whom 17 ordained pastors); organized 27'8; communicants, 5,160; additions, 1M;: churches, 35; communicants, 3,562; added on schools, 121; pupils, 6,707. .profession, 272; schqols, 156; pupils, 5,410; Sabbath-schools, 146; average attendance Mackay Mission Hospital, Formosa. 4,151; patients treated at dispensary, new fi,066; old, 6,504; total, 15,570 (of these 4,775 Connected with the Presbyterian Board of' Hindus, 3,272 native Christians, including Ro- Missions, Canada. manists, 815 Mussulmans. New patients, 3,055; old patients returned American Free Baptist Mission, for medicines, etc., 7,224. The number is less. Southern Bengal, than the last year by 225, due to the fact that there has been less sickness and that fewer Population, 3.817,65.~. Stations at Balasore, soldiers have been admitted. J ellltSOre, Midnapore, etc. Methodist Episcopal Church, (North)t. Stations, 11; missionarles,25 (of whom 9 are North China Mission. ordained, 1 lay, 9 missionaries' wives, and 6 other ladies); native preachers, 17 (of whom Peking, Tientsin, Shantung, etc. 5 are ordained, 12 lay); other native helpers Stations or circuits, 20; ordained missionanot enumerated; organized churches, 11; ries, 15; missionaries' wives, 14; other ladies, communicants, 646; added, 55; schools, 105; 9; native ordained preachers, 6; unordained,. pupils, 3,619. Considerable medical work 10; teachers, 20: other helpers, 22; members, seems to hav" been done, but no statistics are 782; probationers, 517; averagtl atten<jancegiven. Sunday worship, 931; Sunday-schools, 10; scholars, 746; Theological schools, 3; st.udents, Canadian Baptist Telugu Mission. 40; other schools, 27; scholars, 529, Population reached 3,000,000. Stations: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presby- Akidu, Cocanada, Bimlipatam, Bobbili, etc. terian Church, (South).
Stations, 9; missionaries, 30 (of whom 11 Secretary: REV. M. H. HOUSTON, D.D., Nashare ordained, 10 missionaries' wives, 7 other ville, Tenn. ladies); native helpers, 74 (of whom 8 are [By some error the statistics reported for municants, 625;' additions, 100; schoQls, 37, pnpils, 916; medical work, out-patients (at-· this society in the September number of the tendances), 59,311; in-patients, 1,459; visits at homes, 647; surgical operations, 2,868. REVIEW were drawn from the report of 1889,in- stead of from that of 1890. Dr. Houston has kindly called our notice to the error, alld sent corrected ftgures.-EDs.] General Baptist Missionary Society.
REPORT FOR YII:AIl ENDING APRIL 1, 1800. Secretary: REV.WILLIAHHILL, Mission House. 60 Wilson St., Derby, England. Receipts. . REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING HAY 31, 1890. Balance on hand ..••••••..•••… $ 8,457 59 Receipts.
From churches……………….. 49,812 90 Collections, etc …………….. . £3,257 4 5· Legacies …………………. .. 1,497 4 11 Sabbath·schools….. .•.•• •••••••••. 8,673 50 Miscellaneous ………………. . 693 17 10 Missionary societies ••••……••.• 27,258 80 Legacies……… ..•••••••• ••••.•• 14,927 02 Miscellaneous… ••••.•••••••• •••.• 8,652 88 Total for general purposes … ,£5,448 7 2· Speclalfunds……… ………… 225 17 6 Total ••••••••….••••.••.•••••• $117,782 69 In India…. ………………… 2,929 9 6 In Rome……. … . .. . .. .. . ..• … . 149 0 11 Expenditures.
Three Brazil Missions•..•.•••••..•• 5 36,100 32 China llissions.• '" . • . •. • . •. • ••.• •• 24,701 71 Total. ………………….. , £8.752 15 1 Japan •••••••••.•.. ••••. .• 12,814 31 Pavments.
Congo . •.. .••• . • …. . . . . . . 4,000 00 Balance due May 81, 1889…….. .. £20 12 11 Greek • •• ••••• ••••• •• • . . .. 3,453 70 Orissa Mission ……………… .. 3,27013 2- Italian . . . . ••.• •• . . . •.••• •• 1,200 00 Agency…………………….. . 31517 7 Indian •••• • • ••• • •••• ••.. . • 6,490 00 Publications………………… . 171 12 0- Mexican U •• ,. • • • • ••• • •••• •••• 7,870,29 Incidentals. .. • • . .. .. …. .. …. . .. 144 5 7 Totalfor Missions. •••••.••.•••• $ 96,680 33 Assurance, Annuities, and Capi· General Expenses. . . • . . . . ..••. . … • 8,663 02 Balance on hand (including Relief tal, etc ……. " …………… . 1,441 0 4- Fund)….. • •. .. • . .. • ••.• .•••• •••• 12,489 34 In India, (see ahove) ………… . 2,929 9 9 In Rome, ……… "… .. 449 011 Total…. • • •• . .. •••••…•••••• $117,782 69 Balance to new account •••••••••• 10 3 STATISTIcs. Total……………………. £8,75215 .; STATISTICS OF ORISSA MISSION. ~ .,; -d .,; ..:=:l Stations, 4; 15 out·stations, 8 missionaries,. g 0 4 missionaries wives, 4 other female mission· s:l .'"~ -d aries, 21 native preachers, 18 chapels, 1,376 ..= ~ ~'>" church members; 1 orphanage, 122 members; '" :0;:~. '" ~ 12 schools, 641 scholars; 12 Sunday·schools, 751> • oji o[ '" '" " ] '" .$8 ..0= Z members. Local contributions, 8,411 rupees. ~~ '".." ~ » UjUj..~'Si"~1II-5..:.l..r9 ~ '" .9 f/1 ~ s:l ,Q s:l oj Baptist Missionary Society. '~I'~ ~ oj oj ~O A Secretary: ALFREn H. BAYNES, ESQ.,F. R.A.S•• 1 gl§ ~ g! Baptist Mission House, 19 Furnival St., j ~::: Holborn, London, E. C. ~ <I .S .S ~ REPORT FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1890 ::l8 Receipts. !,! ~ ! ~ — 8 – – zz 8 oj oj ::l Balance from last year, on Special — – ._- -~ Fund, and Widows" etc., 00· count…………………….. £4,894 14 9 Brazil… 3011 10 510 670 126 224 165 $1,400 China .. 1113 16 .. 15 158 12 245'260 165 For debt……….. ………….. 2,405 2 ;;. Japan •. 19 8 8 5 2 766 151 305 130 651 General Fund . . . …. …. .. • . 68,331 0 1 41111 Special, etc., account…. ……. 3,978 9 6 Greece. "c:' ~'" Total receipts…………… £74,714 12 0 28 ~ 15 … Balance over·drawn on General Italy .•. 1 .. ~ 0 Fund……………………… 2,472 3 1() Mexico. 51 2 Africa •. Z Total …………………. £82,081 10 7 2· ·8 40 …… Expenditures. 4 '3 450 71 ··~~r~ 635 Balances. Debton General Fund. £2,862 3 6 2 .. General Fund. … .. £70,346 2 10 Special, etc., account 6,761 10 3 Total. 116 3741 1931 2,072 360 1,207 845 $2,851' £77,107 13 1 1 Total expenditure……….. £79,969 16 7 American Presbyterian, (North), Mission Balance on hand on Special,etc., in Oanton, Ohina. account ……………..•.••. 2,111 14 () Stations, 2; out-stations, 28. Foreign missionaries, ordained, 8; lay, 6; mediC'.a.l, 4; mis- Total. ………………… £82,081 10 '7 sionaries' wives, 11; other ladies, 6 (1 medical); total, 31. Native 'ordained ministers, 3; other native assistants, 84; churches, 8; com- STATISTICS. Income of Funds ••..••..•••••• " 21,796 51 Government Grants-in-aid, etc…. 8,017 47 I 15 J,'"<ll i1 ~ " oj0;oj "" O.:goj $440,788 07 0; • <ll ~ U-"0=l -UC"=l Balance due April, 1890…… …… 7,942 06 ., 1=:1=l'd …. ~~.[~ ) .0 Total. …………………….. $448,730 13 """'Iaj.9 ~;;<;ll In addition there has been added to the Per- ~ ~1ii S manent Fund, $118,739.68, making the gross ! I~"' ""E"" O~~w";";d''§''~ receipts for the year $559,527.75. …. O·S ."E.:~~ -~= Expenditures. t'l Burmah ………………………. $151,290 85 z~ Assam ……………….. _…….. 22,31258 – – – – — – — — 38 Telugu…. ….. . ….. ……. …… • 64,778 India .,. 147, 57 94 9 4,129 231 15 4,027 Ceylon .• 104 4! 25 868 160342.0..3.,.1.9.0 Siam ………………. ………. 1,373 95 ,China..• 60 21 10 60 1,049 China…. …. …………. …….. 31,605 25 ~!fe~~ine 157 8 1 58 Japan ……………………… , 39,122 72 20 15 75 2 2 69 Africa…….. ……………. ….. 43,780 42 3 1 ••. Europe …………………. …… 32,984 57 Enrope •• 60 W.Indies 111 641143.73 18 1,860 210 .. 409 $381.248 72 12 6,135 423 5 Home expenses. .. …………….. 39,71387 – – – – – – – ,Africa.•• – 10 25 5 .' Publications…. ……………… 1,671 40 43 12 4 143 Annuities…….. ……….. ….. 11,92';) 58 — S440,55657 – – – 515 119319 99 14,316 1,053 47 7,896 Balance due April 1, 1839………. 8,173 56 American Baptist Missionary Union. Total. . •. …. .. . • . . . … •.. • . .. $448,730 13 Secretary: REV. J. N. MURDOCH, D.D., Tre- mont Temple, Boston, Mass. REpORT FOR YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, lR90. Receipts.
Donations ………… _………… $212,96294 Legacies……….. … ………… 91,935 49 Woman'sBoards…. … …….. ..•. 93,94922 Miscellaneous ……………….. 12,126 44 STATISTICS.
Mission· Natives. .,. ! j aries ~ ~o0~ joj~o~i ~1~~p~;1~"1'.~~jjoi ~ r/.lo)i:j~il<OO 0 ~ a.: 00 Z '21-593 45li7 116 "Bn~-rm-a':'h-..-.-..-.-.-..-.- ..-.-..-.- .•-.-..-.-.. 021 520 29,689 2,039 444 12,669 – $52,633 I Assam .. …… … ….. .. .. 7 64 11 14 22 54 30 1,937 185 87 1,900 740 381 Telugu ………. …………. 13 635 21 26 204 217 72 33,838 3,340 460 4,934 564 China (inch!ding Siam)………. ' 8 59 18 23 25 17 1,535 61 23 325 521 Japan …•… …….. ……… 8 27 15 26 29 17 10 lO5 158 6 216 311 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Africa……. ….. …… …….. 7 4 23 16 5 8 5 386 156 10 471 75 Total…………………… 64 1382 133 192 8191437 654 68,290 5,939 1030 20,515 $54,844 ,Europe …………………. 917 707 70,003 5,638 169,425 TotaL ………………….. 64 ii2 133 100 i7a6 4a7.WtI38,29311.57711OOO 2O,5i5J~ Ohurch Missionary Society. Collection 0 f Funds…….. 13,739 13 2 The Secretaries, Church Missonary House, Administration. 10,596 11 5 Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London,E. C. £215,222 11 0 REPORT FOR' THE YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1890. Deduct, charged Receipts. to Special Fonds.. …. 8,193 6 7 Through Associations.. £146,771 6 10 Total Ordinary……. '" .. £207,029 4 5 Direct to the Society, including Special Funds…………….. 17,556 8 1 Legacies23,862 7 9……… . 56,046 4 8 Disabled Missionaries' Funds 1,646 10 ..
Rent and Interest …………. 4,05215 9 Total Ordinary….. ……. £208,516 17 10 Total Payments……….. £224,585 12 6 Special Funds… …………. 51,765 13 7 Balance carried to Contin- 35,696 18 11 Total Receipts…………. £26a,282 11 5 gency Fund: OrdinaryRe- Expenditures. ForMissions…..£I82,845 3 2 ceipts……… £1,487 13 5 Disabled M i s- Special Funds.. 34,209 5 6 sionaries, etc.. 7,941 3 3 —– Total…… ……………. £260,282 11 I:>
PROGRESS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
STATISTICS.
Natives, Eurasians, Missionaries, etc, ~ ~ ~..$.~; , g i 'I 3 __________________I§~ ~ ~ i~ ~ h ~ ~j~;. ~ _~_~_§__~_~____ ~ ~ @ ~ Africa ……………. ,…………. 5 59 30 17 15 48 293 9,826 445 108 8,8U Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Persia.. 3 13 16 6 9 9 107 597 4 50 2,575 India…………… …… ………… 8 96 128 14 15 144 2150 26,942 1,577 1191 47,184 21 Ceylon.,……………… ………… 1 14 18…. 2 15 446 2,363 172 229 11,345 Mauritius…… …… .. …. .. . …. . 1 7 81 3 51 542 108 25 1,562 S!~':t~:::: .. ·:::::.~:::::::::::::::·::: ~ ~ 171 …. 19 1~ ~ 2,~~ .~ Iii 2,~ 1 38 151 2 27 378 2,631 5 1 18 2Q 65 2,455 109 58 1,424 3.835149;016 3,llo i700 ,= 59 286 75:"'581 New Zealand ……… ".. N. W, America and North Pacific .. " 6 55 321 4"..
-~L====·.~: ;iii 3t5 "286152 VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa-It is said that the annexations of Their professed object is to convert the Afri- Great Britain in Africa amount to over cans to their faith; and their modus oper- 2,000,000 squa.re miles, "Spheres of influ- andi is to civilize them first, and then to make ence" they are termed, not annexations. We Trappists of them. Their largest monastery care not what they are called; we are glad is at l'IIarianhill, in Natal. At present it con- to know that under the flag of Great Britain tains 170 monks, and in a convent, half a mile the slave trade cannot live. Under that flag, away, are 135 nuns. There are 300 native boys the Bible may be printed and scattered with· and girls under tuition, and the knowledge im- out "let or hindrance," Under that flag, parted is almost entirely industrial. The rear- missionaries of the cross will be safe, and can ing of bees is one of the important industries, go about their work unmolested, Ambitious Papers are published in four languages. They and grasping England, men may call her, but have a church capable of holding 2,000 people, she carries into her colonies, all over the world, the light of civilization, to brighten -Harvest Field. the faces of their ignorant and degraded. -The grant of an immense territory -Rapid progress all along the line is being along tbe Zambesi river has been made to the made in the opening up of the new world of Duke of Fife and some English colleagues, Central Africa. Europe has 'such vast re- The region embraces nearly 300,000 .square sources of power and wealth to bring to bear miles and is very rich both in soil and mines, on the enterprise that the rate at which civili- The company has power to abolish slavery zation is advancing on barbarism is surpris- and restrict the liquor traffic in its domains, ing. and missionary work will be as free there as in India. -To explore Central Africa.-The Siecle says that a French expedition to explore Cen· – The Portuguese have released the British tral Africa is being organized. It will be African Lakes Company's steamer, which divided into three sections, which will start was seized by Lieutenant Continho, Thecrew simultaneously from Algeria and the Niger of the steamer have also been released, and Congo rivers, and converge at Lake Tchad, -The Roman Catholic missions at Uganda will be strengthened by a new party of priests, -The Universities' Mission in Central who were ordained in the cathedral of Car· Africa employs seventy Europeans at four thage, June 29th, According to Roman Cathoprincipal centres in Africa and on Lake Nyassa, where a church steamer is maintained, lic usage, the feet of these 20 "messengers of Bishop Smithers is the leader of this mission, which extends over 25,000 square miles, peace" were devoutly kissed by all priests present, including high dignitaries. Cardinal -The Trappists, an order of Jesuits, have Lavigerie even kissed the feet of two black lately begun work in South Africa on a large surgeons, formerly slave·boys, purchased by scale, In Natal they have an estate of 2Q,OOO white monks on the Nile. acres, and in Griqualand of 500,000 acres, Belgium.-The Government has voted a loan of $5,000,000 to the Congo Free State. The expense of the founding of this State, and introduction into-the-familyof nations, has been Catholic Church has moved against the here- borne chiefly by the king, at an expense of tic, and suppressed his services by the power $~,OOO to $300,000 a year_ In return for this of the civil law. During the present year Diaz grant, King Leopold makes Belgium the heir, and his helpers have been arrested,sent to jail, ten years hence, of his African possessions, and harassed in all possible ways. Diaz is ont which it is believed will one day prove a great on bail, but the courts hesitate and keep him source of revenue_ and his friends in suspense. The intervention of the American Government has been in- -Pastor Anet's Christian Missionary voked. Church of Belgium, added to its members last year 500 converts from Romanism and infidel- England.-The report of the Bible Car- ity. It employs 4 evangelists, 7 Bible-readers, riage Mission in England, shows tbat this so- ,and 5 colporteurs. ciety is doing an important work in the rural parts of the country. Over 49,000 Bibles and Canada.-The Presbyterian Church in Testaments, and about 367,000 books, tracts, -canada has, in all, 326 distinct fields of home etc., were circulated in 270 villages and towns. mission work, and 990 preaching places. The In these places the Gospel was preached, number of missionaries employed last year with many conversions as the result. was 329, of whom 121 were ordained ministers and liceL. iates,and 208 students an.d catechists. -Another new missionary band of special 'The average Sabbath attendance at all the interest is about to go forth in connection stations was 43,065, the number of families with the Church Missionary Society. Rev. Bar- connected with them, 11,701, and of communi- clay F. Buxton, son of Mr. T. Fowell Buxton, cants, 13,907. The progress made in the Pres- has offered to go to Japan with a smaIl party bytery of Manitoba may be given as a speci- of missionaries, undertaking both the direction men of the result.q. It was formed 19 years and entire charges himself. Mr. Barclay is an ago. Winnipeg had tben a popUlation of 421, M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is pro- now it has 22,892. Manitoba had then 19,000, posed that Mr. Buxton's party should occupy now it has 150,000. Then Presbyterianism stood the town and district of Matsupe, an import- third relative to other denominations, now it ant place at the west end of the maIn island heads the list. In meeting the expenses in- of Japan. volved in this vast home mission undertaking, the church acknowledges grants from the ~Mra. Hannington, widow of Bishop Han- Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Church nington, who was murdered in 1885, near <>f Scotland and the Free Church. Uganda, conducts a weekly missionary prayer meeting, in Brighton. -The Toronto medical students' Y. M. C. A., which has 179 members, has just sent one France.-Cardinal Lavigerie opened the <>f their number, Dr. Hardie and his wife, as a Anti-Slavery Congress, in Paris, with an admissionary to Korea, and have agreed to sup- dress, in the Church of St. SuIpice. He highly port him"for a period of at least eight years." praised the enthusiasm of England in the anti- His destination is "Fusan, where he is to co- slavery work, although it was headed by <>perate with Mr. Gale, of University College Catholics. He said he, did not desire the im-, Y. M. C. A." $1,800 is requisite for outfit and mediate abolition of slavery, as that would support for the first year. entail starvation of slaves, but that man-hunt- ing must be immediately suppressed. China.-TheChina Inland Mission hasestablished in China, 16 opium refuges, 3 hospi- Germany.-According to Bisho» Warren tals, and 5 dispensaries. The churches num- the members of the Methodist Church in Gerber 66 and chapels 110. many average, in their contributions, $4.40 per member annually, while the largest incomes -Dr Douthwaite, of the China Inland Mis- among them do not exceed $1.25 per day." sion, Che-Foo, says, that in the late famine district in Shan·Tung, there are now over a. India.-Some of our missionaries in India thousand applicants for baptism. have been caIled on to stand at the bar of the civil courts. Rev. J. J. Lucas and Rev. -The government has indemnified the Henry Forman were summoned before the Presbyterian Board to tbe extent of over a High Court in Allahabad, to answer for the thousand dollars for property destroyed by a baptism of a youth of eighteen, who had promob, in 1885, in the province of Kwong-Sai, fessed to be a convert to Christianity, and China. It has taken our United States lIIin- who had acted throughout of his own free ister a long while to securethis justreimhurse- will, and with intelligent comprehension of ment, but the final action is encouraging, in what his act meant. The judge was a Mothat it recognizes the right of foreigners to hammedan, but so clearly arrayed before him hold property in interior cities. were the facts in the case, and so explicit was the law, that the decision rendered was Cuba.-The Rev. A. J. Diaz, an evangelist that the missionaries had violated no law of her Majesty's empire, and the yonng convert <>f the Southern Baptists, in the Island of was his own master in religious affairs and Cuba, has been wonderfully successful in at liberty to dwell and worship where he preaching and organizing churches. He is a pleased. The case was regarded as an Ironative of Cuba, and preaches with great ease and freedom in his own tongue. The Roman portant one, and the judgment rendered years that the Chinese have been able makes the work of evangelizing the youth of to plant themselves in the country he India much easier and less dangerous. traveled through, so hostile have the na- tives always shown themselves, It is said -The Woman's Christian Temperance that in Thibet nearly every crime is pun- Union of Singapore has organized 'a mission ished by the imposition of a fine, and tha~ for the benefit of European sailors that visit murder is by no means an expensive luxury. tht.t port. This, of course, greatly increases the danger of travel in that remarkable land. Ireland.-The Irish Church Mission So- <:iety seeks to give a pllre gospel to the Irish United States.-The Presbyterian Wo- Roman Catholics. A good work has been done man's Mission Society received for last year through this instrumentality. Fresh impetus $337,842. The society was able to support the has been given to it by the munificent be- following missions: Indians:–ll3 schools, 164 ,quest of $150,000 by Mrs. Susan Hopper. teachers, 2,264 pupils. Mormons:–37 schools, 99 teachers, 2,374 pupils. Mexicans :-32 Korea.-A missionary, Mr. Appenzeller, schools, 67 teachers, 1,627 pupils. South:-16 in the Fndependent, says, that when mission schools, 48 teachers, 1,213 pupils. Total. 118 work began in Korea, the missionaries pre- schools, 361 teachers, 7,47'8 pupils.-Mid·Consented a Bible to the king. The prime minis- tinent. ter took the Bible to the palace, showed it to the king, and then, with the klng's approval, -The Universalists, after an existence of tore it in pieces. Years afterwards, a Ken- more than a hundred years, send out their tucky man presented the Korean minister at first missionary. Washington with a bottle of the best Bourbon whiskey for the king. This was accepted. -The Annual Report of the International 'Then the Christians of Kentuckyresolved to Medical Missionary Society, shows that 7,356 show the king, at as early a period as possible, new cases of disease and injury were treated that the country produced something better during the past Society's year; 14,717 attendthan whiskey. Recently they sent, through ances were given at the dispensaries, of which the Korean minister, three Bibles, one for the there are 7 in New York and 2 in Brooklyn; king, one for the prime minister, and one for 1,641 visits were paid to the sick in their own the foreign secretary. The present has been homes. DuriIig the eight and a half years of 4Ccepted. the Society's existence, over 32,000 cases were treated, about 70,000 attendances were given -Roman Catholic missionaI'ies have at dispensaries, and over 14;000 visits were been in Korea 200 years, yet have never Is- made to sick at their homes. This Society sued the Bible In the native language. They co·operates with all existing Christian agenhave translated the New Testament but have cies, as far as possible, and establishes medinot put it into print, and the only copies, cal missions at Gospel missions, or mission made by hand, cost from $10 to $20 each. churches, wherever practicable. The presi- dent is Boudinot C. Atterbury, M. D.; the -Sad News.-Dr. John W. Heron, Medi- treasurer, Cleveland H. Dodge, Esq., No. 11 <ml Missionary of the Presbyterian Board in Cliff Street; and the medical director, George Seoul, is dead. He died of dysentery. The D. Dowkoutt, M. D., 118 East 45th Street, New loss is great, 'for he was Superintendent of the York City. The Society deserves the liberal Royal Hospital in the capital, and had won the support of Christian people. {lonfidence of the King. His infiuence in the foreign comniunity and in Seoul was also -The receipts of the American Board for very great. the year ending Septemb"r 1st, are $617,723. This amount is $69,025 in excess of last year. .of-Moravian Missions.-The latest statistics Of this increase $22,876 is from donations, the our missions show an increase over last balance is from legacies. During the year 64 year of 620 communicants and of 1457 In the new mission aries have been appointed. 22 of total membership of our congregations in the whom are men: 54 of. these new recruits have foreign fields. The number under the direct already been sent to the field. This number care of our missionaries DOW amounts to 87,263, is in excess of any year since 1837.-The Adand of these 30,591 are enjoying the full privi- vance. leges of communicant membership. These are solid figures, and we thank God for the un- -Secretary Ellinwood of the Presbyterian mistakable token of His blessing on our work Board of Foreign Missions writes, that the in Asia, Africa, America and Australia.- new value put upon silver has so affected ex- Periodical Accotlnts. change in all the foreign countries where silver is the chief medium, that the purchasing power Thibet.-Mr. W. Woodville Rockhill, of the Board's appropriations is diminished formerly of the American Diplomatic Service, from 15 to 20 per cent., and the rate of exhas recently returned from a long and peril- change is constantly fluctuating. A heavy, <>us journey through Thibet, the unknown needless tax is thus laid upon the missionary heart' of Asia. For 700 hundred miles he cause for the benefit of a few silver kings. passed through a country where no white man had ever set foot, journeying, of course, in disguise. It is only within the last few
INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE NOVEMBER NUMBER
INDEX OF CONTENTS NOVEMBER NUMBER.
PAGE PAGE I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS••••••• 801–842 plore Central Africa, 877; Universities' IT.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLI- Mission, 877; the Trappists, 877; Roman Catholic Missions in Uganda ………… 877 GENCE•• – …………….. _…. 842–850 IIT.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE… 85O-S54 BELGIUM.-Loan to the Congo Free IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT ••• 854-862 States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877 V.-MONTHLY CONOERT OF MISSIONS 862–867 BRAZIL.-Political Changes, American VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT Missions, etc., 862; Other South Ameri- can MiSSions, Brussels Anti-Slavery Con- TOPICS …… _……………. 867-873 gress……………………………… 86(t vn.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK BURMAH AND SIAM.-"A Thousand AND STATISTICS. .. ……..–873-877 Miles on an Elephant. " …………….. 842 VIIT.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS; MONTH- CANADA.-Presbyterian Church, 878; LY BULLETIN ……………… 877-879 Toronto Medical Students' Y. M. C. A… 878 IX.-INDEX TO CONTENTS. .••••• •• • ••• 880 CHINA.-A Great Evangelizing Agency, 845; Inland Mission, 878; Presbyterian Authors. Board Indemnified …………….. : …. 878 EDITORS.-A. T. Pierson. The Miracles ENGLAND.-Flowof Converts to the of Missions; The Wonderful Story of Church of Rome……. .. . … .. …… 846 Madagascar, 808; Editorial Notes. J. M. Sherwood, Book Notices, 841; Editorial FRANCE.-Anti-sla.very Congress …… 878 Notes …………………………….. 871 GERMANY.-Generous Giving………. 878 HAWA H.-Rev.W. A. Essery's Address Blackie, William G., D.D., "Personal Life of David Livingstone, " noticed………. 842 on the Victory of the Gospel ………… 846 Brockett, r,. P., M.D., Education and INDIA.-Lunn's Work; "A Friend of Missions in India," 841; Poverty of the E.vangelization…………………….. 850 Clark. Miss Helen F., The Congo Missions, 826 People, 846; Missionaries in Court. 878 Ellinwood, F. F., D.D.• The Duty of Chris- IRELAl'U>.-Irish Church Mission So- tendom to.the Jews, 801; Brazil and its ciety ……………………………. 879 Missions. Other South American Mis- sions………… _._ ……………….. 860 JAPAN.-The New Constitutional Gov- Gracey, J. T., D.D., International Depart- ernment, 846; Appeal from Ba.ptist Mis- ment …………………………….. 851 sionaries. ……………………….. '" 847 Guinness, Mrs. H. Grattan, "New World of Central Africa," noticed…•…. __ .. 841 JEWS.-The Duty of Christendom to …. 801 Haig, Mrs. F. T.,"Daybreak in North Afri- ca," noticed…. …….. …………… 841 KOREA.-The gift of a Bible to the King, Hallett, Holt S • "A Thousand Miles on an 879; Roman Catholic Missionaries, 879; Elephant," noticed……….. .. .. . •. 842 Moravian Missions ………………… 879 Herrick, George F., D.D., The Kingdom of God in the Land of its Origin…….. 854 MADAGASCAR.-TheWonderful Story Hunt, Life of John; Missionary to Fiji, of its Evangelization, 808; Letter from noticed ……….. _…………………. 842 Rev. James B. Mackay…. .. …. . 850 Lunn, Rev. Henry S., "A Friend of Mis- sions in India, " noticed ………… "…… 841 Moravian Missions in Surinam………… 867 Moorhead, Max Wood, Student Volunteer Moravians not Lutherans……………… 853 Movement ………………… …….. 842 Pitzer, A. W., D.D., The Inheritance of PALESTINE.-An Awakening of Life Nations Allotted of God….. ………… 820 and Energy………. .. …… 847 Schweinitz, Rev. Paul de, The Romance of Goedverwacht ………………….. 833 South American Missions ……. _…….. 866 Starbuck, Rev. Chas. C., Translations from Foreign Missionary Periodicals………. 836 Turkish Empire, Dr. Herrick's Graphic West, Maria A.. Hidden Springs, or How Sketch of its Present Condition .. _. . . .. 854- Missionaries are Made.. .. .. … . . . . .. …. 835 THIBET.-A perilous journey………. 879 Countries and Subjects. UNITED STATES.-The Silver Law's AFRICA.-The Congo Missions, 826; Effect on Missions, 848;.Farewell Meeting New World of Central Africa, 841; of Missionaries in Boston, 849; Presby- Daybreak in North Africa, 841; Dr. terian Woman's Missionary Society, 879; Blackie's Life of Livingstone, 842; Mwan- Report of International'Medical Mission- ga Stripred of Despotic Power, 844; ary Society, 879; Receipts American Editoria Notes on Uganda, 845; Zanzi- Board ………………………. _…. 879· bar, 84.5; The Slave Traffic, 861; Fire- arn1S, 862; The Liquor Traffic, 861; Great Statistics of Foreign Missions. Britain. Sphere of inlluence, 877; to ex- American :r.larathi Mission, 873; American Madura Mission, South India, 874; Amer- ican Free Baptist Mission, South Ben· gal, 874; Canada Baptist TeJugn Mis- sion, 874; Malayam Mission of L. M. S., Basel G. E. M. S., Southwestern India, 874; Mackay Mission Hospital, Formosa, 874; M. E. Church (North) N. China Missions, 874; American Presbyterian (North) Mission in Canton. China., 875; B. F. Missions of Presbyterian Church (South) Report for 1889-90, 874; Ameri- can Baptist Missionary Union, 876; Church Missionary Society…… • … 876·