The Missionary Review of the World — March 1919
Personals
THE MISSIONARY Review of the World DELAVAN L. PIERSON. Editor.
CONTENTS FOR MARCH, 1919 COVER ILLUSTRATION-MEXICAN NEIGHBORS WAITING TO BI TAUGH'r FRONTISPIECE-A RnIGIOUS HOME MISSION PROBLEM IN HAWAII SIGNS OF THE TIMES . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 A CRUSADE J!OR A CLEAN NA'rION NA'rURALIZING CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA THE NEW OU'rLOOK IN ARABIA REVOLUTION AMONG CHILDREN IN ASIA THl!: RISE OJ! LIB~'rY CHURCHES EDITORIALS . . . … . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 UNI'rEIi STUDY OJ! 'rHE WORLD'S NEEDS BOLSHEVISM AND 'rHE RUSSIAN CHURCH WORLD PROHIBITION AND WORLD PEACE WHA'r IS 'rHE HoPE OJ! ISRAEL PROTESTANT PROGRESS IN ITALY MAKING AMERICA SAFE FOR THE WORLD By REV. RAr.PH WEI.I.ES KEEr.ER, D. D. 171 An impressively illustrated challenge, presented by the survey of the home mission field connected with the Centenary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. .
THE MISSIONARY BALANCE SHEET OF THE WAR By REv. CHARLES R. W A'rSON, D. D. 183 A concise statement of the losses and gains to foreign mission work due to the world war.
A MISSIONARY BIBLE STUDY (MATTHEW 28:18-20) By REV. SAMUEl. M. ZWEM.J!R, D. D. 190 • WORKING IN MEXICO UNDER DIFFICULTIES. .BY WALTER C. TAYLOR 191 The story of the work of the Young Men's Christian Association in Mex- ico under revolutionary conditions.
r HAVE CONDITIONS IMPROVED IN MEXICO . By AUCE MCCLELLAND 195 THE SUFFERINGS OF M~SSIONARIES IN PERSIA By REV. F. N. JESSUP 198 Extracts from the journal of a Presbyterian missionary during the Turk- ish and Kurdish invasion of Urumia and Tabriz.
THE OUTLOOK AMONG TURKISH MOSLEMS By R:lv. HENRY H. RICGS, D. D.204 SOME MORE THINKING BLACK . . . . . By DAN CRAWFORD 209 BE3T METHODS DEPARTMENT. . . . . Edited by MRS. E. C. CRONK 212 FEDERATION M.1THODS :l!OR THE CoMING YEAR LITERATURE WITH POSTERS WOMAN'S HOME MISSION BULLETIN . . Edited by MRS. O. R. JUDD 218 ApPROACH TO A COMMON TASK ANNUAI. MggTlNG OJ! 'rHE COUNCIL NEWS FROM MANY LANDS . 223 THE MISSIONARY LIBRARY 238 Facts Worth Quoting Missionary Personals TERMS: $2.50 a year. ($2.00 in clubs of five.) Foreign postage, 50 cents. Sma-Ie copies l!5 cents. Published Monthly. Copyrighted, 1919, by Missionary Review Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Entered as second class matter at the post office at Cooperstown, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.
MISSIONARY REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc.
PUBLICATION OFFICE:- EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICE:- COOPERSTOWN, N. Y. 156 FIFTH AVE.• NEW YORK CITY.
RoBn'l' E. SPJ!JlR, Pr,sident· DI!I.AVAN L. Pn:ItSoJi, Sec,.,ta,.y FUNK I.. BROWN, Vi",-P,.,sid,,,t W Ar.TI!R McDouGAr.r., T,.,lJNr,,. R!iv. E. E. CALV!iRLY of the Reformed Church Mission in Arabia has been invited by the Indian National Council of the Y. M. C. A. to enter upon work under its auspices among British and Indian troops in Mesopotamia.
RJlv. EDWARD LINCOLN SMITH, D. D., Secretary of the American Board of For- eign Missions, has returned from his six week's visit to China in the interests of the new Peking University. He also visited the interior of China, and reports an era of good feeling toward missionaries in that field.
DR. JOHN R. MOTT has been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French Government in reeognition of his service through the Young Men's Christian Association.
MISS MARGARET SLATTERY recently sailed for Europe in order to study conditions among girls of England, France and Belgium. When she returns Miss Slattery expects to make a lecture tour of the United States.
FRANCIS C. BRADING, Secretary of the Scripture Gift Mission of London, has been ordained to the ministry of the Church of England.
R!iv. NORMAN H. CAMP, lawyer-evangelist and Bible teacher of Chicago, has been made Superintendent of the Chicago Hebrew Mission, an organization more than thirty years old, with five centers and a corps of twenty workers.
DR. J. N. FARQUHAR, literary secretary of the National Y. M. C. A. in India and Ceylon, and well known authority on Hinduism, is in America on a short lecture tour. Dr. Farquhar is the author of "Hinduism and Modern Religious Movements in India."
MR. HIiRBIiRT K. CASKEY, of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, has been appointed Secretary of the Foreign Department of the Y. M. C. A. for the Dominion of Canada.
RIiV. S. B. ROHOLD, F. R. G. S.. pastor of the Hebrew Christian Synagogue of Toronto, has been invited by the British Jews' Society 'to assist in a Forward .Movement in Palestine, which will include the distribution of literature, holding meetings and some relief work. Mr. Rohold is leaving America for three months and will be accompanied by Rev. Arthur W. Payne, missionary to the Jews in Palestine and Europe.
MISS ELIZABETH WILSON of the National Y. W. C. A. sailed for England on January 4th to attend a meeting of the World Committee of the Y. W. C. A. From England Miss Wilson will go to India to establish a training center in the Associlrtion's work for women.
RJiv. J. H. RITSON, D. D., of the British and Foreign Bible Society has left London for four months to address a series of meetings at the principal bases of the British Army in France, calling soldiers to missionary service.
MR. JOHN N. HAYWARD has recently been appointed as joint secretary with Mr. Marcus Wood to the China Inland Mission. Mr. Hayward has given thirty years of missionary service in the Far East, where he applied his business efficiency to the eccentricities of Chinese finances with conspicuous success.
DR. GIiORG~ RIC!i Hov~Y has entered upon his duties as Secretary of Education of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. Dr. Hovey has been President of Virginia Union University since 1905.
DR. ROLVIX HARLAN, formerly President of Sioux Falls College, has been elected Secretary of Social Service of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.
REv. AND MRS. F. J. BARN!iY, of the Reformed Church Arabian Mission, have gone to India to assist in the American Arcot Mission for some months, possibly a year.
HaN. EMM~TT J. SCOTT,' secretary of the Tuskegee Institute and special assistant to the Secretary of War, is to write a history of the Negroes' part in the world war.
MRS. S. B. CAPRON, identified for many years with the missions of the American Board in Madura, and later Superintendent of the Women's Department of Moody Bible Institute, died in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., on December 15 at the age of ninety.
MR. EDWARD W. WARmtN, President of the International Sunday School Association, died on January 16. Mr. Warren presided at the World Sunday School Convention held in Jerusalem in 1904, at the Convention in Rome in 1907 and again in Washington in 1910.
• HAWA.iI t!o £
ZEAL"ND OUIl VIEW OF TRJt WORt.D IN THIS NUMBER .. The Sufferings of Missionaries in Persia LEADING ARTICU:S AND EDITORIALS ARE INDICATED BY nnES TIlE NUMBER OF NEWS JTEM5 ON EACH GOUNTRY IS INDICATED BY ARABIC NUMERALS
United States Public Health Service is conducting an active
to enlighten the public, and enlist state and municipal authorities in helping to make a clean nation; and many cities and states have heartily undertaken to cooperate. The American government is today the only one undertaking by a permanent national organization to defend society from the scourge of lust and alcoholism.
****** While Bolshevism is preaching atheism and abolishing religious instruction, the vital factors in the Russian Church are being strengthened and new character is being formed. In Moscow 600,000 persons of all classes participated in a procession of protest against Bolshevist atheism.
* * * * .. * In the Methodist Centenary Home Mission program recognition is given the demand for religious education as thorough-going as the teaching of the public schools in the plans for the training of 250 directors of religious education, 486 women institutional workers, 46 district superintendents and 41 district evangelists.
.. * * * * * Young men in Mexico are showing more and more interest in the kind of Christianity that can be carried into an athletic contest or a business transaction, and can help a man to keep square and clean. In the athletic leaders' corps of the Mexico City Y. M. C. A. not one member uses tobacco or intoxicants-a remarkable fact for Mexico.
… >I< … … … …
, The missionary significance of the rapprochement between the French and the Anglo-Saxon races, produced by the war, can. be appreciated when we remember that Protestant missionary efforts have' practically been excluded from French colonies, and these represent the major portion of the unoccupied mission fields of the world.
****** Most of the Turkish Moslems have either themselves accepted Islam under compulsion or are the descendants of such unwilling converts. Now that the compulsion of fear is removed by the overthrow of Turkish domination there is the possibility of a mass movement of these tribes to Christianity.
****** The object lesson of Christian kindness in Moslem lands has done more than all else to prepare the minds of Turks to understand the spirit of Christianity. When 'an Armenian Christian went to the house of a wounded Moslem soldier to ask news of his relatives in the Army, he was astonished to see the wounded man come on hands and knees to kneel at his feet and pour out gratitude for what the Christian Armenian's relative had done for him in a far away hospital.
… '" '" '" '" * Fanaticism is disappearing in Mexico. Protestant churches are better attended than ever before and all the schools are full. There is a growing demand for both secular and religious instruction, and the public schools are beginning to have an appreciable number of Protestant teachers who are making their influence felt.
****** Fifteen new mission hospitals for Turkey, located at various points from the Black Sea to the Persian boundary, is a feature of the American Board Expedition for the relief and reconstruction of Armenia.
****** Natives of the Sudan have contributed the greater part of the £9000 ($44,000) already subscribed for a proposed Medical College as a Sudan memorial to Lord Kitchener in Khartum.
****** 'The percentage of literacy among Liberians is said to be greater than that among Negroes in America. This is probably due to the fact that in Liberia every man has an equal chance, with no discrimination against him; and because the govern- ment is in his hands, he must rise to a place of responsibility. ,i,
A RELIGlOUS HOME MISSlON PROB LEM AMONG FOREIGNERS IN H
A s cen e in front of the $100,000 Buddhi st T emple in Honolulu, Hawa ii
MISSIONARY
EVIEW, VOL. MARCH,1919 N …… Tmu:. XLII SIGNS OF THE, TIlVlJBS A CRUSADE FOR A CLEAN NATION O NE fact brought to light by the war is the prevalence of diseases due to social vices. "One of the compensations for the tragedy of war," says Secretary Josephus Daniels, "is the fact that an enlightened opinion is behind the organized campaign to protect the youth against venereal disease. It is worse than cancer, more deadly than tuberculosis, more loathsome than cholera. The campaign begun in war to insure military fitness of men for fighting, is quite as necessary to save men for civil efficiency. The National Government, under authority of Congress, is undertaking this task in cooperation with State authorities. The full cooperation and sympathetic working together of local, State and Federal agencies, backed by sound public sentiment, are needed in this holy campaign for that cleanness of living which alone insures clear thinking and physical excellence."
The United States Public Health Service is conducting an active campaign to enlighten the pnblic and to enlist State and Municipal authorities in the effort to clean up their districts and help to make a "clean nation." This work is done largely under the impetus to make the country more safe for the 4,000,000 returning soldiers and sailors.
Many cities and states have heartily undertaken the task of educating tl.Ieir people and eradicating social vices and diseases. Omaha, Nebraska, has introduced an ordinance to curb social diseases among men, as well as women, and there is agitation for a national law to regulate physical examination.
In Ohio, the State Dairy and Food Department prohibits the 161
employment, in any places used for the preparation or handling of food, of anyone afflicted with venereal disease. Michigan, Minnesqta and California are making a determined fight to abolish prostitution, with educational posters and pamphlets and the arrest and confinement of women who are a menace to the communities.
Houston, Texas, and with leadership of the Mayor, h'ls equipped a municipal farm as a detention home and has established a clinic in which 14,000 courses of treatment have been given. Columbus, Ohio, reports that open vice is a thing of the past in that city and is undertaking to make it the cleanest city in the world. Birmingham, Alabama, has named a committee of 100 citizens, representing various civic bodies to purge the city from this menace to health-moral and spiritual.
Th'is crusade will require the nation-wide cooperation of all American schools, churches, clubs and civic organizations. The American Government is today the only one undertaking, by a permanent national organization, to defend society from the scourges of lust and alcoholism. Britain and France' are dis- gracefully remiss in this respect. .
Thus far the natioual and civic authorities are only concerned with the consequences of vice. They naturally do not go to the root of the matter and deal with the sin, nor do they offer the only teal cure which will regenerate men and women and save them from the sin itself. The Surgeon General of the Public Health 'service, Dr. Rupert Blue, has, however, gone so far as to recognize the spiritual problem and forces involved by calling upon the ministers of the United States to set aside Feb. 9 as Health Sunday and to preach sermons emphasizing the responsibility of the nation to protect returning soldiers and sailors and the community at large, and to take vigorolls measures for combating social dis- eases.
A proclamation has been issued which requests the churches of every denomination to continue the work Carried on in time of war in order that the world may be made safe, not only for dQmoc- racy, but for posterity. .
The only right attitude to take toward this question is not to ignore it or to consider it inevitable, .but to treat the social evil as an inexcusable crime that brings disaster to the individual and to the nation, both body and soul. The way to fight the evil, root and branch, is to make no compromise.
1. Close the red light district in every city and town and root out open or concealed vice as far as possible. Any other course is to sell loathsome disease in the market place. Constant vigilance is required and upright officia,ls. An "open town" means
– SIGNS OF THE TIMES
prosperity for the vicious, but higher taxes and greater dangers for the innocent.
2. Safeguard against the spread of the disease byestablishing clinics and hospitals. Put the quacks out of business. Require physicians to report all cases of venereal disease.
3. Educate the public by lectures to parents and through the public schools. Distribute judiciously wholesome literature on sex matters.
4. Provide healthy recreation for young people in public parks, and put a curb on dance halls and amusements that pander to unhealthy moral appetites. This if; not a task for sentimentalists nor for ill-balanced enthusiasts, but for conscientious, intelligent men and women who have the highest good of the community at heart.
NATURALIZING CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA I s it right to impose western forms of Christianity on the __ Orient or should other lands adapt the teachings of Christ to their own institutions and ideals, transforming them but not eradicating them 1 For example: One of India's honored Chris- tian leaders, Mr. N. Tilak, an instructor in Ahmednagar Divinity School, long connected with the Marathi Mission and a well known poet, has recently imitated the role of a Sadhu, or Hindu religious leader. Garbed in a saffron-colored robe, this Christian Sadhu goes from place to place, appearing in public streets to tell the curious crowds of Jesus Christ and His message. He does not ask anyone to accept his religious experiences; he merely gives his own interpretation of them, and popular curiosity and interest seem never to wane.
As a boy, Tilak was dissatisfied with the caste system and Hindu teaching and customs. He studied both Mohammedanism and Buddhism, but his Brahmin seclusion was so complete that he -did not once come in contact with Christianity, and never so much as heard of the Bible until later. He finally worked out for hiinself the principles of a new religion as follows: There is one God, a Person with a Father's Heart, and all men are His ~hildren. _ All Holy Books are creations of men. The world of nature is the only true -Scripture revealing God.
The essence of religion is a living faith in God and the treating of all men as brothers.
The evil to be fought supremely by the true religion is idolatry.
Later _Tilak received his first copy of the New rr:estament from an Englishman and in reading the Sermon on the Mount became convinced – that his search for truth had reached the Tig1b.~ goal. Thereupon he sought out a Christian convert,
through whom he learned more of Christ and the Gospel. After being baptized he began a career of Christian service.
Another exponent of the Sadhu method of evangelism is Sunder Singh, who has already been mentioned in the REVIEW. Hindus, Catholics and Protestants have all flocked to his services, and recently he has lead in a great revival in Ceylon. This experiment is most interesting and suggestive, as it is conforming to local traditions which the Apostle Paul approved. We have many things to learn from Orientals and in many respects our century-old customs may be improved.
THE NEW OUTLOOK IN ARABIA T HE victoi."y of the Allies over the Turks, the union of the Arabs with the British in the campaigns in Palestine and Mesopotamia, the establishment of the new kingdom of Hejaz and the excellent behaviour of the allied troops of Christian powers in their invasion of Moslem lands-all these point to more friendly relations between Arabs and the British, and give hope for new opportunities of Christian influence in Arabia. At the same time the Arabs have been exceedingly conservative, and have not yielded in their demand for political and religious control in Arabia. The great conflict is still between Jesus Christ, the son of God and Saviour of mankind, and Mohammed as the supreme prophet of God.
For many years the Arabian (Reformed Ohurch) Mission on the Persian Gulf, and the Scotch Mission in Aden have represented the Christian forces in Arabia; and they have stood their ground and even made some progress against tremendous odds. Dr. John Van Ess of Busrah describes the work in somewhat military terms as follows: " After many years of trench fighting, so to speak, which taught lessons of faith and prayer, the fighting has shifted to the open. Schools are cavalry, hospitals are artillery, evangelists are the infantry-each branch has its function and needs the others. In each center of activity all arms have been engaged, but in each, peculiar conditions have given special opportunities for one or another.
".A.ristocrati(', Kuweit, where live the' bluest of blue-blooded Arabs, in face and language very like the false prophet himself; fanatical Kuweit, where only a few short years ago four missionaries in turn and in short order were rudely expelled; Kuweit is wide open to the Gospel. On Sunday mornings the' church is so packed with Arabs, men and women, that men stand on boxes at the windows. Very recently a young man in direct line of descent from Mohammed confessed Jesus Christ and is being educated to preach Christ.
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
"In Ba;hrein the Gospel is making a deep salient in Moslem womanhood. If we breach the line there we can roll up the lines of countless children yet to be born and make them prisoners of hope. Last year Dr Harrison on personal invitation from the Emir went inland and for twenty-five days preached with lancet and medicine and Scripture and tongue the riches of Christ. In Nejd is a college of three hundred Moslem students being trained to go as missionaries and teachers of Islam to all the tribes. In Nejd Islam in all its self-conceived purity and naked fanaticism is held and practiced. Only the. Reformed Church in America has been honored by God to enter Nejd.
"At Maskat, the key to Oman, the people have been torn by dissension and warfare, but at heart they are sociable and approachable as never before the war. To reach the Woman's Hospital scores have run the blockade that cuts off Maskat from the interior. Shall we be as eager to reach the interior as they are to reach usf What great contribution will the Arab make to the body of Christy God asks us to answer."
THE REVOLUTION AMONG CHILDREN OF ASIA WE HAVE all heard much of the revolutionary movements in Turkey that overthrew the old Sultan; of the upheaval in Persia that promised a new order of things before the war; of revolutions in Al'abia and the establishment of the Kingdom of Hejaz; of uprisings in India in the effort to secure self-government; of the revolutions and counter-revolutions in China with the abolition of the old order, politically and educationally; of the reforms and progressive steps in Japan and Korea. All Asia and Africa as well as Europe are in upheaval, and a new order, for better or for w()r~,e, is taking place of the old.
But the most significant and far-reaching revolution in Asia receives little attention-it is the revolution that is taking place in the life and education of the children. Miss Florence E. Reynolds, of Amoy, tells us what this means to the youth of China.. The men and women of tomorrow are being trained in different ways, with very different ideals as to government, home life, business, morals, education and religion than were those of two generations ago. Then, boys were educated, if at all, only in the classics, reciting page after page of what were to them meaningless words. Girls were not con~ sidered worth educating except in sewing, cooking and proper conduct. In Moslem lands boys were taught the Koran and girls were left in ignorance. Throughout Asia there were many excellent principles instilled into children, relating to respect for parents and the aged, but ideas of God were, and still are among the non- Christians, vague or crude; personal purity for men and boys was
not expected; laws of custom were more strongly urged than the laws of God j and education in athletics, recreation and the use of leisure time was almost entirely neglected.
With the coming of the kindergarten, the Y. M. C. A., Boy Scouts, Y. W. C. A. and Western ideas of education, a veritable revolution has taken place in the lives and thoughts of the children who have been brought under thes,e inflnences. Miss Reynolds says, for instance, that the opening of a kindergarten in Amoy revolutionized the child life of the city, and the movement has extended to the other towns and cities. It is now very widely used in Japan. The children are taught to play, to sing, are trained in the art of self-expression; are taught simple fundamental truths about God and nature, themselves and their comrades. Later, by this new education, they learn to read their own and other languages i they discover that the world is large and that theirs is not the only important country; they study history and science, mathematics, literature and religion in such a way as to prepare them for larger and more useful lives. Parents gaze in wonder at the progress their children are making and learn many things from them. Christian ideals and truth are entering into the thoughts and lives of the people of Asia through the children, and they in turn will revolutionize the habits and histories of the lands in which they live. Now is the time to mold the plastic clay.
THE RISE OF LIBERTY CHURCHES O NE great result of the war on Christian work in the home- land seems to be the adaptation of the church program to new conditions in the large industrial centers that have suddenly grown up in districts before almost uninhabited. Many of these new communities promise to be permanent, but rival churches, as such, have not had an opportunity to become established in them. It is against the spirit of the age to countenance such rivalry or overlapping, and the question arises: shall there be denominational activity, a non-church welfare work or a union church organization ~ One answer to the question is found in the so-called "Liberty Church, " the first of which is to b~ established at Nitro, West Virginia. The denominational affiliations of its members will be recognized in separate rolls, and there will be a head pastor with a staff of assistants. Fifty-five centers have been surveyed and plans made for establishing churches similar to the one at Nitro. The exp~riment has important possibilities and the successor failure of these experiments will have much to do in detertnining the: progress of movements toward closer cooperation and church unity; " . ~.
STUDY OF THE WORLD'S
Students of mission problems, both at home and abroad, recognize, as the first great need, a knowledge of the facts. How can the gospel be preached adequately to the American Indians unless we know where and under what conditions the Indians are living and what Christian agencies are at work among the various tribes f In the same way the Mormons mnst be stndied to discover why they need Christian missionaries and what centers in Mormondom are over supplied or under manned. Industrial centers and communities 'of foreign born peoples must not be left to one denomination that may be unable to supply the need, nor must a score of sects enter one promising field regardless of the strategy in such a program. Independent and unrelated mission work have caused much friction, large waste and disastrous misunderstanding. The home fields should be studied unitedly by inter-Church commissions, and findings reported: as the number of stations needed, the kind of activity that will prove most effective and the denomination that is the logical organization to undertake the work.
In studying the needs iu foreign lands, the need for a similar systematic and comprehensive survey is seen, but on a much larger scale. Certain fields in South Africa, for instance, are overcrowded with missions, while whole areas of Christless lands are left untouched. Every land and every mission agency call for reinforcements and larger outlays. Who is to judge whether such outlays of men and money are justified? Shall one denomic nation make a drive for men and money, survey the field alone and undertake the work as though that denomination alone represents the Church of Christ?
The time has surely come to make a united study of the world field with reference to the degree of moral and spiritual destitution, the Christian agencies at work, the type of service most needed and the way in which the needs of each field can best be supplied. For example-there is Rnssia, a great land of 180,- 000,000 people. What do they need T It is a question for the united study and response of the Christian Church. There is thfl Moslem world opening up to Christian influence. The missionary problems presented are quite as important as those discussed at the Paris Peace Conference. There a~e Tibet and Afghanistanclosed to Christianity. Shall they remain closed or inay they be entered Y There is the problem of Central Africa, and un- 167
touched interior South America; the mass movements in India and the educational problems of China. Now is the time for an adequate and united study of the fields and the forces to till them.
In this number of the REVIEW we publish a valuable article by Dr. Ralph Welles Keeler. It shows by map and chart and photopraphs how one denomination has studied the home mission fields in a way that the churches unitedly should study all the fields. Let us cooperate in study, in prayer, in mobilizing forces and in supplying the need.
PROTESTANT PROGRESS IN ITALY.
M ANY have rejoiced in the days of war at signs of the "bury- ing the hatchet" by Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. Others have feared lest the large influence of the Catholics in Governmental circles, the appointment of a great percentage of Roman Catholic chaplains, the activities of the Knights of Columbus and the "denaturing" of much of the Protestant Christian activity in war work, might unduly increase the prestige and following of the Catholic Church in America and England. That question is not in itself important. The only question of moment is: how may the supremacy of Jesus Christ be maintained 7 In Italy the Roman Catholic authorities are disturbed at the growth of Protestant Christianity. The Catholic journal America says of the progress there: "Protestantism is growing and indifference is alarmingly on the increase. In 1862 there were 32,975 Protestants of various sects in Italy, in 1901 there were 65,595, in 1911 the number had grown to 123,253, which means that in ten years it had almost doubled. The writer believes that the official registration of Protest::tnts would be still greater were it not that human respect prevented certain Italians from publicly proclaiming their apostasy. Figures show, however, that the Protestant propaganda is more successful in depriving Italians of all religions belief than in converting them to heresy. In 1901 there were in all Italy only 36,- 092 persons who professed to have no religious affiliations; ten years later the number of those who were without faith was not less than 874,532. If to this number be added the 653,404 persons who in 1911 refused to make any statement as to their attitude toward religion, we find that at that date these two categories embraced about 5 per cent of the entire population, and that in ten years they had almost doubled."
Not many years ago a Methodist minister ventured to prophesy that it Protestant missions in Italy were vigorously supported, the near future would witness a separation of· the Italian people from the Pope, unparalled since the days of Luther in Germany. Agam
EDITORIAL COMMENT
let it be remembered that separation from selfish materialism and sin is the important thing to strive for, and that the bringing of men to God through Christ is of vastly greater importance than bring- ing them into any particular ohurch.
BOLSHEVISM AND THE RUSSIAN CHURCH R USSIA, the land of chaos, is perhaps most paradoxical in the effect of Bolshevism upon the Church. Where the rule of the Reds has in every other instance meant destruction, the suffering and material loss which the Church has been experiencing may be her salvation and emancipation. While Bolshevism is preaching atheism and practicing anarchy, the vital factors in the Church have been strengthened, new leaders are coming to the front, new character is being formed.
The decree of the Bolsheviki abolishing Sunday was perhaps compounded of Jewish prejudice and a Jacobin desire to imitate the madness of the French Revolution. This was accompanied by a pronouncement forbidding weddings or funerals to be held in any of thechnrches. Since the decree was put forth that lessons in atheism shall be given in the schools, religious instruction is forbidden. According to a writer in The New Europe there are signs that the Boisheviki episode is clearly incidental and superficial in Russian history. In Moscow, a procession of protest was organized, and was participated in by 600,000 persons, rich and poor, educated and uneducated. All this suffering will be worth while if the Russian Church is regenerated and girds herself for new tasks in new spiritual power.
WHAT IS THE HOPE OF ISRAEL1 O UT of the darkness that has overshadowed the Jewish people for oonturies there shine ever and anon rays of light and hope. The dark days that followed the Babylonian Captivity and the· Roman oppression were illumined by the coming of Christ to His people in Palestine. But there was no brightness of political freedom on the horizon and the Jews as a nation shut their eyes to the light. Then came the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, followed by long ages of darkness and persecution. The Jew has been an outcast in Europe and only here and there have individ- .. uals arisen who have attained social and political prestige.
From poverty and depress~on the Jews have sought to free themselves by the golden key of material prosperity. Millions have lost faith in the religion of their fathers and have put their hope in the god of this world. To millions of ..Tews from Russia, Poland and Hungary, America has become the "Pro:tn-
ised Land" wher:e they have found new life. But within the last twenty-five years the spirit of Jewish nationalism has revived, and with the release of Palestine from Turkish misrule, hundreds of thousands of Israelites have turned their thoughts again toward the land of Abraham and have fixed their hope on political and national independence.
Israel is, however, divided. The prosperous members of the race have no wish to leave the material comforts that they have struggled to win in ~>merica, for the rigors and hardships of pioneer life in Palestine. Others see no ground for hope for political independence in view of the jealousy of European nations. Israel is seeking liberty and the fulfilment of national aspirations without reference to their Messiah. Their attitude toward Christians and toward Christian ideals may have changed, but they still reject Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah. The Jew is more liberal because he is less religious; he is more ready to .hear and speak well of Christ because h~ believes less in any divine Christ. Nationalism and materialism are taking'the place of religion, and those who abandon Judaism for Christianity are still despised and persecuted by Jewish patriots, not because they are irreligious, but because they are deemed unpatriotic.
The Jewish history is clearly developing in line with prophecy but this does not mean that the Hope of Israel will be realized through the fulfilment of purely material aspirations. The league of British Jews, of which Major de Rothschild is President, even sees danger ahead for Israel in the materialistic movement. The more political power Jews obtain the more other nations will oppose them. The only "Hope of Israel" is not in the establishment of a national Jewish state or in material prosperity, but in the aceeptance of Jesus Christ as their Messiah.
WORLD PROHIBITION AND WORLD PEACE I NTERNATIONAL peace will be largely dependent upon in- ternational sobriety, and in the Conference of the Anti-Saloon League of America held at Columbus, Ohio, November 19-22, the conviction was repeatedly emphasized that in the corning peace settlements, some account must be taken of the liquor traffic and its effect upon the civilization of the future. It was evident at the Conference that national prohibition in the United States is only to be regarded as a step toward world-wide temperance.
A forth-coming number of the REVIEW is to be devoted to World Wide Temperance, and will be a verital:>le. handbook of facts on present conditions, prqgress and forces in respect to the traffic in intoxicants.
POPULATION BY
Making America Safe for the World The Challenge of The Methodist Home Mission Program BY RALPH WELLES KEELER, D. D. Publicity Secretary of Home Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church · HE challenge to make the democracy of America safe for the T. world is being taken up in no uncertain manner by the Metho- dist Episcopal Church in its Centenary Program. This great denomination of 4,000,000 members is celebrating the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of Methodist Missions with a campaign for $80,000,000 for new endeavors in the strengthening and enlarging of its mission work at home and abroad.
No mere dreamers have brought this great venture into being, but men of vision, statesmen, prophets. Throughout the length and breadth of the land they are carrying a message which furnishes such concrete information concerning need, opportunity and obligation as will base the giving of the $40,000,000 essential to the program's .success in the United States upon intelligent consecration of time, effort and money. . To . survey the field so as to dis,cover the responsibility of the Metho~ist Episcopal Ohurch in the United States has been no lloliday task. It has involved the time and thought of both the l,eap..ers~ndmembers of the Church in a most unusual but profit- ~le,~ffort,. In its scope. it has. included not only the states, but ~!~ P~~,to ~~co, Ha'Vaii and Alaska. lnten~ivelY.it ;has" ..C()~k 171
cerned itself with the religious problems of every community in the country. From the multitude of opportunities which have been discovered it has set as its goal the accomplishing of such non-competitive tasks as it will be able to do with the expenditure of nearly $22,000 a day or $8,000,000 a year for a period of five years. When it is recalled that the greatest annual inflome available for the Board of Home Missions and Chl.rch Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church was the amount received last year, $2,001,163.99, the advance to be made of three hundred per cent is considerable.
Figures lack reality to most people. To those of imagination, however, there is romance and adventulle in the statement that this Home Mission program includes 2,506 new buildings for the modern ministry of the church, either in new fields or for more adequate equipment in fields already occupied. This does not take account of the 1,035 remodelings proposed, nor of the 1,188 parsonages to be built, nor the 43 special buildings to be erected. The impetus given to community religious life by these additions to the Christian forces of our land is incalculable. While buildings of stone and wood alone never will bring about the results desired they are nevertheless needed. Christian democracy is not a force that develops unaided. Based on ideas and ideals that are fundamental to the best human relati(:)llships, it needs power plants froni which its spirit may be sent forth into the lives of individuals. This great service of collaboration in the nation's trend toward life's best is rendered for the most part by the Christian Church. And the multiplying of local Christian democracy power plants will perceptibly quicken this trend.
It is not the purpose to build churches without providing for an adequate ministry. While it expects to invest $28,771,845 in the material equipment mentioned, it expects also to invest $11,265,565 in human personalities, fired by the spirit of Jesus Christ, to carryon the adventure toward the Kingdom for which the church buildings will serve as bases of supply. There are 1,344 home missionary ministers to _be supported,. men who are serving in those hard fields which have supplied the romance of home m.:issions since the days of the sod church and the prairie schooner. They a:oo not all on the old frontier, however. Many of them are on th~ new frontier of the crowded city, or in the new industrial community, in the unfavorable agricultural sections, or among the Mexicans of the Southwest or tIle Highlanders of the South. Then there are 2,220 more ministers who are toiling in charges which will become self supporting in five years if adequate provision is made for the support of the right kind of a man. Two hundred and fifty "language pastors" are to be trained~ men who will qualify as first class English-speaking min-
MAKING AMERICA SAFE FOR THE WORLD
TOWNSHIP MAP STAT~ Of OHIO _ represents Townshlpt In whlc.h the,.. Is no Church that hIS a Resi· dent Minl.ter.
THE UNOCCUPIED FIELDS IN ONE STATE isters, and in addition be competent to minister ably among adult immigrants.
Recognition is also given in a large way to the modern demands for a religious education as thorough-going as the teaching 'of the public schools, in the provisions for the training of 250 Directors of Religious Education. Of women workers there will be 486, women trained for the new day of the ministry of the community and institutional church, and 131 deaconesses. Forty-six superintendents will be supported; district missionary aid will be provided in 155 instances. Forty-one district evangelists will be put into the field and 115 other workers will be supported. What a program of maintenance! Will those who question the interest of the Ohristian Ohurch in the pressing needs of today take no-
tice T They have helped to frame the challenge. The meanSM answer it are being shaped before them.
Cooperation with other denominations in non-sectarian educational work characterizes the program for Porto Rico and Hawaii, where already comity plans are in operation which prevent waste of money and men. The great rural sections of Porto Rico arc to have more churches and chapels, a greater number of native workers are to be trained and appointed, and speciat attention is to be given both in the schools and churches to developing ANOTHER FOREIGN MISSION PROBLEM AT HOME Some Q£ the Mohammedan Children in Johnstown, Pe n nsyl vania the highest type of American citizenship. In Hawaii the Christianizing process is to be augmented by developing Japanese, Korean and Filipino pastors, trained to conduct services in English. A minimum salary of $900 a .year for married pastors is to be established! Many a preacher in the United States whose salary has been $600 or even less, will note with a feeling of joy tbat somewhere under the stars and stripes such a step is being taken. The Oriental birthrate, especially among the .Japanese and Filipinos, is rapidly increasing. Fourteen thousand American-born Japanese children attend the thirty-five Buddhist schools provided
AMERICA SAFE FOR THE WORLD
NEGRO EXOQUS TO THE NORTH CANADA TEX.
WHY THERE IS A NEW NEGRO PROBLEM IN AMERICA for them each day before and after the regular hours of public ,;chool. It is a. challenge to Christianity as to which type of democracy will prevail here, and therefore the Sunday-school is to reoeive special attention.
THE INDIANS AND THE NEGROES The American Indians number 350,000, of whom forty per cent are Christians, and only twenty per cent are Protestants. To these are to be sent more resident missionari€:s speaking an Indian language. Native Indian preachers are to be trained. More Sunday-schools are to be established. Women workers will teach
TheUnreached Colored Task PHILADELPHIA COLORED WORK The Task 76,500 in sanitation and domestic science, and bring the message of the Christ to the women and children on the reservations. And-another place for a "Hallelujah! "-greater cooperation with other denominations is proposed.
Two thousand one hundred and seventy-two ministers, 348,477 church members and probationers, and 234,647 Sunday-school pupils, officers and teachers among the Negro population of the United States are in the Methodist Episcopal churches. Yet lamentable conditions exist among the churches in the South. But a better day is in sight. A paragraph in the new policy. proposed:- "A better trained ministry. Church buildings adapted to community service. Typical community centers in agricultural centers. Model parsonages as demonstrations of home life. Organized movements for educating pastors and church officials in modern church work."
There is some force in that program. Yes, and another occasion for rejoicing: "Cooperation with other denominations in surveys and plans of work."
In the North where some 1,045,550 Negroes have swarmed into the cities, more churches are to be built, and the 150 already in use will be enlarged. Able men are to be put into pulpits where lack is shown in guiding newcomers in the readjustment of their lives. Community centers for lectures and recreation are to be established. Temporary quarters will be proviq.ed for Negro girls and women just entering the city, and domestic science courses organized for those who were plantation laborers in the South.
Alaska has never received the attention from the Methodist Episcopal Church which it deserves. Now, more missionaries are
MAKING AMERICA SAFE FOR THE WORLD
to be sent there and a general missionary appointed to superintend the field. The Highlanders of the South also are to receive such aid as will make possible local trained workers, adequate pastoral support, improved Sunday-schools, and modern buildings adapted to community service. , In this field there is to be cooperation with other denominations and with the state, in order that improved living conditions may be speedily brought about.
Mormonism has never been met squarely. Greater efforts are now to be made in reaching the young people in the colleges and universities, as well as the strengthening of the ministry and equipping the field with adequate and suitable buildings.
THE COLORED MIGRATION PROBLEM IN ONE CITY A Religious Tent Meeting for : Netroes from Southern States, Philadelphia, Pa.
Most of the 80,000 .Chinese and the 100,000 Japanese in the United States live in the far west. The Chinese are to be sought out in the population centers, day schools provided for their children and traveling missionaries are to minister to them in the scattered rural communities~ Elementary day schools will be provided for the Japanese, and aid will be given to re-establish a Christian Japanese press to counteract the influence of the strong Buddhistically inclined Japanese daily papers of the ' Pao cific Coast. Here, as in Hawaii, the Sunday-school is au import- ant factor, while single men are to be provided with dorinitories in an attempt to solve the lodging-house problem.
Who shall speak adequately of the plans of him whom we spoke of as the "foreigner" until he mingled his blood with ours in the trenches 1 Whether he be Italian or Slav, Pole or Lithuan- ian, Magyar or Jew, he is with us in overwhelming numbers. And
our task is to Christianize each man, his wife and his children, keep- ing the best of the characteristics brought as a heritage and im- parting the best of American ideals. Only where absolutely nec- essary will the foreign-speaking church be continued. In its place will be developed the church which ministers chiefly in Eng- lish, with language pas'tors who can minister to th.ose adults to whom English will always be an alien tongue. The ministry of these two types of churches will be through a program of wor- ship, a program of religious education and a program of social upllit. .
WHICH CHURCHES MUST UNITEDLY SOLVE THE CITY PROBLEM Among the 1,500,000 Spanish-Americans of the Southwest and the other peoples who are classified as Latin-Americans, the ministry of the church must be in the language of the people. But a better type of native ministry is to be trained, capable women workers are to be provided. Better facilities in buildings, location and equipment are to be furnished.
Special attention is to be given to the downtown, transient,polyglot masses of our cities. In these tenement or lodging-house neighborhoods the slogan of the Centenary Home Mission Program is: "Not more churches, but better ones. The uniting of small
MAKING AMERICA SAFE FOR THE WORLD
and dying .churches in downtown districts into strong central plants adequate to meet the city 's challenge." This contemplates the building pf new, well-equippe,d churches with facilities for religious education, lectures, classes, clubs, and general recreation, and the remodelling of family churches to conform to the new program. With dormitories. clinics and day nurseries, social parlors and commumty laundries for working girls, and a staff of special workers, these churches will soon become centers for Americanization and training in citizenship as well as the place to which people will come to have their hopes and aspirations l!>haped in harmony with the purpose of Him who came to estab- AN ATTE MPT TO SOLVE ONE F ORE IGN BORN PROBLJ<:M Meeting of a Russian Forum in the " Church of All Nations," New York lish a Kingdom which should be democratic beyond any dream which the race has yet seen come true.
The initiating of a program of evangelization, religious education and social uplift is the first move to be made in Englishspeaking and polyglot industrial oommunit,ies. This will be accomplished by building community churches and enlarging those already built, so that the church may fulfill both social and religious functions, besides providing vocational training, day nurseries and gymnasiums. Parish houses will be added to the old family churches and in all cases a personnel consisting of the modern type of social service expert who combines specialized training in social work with the religious spirit will be employed.
The new city program for Methodism in a word is: A grE'~.+
Photo of Tuberculosis Chart Conditions in the Plaza and Vicinity From theT. 8. Association 7A% of the Children born in 1.0.
Anfe1e. last year were Mesiean.
126 % ofthe Chilclreft who clied in Lo. Anfele. lut year were Mexicaft.
Of the Veftenal DiNa_, treated at the Venereal Clinic. 20". are Mexi..- cans Study of District Near· Plaza Character of thePopuiatioll Mexicans Italians Others SIAl SOr. .l8"~ Percent of Deaths from Tuberculosia In City 17,% In Di.trlct Studied S911.
Causes of Death in District IS1. Tubet'culo.iI Infant DiNa_. StillbirthPneumollia Othen of DifeRive Tnct HOW ONE CHURCH IN LOS ANGELES STUDIED TH~ CITY PROBLEM central downtown church, planned in equipment and staff on the broadest and strongest lines, with a preacher of the rarest ability to bring a message to the hurry-ing life of the city, with him a neighborhood evangelist and a director of religious education. This central church should be the headquarters of the denomination and should have under its supervision the weaker churches needed in their immediate locality. Community features and neighborhood features would characterize such a church, and the task of scientific rescue work would receive attention. One great aim is to keep the members of the suburban churches interested in the churches in the city where they used to worship and where now they earn their livelihood.
While the city, "where cross the crowded ways of life," is beginning to be recognized as the new frontier, the old frontier of plain and prairie is not extinct. True, the pioneers kept on to
MAKING AMERICA SAFE FOR THE WORLD
PROJECTING THE MEXICAN PROBLEM INTO THE HOME MISSION FIELDS the Pacmo Coast, but they left much land uninhabited along the way. Twelve States, with an area of 1,259,977 square miles and a population of only 6,458,417, approximately five people to a square mile, is the frontier as defined by the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Newness, movement and uncertainty mark this field. The population is constantly changing. Here the church at large is obliged to invest largely at the beginning. Community churches must be built for the miners. The single men of migratory habits who make up the population of the stockraising oountry must have virile traveling missionaries. In the lumber camps must be sent men who can meet the n~eds of men herded together in unsanitary bunkhouses, without home ties or religious life. More and better churches for more populous communiiues, especially in the irrigation and dry-farming sections, are demanded. .And above all there must be preachers of such high caliber as will command folks of such enterprising character as to leave the established communities of the land to strike out into unbroken country for a new try at life's opportunities.
Rural life betterment is the theme of many an essayist and public speaker today. The rural church is also coming in for a greater amoupt of attention. Following the little groups of
pioneers westward across the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains, and finally to the coast, the Ohristian Ohurch has pitched its tent in almost every place where a handful of settlers have made a clearing and built th'emselves homes. Eighty-seven per cent of the Methodist churches are in rural communities of 2,500 inhabitants or less. These . communities include coal mining sections of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and the West, the iron mines of the South and North; the copper mines of Michigan; the oil fields of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas; the coke· villages and many other types of small industrial villages; fishing hamlets and lumber camps. For these there is plann~d a better trained ministry and such help in church building as will .make the church the center of community life and influence.
Here is a home missionary program worthy a great denomination celebrating its Oentenary of Missions. And it is one demanded by the times. Through it all is shot the preparation for an evangelism which knows forgiveness for sin, and service for others, that appeals to men of every tongue and manner of thinking, that provides for the taking of the Message by word of mouth and by printed page. It is a home mission program so formulated as to enable the Ohurch to do its share of making .America Ohristian in a manner adequate. When the Ohurch teaches the principles ofOhristian democracy so that the common spiritual needs of every citizen are met in Jesus Ohrist, we may send forth the news to all the earth that American democracy is the answer to their cry for national foundations which will not only endure, but make better the nation from year to year.
AN EASTERN TOWN WH ER E THERE ARE NO CHURCHES Bagga;ley;. PeIlosylvania. showing the homes of coke workers. This village has a playground for,· the children and the houses are homelike and comfortable, but -there aTe no Protestant churches ' BY REV. CHARLES R. WATSON, D. D., PHILADELPHIA, PA.
President of Cairo University, Egypt.
O UR greatest gains from the past four and a half years of war may lie in certain new life conceptions, of whose signifi- cance and power we now have little appreciation; and our greatest losses may ultimately appear clearly traceable to certain tragic tendencies, of which we now speak lightly, and of whose damaging power we are unconscious.
SOME MISSIONARY LOSSES These are varied in character and too real to be belittled. 1. Inc1"eased Burdens of Missionary Administration. His would be a short memory who would forget the inconveniences, the anxieties and the tragic sufferings which belonged to the earliest days of the war, due to the stoppage of all money trans- missions to the mission fields and the devious methods that had to be adopted in order to overcome these difficulties. The limi- tations, and in some cases the total disappearance of all passen- ger transportation to the mission fields, called for repeated re- arrangement of routes of travel and dates of sailing. More ser- ious still was the complete stoppage of freight transportation, leaving certain missions, such as those in Africa, without re- sources which were essential, not merely to work, but t.o life itself. Nor is it difficult to recall the endless negotiations for passports and for special permits to enter mission fields. Then came the stoppage of the use of all cable codes and delays in cable messages. The loss of mails through submarine attacks led to duplicate and triplicate copies being required of import- ant letters. With the entrance of America into. the war came the trying problems of military exemptions and the increase in rates of exchange, which generally produced deficits in miilsionary treasuries. 2. Interruption of Missionary Work in Many Fields. The most conspicuous sufferer among American agencies has been perhaps the American Board, whose work in Balkan and Turkish territory was so extensive. But other mission boards also found their work caught in the maelstrom of the war, as the Northern Presbyterians in Syria, the Methodists in North Africa, the Re- formed Church in the Pereian Gulf, the Presbyterians in Persia an~ in West Africa. Who can estimate the spiritual harvests .that are forever lost, either because the seed was not sown during ", • Selections froin an address at the Foreign Missions Conference, New Haven.
183 these difficult years, or because the ripening grain could not be gathered by reason of disturbed conditions. Of over 150 mission- aries of the American Board in Asia Minor, some 50 remained in the country throughout the war. But the period of the war marked more than the suspension of two-thirds of that noble work, for during this period fully one-half of the Armenian race in the Ottoman Empire perished, and over two million Moslems died through famine and disease, brought upon them by their own mad rulers.
3. Heavy Burdens Borne by Missionaries. There was the burden due to the high cost of living. In Egypt, coal, ordinarily $10 a ton, rose to $70 a ton. In Japan, flour of the poorest quali- ties commanded $12 a barrel. On the Pacific, freight rates in- creased 300 per cent and even 400 per cent. In all mission fields, servants (an economy, not a luxury, of the missionary's life) became hard to keep and harder yet to get. As one missionary remarked,-" I have not been able to do one piece of really con- structive work in a year, simply because I cannot get servants.
I am just about reduced t'? an errand boy, and we cannot help it. " '
To the high cost of living was added the high cost of mis- sionary operations, usually with a budget which allowed no mar- gin for such increased cost. Missionaries have carried enor· mous cares because of native workers leaving the missionary service, not through love of money, but simply because the high- er cost of living made it necess'ary for them to seek employment where a living wage was offered. Building operations became difficult and even impossible.
The missionary also experienced no slight hardship because of the difficulties of travel to the home land. Missionaries in the Near East, for example, were no longer permitted to come by way of the Mediterranean, but had to take the long route, three quarters of the way around the earth via the Pacific, to reach the home land. Added to this were strain and anxiety due to perils of submarines. But because of the increased cost and the longer journeys necessary to reach the home-land, many missionaries remained longer at their posts, imposing thus undue strain upon their physical and nervous resources.
In many instances, also, the war added directly to the bur- dens of the missionaries by setting before them opportunities for war service. In many mission fields the presence of allied armies and the vision of the choice youth of these lands going to moral destruction because of their heathen environment, con- stituted so strong an appeal that missionaries gave themselves with abandonment to the service of such troops. In other fields devastated by the war, as in Persia,· Syria and Armenia, great relief mov/jments swung upon the hinges of the life and service of the foreign missionary.
4. Total Elimination of German Missions. We recall the emphasis placed by the great Edinburgh Conference on the unity of the missionary enterprise and we remember also the sessions in which representatives of the German missionary movement set forth before us the distinctive contribution which German missions might make to the world's foreign missionary movement. It develops, therefore, a sense of tragedy to see the elimination of the greater part of the work of 21 different German missionary societies, whose field activities were in the main brought to an end by this war. The activities of over 900 men missionaries and some 350 unmarried women missionaries, approximately 1250 workers in all, were suddenly brought to an end. The stream of German missionary giving, approximating one and one half million dollars a year was thus checked, and a great host of baptized native Christians, over 385,000, not counting hundreds of thousands of adherents, were either left unshepherded or given only that inadequate care which the generosity of adjoining allied missions might contribute.
5. Moral 9dium of War in Non-Christian Eyes. In the opening days of the war Japanese Christians and missionaries testified that the war had made it more difficult to commend the gospel of Jesus Christ in Japan, because in that country the national aspects of any religion bulk large and Christianity had seemingly failed in its national aspects. Dr. Barton has reported how a Mohammedan, preaching 20 days after the war broke out, in the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constan,tinople, congratulated his Mohammedan hearers that 20 millions of Christians in Europe were cutting each other's throats, and he prayed that their number might increase. He said, "That is Christian civilization," and added, "We spit in the face of such civilization."
Such was the moral odium attaching to the war in places removed from the scene of action. But more serious was the moral odium in the lives of those who were brought into the midst of the conflict. There is a touch of pathos in the reply made by a group of Malagasies-members of the French Mission in Madagascar, who came over in labor battalions to France-as they responded to an address of welcome given to them on the occasion of their visit to Paris, "Ten months have we been in France and we have seen no Protestant Church nor met a Christian church member."
6. The Weakening of the Sense of Christianity's Distinctive Character and Value. Has not the war led us to deal with certain elemental qualities of human nature in respect to which Christianity has seemed to have no distinctive contribution to make 7 Have not the splendid fighting qualities of many non- Christian and almost savage fighting units somehow unconsciously created the impression upon many that the great fundamental qualities of courage, devotion and sacrifice are not exclusively nor even distinctively the fruitage of Christianity'
SOME GAINS DUE TO THE WAR But if our losses have been serious, we believe that our gains have been greater. It was expected that the war would result in the reduction of the financial resources of the Mission Boards. Quite the opposite proved to be the actual experience, and the record of contributions to Foreign Missions from the United States runs, in round numbers, as follows: For 1915, $16,000,000; for 1916, $17,000,000; for 1917, $19,- 000,000; for 1918,· $20,700,000.
It is also probably safe to say that in nine-tenths of the mission fields, foreign missionary work not merely continued, but found itself with increased opportunity for service and a deepened interest in the message of Christianity to non-Christian life. Again, where some have deplored the lack of foreign workers by their withdrawal owing to war conditions, others have been able to point out that the very withdrawal of these foreign workers has proved an unexpected blessing for the work in the development of native leaders, and in placing upon them responsibilities which either the foreign worker had been reluctant to share with them, or the native worker had been loath to assume. With reference to the lapse of German missionary activities, the sense of loss can be slightly diminished by observing the different ways in which these activities have been either continued or their results conserved by others.
Then as to the moral odium, which is supposed to attach to the breaking out of war between nominally Christian nations. As we look back we find that where~s in the early days of the war the minds of Christian men were disturbed by the thought of war, as the weeks passed and they recognized the enormous moral issues that were involved in the great struggle, it became a very· general experience that Christian men did not feel so much that participation in the war was a contradiction to Christianity, as that it was Christianity itself functioning through the service of the Christian soldier in the only way in which Christianity could function when it stood in the presence of an on-rushing, physical force which had loaned itself to the support of evil principles.
1. New Political Situations. We will do well to speak modestly and with reserve as to future political situations, but, perchance, the following points may be set forth as altogether probable, and if realized they will constitute missionary gains.
(1). As we recall the rivers of blood that have been run- ning, the sorrowful and steadily decimated processions of Armenian exiles, then, as we recall that the brutalities, the mas- sacres, the robberies, the travesti~s of justice which have marked this war period, are only the fruitage of a tree that has borne none other than evil fruit in all its history, the overthrow of Turkish rule and power which results from this war, must be regarded as a gain, not merely to missions, but to humanity, a gain whose importance no human words can describe.
(2). The War has also produced a rapprochement between the French people and the Anglo-Saxon race, between France and both Great Britain and America. The missionary s[gnifi- cance of such friendship may be appreciated when WI!' re- member that across the years, American and Anglo-Saxon missionary efforts generally have been excluded from French Colonies, and French Colonies represent the major portion of the unoccupied mission field of the world. This spirit of international friendliness will call for very wise cultivation, but the war has given it an historical foundation, upon which we may build much of missionary opportunity and liberty, providing we build wisely.
(3). We must also name the new emphasis laid upon na- tional trusteeship for Colonies and subject races. 'l'he new emphasis laid upon this conception amounts almost to the formulating of a new conception of colonial policy which will aim, not at the exploitation of subject races, but at their development. This is none other than the missionary prin- ciple applied to national and political life. In proportion as this conception dominates colonial policies, it will become possible for the missionary, whether as doctor, ed'lcator, preaC'lier or social roformer, to be a fellow-worker with the political unthorihes in the development of subject races. 2. The Spirit of Unity. The war has advanced the unification of the world along physical and material lines by developing as never before, a means of communication which binds together peoples separated by either land or sea. Distance has been to a great extent annihilated. The wireless promises to become a commercialconvenience by the elimination of the disturbing element called static. 'rhe development of aeroplanes, resulting in quite ordinary and commonplace journeys from England to the Continent,and more startling journeys as from Egypt to India, is full of sigitificance for the future, especially in opening up such inac:- Cessible sections of the world as are found in Africa. The war has also emphasized unity for the human race. It has gone far toward removing those national barriers and that national aloofness which were so great a hindrance to the missionary spirit. This war has carried America overseas and never again will America be satisfied with a purely American horizon. It is easy now to talk about our missionary obligations to the most distant parts of the earth, because the nation as a whole has accepted the principle of world relationships and world obligations. If the war has made this rich contribution to the- life of the United States, its contribution along this same line to the nations of Europe and particularly to the non-Christian peoples of Africa and Asia, must not be belittled.
The sense of unity has also penetrated the religious· and ecclesiastical life of our country. Incidents that are numerous and deeply touching tell how religious and sectarian differences became so reduced that Jew ministered to Roman Catholic, and Roman Catholic to Protestant and Protestant to both, each finding in the other much of common ground in a consciousness of God's presence, a sense of dependence upon Him, a recognition of His nearness in the midst of danger and death, and a common loyalty to ideals of unselfishness, moral character and sacrifice.
The effect of this process of unification has been enormom; upon the thought life of the country, and when the longer roads between these widely differing religious positions could be tra- ",ersed, it has not bee.n unthinkable that the infinitely shorter distances between Presbyterianism and Methodism, between Congregationalism and Anglicanism and all the rest of our Protestant divisions could be spanned by those who with lo'e and prayer, with forbearance and tact, will endeavor to find a way for the realization of Christian unity.
3. J.'ke Spirit of Service and of Sacrifice. The spirit of unselfish service became the law of common life. With the advent of the war, suddenly, as by magic, the law of unselfishness for which the missionary enterprise had so long borne witness, became the common practise of the world. Where once it was irritating to business circles to have philanthropic proposals leave the rather small worlds in which they have been given birth, and the brazen statement that "business is business" was supposed to set the· money earning powers of men free from all claims to generosity, the. war somehow changed all that. DoliJ.ar-a-y:ear appointment's became respootab!le, almost popular; corporations found it quite business-like to vote' contributions to the Red Cross and the Y. M. C. A.; firms readjusted the work of their staffs to set some major member and numerous minor members of the firm free for unremunerative war service,· while the rest "carried on", each man with a double load; Congress found it constitutiDnal to vote $100,000,000 to relief work; the public rallied to appeal after appeal for all the varied forms of war service, until an aggregate of a thousand million dollars is €stimated to have been freely contributed to such causes. Nor did men stop with money; life itself was poured out like water. The Allied dead number .over five milli.on of the cream of these nations; and this takes no reckoning of lives laid down in like spirit and often much more sacrificingly by those who belonged to civilian classes-whose measure of courage in carrying increased burdens, and of sacrifice in making cDnstant self denials, yielded to them also the crDwn of death. So, as some one has put it, we have come tD realize "the undreamed-of resources and splendor of even ordin~ry human nature, when touched by sacrifice into fire. And SD we have discovered, too, our own past mistake-the commDn mistake of the majority of modern Christians-that of asking of men, in Christ's Name, not too much but too little."
This spirit of service and of sacrifioo has made the missionary program, infinitely costly as it is, seem reasonable and poslijible as never before .the War.
There are other gains that suggest themselves as issuing from the great struggle: the new note of reality in all that concerns the word religion; the wider and deeper interpretation of the message of Christianity' to human life; the reliza- ,tion that Christianity must be applied to national and international life as well as to individual life. These and many other gains CDuid be mentioned, but those which have been reviewed suffice to establish the fact that our gains are greater than our IDsses and that the year 1919 marks a new year amDng the years .of modern histDry.
The deepest lessDn of .our survey .of the war period lies, however, not in regarding the crisis as past, nor in judging that we have reached the end .of the business and that the bDoks may be balanced and we may cDmfDrt ourselves with any slight excess of gains over losses. On the cDntrary, the real crisis lies ahead. Peace will bring more severe testing .of our national life, .of our civilizatiDn and of Christianity itself, than any days of war placed upon them. Highly as we may prize the purifying and challenging processes of the war, as E. A. Burroughs has so well said: "By al,I the laws and experiences of the higher life in the individual, we know that this better world will not come of itself. It will hav~ to be fought for. The kind of world that emerges after the war will depend on the extent to which God CDmes in to overrule the evil; and that, in turn, on the extent to which our faith releases His power."
Bible
By REV. SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, D. D. CAIRO, EGYPT CHRISTIANITY REVEALED IN THE GREAT COMMISSION "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying: "AU power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holv Ghost; teaching them to obsen'e all things whatsoever I ha'/}(! commanded you; and, 10, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." MATTHEW 28 :18-20 T HE four Gospels give the last command of Christ as the Magna Charta, the "marching orders," Divine program and . authority for the missionary task.
Mat. 28.18-20 – Why we are to go "All power is given unto Me" Mark 16 :15 – Luke 24 :47-49 – To whom to go "Every Creature"
The distinction John 20:21 – Order of going "Beginning at Jerusalem"
Spirit of messenger "As My Father hath sent Me"
In Matthew's account of the Apostolic Commission to the pioneers of the world-wide program-we have in germ the whole character of Christianity. It is to dominate the world because: 1. It is final and absolute. "All authority hath been given unto me in Heaven and on earth." Jesus Christ is·-The Only Saviour; The Perfect Saviour; The All-powerful Saviour. Son of Man-Son of God.
II. It is vital and aggressive. "Go Ye." They went. Apostles. Mediaeval Missions; Raymund Lull; Modern Missions; Wm. Carey, etc. III. It is universal. "Into all the World." Twelve men on a mountain in Galilee.
One century later – Jerusalem to Spain Five centuries later – conquered Europe iFourteen " " – crossed Atlantic Eighteen " " – belted globe Nineteen" " – occupied all lands Twenty " " – Christianizing all Nations IV. It is Trinitarian. "Baptizing into the name (One) 'of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," (three persons)-So it has been interpreted in the Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse and Church Councils. .'
V. It is Ethical. The precepts and example of Christ give the highest ideals, highest motives. ("Teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you.") VI. It is Triumphant. ("Lo, I am …"ith yon … ") AJI·~.
non-Christian religions mourn the abs.ence of their leaders. :a~d founders. But Christ lives, reigns and will return.
190
DEVE;LOPING NEW ERA LEADERS IN
. A Class in the Ed.ucational Deparbnent of the Young Men's Christian Association. Mexico City Working in Mexico Under Difficulties BY WALTER C. TAYLOR, MEXICO CITY Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Associatiou T HE past few years have been full of difficult experiences to the Young Men's Christian Association of Mexico City. With its building bombarded and nearly ruined in 1913, with so many changes in the government that a long period of continued occupation by one faction appeared to be an impossibility, and with the constant necessity of changing dues and room rents .to keep pace with the ever changing medium of exchange, the Assoc ciation like many business enterprises, had frequent causes for discouragement. But the workers have been the friends of all Mexicans and its supporters have remained loyal; so .that today it stands as a great example of international brotherhood and Christian unity in Mexico. Never before has it been so popular; never 191
before has it been supported so generously by the contributing public; never before have so many men enlisted in its ranks because of its moral and religious program.
A year ago, in the face of business conditions that seemed almost impossible, the Association raised $20,000 for new equip- ment and improviements. President Carranza, gave $2,000 (pesos), General Obregon contributed five hundred pesos, other government officials gave smaller amounts, and Spanish and Mexican business houses also contributed liberally. The budget for 1917 was over $75,000 (pesos). Many of the large business houses are assisting their employees in the payment of their dues, and Mexican business men as never before are making use of the Association's equipment.
Last February the Mexico City Association, cooperating with the churches, held what was probably the first "Father and Son Banquet" ever held in Mexico. One hundred and eighty-six fath- ers and sons were pres·ent. The guest of honor was Alberto J.
Pani, Minister of Commerce and Industry in President Carranza's cabinet. The principal address was made by Prof. Andres Osuna, at that tUne head of the department of Education for the Federal District, and more recently elected provisional governor of the State of Tamaulipas. The toasts, given by members of the boys' department, would have done credit to the brightest high school boys in the United States.- The following telegram, which was sent the next day by Mr. Paul to Dr. John R. Mott, indicates the impression which this occasion made: "1 was the guest last night of Y. M. C. A. at successful father and son banquet and congratulate you on splendid results of your noble work here, hoping that you will extend it more and more in my country and throughout the world for the advancement of the highest ideals which men of good will everywhere so earnestly desire. Accept kindest regards and sincere esteem from yours very sincerely, A. J. PANI."
The best people of Mexico, are manifesting a great interest in all efforts to uplift. the manhood of the country.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR MEXICANS One of the encouraging signs of the times in Mexico today is the interest in physical education. This is manifested in athletic clubs for the promotion of football, baseball and tennis, organized throughout the country. Educational leaders, like Professor Osuna and Professor Saenz, director of the Preparatory School, are prolltQting physical education in the schools with great energy and. efficiency. The physical director of the Y. M. C. A. has been appointed director of physical education in the PreparatCll'Y School, and many of the young men that have been trained in the Association are assisting him. At the annual physical exhibition given by the leaders' corps of the Association in the month of
WORKING IN MEXICO UNDER DIFFICULTIES
April, more than 1,000 people were present, and the event was giv·en more space in the daily papers the following morning than the European war. This leaders' corps, composed of eighteen of the finest young men to be found in the City of Mexico, is the pride of the Association. Not one member of the corps uses tobacco or intoxicants, a fact which makes the group a distinctive one indeed for Mexico.
ARE MEXICAN YOUNG MEN INTERESTED IN RELIGION?
If by religion one means the traditions and formulae of the Church that has dominated Mexico for the past four hundred years, the above question must be answered ,in the negative. If by religion is meant Christian life and a man's relation to the Kingdom of God, the answer is decidedly in the affirmative. The Y. M. C. A. has attempted to show that Christianity, rightly interpreted, appeals to the vigor and activity of youth. Young men IMPROVING THE BODIES AND ESPRIT DE CORPS OF MEXICAN YOUNG MEN A gymnasium class in the Y. M. C. A'. in Mexico City are showing more and more a vital interest in the Christianity that can be carried into an athletic contest or a business transaction and help a man to keep square and clean. Moreover, the ' young men are beginning to turn their eyes toward evangelicalchurches, for they recogni~ that the message of the Association is also the message of the Church. Groups of young men can be seen going from the Y. M. C. A. building on Sunday mornings to – the churches, a thing absolutely new in the history of the Assocition in Mexico. It is not to be understood, of course, that crowds of young men are flocking toward the churches, but key men are gathering round them their closest companions and are making an effort to learn more about the real Christ. The assembly hall of the Association, holding some three hundred persons, is well filled every Sunday afternoon, to listen to educational, moral and,
religious addresses. Among the speakers have been pastors of the native churches and the President of the Union Evangelical Seminary, whose messages have held the attention of the young men better than those of any other speakers.
The greatest problem of the Association in Mexico, like the greatest problem of every missionary enterpris,e, is that of leadership. A training center has been established by the Mexico City Association and an attempt is being made to send two men to the States each year for training in the Springfield and Chicago Association colleges. Already this plan has begun to show results.
EXTENSION OF THE AsSOCIATION MOVEMENT Last March, Mr. Richard Williamson, in charge of the na- tional work in Mexico, visited Tampico under instructions from the IniJernationalCommittee, to investigate the possibilities of opening a branch in that city. At a meeting of some forty repre- sentatives of the leading oil companies, more than $12,000 U. S. currency was subscribed, and within ten days a total of more than $26,000 was secured for leasing and equipping a suitable building~ The :Association is now established in that place, where hundred~ of young men, .chiefly Americans and English, will have the social aNd physical privileges so much needed. These young men were engaged in an industry absolutely vital to the prosecution of the war, and the Association in that city may truly be considered Ii part of the great war work. In Chihuahua the Association has been carrying forward its work during the past two years with no trawed secretary on the field, and the Association in Monterey, has r~~ntly been reorganb;ed. Calls are coming from a dozen or more cities throughout the country for the Association to open up its work. Lack of leaders is the only obstacle to rapid and exten- sive expansion of the movement.
Many people ask: "How has the Association been able to maintain its work in Mexico through all the revolutionary times?" In the words of a recent member of the Board: "The only ex- planation is that through the fifteen years since the Association was founded in Mexico it has made good." It has kept persist- ently at the task of working for young men. When its building was blown to pieces, it proceeded immediately to make the neces- sary repairs in order that its work might continue without inter- ruption. Its contributors have not forsaken it because they know that its work is indispensable, just as the efforts of all branches of the Christian Church are indispensable if Mexico is to be won . for the Kingdom.
Conditions Improved in
By ALICE J. MCCLELLAND, SAN ANGEL, MEXICO A s we read in the morni~g paper of a particularly horrible ban- dit attack on a passenger train my companion asked: "Do you think that Mexico is any better off than when Diaz was in powed" I hesitated, prospecting around in my mind for something witty to say, and then answered, "That is not a fair question. Comparisons are still odious, as they were in Shakespeare's day."
The time before the revolution and the present are so different that comparison is impossible. The Diaz government was impossible and could stand no longer. The present government is not impossible and I find no one on the ground who can think of any Mexican who would do better than the present head of the government. Now that we are able to contemplate Russia after the collaRse of an absolute despotism, we see how much worse Mexico might be. Men without Christian morals can not be expected to govern unselfishly for the good of humanity. But we may compare the conditions under which missionaries now work with those before the revolution.
When the first missionaries came to Mexico they faced physical danger at every turn and expected nothing else. The country was wild and fanatical. The missionary took his life in his hand and went ahead where duty called him, regardless of peril. But later there came a time when "Don Pornrio" made Mexico Ii playground for tourists and one could travel from one. end of the country to the other as safely as in the United States. Fanaticism broke down in a large measure and the missionary was safe to preach or to teach wherever he chose.
Then, after fifteen years or so of security missionary history reversed, for Mexico reverted to type. The heathenism which had been covered up with a gloss of civilization came to the snrface and has been in plain sight ever since. From being a paradise for tourists it has come to be a country where no one· ever travels for pleasure. The missionary travels when his work demands it, but he takes hiS' life in his hand every time he boards a train, regardless of peril, as did his first predecessors.
Anotl;J.er change, due to these same disturbed conditions, is the concentration of the work in the cities, and the abandoning of what was b~fore known as "field work." Our "field" men form~ erly kept horses and some kind of vehicles to travel to the ranches, far from the more populated centers. In these. days 195
of bandjts a horse is anybody's property, as soon as it gets out- side the city limits. A foreigner, especially an American, is liable to be kidnapped and held for ransom, if he ventures far from the city. Not long ago when a missionary nurse was leaving the town for the city a man tried to drag her off the platform of the Pullman car, as the train was starting. She managed to push him off the train. .
The cost of living has made another difference in our work.
In days gone by the missionary in Mexico could live in comfort on a salary which seemed small to people at home. Now living is higher that in the States, and yet very few salaries have been increased. Naturally the cost of all the mission work has ad- vanced accordingly. Appropriations for schools which were ample before the change are now so small that the schools can barely exist on them, and improvement is out of the question.
The missionaries are burdened with the scarcity of funds, almost to the point of despair. The principal of one school said the other day that she thought she would suggest to the mission that they close the school for one year and ask the Board to use the appropriation to get the equipment into something like order.
This shortness of funds exists in spi~e of the fact that the Mexi- cans themselves pay many times as much as they formerly did for school tuition and board. Antiquated text-books and equipment continue to serve, because there is no money to buy anything new. Food and household supplies have increased from one hundred to four hundred per cent in price. Coffee is the only article which has fallen in price. A bath is the only one which remains the same, but soap has risen 300 per cent.
But the changes are riot all for the worse. The awakening which the revolution brought has created a great demand for in- struction both secular and religious. Fanaticism has practically disappeared and everywhere there is a welcome for the Bible and Christian literature. Protestant churches are better attended than ever before and all our schools are full. In the schools of many cities there is getting to be a good sprinkling of Protestant teachers and they are making their influence for righteousness felt. Many believe we are on the eve of a great spiritual harvest.
Weare also debtors to the revolution for much of the in- crease of cooperation among the different denominations sus- taining mission work in Mexico. The" Cincinnati Plan" for the redistribution of the territory among the diff·erent missions has been carried out to a large extent, the Union Evangelical Semi- nary for the training of ministers is in successful operation, and further plans for closer cooperation are being carried out.
Ve expect financial and political conditions to improve now that the world war is over, but we do not squander our present
HAVE CONDITIONS IMPROVED IN MEXICO
opportunity hoping for better times. Weare convinced that Protestant . Ohristianity is Mexico's only hope, and that we must accept the pl'esent conditions until Christianity is f strong enough to furnish statesmen. Noone wishes for another dictatorship, even for the sake of security. Some progress has been made in the matter of statesmen, since Sr.
Andres Osuna has been made governor of the State of Tamaulipas. (Prof. MOlses Sainz, at the head of the gov- ernment high school in Mexico City is another Protestant who stands on his own merits and commands universal respect.
The pacification of the out- lying districts may be brought W about by evangelization. We must go out as the first mis- sionaries did, with our lives in God's keeping. Perhaps mis- sionaries have grown timid about facing physical danger, and Boards do not want 'to r invest money in property that may belong to them or to the Mexican Government or may MEXICAN OBJECTS OF VENERATION go up in smoke from a bandit's match. More ,risk will have to be taken in the matter of property, and if missionaries of the John G. Paton type are necessary to evangelize Mexico, we may secure them from the brave soldier boys who come back from France. At any rate in some way, by the power of God, and the sacrificial service of missionaries, Mexico must be evangelized.
Sufferings of Missionaries in
THE JOURNAL OF REV. FREDERICK N. JESSUP, TABRIZ, PERSIA The following extracts are taken from the private journal of Rev. Fred'k N. Jessup, a missionary of the Presbyterian Board in Tabriz, Persia. Mr. Jessup tells his story in a matter of fact way, without any attempt to depict all the horrors of the situation. His account of the imprisonment, the murders, attempted abductions of American women, and other experiences reveal, however, the courage of the little band, their heroic service and the sufferings they endured. Surely these noble men and women and the people for whom they are giving fheir lives deserve the most loyal support and most earnest prayers of Christians who are safely enjoying the security and comforts of the home land.-Editor.
November 1, 1918.
WHILE the Spanish Minister was here (in Tabriz) he acceded to the request of the Turks to allow them to use our house and the school buildings for a couple of weeks for some of their doctors. We protested but he assured us it was the best thing and that it would insure our own persons from being moh;sted, and the property would be returned in as good condition as when occupied. The result was that on Sept. 8th, the day after the first party of Turks went out, Doctor Vanneman and I were arrested. I was just starting for church when the word came that the "commandant" was coming to see us. In came the commander of the city troops and several other officers, the new "agala begt" and one or two Persian police. Instead of a call, as we supposed, they demanded to see the doctor's papers. They got all the doctor's letters from his family for the last five years. Then they said we were to come with them for five minutes to the Commandant's house. As it was time for church and they were expecting me to preach, we debated about going, but decided the best thing was to go, as there was little likelihood that the consul would be of any assistance then. .
We were taken to a big house and put in an empty upstairs room. They said that we had better send home for some lunch, so we d~d. Mcanwhile Mugerdoon, the dentist, was also brought in, and in the afternoon the two Armenian lawyers, B. Sedrak Awakian and B. Alexan, and at sunset Mr. Kavalsky.
As afternoon wore on they told us we had better send for bedding as we would spend the night there, so we sent for kindergarten tables on which we put our mattresses. Later we got a couple of tables and a lamp and little by little accumulated a bath tub, watering pot, 'washbowl, and other property. At first, expecting every day to be taken to Agoom baghe (Persian Cossack quarters taken by the Turks for barracks) to be examined, or to be set at liberty, we were chary of getting many things together.
198 We were all six of us in one room. The Annenians were charged with making bombs, Kavalsky with running a wireless, and against us was formed no charge. The Annenians knew some of the petty officers living in the building and we got acquainted with each other and had reading and talking and games and blessings and prayers and lots of callers. Every day the wives of our four comrades came to call and we shared all our meals. So the first days were very cheerful.
RELIEF FUNDS IN DANGER Tuesday evening some officers of the head Pasha came to .interrogate the doctor. They put their heads together and very solemnly in Osmanli Turkish asked questions. The young officer repeated in French, I translated into English, and the doctor replied in English, and it went back into French and Turkish, or sometimes I corrected when he did not translate correctly. Mter asking questions about the hospital and missionary force,and whether he had journeyed in Persia, etc., at last they whispered to each other, "Let us come to the point." So they asked if he did not have some other work than being doctor, the point being to get him to say he was treasurer of the Relief Work. Then they asked how much money had been spent and how much was DOW on hand, and where it was 1 The doctor told them of the money in the Bazaar at the bankers. That was absolutely the entire investigation, nothing more for six weeks. They tried hard to get the money from the Persian bankers, who naturally refused to pay without an order from Dr. Vanneman.
Meanwhile our companions were being released; Kavalsky on Wednesday and the others on Thursday. The same day a Persian banker was brought and put in with us a few days and on Friday, Mirza Ali Khan of the British Consulate. He was quite scared and sick, but was released before we were.
For the first week or so we had many visitors and our fellow jail-birds on being released showed us many kind attentions, sending us meals and samovars and tea and fruit and coming to call. The bishop and chief men called on the German consul and governor rotd Turks, and tried to get us released. Persian doctors made representations to the Crown Prince. A paper was gotten up and signed by 200 prominent people, saying the Persians had nothing against us and that we were gniltless. The American consul too wrote notes and made calls, but nothing came of it all. Mter about two weeks our jailors became stricter about ad- mitting callers and after three weeks the regiment whose men were in our yard was sent forward and a new set of officers and men came. Then we were snbjected to the indignity of having a
sentinel put outside our door with gun and bayonet and every hour as the guards changed they looked in to see we had not escaped. For the last three weeks we never went outside that door. For the whole 44 days I never descended to the first story nor set my feet on mother earth. It was quite like a long sea voyage, pacing our floor for exercise and playing quoits from day to day; and the rest of the time reading, sleeping and eating!
The last three weeks we saw practically no one but our jailers and settled down to regular habits: Reading all day and either reading or playing dominoes at night. Arose about 6, cold bath, breakfast at 7, a long morning of reading-Bible, Gibbon's Rome and some Commentary. Afternoon, more Gibbon, and then some novel. Evening, Bible, Commentary, novel and bed at nine. I practically finished four volumes of Gibbon, read at least half of the Bible and went over Ottman's book on Revelation and Gordon's little book on Christ's second coming nearly twice, besides re-reading quantities of novels. The last few weeks were really profitable.
From time to time we heard rumors that we would be deported to Kar!:!, or Aleppo or Constantinople, but as we couldn't do anything we did not worry.
After we had been under arrest about two weeks M. Franssen gave permission to the Turks again to enter our house and school grounds. He said it was for two days and that he hoped thereby to secure our release. .The r,esult has been to do a great deal of damage to the property-our stable yard was stripped clean of doors, windowS' and frames, and many other acts of vandalism were committed-and I know not what damage to our house and the schools for the Turks are still there. But they have stolen some 40 kharvars (20 tons) of ~chool wood, burned platforms, etc., and made the whole place filthy.
The 13th of October, Sunday, we heard that the Urumia missionaries were being brought over. The next day they arrived and were put into the Russian Bebk garden. They were allowed to go out into the garden and even cross to the Bank President's garden, so were freer than we. They have had a terrible time. The flight of the eighty-five thousand Christians from Urumia took place only a few hours before the Turks entered Urumia. The Shedds left only three hourse before the Turks and Kurds arrived. All the other missionaries stayed. Miss Schoebel wished very much to go, but there was no one to accompany her so she stayed to die of pernicious malaria.
On the arrival of Kurds and Turks together, Drs. Packard and Ellis were in the city property and the others at the "College." The doctors were able very early to see a commander
1919J THE SUFFERINGS OF MISSIONARIES IN PERSIA
who made his headquarters in our city property, and to get him to send guards to the "College," the orphanage and the Catholic Mission. But at the orpbanage Kurds and some Turks entert~d, looted the front buildings and then went to the back where the Pflaumers, Miss Bridges and the orphans were. A Kurd tried to carry off Miss Bridges. Mr. and Mrs. Pflaumer held her by the arms to keep her. At last a Turkish officer said, "We will have to kill him," and they fired a couple of shots into him as he was holding Miss Bridges, so that her clothes were drenched with his blood. The Kurd then carried Miss Bridges' off to the gate and was just putting her on his horse with the loot when other Turkish officers arrived and stopped him. The two ladies were taken to the commanders and some days later sent to the "College" where all the missionaries were: There was a time when it seemed that Mr. Richards and Dr. Dodd 'would be killed and at least Mrs. Richards carried off. Three Kurds entered the room where the ladies were, snatched rings off their fingers, carried Richards into the next room where they tbreatened to shoot him because he could not open the safes, aiId another started to carry off Mrs. Richards. But they were deterred by Kurdish refugees who had been fed and well treated at the hospital. The guards arrived before any murder was done: MURDER AND LOOTING At the Catholic Mission, where some 600 refugees from Salmas and Urumia were, Persian Moslems entered from one side while the Turkish guards were supposed to be guarding the property, shot down Monseigneur Sontag, the bishop, and another priest, and massacred all the Christians and refugees by clubbing and stoning and with daggers. Only one or two women escaped. The leader was Arshad-i-Humayoon, who with some twelve of his men spent nearly five months at the Bishop's last winter, being protected by him from certain death at the hands of the Armenian and J elco leaders. His r,eturn was the assassination of his benefactor.
The city property at Urumia was all looted. At the "College" the Turks took over the hospital and filled the grounds with soldiers and the buildings with sick. Besides that there were many sick Christians. All the missionaries' horses and carriages were taken. The crowding and the polluting of the air and water resulted in almost every one of them being sick and in Miss Schoebel 's death. John Maosme, one of the ablest of the Syrian workers was sick in his home and murdered in his bed. He was a graduate of Colgate University. Dr. Israel was' hung.
On October 8 the missionaries were told to get ready to come to Tabriz at once, Finally, they got three hours' notice
to get ready, but, of course, could take very few of the most esseutial things. These were packed with them on the auto truck, and they were taken to the lake, where that night fifty persons, Americans, Turks and Persian prisoners were crowded into a room some 20 by 10 feet. Next they were jammed between the decks into a barge and brought to Sharraf Khanah and thence to Tabriz. They had to le.ave their houses open and all their goods; and I suppose long ere this not a thing has remained of all they own.
We were freed October 22nd, and I immediately set to work to get ready our only available property, the girls' school. By Wednesday night we had the ladies' residence and the old residence portion of the main building cleaned, carpeted and partially furnished. 'l'hursday the Packards moved into the residence proper and the Ellises into the school building.
November 10th.
The three weeks since getting out of jail have been one perpetual jump; getting places and things ready for the Urumia missionaries, seeing quantities of visitors, trying to do something for the deluge of poor hungry people who had just been waiting for us to get out of prison in hopes of my being able to supply them with help. It is pitiful. And to have to turn away so many and to give such a pittance to those we do help, because of lack of funds and the way to get more until the roads open up and business is resumed, is heartrending. It makes one ashamed to be eating when so many are starving. I regularly give out money and interview the poor on Fridays, but other days and all the time they are coming to me for help and with pitiful stories. Last week I estimated the money should have reached about 1200 Tomans, but a great many more have to be turned away. Yet this is but a drop in the bucket to what ought to be done.
At last, on November 5, the last soldiers went, taking with them the mule and the woman they had kept in two adjoining rooms of the school, and leaving behind them many evidences of their stay. In our own house all the shelves and woodwork the soldiers could get hold of were smashed and burned. In the stable yard, doors, windows and their frames, and even some of the roofs were torn down and burned. In the school, doors and windows and all shelving besides most of our firewood are gone.
. Things were in a filthy condition. Our own house will need to be rewhitened throughout and floors repaired or remade and in some cases the existing woodwork and plastering torn out in the hope of getting cleanliness. However, it might have been worse and we can't be too thankful that they didn't stay on till winter, for then all the trees and all the wood work would have gone! While we were "jugged," Dr. Vanneman's dining-room,
THE SUFFERINGS OF MISSIONARIES IN PERSIA
where the Gifford's, Wells' and Flemings' things are stored, was broken into and all bureaus and desks broken open and ransacked in search of treasure apparently. The Pittmans have lost all their earthly goods, save perhaps a bedstead, and the others whatsoever they had left in the hospital compound.
The Urumia missionaries will stay here this winter. They can hardly do otherwise, having lost all thelir possessions, and to return to Urumia now, to a wasted, famine-stricken and desolated region, to hO'llses and larders looted, with no furniture or bedding or food at the opening of winter would seem ill-advised. Besides the roads are not safe yet for travel and no one knows when they will be. When they are, one at least, probably Dr. Ellis, wants to go over to see what can be done for relief and what has become of the mission property.
One thing is very noticeable and touching, and that has been the general cordiality of the people to Doctor Vanneman and myself upon our release. I have never seen the Armenians so cordial and people whom I have never known have expressed pleasure at our release. Many Moslems also tell how they have prayed for us during our period of arrest. Dr. Vanneman's enforced stop from work was felt all over the city by the sick and their friends.
There is no way as yet to communicate with you, for the telegraph wires are down, the Shahsavans on a rampage between Basminch and Zenjan.
November 17th.
News from America. Dr. Dodd's father was going on a medical commission or unit to the Holy Land and Wilfred Post might join them in June. Mrs. Packard has heard of the death of her father a year ago last October. Dr. Yonatan of Soujboulak arriv-ed a couple of days ago disguised as a Koord. He had taken refuge in a Koordish village for three months. His propf'rty and dispensary in Soujboulak had been destroyed by the Turks. Dr. Yoel of Maragha was seized by Munir Bey, the notorious commander-in-charge when our hospital was looted. He was carried to Benab, put in stocks for a short time and later freed from them. He was threatened with being carried to Khoi for courtmartial on charges of communicating with the enemy, but was offered his freedom on payment of 500 Liras. He :finally got off with the payment of 210 Liras and 50 tomans in bribes. In Khoi lately six Armenian men who had eseaped and taken refuge in the mountains were discovered and massacred under orders from the Turks, they say. The condition of the remaining Armenian women and children is pitiable.
Outlook Among Turkish
BY REV. HENRY H. RIGGS, HARPOOT, ASIA MINOR T HE most striking and obvious change brought by the war in the missionary situation in Turkey is the advent of religious liberty. Hitherto Turkey,being under the direct rule of the Caliph of Islam, has been absolutely intolerant of any Christian effort for Moslems, or of any wavering on the part of Moslems in their profession of loyalty to their faith.
To say that this barrier ha~ been removed may soun~ prematnre at a time when the peace conference has not yet decided the fate of the Turkish Government. But it must be remembered that a majority of the Sultan's Moslem subjects live in areas that have either already been delivered by Entente armies, or have been definitely promised permanent deliverance from the ~'urkish yoke. To all these millions of Moslems has come at last the day when they can worship God as their consciences dictate.
At first thought the most important outcome of this change might seem to be the opening of the door for direct preaching of the Gospel to Moslems. It is with this blessed prospect ever in mind that we turn our faces once more to the field. The old, baffling ban is off.
But another fact has even more dramatic possibilities in its train. Most of the Moslems in Turkey have either themselves accepted Islam under compulsion or are the descendants of such unwilling converts. It remains to be seen how many of these have acquired a loyalty to Islam that will survive the removal of artificial compulsion. The many, of course, will remain Moslem. Yet there are those, and their numbers are not small, who will welcome the chance to repudiate their former insincere adherence to Islam.
I do not refer only to Armenians who have saved their lives by professing Islam. The number of such is not large. Far more numerous are those of supposedly Moslem races. Among the Kurds of Armenia and the wandering Turkomans of Anatolia, there are whole tribes whom the Turkish Government has classified as Moslems, and who through fear accepted the pretense. But they are not true Moslems. Their faith is an odd mixture of miscellaneous traditions,' some of which, notably their sacra- .. ment similar to the Lord's Supper, are obviously an inheritan(le from Ohristian ancestors. Their sympathies are altogether with Christianity, and they often say, "We are nearer to the Ohristians than to the Turks." Some years ago a group of Kurdish tribal chiefs came to the American missionaries in Harpoot with the proposal that they with all their tribes should declare themselves Christians, if only the Americans would persuade the Z04 British Government to protect them from the wrath of their Turkish rulers. Now that the compulsion of fear has been removed, the possibility of a mass movement of these tribes to Christianity is one which cannot be ignored. .And there are many other individuals whose only reason for adhering to the ruling faith was the fear of punishment, who now will gladly take a stand as Christians, with no effort or persuasion from without.
Striking as it is, this purely external change in the missionary situation is not the most important that has resulted from the war. More potent than governmental restrictions, the pride and self-satisfaction of the Moslem has been the more decisive obstacle to reaching these peoples with the Gospel. This pride had a political basis. The Moslem was the ruling race, the Christian a despised subject. Now that the Moslem finds himself politically no more than the equal of his Christian neighbor (in all other respects he has always been obviously inferior,) one of the strongest arguments for loyalty to Islam disappears. The Moslem's pride has been humbled.
Back of his pride in lrcal supremacy was the sense of the great Moslem world unity. After all, the dominance of Islam is, in the mind of its devotees, a political dominance, and thinking of h·mself as a member cf that irresistible Moslem world power, the Moslem has been sure that when, some day, the Caliph of all Islam should issue the call to a Holy War, every Moslem the world over would rally to the green banner of the prophet, and the infidel would be overthrown. The failure of the Jihad was unthinkable. But the Jihad was proclaimed, and was a miserable failure. The Turk today is broken-hearted, not so much because his own government is overthrown as because Islam has been overthrown, irretrievably broken and divided. And his hopelessness is the more complete as he realizes that the rupture came over a moral issue, in which the Turk himself was in the wrong.
To those of us who lived among the Turks during a part of the war, the depression and hopelessness among thinking men was most impressive. One Moslem told me that he had been studying the sacred books, and that he was convinced that the end of Moslem power was at hand. "The measure of our sins is full; terrible days are coming!" Repeatedly they said, when fresh disasters and sufferings came upon them, "This is the judgment of God for our sins." This sounds fairly obvious to a of western mind, but for a Moslem, repentance and humiliation soul are strange fare indeed! To all this national and religious humiliation has been added a degree of personal suffering and loss not often realized by outsiders. The Turkish losses in battle have been frightful, but pale into insignificance beside the ravages of disease, hunger and neglect, which have swept away literally millions of Moslems in Turkey. Every home has its sorrow, and thousands of homes have been broken up, and whole villages blotted out by epidemicsor other disasters.
Under the crushing load of all this humiliation, sorrow and agony, the Moslem has found little help in his religion. The only comfort in Islam is a S'toical submission. "Such was the decree of fate." But when he sees all too plainly that it was not a decree of fate but the criminal callousness of someone who should have cared that has laid him low, the faith ·and complacency of the Moslem is under too great a strain. The people of Turkey are heartbroken, and for that heartbreak there is no balm in Islam.
This time of the humiliation and bitter suffering of the Moslems has given an unparalleled opportunity for Christian service. Missionary hospitals have been full of sick and wounded Turkish soldiers, and the simple ministry of sympathetic care has brought the love of God more vitally to the hearts of those
THE OUTLOOK AMONG TURKISH MOSLEMS
poor sufferers than was ever possible before. I count it one of the greatest privileges I ever enjoyed to go into the wards of our hospital and explain, as the men listened with brimming eyes, the motive that lead Dr. Atkinson and his fellow-workers to show them a tender kindness that they had never experienced before. Christianity has a new meaning to those men.
Not by any means all of this ministry was rendered in missionary hospitals. In almost every military hospital in Turkey Christian doctors and nurses and orderlies were in a position to show the Christian spirit in a most striking way. Armenian girls escaped from their persecutors often found refuge as nurses in military hospitals, and it sometimes occurred that they had to minister to the very men who had done to death their own Christian neighbors and relatives. The triumph of Christian kindness under such impossible circumstances has furnished an object lesson that can never be forgotten. Simple kindly service to suffering Moslems has done more than years of sermons could do to prepare the mind of these Turks for understanding· the spirit of Christ.
An Armenian friend told me of a Moslem soldier who was brought home, wounded in both feet, from the battle front. The Armenian went to his house to ask for news from his relatives in the army, and as he stood waiting in the doorway, was astonished to see the wounded man come on hands and knees and seize his hand,-the proud Moslem kneeling at the feet of the despised Christian,-while he poured out his gratitude for what the Armenian's son-in-law had done for him in the far-off field hospital, showing him human sympathy when all others were callous and cruel.
Some of the Kurdish Moslems were deported as the Armenians had been, and scores of thousands of Turks fled before the advancing enemy, often fleeing in conscience-stricken panic when no real danger existed. As these wretched exiles dragged themselves through Harpoot in a pitiful, unending stream, their own fellow-Moslems treated them with shocking indifference, for that is the way of the Turk. The Chief of Police of Harpoot, himself a pious Moslem, confronted with the task of feeding the fugitives,' complained bitterly to me one' day :-" Our Moslem people have no hearts! Their own people are starving, yet they will not even lend me a kettle to cook food in, and I have to ask it from the Christians. " One day I watched a throng of these Moslem fugitives wind- ing down the hill i-watched a dying woman who fell by the roadside right within sight of the city,-saw her appeal in vain for help to Moslem after Moslem who passed, till two Christians came that way, lifted her tenderly and brought her to our school where S/hp, and several like her were cared for by the willing hands of Ar-
menian women who had suffered measureless wrongs -from their Moslem 9Ppressors. If anything were lacking in this impressive object lesson, it was furnished by the spectacle of Christian faithfulness and courage in martyrdom. We watched the multitude of Armenian women and children starting out on that awful Sabbath day in July, 1915, when Harpoot was depopulated. Those women had seen their men go forth to die; and as the police and gendarmes, with horrid brutality, herded together the defenceless women and children to start on that journey of death, the women knew that an early death was the best fate they could hope for, and that many of them must. go on and on, over the mountains and throngh the dark ravines where none could say nay to whatever their beastly captors chose to do. And yet, facing a fate so infinitely worse. than death, many of those Christian women started out that morning with calm faces and unshaken trust. Some with smiles of triumph said, "Goodbye, we're going to Heaven." They went "refp.sing deliverance, that they might attain a better resurrec- tion. " Our Moslem neighbors stood by that day, silent, powerless to help. But they never could forget that scene. A few weeks later, a Moslem Doctor of the Law was sitting in my room when news came of the death, in the Syrian desert, of one of our neighbors, a wealthy lady who had started out on that fateful Sunday morning~ I told my visitor the news, and he said, "It is too bad slle went, but she would not stay. I went to her house that morning and begged her to tak~ her two little children and come to my house. But she said 'No, I cannot stay. If I should, when the rest are gone, you will make me a Moslem. No, I will not give up my Jesus.' " That prominent Moslem gentleman, repeating to me thlil very words of broken Turkish with which a refined, wealthy woman had turned her back on safety and life to face such a fate with her Saviour, is typical of thousands of others whose hearts have been touched by the martyrdom of Armenia.
The miracle has been wraught! The obstacles that hitherto have barred the Christian missionary's approach to Moslems in Turkey have one and all been melted down in the terrible suffer"- ing that has swept over Moslem and Christian alike" Freed at last from governmental compulsion, their religious pride irretrievably broken, their hearts crushed and hopeless and unable to find help in their own religion, these heartsick Moslems are ready as never before to listen to the offer of new life and hope in the loving Saviour who has enabled their Christian neighbors to triumph in their ordeal of far greater suffering. Surely the glorious day is dawning for missionary work in Turkey.
OF DAN CRAWFORD'S MISSION BUILDINGS IN CENTRAL
Some More of "Thinking Black"
BY DAN CRAWFORD. ELIZABETHVILLE, BELGIAN CONGO Author of "Thinking Black"
L AST night I climbed the great range of mountains walling our Luanza town on the West, and with the first flush of saffron . . dawn I seemed to hear far below the "sunrise" bell sounding down the palm avenue and calling the town to daybreak prayer.
For many years, in the unwearied mercy of God, this "Sunrise in- the-soul" .meeting has been the first fact in Luanza life, when God, The Sentinel of the Night, is greeted with a song of praise. For sunrise should mean soul-rise, yet instead of the soul rising with the sun how often the wide-awake sun finds a foolish, fast-asleep soul. .
There are deep .canons all along the edg-e of this range and down in the Dantesque darkness a rare hamlet hidden among landolphia vines. The overhanging cliffs are crested with a fringe of noble trees and this means that far below, all the canon cocks crow an hour later than their fellows out in the open plains; long ago the great savannahs were flooded with warm morning sunlight, the correct cocks going by solar clock and punctually saluting the sun. Not so deep down among the dark rocks of the glens sun, peasants and birds are all late; "Slug-a-beds," you might dub them, only they retort that it is King Sol who is the late riser! But the best bit of all lies in the tribal fact that they themselves see a moral meaning in it and sing a song that catches this symbolic action of the sun. Mark you, it is not the moralizing missionary but they 209
themselves who put it. Bwa cha ka~a, cha chinga ni ngu~u. Which means: "Look out yonder the warm plains bathed in the morning sunlight-that's Europe far away, kissed with the sunshine of life's good things. But contrast our dark, cold ravine, with no belated sun yet a while-that's Africa,' the black den of black people who have not got their !'lun yet. But it's coming, oh yes, it's coming, and soon the symbolic sun will be over the rim of the range; then even our parabolic cocks will crow." i The trouble about this parable is that it is too tragically true, even in its ultimate details, for the pinching part of this picture lies in the bursting on them of an angry belated sun, not the pale, easy thing of daybreak, but a fierce eleven-in-the-morning sun sending down burning bolts,' a true-to-the-Ii£e snapshot of the ugly African "booms" and the terror of transition. Surely this is proof positive that the African in a parable of his. own making calls his 'own Africa, "The Dark Continent"! But I must hasten to record a little episode lest it be lost to posterity; a humble bit of preaching that proves how the African is no mean surgeon of the soul. Dropping in on this young preacher, I am really eavesdropping, for he is not supposed to know that I am listening. Unlike most Africans he is none of your oh-be-joyful sort of saints, but, au contraire, very sober with gestures that are marvellous in their economy of effort. Nevertheless, the fine fellow in his own way is flowing like a flood, his theme that delightful but dangerous record of the woman taken in adultery. What has caught him is the contrast of Christ in humiliation, stooping to write on the ground, while the woman's accusers not merely talked tall, but loomed up all the taller as Christ seemed smaller by His stooping. They from their lofty height laying down the law of death to the stooping Saviour; for the taller they talk the smaller Christ shrinks as He keeps writing on the soft ground!
Then the preacher sparkled out into a phrase that only an African could frame. Said he, "Was Jesus Christ rudeT Why does He not look up at these accusers; why turn away His eyes from them and look down always to the ground, not up at them1 Answer: He was looking at them all the time He did so look down, for they were only dust and He remembers we are dust, even when we Pharisees forget it. The tall talk of these tall accusers made them so forget they were dust that Christ seeing them as they were and not as they pretended to be, He really, all the time, saw them not merely deep down in the dust, but the dust deep down in them. Therefore, in so stooping and so steadily gazing down on the ground, not up in their direction, His eyes in the truest sense never left them, for to look up would not have been to see them, but only their external make-believe.
But, is this his final word T Nay; of all the pestilent trash
SOME MORE OF THINKING BLACK
preached in God's name, without His authority, a "bloodless" sermon is the maximum of mockery. The blood is the life. And this young gospeller puts the Oross in where its apparent absence only argues its perpetual presence. He is out for a contrast-those tall talkers, said he, are quoting from those othlOlr words written on the hard tables of stone, whereas here is Ohrist writing the accusation on the soft ground that (hark at the fellow!) "one shower of God's tears (the rain) would in one downpour wash away forever." But he does not end with the poetry of the tears of God. How can God's tears make an end of sin any more than man's tears? Oould Gethsemane ever equal Oalvary1 Where is the blood-shedding in mere tears 7 His answer is that it was The Very Hand soon to be nailed to the Tree that so wrote on the soft- ground, and This Very Hand having to pay the price had therefore the purchased right to write her acquittal in advance.
Thus did the African preacher sweep the arc of this great Ohristian doctrine, telling how the tenderness of the Saviour is so beautifully proportioned to the sorrow of the sinner.
,But to be true to the African story, this. letter should be full of light and shade like a Rembrandt picture: I mean that somber side of backsliding that lies between you and your night's rest. And yet out of this very sorrow there finally flows, through the good grace of God, the joy of restoration. Bunyan is the man to quote on this tender theme, for he will never be dead-and-done-with in more senses than one. You recall how poor Mr. Little Faith fell among the desperadoes of Deadman's Lane: they assaulted him violently and topped it all by robbing him to boot. But the remarkable thing was that when he recovered his senses an investigation of his total loss in cash revealed that his assailants had taken only his 'spending money. And then comes the "tinker touch that tells": "The place where his jewels were they never ransacked, so those he kept still." Surely this is sweetly true; yet these soul robbers are doing such a real business that the only safe place for our treasure is to be "hid with Ohrist in God." When his mates stole the converted collier's dinner to see if they could make him swear, he only cried out "Praise God, I've still got my appetite; they can't take that!" and so it is bere in the wilds' where the devil has to learn the lofty logic of Deadman's Lane.
PAGANISM HAS NO DOXOLOGIES "Do the heathen get no comfort whatever from their religion?" a missionary was .asked.
"Yes," he replied, the same kind of comfort you get out of a narcotic." Buddhism, Brahmanism, Taoism, Confucianism, Mohammedanism are opiate religions.
* Christianity, on the contrary wakes un the soul with a ..cw life. "The fruit o£ the Spiri. is * * joy," and must find outlet in singing.
~tY1f80t fIIO/fflh. FUR lAIIORER5
if!OIust/Je'(lRrlmoo- Lift up yoW' eyes and LOOK TEACIIEIIS ENUST NOW FOR WORLD RWS On the ,lddt WANTED Uft up your hearts and IMIDIAmy PRAY VOLUNTEERS The Lord of the Harve.t JAPAN The Bread of Ufe to the .st.rnnr KOREA 0iINA INDIA- AFRICA NEAR EAST MAYLAYSIA SOUlH AMERICA Poster IP-ATRIOTI-SM ISNOHNDUGH Possibilities EDITH CAVELL A set of Six Attractive Posters EMERGENCY CAlLS FOR RECRUITS has been prepared-three are reproduced on this page ___ … _ .."CIIIJIo ….. _~.,,_ … They measure about 24 by 30 inches and cost only 50 cents _-";_"QW-~"' a Bet HUt AJU. £»ll'iC ,…. lHr l1tI "oOif~ Already FOURTEEN ON "le" 8.1t.nlJn·ll) OF Ni'iJ'l'rI!HOO[) rnOUSAND SETS THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR SALVATION CALLS t.~ve been ordered in advance-this means 84,000 posters will be e2hibited HOW TO USE. THEM In American Colleges In Mi••ion Study Classes In Hospitals and Nurse. Schools In State and Di.trict Meetings In Summer Conlerences On Bill Board. Anywhere 212
@ @ ~…….B…0EUd.S…-T-1!:Mf ~E.T"H,O-DS….._…0
EDITED BY MRS. E. C. CRONK, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA Chairman of the Committee on Methods of Work of the Federation of Woman's Foreign. Mission Boards FEDERATION METHODS FOR THE COMING YEAR A MOST significant meeting of the The War Program was: first, Federation of Women's Boards of Volunteers. It was when we saw Foreign Missions of North America the boys march away that hearts was held in New York on January were opened and people became eager the thirteenth and fourteenth. There to give for Liberty Loan, for War .was evidenced a great enthusiasm, Work, for Red Cross. There is a which was well balanced by a calm great financial missionary drive determination that the women of planned, on which we may enter in a America must be led on from the few months. Recruiting should pre- heights of sacrifice and service which cede this. have won a war to still greater heights of sacrifice and service 'Yhich Our plan includes: shall win a world to Jesus Christ. A RECRUITING CAMPAIGN. This is not to supersede or inter- Plans and methods for a Rainbow fere with the plans for reaching col- Division to conduct a campaign for leges, but there are thousands of wo- larger enlistment of service, money and life, promise an even larger in- men now graduates of colleges with experience as Doctors, Teachers, fluence than the great Jubilee gather- Nurses, Music Teachers, Christian ings which blazed the way. Workers, Social and Welfare Work- ers. Our first call must be for those. Mrs. Henry W. Peabody presented They could go now. There are many the following plans of the committee who are demobilizing. of which she is chairman: How can we reach them? Cam- Preparedness Program-and 1. By a united effort. 2. By prayerful effort. paign for Recruits. Now after the roar and crash of war, after the 3. By persuading them to look on blood and tears, God's Bow of Prom- the fields. ise, His Everlasting Covenant, may span all the seas. We women may PUBLICITY PLANS. help to make the rainbow, for surely our covenant with Him is not to be (a) Meetings of professional wo- a "scrap of paper." Our moment in men of the type who might be valu- the world's history has come. Are able in mission fields. These meet- we prepared? If not, we are un- ings to be held with a supper. worthy to be leaders of Boards and Societies, unworthy of our Great Di- (b) By addresses at such meetings 'vine Leader. Women have made a planned in some respects along suc- new record in war. Are we ready cessful war l i n e s . ' to make a new record in missions? Boards are in need of money. We Teams should include: have learned how to give for war. 1. A Veteran: Board leader or How may we learn to continue our giving for missions? missionary. 2. A new recruit or Volunteer. 3. A recruiting officer who will be supplied with material-post- ers, Rainbow literature, prayer and pledge cards.
213
LOCAL COMMITTEES: form the basis for the speeches of the Four~Minute Women. In addition to the teams sent out under direction of Boards, Local (3) In the ellve10pe is included a Committees must he formed in cities sheet of hymns–our marching song~ where the campaign is on. These are -all familiar. from all the churches. Their work is to secure a place for such a meeting, (4) The Prayer and Pledge Card appoint groups to secure the presence of professional women-not through is also enclosed in the envelope. public announcement but by personal invitation. They will arrange for a The appeal will be made by the Re- Rainbow chorus of musical girls to lead the music. They will secure pa- cruiting Officer who should be a wotronesses who will help to pay for the supper and will be present to re- man of intelligence, spiritual power ceive the inspiration. Women of means will not grudge $5.00 each for and appeal. this. Six Four-Minute women must be secured to answer the questions: THE PROGRA!',{: Who, Why, When, Where, How and Wherewithal, from the leaflets in the 1. Supper-a simple attractive envelope. They should be those who can do it strongly and effectively. meal to which professional women are invited. Patronesses will defray A group of "Canteen" workers will help to serve the supper. expense.
We must not fail to have groups 2. Singing. organized for prayer for the meeting -that God will call the right ones to 3. Appeal from a veteran, a strong enlist in Foreign Service. missionary speaker, Board worker MATERIAL FOR BOARDS: or missionary. 15 or 20 minutes. (1) Posters. The series of six Federation posters in color present topic: The Call of the World Today. the needs as follows: 4. Six Four-Minute Women an- 1. A Call to Prayer. swer the questions-Who, Why, 2. For Christ and the World- When, etc., getting points from Lend, Give, Join, Send, Go. Rainbow Series. 3. To Doctors and Nurses-A Message from Edith Cavell. 5. Singing.
4. To Teachers-,Democracy is not 6. Recruiting Officer presents the enough, it must be Christian. call of the King, displays posters, 5. The Federation Poster-Feder- and presents Pledge Cards. This is ated to Fight for 500,000,000 Women.. made a serious prayerful call, and aU 6. The Book Poster-A Crusade of are asked to take home the souvenir Compassion. envelope at their plates containing (2) The Rainbow Series. Who? Why? When? Where? the leaflets, and sign at least one of How? Wherewithal? the pledges which should be read An artistic envelope containing six and explained. leaflets in color with answers to these questions which naturally arise FINANCE;: in the minds of women who have never considered foreign service. The Local Committee in large These consist of 800 words each and cities, as in the Jubilee, will plan for local expenses.
ORGANIZATION: The Executive Committee of the Federation will appoint a suh-com- mittee to act as a Central Committee to arrange for the territorial divi- sions. These will be determined by the location of groups of Boards, and will include such centers as; Boston . Nashville New York Pittsburgh Philadelphia The Pacific Coast Chicago and other places.
The Boards in each territory will each appoint .two or more women on the Rainbow Committee for that territory. They will add leading Dis-
BEST METHODS
trict or State representatives of de- meeting of those who have the servnominations not represented by ice flags with the cross instead of Boards. This Committee will decide which cities shall be visited, and will the star. communicate with them. They will also select and train the team or The posters may be secured from the teams, and will furnish full instruc- Women's Foreign Mission Board. They tions to the Local Committees. are put up in sets of six in a mailing tube, price 50 cents. They will secure Posters, Rainbow Literature and will make clear and The Rainbow colored envelope, containenthusiastic presentation of the plans ing the six leaflets and prayer and in the religious and secular Press, pledge card with hymns will be furnished giving the facts regarding the needs for 5 cents each. Order £.rom Miss M. of the women of non-Christian lands H. Leavis, West Medford, Mass. and stating the need of workers, the type of workers and the great need Much will depend on the enthubf larger gifts. The Rainbow Committee will suggest special services of siasm, intelligence and prayer brought prayer in all the churches for this to the task. Think what it would campaign. They will ask Local Committees to present the plan to pastors mean to tired workers in the trenches and secure their cooperation. out on the far flung battle line, to A service flag should be presented hear the sound of the marching foot to each church by the Local Com- of a new army of occupation. Think mittee. Such a flag will be designed and the pattern furnished. One of those who have been not four but church that sent 145 recruits to war has not one star on its missionary forty years at the front. Think of service flag. Make reports in the closed hospitals for lack of workers. VVe know what American boys did as an army of relief on the West Front. Have we heroism equal to theirs? And ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be my wit- nesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth. The Day of Witnessing is here."
WHAT ONE POSTER DID In the fall of 1916 a list of places in the mission field where trained nurses were needed was sent by the Student Volunteer Movement to a number of hospital superintenden.ts, with a letter asking that it be posted in a conspicuous place.
One of these on the bulletin board of a Florida hospital was read by a nurse who had almost finished her course of training. She wrote to the Secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement telling of her interest in missionary service and desire to give her life to it. She had had training and experience as a high school teacher before entering the hospital and had been active in church and Sunday-school work, all of which seemed to be a splendid preparation for the work of a missionary nurse. Her name was sent to the Foreign Mission Board. of the Southern Methodist Church-as she was a member of that church-the Secretaries opened correspondence with her immediately and had a personal interview with her within a few weeks. Although she was thirty-four years old, she was so well qualified in every other way to meet the requirements of work abroad that she was accepted by her Board at its spring meeting and sailed August 2, ·1917, for China: Her work at the language school has fully justified the Board in setting aside its usual age limit in her case, and they see in her one of the strongest young missionaries on their force."
If one poster did this what may Bring it to the attention of Wo- eighty-fo,ur thousand posters do? men's Clubs as a suggestion for a Miss Vernon Halliday, the newly- course of study that is sure to inter- elected secretary of the 'Federation, est every woman.
tells a story of the influence of one Secure a gift from women of poster which suggests the possibility means to place the book in the hands of a largely increased force if these of nurses in hospitals, and students posters are carefully placed. in Medical Colleges. , Before this issue of th~ REVIEW Secure another gift to send a copy is published the Rainbow Division to each woman missionary in the will have conducted meetings in a service of your Board. There are mis- number of important centers includ- sionaries on the field who have never ing Washington and Philadelphia. seen one of all the splendid text Fuller information may be secured books we have printed, and we have from Mrs. Dewitt Knox, 216 West scarcely given a thought to making 56th St., New York, who is secretary it possible for them to keep in touch of the Committee. ' with the Mission Study of the home Text Book Methods churches.
The new book, "A Crusade of Christian Literature Advance Compassion," by Belle J. Allen and Methods for securing more Chris- Caroline Atwater Mason, is a study tian literature for the women and of medical missions, and promises to children of mission lands are worthy have the widest use of any text book of time and thought. We have yet issued by the United Study COIp- scarcely had time to lift up our eyes mittee. There has never been a time from the wealth of our laden book when the women of America were so shelves to the emptiness of the ready for such a crusade. Hearts shelves which should contain Christhat have been stirred to compassion tian books in mission lands. A by the suffering on the battlefields. special meeting to consider this and in the hospitals of Europe, will subject was held in Boston a few respond now to the call of the suf- months ago. Mrs. McGillivray of fering 'women and children of China told of the great need for the non-Christian lands, and will pour out Life of Christ, translated into the their lives in compassionate service Chinese language and adapted especiand their money to parallel the lives ally for small children. When one given, if the need is presented to woman present realized that in the them in an adequate way. land in which one-fourth of the children of the world live there is Circulation Suggestions. Place an no illustrated Life of Christ prepared order immediately with your own specifically for the very little ones, Board so you may have this new text-book as soon as it is off the she took out her check book and press. Price 35 cents, paper binding, wrote a check immediately for two 50 cents, cloth. hundred and fifty dollars, the amount needed for such a translation. She Have copies sent to key women in said she was' afraid to wait for fear your church and community, so that she might die on the way home and they may have opportunity to study miss such a glorious opportunity. the book early and make plans for the widest use possible in Mission Such meetings should be held in Study Classes and Reading Clubs. many centers for the presentation of this great need and opportunity. A See that this book has place on the special program has been prepared, program of all Summer Schools and which may be secured for five cents Chautauquas. from Miss M. H. Leavis, West Med- Put it in your church, college and ford, Massachusetts. city libraries.
191~1 • BEST METHODS
Summer Schools conference advising them to send this girl to a Summer School for train- All the summer schools will fea- ing. They made the investment and ture methods of work. One of the have received rich returns in the best opportunities for introducing improved methods introduced into the best methods into our societies is their conference. in sending to these Summer Schools the girls and women best fitted to 5. A woman wrote to a number of get the most from these courses and friends asking them to share with her to carry the inspiration and practical the privilege of giving the Summer help back to the members of their School trip of three missionary societies. As in most other things friends on furlough. The shares we fall short in preparedness in hav- were quickly taken and the mis.sioning a strong delegation ready for aries both gave and received great Summer School enrollment. We in- blessing. tend to, but the time slips around before we make any definite plans, 6. A girl who had received great and we sit us down and sigh because benefit from a Summer School began the girls and women who ought to be early in the year to work up a party there are not. for the next summer. She made a list of possibilities. She wrote to + 6 Things 6 People = 6 Delegates them and arrived at the Summer School with a party of seventeen. 1. One woman started a Summer School bank and made a daily sav- A SEVJ>:NTH POSSIBILITY. ings deposit on her expenses so they would not have to be taken out of Everyone of our Summer one month's allowance. Schools should have at least one "Missionary Review Delegate"-who 2. A woman who is a regular may make all or part of her expenses Summer School attendant makes it by taking subscriptions to the Review her rule to take with her a young between this· and the conference date. girl as her guest. She calls the girls The commission on from twenty-five to whom she has given these advan- to fifty subscriptions would pay extages: "My second chances." penses to a nearby School. To the "M. R. Delegates" will come the 3. A girl who could not go herself double reward of attendance at the paid the expenses of another girl Summer School and the gratitude of who could. the workers whom she introduces to the wealth of the table contents of 4. One woman, noting the possi- the Review. There is more halo bilities of leadership in a bright about the head of the agent of misyoung girl whom she met in a local sionary literature than is usually vismeeting, wrote to the officers of the ible to the naked eye.
Your Best Method Have the methods of other workers helped you? Your methods would likely be just as helpful to them. The Best Methods Department is the medium of exchange. You are asked to send to the editor plans that you -have tried and have found successful. Address Mrs. E. C. Cronk, 2346 West Grace St., Richmond, Va. A free subscription to the REVIEW will be sent in recognition of methods submitted and found available for use in this department.
Woman's Foreign Mission
Edited by Mrs. O. R. Judd, Brooklyn, N. Y.
THE APPROACH TO A COMMON TASK Mrs. F. S. Bennett, New York President of The Council of Women for Home Missions DURING the past two decades church to its long-established and groups of men and women repre- restricted lines of service. Whatsenting the official mission agencies ever may have been true of the past, of many denominations have been many women of 1919, trained to associated in Councils and Federa- study with women of other detions; through this association they nominations about the mission task, have been learning how similar are are preparing their minds for the the tasks to which they are sever- day already foreshadowed when ally obligated, and how alike are they shall serve together with these the methods through which they others for the accomplishment of are approaching these tasks. To a this common task. greater or less extent this new knowledge has,filtered down through It is not easy to realize that· the world of 1914 has gone forever the groups back of the Boards and and that there has come a period has mitigated the rigors of denom- which is seeing gigantic revaluainational exclusiveness. Summer tions in things mental, ethical and spiritual. Were there great· physi- Schools of Missions,emphasizing cal convulsions it might be easier the number of communions having to appreciate this other change, but adherents at these gatherings, and when the material world is so unions formed in local communities serene it seems almost impossible for the united study of missions, to believe. that 1919 is very different have given tangible evidence of the from 1914. But those who have drawing together that was bound kept their eyes to the future underto come with understanding. stand that great changes are im- minent and the necessity that there The Council of Worrien for Home should be immediate preparations Missions has gathered annually, for that the new conditions of life may the past eleven years, representa- be challenged by a great spiritual tives of the eighteen Woman's power. Political revolutions have Boards that constitute the Council, made the last few years memorable for the consideration of those in- and the struggle of capital and labor terests which they have in common. has focused the attention of the Very tentative was the approach a world upon itself, but in no part decade ago; at the last meeting a of life are tremendous changes prenew spirit was manifest and through- saged more than in those things out the session was sounded the that relate to the Church. It, too, belief that the Church of Christ is faces readjustments, reorganizations; unless it proves its adaptability to at the threshold of her greatest the new world conditions, disorganopportunity, but that she can achieve ization as well as reorganization is possible. the service asked of her only as she is a united power. It is often said The Church has claimed for itself that the women form the conservative group which in every com- munity hold the denominational .. 218 a large leadership; it is now de- cumulative force rather than dis- sipated attack. manded of it that, because of this The twentieth century demana~ claim, it shall have an adequate above everything .else results, a· that these shall In some way l>~ program for the new national and commensurate to the effort that has international life; that this program been put forth. It is unquestioned that to some extent the Church has shall not be weakened by diversified escaped this demand and because it sectarian appeals, but that there has seemed to be in a class by itself, has been allowed to put forth shall be a unified approach to a a maximum of effort with a mini- mum of result without being sub- common task. It is further de- ject to the criticism that would have manded· that the presentation of come to any other body under similar circumstances. This has such a program shall be immediate, been partially due to the 'very splendid work done by the Church that the new forces abroad in the in many lines and by individual churches; the inefficient ones have world shall not thoroughly entrench often benefited thereby; it has also been partially due to the inherent themselves in the popular mind, desire of great numbers of people to keep intact the body which it unguided by, or with no conscious- was felt was the great moral force of the world. In spite of the very ness of, the place of the Church in splendid work of many churches in the new order. It is also demanded their individual capacity, it is how- ever true that because of the secthat the Church of Christ redefine tarian divisions and rivalries, the itself, not in its fundamental creed Church has shown a flagrant ex-. as a great body of those who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, but ample of wasted effort and ineffecthat it shall redefine itself as to tive power. This situation can no the service which it shall render longer be accepted with patience. to a needy world, as to "the out- The Church need be no less spiritward manifestation of an inward ual because it is efficient-indeed, spirit." the spirit of cooperation supplanting the spirit of competition should be It is today a matter of common the basis of a more truly spiritual acknowledgment on the part of the life. Church, as well as of reproach on the part of· those who have been What has been too often true without the Church, that the ap- in the home community has likewise proach to the community, whether been true in the Mission Field. in the Mission Field or in the Home The effort to bring non-Christian Church, has been fragmentary, that peoples to a knowledge of Christ it has not been on the basis of the has been lessened in effectiveness need but rather on the basis of the because the approach has been by desires of the organization making the individual denominational agenthe approach. This appreciation cies rather than by a comprehenand acknowledgment are necessary sive study of the whole needs. We before any new program can be have therefore had the sad spectacle successfully launched. So evident of bewildered "natives" striving to is the message of the day that a common task can be effectively done discriminate the seeming antago-c' only by a united force that this has become a truism accepted and linel nisms of rival sects. So far has ~ beyond the place of argument. From Marshall Foch, directing a thought progressed along this unified fighting force with power and efficiency and leading it to success, down through hundreds of other less conspicuous examples has come to. all the new method of world service, of conserved power rather than competitive effort, of
during the last twelve months, that ing across "the frontier of the it now seems impossible that new spirit" in thousands upon thousands fields of service should ever again in America who today see not be approached in the spirit of com- barriers, not the things which separ- petition rather than in that of ate groups of the followers of the mutual cooperation. Master, but who see the great deed Doubtless ecclesiastical and mis- to be done, the great cause to be sionary agencies have had serious won, and who are impelled to set responsibility for this state of things, aside. all things that hinder, all but it is likewise true that the spirit things that hold back, and to reach which has led to the perpetuation out with their brethren in the faith of many of these unfortunate con- to a larger and finer accomplish- ditions, has existed in the general ment?
church body and can be remedied But, says one, what is it that shall only as "interdenominational minds be gained to the Church of Christ and hearts" are existent in large or to its agencies by the oblitera- numbers in the membership of the tion of denominational lines or by a Church. During the last two years larger cooperation of the denomina- many have learned to think in in- tions in service? Answer can be ternational terms, and barriers that made: had held for ages have been broken down. It is a question for each to 1. That the acknowledgment of the ask of himself or herself whether one-ness of the task that is to be done it be more easy to think politically in winning the people of. a community in terms of Southeastern Europe or or of this land and of other lands to of Asia than it is to think in com- know the Master is vitar to its accom- plishment. It is not to be viewed from mon terms with other branches of a sectarian, and therefore limited, standthe Church of Christ in one's own point. It must be seen as one great community, when all of these latter are seeking the same ends through world objective; then only shal1 it be approached aright.
2. That the un-divided concentration paths diverging but slightly, each of the attention of all upon the magfrom the other. nitude of the task can be gained only When, a few years ago, groups when there are no barriers to be surof Christian women in local com- mounted between worker and worker.
3. That there would result the possi- munities came together to study the bility of stimulating the imagination of mission text books, which had been the Church by the presentation of a prepared for them, it was felt that comprehensive program fo·r a worth a long step forward had been taken. while service. 4. That to the great mass of those In the new companionships many who care but slightly the very fact of have found how insignificant were the divisions over non-essentials weakthe things that had separated the ens the great appeal and weakens the groups compared with those which belief in the sincerity of those who sustain the sectarian lines.
should have drawn them together.
Some have even found the necessity Such questions as these may per- of erecting artificial barriers to keep haps to some, whose interests are apart those who would so naturally centered in an individual church have blended. "Many nations link- and community, seem somewhat ing arms across the frontiers of the academic and far afield. But the spirit," wrote Phillip Gibbs so un- Church is the sum of its army of derstandingly of the battle front. members each of which has a re- Has not the great blending of spirits sponsibility toward this question of which he saw amon~ those imbued the future service which the Church with the fervent spint of a common shall render and the method by cause to be won, been paralleled which it shall render it. The an- in the great wave of desire sweep- swer to this question may affect a
WOMAN'S HOME MISSION BULLETIN
community of five hundred just as Church Federations, United Missiondefinitely as· it may affect a cos- ary Campaigns, local missionary unions are but manifestations of a mopolitan city like Chicago or New new spirit and are but an effort to York, it may become of as burning make it possible for the Church to importance in the heart of Africa express itself in larger terms and as it may among the teeming mil- finer service. lions of Asia. It will dictate the The question of "reconstruction" approach to a group of Indians in is agitating the Church and its our home land or to a group of agencies; all will help to decide people in a distant island of the sea. what shall evolve from this splendid freeing of the Church imagination, Said Mr. Hoover, when the food too long bound by .denominational crisis was acute and when he was restrictions. If the leaders plan big appealing to each woman in her things to be done in a big way, home: "The determining factor shall not all turn their minds to for the success of such an enlarged new visions of service and be ready appeal will be the vivid conscious- to translate into vital action even ness in every individual in each though in the translation cherished community of obligation and oppor- forms of administration shall be tunity. It is that common recogni- given up? In the great upward world struggle, kingdoms and tion of obligation that we now wish crowns have perished, boundary lines have been obliterated and to create." What was true in the ap- racial alignment changed, but from all of this there will come a peal made for the conservation of finer, freer, better world; so through food is equally true in the great evolution rather than iconoclastic question before the Church today. The leaders of the Church are dis- destruction shall come a day of cussing these questions and from the larger, better things for the Church discussion new forms will evolve, of God, a day when non-essentials but to make effective a program shall not distract from the great for the immediate and tremendous service to be rendered, and when service which is demanded, every through organic unity of the differman and every woman in the Church must realize his or her re- ent bodies or through cooperative sponsibility for creating a great service all may seek unitedly that body of enthusiasm and for the all men may know and worship translation of plans into action. God. President Wilson, speaking in This was the spirit that animated England, said: "It is the wish to come together that is more than the annual meeting of the Council half of the process" and it is for of Women in January, 1919. There each to think this thing through was a new appreciation of the place and to come clear minded and definite, with reconsecration of herself which a Christian America must to the service of a church which bear in world redemption and an shall see its cooperative duty in a overwhelming belief that no one more generous spirit than that in would dare hinder the fulfillment of which it has ever approached it; it is for each one to come clear her world service. visioned to help in the united ap- To the great body of Christian proach to the common task; it is for each one to will to come to- women giving their services disgether that she shall not by the interestedly and loyally through grain of a mustard seed hinder the many missionary societies, we can Church in the great accomplish- surely say that a larger day awaits, ment immediately before it. Inter- a day of greater opportunity than any that has before been known.
ANNUAL MEETING OF THE tions may join in educational and COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR inspirational meetings for the HOME MISSIONS. strengthening of the different organ- New York, January 14 to 16, 1919 izations and for the inspiration of larger and wider activities.
STANDING at the threshold of a The following were elected offi- momentous hour, the Council of cers for the ensuing year: Wom€n for Home Missions faced President. ……. Mrs. Fred S. Bennett the task of a new day with great Recording Sec'y.. Mrs. Philip Rossman heart-throbs of purpose and deter- Corresponding Sec'y .. Mrs. F. W. Wilcox mination to enlist and to mobilize Treasurer ……….•. Mrs. P. F. Jerome the womanhood of America to "win Vice Presidents the war" against the powers of dark- ness in the home land. Mrs. George W. Coleman As the body faced the tremen- Mrs. Mary Leonard Woodruff dous needs and demands of the new Mrs. R. W. MacDonell day, strong hearts trembled with Mrs. W. C. Winsborough the fear that women might yet Mrs. Tabor Knox Mrs. Wm. S. Cook fail God in this hour of supreme Mrs. Alice M. Burnett test. With America holding the Mrs. E. W. Lentz world idea and ideals in her hands, Mrs. W. J. GrueIer the mobilization of the prayer-power, Mrs. E. M. Spreng Miss Susan Mendenhall the money-power and the life-power Members at Large on Executive Comof the women of the Church, was a mittee-Mrs. Charles L. Frey, Mrs. Frank M. Goodchild, Mrs. Ida M. Harconsuming thought. rison. Hence large plans were made in unison with other agencies to go Chairmen Standing Committees forward and possess the land in this Home Mission Study Courses and day when "there is a new tide run- Literature-Mrs. J. S. Allen. ning in the hearts of men," which Home Mission Summer Schoolscauses them to join together in a Mrs. Luke Johnson. Home Mission Interests in Schools common task against a common foe and Colleges-Miss Carrie Barge. for the freedom, the righteousness, and the redemption of all mankind. Home Mission Interests Among Im- migrants-Mrs. D. E. Waid. The business meetings planned for forward movement in Christian The joint Sessions of the Council Americap.ization, the establishment of Women for Home Missions and of a League of Nations, co-operative the Home Missions Council were work among the Indians, the Mexi- marked by a strong program. In cans, other Spanish speaking peo- the presentation problems confront- ples, and Negroes; also industrial ing the Church in its effort to save centers, and rural communities. America; it was repeatedly stressed In order that a higher degree of by the speakers that the problem of efficiency might be reached by the world evangelization, redemption Council in making safe the founda- and reconstruction is in a great tions at home, an Executive Sec- measure dependent on Home Mis- retary was provided for to maintain sion activities.
a central office for a c10ser touch The world is searching America with and more direct assistance to with a great flashlight for its an- the Constituent Boards in their swer to Christianity. The Council efforts to make America Christian. of Women for Home Missions has A discussion of the "Adequacy of set for itself the task of calling Present Organizations" led to every woman to join in the chorus hearty support of Local Federations of reply which shall "Crown Him where the women of all denomina- Lord of All."
fROM .MrANY
NORTH AMERICA nine members. Recently oil wells, sunk in its yard, yielded a revenue D"IJI.obillzation and the ChunJhes of $200,000 and princely figures were offered for its burying ground HAPLAINS and camp pastors which adjoined the church. In turn.: C strongly urge the men, who have been in service and are being de- ing down the offer of $1,000,000 for mobilized, to return to their homes the right to develop wells in the and their former jobs, unless they cemetery, the -;:ongregation voted find themselves capable of better that none of its :nembers should ones. Many churches are cooperat- profit personally by this good foring with the Department of babor tune, but that the entire income in securing positions for discharged should be devoted to the service of soldiers, making especial effort for God. Already this congregation has the men sent out' from rehabilitation distributed $100,000 among the Baphospitals. The whole program af- tist institutions of Texas. fords many opportunities to maintain the morale of the men, and to re- Rural Slums Call for Help ceive them back into civil life in the most constructively.helpful manner. "COUNTRY Slums" is what a ru- A Cooperative DrIve for Funds ral New York pastor calls his F0U.~TEEN Protestant deno~i- parish. The land has become im- nations are to start a campaIgn poverished, the people have rio to raise $10,000,000 for the after-thewar emergency needs of the knowledge of scientific farming churches. The campaign will be cooperative and the following sums methods, and the consequent struggle will be raised by ten of the fourteen denominations: Presbyterian, to make ends meet has reduced them $1,750,000; Lutheran, $500,000; Baptist, $300,000; Protestant Episcopal, to a state of spiritless passivity from $250,000; Disciples of Christ, $125,- 000 ; Reformed Church, $110,000; which there is little chance of re- Congregational, $100,000; Reformed Church in America, $70,000; Evan- ligious awakening. gelical Synod, $33,000 ; United Evangelical, $10,000. This is a An experiment in community land small foretaste of the plan to unite all the denominations in a Mission- cultivation may help the farmers to ary Campaign. realize the advantage of cooperative One principal object of the fund is to extend religious and social ser- effort as well as give them new ideas vice ministration among American soldiers and sailors during demobili- on farming. If each church could zation. Americanization work among purchase ten acres of ground for a the foreign born will be a feature. Help will also be given in the recon~ demonstration plot, the cultivation struction of Protestant church buildings in the war zone of Europe. to be done by the farmers· them- A Church that Struck Oil selves, under the direction of a THE Merriman Baptist Church of county agricultural agent, the results' . Ranger, Texas, has only twenty- would justify the outlay. The profits from this plot could be placed in the keeping of a board of trus- tees, who would decide the best use to make of them.
While this agricultural program appears to bear no definite relation to the church, those who have studied the problem say that it is only by giving these people a little leisure that therf' is any hope for religious and social effort. .
It is stated that over 21 per cent of the farmers of the State of New 223
York have no religious affiliation and have a flourishing Serbian Bap- whatever. The development of bet- tist Church. The Hungarian Bap- ter community spirit and the knowl- tists of Detroit have their mission edge and the use of improved meth- in a Hungarian settlement in Del- ods of cultivation will lighten this ray. The – Italian Baptists have bleak picture of rural American life moved out of the old Berean Chapel which is typical of many parts of and are preparing to build more the country, and make way for the ample quarters.
growth of a strong country church. The Record of Christian Work.
. Better Leadership For Rural Districts Presbyterian Preparedness AT Iliff School of Theology, Den- ·IN order that their program for re- ver, Colorado, there has been construction may be carried ·out established a Chair of Rural Leader- most effectively, the Presbyterian ship. This is a pioneer movement Church in the U. S. A., the South- and it is hoped that such chairs will ern Presbyterian Church and the be established in other theological United Presbyterian Church will schools. hold four great Congresses, each The object is to offer the neces- lasting three or four days, one in the sary courses on rural- sociology and South, two in the North and one in rural leadership; to assume charge Canada. At these Congresses op- of the student pastorates surround- portunity will be given for full dis- ing Iliff and direct them as train- cussion of the reconstruction prob- ing stations for rural ministers; to lems confronting the churches of act as an extension representative the Presbyterian affiliation, and for both the Seminary and the Rural every possible phase of the situation Department of the Methodist Board will be presented by speakers quali- of Home Missions. A work similar fied to deal with them. The Pres- to this has been inaugurated in Cor- byterian Church in the U. S. A. has nell University, where courses are already planned to raise a fund of now offered in church problems. $500,000 for the relief of Protestant churches in the war zone, and an Successful Work among Foreigners additional $500,000 for the aid of RESULTS of Protestant mission- returning soldiers who went to war ary effort among the foreigners from Presbyterian homes. are seen in the following facts from Detroit. A short time ago a few The Presbyterian Church and the JeW8 Roumanians were brought together in the· Ferry Avenue Church and DURING recent years the Presby- terian General Assembly has services held there. They next pur- considered with increasing serious- chased a property on Rivard Street ness, the duty of bringing the. Gos- and organized a church there. Out- pel to the Jews. The demand for growing these quarters they bought immediate action is found in the the building of St. Andrew's Pres- fact that there are 3,500,000 Jews byterian Church on Hastings Street. in America, more than 1,500,000 re- The church now has 300 members siding in New York City alone.
and conducts a mission on Lafayette These Jews are ignorant of the Gos- Street. In the meantime another pel, and the Church has made no colony of :;Roumani<!.ns was discov- adequate effort for their evangeliza- ered in the Hamtramck district and tion. In accordance with a recom- work there soon gathered <L little mendation of the General Assembly, church. which now has 169 members. the Board of Home Missions has se- £erbians have purchased the church lected an Advisory Committee, of building on Rivard Street, formerly which Dr. Charles R. Erdman is occupied by the Roumanian Baptists, chairman, to assist in perfecting-
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
plans for a comprehensive program there are twenty-two saloons to of Jewish evangelization. The plan every church, and of the existing proposed includes: establishing in churches very few are adequately centers of Jewish population a work equipped. so equipped and conducted as to make the most direct appeal; en- There seems to be no great need couraging the widest possible evan- for new churches, but th.ere is an ur- gent call for more effective cooperagelization of the Jews in all parts of tion on the part of existing churches the land; the publication of facts for (1) establishing community cen- ters; (2) for social welfare work in relative to problems of Jewish evan- industrial communities; (3) for progelization and the distribution among viding sanitary and comfortable Jews of suitable evangelistic litera- housing for colored people and (4) facilities for wholesome recreation. ture and arranging in various com- The negro's innately religious nature munities for conferences designed makes the work of the churches to awaken interest in this cause. doubly urgent.
Rev. H. L. Hellyer and Mr. Light for the Esk1mos Greenbaum are Jewish workers employed as evangelists to cooperate NOT only light for the long Arctic with this committee. evenings, but light for the Es- kimo mind is being supplied by Needs Due to Colored Migration. "Uncle Sam" to the peopl~ of Noor- vik, Alaska. Many an Eskimo wo- NEGRO churches of the North man is now able to continue her have found themselves almost sewing by the sof~ glow of the helpless in caring for the problems Mazda lamp in her home, and along presented by the great influx of col- with the light has come more pride ored people from the South. In Chi- in the orderliness of the home, and cago, the negro popUlation increased a keener interest in world events. from 50,000 to 150,000 between the years 1916 and 1918. In Detroit, the A wireless instrument has been rate of increase has been almost as installed in connection with the lightgreat. In Gary, Indiana, the colored ing plant, so that through Noorvik inhabitants have quadrupled in two other villages in the northwestern years, and the United States Steel district can receive news bulletins Corporation has assigned to the from the outside world. This news Methodist Church the responsibility is always read at the opening exerof caring for this group. The prob- cises of the school, and makes the lem is also acute in Cincinnati and children realize that the United Toledo. In New York City, where States does not mean only a local there is a colored population of 175,- teacher and the man in charge of 000 the problem is serious. the Alaska Bureau of Education, but means the expression of the good The old and new colored popula- will of a whole nation. tions do not mix easily, especially in their religious life. About 60 per LATIN AMERICA cent of the migrants were church members in the South, .but their col- Transfol'JIled by a Printed Page ored brethren in the North are making little headway in assimilating this I N a small town of Guatemala a new element; while the white woman named Mercedes Morales churches have done practically noth- operated a saloon with a flourishing ing to aid them.. There is desperate trade. Four years ago she was goneed for religious educational work ing through a hunch of old papers among colored people. In Ohio, out and came upon a sheet nearly deof 38,000 colored children only 8,000 stroyed by rats-it was a page her go to Sunday-school. In one city son had tom out of a Gospel song
book some years before. She read necessary to get the police to protect it, thought it must refer to angels the house where the missionaries in heaven and spoke to her son were to sleep. The following night about it. He answered, "No, the magistrate was on hand with Mother, those are the believers in his soldiers, but the school room Jesus." "But where are they," said which had been promised for the she, " in heaven?" "No, right here on meeting was not available, because earth, those who believe in Jesus." the school master was drunk. The "Well, then," replied Mercedes Mo- priest also was frequently drunk, rales, "I want to believe in Jesus; and as a moral uplift to his people, I want joy like that. But see here, his influence was nil. The Gospel is boy, is there anyone here in the the only hope for this town. Last village who can tell me more about October, the same missionary vis- Jesus pH The son replied that there ited the place, baptized nine persons was one woman in the town who and organized the Evangelical had what she called a Bible. That Church of Sanarate. Recently news very day Mercedes found this other has come that the local priest is in woman, borrowed her Bible and sat disgrace, and that the door is now up all night reading it. Then and wide open for the Gospel. A native there her life was changed. The evangelist is on his way there to confollowing day when customers came duct regular services. for drinks they were told, "You can't get any more liquor here be- CosmopoUtan South America cause the woman who used to sell it does not live here. Today a Jesus SOUTH America, with her vast believer lives here." She poured economic possibilities, is attract- @ut the barrels of liquor and now ing men and women of the more she keeps a little store where she crowded countries, and is large sens needles, buttons and dress enough to give them an a home. goods. No one comes into her store Before the war began, Russians of without receiving a tract. When a the better sort were coming to westmissionary passing through the ern Argentina in large numbers, town not long ago held a meeting putting in orchards and irrigation seven men and one woman accepted systems. They were arranging to Christ. have hundreds of other Russian families come away from economic Guatemala News. oppression at home.
Then and Now in Sanarate Over four hundred thousand Ital- ians have settled in eastern Argen- SANARATE, Guatemala, is a town tina, and Hollanders, with their fine of some four thousand people, cattle, were establishing dairy indusignorant, superstitious and fanatical. tries at a rapid rate up to the year Several years ago a native Chris- 1914. Brazil attracts a less desirtian pastor paid a visit to this town able class of immigrants, many of and was stoned, and the house in them coming raw and untouched by which he preached was nearly de- civilization from interior Africa; stroyed. Since that time colpor- and often continuing their fetish teurs have stopped there from time worship after leaving the African to time, and literature has been jungle. sent out from the Guatemala Missian Press. Last August two mis- The dominant church has lost its sionaries essayed to hold a meet- power and the priests are generally ing in a liquor storehouse, when corrupt or indifferent. A traveler, about one hundred and fifty came taking a superficial glance at the iminside, while six hundred vicious provements there, would be apt to fanatics stoned the building. It was report a higher moral level than an investigation would disclose. Im-
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
morality and atheism are rampant. This organization consists of women "It is not 'difficult to introduce and men who watch out for men in American uniform, and direct them railroads, telegraphs, electricity, and to congenial and wholesome ways of water works, for this may be done spending their leisure. by the stroke of a pen that signs a contract. But real progress means Hundreds of soldiers and sailors such things as education, control of owe much to these faithful workers. alcoholism, justice for the humble- Their work is supplemented by the blessings which cannot be bought Y. M. C. A., which has twelve Enfrom a contractor, but require the quiry Bureaus at various points, intelligent and Christian cooperation giving information and help of all of devoted people, supported by an sorts. One of the stations records enlightened public opinion." 7,000 inquiries in one month, or 230 a day, and 125 voluntary work- New Ideals for Brazilian Young Women ers have given all their time to do any and everything possible for the THE diploma of the Brazilian men. The League has 50 guides, Government School at Natal, and during the last six months the Escola Domestica, expresses its nearly 20,000 of our soldiers were purpose when it bestows upon its shown places of interest in and graduates the title "Graduate House- around London. Through the League wife and Mother." This school has many English people have opened been warmly welcomed in Brazil, for their homes to the soldiers, more the young women of that country than 8,000 of whom have enjoyed have been coming out of their leth- real hospitality, often extending over argy and striving for better things. the week end. One of the leading newspapers of Natal said: The -Educational Program Over Sea.
"Happy are we to be able to offer DETAILS of the educational proto our daughters and sisters the ad- gram designed to teach the vantages of Escola Domestica. It fighters of the A. E. F. everything will bring about a great social and from architecture to band leadereducational uplift among us such ship have been made public, followas America has already gained by ing a Conference of the Y. M. the type of education peculiarly hers, C. A. leaders in Paris. The Army which has made the American wo- of Occupation in Germany is to have man one of the greatest factors in first claim; another important area is the greatness of the United States." the training section, where more in- tensive work will be possible i and It is the plan of the Brazilian the leave areas are also of great Government each year to send the importance. honor graduate of this School to the United States for three years of The great ports of Brest, St. Nafurther study. This reveals a strong zaire and Bordeaux are important confidence in the ideals of the United educational centers, and auditoriums States, and is an indication of the are being erected where from 1,500 changing attitude of Brazil toward to 3,000 men can be gathered at one her neighbor of the 'North. time.
EUROPE The fifth area would be on the transports carrying soldiers back to Women's Night Patrol America. This program now rests with the personnel of the Y. M. ONE of the ways in which good C. A. Text books have been pre- wemen in London have sought pared in special editions at low price, to safeguard the throngs of Amer- and the American Library Associaican soldiers seeing the British cap- tion is arranging to put a carefully ital before starting home is through the service of the "Night Patrol."
chosen list of reference books into fectiveness will be done in Greece 1500 "Y'~ huts. there is no doubt. It was a pastor in Missouri who entered the overseas The French and British universi- service of the Y. M. C. A., and as a ties have been most cordial in open- secretary with the Greeks at Saloning their doors to men in the Ameri- ika before and after the Bulgarcol. can army who are fitted to take up lapse was able to open the way. their studies in the colleges, and it may be necessary to put American MOSLEM LANDS instructors into the French universities to teach the Americans who do Missions and the Jihad. not speak French. I T is not mere conjecture to say French M:lssionary Interest Stimnlated that the Missions to Mohamme- dans of the United Presbyterian THE close contact of so many Church were worth 500,000 soldiers races in the western war area of to the Allied cause. Among the Europe has stimulated a practical Mohammedans of the Nile valley the interest in mission work, so that the missionaries of this Church have Paris Missionary Society reports a been diligent in schools and hospitals great increase in the number of con- for many years, and have so lifted tributors as an offset to the deficit up Christ before the followers of the in the actual amount of money re- false prophet that when the message ceived. Many people who, before was sent from Constantinople that the War, did not believe in foreign a holy war was to be waged against missions, have come to see the effi- the "infidel," Egyptian Mohammeciency of the Gospel. The officers dans refused to obey. Had this orwho have commanded the Tahitians, der been carried into effect, it would New Caledonians, Basutos, Kaffirs, have required half a million British Zulus, Christian converts of all sorts, troops -from other fronts to hold this will testify to their fine spirit, their country down. Thus is added anindustry and courage. These natives other item to the long list of mishav~ many times stirred the devotion sionary contributions to the history of French and British by their at- of freedom. tachment to services of worship, and to the Bible; proving that today, as Christlan Editors in Cairo in the day of Paul, in distant lands and among divers races, "The Gos- THE editors of the leading Chrispel of Christ is the power of God tian papers of Cairo and Alexunto Salvation." andria held a dinner on October 25, which marked a new era in Chris- Red Triangle Wanted In Greece tian literature work for the Near East. Dr. Nimr, the senior editor of PREMIER VENIZELOS of the leading Arabic paper of Cairo, .Greece, who carried Greece into al- told of his publishing experiences liance with the Entente, was so deeply thirty years ago, confirming and impressed with the work of the backing up the appeal made for a Y. M. C. A. in the war that he has stronger support of Christian literavolunteered to secure the erection of a Y. M. C. A. building in Athens if ture preparafion. Mr. Howard J. the Red Triangle will furnish secretaries and carryon a work there. Weaver, the business manager of The offer is to put Association work the Nile Mission Press, gave a sumin Greece on the same footing as in mary of the work done during the America, France and England, to past thirteen years, which showed meet the requirements of returning that over a million copies of books Greek soldiers. had been distributed and that 132,- 000,000 pages had been printed dur- That a work of "influence and ef- ing this period, representing no less than 280 separate pUblications, cov-
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
ering the fields of apologetics, his- this expedition already remind one tory, commentary, biography and of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp! Christian fiction. Industrial Aid tor Persia No recent event in the history of missionary cooperation has been of THE American Committee for Regreater importance than this dinner. It has drawn together the writers o lief in the Near East has reand editors of every section of the Christian community in Cairo. With ceived the following interesting news united front it will be possible to from Persia; . make the Christian press a strong force for righteousness and evangel- "The cloth-making work is boomization throughout the Nile Valley. In connection with this dinner the ing along these days with eighty recent drive to secure $25,000 for the production of Christian literature women spinning, fifty-four combing in America through the American Christian Literature Society for and about thirty looms getting into Moslems is significant. shape to begin weaving in a few The Christian Intelligencer. days. The quilt making is pretty Fifteen New Hospitals For Turkey nearly half done, some 1,159 having ONE of the most interesting fea- tures of the expedition of the been completed up to Tuesday night. American Board for the relief and reconstruction of Armenia, under We are running short of wool, howthe leadership of Dr. James L. Barton, will be the one supervised by ever, and may have to quit before' Dr. George H. Washburn, son of the former president of Robert College, we can really finish the twenty-five Constantinople. Dr. Washburn will superintend the building of fifteen hundred needed. . hospitals, to be located at various points from the Black Sea to the "As for the orphans I have cov- Persian boundary. Hospitals already existing will be remodeled and ered some eighteen of the villages utilized. The one dreadful scourge in that region is typhus, for which on the plain and the city, and early special antidotes 0 have been carefully prepared. The possibility that Dr. next month I start a distribution Barton and some of his colleagues may fly in aeroplanes to points in wagon to make the rounds with me the interior appeals to one's imagination. Several trained aviators are in to bring the flour, clothes, quilts, the party with this in view. Miso sionaries who have remained at their etc., to the orphans who are unposts during these terrible days, may look up in the sky some bright able fo come to the city and get mid-winter afternoon and see a them." plane descending, from which in due season would alight the dignified The expedition now on the way Secretary of the American Board and the distinguished Professor of is taking one hundred cases of con- Christian 0 Theology at Harvard University I Verily the 0 possibilities of densed milk, a large supply of vac- cine, serum for fighting cholera, ty- phus serum, 34 kegs of green soap, a Ford car and six motor trucks for transport, fifty sewing machines, 14,- 000 spools of thread, 100,000 sewing needles, 25,000 thimbles, and 1,000 pairs of scissors.
In Teheran alone, 12,000 persons have died of starvation during the past year. This "cradle of the white man's civilization," which ren- dered great service to the Allied cause by remaining neutral through- out the war, is threatened with utter and complete extinction unless food and medical supplies reach them ill time.
Fhost Methodist Conference in Balucb- Istan FOR the first time a Methodist Episcopal District Conference has been held in Baluchistan. Ar-
rangements were completed for the tion than the speaker. Perhaps purchase of property in Quetta, to more discouraging still was the be used as a Bible School to prepare careless inattention of the hearers.
evangelists for that country, and for But now, the closest attention is Afghanistan and Southern Persia. manifested, the audience apparently Already a day school has been forgetting their prejudices and opened under Methodist auspices, deep-seated beliefs.
with twenty Afghan boys in attend- In an evangelistic campaign at ance. Jalesar, a town of 14,000 inhabitants, INDIA the attend.mce was over a thousand a day. This was most encouraging, "General ABStlDlbly" ot Hinduism since it was the first attempt of the kind in the place, and most of the EVERY twelve years, when the people were illiterate. planet Jupiter enters the constellation Aquarius, there is a great assemblage of ascetics and religious New Record for Lucknow College E devotees, called the Kumbh mela, at IGHT Christian students will re- ceive the degree of A. B. from the junction of the J umna and Ganges rives, near Allahabad, In- LucknowChristian College at the dia. Dr. H. D. Griswold of Sahar- next commencement, this being the anpur tells of a visit to this mela last largest number of -Christian gradu- year: , ates in the history of the School.
"I went for the purpose of inter- The total enrollment is 120, or fif- viewing the ascetics. We began teen more than in any previous year.
with the Udasis and had an inter- Last year there were but two Chris· view with a headman. He was not tians in the graduating class. One very communicative so we walked of these is now a teacher of mathe- through the mass of seated ascetics, matics in the College and the other asking questions, waiting for an is an assistant in the faculty while opening for a little conversation. studying for his M. A. degree.
One young U dasi ascetic asked us to VllIage Schools tor Mass ~[ovement sit down beside him on an antelope skin. His father and mother, he Converts told us, had six children, all of whom died. Then they made a vow THE greatest problem in the mass that if another was born to them he movements toward Christianity would be dedicated to this holy life. is that of educating the converts. In This young man was the seventh one district there are eight small child, and was an ascetic in fulfill- Christian communities composed of ment of the parents' vow. converts of not more than -four years' standing. They are in great "We made inquiry as to the liter- need of enlightenment. The eduacy of the Sadhu, or ascetic class, cation that should be given them apd found that half or more of should enlarge their vision, but those at this mela were literate. should not make them unsuited to Some knew English very well, many their economic conditions. Often can read Hindu script, and some when a boy attends a large central know more or less of Sanskrit." boarding school, he falls into a some- what artificial mode of living, and Growing Interest In ChrIstiauity sometimes refuses to return to the I N the early days of missionary ef- simple life of his village. In this fort it was impossible for anyone way some of the most promising to talk to an Indian audience for young men are lost to th.e village even five minutes without interrup- congregations. To offset this, a plan tion on the part of some Hindu, of education has been worked out by ~h or Mohammedan, cock-sure which ten or twelve primary schools that he knew a better way of salva- offer every child elementary instruc-
1919J NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
tion in his own village. Some hold Mobarnmedan Women as a Factor sessions during the day and others THE thought of Mohammedans at night, the latter being chiefly in- fighting for Christian ideals, of Dark Age heathenism taking up tended for young men who must arms for the cause of civilization work during the day. These schools and humanity, opens a vista that would be staggering were it not that give promise of being strong centers the idea has long been dreamed of.
of evangelization, especially as they As one result of the war, the woare attended by non-Christians as men of India have, for the first time, well as by converts.
C. M. S. Gleaner.
A Charade Witb a Moral worked in the Government depart- REV. H. R. CALKINS relates the ments in Delhi, and the question is following incident of his Bom- being debated. as to giving women bay Church in The Moslem World equal representation with men in the for October; "It was our Christian plans of the India Natiorial Society. family night, and at the close of the In all the battle for larger things In- Bible reading I drew a picture to dia has met the problems common to show the difference between a all lands with the most modern, effi- Christian and a Mohammedan home. cient and self-sacrificing methods.
"I called brother Shah and Ag- The women of. India can hencenes, Ram Lal and Ruth, and Jai forth be counted on as a factor in the Ram and Bertha, and asked them larger problems of reconstruction.
to stand inside the altar, facing the audience. They came and stood Bibles for ·the UnJearned A while all the people looked at them. LITTLE compilation of Bible Agnes appeared· particularly beauti- stories now being used in the ful. Then I said in a quiet voice, American Presbyterian Mission in 'Brother Shah, I am a prophet to- India. is a gaily colored, pasteboard- night and I give you authority to bound volume containing the Black- take a second wife and then a third stone Picture Series of eleven Bible wife if you so desire.' Poor Agnes stories from the Gospels, accom- nearly sank to the ground, but Shah panied by text in Grumukhi charac- was quick to see what I was driving ters. The unlettered Christians at and held her closely by the arm. strive hard to learn these stories, Then I repeated the same words to short and readily understood. Usu- Ram Lal and Jai Ram and told them ally, the women learn the parable to take their seats again. The whole of the Lost Sheep first of all. Al- congregation seemed to be shocked; though it is difficult to induce them indeed I felt shocked myself. Many to tell these stories-over and over Mohammedans were present. They they will say, "I am unable"- yet seemed stunned and stung. Today once they' begin nothing can stop an educated Mohammedan gentle- them. The same is true in the man, who had studied law in Lon- efforts to persuade them to pray don, came to talk with me about the aloud. One mother, who had been a 'picture' at Central Church. The Christian only a short time, had a thing had gone through the city like son in Mesopotamia. Her heart a sword. This man freely admitted was troubled about him. We asked my accusation-for he called it that her to pray, "I don't know how to -against Mohammedans as a class, pray," she said, "but I talk to God but wanted me to know that edu- about my boy and this is what I say,"
cated Mohammedans repudiated and then followed a prayer which polygamy altogether. We had a brought tears to all our· eyes; a heart to heart talk about .Jesus prayer such as thousands of mothers Christ." are praying these days.
CHINA as your honor's posthumous olive Why an Ope.. Door in China branches.
L S. C. WANG, who is now study- . A letter found in a Shanghai pa- • ing in America preparatory per from a Chinese applying for a to entering the ministry in China, position.
gives five advantages which the The Missionary Herald.
Christians of the United States have in the work of evangelizing Two Pictures from China A China. They are: (1) the popularity CHRISTIAN Alliance mission- ary newly appointed to Nanof the United States among the Chinese, due. to their not having ning, South China, gives a picture taken any Chinese territory, and to contrasting heathenism in all its their returning the indemnity fund hopelessness,and. Christianity in its for educll:tional work; (2) the sym- transforming power. pathy of democracy; (3) President Not far from the missionary home Wilson's leadership; (4) the super- and chapel is a large idol temple ior wealth of the American people where are prodigious, terrible-visas a whole and (5) the greater de- aged monsters-in all, about one gree of contact of the student class, hundred and fifty idols in one room. out of which sympathy and better Some were designed for men to understanding is certain to develop. worship, others for women and still A Classic from China others for children. All portrayed MOST honored Sir: characteristics expressive of power, such as smiting tigers with clubs, Understanding that there are or terrorizing with large, upraised several hands wanted in your honor's swords. There were idols to be department, I beg to offer you my worshipped on special occasir;ns and hand. As to my adjustments I ap- others to be worshipped by special peared for the Matric Examination types of mankind. Saddest of all at Oety, but failed, the reason for was the great number of people which I shall describe. To. begin bowing before them, with their gifts with, my writing was illegible, this of roast fowls, live fish, rice and was due to climate reason, for I wine.
having come from a warm in a cold The missionary's first baptismal climate found my fingers stiff and service marked the dividing line be- very disobedient to my wishes. tween Supei1"stition and enlighten- Further I had received a great shock ment. Of the three candidates for to my mental system in the shape baptism, one walked 180 miles and of death of my only fond brother. on his return asked for Gospels to Besides, most honor~d sir, I beg to sell in the villages along his way: state that I am in very uncomfort- Another was a young man of the able circumstances, being the sale middle class who lived 110 miles means of support of my fond broth- away and the third was the mother er's seven issues, consisting of three of the native teacher, who had been adults and four adultresses, the lat- indifferent to spiritual things~and ter being the bane of my existence, for whom her son had been praying owing to my having to support two long and earnestly. She walked 70 of my own wives as well as their miles, carrying a heavy baby on her issues, of which by God's misfortune back, in order to be baptized. In the feminine gender predominate. If China, Christ means all in all to by wonderful good fortune these few those who accept Him.
lines meet with your benign kindness and favorable turn of mind, I, the Ragged Sunday Schools at K1aIigyin B poor menial, shall ever ·pray for ECAUSE so many children in the neighborhood were too poor the long life and prosperity, as well
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
to go to school, some mIssIonaries burial squads and taught the people at Kiangyin, 'with Chinese helpers, how to fight the plague. The hos- organized a "Ragged Sun day pital grounds were open and for two School,'" first for the boys and later, months an average of more than one for the girls. This school has 400 women and children were fed now outgrown its ·original bounds, daily from the soup kitchens. Mrs.
and every Sunday about one hun- Hamilton writes that they are still dred and thirty ragged and dirty caring for the "debris" from the children, often coarse and rough, previous year's soup kitchens, the gather to repeat the Lord's Prayer, debris consisting of half a dozen or the Ten Commandments, sing hymns more families who were stranded in and listen to Bible stories which are Shuntefu after being helped over illustrated with pictures. A highly the worst of the famine, but who appreciated part of the service is the are reluctant to give up the mendi- distribution of small picture cards, cant's life. The problem is to find each card having a Bible verse writ- work for them and as many as pos- ten upon it that a message may be sible are employed about the mis- carried to parents at home. Not sion premises. One family of six long ago the children were initiated is living in a dugout without the in the blessedness of giving, when pretense of a window, and in abso- a collection which had been an- lute indifference to the laws of sani- nounced the previous Sunday was tation or the dangers of contagion.
taken up for Armenian children. It The mother of this family is em- was quite an event in their dull, ployed as janitress of the church, colorless lives. Each tot had and one day when she had finished wrapped his gift carefully in paper,' cleaning she brought broom and dust as he had seen the older folk do at cloths to Mrs. Hamilton; saying she church services. This collection must hurry home as the baby was amounted to about fifty cents, but it "growing the heavenly flowers,"
was cheerfully given, and who knows which being interpreted meant she how much the Master may accom- was tak:ing small-pox, now rampant plish with it? in the district. Notwithstanding all this valiant fight against poverty and Plague, Famine, Flood and War disease the evangelical work has been THE . Shuntefu Station of the carried on without serious interrup- North China Mission is one of tion. The chapels were crowded the thirty-two principal stations of with throngs who came to give the Presbyterian Board in China. thanks; hundreds brought their idols In the Shuntefu district there are to burn in public and Bible classes six churches and groups of Chris- of 700 each were formed.
tians, eleven schools, two hospitals and two dispensaries. The year JAPAN·CHOSEN ' 1917 was a year of plague, famine, Buddhist MIssIonary Methods T flood and war, and the entire force ELLING of some of the difficul- ties he experienced in getting of the station was engaged in some form of relief. Dr. Guy W. Ham- photographs of places of worship, ilton supervised the sanitation of a Rev. Sumner R. Vinton, who re- camp at Tientsin where 10,000 cently returned from a tour of the refugees were cared for; and also Orient, describes conditions as he inspected daily for pneumonic plague found them in Japan.
every passenger on the railway run- "There is a Shinto revival and a ning from Shuntefu to Shih Chia Buddhist revival," said Mr. Vinton. Chuang. Dr. J. R. Dickson in- "The first is an attempt to substitute spected every infected district, iso- patriotism for religion. It is a huge lated houses and people, trained experiment in national psychology.
"As to Buddhism, there is a prov- Japan, ten of whom are Japanese erb in Burmah, 'The dying frog women. Classes for Bible study, for gives a last kick.' The Buddhist sewing; cooking and singing, and leaders are aroused at the progress travelers' aids for young women of Christianity. are only a few of the activities for "A young Japanese girl professed helping women and girls.
conversion and became an active Missionaries are the promoters of member of a mission Sunday-school. all such organized effort, leading in Six months later she disappeared. the work without seeming to do so.
Where had she gone? It was found They render both executive and fi- she had been sent to learn all our nancial help, but more and more the methods, even to committing our Japanese women are assuming full . best hymns to memory. Now she is responsibility.
back imparting these methods for On the Death of a Son the glory of Buddha. MR. YAMAGATA, Japanese edi- "They have Buddhist institutes for tor of The Seoul Press, Seoul, training men in Christian methods. Korea, lost his six-year-old son, and They study in these institutes every phase of our Sunday-school activi- a letter which he has written in ties. another newspaper, the Keijo Nippo, "Cases are known where men have will have an influence with non- come to listen to Christian sermons Christian Japanese of more weight and then gone back to repeat these than any foreigner's word. An ex- ,tract from a translation of this letsermons in Buddhist meetings,the ter by Bishop Herbert Welch is as only change being the substitution folJows: of the word Buddha for Christ There must be .some purpose in throughout."
Work of Christian Women the summoning of my child by God who is Love. I cannot think that THE women's societies in local He has given us this trial in order churches in Japan are doing to plunge us into the depths of sormuch valuable work by visiting non- row and thereby make us desperate Christian women, winning their and abandoned. All people are glad friendship by kindness and by trying to care for their children, but it canto show them the joy of the Chris- not be denied that the rearing of tian life. Particularly in time of children is a heavy burden. Is it sorrow or discouragement these not, then, that God's summoning of Christian women are helpful to their non-Christian friends, and many a our child Hisao is meant for the convert has testified that the kind- alleviation of our burden, so that ness of· Christian women so im- we may turn the little strength we can thus save to other use? There pressed them that they wanted to is no doubt that God has taken our know more of their religion. child, so that we may be able to give to less fortunate people the love The Woman's Christian Temperance Union has had a remarkable growth in Japan. Mrs. Yajima, the and energy we used to direct toward President, is eighty-five years old, him. We will thus interpret the but gives her entire time to the trial we have just passed through, work. Two periodicals, "The Wo- enter into a new life, and work man's Herald" and a magazine for harder for the cause of humanity. children are published by the In this way will we make the W. C. T. U., and a rescue home is death of our beloved child rich in maintained in Tokyo.. The Y. W. meaning. The Christian Advocate.
C. A. has twelve secretaries in
1919J NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
AFRICA it must be done from the begin- Kftchener Memorial College ning-there are forests to be hewn THE proposal to erect a Medical and roads to be built, railways and College in Khartum as a Sudan ships to be constructed and it all Memorial to Lord Kitchener has re- must be done by men of intelligence ceived hearty endorsement among and enterprise. It takes the extra- the natives of the Sudan. From or,dinary man-the ordinary man the published lists of subscriptions it would be a hindrance to Liberia."
appears that about £9000 has already been collected in the Sudan, the Opportunity Among the Hausas T greater part of which was· subscribed HE Hausa people are the pre- dominant race in the Western by the natives. A liberal endow- ment fund for the benefit of future Sudan, thorough-going Mohamme- students is assured by a gift of land dans and proud of their religion and and house property in Khartum and their race. Results of missionary Omdurman by a retired merchant, work among them have been few Ahmed Hashim el-Bagdadi Bey, and thus far, but a new order seems at generous gifts of agricultural land hand. Great numbers have been have been made by Sheikh Hassan helping England in the war, and the Sherif. railroad that has come to them is a great awakener. The Hausa begins CitizenShip In an African Republic to see that the educated' are occupy- BISHOP CAMPHOR'S statement ing government and railroad posi- that the percentage of literacy tions in his country, and while it has among Liberians is greater than that taken him some time to see into the among colored people in America is reasons for this, he is doing some food for thought. Bishop Camphor thinking for himself and soon will recently came to America from his want to be taught as others have home in Monrovia, Liberia, and his been. The British government has explanation of this astonishing com- established some schools among parison is that in Liberia the col- them, but these are thoroughly Mos- ored man is ruler, that the govern- lem and only for the elite. The ment is in his hands and he must mission schools have a rare oppor- rise to a place of responsibility tunity, for not infrequently it is the among his people. There is no dis- middle and lower classes who are crimination there, every colored man the more ambitious, and ready to is a gentleman, especially if he has lay aside prejudice. The Bible is education ,and property, and most of the chief text-book in the mission them have. Every man has an schools.
equal chance, there is an objective to Missionary Tidings.
work for and something to spur him on to make something of himself. Plans tor the Congo D As soon as he is civilized and wears R. JOHN M. SPRINGER, who clothes, he becomes a citizen. They is in charge of the Congo have a missionary college, mission- Methodist Episcopal Mission, has ary schools and churches. just returned to America from the When asked his opinion of the heart of Africa, and tells of condi- migration of American Negroes to tions there, particularly in the min- Liberia the Bishop expressed his ap- eral belt, as affected by the world'
proval. He said: "That is the place war: for them, but they will have to work "In the copper smelters at Eliza- hard. It is my purpose to invite bethville, the number of furnaces colored men of intelligence to go was doubled. All of this meant there and help Liberia to build up a commercial prosperity; but, unfortu- nation.·' It is not an easy task, for nately, none of the profits of the
industry go into mission work. forts of the missionaries, backed When we began the work at Eliza- by the United States Government. bethville, in the spring of 1917, we Before this transformation the· type had no property. Now our equip- of native houses was responsible for ment includes four main buildings, a much of the disease, being built in school and church, two residences, a way to attract every variety of and an office which can also be used insect and lizard. The percentage of as a residence. Our night school mortality among children under five reaches a large group of students. years of age was from 96 to 98. Two schools are conducted daily· in One can imagine the moral standthe compounds, there is a new vil- ards of the mothers, who knew that lage school under construction in the only three out of ten children would suburbs, and a morning school for live. In marshy places, the people women reaches some of the ever- built their houses in the trees and shifting group of native women and in many other villages, there was girls. hardly room to walk between the houses, and throngs of people "Now that transportation facilities washed their clothes in one stream, have been added, our mission sees using the water for every possible a long dreamed of program within purpose. Practically every known reach. An institution is planned disease existed there. where hundreds of students may receive an all-round training that will The work which has gradually fit them for service to their fellow- changed conditions was an appeal to men." their imitative temperament. Houses were built which were attractive, A Mass Movement in Nigeria so they came down out of the trees to live in them; then sidewalks were A MASS movement is well under built, wells dug, and finally a school way in Nigeria which promises built. A fire engine went about to equal those of India, Uganda and spraying, not water, but a disinfect- Korea. The number of persons un- ant, and drainage systems were inder instruction for church mem- stalled. Ball games were started on bership in the C. M. S. Niger Mis- the opposite side of the town from sion has increased since 1896 from where a cock fight was in progress. 583 to 20,668; in the Qua Iboe Mis- One serious handicap in this prosion in the same period, from 60 to gram of uplift was the aversion the 9,200; while the Yoruba, the Wes- natives held toward manual labor. leyan, the Free Church of Scotland Their chief ambition seemed to be Mission and the Niger Delta Pas- to wear a high collar, and shoes. torate report similarly encouraging But the increased facilities for comgains. Smaller societies bring the munication and transportation; the number of those baptized and under improvement over their primitive systematic instruction· up to 135,748, methods of industry and above all and of contributions on the field to the educational program of the mismore than $200,000. Plainly, the sion school have metamorphosed the Church of Christ is well established life and temperament of the Filipino in Nigeria. native.
ISLANDS OF THE SEA GENERAL NOTES FiHpinos Learn by imitation $1,200 in lWssIonary PrIzes DR. PAUL MONROE, who has A FRIEND of American students, recently returned from the through the student department Philippines, tells of the marvellous of the International Committee of changes that have taken place in liv- Young- Men's Christian Associations, ing conditions on the Islands within offers $1,200 in prizes for the best the past twenty years, due to the ef-
NEWS FROM .MANY LANDS
1,000 word original statements by transfer to the American Society all students on the subject, "The Sig- the plates of its Philippine versions, nificance of the Foreign Missionary also giving the American Society Enterprise in Making the New its rights in the new translations World." now under way.
Sign with nom de plume, accom- Secretary W. I. Haven, of the panied by name and address in American Bible Society, writes: sealed envelope, bearing same pen "It is believed that this transfer name. Articles must be typewrit- of fields will make for economy in ten on one side of 80 x 11 sheets the administrative expenses on the and must be received at Student De- field and be in line with the best mis- partment, 347 Madison Avenue, New sionary policy."
York City, by April 15, 1919. OBITUARY NOTES InJInenza Rages in All Lands Dr. Alphens Andrus of Turkey N A EARLY the whole of Korea has FTER passing through many been prostrated by the epidemic most trying experiences during of influenza. As in America, schools the war in Asia Minor, and return- have been closed and business houses ing to America about two years ago have found it difficult to keep open. the Rev. Alpheus N. Andrus, D. D., In Chemulpo, a city with a popula- an honored missionary of the tion of 32,000, the death rate from American Board at Mardin, Turkey, the epidemic has been over seventy died suddenly in Poughkeepsie, New a day. The same condition 1s re- York on Saturday, January 11, 1919.
ported from Siam, where over 8,000 Dr. Andrus was seventy-five years deaths have resulted; and in West of age and had been a missionary Africa thousands have been carried in Turkey for the past fifty years, off by this plague. It is thought having gone to that field in 1868.
that monkeys have carried the dis- Mrs. Andrus died in Mardin in Au- ease from one place to another. All gust, 1916.
mail service has ceased in interior. Africa where mail has to be sent Dr. John Wherry of China by native ca~riers. DR. JOHN WHERRY, a Presby- terian missionary in China, died Bible Societies Make Reciprocal Ex- change in Peking on January 2, in his eigh- tieth year. Fifty-five years ago, in THE American Bible Society and the spring of 1864, Dr. Wherry and the British and Foreign Bible his bride started on the voyage to Society have entered into an agree- Shanghai which then required 175 ment by which an interchange of days. For six years Dr. Wherry fields is to be effected, and thereby had charge of the Presbyterian Mis- greater efficiency secured. It is pro- sion Press, then he was transferred posed that the American Bible So- to Chefoo and later to Peking.
ciety shall retire from its work in There he was headmaster of the Korea, turning over all its interests Boys' School, Professor of New in the translation, publication .and Testament Exegesis in the North distribution of the Scriptures in that Union Theological Seminary and country to the British and Foreign Professor of Astronomy and Mathe- Bible Society; while the latter So- matics in the Arts College. At the ciety shall withdraw in the same time of his death, Dr. Wherry had manner from the Philippines. It has just completed his translation of the been publishing the Scriptures, in Bible into classical, literary Chinese, whole or in part, in several different a work upon which he had spent dialects, and generously agrees to eighteen years.
MKSS1[ONARY
Mexico's Dilemma. By Carl W. interesting and instructive manner. Ackerman. Illus. 281 pp. New York: George H. Doran Com- Mrs. Bainbridge does not believe in pany. $1.50. 1918. clothing a man's body and neglect- The dilemma proves to be a trilemma: 1. The financial ruin of ing his spirit, or in feeding a wo- Mexico and internal disorders, unle,ss a loan is obtained. 2. The pos- man's stomach and allowing the sibility of subjugation to German soul to starve. Spiritual work is influence, with all its liability to external strife. 3. Cooperation with given first place, if not always in the United States, England, France and with other portions of America time at least in importance. outside the United States. But Those working in city missions these are resolved into the dilemma, Is Mexico to be an American men- and among the poor and outcast ace, or an American ally? everywhere will find these exper- iences of Mrs. Bainbridge, humanely After discussing Mexican revolu- fascinating and practically Christions and German intrigue at length, tian. Mr. Ackerman concludes that the Republic is better worth aiding than Comparative Religion. By A. S. any of the twelve countries he had recently visited; that within fifty Geden, D. D. 144 pp. New York: years she could take her place The Macmillan Company, New among the greatest nations of the York. 80 cts. 1917. world, if willing to seek the cooperation of its great democracies. Half For so brief a book on so great the volume is devoted to appen- a subject, this is very satisfactory. dices, mainly official documents The author's plan is' to give the shedding light on the country's reader an insight into the teachings financial and commercial condition. of five of the chief religions of The only suggestion for missions is mankind, Hinduism, Buddhism. the sore need he shows of edu- Judaism, Muhammadanism and cational assistance-which mission Christianity, collating the results boards are rendering already. thus obtained and then estimating the significance of truths held in Helping.the Helpless in Lower New common, with a distinction of the York. By Lucy S. Bainbridge. cleavages and differences between Illustrated. 12mo. 172 pp. $1.00 them. As well as any man can do net. Fleming H. Revell Co., New it in fifteen small pages, this last York: 1918. objective has been accomplished. A preliminary chapter opens tip the As Superintendent of the New whole range of early forms of York City Mission and Tract So- religious faith, whose survivals conciety for many years Mrs. Bain- stitute so much of some of the bridge has had unique opportunity others; and in the final chapter one to see "how the other half lives" finds a statement of the achieveand how they may best be helped ment and prospects of Comparative to clean Christian living. Her ex- Religion. A bibliography of some periences and observations are here of the best books on the religions described and interpreted in a most studied adds to the value of this little handbook. For great trends in religious thought as set forth by a thorough-going modern, and as a fair appraisement of them, the book has unusual value, despite its great brevity.
238
1919J THE MISSIONARY LIBRARY
Christian Ethics in the World-War. others, and the experiences of Her- By W. DougJas Mackenzie. 8vo. bert Withey in Africa. The stories Pp. 192. 1918. $1.00. Associa- are best adapted to intermediate tion Press, 347 Madison Ave., age.
New York. 1918. Personal Appeals to Sunday School Workers. By Oscar L. Joseph. There are few, if any, more im- 8vo. 215 pp. $1.00 net. Flemportant and pressing needs to-day ing H. Revell Co. 1918. than to see the true beanng of Christianity on the State in general In the form of letters to superand on War in particular. The intendents, teachers, mothers, faththought of many Christian people ers and others, Mr. Joseph shows has to be clarified in regard to the importance of Sunday-school these great and far-reaching issues. work and the need for consecrated, Dr. Douglas Mackenzie here does efficient workers. It is a series of this with signal success. In eight exhortations rather than a course of chapters, including such subjects instruction, but it contains many as "The State and the Citizen," valuable hints. "Ethical Values in the World-War,"
and "Ethical Gains in the War," he Graded Missionary Education in the reviews the situation created by the Church School. By Frederica war and provides convincing guid- Beard. 12mo. 132 pp. 75 cents ance for Christian thought and life. net. The Griffith and Rowland n is one of the best books on this Press. 1918.
great subject and should be read Social service and missionary inand pondered by all who. want to struction are here joined together know the true Christian position. in a practical and progressive plan It might well be used as a text- for the various grades of a Sundaybook for discussional classes, but, school. As a handbook it is very however it be employed, it is de- valuable and contains not only genserving of the widest circulation eral, workable plans but useful deand the most thorough acceptance. tails, good illustrative stories, and It is impossible to touch upon the lists of books. many points raised, but. two seem to stand out from the rest: the The Blot on the Kaiser's Scutcheon. difference between Church and By Newell Dwight Hillis. 12mo. State, and the interpretation of the $1.00. 193 pp. Fleming H. Re- Sermon an the Mount. The entire vell Co. New York. 1918. book" is sane, balanced, strong, Scriptural and eminently satisfying. The bitterness and personal char- acter of the accusations in this vol- Red, Yellow and Black. By Sophia ume is in contrast with Dr. Sher- Lyon Fahs. Illustrated. 12mo. wood Eddy's more dispassionate 215 pp. 75 cents, net. Metho- study of principles involved in the dist Book Concern. 1918. war. This volume is calculated to Books for juniors are increasing stir unchristian hatred of a man and in number and improving in quality. a nation, while the other is more cal- There is no excuse for failure to culated to establish right principles, -1nterest children in missions. The clarify Christian thought and stimumaterial is abundant and excellent. late to Christian warfare for right- eousness and peace. The author of the young peoples'
life of Alexander Mackay describes A Cyclopedia of Twentieth Cenin her latest volume the life of John tury Illustrations. By Amos R.
Stewart and the American Indians, Wells. 8vo, 476 pp. $3.00.
short stories of Chinese babies and Fleming H. Revell Co., 1918. A fertile brain, a good meroory, a the midst of dirt, superstition, ig- knowledge of men and things, wide norance and sin, he was preacher, reading and long experience as a ,teacher, judge, physician and sur- writer and speaker, are the elements geon. that make these selections of prac- tical value to speakers and teachers. After estimating the cost of the Mr. Wells has been for many years service, he believes that it pays-as the Editor of The Christian En- shown by the fact that there are deavor World and has written nu- stores of self-supporting churches merous books of poetry, religion, and by the character of many of stories, Sunday-school work, essays the Christians. and illustrations. He is always interesting and practically helpful. He Stories of Brotherhood. By Harold draws on science, history, child B. Hunting. Illustrated. 12mo. study, folk lore and the Bible for 124 pp. Missionary Education his material. This Cyclopedia of il- Movement, New York, 1918. lustrative material on nearly 400 topics will be a rich storehouse for These live stories for boys and many who have not Mr. Well's girls are about men and women large experience and great sources who lived and loved, served and of supply. died for their fellowmen. Here is told the story of Jacob A. Riis, "the Romance of Missions in Nigeria. man who brought sunshine to chil- By S. G. Pinnock. Illustrated. dren;" George E. Waring, the "Gar- l2mo. 176 pp. Educational bage man who was proud of his Dept. Foreign Mission Bd. South job;" Chief Kohler, a new kind of ern Bapt. Convention, Richmond, policeman; Ben Lindsey, a judge Va., 1918. who loves even bad children; Flor- ence Nightingale, who made nurs- Nigeria, on the Gulf of Guinea, ing beautiful; Samuel M. Jones, who includes a territory almost as large introduced the golden rule in busias the Southern States east of the ness; David Churchill, who gave Mississippi. Here the Southern more bread to India; Booker T. Baptists have a work among the Washington, a black man who Goeubans-a people numbering believed in his white neighbors; Dr. 4,000,000. Mr. Pinnock, a misson- Shephard of Anitab, a missionary ary who went to labor among them who helped different nations to be thirty years ago, tells in brief but friends-and others. The subjects interesting fashion the story of his are worthy and the stories are inwork among them. The climate is teresting, although some ·of them unhealthy and most white men go might be better told for boys and there to seek fortunes or on politi- girls. cal missions, but many consecrated men and women have labored The Minister's Handicap. By J. there to help the people Godward. Their experiences were picturesque, . Wilbur Chapman. 12mo. 155 pp. often disagreeable and sometimes Price 75c. The American Tract thrilling. Mr. Pinnock gives a Society. 1918. simple and clear, but not a "romantic," account of his life in the fever Dr. Chapman has gathered under stricken land of primitive men. He this title a number of more or le~s was staggered at the magnitude of closely related reminiscences, anec·· the task before him-"valleys of dotes and addresses, which suggest slavery, polygamy and drunkenness. his attitude toward life, the Scrip- . . . mountains of idolatry, Sab- tures and the Church. The book is bath breaking and witchcraft." In scarcely worthy of Dr. Chapman's name as a preacher, pastor and· evangelist.
The Missionary Review of the World — September 1901
HAWAIIAN
St:ale of Miles b.J L….J o 2 " G 8 fO 15 .20 80 o o VARIATION, 9° 37' o Same scale as large map. 0- NIIllA Cook's MISSIO~ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
Old Series. t SEPTEMBER. j New Series. VOL. XXIV. No.9. f 1 VOL. XIV. No.9.
JOHN ELIOT, APOSTLE '1'0 THE RED INDIANS.
BY THE EDITOH-IN-CHIEF.
This man, one of the pioneers, belongs in the same rank with Raymond Lull and William Oarey, Robert Morrison and Samuel J. Mills, John Williams and James Wilson, John Vanderkemp and Henry Martyn, Allen Gardiner and William G. Schauffier, Alexander Duff and Alphonse La Oroix, John Wray and Keith-Falconer, Peter Greig and Samuel Kirkland, David Livingstone and David Brainerd.
John Eliot was born in Nasing, England, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, 1604, and died in Roxbury, Mass., in 1690, at the ripe age of eighty-six, lamented by all New England, his death, even at that extreme and exceptional limit of life, being felt to be a public calamity. This is itself a sufficient tribute to his character and career.
He was graduated at Oambridge University, at nineteen, and ordained as a minister of the Gospel by the non-conformists; in 1631 he removed to Boston, and the next year became congregational pastor in Roxbury, where for almost threescore years he lived and labored in the spirit of an apostle.
That with which we are now mainly concerned is his -life work among the Indians, which is the more worthy of record and emulation, as incidental and complemental to the busy life of a pulpit and parish. It both demonstrates and illustrates what one man can do, without separating himself from his chosen calling or entering an entirely Dew sphere of labor, by simply using the opportunity which lies next him; and it further proves that there may be large exertion without exhaustion, multiplied and manifold labors without premature death or even decay of faculties. As pastor Harms at Hermannsburgh was an example of a parish clergyman, organizing a great foreign mission work inside parish limits, pastor Eliot was an example of a busy minister, in himself uniting the charge of a pulpit and parish with personal work among what was essentially a foreign people, thus conducting foreign mission work on home territory; acquiring the language and adjusting himself to the customs of a strange community, becoming to the Indian tribes preacher, teacher, and translator, and all else for which we look in the most accomplished, industrious, and successful foreign missionary. These facts and features mark John Eliot as a unique subject of study in the department of missions.
The way he was led into this work forms part of the essentials of the history. He looked upon the Indian tribes as portions of the lost tribes of Israel, and hence was peculiarly drawn toward them. Moreover, he saw a new civilization landing on American shores and pushing the original inhabitants and possessors of these domains further and further before it, and then leaving them to suffer as victims also of spiritual neglect. The stronger ana. dominant races always naturally subject the weaker, and the tendency is always to treat subject races with carelessness if not with contempt. It is a historic law, however unjust, that inferiors can only be held in subordination by being kept in ignorance and degradation. The nightingale's song will not be heard in the cage unless the bird's eyes be put out; and as soon as the serf or the slave begins to see the possibilities of freedom, he can no longer be content behind his bars. Hence subject races have always been kept down by being kept in ignorance, or at least left to virtual barbarism, as was the course of Russia with her serfs, and of America with her slaves.
Eliot had too big a heart to leave these poor Indians alone in half savagery and total unregeneracy. Scarce dreaming of any large work among them, he took one step at a time. To reach them at all he must get some knowledge of their language, and with the aid of Ii captive Pequot, he studied their strange tongue, and 'began to preach to them, at first with an interpreter's aid; meanwhile beginning his work as a translator by clothing the Decalogue, the Lord's Prayer, and many leading Scripture texts with their own familiar words, and seeking fitness to address them without an interpreter's aid.
In 1646, when he had been but fifteen years in America, he made the first visit to the Indian camp, near. Newton, and preached to the Indians in the wigwam of Waban, their chief. This was the first sermon ever pre(lc7ted in North Arnerica in a native tongue. It was in many respects a memorable service. It lasted three hours, and from the first the smile of God was upon the work. The Indians proved no indifferent auditors. They wearied him with questions which showed that the Gospel message had found a good soil. A fortnight later, at a second visit, an old warrior, weeping, asked if it were not too late for him to come to God; and when, after a fortnight more, the Roxbury pastor again found time to come to the camp, the interest in his message was so deep and so widespread that the enemy of souls was bestirring himself and on the alert to hinder the work. The powwows-the conjurors, or juggling priests-were violently opposing Mr. Eliot and inciting hostility in the tribe. But the spirit of God was helping while Satan hindered. Waban himself was so moved that he gathered his Indians about the evening camp-fire, to talk about these new and wonderful words and the story of the cross.
JOHN ELIOT, APOS,TLE TO THE RED INDIANS
John Eliot had put his hand to the plow, scarce realizing what he was doing, but he could not look back. He must guide the plow to the end of the furrow and the limits of his field. He saw, as Duncan did at Metlakahtla, that civilization must be the handmaid of evangelization, and instinctively he felt that a community must be formed of those who had heard, and were inclined to heed, his Gospel message, and so he took his next step as God seemed to lead. On the site of their camp ground, four miles from Roxbury, they were formed into a settlement, to which was given the name" Nonantum" (Rejoicing)-now called Brighton-and EI.iot's sagacity and tact were used to encourage the Indians to adopt the forms and fashions of civilized life. A simple civil state was set up, with a court over which an English magistrate presided, under appointment by the general court of the colony, and social and industrial improvements, as well as religious doctrines and duties, were embraced in the training of Eliot's "Praying Indians."
The Roxbury self-constituted missionary was courageous in his work, and, when opposition threatened to reach the point of personal violence, he calmly faced the powwows and hostile head men, and said, "I am doing the work of the great God: He is with me; touch me if you dare!"
Neponset was another place of meeting with the Indians, whose chief was the first sachem to whom Eliot preached. A sachem at Concord got his people to petition for similar privileges, and a teacher was given them. In 1648, Mr. Eliot visited Pawtucket, and a powerful chief and his two sons gave evidence of true conversion and sought to induce Eliot to come and live with them. Another chief, sixty miles off, not only besought him to visit his people,- but sent an escort of twenty warriors to guard him on the way. It was a weary journey, involving much exposure; a large part of the time he was obliged to travel in wet clothes. But with the spirit of Paul he rejoiced in sufferings and privations which enabled him to fill up what is behind in the sufferings of Ohrist for the sake of His body-the Ohurch.
It was thought best that all Eliot's praying Indians should be gathered in one settlement. His converts were formed into a church in 1660; but his plan of gathering them all into one mission settlement at Natick failed, and thirteen other towns of praying Indians were formed. After twenty years of direct labor, he had, ill: 1674, eleven hundred converts under his immediate care, and more than twice as many more were scattered through Massachusetts, aud on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, under others' care, but whose conversion is traceable to him. He gave attention to teaching and training natives for preaching and teaching, and lived to see twenty-four of them heralds of the Gospel.
His translation of the Bible has made John Eliot famous. The
New Testament was first issued in 1661, and the Old two years later. This Indian Bible is the first printed in America. Edward Everett said of it, that the history of the Christian Church contains no exam- ple superior to it of resolute, untiring, and successful labor.
He translated also "Baxter's Call" and other practical religious works. He also prepared an Indian grammar, primer, psalter, and catechism. The sentenc:e he wrote at the end of the grammar has become as famous as Carey's motto: "Prayer and pains, through faith in Jesus Christ, will do anything."
He was a great-hearted man. His charity to the poor is one of the marked features of his unique personality. Nearly all his salary, received from England he gave to the Indians, and on one occasion the parish treasurer tied up the money due him in a handkerchief with hard knots, to keep him from giving it all away on the way home. In the first house he visited he found such poverty and sickness tnat he could not withhold relief; and ali) he could not untie the knots, he left them the handkerchief and all it held, saying: " Take it; God seems to mean that you shall have it all."
He kept up his pen work to the last. And, when age and its disabilities kept him from longer visiting his beloved Indians, he asked certain families to send him once a week their negro servants, that he might teach them the Gospel. His wife died three years before him, and his own last words were, "Welcome joy!"
It is hard to believe that such a man could' be maligned and aspersed even by his own countrymen; but it was so. Both in old England and New England his beautiful and self~denying work was ascribed to ambition and greed-it was a money-making scheme; and the conversion of the Indians was a mere fable. Persistency of work, constancy of faith, heroic silence conquered; and before the middle of the century he had won the good opinion even of detractors, and a society for the propagation of the Gospel in New England was formed, which sent him £50 a year to supplement his £60 stipend as Roxbury pastor.
At South Natick-a town whose history dates from Eliot's coming, in 1651, with 1 band of praying Indians from Nonantum, and where his monument stands in the cemetery-his descendants' met on July 3d, of this year, to keep the two hundred and fiftieth anniversal."Y of the event just referred to. 'I'he exercises occupied the day, and included a welcome from Rev. Leverett R. Daniels, of the Eliot Church, with a response; an oration on the distinguislwd missionary, by William Sidney Eliot, Jr., of Chicago; an address on his work at Roxbury, by Dr. James De Normandie, his successor; an oration on Rev. Jared Eliot, by William R. Richards, Esq., of Boston, and various other exercises both interesting and appropriate.
There is much in this not"able history that has never been, and
JOHN ELIOT, APOSTLE TO THE RED INDIANS
never will be, written. And for two reasons: first, because much of the best part of a life is among the secrets of God, not to be divulged to men but belongin'g to the arcana/ and, secondly, because the highest charm of a God-filled, spirit-anointed life is too subtle and etherial to be caught by the pen and fixed on paper. The pen, like the pencil, may give us form and color, but never fragrance. There is about a life a savor that is evasive, as to all descripti~n, but none the less pervasive, as to influence. John Eliot broke on his Lord's feet an alabaster box of ointment very precious. Its value only God knows, or what it might have been sold for in the markets of the world, if the same precious treasure of industry, genius, enthusiasm, had been for sale for commercial purposes. But the fragrance of the outpouring of this lavish heart treasure " fills the house" to this day; and tho it can not be caught and bottled up in biography, we feel its pervasive influence. The secret of such service is not so hard to find as it is to follow. It is all embraced in that one word "Love "-for love means preference for God and for man, above self. It is therefore the soul of that self-effacement which is the condition of service to others. 'l'o empty ourselves of what is selfish and self-absorbing, is to be prepared to recognize and respond to the destitution and degradation which in man constitutes God's high appeal for a self-denying usefulness.
MaRTYR OR MISSIONARY ROCK, JAPAN.
[""pon this rock Christians were murdered during times of persecution.
THE GREAT AWAKENING IN JAPAN.
BY REV. THEODORE M. MAcNAIR, TOKYO, JAPAN.
A Buddhist monk recently remarked to a missionary: "Buddhism is now at its height [lifting his hand to his head], and Christianity is down here [by the knee]; but by-and-by Christianity will have made such progress that the two' religions will be on the same level. They will then be united in one, and I shall become a Christian."
It is unusual in such a quarter to find so frank a recognition of the trend of current events and the confession that Buddhism is seriously threatened as the leading religious influence among the Japanese. . Nor is the time of its surrender to Christianity so very far distant, if one may judge of the probabilities by what is now transpiring. The churches in Japan have shared with Christians elsewhere in the feeling that the opening year of the century should be signalized by an especially earnest effort to reach the masses with the Gospel message, and plans to this end were forming as early as the spring of 1900. Some of them were distinctly denominational, others were more general in character, one in particular which bears the name of the Evangelical Alliance. Under these several auspices special preaching services have been held throughout the country duri~g the winter and spring, and are continued with increasing interest and. promise. But the movement as conducted for six weeks past in the city of Tokyo, and with denominational differences wholly forgotten, has been of peculiar significance, and is producing results unparalleled in the hist,ory of Protestant Japanese Christianity.
At a meeting of pastors and missionaries held in April it was decided to try the experiment of concentrating effort for a fortnight upon one of the more densely populated wards of the city, in the hope that the impression already created might be deepened and its influence extended. Six of the churches in this quarter, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, etc., were selected for nightly preaching, and the most central of them for a gathering of workers every afternoon for concerted prayer and the hearing of reports. In each of these churches, and in others that were added to the number as the work progressed, volunteer bands of Christians were organized numbering from fiye to twenty or upward. The members undertook to devote a large part of their time from day to day to promoting the success of the movement through personal attendance upon the meetings, and to making appeals to neighbors and friends, and carrying invitations and literature from house to house in the districts severally assigned them. 'l'hey would start early in the morning, to make sure of finding the people at home, and then as night drew on one might see little groups here and there at the crossings of important streets, distributing printed notices of the meetings to all who passed and pointing the
THE GREAT AWAKENING IN JAPAN
way to the nearest meeting-places. To further advertise the move- ment, colored posters were prepared and placed conspicuously about the ward. These were fifteen by eighteen or twenty inches in size, and were printed in a variety of colors with two flags crossed at the top-one the flag of Japan and the other that of the crusaders.
The meetings grew in interest and importance from the outset. 'fhey were characterized by the direct preaching of the Gospel, rather than by lectures about Ohristianity, and by a spirit of earnest atten- tion on the part of those who attended. There was no undue excite- ment, either among persons bent on creating disturbance or by believers carried away with the enthusiasm of the movcment. Night after night when the sermon was ended, and the invitation given for those who desired to become Ohristians, or to enter seriously upon the study of Ohristianity, to indicate the fact by rising or h~lding up the hand, sometimes half a dozen, sometimes ten, twenty, thirty, fifty would respond. In one case there were as many as seventy-seven, in another over ninety. The names and addresses of all such were taken, and they were asked to remain for immediate personal interviews and that arrangements might be made for their further instruction.
Many of these" deciders," as they are called, or "inquirers," had come to the meetings at the invitlttion of Ohristiau acquai.ntances or of the volunteer bands, but others were as certainly led of the Spirit apart from direct human instrumentality. Parents came with children who bad been at the daily children's meetings and told at home of what they had heard there. The effective influence of friendship was signally illustrated. Here sat a woman seated with two or three of her neighbors on either side of her, and she praying for them almost audibly as the service progressed. At the end their names were enrolled as "inquirers." At one of the meetings there was present a Ohristian of high standing in the community, and seated beside him a gentleman whose time he confessed to have" borrowed." He had asked for two hours of the friend's evening, and had then brought him to heal' the address of a prominent Methodist pastor given in a Presbyterian pulpit and with the after-enforcement of the appeal made by a layman member of Parliament. One of the most earnest promoters of this whole union movement is a man who has held important positions abroad under the government; and no less keen is the interest manifested by the president of tue lower house of Parliament, a Presbyterian elder.
Besides the nightly meetings in the several churches there has also been wayside preaching, and persons of prominenc~_have participated in it, ladies even accompanying the evangelists tif help with the singing and in distribu~ing invitations and literature. There have even been university graduates among the speakers. On these occasions banners were carried stamped with a red cross, the symbol of salvation,
and with appropriate. Ohinese characters, also huge paper lanterns similarly decorated and fastened to long bamboo poles. No objection has been made by the police to this open-air method of work, except in one or two instances when the spot chosen for making a stand was in a street too narrow for the purpose and the service became so "popular" as to interfere with traffic.
A unique opportunity offered in this connection. A large Buddhist temple replacing one that was burned had just reached completion, and was to be formally opened by the Lord Abbot of the sect to which it belonged. The temple stands in a part of the ward which is completely surrounded by canals; and can only be reached by crossing one or other of the dozen bridges which lead to it. Thousands of Buddhist worshippers were expected to attend the opening exercises during the three days they were to last. In order to rf'ach these people a band of Ohristians was stationed on each of the bridges with notices of the meetings and a supply of suitable tracts. A hundred thousand copies of one tract in particular were printed for use during the festival period. A great many people were in this way notified of the meetings, and the invitations and tracts were received with almost uniform courtesy and interest. The rudeness and personal vio.lence which Buddhist threats had rendered by no means improbable were experienced in but one or two instances, and t!Ien without serious results.
The afternoon meetings for prayer and conference were attended by increasing numbers from day to day, until on the Sunday closing the second week over eight hundred persons were present. Olearly the special efforts should not end at this point, as had been intended, and they were prolonged for another week, with the result for the whole period of twenty-two days that a total of over eleven hundred " inquirers" was reported. Some of these were residents of other parts of the city, but by far the greater number belonged to the single ward within which the union effort had thus far been confined.
Naturally an experience so remarkable and, as many confessed, "beyond all expectation," would extend its influence to other districts. An evangelist whose work lies in a locality six or eight miles distant, on going one Sunday evening to his preaching-place, was surprised and delighted to find, not the usual audience of fifteen or twenty people, bnt a crowded house, and at the close of the address seventeen became kyudosha, or inquirers.
When the three weeks' effort was concluded in one ward, it was taken up simultaneously by the Ohristians of two adjoining districts lying to the north and south of it. In one of these the result in ten or eleven days' time-half the former period-reached again a total of over one thousand. Night after night in the larger churches hundreds of people came together, until it became necessary to close the
doors in obedience to the laws against overcrowding. At a large mission school situated within this district a series of meetings was arranged for the students, and a class of nearly forty inquirers was organized at .the close of the very first service; and at a Gospel temperance meeting, also held in connection with the general moyement, the outcome was alike gratifying. The address was given by a prominent Japanese gentleman who before he became a Christian was at times very intemperate. He told how the grace of God had enabled him to break from the tyranny of the taste and smell of liquor, and then .asked any who desired to escape from the same dreadful bondage to indicate the fact in the usual way. Immediately up went scores of hands, and a large part of the audience retired to the galleries for shitsllmon, or inquiry, the Christians remaining below for a season of praJer.
In pursuance of the general plan of the movement, as the work drew to its close in this second district, it was entered upon in another quarter, where in turn it has exhibited results that are even more phenomenal than those already described. Here again the thousand point was reached in half the previous time-namely, in six days from the beginning. And a similar or greater awakening is looked for in still another section where there is an enormous student population, and which contains, besides the several churches, the headquarters of the flourishing Young Men's Christian Association.
Two or three facts are particularly noteworthy in connection with this remarkable series of events; one, that the work is clearly of the Lord, and as such is destined to extend, not only throughout the capital, but elsewhere over the empire. In some places, notably the neighboring city of Yokohama, it has already a fruitage of between seven and eight hundred, which makes a grand total for the two cities of wen over four thousand enrolled inquirers. A further fact is that, sofaI' as human instrumentality is concerned, this is diversified to an unusual extent. 'rhere is no single individual (like Mr. Moody, for example) in whom the personal influences of the movement can be said to center. Indeed, personality as such seems to have been entirely lost sight of. Pastors and evangelists, missionaries, Biblewomen, students in mission schools, ordinary church members, have all. worked together with no one person or group of persons standing out preeminently above the others. Furthermore, the interest is of the nature of a harvest, and this gives the greater assurance of a substantial ingathering into the churches in the weeks and months to come, as the effort is followed up by the regular church activities. It has been for many simply the time of decision, those on the one hand who are already asking for baptism, and others who also acknowledge having heard much concerning Christianity before the meetings began. This fact of antecedent seed-sowing was gracefully referred
to by one of the Japanese pastors who said, pointing to two of the older missionaries, "This outpouring of the Spirit of God, and these happy results, are God's answer to the prayers and labors of these brethren and of their Japanese associates in the ministry for over a quarterof a century, and we who are younger in the faith and service rejoice that we are deemed worthy to run in the same race and share in the triumph."
THE BONIN ISLANDS.
BY REV. CAMERON JOHNSON, KOBE, JAPAN. Missionary of the Presbyterian Church (South), U. S. A.
About one hundred years after Columbus discovered America an adventurous Japanese sailor named Ogasawara was carried by a great tempest away from the coast 6f his native islands far to the southward, and after days of tossing upon the angry deep he fetched up at a cluster of uninhabited islands. Thus it was that he became the first discoveror of the Bonin Islands, which lie five hundred and eighty miles almost due south from Yokohama, Japan, and about one hundred and ninety miles north of the tropics. When calm weather came again he set sail as best he could for his native islands, and we know of no subsequent visit he paid to those he had discovered. They seem to have become but a name to his countrymen, who designated them on their maps by the characters which were pronounced NATIVE HOMES IN THE BONIN ISLANDS.
THE BONIN ISLANDS
BANANA AVENUE, BONIN ISLANDS.
Mun-nin-to (meaning No-man-Iand). This was afterward corrupted into Bu-nin-to, and then shortened into the present form, Bo-nin. For more than two and a quarter centuries we hear little of them, except that they were visited from time to time by whaling ships which touched there for water and fuel, and a legend says that it became a place where whalers and pirates hid their treasures, a mass of stones on one of the islands to-day giving its silent tho doubtful testimony in support of it.
The modern history of the islands dates from their rediscovery in the year 1827 by one Captain Beechey, a British sea-captain, who was out in search of the John Franklin expedition. He formally took possession of them in the name of King George, and nailed a copperplate to a tree with the statement therenpon, and gave names to the various islands, there being three distinct clusters, each cluster having three or four medium-sized islands and numbers of rocky islets too small to be habitable by man.
He notified the British Consul in Honolulu of his discovery, and three years later a small vessel was equipped with a moily crew of stranded seamen and natives, supplied with a few cattle, fishing and farming implements, who came to settle the islands in 1830. Twentythree years later Commodore Perry, U. S. N., touched at the islands, encouraging the settlers whom he fouild there, giving them assistance of various kinds, and the living record of his visit to-day remains in
the person of Horace Perry Savory, for whom the Oommodore stood godfather at his baptism during his visit.
The settlers were mostly of European extraction, and many nations have contributed a man or two to the settlement. The names indicate American, English, French, Danish, Portuguese origin, besides several nondescripts. Foremost among them were an American named Nathaniel Savory, a native of Bradford, Essex Oounty, Mass., three Englishmen named Webb, Gilly, and Robinson, and a Portuguese named Gonsalves. The settlers to-day are mostly descended from these forefathers.
The islanders lived in prosperity and comfort, gaining an abundant living from the well-nigh inexhaustible multitudes of sea-turtles and fishes, besides raising goats, poultry, and crops from the rich soil of the islands. They procured wives from among the natives and half-breeds of Guam, and in no case is there a record of a mother being a pure-blooded European woman. Hence the Bonin Islanders are a mixed race, 'and are peculiarly a Eurasian colony.
In the year 1876 the British government formally ceded the islands to Japan, and since then the Japanese colony has become too large for the islands, numbering now about three or four thousand souls. The Japanese have brought in their train the usual diseases and hard problems that accompany the Asiatic in all his travels, and there has been no little friction between them and the descendants of the original settlers. '['hese have now dwindled to such an extent, and so much advantage has been taken of them by the shrewder and more unscrupulous Japanese, that now they have but little property left. The chief occnpation of the men has been hunting seals and otters, shipping as hunters in the various schooners that used to touch there every spring, coming from Japan and various of the American Pacific ports. They have been sought after from year to year, for they are considered crack shots with the rifle, enjoying a reputation in this line as broad as the Pacific itself. But even this is now a glory of the past, for the seals have become almost extinct, so that they hardly make back in a whole season the advance pay which is given them before embarking.
The problem that confronts the Bonin Islanders to-day is a choice of three things: (1) emigration; (2) absorption by the Japanese element; (3) extinction. Two of the men went to visit Guam last year, after they had heard that it had been taken under the AI!lerican flag, but they returned with no flattering report, so that others are not disposed to look to Guam as a desirable change. Some of the younger men have taken to themselves Japanese wives, as they are too nearly related among themselves (everybody being" cousin" to everyone else) to intermarry further. A few of the younger generation have left to seek'their fortunes in the great wide world outside.
'rhe history of missionary work among the islanders dates from a chance visit of the Rev. F. B. Plummer (Church of England) in the year 1877. He became interested in the islanders and took several Of the young lads to Japan, Iwd put them in a mission school. They remained only long enough to gather a small knowledge of books, and returned to their island home. The one who made the most of his advantages was Joseph Gonsalves, a very earnest and pious young man, now about thirty-one years of age. He is the regular catechist and representative of the Church of England (S. P. G.) in the islands, and devotes his entire time to the good and uplifting of his fellowislanders. He teaches the children in school every day, and holds service and Sabbath-school on Sunday. About once a year he comes up to Japan for further study, and has the hope of one day being an ordained evangelist or pastor. He has suffered persecution for the name of Jesus, and his life shines with no uncertain light. Tho a young man in years he is rich in experience, so that all the islanders look up to him, and come to him with all their troubles and sorrows, and regard him as their Solomon.
There has never been a resident foreign missionary in the islands. In the year 1895 Miss J. N. Crosby, of the Woman's Union Mission in Yokohama, went for a six months' visit to the islands, and won the affection of the women. The writer followed, and remained six months in the winter of 1895-'96, making a later visit of six weeks in the summer of 1899. Bishop Awdry paid his first visit to the islands in the spring of 1899, and while there confirmed fourteen, the total number of those confirmed being now eighteen, and of those baptized, fifty-three. The average attendance in Joseph's day-school is fifteen, but some of his pupils are now in the mission schools at Kobe. Since the year 1894 there has been an annual visit paid to the islands by members of St. Andrew's Mission, Tokyo. They have baptized those ready for baptism, and have cheered and helped the little band of Christians on the islands.
In former days the men of the Bonins were notorious as heavy drinkers, often distilling their own liquor from sugar-cane and bananas and other products, but the 'writer formed a temperance society among the men during his visit four years ago, and now the drunkard is the exception rather than the rule. I have found them eager for education, and soon after my departure they sent up to Japan and had the necessary heavy timbers shipped down, and built for themselves a substantial building, which is used for school on week-days and church service on the Sabbath. This they did entirely at their own expense, and at a cost of four hundred and twenty-five dollars (Japanese).
Remember to pray for. this little flock of sheep; far separated from Christian fellowship, and surrounded, as they are, by many of the devices and temptations and assaults of the devil.
THE INDIA OF TO·DAY.
BY REV. H. M. LAWSOK, PH.B., AHMED~AGAR, INDIA.
Missionary of the American Board, 1893-.
This is a time of great religious unrest and turmoil among the educated and thinking classes in India. This has been brought about by the introduction of English education and the study of English literature, by the introduction of Western civilization. by contact with Europeans, but most of all by the teaching of the missionaries. In the educational institutions of the missions we make it a rule that every student who attends shall become acquainted with the life, character, and claims of Jesus Christ.
Any Hindu who comes to know about Christ can not go back and be an orthodox Hindu again. He has caught a glimpse of something better, so that the old religion can not satisfy him. Still, he fights against the idea of becoming a Christian, and seems to consider that the last method to be chosen to get ease of conscience. Perhaps he seeks to revive the ancient Hinduism, which he thinks is purer than the present, and joins the Arya Samaj. Or more likely he seeks to ease his conscience by a compromise with Christianity, accepting Jesus as one of the great religious teachers of the world, and he joins the Brahmo Samaj or the Prarthana Samaj. These organizations make great claims for themselves, such as the following, which I heard Mr. Nagarkar make after the Parliament of Religions: Christianity must give up its claim to be the one absolute and universal religion of mankind, and come down and take its place with the other great faiths of the world. The universal faith of the future will combine the good points of every religion, and of that new liberal faith of the world the Brahmo Samaj is the exponent.
These persons are highly delighted when Max MUlTer or some other Westerner points ou t some good feature of the religions of India. They clung tenaciously to Max Muller's skirts in seeking to prop up the old religion. Professor Muller had been supposed by them to be as much of a Hindu as he was a Christian, but before his death he wrote a letter to the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, urging its members to take the Christian name. No one can say now that he considered Hinduism as good as Christianity. The advanced Brahmo Samajists hold prac· tically a Unitarian position. Here is an extract from their organ, The New Dispensation, of Calcutta, which is very interesting as showing the effect which the preaching of Christ is having on India: It is an undoubted fact that the moral code of Christians and even the personality of their founder are finding an increasing acceptance with the better classes of the Hindu population in the advanced presidencies of Bombay and Bengal. The officials chosen from the educated Hindu community are about as free from current religious practises as
THE INDIA OF TO-DAY
the English themselves, the growing public spirit among all classes has an unmistakable likeness to what is done by people in Christian coun- tries, and the Bible is read in places where its very name was tabooed half a century ago. The life and character of Jesus Christ are studied with genuine reverence, and it is not an unusual thing to find a likeness of Christ hung up in the parlor of an educated Hindu householder. Our determination is to take the universal principles of spiritual life incul- cated by Christ himself. Thoughtful Hindus, however, always make a distinction between essential spiritual Christianity and the theological , ecclesiastical system which is popularly preached as such.
The Ohristian missionaries in India are generally accused by the Hindus of bigotry. Here is a specimen : The grievous blunder of the Christian missionary movement lies in its dogmatic aggressiveness, a spirit of antagonism toward all other religions. which soon graduates into bitter denunciation. But it is use- less to preach these elementary truths to Christian missionaries. The failure of their missions makes them rather sour tempered, and prevents them from looking on things from the correct standpoint.
The reason for this accusation of bigotry is that the lllissionaries present Ohrist as the incarnation of God and the one divine Savior of the world. This the Hindus do not like. They say: "We have our incarnations and Ohristians have theirs. The Ohristian incarnation differs somewhat from ours, but the general object of all incarnations is the same, hence there is no reason that we should give up our own and /tccept Ohrist alone." Even as enlightened a lllan as Mozoomdar says: "Many educated Hindus honor the character of Ohrist and really love him, but their repugnance to what is known as popular Christian theology is complete." By this theology he means the divinity of Ohrist and the atonement. If this is bigotry I do not see how the missionaries are going to help being bigoted. The Hindus are willing to add Ohrist to their pantheon or put Him on a level with Buddha and other religious teachers. Hinduism tries to swallow up every religion with which it comes into contact. It is omniverous. It is now trying the same process on Ohristianity. Will it succeed? The Brahmo Samajists make the claim that because they are Orientals they can understand the Oriental Ohrist and interpret him far better than we Occidentals. They also claim that, in common with the Unitarians and the Universalists Of the West, they have the great liberal faith of the future. They claim to suck the honey from every system of religion, but practically their religion is a compromise between Hin- _ duism and Ohristianity. Neither it nor the Prarthana Samaj are making any great progress, and they depend for their life on the activity of the surrounding missionaries. They indicate, however, that the great c~mtroversy of the future will not be between Ohristianity and heathenism, for the latter will die of itself with the incoming of popular education and the introduction of Western ideas and civilization. The caste system, too, will ultimately succumb to
the forces that are now slowly uudermining it. But the great con- troversy of the future will be between orthodox Christianity and a species of Unitarianism represented by these Samajes on the one hand and by the Mohammedans on the other. The preaching of the Cross is still "to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks (and edu- cated Hindus) foolishness."
It is a study to observe the effect of Christian preaching on the Hindus. If we hint at the evils of caste or the degrading effects of idolatry, they say: You would point us out our superstitions and show what evil they bring upon us. You would throw dirt on us to induce us to join your ranks. You rather alienate our sympathies by this policy. One great defect which we find in you as a class, and which makes us resent your advice from time to time, is that you are often dogmatic in your asser- tions. Thus you maintain that there is the truth and nothing but truth in Christianity, while there is hardly any particle of truth in other relig- ions. You assume that you have come to know all the inscrutable ways of the Almighty which, after all, feeble mortal can never aspire to do, and you try to correct the defects in other religions from your own standpoint, supposed to be invulnerable.
Even in the case of so broad-minded and sympathetic a presenta- tion of Christianity as that given by Dr. Barrows, a prominent native editor remarks: These lectures were one and all rhetoric and nothing else. They were luminous with learning, but no one need think anything of them, and as to the dogmatic assertions of the superior merits of Christianity, which Dr. Barrows made, why even a converted native street preacher of that religion could have sufficed very well, and there was no need for a learned divine being specially sent from America for that purpose.
When men's hearts are evil, and they prefer darkness rather than light, they will not aocept the truth, no matter in what an attractive garb it may be presented.
But the above represents only the feeling of a certain class toward the missionary. There are many others who are coming to realize the great debt which India owes to the Christian missionary. A prominent Hindu recently wrote: "I know that it is the fashion in some quarters to cry down the missionary, and to ignore the debt of . gratitude we owe him for what he has done and is doing. If to-day there is an awakening among us on the subject of religion and society, it is largely due to him. Christian missionaries have also helped to educate us and revive our vernacnlar literature. While we were pra- ting about industrial reform, a Christian missionary, Rev. James Smith, of Ahmednagar; has put his hand to the plgw and shown us how to do it. The moral is that it is pseudo-patriotism which leads some misguided men among us to point the finger of scorn to the Christian missionary. Tho we may not exactly accept all he says,
THE INDIA OF TO-DAY
there are some matters where we may all be wiser and better from the inspiration of his example and light of his teachings."
The report of the American Marathi Mission for 1899 says: In India there is a new and active life which is causing great change. Sometimes it develops normally and healthily, sometimes it is resisted and twisted. But even those who thus deal with it are irresistibly borne somewhat forward by the general movement. Analyzed by a sympathetic Christian missionary, the new life in India may be described as in general a movement toward Christ and the Christian standard, but where a pronouncedly religious expression is required, it is not a movement toward Christendom, or toward the expressions and institutions which Christianity has taken on in the West. To one who realizes the immense gulf between the East and the West this is not strange, probably it is not to be entirely regretted. As the East comes under the influence of Christian ideas it may avoid some of the mistakes which the West has made. It is in danger of making other mistakes of its own.
" There are many indications of this new and abounding life. They are manifest in educational changes, in social changes, in political ferment, in religious advance. In some communities the advance is more marked than in others; but in all-Hindu, Mohammedan, Parsee, Ohristian-Iarge numbers are thinking new thoughts, are seeing new ideals, and are beginning to talk these things over. The young men are getting an English education, and are beginning to think in a Western way. Female education is still in its infancy; but when one comes to know the position of women in India, it is a most remarkable thing that the idea oE female education has taken as much hold as it has. In Baroda, a large native state of western India, in 1875, there were only two girls' schools with twenty-two pupils; now there are one hundred and eight such schools, with over nine thousand pupils, besides many girls attending boys' schools.
LITERATURE-GOOD AND BAD.
Within a generation the press has become a mighty power in India. There are dailies in the large cities, and weekly papers in English and the vernacular abound. This periodical literature shows that the quality of the new life is of mixed soundness, and does' not average high. Some papers are of sterling worth; many are edited by immatlJre young men; some by reactionaries. Well-informed and discriminating people might differ in their estimates whether on the whole the influence of such a press is good or bad.
If the right kind of literature could always be put into the hands of the young men of India it would be an immense blessing.
Dr. F. B. Meyer, on returning from his recent tour there, speaks of the black sewer of pernicious literature that is pouring into India. There are one hundred and ten weekly newspapers publiHhed in the vernacular, which have a distinct bias against Ohristianity and the
settled order of Christian civilization. In Lucknow and Cawupore fifty presses are turning out tons of impure and infidel literature. Buddhist priests translate infidel tracts to counteract missionary teaching, and not a student leaves the University of Madras without receiving a packet of infidel literature. The old religions of India, mighty as they are, are crumbling away before the progress of education, and many a student, in passing through college, loses all his religious belief. Then, when the soil should be ready for the Christian missionary, the infidel steps in and sows tares, and the great fight of the coming century will not be against misbelief, but unbelief. To pour in a flood of Christian literature, says Mr. Meyer, is the only way of saving India to Christianity, and perhaps to the English crown.
Another evidence of the new life is the social changes which are going on. The ideas of the majority of Hindus about caste have changed, and in some places the practises have also greatly changed. But still as a general thing the educated men, who have come to see the absurdity of caste, still conform to its rules in order to avoid tronble from the female part of the family and the ignorant masses. There are a great many social reformers among the younger educated men. A social conference is held every year along with the National Congress, to discuss matters of social reform. Eloquent speeches are made there about the need of improving the condition of women, educating girls, raising the age of marriage, remarriage of widows, allowing Hindus to travel in foreign lands without losing caste, etc. But when it comes to carrying these things into practise, there are very few that dare to take any practical step. There has been a good deal of talk lately about" reform along the lines of least resistance," which is a phrase used to excuse the refor~ers for not taking more strenuous measures.
One encouraging thing is that the intelligent people of India are becoming ashamed to have Europeans know of many of their practises. A student, for example, is very reluctant to admit that he ever worshiped an idol. I found it extremely difficult to get students to talk with ~e freely fnd confidentially about their own religion and its practise. This increasing sensitiveness to European opinion on such matters as idolatry, caste, treatment of women and widows, is an excellent sign.
Many educated Hindus now live a double life which is pitiful to see. At school, college, in the government office or on the platform, they are intelligent, progressive men, very mnch like intelligent people from the West; but in their homes, at their temples, or at a marriage or a funeral, they are idolaters and blind followers of the absurd customs of their forefathers. Moral courage is a quality greatly lacking among the Hindus.
The young Hindus are corning to have political aspirations, and
THE INDIA OF TO-DAY
oftentimes, as they have no responsibility for the government, these take the form of the wildest denunciation of the British government. But usually their criticisms have very little foundation. 'rhe British government of India is really a remarkable one in what it has been able to accomplish for the amelioration of the conditions of the people of India. It has to meet many and trying problems, and our sympa- thies should be strong with the men who are so nobly striving to solve them. Dr. R. A. Hume, after twenty-five years of experience in India, says: In our opinion the present government of India is, in its circum- stances, the very best government on the face of the earth. The extent and value of its services to the people can not possibly be understood by one who has not long lived here. The mass of the people are loyal to it, and especially when famine comes do the people know what a benevolent and strong government they have.
During the famine of 1900 there were between five and six millions of people supported at the relief works. Never was such a spectacle seen before in the history of the world.
The recent terrible famine in India, dreadful as it seems, may be an instrnment in the hands of God to break up the power of the old religions and prepare the way for the new and better faith. Surely the vast amounts of contributions from Christian Great Britain and America, with the grain that is being sent to feed the st.arving, must lead the people to see that the religion of Christ makes His followers kind and loving even to those of another race and color. They can not help contrasting this kind treatment of Christians with the lack of compassion of well-to-do Hindus, who had rather give money to save cows than human beings, or with the hardness of the Brahmin sub-officials at the relief works, who extort a pittance from the meager wages of the sufferers. When this famine is over we may expect a great addition to the Christian community. The missionaries do not receive any in famine time, but keep the newcomers who apply for baptism on probation, to see whether they will be true Christians when there is no famine.
One noticeable and encouraging fact in the religious condition of India is the attempt to bring about a revival of Hinduism. It is encouraging, because it is due to the alarm felt at the spread of Christianity. A foremost Hindu revival organ says: Christianity, now in the zenith of its power, politically and numerically, is even more formidable. The strength it derives from its ubiquitous organization, its political advantages, and, most of all, from its financial resources and the enterprising character of its multitude of workers, is marvelous, and it bids fair to undermine the foundations of Hinduism unless the latter takes betimes the necessary defensive measures. Missionary schools and colleges are dotted over the land. Hindu youth at their most impressionable period of life come into COll-
tact with missionary teachers, with the result that the young men who have been induced to leave the parental roof and all the steadying influences of home, have become painfully numerous. Vigorous pamphleteering agencies are at work, and Christian tracts, full of the worst religious venom, flood the land. The people of the lower classes, such as the Pariahs, who form the backbone of Indian society, are becoming in large numbers converts to Christianity. Not only no steps are being taken to keep these people within the fold of our religion, but every facility is given for their secession to the ranks of other religions.
There is a striking resemblance between the religious condition of India to-day and that of the Roman empire during the early Christian centuries. In many respects the difficulties are greater in India, but the resources of the Christian church are immensely larger to-day. It took three centuries for Christianity to become even the nominal religion of the Roman empire. Christian missions have been going on for a century now in !ndia. Give us two hundred years more, and we may confidently expect that then India will be a Christian land.
l'HE HAWAllAN ISLANDS AND THEIR PEOPLE.* BY HENRY W. FROST, TORONTO, CANADA.
Home Director of the China Inland Mission.
The Hawaiian Islands, formerly called the Sandwich Islands, lie nearly midway in the Pacific Ocean between the United States and Japan. They consist of eight principal islands, Oahu (with its chief city, Honolulu), Kauai, Maui, Hawaii, Molokai, Lani, Kahoolawe, and Niihau; also of four smaller islands which are uninhabited, Molokini, Kaula, Lehua, and Bird Island, besides a few others far to the northwest, recently added to the group. The whole comprises a geographical area of 6,455 square miles. The islands are widely scattered, some being separated from the others by interstices of ocean one and two hundreds of miles in width.
It appears from the investigations of scientists that the islands are the tops of a great mountain range, in some parts 14,000 feet beneath the sea, most of the peaks having been elevated above the waters by volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago. Much of the mainland was formed by the flow of lava from volcanic peaks down the mountain-sides, while a large portion was fashioned through the scattering by winds of what the geologists call tuff-namely, the ejecta thrown into the air by the explosive force of subterranean fires. Most of the volcanoes are now extinct, tho a few remain intermittently active. Some of these are splendidly formed and most are impressively high, the highest, Mauna Kea, rising some 13,825 feet above the sea. Maui, * The writer is indebted to "America in Hawaii," "The Transformation of Hawaii,"
and" The Hawaiian Annual," obtained during a passing visit in January, 1901, for his information. The illustrations are I'rom "Hawaii, Our New PQI!session," by John R. Musick.
another crater, has an area of nineteen square miles, or 12,160 acres; its circumference is 105,600 feet, or twenty miles; its extreme length is 39,500 feet, or 7.4:8 miles; and its extreme width is 12,500 feet, or 2.37 miles.
'rhe islands are surrounded upon almost all sides by submerged coral reefs, over which the breakers dash in perpetual foam. As borings in some of the islands have revealed coral formation at great depths and almost at the heart of them, it is evident that ages ago the islands were far less extensive than now, and that subsequently various volcanic eruptions greatly added to their extent. The earth formation is generally dark red in color, and is nnusually productive, the vegetation being tropical in both kind and variety.
The climate is snb-tropical. While the sun most of the year is intense in its heat, its warmth is mitigated by almost constantly prevailing ocean wind-currents. The minimum average temperature for the year 1899-1900 was 69°, and the maximum was 80.9°, the average of the two giving a mean temperature of 74.9°. There is one principal rainy season in the month of October. The total rainfall in October of last year was 4.02 inches; the total throughout the year was 20.45 inches. The climate is not prostrating but rather invigorating, and for most persons it is exceptionally healthful. Tuberculous disease, except in the .form of leprosy among the natives, is unknown, unless persons come to the islands with it. Leprosy is somewhat pre'valent among the natives, there being about 1,500 lepers at the present time. These are confined to the otherwise uninhabited island of Molokai, where they are kindly cared for until death, at government expense. Apart from this unfortunate development, the health conditions of the islands is uniquely excellent, a special proof of this being found in the fact that those who have lived upon the islands longest-namely, the aborigines-are an exceptionalLY welldeveloped and healthy race, both men and women generally being tall and well-formed.
The origin of the Hawaiian people is clouded in mystery. The natives, in their early days of contact with the white people, declared that they had no knowledge of their derivation, except that their forefathers came to the islands many years before from a very great distance. It is probable that the race belonged originally to the southern Pacific islands, and that they were driven north from their native shores by unpropitious winds and currents, or that they came of their own accord, seeking a less-crowded and more favorable home. However this may be, it is supposed that they had lived upon the islands some five hundred years before the white man found them. In the mean time the people had settled upon a number of islands, and had become unlike in many part.iculars, each island having its own chief or chiefs, and having varying customs, both religious and social.
THE HAWAllAN ISLANDS AND THEIR PEOPLE
The discovery of the islands and their inhabitants was made by Oaptain Oook, of Pacific Ocean fame, who arrived upon the scene in January, 1778, with two armed ships, the Resolution and the Discovery. As the natives had a legend that their great god Lono had wandered away, having lost his reason as a result of killing his wife in a fit of anger, and as they were looking yearly for his return, they thought that Oaptain Oook was Lono and the sailors his attendants. Hence the white men were enthusiastically received, their every need was provided for, and they were even given di vine honors. The spell of fascination was soon broken, however, as the manners of the white men wilre anything but godlike. After one or two visits troubles arose, and at the third visit, during a dispute over a boat that had been stolen, Oaptain Oook was murdfll'ed. At this early time the population of the islands was large, some estimating it at 450,000. Since then this number has steadily declined, there being now not more than 40,000 natives, 9,000 of whom are only part Hawaiian. Recently there have been added to this native popUlation many foreigners, which gives a total (census of 1896) as follows: Ohinese, 19,382 ; Japanese, 22,329; Hawaiian-born foreigners, 13~733 (this.item is now considerably increased); British, 1,538; German, 912; French, 75 ; Norwegian, 216; Polynesian and other foreigners, S33-or a total popUlation of over 109,000. The census of 1900 brings up the population to a total of 154,000.
It is clear from this that the discovery of Captain Oook was one of prospective conquest; for the white men and the foreigners of other nations have gradually pushed the native race into the background. The blessings of a better establisl.1ed government, which now exists through annexation with the United Stat~s, may do· something to retard this movement of extinction, and may prove the physical salvation of the people. If it does not, its doom promises to be not only certain but rapid, for statistics show that there has been a steady decline in native population, it reaching as Iowan ebb in 1896 as 39,594 souls from the higher tide of only thirty years previous of 58,765 souls.
POLITICAL HISTORY.
The political history of the Hawaiian Islands is unique and interesting. When Oaptain Oook discovered them he found existing petty kingdoms upon the various islands, the kings being supported oy chiefs. In some places a given island was divided into more than one kingdom, and in almost all cases each island had a separate government. As time went on the power of these kings and chiefs increased, until there came into existence a feudal system similar to that which once existed in Europe. There finally rose out of this a movement toward centralization, some kings becoming more powerful than
others, and such having ambitions to rule all the islands. This movement led to inter-insular wars; but no king became supreme until the great warrior Kamehamcha came upon the scene; he finally subjugated all his enemies, and established his kingdom throughout the main portion of the islands.
In this chieftain's reign trade with foreign parts largely increased, English, French, and American war and merchant ships making frequent calls at Honolulu and Hilo. The American trade, however, rapidly excelled that from other nations, soon amounting to four-fifths of the whole. These were the palmy days of whale fishing, and fishermen from Nantucket and other parts of New England made the lUWAIAHAO CHURCH, HONOLULU, H. I.
islands their meeting-place for the laying in of stores and the transferal of their cargoes to merchant vessels bound for the States. In this way American influence became predominant, and the American missionary movement in behalf of the islands in 1820 went far to emphasize and confirm it. The outcome of such a condition was jealousy on the part of England and France, and twice over these nations obtained preeminent powers by force of arms. The general sentiment of the people, however, was toward American supremacy, and the United States soon manifested a disposition to let the nations know that she considered the Hawaiian kingdom her political ward. Such statements as she made to this effect were finally respected, and the rulers who succeeded Kamehamcha I. were glad to retain the pro-
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS AND THEIR PEOPLE
tection thus given. Internal troubles in the government of the kingdom were not infrequent through the years, the line of direct succession to the throne failing several times, and rival claimants leading to internecine strife. The final outcome of these troubles was the suggestion to the wisest statesmen of ~he islands of a political, integral alliance with the United States, and for many years, off and on, this matter was made the subject of diplomatic correspondence between the two countries. Finally, in the first administration of President McKinley, the subject received favorable attention from the United 'States executive, and at last the United States Senate confirmed the treaty of annexation which had been so long mooted and which the Hawaiian pe9ple now so fetvently desired. Previously, in 1894, the kingdom had given place to an independent republic, with Mr. Sanford B. Dole, the son of an American missionary, as its first president. Mr. Dole became governor of the islands, and the group, in July, 1898, became a territorial part of the United States with its local legislature, and its representative, a native Hawaiian, at Washington.
RELIGIOUS HISTORY.
But what most interests Christians in the Hawaiian Islands is the religious history of the people, beside which few narratives are more fascinating and thrilling. News had reached America, and especially New England t4rough the home-coming of the Nantucket fishermen and others, concerning the islands and its native population, and the story of these people's spiritual needs had deeply stirred some com- passionate hearts. Nothing in the way of definite action took place, however, until one day in New Haven a native Hawaiian youth was found sitting upon the steps of one of the college buildings weeping bitterly. Being questioned aR to the cause of his sorrow, he confessed that he had left his far-away home in pursuit of an education and that he had come to New Haven to obtain it, but had no one to instruct him. Mr. Dwight, a student of t1te college, was at once interested . and undertook to help him, and afterwards Samuel J. Mills, of Williams Oollege fame, having come to Yale, became deeply interested in his welfare.
This Hawaiian youth was Henry Obookiah, and his presence in New England, and e&pecially his subsequent conversion and prayers, were to form the providential link between the Ohristians in America and the savage tribes in Hawaii. Obookiah, after his conversion, began at once his preparation for missionary work in the islands, and greatly roused the interest of the churches as he plead his 'people's cause. Suddenly Obookiah died. But the interest he had aroused did not die; on the contrary, the passing away of the earnest youth deepened and extended interest, and finally the American Board of Foreign Missions took definite action to evangelize the islands. Hiram
Bingham volunteered to go in Obookiah's place; Asa Thurston agreed to go ,with him; and others, including two Hawaiian Christian youths who had come to America for an education, joined them. In October, 1819, a farewell meeting was held in Boston in connection with the going forth of a party of seventeen persons. This party immediately set sail, and in March, 1820, their ship Thaddeus dropped her anchor in Hilo Bay.
The missionaries found the stories of the wretched condition of the islands more true even than had been anticipated. Nakedness of women as of men was almost universal. Polygamy and polyandry were common. Infanticide was terribly prevalent. Personal and property rights were onl,y respected as the stronger enforced his claims upon the weaker. The presence of white traders had made morality . worse rather than better, the women swimming out to every incoming fleet for immoral purposes, and life on shore, when vessels had arrived in port, being nothing short of unbridled licentiousness. Tabu pre- vailed everywhere; this was a system of prohibition of certain foods to special classes, especially women, of certain special laws of living being established as between king and subjects, husbands and wives, and of certain silence-days being imposed upon the whole people by the will of the king. It was practical demon worship, undertaken to appease evil spirits, and it held the people in superstitious fear, if broken being punishable with death. Savagery in terrible forms was everywhere prominent, murder was frequent, and cannibalism was practised as often as possible.
The missionaries found it no easy task to face heathenism of this sort. But they did so in the fear and strength of the Lord. Before they landed, through a strange and signal intervention of Providence, the custom of tabu was discountenanced by the king, tho not given up by the people. After landing, favor was shown them by the king and his people. Study then began. The language was mastered and was also reduced to grammatical ,form, twelve letters of our alphabet being taken to represent the native sounds and words. Translating. and printing work soon followed, and shortly evangelistic service in different parts of the islands began in earnest. From the first the people were impressed. Kings, queens, princes, and princesses were among those affected. Converts began to multiply. As the missionary force was augmented from home and native church, leaders were raised up, and the work multiplied and extended. Finally a deep conviction seized the missionaries that new spiritual power might be theirs for the asking. Meetings for prayer were held and a new filling of the Spirit was sought. The effect was phenomenal. A revival spirit broke out and spread like prairie fire before the wind. Word came from all parts of the kingdom that men. and women were asking how to be saved. The people came to the missionaries in crowds, like doves to their windows. The missionaries were overwhelmed, and could with difficulty find time to.eat or sleep, or strength to deal with the inquirers. Oongregations averaged from two thousand to six thousand, and the meetings were reverent and prolonged. Nor did the interest lessen as time went on. Beginning in 1837, it continued in full force until 1843. During the six years twenty-seven thousand were admitted to church fellowship out of a population of one hundred and thirty thousand, almost all of whom remained true to Ohrist. The movement was fitly termed the Great Awakening.
The results of this evangelization and conversion were widespread. Ultimately, the State was affected as deeply as the people. Morality became widespread; heathenish customs were abandoned; idolatry became a thing of the past; tabu was practically as well as theoretically given up; the Decalogue was chosen as the basis of the laws of the kingdom; the Gospel of Jesus Ohrist was declared to be the perpetual religion of the government and the people; kings and others of noble blood became, with those of lesser rank, preachers of righteousness, and in inner life largely, in outel""life wholly, the country became Ohristian. A few more years of seed-sowing and supervision, and the American Board felt that its work was done, and in 1863 withdrew from the field, leaving further care and advancement to the native church. Thus in the brief space of forty-three years the Gospel, of which Paul was not ashamed, had turned this portion of the world upside down, and a nation which for centuries had neither feared God nor man was left a worshiping people at the feet of Jesus.
THE OUTLOOK.
It is necessary to add, in order that prayer may be continued in behalf of this interesting part of God's vineyard, that the native race has reached a position in its history which may prove to be not an unmixed blessing. The physical decadence has already been noted, and the incoming of the white man in larger numbers will tend to push the weaker native race to the wall. More than this, with the larger commercial activity and prosperity will come in forces which will not make for righteousuess, but rather against it. A casual visitor may see that such forces are already strongly at 'work, and a native church, which has been left almost the sole guardian of the public moral and religions weal, may prove utterly inadequate to stem the tide of iniquity as presented in the stronger intellectual character of American, English, French, Portuguese, and other foreign settlers and traders. It would be u. crime as well as a calamity if this fair jewel in our Savior's crown should be made to lose its luster. The Hawaiian Islands have been called the «Paradise of the Pacific." God forbid that in this Eden there should be another Tempter and another Fall!
WHAT WOULD PAUL DO?
WHAT WOULD PAUL DO?
BY REV. DAVID GILMORE, TAVOY, BURMA. Missionary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, There are indications that Paul directed his fellow workers III general to devote their attention to particular and limited fields. If Titus could bring Crete into line, he would do all that Paul expected of him. But Paul, burdened with "the care of all the churches," must be" in journeyings often "-tho not always, as some think. Now, we live in a restless age. " Motion is an appetite" with us.
"We, Like Ariel, post o'er land and sea, With careless parting."
A missionary who runs away with the idea that Paul was always on the" go," and adds to it the other idea (equally erroneous), that he must show a mileage equal to Paul's-such a man will convert an exceptional method into a general one, and develop a way of working more likely to gratify twentieth century restlessness than to accomplish ponderable results.
Paul's method of work was not inconsiderably affected by the fact that he possessed, in the Greek language, a medium of communication unequaled for universality by any language now spoken on mission ground. Wherever he went, from Antioch on the Orontes to Rome on the Tiber, Paul could always be understood by a considerable portion of the community, 'and often by the greater part thereof. And they would understand not only "bazaar talk," but religious discourse; they possessed not only the vocabulary of traffic, but the terminology of philosophy and religion in the language which Paul commonly spoke. This made it possible for Paul to itinerate over a very large area, and find himself useful to the fullest extent on the day of his arrival among a new people. Far otherwise is it with the missionary in these days. On arriving among a new people he finds that he can do practically nothing. He must learn the language before he can begin to be of use. At the end of a year, more or less, he will probably be preaching intelligibly, and feeling just pride in his progress. At the end of five years he will, likely enough, be getting down to the serious study of the language. Suppose, now; he let himself be persuaded by some of the home guard who project missions out of their own consciousness, to "Push on into the regions beyond," to "Follow the example of Paul." The whole process of learning the vernacular has to be gone over again. What a loss of momentum! When Paul went into the regions beyond he knew that he could at once make himself understood. And when English comes to be as widely and as well understood in Asia as Greek was in Europe it will be practicable, aud
doubtless useful in some cases, for missionaries of Pauline endowments (and enduement) to itinerate as extensively as Paul did. Until that time, having mastered a vernacular, the missionary will, as a rule, find his usefulness limited by the same lines that circumscribe the speakers of that vernacular.
The question of education is a perennial question in missions, and the opponents of educational missions appeal with considerable confi- dence to Paul's example. "Paul founded no schools," we are told, "not even for the training of native preachers." Certainly there is no record of his having done so. But it need not be at once conceded that among the churches founded by Paul there were no Christian schools. We know that the early churches were organized on the model of the synagogs, and we know that the synagog was just as truly a place of instruction as { place of worship. And it becomes extremely probable, in the opinion of some competent scholars, that in the early days of Christianity, as in some heathen lands at the present day, every church expected to provide instruction, secular as well as religious, for the children of its members.
But be this as it may, it remains to inquire whether a neglect on Paul's part to take up education as a branch of mission work should be regarded as a conclusive argument against educational work in connection with the missions of the present day. Suppose we concede that Paul founded no mission schools; the questions may then be raised, Had Paul any occasion to found mission schools? Had occa- sion demanded them, might he not have founded them? Are there not occasIons in our present missionary work which do call for them? . Does not the missionary now face a state of things so different from that which Paul faced as sometimes to justify-nay, to demand-an attitude in respect to education such as Paul had no occasion to adopt? Paul went out among a literate and intelligent people. In this respect he may be said to have met them on a level; for if many of his hearers were his inferiors in education, many others were his equals or superiors. He could write an epistle to anyone of his churches, confident that it could be read, and not only read but under- stood and appreciated. His converts already possessed that modicum of mental training which experience always proves to be necessary, as a rule, to any strong, stable, and forceful Christian character. The necessity of providing for the mental training of the Christians under his care never arose in Paul's missionary experience. Hence his fail- ure to make such provision proves nothing at all.
But in our day many a missionary finds himself confronted by a condition far different from anything with which Paul ever had to do. He may find himself laboring for a people utterly ignorant-unable even to read-perhaps destitute of so much as a written language. What guidance, save of a most ge·neral nature, does he find in the
WHAT WOULD PAUL DO P
example of Paul? When did Paul ever deal with such a state of things as that? To teach such a people to read is but a small part of the problem; when they are taught to read the Bible they understand it only in parts, and these parts are apt to be few and far between. Whole books of the Bible are sealed books to them. It reqnires a certain amount of mental development to understand the Bible. In giving us a written revelation God might perhaps have" brought it down to the meanest comprehension"; but since He "did not do so, a missionary often finds himself forced (as Paul never was forced) to set about bringing the meanest comprehension up to the Bible. Hence he feels a need of schools such as Paul never felt. The greater comparative degradation of those for whom he labors often compels a missionary to give to the people among whom he labors much instruction such as Paul never needed to give to his converts.
This line of argument applies not only to mental training, but to industrial and technical education, to medical work (tho was not Paul's ally I~uke, the first medical missionary?), and to the contravention of heathenish customs, such as foot-binding, child-marriage, and castecnstoms which are generally pernicious, and often directly opposed to the fundamental idea of Christian living.
It is also a fact that Paul found ready to his hand 8.uch a preparedness for the Gospel as missionaries do not now find. The converts from Judaism to Christianity must have formed a valuable nucleus. As Jews they had Christians in the germ, as Ohristians they were hardly babes in Christ. They entered upon the Christian life familiar with all the fundamental, ethical, and theological ideas of Christianity. They gave tone to the churches; they were qualified to lead. The presence of such men greatly facilitated the indoctrination' of the early churches. No such aid has a missionary nowadays. He must usually build up from the beginning.
A final consideration which should be borne in mind is that Paul did not himself consider his example as binding in all things upon his brethren and coworkers. Paul was a celibate, and Paul often (tho not always) supported himself by a secular vocation. But Paul very plainly stated that neither he himself, nor any other worker: was under the slightest obligation to adopt either of these courses. A missionary who deems it best, in view of all his circnmstances, to follow either of these plans, may undoubtedly claim that he is justified in doing so by Paul's example; and this example justifies the statement that any missionary should be ready to do either of these things, if he is convinced that by so doing he can best further the spread of the Gospel. Bnt Paul's example, as interpreted by himself, affords no ground whatever for an attempt to impose either of these things as an obligation upon missionaries generally. No man has a right to dictate to another, or to judge another, in these matters.
Every man must decide for himself. It was well that Paul, a homeless wanderer, constrained by duty to undertake frequent, toilsome, and perilous journeys, had not to "lead about a sister, a wife." To him a wife would have been a burden. Does it therefore follow that a missionary who finds his usefulness doubled or trebled by the help of a wife does wrong in having a wife?
Paul was not averse to receiving financial support from the older and better established churches. But when remittances failed to arrive, what was he to do? He could not look to the heathen for support, and any missionary will appreciate the fact that he could not throw himself upon the infant churches just gathered from among the heathen. Under these circumstanc~s Paul, like William Oarey after him, did the one practical thing-he earned his living by such secular vocation as was open to him. But does it therefrom follow that in these days a missionary, with a church behind him abundantly able to sustain him, and under the most sacred obligations to sustain ' him, ought to devote to the earning of a living time which could profitably be spent in direct mission work? Paul's own teaching is a sufficient refutation of the supposition.
On the wall of many a Ohristian home may be seen a card bearing the inscription: "What would Jesus do?" Not" What did He do?" but, "What wottld He do?" It is admitted that we can not do everything that He did. But we are to think of Jesus as placed in circumstances similar to ours, to consider what His course would be under such circumstances, and to make that our course. And in so doing we consider that we are following the example of Ohrist. And we should follow the example of Paul in a similar way. We are not to copy him with mechanical exactitude. Not what Paul did, but what Paul would do if he were alive and working in a foreign mission field is the standard to which the work of a missionary should conform.
THE OHUROH AND OHINESE INDEMNITIES.
. BY REV. LLEWELLYN JAMES DAVIES, CHI-NANFU, CHINA. Mi$sionary of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., 1892-.
A literal application of the teachings of Jesus to the present Ohinese situation would, I believe, lead the Ohurch to forego indemnity for losses incurred at the hands of the Boxers. The opinion that it is neither equitable nor politic to accept money indemnity for Ohristian life taken by non-Ohristian mobs has of late years rapidly gained ground. I believe that it would be the highest Ohristian ethics and the best. possible common sense to take this position not alone with regard to life, but property as well. The ethics of present day politics and commerce is too much like the ethics of the savage
THE CHURCH AND CHINESE INDEMNITIES
and the criminal. The ethics of the "mailed fist" is akin to the ethics of the slungshot, and it is the" mailed fist " argument, and this only, which will draw indemnities from the Chinese.
It is confidently believed by many that for the Ohurch to abstain from an indemnity collected from the Ohinese government at the point of the bayonet will be the highest worldly wisdom. In a recent articlB, Bishop Moule, of the Mid-Ohina Diocese, after stating that the missionary would be clearly within his legal rights in asking indemnity continued as follows: Policy and other considerations, such as humanity, may forbid what equity would fully justify. And I do not hesitate to say that I shall rejoice if the Church Missionary Society sees its way, at least in the case I have instanced (destruction of property at Chu-chi) to take upon itself the responsibility for indemnifying those who have suffered loss in its service and to forgo its own claim upon the Chinese government for pecuniary compensation.
I propose to mention some of these considerations which would indicate that it will be good policy for the Ohurch to seek no indemnity from the Ohinese government.
1. The probable effect upon the Ohinese government and. upon the communities to which the JIlissionary goes. Almost all Ohinese officials believe the missionaries to be political agents. Dr. Sheffield says that "Missionaries are feared and hated, not because of their religious teachings, but because they are thought to be political emissaries." While in Ohina I was repeatedly asked my rank as "an American official," and whether I "report in person to my emperor on my return to my native land," "how much salary my government allows me," and many other similar questions. There are doubtless many things which, interpretated from the standpoint of the Ohinese official, would appear to warrant such a view. Nothing could be better policy on the part of the Ohurch than to take some action which would distinguish it from the governments of Europe and America, and no action would more sharply differentiate the Ohurch fro~ the landgrabbing powers than a refusal to accept indemnity.
Another item is the probable effect of the collection of indemnity upon the local communities where property has been destroyed and outrages have been committed. The criminals in these cases have been two, first the rowdies and second the government. It will be impossible to collect money from the rowdy class and foolish to expect that the government will punish itself. Those upon whom the burden will fall are the gentry and the well-to-do farmers and merchants of the community. It is from this class largely that the Ohurch must grow. I~ is said that the· gentry might have restrained the mobs, and having failed to exert this power should suffer; but these men might reply that in some cases those of their number who were friendly were over~ powered by the hostile. I am inf~rmed that snch w~s the case at Weihsien where the Presbyterian mission compound was destroyed,
The first business of the missionary is neither to uphold the formal dignity of his own government nor to see that criminals get their just deserts, but by all means to win men to Ohrist. In Ohina, as in America, he must win his own way into men's hearts before the door will open to the Master. To be the recipient of funds contributed under force by members of the community whose responsibility for the outrages is at most only indirect, will win the missionary the good will of no one, but will alienate the very.ones we seek to win.
As 'affecting the non-Ohristian Ohinese there is a further item indicating this policy. A refusal to take indemnity for the 'destroyed property would, I believe, impress the non-Ohristian Ohinese with the unselfishness of the Ohurch and with the spirituality of the Ohristian religion. They would be forced to recognize a condition of mind very different from anything they know in men who, having the power to collect a just claim, should voluntarily lay aside that claim. If the Ohurch will pass over its claim it will not alone influence the Ohinese but will startle the world. Ohinese papers, both secular and missionary, will pass the news, and as the missionaries return to their posts the Ohinese pastors, evangelists, and church members will spread the news.
II. A second general consideration which indicates this policy is its probable effect upon the Chinese Ohurch. By the extra territorial treaty clauses the foreigner in Ohina is governed by the laws of his own nation. '1'he policy of the Ohinese government during the past few years has been to avoid trouble by letting the foreigner have hisown way whenever possible. Both Protestants and Romanists are charged with using their influence to protect their followers. Missionaries generally agree that there are cases of persecution in which to refuse aid would be unjust. The opinion is equally unanimous that a disposition to take advantage of the influence of the foreigner is very widely diffused in the Ohinese Ohurch, especially among those whose knowledge of the Ohristian truth is slight. That the Ohinese officials feel this state of affairs to be very troublesome is known to everyone who comes into contact with them. Their sentiments were voiced long ago by Wen- Hsiang, who said, in 1868: Take away your extra territorial clause, and merchant and missionary may settle anywhere and everywhere; but retain it, and we must do our best to confine you and our trouble to the treaty ports.
Whatever may be done, no one will maintain that the collection of indemnity will tend to lessen this spirit of dependence on the political influence of the foreigner, which is an acknowledged weakness in the Ohinese Ohurch of to-day. On the other hand, no action of the mis- 2ionary body and of the Ohristian Ohurch would tell more powerfully for the destruction of this spirit than forgoing indemnity. It was said to me once by a Ohinese teacher, when I refused to interfere in behalf of some Ohristian school-boys who had been beaten in a street
fight: "If it were you who had been beaten, you would take the mat- ter to court fast enough." Example is better thau precept, and I believe that the example of an American and European Church, suffi- ciently Christlike to take joyfully the spoiling of its goods, would prove a death blow to political influence as a factor in the life of the Chinese Church. From the standpoint of its effect upon the Christian Chinese, it would therefore be good policy to take no indemnity.
III. A third argument for this policy is its effect upon the Christian Church in Christian countries. That the Church needs a fuller baptism of spiritual power is certain. The spiritual life of the Church will be quickened if it takes spiritual nutriment and spiritual exercise. To forego indemnity, and to make good our losses, will require the exercise of a spirit of dependence upon God which we hardly manifest in the ordinary life of the Church, and further of a spirit of sacrifice which will be very closely akin to that of Jesus himself. It is vain to expect God's blessing if we rise not above the merely commercial idea which views the money spent in mission work as an investment to be governed by the same laws as the investments of commerce, and to be defended with battleships and Maxim guns. It was not by means of this kind that the apostles and early martyrs .turned the world upside down.
IV. A further consideration is the probable effect upon the whole Christian world. Governments are straining every nerve to construct more battleships, raise larger armies, and to increase and perfect their armaments. On the other hand, there is an ever-increasing body of thoughtful men and women who deprecate war as a means of settling internationll.I disputes, just as many Christians deprecate the appeal to force in private affairs. There is no reasonable doubt that this century upon which we now enter will see a wonderful advance along these lines in an application to international life of the principles upon which the individual life of civilized men is now based. The peace conference of Nicholas shows that the eyes of some are turned toward the light; that they catch a glimpse of an ideal state in which the reign of ,ustice and love shall bring peace to all men. The Church has now presented to it an opportunity to assume the leadership ill these great movements. The road is not that of earthly glory. If the Church is willing to be lifted up in sacrifice as Jesus was lifted up, it will draw the world to Him. The day of justice al}.d peace most come, and the Church has now the power to hasten that time. The door is open-the door of suffering, oiself-abnegation.
In spirit I have suffered with those whose goods have been destroyed; I have wandered with the homeless Chinese Christians; I have felt the agony of a strong man overpowered in defense of those dearer than his life; I have stood beside that Christian mother who saw fathe and children and grandchildren slain before her eyes; the
unutterable shame of outraged Christian womanhood has burned into my soul. But beside all these sufferers I have seen the form of One who is able to succor, who came with angel hands to receive them; and still in His side was the mark of a spear and the hand out- stretched to save was pierced, and again I heard from those sinless lips the prayer: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Above the strife and trial of earth they have joined the great multitude from whose eyes all tears are wiped away, and should we listen we might almost hear their triumph song. Shall these have died in vain? In the name of the Infinite sufferer and of those who in following Him have known the fellowship of His sufferings, I plead that we who remain may so act that their blood may be indeed the seed for the redemption of the Ohinese.
AT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS.
BY MISS LUELLA MINER, TUNG-CHOW, PEKING, CHINA. Missionary of the American Board, 1887-.
On a Wednesday morning in March a strange procession moved through the bare brown fields between Peking and Tung-chow. At the head rode a lieutenant of cavalry with six men; then came two great army wagons followed by three more cavalrymen; then a long line of thirty-six Peking carts. The first two were occupied by missionary ladies, the others by Ohinese men, women, and children. There was.also a white sedan-chair in which a young Ohinese woman was carried. Two missionaries on horseback completed the cavalcade. Some of the carts were covered with white, the Ohinese token of mourning.
Nine months before other bands had been moving over these same roads, fierce-looking men with red sashes and head-bands, brandishing great swords. Sometimes they were pursuing fleeing women, crying, "Kill! kill! kill!" Sometimes they carried frightened children bound hand and foot. Many a shallow grave had been made by the roadside, many a mangled body had been left for the dogs to eat, and many a home had gone up in smoke, all that was left of its inmates a few charred bones. The blood-stained soil of many a yard where happy children once played had been hastily thrown up to make a restingplace for father, mother, child, and aged grandmother-all dumped in one common grave. Upon hundreds of these nameless graves the summer rains beat down. Had not the Boxers triumphed? Were not the Foreign Devils. and the Secondary Foreign Devils all extermin~ted or driven from the land?
Then came the tramp of armies executing dire vengence. Again the mangled bodies of women and children lay by their village homes, the innocent suffering for the guilty, again fire and sword desolated
AT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS
the streets of Tung·chow. It was the turn of the Boxers to flee, while back from their hiding-places in mountain caves and beyond the Great Wall, and from the beleaguered legations in Peking, came hundreds of haggard, anxious Christians. Again they sought the spots which they had once called home. They uncovered the pits into which the coffinless bodies had been thrown. Sometimes a long braid of hair, an ea,rth-stained garment, would be the only means of identifying the remains of a loved one.
As the months passed by long conferences were held between representatives of the Church and the village gentry, or leaders. The result was that in March in five towns and villages cemeteries had been given and coffins provided for the bodies of eighty-three martyrs.
It was to hold funeral services for these that the company of American soldiers, missionaries, and Chinese Christians started out from Peking that bright spring morning. Scores of others in Tungchow city, in its suburbs, and in lonely hamlets still lie in dishonored graves. As time goes by may we have the opportunity to pay the same loving tribute to their memory!
There seemed little need of the foreign cavalry as we wound through the deserted fields and passed the quiet villages, the villagers greeting us with curious interest as in ante-Boxer days, yet not quite the same. There was a new flavor of respect in their salute, (or was it fear ?) inspired by the handful of cavalry. When we came to our first stopping-place and found 'hundreds awaiting us, we realized why it had been thought best to ask for a guard, but not until two weeks later, when an English missionary was killed when visiting his little parish only a few miles from the railroad between Peking and Tientsin, did we believe that we might possibly have been in real danger had we gone unprotected on that long circuit through our country field.
Half way from Peking to Tung-chow, a few miles west of the main road, we made our first stop. Several men, women, and children in white mourning robes got out of the white-covered carts, and were met by others in the waiting crowd wearing the same signs of bereavement-friends and relatives, not themselves Christians, but who were united with the Christians in a common grief.
Last June, when the Tung-chow missionaries fled to Peking, a warning was sent to this circle of Christians, and all but four joined us in Peking before the bands of murderers reached their homes. 'l'he spot where these four met martyrdom was pointed out to us as we entered t~e temple where the funeral services were to be held. The spot was a low, dreary, depression only a few yards away. We could not help wondering, as the great crowd parted to let us into the temple yard where four coffins lay in state in a matting booth, how many of them had cried" Kill! kill! kill the Secondary Foreign Devils!" that sad June day when Mr. Pi and his son were dragged from
their burning home to this same temple. It was a touching scene when the widow, sons, and other relatives walked forward to look at the coffins, but there was no demonstration-only a few quiet tears.
Before the services were held we sat down to a feast provided for our great company by the leading men in the district, who had made all the arrangements for the funeral. It seemed strange to see the Buddhist priests waiting on all so deferentially. Sometimes the food almost choked us as we thought that many who had contributed toward that feast were doubtless Boxers during those terrible summer days. The eating of this feast might be compared to the smoking of the pipe of peace. We Occidentals can hardly imagine what a weight of grief and resentment on one side and of shame and fear on the other may have been removed in partaking of that feast. " Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies."
The services were held in the open court in front of the booth in which the coffins rested. The sides of the booth were hung with scrolls on which were the mottoes, "Martyrs for righteousness," "They offered their lives as a sacrifice for truth," and similar sentiments. Then we went about half a mile to the cemetery, where another hymn was sung and a prayer offered. By a quarter past three the cavalcade was again on its way to Fu-Ho, four miles north of 'rung-chow, where forty-two Christians met a cruel death. Only one man, our evangelist liao Hsin, with his little deaf and dumb daughter, his decrepit grandmother, and six orphans representing five different families, survive from that once flourishing community.
We passed a corner and turned down a street leading to a great threshing-floor on the edge of a village. In front faced the cavalry, their yellow-lined blue capes fluttering in the breeze, behind lumbered· the army wagons and carts. Under a line of booths about fifty yards long, extending along one side of the threshing-floor, stood a long row of coffins, side by side. They were all labeled, and six little orph'n.ns were soon standing by the side of the bodies of father or mother. liao Hsin, with face very white but very calm, led us from one end of the row to the other. Near the middle was the coffin of his mother, and on it he laid two crosses of artificial flowers which had been handed him as he left his cart. There too were his wife and two boys, his wife's father, mother, and other relatives. Bey<.md were fonr coffins marked with the names of teacher Ts'ao, of the college, his wife, and two daughters. His ten-year-old boy, the only one of the family left, covered his face with his hands and sobbed. There were few dry eyes in all the company of Christians. The crowd of on-lookers, many of them the leading men of the town who were lllanaging the funeral and entertaining the company, more of them simply idlers who had come to enjoy the excitement, was absolutely quiet, perhaps awed into silence by the pathos of the scene, perhaps
AT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS
some of them humbled with contrition as they thought of their part in last summer's carnival of crime. Now and then we would catch the old-time leer or look of scorn which ever of yore greeted the "Foreign Devil" wheu he faced a heathen crowd. But either sympathy for our sorrow or a wholesome respect for the military escort kept the swarming hundreds very quiet.
The whole company was entertained on the premises of a ~ery wealthy man who refused to join the Boxers, packed up his most valuable property and left the village, saying that he could not hinder their using his deserted houses, but that he himself would have no hand in their devilish work. There were many such men outside the ranks of the Christians. There were thousands of others who took the Boxer knives in their hands to save their own lives or property, but who never stained those knives with blood. For these weaker ones we must cherish the widest charity. Perhaps they formed a large proportion of the seething crowds which greeted us everywhere. The Boxer leaders would hardly have ventured to stay in the neighborhood of those well-armed American soldiers.
The funeral services were held the next morning on the threshingfloor. No room at any place which we visited would have held tIle crowds. The white-robed mourners stood each by the coffins of his own friends, and white sashes for mourning badges were given to all us who cared to wear them. The leader stood opposite the booth containing the coffins, in front of another long booth hung full of scrolls presented by outsiders-" Faithful unto Death," "Dying for the Truth," "Seeing Danger, Sacrificing Life," "His Place is in Heaven," were a few of the mottoes. The eleventh of Hebrews was read, and seemed very appropriate for those who had been "tortured, not accepting deliverances," and" had trial of cruel mockings and scourg~ ings," were stoned or "slain with the sword," or had "wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."
As the long procession moved out to the cemetery, in the cart in front of mine was seated a heart-broken old lady not a Christian; nine members of her family had been killed, and she, with the other three remaining members of the family, had been living in exile until a day or two before the funeral. She was wailing as those who are not Christians always do. "Oh! my sons, my sons, I saw them torture you with their cruel knives!" then the wild sobs would break ont, and the cry, "I saw the flames burning your poor bodies-nothing left but a few bones! "
We stood a long time in the newly made cemetery while the coffins were being lowered and a touching service held. This" God's acre" will ever be a sacred spot.
Perhaps the biMerest pangs of sorrow that day came when we stood amid the ruins of our helpers' home, our chapel, and school building.
They showed us the pit in the yard where the bodies of Rao Rsin's mother, wife, and two boys had been buried last June, and from which they had been taken only two days before to be placed in coffins. There was the tree around which the five-year-old boy kept running while the fiends stabbed him with their sword points. What wonder that the frenzied mother flung her year-old baby with all her might against a tree; hoping to dash his brains out and save him from torture!
At the village of Ts'ao-Fang eleven coffins were arranged under an awning by the wayside, only a few rods from the ruins of one of the homes of the Ohristians. It was in the early twilight that the Boxers set fire to the house, killing two old ladies and a four-year-old boy. Two eleven-year-old girls escaped in the darkness, and, after perils manifold and marvelous escapes, found a haven of rest with us in Peking last October. Both were with us that day. The coffins which this village had provided were poorer than at the other places, and the attitude of the crowd seemed less sympathetic. Those who were mourning their loved ones felt it, and the woman who sat beside me, near the coffin of her child, with that of her mother-in-law just beyond, said firmly before the service began: "I will not cry. That would only fulfil the wish of your hearts." The proud eyes did not shed a tear, the resolute voice sang every verse of the familiar hymn. The service over, the lid of her mother's coffin was lifted, and Mrs. Lee looked into the coffin; then with head raised proudly and burning black eyes she faced the crowd. "See what you have done ! Just one or two poor bones left to put in this coffin! And she never hurt a soul in this village, not even a dog. I can stand here and look in the faces of some of the men who did this!"
We spent that night at an inn in Tung-chow-wicked, blood-stained Tung-chow-which, at'the hands of the Russians, French, and Japanese, bas paid dOll hIe for all her sins. The ruins of two great mission compounds, one containing the beautiful buildings of the North China Oollege, witness against her. Amid the desolation wrought by war it will be difficult ever to find the bodies of our scores of martyrs there, or to distinguish them from the victims of the avenging army. In spite of the havoc wrought by a terrible gunpowder explosion, by fire and sword and looting soldiers, life and prosperity are returning to her deserted streets. The present population is estimated to be about eight-tenths of that of a year ago.
Early Friday morning we were on our way southward to our largest country field, and memories flooded in upon us as we traveled the familiar road. About noon we approached Niu Mu 'l"un, where our first 'rung-chow martyrs died on the night of June 6th. A mile away we could see the crowds awaiting us, and some of the gentry of the town came out about a quarter of a mile to meet us. In our party was the evangelist, Mr. Lee, stationed at this place last year, who saw
AT THE GRAVES OF THE MARTYRS
his father and his bride of a few weeks brutally butchered, and was himself left for dead amid the smoking ruins of his home, with a spear wound in the abdomen, and face and hands a mass of blisters. The bodies of thirteen belonging to this church had been placed in coffins. A few were killed after fleeing to other places.
It was a ride of six miles from this place to Yung Le Tien, our largest out-station in this region. Our helpers' home, our chapel, our building for women's classes, had stood on the outskirts of the to·wn. This had been one of the happiest of our Christian homes, where love and mutual helpfulness reigned, where the unselfish father was never too tired to teach his children at the close of a day's work, where the sick and sorrowing and suffering always knew they would find a welcome. Here too the missionaries were eagerly welcomed, and we all loved Li Te Kuei as a brother. A few hours after the massacre at Niu Mu T'un the last meeting had been held in that little chapel; then Mr. Lee, with his wife, two boys, and a baby, accompanied by a number of the other Ohristians, started on that flight to Tung-chow on which they were to meet their death. The baby was first killed, then the two boys and their mother lay bleeding to death by the roadside. With fiendish cruelty Mr. Lee was saved until the last. Some in the crowds which followed the Boxers tell how he knelt and cried" Lord! Lord! " A woman of the party who lay bound by the roadside heard him pray, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
We drove past the ruins of this once happy home. Only a few yards beyond, close beside the street, in a matting booth, were coffins containing the bodies of these five and nine others. On both sides of the street there was a sea of heads. Our carts stopped, and Mr. Lee's oldest son and two daughters, who were away at school when the storm burst, walked slowly toward those coffins. Poor grief-stricken children! The day before, at Fu-Ho and TS'ay-Fang, they had stood beside the graves of both their grandmothers and many others who were near and dear to them. What wonder that sixteen-year-old Shu ell'uan and eleven-year-old Shu Oh'eng leaned against the coffins in a passion of grief, and sobbed quietly all through the service! Mr. Lee's wife was the only sister of Kao Hsin, the evangelist who had buried so many loved ones at Fu-Ho, and we noted his pale, set face as he looked into the coffins. Mrs. Yang, the woman who lay bound by the roadside and heard Mr. Lee's words, also saw her two children, her only ones, slowly stabbed to death. She looked into her little girl's coffin, standing with others in that long row, and could still distinguish where a spear-thrust had wounded the little cheek, just as she had seen it that June day. For some reason this wayside grave in which Mr. Lee and those who suffered martyrdom with him were buried together, was dug deeper than usual, so the summer rains and heat had not penetrated it.
Of all the meetings this left the most vivid impression on my mind. I shall never forget how we tried to sing, "For one to live is Christ," to the accompaniment of suppressed sobs, surrounded by that crowd, half curious, half awed. While one of Mr. Lee's classmates in college and theological seminary, with eyes bright with tears, was paying a loving tribute to his memory, a newcomer pushed his way to the front with a rather festive air. It stirred the indignation of the speaker. "Don't come here as if to some merry show. You should bow your heads with shame, you should weep with these children whom you have made orphans."
Everywhere the statement was made that the" Jesus Church" would not avenge the blood of its martyrs. "Vengence is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." "The only reparation you can make," said one, "the best monument to the memory of the noble dead, is for you all to turn to the Lord and Master for whom they laid down their lives."
It was too late to go to the cemetery that night. We slept in a temple just outside the gate of the walled town.. The next morning was fair and beautiful, with a promise of spring in the air, as we stood by the graves of the martyrs. The wheat-fields were beginning to show a faint tinge of green. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." It is the faith and hope that in the coming years we shall see the" much fruit" of all this bloodshed and agony that comforts us in these dark hours. On the ride of twenty-five miles back to Peking, the words of the hymn sung at the grave kept ringing in my ears: " Sheaves after sowing, sun after rain, Sight after mystery, peace after pain; Joy after sorrow, calm after blast, Rest after weariness, sweet rest at last.
" Near after distant, gleam after gloom, Love after loneliness, life after tomb; After long agony, rapture of bliss, Right was the pathway; leading to this."
REV. EDWIN WALLACE PARKER, D.D.
METHODIST MISSIONARY BISHOP OF SOUTHERN ASIA.
BY REV. HENRY MANSELL, D.D., METHODIST MISSION, INDIA.
It was sad news to the Methodist Episcopal Church in America when the cablegram of July 4, 1901, announced the death of Bishop E. W. Parker. Most people have good things said of them after their departure. Of our beloved Bishop Parker I can say nothing since his death that I have not thought and said during his life. Two of these things had crystalized into foundation-stones of a
REV. EDWIN WALLACE PARKER, D. D
most admirable missionary character. First, he was the most unselfish and self-sacrificing man I ever knew. Second, he was the best practi- cal executive missionary of the past century. .
Edwin W. Parker was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, January 21, 1833. He was graduated from Concord Biblical Institute in 1859 in the same class with Dr. S. L. Baldwin, of China, and now of the Methodist Episcopal Mission Secretariat. Mr. Parker was ordained the year he graduated, and sent at once to Dr. Butler, in India, in com- pany with James Baume, J. R. Downey, C. W. Judd, J. M. Thoburn, and J. W. Waugh. His first appointment was Bijnour, N. W. P., where he soon acquired the language and began to gather'in converts.
He was appointed presiding elder in 1864, when the India Conference was organized by Bishop Thomson, who asked the conference to elect by ballot three men as a missionary committee, and he would consider those the men the conference wished for presiding elders, and he would so appoint them.
E. W. Parker, J. W. Waugh, and C. W. Judd were elected, Mr.
Parker receiving all the votes cast except his own, showing him the most popular man in the conference. He continued in the office of presiding elder ever after, except two years, till elected in 1900, by a practically unanimous vote of the General Conference,.a missionary bishop of Southern Asia. His popularity was not obtained by self- seeking, but by unswerving devotion to principle and right. He was sent to five successive general conferences, and he wrote more of the present Discipline than any other man except Wesley himself. He gave his Church its present translation of this Discipline in Hindu- stani. He was a methodical and indefatigable worker, as well as a Napoleonic organizer. He, with Bishop Thoburn and the writer, organized the" District Conference," and the writer was instructed to present it to the General Conference of 1872 for sanction. It was sanctioned and made the basis of th9 revised District Conference of our Church. He adapted the American camp-meeting to the Hindu mela, and the first camp-meeting in India he held in Amroha, in the Moradabad district. Now all of the seventy-five districts of Southern Asia hold these Christian melas combined with workers' meetings in connection with their district conferences, all after Dr. Parker's model.
He was one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Southern Asia, and saw it grow from one member to one hundred and twelve thousand communicants, with a Christian community besides of one hundr~d and twenty-five thousand. He was one of the founders· of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and saw the first two young women sent to India, and has seen it grow until there are sixty foreigu missionaries, one hundred and eight assistants, and one thousand one hundred and twenty-five female workers and Bible-
women appointed in India under that society. He was the first national president of the India Epworth League, and heard reported eleven thousand .four hundred and ninety-nine Epworth Leagues in Southern Asia.
While he was a first-class organizer, and could get more and better work out of American and native preachers, exhorters, and teachers than anyone else, he could show all how to do their work, and could then turn in and do more than anyone else at any kind of work. He was most helpful to young missionaries and native helpers, and was greatly loved by them.
He was a competent financier, and most economical and careful of mission money, so he was universally trusted in India and at home.
He was a model husband; his was a sweet, happy home. He was married before going to the theological school. Mrs. Parker took the entire course with him, and was one with him in all his life and work in India, and without her he never could have been what he was. He was great enough and wise enough to consult with her in everything, and she was devoted and modest enough to never let it be known. They had no children, and he said it was that he might love and be loved by all the missionaries' children. He gained their affection and admiration, and gave them ad vice, help, and good cheer, which all remember and profit by. Rudyard Kipling has said that when a good man dies there are fifty to five thollsand qualified to take his place. It seems to me there is none qualified to fill Bishop Parker's place. He did not want the bishopric for the honor of it, but that he might do more work for the Master; but his work was done. He returned to us in India a bishop, but was not able to hold one conference. He went to Kasgunj District Oonference, but was .stricken down and could not finish it. He made a most heroic struggle for life, but relapse after relapse finally conquered his giant frame and freed his spirit to join Ohrist the King in glory, and greet the redeemed millions from India and the world, and to induct them into the higher and the grander triumphs of the spirit world.
THE JAPANESE ON THE PACIFIC OOAST OF AMERICA.
BY REV. ~f. C. HARRIS, D.D. Superintendent of the Japanese Methodist Mission, San Francisco, California.
In the year 1870 eleven Japanese came via Hawaii to San Francisco and settled there. The increase in the number of emigrants from the Sunrise Kingdom was very small, for IIp to 1886 there were not more than a thousand of them in Oalifornia. At first all landed in San Francisco, but afterward they began to come to Victoria, B. 0., and to Seattle and Portland, Oregon. At present there are about forty thousand on the coast, including British Oolumbia, distributed as
19.01.] THE JAPANESE ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF AMERICA
follows: In Oalif(lrnia, 15,000; Washington and Oregon, 10,000; Arizona, Nevada, and Montana, 5,000; and in British Oolumbia, 8,000 or .10,000. The greatest influx was that of a year ago, when 13,000 arrived in a few months. Since July of 1900 the arrivals have ceased, because of the action of the Japanese government in prohibit- ing further immigration. This was done on account of the agitation against Japanese cheap labor by the labor organizations of the coast.
Recently the prohibition has also been applied to British Oolumbia. Merchants, artisans, tradesmen, farmers, laborers, and students make up the populations on the coast. Among the whole number there are few idlers, all being actively employed on farms, railroads, or in shops, families, or attending schools. All who come seek improvement. They are hospitable toward new ideas that may be practically utilized in Japan, and are therefore eager learners. The relatively large number of students is surprising; these are young men from the age of fifteen to thirty, mostly poor in purse but proud of learning, and willing to endure great privations for the pearl of knowledge. In Oalifornia there are at least five hundred of these, earnestly studying in our schools, public and private. The Ohristian missions conduct English language schools, and thence they enter the high-schools, colleges, seminaries, and universities. There are twenty-five at Stanford and Oalifornia universities, and the number pursuing higher education is constantly increasing. Including .those on the coast with those in Hawaii, there are about one hun- dred thousand Japanese of all classes in America, for the most part young men, self-reliant and ambitious, and seeking better things for themselves.
FIRST CONVERT AND MISSIONARY.
In 1877 there landed in San Francisco a little brown man bearing in his hand a letter of ilitroduction from Dr. George Oochran, a mis- sionary in Tokyo, to Dr. Thomas Guard, pastor of Howard Street M: E.
Ohurch. On inquiry he found that the doctor could be seen in his church on Sunday morning at eleven o'clock. Armed with his letter, he arrived after the service had begun, but, nothing daunted, he marched down the aisle, up the steps of the pulpit, bowed low, and presented his letter. The good doctor received the letter and motioned him to a seat in the Amen Oorner. It should be remarked that our friend did not understand English, and this was the first time he had ever been in a Christian church. The next day Dr. Guard introduced him to Dr. Otis Gibson, the founder and superintendent of the Ohinese M. E. Mission of Oalifornia. As the youth had come with a desire to learn English, he~was admitted to the school for Ohinese, and then and there began a new existence which was destined to be the means of great blessing to his countrymen. He learned English, and listened with great delight to the Gospel from Dr. Gibson's lips. The Word was
received into an honest heart and transformed him completely. In a few months he and two others were baptized, and formed the nucleus of Japanese missions in America that have spread far and wide, and have carried blessings to thousands of his compatriots.
Soon after his conversion this man, Kamichi Miyama, was truly called to the office of an evangelist, and began work among the few Japanese in San Francisco. This took form in the organization of the "Japanese Gospel Society," auxiliary to the Chinese mission.
Under Dr. Gibson he was trained for the ministry, and the two toiled together like Paul and 'rimothy until the physical breakdown of Dr.
Gibson in 1885. In September, 1886, the Japanese separated from the Chinese, and formed the Japanese mission, under the superintend- ence of the writer, who had been transferred from the Japan Confer- ence for this purpose.
. In the year 1889 a memorable work of grace was wrought among the members of the little mission. One young man, deeply convicted of unbelief, was led by the Spirit apart, and for many days he prayed, fasted, and searched the Scriptures. Finally he emerged, filled with the new life and surcharged with the message of salvation, and began to witness and exhort with startling earnestness. Conviction of sin, the need of forgiveness, and the anointing of the Spirit came upon many. For days and weeks this went on, culminating in a regenerated, Spiritfilled church, ready for the service of the Lord. It pleased God to call many to be His witnesses and evangelists. Without purse they went forth with tracts and Bibles, and told their countrymen what God had done for them. "Sin and salvation" were the themes illustrated by their own experience, and the Lord confirmed their words and deeds with many signs. Scores were converted, and new missions were formed. Out of the revival came the forces which carried the Gospel to all points in California occupied by Japanese. The baptism which came upon these young men not only fined them, but has remained as a permanent experience and a convincing proof of the reality of spiritual life.
Growing out of the conditions of the people, and a desire to meet them, each mission is a Young Men's Christian Association, with the home idea added. A building is used for dormitory, restaurant, school-room, religious services, social hall, reading-room, trunk-rooms, etc., making it an institutional church.
In 1894 the first Japanese chluch in North America was erected in San Francisco, at the cost of about twenty thousand dollars, of which the converts gave over three thousand dollars. Beside the twostory church there is a dormitory for young men and a printingpress in a separate building. The Anglo-Japanese Training School is conducted both day and night, and the average attendance is above one hundred and thirty.
All the missions are presided over by a Japanese preacher or teacher, and the business is conducted with the help of his members and official board. The writer is the only American who is officially connected with the Methodist Episcopal missions on the Coast. In the matter of financial support they exhibit unusual liberality. For
THE JAPANESE ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF AMERICA
church benevolences they have given in the past seven years five thou- sand five hundred dollars, and for self-support fifty-two thousand dol- lars. ~ince 1877 over one thousand eight hundred have ~flen qaptized, and during the last seven years, 1893-1900, above one thousand five hundred.
Associated with the Methodists are the Presbyterians, with two strong establishments in San Francisco and one in Salinas, Oalifornia.
'rhe Rev. T. Yoshimura is in charge of a Protestant Episcopal mission ill San Francisco, and in Seattle and Tacoma the Baptists conduct two prosperous missions. Unity of spirit- and close, sympathetic cooperation exist among all the churches and missions, greatly con- tributing to the extension of our Lord's Kingdom. – The regenerating influences of these missions upon the dwellers on the Ooast is direct and very salutary, and upon Japan, tho indirect, it is nevertheless very helpful. Many Japanese who have come to the Ooast as students and traders have, upon their return to Japan~ admir- ably succeeded in many callings. Among these are a number of Ohristian men. I can count thirty men, pastors, teachers, and evan- gelists, who have been converted here and are now potent factors in the churches in Japan. In British Oolumbia vigorous missions are being maintained at Victoria, Vancouver, and at Union and Fraser – R~~ It is an inspiring truth that not only every steamer carries native Japanese Ohristians from Victoria, San Francisco, and Seattle, but on these same vessels are hundreds of letters from Ohristians laden with love-messages and fragrant with prayer for the loved oues at home.
Whole families have thus beeu changed into Ohristian households by these loviug epistles.
THE JAPANESIi: METHODIST CHURCH IN SAN FRA..'WISCO.
DISEASES AND DOOTORS IN KOREA.
BY REV. HENRY ll{;NROE BR{;EN, TAIKU, KOREA.
Missionary of the Presbyterian Board, U. S. A.
The medical institution at Taiku consists of one room, probably thirty by ten feet, containing the medicines, water-still, and operatingtable (home-made), and, in addition, three small rooms, ten by four each, for store-room, consulting-room, and waiting-room. Here the faithful doctor labors, giving his life for this people. With no nurses, no surgical or other wards, no trained assistant and in crowded quarters, he is obliged to come into close contact with every form of disease, from leprosy down to toothache. Many times he must say to serious cases, "I have not the facilities to help you. GG home again." Antiseptic and satisfactory surgical work is almost impossible. Yet his reputation has rapidly spread, and every day at an early hour a crowd gathers, in order that they may be an:ong the favored few who can have the opportunity of seeing the" great foreign doctor." Notwithstanding the difficulties in the way, he has been able to see some encouraging results, and to give relief and healing to many sufferers. Abscesses and fistulas are very common. They are aggravated by the uncleanly habits of the people, and. by the utter lack of the knowledge of the rudiments of physiology and hygiene.
Oonsumption is very common; often however, the tubercular germ has found lodgment in the glands of the body instead of in the lungs. Smallpox is universal. I have been told by one of our Koreans, who is employed as a teacher, that he did not know of a person who had reached twelve years of age without having the smallpox. It makes dreadful ravages among the children, and there is a common saying that a Korean mother does not count her children t.ill they have had the smallpox.
The Koreans call this disease "the guest." One explanation of the origin of this name is that smallpox originally carne from Ohina. Another explan~ion is that the disease is a spirit which must be induced to leave by worship and the offering of food. To this end the child, formerly scolded and cuffed about, is regaled with daintie's and addressed in the most honorific terms. They have an ingenious way of inviting the "guest" away from the house. A little straw horse is made, which is loaded with offerings of rice, wine, etc., and the "guest" is invited to go for a ride. The horse, offerings, and spirit guest are then taken out into the country and the horse is turned loose to pasture.
Another complaint which is universal among the Koreans is indigestion. When little children they are stuffed with rice, and their little stomachs patted and rubbed by their fond mothers, who think
DISEASES AND DOCTORS IN KOREA. 689'
that their children's strength will be in proportion to the amount of rice they eat. This stuffing process produces greatly distended stomachs. All Koreans bolt their food; when they eat they attend strictly to business, and all that can be heard from a group at mealtime is a sound resembling that made by water disappearing down the waste-pipe of a sink. The louder the noise the greater is their appreciation of the food. Half-cooked rice, eaten with quantities of red pepper, form the substance of the meal. The combination is, of course, more than the stomach can stand, and produces what they call" that worm." They say that of course they know that it is not a worm which troubles them, but that it is a mass of saliva which forms a ball that rolls around in the stomach. 'fo break this ball up and get rid of it they place two thimblefuls of sulphur and other drugs on the child's bacli:, and set fire to it. '1.'he Korean idea is that this treatment breaks up "that worm," and drives it up and out through the crown of the head. The frequency of the complaint and the prevalence of the remedy is testified to by the white scars, the I:lize of a quarter or half a dollar, which one can see on the back of almost any Korean child when in its summer (birthday) costume. Why they do not apply the remedy directly to the stomach is a mystery.
Leprosy is very common. Dr. Johnson sometimes meets several cases in a single day in the dispensary. It is not, however, as severe a form of leprosy as that found in India. 'fhe Koreans are very much afraid of it, and when the spots first appear they burn them out, and claim that if taken early enough it can be cured. A young Buddhist monk recently came to the dispenl:lary with his fingers and toes dropping off. He was a leper, and wanted medicine that would cure him. When told that he could not be cured he cried and refused to go away, but when convinced he threw down money and asked for some medicine that would kill him.
The Korean doctors always claim to be able to help or cure a patient, whatever may be the disease. The people therefore can not understand why American doctors will not always promise to do the same. They do not see the need of a continued course of treatment, but expect one bottle of medicine to cure them. If it does not they can not see why more of the same can do any good. A patient who was given a bottle of medicine with prescribed doses to last ten days returned the next morning with the empty bottle, saying that as he lived some distance out in the country he had taken the medicine, and would like some more to take home with him. He doubtless reasoned that if one bottle would cure in ten days if taken in ten. doses, then the bottleful taken in one dose wonld cure in one day; but to make assurance doubly sure he wanted another bottle to take at his leisure.
RESULTS OJ!' MEDICAL MISSIONS IN KOREA.
BY J. HUNTER WELLS, M.D., PYENGYANG, KOREA.
Philanthropic work has always found its best expression in emulation of the example of the Good Samaritan. Nothing is more marked in the life of Ohrist than His work of healing the sick, and there is nothing more marked as one of the general results of Ohristianity than the acknowledgment of the obligation to provide systematically for the sick, the sorrowing, and the poor.
Some one has said that "philanthropic work [medical] should be limited by the possibility of its evangelistic utilization and influence." This is not in accord with the spirit of the aid given to the man who had fallen among thieves; but since missionary funds are limited, such policies must be acted on to some extent; and as no one can tell just to what extent evangelistic influence is manifested, it will be difficult to lay down rules on this line. Korea was opened to the Gospel by the indirect influence of the medical work. All this growth in northern Korea is synchronous with the establishment of the medical work, and no human factor in the work for Ohrist in northern Korea has been more potent than the dispensary and hospitals. Over fifty thousand persons have been directly or indirectly treated in the two little institntions here, and double that nnmber have been influenced during the past four years.
A very low estimate of the economic value rendered to this pitiful people by these two little institutions places it at $350,000, while the funds used from America, exclusive of the physicians' salaries, has been less than $3,500. Surgery of a high order, especially eye surgery, is practised at both hospitals, and scores of totally blind people have been restored to sight. The numbers of conversions in both hospitals, which usually result in an indirect way, since the work is so large, would be accounted marvelous, were it not that there are some two hundred meeting-places, or so-called churches, in as many different cities and towns in an area about one hundred and sixty by fifty miles. There are but few nooks or corners in this district in which dispensary patients, with the pamphlet they have received and the word they have heard, have not permeated. The largest factor, however, has been the general influence which has pervaded the whole region, and has made possible the wonderful progress in Gospel work.
So on the lines of simple unity and a medical work pursued and carried out as a Christian obligation, tho it costs less than $400 a year, and with self-help, self-support, and a personal salvation emphasized, and with the country's religion of Buddhism and Oonfucianism and the worship of spirits in a bad way, the Gospel is making immense strides. But over it all, explaining all, simplifying all, is the fact that the Holy Spirit has come in power on these people.
KOREAN CHARACTERISTICS
KOREAN CHARACTERISTICS. * BY REV. JAMES S. GALE, SEOUL, KOREA.
Missionary of the Presbyterian Board; author of "Korean Sketches."
The poor Korean is the last man in the world to know his where- abouts. Times and seasons with their accompaniments have no place in the region of his comprehension. It may be to-day, or it n!!ty be yester- day, or it may be a thousand years before the Flood, it is all the same to him. His grandfather lived, and his son lives-why should he care? "What have I got to do fooling with the eternal laws of heaven and earth?" is one of his oft-repeated sayings. He never dreams of material cause and effect, linked together, living on earth and ruling among mortals. Every change and chance for him has its rise in some mysterious omen, or sign, or spirit rapping, or offended ancestral god. With him spirit is always greater far than matter. It moves and matter responds, and as you can not hope to oppose spirit, leave matter alone also.
Not long ago one of my friends painted a little pig with strong poison and made it fast to a tree. A tiger came by and ate the pig,. but he repented forthwith, and proceeded to unburden his soul of the whole undigested mass. While thus engaged friend Kang shot him with his ancient flintlock gun. Later another tiger was secured, but the wife tigress came to sit as s~ntry, and the flintlock was too uncertain; so Kang called on me for a rifle. An American Martini I had, a strong gun, sufficient to withstand all manner of shock and jar. I gave it, saying, "Be careful now; with the gun on one side and the tiger on the other, I am anxious, but I disclaim all responsibility." "Oh, yes, yes, I know all about it," said Kang; "let tigers bllware," and he marched off in triumph. He shot off a cartridge to let his friends hear the noise, and another for other friends who had not heard the first; then he proceeded to wipe out the barrel with a wad of rag a.nd the steel rod. In less time than I take to tell it he had rag and rod fast half-way down. Out it would not, nor would it in. He perforated his front garments and nearly gave himself appendicitis by his efforts to push. Said he, "The law that governs this affair contradicts everything I have seen in heaven and earth; I'll put a cartridge in and shoot it out." There was a flash, a burst of artillery, with sparks of fire, and Kang for one small instant wakened wide up to see if he was alive. He brought home the gun and reprimanded :me: "Don't you ever loan that kind of weapon again. Anything that bursts like that and flies all over is dangerous." I asked, "Areyoualive?" "Yes," said he, "but it was near death I was." I replied: "After my warning you, too. I have no words; I am speechless; go in peace." Kang holds me responsible to-day for certain powdermarks that disfigure his person. I have done him an injury, and the professor of log'ic in Harvard itself could not put any other idea into his head. There is no such thing as cause and effect in Korea. The case of Kang represents the whole peninsula. Think of it.
With recent wars and rumors came ten thousand French rifles landed at Chemulpo. This week they were distributed to the Korean soldiers, the old ones being cast aside. I stopped yesterday before a group gathered at a sentry-box. "These are the new rifles, are they?" I asked. "Yes-s-s, " with rather a monotonous expression. "Are they not satis- • Condensed from The Outlook.
factory? I' "The rifles are all right, but the cartridges won't do." " How is that? don't they fit?" "Oh, yes, they fit; but the odor-no powder about it at all, just a nasty fishy smell; we can never use them." Of course the smell of the cartridge has more to do with the Korean than the distance the ball will carry, or the extent of its power to perforate. Smell and spirit are about the same to him. I venture to say that if these soldiers had their way they would dump every box of these cartridges into the river, and let the fates take the country.
The Korean might well be placarded the Unconscious Human. Just now round about him are gathering shadows and mutterings, the full import of which he seems to hear not; at any rate, which he certainly understands not: He says the graves of his ancestors must be moved to some more propitious place. To this extent only is the national mind alive to the situation.
On the north, Russia is bearing down slowly and steadily. She is like the glacier-not a good train to go by when you are in a hurry, but a through train nevertheless, if you give her time. She is just enough civilized to come within the limits of Oriental comprehension. For-that reason she is the choice of the Orient before all other Western nations. Her flag flies over Manchuria, but of course she disclaims all thought of annexing the same, and the governments at home, busied over the despatch, forget about the flag; but the flag will fly, and places once called Maershan and Teungwhaseung will become known as Muravieff and Kornoloff. All around these coasts go the ships of various nations. There are no lighthouses; there is a tide of thirty-six feet off Ohemulpo; there are untold dangers to navigation throughout the Yellow Sea; but the ships go on forever, and among them the Russian, in and out, taking Masanpo to-day, when there are too many eyes watching Manchuria, and withdrawing to-morrow, saying, "I have just given up Masanpo ; what more do you want? I shall give up Manchuria in the same way."
The skilful way in which Russia manipulated her forces so as to gain Port Arthur and push the railway down from Nertchinsk, before the world. was aware of what she was about, illustrates her methods. She now has Port Arthur and Manchuria; she has a solid footing at Masanpo, a place of great influence in the capital of Korea; and she is gathering her forces, fleet and army, for another glacial step forward. France in the mean time acts as her aide-de-camp. Russia is apparently after Korea, and unless more than ordinary diplomatic intelligence is displayed, she will outwit the other Powers and get full possession, without the Korean soldiers having occasion to smell a single fishy cartridge.
This would undoubtedly prove true if Russia had to deal with European Powers only, which she has so long and so successfully hoodwinked; but here there is another facto); to reckon with. An Oriental nation, awake and armed and ready, is watching every move. Japan was deceived once, and by it lost Port Arthur. She will never be deceived again. Russia gained by the acquisition of this point an open harbor and key to the Yellow Sea, but she won as well the eternal enmity of Japan, and a day of reckoning is surely coming. The little Japanese soldier, broad as long, game as any terrier, once stormed the heights and took this fortress from the Ohinaman; he would enjoy the sport much more keenly to storm and take it from the Russian. No one knows what Japan will do; she is ready; she will fight to a finish, for it-will mean to her life or death. It must come unless Russia yields Korea, or comes to
THE OPENING OF HUNAN, CHINA
some reasonable understanding in the matter of boundary compensation. Will Russia do so? She may; she will if she is wise.
While the surrounding atmosphere is electric with coming poSsibilities his Korean majesty is busy with his dead ancestors, oblivious to the living. He is building a beautiful mausoleum behind the United States Legation, where the pictures and tablets of his deceased forefathers are to repose. These pictures were copied from originals kept in Yung-Hung, two hundred miles away. A wide and beautiful road was made across the peninsula along which to escort them. A body-guard of several hundred officials, including the prime minister, accompanied them on their way. It was a great reality to his majesty, this arrival of the pictures, while gunboats crowding into Chemulpo and dangers threatening north, south, east, and west are viewed simply as foreign phantasmagoria. As the smell of the smoking powder is more to the Korean soldier than the force or direction of the bullet, so the pictures of his ancestors are more to the emperor than all the eager, crowding faces of the living.
So the weeks pass by, and his unconscious majesty prattles them away with trifles: It was but a day or two ago that he was invested by the British representative with the most eminent order of the Indian empire, the accompanying note signed" Victoria," and dated less than a month before she died. But what did he know of Victoria or the Indian empire? The chain of solid gold, weighted down with hangings of elephants, tigers, and flowers, caught his eye for the moment, so that he smiled pleasedly and made a pretty little speech in reply. Said he: "My joy is great, but yet it is mingled with sorrow to think that she who gave it is gone back home." It was the act of a play-house king, the speech and the donning of the order. His eyes would glance aside to ask of his ministers, "Have I said what I ought to?" He is an absolute monarch, tho all unaware of the actual world he lives in. His unconscious subjects, too, dare have no thoughts whatever about their country. They are to take quietly what he and fate decree. Pitiful beyond expression is the position of the Korean people I A kinder, more lovable race never lived. We who have known them for years, and have never met with insult, who have had access to every.home and to many a heart, know how to appreciate and sympathize with them in this their time of helplessness. As for their future-a race of slaves, we fear.
THE OPENING OF HUNAN, OHINA.* BY REV. GRIFFITH JOHN, D.D., HANKOW, CHINA.
I have just paid another visit to Hunan, accompanied bymy colleague, Mr. Sparham, and ?y Mr. Grieg, of Yochou. The round trip was about nine hundred and twenty English miles, and we did it in less than. eighteen days. We went by one of the ordinary steamboats to Ohang- Sha, where the Hunan governor, Yii Lien-san, was kind enough to lend us his steam-launch, which took us up to Hengchou and back all the way ·to Hankow. The governor would not have done this a year ago. The fact of his doing it now shows what a tremendous change has come over the official mind in these parts since the recent troubles. Of all my visits to Hunan, this has been, in most respects, by far the most interesting.
*Condensed from the North China Daily News. Letter dated May 18, 1901.
At every place we were received most cordially by all the officials, both higher and lower.
At Chang-Sha we called on the governor, and he received us with every demonstration of respect. Taotai Tsai, the official in charge of foreign affairs in Hunan, treated us with marked friendship. He gave us an excellent feast, and we spent hours together conversing in the most familiar manner on all matters connected with the well-being of the empire and especially of Hunan. It was a real joy to visit Chang-Sha this time. The old opposition is dead, and the city is open. We met with nothing b~t civility everywhere and from all parties. Private gentlemen invited us into their houses, and there we sat chatting and sipping tea, with the delightful sense of being quite at home with our Chang-Sha friends. 'Ve called at the house bought by us two years ago, but actually handed over to us only two or three months since, and found that a part of it had been turned into a chapel, and that public preaching was carried on in it for hours every day. The two native brethren in charge are good and earnest 'men, and have the r~spect of both the officials and people. They are working hard, and have already gathered a small congregation of believers around them. We had the pleasure of seeing some of these men, and were much struck with their respectable appearance. It remains to be seen whether they are sincere. We would have preached at the chapel, but the congregation was too large for the building, so we moved to an empty space in front of the principal temple in that part of the city. Here we stood on benches and preached to a large congregation. The people listened well, and behaved themselves admirably, and we came to the conclusion that the people of Chang-Sha are as ripe for the Gospel as the people of any city in Hupeh. There'is no difficulty now in purchasing property for missionary purposes in the city. The people would be glad to sell, and the officials are not'at present in a mood to object. The Roman Catholics have just bought a large piece of land outside the city, on which they intend to build without delay. One of the officials told me just before leaving that he would be glad if a missionary of the London Missionary Society would come at once and live in Chang-Sha. Such is the present state of things, and nothing could be more satisfactory. I have always maintained that our difficulties in Hunan sprang from official opposition, and that what kept us out of Chang-Sha was an official sentiment. Our difficulties have never been with the people, but with the governing classes. So far as the people are concerned, there is no reason why Chang.Sha should not be made an open port at once. There are thousands upon thousands in Chang-Sha who would hail the event with unfeigned delight.
At Hengchou there was a wonderful display of pomp and ceremony on our arrival and departure. It was, I suppose, the official way of showing their respect to us, and of impressing the imagination of the people. We called on the officials and they called on us, and our intercourse was of the most friendly character. All expressed their deep regret for the riots of last year, and their sense of indebtedness to us for the kindness we had shown in the settlement of our difficulties. In asking only 16,000 taels indemnity, we have, they said, shown ourselves to be true friends to the officials and people. The taotai, the prefect, and the two district magistrates gave us a magnificent feast at the taotai's yamen. The underlings of the Chingchiian yamen insisted upon sending in another feast. Two of the military officials gave us another.
The Christians, of course, were not going to be beaten by the heathen, so they sent in feast after feast.
We moved freely among the people of Hengchou, and were received everywhere with every mark of respect. ThE're was not a black look to be seen anywhere, nor an angry word to be heard. It was interesting to visit the spot on which our chapel stood before its demolition in July last. There we found the bare ground and nothing else. There was not a brick to be seen; the whole building had been completely destroyed, and everything in the shape of materials had been carted away. We were told that such was the state of things at all our missionary stations in the Hengchou prefecture. The London Missionary Society had in the prefecture between twenty and thirty places of worship. All, without a single exception, were utterly destroyed last year. Orders, however, have been given to start the work of rebuilding, and we are hoping to see all our buildings up again before the close of next year.
The whole city was open to our inspection, and we made the best use we could of our opportunity. We were struck with its size and population, being much larger in both respects than we expected to find it. We estimated the population at not less than two hundred thousand. Looked at from a missionary point of view, it is a splendid center, and its importance can not be overestimated. The work of the London Missionary Society in the prefecture is even now a truly great work. The prefecture consists of seven districts or counties, and we have an important work going on in six out of the seven. This is the only Protestant society that has had any work in the prefecture so far. It is to be hoped the other societies will soon begin to turn their thoughts to this part of Hunan. A more inviting field Hunan does not present.
The Sunday we spent at Hengchou can never be forgotten." A goodly number of Christians residing in the surrounding country had heard of our arrival and came in to see us. Others came in as candidates for baptism. We had two services held in the open air, there being not sufficient room for the congregation in the house. At the close of the morning service twenty-eight persons were baptized, and at the close of the afternoon service nine more were added to their number. Thus there were baptized in all thirty-seven persons on that ever-memorable day.
Among those who were baptized on this occasion there is one remarka:ble character. Some years ago Mr. Peng was passing through a market town, about fifteen miles distant from Hengchou. There he made the acquaintance of a well-to-do family. Mr. Peng preached the Gospel to them and gave them some books; both husband and wife seemed much interested in what they heard from Mr. Peng, especially the wife. The husband became a believer, but, being an opium-smoker, has not taken an active part in propagating the .truth. The wife, however, became at once an earnest propagandist. Having mastered to some extent the contents of the books, she began to teach others; she turned a part of her house into a meeting-place for the believers, and invited them to come and join her in Christian worship.. About a hundred people have been influenced by her example and teachings, of whom nine or ten were baptized at Hengchou on this occasion. When asked to whom they were indebted for their knowledge of the truth, the answer invariably was "to Mrs. Wu." They spoke of her as their teacher and of themselves as her scholars. Last year this little band of converts suffered dire persecution, but especially ,Mrs. Wu; her house was demolished, her business
ruined, and her property stolen. Mr. Peng estimates her loss in property at about $4,000; her life was sought by the enemy, and for four months she wandered about from place to place in a state of great destitution. Nevertheless, her heart is full of gratitude, and her faith in God is as strong as ever. She told us that in the midst of trials she cherished no hatred of her enemies, no ill·will, no desire for revenge, and all the others spoke in the same way. It was very interesting to listen to their tale of suffering, and still more interesting to hear them say that they could and did forgive their enemies, and were actually praying for those at whose hands they had suffered so much. The Church in China can boast not only of heroes, but of heroines, and Mrs. Wu, of Chiianhishih, ought to be known as one of the most distinguished among them.
An incident occurred before we left Hengchou which greatly interested us. Hengchou can boast of five colleges, the most famous of which is. the Shih-ku-shu-yiian, or Stone-drum College. Four years ago Dr. Wolfe, the famous German traveler, made an attempt to visit this college, which attempt almost cost him his life. He was attacked by It furious mob, consisting of students and others, and compelled to beat an ignominious retreat, without even effecting a landing. On this occasion, how- 'ever, four of the students called on us and presented me with a pair of complimentary scrolls, accompanied with an invitation to go and see the college. We had a long talk with them, and were greatly pleased with their intelligence and friendly bearing. They told us that they would be glad if we would establish a college at Hengchou for the teaching of Western languages and science. At Chang-Sha the students connected with certain colleges there expressed the same desire. Such is the change that has come over the students of Hunan, and I can not think of. it without wonder and deep gratitude.
On our way down the river we called at Hengshan, where we had an interesting service with the converts residing at and around the city. At the close of the service twenty-five persons were baptized, making sixtytwo baptisms in all in the Hengchou prefecture on .this visit. Our native evangelist in charge of the work at Hengshan told us that some of the converts in that district fell off during the persecutions of last year, but that the majority of them stood the test well. It was a great joy to see so many of them at the service, and to find them all so bright and happy.
The above is only a very brief outline of our experiences on this visit to Hunan. To tell all would' require a vf)lume. The one fact that stands out prominently in this narrative is this: Hunan is open. I have longed for many years to be able to pen that sh<;>rt sentence of three words, but could not do so till now. Once and again have I said during the past two or three years that Hunan was opening, but never till now have I been able to say that it was open. I can say so now, and my heart is full of joy as I do say it. I do not mean that we shall have no further trials in Hunan, and that the missionary after this will find Hunan a bed of roseI'. What I mean to say is that the old wall of partition which excluded him from Hunan is thrown down, and that it will be his own fault if he does not enter in and take possession.
And to what is the opening of this hitherto anti-foreign, anti-Christian province to be ascribed? It is to be ascribed to a combination of causes. The persistent attacks of the missionaries on Hunan, for the last twenty or thirty years, have had a great deal to do with the bringing around of the present state of things. Tho not allowed to live in
1901.J THE BIBLE IN ARGENTINE REPUBLIC
Hunan, their visits to the province as preachers and colporteurs have been numerous during these decades. The noble work of the native colporteurs in Hunan, carried on for many years with hardly a break, has had much to do with it. The degradation of Chou Han, and the suppressiop of the Hunan anti-foreign literature, must be regarded as a most important factor. The China and Japan war must be taken into account in any attempt to explain the new order of things which has been setting in for some time, not only in Hunan, but in every province throughout the empire. And then come, la,st but not least, the troubles of last year in the Hengchou prefecture. These have bronght matters to a point, and made it impossible for the higher officials to carryon their procrastinating policy any further. The following words were penned by me just four years ago: Is it not full time to put an end to this Hunan tomfoolery? It could be done to-morrow if our ministers were to insist on it. The opening of Hunan will take place when the official policy changes. I am not speaking of the policy of the local magistrates. The lower officials count for little in Hunan. I am speaking of the policy of the central government in Peking and of the higher officials in the Hunan province. "What can we do ?" said one of the local magistrates at Yochou. " Let the foreign ministers deal with the Peking govern- ment. When Peking wants Hunan opened it will be opened, but not tm then. We, the smaller officials, can do nothing." In that remark you have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. • That is exactl:y what has taken place. The official policy has changed and Hunan is open. There have been many influences at work, and God has been working in and through -them all, and all have been made subs;rvient to the realization of what we witness to-day in Hunan; but among these influences I am inclined to assign a foremost place to the troubles of last year.
Now that Hunan is open, let the missionary societies be careful as to the stamp of men they send there. Hunan needs our strongest and most cultured men. None but the wisest and best should go to Hunan. There is no room there for the weak-minded and the unspiritual.
THE BIBLE IN ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.* BY THE ARGENTINE MINISTER OF JUSTICE AND PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, DR. OSVALDO MAGNASCO.
When the Romans spoke indefinitely of a city as'Urbs' it was always understood that they meant the great city, the head of the old world. The word represented the monopoly of thought by its grandeur.
Thus also has it happened with the old' Biblos.' The same antonomasia; the identical monopoly. And, in truth, none like the Bible deserves the name of 'book.' It is peerless because of its intrinsic excellence. In its pages throb the teachings of ineffable wisdom; all other books are but amplifications of this book. It is itself the sure way to the attainment of all the greatest human ideals-truth, kindness, and beauty. Its philosophy contains a purity too often forgotten; its morality is the simplest goodness, its art the supreme beauty.
• Condensed from the Bible Society Record. Copied from the Argentine government paper La Tribuna.
He who has not read the book will be incapable of experiencing the great sensations of intelligence; neither can he bear upon his soul the marks of the tracks along which men and peoples go most surely to their natural destinies.
The worship of the Bible is not the worship of the past or of anachronical things, for it is a book which is eternally new and fresh 'as a perennial spring. And eternal also are its teachings; they come to us from the remotest depths of time; they comfort the present and illumine the fnture with everlasting light.
The Book of books deserves to-day more than ever the glorious monopoly of thought. There is no book outside of this book. And those who, through I know not what strange wanderings attributed to the modifications effected by modern civilization, judge of its value merely from the standpoint of bibliophiles, manifest clearly their rashness in so doing; and it is easy to understand that they have never meditated deeply over its pages nor brought their spirit into the presence of its crystalline founts.
Our people must be built up with its teaching, and the book must be upon the tables of our homes and on the desks of our schools.
The children of ancient Rome learned to spell from the text of their funda~entallaw-the Twelve Tables. It was not first of all t4e attainment of literary progress which induced the Roman matron to proceed thus: the children drank in a spirit of truth and justice from among the asperities of that primitive text, as from the jutting crags of the rugged rock the water leaps forth with more transparent beauty.
Our children should learn to read from the pages of the book-the fountain of eternal health, the key to all progress.
THE BIBLE-A LETTER TO DR. MAGNASCO.
The Minister, Dr. Magnasco, has received from the Rev. William C. Morris, Superintendent of the Agentine Evangelical Schools, the following letter: "When that which you so wisely advocate comes to be an accom- plished fact-when the Book is the counselor of our Argentine homes, and occupies the place of honor which rightfully belongs to it in the Argentine sehools-we shall then have commenced to build the greatness of our Argentine nation upon the immovable rock of eternal truth.
"Kindly allow me, Mr. Minister, a moment of frank and sincere intercourse. You have been the first member of the Argentine Execu- tive, from the date of our national independence to the present day, who has had the wisdom and the courage to propose the reading of the Holy Bible in our public schools-I refer to your message to the Honorable Congress, dated June 5, 1899-and now you plead with powerful eloquence in this magnificent testimony for the Bible in the home.
"If I might be permitted to do so, I would beseech you, in the name of the sincere affection which we profess for the Argentine people, to urge forward this propaganda in favor of the Bible which you have ini- tiated. This cause, of which you are the leader and defender, will triumph. Its triumpli is inevitable; and on this triumph depends the complete freedom, the true progress, the abiding strength, and the lasting greatness of this great nation. "
EDITORIALS
EDITORIALS.
David Brainerd and John Eliot. dying man all through the few Recently an inquiry was made as years he spent among the Indians, to the truth of the statement that he had not the physical strength or nobody living could read "Brain- vitality sufficient to do much more erd's" translation of the Bible into than travel about untl his inter- the language of the Delaware preter could tell them the story of Indians. The question was referred that Savior he himself loved so to Rev. Egerton R. Young, of well.
Toronto, and we give his reply. So these are the reasons why to Mr. Young is adding to his numer- Eliot, and not to the saintly Brain- ous works on North American erd, we must give the credit of the Indians a large v.olume on their translations of the blessed Book.
" Folk-Lore. " As regards your query about I have delayed writing until I none now being alive who can read could again thoroughly examine a number of historical books and Eliot's Bible, there was an inter- documents in reference to the literary works of John Eliot and esting "item" in the New York David Brainerd. Christian Ad'/!!ocate some years Of John Eliot the list of his works is simply marvelous. In my ago that some of the Indians in "Biblography of the Algonquian Languages," the record of his works, Michigan could read and underwith remarks on them and some quotations, begin at page 127 and stand one of his translations. I extend to 184. Eliot was perhaps the most prolific writer or trans- did not preserve the "item," and lator into Indian dialects and languages we have ever had. can only call it up from memory. It As regards David Brainerd, I may be interesting to remember the have carefully reread his "Life," by Jonathan Edwards, and also name of the interpreter whom some briefer "Memoirs," aQ(i the testimony of all is that Brainerd Brainerd employed. It was John did not write OE even translate anything into any Indian language. Wan-waump-e-qu-un-naunt. He died October 9, 1747. On February 24, 1745, he wrote: The Algonquians, to whom you "In the morning was much per- refer in their various subdivisions, plexed. My interpreter being absent, I knew not how to perform occupied a vast stretch of country, my work among the Indians. However, I rode to the Indians, got a as they reached from Labrador to Dutchman to interpret for me, tho he was but poorly qualified for the the Rocky Mountains and from business." York and Churchill rivers in the Thus it is, all through. He is constantly referring to his inter- Hudson Bay to Pamlico Sound in preter. With his assistance Brainerd translated some prayers into North Carolina. In their tribal the language of the Delawares, but says that even in this simple work subdivisions they wel'e Abnaki, he "met with great difficulty by reason that my interpreter was Blackfeet, Chippeway, Cree, Delaaltogether unacquainted with the business." ware, Micmacs, Massachusetts, Brainerd was born April 20, 1718, Montagnais, Nipissing, Menoso he was only 29 when he died. A victim of consumption, really a moni, Pottawattomi, Saulteaux. ** and sorne others.
A Missionary Boat for Korea.
Some time ago Dr. Horace G. Underwood, of Seoul, Korea, wrote us the following letter in reply to an inquiry as to how friends in America might best help materi- ally in the work in Korea. A mag- nificent work is going on there, and God is manifestly acknowledg- ing the witnessing of His servants, as will be seen from the brief arti- cles in this and other numbers of the REVIEW. We earnestly hope that some friend will undertake to supply this need, and thus contrib- ute materially to the means used
for winning Korea to Christ. Dr. are extending through America, Underwood writes. South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, while in these churches I have now under my care 30 out- largely lies the hope of recovering stations, where there are held dur- North Africa itself to the faith. ing each week about 140 meetings. All these places could be reached And while the churches of the by boat with a great deal less phys- Levant have not been extinguished, ical fatigue, and therefore more yet they have been fearfully di- energy spent in the preaching of minished and oppressed and cor- the Gospel. In addition to this, I rupted, so that the hope of their could much more easily carryon ult~mate enfranchisement, reinvig- this work among the thousands of oration, and purification depends islands around this coast. I would mainly on those Ohristian nations need a boat after the native style, which have been converted by so that natives could run it, and at them or by their Western sisters. the same time one adapted to both In favoring mi~sions, therefore, the river and sea travel. It must be Eastern churches were also provid- arranged with a center-board, that ing for their own future life in ages can be raised and lowered. Such a far remote. boat as this, fitted up with a cabin to sleep in, and a small cupboard Will such times of diminution, with medicines for medical work, oppression, corruption, and utmost with sleeping accommodation for need ever come to us ? We can the sailors, would cost about $400. not say. They may. There is quite Such a boat would be a great help, as much likelihood of such a time and would assist very materially in for us as there was in 400, of the carrying 01. the work. devastations of Mohammedanism in Syria, North Africa, and Spain. Prudent Foresight. True, there is one way, much Christians ought to understand used, of greatly lessening these probabilities. Only let us call that in pursuing missions they are everything Christian that calls not only benefiting the heathen, itself Christian, and we shall get on very nicely. A leading paper, but are throwing out an anchor of pleasantly called religious, calls this "the day of the Church's tri- safety for themselves. Weare not umph." How can this be doubted? Look at Mormonism spreading all referring just now to the reflex in- through the Rocky Mountains, and seemingly about to invade Mexico. fluence of missions. altho this is of Here is a form of triumphant Chris- tianity. Its members read the the greatest possible moment. Bible, and practise baptism and the There is another reason, expressed weekly communion. To be sure, they tells us that the only God with in the work: "The Kingdom of whom we have anything to do is Adam, and that every polygamist God shall be taken from you and Mormon is, under Adam, to be the given to a nation bringing forth God of all his prosperity. Yet they call themselves Ohristians, the fruits thereof." This is not and who would be so impolite as to tell them that they are liars? only true of the transference of the Then there is Ohristian Science spreading rapidly among us, so- Kingdom from the Synagog to the Church herself. North Africa, for ages, was filled with flourishing churches. Where are they now?
At the time when they were dying out, the Kingdom of God was root- ing itself aJDong the barbarians of the North. The Church thereby became stronger than ever before.
Yet how weak she would have been had she lost North Africa with- out gaining Germany, Britain, and . Scandinavia. And from these re~ gions powerful Christian churches
called, as the New World happily phia to organize a similar work in each of the large cities of the says, because it is neither Chris- United States. A competent com- mittee was appointed, and every tianity or science. True, it denies effort is being made to insure all distinction of being between widespread and· permanent· suc- cess. We believe that every de- God and the creature, thereby de- nomination and every Christian church should be making systemnying the reality of both God and atic and persistent efforts to reach individually and collectively those the creature. It denies the possi- who do not attend church. We must follow the example of Christ bility and reality of sin, and thereby and the apostles in not waiting for men and women to come to us, but of holiness, which is nothing if not in conveying the Gospel to them' when they are at home as well as a free choice of the better part abroad. The tent work is a move in the right direction, but it is not against the worst. Of course, Christ sufficient; there must be more in- dividual work for individuals. * is not our Redeemer, for there is Professor Wameck and Great Britain. nothing from which He can redeem Professor Warneck writes that us. What of all this? These peo- his attitude toward Great Britain was misapprehened by the REVIEW ple call themselves. Christians and (April, 1901, p. 295), and in justice to Dr. Warneck we think it best to have churches. Let us thank God quote the substance of his words without further comment. for the triumphal march of this new He disclaims all hatred toward form of Christianity. England, and on the contrary de- clares he belongs to those Germans At this rate, we can not tell how who take special pains to keep down popular passion and to insist on jussoon, in order to maintain the real tice toward that nation. But he maintains that England is now Gospel among ourselves, we may doing in South Africa something that cries to heaven. He specially have need of help from the now regards it as hostile to the interests of missions. etc. He says that citadespised churches of the Kongo, or tions from correspondence or print- ed papers do not always do justice of Sze-chuen, or of Sumatra, or to a writer, but had he treated mat- ters in a REVIEW article he would Borneo. We can not be too earnest have gone into details.
in spreading the Gospel abroad, to Donations Acknowledged.
provide against the possibility that No. 236. Ramabai's Work. India……. $4.00 .. 237. Congo BololoMission ………. 30.00 some day there may be no Gospel One of these gifts comes as a at home to spread. Already we thank-offering "for blessing re- ceived in Mr. F. B. Meyer's meetbegin to heal' it taught by prom- ings." A deep spiritual experience always opens the heart to give to iitent members of prominent the Lord's work. How much owes thou to thy Lord P churches: "The great present duty of a Christian is to make money."
There is a bold and bald proposal to make Mammon the head of the Church. "Lord Jesus! pome quickly." t Summer Evangelistic Work.
Some very successful evangelistic campaigns have been conducted in our great cities during the past few summers. Mr. Moody was strong in his support of these efforts to reach the masses, and both New York and Philadelphia have had organized work during the past three years. At Buffalo this year there have also been in successful operation tent meetings near the exposition grounds. Among Presbyterians action was taken at the last general assembly in Philadel-
RE.CENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS.
THE ANCIENT SRIPTURES AND THE MODERN aimed principally at the salvation JEW. By David Baron. 8vo, 68. Hodder & Stoughton, London. of the Jew.
This volume will be welcomed by THE GOSPEL IN NORTH AFRICA. In two parts all who know Mr. Baron, who is Part I.-History and Condition of North doubtless one of the ablest living Africa, by J. Rutherford, M.A. Part II. converts from Judaism, and a man -Mission Work in North Africa, by Edwho is as worthy of love as he is of ward H. Glenny, Honorary Secretary of respect. Among all the men who the Nort.h Africa Mission. 8vo, 250pp. have spoken at Northfield conven- Illustrated. Office of the Mission, 21 Lin· tions not one ever surpassed him ton Road, Barking, London. 1900. in Bible exegesis. His modesty is equal to his merit. This latest work This interesting volume'is true is in two parts: first, he gives a to its title, and gives in brief the series of fulfilled prophecies which story of the need and the work of prove God in history; and, second, missions in a region little known he discusses the Jewish question. to the general student of missions. This twofold division explains the The subjects treated are large and double title of this book. Part I. of intense interest, but they are contains four sections; Part II., well handled, and, except for one eight; and there are five appendices. erroneous statement regarding Is- To any student of the Jewish peo- lam, page 110, the book can be conple and their history, and especially sidered authoritative. A rapid their place in the plan of God as sketch is given of all the countries unfolded in prophecy, this book of North Africa. The diabolical will be an indispensable help to the cruelties of Morocco are exposed. understanding of these great ques- The peoples that sit in darkness tions. pass before us in array. The relig- ion that usurped the old strong- In part first Mr. Baron has a holds of African Christianity gives chapter of peculiar interest, in verdict on itself in the pages of hiswhich he treats the conclusion of tory. The volume lets us behind the Hallel-the 113th-11Sth Psalms the scenes regarding French rule -as a prophetic drama of the end in Algiers and Tunis, as well as the of the age. In part second there awful misgovernment of Morocco. is a chapter on anti-Semitism, The chapters on the origin and which will open the eyes of many work of the North Africa Mission to the real situation of the Jew in are inspiring. Other missions are Europe; and among the appendices given credit for their work, and will be found a careful treatment of the treatment of the whole subject the Urim and Thummin, and of is broad and interesting. The book the structure of the second half of has more than one hundred and Isaiah's prophecy. Mr. Baron re- forty magnificent illustrations minds us of Adolph Saphir in his from photographs, and is printed Biblical learning, of Joseph Rabin- on fine paper. Among the illusowitz in his zeal for the conversion trations of lands and peoples there of his people, and of Professor Mar- are also the faces of the early piogouliouth in his ability to deal with neers in this part of the Dark Conthe positions of the destructive tinent. It is an inspiration to look school of criticism. But the book into their eyes and read of their is throughout a missionary treatise, work of faith and labor of love. Results in North Africa, as in other Moslem lands, still await the pa-
RECENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LA~DS
tience of hope, but no one can read the dishonest and inhuman treat- ment they have received at the this book and not hope for the tri- hands of Europeans. Mr. Sawyer has even a good word for the umph of the Gospel in North Af- Spanish government and for the friars-for the former on account rica. Eight maps and a full index of its few reforms and improve- ments, and for the latter because make the volume useful for stu- they have not been "wholly bad." The Americans, he thinks, have dents of missions. S. M. Z. made many unfortunate blunders in dealing with the people, but WITH THE TIBETANS IN TENT AND TEMPLE. believes that they will be able to By Dr. Susie C. Rijnhart. 12mo, 400 pp. make a satisfactory arrangement Illustrated. $1.50. Fleming H. Revell with the natives. Co., New York. 1901. MI'. Sawyer's book is a valuable Dr. Susie Rijnhart is a Canadian addition to our knowledge of the Filipinos and their history. It is who married a Scandinavian, and divided into six sections-descrip- tive, historical, resources, social, went with him to preach the Gos- geographical. Over half of the volume is devoted to a description pel to the hermits of the "Great of the various inhabitants. The author's estimate of them is ap- Closed Land." They crossed the parently unbiased and just. * borders from western China, and CHINA AND THE BOXERS. By Rev. Z. Charles after burying their infant child, Beals. Illustrated. 12mo, 158 pp. 60 cents; paper. 30 cents. l1. E. Munson, the husband one day disappeared, Bible House, New York. 1901.
and was killed by Tibetan nomads. This is a brief history of the Boxer outbreak in China by the Mrs. Rijnhart was thus left alone editor of China Messenger. It gives a' short account of the or~an in a strange and hostile country, ization and causes of the outbreak and after many hardships reached of the" I-Ho-Chuan," the sufferings of missionaries and native Chrisa mission station in West China tians, and the relief by the allies. The account is not as complete or as destitute and nearly dead. She has thrilling as many others, but gives the main facts in a !'eliable and since returned to America, and readable form. Mr. Beals believes the outlook to be full of promise, here gives a valuable record of her while full of problems and difficul- ties. It is a time to advance in observat.ions and experiences. The works of faith and labors of love.
.story is as thrilling as that of HISTORY OF THE UNITAS FRATRUM. By Bishop De Schweinitz. l1oravian Publishing Co., Henry Savage Landor, and is far Bethlehem, Pa.
more trustworthy and Christian in We have already noticed Prof. J. purpose and spirit. It is well Taylor Hamilton's" History of the Moravian Church," which is really worthy of a place in missionary a continuance of this. The account of the incepLion and growth of the libraries, but will not be allowed to repose' in peace on dust-covered shelves. * THE INHABITANTS OF THE PHILIPPINES. By Frederic H. Sawyer. l1ap. Illustrated. 8vo, 422 pp. $4.00 net. Imported by Charles Scribners' Sons, New York.
Mr. Sawyer's book is an attempt to do justice to the natives of the Philippines-something which he feels has not been accomplished by other English writers. During his 14 years' residence in the islands he came into contact with all classes of the people and improved his opportunities to study them, and endeavors to describe the people as he found them. He says that as clients they were punctual in their payments, and as employees skilful, industrious, and grateful. Their failings he thinks to be due to
Brotherhood from the days of John ods 'of dealing ~ith children-e.g., Huss, down through the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and "Cousin Grace never said 'I will the" resuscitation" of the Unitas Fratrum. We need only say of take the children,' but, 'May the this volume as of its companion volume, that it is indispensable to children take me.'" any complete missionary library, and contains a fascinating story of The illustrations add much to the the rise and progress of an Apostolic Church. attractiveness of the book, and convey not a litt1e information as well. * THIRTY EVENTFUL YEARS IN JAPAN. By Rev. EAST AND WEST. Mary N. Tuck. Illustra- M. L. Gordon. 8vo,119pp. Maps, Illustra- tions. 8vo, 220 pp. 20. 6d. London Mis- tions, Index. Paper. American Board, sionary Society. Boston. These are stories of life in India Dr. Gordon, who died last year, and Burma told at a missionary band of English boys and girls. was one of the ablest of the Japan They are stories of Hindu gods and children, of missionaries and their missionaries. His 28 years of mis- experiences, calculated' to interest boys and girls in their brothers and sionary service has left its mark on sisters in Asia. The serious purpose of the book does not prevent its the Japanese, and he has seen the being thoroughly readable and adapted to children. The informaland of his adoption grow from hos- tion given is of course reliable and the influence is wholesome. * tility to everything Christian or Occidental to friendliness and re- ceptivity. He gives us in this , pamphlet the fascinating history of the events which marked the THE KOREA REVIEW. Edited by Homer B. Hurlbut. Seoul, Korea. wonderful transformation that has taken place in Japan during the This magazine, which began in January, replaces the Korean Relast 30 years. His record has pository, which was recently dis- continued. Like its predecessor, it especial reference to the work of is filled with valuable articles on the American Board, but it has lessons and facts and sugg~stions for us all. *, the country, people, and cU!ltoms, and the missionary work. We rec- HUNTS ON My HOBBY·HORSE. Gertrude T. ommend it to all who are or who' A. Frere. Illustrated, 8vo, 48 pp. 28. Church of England Zenana M. S., London. are willing to become interested in This book is written for the pur- Korea. * pose of interesting children in foreign missions. It is the story of THRILLING EXPERIENCES OF THE MISSIONhow a charming lady missionary ARIES OF THE CHINA INLAND MISSION IN interested boys and girls in the CI'IIHLI PROVINCE, CHINA. DURING THE people of India and China, by tak- .. BOXER" TROUBLES OF 1900. By Mr. and ing them to ride with her on her Mrs. Green. Pamphlet. 10 cents. Pres· pet "hobby-horse." The story is byterian Mission Press, Shanghai. bright and interesting, and the facts are just those which children This personal narrative of pershould know and like to hear about -small feet in China, snake charm- secutions, flight, hiding, discovery, ers in India, modes of travel, and child life in Asia. Incidentally hardships, and final escape of the there are numerous hints on meth- authors and the family is indeed thrilling, and as well as any history we have seen puts vividly before us the character of the Chinese upheaval and the sufferings of the * missionaries.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
AMERICA. sion and philanthropic work in the Choice Fruit Columbia Univer- city.
of sityhas received Bible The report of the Self-denial. from a donor, whose Circulation. American Bible So- name is not given, ciety for 1900 shows but who is described as a million- that its total issues for the year, at aIre who has devoted a consider- home and abroad, amount to 1,554,- able amount of study to Chinese 128 copies-147,327 above the pre- matters and admires the Chinese, vious year. Of these, 580,513 were the sum of $100,000 to establish a distributed in the United States, department for the study of Chi- and 973,615 in foreign lands-an in- nese language, customs, and litera- crease of 141,118 in the foreign dis- ture. The donor-an old man- tribution. More than half of 'the sent President Low a letter of ex- issues were printed at the Bible planation, in which he stated that House, New York. Of the remain- the sum donated represented what der, a large part were printed in he might have spent during his life Syria, Turkey, Siam, China, and on whiskey and tobacco. Japan. The total issues of the Work of These figures set society during 85 years amount to Baptist forth something of 68,923,434. Women. what the women Mission Study 'l'he Advisory Com- have done who are for Laymen. mittee of the Forconnected with the Baptist Missionary Union: Receipts for last ward Movement for year, $100,043; schools, 367; pupils, Missions of the American Board 14,033; Biblewomen, 112; baptisms, called their first general council 845. July 6th to 15th, to meet at Silver Bay, on Lake George. They in- vited "men of the Congregational Presbyterian At the recent fourth churches of the United States and Reinforce- conference of the Canada." The Student Volunteer ments. new I y appointed Movement needs a correspondingly missionaries of the vigorous movement for sending Presbyterian Board 46 missionaries forth those who are ready to go, under appointment were present, and it is the home department as 16 ordained ministers, and 27 wo- the base of support that it hae; now men; 9 are assigned to Chinll-, 10 sought to inspirit and strengthen.
to India, 6 to Korea, and 2 to The first council was held at Plym- Japan, 4 to Persia, and 3 to the outh, Mass., last March, and it is Philippines; Africa is to have 3, proposed to hold ·one within the Brazil 2, Siam 2, and Chile 1; 4 are bounds of every Congregational unassigned. Officers and members conference in the country, with of the board, veteran missionaries the aim of enlisting and training and eminent friends of the cause leaders in the home department of discussed the results of past efforts, the foreign work. A con,siderable the best methods of winning number of business men were in- heathen souls, the doubts and fears vited to attend the general council, of timid novitiates-every phase of at Lake George. The program was the past and every widening hope varied. A course of daily studies of the future. Afternoon hours on "The Beginning of Christian- were given to the inspection of mis- ity," conducted by Professor Bos-
worth, of Oberlin, a daily Free teer their services. This would be Parliament on Ways and Means, an excellent example for other conducted by the Rev. Harlan P. cities to follow. Beach, of New York, with the aid of other practical men, and a Con- Evolution According to Bookference on Bible Study and Mis- orthe Negro. er T. Washington sions, led by Mr. L. D. Wishard, the director of the Forward Move- the evolution of the ment, were assigned to the morn- blackman from savagery into ings, while the evenings were Christian civilization is one of the occupied mainly with addresses and marvels of this age. "This evoluspecial subjects. We shall refer to tion has taken place to such an exthis conference more fully in our tent that I am safe in saying that next issue. nowhere else in the world can there be found 10,000,000 people of America's The Arne ric a n African descent whose industrial, mental, and religious condition is First Board of Foreign so ad vanced and so hopeful as is that of the nearly 10,000,000 Missionary Missions was found- negroes to be found in the United States. If tl,le negro follows the Society. ed in the year 1810. lead of the white man in the worst things he also follows him in the " The Society for best. The transformation ·of the 20 heathen slaves into a great race Propagating the Gospel among the that now has 21 city Young Men's Christian Associations and 54 col- Heathen," the Moravian organiza- lege associations, reaching and lift- ing up thousands of men, all within tion, antedates the American Board less than three centuries, repre- sents one of the most wonderful of Foreign Missions, having been evolutions of any age among any people. In every part of this counfounded in 1787. The first mission- try the race is coming up. It is sometimes creeping up, sometimes ary society of the Moravian Church crawling up, sometimes bursting up, but nevertheless in some form in the United States, "The Society it is coming up."
for the Furtherance of the Gospel," Italy in The last Sunday of Pittsburg. June was a high was formed in Bethlehem, Pa., in day in the history August, 1745, and was the prede· of the Evangelica Chiesa, or Ital- ian Presbyterian church of Pittscessor of the association mentioned burg. It was their communion Sabbath. Malta Hall, in Sheridan above.-The Moravian. street, in which the congregation meets at present, was filled with Missionary The Archdeaconry more than a hundred serious wor- Speakers' of Washington has shipers. Fourteen new members Bureau. established a Bu- were received into the fellowship of the Church, 10 on profession of reau of Information their faith, and 4 on certificate. in regard to speakers on missions, Two elders from the East Liberty with headquarters at Trinity Parish Hall, Third and C Streets, N. W., Washington, D. C. A register has been provided, in which speakers who are visiting Washington may inscribe their names, temporary residence, length of sojourn in the city, topics upon which they are prepared to speak, and fields of missionary work in which they have labored. The Junior Auxiliary will have charge of this bureau, and desires to be informed of the approaching visits of any speakers who are willing to volun-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
church distributed the elements. Unexplored Adventurous trav- Rev. D. Moore also took part in conducting the service. This mis- Canada. elers need not sail sion church is doing excellent Christian work. Its minister, Rev. to Africa or even to Thomas Fragalee, is a very earnest and zealous laborer and a fervent South America in order to find repreacher of the truth. His people prize his ministry very highly. gions yet unexplored. The director A Chinese John Ming, of the of the geological survey of Canada Reformer in San Francisco San Francisco. Christian Endeavor asserts in his last report, as quoted S,o c i e't y, single- in the Scientific Amel'ican Supplehanded, prosecuted 4 Chinese gambling establishments, secured 2 ment, that there are more than convictions, and so stirred the city that the mayor ordered all its gam- 1,520,000 square miles of unexplored bling dens closed. Endeavor work, the night-school for Chinamen, and lands in Canada out of a total area the love of Jesus Christ deeply moved Ming in view of his fellow computed at 3,450,257 square miles. countrymen being given up to gambling. His pastor, Rev. C. T. Even exclusively of the inhospit- Brown, was his friend at court in explaining to him American law~ able detached arctic portions, 954,- what sort of evidence to secure, how to meet cross-examination, 000 square miles are for all practical etc., and his testimony could not be shaken. But Ming had very purposes entirely unknown. The dark weeks. Dr. Brown went to Chicago on home missionary busi- writer goes on to say: ness. Ming was persecuted, his life threatened, and true Christian Beginning at the extreme northfriends advised him to desist. The west of the Dominion, the first of tears rolled down his wrinkled face. these areas is between the eastern He had but one answer, "That boundary of Alaska, the Porcupine gamble mus~ stop, if I die." River, and the Arctic coast, about 9,500 square miles in extent, or How Our The Congregational somewhat smaller than Belgium, Chinese Chinese Endeavor and lying entirely within the Arc- Shame Us. Society of San tic circle. The next is west of the Lewes and Yukon rivers, and ex- Francisco, Rev. J ee tends to the boundary of Alaska. Gam, pastor, has made splendid Until last year 32,000 square miles records heretofore in missionary in this area was unexplored, but a giving. This year, with about 44 part has since been traveled. A present active members, it has third area of 27,000 square miles- $1,521.88 for missions. Is there nearly twice as large as Scotlanda society in the world that has lies between the Lewes, Pelly, and done better? It' proposes to open Stikine rivers. Between the Pelly 3 missions in South China, in- and Mackenzie rivers is another volving the support of 3 mission- large tract of 100,000 square miles, aries and a traveling evangelist. or about double the size of England. It includes nearly 600 miles of the main Rocky Mountain range. An unexplored area of 50,000 square miles is found between Great Bear Lake and the Arctic coast, being nearly all to the north of the Arc- tic circle. Nearlv as large as Port- ugal is another tract between Great Bear Lake, the Mackenzie River, and the western part of Great Slave Lake, in all 35,000 square miles. Lying between Stikine and Laird rivers to the north and the Skeena and Peach rivers to the south is an area of 81,000 square miles, which, except for a recent visit by a field party, is quite unexplored. Of the 35,000 square miles southeast of Athabasca Lake, little is known, except that it has been crossed by a field party en route to Fort Churchill. East of the Coppermine River and west of Bathurst Inlet
lies 7,500 miles of unexplored land, Presbyterians This table relates to which may be compared to half the in Spanish the work of the size of Switzerland. Eastward from America. Pre s b y t e ria n this, lying between the Arctic coast Church in the lands and Black's River, is an area of 31,000 square miles, or about equal lying to the south of us, the fruit to Ireland. Much larger than Great of about 40 years: Britain and Ireland, and embracing 178,000 square miles, is the region § I -e <Ii ·SSS !~l. bounded by Black's River, Great 0'<:"" '"" " " :'g" "'- 'OO.~<Ii S I a v e Lake, At h a bas c a Lake, :;l .;":: Hat c h e t and Rei n dee r lakes, .~.o .<."'.-.:' Churchill River, and the west coast '3'" 0 of Hudson Bay. 1'his country in- ~"0" :;::~ cludes the barren grounds of the ':iJ continent. Mr. J. B. Tyrell recently struck through this country on "" – – -'" – .<: 0'-' his trip to Fort Churchill, on the 0 -0 – Churchill River, but could only make a preliminary exploration. Mexico ….. 12,619,959 1872 23 68 4,398 On the south coast of Hudson Bay, Guatemala. 1,535,632 1882 4 2 105 between the Severn and Attawap- Brazil. …… 14,333,915 1859 26 32 3,500 ishkat rivers, is an area 22, 000 square Chili …….. 3,049,352 1873 13 9 426 miles in extent, or larger than Colombia… 4,000,000 185b 19 2 38 Nova Scotia; and lying between Trout Lake, Lac Seul, and the Al- Totals .•.. – – — bany River is another 15,000 square miles of unexplored land. 35,538,858 – 85 113 8517 South and east of James Bay, EUROPE. and nearer to large centers of population than any other unexplored English The British Friends region, is a tract of 35,000 square Friends and gave $94,340 last miles, which may be compared in size to Portugal. Missions. year for work in the foreign field. The most easterly area is the greatest of all. Itcomprises almost Of the 82 missionaries (wives inthe entire interior of the Labrador cluded), 29 are in India, 19 in Madpeninsula or Northwest Territory, agascar, 18 in Syria, 13 in China, in all 289,000 square miles, or more and 3 in Ceylon. Five of the numthan twice as much as Great Brit- ber are medical missionaries, 4 ain and Ireland. men and 1 woman.
Statistics The Evangelisch- English The society having Presbyterian this work in charge of American Lutherisches M i s- Missions. reports an income Converts. sionsblatt gives the of $186,225; 64 Euro- following statistics peans and 301 natives engaged in toil, 95 churches, 7,157 communifor 1001 of Protestant converts from cants, and 12 hospitals in which 40,- 000 patients were treated last year. heathenism in America, not count- .The work centers in Amoy, Swa- tow, Formosa, Singapore, and Ining the negroes in the United dia.
States: Alaska. . . . •. . . •• •. .. . .. .. . • •. •.. .. .. •. • 9,000 Miiller's Faith It is known that the Greenland. .. . .. •. . .. . •.. . .. . •.. .. •.. .. 10,000 Still Lives. Rev. James Wright, Labrador.. •.. .. .. . . … . .. • •. . . . . •. . •. .. 1,300 his son-in-law, suc- Canada ………………………….. 40,000 ceeds the Rev. George MiHler in WEST INDIES. the management of The Scriptural Knowledge Institution, and the Moravians…………. ……………. 40,000 Orphan Houses at Bristol. These Baptists…………………………. , 130,000 institutions are' carried on upon Methodists……………………….. 150,000 substantially the same principles Anglican …………………………. 380,000 upon which they were founded. Moskito Coast……………………. 5,300 The main one of these was that of British Guiana (29,000 Moravians) ….. 143,000 Tierra del Fuego…. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. .. . 200 Total.. ……………………… 908,800
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
entire dependence upon God to pro- burg Missionary Union, in its stat- utes of 1828, prescribed literally vide for their temporal support. the following rules, evidently hav- ing been previously instructed by In a late statement Mr. Wright has the city government as to the utmost allowable limit of its freethe followin~ in regard to God's dom of movement: providential provision: "In one The number of friends of mis- sions that pledge themselves to respect this display of His revealed attend the meetings must not go beyond 12. Now and then one may character has surpassed that of all bring a friend with him; but at most there must not be more than the former 66 years of its career. I 16 together. Ladies, until further order, must not attend these meetrefer to the receipt of a legacy of ings, altho we reserve the right of . perhaps deciding otherwise about £18,000 to the orphan fund. This this. On leaving the meetings every one is urgently besought to go sum exceeded by about £7,000 the quietly home, and not to draw attention by conversations in the largest amount ever before received street.
in a single payment." ' Who, in view of such pitiful and narrowing precautions, can wonder French The following fig- that the missionary impulse of that Catholic ures illustrate the time did not remain free from one- Activity. growth of a well- sided and even unhealthy ways?- Evangelisches Missions-Magazin. known Roman Catholic missionary society. They are German The federation in quoted from a recent number of Students and Germany of stu- Illustrated Catholic Missions, and refer to the Societe des Missions Missions. dents in missionary Etrangeres de Paris. The periodi- work can not boast cal referred to compares the statistics for 1822 with those for 1899. large numbers, but both in num- The number of missionary bishops bers and in interest it has shown has increased from 5 to 34; mission- perceptible growth during the past aries, from 33 to 1,099; ecclesias- four years. At the recent conventical students, from 250 to 2,121; tion of the German Student Mischurches and chapels, from 10 to sionary Alliance at Halle a hundred 4,690; adults baptized, from 800 to or more students were in attend- 46,003; catechumens receiving in- ance, besides many pastors and laystruction, from 100 to 60,000; native men; there were also delegates priests, from 120 to 598. from the Students' Associations of Holland and Switzerland. Com- Missionary The people who in pared with the five thousand Stu- Beginnings in the year 1800 turned dent Volunteers in America, the numbers in Europe seem propor- Germany. the m iss ion a r y tionately small. The members of thought into deeds, this Alliance have found it regarded by students of law, medicine, or stood apart from the broad high- philosophy as belonging only to the way of the spirit of the age. There theological domain. All the conwere, it is true, the wise and noble ferences of the German Students' after the flesh among them, but Alliance so far have been held at their pr~dilectjon for the conversion Halle, a town traditionally favorof the heathen was so much the more imputed to them as a singular fantasy.
The houses of God were not to be used for missionary meetings, and the state organs, mistrusting every social religious impulse, so far as it was not ecclesiastically sanctioned, cut short the freedom of missionary union and collections. The Ham-
able to aggressive missionary work. For the last five years there have At the recent meeting the address of welcome was delivered by Dr. been in the Basel missions the fol- Johannes Lepsius, of Berlin, the celebrated Orientalist and leader of lowing number of expulsions in the Oriental Mission. The devo- tional hour was led by Dr. Hering, proportion to members and bap- Professor of Practical Theology at Halle. The sermon was preached tisms: by Dr. Creamer, Professor of The- ology at Greifswald and one of the FOR EVERY FOR EVERY strong evangelical men of Ger- many. On the following day an 100 MEMBERS. 100 BAPTISMS. . address was delivered by Professor Kahler, Professor of Theology at At Cameroon. 9 40 Halle, who enjoys an international .. Gold Coast 2.5 40 reputation; he is an especial favor- U China…… 1 ite of American students. The .. India …… 0.5 18 principal address at the conference was delivered by Professor War- 20 neck, who occupies the honorary professorship of missions at Halle, FOR EVERY 100 EXPULSIONS. the only chair of its kind in Ger- many. Cameroon. . . . . . . . . . 25 readmissions. Gold Coast…. …… 40 .. Lectures on The Missions-Blatt China…………… 23 Missions in of the Mo l' a v ian India …………… 68 Universities. Brethren mentions -Le Missionaire. the interesting fact that in no fewer than 13 con- "Away from The Pro tes tan t tinental universities this winter Rome" Oberkirchenrath, of lectures on missions are among the courses delivered by members Statistics. Vienna, has pub- of the staff. These universities are lished the statistics Berlin, Basel, Bern, Halle, Marburg, Erlangen, Gottingen, Konigsberg. of changes from the Catholic to the Leipzig, Jena, Strasburg, Lau- Protestant Church as a result of sanne, and Paris. In 11 of the the "Away from Rome" move- universities there are university ment in Austria during 1900. The missionary societies, which last figures are practically official, and winter numbered 357 members.- are as follows: Mission World. 1. The Lutheran Church has gained from Statistics of From 1890 to 1899 the Catholic 1,92'2 men, 1,585 women, and 740 children, or a total of 4,274; and from other Basel the Basel Cameroon sources 272 additions, making the total accessories 4,519. Missions. missions in West 2. The Reformed Church has gained from Central Africa ad- the Catholic Church 181 men, 208 women, and 63 children, or a total of 452 persons, to which vanced as follows: are added 87 from other sources, making a total of 5:~9. 1890 1899 Stations…………… 4 9 This makes 5,058 accessories to Protestant- Out-stations. . . . . . . . . . 20 ism in a twelve-month, and of those 4,699 Missionaries. . . . . . . . . . 9 138 came from the Catholic Church. Female Missionaries. . 8 Native nelpers…… .. 23 28 On the other hand. the Lutheran Church Members………….. 256 11 lost to the Catholic 483, and to other churches Scholars. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 344 130 86, or a total of 469; while the Reformed 2,282 Church lost to the Catholic 272, and to other 3,372 churches 344, or a total for both churches of 813, of whom 705 became Catholic.
This makes a total net gain for the two Protestant'churches of 4,245, against the Roman Catholics' gain of 3,994.
A year ago a similar official re- port was published for 1899, from which it appeared that the total gains for the Protestant Church for that year had been 5,620, .against the Roman Catholic of 5,372. This makes a total for the past two years of 11,443, of whom 10,746 were formerly Catholics. In com- menting on these figures the Evan- gelical Kirchenzeitung, of Austria, the leading Protestant periodical of the country, states that the actual total of the conversions has really been higher, as many changed their
GENERAL llUSSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
church ,relations before 1899, and Deaconess It was in 1851 that many who have done so in the last Homes in Fliedner comyear have not yet officially an- Turkey. menced his work at nounced this step. If to these are added those who have joined the J e r usa 1e m in a Old Catholics instead of the Prot- small house, which had to serve for estants, or who have broken with hospital, dwelling, and trainingtheir Church, but not yet formally home. This modest beginning has connected themselves with any developed into the spacious trainother, then it is no exaggeration to ing institute, Talitha Cumi, outsay that the Catholic Church in side the gates, where 9 sisters are Austria has lost 20,000 members as stationed and 127 girls are trained. the resl.dt of this movement. Associated with it, and not far from it, is the stately hospital, ASIA. with accommodation for 800 pa- tients, under the superintendence Light The annual 'report of Charlotte Pilz, a venerable Spreading of Anatolia College worker (now in her 82d year), who in Turkey. at Marsovan gives has been at her post at Jerusalem ever since 1855. The next station the number 0 f was Constantinople, where the hosstudents as 252, of whom 178 are pital is managed by 13 sisters, and Armenians and 74 Greeks. Nearly where 2 others are conducting an 100 of these students are, to a infant-school. At Smyrna was esgreater or less extent, meeting their tablished a higher grade school for expenses by labor in the self-help girls, the first of its kind in the department. The report says: East, and an orphanage, where 130 Armenian girls have found a ref- No institution enters upon the uge. Among further extensions new century with a more open door may be named a hospital and an before it than Anatolia College. It orphanage at Beirut, a convalescent has not far from half of Asia Minor home for the sisters on the heights for its proper field, while pupils of Lebanon, an infirmary at Alexcome also from Greece and other andria, and a hospital at Cairo. regions as distant. As concerns About 100 sisters are busily enthe number of candidates for ad- gaged on these various stations, mittance, nothing remains to be and when it is considered that at desired; the number of applicants first no Mohammedan would conhas for several years been beyond descend to come under a "Christhe capacity of the buildings. The tian dog's" roof, the success of people of the land are more and their work is conspicuous. The more eager for education. confidence of the Mohammedan population has been gained to such Turkey Makes For years and years an extent that, from the sultan Payment claims for losses down to the poorest, application is at Last. suffered by Ameri- made for their services. cans during the Missions No The Bishop of Bommassacres have been pressed by Grievance bay say s: "The our government, but payment was in India. days are long past stubbornly resisted, in spite of all when the people of that such men as Terrill, Angell, and Strauss could do. But now at India regarded the preaching of length Minister Leishman sends a foreign faith as a grievance. word that $95,000 have actually Whether by virtue or necessity been paid, the bulk of which will fall to the lot of the American Board, whose college buildings were destroyed at Harpoot and Hintab.
they have acquiesced in the policy able number of converts from those races which are called the of a fair field for all faiths, and in Aryan races, those races in which the institution of caste exists. the case of Christian missions they The institution of caste is the greatest difficulty which has to be have learned to value them for the dealt with, because caste is the social and religious influence which wholesome moral influences which holds the people back more than anything else from any change. It is they diffuse all around, and we ab- difficult to conceive any restriction which could be put on a man greater solutely subscribe to Lord Law- than the feeling that by mak- ing a change he would break off all I·ence's opinion that the mission- his old connections, and that he aries have done more than all other would be cast out from his family, and that his wife and his children agencies combined to benefitIndia." would reject him, and that he would be altogether an outcast in the A Great The Lady Dufferin place in which he had hitherto Beneficence. Fund, named for lived. It is impossible to conceive that any man would go through the noble wife of such a trial with a light heart care- lessly, and it is hardly p03sible that Lord Dufferin 16 years ago, then he would do it even for the sake of gain. I think that we may justly Viceroy of India, was established say that it is impossible for con- version to take place in such cir- to secure medical and hospital cumstances except by the action of treatment for women of India, who the Spirit of God upon the con- science and the soul of the man for generations had endured fright- who is converted.
ful tortures in the name or pre- A Hindu's Christianity makes tense of healing their physical mal- Tribute to vis i b I e progress. adies. Nearly 350 hospitals and Christianity. There are educl;tted dispensaries have been established, Hindus who see all under the care of women physi- cians, graduated from the best plainly enough that the hope of in- medical colleges of England, with dividual and national salvation the help of 400 assistant surgeons lies in the Christian religion. One and trained nurses. Over 1,500,000 of them wrote: patients are now treated yearly, I have given the subject of social and hundreds of natives are being reform my best thought and atten- tion these twelve years. My con- educated as doctors and nurses. viction is that the liberal education of women and the consequent hap- Converts Says Sir Charles piness of the home is possible only in India. E 11 i 0 t t, speaking in the Christian community. It is Christianity that permits the post- from long- and inti- ponement of the marriage of girls. It is Christianity that allows wid- mate acquaintance with the facts: ows to remarry. It is Christianity that gives fallen women a chance With regard to the number of of reclaiming themselves from evil converts made, while the general ways. It is Christianity that allows population of India has risen in the foreign travel. It is Christianity last 20 years by 20 per cent., the that teaches the dignity of labor. number of Christians of all kinds It is Christianity that allows all has risen by more than 6Opercent., facilities for being rich, wise, and and the number of non-Roman philanthropic. It is Christianity Christians by 145 per cent. Then that gives free scope for women to turn to thE) question, "What is the receive complete education. It is quality of those converts?" Of Christianity that gives salvation course, the answer is that the qual- without the laborious and multifa- ity is of all kinds. The great ma- jority of the converts belong to the aboriginal races, with whom there does not exist any very great at- tachment to their ancestral beliefs. so that Christianity has a special • advantage in presenting itself to them, and it is among them that the largest proportion of the con- verts have been made. But there have also been a very consider-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
rious ceremonies. If ever the Hin- people, and the people are becoming dus are to rise in the scale of na- more and more convinced of the tions, it must be by Ohristianity, fact every day. The missionaries and Ohristianity only. Some of are more than religious teachers; my Hindu brothers may say that they are benefactors of the people agnosticism or atheism may pro- in every sense of the term. The duce these results; but I do not be- poor are taught in their schools, lieve in that. Man can not do the sick are healed in their hospi- without religion.-MR. SLATER, in tals, and the helpless are helped by the Harvest Field. them in manifold ways. . . . The missionaries are not perfect men, The Tibet This is the name of but they are true men, and they love Ohina. They love Ohina for Prayer Union. a society which Ohrist's sake, and their one ambi- tion is to promote the well-being sends out a quar- of her people."-C. M. S. Intelli- gencer. terly paper from Tarduf, Polmont Timothy The new Governor Station, No. B., and reports from Richards on of Shansi, on taking time to time the effort.; made to Indemnities. the seals of office force an entrance into that Olosed and' finding affairs Land from the western, the south- in great confusion, sent for the ern, and the eastern borders; or by enlightened taotai, Shen Tun-ho, the Moravians, from Leh; the and asked his advice. He recom- Ohurch of Scotland, Kampilong; mended that Rev. Timothy Rich- Scandinavian Alliance; Assam ards, a man in high repute for his Frontier Mission; and the Tibet wisdom, be asked to come and give Mission Band of the Ohina Inland his advice. On being informed of Mission. the matter, Li Hung-chang and Testimony of It has, indeed, sur- Prince Ohing asked Mr. Richards Griffith John. prised the "man in first to visit them, which he did. the street" to read He then drew up his suggestions, that one-third of the whole number which he presented to the Governor of foreign residents in Ohina are of Shansi and to Li Hung-chang, missionaries –that there are nearly and the latter is reported to have 3,000 of them; and it is just as well been exceedingly pleased with the that it should be recognfzed gen- moderation of Mr. Richards'views, erally and universally that these and to have exclaimed that never missionaries yet in Ohina had there been such an "represent all that is highest and best in the religious and social enlightened and moderate gentlelife of Ohristendom, and as such they are respected more highly by man, and that if his suggestions the people than any other class of foreigners. They have among the could be put into effect there would people tens of thousands of genuine friends, among whom there are be no more missionary troubles in multitudes who would, in times of danger, lay down their lives in the empire. He wishes envoys their defence. . . . The missionaries are here for the good of Ohina, were as moderate. MI'. Richards' and the Ohinese are not altogether ignorant of the fact. Speaking of suggestions were as follows: the Protestant missionary, I (Dr. Griffith John, of forty years' ex- As to the punishment of those perience at Hankow) can say em- who had murdered foreigners he phatically that the masses of the says nothing, as that is in the people do not hate the missionary, hands of the plenipotentiaries; and and the longer he lives among them as to the murderers of converts, he the more friendly they become. . . . knows they are legally guilty of The fact is, the missionaries arfl death, but as they were under evil emphatically the friends of the official and Boxer influence he does not ask for the punishment of more than one single leader in any pre- fecture in which there were mur- derous riots, as a warning for the
future. If the guilty ones will re~ and indeed all our work is going on just as if the Boxer had never expent, the missions will ask for their isted. Mr. Wilson had over 60 at his inquirers' class this evening. pardon. Next, those who lost their A fortnight ago he baptized 5 adults and 3 children. "-L. M. S. property and homes should be in- Chronicle.
demnified, 'and widows and orphans Politicians The success of medi- Adopting cal m iss ion s in supported; and, as a fine, 50,000 Missionary China has long at- Methods. tracted the attentaels a year should be paid for tion of the Chinese, ten years to support schools of and in some places, as in Swatow, the wealthier men have sought to practical education, under the gen- set up rival dispensaries and hos- pitals, but up till now with very eral charge of one well-educated little success. Indeed, success is impossible until Western skill, as foreigner and one well-educated well as Western methods in the form of dispensary and hospital, is Chinese, to correct the evils that appropriated. Unfortunately for them, the appropriation of Westcome through ignorance. Monu- ern skill would mean a religious revolution, the study of anatomy ments should be erected in honor of and physiology running counter not only to their prejudices, but to those who have been killed, stating their deeply rooted ideas concern- ing the other world, into which their innocence and condemning they must carry, if possible, all their bodily members. their murderers. Missionaries who The Boxers In the Missionary return should be treated with' cour- in Manchuria. Record a statement tesy, and native converts treated is given by Dr. Christie, of Mukden, that in that by officials precisely like other district probably about 250 Prot- estants had been killed and 600 Ro- Chinese, punished or honored as man Catholics. Adjoining districts suffered similarly. The stories of they deserve. Any who stir up the sufferings of the native Chris- tians are most heartrending. The fresh disturbances should be severe- majority of those who were killed were beheaded, while some were ly punished. Mr. Richards also burned after being wrapped in cot- ton soaked with oil. One of the recommends that foreign experts preachers was tortured. After his ears were cut off and his eyes be at once engaged in railroads, gouged out, he was asked, " Do you still believe in Jesus? " " Yes, mines, manufactures, and com- I believe in Jesus," he replied. Then his lips were cut, saying, merce, thereby bringing prosperity "that will stop you." He was and peace. ' then slowly cut to pieces. Others These are the demands on the Protestant side. The Cat hoi i c Bishop of Shansi has, it is officially stated, demanded 7,000,0000 taels as indemnity for losses suffered by the converts.
Good News "You would be from Hankow. glad," writes Dr.
Griffith John, "to see the aspect of things at Hankow just now. The hospitals are crammed with patients; the schools are crammed with scholars; the chapels are crammed with most attentive congregations. There are 50 boys at the High School, and had we room we could take in as many more. There are 13 students attending lectures at the Theological Hall, and more are wanting to come in. It is a fine sight, and very inspiring." At Hankow everything is "crammed." Further west. they are only " packed." "Last Sunday morning," writes Dr. Wolfendale, of Chung King, "the chapel was packed; it is always packed nowadays, with an average congregation of about 400. We are very busy in the hospital,
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
were tortured in similar ways, that many people have gotten a while some escaped marvelously. new idea of the power and value of A Biblewoman in Yung-ling was faith in the living Christ." From heard singing a hymn when the Matsuyama comes the word that sword came down upon her neck. "aggressive Christian work in this An old bookseller, named Wang, city grows more aggressive and was brought to a temple where more interesting with each added many Roman Catholics had been month of the new century. At- killed. There were 200 Boxers tendance at church services has there, their swords covered with been increasing, and is decidedly blood. He was made to kneel, and larger now than for a year past." was asked, "Do you follow the for- In this connection it will be reeigners ?" "No," he said, "but I membered that the purpose of this follow Jesus." "Will you worship movement was to inspire the pro- Buddha now?" he was asked. " I fessing Christians to a deeper per· will worship the true Buddha. I sonal consecration and zeal in the believe in one true God," was his work of the Master and individual answer. The sword was placed on responsibility in carrying the Goshis neck, and he supposed that it pel to those without. was his last moment on earth, but for some reason he was spared, tho AFRICA. he was afterward bound tightly and severely thrashed, and his Good News In a letter from beard pulled off. Strange to say, from Egypt. Cairo, dated Easter he was subsequently liberated and was full of praises to God for his Eve, Rev. Douglas deliverance. Many other instances Thornton, of the C. M. S., writes: are given of steadfastness in the "Quite a movement has begun faith. among the Moslems to examine whether Christ was really crucified Korea Coming Rev. S. A. Moffett, or no. Doubtless the tract, 'Mo- to Christ. wr i ti ng from hammed or Christ,' prepared the Pyeng-yang, says: way for this. Both by us and the Americans, sheiks are just now " We still continue to reap a rich being baptized, and several others harvest, and to·all appearance our have become inquirers. The week work is gaining in solidity and of the Moslem feast of sacrifice, strength as it grows in extent. followed by the Christian feast, At our service last Sabbath we was also propitious to its beginbaptized 91 adults and had a con- ning, as people were at leisure to gregation of more than 1,000, of inquire. The depot has at times whom 400 partook of the Lord's been simply inundated, sometimes Supper." as many as 80 to 100 being inside at once. This is quite a phenomenon. The Great A few extracts from The behavior, too, has been excel- Awakening letters from differ- lent. A few came at first to scoff, but none do so now. Many have in Japan. ent centers in been deeply impressed with the Japan will give the message of a free Gospel, and the contrast between the· story that status of the general advance move- Christ was never really crucified or ment. Dr. ·DeForest writes from died, and the hundredfold testi- Sendai: "We have had an unusual mony of Old Testament type and experience here. There never have prophecy on the one hand and the been such quiet and impressive Apostolic contemporary witness on meetings, and such direct preaching of the Gospel. It is certain
the other. We have now had to country, shrouded in mystery and strengthen our staff in the depot to hard of approach. We have ascermeet with these people. One vis- tained the attitude of the people itor is a sheik once vigorously op- toward Christianity, Western civposed to our evangelistic meetings ilizflt.ion, education, etc., and are in the Mohammed Ali Street. An- satisfied that the reports of the other, a Syrian, who was formerly fanaticism of the Rausa Moslem' a boy in the C. M. S. Bishop Gobat have been greatly exaggerated. We School, Jerusalem, and there first have been treated with respect not drank in (all unconsciously) Chris- only by the people, but by their tian teaching." mullams, altho we have not dis- guised the fact that we are Chris- On to the The Rev. J. Kelly tian teachers, and that our mission Sudan. Giffen and Dr. H. is to proclaim Jesus Christ as God T. McLaughlin hav- and Man and the Savior of the world. At first we were careful to ing explored the region of the avoid the names of Christ and of White Nile above Khartum, re- Mohammed, basing our teaching port in favor of beginning work at on the lives of the Old Testament a place on the Sobat River, which saints; but during the last six they designate as Dolaib Rill, about months we have taught.the people ten miles from the entrance of the plainly concerning Christ, and, river into the White Nile, and the more recently, have contrasted same distance from Tewfikiah, on Christ and Mohammed. Our teachthat river. The government has ing has excited no violent opposigiven leave to prosecute mission tion; on the contrary, many have work among the non-Arabie-speak- asked for fuller teaching. We have ing tribes of that region, and made gained the confidence and regard of a grant of the free use of 200 acres many in Kano, Zaria, Gierko, and of land for the station. The mis- the neighborhood. The distinction sion will be a distinct one, to be between the European soldier and known as "The Sudan Mission"; the European missionary is now $5,075 have been appropriated out understood by a large number of of the Sudan Mission Fund for the people. We have been enabled to expense of the work for the current preach daily, in sundry places and year. Messrs. Giffen and Mc- to people coming from all parts of Laughlin will return to the field in the Rausa States. Viewed as an August, and at once open up the evangelistic effort alone, our miswork. sion could not be termed a failure. During the seven months spent at Bishop Bishop Tugwell, Gierko, people have been enabled to witness the daily life of a Chris- Tugwell in writing in Niger tian community. All who have sought help have been welcomed, Hausaland. and Yoruba Notes, while many of the destitute have experienced for the first time the reviews the past meaning of Christian loving-kind- ness. Good progress has been made year's work in Rausaland, and says: in the study of the language, and Dr. Miller has translated the Gos- "It must be admitted that we have pel according to St. Luke, The Acts of the Apostles, and has compiled failed to establish a mission, but "Notes" on Rausa grammar.
the effort can not be regarded either as premature or fruitless. vVe have gained a great deal of experience, which ought to be of much value in days to come. We have learned much regarding the country, its people, its climate, its foods. Haus- aland is no longer a great unknown
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Enlargement The Basel Mission- that to us ?' said they. ' We never asked the missionaries to come; on the ary Committee, in they are here of theit' ft'ee will. And then, is it not God who made Gold Coast. spite of a disquiet- our country what it is? ' " In the midst of their deep trouble, M. ing deficit in the Coillard is still able to say, "From this chaos which disconcerts us, home treasury, has decided to open but which accomplishes the designs of God, shall shine forth the splenthis year a large new station at the dor of His glory." A reinforce- ment of 5 new missionaries left Gold Coast. This extension is made France in April last, undeterred by all these discouragements. necessary by reason of 1,000 Chris- Baptisms in Uganda.-From Octotians scattered in a dozen little ber 14, 1900, to February 21, 1901, Bishop Tucker held confirmations, communities, much threatened by and confirmed 1,353 candidates. The bishop left Mombasa on April Islam, and too far removed from 19th, and reached London on May 13th. Before leaving Mongo he held the mother station to be coit- a confirmatIon at which a record number of candidates were conveniently superintended and di·· firmed, 176 men and 236 women (412 in all).' Eighteen of the canrected. The 28 missionaries of the didates walked 100 miles from one of the adjoining provinces to be Basel Society at the Cameroons present.
have made, during the 15 years The Future of The Nordisk Mis- South Africa. sions Tidskrift resince they received this mission m ark s t hat our from the Baptists, a very gratify- common assumption that the Cape Colony is a Christian country takes ing progress. . At last dates they into account only the whites, the half-breeds, and the Hottentots. had 9 stations, 1;33 annexes, 2,282 Of these last two classes, out of 300,- 000 only 60,000 are still heathens. Christians, 3,372 pupils in schools, Yet they are people that have no future-a wreck, moored in the .and 14 young men in training as harbor, which will never put out again into the sea of an active life. evangelists. The translation of the Add to these the Kafirs, and out of the whole population of 1,200,000 New Testament is now completed. only 300,000 are baptized. In Natal, out of 600,000 blacks only 36,000 are The good news also comes that Christians; in Basutoland, out of 218,000 there are 50,000 Christians; Fernando Po, an island in the in the Orange Free State, 36,000 out of 130,000; in the Trans'<aal, 70,000 Bight of Biafra, has been trans- out of 650,000 natives. The Tid- skrift says: ferred from Spanish to German It is the vitally strong peoples hands.
Sorrow on Sad tidings con- the Zambesi. tinue to come from this mission. M. George Mercier has died, "ud still another family has been obliged by ill health to return to France. "That which deeply afflicts us," writes JL Coillard, "is the desperate indifference of our poor Barotses. In a sermon lately I drew their attention to the graves which are multiplying and which still do not check the zeal of the churches that sent us, nor of the new missionaries who continue to come, full of enthusiasm for preaching to them the Gospel. I made an enumeration of these graves since 1877, counting also the children and the Basutos (evangelists from Basutoland), and I reached the number of 30. This discourse did not move the chiefs. 'What is
of South Africa-that is, the Basu- administrating a revenue. Selftos and Bechuanas, the Kafirs and support is not the first element in Zulus-that have South Africa's states any more than in missions. future in hand. It is neither the It absorbs energies which should Boers nor the English. The fall of be devoted to the elevation of the the Boer states is a righteous retri- people. If we look on them merely bution for the tyranny with which as tax-paying machines, without they, especially the Transvaal, have body or soul to be cared for, we sought to hold the natives in bond- shall do our own selves the greatest age. Itis only reluctantly that they possible injury, and those who have yielded room to missionary come after us will be the greatest effort, which on the other hand su'fferers. finds a powerful support in the English government, so far as this Our children will reap the fruit is not cramped by colonial self- of what we are sowing to-day. government. The spectacle of 20,000,000 Mauser- armed Chinese is a terror to clvil- Africa and the If tbe " yellow ization even in the thought of it- .. Black Peril." peril" looms omin- as great as that {)f the Huns to the peace of the Roman and Teuton ously in Asia, the world. A black peril added to the "black peril" threatens to assume yellow would be a castrophe to the no less serious proportions. Ameri- world's history. Christianity alone ca feels the gravity of it already. will save us from it.-Life and So too will South Africa at no dis· Work, Blantyre, B. C. A. tant date. The Kafir race in peace multiplies at an alarming rate. ISLANDS OF THE SEA. Given fifty years of peace and good government and education, and Mohammedans "The fact that a that race will be the predominating race in the Cape and its allied colo- in the million or more Monies. The Eritish empire has added several millions to its subjects in Philippines. hammedans have the heart of Africa. By the end of the twentieth century Britain been brought unwill have a "black peril" of her own as serious as the " yellow der our flag in the Philippines renperil" that threatens to mar the peace and security of the world. ders statehood or territorial gov- The remedy is the same-namely, the Christianizing of the native ernment for some of the populations, race. It seems a selfish argument, of the islands an impossibility for but it is sound. The great African task of the many years to come," said Gen.
twentieth century is this Christian- John C. Bates, formerly in comizing of the people of this continent. With perhaps the sole exception of mand of the department of south- Portugal, every European power will hold to the portion of African ern Luzon, in an interview here. territory which it possesses at present. So, to all intents and pur- "The Mohammedans' conversion to poses, the game of grab has ceased because there is nothing more to the Christian faith i.s claimed by grab. We must deal with what we have acquired, and deal with it from many as hopeless, altho J esuit mis- the first effectually. It must be no sionaries have gone among them mere process of producing and undaunted. They were won to the Mohammedan faith from their na- tive paganism by Mohammedan missionaries who had an outpost in Borneo. The relations of the Chris- tians and Mohammedans in Min- danao are not altogether harmoni- ous. According to the mandate of their prophet, the latter were told to kill all unbelievers, unless such a slaughter should interfere with
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
their own advantage. The Jesuits life of their people, and the awak- deal with them so diplomatically, ening of the Church to its responsi- however, that outbreaks are infre- bilities. " quent. The Mohammedans will grow jealous and hostile, however, MISCELLANEOUS. as soon as the zeal of the Christian missionary becomes greater than Comity in Bishop Warne, who his tact. The United States has the Air. aided in the forma- dealt liberally with them, however, tion of "The Evan- in order to show that it has no par- tiality to any creed or religion. gelical Union of the Philippine They are called Morros, or" Moors, Islands," has reached the conclu- by the Spanish, after their ancient sion that some such union is pos- enemies. These Mohammedans sible in India, and would be very welcomed our rule. They said they useful. He says the spirit of the were glad of the protection we union is abroad as evidenced in the offer, and that they dreaded con- British Federal union, the Presby- quest from some European or Ori- terian union in India, and in the ental power, which would use them annual conference of foreign board for its own aggrandizement. Many secretaries in the United States. of them practise polygamy. The Bishop Warne thinb that one ex- example of the Sultan of the Sulus ecutive committee could not be of is already familiar." much service for all India, but that there could, however, be a union Maoris Not An Auckland cor- and branch union by presidencies Dying Out. respondent writes: or provinces or missionary confer- ences, which could meet and deal " The New Zealand with local questions. It will be re- census returns give the Maori popu- membered that the object of the lation as 42,861, an increase of over Evangelical Union of the Philip- 3,000 since 1800. Nearly half a cen· pines is "to unite all the evangeli- tury ago Dr. Featherston said: cal forces in the Philippine Island. 'The Maoris are dying out, and for the purpose of securing comity nothing can save them. Our plain and effectiveness in missionary duty, as good, compassionate colo- operations." Certainly there is a nists, is to smooth down their dying growing conviction that all friction pillow.' Dr. Featherston was not between evangelical bodies on the alone in such pessimistic views, but field, all careless overlapping of altho all efforts seemed hopeless, operations or unnecessary duplica- Church and State have during the tion of equipment, militate against last year or two renewed a most economy of energy, of money, and discouraging struggle for the bet- of life.-Northwestern Christian terment of this noble native race, Advocate. and now at last it seems as tho their efforts will be successful. Substitutes Says Rev. R. L. First the steady decrease of the for the Saloon. Melendy, writing in Maori population was stopped, then their number appeared to be sta- the Independent: tionary for a while, and now there "The present conditions are the is a substantial increase. Thus is culminative result of a long series rewarded the increased efforts to of events, and not to be aholished "improve the sanitary surroundings at one stroke by legislation. For of the race, the efforts of the Young reasons brought out in the study, Maori Party to improve the social no system of substitutes can- much less will-abolish the saloon. Gradually some of the causes for the present evil may be removed.
"By improvement in methods of was asked what fil'st drew his atlodging the people, as by model tention to Christianity. He said tenement houses. that while waiting to see a gentle- man at whose house he had called, "By increased facilities for ob- he took up a book lying on the taining cheap and wholesome food, table, and turned to the opening such as is provided in the coffee- page. The first words instantly houses of London. arrested his attention: "In the be- ginning God created the heavens "By a ministration by proper and the earth." Being familiar authorities to such necessities as with the Hindu Cosmogony, so public toilet conveniences. labor prolonged, abstruse, and wearibureaus, public parks, etc. some, the brevity, dignity, and self- evident· truth of this assertion so "By a more general recognition impressed him that he at once proby the churches of their social mis- cured a Bible and read it carefully, sion, and by a spread of the move- with the ultimate result that he ment already begun by the better became a whole-hearted and avowelements of the community to ed believer both in the Written and furnish places for recreation and in the Living Word.-Bible Society amusement and the means of social Reporter. intercourse for the masses. A Good "End- A New York Le- "By a more general spread of less Chain." gionary. a ti theeducation-education in the trades giver for 12 years, and professions-education that leads to an eqtlality of opportu- began to give a part of his tithe to nity." educate a young man. When this beneficiary secured a position, the How One Man A recent number of two started in to educate another "Endured." the Church Mis- young man. When this third young man became able to earn money he sionary Gleaner joined the other two in educating a '.ells an interesting story of a Mr. young lady and a young man, and Perkins, who spent 30 years of his when we heard from them the latlife in the Indian civil service and ter task was just completed. Each rose in it to the high position of a time the money was repaid, and commissioner, but who, on retiring, used over again for a similar purbecame an honorary lay mission- pose. They intend to continue the ary in the district of which he had blessed operation. been a ruler. Two years afterward he was ordained and continued to Mohammedans from India, trained labor in the same field for 8 in the schools and colleges founded years longer. A t the end of that by the British, are to be engaged to time he returned home, and gave teach the Mohammedans of Minmost acceptable work in the offices danao in the Philippines in schools of the society with his pen and by founded by the United States. This his advice. Mr. Perkins has lately is a profoundly suggestive ana indied, leaving a record which his teresting fact. friends must look back upon with pride and satifaction. Every boy of 15 is familiar with the achievements of great army and Converted by Some 12 years ago naval heroes, but if a company of One Verse. a learned Coolin young people is asked to name the Brahman, who :was heroes of the Cross, embarrassing silence follows.-S. EARL TAYLOR. then an ordained Presbyterian minister in India, paid a visit to the Bible House. In the course of a most instructive conversation, he
The Missionary Review of the World — August 1900
THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD
– LONDON MISSION SlaUons in C}~NTRAL CHINA S"nJe): W.OOOOO Stw….uM M!!= ""
OUTSTATIONS H1Ipt'h in HiaoKan D.."trlrt "YmtMIntg Z " Ylng .shan" 3 . 1 I…a n g P i • Ying 1."1«>"9 .King 'han , 1,1"v"nMrn EO ,..Mtntl'iutg " ./ Dunru) in ffl'7tg C!towih..tM.rI 3 ~. La }'O.1t9 2 mPro¥f.nri al lArpdol o Prefectural r'f)'
o .llieTLorCow,ty Cily Sllt/"W"ft.'i "rv1~dirr~d in H,,} ll5 lIHSSION FIELD OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN CENTRAL CHINA. Map furni.hed by Rev. Griffit h J ohn , D. D. (See p . 593). MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
Old Series. t AUGUST. j New Series. VOL. XXIII. No.8. f (VOL. XIII. No.8.
THE MINISTRY 'fO THE SICK AND WOUNDED SOLDIERY IN WAR TIMES.
BY THE EDITOR-JX-CHIEF.
The name of Florence Nightingale is inseparably connected with a new form of woman's ministry to man, generally, in a widespread movement for the r~foJ'rn of sanitary conditions in the camp and campaign of soldiers and sailors.
She was an Italian by birth, being born in Florence, Italy, in 1823, of English parents. Highly educated, brilliantly accomplished, of refined sensibility, every inch a woman, and with none of the masculine traits often associated with women of public action, God prepared in her a mighty force for t~e relief and, in fact, reconstruction of unhealthy and abnormal conditions in the British army, and through her success there inspired similar movements elsewhere.
She early showed intense interest in the alleviation of suffering, which, in 1844, at the early age of 21, led her to give close attention to the condition of hospitals, so that she, like John Howard, and Elizabeth Fry, who was called the "female Howard," undertook a personal visitation and inspection of the civil and military hospitals all over Europe. She studied with the sisters of charity in Paris the system of nursing and of management in the hospitals, and in 1851, at 28, herself went into training as a Durse in the institution of Protestant Deaconesses, at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. Thus qualified, on her return to her own land, England, she put into thorough working order the Sanitarium for Guvernesses in connection with the London institution. All unconscious of the wide work for the world and the ages, for which God was thus fitting her, she had thus served a ten years' term of apprenticeship for the sublime and self-sacrificing career that lay just before her.
In the spring of 1854, when she was in her 32d year, war was declared by Britain against Russia, and a force of 25,000 British soldiery embarked for, the Golden Horn. The battle of Alma was fought on September 20, and the wounded, with the sick, were sent 40wn to the hastily improvised hospitals made ready to receive them 01 the banks of the Bosphorus. Crowds or men in every stage of sickness, and suffering from wounds unskilfully treated, and, still woree, neglected, were there huddled together. How unsanitary the conditions were may be inferred from the average rate of mortality. The hospitals were more fatal than the battlefield-the ordinary casualties of the fiercest battle being insignificant in comparison to the death rate in the wards.
Dr. Hamlin well remarks that the Crimean War brought out both the noblest and basest attributes of human character. There were Hedley Vicars among the officers, and Dr. Blackwood among the chap- lains, and Ilis noble wife, Lady Alicia, and Florence Nightingale in the hospitals, that will forever stand out. as the glory of our common humanity and Christianity. But the same events gave opportunity to exhibit the meanest selfishness and sordidness.
In the great hospital at Scutari the greatest sufferings were in the night. At 10 o'clock the lights were put out for the night, and no one came near the sufferers until the morning. The night was made hideous aud horrible by agonizing cries for water, groans of the dying, and ravings of the delirious. Dr. Hamlin offered Dr. Menzies, the chief physician, his own help and that of a dozen or fifteen of his most trustworthy students as night watchers, but the proposal was not ollly rejected, but rejected with asperity. He went further, and applied to Gen. Posgaiter, commissary general, offering to organize a relief force of volunteer night watchers from A~erican and English residents, and obey all rules, subject to Dr. Menzies' orders, simply to relieve the awful and needless sufferings of the sick und wounded soldiers. The only result was another repulse, when the commissary general for- warded Dr. Hamlill's note with his OWll, the doctor replying curtly, ",Yc can not admit any outside interference." And so thousands of brave sufferers were cruelly left to agony of thirst, torture of pain, and even to suffering of death, in the darkness of a doubly unrelieved night.
Of course, in such a hospital the conditions were horribly unsani- tary. The smell was like that of a dissecting chamber. where corpses lie in all stages of putrefaction, nauseons in the extreme, and showing not only neglect, but downright incapacity on the part of medical attendants. Dr. Menzies was finally removed and in disgrace.
Dr. Hamlin tells also of the condition of things in the Kulelie hos- pital. The battle of Inkerman was fought in November, 1854. A week or so later, the HimalaJla, the huge English iron merchant f{feamer, was lying at Knlelie, and 250 wounded were in the cavalry futrracks and some Russian wounded on the float wharf. Both the (English and Russian soldiers' blankets were full of lice, and Dr. Ham- ,in says: "I picked off 11 of the most atrocious beasts I ever saw from my woolen gloves." The English wounded had had no washing done for
MINISTRY TO THE SICK AND WOUNDED SOLDIERY
five months, for lack of wood and water, and their underftannels were such nests of vermin that they preferred t.he suffering from the cold.
There was plenty of clothing, but it could not be worn. Dr. Hamlin appealed to the chief physician abont the washing, but met only another surly reply, "It could not be done." When a way to do it was suggested, he damned Dr. Hamlin as an intruder, his dirty meerschaum hanging in the corner of his dirtier mouth. Dr. Hamlin then found the" sar- gent" of the clothing, who showed him a great hall where were piled up garments for 1,000 men. The place was a plague breeder, unventi- lated, with beds, and bedding, and clothing taken from the wounded and the dead, filthy and full of vermin, and such looking animals, overgrown, fat, hellish looking, their bite like that of a scorpion, irri- tating and maddening, producing fever heat and burning itch. Dr.
Hamlin says that they killed more men than the bullets. In despair of cleansing such clothing a furnace was built to burn it.
Florence Nightingale, with her nurses, appeared on the scene of the Orimean conflict, and all was changed in these hospitals. She had many coadjutors, and evinced large capacity to deal with the condi- tions she found. One improvement followed another in rapid and glorious succession, until the hospitals became models of sympathetic care and sanitary provisions. 'rhe tedious nights of suffering were relieved ahd shortened by the tender, 'sympathetic hand and heart of woman-all presided over by Olie woman who combined in herself marvelous common sense, sound judgment, and intelligent Ohristian capacity. • The crisis in the Orimea which led Florence Xightingale to offer herself as a missionary to the sick and suffering at Scutari, was one of what Dr. Oroly called the" Birth hours of history." The reorganiza- tion of that nursing department at Scutari meant a reform in all the treatment of sick and wounded soldie] s and sailors in war times, and a permanent and world-wide advance in this department, even among semi-civilized peoples.
Lord Herbert, then at the War Office, gladly accepted her offer, and within a week after, Miss Nightingale was on the way with her nursing corps. She reached Constantinople in November, 1854, just before the battle of lnkerman, and the beginning of the terrific winter campaign, in time to receive from that second battle the wounded, tho the wards already had in them 2,300 patients.
History, poetry, and art have vied with each other fitly to represent the heroic devotion of that woman of thirty-one, to the sufferers from that cruel war. She was known to stand on her feet twenty hours at a time, without once sitting down, that she might personally see sufferers provided with such accommodation and care as their condition called for. The following spring, while in the Crimea organizing the nursing departments of the camp hospitals, she herself paid the penalty of her
untiring toil and unsparing self-sacrifice, in a prostrating fever. Yet she refused to desert her post of duty, recovered, and remained at Scutari until the British evacuated rrurkey in July, 1856.
How many soldiers owed life and health to her we know not, for of some facts no history has ever been adequately written. But the mental and physical strain told upon her naturally frail constitution. She, like her Master, saved others; herself she could not save. She yet lives, but is an invalid, withdrawn from pu blic life into the quiet of her rural home-modestly shrinking especially from the visits of the curious, who would like to see the heroine of the Crimean hospitals, but still devising means for the improvement of the health of the soldier.
In 1857, when a commission was created to"inquire into" the regulations affecting the sanitary conditi.ons of the British army," she supplied a paper of written evidence, in which with peculiar force she emphasize1 the great lessons learned in the Crimean War, which she fitly charJ.cterized as a "sanitary experiment on a colossal scale." During her experience there, the results which accumulated under her own eyes proyed that, with proper provision for food, clothing, clean· liness, nursing, and various sanitary conditions, the rate of mortality among soldiers may be reduced to one-half of the average death-rate in time of peace and at horne!
Such discoveries naturally fixed her mind on the general question of sanitary reform in the army, and, first of all, the army hospitals. In 1858 she contributed other papers on hospital construction and arrangement to the National Association for Promotion of Social Science. Her" Notes on Hospitals," clear in arrangement and minute in detail, are alike yaluable to the architect, engineer, and medical man. Her "Notes on Nursing" isa text-book in many a household.
The results of her work in the Crimean War prompted a fund to enable her to form an institution for training nurses, which yields an annual interest of £1,400 sterling. No separate institution has been formed, but the revenue is applied to training a superior order of nurses in connection with existing hospitals.
How highly Miss Nightingale's opinions are held in esteem even by the British Government is evinced, for example, by one fact. When, in 1863, the Report of the Commission on the Sanitary Condition of the Army in India was made, in two folios of 1,000 pages each, the manuscripts were forwarded to her for her examination, and her observations are inserted with tho published report. In these observations and comments there is such a masterly array of facts, such clearness of statement, and such incisive force that they render it one of the most remarkable papers ever reduced to written form, and it marks a new era in the government of India.
As already hinted, the study of Miss Nightingale's career natur-
ally suggests a comparison with the singularly parallel career of John Howard, who attempted his circumnavigation of charity in the interests of the prison reform, and of Elizabeth Fry, who, born ten years before his death, in a remarkable manner took up and carried on at Newgate and other prisons of Britain the work he began. It is another curious coincidence that each lived about the same period-65 years.
The labors of Miss Nightingale have led to the formation of the Red Cross Association, which had its origin, nine years after the Crimean War called her to the scenes of Oriental conflict, in 11 proposal made in February, 1863, at a meeting of the Societe Genevoise by Henry Dumant, who had witnessed the horrors of Italian battlefields, whether it would not be possible in time of peace to form societies for the relief of the wounded when war should again break out. A committee appointed to examine into the matter called an International Congress at Geneva in the lLutumn of the same year; and another general congress convened in Geneva in 1864, at which sixteen European powers were represented, and the terms of a treaty were signed by twelve delegates and later by four others. The principal terms of this convention were that in time of war the hospitals and all pertaining to them be considered as on neutral ground, and wounded or sick soldiers shall be cared for to whatever side they belonged in the conflict.* It • ARTICLE I.-Ambulances and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neutral, and, as such, shall be protected and respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be therein. Such neutrality shall cease if the ambulances or hospitals shall be held by military force.
ARTICLE H.-Persons employed in hospitals and ambulances, comprising the staff for superintendence, medical service, administration, transport of wounded. as well as chaplains, shall participate in the benefit of neutrality while so employed, and so long as there remain any wounded to bring in or to succor.
ARTICLE IlL-The persons designated in the preceding article may, even after occupation by the enemy, continue to fulfil their duties in the hospital and ambulance which they serve, or may withdraw to join the corps to which they belong. Under such circumstances, when these persons shall cease fro'm these functions, they shall be delivered by the occupying army to the outposts of the enemy. They shall have the special right of sending a representative to the headquarters of their respective armies.
ARTICLE IV.-As the equipment of military hospitals remains subject to the laws of war, persons attached to such hospitals can not, in withdrawing, carry away articles which are not their private property. Under the same circumstances an ambulance shall, on the contrary, retain its equipment.
ARTICLE V.-Inhabitants of the country who may bring help to the wounded shall be respected and remain free. The generals of the belligerent powers shall make it their care to inform the inhabitants of this appeal addressed to their humanity, and of the neutrality which will be the consequence of it. Any wounded man entertained and taken care of in a house shall be considered as a protection thereto. Any inhabitant who shall have entertained a wounded man in his house shall be exempted from the quartering of troops, as well as from the contributions of war which may be imposed.
ARTICLE VI.-,Vounded or sick soldiers, whatever their nationality, shall be cared for. Commanders-in-chief shall have the power to deliver immediately to the outposts of the enemy soldiers who have been wounded in an engagement, when circumstances permit this to ue done, with the consent of both parties. Those who are recognized as incapable of serving after they are healed, shall be sent back to their country. The others also may be sent back 0n condition of not again bearing arms during the continuance of the war. Evacuations, together with the persons under whose direction they take place, shall be protected by an absolute neutrality.
ARTICLE VIl.-A distinctive and uniform fiag shall be adopted for hospitals, ambulances,
was necessary, according to Article VII., to have a flag or sign to distinguish those laboring under the direction of this organization. A red cross upon a white background was chosen. This choice was for the purptlse of honoring Switzerland. It shows th€ flag of that COUIltry reversed. In 186'1, at Paris, the rules of the Convention were extended to naval conflicts also. The beneficence of the Red Cross Association was soon and very grandly proven, in the wars of 1864 and 186t:, and subsequently in the Franco-Prussian, Russo-Turkish, American Civil War, American-Spanish War, etc. In the war of 1866 nearly 14,000 Austrian wounded were cared for by the Prussian Society of the Red Cross, at a total expense of over $1,500,000, and in the Franco-Prussian War the Red Cross had 25,000 beds in towns between Dusseldorf and Baden alone.
In 1883 Queen Victoria instituted the Red Cross Order in behalf of the British army, with a fitting decoration.
With the Red Cross movement in America, the name of Clara Barton is conspicuously linked. Every country in Europe and almost every nation on the globe has signed this treaty, the United States being almost the last formally to accept its humane principles.
During the late war, among women were many who followed the American armies, and cared for the wounded upon the battlefield and in the hospital. One of the very best of these nurses was Miss Clara Barton. With untiring zeal she worked, with her heart of love, through all those years of the civil war. Her labor for others did not close when the war was at an end. Many an anxious parent or friend had sons or loved ones asleep in nameless graves. Miss Barton began the great task of marking the graves of those who fell in that war, and for three years she labored and toiled, until success beyond all expectation crowned her efforts.
The close of this task found her, like Miss Nightingale, broken in health, and her physicians urged her to go to Europe for a change of air and rest. Not long after the Franco-Prussian war broke out, and the sufferings incident to war led her again to enter the battlefield to alleviate them, and here made her acquainted with the work- and evacuated places. It must on every occasion be accompanied by the National flag. An arm·badge shall also be allowed for individuals neutralized, but the deliVery of it shall be left to military authority. The flag and arm·badge ~hall bear a red cross on a white ground.
ARTICLE VIII.-It is the duty of the conquering army to supervise, as far as circumstances permit, the soldiers who have fallen on the field of battle, to preserve them from pillage and bad treatment., and to bury the dead in conformity with st.rict sanitary rules. The contract· ing powers will take care that in time of war every soldier is furnil;hed with a compulsory and uniform token, appropriate for establishing his identity. This token shall indicate his name, place of birth, as well as the army corps, regiment, and company to which he belongs. In case of death, this document shall be withdrawn before his burial and remitted to the civil or military authorities of the place of enlistment or home. Lists of dead, wounded. sick and prisoners shall be communicated, as far as pOSSible, immediately after an action, to the com· mander of the opposing army by diplomatic or military means.
The contents of this article, so far as they are applicable to the maxim, and capable of "lxecution, shall be observed by victorious naval forces.
PUERTO RICO AS A MISSIO:-< FIELD
ings of the Red Cross. She saw how incomplete was her labor in the American Civil War, through inadequate organization. The Red Cross supplied the lack. The child bearing a cup of cold water to a wounded soldier was absolutely safe in the enemy's ranks, with the Red Cross on the arm.
Miss Barton returned to America, resolved to have the principles of the Red Cross adopted by the United States. She yisited President Garfield, who had been a soldier, and knew how much suffering might be alleviated by proper means, and he promised to do all in his power for the new movement. He brought it before his cabinet, and had it brought before congress, and through his labors it passed both houses. Laws regulating the action of the nation in times of war, were changed to conform with the regulations of the Red Cross. Just as the treaty was ready for his signature, the assassin's bullet took his life.
This treaty of the Red Cross is one of the missionary movements of our century. It has caused all nations to see more fully the cruelty and horrors of war, and has tended toward the settlement of national difficulties by arbitration, rather than by arms, thus, indirectly, furthering peace and unity among nations. Even outside of the miseries of war, this organization has for its prime object the relief of suffering. Muskets and cannon may be silent for a while, but the warring elements, fire, water, and wind, may cause snffering at any time. With this in view, there has been added to the original what is called the American amendment. At Washillgtoll, D. C., is stationed a field agent, who visits in person every place where aid is rendered. In 1881 it relieved those who suffered from the effects of tbe forest fires of Michigan; in 1882 the suffering incident to the Mississippi oYerflow; in 1883 from the disaster of the Ohio River, and the Louisiana cyclone, etc. War will never again be attended with the nameless alld needless terrors and horrors of the Crimean hospitals. Christianity has indirect as well as direct effects; and her mission in the world is not only glory to God in the highest, but on earth lieace, good will toward men.
PUER'l'O RICO AS A MISSION FIELD.
BY H. K. CARROLL, LL.D. Late Commissioner for the United States to Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is riot a large field, but an interesting and important one. It is important, because it is soil of the United States, and is destined to become a winter resort and a fruit garden, like Florida; qecause its people, tho simply described as "citizens of Puerto Rico," in the civil government law just enacted by Congress, will undoubtedly become in fact and in form citizens of the United States, like the
Spanish populations of New Mexico and Arizona. It is interesting, because it is, so to speak, virgin soil. The people, tho C(l,tholics, and Catholics exclusively by birth and training, seem to have little or no prejudice against Protestantism. It is curious that in the mind of the common people of Puerto Rico, all who are not of the Catholic faith are classed as "Judios," Jews. No instances of religious hatred came under my notice. Nobody asked me whether I was a Catholic, or what my faith was, altho I talked to scores of people on the subject of religion. I met no native Protestants, and believe there were few or no Jews in the island prior to its acquisition by the United States. There was a small Protestant church, of the Anglican order, in Ponce, chiefly, if not entirely, for the benefit of foreigners, and another church of the same denomination in the island of Vieques, off the east coast of Puerto Rico. 'l'he latter had a colored man as pastor, and probably was for the accommodation of Protestant negroes from other West India islands, who had been brought there to work on the large sugar estates. I did not see the latter church. The one in Ponce was a modest, wooden structure.
THE CHARACTER OF THE ISLAND.
Before describing the religious character of the people, and the kind of. church accommodations they have been accustomed to, I must say something about the island itself. Puerto Rico is a strikingly beautiful country. Around the shores of the island, which is nearly a parallelogram in shape, about forty-five by ninety or one hundred miles in size, there is a strip, varying in width, that lies at or just above the level of the sea. This strip is wider on the northern than on the southern side. All the interior is mountainous. Roughly speaking, there are two chains running east and west, but the traveler will find great difficulty in making out any direction or orderly arrangement of the very irregular elevations. The mountains and valleys appear to have been thrown together in delightful confusion. One valley opens into another; one mountaiu appears to rise out of another mountain. Mountain and valley are covered with the richest verdure. The only barren faces to be seen are those which look toward the Caribbean, where there is an arid belt. From base to summit of the highest peaks tropical vegetation abounds. In crossing the island one may see a tobacco farm extending from bottom to apex of one of these mountains, covering the whole side. It is marvelous how the peon contrives to work on the precipitous side with hoe and machete.
The trees and plants are those usual to the tropics. All varieties of palms, including the royal and the coconut; banana, breadfruit, orange, lemon, the beautiful and showy flamboy::mt, the wild almond, the nispola, which bears a very sweet fruit, the quenepas, with its small regular leaves, forming a wondrously thick foliage, the tama-
PUERTO RICO AS A MISSION FIELD
rind, with its refreshing fruit, the lime, etc. The highest mountain i,s five thousand feet above the level of the sea, and there are many which range from two thousand to two thousand five hundred feet. The scenery is grander than that of the Catskills, but somewhat less rugged than that of the Rockies. The valleys and lowlands grow great crops of sugar cane; the higher lands tobacco, and still higher lands fine grades of coffee. The soil is very rich, and seldom fails to give good results to the husbandman. The chief industry is agriculture.
The climate is equable. The range of the thermometer is very small. In New York it is more than a hundred degrees; in Puerto Rico scarcely thirty. It is never extremely hot. 1'he mercury seldom A GR OU P OF PUERTO RICANS NEAR YAUCO, climbs to ninety-one or ninety-two, hardly once in a generation higher ; cool winds blow constantly, tempering the heat, and the nights are invariably cool. From October to April the weather is nearly perfect. In the snmmer it is slightly warmer, and considerably more humid. It is naturally a healthy island. With care as to the sanitation of the cities, there is no reason why the bill of health should not be as good as in our own country. The prevailing diseases there, as here, are malarial fevers, consumption, and rheumatism.
The popUlation 'numbers, according to the census recently taken by the United States, about nine hundred and fifty-seven thousand. Oonsidering the area, which is about three thousand six hundred
square miles, Puerto Rico is a densely populated country. The traveler, however, is not impressed at all by this statistical fact. The cities are not numerous, nor very large. The people are chif'fly in the rural districts, and yet along none of the routes I traveled, and I visited nearly cyer}' considcrable place in the island, did I see many houses or huts. The tendency of the peasant population has apparently been to scatter, and not concentrate. This is a fact of very great importance, as I shall show further on.
The people are chiefly of Spanish and African ue~cent. Slavery was abolished ill 1873. Since then the black race has been decreasing in numbers, doubtless due to the fact that intermarriage between the whites and blacks is qllite general among the peasant class, who know no caste. According to the Spanish censns of 189'1', about sixty-five per cent. are whites, twenty-six pel' cent. mixed, and nine per cent. black. The negro does not differ very much in appearance and physiognomy from our own colored man, a little more inclined, perhaps, to leanness. The natiye whites are thill, spare, undersized people, alert, actire, industrious, but not very strong. Their poor and insufficient diet of course accounts for their weakness. Native rum, of which they have become latterly large consumers, does not tend to invigorate them. Between them and the Spaniards, that is, those born in the peninsula, there is dislike on the one side, and contempt on the other. All the offices and the government favors went to the Spaniard, while the Puerto Rican has been a hewer of wood and drawer of water. The merchants and bankers, and moneyed classes, were Spaniards or Germans, or other foreigners; most of the farmowners, the peasants, and the artisans generally, natives. The Spaniard was generally an oppressor, and the natives hated him accordingly. This is a fact which it is necessary to keep constantly in mind in order to understand the political, social, or religious condition of the people.
THE RELIGIOCS CO~DITIOX:-;.
The Catholic religion was, of conrse, the one religion for the subjects of Spain. It was the religion of the state, and the governorgeneral was Patronato Real, and governed the Church pretty much as he governed the State. Associated with him in his council was the bishop of the diocese, which belonged to the province of Santiago, Cuba. The State annually made appropriations for the repairs of the churches and for the support of the priests. The churches were built in part by donations, in part or in whole by municipal funds, raised by taxation, or subscription, which was practically an assessment, and in part by insular appropriations. The title to this prop- erty was not recorded, because thc law forbade it. The church now claims it, and so do the municipalities. The priests were nearly all Peninsular Spaniards. Paid by the
State, they were regarded as partisans of the governor-general. In the years of persecution of the natives, it was thought that priests betrayed the secrets of the confessional to the State, and got husbands punished through the confessions of their devout wives. Many of the priests were not good men. They were avaricious and thought more of their fees, which were contrary to law, than of their duties, and lived lives which were not exemplary, to say the least. Mr. Brau, the historian of Puerto Rico, himself a Catholic, says, "In this island are many priests who do not lead very moral lives, and who frequent gambling houses." He speaks of priests who gamble, dance, go to the cock-pit, enter into the practises of the money-changer, and associate with the dissolute, and says their mode of life seems more akin to that of oriental seraglios, than to the austere silence of the rectory. Not a few of the priests who had livings when the Americans came, had amassed much property and were quoted as rich. On tho other hand, the few native priests wore poor, but bore an e1.cellent reputation.
l'he monastic orders never obtained a very strong foothold in Puerto Rico. The government broke up, many years ago, the two orders which had houses in San Juan, and took possession of the property, allowing the chapels to be used for religious services. The friars, who became a scourge in the Philippines, were fortunately kept out of Puerto Rico.
There are no very fine churches in Puerto Rico. They compare well enough with other buildings, but are not imposing llor very richly furnished. 'fhe cathedral in San .Juan is in no wise a remarkable edifice. As is usual in Spanish co antries, the church inyariably occupies a prominent position on the chief plaza. San J uun is well supplied with chllrches, much better than other cities. The ecclesiastical property in the capital is very valuable, as the area of the city is limited, and there is but little land. The church in the island is, however, far from rich. It depended on the State for its running expenses, and not at all on the people. When the State failed it, it was bankrupt, having no endowment or property yielding income. It had never taught the people to give, and they had no mind to give, anyway. They had no confidence in the administration. They did not fall away from the cb mch, they did not abjure the faith; they simply negleoted the services uf the church, and only called on the priest when they wanted to be married, christened, or buried-not even then in about half of the cases.
I found a few freethinkers or secularists who were entirely alienated from the church. There are also some Freemasons, who are looked upon by the church as deniers of the faith; but there are no atheists. The people believe in religion, and grieve that the church fell into bad hands in so many instances. This was the situation as I found it in 1898 and 1899.
So far as I could ascertain, nothing, or next to nothing, was being done to cure the existing evils of indifference on unwedded unions, and the frightful proportion of illegitimate births, or to extend the ordinances and blessings of the church to those who were practically isolated from it. There was caLechetical instruction in the public schools, but that only reached a minority of the children; there were no Sunday-schools; the nuns did faithful work among the orphans in the beneficencia in San Juan; there were two or three church schools, but the great majority of the people seldom had the services of It priest or went to confession.
This neglect was due in large part to the fact that the rural population is so widely scattered. The public school system tried feebly to reach the peasant class, but could not or did not to any appreciable extent. The church provided for regular Sunday services in the chief cities and towns, bu t not in the rural districts. It should be remembered that a municipal district in Puerto Rico is like a county in the United States. It takes its name from a large town or city w11ere its seat of government is. There is often four or five times as many people outside one of the chief cities or towns as in it, and with bad roads it was not to be expected that people would travel for miles to go to confession. This scattering of the people is a serious matter for government, society, and church. How shall these peasants on plantations be reached with civilizing influences? How are their children to be educated? How is the church to bless them with its ministrations and instructions? The government must adopt some policy of concentration that will draw the people together into villages and hamlets. Here is a problem for the missionary, to reach this immense neglected rural population. It can not be solved in a day, The children must be educated, but they must be clothed before they can be gathered into schools. The peasant lives in the most extreme poverty, and he is hopeless of better things. He must be instructed and encouraged, and it will require all the wisdom that Christian missionaries are master of to accomplish this task.
SCPERSTITIONS AND AMUSEMENTS.
The peasant is superstitious. Their lot is hard and they have no recreation and no rational amusements. 'rhey go to the cock-fight Sunday afternoon, tf) the rude dance Sunday evening, and they love to gamble. With these things they mingle religion in this way: They promise a mass to the Virgin if she will help them to select the right lottery ticket; they burn a candle to the favorite saint that they may dream on which cock to bet, and they' dedicate a rosary to Saint Anthony of Padua, if an unusual result is secured. In the feast known as the Candelaria days and nights are given up to gambling in market-places and in stores, in the most public way. Boys and girls invest their
1900.J PUERTO RICO AS A lIIISSION FIELD
pennies, and senoras and senoritas, as well as men of all classes, try their chances at fortune's wheel. I saw a large city in the feverish excitement of gambling in this religious celebration. There was no disorder, and many seemed to regard it as simply a pleasant pastime; no doubt there were some who staked their all on a turn of the wheel and developed the passion which this vice always excites. The city fathers excused rather than defended the annual sllspcnsion of the laws against gambling, and said it was a holiday for scores of country people who came to the city to take their chances and also to do their shopping. They say for most people the betting of pennies is a harmless amusement.
Superstition is general. After the Sunday morning mass I have A STREET SCENE IN PONCE.
seell , particularly in country Churches, devout colored women going from shrine to shrine, from statue to statue, bowing and worshiping, telling their beads, kissing the feet of the tawdry representations of the Virgin, and showing the utmost religious fervor. But the services were generally attended by only a handful. Women predominated, and colored women seemed to be the most fervent. There was every sign of neglect in the cathedral at San Juan. There were several large confessional boxes, indicating that at one time there had been many devout Catholics; but when I first saw them, immediately after the Spanish evacuation, they were covered with dust and festooned with cobwebs. Of the persons present at mass nearly half were Americans.
The first Protestant worship in San Juan was begun in the large
opera-house, under the auspices of a Ohristian association, reprer;enting several denominations. It was well attended at first, but the small congregation was lost in the large, gloomy, cheerless place, and the natives were not attracted.to it. The Disciples of Ohrist, the Lutherans, and other denominations began services in small, out-of-the-way rooms, exciting little interest. 'Yhat is needed is neat, attractive churches, with audience rooms on a level with the street. The Presbyterian services, recently begnn in Santul'ce, a suburb of San Juan, are very popular; so are those established in San Juan, in April, by Dr. Drees, representing the Methodist Ohurch. He prqposes to have two services in English, one for Americans, another in a different quarter for colored people, and a third in the Spanish.
I think there is little doubt that Protestant worship, in neat, attractive churches, with plenty of good singing (the natives are fond of music), with Sunday-schools, young people's societies, etc., each church becoming a social center, would command many worshipers. The people do not hesitate to send their children to Sunday-school. One bright little fellow of nine asked the missionary, "What kind of worship is this, Oatholic ?" When told that it was not Catholic, but Protestant, he responded, "I like it better than Oatholic worship." He said he kept his Sunday-school tickets in his missal!
The social feature of Protestantism would alone commend it to the people of Puerto Rico. Belonging to the Latin race, they are naturally fond of social pleasures. Of these they have but few. They have balls and occasional theatrical performances, but little else. The church is not a center of activity as it is here. It has no guilds or societies, nothing to bring the people together except its regular services. There is little visitation between families, on account of the difficulty and expense of travel. There are no vacations or excursions; the books are few and the readers fewer; there is a wofnllack of rational amusement and recreation for both young and old. For this reason, Protestant churches, with their many sources of interest, would be attractive and helpful.
Education, both primary and secondary, needs to be provided. At first I thought the government would be able, in a short time, to provide all that is necessary, but I have changed my mind on that point. It will take years, with immense sums of money, to supply the needed accommodations. Meantime the churches might do a vast amount of good by opening both primary and secondary schools in certain localities. The high schools already opened under missionary auspices are c~owded. Parents are very anxious for their children to learn English, and there are many who can afford to pay for advanced instruction for boys and girls who have already a fair primary education.
Medical work ought also to be begun. There is a great fleal of suffering among the poor for lack of medical attendance. All the
1900.J HON. KE;)fKICHI KATAOKA
municipalities pay" titular doctors" for service of the poor, but the poor get, for various reasons, little attention. If the municipal doctor shows reluctance to respond to a call, the people hesitate to go to him again. They are sensitive, and never demand as a right what the law provides for them. I questioned many of them in the poor quarter of Arecibo, Yauco, and other cities. Some said that the titular doctors were unwilling to corne to their homes, but would give them medicine if they asked for it. They seemed to have a horror of going to the hospital. They would shake their heads, and say: "People who go in there come out dead." Forbidding-looking places they were, some of them. One of the best physicians in the island told me that hardly one person out or a hundred among the peasant class has a doctor at death. These common people are full of sympathy for one another, and a kindness done to them would win their hearts. When one of them is sick, the neighbors will unite in care of him, and furnish him food out of their own scant store.
Something ought also to be done for homeless children. '1'here is an excellent Oatholic orphanage in San Juan, but in many parts of the island no public provision is made for bereaved or forsaken little ones. Small homes are needed in many places for the care of these unfortunates, who will otherwise grow up vagabonds, if they grow up at all.
There is a loud call for immediate Ohristian and charitable work in Puerto Rico, particularly among the peasant class. Much could be accomplished for humanity and the Master. There are masses of people who are practically without religious instruction and wholesome religious influence. They can be won, if taken in time.
HON. KENKICIII KA'l'AOKA.
BY REV. H. LOO)IIS, YOKOHA)lA, JAPAN.
Agent of the American Bible Society.
Spending the Sabbath in Osaka some years ago, I went in the morning to worship at one of the Presbyterian churches.
After waiting some time beyond the regular hour for the services to begin, one of the officers of the church weut forward and announced that. for some unknown reason. the preacher who had been expected had not come; bu t, he continued, "we haye with us to-day Mr. Kenkichi Kataoka, and we shall be glad if be will speak to us."
Mr. Kataoka then went forward, and in a quiet and modest way made a very helpful and interesting address. No one would have thmght from his humility and religious fervor that this was the vicepresident of the Liberal Party, and one of the most prominent political leaders in Japan, whose influence and reputation are not only national, but a credit to his country.
He first came in contact with Ohristianity in 1871, when on a visit to the United States and Europe. 'fhe modesty, kindness, and faith- fulness of the missionary who acted as interpreter and guide made a deep impression upon his mind. Also the effect of Christianity as seen in the homes, schools, and benevolent institutions in America. And when in England he discovered that the larger part of the middle and upper classes, including such men as Mr. Gladstone, were sincere believers in Ohristianity, and their faith was in direct proportion to the nobility of their character. The result of his observations was that he came back to Japan filled with the idea that many and very important reforms 'Yere needed to secure the highest welfare of his countrymen, and with a true, patriotic, and self-sacrificing spirit he set about the introduction of a new and better state of things. In 1873 he and hi;;; friends started a political association, of which he was made the president, and through magazines, newspapers, and lectures he propagated his principles of reform. Missionaries and evangelists were welcomed to his province, and, together with some of his political friends, Mr. Kataoka began the study of Christianity. In May, 1885, he made a profession of his faith in Ohrist, and from the first took a decided and prominent position in religious matters.
Some time after his conversion he went to Tokyo with one of his friends to petition the government for freedom of speech and of the press and other important objects. Just at that time there was a regulation passed by the government excluding all men from his province from the capital except such as were permanent residents. Mr. Kataoka and his companion felt that the order was unjust, and r8fused to leave until they had accomplished the purpose of their visit. They were, therefore, arrested and imprisoned. 'fhis seemed at the time a most unfortunate affair, because Christians would consequently be accused of being unwilling to obey the laws of the country, and thus the wQrk would suffer.
But God overruled it all for the best. These two men were permitted to have a Bible, and the time spent in prison was devoted to a careful and prayerful study of God's holy word. Others were instructed in its truths; and when Mr. Kataoka and his companion were released, they came out thanking God that this season of freedom from the caros and duties of ordinary life had brought them such a ~ew and wonderful revelation of the riches of God's grace as revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Ohrist. From this time forth they have testified, as never before, of the joy and comfort that they experience in the study of the Scriptures and in daily communion with God.
In the course of time, the Liberal Party became the most po'werful political organization in the country. Mr. Kataoka has been the vicepresident for many years, and has steadily grown in the respect and esteem of the people of all classes. He has been a member of the
1£)00.] THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL IN HUNAN
House of Representatives at every session of the Diet since its first establishment, and a trusted and recognized leader. In the last three sessions he has filled the office of president.
There was some fear that in the important position which he was thus called to fill, he would be less zealous and faithful as a Christian. But the true and noble qualities of the man have shone forth as never before. Like Daniel in the court of a Persian monarch, he has not denied his Lord, but in the face of every obstacle, gone boldly forward in the path of duty.
At the close of the Diet, one year ago, he invited his Christian associates and other friends to the official residence for a prayer-meeting, and then announced publicly that he had not sought the office of president, but accepted it as a duty given him of the Lord; and he had gone forward trusting in Divine strength and guidance.
The great and continued confidence that has been shown in Mr. Kataoka's character and his continuance in such an important and honorable position, is most remarkable, and shows what a strong foothold the religion of Jesus Christ has gained in Japan.
THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL IN HUNAN.
BY RE,. GRIFFITH JOHN, V.D., HANKO"", CHINA.
Missionary of the London Missionary Society, 1855.
During the past ten years Hunan has drawn much attention to itself. The prayers offered up on its behalf have been innumerable. It almost looked at one time as if our prayers were never going to be answered; but, thank God, the time to favor Hunan has come, and the hearts of many are made glad.
Hunan is a noble province. Its area is about eighty-three thousand square miles, and its population is not less than twenty-one millions. Of the eighteen provinces, it is one of the richest-richest in mineral wealth, richest in navigable waters, richest in cultivated lands of exhaustless fertility. The area of the coal fields of Great Britain is estimated at twelve thousand square miles, and the aggregate area of alJ the coal fields of the principal coal-producing countries in Europe is given by Professor Astead at twenty thousand seven hundred and twenty square miles. Now that of Hunan is estimated at twenty-one thousand square miles; that is, the area of the coal fields of Hunan is somewhat larger than that of the whole of Europe, and nine thousand square miles larger than that of Great Britain. And the coal is of every kind and quality-lignite, anthracite, and bituminons. And this is not all. Side by side with these immense coal beds we have iron ore and iron stone in rich abundance and of the best quality. The province is rich also in timber and stone. All the
timber and granite stone used in the lower Yang-tse Valley comes from Hunan. It is also a well-watered province. Its four principal rivers are fine streams. In many parts the scenery is very fine. The valley of the Siang is exquisitely beautiful. It is now nearly twenty years since I visited it for the first time. I fell in love witb it then, and I have loved it ever since. At Heng-Shan you have the celebrated Nan-yoh, one of the sacred mountains of China, with its seventy-two peaks, ten famous caves, thirty-eight springs, and twenty-five streams. Thus Hunan is a little kingdom in itself, and a very rich one, too.
The Hunanese are looked upon as comparatively brave, manly, and straightforward. They have more c1;taracter than the people of this province (Hupeh). "Hupeh men," say the Hunanese, "are made of bean curd, but the Hunan men are made of iron." The suppression of the Tai-ping rebellion is to be ascribed principally to the skill and courage of the Hunan people. 'l'he great Tseng Kwo-fan, the deliverer of Nanking, the grand secretary '1'80, the conqueror of Cashgar, and Peng, the famous admiral of the Yang-tse, were all natives of Hunan. For many years Hunan men have been everywhere occupying the very highest positions as civil and military officers. There are living in the province itself a host of retired officers, many of whom are men of great influence on account of their past services to the state, as well as by reason of their high official rank.
PLACARDS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY.
All this has made the Hunanese proud, exclusive, and anti-foreign to a degree that is extraordinary even in China. This hatred of the foreign barbarian is a provincial characteristic. The gentry and scholars of the province have been looking on Hunan as the palladiu m of the empire; and the ultimate expulsion of the foreigner has been a fixed article in their creed. It has been a real grievance to them to see the foreigner showing his" impish head" inside their beautiful province, and it has been their fixed policy to so cmbitter the experiences of the intruder as to make a second visit impossible. The method of procedure has been generally something like this; As soon as the foreigner arrives at a place, placards are issued in great profusion by the gentry and scholars, in order to inflame the people and secure his immediate expulsion. Then an attack is made by the mob, and the unfortunate visitor has to make a rush to his boat and be off. 'rlie placards evince the intensest hatred. The charges brought against us are simply monstrous, and the language is often too vile for translation into any European tongue.
Christianity is represented as a system which aims at the subversion of all order and as the enemy of all virtue. The foreign teachers are denounced as perpetrators of the most unnatural crimes-crimes,
THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL IN HUNAN
as far as I know, that do not exist, except in Ohina. One of the placards obtained by me many years ago at Ohangteh opens thus: "The English rebels have their vile abode on the margin of the sea. Their ruler may be either man or woman. As to their species, they are half men half beasts. In the 'Book of the Hills' they are called Lo clwng (naked vermin), and in the language of Ohina, shih jen (mud fish)." Then the placard goes on to draw a frightful caricature of both the foreign devil and his religion. Another of the placards, taken down from the walls of the same city, reads thus: "From the creation of the world till now, what has given Ohina the headship on earth is her reverence for the orthodox doctrine (Oonfucianism). Where this is, there is preservation; where it is not, there is destruction. 'rhere never has been an instance of forsaking the orthodox doctrine and following the heretical which did not end in extermination. How much more must it be so when the conscience is annihilated, modesty banished, public morals corrupted, the fundamental principles of government demolished, and the cardinal relations of life brought to' an end, as is the case in what is called these days the foreign religion. The desire of the foreign dem'ls is to defile Ohina with their religion; and, because of this, there is not one among us, in whom a particle of a man's heart remains, who does not deeply hate them, and who does not feel that he can not stop till his hope for their complete extermination is gratified." The placard closes with the proposal that a band of men be engaged to waylay foreigners who may Tisit in the province, and to so treat them as to render it impossible that they should have the hardihood to return. "Moreover," says the placard, "a large number of men, in whom both skill and courage are combined, should be secretly engaged, and having been liberally supplied with traveling. expenses, they must be sent to patrol the water-courses and highways. Should they come across a foreign devil, they must act as may be most expedient in the circumstances, and rob him of his money, or strip him of his clothes, or deprive him of food, or cut off his ears or nose."
Exciting placards of this nature have been posted in every city in Hunan by the hundreds and thousands, Moreover, anonymous publications of a similar stamp have been scattered over the whole province by the millions, These publications have had for their authors' men of education, position, and rank. For many years the notorious Ohou-Han, a man holding high official rank, was at ,the head of the Hunan reptile press, and some of the vilest and most inflammatory of its publications are to be ascribed to him. The effect of such a crusade on the popular mind may be easily imagined. In course of time the people were brought to look upon the foreigner, and dread the foreigner, as a veritable incarnation of everything that is monstrous in nature and vile in morals, In my travels in Hunan I have met
with people who seemed much surprised to tind that, in spite of all they had heard to the contrary, we looked so much like human beings. "Why! they are just like onrselves; only their clothes are different." Such exclamations I have often heard.
DANGER OF TRAVEL IN Ht::NAN.
Till quite recently traveling in Hunan has been extremely trying, and not without danger. My first visit to the province was in 1880, my second was in 1883, and my third was in 1897. On these three journeys I had to encounter not a few obstacles and risks. On the first journey I had a narrow escape at Siang-tan, the largest mart in Hunan. Mr. John Archibald, of the National Bible Society of Scotland, was with me on this occasion. On our arrival at the place we went on shore, and at once began to preach anti distribute books. The people at first were quite quiet; and among them there were some who recognized me as a missionary whom they had seen and heard at Hankow. Presently certain officials came and requested us to return to our boat, and meet the authorities who were awaiting us on board one of the gunboats hard by. There was no alternative but to go and talk matters over with them. They tried to pursuade us not to go on shore again, as it might involve us in trouble and danger. Seeing that we were bent on going, they gave us their permission to do so, and promised protection if we would only wait till proper arrangements were made for our safety. For some time messengers kept flying to and fro between the gunboat and the yamen. At last our escort turned up, and I heard one of the messengers from the yarnen tell the officer in charge of the escort that, if we went 011 shore, he must see to it that when beaten we were not to be struck on the head. That. is, "Beat them as much as you like, but don't kill them." While waiting, and when everything seemed to be ready for the start, there was a sudden cry of fire, followed by a loud beating of fire gongs. We looked out and saw smoke and flames rising from the yard of a temple right in front of us. It turned out to be a mock fire, got up for the express purpose of drawing a crowd. 'The straw fire soon died down; but it brought together an immense concourse of people, who, finding that there was no fire to attend to, began to amuse themselves by cursing and pelting ns. The shouts, " Beat the f01'eign devils, kill the foreign devils," became uncomfortably frequent and loud. 'I'o avoi(l their missiles we pulled out and anchored in midstream; and, being now late in the afternoon, we told the officials in charge of us that we would defer our landing till to-morrow. They expressed themselves as highly pleased with this wise resolution of ours, and promised to be ready for us at an early hour on the following day. We then retired into the boat, hoping to spend a quiet night at Siang-tan. But it was not to be. Before t.he lapse of many minutes another tremendous
THE STORY OF THE GOi'P~L IN HUNAN
shout greeted our ears. We went out to see what it meant, and, to our unspeakable horror, we sa.w a big junk sweeping down upon us, filled with buckets containing unmentionable filth, and with men well armed with long handled ladles. It was not difficult to take in the situation. It was their intention to pour this. filth into our boat, and dose us with it as well, this being one of the methods prescribed by the Hunan scholars and gentry to keep foreigners out of the province. That was an enemy with which we could not fight; so without a second thought we got up anchor and sail, and hurried away as fast as the wind and current could take us.
On my second journey I was again accompanied by Mr. Archibald, and we passed through some bitter experiences at Yochow and Lungyang. Everything went well with ns while traveling in Hupeh; but the moment we stepped. into Hunan a great change took place. On our arri val at Yochow we were made to feel that we were in another world, and that we had to deal with elements very much less controllable than those which we had left behind us in Hupeh. We preached and sold books in the suburbs without much difficulty; but no sooner did we enter the city than the cries beat and kill began to rend the air. The pelting soon followed, and we were compelled to beat a quick retreat. We left Yochow at once, crossed the lake, and reached Lung-yang late on the following day.
Early on the following morning we went on shore and began our work of preaching and book distributing. For an hour or so everything went" on very smoothly, and I thought that I had never seen a people more inoffensive than the citizens of Lung-yang. But the placards began to make their appearance, denouncing the foreign barbarians, and calling upon the people to rise en masse and cast them out of the city. Soon an immense crowd gathered around us and was becoming every moment more and more excited. There was nothing for us now but to go and see the magistrate. We went in search of the yamen, and with the help of the children who were following in the crowd behind us, we managed to find it. The grown up people, some from fear and some from spite, positively refused to give us any help in the matter. At the yarnen an attempt was made to keep us out, ana, having got in, another attempt was made to persuade us to leave without seeing the magi:strate. After long waiting and much useless quibbling on the part of the underling, we were introduced to the great man. We were not with him many minutes before we discovered that the placards had been written in the yarnen itself, and that the men who carried them about the city and posted them on the city walls and gates, were yarnen runners. The entire plot had been hatched in the yarnen by the gentry, with the magistrate himself at their head. Very soon the large square in fron t of the yamen became crowded with an excited mob. The gentry and the magistrate had
succeeded in rousing the fears and rage of the people to a pitch which no ordinary method could control. The one question now was how to get back to our boat and away from the place without further molestation. Tht? magistrate himself felt the gravity of the situation and sent for a detachment of braves from a camp hard by to escort us to our boat. We owe it to those men that we reached the boat without being seriously injured, perhaps murdered. Even with this strong guard we escaped with difficulty. One fellow, a perfect cutthroat in appearance, made a rush at me in the street and would have prostrated me but for the intervention of the braves in charge. He had a stout iron bar in his right hand, and this he tried to bring down on my head twice. The braves, however, were on the alert, and the blows were warded off. The boat was reached at last, and we left at once. Any attempt at delay would have led to an assault on the boat, and that would have landed us in inextricable difficulties.
My third visit was full of incident and strange experiences. I had for my traveling companion the Rev. C. G. Sparham, one of my colleagues in the Hankow mission. Our main object in going to Hunan this time was to visit a group of Christians at Hengchow, a large and important city in the Siang valley, and distant from Hankow about 460 English miles. Some years since, a young man, named Wang Lien-King, was baptized at Hankow. He was at the time in the employ of a Hunan official residing at this place. Soon after his baptism, the choice of renouncing his faith in Christ, or giving up his situation, was placed before him. Without a moment's hesitation he chose the latter, and returned to his native home at Hengchow. There, as a self-supporting evangelist, Mr. Wang began at once to work for God, and the result was the ingathering of an interesting band of Christians in this, the most anti-Christian province in the empire. Such was the beginning of the L. M. S. work in Hunan; and our chief aim in visiting Hunan on this occasion was to see this work and help it on.
We hoped that we might be permitted to enter Changsha, the provincial capital, on our way to Hengchow; but that wa'S a mere hope, and we built nothing upon it. With regard to Hengchow, we had no doubt whatever as to the heartiness of the reception awaiting us there. One of the chief gentry of the place, a s9n of a late governor of Canton, and a man of considerable wealth and inflnence, h&d sent me a cordial invitation to come and visit him, and went so far as to say that he would be glad to have me as his guest during my stay at Hengchow. As we drew near the city onr hearts throbbed with high hopes and glowing visions. We were going to a place prepared for us, as we thought. With the people we were going to have pleasant times, and delightful intercourse with the converts. We had no apprehension of a repulse at Hengchow. Imagine, then, our disap-
THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL IN HUNAN
pointment when on our arrival we found a large crowd of"ruffians standing on the left bank of the river, all armed with stones and mud, and waiting our approach. No sooner did we come within the reach of their missiles than the cursing and pelting began. We hastened to cross the river, and made for the anchorage in the immediate viciuity of the Bible depot, where several gunboats were stationed, and under whose protection we wished to place ourselves. We sent our cards to the naval officer in charge oE the gunboats, and hoped that he would give us the necessary help. He, however, took but little notice of us. He sent 011e of his gunboats to anchor alongside our boat, but he declined to pay us a visit, or send his card even. Then we knew that mischief was brewing. Nevertheless we had a quiet night. Early next morning the gunboats moved off, and the space between the shore and ourselves was cleared for action. Then the hooting and pelting began. For hours the stones kept descending on the roof of our boat like hail. Crash went the window-glass, and for a time it looked as if the boat itself was about to be smashed up. The depot was attacked and looted. Books, clothes, and furniture were all stolen. All this was going on in the presence of the magistrate, but he did not interfere. A number of soldiers were on shore when the raiding and the pelting were going on, but they did nothing to prevent either the one or the other. It was my impression that they were acting as instigators all the time.
THE CmIING OF THE CRISIS.
Matters were now hastening to a crisis, and we felt that a decisive step must be taken at once. We had to think of the safety of our cOllverts as well as of our own. So, addressing ourselves to the naval officer, we said: "Can you, or can you not, protect us? If you can, do so, and put a stop to this dangerous pelting. If you can not, please eall a gunboat, and have us escorted down the river." "I can not protect you here," was the reply, "but I will give yon two gunboats to take you as far as Siangtan." He thereupon gave his orders, and in less than five minutes we found ourselves between two gunboats moving down the stream. Now for an interesting story. On our arrival at Hengchow several of the converts came to see us, and we were told by their leader, Mr. Wang Lien-King, that there were between twenty and thirty candidates waiting for baptism at the place.
We felt that we could not return to Hankow without seeing something more of these neophytes. Having drifted down the stream about two miles, we ordered a halt for the night. Some of the can·· didates were with us on board at the time, and others soon followed. The question of their baptism came up, and it was soon found that it could be solved only iI]. one way. They begged us to baptize them.
We called their attention to the circumstances in which they and ourselves were placed, and suggested delay. "You see," we said, "that we can not protect you in the event of difficulties springing up. We are driven out of the place, and are helpless to protect ourselves. What could we do for you should an attack be made on you? Had you not better wait a while and seriously count the cost before taking this important step?" "We have waited long," was the reply, "and can not wait any more. We can not allow you to return without baptizing us. We are not afraid of the consequences. Please administer to us the rite of baptism, and admit us into your fellowship." After some consultation with each other, we resolved to comply with their wishes. We examined them carefully, and were delighted to find how well they had been taught by Mr. Wang. We could not but feel that it was a brave thing on their part to identify themselves with us in the circumstances in which we were then placed. The examination over, we had a service, at which Mr. Sparham and myself preached, and at the close of which the rite of baptism was administered to thirteen men. Under the circumstances, nothing could be done for the female converts. To allow them to come on board the boat would have been suicidal, and to visit them at their homes was out of the question. Had we been allowed to remain at Hengchow a few days, the accessions would have been larger.
It was to us joy unspeakable to admit these thirteen into our communion. There were at the time a goodly number of Hunan men connected with us as church members, who had been baptized at Hankow and elsewhere. But these thirteen were, so far as I know, the first baptisms witnessed in Hunan itself. That day, the 6th of April, 1897, I shall never forget. And the service held on board our boat that night I can never forget. It was a glorious ending to a very stormy day. If there has evcr been a Bethel on earth, our boat was a Bethel that night.
This ends the period of trial so far as my experiences in Hunan are concerned. Last year I paid two visits to Hunan, one in the spring and one in the autumn. On the first I was accompanied by my colleagues, Messrs. Sparham and Greig, and on the second by Mr. Greig only. Soon after our expulsion from Hengchow, we sent Mr. Peng Lan-Seng, one of our helpers at Hankow, and a native of Ohangsha, to that place to look after the converts whom we had left behind. Our main object in visiting Hunan in the spring was to inspect Mr. Peng's work, and to do what lay in our power to help it on. The accounts which had reached us of the work were so glowing, that I thought it best to say nothing about it till I had seen it with my own eyes. Well, I saw it, and I can truly say, that the picture drawn by Mr. Peng was not an exaggerated one; on the contrary, the reality exceeded our most sanguine expectations. We found ourselves, not-
1900·1 THE RTORY OF THE GOSPEL IN HUNAN
withstanding all that had been said, not prepared for what we saw and heard.
'rhe journey itself was in every way a remarkable one. The round trip was 1,076 English miles. We traveled 926 miles by water and 150 by land. From first to last we were treated with the greatest courtesy and consideration by the local officials. They did all in their power to protect us and make the visit a pleasant one to us. For this we are mainly indebted to Chang Chih-Tung, the viceroy of Hupeh and Hunan, and to Pelham L. Warren Gage, H. 13. M.'s consul at lIankow. But for the kindness of the British consul in bringing the case before the viceroy, and the stringent orders of the viceroy to the Hunan officials with regard to our safety and comfort, the journey would have been a very different one. The local officials were all attention everywhere, and always, and consequently the people were perfectly quiet and inoffensive. We visited many cities and towns, and preached to thousands of people. Some of the congregations were very large, and the rowdy element was not always absent. But we encountered no persecution allywhere, nor even trials of any kind.
This was my fourth visit to Hunan, but the first on which I was not made to feel that my life was in danger. The friendly bearing of the officials toward us will account for the change. In China, the eyes of the people are on the officials, and their conduct toward us depends on what they suppose to be the mind and policy of the officials with regard to us. On this occasion there was no mistaking of the official mind, and hence the friendly attitude of the people. The warm-heartedness ana unfeigned kindness of the converts made the journey a very pleasant one to us. The Christians everywhere gave us a right royal reception. Their fearlessness and generosity struck us as something remarkable, and made a deep impression on our minds. The multitude of inquirers also astonished us, and the manly character and bearing of many of them filled our heart with gratitude and hope. Not a few of them reminded us not so much of the neophyte as of the'tried and experienced Christian.
The admission of so many Hunanese to church and fellowship added a deep interest to the journey. There were baptized in all19;~ persons, of whom 1'73 were adult believers. We might have baptized hundreds more, for there were many hundreds of candidates at the various stations waiting our coming. It seemed to us, however, that we could not be too careful in regard to this matter at this initial stage of the work in Hunan. The 173 adult believers were admitted only after very careful examination, and may be regarded as the very pick of the candidates who came before us.
Another event of deep interest to us was the setting apart of six evangelists for six of the most important stations. All these men had been actively engaged in Christian work for some time, but it was on this occasion they were formally set apart for the office.
One of the most important events connected with the journey was the procuring of a house at Changsha, the provincial capital for missionary purposes. No foreigner has ever held property in Changsha
till now. Even the Roman Catholics have not succeeded in gailJing a footing there. We, however, have succeeded; and we have done so with the cognizance and permission of the local authorities. But this is not all. We succeeded, also, in purchasing a house at Siangtan, the lat'gest and most important commercial center in Hunan-the place from which Mr. Archibald and myself were so ignominously driven away in 1880. Few things on this visit gave us greater joy than the securing of a house in Siangtan. It was the next thing ill point of il1lportance to procuring a house in Changsha. I may add that we have now a goodly group of believers meeting regularly for worship in the Siangtan house.
It was, as I have already stated, on Tuesday, April 6, 1897, that Mr. Sparham and myself were pelted out of Hengchow by a furious mob. 'fhat was a dark dav. Little did we think then that it would be our privilege to see, within so short a time, what we saw on this journey. That repulse looked at the time like a failure; but we know now that it was not a failure, but a link, and a very important link, in the chain of events which has led up to the present state of things in Hunan.
In the autumn of last year I paid my fifth visit to Hunan. I was accompanied by my colleague, Mr. Greig. Our object in visiting the province this time was to purchase land and houses at Yochow, with the view of establishing a station there in connection with the London Missionary Society. I have already spoken of my tl'lals at Yochow in 1883. Other missionaries have visited Yochow since that date. and all have had but one tale to tell. One brothel' was stoned to the river brink, and managed to escape only by rushing into the stream and swimming t.o his boat. In the past Yochow was looked upon as one of the most anti-foreign, anti-Christian cities in Hunan. All this is now changed; and so great is the change that I found it almost impossible on this visit to realize that the Yochow of to-day could be the same place as the Yochow of former days. When walking through the streets of the city I often stood still and asked myself : ., Can this be Yochow?" I founa it difficult to believe my eyes and ears. It seemed too good to be true! '1'he magistrates gave us a most cordial reception, and the people could not have behaved themselves better than they did. No stones were thrown after us, no opprobrious epithets were hurled at us, and no black looks were to be seen anywhere. We walked about in every direction, both inside and ou tside the city, and found the people perfectly friendly. As to houses and land, we found the people not only willing, but extremely anxious to sell. More than twenty offers were definitely made, and we went to see more than ten. It was difficult to make a choice in the midst of so many offers, but we succeeded at last in fixing on one of the best sites in the place. The deeds were taken to the district magistrate to be stamped, and he not only stamped them. but did so without charging the usual x/amen fees, in oraer, as his grandson told us, to show his good feelings toward us. He also issued a very satisfactory proclamation, explaining the object of our coming, and calling on the people to treat us with consideration and respect. Such was my experience at Yochow on this, my last visit. J Ileed not add that I returned to Hankow with a heart overflowing with gratitude and praise.
Mr. Peng Lan-Seng was left behind at Yochow to superintend the
THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL lN HUNAN
work that had to be done on the houses just bought, in order to fit them for the use of the mission. As soon as they were ready, our two missionaries, Mr. Greig and Dr. Peake, left Hankow for Yochow, in order to commence work there. Now that we are in possession of Yochow, we shall have no difficulty in working the whole of the Siang Valley. Yochow is an important place in itself, and will make an attractive mission station. But it is also the key to the whole of Hunan, and especially to the cities on the Siang, the sphere of the L. M. S. in the province. Our Hunan missionaries will find at Yochow a quiet home and a safe retreat, should there be any trouble, or fear of trouble, in the more inland cities. We might have begun at Hengchow, but the risk of temporary failure would have been greater. At Yochow there is not now, as far as I can see, any risk at all. It will be as easy and pleasant to carryon work there as it is ·here at Hallkow.
Just a word, in conclusion, on the present aspect of the work in Hunan. In the south of Hunan, on the Canton border, in the Lin-wa district, the American Presbyterian Mission has a station. In the east of Hunan, on the Kiangsi border, in the Cha-ling district, the China Inland Mission has a station. At Chang-teh, in the west, the Alliance Mission, the Cumberland Mission, and the China Inland Mission all have stations. The work of the London Missionary Society lies mainly in the Siang Valley. It has already extended into nine counties, or districts, and in these counties there are seven central mission stations, and fifteen branch stations. We have taken possession of, and are holding property in seven walled cities. There are in all twenty-three places of worship, of which six have been provided by the society and seventeen by the converts themselves. Of the seventeen provided by the converts, four are rented houses, and thirteen are houses actually made over to the society, and for which we hold title deeds officially stamped. At and around the various mission stations, there are about two hundred baptized Christians and about two thousand inquirers. Over all this work there are at present two foreign missionaries and seven paid native evangelists. Among the evangelists the most promising is Mr. Peng Lan-Seng, who during the past three years has proved himself to be a real apostle to his people. His whole soul is in the mission, and all his energies are given to it. He has been working in season and out of season, and his abundant labors have been wonderfully blessed. He is greatly respected by the officials and the people, and his influence over the converts is very great. His fellow-workers find in him a strong man and a safe guide.
Such is the present aspect of the work in Hunan. As for myself, I find it impossible to think of it without asking with wonder and gratitude, what hath God wrought?
P. S.-I am rejoiced to find that the American Presbyterian Board is about to commence work at Siang-tan, in the Siang Valley. There is abundant room there for both missions. But I am surprised to see that the board speaks of Hunan as "a province strangely neglected by all the great missionary societies." 'fhe board is evidently behind the age in its information with respect to the past history of Hunan, and the amount of work that has been actually attempted and accomplished there by the societies in Central China. This letter may help the board to a better understanding of the state of things in Hunan, both in these days as well as in the days gone by.
THE PRIKCIPLE THAT UNDERLIES VICTORY.* ILLUSTRATED FROM THE STORY OF UGANDA.
BY EUGENE STOCK, ESQ.
Editorial Secretary of the Church Missionary Society.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It has occurred to me that it might be helpful and encouraging to our dear missionaries, at whose feet I am most thankful to sit when I get a chance, if I were to remind them and those here with us, who have not the great honor of being mission1 aries ourselves, first of the great principle invol ved ill the cause, and to illustrate that principle by the consideration of a particular mission field that I have been fairly familiar with.
Now you will remember, perhaps, that on a certain Tuesday, the Tuesday before the day which some of us call Good Friday, that Jesus Christ was in the temple at Jerusalem, being catechized by the Sadducees and- Herodians. That it was on the Tuesday I will not stop to show. It was on this day that he uttered the striking sentence which is in the 12th Chapter of John,23d verse. Now for the first time he says, "The hour is come." What led to his saying that? It appears that just before that, certain Greeks had come to Jerusalem inquiring the way to God, as taught by this Galilean teacher, and they come to one of the disciples, Philip and Andrew, and say, "Sir, we would see Jesus," and Jesus answering them (Philip and Andrew), says: "The hour is come that the Son of Man shall be glorified." One could imagine that the intelligence of the Gentiles coming anq wishing to see Him, was the vision of the great heathen world as it shall come to Him, and that is the glorification of the Son of Man. But they heard these words with misunderstanding. Some of them were looking out, as yon will remember, for an earthly kingdom, and some came and asked that they might have the best seats, one on" the right and the other on the left. When they hear this, " The hour is come," did they think He was going to sweep away the great Roman city and start the Kingdom on earth anew? He went on and said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much frnit." Yon know it was just the indication that suffering would come to Him before victory; that humiliation was to come before triumph; that death was to come before life; that the cross was to come before the crown. He went on presently, and after some little fnrther utterance, we come upon this: "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." But He was referring evidently to the double meaning-humiliation and triumph. To me, dear friends, is enumerated the great principle of missions, the great principle for which * Stenographer's report of an address delivered by Eugene Stock, Esq., be~ore the Inter- national Missionary Union, in the Tabernacle, Clifton Springs, N. Y., June 4, 1900.
THE PRINCIPLE THAT UNDERLIES VICTORY
Christians love and work, and may we take it home to ourselves that death must corne before life, humiliation must corne before triumph, suffering before tru th, cross before crown. If we are to truly live we are to die first. I say that is the great principle in missions, and I have no doubt whatever that many missionaries will agree with me in this statement.
In the year that Queen Victoria carne to the throne in England there was a young German, Louis Krapf, who after some years of struggling and suffering in Abyssinia, found his way to a place absolutely unknown at that time, on the east coast of Africa, and fixed upon this place as a place to begin pioneer work on that side of the Dark Oontinent. The trade of this country was entirely in the hands of the Arabians, and Europeans knew nothing at all about it. In the year 1851 the President of the Royal Geographical Society stated that Africa, with the exception of the coast line, was a blank on the map. This young German was the first man to begin the discoveries, and how did he begin? My dear friends, he began by digging a grave, and" except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it bringeth not forth fruit." His young wife was taken ill and died there by his side on the islet, and her body was carried across in a little boat to the mainland, and there she was buried on the rising land of the mainland. Krapf wrote this message to the missionaries: "Tell our friends at home that they have now a Christian grave in East Africa, and as the victory of the Ohurch is gained by stepping <aver the graves of her members, you are now sure that you are summoned to evangelize Africa from its east side." And then he says in his letter how the heart and body wept for many months. Another year three more were sent, and that three made journeys, studying the language, and trying to get at the interior geography, and tried to get at the different tongnes, of which there are any amount. At length Krapf came to England with a great proposition, that he should have an expedition (md walk across Africa. Six or &even men were told off as the ones to do that. I was present myself, as a boy, on the 2d of January, 1851, and said goodby. But the expedition ended in despair. Krapf was lost in Africa, narrowly escaping with his life, and he said: "I see now that the resurrection of Africa is to be accomplished by our death." He went on with his inquiries, and by and by one of his companions, with his help, constructed a map from the information they had gathered from the expedition, showing that the interior was not a desert, but that there were many sheets of water there. One of them is the second largest lake in the world. Your Lake Superior is the largest, and this is second. The map was sent to England, copied on a large scale, and hung up in the geographical rooms of the society, and the result was that another expedition was sent out, and they visited this very lake and other lakes in the interim, and they named that I"ake Victoria NyamaL.
"But," say some friends, "where was Livingstone all this time?" Livingstone did not go out until afterward, and he was many years laboring in search of Krapf. Others went to Africa on exploring tours, and the cause of missions almost died out. Krapf came home sick, and went to Germany, where he died, and his companion remained twenty-nine years and never came home, and nothing was done for many years.
Then this great principle was illustrated. Livingstone died and Livingstone's death accomplished for Africa what his life never did or could have done. The grain of wheat fell. In fact the world woke up when Livingstone died and said, "We must do something for Africa," and the awaking that took place when that great man's death was heard of was remarkable. I remember very well hearing the black boy, who was with him at his death, give the account. He had been trained at the Church Missionary Society school and he was one of the party of attendants who were with Livingstone when he died. He came home with the body, and when he was able to tell all that had happened he told how he had taken the little prayer-book from the doctor's pocket and read it over the little grave in which were placed the heart and other parts of Livingstone's body, and then, having done what was necessary, they fired a salute over the grave. Those faithful lads carried that body through hostile tribes aud countries; then when it got to England it was identified with the particular bite of a lion, and his remains were placed in Westminster Abbey. Take it home to your hearts, dear friends, that when death comes, if it is true death, life will follow, and when we hear of the dear brothers in Ohina who lay down their lives, be sure there is going to be a blessing presently. You will remember that Stanley went out a second time after Livingstone's death, and visited Uganda on the north side of that lake, and from there he sent home a letter challenging Ohristendom to send missionaries to a most interesting and intelligent people to be met with in the Dark Oontinent. "And now then, gentlemen of the missionary societies, are you going to send missionaries here?" Within two days the Ohurch Missionary Society was offered two gifts amounting to $50,000 to send missionaries there, and a large number of persons applied, as might be expected in such a case, but out of that large numbet· eight were chosen, one of whom has been speaking in the cities of your states and is at present in Virginia, Mr. Wilson, and one was Alexalider Mackay; there were others. Within fifteen months of their starting there were only two left, the others were dead or had returned home sick. There is the principle again. Wilson after two months was left alone in the heart of Africa, Mackay haviug been sent back to the coast, and he was alone with no European within 1,000 miles. He is a very gentle Ohristian man, but he is a man who can stand hard knocks. He had been the
THE PRINCIPLE THAT UNDERLIES VICTORY
first man to preach at Uganda. The history of the mission for the next few years was full of interest and with many disappointments, and apparently again and again collapsed. I have seen respected ministers and laymen in our board rooms in London rise up and say, "Why don't you give up this mad enterprise? Surely we must send to withdraw these men, the whole thing is a mistake." But God had his purpose. He sitteth in the heaven above, and whatever differences we may have His plans stand.
In the meantime a settlement for rescued slaves had been started close to the town of Monangese, at which place Krapf had gone to work thirty odd years before; and when the piece of land was pur- chased upon which this rescued slave settlement was to be established, it was found that within that area lay the grave of Mrs. Krapf, and it was literally true that there was seed-grain in the earth, and where she died, on the very spot, you may see the largest congregation in East Africa, of rescued slaves worshiping God, and suffering and laying down their lives for Him and His cause. But to return to the interior mission. In due time a very interesting man went to the interior to reenforce, and his name was James Hannington. I knew Mr. Hannington well, and a more true-hearted, able-bodied man never walked this earth. He went ou t; was taken sick after marching about one hundred miles, and he had to return to England. The doctors said, " Never can you return to Africa." He went to another doctor, and you know doctors differ sometimes, and was told he could go back. He went this time as a bishop, and upon his approach to the borders of Uganda that event occurred which has had so much influ~ ence on the Christian world; he was cruelly murdered by order of the young king. His diary of his last few days, written up apparently to the very hour of his death, and the photographs afterward pll blished, touched the heart of England as very few things have done. A remarkable result has occurred, I may say, in the pUblication of his memoirs. Mission books were a drug on the market of England. There was no market for mission books at all, but the life of Bishop Hannington had so large a sale that now every publisher is glad to get mission books. This goes to show how God is working to bring life out of death. Well then, the king having put Hannington to death, turned upon the converts-at least, after each period, there were a few converts-and three lads were seized and roasted alive, and Alex. Mackay wrote that on their way to execution they sang a hymn to a translation which was sent home to us, and Mr. Ashe came home afterward and sang it to us. It is a tune I do not think you know. He walked across my drawing-room and played it upon my sister's piano.
r have never heard it since until a few weeks ago, when I was in a Sunday-school in Philadelphia, and they sang that tune. I inquired about it, and found it was not in the book that was being used by
them. This same king put to death two hundred Christians not long afterward. Another bishop went out and died on the bank of that great lake of fever.
A day came in 1890 when Alexander Mackay in desperation wrote for more laborers. He was- there with only two others and they were two hundred miles away from him. I wrote to him myself saying, "Will you come home to England?" And in June, 1890, he sat down and wrote a letter to me. "What is this you say? is it the time to desert one's post? Send me twenty men and then I will come home nnu help you find another twenty." But the Lord needed Mackay for Iris purpose and his death was to be used, for he died within three weeks after writing that letter. He never knew it, but at the time there was a party being made up in London, one of whom was George Pilkington, who devoted himself body, soul, and spirit to this work; and, I may say here, that the preparatory work began by those who had gone before, began to show up. And now to make a long story short, what do you see now? You see in that country of Uganda twenty-fi ve thousand baptized Christians; you see probably another one thousand who read in their Bibles. You find the translation of the Bible made by Mackay and his companions. You will find five hundred buildings, almost, in that country, and everyone of them put up with not one cent sent from England or American missionaries; you will find one thousand five hun-dred native evangelists, not one of them supported by England or America, but all supported by the Christians themselves; and these are not only going up and down the country preaching the 'Woru, but also going out into regions beyond Uganda. Ah, dear friends, there is one more thing I think you will see, and that is this: that this has been a very profitable commencement, and you see the great principle illustrated all through this early period of Uganda. But I am going to illustrate it in another way. What I am going to say is a very solemn thing. I simply giye it to you as a report, as a statement of fact. Five or seven years ago, I think, the missionaries were not quite happy; they had a good many converts, then churches were being built, schools were being prepared, but yet somehow or other they had a feeling that there was a great dissatisfaction and they began to tremble as to what the result would be. One day George Pilkington, while visiting some islands near by, and while being paddled in his canoe, was reading a book written by one of the native'evangelists who knew English, and this little book revealed-or rather the will of the Holy Ghost revealed to Pilkington's heart that there was a higher blessing to be had and that he might be filled with the Holy Spirit as never before, and that perhaps was the secret of dissatisfaction. He went back where his fellows were and he told them what he had felt, and then they went and prayed together, and they pmyed earnestly and fervently that the Lord would show
THE PRINCIPLE THAT UNDERLIES VICTORY
them their shortcomings, and the next morning at the great service, at which two or three thousand people would come, they came and told the people that they realized that they had not been living such holy lives, and had not been filled with the Spirit as they might have been, and they asked the converts pardon for coming to them without that fulness of the Savior. The result of it was a great revival among the native Christians. We did not believe it at first, but when Pil- kington and Baskerville came to England the great truth dawned upon us and we thanked God for his goodness. In"C"ganda there was a joy unknown in the forgiveness of sins, in the love of Christ, such as never came to that people before, and they found for the first time what a mighty power there was in God. 'rhere had been a death of human ideas and dissatisfaction-I can find no better word-and from that day the Word of God has gone all over the land.
Now let me say one word of caution in closing, and that is simply this, dear friends. Bear in mind that whenever there is a great move- ment or movements toward Christianity, there must be a large amount of nominal Christianity in it. It is sure to result that the nucleus of true Christianity carries with it a mass of secondary Christianity, and there are things to mourn over, and then the world notices that.
There must be tares and wheat, and when we hear of a successful mis- sion you may depend upon it that unless we pray and work Satan will be there.
I will give you one more illustration before I close, and that is this. When I was in Australia a few years ago, I went to see a lady to whom I had a letter of introduction. I did not know anythiug about her, but I went to Bee her, and I was shown into the parlor, and presently a young lady came in and took me to where her aunt was in bed, and she told me how her aunt had been an invalid for twenty- three years. Her aunt told me that she had been one of eleven brothers and sisters, ten of whom were all strong and healthy, but they all were dead except her. She said, "Mr. Stock, the Lord wants me, I am His remembrancer, and I am kept alive." She told me that her niece would procure all the missionary journals and read them aloud to her, and as they would come to a certain part where there was need, she would say, " Stop a moment, my dear," and then pray for a blessing upon the place or person she had just heard about. I can only say, dear friends, I felt as if for a moment the veil that hides the invisible God was withdrawn. It is not in our great gatherings in London or New York; it is not in our great organizations, it is in the quiet silent prayers of God's people that blessing will come, and therefore when you hear of these missions that we all pray for, remember, dear friends, that tho we stay home in the ordinary humble life of love, our prayers may be the means of bringing this or that soul into the Kingdom. We may not see it now, but in the future perhaps Paul or the Angel Gabriel in our heavenly home may come and say to you, " Allow me to introduce this Chinaman, this Hindu, this Japanese, or this Arab, whom your prayers have brought to the Lord."
"INNER MISSIONS" OF THE CHURCH OF GERMANY.
BY REV. PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, O.
'['he Protestant Church of Germany has recently celebrated the semi-centennial of the inauguration of that many-sided and extensive activity of Christian love, commonly known in the Fatherland as " Inner Missions." It is fifty years since Wichern, of the Raue Haus, in Hamburg, recognized by all hands as the" Father of Inner Missions," at the great church convention at Wittenberg, from Luther's pulpit, sent out his herald's cry that" Saving love must become for the Church the great instrument through which to give proof of her faith." Some months later he published his" Appeal to the German Nation," and through these measures, and his unbounded enthusiasm, was begun and organized a work of love for the neglected and lost that in magnitude and systematic operation can not be paralleled anywhere.
"Inner Missions" is not the same as" home missions." It includes this latter, but embraces vastly more. It is a work that aims in the name of Christian love to take care of the maimed, the halt, and the blind, physically, mentally, and spiritually, and thus to make Christianity and Christian principles the controlling factor aud force in the care of those who can not or'will not care for themselves. Not as tho the German state 'had neglected to take care of its work, but Iuner Missions aim to do all this from the standpoint of positive and evangelical Christianity, and not as a matter of secular concern. It purposes not to antagonize or undo what the civil authorities may have done for the unfortunates and the violators of public order, but rather to supplement this work and to enlarge it in such a way that permanent good results may be achieved, and that the progress of evil and misfortune through the establishment of Christian convictions may be hemmed in and prevented. In Germany, officially, everybody is born into the church, and it is comparatively rare that people claim to be neither Protestant, Catholic, or Jew. But countless thousands of these nominal adherents are in reality estranged from Christianity, and the church having a claim upon them aims, through its Inner Mission work, not only to win them for active church membership, as, e. g., is done through the great city mission societies in Berlin and elsewhere, through t.he sermon distribution, which disposes of fully 120,000 evangelical sermons every week among those who can not attend Divine service, but especially by active Christian work to regain the unfortunate lost, and thus to make Christianity the leading power in the life of the nation. This is the ideal which it is aimed to realize.
Inner Missions did not start out from, nor does it as yet possess, a
"INNER MISSIONS" OF THE CHURCH OF GERMANY
fixed program of its spheres of operation and its various works. It made use of whatever beginnings it found, as was the case in regard to the institution of deaconesses, and added to its fields whenever opportunity presented itself, doing whatever it could wherever the needs of the hour called for its endeavors and wherever the Lord opened a door. Its operations have no connection whatever with the state churches or with the officials of the state churches. It is entirely a voluntary organization, the membership of the various branches and departments consisting of those whose love for the work has prompted them to offer their hand and their heart and means for the thorough Christianization of the masses. In all kinds and phases of Gospel work, other than providing for the immediate church wants of the people, the German church authorities do nothing, leaving it to the promptings of Christian charity to engage in mission work, both foreign and home and otherwise. In judging of the credit to be given to the German churches for their activity this feature should not be lost sight of, that all things there are the result of volunteer promptings of Christian conviction. Inner Mission work is thoroughly organized, territorially and otherwise, the head management being in the hands of a central committee, at the head of which is always found some prominent Protestant leader, either clerical or lay. Wichern himself held for a number of years this office. The present incumbent is a layman, namely, Councillor R. Goebel, the head of the Imperial Insurance Department of the German Government. Congresses or conventions are regularly held, at which the leading theologians and churchmen are present. The famous court preacher, Stocker, has long since been a power in these assemblies, and among the participants are generally the chief conservative theological teachers of a number of the universities. Regular courses of instruction are given in the various branches for those who want to devote their life to this task, these courses having last year been given in Berlin, Breslau, and Stettin. There exists already a pension fund for those who have grown old and poor in the service.
Some idea of the progress during these fifty years can be gained from the summary published by Pastor R. Schneider, in the" Theo- Iogisches Jahrbuch," for 1899, where (page 327) he says: What a work has been done and how it has developed! In 1848 there were 200 deaconesses in connection witb the German churches, and now there are 16,000; then there were 48 Rettungshause1', now there are 343; then scarcely any young men's associations, now there are 1,700, with a membership of 85,000; then no Herbergen, now there are 460; then no city missionary, now 50 in Berlin alone; then no Christian press for the people, now 1,500,000 copies of religious papers issued every Lord's Day, etc.
Probably the clearest idea of the character and activity of the
Inner Mission enterprise can be gained from a bird's-eye view of the various fields of operation, giving these in the historical order: 1. Deaconesses. The revival of the apostolic order of deaconesses is not primarily to be credited to the Inner Mission movement, but the latter has made this revinl what it actually is at present. It was Pastor Fliedner, of Kaiserswerth, the father of Pastor Fritz Fliedner, who for a generation has been the leading Protestant missionary in Spain, to whom this revival must be credited. But in accordance with the program of the Inner Mission worker, they made use of whatever they found at hand for their purposes, and expanded it to the fullest extent. It has been chiefly through them that the deaconess movement has become practically international, as far as the Protestant world is concerned; that mother, or training, houses have been established throughout Protestantism; that over against the unevangelical principles that obtain in the Roman Catholic system of nuns, truly evangelical methods and manners prevail in the Protestant order, and that untold blessings 'have emanated from the activity of these sisters. According to the latest reports there are eighty mother houses in connection with the Kaiserswerth Association of Deaconesses, found chiefly in Germany, but a goodly number also in other lands, nearly 29, with 13,309 sisters in all, working in 4,745 fields of operation, of whom 2,764 are in nOll-German countries. In addition there are about 800 sisters not in connection with the Kaiserswerth Association, making a total of about 16,000. In other words, there are nearly half as many Protestant deaconesses in Germany as there are Catholic nuns, and it is even more common to see the deacolless' garb on the streets and in public places than the Ilun's uniform. The work of the deaconesses is varied. Much of it is given to hospitals and charity, under proper authorities, to education and the like. Many of the large congregations employ one or more deaconesses to aid the pastor in his work among the poor. They are called upon to act as nurses among both rich and poor, and their work is exceedingly popular and very much appreciated, also by non-church people. As a nile, the deaconesses are finely-educated women, coming from the best of families; many of them are titled, and, in fact, it is not at all nncommon to find itoble men and noble women, of ancient and influential families, engaged in this and other kinds of churCh work in Germany, where Christianity has a strong hold on the upper classes.
Thirty-four of the deaconesses' mother houses are connected with the order of St. John, the historical association that takes a particular interest in caring for the wounded in battle.
The order of the male deacons has not been so fully developed, but, nevertheless, there are 43 brother houses in Germany, with 2,000 deacons, who are particularly engaged in the care of those kinds of invalids, such as epileptics and the insane, who can not, for physical
reasons, be entrusted to women. In addition they are used as heads of various institutions, where good executive qualities are in demand.
WORK FOR TH E POOR.
2. Rettungshiiuser. Under this head are to be included a vast variety of institutions of many kinds, the object of each and every one of which is to provide for the wants of the poor and negle~ted, and needy. The model for the majority of them is the great orphan home in Halle, originally established by August Hermann Francke, but it includes other establishments than orphan homes, such as houses of refuge, homes for the blind, the deaf and.the dumb, and unfortu- nate outcasts of various kinds and character. Nowhere else is there a larger collection or a greater variety of such homes than is found ill Bielefeld, neal' the Rhine, where there is a regular Inner Mission col- ony, consisting of perhaps twenty-five different houses, all managed by the organizing and administrative genius of Pastor von Bodel- schwingh, formerly a high Prussian official, bnt now a most successful servant for a higher Master and King. The income of these insti- tutions, which is derived almost entirely from charity, is more than a million marks per annum, the motto of the indefatigable leader being that" the needs are never greater than the Helper." The Bielefeld collection of homes, in which not only the various needs of modern charity are taken into consideration, but even the various stations and.
ranks of the applicants and inmates, is one of the sights of Germany, and an object-lesson for the Christians of the world. Fully four thousand unfortunates of various kinds are here taken care of. The German emperor has repeatedly recognized the vast good that has gone out from Bielefeld, and only recently again he and the empress made a visit to this colony. In all there are 343 RettungsliiiuseJ' in Germany. Wichern's Raue Haus in Hamburg was originally an insti- tution of this kind, a school for poor boys and girls, in which both were thoroughly equipped for life by learning a trade and domestic work.
3. The roung "lIen's Socwtws of Germany are in many particulars closely akin to the Y. M. C. A., and many of the former belong to the international association of the latter. Probably the leading charac- teristic of the German societies consists in the close connection between them and the congregations, as would be natural in a country where all are nominally at least in connection with the church. The object is stated to be "the traiuing of Christian personalities for church and congregation." They have in recent years been parti~ularly active in city mission work, especially in Berlin, where amollg the scores of colporteurs who each Sunday go to the restaurants, hack stands, and wherever men are to be found who can not attend public service, offer a printed sermon, there are many members of the Young Men's Chris-
tian Societies. Indeed, it is claimed that fully 1,700 men of this kind are engaged in some form of mission work for the church in the various centers of population in the empire. For this reason the congregations have in recent years been taking a warmer interest in the affairs of the Young Men's Societies. The total number of societies is 1,700, with a membership of 85,000.
4. Young Women's Societ£es. The woman question is very much in the forefront in Germany at present, and the Young Women's Societies aim to make use of this movement for the needs and requirements of Ohristian charity. There is a national organization of this character, consisting of 2,730 societies, and with several papers devoted to their own needs. In general, the object of the societies is to cooperate in works of love and charity wherever the help of women is required. Its sphere of nsefnlness is unique in many particulars, e. g., in the so-called "Depot Mission," which arranges to have some representative at the station in large cities to take care of those girls who come in from the country to seek employment, and to provide them with a Ohristian home until they ha!.e secured service.
5. Workingmen's Colonies. These are peculiar and very useful arrangements established by the Inner Mission propagandists. The object is to counteract the tramp system, by offering a temporary home and self-supporting employment to all who are out of employment, but are willing to work. Of these colonies there are about two dozen in Germany, chief among which is at Wilhelmsdorf, near Bielefeld, managed by Pastor von Bodelschwingh. Each applicant receives pay for his work, and arrangements are made for permanent employment by the time he leaves the colony. Thousands of worthy poor have been helped this way, and much good has been done. The whole movement has a central organization, the leaders meeting annually at Wilhelmsdorf colony. Nine thousand colonists have been taken care of in the past sixteen years, the average stay being over two months. Three such colonies have also been established for women, and all of these are under Ohristian influences and direction.
6. Workingmen's Associations. 'rhese are societies organized among the workingmen for the special purpose of counteracting the baneful influence of social democracy, and of keeping the workingmen in the churches. The Protestant societies of this kind number 90,000 adherents, while the Oatholic societies have a membership of 154,000. The head of the national Protestant association is the active agitator, Pastor Weber, of Gladbach, near Munich, who is also a leader in the Ohristian social movement, which has in general a similar purpose, namely, of keeping the masses out of the clutches of the godless social democratic party. The means of agitation are meetings, literature, and the like. 7. Herbergen zur lleimat. Throughout Germany, in all the larger "INNER MISSIONS" OF THE! OHURCH OF GERMANY.
cities and towns, homes have been established for the entertainment of the traveling public, who need not go to the pu blic hotels, but can go to these Herbergen, where morning and evening worship is held, grace· is said at table, services are held on Sunday, prayer-meetings regularly conducted, and the traveler is sure to find congenial Chris- tian companions. Many of these homes are particularly adapted to the needs of workingmen, who thus are kept out of the public houses and drinking places. There are 455 such homes, which, in 1897, lodged 1,613,000 guests, and secured work for 113,000 of these visitors. In connection with about half of these homes there are hospital rooms. Charges are made just high enough to pay expenses.
8. Other branches of this work of Inner Missions are seaman's mission, the propaganda directed against the evils of intemperance, against the evils of the press, and the like. Especially in regard to the last-mentioned department much good has been done. Aside of the sermon distribution department, Inner Mission in Germany makes use of the Sunday paper, and all of the periodicals there issued and distributed on the Lord's Day are in the interest of Christianity. Some of the Sunday church papers in Berlin and Stuttgart have a subscription list reaching a hundred thousand and more. Different kinds of literature are published in the shape of books, booklets, pamphlets, etc., of a distinctly Christian type, that are spread in thousands of copies, and often sllcceed in crowding out the baneful literature of the day.
Indeed, it is almost impossible to report in full the many good things that the Inner Mission workers in Germany have been doing and are still doing. Probably the best commentary on this usefulness is the fact that the Catholic Church has been compelled to follow the example of the Protestants. In this regard it has three years ago organized its "Charitas" movement, which is practically the same as the Inner Missions of the Protestants. Germany, which is unfavorably known in many circles on account of its negative criticism, tho this is really only the work or some savants and not of the church in general, deserves to be better known on account of the vast Christian enterprises of its Inner Mission work, in which virtually all Germany participates, and which is the best expression of the real faith and conservative Christianity of the church in the land of Luther. While, on account of peculiar circumstances and conditions, the mission work of Germany could not be in all of its features reproduced and repeated in other Christian lands, the intense enthusiasm of its workers deserves commendation, and many of its features, e. g., the work or the deaconesses, in congregational activity could readily be adopted anywhere, especially in larger cities. Inner Mission work, as an expression of extensive Christian activity and as a blessed fulfilment of the law of love, deserves close study. HECEN'l' 'l'lWUBLES IK CHINA.
BY HEY. J. H. ~WORLEY, }TCHAL, CHINA. Missionary of the 1I1ethodist Episcopal Church, 1884.
Several hundred years ago, Chilla was conquered by the Manchus or Tartars, and siIlce then the emperor and about half the officials have been Tartars. The other half of the offices have been distributed among the Chinese to placate them. The government, in order to prevent uprising, have stationed several tens of thousands of Tartars in every provincial city as a sort of home-guard.
After the subjugation of China, secret societies were formed an over the empire, the object of which was to overthrow the Tartar rule. From time to time they have menaced the govemment, but have met with summary treatment, and, for a time, would quiet down.
The secret societies have always been most insolent when the country was engaged in war, or when the power of the government was weak. Five years ago, while China and Japan were at war, the society in Southern China, under the name of Vegetarians, committed one of the most atrocious massacres in history, about a hundred miles from Fuchau, known as the H wasang Massacre. The Vegetarians are the most harmless people in the world, and they assumed this title as a blind; so at present the name" Boxers" is simply an assumed name, while in reality they are the old, original, secret society organized to overthrow the present dynasty. Chinese Minister Wu, at Washington, is probably right in saying he knows nothing of the" Boxers," but he is not ignorant of the secret society, and he ought to know that" Boxers" is simply a new name for an old society, whose object is well known.
The secret society then was for the overthrow of the go"Vernment, and not to oppose the missionaries or foreign merchants. They know the best way to accomplish their end is to bring the government of China into conflict with western nations.
The government of China has been hastening to its fall since the China-Japan war, and has been held up principally by England and Japan, with America added since the Spanish-American war. England's guardianship being largely withdrawn on account of the war in South Africa, the secret society men have arisen as never before. Just what part the Empress Dowager and Russia have in this, of course, we cannot say, but probably a large share.
The Empress Dowager has been determined to suppress the reform movement, and check the spread of Christianity, even at the cost of turning over the country to Hussia. She set the Emperor Kwang Hsu aside because she had the leading officials on her side. We had great hopes that China would be speedily redeemed, but our hopes were blasted. At that time some of the more intelligent Ohristians said it
TREATY RIGHTS AND MISSIONS
was evidently not God's time, and we must wait, and perhaps pass through sore trial. And 11011', it seems, that prophecy is to be fulfilled.
Had the emperor not been interfered with, we should doubtless have seen the most radical reforms instituted the world has ever witnessed. The emperor had already issued an edict abolishing their civil service examinations, which consisted in some poem or essay on literary style, and introducing mathematics, geography, and elementary sciences. A decree had gone forth appropriating the idol-temple for public-school houses. It is a notable fact that all these young reformers had been trained in mission schools, and one of them is an active member of our church at Fuchau.
Every day it looks more as if Russia meant to take this opportunity to dismember China. Our government has declared that it will not be embroiled in China and will only protect American interests. If England were free from war in South Africa, Ohina might be saved from dismemberment.
When the news of Dewey'S victory in Manila harbor reached us in China, Europeans and intelligent Chinese said China would not be dismembered. All felt that this added power, providentially thrust out in the Orient, would insure China's redemption. A few months ago, when Secretary Hay maintained the" open door" in Ohina, we were again reassured. But now the future looks dark. Let us pray earnestly that God will overrule and protect His servants now in danger, and if it be His will keep China intact, that the Gospel may have free course. There is no part of the world-field which needs our prayers and sympathy more than China.
TREATY RIGHTS AND MISSIONS.
BY REY. P. W. PITCHER, KULIA~G, CHI~A. Missionary of the Reformed Church, 1885.
We have listened with all due respect to exhortations about never trusting in « the arm of flesh."
Have we any more right to say that another is relying on "the arm of flesh," when he appeals to Christian governments to assist him in his grand work-the noblest that ever engaged the attention of mortals-than we have to say that we rely on " the arm of flesh" when we trust in human wisdom, talent, and other means to advance the Kingdom of God? Let us not get befogged. Weare, everyone of us, in a sense, trusting in "the arm of flesh." But what we mean in every case is that God works through them all, whether it be wisdom, or talents, or money, or Christian governments. And such a trust, we believe, is legitimate and scriptural.
This is not the day of miracles, as we understand the expression. It is through human agency that God works; hence we may rightly
suppose that Ohristian governments have a part to perform, and therefore we may look to them. And we are glad to record and bear testimony to the fact that in some parts of Ohina this sympathy and support that we seek are most freely and loyally given. But there are places where they are not given, and the question arises, Why is it? Why is there no uniform action in this matter? What is good for one part of Ohina is surely good for all.
Whether the word "missionary" occurs or not in the treaty with Ohina, we are citizens, and no less citizens because we are missionaries, and as citizens we should claim our rights, and the treaty rights of those in whom we are deeply interested.
There are circumstances when our Ohinese friends have a claim upon us. As their foreign teachers they do look, and have a right to look, at times to us for direction and help on account of their unbearable burdens.
Yet it will be well for us if we are frank with them, and tell them what their relation as Christians to their government is, what our relation as foreign teachers to them is, what they may and what they may not expect of us. A suggestion of some such line of action has already been made public in a pastoral letter drawn up by a body of missionaries assembled in convention at Knliang, near Fuchau, August, 1896. " They should understand that they are amenable to the laws of the land, and have no right to expect exemption from punishment because they become Ohristians." And, moreover, that they have no right to expect that their foreign teachers can or will use any influence to invoke foreign aid to shield them from justice, such as their laws impose.
If I am rightly informed, it has been the practise in some parts of this province for.Ohinese church members, when they become involved in difficulties, to at once proclaim the fact, as a defense, "Weare Ohristians," and insinuate, " You had better keep hands off." It is a fatal error. Nothing will so tend to antagonize the officials and place an odium upon Ohristianity; and no position will be more likely to defeat their plans, in the long run, than this. We must teach our Ohinese friends that such a line of action is bound to meet with failure. They are citizens of Ohina, and upon this ground they alone have a right to expect equity and justice-not because they are Ohristians.
Having set this side of the case frankly before them, our duty is yet unfulfilled. The additional duty is hinted at in Art. VII. of the above-mentioned letter, viz: "In cases where religious liberty is at stake, every effort should be made, by those concerned, to settle them amicably, and thus avoid appealing to the courts. Where this can not be done, they should appeal to the officiais (as cif1:zens) in the ordinary way, paying the usual fees. In no case should they look to
the missionary to take the initiative." That is not so harsh as it may at first appear.
It is just and fair, and if followed by all missionaries, it will check that undue haste shown by some, of rushing into court with any and every kind of case presented, which is just as erroneous and fatal, as when the natives declare: "We are Christians, you had better keep hands off." 'rhese words by no means convey the idea)hat either sympathy or help are to be denied those in trouble. The objection is only raised against taking the "initiative." When our Chinese friends have honestly acted as Chinese citizens, and failed in securing their rights as such, then, and only then, have they a claim upon us, which should be conscientiously and loyally rendered.
'rhere are instances of persecution" for the sake of Ohrist," where national resources have become so distorted by prejudice and hatred, that no native Christians can ever hope for justice.
In many cases, they are not accorded the rights every Chinaman is entitled to. They are not treated as Chinese subjects. The officials constantly discriminate between" Christian ,. and" heathen" (1) In the administration of justice; (2) By betrayal of trust; (3) By the use of terms.
.Facts may be had to prove, if necessary, statements under (1) and (2), but in regard to (3) it may be briefly related here, that in their despatches the officials employ such terms in describing native Christians as intimate that they are a proscribed class. Accordingly they use the term" 'IIIing," "people," to describe the heathen, and" kan" " doctrine," to describe the followers of Christianity. Again, by the use of "ping ming," "peaceable people," in describing the heathen, and" kan ming," "doctrine people," evidently to designate a turbulent people, odium is ever being cast upon Christianity, while its adherents are held up as objects of distrust and hatred.
The" heathen" are not slow to recognize this distinction, and thus both officials and heathens combine to rob the Christian Chinaman of his most sacred rights-religious liberty, and his social rights, as well.* Here, then, comes the time for us to do our part by i~voking the influence and aid of our governments to secure those sacred rights which the Ohinese Government refuses to grant.
If this united front is not presented, what then? So far as one can read the signs of the time, a reign of terror would be instituted, and the iron heel of oppression begin and continue grinding and crnshing until cruelties and horrible atrocities similar to those of Armenia be visited upon the people.
• It is also reported that three district magistrates near Fuchau have publicly avowed that they will have nothing to do with complaints 'of native Christians. A missionary, a short time ago, sent a letter to one of these officials, and it was returned unopened, and the native who took it was told that" in the future you kanm!ng must look to yourselves."
What can this mean save that the" Christians" will be left to such persecutions as the '" heathen ., may impose upon them, and that these magistrates are fulfilling the desires of their superiors?
These are not the words of an alarmist, but of one deeply interested above all in the salvation of this nation, and whvse only desire is to prevent, if possible, any disaster overtaking the work so well begun and developed. No more are these words the advocacy of a new policy. 'l'hey refer to an old policy, somewhat neglected and fossilized, which should be revived everywhere, so that every missionary, as of old, could feel that he has not become expatriated (he can not be) by being one, but has the sympathy and support of his government, as well as the merchant and to the same degree.
CHINESE RIOTS AND REPARATIONS.* BY THE REV. Wlf. ARTHUR CORNABY, HANYANG, CHINA.
Wesleyan Missionary Society. Editor of the Chinese Missionary Review.
A more than melancholy aspect of the after-history of Chinese riots has been brought before the readers of the MISSIONARY REVIEW (October, 1899) in an article condensed from The Times of India. The article is a timely one, and supposing the leading facts of the case to have been given, the inferences are most logical. But as several main elements have been omitted, the deductions may be more O!' less open to modification. It is my purpose merely to state those fuller facts and leave the reader to make his own deductions.
The case, as stated in The Times of India, is that missionaries have been slaughtered, and that instead of "prompt reparation" there has been "wholesale spoliation." By justifiable reparation is meant the full penalty inflicted upon the guilty, the punishment of officials convicted of complicity, and a reasonable indemnity when persons dependent upon victims are left without means of support.
(1) From the massacre at Tientsin (June 21st, 1870) till the end of 1898, there is no proof of a single anti-Ohristian riot, all have been against foreign merchants, or even Confucian foreigners, but the result might have been the same. In India religious feeling is strong, and the Indian mutiny was largely a religious riot on a massive scale. In China religious feeling is practically non-existent, and the riots have been anti-foreign.
(2) Punishment of actual offenders has been found impoBsible of attainment. Up till very recent time the" officials convicted of complicity" have been acting on definite if secret instructions from Peking "to harass and drive out foreigners from the interior to treaty ports." The local authorities have merely been following a well-defined policy, to which they were committed by the fact of their relations to the government.
Who is the culprit then, and how is he to be punished? * This article was written some months ago and refers to previous riots, but, as it has a bearing on the present situation, we publish it now.-EDITORS.
CHINESE RIOTS AND REPARATIONS
'rhese secret instructions become public. In connection with the reform movement, which disannulled thelll. A friendly mandarin in the Canton province shows the secret edict to a consul, and another friendly mandarin in lIupeh assured an English friend that the diffi- culties under which his friendliness had been hitherto shown, were now removed. '['he secret edict has been seen by a consul and a prominent missionary in one province, and has been definitely referred to by a high official in another province.
That Ohinese mandarins, like Saul of old, should have endeavored to screen themselves by crying" the people" is only natural in this land of dragon-like machinations; that mandarins should have caught at the theory (first stated by an Englishman in Shanghai) that secret societies were to blame, is also natural. But that the" secret society" behind the riots has been composed of mandarins engaged in fulfilling definite instructions signed, sealed, and delivered, is a fact that can not be refuted.
The mandarins carried out their secret instructions: (1) By spreading inflammatory rumors through the mouth of their underlings; and (2) by encouraging the diffusion of the filthy "Hunan placards," whose main purpose has been to prove that the potency of all "foreign" drugs is owing to their containing preparations of scooped-out eyes and brains of Ohinese children. Human flesh is sllpposed to be wonderfully curative. I have myself seen a woman who was minus the biceps muscle on one arm. She had previously cut it off to make broth for her sick father. Some time ago the erection of a small bungalow as a summer sanatorium on the Yang-tse, gave an opportunity for the spreading of these rumors, which, in this case, were traced to the underlings of the officials. Then a man was seen carrying one or two babies in baskets, en route for the Romish Foundling Home at Kiukiang (twenty miles away). And the smoldering feelings immediately became a blaze. The premises of the only mission in the place were attacked, ladies were driven out and ill-treated, and an English baby was only saved by being thrown over the heads of the crowd, and caught by a townswoman. The officials refused shelter to the ladies, who had to hide in a hut for two hours. As the premises had been set on fire, the customs officer and a missionary of another part who happened to be waiting for the steamer, ran to help, and were killed, without a hand being raised to save them, tho a considerable time elapsed, in which official aid could have been effected.
For a whole month the Viceroy Ohang Ohih-tung did nothing in response to consular representations. And meanwhile, a trusty old member from another part, went attired as a beggar, and during three days, discovered the names of all the leaders of the mob. They we~'e all mandarin employees.
Lord Salisbury's instructions having been received, the British Consul pressed for a settlement of the business. The result was that two previously condemned criminals were executed, a mandarin removed-to be granted a higher post after a while, for his obedience to goverument instructions; and as both young men had widowed mothers depending upon them, a sum of money was voted sufficient to assist those ladies, and also to rebuild the destroyed premises. This sum of money coming, as it did, out of the funds of the Imperial Customs, was felt by no mandarin. And it was just a fraction of the Hupeh government revenues, supplied by government in connection with acts for which the government was responsible, as the viceroy's secret instructions proved. As a general blind, an imperial proclamation was put out for the eyes of natives and "foreigners." But for six months after, every mission in Hupeh was in danger, and those foreigners who were connected with missions having headquarters in or near the "Concession" in the treaty port of Hankow, had to go and reside in that treaty port in accord with orders from the high officials, given through their respective consuls.
In this case, the only item of reparation which at all touched those "convicted of complicity," i. e., the Chinese Government, was the sum voted for rebuilding of premises, and the assistance of dependent mothers. And that, being such an insignificant fraction of the national revenue, would not be felt at all.
In all the Chinese riots there have been, of course, distinctive features just as there are distinctive features in every Chinese face of . a given family. But the family likeness has been the chief characteristic. Anti-foreign feeling, stirred up by the literati, inside or outside the circle of actual mandarindom, in accord with the anti-foreign feeling at headquarters; generally a date fixed for the demolition of foreign premises; that demolition effected, generally no other repara·· tion demanded than the rebuilding of the premises, but when foreign lives have been taken in violation of treaty regulations and passport provisions, an attempt to gain moderate and "prompt repar.ation,"- which has invariably failed. Then in some cases an ultimatum, affording the government ample opportunity to act; that ultimatum disregarded, and thus some larger reparation demanded from the chief offender, the government.
Had that government kept its written and sealed promises, there would hardly have been a riot these twenty-seven years, still less a fatal riot; had China set about the barest reparation for her broken promises, there would have been no renting of "concessions,"-as we call the foreign settlements at the treaty ports-and other trading privileges forced upon her.
The history of large reparations is before the world, but not so the hiRtory of riots, where hardly the barest reparation has been claimed.
1900.J THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS IN CHINA
In a riot of 1891, the British flag was torn down and subjected to unmentionable insult, yet only a damaged consulate was repaired. A year or two after, a medical missionary was suspended by his bound wrists and his queue to a beam in a temple, and no consular aid or other reparation asked for. And the patience of Western representatives under circumstances of violent insult and injury, with the officials as the chief parties in the case, would form a very long chapter.
The apparently large reparation for one riot, then, has often been a reparation for many of which the world has not heard.
That some recent demands have been exorbitant, no missionary will deny, but the case must be looked at in connection with the whole history of the riots, and of the attempted reparations which have failed to be effected.
One new element has come to the front of recent months. In many parts, the country is riddled with old feuds, some of them of a hundred or even two hundred years' standing. The Romish Ohurch is popularly reported to accept all comers, lawsuits and all. And tho this is deuied by the Romish priests (see MISSIONARY REVIEW, August, 1899), the facts seem to contradict such a denial. Once within the Church, Clan A now feels strong enough to be openly hostile to Clan B. Clan B, previously hating Clan A, now includes the Romish Church in its hatred. Perhaps Clan B seeks to join some Protestant Church, and wo betide the church which shelters Cl~n B. Or if that move fails, if persecution becomes unendurable, and negotiations fail, there may be an anti-Romish riot,-not even then a riot against Romish missionaries as such, but against the body of foreigners who have apparently made the quarrel of Clan A their own.
These are the facts, and the reader, weighing and measuring them as a whole, may safely draw his own conclusions. They mayor may not correspond with those of The Times of India, except in one particular, namely, the pity ~f it. On that point all Christians will agree.
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS IN CHINA.
BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
How far is the missionary to blame for present conditions in China? Some blatant politicians are calling on the government to antagonize missions as provoking conflicts with non-Christian countries.
The impact of the European civilizations on what we may, for convenience, call the Mongolian, can not be stopped. It is as certain to continue as gravitation. The friction will vary in acuteness, but the present generation, and the next, will not see the end of it. It will he a part of the world's phenomena throughout the twentieth cen-
tury. It is well, therefore, to put this down, not as a prediction, bu t as a recognized and necessary condition. All missionary operations in the far east will for fifty or a hundred years to come have to be adjusted to this, which may, by accommodation, be called the stat Its. Christian missions will have to be projected, in anticipation of this clash, between eastern and western civilizations.
But it is little use for anybody to think to secure pacification by withdrawal of missionaries. A steam-engine and a telegraph-pole are revolutionary; so is a gunboat or a newspaper. The conquering civilization of to-day demands right of trade; it can make more by commerce than by tribute. It seeks not political control but a mar- ket. It says" you shall buy and sell with us." It is only a change of the old formula; it means tribute by indirection.
It is useless to blame missionaries for being agitators. They are part of the civilization. It is useless to plead, on the other hand, the popularity of the missionaries with the people, their inoffensiveness, their benevolence, their contribution to justice and humanitarianism, their elevation of the intelligence of the people, and their contribution to the pacific material development of the land. They are distinctly revolutionists. They seek to change the conditions, and, however indirectly, they necessarily aid in imposing the new civilization in place of the old. If the steam-engine is a democrat, so is the missionary; if the Standard Oil Company, the Waterbury watch factory, the Lancashire mills are revolutionary, so is the missionary school and printing-press. They are only different parts of the same civilizing force. The new plow develops the resources for export as well as creates a demand for imports. The" anti-footing binding society," which the missionary fosters in China, is a part of the social revolution implied in a new ci vilization; so is his hospital. The missionary is often the ad vance courier of the new order, and a part of the reflex benefit to Christian nations from foreign missions is the enlargement of commerce.
The people of the secondary civilization are easily astute enough to discern that the missionary is a component part of the new economy. All this is apart from the missionary as a religious propagandist. His family life, his very presence, is revolutionary, and he can not dissociate himself from the clash of the two civilizations.
It is not clear, therefore, why so much effort should be wasted to charge the missionary with being a disturbing factor in non-Christian lands. He certainly is that. The Turk knows him as a miner and sapper. The Chinese governing classes recognize him as such. The missionary himself would retire if he did not expect to succeed in the expenditure of this revolutionary energy; otherwise he and his mission would be a failure. Nobody is deceived about it, tho sometimes the gauze of a thin sophistry is sought to be thrown about it.
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS IN CHINA
On the other hand, it is equally idle for the diplomat, the politician, the merchant, or the scientist, to fancy that no conflict would be precipitated but for the missionary. The merchant is a revolutionist. He seeks to impose a new civilization which must sooner or later provoke opposition. New industrial conditions, llew appliances from the west will destroy the occupation of millions, without giving them any substituted avenues of support. When men are beggared by a change in economy they will run into riot. When the collision reaches a crisis the government becomes involved, and the new gunboat says the new plow must stay. In the duel the ,veakest goes to the wall. The" survival of the fittest" is the new phrasing of the old formula, He may take who has the power, And he may keep, who can.
It may be, in its ultimate analysis, true, as Prof. Frederick Starr, of the Department of Anthropology in the Chicago University, said the other day to his class, that" the introduction of Christianity into China is a measure of hostility to the existing government of the empire," but the merchant, the scientist, and the diplomat are equally hostile to it. Li Hung Chang is reported to have said that the raising of the Roman Catholic missionaries to the grade of mandarins is responsible for the present outbreak. Another high Chinese functionary blames the Germans for their violent seizure of a geographical section of the country as precipitating the present uprising.
These, doubtless, have contributed to the present disturbance, but Wau Sing, a Chinese banker, had it all in better form when he is quoted as saying to a reporter in Chicago the other day:'" The advance of the so-called civilization is responsible for it all. I hate every step of it." Prof. Goldwin Smith, in Toronto, in June last, said: "There is no reason why the pacific influences of commerce and intercourse should not act on them (the Chinese) as they have acted on the Japanese, who, half a century ago, might have been deemed subjects for philant.hropic aggression." But in the case of the Chinese, he himself says, "The people are frantically opposed to foreigners, as, in truth, considering the opium wars, they have too much reason to be."
Undoubtedly China's governing classes feel very bitterly the encroachments of which their country has been the victim in recent years, and resent the "attempts to exploit her natural resources ill foreign interests." The treaty powers resent the resentment, and say they can not have their nationals exposed to such perils and alarms while they are imposing this new civilization on unwilling millions, and talk of dividing China into districts which they will respectively police, that the finale toward which events tend shall not be too remote. China has found her safety in the mutual jealousy of the foreign states, and this is perhaps her only resource for the future. She llIHy not see it in this light, and it is possible that Mr. Gold win Smith has
it correctly when he says," A fearful vista of slaughter and desolation may presenily open."
Personally, we do not see this to be probable, except as the Chinese fall foul of each other in contention over the reigning dynasty, which is always included in their antipathy to foreigners. Another rraiping rebellion is always possible. But the" industrial morality" of the nlst hordes of the population of China always makes against any " slaughter of millions."
That the western civilization might be peaceably and with justice imposed on China, is a reasonable desire from a Christian standpoint, and the devoutest may well pray that God will "restrain" the •• remainder" of human "wrath," and limit the greed of the treaty powers, as well as the" rage" of the" heathen."
"BUT GOD "-A BIBLE READING FOR MISSIONARIES.
BY Y. PERCY K.'HGHT. Missionary of the China Inland lVIission. 1892.
The little word "but" is full of sad significance from the human standpoint, yet when used with regard to God in His gracious deal- illgs with His people it is seen to be full of glorious meaning. As we shall see, it puts His grace over against man's sin, His strength for human weakness, and brings God into the inner circle of life, with all its circumstances of trial and difficulty.
1.-:Eph. ii: 1-4. " Dead in trespasses and sins. . living in the lusts of our flesh . . . by nature children of wrath. BUT GOD being rich in mercy, etc." Here we have a full-length and life-like por- trait of the sinner and God, in His wondrous love and grace, coming into relation with Him in His mercy in Ohrist Jesus. It is God in relation to new llfe.
2.-1 001'. i: 26-29. "Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. . . . BUT GOD chose the foolish, etc." In this passage we see God in relrtiion to Christian service, and three times in verses 27, 28, find the word "chosen." It is God's purpose and plan to use the weak, the despised things of this world, to bring to naught the things that are mighty. Oompare Ps. viii: 2: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, because of Thine adversaries, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger."
In view of the hoary systems of idolatry, the missionary has to meet the deep-seated prejudice and superstition to be overthrown in heathen lands, and his deep realization of inability to do the work, this thought of God's choice of the weak and despised to do His mightiest works should fill all hearts with joy and encouragement.
"BUT GOD "-A BIBLE READING FOR MISSIONARIES. 62'1
3.-1 Cor. ii: 9, 10. "Things which eye saw not and ear heard not BUT GOD revealed t~em unto us through the Spirit." Here we have God in relation to teaching. Above and beyond all other teachers, however learned and able to impart knowledge, is the Sp~rit of God, who alone can.enlighten the heart to Divine truth. He alon;; is able to take of the things of Christ and make them real and actual to the inner life. Verse 11: "As the spirit of man alone knows the things of man, so the things of God none knoweth save the Spirit of God." With all the dulness of the native convert how wonderful his progress when taught by the Spirit. Let us thank God for the revealing power and light of the Holy Ghost. Of these mysteries of Divine grace we are told, " BUT GOD hath revealed them unto us by the Spirit."
4.-In the following three passages we see God in relation to circnmstances.
Gen. xlv: 8. Joseph, speaking to his brethren, says, "So now it was not yon that sent me hither, BUT GOD." Gen. 1: 20. "Ye meant evil against me, BUT GOD meant it for good." Acts vii: 9. "The patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt, BUT GOD was with him."
This is one of the hardest lessons to learn, and yet fraught with jnfinite blessing, to place God in the inner circle of life, all circumstances alike of difficulty and trial, or sorrow caused us by others on the outside, and say with Joseph, ., BUT GOD meant it for good." In spite of all the machinations of his brethren, the anguish of soul, the carrying into Egypt, false accusation and imprisonment, Joseph did not lose sight of the working and loving purpose of his God; and bringing that loving Lord in between himself and all his untoward circumstances, he could say as in Rom. viii: 28, that all things were working together for his good. 'Ye have a very striking illustration of this truth in Numb. 13 and 14. The spies had returned to Moses and the people of Israel from spying out the promised land; the report of the ten caused the heart of the people to melt. Forgetting their covenant-keeping and wonder-working Jehovah, and all that he had done for them in the past, these spies told only of the sons of Anal. and strongly-fenced cities. Caleb and Joshua, the two faithful spies. would not allow the Anakim and the great cities to blot out their sight of the Lord; putting obstacles and difficulties without, they said, "The Lord is with us," and looking into His face remained calm and restful in spite of the foe.
As we know, the counsel of the ten prevailed, and putting circumstances before the Lord, the carcases of those who murmured fell in the wilderness.
5.-Ex. xiii: 1'1, 18. "God led them not by the way of the land of the Philistines, altho that was near; for God said, lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, • • . BUT GOD led the people about."
Lastly we see in this passage God in relation to guidance. Israel did not as yet know God sufficieutly, they were untrained and unorganized, and knowing that the experience in the land of the Philistines would be too hard for them, we read that" God led them about."
Our God deals very tenderly with us, and is never in a hurry. How often do we want to take what seems the most direct way to Christian work or experience, yet the Lord "leads us about." lIe knows that that work would involve responsibility for which we are not yet prepared, would bring burdens that would crush us, and so we are kept as Moses was kept for forty years for training in the wilderness, and further fitted by the Lord for future service. It may be we cry out, "Lord give me the blessing snch a man has," yet the Lord knowing that his spiritual experience would bring to us fierce temptations and deep trial, of which we are all unaware, withholds the coveted experience, and gently leads us by a longer road.
Let us trust our Jehovah more simply and implicitly. He makes no mistakes, and with tender individual guidance suited to our several needs, will lead us in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
THE IN'rEl{NATIONAL MISSIONARY UNION.
BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., PRESIDENT.
'rhe seventeenth annual session of the International Missionary Union, was held 11 little earlier than usual this year. It convened in Clifton Springs, N. Y., May 30th, and continued for one week. The meetings were marked with their usual enthusiasm and earnestness. Quite a number of those present at this year's meeting were prominent speakers at -the recent Ecumenical Conference. 'rhe following is the roll of missionaries in .attendance : YEARS OF NAME. FIELD. YEARS OF NAME. FIELD. SERVICE. SERVICE, 1892 Abell, lIIiss Annie E. ;lIicronesia 1893 Eddy, lIIary P., M.D. Syria 1884 English, lIiiss F. M. India 1900 Alby, Miss Libbie. Korea Japan 1893 Evans, !liiss Sala. 1847~95 Baldwin, Rev. C. C. China 1883~93 Foote, Rev. Frank W. Ind,. ia 1883~93 Foote, Mrs. Frank W. 1888 Baskerville, Miss Agnes E. India 1861~68 Gracey, Rev. J. T. Mexico 1861~68 Gracey, Mrs. J. 1'. 1894 Belton, Miss Alice E. Japan 1873 Graybill, Rev. A. T. Japan 1883 Graybill, Mrs. A. T. India 1853 Blodget. Rev. Henry. China 1878 Gring, Rev. Ambrose D. .. 1886-89 Bond, Rev. G. A. Malaysia 1892 Guernsey, Rev. P. B. 1892 Guernsey, Mrs. P. B. 1887~96 Bostwick, H. J. China 1887~96 Bostwick, Mrs. H. J. ..
1880 Bruere, Rev. W. W. India 1874 Butler, Rev. J. W. Mexico 1878 Butler, Mrs. J. W.
1887 Carleton, May E., M.D. China 1871 Gulick, Rev. O. H. jI ~Jaapwaaini 189:l Chittenden, lIIiss Caroline E. "
188!l-22 Cole, Rev. J. T. Japan 1871 Gulick, lIirs. O. H. 1856 HaIJam …Rev E. C. B. 1892 Crane, Rev. H. A. India 1866 Hallam, Mrs. E. C. B. India 1892 Crane, lIIrs. H A " India 1886~98 Crosby, Miss E. T. Micronesia 1893 Hart, Edgerton H., M.D. China 1884~92 Inglis, Rev. T. E. 1878~79 Cushing, Rev. C. W. Italy India 1887 Day, lIirs. D. A. Africa 1884-92 Inglis, Mrs. 1'. E. "
1873 Downie, Rev. David. India 1890 Kay, Miss Lydia J. China 1873 Downie. !lirs. David. .- 1881 Kingsbury, Rev.F.L.,M.D. Bulgaria 1876-90 Dows]ey, Mrs. A. 1892 Knigl,~, W. Percy. China 1bnh1!:'a 1890 Knight. !lirs. W. Pel'cv. ..
1892 Dudley, Rev. T. P. Indil 1883 Ladd, Mrs. E. H. • Colombia 1892 Dudley, lIIrs. T. P. " 1879 Leitch, Miss Margaret W. Ceylon
THE INTERNATIONAL MISSIONARY UNION
YEARS OF YEARS OF SERVICE. NAME. FIELD. SERVICE. NAME. FIELD.
1869 McLaurin, Rev. John. China 1873 Rouse, ~lrs. George H. India 1869 McLaurin, Mrs. .Tohn. Korea 1873 Shattuck. Miss Corinna. Turkey 1885-95 Merritt, C. P. W., M.D. 1892 Snodgrass, Miss 1I1ary A. China 1885-95 Merritt, Mrs. C P. W 1879 Stone, Rev. Geo. 1. India 1892 Miller, Rev. F. S. 1879 Stone, 1111'S. Geo. 1. 1868-73 Thayer, Rev. C. C., M.D. T~~key 1892 Miller, Mrs. F. S. India 1868~78 Thayer, II1rs. C. C. 1884-99 Monroe, Rev. D. C. 1869-72 Thompson, Miss lI1ary A. China Korea 1888 Munro, Miss Jessie K. Ja.I?an 1891 Vinton, Rev. C. C., M.D. 1892 Palmer, Miss Mary M. 1891 Vinton, Mrs. C. C. Turkey 1890 Webb, Miss lI1ary G. Africa 1858 Paton, Rev. John G. New Hebrides Japan Whytock, Rev. Peter. China 1878-80 Priest, Miss Mary. Japan 1882 Winn, lI1iss Mary L. 1869 Riggs, Rev. Edward. Turkey 1882 Worley, Rev. J. H. " 1882 Worley, II1rs. J. H. 1891 Riggs, Miss Mary E. China 1894 Worrall, H. R. L., II1.D. Arabia 1879 Roberts, Mrs. W. H. Burma 1889-98 Rogers, Miss Martha. India 1900 Roberbaugh.~liss Lillie M. Japan 1861 Rouse, Rev. George H. India SUMMARy-By Countries: Africa, 2; Arabia, 1; Bulgaria. 1; Burma, 1; Ceylon, 1; China, 20; Colombia, 1; Hawaii, 2; India, 26; Italy, 1; Japan, 11; Korea, 5; Malaysia, 1; Mexico, 4; lIi~ cronesia, 2; New Hebrides, 1; Syria, 1; Turkey,5. By Societies: American Board, 18; American Baptist Missionary Union, 10; Canada Bap- tist, 2; China Inland i[ission. 4; Canada Methodist, 2; English Baptist. 2; Established Church Scotland, 1; Free Baptist, 2; German Reformed, 1; Lutheran, 1; lHethodist Episcopal, 19; Presbyterian, North, 12; Presbyterian, South, 3; Reformed, Dutch, 2; Regions Beyond Mis- sionary Society, 3.
At different sessIOn several of the veterans in the mission fields gave accounts of their varied experiences. Among these were Rey. E.
C. B. Hallam, who went to India in 1856; Rev. John McLaurin who went to the same field in 1869; Rev. Edward Riggs, who went to Turkey in 1869; Rev. C. C. Baldwin, who was in China from 1847 to 1895; Rev. David Downie, who went in 1873 to the Telugus, then called the Lone Star Mission, bnt which now has four mission stations.
Among prominent women in attendance were Miss Corinna Shattuck of Turkey, Miss Mary Pierson Eddy, M. D., of t:lyria, and Miss Hays of Mexico. ( Miss Shattnck at the time of the late Armenian massacres, held baek an angry Turkish mob in Armenia, and prevented them from destroying the mission buildings. Dr. Eddy was the first woman physician whom the Sultan of Turkey allowed to practise medicine in his realm.
Among the most popular meetings was that given to the con- sideration of the work of the Young Men's Christian Association throughout the world. Among the speakers, Rev. Dr. Gulick of Hawaii said that during the last twenty months thousands of young men from America had been in Honolulu on their way to Manila, and had been welcomed by the Y. 11. C. A. He spoke of the work of the Christian Endeavorers, and especially of the Japanese branch there.
Dr. Merritt spoke of the far-reaching work that the translation of "In His Steps" had wrought among the students of a theological seminary in North China. Mr. Bostwick told of a "Society for Mutual Improvement," which was started some years ago in Tien- Tsin, China, now merged into a Y. M. C. A., and which, after a secre- tary had been sent out to them, received a gift of $10,000 from a lady for the erection of a building.
Rev. Dr. Gring of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Japan,
delivered one of the most eloquent addresses heard before the conference. Rev. T. Whytock, of Africa, gave an interesting talk on work on the Kongo. He said that eleven years ago the first mission was started when eight missionaries went out, now there are seven stations 100 miles apart and nearly 70 workers. He told many interesting incidents, and spoke of the change that had come over the cannibals in these regions. Many conditions are changed, and a railroad that now goes to Stanley Pool makes journeys more feasible and the work more accessible.
Dr. A. D. Graybill of Mexico, ill giving an account of his work, said in part: There are people who think we ought to make an apology for taking the Gospel to Mexico; that we are infringing on the rights of the priesthood. It is the people who have asserted themselves and have risen en masse and declared that the church must be separated from the state; that the people should not be forced to pay tithes, but should give volnntarily. The government bl~ilt schools and religious liberty was established in 1847, Three hundred years ago the people said: "If you send Bibles we will burn them; if you send missionaries we will imprison them.'" Now they say: "Send on your Btbles and we will read them; send your missionaries and we will hear them." Not only has the call come from the people, but from the government.
A woman's meeting one afternoon was addressed by a number of women missionaries representing work in Ohina, Japan, Oeylon, Hawaii, India, and Africa.
Rev. Dr. Judson Smith, who was general chairman of the Ecumenical Oonference, ancl is now recuperating at the sanitarium, attended some of the sessions. Mr. Eugene Stock, of London, England, who came expressly to America for the New York conference, spent two clays in Olifton Springs as a guest of Dr. Henry Foster of the sanitarium. Mr. Stock was delighted with his American visit; with the picturesqueness and location of Olifton Springs, with the opportunity ~ of having seen one of the country's most famed health institutions, and stated that had he known of the character of the gathering of the International Missionary Union, he would have cancelled engagements and spent the entire week in attendance. Mr. Stock has been for years the editorial secretary of the Church Missionary Society of England, which is one of the oldest missionary societies, having the largest income of any Protestant society in the world. MI'. Stock was invited by the u'nion to give an address, and delivered the masterpiece of historic grouping of thc History of the Uganda Mission, which will be found elsewhere in this number of the REVIEW.
The" Apostle of the South Seas," Rev. John G. Paton of the New Hebrides, delivered one of his characteristic addresses, and stirred the audience, as he does all audiences, with the thrilling story of the triumphs of the Gospel, and the grim fact that forty thousand cannibals remain unreached in the South Sea Islands.
CAUSES OF THE TROlTBLES IN CHINA
SELECTED ARTICLES.
CAUSES OF THE TiWUBLES IN CHINA.* BY RE". 1'. n. ELTERICH, CHEFOO, CHI:,A.
lIIissionary of the American Presbyterian Church. 1889.
For the last three years the province of Shantung has attracted a good deal of attention politically, and in view of the continued disturbed condition of the country, is still drawing considerable notice upon itself.
It is an axiom that wherever Roman Catholics are found in China, there, sooner or later, disturbances are sure to arise. The only parts of this province which have been exempt from disturbances are those sections where there are no Roman Catholics. The troubles that arise through them are due mainly to the agents they employ, and the methods used to carryon their propaganda. Their so-called eva,ngelists are not what we would regard as evangelists, as they do but little, if any, preaching, except to set forth the advantage'l-and that political rather than spiritual-of becoming members of the Roman Catholic Church.
When they learn that some one has a lawsuit-and these are only too numerous-they hunt up the parties, and decide which to favor. This party is promised help, and a successful issue of his case, on condition that he become a member of the Catholic Church. The foreign priest will back up the case before the native official, and if he refuses. threatens him with the power of his country. This threat is not an empty one, for both Germany and France, especially the latter, have always stood by their Roman Catholic missionaries, and seen that their demands were fulfilled. The expression constantly heard among the people in reference to the Roman Catholic Church is that it uses force. As a consequence, the native officials are filled with disgust, and the parties losing the lawsuit are filled with hatred against those who have helped the other side. Hatred and dissension is everywhere sown by these procedures, and now and then breaks out in open rebellion.
At present there are two Roman Catholic missionary societies working in Shantung-a French, with French and Italian priests, occupying the northern and western part of the province, and a German, occupying the southern and southwestern part. The head of the German mission is Bishop von Auzer, said to be a very able man, from one of the most influential families in Germany, and. who received special marks of favor from the Emperor of Germany. Thus far the German Catholic mission has been the most aggressive in the province, and has come most in conflict with the people. In the autumn of 1897 two of their missionaries were murdered in the southwestern part of the province by members of the so-called" Big Knife" society. Germany, which had been for some time surveying the east coast of Shant.ung, and looking for a suitable harbor and coaling station, made this affair an occasion for seizing on Kiao-chou. Thus the German government was brought on the stage of action, and with them a new element of disturbance in the province.
The German Catholic missionaries were delighted with the advent of their countrymen into the province, and realized the immense political power this would give them-a power which they sought in every way to make full use of, and abused not a little. They wanted Germany to take * Condensed from The Presbyterian Banner.
full possession of Shantung, but for this Germany was neither ready nor willing. Finding their efforts of pressure on the German officials in Tsing-tau (Kiao-chou) in vain, some of the priests went so far as to place themselves in circulllstances as to invite attack, and thus cause riots, on account of which their government would be compelled to interfere. This occurred at least in two instances, one to the north of Tsing-tau, the German port, and the other to the south, toward the city of Ichao. In the latter case the whole district rose in rebellion,· and began persecuting the Roman Catholic native Christians, driving them out of their homes. This rioting spread to the neighboring district, where were some outstations under the care of Presbyterian missionaries at lchou-fu. The missionaries were placed in imminent danger, and had to be rescued by soldiers. The whole section of that country rose in anarchy, which was only quelled when thousands of soldiers were sent to the disturbed districts. Everywhere native Christians, Protestant and Catholic, were driven out of their homes and deprived of everything, and missionaries were for a time in great danger. Protestant native Christians after a year's time obtained only barely what they had lost, while the Roman Catholics made heavy demands, which were granted without much trouble. In addition to the demands made by the German officials at Tsing-tau, Bishop Auzer went to Chinan-fu, and tried to intimidate the governor to meet his demands, threatening him with German soldiers and .,7annon, if he did not accede, claiming that the German naval and military forces were at his command.
In view of this and other investigations, whereby the fact was revealed that the Roman Catholics were not without blame in exciting these riots, the German authorities became very loath to take up their cases, and guarded against becoming involved with the Chinese government. By their engineers exploiting the province for mines, and the surveying and laying of railways, serious disturbances were created in the eastern and central portions of the province, which have only recently been settled, but not till after many native troops were sent to the scene of the troubles, and they themselves marched an expedition inland. The disturbing of graves by the laying of the railway, and the belief that the railway embankment would interfere with the running off of the water from their lands during the rainy season, caused thousands of villagers in the districts of Kao-mi and Kiao-chou to band togather to resist the Germans at all costs.
These disturbances in the southern and eastern portions of the province have been furthered also not a little by the famine-stricken condition of the people. During the past year there has been but little rain in the province, in some regions none worth speaking of for over a year. In addition to the drought a severe and extensive caterpillar plague raged last summer, destroying what was left. As a consequence, people were rendered desperate, and lawlessness of all kinds prevailed.
THE EMPRESS DOWAGER AND THE REFOR~rERS.
But probably, that which has helped most to engender anti-foreign and anti-Christian feeling, and to foster and increase the disturbances was the coup at Peking, by which the Emperor Kwang Su was deposed, and the Empress Dowager took the reins of government. Ugly rumors began to spread through the country to the effect that all foreigners in
CAUSES OP THE TROUBLES IN CHINA. 63B
China were rebels and were to be killed. This was (lue to the murder and banishment of the reformers, the fdends of the emperor, the governor of :Shantung, and other officials who had shown themselves friendly to the missionaries.
The new governor, Yu Hsien, was tt bitter anti-foreign Tartar general from Nanking, who before long showed that his purpose was to do all he could to hinder the progress of Christianity in the province, and to bring about the expulsion of the foreigners. This he tried to accomplish through a secret society called" Boxers," "Fists," or "Big Knife" society, who were protected and secretly fostered by him. This society spread through the entire western portion of the province, and the scene of the disturbances now shifted from the southern to the sotlthwestern part of the province. There is a Presbyterian mission station at Chining Chow, and a number of out-stations connected with it. Native Protestant Christians, together with many Homan Catholics, were severely persecuted by the" Boxers," last summer, and in early autumn. Later they began in the southern part of the neighboring province of Chili, and from there extending over the border into northwestern Shantung, and southward until they were frequent about the capital of Shantung.
The American Board has a flourishing work in northwestern Shantung, and their native Christians were deprived of all they had, and driven from their homes, and those of our mission at Chinanfu suffered likewise. The Roman Catholics also suffered very severely. The American Iloard missionaries were seriously endangered, and soldiers had to be sent to their protection. Soldiers were also sent out to quell the riots, but did nothing. A band of Roman Catholics fortified their village against attack, and warded off repeated assaults of the" Boxers." This matter was made a ground of non-interference by the Tsung-li Yamen at Peking, and of reluctance on part of the foreign ministers to make a vigorous demand from the government for a cessation of these disturbances. It was said that the arming of the native Christians incited to lawlessness and riot. One official, who was friendly to foreigners, and who went to the rescue of some missionaries who had iwen endangered, ana succeeded in defeating a band of "Boxers." was reprimanded and degraded for his excessive zeal. It is no wonder that in that same region a few months later, an English missionary was murdered by the " Boxers."
THE "BOXERS."
These "Boxers" are a secret society, the members of which go through a drill, in which they invoke certain spirits by incantations, and then beat their bodies with a brick to harden the body until they can endure the pounding by knives without injury. This drill probably originated the popular nickname of "Big Knife" society. They call themselves "The Society of United Boxers," and are supposed to have an incantation consisting of nineteen characters. Those who know eight, cnn fight ten thousand men, and those acquainted with sixteen or seventeen characters can pull down foreign houses as easily as they can move a tea box. These stories are helieved by the ignorant multitude, who are also convinced by being allowed to fire gnns at them only a few paces distant. This is usually managed so that no serious consequences follow, but not always. They claim to be patriotic in their airn, their purpose heing to preserve the land to the natives, and to drive out all foreigners. Their motto is "Protect the Dynasty. Exterminate the
Aliens!" One can readily bee that a band of men with such a purpose, and filled with sGperstition, believing themselves invulnerable, and able to overcome all enemies, are ,'ery dangerous.
Chinese officials are practically al! in sympathy with them, and the governor of Shantung secretly fostered them. Affairs finaliy became so bad, that a forcible demand was made by the ministers of the Tsung-li Yamen that he be removed. The Tsung-li Yamen had to yield, and ordered Yuen Li Kai, who was holding an important position in Korea, to proceed to Shal'.tung, and take Gen. Yn's place. He had 10,000 foreign- drilled native troops with which to put down the disturbances. .Much was expected from him, for on his arrival he issued a strong proclama- tion threatening the "Boxers" with extermination if they did not at once cease their disturbances. lie proceeded vigorously to work, and captured some ringleaders, who were executed. He had not accomplished very much, however, when the Hev. S. Brooke, an English missionary, was brutally murdered by the" Boxers."
The foreign ministers at Peking were aroused to more vigorous action. The governor was ordered to arrest the murderers, and after a long and unnecessary delay they were arrested and tried, and several of them hllve been executed. The real cause of the murder, Governor Yu Hsien, not only escaped scot free, tho charges were brought against him with abundant evidence that he secretly fostered the" Boxers," but he was received with special marks of favor by his imperial mistress, the Empress Dowager, on his arrival in Peking, and in spite of the protests of the foreign ministers, received the appointment of governorship of the province of Shansi. Governor Yuan, too, suddenly lost his aI·dor in punishing the" Boxers, "-a hint from Peking cooled his zeal. The" Boxers" might prove very useful in carrying out the designs of the Empress Dowager, and hence they were not to be molested too much.
Just before the Chinese New Year, the Empress Dowager planned another coup, which was only partially successful; it was the complete abdication of the Emperor Kwang Suo Opposition came in the form of numerous telegrams sent by leading Chinese lIIen from Central and South China, begging that K wang Su be allowed to continue to reign in spite of his ill-health. The intimate advisers of the Empress Dowager warned her to desist from her step or a rebellion would be precipitated. She had to yield, but ordered the arrest and summary punishment, of these loyal, patriotic men, who dared thus to thwart her in her schemes.
In the meantime in Shantung a number of ineffective proclamations were ~"sued. In the pl'efecture where lUr. Brooke was murdered, the prefect issued a proclamation blaming the native Christians as a cause of all the disturbances. Another methoq was employed hy the governor, and that was to restrain the missionaries from traveling except under military escort, ann protection promised only under snch cirCUI!lstances, and demanded also the names and places of native chapels, persons in charge, etc. These demands were made through the American minister at Peking and acceded to by him. The design of the governor was not to stop the distubances by restraining native evil-doers, but by restraining the missionaries and their converts. The North China Daily llTC1C8 commented as follows on these restrictions; The real object of the Empress Dowager's government is herein clearly displayed. Governor Yuan can not but knolV that the abandoning of their work in the country by the missionaries will not only check
1900.J THE EXODUS OF PRIESTS IN FRANCE
the propagation of Christianity, but will leave those already enrolled as ('onverts to the brutal mercies of the' Boxers.' In this way the avowed purpose of the latter, viz., the suppression of Christianity, will be greatly furthered. These restrictions are, of course, in reference to travel, entirely contrary to treaty rights ane to any number of imperial proclamations. They might be allowed if the country were really in rebellion. and the government making an honest effort to pacify it. But to make them in deference to a lot of bandits, who are actually encourag'e:l by the authorities, is an insult to all foreigners that the legations should instantly resent."
The missionaries of the Chefoo station made a vigorous protest to the minister against these demands, showing how useless it would be to try to itinerate with a military escort, defeating the very purpose of itineration, and being of no value as a protection. They also pointed out that the information required as to the chapels, natives in charge, etc., would brand these places in the eyes of the people as evil resorts, and the native Christians as lawless evil- doers. The missionaries of Tungchou, H wang-hien, and Wei-hien also protested against the restric- tions on travel. The minister made the plea that these restrictions were only temporary, and acceded to in order to prevent the fate of Mr.
Brooke being repeated. The protests thus made were strongly indorsed by our able United States consul here at Chefoo, John Fowler, Esq., who has had ten years of experience with Chinese officials. The source of all these troubles undoubtedly lies in Peking, and as long as the con- servative and anti-foreign element is in auth( rity, disturbances will continue.
THE EXODUS OF PRIESTS IN FRANCE. * There have been during many years past here and there French priests who for one reason or another have abandoned their calling. The celebrated Protestant pastor and senator. _K de Pressense, who died '>eveI'al years ago, was much interested in these men and did much to help them; but he found the greatest difficulty in this task because of the inferior character of these" demitting" priests. This was not invariably the case, for one of them, Mr. Huet, has for several years been an evangelist in the employ of the McAll Mission, latterly in charge of the mission boat the Bon-ll£essager.
But the conditions have entirely changed within the past five years. Among the" evading" priests are now some of the brightest minds of the French clergy, and men who occupied posts of importance in the Catholic Uhurch. All that such men need is a helping hand at the start to enable them to take an honorable and independent position in society.
To lend this initial help with the least expense and the most effectual, two maisons hospitalieres have been opened in or near Paris-temporary asylums where evading priests may find a home, advice, and the initial means of fitting themselves to gain a livelihood. One of these, in Courbevoie, a suburb of Paris, is under the care of Professor Bertrand, well known and thoroughly trusted in this country, where he has represented the causes of the McAll :1issivn and of the French Protestant Societies. This home is-conducted strictly on evangelical lines; no one is 3dmitted who does not give good evidence of a true change of heart; and the pur- • Condensed from The lVolchmoT"
pose of the patrons of this home is to fit its inmates for religious work as colporteurs, evangelists, or pastOl's, according to their ability.
The other maison h08]Jitalie/'e, at Sevres, is under the care of Pastor Bourrier, himself an ex-priest, now pastor of the Reformed (Presbyterian) Church of Sevres. Its scope is far more wide, and, in n sense, free, than that of Professor Bertrand's" home," since it does not require conversion to evangelical doctrines as n condition of entrance! In fact, the majority of the more intelligent" evading" priests quit their functions not because of a soundly evangelical conversion, but because their consciences revolt at the tenets and the nH'thods of the Church of Rome. As honest men they can no longer exerCIse their functions, and this revolt becomes the more imperious in proportion as they are in positions of iJonor, in the line of artvancement, and therefore able to appreciate the true spirit and purposes of the church to which they belong. It is mainly men of this stamp who find their first refuge in the" presbytery" of Sevres, and it is the influence of these men-men like the recently dead nnd deeply regretted Abbe Philippo; men like the eloquent preacher Abbe Charbonnel, Illen like the now well-known lawyer, Ferdinand Tarroux, wen like the former Vicar-General Stephen, now in this country, and a valued contributor to a contemporary newspaper-it is their influence which is making the" priest movement" a matter of deep concern to the Roman Catholic Church in France. The letters with which such men as these presented their resignation to their bishops, letters printed in the local journals and copied all through the country, have done more than any other one thing to open the eyes of thoughtful Frenchmen to the true influence of the Church of Rome upon the social and religious condition of France, The organ of the "priest movement" is the Ie Ch1'l5fien FI'anr;ais, founded two or three years ago as a monthly journal, edited by M. Bourrier, and supported by those in the Church of Rome and out of it who hope for the religious renovation of France. It does not profess to be a Protestant paper; not all of the evading priests become Protebtants, tho sooner or later the majority of them do. There are, indeed, still exercising their priestly functions, many French priests who, clearly recognizing the errors of their church, and wholly in sympathy with their brethren who have lain down their ministry, still hope–as Luther didthat the reformation will come from within the church. A number of these priesis have taken advantage of the asylum ofi'ered by the mai80n 7W8pitaliere to spend a few weeks or months in reflection and study, attending conrses in the Paris University, and then returning to their charges. 'Such men as these earnestly collaborate in the paget; of Le Chretien Franr;ais, which from a monthly has now become a weekly paper; and of which the lawyer, JL Tarroux, is now co-editor with Pastor Bourrier.
The last number of this paper for 1899 contained an interesting series of portraits of these demitting priesls, with copies of their letters of resignation. In his concluding article ]H. Bourrier says that w-ithin two years one hundred and twenty-five priests have become temporal'Y inmates of his mwison h08pitaliere, and are now in various situations. A number of them are preparing for the Protestlll1L ministry, or for a professorship; others have taken up the law, journalism, or literature; still others have gone into business. But, as JL Bourrier says, the visible results are as nothing in comparison with the silent results, not to he
THE EXODUS OF PRIESTS IN FRANCE. . C'
0.)/ "L'en by the pllblic, but giving evident symptoms of a coming reformation alllong the French clergy. He himself, tho now a Protestant pastor, has not ceased to hope that the reformation will corne from the very heart of the Catholic Church in France. Certainly the condition of that church to-day offers features of intense interest to all who expect the kingdom to corne on earth.
The following letter from M. Andre Bourrier to his bishop, J1gl'. Robert, bishop of }Iarseilles, dated August, 1895, is just recently given to the pllblic:* ..'.[onseign,eu,r,' In sending you Illy resignation as one of your clergy I believe it to be my duty to give yOll the motives which have cau~ed Hle to make the decision. Age, experience, and, above ail, the candid study of the Gospel and of the first centuries of Christianity, have too greatly mOllified the teachings ami the prejudices with which my early ministry was nourished. I see myself compelled to recognize that I was born in a church in which new growths and the interests of men have utterly changed the simplicity of the Gospel. I can not recover in its dogmatic subtleties, nor in a large proportion of its practises and ritual, the beautiful religion of Christ.
You have had cognizance, Monseigneul', of these troubles of con~eience which for a nunl- bel' of years have been the torment of my life. You have not forgotten my agonies while I have tried these ten years past to break the bonds, so strong and so tender, vdlieh held file fast to all that I had known and loved up to that time. You then demanded from me my adhesion to the declaration of faith of Pius IV., and that I gave you. I submitted myself to the exmninations whieh you were pleased to impose upon me. But I (Ud not at all recover the peace of mind ' hich was promised to me.
You know how to make a man suffer; you know nut how to give peace. With loyalty and courage, I forced myself to bend my reason and my will to the demamls of the Roman faith. I did everything to persuade myself of the truth of that faith, since the Homan C'atholic faith consists, not in believing, but in believing that one must believe. To-day I have been twenty years in the ministry, and during ten of these twenty years I have carried on this debate with Inyself in such a crisis of conscience. The day has come "'hen I see it is equally impos- sible and culpable to continue this strife. Moreover, I have suffered enough to recognize that it is even rnorf' grievous to trample on one"s conscience than on one's heart.
I make my exit from the Roman Church, not by the door of skepticism or of unbelief, but by reason of my faith in Jesus Christ, the only Savior and exclusive Mediator (_cts iv: 12; I Timothy ii : 5). ./ In your church you have liluitiplie(l ~aviors and have aumitted Ineans of salvation the Illost diverse, and indeed the most fantastical, according to the fashion of the hour. The success and popularity of these exhibitions have completely perverted the principal truths of the Christian faith-the Incamation and Redemption. But I find in the Roman Church no louger the Gospel which has been revealed, that which the Apostles preached, and which I ought to prefer to every other gospel, even were it brought to me by an angel frOTH heaven.
(Gal. i:8.) If I could find again that Gospel in Romanisl11, I woulLi not give up a position which assures nlC of worldly honors, with the material advantages of a life at once easy and agree- able. If I dill not believe as I do, I might try, like so many others, to reconcile the exercise of my ministry with a conscience fortified by the subtleties of casuistry, and I would not expose nlyself to the injurjes and enmitjes which, it may bet will be the consequence of. the sincerity of my faith. But I belie"e it is better to say, with Saint Paul, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." (Phil. iii: 7.) To sum up all, I am convinced that the Gospel alone will save IllOdel"1l society; convinced that the Roman Church can not, 'ithout abjuring itself, place the Gospel in the hanels of the people; convinced that the Catechism does not compensate for the loss of the Gospel. Such, Monseigneur, are the Illotives of the deeision which I 11lake this clay in the full enjoyment both of my reason and of my liberty. Faithful to my vocation, I shall consecrate the remain- der of my life to the se.."ice of GOlI, only too happy to be permitted henceforth to preach my Savior, with fidelity to his Word. amI set free from the fear of men. I declare to you that I shall publish this letter hereafter in case I shall deem it necessary to furnish my friends with this frank explanation of my conduct.
Accept, ~fonseigneur, the assurance of my respectful regards, with which I have the honor to be Your servant and brother ill Jesus Christ. A, BOURRJER, Pastor.
* From the Outlook.
EDITORIALS.
Troubles in China. while the outbreak is still mostly The condition of things in Chil;a, confined to Northeastern China, as we write, is quite without any there is danger of its spreading all precedent in history. It reminds over the empire. us of the Taiping rebellion, only there is no "Chinese Gordon" to It is something unprecedented control it. The anti-foreign ele- for all the great powers of the Illent is in organized revolt, not world – England, United States, only against foreign residents, bllt l{ussia, Germany, Japan, France against the home government, with and Italy – to unite against one its restraints, and the whole matteI' country in order to protect their inassumes the form of a semi-relig- terests and bring her to terms. The ious and semi-insane moven18nt, outcome will doubtless be enforced one of the most difficult to manage, Ol'der in China with gradually in- because superstition, fanaticism, creasing opportunity to preach the and vindictive passion unite to in- G02pel and bring in the things cite to a sort of madness, w-hich has which pertain to 'Vestern civilizaneither discrimination nor bounds, tiOll. Between now and then, how- Meanwhile the large body of for- ever, there may be awful scenes of eign residents and missionaries, not bloodshed and trials for missioneven excepting the legations repre- aries and Chinese Christians. senting foreign governments, together with the native Christians Never, perhaps, in the whole hisand others, who may seem to the tory of missions, has there been any " Doxe!'s " and their supporters, al- instance of the exposure of a large lied with the foreigners, are in im- body of missionaries in anyone minent danger of life. So imperfect land to such personal peril. They are the present means of communi- are hemlIled in, surrounded by rash cation and information, that it is and resolute foes, and no available impossible to ascertain just what help is at hand. The nearest reis fact and what is rumor, and con- semblance to this present emerjecture takes the place of trust- gency, is perhaps found in the worthy and weIl-ascertained truth. famous Indian Mutiny of 1857. The German Ambassador has been Oftentimes foreign missionaries murdered and perhaps other for- have been expeIled, or persecuted, eigners have shared his fate. It is or even massacred, but never berumored that Prince Tuan, a bit- fore surrounded in such numbers terly anti-foreign member of the by implacable foes, in great organroyal family, has allied himself ized and armed bands, and with with the "Boxers," has usurped little human chance of escape. No authority, and has compelled the deaths of missionaries have been Emperor and Empress Dowager to positively reported and confirmed drink poison. since that of IIl:r. Norman, but These seem to be the death throes mem bel'S of the various missions of China as a great anti-Christian laboring in Shant1).ng and Chili nation. The uprising has been provinces are ill imminent danger gathering force for many years, and their only hope is in God. and is stirring China as a whole as Many are reported safe in undisnothing has ever done before. The turbed cities, in ports, or as having people who seemed almost to have left the country, but some of the no national feeling, have suddenly noblest heroes and heroines of the risen to expel the foreigners, and, missionary army are sti.lI in places of danger. It is a time for prayer as the only adequate resort.
EDITORIALS
The Cost of Missionary Triumphs. been more disastrous, both in the number of lives sacrificed and the A very curious fact is the coin- amount of money expended within cidence between the time of this a given time. Britishers do not outbreak and the close of the Ecu- withdraw from the conflict and menical Conference in New York. denounce further prosecution of Scarcely had the greatest mission- the war, nor will they be likely ary gathering of Christian historv to abstain from other and similar conflicts because of the fearful cost. closed with all its glorious revie,~ Other soldiers are ready to step into the places of those who have of the past and equally glorions fallen, and millions of pounds outlook for the future, when the sterling will continue to be fur- most gigantic outbreak of all nished to prosecute the campaign. history against missions occurred Yet, no sooner do a few mission- in the greatest of Oriental empires, aries fall in China, and in time of and with a threatening of the most utter revolution and anarchy, than disastrous and terrible results. sonle are ready to denounce mis- sions, and not a few of God's pro- Those who believe in God's super- fessed people lose heart and would intending Providence, can not but recall the laborers from the field ask whether He is behind all this and actually abandon the attempt awful confusion and chaos, with a to push the conquests of the Cross! Divine purpose which He is work- We are told, and we are surprised ing out. It is perhaps too soon to at the sources whence some such announce any judgment on His de- suggestions come, that we have no signs, and all we can do is to wait right to force the Christian faith in silence before Him and ask to on a reluctant people. It is not be tanght. But some things are only wrong but shameful for any already appal·ent. disciple of Christ to advocate a cessation of missionary enterprise First of all, missionary triumphs because of resistance to missionary are not to be purchased without effort. Where would Britain and cost. Victory over sin and Satan the United States have been had has always been dearly bonght. It our remote ancestors on the British required the sacrifice of God's own Isles been left to their own pagan- Son to lay the foundations of the ism! Church of the Redeemed, and every stage of subsequent growth has Vhere is the heroism of misbeen attended with sacrifice. Ve sions? Are we to applaud the must not count even life de~r if we patriotism that pushes forward to are to follow our }Iaster in tlw take the place of dead and dying sharing of His suffering and tri- soldiery, and fill up decimated umph. Is not God asking us how I'anks, and man new vessels of war far we are ready to prosecute mis- where great naval ships sink with sions at the peril of life, and liter- all on board, and then timidlv retire ally take up our cross in treading from the conflict of the ages bein our .Master's footsteps? cause lives are lost in God's war? And shall we lose sight of the The Church and The World. immense difference in result be- tween the two conflicts? :Many Again we are compelled to con- human wars are wars of aggrestrast the methods and spirit of the sion, waged for the sake of terriworld and the methods and spirit tory, expansion, enrichment, or of the Church. At this very time Great Britain has been waging a most costly war in South Africa. Few wars of modern times have
even the fame of new conqllests. plantations have not only met all This Divine war has no cHsllaJ their own working (~xpenses and advantage in view; its sole purpose is the uplifting and salvation sustained the missionaries laboring of man.. Vhile we compare the on them also, but there has even costs, let us not forget the con, been sufficient to payoff the defitrast of what is secured. A price ciencies of former years, so that we paid must never be considered apart from the values purchased. may safely say that, except in an unusually disastrous season, our Industrial Missions. present stations will at least pay The experiment of the Nyassn their own way. And this has not Industrial Mission in Africa we been accomplished by subord'nathave been watching with much interest, especially as no little doubt ing the spiritu3.1 work to the induswas expressed as to its feasibility trial. On the contrary, Ollr brethren and ultimate success. Ve know and E:isters toiling in the field will the president and main supporters of this work, and have, therefore, testify that they have fonnd the fclt a personal as well as general industrial work help the spiritual solicitude as to the issue of it. .Mr. by bringing large numbers of the B. I. Greenwood, of London, writes that while the industrial feature natives within the sound and incharacterizes the work, "the finan- flucnce of the Gospel, and opening cial and temporal is always subordinate to the spiritual," and he a way to their hearts for the misadds that" experience has shoWIl sionary and his message. We say that the agricultural work of the mission, instead of being in any all this confidently, and yet withway a hindrance to the prodama- out a single word of boasting, for tion of the Gospel, has, on the contrary, been a considerable assistance any success attained has been the in every way both to the nativeB direct gift of God in answer to and to the missionaries them- humble prayer, and we call upon selves." our own hearts to ascribe all thanks The coffee crop of IS99 has quite alone to Him, and ask our friends realized all expectations. Likubuln to join with us in doing so. yielded fifteen tons and Cholo over' twenty. The price this coffee COIn- Vhile those at horne have had manded will pay all outstanding liabilities of the mission, and the t heir minds full of plans for an loans negotiat('d in earlier days of the inccption of the work. The early extension of the mission, mission now looks forward to a period of healthy growth, free froIII God has been turning Mr. Deeath's the pecuniary burdens of its past years. But more than this, the thoughts in the same direction. In official announcement is full of hope: a recent letter he writes that, im- vVe may fairl~" claim that the pressed with the idea that we should principle of self-supporting missionary work on the industrial sys- soon be led to str'ike ont into 1'egions tem is now realized. This year our at pl'esent nnevangelized, he had already taken steps to secure a block of land on the ri verShire, at Makwira's (the village of the chief Makwira, who lately sent hi~ son to school at Cholo), which he thought would be likely to serve as a sort of pivot point between the head station at Cholo and the nen'
stations they might be led to oc- eupy. Cholo is about forty miles ft'om Blantyre. Mrs. Deeath was the first white woman ever seen there. * An Opportunity, The Indian National Council of the Y. 11:. C. A. have asked that THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE VORLD may be donated to the reading-room of e'ach association.
1900.J EDITORIALS
There is a strong and united effort the Tabernacle absolutely free of to strengthen the missionary de- partment of the Studpnt Move- debt, we agree that the opening ment, and seven universities of England, Citnada, and the United day be September 20th, this being States are asked to give a small library of fourteen select volumes the anniversary of the pastor's to each of the seven largest student centers in India and Ceylon. birthday." It is probable, how- There is, however, a very strong ever, that the opening services will desire that each of the thirty-five college Y. M. C. A. bodies in India begin on the 19th of September. and Ceylon should have THE MIS- SIONARY REVIEW, which would The friends of this great church thus reach over sixteen hundred students. The major part of India's and its grand combination of philevangelization must be done by the Christian young men of India, anthropic, educational, and evanand of these young men, the edu- gelistic work, will feel much graticated Christian students must, of fication at the prosperous and course, be the leaders. prompt rebuilding of the hallowed structure, and will feel much joy The editors and -publisher~ feel at the manifest and manifold blessstrongly that this would be a very ing of God upon the work. It is fruitful field for THE BEVIl''''. hoped they will join the pastor in And we feel equally persuaded that prayer, not only for the entire reif our readers will consider, tllPY moval of all debt before the 19th of will gladly furnish the money September, but most of all, for a whereby at cost, copies of THE HE- great harvest of souls. If the en- VIEW may be sent to these thirty- trance into the new building is the five associations free. The pub- signal for a great outpouring froUl lishers offer to send 500 copies to the presence of the Lord, the cup various parts of the world, at a of blessing will overflow. It is normal cost of $1.50 per copy, lll- hoped that friends of the work will cluding postage, if friends of mis- give aid toward the new building, siol'.6 will furnish the funds to pay and we call attention to the matter this nominal price of production. in this REVIEW, for the Tabernacle The editors heartily approve the has alwaYR been a great center of plan, and ask their readers to assist world-wide missions, at home and in thig benevolent work. Any sub- abroad. scriptions to this fund may be sent to the editors or the publishers, An Opportunity in France. heing so designated by the donOl's. A rare opportunity of doing good The new build ing of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London nears presents itself just now in Marcompletion. Pastor Spurgeon has made announcement to the effect seilles. lI. Lortsch, formerly in that, altho nearly £4,000 are still required, the committee had seen Nimes, has been called to Marseilles its way to pass the following resolution: "Believing that in answer to take charge of the Free Church. to prayer the Lord will send us the total amount required to reopen He is a fine man, of evangelical and spiritual character. The church, however, is POOl', and through hav- ing struggled against difficulties to maintain a pure Gospel standard, of is likelv to have to meet an annual deficit 2,500 francs, or about $500. The church is doing its best, but as it gathers recruits only among the pOOl' working classes, it is prop- erly mission ground, and needs out- side help. At last Easter e'ighteen new 'lIw1nbcl's were received, which is a sign of vigorous and healthy growth. The general budget of the church covers about $1,100, but they can raise among themselves not more than $600, and we earnestly commend this needy and most de- serving church and pastor to the sympathy and aid of the friends of pure faith in France. We shall gladly send on any giftB without * cost of exchange to donors.
RECENT BOOKS ON MISSIONS AND MISSION LANDS.
WHILE SEWING SA"DALS. Tales of a Telegu made many a soul turn to that Pariah Tribe. By Emm~ Rauschenbusch- great and merciful God, of whom Clough, Ph.D. Illustrated. 12mo. $1.50. the missionary and his assistants Fleming H. Revell Co. preached not only in words but in deeds. But while the famine was As all eyes have been turned to- one of the conditions which favored ward famine-stricken India, any a mass movement toward Chrisbook, giving us an insight into tianity among the Madigas, it was Indian life, and the Indian point of not a normal healthful conditioll. view, must be of special interest. 1 beJieve the movement toward Christianity would have taken Mrs. Clough's book deals with place in the same proportion, if legends and anecdotes gathered there had not been a famine. The from the Pariah tribe of Madigas famine ushered in suddenly the in Southern India. Some twenty second period in the history of the years ago, ten thousand Madigas Ongole mission. Abruptness is inturned to Christianity in one year. imical to the principle of growth Sixty thousand Madigas are to-day in the moral and spiritual, as well counted as Christians. We are as in the natural world. told that the movement toward Christianity antedated the advent SURVEY OF THE CHRISTIAN STUDENT lIoVll;- of the missionary, and was due to dissatisfaction with the old cults. MENTS OF THE WORLD. John R. Matt. But the transition from the old re- Pamphlet. World's Christian Student' ligions to Christianity did not take Federation, New York. place without great suffering. This is the official report (for 1898) The converts often suffered the of all the Christian Student moveloss of all things that they might ments in affiliation with the win Christ. When, however, one 'Vorld's Student Christian Federaable man would become a Chris- tion. An examination of the report tian, the strong tribal instinct shows unmistakably that God is tended to draw other members of working through this movement to his family into sympathy with the awaken the students of all lands. new religion. Striking incidents For so young an organization the of God's direct intervention are results are marvelous. mentioned. IZILDA: A STORY OF BRAZIL. Annie M. Barns. Of pathetic interest is the chap- 12mo $1.25. Presbyterian Committee ter on the great famine of 1876–78. of Publication, Richmond, Va.
Those who were children during As a. Sunday-school book, or one those years were many of them for mission libraries, this will be stunted in growth, and some had a welcomed. It will interest the look of premature age on their reader in the country and scenes faces. Cattle died of thirst and which it pictures, but can not be hunger, and the Madigas found an commended for its literary style. occasional meal by picking the South America is very much morsel of meat off the bones of neglected in literature, as it is in starved animals. The red fruit of missions, and a book descriptive of the cactus became desirable food. missionary life there should be wel- comed for that reason. To those who are hoping for a great religious awakening as the We have a copy of a booklet conresult of the present famine, the taining the proceedings of the conwriter's views will be of value. ference on missions to the Jews, held at Exeter Hall, November The distress of those two years- 23-24, 1899, and published by the the pangs of starvation, and the London Society for Promoting ravages of pestilence-undoubtedly Christianity among the Jews. It is a very valuable pamphlet of little more than 100 pag-es, containing, however, nearly thirty addresses covering all the phases of the Jewish question, and by some of the best Qualified men of Britain.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
AMERICA. all except 4 have been wholly erected by the labor of the students. New Recruits Since December of Students and their instructors have for Missions. last year no less done the work, from the drawing of the plans and making of the than 88 Student bricks to the putting in of the elec- Volunteers have sailed from this tric fixtures. There are 50 wagons country bound for the foreign field. and buggies and 600 head of live Of these 22 have been assigned to stock. The total value of the real China, 16 to Africa, 11 to Japan, and personal property is $300,000. 8 to India, (3 to South America, If we add to this the endowment etc. There are 12 young men in fund of $165,000, the total property Vanderbilt University who are is $465,000, and if we add the value pledged to foreign missionary of the 25,000 acres of public land work. recently granted to this institution by Congress, the total property is Good Reading During the year $590,000. The students earn by for Sailors. ending March 31, work at their trades and other in- 1900, the Seaman's dustries about $56,000 a year. The total annual expenditure for carry- Friend Society has sent 011 t 318 loan ing on this work is about $90,000. libraries, of which 131 were new, Beginning with 30 students, the and 187 were refitted and reshipped. number has grown until there are The total number of volumes in 1,000 and more from 24 States, these libraries is 12,674, and of new Africa, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto .volumes 5,633, available during the Rico, and other foreign countries. year to 4,D70 seamen. The whole In all departments, industrial, number of new libraries sent out is academic, and religious, there are 10,717 and the reshipments of the 88 officers and teachers, making a same, 12,672, making in the aggre- total population on the grounds of gate, 23,389. The number of vol- about 1,200. umes in these libraries, 582,727, has been accessible by first shipment Christian and According to the and reshipment to 412,115 men. Missionary last annual report The number of libraries placed on Alliance. this society had last United States naval vessels and in year an income of United States hospitals up to date is 1,OG8, containing 39,006 volumes, $160,000; is doing work in 12 counand these have been accessible to tries (such as South America, the 125,185 men. In the stations of the 'Vest Indies, Africa, Palestine, United States Life Saving Service India, China, Japan, etc.); susare 160 libraries containing 6,250 tains 250 American missionaries volumes, accessible to 1,308 keepers and 200 native workers, and has and surfmen. gathered about 1,200 native Chris- tians (adherents), The Great Beginning in 1881, Work of with absolutely no The Southern Baptist Convention. Booker property, the Tus- -This body has representatives in Washington. kegee Institute now these 6 countries: China, Japan, Africa, Italy, Mexico, Brazil; sus- owns 2,500 acres of tains a force of 94 missionaries, land. Of this amount about 700 male and female, 29 ordained naacres are this year under cultiva- ti ves, and 104 unordained; and tion. There are upon the school grounds 48 buildings, and of these
has a membership of 6,537, of whom cants, 37,820; added during the 1,341 wel'e baptized last year. year, 4,442; students for the minis- Baptist This organization try, 66; schools, 702; number of Missionary supports 6 missions, pupils, 23,929; Sabbath-school schol- with 472 mission- ars, 26,611; printing establish- Union. aries, and 1,256 na- ments, 8; pages of religious matter tive preachers. The following published, 65,091,322; hospitals, 35; table presents other facts to the l' dispensaries, 47; patients receiving treatment, 321,836. The Board of eye: CHrRCHES. MEMBERS Home Missions reported to the last DATE. COUNTRY 1813 …… Burma……….. 685 ……… 37,g39 General Assembly 1,380 mission- 1840 …… India ………… 113 ……… 53,423 1841. ….. Assam……….. 69……… 6.243 aries, laboring in 38 states. There 1843 …… China.. " ……. 23 ……… ·2.996 were also 347 missionar·y teachers 1~72 …… Japan………. 25……… 1.885 IH78 …… Africa… . . . . . . . .. 8. . . . . . . .. 2.530 engaged in 121 schools. The work 928 105.21(; is cosmopolitan in the number of Methodists Th e Met hod i s t nationalities which it reaches- American, Armenian, Bohemian, and Episcopal MiS3ion- Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Mexican, Norwegian, Span- Missions. ary Committee has ish, Swedish, besides various tribes of Indians. The Freedmen's Board made the following has under its care 199 ministers, 389 churches and missions, 19,588 appropriations for foreign missions communicants, of whom 1,841 were added on examination last year; of the coming year: For Germany, 324 Sabbath-schools, with 19,582 scholars, 04 day-schools with 231 $36,918; Switzerland, $7,390; Nor- teachers and 9,132 pupils.
way, $12,487; Sweden, $16,436; Den- mark, $7,490; Russia, $5,200; Bul- garia, $8,868; Italy, $41,122; South America, $76,337; Mexico, $t9,742; Liberia, 'Yest Africa, $9,855; Kongo Mission, Africa, $15,013; China, $119,376; Japan, $49,739; Korea, ElTROPE.
$16,911; India, $144,241; Malaysia, A New Archbishop I I' e- $10,500; Philippine Islands, $2,000; Crusade. land, of St Paul, has total, $629,625. It is interesting to written an impor- note the fields where our Methodist tant letter to the Duke of Norfolk, brethren are expending their mis- president of the Catholic Union of sionary funds, and the proportion- Great Britain, urging a united ate importance they attach to the Roman Catholic propaganda on the various fields as indicated by the part of all the Anglo-Saxon faith- relative amount of the appropria- ful.
tions. A Hundred The report of the Presbyterians The m iss ion a I' y Years Ago. L.:tV!. S. for 1800 and force under the care consists of seven- Missions. of the For e i g n teen pages, and is well worth peru- Board is: 117 prin- sal at the present day, not only on cipal stations, 1,172 out-stations; account of its contents, but also as American missionaries, 233 ordain- an expression of the views and sen- ed ministers, 46 physicians, 13 lay, timents of our fathers, and of the ~33 married women, 149 single way in which they dealt with the women, 26 female physicians; to- difficult problem3 of their time.
tal, 720. Native missionaries, 170 The report begins with a reference ordained ministers, 398 licentiates, to the enforced withdrawal from 1,133 other workers; total, 1,701. Otaheite of the larger part of the Organized churches, 020; communi- company of missionaries who had
GENERAl MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
been settled there two years earlier, had been made; and in connection and also to the retit'ement of :Mr. with the most important effort the Crook from the :Marquesas Islands. society had yet put forth there was Then follows a reference to the cap- great and painful disappointment. ture of the D~(jJ by a French priva- Yet the most interesting and sugteer, and a statement that the mis- gestive feature of the whole docusionaries who were in her had ment is the spirit of hopeful courreached England, and that many of age and of earnest purpose which them had decided to retire from breathes through it. Already aI'- the society. Thm thE South Sea rangements had been made with :Iission, which had beep thf first the owners and master of a trading great enterprisL of the society, and vessel, the Royal AdlldTal, to send had begun with such bright h pes, a fresh contingent of thirty mishad been almost wrecked. sionaries to the South Seas. The failure of the Foulah Mission was The directors were next able to made the reason for giving men a give the cheering intelligence that special training in Arabic, in the the mission to South Africa was at hope of being able to reach the length an accomplished fact. Van- Mohammedans in the interior of derkemp, Kicherer, Edmonds, and ,Vestern Africa. Six or eight ad- Ed wards had reached the Cape. ditional missionaries were to be They had been a means of blessing sent to reinforce the mission in to the convicts on the way, had South Africa. A mission was to been most kindly received in Cape be commenced in the Sandwich Town, and a South African Mis- Islands. "Affecting representasionary Society had been formed tions" having been made to the to help their work. In the words directors "of the deplorable state of the report: "The South African of the inhabitants in the province Mission is a subject which the di- of Canada, as to their ignorance rectors refer to with the most lively and profligacy, arising from the pleasure and the most ardent grati- almost total want of religious intude. Its utility commenced at its struction," it had been decided to embarkation, increased in its prog- send two missionaries to Quebec. ress to the Cape of Good Hope, The spiritual darkness and ignoand has continued to the date of rance of France, as the result of the the last letters." spread of infidelity, had appealed very powerfully to the sympathy A second mi;,sion to Africa-to of members of the board, and an the Fulah country, on the vVest edition of the New Tes~ament in Coast-had been commenced, in French had been prepared for free conjunction with the Edinburgh distribution. Direct communicaand Glasgow Missionary Societies, tion being impossible, in consebut had collapsed at its incEption quence of the war between the two through the deadly action of dis- countries, the good offices of friends ease. in Holland had been secured for the distribution of the books. Fi- The only other missions of the nally, after long and vigorous dissociety were in India and in North eussion of the matter, the board America, in each of which there had come to the conclusion that was but a solitary missionary. the men who were to be sent out for the evangelization of the Such was the very modest record heathen ought to have some special of a year's work, which the direct- training and preparation for their ors of a hundred years ago had to present to the constituents of the society. No results could be reported; only bare commencements
great work, and it had been decided Salvation The work of the to spend no less than £300 pel' an- Army Work, Salvation Army in num out of the scanty income of the society in securing this impor- the past year is retant object. Thus, at the very out- viewed in All the World, for May: set of actual work. the direction of 14,713 officers, maintained by the the society was characterized by Army, and 54,111 local officers, who an alertness, an enterprise, a maintain themselves, are now breadth of view, and a soundness directing the work carried on in 47 of judgment which were very re- countries and colonies. Preaching markable, and augured well for the is carried on in the open air and in future. theaters and music-halls, in addi- tion to 6,000 buildings regularly A hundred years have passed used for the services. Besides the since then, and how amazing is the mission to the" submerged tenth," change which has taken place dur- there are missions to the Zulus, the ing the intervening period. The Kafirs and other native tribes of review of the field to-day is the re- South Africa, the Hindu low view of a great, organized, and suc- castes of India, the Buddhists of cessful enterprise, in which many Japan and Ceylon, the Mohamagencies, wholly undreamed of by medans of Java, the Maoris of New the men of a hundred years ago, Zealand, the Chinese of San Franare powerfully at work, and results cisco and oth'er similar native have already been gained, the ex- races. Then there is the Naval and tent of which, both direct and indi- Military League for the soldiers rect, it is impossible fully to esti- and sailors of different nations, mate.-Chronicles of the London which has its representatives in Missionary Society. some 170 battalions and batteries and 150 ships of war. The social South African Perhaps we ought scheme includes a multitude of War VS. not to be surprised, uplifting agencies. Interesting de- Missions. but nevertheless tails are given of the work in vari- the. fact is Ruffi- ous countries. Eight years ago the officers were forbidden by the ciently distressing, that the de- authorities to say" Hallelujah" in mands made upon the public for the streets of Berlin; to-day the the war, and the famine and other AnDY meets nightly in 20 halls in things, have had this year a very the city. A cultured woman who adverse influence on the fl,mds of came to London to learn the duties many of the missionary societies. of a cadet, started a work in Fin- Even the greatest of them all-the land that is now rEpresented by 47 Church Missionary Society-has, corps, slum posts, rescue and social to meet current expenses, been agencies. obliged to draw largely on the extraordinary resources provided Work of The British Deepat its centenary. The Bible Society Sailors, Sea Mission, which is £20,000 behind. The Irish Church Mission has heen called on to meet for many years has an expenditure of £21,000 with an done a noble work among the income of £12,000. And the Lon- fishermen of Newfoundland and don Missionary Socie'ty has been elsewhere, lately held its annual almost equally unfortunate. Its meeting. It was announced that a account at the 31st of March showed munificent gift had been received a deficit of £17,000.-Fl'ee Chureh from. an anonymous donor, a Monthly. splendid new hospital steam traw-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
leI', costing $50,000. The mission for training native girls as Chrisfleet now consists of 15 vessels, tian teachers, etc., this society has with 6 doctors aboard, and its 52 schools scattered through the sphere of operations includes the country, with a staff of 20 English North Sea, the Channel, and West women missionaries and 128 native Coast fisheries, and the fishing helpers-teachers, Bible-women, grounds off Labrador. Forty-five and Scripture readers. tons of literature were distributed in 1898; 1l,085 patients were treated' English The work of this in the North Sea, and 2,435 in Presbyterian church includes: Labrador; 16,411 missionary visits were made, and 3,260 services were Missions. Amoy, 65 stations, held at sea. 117 native agents; The London The society begins Swatow, 52 stations, 56 native Jews'Society. the year with 49 agents; Formosa, 55 stations, 31 native agents; Singapore, 8 stations, 184 agents stations, 19 native agents; India, (including 24 ordained mission- where dispensary patients in one aries), 56 lay and medical mission- year represent 500 villages; and aries, 52 school teachers, and 52 among Jews in London as well as Scripture readers, colporteurs, and Syria. In the 9 hospitals, some other lay agents. Of this number 40,COO of those who seek bodily 83 are Christian Israelites. There healing, hear of the Great Phywas received for the general fund SICIan. The special aim in China £38,150, the largest amount during is to raise a Chinese church which the past decade. By a donation of shall be self·governed, self-support- £1,400 from the family of the late ing, and self-propagating. Already Mr. Richard Cadbury, erection and Chinese Christians have become furnishing of a fourth ward in the missionaries to others. Amoy, in Jerusalem Hospital is made possi- this respect, took the lead years hIe. ago; then Formosa commenced work in the Pescadores ; and China Inland The income of this Swatow has now missions in the Mission. organization last islands of Namoa and Hai-sua. year in London The cost of these three last-men- tioned forward movements is borne amounted to £43,280; and in China, by the native churches. Native America, and Australia, to £9,916. Chinese agents of the mission out- The number of baptfsms in the numqer the European staff by stations in China was 1,194, an in- nearly 3 to 1. Last year there crease of 30 over the previous year, were 6,703 communicants in misbringing the total to 12,956 since sion churches, as compared with the work of the mission began. Of 1,927 in the year 1876.-London the 811 missionaries, 752 are on Christian. active service, 30 are on the hoine staff and not designated to sta- Honor to Of late the German tions, and 29 are students in China. Count religious press has There went out of new workers during the year 19 men and 30 women, Zinzendorf. been dwelling at and 46 missionaries returned from length upon the furlough; so that there were 95 arrivals in China during 1899. career and achievements of this man of truly apostolic gifts and British Syrian Mission.-In addi- spirit, the 200th anniversary of tion to a fine institution in Beirut whose birth occurred May 26th, and the event was fitly celebrated at Herrnhut, June 7th to 9th,
most of the German Protestant far-off Britain and America, not missionary societie8 uniting fOl' far from $3,000,000 have already the occasion. The 1fIOI'IWIall, been contributed for the same published at Bethlehem and Naza- object. reth, Penn.. issued a Zinzendorf number May 30th, which was over- The Work of More and more this flowing with excellent biographical Ramabai. gifted and saintly matter. woman is playing Gustavus This German or- the angel of mercy to a certain Adolphus ganization has for class of her co u n try w 0 men, Society. its chief aim to pro- through her 3 schools, Mukte Sa- dan, Krepu Sadan, and Sharada vide for the spiri- Sadan, in which 7;')0 famine girls tual wants of scattered Protestants, are housed and taught, with 16 living in districts that are pre- paid teachers, and 85 other assistdominantly Roman Catholic, by ants. Of the number 350 are widsupporting pastors, erecting ows, deserted wives, or girls left churches, parsonages, etc. Ac- desolate by the present famine. cording to the last annual report, the total income during the past 12 Afraid of Their 'Ve gi ve last annual months was 2,466,920 marks, com- Rescuers. report. Pan d ita pared with 2,507,549 marks of the Ramabai says: .. It preceding year. The 45 territorial associations constituting the soci- is hard work to gather and save girls ety have invested funds to the und young women. Theil' minds yalue of 5,252,567 marks, and the have been filled with such a dread income from bequests was 446,828 toward Christian people that they marks. During this year the asso- can not appreciate the kindnes8 ciation completed 35 churches, 13 shown them. For instance, many of parsonages, 8 schools, and began the unconverted girls in my homes the erection of 29 churches, 8 par- have a great fear in their mind. sonages, and 2 schools. They think that some day after they are well fattened, they will Siberian Exile The Official JlIes- he hung head downward, and a great fire will be built underneath, Abolished. senger, se Peters- and oil will be extracted from them to be sold at a fabulously great burg, July 3, pu b- price for medical purposes. Others lishes an imperial ukase, providing think they will be put into oil in a large measure for the abolition mills and their bones ground. It of banishment to Siberia. In May, is only lately that our girls gathered 1899, the Czar commissioned the from the last famine have begun Minister of Justice to draw up a to lose these dreadful thoughts, but law abolishing such banishment. the minds of the new ones are filled The minister's draft, as finally sanc- with more dreadful ideas than tioned by the Council of the Em- these. They can not understand pire, has now been signed by the that anyone would be kind to them Czar, and the law is now ga~etted. without some selfish purpose."
ASIA. Islam and the Plague.-The height of religious fanaticism was reached Famine Relief. In addition to the recently when 15,000 Mohammed- vast sums expended ans assembled in Benares, and petitioned the government of India by the Indian Government in the to annul the code of ruleB now effort to rescue millions from starvation, it is pleasant to note as a blessed sign of the times. that in
1900.J GENERAL MISSIONARY
being enforced to prevent th" passed to them by Pariah servspread of the plague. TllI'y as- ants." signed as their' reason that the rules are contrary to the la ,,-s of Degradation Speaking of the Mohammed, of Out-Castes Pariah class Re'.
Missions and •• The brotherhood G. H. Brock says in Fraternity. of Inan" is a fine- plain Anglo – Saxon: "They are dirty beyond the possibility of your sounding phrase for cOlllprehension. Their food is the the peroration of a political address. earrion for which they fight with But we venture to say that no act the jackals. And they nre dirtier of Parliament that wa,,; ever passed, in mind. The horrihle figures on 110 scheme that the wit of statesmen the' sacred' cars are of such foulhas dedsed, has done so lllnch ness that to see them. once is to be toward making the brotherhood of defiled forever. Is India's religion man a reality as the work of for- good enough? Her scrofula and eign missions. 'Vhat can thl' politician show to compare with con- leprosy ought to be sufficient to crete facts like the following r The silence all the poets and fools and ]'a&cals on this point." congregation of Hastings ('hapel, Calcutta, recently sent the snm of Two In his" Impressions £H lOs. to help in relieving the stress of famine at Molepolole, Tendencies in of Mission Vork in South Africa. And now we learn that the native Christians of .:Iml- india. India," written out "huria have sent a substantial Slllll for famine relief in India. India at the request of Dr. helping Africa, China helping India; so the ends of the earth m'e HUllle and published in the Han'cst being drawn together in the love and service of the OlW Master,- Field for :Iay, Prof. Ladd has, London Chl'on'ic1e. within a short space, thoughtfully The Passing Rev. H. C. Hazell, of Caste. of the Madura :lis- reviewed the whole situation. He sion of the Ameri- observes hyo main tendencies can Board, says concerning the " pnrtial surrender of caste": "III aUlong educated Indians. The one a single statir.n boarding-school, 16 different castes are represented. is that of those who cherish a lofty all sitting upon the same benches, nil eating the same food, which is monotheisllJ and a high conception dealt out by the pupils in turn at llleal time, irrespective of caste. of the principles of the world's All form one happy family. Oll the itineracies all the agents eat tiw moral order, which their admirers same food together, altho all castf's are represented, from the Brahmall profess to derive from the Hindu to the Pariah and ChuckIian. At the mission bungalow, when re- Shastras, but which have, properly freshments are offered to the agents, they take them without the speaking, come from Christian slightest objection, altho those refreshJllents are prepared and sources. " Frorn whatever sources these truths seem to come, or do reaJly COllW," says the professor, "I am sure that all who desire the Sllccess of Christian lllissions in India should prize them highly and welcome them heartily. Men who are sincerely laboring to promote the~e truths and are governing their lives in accordance with them, should be considered and treated as coadjutors of the Christian cause- whether they continue to calI them·· selves Hindus or Parsees, or menl- bel'S of the Brahma Samaj." The other tendency is that of agnosti- cism and irreligion, for which the
foreign influence, especially Eng- not an exaggeration. This, if not lish influenee, is held responsible by the finest hOllse in Madras, is certhe writer. He therefore advises tainly the second finest. Tho not Ohristian missions in India to be yet quite finished, it is said to have united in fostering the one and cost as mnch as $100,000, the money opposing the other of these two COIning nearly all from America. current tendencies. In this con- [Of course in India, where wages nection he emphasizes the n0ed of are so low, this means a great deal perfect harmony among the differ- more than $100,000 with us.] J could ent missions. not but ask myself before this building, is it right, in a land where Education. As regards educa- thousands are yearly dying of t ion, the learned hunger, to build for Ohristian pur- poses such a house as no such assoprofessor, while recognizing the ciation in Europe or America duty of Ohristian missions in pro- possesses? Does it help the moral moting the two chief interests of education of the people to endow education and economical welfare the Y. M. O. A. withsnch quarters? of the people, expresses his dissatisfaction with the higher education The man who is to labor among of the classes. He says that the the youth of Madras is, we may amount, both of missionary and of note, neither English nor Amerigovernment funds, spent upon can, but a Danish missionary and giving a practically free education clergyman named Larsen. Having of the University grade to such a studied at home, he came in 1891 to large number of young Hindus, Madras. After he had learned ought not to be increased. It seems English, he rapidly gained the conto Prof. Ladd that the missionary fidence of the native Ohristians of colleges might wisely combine with Madras, and has now been engaged the government to change, as for the work among the young rapidly as possible, the character men.-L. J. FROHNMEYER, in of the University education, so as gvangeUsche8 jlfissions-Magazin. to fit more of those taking the examinations for other and sturdier Missionary Since 1879 the Euroways of earning a livelihood. As Helpers. pea n missionary to the relation of the missionary force in South work to the primary education of the great body of the people, this India has more than trebled. The is, in his opinion, quite another native pastorate has quadrupled. matter. "To take part to the There are now 786 Bible-women, a fullest extent in such education," class twenty years ago almost nonsays he, "is an essential part of the existent. In all, the 33 missionary evangelizing of the people. The societies have put 10,647 troops into conaition of ignorance, supersti- the field. These missions have 21 tion, and immorality among the theological seminaries and 3schools multitudes of India is to the new- for training female helpers. In comer something utterly appal- these seminaries there are 339 ling." pupils, and in the 16 missionary normal schools 323. This is a cheer· A Question as On January 2, 1900, ing growth, yet as Dr. Jones, the to Cost. the Missionary Oon- convener of this committee urges, ference of South far from adequate to the needs of the work. It was also urged with India met at Madras, in the palace general acceptance of the Conferof the Young Men's Ohristian Asso- ence, that in the training schools ciation. I say palace, and this is
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. G51
increased attention should be paid Foreign Devils are not produced by mankind. to making the training suitable to the necessities of the people. A If you doubt this, little pleasant raillery was leveled Look at them carefully: at the English brethren who seem The eyes of all the Foreign Devils are bluish. to suppose that Butler's analogy and Paley's Evidences unmodified, No rain falls are as well suited to India in 1900 The earth is getting dry. as to England about 1750. Herr This is because the Churches stop the Heaven. Frohnmeyer expresses peculiar satisfaction that the missionaries The Gods are angry are becoming unanimous that in The Genii are vexed; the training schools instruction Both are conle dovn from the mountains to should be in the vernaculars. "Vhere English is imperfectly deliver the doctrine. known, studies followed in English can not be really assimilated. It This is not hearsay. was also agreed that Christian rrhe practise will not be in vain character and Bible knowledge . must be as much insisted on for To recite incantations and pronounce magIC teachers as for catechists. words. CHINA. Burn up the yellow written prayers; The Chinese TIEN-TsIN, April Light incense sticks: Boxer's Song. 30.-. . 'Ve are To invite the Gods and Genii of all the brot- toes (Halls I. having a recrudescence of anti-foreign literature, of The Gods will com" out of the grottoes, which the following are very good The Genii will come down from the mounsamples. The first of them is in rhyme of a peculiarly attractive tains, . form, the meter throughout repre- And support the human bodies to practise senting two lines of three charac- the boxing. ters each, and one line of seven characters. This is particularly When all the military accomplishments or easy to memorize. I know some tactics Chinese Christians whose families t{;i~il~~tlt~d~~ult to determine the" Forcan repeat it by heart after one or eign Devils" then. two readings, and they assure me Push aside the railway tracks, that it is a style of placard which Pull out the telegraph poles, would be universally memorized, Immediately after this destroy the steamers. whereas the prose placards are The great France read, but make no lasting impression. I append a literal transla- Will grow cold and dmynhearted:. . tion of the poem without any at- The English and RUSSian Will certalllly dlstempt at rhyme, for fp.1r of destroying the effect. Let ~~:e'various H Foreign Devils" all be killed. BOXER ?::''!~CARD. lI1ay the whole elegant Empire of the Great Ching dynasty be ~'£o~~;;,~&~':,';tard. God assist the Boxe''. The Patriotic Harmonious Corps; Do the We often read in It is because the Foreign Devils disturh the Chinese Love missionary maga- Middle Kingdom, Urging the people to join their religion the Gospel? zines such express- To turn their backs on heaven; Venerate not the Gods and forget the Ances· ions as these: "Chi- tors. na thirsts after the Gospel"; "The Men violate the human obligations; Women commit adultery. Chinese cry for salvation"; "'Ihe harvest is ready, we need only laborers to bring in the sheaves."
It is principally young missionaries and friends of missions at home who speak and write thus.
However, in the interest of truth, it must be sai.d t.hat, speaking gen- erally, it is wholly misleadillg to say that the Chinese thirst after the Gospel. Nor shall we hear a single elder missionary so express himself. The younger mission- aries, of course, write in faith; it is really their own burning desire which they unconsciously attribute to the heathen; they are themselves so solicitous that there should be it longing for the Gospel, that they transfer this feeling to the people.
But this is not true. In a new place, where the Gospel has never be€n proclaimed, there can natur-
ally be found men who seem pre- sionary effort in the empire of pared for the faith, but they are in China. During these memorable every case pure exceptions. ",Vhere days 68 students, many of them the Gospel has been preached for from wealthy and influential fami- some time, and where Christian lies, stood up to express their de- writings have been circulated, the sire and purpose henceforth to Iive receptiveness is likely to be greater, Christian lives. Never before in but even then it is assuredly an the history of mission work in exception to find souls that thirst China have so lllany students in after the true God. The rule is, one institution at one time sought that it requires a persevering and salvation. Underlying this won- toilsome work to awaken the long· derful uprising of young men to ing after something better. Speak- give their lives to Christ, there has ing generally, the heathen are well also been a far-reaching work of content with their own system, grace carried on in the hearts and received by tradition from their lives of professing Christian stu- fathers. They have as good as no dents.-D. lV. Lyon.
sense of sin, and no longing for a The English Presbyterian Church Savior. has now in China 62 missionaries, 28 of whom are "romen; 256 native This must not be understood as agents, 8el. organized congregations, meaning that the Chinese do not 28 native ministers entirely supneed t.he Gospel. Their supersti- ported by their own congregations, tion and credulity, especially the and there are 6,703 communicants. women's, is frightful. The most There are 12 hospitals under the fantastic stories of cats that talk, care of the church. of women turned into storks, they believe, but for the truth they have no ear. That God is our Father, is AFRICA. It strange thought to them. And what of their moral condition? A Land In Ble8sed be Egypt, Think only of 37 attempts at suicide of Villages. issued in conneccoming to our knowledge last year in the little town of Da-ku·san. tion with the Pray- ",Vhatan insight it gives ns into the er I;nion for Egypt and the Egypt hopeless condition of their homes! Mission Band, is a paper which Yes, the Chinese need the Gospel, states that the "province of Gharbut it needs abundant perseverence biyeh" contains a total populaand abundant love to bring them tion of 1,297,656 souls, of whom to see this. Vere we not laboring only 24.583 are nominal Christians, in the service of the Most High, and 1,273,072, or 98.1 per cent., are we should never dare to hope for Moslems. It is divided into 11 success.-HERR BOLWIG. in Dan8k governmental districts, with 2,133 "vlis8ion8- Blad. towns, villages, and centers of population, of which 384 exceed 1.000, and 12 contain more than A Revival The last ten days 10,000 sonls.
in China. of March witnessed A New Tribe Those interested in a revival in the in the scientific study Angl, C.linese College, at Foo- West Africa. of missions must chow, China, which in the estima- needs give large at- tion of so cautious a man as the tention to unoccupied fields, a Rev. Ll. Lloyd, of the Church Mis- branch of missionary study which sionary Society, is probably with- in the minds of some was not suffi- out a parallel in the histary of mis- ciently accentuated at the Ecumen-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. 65:3
ical Conference. Such persons will the chief is very fond of his guitar, find interest in the following from which he plays with remarkable The ChTonicle of the London Mis- preCISIOn. In response to his in- sionary Society. Those who recog- quiry about their worship, the vis- nize the obligation of the learned itor was taken to the sanctuary of societies to missions ,vill see herein their fetish, which consists of two a fresh illustration of this indebt- large animal figures, leopard and edness in the department of eth- serpent, rudely carved out of the nology. trunk of a tree. On a stated day in the year the fetish is carried into The agent of the Basle Mission- the village and presented to the ary Society, which has several sta- assembled people, whereupon the . tions among the Bakoko people in ceremony of initiating their young the South Cameroons, has recently men into the mysteries of their undertaken a journey which has worship takes place, the sign being brought him into contact with the an incision of the skin visible for Bati, a tribe hitherto unknown, life, to which certain privileges are living in the interior. After a toil- attached. some march of four days through primeval forest and treacherous In the evening the stranger was swamp he reached the tribe, and invited to witness a dance, which was hospitably received by the was entertaining enough for a chief. The Bati are an intelligent, while, but he was sorely grieved to vigorous, handsome tribe, with re- see that spirits were surreptitiously markably bright eyes, and noses handed round. Before the people less flat and broad than most other dispersed he gave them a Gospel trihes, and as they gathered round address; and tho he found the rehim in nunlbers, as soon as his ar- turn march most exhausting, he rival had been made known by felt amply compensated for what means of a. drum, he had a good he had undergone by the value of opportunity of studying their faces. his discovery.-Chronicle L. M. S. Both men and women wear their hail' long and skilfully plaited. Dr. Sims, a medical missionary Leaf·aprons form the only dress on the Kongo, speaking of a brother for women, while men wear either toiler given to direct evangelizing Eut~opean shawls or native ones work, says: "If Mr. Richards has made from the bark of trees, and baptized his thousands, I have vacvery durable. lLany of the women cinated my tens of thousands." paint the body all over with white And this last is a service to the clay or powdered red wood, which Mastel' by no means to be despised. gives them a very ugly, even uncanny, appearance; and by way of The Bible as The Zulu Bible, ornament, those of rank among a Missionary. published by the them weal' round the neck a massive brass collar weighing about American Bible Sofive pounds, of native manufacture. ciety, is a very influential factor in In former years the tribe dwelt South African affairs. "Whatfurther inland, but, like all the in- ever happens in the Transvaal," terior tribes, they have been mov- says the secretary, "the Bible will ing nearer to the coast-a fact to not cease to do its silent work." be borne in mind for future opera- Bible translation has been proceedtions. Various paintings, rudely ing on the west coast of Africa for executed, were found on the walls half a century, and the presses in of the chief's hut, and as for music, New York have been busy printing the sheets of the Benga Bible, intelli~ible to a number of rude
tribes. The Bible is a nation tians, and 2,000 of the Wasoga died builder, and wherever it goes the from starvation and dysentery."- politician must reckon with its C. JJf. S. Gleaner. transforming influence. A Uganda A new hospital has Spears into Awhile ago. there Hospital. bee n erected at Pruning was a large assem- Hooks. bly in South Africa Mengo, the capital at the dedication of of Uganda, on the northwest shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza. The a church. A native chieftain made building has been constructed in an interesting speech, contrasting native style. The immensity of it their former wild and warlike life may be inferreol from the fact that with their then present peaceful it required 112 tons of grass to employments. ,,"'That is there thatch the roof. This grass was left us these days?" he said. all carried by the natives. The en- "Our shields (made of animals' gineer who superintended the conskins) are all eaten up by the rats. struction of the building says: "Al- And we use our spears to cut grass lowing 80 pounds per man, it would with. The Bible is now our shield." take a procession of over 3,000 men to bring it. This grass was bought The Uganda On the very day of for less than £30 ($150)." Railway. our annual sermon, the House of Com- A Year of Commenting on the Prosperity. statistics of the mons was discussing the Uganda railway. It appears that a sum of Uganda Mission for £2,000,000, over and above the 1899, Bishop Tucker says: "Alto- £3,000,000 originally voted, is need- gether the past year has been with ed for its completion. The sum us a year of unexampled prosperity, appears to be in a fair way to be whether we look at the baptismal granted, on the principle that hav- roll, the communicants' roll, or the ing begun the enterprise, we must church balance-sheet. And this in go through with it. If the House spite of depleted ranks, and our realized what the railway has al- own shortcomings and failures. To ready done, and what the com- God alone be the praise and the pleted railway will undoubtedly glory!" The male and female W aaccomplish, its assent could hardly ganda teachers have increased from fail to be of a much more cordial 980 to 1,498, without counting the character. The porterage system women teachers in North Kyngwe, has been responsible for an incal- who had been omitted from the culable waste of human life. The list. The result of this large inslave trade has existed largely in crease in the number of teachers is order to keep up the supply of to be seen in the large increase in porters, and will wither away when the number of baptisms during the porterage is replaced by the rail- year -4,772 – without reckoning way. Even apart from the slave those at Nassa, the returns from trade, the porterage system is a which place had not been received. terrible evil. "The great disaster The previous year the baptisms (inof the year," writes Archdeacon cluding Nassa) amounted to 3,586. 'Valker, of Uganda, always cau- The income of the church, too, has tious in his statements, "has been largely increased-from Rs. 3,341 to the large number of porters who Rs. 3,057. "This latter sum," have died on the new government Bishop Tucker writes, "does not at road to the coast: about 900 of the all represent the development W aganda, and these mostly Chris- which has taken place in the minds
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
of the people in the matter of giv- that I belong, not to the town, 01' ing. Nearly all the giving is done the state, but to the forces that are in shells, and shells during the last building up the world.-Mrs. Moses two years have depreciated nearly Smith. one hundred per cent. This has not yet been realized by the givers, The Benefit of Our friends of the but the church feels it in selling Deficiencies. Baptist Missionary the shells. The people imagine that they have been giving to the Society have set us church nearly Rs. 10,000, instead of a notable example in the matter of which their shells in the actual mar- clearing off a deficiency. Dr. Glover ket have only realized Rs. 5,000." spoke some weighty words on the subject at their annual meeting. MISCELLANEOUS. " Deficiencies," he said, "all de- pend on how we take them: if we It is for active service soldiers take them wisely, they are like are drilled and trained and fed Jacob's angel-wrestling with us, and armed. That is why you and but leaving us with a blessing." I are in the world-not to prepare And, suiting the action to the word, to go out of it some day, but to they took their deficiency of over serve God in it now.-Henry Drum- £7,000 wisely; for they drew £3,000 mond. from the reserve funds, subscribed £2,500 on the spot, and have doubt- But China is not all the world. less by this time cleared off the and the people in China are not all remainder.-L. M. S. Chronicle. the people in the world; and I do not want you simply to love the A Hard Saying In the Western Chinese and pray for them. Some Interpreted. Ch1'istian Advocate years ago the Lord brought home a missionary gives to my heart and conscience that there was danger of my getting an interpretation of Paul's muchinto a narrow rut. China is 2,000 discussed injunction, "Let your miles broad and 2,000 long; and women keep silence in the yet I found I was getting into a churches," which is based on his narrow rut. God's love was not own and other missionaries' expericonfined to China, and my love was erice in dealing with people, who, getting too much confined to it, like the people in Corinth, mostly, as my sympathy and my prayers are ignorant, illiterate, and unused were. And I made it a rule, as far to formal relIgious assemblies. He as possible, not to pray for China believes that in Corinth, as in at all till I had prayed for a good China, the women when they got many other parts first, for I knew together were talkative and inthat if I began at the wrong end, I clined to gossip and babble in did not get far on. I now begin by church unless restrained. He says praying for South America. It is a that during his nine years of labor most needy part of the world; and he seldom, if ever, has conducted a surely it wants your prayers as well service where Chinese women were as mine, and you want to be in sym- in attendance in large number" pathy with the Almighty Father, where it was not necessary to re- "who so loved the world, that He peat Paul's command from two to gave His only begotten Son."-Rev. twenty times while the service was J. Hudson Taylor. under way. On the other hand, he reports it seldom necessary to Enlargement from Giving.-'Vhen say anything to the men present. I gi ve to the missionary cause I feel Recently he submitted the Pauline injunction to a Chinese presiding
('IdeI', giving him the Bible to read made centers of relief in this time and asking for the interpretation of of famine and cholera; and he was the particular passage, I Cor. 14: 34. traveling in t,he neighborhood of The elder, with naught but his ex- one of these, 27 miles from hor..:;e, perience as an evangelist to guide when he was attacked with cholera, him, and unhampered by comment and, after nine hours' illness, died of commentary or memories of con- under a tree by the roadside about troversies ill press and pulpit, said: noon on the 19th of May. His " It means that women should ket 1> colleague, Rev. Arthur Outram, quiet in church, not talking among reached him only in time to bury themselves and disturbing the meet- his body. Some five years ago he ing." prepared a Grammar and V oca- bulary of the Bhili of his district. No Failure for Missions.- Said MI'. Conger, United States Minister Rev. A. Rev. A. Ben-Oliel, to China, recently at a missionary gathering: "I have no patience Ben-Oliel. who until recently with pessimism. I hope for the early, and firmly believe in the ulti- conducted the Jerumate success of missions. They are a part of God's plans for the salem Christian Mission, died in world. God's plans must succeed; His wora will prevn il." Ann Arbor, Michigan, on June I, 1900. He was born May 3, 1826, in Tangiers, of a family of British Jews who were residing in Gibral- tar. When 18, and while he was Hid from Their Eyes.-" Few mis- studying in the Rabbinic schools, sionaries found the expected when they went to work on the field," he was converted to the Christian says Miss Thoburn. That is, both the good and the evil they looked faith by the reading of the New for were largely absent, while the worst and the best which actually Testament, and soon after baptized befell, were in the main unanticipated. in England. He was sent out by the British society as one of the pioneer missionaries in Morocco and North Africa in 1848.
In '56-58 he was employed by the committee of the Jewish Scheme of OBITeARY. the Church of Scotlanrl in Turkey, and in "69 became a member of the Rev. C S It is with grief and Edin burgh Presbytery of the Thompson of a sense of loss that United Presbyterian Church o( India. we hear of the Scotland, and went to establish death of the Rev. their missions in Linares, Spain.
Charles Stewart Thompson of the In 1870 he married Miss Agnes Church Missionary Society, who Seeley, sister of Rev. Ed. and was laboring among the Bhils Henry Seeley, of England.
around Kherwara, Rajputana. In 1883 he was appointed to work Nearly seventeen years ago we arnong the Jews in Rome, Italy, much enjoyed a visit from him and in 1887 opened a mission in when we were statio'1ed at Mhow. Jaffa, Palestine; but in 1890 he He was a most devoted missionary, established a mission at Jerusalem, and now, when only 49 years of age, known by the name of the Chris- ha~ met his end-probably as he tian Union Mission. He continued might have chosen-in the very in this work until two years ago, midst of self-sacrificing work. He when he returned to Ameriea and had a number of primary schools took up his residence in Ann Arbor, among the Bhils, which he had Michigan. '
The Missionary Review of the World — September 1897
PA'I)lTA HA:lIASAl
lIER (O-WORKER.
WORK FOR TIlE WIDOWS OF T:DIA. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD: VOL. xx. No. S.-Old SerieB.-SEPTEMBER-VoL. X. No. S.-N81lJ&rieB.
THE SPIRiTUAL MovEMENTS OF THE CENTURY- WOMAN'S WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD.
BY THE EDITOR-[N-CHIEF.
The" Diamond Jubilee" ofthe accession of Queen Victoria affords a most fitting occasion for the review of the marvellous development of Christian womanhood during the half century which has been so markt by manifold forms and phases of missionary activity. AmOllg all the achievements of the Victorian era, none is perhaps more C011spicuous than what may be truly called The Epiphany of Womanher emergence out of the obscurity of centuries into something like her true position and relation as to the work of God. And how curious is the coincidence that such emergence should so exactly correspond with the period during which a woman has occupied the throne of the most prominent of Protestant kingdoms, and, during sixty yearsthe longest reign of a woman on record-has challenged admiration by her unblemished personal character and Ohristian influence 1 Victoria may well stand as the historic type of the era of woman's development as a. distinct and separate factor in the Kingdom of God.
In the Old Testament there are seven women that stand out with singular and unique distinctness, Eve, the universal mother; Sarah, the mother of the faithful; Miriam, the minstrel prophetess; Deborah, the ruler and judge; Esther, the interceding Persian Queen; the Queen of Sheba, and the Queen of Massa, who seems to have been the mother of Agur and Lemuel whose wise words are attributed to her teaching (Prov. xxx, xxxi). These seven women seem typical of the new era which Ohristianity was to inaugurate, when womanhood was to be associated 'with holy minstrelsy and teaching, with Christian government and counsel, with consecrated courage and intercession in critical emergencies, with adoring gifts to the King of Kings, and with the imperial power of home influence whereby to train a household of princely characters to wield the scepter of social life.
Surely, among the most remarkable movements, guided by God's • Thia periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Aesoclation and the Philological Society of England :-{)hange d or Old lIDal to , when so pronounced. except wbeb the e aBects a preceding 1IOlIIId.-PuBLIaIIua.
SPIRITUAL MOVEMENTS OF THE HALF CENTURY
hand, in our times, has been this singular and steady forward march of Christian womanhood towards the front rank of consecrated service. While God was opening new doors and removing old barriers to heathen peoples, He was preparing new workers and agencies to enter the doors and occupy the accessible fields. The story of the organization of women, in boards of missions, especially in zenana work, and in every other form of Ohristian service, to promote total abstinence, social purity, systematic giving and united prayer, to disseminate intelligence and educate a new generation of givers and workers,- this is one of the greatest of the modern chapters in the new acts of the apostles. The importance and significance of this series of developments, and the obvious leadership of a divine hand in them all, entitle them to a special and permanent memorial among the markt spiritual movements of our time.
We mnst go back to the beginning. It is just about sixty years ago since Mr. Abeel was returning to Ohina, having told the women of Britain about the women of the far East, who, shut up in zenanas, harems, seraglios, were inaccessible to all holy influences, unless their own sex could be induced to undertake work in their behalf. That moving, melting plea was the parent of zenana missions. How strange that this first woman's mission should so marvellously synchronize with the accession of this Christian Queen to the British throne! that God should have chosen, at the very time when He was lifting to the seat of an empire that reaches round the world, a young Ohristian woman, He should be revealing to woman throughout the world the throne of her predestined influence, and put in her hands a hitherto undreamed of scepter for a more than imperial sway! The Victorian era is woman's era. When Victoria was crowned, the diadem was placed upon the head of her sex, and woman's true epoch began to be inaugurated, as we behold it in our day. We can do no more than briefly trace the outlines in this sixty-year history.
The project of carrying the Gospel to women in their oriental seclusion and exclusion, seemed at first the wild visionary scheme of unbalanced enthusiasts; and wise men and even sagacious women shook their heads in doubt, if not derision. How impracticable, nay how impossible! It was like forcing gates of steel in walls of stone, to seek to get access to the harems of Turkey and the zenanas of India. But something mnst be done. The condition of womankind in the East was so destitute and desolate that it had long drawn toward the wives, mothers, daughters of the Orient the attention and sympathy of the whole civilized world. And there seemed to be neither hope nor help for woman, unless it should come through woman herself. No activity or generosity in sending and supporting male missionaries would solve the problem; for no man could without risk to life enter these sealed doors even in the capacity of a physiciano And this fact seemed to compel woman's ministry. God appeared· to be saying to woman as from heaven: "Thou art come to the Kingdom for such a time as this; " and to those who had ears to hear and heart to heed and respond, there seemed no alternative. The women of England resolved to undertake the work of carrying the Gospel within zenana gates.
How little we, even yet, grasp the facts. In India alone it is estimated that there are one hundred and forty millions of women and girls. These were found sunk in such depths of degraded ignorance, that one-third of them could neither read nor write; one-twelfth of them were widows, and of these widows fourteen thousand were under four years of age, eight thousand were under ten and one hundred and seventy-five thousand under fourteen. Think of such a host of women, twelve million of girls under fourteen, and half of them wives! Absolutely unreacht and unreachable by any existing influence that could elevate, educate, or evangelize them I What words could fitly portray sO Iowan estate for nearly half the popUlation of oriental empires!
The work was undertaken. 'Reason opposed, but faith proposed and disposed. It is an old familiar, pathetic story, how in the days of Rev. Dr. Thomas Smith, then of Rev. John Fordyce and Alexander Duff, the first systematic efforts were made to get access to the zenanas of India.* Then how the deft needle of a missionary's wife, Mrs.
Mullens, was used to unlock the doors. A simple piece of embroidery, wrought by her skillful fingers, attracted the attention of the secluded inmates of one of these household prisons; they argued, that if a woman could do such work as that, other women might learn how to do it, and so with the cordial consent of the lord of the zenana, this Christian woman was welcomed within the veiled chamber, and encouraged to teach his wives the woman's art of embroidery, and as she wrought on a pair of slippers the beautiful pattern, she was quietly working into the very fabric of their hearts and lives the scarlet threads dyed in the blood, and the golden threads shining with the glory of the Lamb.
*This history has been carefully outlined elsewhere (" Crisis of Missions," Chap. XIX, "New Acts of Apostles," PartII.,Chap. 8) but we here rehearse the main facts. Rev. Dr. Thos. Smith March, 1840, urged on the Oalcutta Missiona!71 Observer, the question of zenana teaching. But it was fifteen years later before his sensible plans took such root as to have practical and lasting growth. Rev. Jno. Fordyce and others secured the services of two or three lady vlsi- ~ors, and got access to some native families. Then Mrs. Mullens, Mrs. Eliz. Sale, Miss Briton and others enlarged the work. But in 1851 the work had as yet no Imporlance sufficient to give It any statistics.. In 1871, twenty years after, 1,800 houses were found to be under visitation and there were about 2,000 pupils, and twenty years later, the homes found accessible had multiplied more than three-fold, to over 40,500. In 1896 the following are the figures for the work outside this fleW ofIndia.
Foreign and European female teachers……………………… 711 Native teachers………… •••••••••••••••• …………………… 8,661 Day-schools………………………………………… ….••.• 1,507 Scholars…………………………………………………… 62,414 See MIssIONARY RKVIB'W, April 1897, p. 278-279. We can scarcely credit the fact that, under so gentle a touch as that of a woman's hand, the long-locked gates have flown wid" open, and that the barriers of ages are no more! Christian women go, almost without restraint, sometimes with urgent entreaty, into the homes of women in Turkey, Syria, China, India, and the Orient generally. The girls are gathered by hundreds of thousands into Christian schools; and the increase in the number of female pupils has been so rapid, that it doubled in ten years between 1876 and 1886, and has multiplied much more rapidly in the last decade. As long ago as 1884, one hundred and sixty women missionaries had been enrolled in the work of that one I ..ondon mission; pupils numbered thousands within the zenanas, and tens of thousands in their day-schools. Ten years later, Bible women entered the richest homes freely, and Hindu husbands actually clamored to have their wives and daughters taught. l!'ourteen years ago, the Church of England society alone had under visitation eighteen hundred zenanas with four thousand pupils; and both visitors and schools have steadily grown in numbers and influence.
Thus suddenly the women of Christendom had "discovered a new world" with limitless possibilities of work for the Master. Leupolt, contempJating the fact that, not only to the houses of the lower classes of natives, but to the zenanas in cities like Benares, Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, Amritsi, Lahore, etc., European women with their native assistants were admitted freely, to teach the word of God, exclaims: "If anyone had hinted twenty-five years before that this would be, I would have replied, 'All things are possible to God, but I do not expect such a glorious event in my day.' But what has God wrought! more than we askt or thought, expected or prayed for! His name be praised." And when Leupolt thus wrote, already to more than twelve hundred such seraglios the agents of the Female Normal School and Instruction Society had access; and this was many years ago, when the work was at its inception comparatively, aud this was only as to the success of one organization! and an intelligent Hindu says: "If these women rmch the hearts of the women of our country, they will soon get at the heads of the men."
It was about thirteen years since, when the Indian Education Commission officially reported to the government that the most successful efforts at woman's education, after leaving school, had been conducted by missionaries; that in every province of India, Christian women had devoted themselves to teaching in native homes; and recommended grants for zenana work to be recognized as a proper charge on public funds, etc. .Soon after, a Mohammedan paper of Lahore urged those who would propagate Islam, to see to it that zenana women were taught the Koran, lest by the Christian teaching that was making such inroads the very foundations of Allah's empire should be demolished. Shaftesbury, at the jubilee of the Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, in 1884, said: " The time is at hand when you will see the great dimensions of the work you are now doing, not Qnly in rr.<1ia but throughout the East. Great changes are in the future." His words were prophetic of what is already taking place. Ten years ago this society had missions not only in India and Oeylon, but in Japan, Persia, and Africa, etc. One instance may be cited as a representative example of how in individual cases this zenana movement proves far-reaching and mighty. At the girls' central school in the capital of Madagascar, Miss Bliss taught the young princess who at the crisis came to the throne in that great island.
While God was thus opening the door of approach and access to Gentile women, behold Him moving Christian women to organize for the great Woman's Orusad~ of modern history! And so we come to that new chapter of missions which records the rapid growth of Women's Boards of Missions, which mark the next grand epoch of woman's epiphany and activity.
Much pains have been taken to find the facts, for the early records were destroyed by fire, and hence a general misapprehension as to the origin of the parent society.. Rev. L. A. Gould, in a letter to the writer, says: "The exact facts are as follows: Mrs. Ellen B. Mason, wife of Rev. Francis Mason, D.D., a Baptist missionary from Burmah, stopt in Oalcutta on her way to America, and learned the story of Mrs. :Mullens' zenana slippers. Mrs. Mason, with two ladies, still living, Mrs. J. D. Richardson and Mrs. H. O. Gould, my mother, visited influential families in Boston; and the first society, consisting of nine ladies, whose names I have, was formed in Boston, November, 1860, Miss M. V. Ball, President. Subsequently, in 1861, societies were formed in New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia; and the New York society, by reason of its strength, was allowed to become the general society. These facts are not vital, only advantageous for accuracy."
Thus, then, was organized, thirty-seven years ago, in America, the Woman's Union Missionary Society, which, under the leadership of the loved and lamented Mrs. T. O. Doremus, became the pioneer society of America, with The Missionary Link as its organ. This was an undenominational society, and led the way as the parent of the various denominational Women's Boards now found connected with all the great Ohristian bodies. Of all these societies the one originating cause was the inaccessibility of heathen women save to their own sex; and the one aim was to organize women, in cooperation with the existing foreign missionary societies, for sending out and supporting unmarried women as missionaries and teachers to their neglected heathen sisters.
The rallying cry, heard in Britain sixty years ago, and loudly echoed in America about twenty years later, brought Ohristian women boldly to the front in all the leading denominations. Early in 1868, there was formed in Boston the New England Women's Foreign Missionary Society, with Mrs. Albert Bowker for President, and Mrs. Homer Bartlett for Treasurer. The previous year the American Board had sent into the field ten single women, appropriating for this end $25,000. We can readily understand why Ohristian women felt called of God to this special work. We mention the following dominant reasons: 1. Women abroad were inaccessible except to women. 2. Ohristian womanhood would naturally both prompt and help work for woman. 3. Woman owes a special debt to Ohrist for what He has done to uplift her socially and domestically. 4. Woman naturally sympathizes with her own sex, and can appre- ciate woman's degradation and elevation. 5. Woman abroad needs the practical illustration of what the Gos- pel can do, and has done, for women. 6. In all education woman is God's ordained pioneer. As wife, mother, sister, daughter, she is the heart of the home and sways its scepter. 7. This work provides a legitimate sphere in which all that is best in woman can thus be amply exercised and developt.
The results are correspondent with what might be expected. Ohris- tian women became, for the first time in all history, thoroughly united in organized work for souls. Their interest in the spiritual uplifting of their own sex was quickened; larger means for supporting women as missionaries and teachers were forthcoming; intelli- gence was more widely spread, and in cheap mission leaflets and booklets; offerings were systematically gathered iu small sums, like "Oarey's weekly pennies"; direct correspondence with women workers, stated meetings for prayer, and hearing of news from the field- these were the results, which became in turn causes of new and larger results. The collections of the first month enabled this early New England society to assume the support of a missionary to South Africa. At the end of three months, three women became living links with the foreign field, Miss Edwards in Africa and Miss Andrews and Miss Parmelee in Turkey; and ten native Bible women were to be main- tained by the society. By October 8th, 1868, at Norwich, Oonn., this society was already the parent of auxiliaries everywhere forminK. and was now called "The Women's Board of Missions."
The same month, of the same year, a similar society was formed in the great West, " The Women's Board of Missions for the Interior," and the next year this new society assumed the support of Mrs. Tyler of the Madura mission, and Miss Dean of Oroomiah, and issued its quarterly, Life and Light for Heathen Women. During its first year about *4,000 were gathered. So rapidly grew the women's societies, that in 1884 there were twenty-two Women's Boards, representing twelve denominations, and aD. aggregate of about $1,000,000 receiptsl In 1897, the total number of women's societies has reacht upwards of one hundred.
One example of the rapid increase of gifts ought to be added to show the power of many little sums, systematically gathered. One Board, the Presbyterian, that reported in 1871 $7,000, reported $224,- 000 in 1886-thirty-two fold increase in fifteen years 1 And the incre80/3e still goes on.
No wonder Thos. Chalmers should have declared that he had found in benevolent work, that one woman was equal to seven and a half men!
This has not been the only direction in which Christian women have organized for holy activity during this Victorian era. Zenana work was but the first trumpet-blast that rallied this vast reserve force of the Lord's army. Then came the Women's Boards, both of Home aud Foreign Missions. But since then, behold the various forms of holy enterprize upon which the Christian sisterhood have entered. Four or five may be mentioned as conspicuous, tho far from exhausting the long list.
The Women's Temperance Orusade is one of the most memorable for its desperate daring. Maddened by the cruelties inflicted by strong drink, and hopeless of human intervention, Christian women in the United States took the kingdom of Satan by violence, and went into the drink-shops to protest with dram-sellers; they knelt on the floors of bar-rooms, and with prayers and tears besought God to curse the drink traffic and stop its awful ravages. When turned into the street, they knelt on the pavements and interposed their bodies between the door of gin palaces an9- those who would enter. They saw the haunts of the drunkard turned into places of prayer, rumsellers changed to evangelists, and sots into saints. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was baptized in tears and prayers and blood. It has a holy history.
The Woman's League for Social Pnrity attempted to do with the brothel and all its accessories what the Temperance Crusade undertook with the drink-shop. Obscene books, prints, exhibitions, houses of iII-fame, the uses of the post for all immoral purposes, and the perversion of law to impure ends,-these and other helpers and abettors of prostitution and corruption occupied their attention. It was a mighty movement, and has still an increasing momentum, directed toward the purity of our homes, as its sister movement toward their sobriety. And it ought to be said that it required great heroism and courage of conviction, for women to cast off the trammels of a mock modesty and a refined sensibility, and call things by their right names, and in public as well as in private, before men as well as women, and sometimes in courts and legislatures, grapple with an evil that even men had found it difficult to discuss. But they have done it, and challenged universal admiration for their intrepid fidelity.
The Young Women's Ohristian Association has done grand work for young women, as the Y. M. C. A. has for young men. It is making itself felt in all our great cities, in throwing a loving shelter about young girls who come to the great centers of population to find employment, and have no proper home-life. These associations have erected magnificent buildings where young women find board, lodging, companionship, employment, libraries, prayer-meetings, Bible classes, and every aid to temporal and spiritual advancement. If there is any more beneficial institution of its sort in existence, we do not know of such, and can speak with confidence and from personal knowledge of the immense benefit accruing, the writer having a daughter who is the secretary of one of these city organizations. And just now this work is expanding and becoming a power in foreign lands, gathering young women, as in India, into the embrace of a consecrated Christian sisterhood.
The women's medical mission work is one of the latest born ofthe organized movements of women in Christian lands. To have women going forth into all parts of the world, not simply as nurses, but as fully qualified physicians; and to have them commending themselves even to imperial governments as competent to practice medicine and surgery side by'side with the most skillful male practitioners, is certainly a very markt advance. Here is especially a new feature of the zenana movement, which led all the rest in point of time. Women penetrate the seclusion of oriental homes to-day, with the balm of Gilead in one hand and the balm of the apothecary in the other; they go to heal the body and to heal the soul, to preach and to cure; and in true apostolic fashion to commend themselves to the heart, by skill in ministering to the bodily ills and ailments. There is an eminent fitness in woman's medical ministry to woman, and upon it God is setting II. very markt seal and sanction.
No reference has yet been made to the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, nor to the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, iIi both of which women are perhaps as prominent leaders, if not as numerous members as men. But our object has been to call attention mainly to organizations solely composed of and officered by women, and these, selected out of many, may suffice to illustrate how in every direction the female factor in the Churcp. of Christ is making itself felt as never before in the various forms of Christian activity. There is, in fact, not one department of service to Christ and a lost humanity, in which women's gentle hand is not found conspicuous, not in association with m'en, but in independent methods of organized action. What the church and the world has gained thereby, it would be difficult to estimate. One example might be given out of many thousands as a typical instance. Nearly forty years ago, Mrs. Murrilla B. Ingalls, widow of Rev. Lovell Ingalls, a missionary to Arakan, after a visit to America, returned to Burma, and went at once to Thongze, where she remained and had entire control, without help from any male missionary, except a native ordained preacher and a few other native assistants. Often ,alone, she has with markt capacity and sagacity carried on the mission with conspicuous blessing. Without transgressing the limits of propriety, or assuming ecclesiastical functions, she has been a sort of acknowledged bishop of a vast diocese. +n all that has to do with Christian doctrine and church organization and administration she has taught both women and men. She chooses and then trains native evangelists, oversees the schools and discovers the aptitude in pupils for teachers, and then trains them for educational work. She maintains strict discipline, guides the church in appointing pastors, and then humbly trains pastors in Bible truth, homiletic studies, and pastoral theology. She has establisht Zayat preaching, organized a circulating library, and distributed Bibles and tracts over a wide district. Seeing the great destitution about her, she went with her Bible women on tours into the country, and her tent became the resort of multitudes who sought instruction. Being accused of "preaching" by those who were jealous of her influence, and defending her course as justifiable from New Testamen texamples, she was askt, "Were you ever ordained?" " No," she answered, "but I was Joreorda·tned." Mrs. Ingalls is a bright example of what woman has done and is doing in all lands, and those who would pursue the study of the theme have only to read the story of such heroic women .as the three wives of Dr. Judson, the second Mrs. Carey, Mrs. Krapf, Mrs. Judith Grant, Fidelia Fiske, Eliza Agnew, Mrs. McAll, Mrs. Moffat, and Mrs. Livingstone, Mary Whately, Matilda Rankin, Mary Graybell, Clara Cushman, Hannah Mullens, Rebecca Wakefield, Sarah B. Capron, Mary Williams, Dorothy Jones, Anna Hinderer, and a host of others who have adorned the annals of missions. And who needs to be'told that the names of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton are inseparable from the ministry to wounded and sick soldiers and victims of famine and persecution Bnd pestilence the world over?
Surely, when God lifted a Christian woman to the British throne sixty years ago, He was saying to her whole sisterhood in all Christian lands, "Ye are come to the Kingdom for such a time as this." Let woman appreciate her opportunity, for it is the golden age of her reign, and she holds a scepter that ·sways empires. Let her prove herself to be a power ordained of God to fulfil a holy mission!
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN. [t;eptemoer
THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN.
BY WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., AUTHOR OF "THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE."
Japan is the most interesting country in Asia, perhaps in the whole missionary field. The reason is plain. Despite their boasting and self-conceit, the Japanese are not satisfied with themselves. Despite many foreign flatterers, they know that their civilization is very far ·from being finisht, and that their character lacks much. In this dissatisfaction lies the best hope of their salvation. When a nation ceases its restlessness and becomes self-contented, it is hopelessly senile. The people who say that they are rich and have need of nothing, and that they see clearly, when others know that they are poor and blind, are already in the numbness of paralysis. Japan now sees herself as others see her. By sudden contact with many nations, she is in a panopticon, and is disturbed at the too numerous reflections. Her people are an interesting study to themselves, like a man thoroughly awakened to himself, through some searching sermon or book which has revealed himself to himself.
Modesty is not a shining characteristic of the modern Japanese; but, tho their books and newspapers are painfully, even disgustingly, full of boasting and national vanity, yet in reality there is a deepseated self-disgust, a realization that something is not only wroug, but radically so. The most thoughtful men feel that, despite victorious armies or foreign models, steel and steam navies, and the miscellaneous borrowed furniture of modern civilization, somethiug still is lacking. "More moral oil to run the machinery," is a native editor's cry. To put on sealskins, diamonds, and what anyone can buy in the shops does not make a lady. Even one's private palace car and steam yacht will not produce a gentleman of culture; for "vindictive circumstances" of speech, spelling, and grammar will betray early deficiencies. To-day, probably more than ever before, there are deep searchings of heart in that country, where it is not yet safe to openly challenge the mythology on which the popular and political religion rests. There is much earnest talking and writing about a "moral crisis." There is yearning after a religion that will satisfy the awakened man in the Sunrise Land. The old foundations are slipping away, even while Japan hopes to build a national superstructure that will dazzle the world. The old stone-weighted wooden anchor, with its wisteria-vine rope, will no longer hold the ship of state. Millions of human beings, heretofore political ciphers, each one lost in a mass of similar ciphers, and made into expressional value only by the integer of the throne, are slowly rising into consciousness of rights and. individuality. It may be that each individual may become a giant. Then how hold the strong ones together? Let us inquire and see what the matter with Japan is. Whether we derive religion from the same idea that is in the word ligament~ and regard it a vinculum to bind the individual man and all his powers in unity, and to hold society together; or, whether we derive it from the idea of reading and reflection, making it the choicest product of thought, or of inspiration through revelation, it is what the Japanese want; and it is that which they know they want. At what they have had thus far, let us look, and then apply those words of her Master, which Christianity continually and unsparingly applies to herself,-" By their fruits ye shall know them."
Japan has three definite religious systems, thoroughly acclimated, naturalized, and active for over a thousand years, with only two intervals of labor by Christian missionaries–one of seventy years, from 1540 to 1620, by Portuguese and Spaniards, and the second in our day; which, whether we reckon from 1860 or 1870, we shall call a full generation of sporadic missionary effort by teachers from Roman, Greek,. and Reformed Churches,-those of the English-speaking nations outnumbering all others.
The oldest of all religions in the archipelago is Shinto, or the godway, which, briefly comprehended, has no distinct idea of God or of a Creator. It is a crude form of merely natural evolution, in which matter blossomed into mind and beings arose from mud to man. The men were the conquering few, and they conquered many; for Shinto is, first of all, a political machine, and will die the moment the ligature is cut which biuds it to the throne. Personifying the powers of nature, the islanders made apotheosis of the wise, the heroic, and especially the chief of one clan which, conquering other clans, became paramount in the archipelago. The core of Shinto is Mikadoism, and it has neither ethics nor religion, apart from the imperial decrees. It is bald of either rational morals or dogma, but yet is a joyous and pleas!mt cult, fitted for the infancy of a people liviIig off on an island by themselves. It inculcates personal cleanliness and gentle manners,. and nurses a narrow sort of patriotism. It is also the fountain and supply of a senseless conceit which, pardonable and even pretty in the minds of children and rustics, is simply absurd in a people who wish to be collectively considered as a great world-power, and even a teacher and giver of civilization to mankind.
Shinto goes back of history, and even well-founded tradition, tho its ancestor worship may possibly be borrowed from China. Confucianism, or the Chinese system of ethics and etiquette, has had a foothold in Japan for probably fourteen hundred years. Whatever the primitive faith of the first settlers of the Middle Kingdom may have been, it is certain that when Confucianism came into Japan it was already nearly a thousand years old, having scarcely the rudiments of a religion in it-nothing of prayer, aspiration, idea of personality, or suggestions of exalted soul-consciousness. Ignoring God and the soul, it taught a low routine ofl human duty, gave rules of conduct, and prescribed the ceremonies to be used in propitiating the unknown, and for the most part, politely ignored spirits that vaguely have something to do with the universe and its order. Whereas, in China filial piety was the center of the system, in Japan loyalty was made the basis. For in Mikado-land everything is sub- ordinate to the throne. No freedom of thought or of action was or is allowed in any way likely to disturb this subordination of every- . thing in the whole empire to the emperor and his ancestors.
As in China, so in Japan, but still more so. The agnosticism and etiquette of Confucius lent themselves aumirably to despotism and arbitrary government, whether of the central suzerain or the local lords. Over a thousand years' active use oi the sword, of oppression, of grinding down the masses, have made the Japanese that submissive and demure people, which we find all over the empire, below that sub- I merged tenth that have ruled the country for ages, and who, despite all pretense and profession of modern constitutionalism, rule them yet. Now, thousands of this hereditary ruling class see their mythology melting into empty air. They have discovered that their feudal ethics rest as does a mass of iron rails and wooden tif)s which, after an awful washout, still holds a thin shell of earth. They wonder how the heavy engine of modern life can be run over the foundation- less old tracks. Having bought or made all sorts of new machinery, but with mighty problems unsolved, they ask, Where is the new type of man· to stand on deck and order at once the steersman above and the engineer below?
Buddhism entered Japan fourteen hundred years ago. Then, for the first time, the Japanese were brought in contact with a distinct product of the Aryan mind. The ultimate result was a chapter of decay for Buddhism. In the first centuries the tremendous zeal of the new missionaries, their positive works of benevolence, their intro- duction of a great train of civilizing influences with art, ethical codes, sutras and shastras, a ,great apparatus of devotion, with idealistic philosophy, with a splendid architecture and symbolism which beauti- fied the landscape of Japan, and teachings which made the law of kindness the rule of life, they educated the whole nation. The suc- . cess of Buddhism in winning all, from the nobles at court to the humblest fisherman and farmer, to gentle virtues, appreciation of natural beauty and of art and literature, has been vastly more than that of all other influences put together, including Shinto, Confu- cianism, and whatever has drifted to Japau from the continental nations of Asia. Buddhism has been the mother of Japanese civiliza- tioll. Nevertheless, Japanese Buddhism, when once become domesticated, won its final victories by compromises and transmutations that not only changed its own character, but ministered to the conceit of the Japanese people; for it proclaimed the gods of Shinto as nothing more than previous avatars or manifestations of Buddha. Thus it not only swallowed up the older indigenous cult, making it practically invisible for many centuries, but itself entered upon a wild reversionary and degraded form of pantheism which still further swampt any gleams of the personality of God or of real individuality in man. Thus the Japanese people could not, morally and religiously, be anything else than a nation still bound in the lower forms of invertebrate and nerveless life, remiuding one of a jelly fish rather than of the splendid creatures of nerve and brain, which we find in the higher ranges of life.
So, applying the test that "by their fruits ye shall know them," most linguists, historians, and the students of philosophy and literature, and of religion, agree in their general appraisement of the outcome of the Japanese mind and heart. While gladly and warmly acknowledging much pleasing fruit and many beautiful products, critics can not, if honest and truthful, but point out the defects which, indeed, seem appalling when we consider the ambition of the Japanese to claim an equal place among the nations of the world. For these islanders at this end of the nineteenth century claim to have aci;ually inaugurated a new career of civilization, which neither as to religion, nor ethics, nor philosophy, nor literature, nor politics, nor social life, nor material products and inventions shall pe second to anything which the nations in Christendom have produced or can produce. Yet what is the outcome of the Japanese religions? How stand, not the rare specimen, but the average Japanese man, and the masses to.day?
As one who has for thirty years been before the English-speaking and American public as a writer on Japan, one will not accuse me of lack of appreciation. Yet the truth must be told. Using words in their highest and therefore their true sense, we declare that the average Japanese lacks the fundamental ideas that go to make up a religion. He not only does not know of God but he ignores the very idea. He has scarcely a conception of the sonl as perdnring and individual. His idea of duty, nobly as he fulfils it, is a childish one. Once again, remember, that I nse the ideas of " God," " soul," and "duty" in the highest sense and that I do not refer to the few thousand Christians or a few hundred sincere thinkers who are not agnostics or slaves of Mr. Herbert Spencer,-the philosopher, whose name and work I honor.
Using the word with the same value, weight, and color that we nse it when talking of the Hebrew prophets, the Greek sages, the English poets, Dante, Milton, or Shakespeare, or of the nations which have produced these men, I believe that the Japanese, in spite of all their religions, are not a religious, certainly not a spiritual people. I have tried to make myself reasonably familiar with Japanese history, but I find in it no overmastering spiritual ideals such as have moved and do move the great men of the continents; no consciousness of personal individuality such as filled and exalted the soul of teachers, heroes, and martyrs in lands where Christ reigns; no vision and realization of a presence filling heaven and earth. Tho the term Creator is not unknown in the language of the Japanese, yet they have never reachtany idea of God higher than that of a bundle of abstract principles and forces. Their notion of God is such a sort of entity as may be found inside of a book like Ganot's physics. Their most holy men remind one more of Benjamin Franklin on the one hand or of Saint Simeon Stylites on the other, than of Paul or Augustine, Anselm or Bernard, David Brainerd or Abraham Lincoln. In studying Japanese Buddhist's books, or, the only work which might, by a tremendous stretch of fancy and charity, be called the Japanese Bible,-the Kojijione feels that he is in a fog, or a mist that rolls over and covers everything sharp and definite. Indeed, in that kind of painting which depicts cloud and haze, as well as in philosophy, the Japanese delight; but, whether this misty vagueness be the product of the brush or the brain, such art, philosophy or religion, will never produce men like William the Silent, Raphael or Rembrandt, Kant or Bacon, or Oliver Cromwell, John Huss or Guido de Bres, William Penn or Peter Cooper. Indeed the whole idea of Buddhism is to ignore man's soulconsciousness and that infinite Presence,-that "one simple and spiritual Being which we call God, who is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good." Indeed, what could we expect, with a rudimentary system founded on the idea of the mere evolution of matter and force which, after rising into the personification of the forces of nature, became a political engine for the subjugation of the people, centering everything to the will of the emperor?
After the boldness of Shinto comes the agnosticism of Confucius, t'eaching only etiquette and ceremony, bidding men to "honor the gods but keep them far from you." After this extinguisher of all faith in personality divine or human, Buddhism enters to ignore and ridicule the idea of a Creator, teaching flat atheism and a new cycle of ideas founded on agnosticism, evolution without any previous divine involution, and finding the whole basis of its philosophy in a succession of cause and effect, even while ignoring the First Cause. '
Is it any wonder then, since the Japanese have, roughly speaking, never had anything else but a protean agnosticism, and being throughout their whole history, swampt and mired in the philosophy of ignorance, that they should never know God, or the soul, or duty in any high sense P Is it any wonder that to-day the gospel of Herbed Spencer-a J apanized gospel of Herbert Spencer at that-is the favorite creed of the average educated (heaven save the mark!) Japanese? Without then, the idea of a personal God as a living, self- conscious, free intelligence; without the idea of personality of man, as of a real individual surviving as a spiritual entity the di~solving of his fleshly frame-work; without any moral character apart from per- sonal interest and social necessity, or the will of the emperor; how, in the name of any philosophy known under heaven, are the Japanese to face the perils which now beset them and solve the problems await- ing them? How can Japan, undoubtedly yearning for the fullrecog- nition of all the world, reach that level which the proud nations in Ohristendom require in one who claims to be an equal? The very fact that under the searching word of God, and under that travail and questioning which Ohristian nations feel, because of their God-con- sciousness and soul-consciousness, they ever challenge themselves unto ever nobler ideals, makes them all the more rigid ill demanding of a still pagan nation stern moral tests, and not only a high religion but the frnits of it. It is certain that the nations of Ohristendom will never admit as their equal one in which Buddhism is the popular creed. Oertainly Shinto, the last shadowy relic of an ethnic religion, gives no card of introduction. A mere code of ceremonies like Oon- fucianism begets neither confidence or recognition.
The Japanese boast of their ethics or "spirituality" is a sham.
They may be perfectly certain that a country in which one divorce to every three marriages is the rule, where polygamy and private harems, -with children born in a herd instead of a home, the emperor him- self setting the example, and this being the general custom from the court noble to the betta, is reckoned distinctly inferior and will be.
The hazy view which mercantile and other folk take of the sacredness of a contract, the low value put on the letter of one's bond and of truth generally, the lack of general understanding of the value of a promise, -these things, which better religion will vastly improve, are paving the Japanese future pathway with failures both humiliating and con- tinuous.
He who dwells in the country of the little captain Miles Standish, and familiar with the story of David and Goliath, will not willingly twit the Japanese for their smallness, either in personal stature, the area of their country, the dimiuutiveness of their rice and wheat stalks, compared with those of South Oarolina and Dakota, the little- ness of their rivers, their low percentage of arable area, nor with the grade of their heroes, literature, art, or poetry, all of which seem miniatures rather than mature or imposing products. And this we .'. say, in spite of a whole school of American and European uncritical admirers. But, when we see the Japanese persisting in their love for things petty, and clan-like in regions sublime, cosmical, eternal, demanding" Japanese ethics," a religion of their own making, or "Ohristianity adapted to the needs of Japan," we behol<1 either a merely splenetic reaction against what they deem foreign, or insanity with which God has afflicted them in order to hum.ble them, and we trust afterwards to raise them up.
When the whole truth is told about the Japanese armies in Ohina and Formosa, and the behavior of civilian officers in the newly con- quered island, one is not favorably imprest with the fruits of their ethical training. Tho the nation is to-day ground down under the awful load of taxes that keeps the mass of the people poor and ignorant, tho, no doubt, many are made rich, one in Tokio, Osaka, or Kioto looks almost in vain for great schemes of benevolence, hospitals, asylums for the insane, for the blind, and for diseased and suffering humanity. One does indeed find a few hospitals maintained by the government, but even these are ridiculously few compared with the number in Ohristian countries; while for the special classes, for orphans, the blind, the dumb, the insane, the lying-in-mothers, one is appalled to find that, ~)Utside of those under Ohristian or foreign auspices, and one blind and dumb school of the government, such things hardly exist. The finest buildings in Japan are the government offices, the houses of the high officials, and the military barracks, but a Girard Oollege or Oooper Institute, or those institutions which even in colonial America were hopefully common, are practically unknown in boasting Japan. Large-minded philanthropists are as rare as white crows.
Even the idea of prosperity in religion is apt to mean the approval of eminent statesmen or the applause of the secular newspapers. The Japanese are not yet educated to the idea of ethics, religion, practical benevolence existing apart from politics. It is also true that they are too sadly encouraged by the examples of those despotisms in Europe which they so delightfully follow.
Perhaps it is not possible for a foreigner to divest himself wholly of prejudices, but the writer has not often been accused of prejudices against Japan. 'fhis question of religion must be and can be ponderated apart from subjective prepossessions, when we apply the test ~~~~~~~I~~~~~~~~~ continue in these old paths or to rest in their interpretation of the gospel of Herbert Spencer, will result not only failure to win a place of equality among the nations of Ohristendom, but means utter collapse of the nation. They have planted the acorn in the bottle, but their honest men know the power of growth and the thinness and rigidity of the glass, and therefore dwell in impotent fear. Theyneed ~ become a religious nation and to have that sense and apprehension' .of one living and true God who is "the overflowing fountain of all good." They need to know the reality and therefore the worth of the individual human soul. They need to know of duty done" as in the great Task-Master's eye." They need to get over that frightful conceit which makes them still look on the fundamental principles of Christianity-the world-educating and the world-conquering religion -as inferior to their insular hereditary traditions. Their notions about the desertion of even father and mother for Ohrist's sake as "uprooting Japanese society," seems puerile or dotard-like. It reminds us of Marshal.McMahon who would govern France solely by the advice of his family clergyman. It resembles that of those "mouutain whites" in Kentucky, whose preferenoe for home-distilled corn whiskey leads them to think United States law inferior to local ideals. It is this narrow, childish spirit which has led to Bome of those grotesque reactions and those picturesque anachronisms which have recently illustrated Japanese history during this decade, and which are to be classt with those manias which for twenty-five years have kept them in a succession of wasteful crazes for rabbits, cockfighting, whist, waltzing, big funerals, planchette, wrestling, and the revival of obsolete costumes and sports. Even the Japanese writers now make themselves merry over these revivals of "New Shintoism," "Neo-Buddhism," and over the (now past) spectacle of old-fashioned Oonfucianists, spectacled and top-knotted, lecturing on ethics to classes of bright-faced boys sitting in school-rooms with seats, desks, apparatus and text books of latest pattern; and over that variegated Ohauvinism in politics, literature, dress, and behavior which shows, we trust, the last flickerings of a dying flame. By and by the Japauese will see clearly that God Almighty is greater even than their Mikado. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that, after two thousand years inoculation in the idea that Japan is the center of the universe, the disease is not easily curable.
Will not the Japanese, even those who "swallow Herbert Spencer whole," understand that even the philosopher of the unknowable does not deny the existence and activity of a personal God, that even those destructive critics on the European continent who have deserted the old Calvinism and other traditional forms of Ohristian faith, believe none the less in a great determining Power, personal and intelligent? The Japanese must learn that the very "evolution" in which they so delight is, with thousands of Ohristian thinkers, supremely loyal to Jesus, only another way of describing and of seeing plaiply God's method of continuous creation. Oertain it is that, without the faith of theism, it will be impossible to grasp that which not only binds the nations of the west in unity, but which gives them their law of progress,-that is, the fatherhood of God ani! the brotherhood of man. Nor can any hope for the welfare of the great mass of the Japanese people be based on anything else than on Ohrist's law of love. Following out this law, the leaders of Ohristendom have been able under
ABOUT THE AINU 01f JAPAN
God to lift up the whole body of their fellow men. For the Japanese intellect-after three different systems, all agnostic, pantheistic, and corrosive of the great fundamental truths which have uplifted Europe and America-to adopt a new one-that of Spencer, but with SFencer's ultimate idea left out-seems rather the freak of the insane than the choice of intelligent men. Possibly, however, they are playing a game to deceive the world, and once more practicing their old trick of taking on the material forces and bastard philosophy of Christendom, in order, really, to guard their isolation amI insulate themselves from the shock of vital change.
The editor of this magazine has askt me for an article on "The Religions of Japan," leaving me free to deal with some special phrase of the subject, or with the subject in general. I have chosen to point out the failure of the three religions of Japan (and, like failure in all, because of the same defect in each), to elevate and save the Japanese. I believe they can be elevated and saved, when they come to God, believing that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; when they realize human personality in the highest sense, and when the,r notions of duty become something more than a local, insular, and familyaffa,ir. So I close this article with words written in March, 1875 (after having lived four years among them, and known them for seven years), and now all the more deeply felt after thirty years' acquaintance with them.
"Unless a mightier spiritual force than either Shinto or Buddhism is allowed unimpeded operation, we see little prospect of aught better than the gain of a glittering veneer of material civilization, and the corroding foreign vices under which, in the presence of the superior aggressive races of the west, Japan must fall as the doomed races of America. or Hawaii."
SOMETHING ABOUT THE AINU* OF JAPAN.
BY THE REV. JOHN BATCHELOR, SAPPORO, YEZO, JAPAN.
It will be found that, as a rule, writers of certain classes of nOTels make their stories center round some one or more heroes. It is also a rule,- a very natural, and therefore most important rule it may be added,-that the remarks made concerning these heroes shall be in conformity with the character it has already been determined to portray. Unless this principle is maintained the story will certainly be pronounced bad. Nevertheless, in a large majority of cases it turns out that such conformity is found to be of a highly embellisht nature, * The word Ainu means" man " or " men," This people therefore knows itself as the race of U men." SOMETHING A.BOUT THE AINU OF JAPAN.
and is often so exaggerated as to amount to moral untruth, for the writer dwells almost exclusively on one or two characteristics at the expense of all others.
So does it also appear to be a general rule that any person undertaking to write about the Ainu residing in far off Japan, must, to lend interest to his book, by all means produce this phenomenon. Intending travelers and writers will have already heard beforehand that the Ainu are a very filthy and very hairy race, and so before they appear upon the scene and commence their task, they have already got their own clean cut ideas as to what the people ought to be like. Their phenomena, therefore, invariably figure as particularly filthy, hairy, and for this reason abject specimens, more like brute beasts than human beings. And, the cue being taken from that, the race is described very much according to the writer's notion of what they consider it ought to be, rather than what it is in reality. Moreover, the phenomena are made to serve various purposes. They are either used as subjects upon which to base a few interesting remarks, or from which to give a far-fetcht back-handed hit at the Christian faith iu the creation of man by the Supreme Being, or as texts from which to draw some peculiar, if not impossible conclusions; or else they are made to do duty as pegs, upon which to hang some long cherisht opinion of persons or things in general which the writer wishes to air by some pretense or other. And we find that the interesting remarks made are often so exaggerated and the facts so over-stated as to give the reader quite a wrong impression of the people, while the peculiar conclusions drawn and sentiments exprest are, if not unscientific, at least such as reflect credit neither on the intelligent discrimination, fairness of mind, aud kindness of heart in the writer, nor moral character, intellectual status, and common human nature of the Ainu. Indeed, unless great care is exercised, there is a danger of being led by writers to look upon this people as partaking more of the outward appearance and inward nature of the lower animals than of human beings,-of being led to expect to find them wild savages rather than as the civilized, quiet and good-natured men and women they are. Many a traTeler has said to me: "Why these people are nothing like as hairy and wild as I expected to find them I " And such indeed is the fact; the whole matter has been greatly over-stated.
That most indefatigable and brave lady traveler, who, whenever she puts pen to paper, always writes so honestly and vividly, intereetingly and impartially (I mean Mrs. Isabella Bird-Bishop), found her filthy and hairy specimen at Repungepin Volcano Bay. She writes very graphically of him, and in a pleasant, good-humored way calls him the MISSING LINK. Futhermore, to give greater perspicuity to her description she speaks of him in the neuter gender. In writing about him she says: "I was startled when I first saw it. It was-shall I say-a man, and the mate, I can not write hUsbQ.ud,of the ugly woman. The arms and legs were unnaturally long and thin, and the creature sat with the knees tuckt into the armpits. The limbs and body, with the exception of a patch on each side, were thinly covered with fine black hair, more than an inch long, which was slightly curly on the shoulders. It showed no other signs of intelligence than that evi- denced by boiling water for my tea." * Bnt Miss Bird is very fair to this people (and I wish, indeed, I could say all were like her in this matter), and would not have the careful reader be led astray by this or any other exceptional phenome- non, for, in another place which she likewise intended to be read, she most trnly says: "The Volcano Bay Ainos t are far more hairy than the mountain Ainos, but even among them it is qnite common to see men not more so than vigorous Enropeans, and I think that the hair- iness of the race, as a distinctive feature, has been much exaggerated, partly by the smooth-skinned Japanese."! Thus, then, by comparing these two passages together, we find that Miss Bird gives a very good description of the hairiness of the Ainu, and in it she speaks the trnth. When, therefore, we hear her speaking about the MISSING LINK as existing at Repungep, we must take her words, not as conveying assent to the doctrine 'of human evolution, but rather as an expression of surprise at seeing a man who was, even for an Ainu, beyond donbt exceptionally hairy. And we must ever remember that the Ainu is not altogether made up of hair, and is a biped.
But all writers on the Ainu are by no means as fair as Miss Bird, for, while she describes her phenomenon as above quoted, and, tho not / in an unkind manner, yet perhaps a little thoughtlessly for a serious writer, calls him the MISSING LINK, Mr. Savage Landor gOE)s a long step further, and seems to seriously look upon the Ainu as the genuine article referred to in the above terms, as if, forsooth, the doctrine of the MISSING LINK was a proved and already accepted article of general belief! This gentleman writes at the end of the 27th Ohapter of his book as follows: "Resuming these few remarks 'on the characteristic points of Ainn senses, my readers will probably have noticed certain facts which strongly support Darwin's theory of evolution and the hairy arboreal ancestor with pointed ears, from which the races of men are descended." Mr. Landor has very highly colored his Ainu, and in his" remarks on characteristic points of Ainu senses," has sadly dis- torted the facts of the case. He is uttel'ly unreliable when writing of the Ainu. Indeed, from a perusal of his account and illustration of them, I should hardly have known, unless from some of the names he gives and from his having told us, that he was writing of the race I …. Unbeaten Tracts In Japan." Vol. Ii., page 1"1.
t It should be written Ainu, not .. Alnos. " ; .. Unbeaten Tracts In Japan." Vol. Ii., page 189.
BATCHELOR AND CHRISTIAN AINU
~v. J OH N BATC HELOR AND NO~-C H KL!!i 'l' l AN Al NU MEN.
AMONG THE AINU OF JAPAN.
SOMETHING ABOUT THE .&.IlIIll' OJ!' JUIJr
and my wife have been for so many years most intimately connected with and working among. Whatever Mr. Landor may consider to be his own ancestry, I, for my part, prefer .to accept the account revealed and set forth in Genesis i-iii. Whatever that gentleman's illustra- tions may be, upon these I make no comment here, his writing can, in no sense, be relied on, particularly so when he touches upon matters connected with any department whatever of psychology or theology.
Dr. Howard also found his hairy specimen to write about, but in this case it happened to be a woman. He found her in a Russian hospital on the Island of Sakhalin. Of her he says: "The most astounding feature of all in this remarkable phenomenon, and that which at first caused me to inquire why the doctor allowed it the privileges of the female ward, was that the neck, chest, arms, and, as I afterwards found, the whole body was more hairy than the most hairy man I ever saw.
It Despite the atrocious appearance, this phenomenon was taciturn, shy, and docile, with an evident wish, were it possible, to be even friendly and amiable." '"
The inference, I suppose, the doctor desires the reader to draw is not only that the Ainu, both men and women alike, resemble the lower animals as regards quantity of hair, but also that they are no more capable of intelligent friendship and expression of amiability than those creatures are. But in this he is altogether mistaken, for not only is it possible for the Ainu to be friendly, but they are indeed so. They are just as much human as Doctor Howard himself, and neither more nor less so. According to Dr. Howard and another writer one would be led to conclude that the Ainu have not as much sense and capacity. for affection as a common Scotch collie. Furthermore, the doctor has informed us that the Yezo Ainu are descended from those of Sakhalin; the Ainu themselves, however, know nothing of this, and the Yezo Ainu scornfully repUdiate the idea. It is a purely gratuitous guess on the part of the doctor. Thus we find that almost all statements made by the passing stranger and ordinary traveler on these and kindred matters should be received with caution, and ought to be taken very much cum grano salis.. A few weeks or months is not sufficient time in which to learn all about a race of people and write a good, reliable book on them, especially so when the writers know nothing of the lauguage of the subjects of their remarks.
So much then for Messrs. Landor and Howard. But, it may be askt, does not one of the greatest Japanese scholars and writers on things Japanese speak somewhat in the same strain as these gentlemen? Well, yes I Professor Basil Hall Ohamberlain does appear in one place to be rather hard on the poor Ainn, but his writings may not, for a moment, be compared with those of the writers just men- … Trans·Siberian Savaies," paie 9. tioned. Whatever he says about the Ainu is reliable, and may not be lightly questioned. However, there is just one place in his writing with which I cannot agree. In concluding an essay on the Ainu, he finishes with the following remarks:* "By some European travelers this Japanization of the present generation (of Ainu), and the probable speedy extinction of the race, are mourned over. The present writer can not share these regrets. . • . But so little have they profited by the opportunities offered to them during the past thousand or two thousand years, that there is no longer room for them in the world. It (i. 6., this race) has no future, because it has no root in the past. . . . The existence of this race has been as aimless, as fruitless as the perpetual dashing of the breakers on the shore of Horo- betsu. t It leaves behind it nothing but a few names."
No one would ever suspect me of being one of those who think with the professor on this point. We might inquire as to what the so-called opportunities of the last one or two thousand years he speaks of have been. There is, perhaps, another side to this question upon which a great deal might be said, but a discussion of which would be outside the scope of this article. And as to saying that the race has 'been as aimless, as fruitless, as the perpetual dashing of the breakers on the shores of the sea, can it be demonstrated, indeed, that the dashing of these same breakers is aimless and fruitless? Is the least vibration of the earth or the smallest movement of air aimless and fruitless? Unless a man is infinite in knowledge and perception he surely has no right to say that this is so. Perhaps at the time when all mysteries are laid open before us, we shall see that the existence of the Ainu race has not been in vain. No; surely there can be nothing in the whole universe that is or has been absolutely useless. We believe that" God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation." This being so, the Ainu existence may not lightly be called aimless and fruitless.
And when we remember that Christ, like the merchantman in the parable, sold all that He had, as it were, i. 6., laid aside His great and eternal glory for a time and became man, that He might come to this earth and seek after the goodly pearl of the human soul-when we remember Him as the good Shepherd seeking till he found the sheep that was lost-then, in some. degree, do we learn to look upon these friendless Ainu in the way that the Great Master of all looks upon them; then do we learn to see through the rugged exterior and understand something of what is contained beneath. And looking beyond • "lIIemoirlof the IJterature College, Imperial University of Japan." No.1. Pages 74,15.
t Horobetsu is a mixt village of Japanese and Ainu ou the East coast of Yazo, and Is open to the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Prof. Chamberlain spent a few weeka with the present writer and his wife at this place in 1888 for the study of the Ainu laqtIaie, hence the illustration. this present world to that which is to come, we see, with the eye of faith, men "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and natiou" (and surely this includes the Ainu race), standing round the throne of God and the Lamb. Thus we believe that when the Ainu race has served the purpose for which it was sent into the world, and not before, it shall pass away as other races have done before it and shall do after it. And so we go on working in faith.
That the Ainu is a disappearing race is a fact which can not be denied, for while thirty years ago the population numbered some thirty thousand souls, there are now no more than sixteen thousand of them left. And the fewer they become the faster they will die out. What with the rapid immigration of the Japanese, who come by thousands every year, and not only reside in and about the Ainu villages, but also take up the lands and the fishing grounds along the seacoast and rivers, thus pushing the Ainu out; what with the strong passion for alcoholic drink there is among the men; the poor food they have to subsist on; the inroads of disease and utter ignorance and disregard of the most elementary hygienic rules, together with other causes, it seems to be inevitable that the race should. become qnite extinct within a very few years. One or two Japanese philanthropists, indeed, have spoken about preserving the Ainu by placing them in :reserves, and the matter has been even mentioned in the diet, but so far it has all ended in talk. The doctor who attends to the Ainu who come to our" rest-house" in Sapporo, has examined and prescribed for some four hundred of them, and his opinion is that the race is worn out; its energy and vitality have disappeared. It would appear to be too late now to do anything effectually for the physical salvation of the people by way of placing them in reserves. The Japanese nation has missed a grand opportunity in suffering this poor people to be thus driven to the wall when it was in their power to help them.
Mission work has been carried on ft.mong those Ainu under Russian rule for many years and there are quite a number of Greek Christians, I understand, on the Island of Sakhalin. How many I have no means of finding out. I also hear that laws have been made and are rigidly enforced, by which it is forbidden to sell alcoholic liquors to them. I am sure the people are happier and better for this wise regulation. I wish I could say as much for the Japanese treatment of the Ainu in their dominions. So far from forbidding the sale of Sake* to them, there is now a distillery in full work right among the Ainu of the old capital of Piratori I It was built about twelve months ago, and has already done much harm to the people and the cause of Christ about there. I notice a great di1Jerence between the people to-day and what they were before this distillery was built. It is very distressini to * Sake is whiskey distilled from rice.
September
see ~he downward grade of many a promising youth, and the sad, tearful faces of what were but a short time since bright and happy wives.
So far as I am aware, I happen to be the first missionary of any denomination to preach the Gospel to the Ainu of Yezo in their native tongue. Speaking of the communion to which I belong, the Rev. W. Dening was originally sent in the year 1874 by the C. M. S. to take up work in Yezo with the special object of reaching the Ainu race, but he gave the most af his time to the study of Japanese in Hakodate, and tho he 'made one or two trips to some of the Ainn villages, notably those of Usu and Piratori for the purpose of studying the language, he was not able to spare enough time from the Japanese work to make himself proficient in the Ainu tongue. I was sent to Hakodate in the year 1877, having been obliged to leave Hongkong, to which place I was originally appointed, through malarial fever. For the space of two years I gave almost the whole of my time to studying the Japanese language, occasionally, however, making a short trip to the Ainu near at hand and while among them devoted myself to stUdying their language, religion, and customs, as a kind of rest and recreation from the difficulties of the Japanese tongue. These trips became more frequent till in the year 1882, having by this time gained some little knowledge of the language and people, I was appointed by the C. M. S. Committee to make the matter of evangelizing the Ainu my special work and first care. Hence the Ainu have for many yeam been my chief study while preaohing, the Gospel to them. Mrs. Batchelor has of course assisted me in no small degree in the work, and the Lord has been pleased to bless the labors of our hands abundantly.
But we are nOw no longer alone in this work. All the O. M. S. missionaries on the island have their share of Ainu to evangelize. The majority of the people, however, are still under my charge, for out of the total of 16,000, nearly 10,000 are in my district. A lady also has now been sent to help us in this cause, and there are three Ainu and two Japanese helpers laboring especially among the people. There is also a school for boys at Hakodate, and a "Rest-House" for the sick at Sapporo.
The first Ainu Christian admitted into our section of the Church of Christ was baptized on Christmas day in 1885, and he past away on January the 19th of the present year. In the following year three others were added to the church. In 1887 two more were baptized, and so on till the year 1893 the people came out by ones and twos· But in that year the seed which had been steadily sown during so long' a time'suddenly sprang to life, so that up to the present time more than seven hundred have been admitted into the Ohurch by baptism, while there are many others coming out. There are, in fact, more
TBB nu.a IN UPU
than a hundred catechumens uuder instruction at the present moment. Thus does the Lord add to His churches daily such as are being saved. Moreover, it has been my blessed privilege to give the Ainu the New Tt*itament in their own language. May the Lord continue His good work in the hearts of this poor downtrodden people.
THE YEAR IN JAPAN.
BY REV. GEORGE Wlf. KNOX, D.D• .As we closed our survey of the year in Japan, in July, 1896, came the news of the terrible disaster in the North. It was described in the October number of this REVIEW, by one who visited the scene on an errand of mercy. During the months following, there were terrible floods, and, later, a long continued epidemic of smallpox. But terrible catastrophies occur so often in Japan that they are accepted as natural and to be expected. So has it been from the dawn of history and so is it likely to be for ages to come. The only unusual thing is the bleSBed charity which hastens now to alleviate the suffering, a charity taught by our Lord but learned by multitudes who do not profess his name.
The Death of the Empress Dowager occurred in January, 1897, and her funeral gave opportunity for the Japanese to show that in some things at least they still are lovers of the past. The funeral ceremonies were prolonged, expensive, inexpressibly tedious (to impatient occidentals at least), exaggerated, antiquated. The empire was searched for oxeu of just the right ritual color to draw the cart that bore the coffin, the cart itself was of a peculiar pattern and its wheels emitted a monrnful sound as they revolved. After careful search oue ancient carpenter was found who knew how to construct the vehicle. The interment at last was at night, and an hour was consumed in lowering the coffin into its place. Everything belonged to the old, old Japan of elaborate ceremony, and endless time, and exhaustless patience.
Amnesty to prisoners was proclaimed. Sixty thousand were benefitted by a reduction in their sentences, and 16,000 were released outright. It was in vain that some of the newspapers protested that this ancient custom was more honored in the breach than in the observance. In the ancient times the presumption was all against the prisoner and he was often kept for years, sometimes for life, without his guilt .being establisht, even without formal trial. Many, too, were condemned for ceremonial or unintentional or some relative's transgressions implying no real guilt. For such the death of a ruler offered an opportu-
TlIB Y]U,B IN JAPAlf
nity for redress, and the prison doors were opened that innocent sufferers might go free. But now, it was argued, with the modern system of law men get only what they deserve, and such release of prisoners is at 'the expense of justice. They also prophesied an increase of crime as the result, a prophecy that has seemed to be fulfilled in the months past.
More in accordance with modern notions was the gift of 400,000 en from the Imperial purse to charitable institutions, though it is doubtful if even so royal a gift could make up for the sufferings caused dancing girls, actors, and musicians, who for fifteen days were forbidden to follow their means of livelihood. And after all the Empress Dowager was not the mother of the Emperor. But in family relationships, as in funeral ceremonies, Imperial Japan is still wholly archaic and unreformed.
With Foreign Powers.-Some of the very patriotic folks sharply reproved the government for not insisting on mourning by foreign courts. But European powers have never thus recognized Asiatic courts, and it is not yet clear that Christian usages can be extended to non-Christian states. In any case, some at least of the Japanese felt that a slight was put upon their idolized land.
A more serious matter was the reported Russian military mission to Korea, a mission seemingly in contravention of the treaty recently concluded between the two empires concerning the troublesome little kingdom. But this is now reported as arranged satisfactOl·ily. None the less does Korea remain a thorn in the patriotic flesh of Japan. None can pretend that she achieved peace with honor there.
Nor yet in Formosa. That remains a white elephant. Insurrections, epidemics, dissatisfaction, and worst of all, the conduct of the Japanese themselves appear as causes of the misfortunes and disgrace. The newspapers are keenly alive to the situation and loud in their demands for reforms, and in that is perhaps the brightest gleam of hope.
With Hawaii, too, there hits been trouble; the Japanese being at least technically right. This little cloud shows how all the world is one, since the Japanese protest against the exclusion of its laborers has hastened the action of our own executive in making its new treaty for the incorporation of the Sandwich Islands in our domain. 'rhe Japanese protest again as they already felt themselves aggrieved by our proposed new tariff with its increased duties on silks and matting, and its tax on tea. Perhaps the cutting off the latter tax may appease the cl~mor raised against the new" unfriendly" policy of the United States.
Politics at Home.-There has been the usual strife, but less acute, and the customary change of ministry. No ministry seems able to endure a twelve months. Perhaps the last may have a more kindly fate. Two measures of importance it has already with the willing help of Parliament accomplished. There is now greater freedom of speech and of the press. Indeed, Japan is now far in advance in this of some European powers that count themselves at the very top; Germany for example. Nor has there yet been undue license, though there have been occasions for excited debate. But freedom in Japan we venture to prophesy will prove to be conservative and not revolutionary.
But whether because of greater freedom or because of greater cause there are plain charges of serious corruption in the government. It is openly charged that the change of ministry was rendered possible by the bribery of Parliament. Certain it is that a hostile majority was converted mysteriously into one subservient, and certain also is it that a change is passing rapidly over Japanese society; a change ominous in many ways.
The Money Power.-Japan has still retained socially its feudal ideals and standards. In old Japan luxury, wealth, and display were despised. The poorest samurai counted himself superior to the richest merchant. In the great clans young gentlemen were trained as soldiers, and by precept and example were taught that wealth was not to be sought by gentlemen. Boys grew to manhood with no knowledge of trade and without a dollar they could call their own. In the old representative samurai families a puritan simplicity reigned. And after feudalism past the old standard remained. The smallest official felt himself of the governing caste and superior to common folks. The petty officials were poor but beyond suspicion. One could not fee even a policeman, not even for extraordinary service. The deference accorded them and the powers exercised by them, by men paid the merest pittance, was astonishing. Within a few years to be in the government service was the ambition of the brightest youth.
But with the new civilization comes a. change, most markt since the termination of the war. The old ambition that Japan be the equal" of the great Powers seems attainable ouly through a vast increase of wealth. The nation has never thought itself poor. It has had enough, but now with new ~ays of life come new needs. Civilization of the modern style is endlessly costly. Compared with Europe and America Japan is poor indeed, but it must maintain itself in the new society into which it has been forced. Expenditures increase apace, and taxation is in proportion. A clear example of the new influence is in the substitution of gold as money standard in place of silver. The change was effected in the briefest space of time, with the minimum of discussion and almost no dissent. The nation felt it another change advancing it towards equality with the favored nations of the West. The rapid adoption of the measure markt, possibly, the new influence of the money power. But the
Sept~~
nation agreed. So does it agree to the new social position accorded wealth. It is now said to be the ambition of young men to become rich, and the relative position of poor officials and rich merohants is suddenly reverst. There comes to be a scramble for money. New enterprises are planned, new resources sought, and new characteristics displayed. With all the vast extension of commerce and of manufacturing industry of recent years the nation still feels poor and st.ill craves wealth. One can not look upon this feature in new Japan without grave disquietude. Inevitable it doubtless is, but what shall become of the old charm of the old life, so restful, so full of grace, so far removed from the sordid strife of the modern world? One does not like to think that~' Christian" civilization taught Japan first how in most approved style to kill, and then introduced the scramble for more and more and ever more of this world's goods. It is not pleasant to be told that money makes and unmakes parliamentary majorities, and that a ministry can endure only if in alliance with millionaires. When shall we be able to say that not only Western modes of warfare, and of commerce, and of sordid politics, but that the Christ's teaching of love and truth has won Japan? Not at once we fear.
The Work of the Okurck.-Not yet does there seem to be a turn of the tide that has so checkt the advance. Indee'd, some of the keenest observers think this new strife for wealth the most antagonistic force which has yet appeared. Whatever be the cause the result is manifest.
Again the table of statistics of all mission work shows a net 1088. At the close of the year 1896 there were 349 fewer communicants in Protestant churches than were reported at the close of 1895, and 879 less than those reported at the close of 1894. Let us face the facts at their worst. Not counting the wives of missionaries, many of whom do most valiant and effective service, there are 472 foreign missionaries, with 281 ordained Japanese ministers, and 610 unol'dained preachers and helpers, and 204 Bible women, a total of 1,567 professionallaborers, and the net result for two years of work has been a loss in the number of communicants of 879. In the long list of columns the list of laborers almost alone show increase. More laborers and less results, that seems to be the story for years. And even the number of ordained Japanese shows a large falling off.
It is true that there is a pretty large number of adult baptisms reported (2,513), but this is less than in the year preceding, and that less than in the year before, and that also showed a decrease.
The largest diminution is in the work of the American Board, and the exceptional causes for its decrease are well known. For the first time, we judge, it falls to third place in the number of converts, and its native ministry is less than half, only 25 now against 60 a year before, while its students for the ministry are reported as only six. But tho special causes have affected this work long the most promising of all, still, at best, the other missions have only held their own.
It is much that they have held their own, and much that in that mission that has suffered so grievously so many stand fast and maintain the faith. In total result they are second, and in benevolence still leli.d all the rest.
The Hope jor the Future.-So far 3S we know none is discouraged. In the days of success many, as in the days of the early Church with apostolic leadership, profest the faith who did not know its power. And many flourisht for a time but had no root and by and by withered away. But many endure, and from them shall come the Church that shall endure. The work no longer occupies its old place in the public eye, it no longer comes with observation, but it endure~, and it will still possess the land.
In many places interest is manifested, and faithful work brings forth fruit. Missionaries and converts are in greater harmony than in times past. There is less unrest, less curiosity abont the latest novelty, anef a truer and more sober estimate of the work that must be done.
The experience in Japan is not exceptional. It is from such experiences that the Chnrch learns patience, faith, and its absolute dependence upon God's power. To learn that is to learn all, and at last to win all.
PANDITA RAMABAI AND HER WORK.
BY MISS GRACE E. WILDER, KOLHAPUR, INDIA.
The name of Pandita Ramabai isfamiliarto many. We American women are glad to recall the fact that when this young widow came to our shores, she received the sympathy and aid for which her heart was longing. Ramabai's efforts for the widows of western India, and more especially her present connection with famine widows, has 80 brought her into prominence that some may be glad to have a short review of a life so signally molded and used by God.
In the famine of 1876 Ramabai was a little Hindu girl living in, the jungles of India. Her father being a pundit, he chose So solitary abode-a custom not uncommon among the religious people of India. Both parents were anxions to have Rama become learned; so, from So child, she was taught the Hindu shastras. I have been told that she committed to memory 23,000 verses of the Hindu scriptures.
. Among others, her own people fell victims to the terrible famine. Of this time she says: "Eleven days and nights, in which we sub-
PANDITA. ,RAHABA.I AND DEB WOBlI
sisted on water and leaves, were spent in great mental and bodily pain. At last our dear father could hold out no longer. He determined to drown himself in the sacred tank neal' by. ' Remember, my child,' he said, 'you are my youngest, my most beloved child. I have. given you into the hands of our God; you are His, and to Him alone you must belong and serve all your life.' He could speak no more. My father's prayers for me were no doubt heard by the Almighty, the all merciful heavenly Father, whom the old Hindu did not know. The God of all flesh did not find it impossible to bring me, a great sinner and an unworthy child of His, out of heathen darkness into the saving light of His love and salvation."
Happily the resolve of suicide was not carried out, for later this father was attacked by fever, from which he did not recover. Ramabai touchingly tells of how fellow-villagers, being doubtful as to the caste of the family, offered no assistance, and her brother carried the lifeless form alone over two miles to its last resting-place.
The story of helplessness and starvation continued until mother and sister both died. She and her brother visited the large cities of India. She advocated female education, and after a time this young lecturer and Sanscrit scholar created a sensation by her views and scholarship. The pundits of Calcutta conferred upon her the distinguisht title ()f Sarasvati. Soon after this her brother died. "His great thought during his illness," she writes, " was for me." When he spoke of his anxiety, I answered: "There is no one but God to care for you and me." " Ah," he answered, "then if God cares for UB, I am afraid of nothing! and indeed in my loneliness it seemed as if God was near me, I felt his presence."
After the death of her brother, Ramabai married a Bengali gentleman. After nineteen months of married life she was left a widow with a baby daughter Manorama (Heart's Joy). She resumed her former work as a lecturer, going from city to city to plead for the education of native women and the discouragement of child marriage.
It was not long before her restless desire to go to England was real. ized. She writes: "It seems to me now very strange how I could have started as I did with my friend and little child, throwing ,myself on God's protection. When I reacht England, the sisters in St. Mary's Home at Wantage kindly received me. There I gradually learned to feel the truth of Christianity, and to see that it is a philosophy teaching truths higher than I had ever known in all our systems; to see that it gives not only precepts but a perfect example; that it does not give us precepts and an example only, but assures us a divine grace to follow that example." Here she and her daughter were baptized, and thus before reaching America she had profest an outward adherence to Christianity.
She was received into the home of Dean Bodley, of Philadelphia, and there received the encouragement and counsel and love of a truly great woman. In preparing an introduction to one of Ramaba.i's boo~s, Dean Bodley writes: "I askt her as she arose to depart if she had a last message for the readers of her book. 'Remind them,' she • replied, with animated countenance and rapid speech, as she claspt my hand, 'that it was out of Nazareth that the blessed Redeemer of mankind came; that great reforms have again and again been wrought by instrumentalities that the world despised. Tell them to help me educate the high caste child widows, for I solemnly believe that this hated and despised class of women, educated and enlightened, are by God's grace to redeem India.''' In remarkable ways God is causing Ramabai to realize the gradual fulfillment of this prophetic desire.
Her'home for widows is located at Poona, amid pleasant natural surroundings. The inmates-numbering at the close of last year between fifty and sixty-receive here not alone superior educational advantages, but a home-life which is a constant protest against the awful customs of Hindu widowhood.
During the last two years Ramabai has herself experienced a deeper knowledge of the life of Christ and of the possibilities of that life being manifested in her. Through the blessing of God on the efforts of an English evangelist, she was shown that the Holy Spirit is a living person. Her acceptance of Him and obedience to Him have had a markt influence on the girls in her home. Ramabai has always held the position that every pupil is free to join her at the time of morning and evening prayer. As the spirit of God has been manifested in this home, the attendance at prayers has increast, and last year twelve girls profest faith in Christ by baptism.
Six months ago-as fearful facts of famine su:ffering reachtRama- bai-her heart could not rest without making efforts to save the widows of Central India. "We shall be quite contented," she writes, "to have only one meal of common coarse food daily, if necessary, and so long as we have a little room or a seed of grain left in this' house, we shall try and help our sisters who are starving."
After a rail journey of many miles, Ramabai hired a bullock-cart, and visited some of the villages of the Central Provinces. She found that not only were young widows and deserted wives starving, but their lives were in great moral danger from wicked Mohammedans, who were taking advantage of this time of their dis- tress and helplessness.
Before we left India, Ramabai's jourlley had added 125 to Sarada Sadhan-her home in Poona. I saw many of these young widows, with skeleton forms and gaunt looks, which said more than their words. They were under a temporary inclosure of Bamboo poles, covered with clo.th and matting. When I said, "Ramabai, you now need bui,ldings," she replied, "Yes, and the Father must send the money." News has reacht me that the number of widows or deserted wives taken by Ramabai from famine districts has risen to 149, and preparations are being made to receive more.
We, who live in Western India, recognize God's gracious love and power in this chosen life. . We see that Ramabai is now gathering in the girls who will, with God's blessing, be teachers and missionaries to their own people. Will you help her by prayer, and by undertaking the support of one or more of the members of her increasing family?
We add the following account of the terrible condition of affairs in India, where the distress brought about by plague and famine is unspeakably augmented by the unprincipled use which evil men make to gratify their own lust. Pandita Ramabai is doing her utmost to rescue the young girls and child-widows who would otherwise fall into the hands of these human vultures.
At Sohagpur Ramabai first began the work of rescuing these starving girls. Sbe says: We found that we could not get the orphan children without the permission of the government, so our first business was to see the physician in charge of the hospital, and the tahsildar in charge of the poor-house. Before that hospital were walking three little famished skeleton-like forms, and this first sight of- their distress I shall never forget. The three children were of the Ohamar caste, their father had died some time ago, and the mother died only the day before. The eldest was a girl of about seven, the second a boy of five, and the youngest a baby boy three years of age. The girl was protecting herself from the intense cold with a covering of rags, and the two boys had nothing on their bodies. Their wrinkled faces and the ghastly, death-like expression told the story of the terrible suffering they were in. All of them were crying for food. The youngest had sore eyes, and could scarcely open them. The poor babe was suffering from dysentery, so much so that his intestines were almost falling out. T{) add to hIS misery, he had fallen down and hurt his back. The blood flowed freely from the injured part, which was already so sore and painful, but there was no one to care for him. He was crying, but tears were not to be seen in his eyes. The children were right before the hospital, but no one showed any sign of pity. It took us so long to find the officer in charge of the poor-house that when we returned they had gone, and though I went searching all over the town, I could not find them. Perhaps they died of hunger.
The poor-house was only a grove in the outskirts of the town. Groups of famisht people lying down in heaps, or sittin~ or lying in ashes on the dirty ground. Some had rags to cover theu bodies, and some had none. There were old and young men, and women, and children, most of the ill, too weak to move about, and many suffering from leprosy and other unmentionable diseases. Bad men, immoral wqmen, pure young girls, innocent children and old people, good, bad, and indifferent, were freely mixing and conversing with each other. They slept in the open air, or under the trees at night, and ate the scanty and coarse food provided by the government. The food was nothing but dry flour and some salt. Many of the so-called poor-houses are open grounds with a lIort of fence all round them. Some are nothing but sheds temporarily erected to shelter the people. The miserable men, women, and children, who find shelter in these places, are baked in the sun in the day and freeze in cold at night. In some places there is a thin fencing, where men and women are placed separately. But this arrangelllent is not much of a protection to the women. The devil is at work, even in these poor-houses and relief camps, and they are not fit places for young women and girls to be in. The European and native officers employed to look after the interests of the dying thousands are hard at work, and try to do as much as they can. But it is impossible for them to find out what goes on behind their backs; they are obliged to leave the work in the hands of the Mukadams, who can do whatever they like. They pull and push the working coolies, even women. Young men can be seen everywhere talking to girls and women under the pretense of doing the Mukadam's work. Wicked men and women are everywhere ou the lookout for young women and girls; they entice them by offering sweetmeats and other kind of food, clothing, and fair promises to take them to nice places and make them happy. So hundreds of girls, young widows, and deserted wives are waylaid as they go to the relief camps and poor-houses in search of food and work, and taken away before they place themselves in the custody of the governmeut. The wicked are not afraid of the judgment of God, they are sinning away their lives in the midst of the fearful scene of famine and pestilence. They are carrying on a wholesale trade in young girls who have been obliged to leave their families and wander away from home in quest of food. In many cases parents have fallen a prey to the famine, and left their young girls to the tender mercies of their neighbors, or fellow travelers, or other wayfarers. Such girls easily fall into the hands of wicked people.
Here is an instance: A young girl of fourteen, and a little sister of about eight years of a~e, were left orphans and taken possession of by a wicked man at !tarsI. I happened to see her in the streets and askt her who she was. She told me her whole story and said she would let me have her sister, who was not wanted by her cruel master, and that she could not come away for the fear of that man. I wanted to rescue the poor child but was at that time unable to do so. I prayed to the Lord to show me the way-and in the next week He sent help. A young missionary gentleman came to help me. He went to the police station and took her away from the "man who had kept her in his possession against her will. She was sent to the mission bungalow with a servant, but the former master carried her away by force. A~ain the missionary went to the town and fetcht her, and that very mght 1 took her to Jabalpur, and now she and her sister are placed with some good missionary ladies who will take care of them. The elder girl, poor child, is rumed for life, and.is suffering from horrible disease.
May the merciful Father help these children! Another young girl of about fifteen was some time ago wandering away from home, when a res~ectable looking man told her to go home with him and help his wife m the household work. She consented, and went with him. He gave her nice clothes and food, and for a few days all went on nicely with her, but the devil was at work in his heart. Other demands were made on her, but the girl said she had gone to his house to work and not for any other purpose. He then said that she should nDt get sari and fDDd, unless she cDnsented to fDllo.W his wishes.
" Very well," she said, and put Dn her DId rags, threw away the gDDd sari, and went Dut Dn the street again to beg her fODd. She was pickt up the same day by a kind lady and is safe with me now.
There are not many such girls who. will resist the devil in the face of starvatio.n and death. Go.d be thanked fo.r prDtecting the virtue of these innocents. But it has been my sad lot to see many little girls ruined for life.
My sympathies are excited by the needs of young girl widDws, especially at this time. To let them go. to the relief camps and pDor- hDuses, or allDW them to' wander in the streets and Dn the highways ,means their eternal destructiDn. Ever since I have seen these girls in the famine districts-some fallen into. the hauds o.f wicked people; some ruined fQr life and turned Qut by their cruel masters Qwing to.
bad diseases, to. die a miserable death in a ho.peless, helpless manner, SDme being treated in the hQspitals Qnly to' be taken back into the pits Df sin there to await a cruel death; some bearing the burdens of sin utterly lost to. the sense of shame and humanity-hell has become a horrible reality to me, and my heart is bleeding for those daughters of fond parents who have died leaving them orphans. Who. with a mother's heart and a sister's love can rest without doing everything in her power to save at least a few of the girls who can yet be saved from the hands of the evil ones I So, regardless Df the trying financial state Df my SChODl, I went to work in the Central Provinces to get a few of the helpless young widows.
The Father, who is a very present help in trouble, has enabled me to get SDme sixty widows, forty· seven Df whDm will go to SChDOI to study, and others will work. Over eight hundred and fifty rupees were spent in fetching them here. The Lord has put it into. my mind to save three hundred girls out of the famine districts, and I shall go to work in His name. The fundI! sent to me by my friends in Amer- ica. are barely enough to feed and educate fifty girls, and several peo-'
pIe are asking me how lam going to suppDrt all these girls who may come from Central India. Besides their food and clothing. new dor- mitories and dining-roo.ms must be built. Our present school-house is not large enough to hold more than one hundred girls at the most.
And how are these emergencies to be met?
I do. not know, but the Lord knows what I need. I can say with the Psalmist," I am Po.or and needy, but the Lord thinketh upon me." My girls and I are quite ready to fDregD all Dur cDmfDrts, give up luxuries, and live as plainly as we can. We shall be quite CDn- tented to' have Dnly Dne meal of CDmmDn CDarse fDOd daily, if neces- sary, and so. long as we have a little room or a seed Df grain left in this hDuse, we shall try and help our sisters who. are starving. It seems a sin to live in this go.Dd house and eat plenty of gODd fDod and be warmly clDthed, while thousands of Dur fellow creatures are dying of hunger, and are without shelter. If all of us do our part faithfully, GDd is faithful to. fulfil His prDmises. and will send uil the help we need at this time.
r humbly request you to pray for me and mine that we may be made strong in the Lord, and walk by faith and not by sight. Believe me, yours in the Lord's service, R.uLBAI.
MILITARY RULB IN MADAGASCAR
MILITARY RULE IN MADAGASCAR.
The past eight months have been a time of darkness and horror to many of the natives, upon which they will long 100Js back as upon a terrible nightmare. General Gallieni is a man of immense energy and a prompt striker. "With him," said one of his compatriots, "it is a word and a blow, and usually the blow comes first." He is said to have acquired the name of the "fusilier," and in Madagascar he has fully maintained his reputation. The shooting of rebels and others has been an almost daily occurrence. Many of those shot have, doubtless, been guilty of rebellion, or, as they would themselves perhaps say, of a determination not to be ruled by foreigners; but some of those so hastily shot down have been, in the judgment of many, absolutely guiltless of the charges laid against them. During a state of siege it often happens that young and inexperienced officers have great powers entrusted to them, and evidence is not very carefully sifted. Everything, too, has to be done through interpreters, whose knowledge of French is neither extensive nor accurate, and there is thus but small probability that a trial will be fairly conducted. Some of these officers seem to think it highly to their credit to shoot down natives. One of these said recently to one of his compatriots, " I am just going to shoot a native rebel-my seventy-third. Come and ~ee it done." All this may be a natural consequence of military rule; but it is none the less deplorable, and we long for the time when civil rule will be restored, and every accused person may at least have a fair opportunity of defense.
Madagascar is now a French colony, and the Queen has been banisht to Rennideo. This was a logical result of the steps already taken by the authorities. The hybrid form of government that existed for a few months after General GaIIi€mi's arrival could not last long, and the situation has been simplified by the removal of the Queen: Her power had already been taken from her, and she was of no service to the French rulers. Indeed, without any "fault of her own, she may have been an indirect hindrance to them in their efforts to pacify the country. The general has not charged her with any act of disloyalty, tho, perhaps, she did not show enough gaiety to satisfy Frenchmen. She remained a Protestant to the end, notwithstanding many attempts to induce her to change her religion.
The general results of French rule in Madagascar are becoming more and more apparent. Great labor is being expended on roadmaking, and the general appearance of the capital is rapidly changing. Not many new public buildings are being erected; but great activity is shown in altering and adapting the many native houses that have fallen into the hands of the government. The central parts of the city will soon become entirely French. During this month of May hundreds of workmen are busy in Adohalo, a fine open space in the very heart of the city, and it is said that by the Fete of the Republic, on July 14th, the place will have undergone a complete transformation, and will have become a public garden, with a band- stand in the center.
The French rulers are gradually perfecting their system of com- mercial government and of taxation, and also the regulation of the corvee. It was said at the beginning of the occupation that the covee was dead-an evil system that would never be revived. The natives, however, are finding that such hopes were an illusion. Every able-bodied man is required to spend fifty days a year in roadmaking, or in certain privileged cases he pays five dollars. In addition to this there are military requisitions of different kind and various taxes, and many are beginning to feel the hand of the conquerer press' heavily upon them.
But the bearing of French rule on the cause of Protestant mis- sions is the topic possessing most interest for the readers of~ this RE- VIEW, and to that we address ourselves.
General Gallieni reflects the feelings of thousands of his fellow , countrymen in showing himself strongly opposed to English influ- ence. He was sent, it is said, to fulfill a two-fold mission: to destroy the rule of the Hova and the English supremacy. "English suprem- acy" with him and with many others simply means the influence of the London Missionary Society. It is strange to those actually en- gaged in the work of that society to find their influence regarded as an important factor in the political situation. In carrying ·out this policy, General Galli€mi is simply following out the lines laid down by M. Ie Myre di Vilers, who said the two irreconcilable enemies of France in Madagascar were the Hova Government and the London Missionary Society. The latter, he said, has always cherisht the se- cret design of securing the annexation of Madagascar by England.
A series of events has shown how strong the anti-Protestant (or anti-English) feeliug is among the French officers. From the begin- ning of the occupation Protestant churches have been requisitioned for the use of the soldiers, but, so far as I know, not a single Roman Catholic church has been so taken. This has been a great trial to the . Protestant Ohristians, who have been grieved to see their houses of prayer become scenes of debauchery and immorality. In the com- pound of a mission house in the country, on property belonging to the London Missionary Society, huts have been erected for the native women who follow the soldiers.
The seizure of the large hospital at Goavinandriana, and more recently the purchase of the principal educational establishments of the London Society, have been regarded by the people generally as a blow dealt at the work of that society. That this was the real motive that led General Gallieni to enforce the sa.le of these buildings, is shown by the naive confession of the correspondent of the Temps. This gentleman, evidently well informed, after stating the sum paid for the buildings, says, "This sum, which at first appears very considerable, is relatively slight, considering the injury done to the prestige of the society, for it is thereby deprived of its most powerful means of propaganda."
An illustration that throws much light upon the French policy is found in the action of the administration in regard to the Normal School building. When arrangements were being made last February for the purchase of its buildings named above, it was said by General Galli€mi's intermediary, that they were absolutely required by the exigencies of the public service. Within a few hours, however, of the arrival of the Paris missionaries last month, the Normal School building was offered them on condition that no Englishman should take any part in the work to be carried on in it. The building and the whole work connected with it was accordingly handed over to Mr. Mondain, of the Paris Society, a few days ago; and Mr. Richardson, who has had charge of the school 25 years, is leaving the island.
Another instance illustrating the same point is that of the church at Andohalo. This is a building of burnt brick, built after designs prepared by the late Mr. William Johnson. The people have spent a large sum on the building, but they also gave much labor, especially in digging very deep foundations. The site is one of the best in the town, and we attacht a special value to it, because from its fine central position it would have been so convenient for united meetings of various kinds. The congregation was founded by missionaries of the London Missionary Society more than 30 years ago, and the former building was erected almost entirely at the expense of friends of that society. The building was required by the government, and the people have sold it (according to Mr. Peake's estimate) for about half its value. Their defense is that they had no option in the matter. We are greatly disappointed to lose this building, and the more so, as we had a written promise from the General, that none of our church buildings should be taken by the administration, unless we ourselves agreed to treat in a friendly manner. This we have not done, but have urged strong reasons why the building should not be taken. All the material claims of the London Missionary Society are fairly met by the French government; but this is no compensation for the loss of such a well-situated and well-built church. Rumors are common both among the natives and among Frenchmen that this church is to be turned into a theater. Let us hope this is one of the cases in which rumors may prove false.
In the Betsileo province the French president, Dr. Besson, has shown a bitter animus against the work of tbe London Missionary Society. The people have been terrorized by the agents of the Jesuits in the most shameless fashion. Many of the agents of the London Missionary Society have been banisht from the province on the plea that they were Hovas, whilst other Hovas are not interfered with, and stranger still any of these agents who are willing to become Roman Catholics, are also permitted to remain. The latest news from this district is that twelve leading men from Ambohimandroso have been imprisoned or put in chains, the only charge against them being (so far as our friends can learn) that they have been friendly with the English and have spoken against France. No opportunity has been given them of rebutting these charges.
It should in fairness be stated, however, that this intolerance is by no means universal among the French administrators. There are large sections of the country in which the proclamations guaranteeing religious liberty are faithfully adhered to, and where much kindness has been shown by French officers to the native Protestant Christians. Everything seems to depend upon the character of the officer in charge, and on the greater or smaller influence the Jesuits have over him. The districts in which the Protestants have suffered most are those of Betsileo, already mentioned, and of Ambatomanga. Of the latter district the missionary in charge could tell a sad story. More than twenty Protestants were shot in a small circle of villages a few weeks since" with scarcely the shadow of a trial. It is quite enough if some overzealous native governor calls them fahavalo (or rebels), and in a few hours they may be dead.
Dark as recent experiences have been, however, there seems some reason to hope that the worst is past, and that the fierceness of this intolerance is abating. Since March there has been no more church stealing, and some few of the buildings have been restored. Some of the churches requisitioned by the military authorities (as Imahamasina and Isoavina) have also been recently restored to ns. Mr. Leban, the Colonial Minister, has also promist that compensation shall be paid for the hospital. We trust these indications of fair treatment may soon be followed by the restoration of religious freedom, such as was enjoyed before the war. The French might in regard to this matter well learn a lesson from the despised Hovas. During the war of 1883- 1886, tho all the French were expelled, their native congregations suffered no persecution, nor were their buildings taken from them by the powerful Protestant majority.
Our main ground of hopefulness as to the future lies in the action of the Paris Missionary Society. A year ago it was thought that some slight help may be rendered by that society to the Protestant cause. The severe troubles of the native Protestants and the stirring appeals of Messrs. Kruger and Langa throughout France, have deeply stirred the heart of the Protestant churches there, and already they are enter- ing with much zeal and earnestness into this work. Five new mis- sionaries arrived a month ago, and a few days after their arrival a large meeting attended by 1,200 or 1,400 Protestant Christians of Antananarivo was held in the Amparibe Church to bid them welcome. At the present moment their position is this: They have taken charge 'of all primary schools, nearly 500 in number, with more than 30,000 scholars. They will also train teachers in the Normal School, and take charge of "the Palace School." They will also settle in distrest districts, and undertake general visitations for the encouragement of the native Protestants. Reenforcements are expected, and it seems probable that the bulk of the London Missionary Society's work will gradually pass into their hands. It is possible the Swiss Society will also take some share in the work; as recent events make it abundantly clear that it will be much to the advantage of the native churches to be placed under the superintendence of French-speaking missionaries.
How soon this transfer of work may take place can not, of course, be foreseen; but events have been marching rapidly of late, and the work of the London Missionary Society in this land may come to an end much sooner than some of us anticipated. Still there remains the hope, that if the larger portion of the work is taken over by the French-speaking missionaries, some few of the English workers may remain for a few years, so as to preserve the continuity of the mission, and to give to the Frenchmen the benefit of their knowledge of the language aud of the people. Whatever the final issue of event;s may be, the foundations, laid broad and deep by the English society, will not be destroyed. The written language, the translated Bible, the spread of elementary education, the developmeut of higher education and of medical study, the general principles of church order, and the native missionary society-these are things that will abide; and those who follow us in this land will gladly acknowledge that other men labored, and that they had entered into their labor.- • Since the aboTe was written we haTe had a tragic illustration of how much anti-foreign feeling may still be smoldering under the apparent calm. On Monday, May 17th, the Revs. B. Escande and P. Minault, of the Paris Society, left the capital tor Betsileo. Mr. H. F. Standing, of the Friends' Mi88lon, went with them part of the way, and lett them on Thursday morning. 'On the Friday morning, when nearing a large market, they were suddenlyattackt by a party of SO armed rebels and killed. Details have not yet reacht us. But the bodies, we hear, haTe been recovered by the Rev. E. O. McMahon, of the Angelican Mission, and buried at his station of Ramainandro. A gloom has been cast over the Protestants ot AntananariTo by his sad news. Six victims have now tallen since the outbreak of' the rebellion. Mr. and Hi'll. Willism Johnson and little Blo88om at Arivonlmamo; Father Berties near AmbohlbemaMI&Ildro, and now Messrs. Escande and Mlnault near Ramainandro.
A.LLlA.NCE }fi1!1I10NARY OFFERlNGII
THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE MISSIONARY OFFERINGS.* BY REV. H. WILSON, D.D., NEW YORK.
Nearly a quarter of a million dollalrs were subscribed at five meetings during the summer and autumn of 1896, in one day at Old Orchard meeting, August 9, 1896, .101,500 being obtained without special effort, and October 11, at Carnegie Hall, New York City, *122,000 more so freely given, that those on the platform could hardly keep pace with the tide of pledges and money poured in upon them. Beginning at Old Orchard with a one dollar bill, given by a very poor woman, and followed by a nickel brought up by a little boy, the offerings rose steadily to the amount given above. While at Carnegie Hall a washerwo~an handed in $25 as the first contribution, followed by others, thus varying from 10 cents to $10,000, till the total reacht the sum which has startled so many by its size, and the perfect ease with which it was obtained, and this in a year of great financial depression. . Let me try to answer the question so often askt us and from so many quarters: "What is the secret of this spontaneous and magnificent giving at the conventions of the Christian Alliance? How is it. that a body of people so poor, can be led not only to pledge but to pay so much to the cause of Foreign Missions, and in times of such financial pressure? They do it.
I. Because they have caught God's Tlw1tght for the world. By years of truthful teaching they have learned God's idea of missions, viz., the rapid evangelization of the heathen world in preparation for the speedy coming of our Lord to this earth again.
Not the conversion of every soul on the earth, but the preaching of the Gospel for a witness to those who have never heard it, giving at least one chance to know Ohrist and be saved to those millions in heathen lands who have never had one chance in contrast to those in Christendom, who have been preacht to till they are Gospel hardened.
II. The second reason for the extraordinary liberality shown at the close of these conventions is the gradual and solemn preparation for the offering.
These extraordinary gifts for missions are not spasmodic or hypnotic in their character. They are not the result of any labored appeal to the feelings, or of playing upon the emotions of the audience. A stranger dropping in and sitting on the outskirts of the vast multitude at Old Orchard, or any similar meeting, would perhaps be • We have asked Rev. H. Wilson, D.D., who has been familiar with the whole history of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, to give a succinct account of the missionary olferings at Its conventions, which may at once Inform the public and correct erroneous statements. puzzled to account for the result of a simple Gospel sermon of perhaps 45 minutes in length. But if our stranger or critic friend had been present from the beginning of the convention, and observed that for 14 days-beginning each morning at 6 :30, and going on almost c9n- tinuously ti1110 :30 or 11 at night, comprising from 12 to 15 different meetings-the people were under the direct and continuous influence of the Holy Spirit, he might catch the secret of the closing day. For two weeks the great themes of our life in Ohrist and His life in us, for salvation, sanctification. Healing and the second coming of the Lord, and their practical outcome in the salvation of sinners and the evangelization of the heathen are presented and dwelt upon by speakers filled with the Holy Spirit, and listened to by thousands of equally baptized people. Added to this comes the mighty influence of men and women, lately returned from their missionary fields among the heathens, and speaking with the freshness and power of a living experience. With the eloquence of facts backed up by aims of deepest consecration, the Holy Ghost himself speaks through these to the hearts of the people, and keeps speaking until all prejudice is removed, false views dissipated, eyes are opened, vision cleared, minds enlightened, and hearts are melted into one mighty stream of tenderness and love for the 100,000 souls a day that are passing to their doom.
In.fact, the outpouring on the closing Sabbath is but the natural, or rather supernatural result of the inpouring of right, truth, and life throngh the Holy Spirit during the days preceding it.
III. A third reason for this liberal aLd continuous giving on the part of onr people is their confidence in the simplicity and economy of administration of the funds they so freely give.
Without any invidious comparison with the system and methods. of other societies, it is simple justice to state that every dollar subscribed at these great meetings goes directly to the object for which it was given. With the exception of about $2,000 spent on the rent of one or two very plain offices, printing and stationery, the whole of the large sums pledged and paid goes straight to the field for the spread of the Gospel.
Excepting a bookkeeper, who receives a very modest sum, there is not a paid officer in connection with our Board and committees, while the 200 missionaries are sent out and supported on the fields for a year for an average sum of $500. The missionaries abroad and the people at home know these things. Oonfidence is begotten and enthusiasm awakened by the lives of those sent, and the sympathy of those who send them. And when the simplicity of the system is justified by the results attained; when, from one missionary on the field eight years ago, the number 11as grown to over 300 now at work in various parts of Japan, Ohina, Thibet, India, Africa, Palestine, Bulgaria, Hayti, Brazil, Venezuela, aud the income of our society has risen steadily from *5,000 in 1888 to $140,000 last year, the offerings of the past summer are not so hard to understand. The secret is an open one to those who have seen the vision of Jesus, heard His commission, and breathed in His Spirit.
THE MADRAS CHRISTIAN A880CIATiOJl'
THE MADRAS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
BY DAVID MCCONAUGHHY, M. A.
The success of the experiment which the Young Men's Christian Association of America entered upon, when, in 1889, they sent out their first representatives, one to India and the other to Japan, is no longer questioned. There had previously been a few associations in India, but the character of the new organization, which was establisht in Madras early in 1890, was distinctly different from these. In that land where caste is so rife amongst Europeans, as well as Hindus, it resolutely refused to recognize any distinction whatsoever of race, rank, or religion. Any young men of good character were admitted as associate members, while the management was retained in the hands of active members who must be in the communion of some Protestant Christian Church. The Madras Association was also establisht upon a self-supporting basis, refusing to be subsidized from outside, altho its work might easily have been doubled or quadrupled at any time, if this principle had not been adbered to. Tbe board of directors has from the outset insisted that the growth, tho slower, would be surer and more permanent, if not dependent upon outside sources. During the first seven year!! about $10,000 had been contributed by the members and friends of the association in Madras. Every expense except the salary of the General Secretary has thus been provided. The principle of supporting Indian agents solely by funds raised in India has now been adopted for the National Union, as well as for the local associations, and all surplus is now applied toward this end. Amongst the subscribers to theassociation are His Excellency, Sir Arthur E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, and each of the members of his Executive Council, as well as the Lord Bishop of Madras, the Venerable, the Arch-Deacon, the Bishop's Chaplain, and a hundred others prominent in Church and State, in government and commercial circles. Perhaps no better proof than this can be given of the seal of divine approval which has been put upon the work of this association in reward for its adherence to the principle of the real brotherhood of man. Of the more than four hundred members of the Madras Association, nearly one half are non-Christians. Tho without any voice in the management, they enjoy all the varied privileges which the association affords, including that of being brought into living contact with Christ in the persons of the active members in the rooms, socials, lectures, educational classes, and on the athletic field day by day.
As long ago as 1892 the need of a building began to be felt, and the members of Madras have since contributed more than $1,600 toward the building fund. In 1894 Dr. Pentecost proposed at a drawing. room meeting in Kent House, London, that a building be provided on international lines, India to provide the cost of the foundations, Great Britain the site, and America the superstructure. That suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, and within a few weeks some *6,000 was raised in England. At the end of more than two years of patient negotiations, the site was secured which His Excellency Sir Arthur E. Havelock, Governor of Madras, when laying the corrierstone in January, described as "really magnificent." It faces the Esplanade-the open green of the city-just opposite the handsome buildings of the high court and law college, with the electric tramway passing in front and a great Union railway station about to be built near bv. Within a stone's throw, on the east, is the Madras Christian College, and on the west the principal Hindu college of South India, while just across the China Bazaar road stands the splendid new building of the law college. Facing on three streets, the site has a frontage of 151 feet and a depth of 126, covering an area of 19,000 feet. The story of the purchase of this ground is in itself a fascinat- ing chapter in the growing volume of answers to prayer. It was in I 1893 that an amateur photographer focused his camera upon the block of old tin bazaars which then covered this piece of land. That photograph, though not even shown to the board of directors for . many months, like Hezekiah's letter, was spread before the Lord. In spite of obstacles, which all who were at all acquainted with the cir- cumstances pronounced insurmountable, the conviction had been begotten that that ground had been given of God for the purposes of this association. It was not until November 27, 1896, that the last obstacle to the purchase was removed, and it has been only within the past month that the collector's certificate has been obtained, giving an indisputable title to the entire property. There were more than a sC,.ore of different signatories (all non-Christians) requisit in order to complete the transaction, and the consent of more than twice this nnmber of Hindus was required. In the midst of the eighteen tin bazaars, which formed the front of the lot, were two, the revenue of which went to support an Hindu temple, and these were h~ld by trustees. After all the other owners had come to terms, two, whose holdings measured about six by eight feet each, still held out for an exorbitant price-five times the amount they had paid only a few years ago. Every effort to bring them to terms had been exhausted, and as they believed that their ground was absolutely indispensable to the purpose of the association, they believed they could get what- ever they demanded. On the last morning before the last monsoon ended, the building committee of the Madras Association met for con- ference and prayer over this matter. In the course of the two hours thus spent, the committee pleaded with God to once more cast out the heathen to give place to His people. Within an hour after adjourn- ment these bazaars were a crumbling mass of ruins, a cyclone having swept across the town while the committee was still in session. As the Hindu owners stood wringing their hands in front of the ruins a little later that morning, they were overheard lamenting that this calamity had overtaken them in retribution for their having refused to sell the ground to the association for a reasonable price. Next day the ground was bought for less than half what they had been demanding.
Meanwhile, friends in America have come forward and contributed the full amount required both for the superstructure and for furnish- ing, the Hon. John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia, personally assum- ing the cost of the former, which is estimated at $30,000. The site cost about $12,000, of which two-thirds has now been contributed. The building is now in course of erection, and it is expected that it will be ready for occupancy next year.
INTlIBlU.T10NAL DBPABTK:IIlfT. [Septemb&t
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Anglo-Ohinese College, Foochow, dred .dollars, the Missionary Society Ohina. added twenty-five hundred, and the property mentioned was bought. The REV. GEO. B. SllYTH, D.D., PRESIDENT. school was opened, and has ever since been conducted on the lines then laid The Bok LiDg Anglo·Chinese Col- down. The College therefore had its lege, to give it its full name, was birth in the brain and heart of a gener· founded sixteen years ago, by Diong ous Chinese, not in the treasury of the Hok Ling, a Chinese merchant at FOG- Missionary Society of New York, and chow. Unhappily for himself, as he this fact alone should plead eloquently regarded it, he was a gentleman wholly with those who are interested in educaunlearned in the knowledge of books, tional work in connection with missions for when young he could not afford to in China. go to school, and so grew up without those educational advantages the lack I am well aware that compared with of which he never ceast to mourn. some American gifts toward the found· But he had energy and faithfulness, ing of colleges, the one of which I am and after working for a time for others, writing is small indeed. but it must be he came from Amoy, his native city, thought of in connection with the cirand opened a small shop at Foochow, cumstances. It was given toward the which finally grew into the larger founding of a Christian school by a store so well known to both Chinese Chinese who was not a Christian, and and foreigners at this port. Increasing it is, so far as I know, the largMt gift wealth did not make him less sensible for such a purpose yet made in China. of what he always considered his great Again, the founder was not a rich man misfortune, and he resolved that when in the American sense, indeed. in west· the opportunity offered he would found ern countries he would have been con· a school where young men, who wisht sidered poor. If his business had con. it, might acquire a thorough education. tinued to prosper he would have added Be made careful observations as to the to the first sum, but he met with rebest way in which to realize his gener- verses, and left but little at his death. ous purpose, and give permanence to Christians will be glad to know that the work when it should be once beguu. soon after founding the college, he He finally decided to place his gift at entered the Methodist Church, of the disposal of a Board of Trustees which he remained a faithful member who should control it for the Mission. until his death in 1890. ary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This Board was composed of In the following numbered parathe United States and British Consuls, graphs I would invite attention to the agent of the Hong Kong and Shang- some special points in the character and hai Bank,several members of the Meth- position of the college. odist Mission, and, one each, from the American Board and English Missions. 1. The purpose of the college is to The donor then handed over ten thous- prepare young men for the work of life and doUars toward the purchase of a by giving them a sound education, fine building, other Chinese, stimulated both moral and intellectual, in the Chi- ' by his example, subscribed fifteen hun· nese and English languages. The English course is very much like that of the smaller colleges in America.
INTERllfATION.A.L DEPARTMENT
omitting Latin and Greek. The spe- foreign gentleman in the compilation cial study of English is kept up of an Anglo-Chinese dictionary, and through the students' whole course, is now a :aritish government interand there are the usual courses in preter in Singapore. He is a consistent mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Christian, and superintendent of the In addition there Is a systematic pro- Methodist Sunday-school there. gram of Bible study, including Scripture history and the history of the 3. So far as the students are con- Church. cerned, the college Is sclf-supporting, not one of them receiving pecuniary 2. It is a Christian college. Cinis- aid of any sort from the college or the tianity is the basis of its teaching. mission. They pay in full for board, This is announced in our catalogs and in addition, the current expenses, and every father who sends his son such 8S salaries of Chinese teachers, here knows to what he is sending him. Chinese tutors in English, repairs, fur- Nevertheless, no compulsion is ever niture, and other items, amounting last employed, we deal with perfect good year to about $2,500, were met by their faith with the parents of the students, fees. Besides the salaries of the forallowing perfect freedom of conscience, eign teachers, of whom there are three, o1fering no allurements or inducements the Missionary Society makes an annu_ of any sort, yet enjoying the right to al grant of *260, and this sum has-to present the truth in fulness to all. Re- be used entirely in the purchase of ligious services are held every morn- necessary apparatus. ing, and all are required to attend one service at the church on Sunday. The attendance is larger than that of There is a Young Men's Christian As- any other college in China; this year it sociation, the first of its kind in China, is 237. This represents a great advance which conducts a weekly prayer-meet- since 1887, when we had but fifty-four. ing. The president of the Association For some years the higher classes lookt is also president of the local Epworth at the college with suspicion, but their League. Tho the majority of the fears have been removed, and now we students who go out from us do not en- have the large number given above, gage in direct Christian work, some of many of whom arc the sons of men, our graduates are prominently con- who, a few years ago, would not have nected with the Church. One of them allowed them to enter a school conis the principal teacher in the Theolog- nected, however remotely, with a ical Seminary of the Church of Eng- Christian church. The students reland Missionary Society, a second, who present every class eligible for admisis a member of the Foochow Confer- sion to the government literary examience, has recently gone to America to nations. Some are the sons of poor men pursue a. theological course, while who are obliged to work hard to give still another, a graduate of the class of them an education, while others are the 1896, was elected last November by the sons of merchants and officials. Rich National Council of the College Young and poor, Christian and non-Christian, :Men's Christian Associations of China all alike are represented, the only reas the Chinese delcgate to the conven- quirements being that they be of suittion of the WorId's Christian Students' able age, be properly recommended, Federation, at Williamstown, Massa- pass the examinations, study diligently, chusetts. There are others engaged in and conduct themselves as gentlemen. direct Christian service, though not so They are, therefore, with a few excepprominently as thcse. tions such as are met with in every school, a body of self-respecting young One young man deserves special students, who come here to learn, who mention. He workt his way through have something at stake both financollege against great odds, helped a cially and in reputation, and who are intent upon making the most of oppor- spring term in 1896, the numbers who tunities which it costs them something desired to be in residence were so great to get. that I was compelled to borrow one of I'i. The college is situated at one of the mission residences for a temporary the treaty ports, and one of the great- dormitory, tho the one we had would est literary centers in China. As the accommodate 104. I promised, however, chief center of the tea trade of southern to have a new dormitory by the open- China, it has a large number of mer- ing of the present term on the 23rd of ,chants of enterprise and wealth, and February, and resolved to raise the the influence which such men natural- money here. I am happy to say that ly possess. None of these have en- I have been able to keep that promise, tered the Vhurch, or look upon its and when the new students came in purely evangelistic work with any sort last week the building was ready for of sympathy. But the advantages of a their reception. It is three stories high, school like this are so apparent that seventy· five feet long, and has rooms some of them send their sons here to for sixty-six students, a monitor's room, be educated. One result is the estab- servant's room, office, reception-room, lishment of friendly relations with men and two school-roOlps. The cost is whose friendship is valuable, and the nearly three thousand Mexican dollars, gradual revealing to them what Chris- and not a dollar has been askt or re- tianity is. ceived from foreigners. The whole Thus, to that extent at least, is reacht work was done by Chinese subscrip- a class of men who are for the present tions. The money came from different as far beyond the reach of all the other sources. The officials of the city sub- agencies of the Church as if they were scribed $600, a Cantonese merchant, inhabitants of another planet. who gave $200 himself, raised $500 Again, Foochow is the literary center more among his friends; a former stu- of the province, the focus of all its dent here $150 as a thank-offering for most powerful influences, the meeting- what the college had done for him, the place of those whose teaching and ex- Foochow Mint gave $100 and promised ample count for most with their fellow to give regularly $100 a year; various provincials. Surely it is no small thing sums ranging from $5 to a $100 were to have an institution here on which given by others, and so the amount many of this class look with favor and grew. The new dormitory is therefore to which they send their sons. They a striking testimony to the confidence do not hesitate to be known as its in the work of the college, which is felt friends, to visit it, and to recommend its by those who know it best.
work to others. The college thus be- A pleasing evidence of interest of an- comes leaven, which, tho working slow- other kind was shown by His Excel- ly, works surely, toward the establish- lency, Lo Fu Luh, the new minister to ment of a better understanding between England, in sending fans and scrolls these men and the Church; it is a plat- with complimentary sentences in his form on which men of both sides may own handwriting to the heads of our meet and discuss together the great various classes at our last Commence- theme which brought us here, the re- ment. This gentleman will be remem- generation of China through the vital- bered in America as Li Hung Chang's izing power of Christianity. interpreter on his tour around the 6. Last year the Chinese of this city world. His nephew, who has just been gave striking proof of this confidence appointed Chinese Consul-General at in the college, by their ready response Singapore, was present, and made an to my request for subscriptions for a address of much encouragement to new dormitory. At the opening of the the students. A ffigh Oaste Woman's Oonversion. making an offering to the shrine at- tacht to the tree. She was so devoted MRS. J. T. GRACEY, ROCHESTER, :N. Y. that nothing would satisfy her but the building of a temple, and now near the The conversion recently of a high- city of Madras, where the Methodist caste Brahman lady, in the city of Mad- church has lately commenced work, ras, India, and her public baptism in stands a temple, a monument to her the Methodist church, has attracted idolatry and devotion. Every week considerable attention throughout that she visited this place, and often spent country. While the great ingathering many days, feeding and sustaining the in the churches has come from the people connected with the tem~le, and lower classes, there is now a movement decorating the idol with some of her among the higher classes of women, tinest jewels. Her own house was who have been receiving instruction in tilled with idols, in her own room she the 2;enanas. The experience in the had twenty-five pictures of idols and a present case is one of many who have dozen images. As the holy child in grown weary of their false religion, the household she decorated the idols and long for something higher and with flowers, drank the sacred water better. The story as told by the after placing it before the idol, and for one instrumental in her conversion is hours would sit with a wet cloth about of thrilling interest. She was a strict her, counting the beads that were given Brahman, and from the day of her for this office, offering a prayer over birth had all the lites of her sect per- each bead, until a thousand were acformed for her, and in the seclusion of complisht. Every day she lighted beher ancestral home, amid all its wealth fore shrines and idols two or three and luxury, was devoted to her gods. hundred little oil lamps, excluding Her father was a man of great wealth, from her mind everything else, but mediand exerted a powerful influence, and tated upon the Vedas, thus performing was of the strictest Bl'ahmanical sect, the ceremony called, .. the million and many of his friends, who are lights," to insure a pathway of light among the leading citizens, express when she should come to die. astonishment that the daughter of such a cultured man should embrace Chris- This was the woman, with intellect tianity. The daughter was the young- bright, and with a religious devotio~ est child, and was taught early to live scarcely surpast, when the Methodist an idolatrous life. According to Hindu missionary found her about two years custom, she married at the age of ten, ago. It is now no longer necessary to and at her wedding thousands of rupees hide the true object in teaching the were spent. As is the custom with woman in 'the zenanas. They have Hindu wives, she divided her time be- been taught various things in the way tween her mother's and her husband's of fancy work that an opportunity home. She was of a thoughtful and might be afforded for presenting religious turn of mind, and from her Christian truths. Now the study of early years there was no ceremony in the Scriptures is required. This womwhich she did not take part. She an desired to be taught, and accepted went to eight sacred rivers, and bathed the conditions, against all the remonin the sea, visited fifty temples, and strances of her family. She did not the bread she ate was from a certain want the Scliptures, she wanted other temple. At one time she fasted for things, and was willing to take the one forty days to appease the gods, taking for the purpose of securing the other. only a little milk. She performed many Sometimes she would take a lesson, at penances,chlef of which was making the other times she was too much engaged circuit of a certain tree forty-two times with fasting, prayer, and idol-worship Tery early in the morning, each time to pay any attention to her teacher, and without a word would wave her hand ran. I was so frightened, I would not for her to leave, as there were often stop to take my breath, but at every days when she had to keep silence, not step I took I felt as if some one were a word escaping her lips. behind me. The swifter I ran, the But then came a Change. The quiet, swifter seemed the step. If I am persistent presentation of the truth and caught what will become of me, I reading of the Word had its influence, thought, but I ran on and on, and at her zeal for idol-worship began to flag, your gate I stopt. I felt that if I were and she failed to visit her temple. caught, I would scream, and you She had contemplated having a golden would all run out, and help and protect image of herself in the act of prostra- me. When I stopt, I turned around.
tion before the idol, but that was given There was nobody. Then and there I up. She neglected many of her relig- offered a prayer. I told God I might ious duties, and her family became be dragged back on the streets (about greatly concerned. half a mile) on which I ran, I might The mother and ever vigilant priests have to endure persecution, trial, and were on the alert, and she was ordered hardships, but I askt him to keep me to dismiss the teacher, which she did, faithful to him."
tho this caused her great sorrow. Soon Reaching the home of the missionary after she wrote a letter to her teacher, who had been instrumental in her con- in which she opened her heart, and version, who was busily engaged in told how her people hated the Christ- Christmas festivity, she ran almost ian religion, but that she loved it, and breathless up the stairway, and falling askt for the prayers of her teacher, into the arms of the missionary said, that she might be willing to leave all "I am come; I am God's Christmas her former associations. This was fol- gift to you."
lowed by another letter saying she was She wore no jewels nor costly very unhappy, but that in her heart clothes, but was clad in the coarsest she had abandoned idol-worship and cloth. She took from her person a depended on Christ alone for salvation. little metal box, containing the sacred Preparations were made by her family powder that had been given her by the to send her away from the city, but priests as a sign that she had been she set her face against all their ar- sealed by them, and which she had to rangements and determined to cast in wear about her person, and in doing her lot with the Christians. She was this, she renounced caste, heathenism, willing to leave her family, and even idolatry, everything. This was all be- exprest a wish that she might become hind her. Before her she knew not a zenana worker. She offered to do what. In a few days persecutions the work at her own expense. At last commenced. Relatives accompanied the crisis came, she counted the cost, by native policemen visited the house, made her preparations, packt her insinuating that she had been unlaw- boxes, put away her jewels, and when fully detained. They had an inter- the evening came, and all the family view, pleading with her to return to were engaged in their evening worship, her home, her mother and her old asso- she quietly embraced the opportunity ciations; but none of these things to slip out. moved her, Quietly, but flrmly, she She said afterward: H I went out in- said, "I can not go back; I am & to the darkness with only the stars Christian." They used every argu- above me. It was to me like taking a ment, assuring her that if she persisted, long journey, and I did not know as orthodox Brahmans they would be where or how it was going to be. under the necessity of performing the There was nothing before me, but a funeral ceremony over her, and that voice in my heart told me to run, and I she would be dead to them and to the whole Brahman community. She only perience exprest fears in regard to the replied, ., 1 know it-I shall be dead to course to be taken, and advised that all, but tell them 1 yet live, and will the baptism be done in the Home, or tell of Christ's love to my people." the church doors closed. When the hour arrived, the missionary accom- Upon another occasion came the panied by her protege, found the mother and relatives accompanied by church crowded with Europeans, na- an angry mob, with threats and impre- tive Christians, Hindus and Mohamcations which could be heard all over medans. Every window and door was the house. They predicted the down- crowded so they could not be closed, fall of the mission and threatened to and police were on all sides of the spend thousands to take the case into churcb, tho their protection had not the courts, and denounced her in the been askt. The services were convilest language. When they found she ducted in Tamil and English. When could not be infiuenced, the mother the candidate was presented at the altar called on all the gods to curse her to take ber part in the service, there child, and with bitter cries lamented was a murmur of voices 'aU over the she had not dragged her dead from a house, many of bem saying, .. What! a well. It became necessary to call Brahman lady baptized!" At the close the police, and the people unwill- of the service she sang in a clear sweet ingly retreated with cries of venge. voice the hymn she had learnt. ance, shouting that if tbey could tbey would kill ber, and declaring she acted .. Jesus 1 my cross have taken, thus because she was intoxicated. All to leave and follow thee; " etc.
It was suggested that she be taken and then in great simplicity and tenaway from Madras, but it was decided derness gave her testimony before the that it was better to stay and give her crowded audience. The whole exerpeople every opportunity of seeing her. cises made a great impression. Many And so her relatives came and went. Hindus and some of her relatives who Several weeks past and the mattcr of had attended to give trouble went away a public baptism was agitated. This deeply imprest, confessing the woman woman lIad made such a noble confes- was sincere, and they would not intersion, had been so brave in the midst of fere with her. sucb opposition, bad been so clear in her Christian testimony, that it was This baptism made such a stir that thought a public baptism would convince people that the missionaries de- a for several Sabbaths, more than three sired to hide nothing from them, and it would probably be an encouragement thousand Hindus assembled in large to other women to take the same step. hall to discuss the work of the mission- So the decision was made, but not aries in their midst, and to devise without grave apprehension on the part plans to end all missionary work. Then of many Christian friends, both Euro- the Hindu papers took up and discust pean and native. The service was ap- the matter, expressing surprise that a pointed for an evening in the week and woman of such social standing among Christians and missionaries of other the Hindus should embrace Christiandenominations were invited to be pre- ity. One month after the baptism, sent. During the day there was con- funeral ceremonies were held for her siderable excitement and the mission- by relatives, as she was considered ary was told that the event was the talk dead to them. These lasted three days. of the city bazaars, and that evil·dis- and were attended by large numbers of posed persons would make trouble at Brahmans who had been invited. the church in the evening, and even a Special bathing was performed by.her missionary of twenty-four years' ex- husband, money spent liberally to feast Brahmans and costly presents were made to the multitude. .All the crock- ery belonging to the woman in her home was broken and everything de- kind of things he wants aI'e sold. Some stroyed that would remind them of needs will have been already antici- her. Then an effigy was made of her pated, and supplies brought, but these of reeds from the banks of the Ganges, run out, and so many unlookt for re- and the form was thrown into the fire quirements come to light, and keep on and the priests shouted, "Dead! Dead! presenting themselves, so that recourse Burnt out I" has to be had to the friendly missionary brother, at the nearest point where The bond or "Execution Bill" was such supplies may be purchased. While signed by the family priests and four such aid may do in the early stages of Brahman gentlemen, the sacred ashes missionary openings, and the" friendwere gathered and taken at night to the ly brother" be willing to leave hls own burying ground, where other cere- work, and go about his needy brother's monies were performed. business, it will not answer when there are many who have such needs, She is now living with the mission- and the number of workers scattered ary, happy and cheerful. The once about interior parts become numerous. proud, petted, wealthy Brahman wom- Thus, an agency which will undertake an has broken all her alabaster boxes all such matters, and meet the needs as and laid all upon the altar, and is now they arise, becomes a necessity. The teaching a low-caste Sunday-school and qualitieations of such an agent, however, aiding in the Christian Orphanage, and for the work have to be manysided. her one longing is to go to the villages One always to be depended upon and tell the women the story of God's to be there when applied to, to be great love. ready to go about the matter entrusted to him, promptly, attentively, to use Missionary Agencies. skill, taste, judgment, care, and econ- omy in selecting, ordering, purchas- MR. EDWARD EVANS, S3ANGHAI, ing and packing, is a desideratum. Such an agent is called upon to take CHINA.* such a variety of matters in hand. The selecting of stores, food, drugs, The missionary, entering upon life in clothing, books. etc., hardware and a heathen land, aforeigner in the midst other necessities for the house and of a large population of natives, whose other buildings, which often have to be habits of living, clothing, eating, etc., undertaken. Then, packages are being are entirely different to his, is at once sent from home, which must be reconfronted with some very practical ceived, past the customs -and forquestions entirely apart from his spirit- warded on. ual vocation. Himself and family, to be housed, closed, fed, and all their New arriving missionaries require accustomed needs supplied, how is it to outfits for residence in the interior; 80 be done? No shops there, where the furniture adapted to the new condi- tions has to be obtained, experienced • It is now nearly two years since we re- counsel in such respect being all esquested Mr. Edward Evans to collate infor- sential. Dressmakers are not! where mation concerning missionary agencies in clothing is so different, what is to be the far East, and to prepare a paper on the done? The wife and the children as entire topic. Our thought was to provoke well as the poor man himself mURt liave discussion of the subject. We had known of such things done for them; so the agent the efficiency of such agency in Constantino- is called upon to buy, match, alter and ple aL~ elsewhere, and believed that much get made the wardrobe of the family. greater etteciency might be reacht by com- Who can do for others, with all the parison of experiences among missionaries. different ideas and tastes which are The Sanitarium was not in our thought, but Dr. Beebe of the hospital at Nanking and Dr. Main of the Hongchow hospital, both write endorsing Mr. Evan's article in its reference to SanItarium. J. T. G. suggested in such a presentation of Home and Supply Depot JJ for its the case as the foregoing? And with members, that is a model of excellency. it all, there must be economy, or the This mission is noted for its thrifty bills will get beyond the resources. methods in these matters. A depart- And what means for remunerating ment for the storing of all kinds of such agency? Many of these calls are supplies is kept, the articles having for items of trifling value, tho most been purchased at wholesale prices necessary, and therefore anycommi8sion and imported, and then retailed out at to really be commensurate with the bare cost to its members. Distributing service would probably be equal to or branches are establisht through the more than the amount to be expended. land at various points. One such" agency" described in its report this branch of the work as A number of the members of the "the un·remunerative branch." In mission have been delegated to attend his case the Board paid his salary and to this work. Some give their whole all the expenses of the "agency." But time, and others a part. Clerks, acvery few Boards have made this pro- countants, housekeepers, etc., are occuvision, and the larger part of the mis- pied thus, as their share of the work, sionary body in China [for the writer who gave themselves to the missionhas this field in mind] are without any field, expecting to be preaching to the provision thus made for them by their "heathen;" but it has to be "indi- Board, and have consequently to man- rectly .. in their cases, and the blessing age these things themselves. shared as to those who "tarry by the stuff." In connection with such agency there has been made evident that another The writer has been askt by the Edineed has to be met. The arrival and tor of this periodical to give some acdeparture of the missionary family, and count of "Missionary Agencies, his the occasional visit to the ports, have own included," and may therefore be led to the establishing of a " Missionary permitted to add to this sketch the in- Home," where all the conveniences of formation that he, with his wife, some " llome" may be had, rather than the eight years ago, having gone to China, expense and discomforts of a hotel with the intention of laboring among while so sojourning. It would be ren- the heathen, was led quite unexpectdered more trying to the heads of the edly into undertaking the organization family if, as they necessarily have to of a work such as has been herein inmake many excursions around the port dicated. "The Missionary Home and to select and purchase the outfit, and Agency" in Shanghai was in existnece these things are accumulating and being before, but has expanded in its scope prepared for transport to their station, in the last seven years so that now they felt themselves intruding on the it has for its correspondents a very " Hotel" and their children meantime large part of the missionaries in China, having been left in the care of servants, numbering upwards of 2,000, not mothers on returning finding the chil- counting wives and children, and exdren and their nurses alike voted an cluding the C. I. M. already mentioned, intolerable nuisance to the other guests. as well as many in Korea, Formosa, Thus a "Home" where no sense of and Japan. The office·work to attend restraint will be felt, where the circum- to the Agency Department employs stances they are in are understood and several native assistants, bookkeeper, sympathized with, the help rendered in etc., as well as keeping perpetually every needed way, is appreciated. busy the writer and his wife the year round. The China Inland Mission, which has now some 700 workers in the field, The "home" as its name implies, is has provided at Shanghai a "Receiving necessarily a place made as convenient as possible for the circumstances of those who come to it. It is confined to the work. Not seldom wo:uld such exclusively to missionaries. There are expense have been avoided, and the dif- times when it will be crowded to its ftcultymet, if a .. Home," combining utmost capacity, tho the question. the advantages of a .' Sanitarium"
sometimes askt has not yet been an- were available here to be a little swered, "How many can it accommo- while in a restful home, away from date?" It meeting emergencies, so that the sighs and sounds (and smells) of when there is a great congregating, as the native land, and in the midst of at time!! of some mission assembling, or Christian friends of one's own kind, at the season of arrivals from the would often rehabilitate such an one, home-lands, it is in much demand. without the necessity of traveling fur- At other times but a very few may be ther. Owing to recent appreciation in found in it, but it is always ready for the value of property in Shanghai, rent· whatever call may be made on it, how- als have greatly increast, and altho the ever unexpected, as in the times of present Home is an old dilapidated "Riots," when a whole province of place in a poor locality, the rent has workers was emptied into it at once. been so increast that with the advanced It has been appreciated, too, because cost of everything else, rates of accom- of the opportunity given for meeting modation have had to be advanced, in workers from different points with order to meet the expenses, so much, whom comparison is made of methods that only a short stay in Shanghai is of work, etc.; and to the new arrival it practicable owing to the expense. An is an inspiration thus to come at once institution, erected as a permanent in contact with veterans whose names Home ava1lable to all missionaries of are familiar, and find a warm welcome every denomination, or of no connec- to the land. tion with any society, would be a great The Christian atmosphere, too, is blessing. If the only expense that had helpful, where all have a common in- to be covered were the food and ser- terest, so that tired workers are cheered vice, it would bring its advantages by a few days' stay there, and little within the reach of the poorest, and meetings may be held of an im- there are "poor" missionaries, where promptu character, for stimulating the large families and frequent sickness spiritual life, and bearing mutually the has taken all the resources. Tene- burdens of others. Of all .the other ments, of two or more rooms, partially needs that it is sought to meet, this is furnisht, connected with it, would be ever regarded as of the greatest im- desirable, so that a family could use it, portance. and live as economically as they de- And now ere concluding the writer sired.
after relating the actual, would like to In the present state of things, with give his thoughts of the t'deal in some many of the societies in debt, and of these matters. unable to carry on all their present What one individual, on his own re- undertakings, it would be out of the sources, has been able to accomplish in question, if for no other reason, that meeting the needs that have been indi- such an institution should be incepted'
cated, comes very far short of what either by one or a combination of sev- might and should be provided for the eral societies. Their funds-even if Lord's servants, laboring in trying con- they had a surplus-are not available . ditions in this wonderful land. One for such a thing. Our only hope for might go on to speak of times, not in- one, therefore, would be that some of frequent, when one of the heads of a those entrusted of the Lord with a family becoming invalided, the entire stewardship for him, should take it in family has to be transported away to hand. Mention has been made of that the home land, at great cost and loss ·of the China Inland Mission, and it is known that this splendid Home was the work, just as much as preaching the gift of one of its own members, who, gospel to the heathen. At any rate the out of his ample means has mainly writer feels this, and is grateful to God provilied the cost of several such places for putting him in such a place. for the mission at different points, including a SCHOOL now being erected Still beyond there is more Ideal planfor the children of its missionaries. ning. This suggests another Ideal. The need of education for the children of mis- Why should there not be a supply sionaries is a pressing one that has been depot establisht, where staple articles ill met so far. One of the trials and of food, clothing, drugs, etc., could be hardships of a missionary life is this. laid in at first cost, and retailed at low- To see their children growing up est rates to all the missionaries in the around them without school advan- land? Here is a grand opening for a tages, and dependent upon what they firm of consecrated business men. personally can teach them, with the ine"vitable necessity to look forward The writer has, too, some pet ideas to, of having to send them to the about a central bank for missionaries home-land soon, for years of separation, in the East, in charge of a responsible to get them educated, this is indeed a financier, who would consolidate the trial. Recently one has made a start local treasureship of the several socIe. in connection with the " Home" here, ties operating in the East. At present, to undertake the education of such in each station, and in each district, one children, and if such an institute as has of the missionaries of each society is been suggested, should have attacht to given the work of local treasurer, it a children's home and school, where whose duties are, to draw upon the families could send their children to be home Board for needed funds, selling trained for later entering on college life exchange on it for what the banks will in the home lands, it would be a great give him. Much time is necessarily boon to many. Yes a misssionary spent in keeping accounts, by those " Home," including a sanitarium and a who would so gladly be more congeniboarding and day.school for mission- ally occupied, unaccustomed as many aries' children is a need in Shanghai. are to business accounts and bookkeep- It may not be known 1;0 every reader ing. A general treasurer could econom· that Shanghai is practically the port of icallyadminister the funds of a number entrance to China. Almost all have to of societies, experience enabling him to pass through it, going and coming, and obtain the best terms in disposing of it is the metropolis of western civiliza- exchange at the most favorable times tion in this East. The writer would for operating. Instead of each society like to include in his scheme a resident having to hold a margin on deposit at dentist, who could be sent to convenient various points, losing interest on it, such points in the land, as well as several a manager would be able to meet any trained nurses to go to the relief of sick exigency promptly without such being families; one or two teachers; as well required. The clerical work would be as a good dressmaker to take in hand doue by native help in large measure the women's and children's supply de- and methodically, regular reports made partment. But enough has been said to Boards, an experienced audit also to show what a work can be done in certifying to the correctness of all the aid of the missionary worker. To thus details recorded. Business men will help in economic supply of necessities, appreciate these suggestions, and it and provide ameliorating service of would not be difficult to believe that various kinds, is surely a missionary the expense of such a general treas- ury, would be largely, if not wholly covered by the saving effected in ex- change.
FIELD OJ' MONTHLY IURT1I:T. (l?eptember
lII.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Ja.pan,* Korea.,t Medioal Missions.
BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.
KOREA FOR CHRIST. become a recognized and indispensable factor in the national life. In former Korea has nearly ninety thousand days the king's birthday was a time of square miles of territory, twelve mil- festivity to the official and noble classes lions of people, and is extraordinarily only, the common people having no rich in natural resources. These natu- part in its observance. Last year when ral resources consist in a soil of great the auspicious day came around the fertility, vast mineral deposits, untold Korean Christians suggested that spewealth in sea products, which Korea's cial prayer and thanksgiving services unusually extensive seaboard brings to be held in the different churches in its doors, and a population capable of behalf of his majesty. On the aftergreat industrial activity. Until 1883 noon of the day a grand Christian mass- Korea had no relations with foreign meeting was held in the open air outcountries, and, therefore, there has side the city wall, and over three thoubeen a total absence of that commercial sand Koreans were present. Addresses exploitation, which would have made were made by high noblemen as well the people rich. As a nation they are as by Christian missionaries, and great poverty·stricken, but a brighter day enthusiasm was manifested. Coming seeIDS to be approaching, for the total spontaneously, it impressed the Korean volume of foreign trade for the ten government in a most pleasant manner, years ending 1894 was about thirty-five and his majesty was especially demillion dollars, aDd this seems to point lighted. to dawning commercial-linterprise. This is but a hint of the power which At present the Protestant missionary the Christian community possesses in force in Korea numbers about ninety modeling the national life. Korea workers, representing six different mise must, and will be. won for the Lord sions. Since the work began in the Jesus Christ.-REV. G. H. JONES. fall of 1884 the Korean Church has had a marvelous growth. The total num- From every hand come cheering tidber of converts to the various missions ings of the progress of the Gospel in is about two thousand, and regular Korea. Bishop Joyce writes that all preaching is maintained at fifty differ- Korea is open to receive the Gospel. ent places throughout the peninsula. Towns and villages are constantly ask- A Holy Ghost native ministry is being ing for missionaries, and the need for raised up, and the outlook is of the reinforcements is rapidly increasing. brightest possible nature. lIrs. Bishop's call has already -been sounded in these pages (May, p. 363). Under God, Christian missions have Rev. Malcolm C. Fenwick. of Wonsan, writes that missionaries are now gladly • See also pp. 47, 48, 55 (Jan); 110 (Feb· received all over the country, and that ruary); 650, 658, 665 (present issue)_ there are multitudes of earnest seekers after the Light. Rev. D. L. Gifford NEW BOOKS: "The Gist of Japan," R. P. tells of churches whose membel'lhip has Peeryj .. Religion in Japan," G. A_ Cobboldj increast three-fold in the past year .. Japan, Its People and Missions," JeS88 &tid of congregations far too large fo; Page; .. Dragons and Cherry Blossoms," Mrs. any of their church buildings. Dr. Morris. Underwood. of Seoul, says that it migh'
t See also pp. 863, 871 (May). NEW BooJtS: "Korea, The Hennit Natlon" (new edition), W. E. GrIftls; .. A For· ward Movement in North Korea," D. L. Gif· ford. almost be said of his report as was said of Christian friends, the prayera and in a certain war record, "There is the exhortations and comforts of Christian usual monotony of success and victory." ministers, and even where the sufferer Churches have been increasing rapidly, may have been impenitent to the last, members have been growing in num- we .have Him who was ever ready to bers and in grace, and almost the only save, standing by the sickbed, ready to drawback has been that due to the the very uttermost to cleanse and rechurches at home. Surely God is mov- ceive the parting soul. ing marvelously in Korea, and is calling us to an "advance upon our knees" to But what does'sickness mean among claim the country for Him. the thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of millions of our un- The Need for Medical Missions. christianized brothers and sisters? We must remember that sickness among BY MRS. BISHOP, F.R.G.S. them is usually, if not always, supposed to be the work of demons, especially It is not as a worker, but as a traveler in Asia and Africa. In many parts of Bolely, that my journeys in .Asia have .Asia a sick person is looked upon as given me some knowledge of the un- being possest of demons, and bechristianized Asiatic world. In those comes an object of loathing and terror. years I have become a convert to the He is put into a large house with food necessity of missions, not by seeing the and water beside him, and is absolutely success of missions, but by seeing the avoided, owing to the terrible fear lest misery of the unchristianized world. the demon in him go into the one attend- From the seaboard of Japan to those ing him. In other cases the medicine shady streams by which the Jewish men, priests, and astrologers aresentfor. exiles wept when they remembered They light huge fires, and bring gongs Zion, and from the icy plateaux of and drums and six feet high horns, and Northern Asia down to the Equator, I dance round the fire, blowing the horns have seen nothing but sorrow, sin, and round the sufferer; and if this does not shame, of which we have not the re- drive out the demon, they lay the motest conception. sufferer before a roaring fire until his skin is blistered allover, and then We all know what sickness means plunge him into cold water. If this among ourselves, and even in such an does not succeed, they lay him on epidemic as influenza. The sufferings his back and beat him with heavy of surgical operations, weary nights, clubs in order to drive out the demon_ fever, pain, and much distress are all If the case is chronic, and he does not connected with illness among ourselves, succumb to these remedies, in some but this illness has its bright side. It countries he is carried to the mountain brings out kindness and temlerness in top, a few barley balls and a little those about us; it brings delicacies and water are put teside him, and he is left flowers into the sick·room. Everything there to die alone. In all these circumthat might bring distress into the sick- stances of misery and solitude, thouroom is kept out of it, and everything sands and hundreds of thousands are that might cheer the sufferer is brought passing away in heathen lands, where in. We have the skill and kindness the Gospel of Christ, the Good Physiand self-sacrifice of men of the very cian, has never produced its healing noblest profession about us, and the infiuence. There is no hope. There is skill of trained nurses; we have magnifi- only the looking forward with terror cent hospitals, where the appliances of to something going to happen of a medical skill and the most skilful nurs- terrible kind, launched at the diseming are at the disposal of the very bodied spirit from some quarter they poorest of the community. We have, know not. besides that, the tender ministrations Medical missions put an end to these views about the heathen world. barbaric systems of native treatment, We imagine that the heathen world which are 'IlJ0'1'8e in the case of women is not so much worse than our own. secluded in their zenanas. In the hour After living amongst the heathen in of women's greatest peril and pain, many mission stations, I would say these barbaritie& are multiplied to such that the awful and fearful wickedness an extent, that in many places women of our own slums, and of our own die in legions, or are rendered invalids lapst masses, can not be named in the for life. We are bound, as humanita- same day with the wickedness which is rians as well as Christians, to make an part of the daily life of these people. end to those systems of treatment that Scenes of vice are witnessed not only exist in Asia and Africa, and to carry inside their temples but outside. in the first place the unspeakable bless- There is no public opinion, prompted ing of European treatment at the hands by Christ, to condemn any single act. of skilful and gentle doctors, combined From the sole of the foot to the crown with the knowledge of the Gospel of of the head there is not one sound part. the Lord Jesus Christ as the Healer of It is one mass of wounds and of putrithe soul as well as of the body. fying sores, and there is nothing left on which to build any superstructure of People go to missionary meetings truth. There is nothing left to tell of and hear much that excites enthusiasm that creation of God in the beginning. about the work done, but we have While the intellect of women of 20 and only touched the outskirts of the work 25 is not on a level with girls here of that is to be done, altho it is nineteen 10, yet the worst passions exist as if centuries since our Lord was on the grown on a hotbed. I have counted earth. We should set ourfaces towards up about 200 times that I have been that wilderness in which two-thirds of askt what drugs would takeaway a the human race are, at this moment, favorite wife, or a favorite wife's son. wandering without hope. We have This is the state of women in the East 1,000,000,000 at this time on the earth -huddled together and exposed in illabsolutely unchristianized, of which ness to the barbarities of native doctors. number, it is said, that 800,000,000 have There are now a few hundred medical never even heard the name of our Lord missionaries, many of whom are womand Savior. We have 3,000 languages en, but we need them in thousands. in which not even a fragment of the Bible has been translated. If the popu- There is spent every year in this lation ofthe world, estimated at 1,500,- country fifteen dollal's a head on alco- 000,000, could pass before us, two out holic drink, and eigUeen cents a head of every three would have no knowl- on converting the heathen. When we edge, even in name, of the Lord Jesus; remember that every minute five souls and this is after the voice of our Lord pass into eternity-1,400 dying every has been ringing through the Church for hour in India aud 1,600 every hour in nearly 1,900 years. It seems to me that China-it seems to me the time has instead of congratulation in speaking come when we should readjust our exof what has been done, and imagining penditures at the foot of Christ's Cross. that the kingdoms of this world are on We must choose whether we will spend t~ verge of becoming kingdoms of our upon ourselves or give to Him. We Lord, we should look these awful facts speak of the claims of the heathen, but in the face, and be covered with shame I should rather speak of the claims of and confusion, when we are content to Christ. Blessed indeed are those who take the blessings that come to us from have heard His voice, and who are the death of Christ, without passing giving their lives to Him, trying to them on to those who know Him not. lighten that great darkness. And we must do the same. How will they We are getting milk and water preach unless they be sent? and as to The Church is on a better basis. The sending them, we. can do it if we will. impression seems to be general that We can do it by expending our means, Japan is about to witness another great and in other ways. Silver and gold spiritual movement, provided, .the we may have none, but we have influ- Church sizes the present opportumty, ence in our own sphere, and we can About thirty years ago the drst two use that influence upon those about us Christians were baptized, now there are in favor of Christian missions. By over forty thousand. God has doubtprayer, by influence, by conversation, less great things in store for Japan. Let us advance to the place of duty and of privilege.
by cheerful giving, we may advance Rev. Dr. J. D. Davis, of Kyoto, authe work of Christ. The self-denial thor of a "Life of Neesima," has reof Christ was not confined to the cently made an extended evangelistic week of His passion, but the whole tour in Japan, and thus sums up his of His life was one long sedes of impressions: incomprehensible self-denials, and He 1. Japan is more ready for the Gospel than ever before. The official classes has left us an example that we should are more favorably disposed, and the follow in His steps. masses are more ready to hear than at any time before or since Japan was The Situation in Japan. opened. 2. The era of doubt and rationalistic Mr John R. Mott who has recently discussion has past its zenith. Many of the pastors and workers, and most of completed his world-tour in the inter- the Christians who have held on to their ests of the student movement, gives us faith, realize their need of a positive faith, and are hungering for spiritual some very lucid and suggestive "Im- food. '
pressions of Japan" in his account of 3. Wherever earnest men are preachhis visits in the various Asiastic coun- inl! a positive gospel, churches are alive tries.* He says in part: and souls are being gathered into the kingdom. 1. The work of the missionary in 4. The great lack of workers. That Japan is not dnisht. What was seen great rich Aidzu valley, with its 800 and heard in Japan created the convic- square miles of villages, has no missiontion that the present missionary force ary and only three Japanese evangelists is not only needed but should be wisely at work. Echigo, over 100 miles long increast. Three-fourths, or 30,000,000, and half as wide, has two missionaries of the Japanese have not yet heard of and only eight to ten Japanese workers, Christ. Missionaries are needed to all told. reach these unevangelized_ They are 5. Now is the time to pray for Janeeded to help solve the problem which pan. Pray that its force of workers confrot the Church in Japan, to pro- may not be further depleted, but rather mote the development of the Japanese restored to its former strength; that the church and to train the native ministry. rising spiritual tide may sweep over the 2. Japan calls for missionaries of land, filling the hearts of all the Chrisunusual strength, mentslly, and sphit- tian workers here, and bringing the uaall.yT. he greatest peril to Japan is the Doshisha University and every band of Christians back to their former earnest secular character of her institutions of faith and active service for Christ and higher learning. 4. Buddhism as a religion is doomed for these millions who wait. in t.he land where it has greatest vigor. It is rent with internal dissensions, and Dr. H. Loomis says: The one thing needed at this time is shows man;r signs of decay. the work of the Holy Spirit. There 5. The SIgnS indicate that the cause are men and means enough now em- ployed to work a great change in the of Christ in Japan is entering upon a country, if only accompanied by power new and remarkable era. The rational- from on high. Meetings have been istic wave is receding. The Japanese held in Tokyo to pray for this. A are more friendly toward Christianity. '. deep interest has been awakened, and services are being held in the churches • Strategic points In the World'S Conquest, to arouse and stimulate the believers, as well as gather in the unconverted. by John R. lIlott. Fleming H. Revell Co.
l&DITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Vic- In gold and silver designs. On the left toria's accession was, of course, a great of the Archbishops were the clergy of occasion. The interest of a great em- the various churches, and other invited pire, in the longest and best reign gues,ts, in all about five hundred. After known in its history, found its highest the Te Deum, and a special prayer preflood mark in the celebration of June pared for the occasion, the Hundredth 22d. By the courtesy of Sir George Psalm was sung, the whole of the vast Williams, we had the opportunity to company that filled and surrounded the witness a pageant unsurpast in its way church-yard taking up the holy strain in modem times, from one of the win- of praise; it was as the sound of many dows overlooking the very steps of St. waters, and the 3upreme moment of the Paul's where the main ceremony was Jubilee celebration. Then, of course, performed. followed " God save the Queen," after which the Queen's carriage resumed its The procession occupied about two onward progress. Millions of people and a half hours in passing, and the lined the route of the procession, and whole Empire was represented, and all the moral order of the whole pageant its colonial dependencies. Five conti- was something to evoke thanksgiving nents, the isles of the sea, and every and was a fine proof of the self-regreat nation from sunrise to sunset, and straint of the British people. from pole to pole, had their representatives. The costumes were brilliant and On the Thursday of the following costly, beyond description, and the eye week, at Albert Hall, we saw a sight seldom looks on any scene so magnifi- even more significant in its way, for it cently grand and imposing as was wit- was an exhibit of the work of woman nest that day in the semicircle that for her own sex, as represented by the fronts the great master-work of Sir Y. W. C. A. Lord Kinnaird presided, Christopher Wren. and Canon Fleming, the Dean of Nor. wich, the Archdeacon of St. Paul's, the When the Queen's carriage entered Bishop of Sierra Leone, Lord Overtoun, the inclosure and halted before the and myself made addresses, or took other steps of St. Paul's, the attendant royal parts of the service. The hall, which is carriages, with the highest dignitaries vast, held probably 10,000. Dr. Barof the various royal families, stood out- nardo, who has a genius for such specside the railing, drawn up in line side tacular displays, organized a procession by side, and the Prince of Wales and in which we should judge a thousand others on horseback, within the railing, young women may have taken part, all facing the Queen's carriage; in front representing by detachments with banof1hem and likewise facing her Majesty ners all the departments of the work were the primates of Canterbury and carried on by the Young Women's York with the Bishop of London, all Christian Association in this and other in the most superb vestments, with their lands, each detachment wearing coscroziers, etc., and the lesser clergy tumes appropriate to, and indicative of about and behind them with the grand their work. The" Flower Girls " orchestra and choir. On their right the lookt like a procession of moving high civil dignitaries of the Empire, flower-beds, and the "Foreign workwith the various Ambassadors from ers" were drest in the costumes of foreign lands, and all in robes of office the various lands among whose women of the most elaborate and gorgeous they are carrying on their work. The material and decoration, including the procession moved up the middie aisle, Hindus in cloth of gold, and the Chi- mounting the stage, and then filing to nese in sumptuous silk heavily wrought right and left, past through the corridors held in July, in San Francisco, and and took their seats in the center of the was attended by immense crowds. The hall. But anyone who witnessed that reports of it would more than engross score of bannered regiments, each repre- all the pages of this REVl1tW, and all senting a different department of we can do is to call attention to some woman's work for woman, must have of the salient points in this history. felt as never before how much the Vic Five thousand new societies within the torian Era had done to develop woman, year, with a world enrollment of 50,- to bringher out of comparative obscurity 747 local societies and 3,000,000 mem- into her true, normal sphere of organ- bers; in sixteen years, a multiplication ized and independent service for her of the original single society into over Master and for human souls. It is 50,000, and the members nearly 60,000 probable that no one occasion has ever fold. hitherto presented so effectively the wide work of Christian women. It was Dr. Clark, in a masterly address, or in the highest sense a great success, and " message," luminously sets forth the left impressions not easily effaced. The following propositions as to this world- Queen, had she been present, must have wide movement: been greatly gratified at the exhibit of the multiplied spheres of usefulness in· 1. It must be true to Its fundamental to which God has ushered her sex since Idea, raising the standard among the she began to reign. young of outspoken devotion and con- secrated service. The first convention of the Federation of Ohristian Students, recently or- 2. It must be a unifying movement. ganized, met at Williamstown, under 3. It must be a pervasive force the shadow of the famous •• Haystack" 4. It must be essentially sacrificial, monument, July 6-9, and was repre- and missionary. sented by twenty-seven nationalities- 5. It must listen to and continually China, Japan, India, Syria, South obey God's voice. Africa, and Scandinavia, Holland and He gives a four· fold motto: Germany, France, etc., as well as the British Isles. This latest development The world for Christ, of the Christian College movement will The nation for Christ, receive ample reference in these pages The family for Christ, hereafter; but we can not but wonder, Myself for Christ. as we watch the Providential interposi- And we can only add, may this holy tions of our day, what is to be the next message prove a message from God, of God's great movements in connection heard and heeded. with organizing the forces of the Christian Church for the last grcat We had the pleasure of meeting Miss onset against the powers of darkness. Annie R. Taylor at Keswick, with But what united prayer should now Puntso, her faithful Tibetan servant, rise from millions of holy hearts, lest and Siggue, his wife, who are now with we be found unready for the combined her in Britain. The sight of a Tibetan advance. man and woman will, as Miss Taylor says, better enable friends to pray for The" World Encircling ~Iovement " the Hermit nation, and claim for Christ of the Y. P. S. C. E. excites more and the followers of the grand Lama. l'Iiss more amazement at the rapidity of its Taylor was expecting to stay in England progress and the almost wild enthusiasm some three months. She hopes to pick it evokes. The sixteenth international up volunteers for the work of occupyconvention of the Y. P. S. C. E. was ing this long shut up land. All eyes are now turned toward Tibet.
Our friend, WellesleyC. Bailey, Esq., of Edinburgh, who is superintendent of the Mission to Lepers in India and the East, sends from Edinburgh a copy of the address from the lepers of the Almora L~per Asylum to Her Majesty and to honor the principle of faith the Queen, Empress of India, on the wherever dominant in His people; occasion of the diamond jubilee, by H. second, to evangelize the Continent of H. Raja Harnan Suiha Ahluwalia, who Africa directly by the missionaries, IWd was also bearer of an address from the indirectly through the training of native native Christian community of India: preachers, who shall be able to live and work in those interior districts where " We, the lepers of the Almora the climate is fatal to the white man.
Asylum, having heard that our fellow- Three qualifications are to be empha- sized as absolutely essential: a passion- Christians are uniting in presenting an ate love for the Lord Jesus Christ; a firm belief in the plenary inspiration, address to her Most Gracious Majesty infallibility, and divine authoritr. of the Holy Scriptures; and a recogmtion of the Queen Empress of India, wish to the supremacy of the Holy Spirit in the life of the individual, and in the be allowed to join in expressing our conduct of the assembly. No one will be askt to join the movement, the same gratitude to God for having given us Spirit by whom the plan was originally conceived, being trusted to call out such a beneficent sovereign. Perhaps laborers into His service, whether preachers, teachers, doctors, nurses, or in no time during the history of the humbler tradesmen. Only such simple organization will be formed as seems world has the sad lot of the poor leper really necessary to the effectual and harmonious cooperation of a body of been so sympathetically considered as people spiritually united. Finally, it is assumed that if the movement be during the reign of our beloved Queen born of God, He will supply such funds as are needed for the inauguration of Empress, whose ears have always been the work without His servants solicit- ing or borrowing the money, or incuropen to the cry of the poo.r and t~e ring debt in any way whatever.
afflicted. We thank God WIth all our Jared H. Randall, '97 Brown, ex- pects to leave about the middle of heart that He has so long spared her, September, under the auspices of the Brown Young Men's Christian Associaand we pray Him to continue her reign tion, to begin work in Natal.
and make it still more prosperous. We The Utility of Missionary Effort.
are poor and helpless, and can do The following appeared in the Mie- sionary Herald: nothing to add to her royal mag- Among the recent contributions to the nificence, but we can and do pray London MansionHouseFund ,for famine relief in India, is one of a little over for her. May our humble prayers be $4,000 (.£844) from the Fiji Islands. In connection with this gift, the English accepted. . magazine Work and Workers may well call attention to the fact that when "We beg to subscribe ourselves the Queen Victoria ascended the throne, sixty years ago, the Fiji Islands were grateful tho helpless subjects of our inhabited by pagan cannibals, to whom not one ray of light from the Christian beloved Queen Empress. world had come. These people were peculiarly ferocious. The Wesleyan "The inmates (120) of the Almora Society, which in 1838 had planned to commence work within the group, de- Leper Asylum. N. W. P., India." clared in its report of that year that the missionary must prosecute his work A Twentieth Century Mission. " before the sailor and the merchant will dare to frequent those now inhos- A few young men met in a room in pitable shores." And now we have an Brown University, April 24th, to dis- illustration of what the missionary has cuss a new plan for missionary work in accomplisht. The Fiji Islands are the coming century. Most of them had christianized, for out of a population felt the practical failure of the present of 125,000 about 100,000 arc reported in business methods used in carrying out the Lord's world·wide purpose, and were persuaded that the nations can be successfully evangelized only by a revival of the 8pirit oj faith and prayer. A new movement, if the Lord will, will be inaugurated in the spring of 1900, and with respect to Africa. The key to the Dark Continent is undoubtedly its southern end, and here a missionary colony is to be establisht, interdenominational and self·supporting. South Africa is extremely fertile, and the sheep-raising industry is attended with fair profit. There the colony of missionaries may undertake self-support, and thus be independent of all mission boards and like agencies.
The purpose of the mission is to be twofold: first to exalt the name of God by furnishing a living witness of His power IWd willingness to answer prayer the government statistics as Wesleyans. art. A few specimens might be here The whole face of societr has changed. In place of brutal orgtes there is an exhibited from this Museum of the orderly and thriving community, and now the grandchildren of the cannibals, Inferno. whom it was seriously feared would slay and eat the first missionaries, have A victim's hands and arms were cut sent $4,000 to feed the poor of India. off, and the eyes gouged out; a slash across the breast, and another across A Missionary's Striking Operation. that, making a cross, with the taunt, ,. Where now is your Christ I " One The Rev. R. Swallow, M.D. (China), man at Malatia riddled with bullets in related at the sixth anniversary of the form of a cross, that ., Christ might U. M F. C. Deaconesses' Institute, at find him if He wanted him." Exeter Hall, London, on May 17, some instances of his work in the mission A house took :fire, and when help hospital at Ningpo, China. "On one was needed, instead of a water barrel, occasion a girl was brought to our hos· the hose was maliciously attacht to a pital with her leg doubled up. The petroleum cask that the :fire might be father askt me whether I could do any· more inextinguishable. Wives were thing for her. After carefully examin· compelled to witness the slaughter of ing the limb, I said I thought the husbands and sons, and a deliberate deformity could be cured in about two attempt was made throughout Armenia months. He said I would have to doit to slay every male over ten years, that quicker than that, or not at all. In a the Armenian families might hence· fortnight he came again, and seemed forth be impossible. disappointed. I askt him if he would allow me to take a piece of flesh out of The slau~hters were by wholesale, his arm to put it in his daughter's leg. 100,000 havmg perisht. In one church , Oh, no,' said he, and he went off. I at Ourfa from 2,000 to 3,000 were slain askt the mother the same question, and or burned, 1,500 killed were dra~ged she replied, ' No; I would rather she to a long trench and piled in prOlruscustayed a little longer.' Then I called ously and buried in one grave. In the man, and told him to take my in- Malatia, that natural paradise, between strument and cut a piece of flesh out of 2,000 and 4,000 Christians suffered my arm. He took the scissors lip, but martyrdom. The flesh of the chief stammered, 'I can't do it.' I then men was carried round the market pickt up the instrument, cut out a piece place for sale at less than a farthing a of flesh from my arm, and planted it in pound. There alone are over 1,500 orthe girl's leg. In a few weeks she went phans and 500 widows. home cured." Of course, some outrages were worse The horrors of Armenia have never than death, and to avoid them, a short distance from Harpoot, 32 women, led yet been adequately told, nor so far as by one of peculiar nobility and intelli· gence, drowned themselves in the Eutold, have they reacht the knowledge phrates. 600 ~irls and brides were in one case carrIed off to Kurdish and of even the intelligent and conscientious Turkish homes. Mothers in despera- tion first flung their children and then body of Christians. Professor J. Ren· themselves into the flames which con- sumed their dwellings or churches. del Harris and his wife, Helen B. Har· . After orders had come to stop the massacre one of the noblest men of ris, have pUblisht a volume of letters, Eghin, venturing out of his hiding- place was assailed by stones. He prodescriptive of their experiences, while tested, "You may not kill me now;" but the brutal answer was, "No, not traveling through Armenia and dis· with guns-we are forbidden to shoot; hut stoning is a different thing and so tributing relief. Those letters ought they crusht hi,s head with heavy stones.
to be read and pondered by every dis- Not one village is yet rebuilt out of over 150 pulled down or burned round ciple of Christ, by every lover of hu- Harpoot. 'fhe women's eyes are always full of tears and the men's voices seem manity, as should also Prof. Lepsiua' to have a tearful quality. "We can't sing," they say; .. we have not sung book. since the massacre." At Biredjik not one Christian is left-all dead or turned The enormities they chronicle exceed over to Islam's tender mercies.
for hellish cruelty and refinement of The needs of Armenia are corre- torture anything known to modem history. Outrage, rapine, malice, murder are reduced to a science and an spondingly great. Here are 60,000 ing in the old Gregorian churches and orphans to be fed, and 5 cents a week in the midst of the long and tedious will keep them. Twenty-five dollars a Gregorian Ritual. year will not only provide for any 0-':- phan, but leave a margin for the For every missionary who fell in widow. It is possible to provide for China in the massacre of 1895, God has 400 boys and 300 girls and supply 10 already given at least 1,000 converts, teachers at less than 400 dollars a year and there are many more inquirers. (school year of 10 months). If not So in Armenia. Already the divine provided for these orphan children harvest from the seed sown in this will inevitably get under control either bloody soil begins to appear. Will not of Romanists or Mohammedans. Christians hasten to the help of the 60,000 orphans that need immediate The animU8 of this massacre; is not provision for their food, and shelter, hard to trace. The civilization of Asia and instruction? When was there a ~Iinor is American. The missionaries like opportunity and obligation? have spread over the whole conntry a network of religious and philanthropic TluJ Oentral Sudan Mi88ion, whose institutions and influences. The Armenians have been getting wealthy, headquarters are in London, t calls thrifty, skillful, intelligent, and influential, and this has provokt the hos· attention to the open door into this tility of the Turks. There has been a secret plan, prompted by the Sultan, long closed country. They are much without doubt, for the extermination of this whole people, and it still moves in need of financial aid to take adon towards its accomplishment, with the Turk as the upper and the Kurd as vantage of this opportunity to preach the nether millstone. Christ where He has not been known. There are off-setting and relieving lights even amid this horror of deep Mr. Hermann Harris, the director of darkness. What heroism I Who will ever forget those heroines of the mas- the mission, is at present in Gabes, sacre, Miss Shattuck, of Ourfa, and Dr. Grace Kimball, at Van, not to mention Tunis, Africa, from whence he writes Dr. Barnum and his associates in the American mission at Harpoot? Every as follows: one of this mission band faced death without fear or flinching. Dr. Barnum We have a hall for Gospel meetings, showed Professor Harris the remnants of the shell that burst in his little study. with good shop front on the main road. Professor Harris askt some of them what were their feelings just then. The Overthe entrance we have written in answers sound like primitive martyrs. " All fear was taken away, and death large Arabic characters the words, seemed nothing." Others said-" We had no fear. We expected to be directly "House of the Gospel of Jesus, the with Jesus, tho the flesh trembled a little. " Messiah, the Crucified;" and on the There are other compensations. A side wall in French is written, .. Maison religious awakening at Aintab has been the result. Various bodies of Chris· de l'Evangile." tians have been drawn together as never before. Protestants are preach- In the windows we display Scrip- tures, Tracts, and text·cards in several languages, and many people come in- side to read more, and to hear the Gospel; to some we give Scriptures and Tracts. Many of the natives, however, can not read, and even those who can, do not easily understand the standard version of the Arabic Bible, which is in high.class Syriac Arabic, well suited to the native Christians of Syria and Asia Minor, but not adapted to the Moslems of North Africa. We long to have a revised version of at least one Gospel in simpler language suited to the people of this province.
• Address Miss Mary W. Ranney, lM5 Masonic Temple, Chicago.
tMr. R. Caldwell, r eFe.Rt,.LGo,Sna'JoSn,t.E.MCa. rt i n' . House, 1 Gresham St Our work may be well described and return to their regular ways of life. under two distinct headings: 1st, the The t woman' of the dead man changes French or European work. This con- masters often before the funeral. Every sists of meetings held three times a imaginable vice exists among the white week, conducted chiefly by Mrs. Harris. people who are the exemplars of the na- On Sundays, at 6.30 P. M_, the hall is tives. The immoral lives of the Euroalways well filled by soldiers. Many pean merchants and officials make hard have been brightly converted, and ale work for the missionaries. To say that bravely standing the test of persecution the missionaries are hated by the white in barracks. On Wednesdo.y evenings a people is putting it mildly. To be sure, Converts' meeting is well attended, they turn to us when there is sickness and the men give bright testimonies. among them, or their dead must be On Thursday8, at 3.30, dlere is a Chil- buried, but at other times they hinder dren's Class, when illustrated Bible our work wherever they can. lessons are given on the black-board. t t Protestant missionaries seldom get 2nd, Arabic or native work. This consists of (1) reading, conversation, credit for the work they do. At least, and personal dealing every morning officials and explorers hardly ever give with visitors at our hall, individually them their just dues, altho they often or in groups. (2) Four or five after- praise the Catholic missions_ It is true noons every week are spent in visiting the surrounding villages, and the popu- that the Catholic missions, in most lation scattered in the oasis_ The more places, have nice buildings and a large distant places I reach on my bicycle. school, and these outside appearances Sometimes I have a group of from ten give rise to glowing reports. The exto twenty or more men and lads (Arabs) plorers remain only a few days at a to hear the Gospel. (3) Twice a week station, and have not time to find out a service in Arabic is held in our hall, the inside workings of the different consisting of singing, prayer, reading missions, nor the treatment which the of the Bible, and preaching. These children receive. The whip of hippo meetings are attended by both Jews hide which is the means of persuasion and Arabs; at some the numbers have in the Catholic missions and is frequentbeen very encoural,>ing, and the atten- ly used on the natives disappears when tion and behavior of the audience ex- vi~itors are present. More than half of cellent. the children hardly learn to read, but have to work hard on the farm. The The evident sign of God's presence brighter ones are exhibited in the schooland blessing with us have been accom- room to the passin~ stranger. The panied by strong opposition from the natives are not slow In finding this out, authorities against our work. In November last we were forbidden to and the Catholics can not &,et freeborn sell or to give away any Scriptures or native children in their neIghborhood. Tracts either inside our own hall or So they carryon a slave trade with the elsewhere, and for continuing to do so, interior. The slave children are comwe were summoned and prosecuted pelled to stay in the mISSIOn until of both in January and February, and age, and in most cases even longer. fined sums varying from one to three These things can not be learned during dollars. We have committed the mat- a short visit, and since the hospitality ter to God in prayer, trusting that these of the Catholic missions and the quality things may turn out rather to the fur- of their wines are famous all along the therance of the Gospel. coast, explorers and others sound the praises of these establishments. A lady, recently returned from West- "Explorers carrr black girls with ern Africa, writes concerning the life them into the interIOr and bring them back with them, if convenient. I know of European settlers there: whereof I speak and can confirm it at any time. Civilized nations would "Nearly all the traders, officials, and have stricter laws if they only knew, explorers rule the natives with a rod of but it seems as if they did not want to iron and commit the greatest cruelties, know, about the true state of affairs, especially upon the girls and women. and if the real facts reach the ears of It is no wonder that death often cuts them off in one of their sprees, and European Governments they are quickaltho this happens often, it has no effect ly husht up, and the public at large upon those who remain. They are a knows nothing about them. The only little subdued until the funeral is over, remedy for these outrages seems to be but even when returning from the for white men to take their wives with grave they joke about their dead friend them, and through the influence of educated women a different atmosphere will be found in African society."
GENERA.L MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLI(i:ENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D., OBERLIN, omo.
Extracts and Translations From Foreign apt to be divinatory, not reasoned. Periodicals. 'l'herefore it fiashes out first here, then there. Like themselves, it is genial, BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, but not stable. First they are national- MASS. ists, then idealists, always inclining, JAPAN. however, to materialism, not coarse, but decided. They do not worship Mam- -Pastor Karl Munzinger, has a pro· mon, they rather despise him. Fame, foundly instructive article in the Zeit- lligh position, are their idols. The 8d~riltfilr MissWnskunde (xii. J ahrgang, world of invisible truth and good has Heft 2), on the intellectual and spirit- scarcely any meaning to them; even uallife of the Japanese. It ought to Christianity is viewed by them largely be studied by every Japanese mission- as a mere refined substitute for Con- ary. fucianism, a simple support to social Theauthor remarks that accommoda- and national life. The author says he tion to the inner life of a people is has been repeatedly told by Christians, much more important for missionaries of whose perfect orthodoxy he had than accommodation to their ways of never doubted, that they did not and living. The latter, in Japan, is not could not believe in immortality, and expected. and would not be well re- moreover saw no use for it. They ceived. But it is of the utmost import- could be' good parents and citizens ance that the missionary should learn, without it, and they seemed to have no for it is only by slow experience that further use for it. That they were he can come to know, the inner temper citizens of eternity as well as of Japan of a people, and their fundamental way seemed to them unintelligible and of thinking. Are they idealistic or ineredible.
materialistic, religious or merely ethi- Nor do they regard themselves as cal, patriotic or merely domestic, in- citizens of mankind. Japan is the be- dividualistic or gregarious, patient or ginning and end of things to them. It fiighty and impulsive. A very differ- is what Athens or Sparta was to an ent way of dealing is requisite accord- ancient Athenian or Lacedremonian.
ing as these questions are differently Whatever aggrandizes it is good, from answered. an aggressive war to an assassinated The fundamental intellectual trait of statesman. Macchiavelli's maxims have the Japanese character, says Herr become flesh and blood in Japan. They Munzinger, is impatience of thorough do not even say, like our heathenish research. They want results, they statesmen in the Mexican war. .. Our want to be spared processes. They are country right or wrong." Their coun- extraordinarily quick and keen in the try can not be wrong. Christianity it- apprehension and application of knowl- self gives way too much to this pro- edge, especially technical and physical pensity. Romanism is antinational.
knowledge. They have done wonders Protestantism is national, but Chris- in this. Nowhere are processes and tianity, in no form, has a right to be- methods, from the working of the come absorbed in politics. Its first steam engine to that of the State, more WOl'k is Personal Regeneration; its sec~ skillfully appropriated. But a deep. ond, Universal Brotherhood. So far intellectual assimilation of knowledge, as nationalism will not minister to hu- step by step, genetically, is something manity, the Gospel must be against it. '
they do not l!'ve. Their knowledge is Much of the late brilliant patriotism of
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Japanese Christians has been much generacy by confining marriage within more Japanese than Christian. narrow circles.
Should Christianity, by a sudden 5. It has been a source of conserva- lurch, become the national religion tism in everything.
of Japan, Herr Munzinger thinks it 6. It has supprest the development would fare with it as with Buddhism. of individuality and independence of Japanese Buddhism, he says, is not the character.
true Buddhism at all. Its metaphysics 7. It has helpt in developillg other and mysticism have almost disappeared. injurious customs, such as early mar- Its atheism has become idolatry. Its riage, the charging of heavy matri- nirvana has become a sensuous heaven monial fees, etc.
and hell. A suddenly adopted Japanese 8. It has successfully restrained the Christianity, the author says, would growth and development of national simply be the Gospel dechristianized. worth; whilst allowing opportunity of Happily this danger seems past. A mental and spiritual culture only to a "holy seed," of elect souls, spiritual, limited number of privileged people, it steadfast, patriotic, indeed, but refus- has denied those opportunities to the ing to let the Church, like Shintoism, majo~ity of the lower classes, conse- become the mere handmaid of tile quently it has made the country neg- Mikado. and owning fellowship 'only atively a loser.
with those who are striving after that 9. It has made the country fit for .. true fount of life, our native land on foreign slavery by previously .enslaving high," would slowly but steadily re- the people by the most abject" spiritual generate Japan. All other successes tyranny."-O. M. Intelligencer.
are illusive.
The Japanese are so easily carried -Oscar Flax, in the Allgemeine Mia- about, that they have an instinctive 8wns Zet"tschrij't, gives a pleasing de- craving for organization. Nowhere is scription of the famous Indian lotus, a thoroughly constituted congregation which, from of old, the Hindus have more beneficent, and more indispens- so enthusiastically admired. that they able. The pastor must to them, far esteem it the embodiment of a goddess.
more, than to us, represent Christ. A " On a slender shaft, four or five feet thoroughly constituted national Church, long, sways gently on the surface of not afraid of a strong government, the pond a half-opened bud, whose would be a tower of strength against outer leaves yet cover over mysterious- the winds of misbelief and unbelief. ly the inner cup, whose dark rose color The author thinks, and with good rea- already becomes visible through the son, that the exaggerated American clefts of the leaves. The fully opened notions of democracy need to be very blossoms reveal the complete enchant- essentially tempered in Japan, if they ment of this wonderwork, which stands are not to work anarchically. unique in God's creation. The petals, INDIA. at the tip of a radiant rose color, grad_ ually paling below, and melting by the -" The following are the heads of a most delicate gradations into the purest lecture by Pundit Siva Nath Gastri, white, gird in the unveiled magnificence on ' Caste,' viz :- of the cup, in the midst of which, like 1. It has promoted disunion and an inverted obelisk, rises the velvety discord. flower gently touched with yellow 2. It has made honest manual labor and red, whose upper rounding is contemptible in this country. strewn with violet, rose-colored, white S. It has checked internal and exter- and gilded points as with stars. Around nal commerce. it wave in a circle the barriers of the t It has brought on physical de- stamens, which, white beneath, golden
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
yellow above, balance snow-white pol- -" The Hindu people is a poo~ 'peo- len-cases. Upborne by dark-green ple, and poorer, seemingly, it becomes sepals, and profused with the magic every day," says Herr Jensen. The charm of interblending colors, there it great reason, probably, is the enormous rests, the pearl of Hindustan, the moot and unmanageable increase of the popu- imposing, most delicate, fairy-like im- lation.
age of absolute beauty that our earth -Mr. Jensen says also: "The mis- has to show. What wonder that the sionary, having come to bring India Hindu honors it as a flower of heaven, Jesus and the Dible, is apt to give hirp.- that in his glowing phantasy he makes self very little concern about what he it to have grown out of the bodies of regards as all her trumpery literature. his divinities of love, lind when he Yet he is pl'obablynot without pride in seeks an image of utmost beauty and his acquaintance with the Greek and gloriousness, finds it in the Kamal, the Latin authors. And yet all this is dead Lotus! and gone, and has only historical worth, while our Indian Iliad and Odyssey "The Hindu Temples, there they still live upon the tongue of every rise before our view, the mighty Hindu child and every Hindu woman. colossal fabrics, with their pillared The missionary often fails to underhalls and balconies, pyramid cones with stand that what culture he brings with their decorations of uncanny idols and him from home does not at all pass curcobolds, the little gloomy filthy 'tika- rent here, but should be regarded only nas,' in the midst of the city throngs, as increasing his facility of appropriatthe mysterious shrines in the midst of ing the Indian culture. The ultimate the pathless wilderness, bathed in the truth may well be. that the Hindu depurple of the setting sun, the beautiful spises us, because we both openly and and noble Sikh temples, and the king tacitly have made it so thoroughly eviamong them, the golden temple in dent, that we despise him. What does Armitszar, the sight of which trans- it signify to ft. common man what we ports us into 'The Thousand and may have learnt in Europe? All he One Nights: Yes, interesting and ro- inquires about is, whether we know mantic are they to him who only knows anything about India, whether he can the outside, but devilish and accursed feel, in any measure, that we would to him who has gained a deeper view. gladly adapt ourselves to him, whether Jesus must conquer. In Bombay, be- we are willing to become Hindus to tween two temples you see a handsome save the Hindus, or whether we think house, inscribed 'Wesleyan Chapel. ' it enough for this that we are Euro- It is not yet true that wherever Satan peans and believers." builds a temple, the Christians build a church alongside, but we may say that the Standard of the Cross now rises -The Damk MiBBions Blad, for everywhere, and that Christianity b,- March, 1897, reports some statements of gina to be a power in India." the president of the Indian Natio~al Congress at its last meeting, which sug- -We notice that Herman Jensen, in gest the question whether England is the Danak MiBswns Blad, gives the pro- governing India in the interest of India, portion of the casteless to the Hindus, or in the interest of the younger sons of the various castes, as being, in South of the English gentry. For instance: India about one to six. In North In- .. Poverty ,is increasing, and a third dia, he remarks, the proportion is much part of our husbandmen are in debt; less. So long, therefore, as missions the land is pregnant with wealth, and work chiefly among the casteless, they every seventh' man has to fight with can not be said to be taking hold of the famine.
Indian people. .. The government, in view of the
ENGLISH NOTES
depreciation of silver, advances the pay long been in weak and failing health, of the high-paid English officers, but was called home on December 6. The not of the poorly. paid native non-com- bishop, in a long, touching letter of her missioned officers, although the prices last few days on earth, writes: 'She of provisions are rising daily-this was taken to church the Sunday before makes bad blood. in Mr. Hogan's strong arms, when it was noticed that she lookt much .. The larger the foreign element is, changcd. In the afternoon of that day which, of course, must have larger pay she was taken into the chapel, and she to be able to serve in a foreign land, took hcr women's class as usual. . . . the deeper and wider does this dig the For a long time she has been unable to channel through which wealth and stand alone or walk, but she never re- prosperity flow out of the land. mitted any duty, or missed pnblic wor- ship. Four races at the same moment "I can not refrain from mentioning held her in their hands and mingled the lack of justice which our tribunals their tears as she blest them all. Beoften show, as between Englishmen sides all the mission party kneeling and natives, where Englishmen are de- around, the room, a very large and airy fendants and natives the plaintiffs. one, was covered with silently-praying Such partial judgments awaken discon- crowds of Indians. For the three days tent among the masses, and weaken and nights when she lay a-dying, often confldence in the government. nearly choked, the prayer-meeting in the chapel adjoininu; ~ur house never .. The crushing poverty under which once flagged. It was always full, and our land sighs, and which nothing is the overflow in other rooms. Every done to mitigate, is the mother of many ten minutes messengers past from the public aberrations from morality; for a bedside to the supplicating crowds, repeople which gro~ns under the heavy porting her actual condition. They yoke of want, and for whom existence had changed their pctition when they is a suffering, has no interest in main- saw that it was God's will to take her, taining morality." and prayed that she might have a peaceful, painless end, and that I might MISCELLANEOUS. be upheld by the everlasting arms. Itfany souls found the light during the The O. M. Intelligencer, referring to death-struggle. In her death she, by the cordial letter written by Archbishop her beautiful and tender work, and Wake, Jan. 1, 1719, to the missionaries patient endurance of agony at times of Denmark (themselves Germans), through choking, drew more souls to Ziegenbalg, and Grundler, remarks that Jesus than ever. It was victory on while then the primate, tho most victory, triumph on triumph. Quite cordial in his recognition of these two hundred souls shrored in the blessbrethren's labors, does not seem to ing.'''-Ohild1·en's World. have a thought of any similar responsibility of the Church of England. English Notes. Archbishop Temple and Bishop Browne, in similar letters or speeches, BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS, M. A. "address themselves to the home clergy, and seek with all earnestness to T1U! Ohurch Mi88ionary Soczety.-The arouse in them a realization of their Rev. C. H. Gill writes with reference own duty in the matter." to the Indian famine: Since my arrival home from Jabalpur, I have Little Denmark has since been over- frequently been askt, "How long will past, perhaps even relatively, by the the famine last?" With regard to those mighty England, yet she remains, districts where it is acute, one may among Protestant nations, one of the pioneers in missions.
"The wife of Bishop Ridley, of the British Columbia Mission, who has
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
!lIl.fely assert that the famine mU8t CQn- Eaatern Equatorial ..Vrica.-The Rev.
tinue till next &ptember 0'1' October, F. Rowling, of Busoga, has just sent because there can not be any harvest home a copy of the Gospel of St.
tm then. The success of the harvest Matthew, printed in the mission in the depends on many conditions, but if language of the people. He is hoping these be fulfilled, and the famine in its soon to start the Gospel of St. Luke, acuteness be ended, it will even then and by degrees the whole of the New take years to wipe out the disastrous Testament will be in the common traces, and set things right again. The tongue of the people of Busoga.
fund raised at the Mansion House is Presbyterian Ohurch of England.- being used to supplement efforts made Conferences for studying the Word and by the government in trying to cope instructing native teachers, are being with the misery caused by lack of food. organized at Siong si, a large fishing A large number of orphans and waifs village at the mouth of the Chinchew are left on the missionaries' hands who River. Mr. Campbell Brown superinwill require continual provision and tends these gatherings, and the occamaintenance until they are grown up, sions are employed both for the systemand it is for this that funds are urgently atic study of Scripture and evangelistic needed. Surely the maintenance of work in the district. famine-orphans, rescued by Christian missionaries from certain starvation, Medical Mi8sions in Formosa and and brought up and trained in the China are prospering. Dr. Maxwell nurture and admonition of the Lord is writes hopefully concerning them, tella most fit and appropriate object for ing of many instances where closed Famine Relief Funds to be expended doors have been opened to the medical on, and one on which our Savior will missionary, which would have resmile. mained closed but for the healing art Hang-OllOw Medical Mi,sion.-The practised. work done during the past year in this He concludes his letter to the Monthquarter has been fully maintained, advance being made as far as circum- ly Messenger by saying, "The pioneerstances would permit in every direction. ing power of the medical mission is The work is now very great and daily unquestionable. Its abiding power for on the increase, the double nature of strengthening, extending and consolithe mission providing for the whole dating a Christian mission is also a being of man. Many times opportunies great fact. The medical missions of the occur for speaking the Word while Presbyterian Church of England have ministering to the physical needs, both done much to bring to the front and to in the dispensary and hospital of this commend to the whole Church of Christ center of work. the manifold value and power of this agency."
The native missionaries in Western -Baptist Missionary &czetll.-The Africa are being much blest in their Rev. T. Richards, of Shanghai, in work. In the station of W orawora, speaking of mission work in China, on the Gold Coast, the king has been states that what is most needed by won to Christianity by native agency, Christian missions in order that they and consults and largely acts on the may prosecute their work most effectu- advice given by the native Christian ally is;- teacher. Several of the distinctly 1. That the Christian Church should heathen observances are no longer re- send out the best men of her colleges as garded in this district, and Christianity missionaries.
,in its ,essence of love is being felt and 2. That the natives may be helpt to realized. provide suitable institutions for training the Chinese themselves to become London, E. C. Two Harley students missionaries. are preparing to proceed to :Madeira, Mr. A. Robson and Mr. C. Pike. Miss He fnrther states, that the cbief dif- Meyer has also been accepted for the ficulty in working In China is the fact same :tield and will accompany the that foreigners have no right to settle mission party. In the int(lrior of the country, and are only legally allowed to travel. No THE KINGDOM. missionary can settle down in a district without :tirst having gained the good -The editor of this department of will of the people 01 that district. the MISSIONARY REvmw will esteem it a special favor if secretaries of mission- Mr. Richards is one of the oldest ary societies, whether in this or other missionaries of the Baptist Society, hav- lands, will send him copies of their aning workt in China during twenty- nual reports, and any items of intelliseven years. He purposes returning gence from the world-field. very shortly to his much-loved sphere of labor in Shanghai. -Not a little embarrassment and perplexity come to the editorial mind -Gospel Mission to Madeira and and heart in connection with obituary Porto Santo.-Among the modern sur- notices. Not a month passes without prises in missions, is the attempt now on intelligence arriving of the departure foot to evangelize the Madeira Islands. from life of a half dozen or half score For almost two years Mr. and Mrs. of Christian toilers in far off lands, Jefferd llave been spreading the glad whose names are precious. It would tidings in those parts, and have found be easy to cover the entire space at the work, notwithstanding the malig- command with the story of their lives, nity of the priests, delightful. Mr. and an estimate of their character. But Jefferd has told his story in vivid such a task can very easily be overdone. words. Speaking of the people he Whoever considers the matter, and resays: "Many of them are tired of Rome calls the fact that there are some 15,000 and her deceptions, and to them the men and women at work abroad, can words of a free salvation that can be easily see that only a very few of the known and enjoyed here on earth, are most eminent names can be mentioned especially welcome. You can tell them when the Master gives them their final a Bible story without t1leir knowing discharge. whence it comes. How astonisht they are to find that it comes from a book – How painful almost to the shocking which is forbidden them; and when is the contrast between the tidings they become further acquainted with which come from the" foreign" dethe Gospel, and know by experience partments of our societies, and those how exactly it suits their needs as sin- from the "home" department. In ners, great Is their indignation as they well·nigh every case, while the former realize they have been robbed of the tells continually of deep interest, very words of life by those who pose as growth through conversions and need of the representatives of God." Mr. Jef- enlargement, in the latter the main ferd has reluctantly left Madeira for a mention relates to lack of funds and season, that he might get the help the like. That is, tho among the needed for the thorough evangelization heathen the outlook is most cheering, of the island. A council has been where Christians abound the prospect formed in London to assist him, and is gloomy. 0 Lord, how long! among others who will gladly receive gifts for the work is W. Roger Jones, -There is no evidence of a crisis in Esq., Secretary of the )fissionary Pence missions. All movements, religious as Association, 186 Aldersgate Street, well as commercial and industrial, have their periods of enthusiastic ad ranee and of conservative delay. The cause Indian printers.- Woman's Work for of missions, not merely foreign but Woman. home, is at present in the latter, but It will not remain there. It is as firmly -The Rev. R. W. Gurd, of Kitkatla, seated as ever in the conscience of the British Columbia, writes to the Church Church, and it has as strong a hold as Missionary Society: "No annual letter ever upon its affection and dcvotion. would be complete without a reference There is need for work, but none for to Chief Sheuksh. The change in him discouragement.-~he Independent. is really remarkable. His very looks and features indicate what he is-a -The trained statistician, F. W. whole-hearted believer in the Lord Hewcs, contributes to the Outlook a Jesus Christ. Those who knew him in valuable article showing what 14 of the days of darkness-Skeuksh the the leading denominations have been autocrat, the severe, the proud, the lion contributing to missionary work by ten- -ean not but extol the power which year periods, beginning as far back as has transformed him into Skeuksh the 1815 The object of his study was to gentle, the true, the lamb. find out whether the present generation is giving as liberally to missions as our -As a beautiful standing illustration fathers did. The conclusion is estab- of Christian unity, Benito Station, lisht by outline maps that the decade Africa, bears off the palm. Three wo- 1885-1894 greatly surpast its predeces- men missionaries and 1 man, a teacher, sors-not only in the absolute amount constitute its membership. Among given, but relatively as compared with them there is 1 American, 1 Germanthe incr.ease both of property and of Swiss, 1 Norwegian, 1 French-Swiss; 1 population. His maps show a steadily is Baptist, 1 Lutheran, 2 are Reformed. increasing growth of contributions, All are one in heart and aim and cheer- ($40,000 in 1820, $860,000 in 1840, $2,- ful adoption of the Presbyterian forms. 481,000 in 1860, $7,780,000 in 1880, to No wonder their school-children from $13,887,000 in 18ll0); with a decline, antagonistic tribes, the KomM, Mabeya. sharp, tho temporary, in 1857, during and Fang, are learning to dwell together the Civil War, the panic 1872-9, and the in unity.- Woman'8 Workfor Woman. current one 1893-7. The per capita contributions have also increast from $0.04 -Thirty-two years from the landing to $0.22 for each man, woman and child. of the first missionaries in the Sandwich .And in like manner, the giving of the Islands 15,000 were found in the schools churches has grown much faster than and 21,000 in the churches, a foreign their wealth. missionary society was contributing more than $6,100 annually, a limited -When Rev. John Newton went to monarchy had been set up, and a legis- India in 1835, he took out an old-fash- lature with two houses. ioned wooden printing-press. It was the foundation of a publishing estab- -The ignorance of missions which lishment which, in the course of fifty prevails in seafaring circles generally is years, issued 267,000,000 pages in 10 amusingly illustrated in the following different languages. The earliest relig- anecdote: The sailing ship, &ottish ious literature in Punjabi was the fruit Dale, was wreckt on the Batoa, or Turof Dr. Newton's labors, and of Rev. L. tle Island. The crew took refuge in Janvier, afterwards associated in the the boats, but saw, to their terror, that same. The works produced included a native boat with a brown matting sail the New Testament, a Punjabi gram- was bearing towards them. They rowed mar, dictionary, and numerous tracts. with all their might to escape these That press at Lodiana. as well as another supposed bloodthirsty savages, and in Allahabad, were long ago rented to thought themselves lucky when they distanced them. After a course of 240 miles they reacht the haven of Suva, -The gifts to foreign missions during where there is a British governor; but the past year in the Presbyterian they were astonisht to find that when Church, North, which .came from the they related their narrow escape from churches, were $270,497. The Women's the cannibal Batoans, it was received Boards and societies contributed $299,· with bursts of laughter! and they were 115. The women have beaten the men told that they would have been safer in by nearly $30.000. Batoa than in any civilized European State. The Batoans are Christians, and -The managers of Woman's Work have saved many shipwreckt crews and for Woman (Presbyterian) have made given them food and lodging free, and that magazine such a splendid success, have preserved stranded goods and re- that out of a surplus in its treasury they stored them faithfully to their owners. have been able recently to contribute to -Allgemeine ~l[i8siom Zeit8chrijt. the Assembly's Board more than $3,000, of which $578 was to pay for the type WOMAN'S WORK. for the Bangkok Press, and $2,500 was to reduce the deficit in the year's re- -The W. C. T. U's. of Cape Colony ceipts. have been very much in evidence lately. Port Elizabeth, as usual, supplied tem· -Mrs. George S. Hays, formerly a perance refreshments at the agricultural missionary in China, says: "The religshow, and 801d thousands of cups of tea ious feelings of Chinese women vary and coffee, taking £l1i8. From all over greatly in different localities. In some the country reports came in of other places they are distinctly religious, visit· Unions in the smaller up-country towns ing temples, worshiping daily at a having taken up the same work, while private shrine in the home, fasting. the number of permanent ,booths on praying. and endeavoring by good sports' grounds is increasing. The works to lay up for themselves a regard Unions of Kimberley arranged and in the future world. In the eastern part carried through an industrial exhibition of Shantung province this is not the on a large scale in April. The exhibi- case. The women, as a rule, never visit tion lasted two days, and was an all· the temples, and worship no private round success. £100 profit was made, gods. They are, of course, filled with part of which was devoted towards many vague and dark superstitions. erecting an Inebriate Home in Cape Hard-workt,improperly nourisht, easily Town. Mrs. Fehr, of Britain, is tour· distracted, and excited by the little de· ing the Colony and holding meetings, tails of daily life, they seem to give little and Miss Moody, the Colonial organizer, if any thought to their future after has given several successful lectures in death." various towns. YOUNG PEOPLE. -Over $8,000 has been sent in to the -Foreign Mail, representing the In- W. C. T. U. national treasurer for the ternational Committee of the Young Armenian relief, and it is still coming Men's Christian Association, for June; in, $26.54 having been received from has most impressive articles upon "An Tasmania. The India relief fund has Appeal for Reinforcements in Japan," also been increast by W. C. T. U. sub- " The Present Situation in China," and scriptions. Through the influence of " The Indian Conferences of 1807." No the national officers the national India phase of missions just now is more relief fund committee has voted and worthy of serious attention than this sent $500 to Pundita Ramabai, to be which relates so largely to students. used at her discretion for the relief of TIM Student Volunteer for the same the women in her school, and those month finishes volume 5 of the maga· under her personal direction. zine, which chronicles the progress of that thrilling movement. ~The great conventions of the cur- UNITED STATES. rent year indicate that the young people are still "marching on " in their united -Alaska cost $7,000,000 when pureffort to do great things for Christ and chased 30 years ago. Its gold mines the Church. First come the Christian are expected to yield $10,000,000 the Endeavorers, 24,000 strong to San Fran- present year, and the values of furs and cisco in July, one-half from outside of of fish are expected to bring up the California, and representing 3,000,000. yield to twice the original cost of that A few days later Toronto was fairly country. A heterogeneous American ftooded by theEpworth Leaguers stand- popUlation are fiocking up to that land ing for half as many more, and the of varied climate and wealth, increas- Baptist Young People's Union gathered ing its importance as a mission field. In Chattanooga. -"You must not be discouraged," -In opening his address at San said a Kiowa, "if we Indians come Francisco, Rev. F. E. Clark said: slow. It is a long road for us to leave "During the past year I have been our old Indian ways, and we have to journeying in many lands, among peo- think a great deal; but I am sure that ple who speak many tongues. One all the Indian people will come into the factor I have found constant in all these Jesus road, for I see that these white limds. I have found Christian En- Jesus people are here to help up, and I deavor principles everywhere the same. thank them for coming. Tell the Chris- The same pledb"ll, the same consecration tian people to pray for us. Weare meeting, the same general lines of ignorant, but we want to be led aright effort for the Master. Societies that are that we may come into the Jesus road." as widely separated in miles and manners as the Bengalis who live in the -It is a tribute well deserved, but swamps of the Ganges, and the Kaffirs one not always rendered, when the of the up-lands of Africa, from the Ohristian Advocate says: "If we were Endeavorers of the Golden Gate, called on to specify the institution now have subscribed to the same cov- at work in the United States that has enant pledge, and better still, are keep- done the most for the promotion of ing it." Christianity in the world, we should without hesitation name the American -A "missionary roll of honor" was Bible Society; and were we personunrolled in one of the meetings. Upon ally reduced by some insurmountable it were the names of 10,468 Christian force to contributing to but two in- Endeavor Societies that have given stitutions designed to benefit mankind nearly $200,000 to missions through and to promote Protestant Christianity. their own denominational missionary the American Bible Society would be boards. And these same societies have one of them." given an equal amount for other benevolences. The largest gift to missions -The Baptists, South, are doing misreported by anyone society is the sion work in Africa, China, Japan, $1437 of the Clarendon Street Society Brazil, Italy and Mexico, have 80 misof Boston. The Calvary Presbyterian sionaries in the field with 110 native Society of Buffalo is second, with assistants, 75 churches with 4,324 mem- $1017; and a Chinese society in San bers, and baptized 660 last year. Francisco, in he Chinese Congregational mission, stands third, having -The American Board has medical given nearly $700 to its own denomi- missionaries in almost all of its 20 mis- 'national missionary board, and is sup- sions, and a total of 39, of whom 11 are porting 6 missionaries in the field. women and 15 are ordained. It also has 10 hospitals and 30 dispensaries.
-The Presbyterians, South, rejoice that 6 individuals and nearly 50 churches are each supporting mission- Scripture were circulated by the society aries of their own, and are able to say: in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. Nothing "It means a great deal that one-third could be done in Austria.N ow the of our foreign missionaries are support- society has an agent in each of these ed either as • substitutes for service' or countries, and they reported an aggreas the foreign counterpart to the home gate issue in 1895 of nearly 400,000 pastor." copies, chiefiy through the labors of 102 colporteurs. -F. W. Hewes, mentioned on an earlier page, finds that the rate of giving, -Naturally at the present time in according to the financial ability of Great Britain reference is constantly each, in 14 denominations l'anges from made to Queen Victoria's reign of sixty $6.87 among the Congregationalists years, and the Church Missionary Soto $1.04 among the Disciples (" Camp- ciety recalls the fact that when she bellites"). The 4 which follow the came to the throne there were in conbest are these: United Presbyterians, nection with the society only 3 natives $5.98; Presbyterians, North, $4.84; ordained to the ministry, while during Reformed (Dutch), $3.44; and Presby- these sixty years 540 have been ordained. terians, South, $2.67. Ascending from Ten years ago, at the time of the the lowest we have, Cumberland Pres- Queen's Jubilee, the society had sent byterians, $1.33; Free Baptists, $1.35; Ollt 900 missionaries, while during this Reformed (German), $1.70; aild Epis- last decade nearly 700 have been added copalians, $1.72 to the roll. It was in that year, 1887, that the committee definitely adopted EUROPE. the policy of refusing no candidate on financial grounds. The past year has Great Britain.-The British and witnessed the lurgest number of adult Foreign Bible Society, at its recent an- baptisms on its records, namely, 7,700, nual meeting, reported its receipts as a fact accounted for by the great innearly $11,000 in excess of those of the gathering in Uganda, where 3,751 present year, amounting to $642,000. adults have been admitted to the The total issues of the society since its church. organization in 1804 amount to 151,- 142,802. The committee report that The Continent.-Some weeks since they have "thus far taken up with a party of French Protestants left Marglad alacrity every item of translation seilles for Madagascar, consisting of 3 and revision work that has been brought _pastors, 2 professors, 3 women, and 6 before them with sufficient evidence as children. Four Malagasy students were to its excellence and missionary useful- present, and .. one of them exprest their nes8." gratitude and confidence in a French speech which won the sympathies of -When Queen Victoria began her the whole audience. No one would reign, the British and Foreign Bible have believed that his stay in France Society had only 9 agents working out- had lasted only four months, so easily side England and Wales. Two of does he manage the language." these were located in the West Indies and 1 in Canada. The others were in -The mission schools in the German Frnnce, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, colonies have become a great power. Greece, and China. There are now 20 At the beginning of last year there were foreign agents, besides 6 secretaries of in these colonies 279 schools, all but 53 auxiliaries in India and South Africa, of them sllstained by the gifts of evanwhose salaries are provided by the gelical German Christians. Since 1884 parent society. In the year before the more than $1,125,000 have been spent Queen's accession it was with difficulty upon them. They are of four grades, that probably less than 3,000 copies 0 the lowest, in which reading and writing with religion are taught, elementary -The British Weekly tells of a schools, intermediate schools, in which " quiet but remarkable work in France in addition to what are termed common in the provision of an asylum for train- branches at least one European lan- ing priests who are leaving the Roman guage is taught, and high schools, or Catholic Church." Of 40 who applied the seminary, in which natives are last year, after very careful investiga- trained for the best work of which thcy tion, 12 were accepted. Some are pre- are capable These schools have been paring to be teachers, and a few arc of untold benefit to the colonies. Inas- already at work as Protestant ministers much as the government has as yet and missionaries. In most cases the done nothing for education in them, it change was "attributed simply to the is quite natural that it should now be study of the New Testament." There askt to make Bome provision for their is a clearer, freer religious atmosphere support in the way of grants, as Eng- than 25 years ago.
land Holland, and even Spain have ASIA. done for schools in their colonies. The policy of the German government has Islam.-We have often been forced been to follow the settlers rather than to observe that the whole Mohamme- to lead and to do no morc for them than dan world is connected by' secret is necessary for their protection. But threads, and that a defeat which Islam the managers of missionary work think suffers in any part of the world, or a the time has come when government triumph which she can claim either may reasonably be askt to share in the really or :fictitiously, has its retIex expense of educating children born in action even on the work of our misthe colonies.-Oongregationatist. sionaries in the Mohammedan part of Sumatra. Thus the recent massacres -The McAll Mission was begun a in Armenia have filled the Mohamme quarter of a century ago, and now it dans in this part of Sumatra with pride. can be written: In 25 years the one They say to the Christians, "You see room in a shop at Belleville has been now that the Rajah of Stamboul" multiplied until there are 35 places of (that is, the Sultan of Constantinople) meeting in Paris and its environs, and "is the one whom none can withstand; nearly 50 scattered throughout France and he will soon come and set Sumatra and in Corsica. From the :first tiny free, and then we shall do with the plant have brancht out Sunday and Christians as the Turks did with the Thursday schools, Young People's Armenians." And it is a fact that a Meetings, Christian Endeavor Societies, considerable number of Mohammedans Mission Churches, the Mission Boat, who were receiving instruction as can- Mothers' Meetings, dispensaries, tem- didates for baptism have gone back perance work, reading-rooms, work for since the receipt of this news.-Bericl,t soldiers, house·to-house visiting, a der Rheinischen MisaionsQf!8el18chajt.
monthly paper, that has proved a sec· -Considerable surprise will be felt ond "Bon Messager," with its glad at the news that a steamer has been motto, "The Gospel for All," a hymn- placed on the Jordan, to run between book, from which children learn to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
sing wor9s that, long afterwards, may It is said that the voyage can be ac- cheer their dying hours, a book that has complisht in 5 hours. The current come to Ameriea, and is used by the idea has been that the river is too rapid French from Canada to New Orleans, to allow of such a feat. But if it is and has been welcomed by French true that the two seas arc now con- soldiers in Madagascar. There seems nected in this way, there should be an no end to the possible shoots from the added attraction to traveling in the seed sown a generation ago. Holy Land. Another thing is mentioned in this connection-that 4 Jew- open door and immense need for It ish families have settled in Jericho, greater work.
and have rented for 5 years from the -India.-Sixty years ago the govern- Sultan a large area of fruitful land for ment of India forbade its officials to cultivation, the land to be irrigated employ native Christians in the public from the Jordan.–Jiree OhurchMonthly. service. Brahmins and :M:oslems were preferred. This year a Bengal Chris- -Miss Mattie R. Wylie, of the mis- tian, a pupil of Dr. Duff, was appointed sion of the Reformed Presbyterian chief justice at Raepore, in Central Church, at Latakia, Syria, writes: India. "Perhaps an outsider would say, there is no longer work among the Ansairyeh.
Last spring the Government ordered -The Bombay Guardian says: "We the parents of those who had children could mention several Christian women in the boarding-sehool here to take who are receiving starving widows or them out, and threatened them with orphans by the dozen on their ,own re- imprisonment if they refused. But we sponsibility, without any guaranteed do not know how much seed is being means for their support, but in faith in sown in a quiet way. There is 1 evan- Him whose book says, "Pure religion gelist, and iu villages where there are and undefiled before God and the Protestants they meet on Sabbath for Father is this, To visit the fatherless prayer and praise and the study of the – and widows in tlleir affiietion, and to Word, and the members make an effort keep himself unspotted from the to attend communion scrvices at Latakia. world.' One of these heroines is clear- The schools arc full. There are preach- ing her drawing-room to increase her ing services twice every Sabbath, and a accommodation for those who are Sabbath-school with an cnrollment of 'ready to perish,' and is selling its 380. There is a weekly prayer-meeting furniture to help support them."
and also a mothers' meetiug. A Bible -Rev. J. E. Robinson, of Calcutta, reader visits from house to house. There is well assured that grell,t accessions to are 2 Christian Endeavor societies, 1 the Christian population will be made for the young men of the church and as a result of the famine, basing his extlle other for the schoolgirls. Dr. pectation upon experience. He says: Balph has also commenced hospital Out of the great distress of 1857 in work on a small scale. We also hold Northern India, and in Southern India clinics 3 times a weck, in which there in 1877, a host of valuable mission is an average attendance of over 60. A agents were gathered in process of Bible woman is employed to read and time. One large, well-establisht mission talk to the patients, both in the clinics has drawn the greater portion of its helpand in the hospital, and to visit the ers, teachers and preachers, from the sick in their homes." orphans gathered in during famine. Christian communities are formed -Mr. Robert E. Speer, of the Pres- byterian Board, writing to the Inde- more rapidly during famine times than pendent from Persia, speaks of 5 dis- under ordinary circumstances-in some tinct impressions he has received in instances formed where efforts, under that land: the general decadence of all ordinary circumstances, would prob- things from forces inherent in the ably prove unfruitful through a long Persian character and the religion of term of years. Indeed, there are Islam, the power of the ecclesiastics of strong missions in India to-day whose Islam; the influence and fanaticism of foundations were laid in the troublous the officials, the increase of religious times of famine, consisting largely of feeling against Christians, the power orphans and rescued victims. In this and hold of the missionaries and the connection nothing can be more instmctive than the experience of sundry missionaries, 192 laborers in all, 18,000 missions in South India after the Christians, and 3,400 pupils; the Herfamine of 1876-7. With much hesita- mannsburg mission among the Telugus, tion, and many misgivings, not less, I with 10 missionaries, 1,000 members, think, than 60,000 persons were received and an increasing number of baptisms; by five or six missions as a direct result the Leipsic Society's mission among of the famine-persons who, in all hu- the Tamil people at Old Tranquebar, man probability, would never other- with 27 missionaries, 76 other ministers wise have become Christians. After a and helpers, 353 teachers, 5,400 pupils, few years Bishop Caldwell publicly and 15,000 confirmed native Lutherans, stated that this famine element, which and branch missions to Tamils in Burhad been incorporated into his mission, mah and Ceylon; the Schleswig-Holdeveloped more satisfactorily than the stein or Brecklum Society'S mission, old "hand-picked" section. in northern Teluguland and J eypore, with 10 missionaries and not more than The Rev, J. Parson, of Jabalpore, 500 converts; the Basel Society's misfurnishes an apposite illustration of sions in Malabar and among the Canarthis point. He says: "We havc not ese, Marathis, and Kurgs, with 75 only taken compassion on orphans and missionalies, 152 native pastors and widows, but when strengthless, help- catechists, 265 teachers and 12,500 less men, in a few cases with their 'adherents; the Gossner mission among wives, occasionally with a surviving the Kols, with 23 ordained missionarmotherless child or two, came begging ies, 20 native pastors, and 40,000 conus to take compassion on them, I felt verts; and the Scandinavian Santhal that I could not say no and leave them mission in South Bengal and Assam, to perish. Between 30 and 40 such are with more than 10,000 converts. now with us. They came ignorant of Smaller missions are those of the Danthe way of salvation, but now rejoice ish Society among the Tamils, with 8 in God through Jesus Christ. Where missionaries and 1,000 adherents; the there were only a few preachers and Swedish Fatherland Institution's Misteachers less than ten months ago, we sion among the Ghonds in Central have now a rapidly increasing Christian India, and the Missouri Synod's mission community. They have utterly aban- in the Tamil country. In all there are doned idolatry, and so broken the bonds 170 European and American missionarof caste in pieces, that people from at ies, 50 native pastors, nearly 1,200 naleast 25 castes of Hinduism, from the tive teachers and catechists, and more Brahman and Rajput down to the than 100,000 confirmed church mem- Chamar and Basor, with J'rlohamme- bers and 7,000 children in the mission dans and Gonds and Kols, have all schools. become one in Christ Jesus. Caste questions give us no difficulty what- China.-A Chinese typewrit'er, with ever. And, in almost all cases, they 4,000 characters, has been designed by are living a simple, straightforward, Rev. Mr. Sheffield, a Presbyterian misupright life, growing week by week in sionary at Tung-Chow, and constmcted, the knowledge of Christ." at his order, by an American factory. The characters are cslTied on the edges -The Lutherans have 8 missions in of thirty wheels, each of which is a foot India: that of the General Council in diameter. Two keys must be struck among the Telugns at Rajahmundry, to make un impression, one to turn the with 6 married missionaries, 162 work- wheel, the other to bring down the leters in all, 4,500 Christians, and 1,000 ter or sign required upon the paper. children in the mission schools; that of the General Synod, also among the -Smoking seems almost universal Telugus, at Guntur, with 7 American with the Chinese. They smoke only a very small quantity at the time, but other •foreign devil' will be able to go they indulge so frequently that they by rail from the seashore to the gates of must consume ii considerable amount of the mysterious capital. Thi~ will add their poorly cured wecd. When work- about 90 miles to the 124 miles of the men are hired to build a house it is road from Tientsin to the Kaiping coal customary in fixing the amount of the mines, which now constitutes the railwages to stipulate the number of way system of China. The spell of smokes they are to be allowed per day. prejudice has been broken, and several For unless there is something to regulate other railway enterprises are now on the number of smokes, the work is apt foot. The chief of these, a great trunk to progress very slowly. It is quite liue from Peking southwesterly to Hancommon to see the workmen percht on kow on the coast, a distance of some their heels indulging in a "smoke so- 1,400 miles, has already been started, cial" during working hours.-" Hadji," with a small government subsidy, but in North and West. its rapid construction is not to be ex- pected. A short road from Shanghai -Although in theory the Buddhists, to Woosung is also in progress. If may Confucianists, and Taoists hold differ- be well, however, to anticipate many ent views with regard to the future, yet inquiries by assuring our readers that there is a general impression thnt the there is not at present, noris there likely next world will be very much the same to be for a long time to come, any deas this, that is to say, there will be mand for American railway men in magistrates, law courts, etc., etc. Every China." Chinaman knows that the man who can get to the magistrate first, by a judici- -Rev. James Carson, of Newchwang, ous use of dollars, can generally make reports the remarkable spread of evansure of winning his case. As in this gelical truth in the province in which world, so in the next it is important, he is laboring. Not long since a retherefore, that if a man wishes to injure spectable man from the market town of another he should get to the magistrate Tien-Chwaug-Tai came to Newchwang as soon as possible. Among English to ask that some one might be sent to people angry words lead to blows, and instruct a number of inquirers. The sometimes to murder. In China angry application was backt up, in a most words often lead to one of the men remarkable way, by the proposal to committing suicide, that he may go into pay all the traveling expenses of the the other world and lay a charge against person who should come. This man his enemy there. In the year 1872. was the proprietor of an inn. Later a when Mr. Elwin was staying on the second and special messenger arrived Island of Pootoo with a friend, they to say that a small house had been were called in to save the lives of two prepared and was to be at the disposal Buddhist priests who had taken opium. of the teacher, affording a place in These men had quarrelled, and one of which to meet inquirers. Mr. Carson them took poison in order to go into the says: "Such urgency and such an unother world to lay a charge against his precedented offer it has never been my enemy. When the enemy heard what lot to receive." A similar request came had been done, he took a larger dose in from the city of I:lhuing Yan. These order to get there first.-North Ohina are new cases. Daily News. Korea.-A notable event is the -"The Chinese Government," says arrival in this country of the heir appar- The Railway Age, "is slowly but surely ent of Korea, Prince Eui Wha, who, pushing forward the railway from by the wish of his royal father, comes Tientsin to Peking, and it is expected to remain some years in America and that in the near future the traveler or pursue his education under the special guardianship of Dr. Ellinwood, secre- chumens. In no other mission of that tary of the Presbyterian Board. The Board is the harvest so ripe for the Prince is only twenty years old. reaper_ -During the political excitement in -In Korea butchers have been hith- Korea, a company of Christian students, erto degraded and despised, forbidden chiefly from the country, started out to wear the ordinary costume-virtually one dny to do sight-seeing in the city; serfs; but the Korean Government, a but the appearance of such a body of few months ago, issued a proclamation countrymen moving in company ex- granting them the right to dress like cited suspicion among the military other people, and enjoining that they authorities, and the whole class were be treated everywhere 'Yith respect. An arrested and taken to the barracks_ As interesting evangelistic work is now a confirmation to their claim of being being carried on amongst these men, students, a Sunday-school lesson paper 30,000 in number. A Christian of their was produced by one, and served as the own guild is traveling through the basis of a practical talk about Christ to country accompanied by a colporteur the officer in charge. He soon dis- preaching to them, and distributing missed them all. the Bible and other Christian books. The expenses of the tour are being met -Dr. J. Hunter Wells, PyengYang, by Christian butchers. Korea, in the last year, cut off an arm in the dining-room, performed an AFRICA. operation for cataract of the eye in the bedroom, cut off a leg in the shed. made -From every side the locomotive is use of the kitchen for many minor making slow but sure advances upon operations, and had patients lying all the Dark Continent, and hastening the over the neighborhood in every avail- day of her redemption. England is laying able shed or room. Notwithstanding rails up the Nile, far northward from the lack of accommodations, he treated Cape Town, with two lines westward some 4,000 patients, contributing much from Beira and lIombasa on the East to the advancement of the growing Coast, the latter aiming for Lake Vicwork of that station. Friends Iiving in toria Nyanza; France is pushing Indiana have provided the funds, and a towards the interior from Algeria, Belnew dispensary and hospital on a small gium up past the cataracts of the Kongo, scale have just been completed.- aud Portugal slowly from Benguella in Ol.urch at Home and Abroad. Angola.
-Rev. J. S. Gale, of Gensan, speaks -Including what has heretofore been thus of the difficulty of translating the known as Bishop Taylor's Self-support- Bible into Korean: " 'I am the bread of ing Mission, the American ~Iethodists life,' would seem one of the easiest sen- labpr in 4 districts of Africa: (1) Liberia; tences to translate, but the Korean has (2) The Kongo; (3) Angola; (4) The no bread. ' I am the good shepherd East African Coast Mission. The and know my sheep,' seems simple lan- statistical summary of the work in guage, but there are no sheep in Korea, these districts is as follows: Stations, so it takes much thought. to discover 28; missionaries, 40; native teachers the best way to show the truth to minds and preachers, 2S; membership, 581; whose modes of reasoning and whose children in mission homes, 588; value associations are so entirely unlike our of property, $73,122. own." -Rev. John Howell writes thus of -The Presbyterian churches in traveling in the Kongo country: "So Korea received during the past year away we went, and next day found us some 200 into their membership. and on tramp. I was quite at home at this, have besides enrolled a thousand cate- but my wife, in the hammock, with a black man at either end, found thi'ngs rather strange. Very often she was Christianity is popular. No; but with some distancc in front of me, alone with deep, downright earnestness and child· her new col.ored friends. Once I caught like faith they desire to know and love her up. They were just fording a river the Lord. There is no. excitement. We with her, she being just a few inches are most careful in our examinations above the water; a slip and it would before receiving them into the church, have been a free bath. On the far side sometimes putting them off for months. the bank was at least six feet above the We have 1 station, 3 preaching places, water's edge. The porter at the foot of 9 missionaries on the field, 1 Sabbaththe hammock climbed up; the head- school, 1 church, with 126 communiend remaining down, you can imagine cants, and a day·school with 45 pupils. the position; she was standing on her Mr. Verner left two days ago to open a head, hanging on with all her might to new station at Wissman Falls. My the hammock, or she would have slid- magic lantern has been of great use to den head first into the water. At night me. u our beds were put in a rough shed, with our mosquito net over, to keep off -A remarkable revival of the Amer· ants, spiders, rats, and other abounding ican Board ofMission is now progressing live stock." at all the stations in NataL Such a work of grace as has never been wit- -Not a few will watch the career of nessed in the Colony is now going on, Heli Chatelain and some co·workers, leading to conviction of sin and converwho have just started for Afdca to sion to Christ, with every evidence that inaugurate the work of the Phil-African it is a work of the divine Spirit. The League. The object of this league is year 1897 will hereafter be as memorato bring relief to the large number of ble among the churches of Natal as is slaves in Central Africa and to endeavor the year 1857 among the churches of to break up the slave trade, especially America. among the Moslem tribes, by establishing a series of colonies. The section -It is gratifying to learn that in selected Is the high tableland between Bechuanaland, especially in the terri· BengueIls and Lake Nyassa. '1'he plan tory occupied by Chief Khama, the of work is to acquire fertile lands by distress caused by drought, locusts, and concession from European governments the rinderpest is somewhat relieved. and by purchase from the natives, the Aid has been forwarded from England, adoption and settlement in model Chris· chiefly through the agency of the Lontian villages of freed slaves and natives don Missionary Society. There was an to be educated in farming and handi- absolute dearth of grain, but food was crafts. The station work is to be di· supplied, and especially seed, so that vided into these main departments- now a harvest is being gathered which agricultural, industrial, educational and promises to save the district from further medical or charitable, each in charge of famine. a competent specialist. Mr. Chatelain has had wide experience in Africa, and ISLANDS OF THE SEA. is thoroughly acquainted with the situ· ation. -The French Protestant Church has received a terrible blow in the death of -lIr. Sheppard, a colored mission· two of her devoted and efficient pasary of the Presbyterian Church, South, teurs, M. Escande and 11. lIIinault, writes from Luebo, March 20: .. The cruelly massacred on the road from Gospel Is being wonderfully blest by Antananarivo to Fianarantsoa, the post the Holy Spirit. The people are seek· which the latter was about to occupy ing the Lord, not for what they may as missionary in the disturbed district receive at our hands, and not because of Betsileo. M. Escande had already been establisht in the island as pasteur and missionary for nearly a year. justice note the markt divisions which When, on PlIsteur Laugs's return to prevail among the Chinese. Those France from Madagascar, the French born at the Straits differ from the SocieHi des Missions appealed for some- Chinamen at home quite as much as one to take his place, M. Escande, the Americans do from the English, altho he had but just arrived from Sen- while the various tribes of Chinamen egal with his wife and children in order differ among themselves both in lang- to recruit their health, without hesita- uage and race·feeling quite as much tion offered himself for the difficult and and probably more, than do the differ- responsible po~t.-London Ohristian. ent nationalities of Europe. I was told by one who lookt over the assembly -Police-Inspector Fitzgerald, for- and made a count of the different lang- merly an enemy of missions, reports uages and races represented there, that thus to his superior upon the work of no less than 18 nationalities could be the Herrnhut missionaries at liapoon found in a company of people which on the east coast of the Gulf of Car- perhaps did not much exceed 200 pentaria, Australia. ., As the result of persons.-Bi8hop 2hoburn. personal observation of the manage- ment of the mission station of lIapoon, -The Bremen Mission in New Gui- I can bear witness with great pleasure nea (Kaiser Wilhelm's Land), is still that this mission is in my opinion a sorely tried by the unhealthy climate. perfect success; a proof of what sound To this, according to the latest news, common sense, courage, and goodwill is now added the even worse trial of a can accomplish with savages. It was Romish eruption right into the portion quite a new experience for me when I of the field which the Bremen missioncompared this station with others. . aries have for six years occupied. "The last steamer," write the brethren, . The results obtained here ex- "brought 4 padres and 8 lay brothers ceed all my experience among the to begin operations where our mission aborigines during more than thirty is already at work." Missionary Helyears. I recommend that the Govern- mich writes: "The Romish mission ment should supply the station with a presses itself like a wedge into the good boat and with 400 woollen blank- midst of our field. And, however sure ets yearly. I am glad to have had the we are that no might of this world can privilege of seeing a station which is stop the truth of the Gospel, we can conducted in so excellent a manner." scarcely repress some slight concern for – Allgemeine Mis8ion~zeit8cltrift. our work. Shame on them that they sllOuld plant themselves where our -Malyasia. Missionary work in mission has poured out its blood and Malaysia is interesting for many reasons, its tears, and made many a sore sacriand at Singapore for the special reason lice." that so many nationalities are represented there. Our good friends ten- -The missionary steam yacht, John dered us a reception during our stay, William8, on leaving Sydney, carried and among the many kind people who out 50 tons of building materials for II were present at the Deaconess Home, Jubilee Hall, to be erected at Malua were persons who had come from Su- in Samoa, at a cost of £1,000, all sub: matra, Java, Borneo, Bangkok, Saigon. scribed by the Samoan native Chris- China, and Japan, besides lIalays from tians; 40 cases of Bibles for Savage this region, Singhalese and Tamils from Island, and a large consign:nent of India, and Europeans of various nation- books for New Guinea, in the Motu alities in Europe and America In- language, printed in Sydney under the deed, if I begin to make mention of supervision of Rev. Dr. Laws. In condiffcrent nationalities from Europe, we nection with the Samoan Mission there may with equal and even greater are now 600 members of the Christian Endeavor Societies.
The Missionary Review of the World — November 1892
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE AS A MISSIONARY CENTRE
MiSSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No.n.-Old series.–NOVEMBER.–voL. V. No. n.-New Series.
THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE AS A MISSIONARY CENTRE.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-OHIEF.
On the southeast side of the Thames, in London, stands a great church building, for more than thirty years linked with the name of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The church organization which finds there a home is not only foremost among Baptists, but is, in a certain sense, "mater et caput omnium ecclesiarum, urbis et orbis." .
" See," said God to Moses, " that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed thee in the mount." This principle has been at the basis of the construction and conduct of this noble enterprise. The providence of God, having brought me into intimate personal contact with the Metropolitan Tabernacle during a period of eight months, rare opportunity has been given for the study of the interior workings of this colossal organiz!rt.ion j and it is both duty and privilege to give to the Christian public, some- what more completely than has ever yet appeared in print, an outline of its autonomy and autocracy, its theoretical and practical administration, its spiritual machinery and world-wide usefulness. .
Comprehensively speaking, this brotherhood of disciples, over which C. H. Spurgeon so long presided, is not so much a church as a radiating centre for all city evangelization, public philanthropy, and home and foreign mlSSlOns. The methods here pursued are so silliple yet so complete, so concentrated and yet so comprehensive, so uniform and yet so multiform, so convergent and yet so far-reaching, that they provide and present in some sort a pattern or model for the organization and administration of church life in other parts of the world, and especially in great cities. The basis of the success here attained is laid in principles so scriptural and spiritual, that it challenges instead of defying imitation, and suggests pos- sible reasons for the failure, elsewhere so common.
The church-membership now embraces nearly six thousand, a fact which is the more remarkable, since the drift of the better classes of population has for years been away from the vicinily of the Tabernacle toward the more delightful and healthful residential suburbs. The most conspicuous feature of this great church is not, however, its numerical force, bllt the promi- nence here given for forty years to the preaching of the pllre Gospel of Christ, and to the advocacy and illustration of a simple and apostolic form of worship and Christian life. There is noticeable also an absence of all attempt at worldly art. There is no magnifying of the resthetic acce&- sories; the only beauty cultivated is the beauty of holiness.
The building is almost excessively, though not repulsively, plain; there has certainly been no constructing of ornament, and but little ornamenting of construction. The main objects in view have evidently been commodiousness, convenience, and comfort. The building has been so planned that everyone in the vast audience may both see and hear the preacher, and probably no other building in the world combines such large accommodations with such freedom from acoustic defects. When all available sittings are occupied, in the aisles as well as pews, five thousand persons may be seated; and on a few occasions it is said that more than seven thousand have been crowded into the house.
The area or ground floor furnishes the main seating capacity, but two galleries run entirely around, elliptical in effect, and very convenient and capacious. A portion of the lower gallery, extending forward, provides the platform for the preacher. The actual point where the speaker stands is near to one of the foci of the ellipse formed by the gallery front, and is therefore the best point from which to be well heard. Immediately below this is the baptistery platform, elevated about four feet, and extending still further toward the centre of the area; and here on ordinary occasions are seated children from the orphanage and elderly women from the almshouses, those whose hearing is imperfect, etc.
Mr. Spurgeon's great law in preaching was to combine simplicity with evangelicity. He believed thoroughly in the inexhaustible beauty and power of the old Gospel, when its native Divine attractiveness and effectiveness are unhindered by the vain trimmings and trappings of this world; and he honestly and persistently sought to make every sermon not only a means of edification to saints, but of conversion to sinners. Lest anything should divert attention from Christ as the centre of the message, and God as the centre of worship, he gave no encouragement to organ or choir, and the vast aS3emblage has always been led by a precentor. The service opens with prayer and song; the Scripture reading and exposition are followed by another hymn and prayer, and the benediction immediately succeeds the sermon. So great was Mr. Spurgeon's dependence on the power of the simple Word, accompanied by the Holy Spirit, that he was Dot wont to hold" after meetings," except for prayer; nor did he use the methods so common with modern evangelists of "bringing hearers to an immediate dt'cision." Yet, to the honor ·of God be it noted that the average accession of members for the last thirty-eight years has been three hundred and ninetv per year, and in 1874 and 1875 exceeded five hundred. No presentation of the Metropolitan Tabernacle and its work could be complete without indicating both the departments of activity and the apparatus by which it is carried on. The building itself is very large, embracing twenty or more rooms, large and small, the main space being occupied by the great aS5embly hall. Back of this are some twelve rooms: four of these are in the uppermost story, and mainly used for storage; on the middle floor is the pastor's study or vestry, with rooms for the deacons' and elders' courts, which together constitute a communicating suite, available for pastor's receptions, etc. From the hall leading from the elder's room to the deacon's room a door opens to the pulpit platform. Below this story and on the level of the baptistery are the secretaries' offices, robing rooms for candidates for baptism, etc., and the ladies' room; and in the ,basement, which extends beneath the entire building, are found the large Sunday-school room, the lecture-room, with capacity for about eight hundred persons, and other apartments for all the numerous and various purposes made necessary by such a Christian household.
There is scarce a room among all these that is not sanctified by multiplied forms of service. In the elders' room meets a Bible class of young women ; in the secretaries' 'office are kept church records, lists of members, pewholders, etc.; and here communion tickets and pew tickets are distributed. In the ladies' room meet the Ladies' Benevolent Society, Loan Tract Society, orphanage, working, colportage, clothing, and Dorcas societies, and here adult Bible class and prayer services are conducted. In another room assemble a men's Bible class and Mother's Working Meeting. In the lecture-room a Sabbath afternoon preaching service and a Thursday evening prayer-meeting are held. Near by, the Tract Society has its repository, whence to three hundred homes every week go forth visitors with loan tracts, to be collected and redistributed when the week expires. This building is also a centre for other forms of Christian service-the Flower Mission, Evangelistic Association, Bands of Hope, Total Abstinence Society, Benevolent Society, etc.
Immediately back of the Tabernacle is the college building, with large library, conference hall for five hundred, lecture-rooms, president's offices, etc. Here are the "common room," where the body of the departed pastor was first laid after its arrival from Mentone, the colporteurs' room and bookstore, whence eighty distributers go forth to disseminate Christian literature. etc.
As to the college itself, the aim is to train up a generation of preachers and pastors who hold and teach the precious old truths of the blessed Word; and the main support of this institution, with its seventy or more students, is found in the voluntary offerings, for the gathering of which some sixty boxes are placed in and about the church building. These offerings average from forty to sixty pounds sterling each Lord's day.
Much care is taken as to the choice of students. Applicants are divided into three classes: First, the accepted; secondly, the rejected; and thirdly, the doubtful, whose cases are to be considered and decided more carefully. Each applicant sends his photograph, recommendations from pastor and others, with evidence that he has already been successfully engaged in work for souls j and, if there be further question about him, he is invited to a personal interview, his travelling expenses and entertainment being provided, so that the college authorities may make his acquaintance. If found worthy and needy, his food, clothing, text-books, and lodging in some home round about, will be furnished, so far and so long as he requires; and the homes of students are visited each quarter by an elder, who thus keeps track of the student's peIsonallife. The average time spent in the college is three years, but the students are set at work for Christ meanwhile, and many of them act as pastors in mission halls and chapels, while others go out to preach as occasion and opportunity offer. Having often had occasion to address theological stndents in American seminaries, I have never found among an equal number so many intelligent, earnest, and consecrated men. At least four evangelists are employed and paid by the Pastor's College, and above eight hundred students have been trained here.
The Sunday-schools of the Tal:iernacle entoll about twelve hundred members, and the classes meet both in the Tabernacle !milding and college building, but all under one superintendent. Linked on to the Tabernacle are not a few chapels and missions, such as the Richmond Street Mission j Haddon Hall, with its full complement of Sabbath preaching, Sundayschool and week-night services j Surrey Grove Chapel, Surrey Garden's Memorial Hall, Almshouse meetings, and the Sunday-school, and evangelistic service!! and like meetings at the Orphanage. Converts gathered at these halls join the Tabernacle.
Some forty officers·-elders and deacons-with the pastors, have constituted the governing and directing force of this Metropolitan Tabernacle, the elders having charge of the spiritual interests, and the deacons mostly of the temporalities, but both working unitedly to secure efficiency in all things. The method of election has been very. simple j the pastor has been wont to nominate to each body additional members j and if there were no dissent, these names were reported for the confirmatory vote of the church at large. Then the right hand of fellowship was extended by the pastor, and prayer offered, without laying on of hands, to which Mr. Spurgeon was opposed. Superintendents of the Sunday-school were likewise commonly nominated by Mr. Spurgeon, who thus became the real and proper head of the entire administration. Three elders are set apart to special spiritual oversight, and are so employed by the church, as also are two most competent secretaries, who give up their time to the management of its clerical and business affairs. Two families act as caretakers, one of them living in the college, the other in the Jubilee House adjoining the Tabernacle, and built in Mr. Spurgeon's jubilee year, 1884, from offerings given in commemoration of his fiftieth birthday. Rev. James A. Spurgeon, although himself having a large and influential chapel in West Croydon, has long been associate. pastor with his now deceased brother, and remains the actual and capable head of this great church and its various institutions. He is a man of marked ability and singular fitness for his great administrative trust; and Colgate University has just honored him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity, as also Olivet College has voted him the first Doctorate of Laws ever given in its history. What the Tabernacle, the Pastor's College, and the Orphanage would have done without Doctor James Spurgeon at this crisis it is difficult to say. We may all bless God that so strong a hand was on the helm in such troublous times.
The brief statement here given suffices to show that the Tabernacle is a great missionary centre. First there is the constant and faithful preaching of the Gospel to vast audiences on the Lord's day and during the week. The prayer-meeting on Monday nights is often attended by upward of two thousand people; the Thursday night's preaching service by as many more; and these, with the Lord's day, make the aggregate audience weekly not far from seven or eight thousand different people, of whom one seventh are strangers from every quarter, who from this great centre carry to their distant homes the report of what they hear. In this great house of worship is thus repeated every week some such influence as that exerted by Pentecost, through those who, temporarily dwelling at Jerusalem, went back to every nation under heaven to bear the good tidings. This vast outreach of the Gospel there preached constitutes the Tabernacle a great centre of missions. Moreover, the continued publication of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons, week by week, at a penny each, their translation into twenty-five living tongues, and their perusal by hundreds of thousands constitutes a second distinct branch of missionary influence.
Then there is the dispersion of the members in every direction for the evangelization of the city,for in this church perhaps a larger proportion of Christian workers may be fonnd than in any other church in Christendom ; and here is a third form of mission work. The college, including the present body of students, is training or has sent forth nearly a thousand young men, to engage in either home or foreign missionary work, and they are scattered throughout the world, and this constitutes a fourth branch of missionary influence traceable to this central stock. The Evangelistic Association, which supplies temporary or permanent evangelistic labor to churches and communities in need of such help; the Colportage Association, sending out Bibles and religious books in every direction; the Tract Loan Society, visiting families every week and leaving tracts; the Sunday-schools of the Tabernacle and its connected missions, with their thousands of youth; the various other societies for aiding mothers, poor ministers, orphans; the Total Abstinence Society, and Band of Hope and Flower Mission-these are but a part of this many-branching tree of life. The Stockwell Orphanage has now over four hundred inmates, and has sent out more than one thousand children, and is a missionary centre in itself. Beside these, there are private forms and methods of benefaction, in visiting and relieving the poor, the sick, and the outcast, good works whose history bas never yet been written, because the data have never been supplied ; and all these must be included before a true conception is formed of the multitudinous ramifications which proceed from this one centre of spiritual f<;>rce and impulse.
Mr. Spurgeon was not known peculiarly as an advocate of foreign missions j but the Gospel he preached was so full of the spirit of missions that it kindled zeal in many hearts which impelled them to take up work among the heathen j and Hudson Taylor's recruits always love to come to the Monday evening prayer service to say their farewells and get, as from a mother, a parting blessing before leaving for China's inland regions.
No reference has yet been made to that famous "Book Fund," whose special manager-shall we not say mother ?-was and is the beloved wife of the departed pastor, and of which we need to write a separate paper, if justice is to be done to this noble work. In 1890 £836 sterling (upward of $4000) were spent in books and sermons donated to various parties in home and foreign lands. No one but God knows how many private contributions of money, love, sympathy, and prayer go forth from this congregation every day ; and the gap that would be made not only in the metropolis of the world, but in the world itself, if this church should cease to be, only God can measure. The fact is, the members of this great church and Pastor's College, like the Moravian Brethren, are trained to expect work for God as a necessary part of Christian life j and when the pastor lays his hand on a man or woman, and appoints such to a certain post of responsibility, he feels sure the appointment will be accepted and the workers will do their best.
It will be seen that Charles H. Spurgeon occupied a throne and wielded a sceptre the like of which the world furnishes nowhere else. Yet he was a leader rather than an autocrat. He was so highly esteemed and dearly loved, and such was the confidence reposed in his piety and judgment, that there was conceded to him almost unlimited and undisputed control j but he was a fine example, how safe it is to be guided by a single will, when that will is itself guided by knowledge and love. An archbishop of the Anglican Church is credited with saying that Spurgeon was " the most influential ecclesiastic in the world;" but if he was an absolute monarch inside of his church realm, it is safe to say that he never abused the sceptre held by his hands. He said jocosely to me, that if you want a thing done you must do it yourself, and that the best possible committee is a committee of three, two of whose members are sick or out of town!
~othing impressed me during months of labor here more than the atmosphere of prayer pervading the entire institution. Not only all day Sunday, but all through the week, there is scarce half a day not more or less occupied with religious services of some sort, and at almost all hours the voice of prayer may be heard; and when, at Florence, an American visitor asked Spurgeon the secret of his success, his quiet, hum ble, reverent, truthful answer was, "r have a people who pray much for me."
Never have I seen a people so willing, generous, considerate, affectionate, nor an activity so widespread and universal; never a church so primitive and apostolic. Beyond baptism by immersion, there is nothing which might not be common to the most devout evangelical believers everywhere. If anything could be suggested as an improvement in the administration of this church-any change which would make it seem nearer the apostolic pattern, it would be to throw all pews absolutely open to all comers and trust to voluntary offerings for the support of the minister and the supply of current expenses. This matter has been considered, but many fear that" free pews" would be appropriated by so many now attending other places of worship that non-churchgoer~ would be practically excluded, and such think that a moderate rental secures a more miscellaneous attendance. Upon this I prefer not to retreat from opinions long held, that the only right and best way is God's way, and that there is no foundation in the Acts of the Apostles for any pew-sale or pew-rental. Yet fairness compels me to concede and to confess that strangers have always a cordial welcome and do feel at home, and that the" atmosphere" of the Tabernacle repels no one and makes no worshipper conscious of restraint or constraint.
At the time of Mr. Spurgeon's decease, in January last, it was prophesied by many that the whole church, like a sheaf whose bond is removed, would fall apart; but up to this time the audiences continue as large as ever, and there is no decline of interest apparent; while the contributions for current expenses and the offcrings for benevolent work have rather increased than diminished-a practical proof that when the Gospel is faithfully preached and the Christian life is sedulously cultivated, there is created an esprit du corps that rtlmains as a permanent bond of union and is the abiding secret of vitality and activity, even when so great a preacber and pastor is forever withdrawn.
To conclude, if it be asked what is the secret of the success attained in this church, which makes it pre-eminent perhaps above all others, it seems to me that this secret lies mainly in two things: First, that there has never been anything countenanced here but the simple preaching of the Gospel, unheralded by sensational announcements and advertisements, and nnmixed with worldly leaven; and, secondly, that from the first there has been set up and held up here the simplest, purest type of apostolic worship. Hindrances either to the Gospel's power or the Spirit's working have been practically reduced to a minimum. No needless rites or ceremonies have here surrounded the administration of ordinances and sacraments. Beyond the decency and decorum of the service of worship, art has no place, and there is nothing to interfere with the exaltation of the Lord alone in the eyes of all men, in His house.
Why may not all that is essential in this church life be repeated in any
SAMOAN MISSION OF THE LONDON MISSlONARY SOCIETY
part of the world ~ The same uplifting of Christ, the same magnifying of the Spirit, the same zeal for simplicity of worship and fervency in prayer, the same adherence to a biblical pattern of church order and conduct, with the same renunciation of mere worldly art and attractions, might in any of the centres of Christendom give us other churches which, like the Metropolitan Tabernacle, should be at once witnesses to the power of the truth and centres of all missionary operations at home and abroad.
Charles H. Spurgeon being dead yet speaketh. A monument more lasting than brass and more precious than gold stands to his memory iI} the heart of the world's metropolis, and lifts high the flaming light of a testimony that flashes its beams over the entire civilized globe. May many other churches find in the Metropolitan Tabernacle the suggestion and the impulse of a nobler career of service, and, like it, send forth into dark and desert regions beyond both living rays of truth and living streams of grace!
THE SAMOAN MISSION OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
BY REV. J. E. NEWELL, D.D., MANCHESTER, ENG.
The Samoan Mission is the link of connection between the two great divisions of the South Pacific-Eastern and 'Western Polynesia. It was the first link of a chain which now embraces all the principal islands and groups of Western Polynesia, and connects them with the vast island of N"w Guinea.
The man who first carried the Gospel to the ,Samoan Islands lost his life while engaged in the work of introducing Christian teachers to the New Hebrides. As the Tahitian teachers taken by Williams and BarlI carried the torch of life to Samoa, so the Samoans in turn went forth to Western Polynesia-to the New Hebrides, the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, and the Isle of Pines. And how Christian teachers from both Eastern and Western Polynesia are united in one grand crusade against the powers of darkness in New Guinea.
Having witnessed the transforming power of the Gospel in his own group, and seen it take root in the Hervey Islands-the principal island of which (Rarotonga) John Williams himself discovered-that man of daring and heroic enterprises conceived the idea of taking the good news of God's love to the Samoans living in islands lying from fourteen to eighteen hundred miles distant. How his ship, the Messenger of Peace, was built and launched; how those bold pioneers-Williams and BarlI-crossed that trackess waste of ocean, and how in August, 1830, they landed in Samoa and located those first eight Tahitian teachers, John 'Williams himself has told us.
The jubilee of that event was celebrated by the Samoans during the year in which the writer of this sketch began his work among that interest- ing and lovable people.
With what thrilling interest did one just entering on his work listen to native reminiscences of that event!
Standing on the spot where John Williams first landed, an old man- one of the first Samoan Christians-recalled the portly presence of the missionary; the grateful and courteous way in which he had received the food which the kindly, hospitable Samoans had taken to the strangers; above all, that first giving of thanks to the Father of all mercies as " Uiliamu" took the food presented to them.
Again, an ever-memorable speech was that made at another of those jubilee meetings by one who had been a priest of that olden time. A priest, and therefore according to the very remarkable belief of the Samoans an incarnation, or at least a representative of the unseen God to men. Said he : "I was supposed to possess supernatural power, and men were ever afraid of me ; and yet I was in my own personal relation to the God even as others. I could provoke the wrath of the deity, and I must pro- pitiate him even as others must. I had a beloved sister who was sick unto death. When naught availed for her recovery, and hope was well- nigh gone, I determined to make a propitiatory sacrifice." And so he had taken the bamboo knife and severed the third finger at the joint from his left hand; and when that did not avail he took off the next, the little finger. Then the sister recovered !
With what a sympathetic thrill one witnessed that old man tottering on the verge of the grave, as he raised his left hand in confirmation of that beautiful story of self· sacrificing love.
Appropriately enough most of the speeches given during that interesting series of meeti~gs were from native missionaries, who had gone forth in the fervor of their self.consecration to preach God's glad news to perishing men in other islands; for Samoa was ever a missionary church. Natives from Samoa were employed in introducing the Gospel into Savage Island, and into the Tokelan, the Ellice, ,and Gilbert Islands (those south of the Equator), and some of these natives were there to tell how the Gospel was· the power of God unto salvation, not only to the Samoans, but also to peoples whom Samoans considered to be much more degraded than themselves. Some, too, who had labored in the islands in Western Polynesia, already mentioned, were present to tell of sorrows and privations endured for the Gospel's sake in the West.
Before John Williams went that last fatal voyage to the New Hebrides he had the joy of seeing the establishment of the Samoan Mission. In 1836 six British missionaries arrived in Samoa. One of the six, the Rev. A. W. Murray-in many ways the most successful and remarkable of the six-has recently passed away. He was the historian of the Samoan Mission, ana has well told the story of the forty years subsequent to his arrival in Samoa. Two or three features of the wOlk of the mission during that period are all that can be touched upon: 1. The education of a native ministry. 2. Bible translation. 3. The extension of the mission by native agency.
1. An event of deep importance to the mission was the establishment of the Malua Institution for the training of native pastors and teachers. This institution was established in September, 1844, by the late Revs. Charles Hardie and the late Dr. George Turner. Mr. Hardie's place was subsequently filled by the late Rev. Henry Nisbet, LL.D. While recog- nizing the extraordinary talents of the latter, especially as the author of valuable commentaries in Samoan on several books of the Bible, and as seen in the multifarious work of the institution, there can be no doubt that the honor of having created one of the most efficient of mission institutions is mainly due to Dr. Turner.
To have laid the foundation of such a trllining institution so securely and so wisely, that for all essentials there should be nothing hereafter to undo or to modify ; to have solved the problem of how to educate the native Christian without robbing him of the faith of his heart; of how to Christianize without Anglicizing the native, was largely the work of Dr. Turner. Under him it was proved that a South Sea college could be reared on the lines ef the communal life of a Polynesian village. The Malua Institution is, in fact, such a village consisting of some twenty· six " families." The heads of each household are the married student and his wife, whose position in the institution entitle them to the dignity. With these young unmarried men are placed, and each family receives a member of the Boys' Boarders' Class.
There are at present in the institution 108 students, of whom 56 are married, and boy boarders to the number of 26, Reckoning all three classes as students for whom the institution has provided education since the college was established, exclusive of those who are still under training. there ha'e been 940 students for the native ministry, 589 women (wives of students), and 307 boy boarders, making an aggregate of 1836 who have passed through the institution.
The students cultivate-the food necessary for their own support and that of those dependent upon them. As this can be done in such a country without much labor, it allows ample time for the strictly educational part of a student's training.
Certainly the training needed by a native pastor or missionary is unique. Every pastor in Samoa must be also village schoolmaster, and for that normal training is needed. To meet that need a normal school has been established. The villages in Samoa are small, and there is very little of the wealth we reckon by money to pay for skilled labor in the erection of village churches, and the pastor who can direct such work is greatly valued; hence an important part of his training as a student must be industrial.
And what a pastor needs, that a missionary in an isolated out8tation in the Ellice or Gilbert group needs still more. The fact that pur village churches and our outstations are locally independent of outside help is proof of the training of the pastor. The native village church may be rude and simple in construction, but at least it was built by the people themselves, and mission funds have in no case been used in erecting it.
With regard to that singular feature of the college-the Boys' Boarders'
Class-it is noticeable that our most successful pastors in Samoa and the most efficient missionaries in the outstations and in New Guinea are those who first entered the institution as boys, and who afterward returned for a further four years' course as theological students.
And with reference to the association in families of peoples as dis- .
similar as Samoans and Gilbert Islanders, it may be safely affirmed that nothing but Christianity could have made such a thing not only possible, but entirely satisfactory in experience.
2. The Samoans possess an excellent version of the Bible. The present edition is the result of more than thirty years' study of the Samoan lan- guage, and is as faithful to the original as it is idiomatic and pure in the vernacular. Both as to knowledge of the original and for Samoan scholar- ship the Rev. George Pratt (now of Sydney, N. S. W.) has been facile princeps; but the work is the result of the combined knowledge of the whole of the mission staff. '
The New Testament was first printed in 1847, and at the close of 1855 the Old Telltament was completed. Ten thousand copies of the Bible were sold at cost price to the Samoans in six years, and each edition of the great Book has been successively paid for by the people.
3. By means of native Samoan missionaries alone sixteen islands to the northwest of Samoa have been evangelized. These islands are in the Tokelau and Ellice groups, together with five islands in the Gilbert group.
The first step in this extension of the Samoan Mission was taken in 1865, when native missionaries were located in the Ellice group. The way in which the missioll was led to take the Word of God to those islands forms, perhaps, the most romantic story of modern missions; the result, however, is all that can now be referred to.
So far as statistics can give that result, we have the fact that 11,000 adherents have been added to the mission; and of these 1916 are profess- ing Christians. The children in Sunday and day schools number 2268.
The people of each island support their own pastor, and for this purpose contribute an average of over $2000. In addition to this, they have built their own churches and pastors' houses, and sent to the foreign missionary fund the sum of something like £300 sterling annually. Si~ce 1883 the Samoans have joined the rest of their Polynesian brethren in the work of evangelizing New Guinea. There are thirteen Samoan native missionaries with their wives in New Guinea, all of them are in heathen districts, and are making full proof of their ministry.
The London Missionary Society keeps up a staff of seven English missionaries in Samoa, and two lady missionaries have been recently added to the number for the work of female education.
The statistics for 1890 show that there are in the whole of the Samoan Mission (Samoa and outstations) 204 native ordained pastors, 173 native preachers; the adherents of the London Missionary Society number 36,459 (out of a population of 46,000) ; church-members, 7943 ; Sunday and day scholars, 11,827. The average annual contributions for the past ten years have been £2010 sterling, of which a little more than half was given for the support of the native pastors, and the rest was contributed to the funds of the London Missionary Society.
Apart from stati8tics, the present condition of the Samoan Church is causing grave anxiety. While numerically as strong as ever, there is only too much reason to fear that there is more formalism and less life than at any previous period of the church. There is a manifest tendency to escape the dominion of the motives which operated even ten years ago to quicken conscience and arouse to spiritual activity. It is. probable that a large proportion of professing Christians have passed from the dominion of spiritual impulse to the formal and lethargic condition which was so disastrous to the Post-Apostolic Church; and yet there is a core of earnest Christian life in the church. Some of the older pastors and many of the Christians in the church are manifestly alive to the dangers and perils of this age of transition. Especially in this connection it is right to mention the Christian heroism of a truly noble band of men and women who have gone forth from the institution to service for Christ in the high places of the field.
Never in the history of the mission have there been better and more efficient native missionaries than those who in recent years have gone to New Guinea; and it seems as if yet again it would be seen that the missionary zeal of the native church, while it can only come as the expression of the loyalty and love of living Christians to their Divine Master, may also be the salvation of the church at large.
As John vVilliams himself felt, Samoa is only the first link of a chain; and the chain is not yet complete. The islands of the South Pacific have been connected with New Guinea as John Williams prayed they might be; but in the South Seas itself, the largest and most populous of all the South Sea Islands is still entirely heathen. The great Solomon group is stilI almost untouched by the Gospel. Can it be that Papua itself is to be the chief agent in the evangelization of that portion of the race to be found in the Solomon Islands ~ However that may be, we ought not in our missionary forward movements to forget our older missions, but" hold fast that which we have t.hat no man take our crown." As it was when the Messenger of Peace first landed native teachers in Samoa, so is it still. God has owned these natives as pioneers of the Gospel, but the vessels that take them and the men that train them and lead them will still for some time to come be European.
1892·1 NATIVE INSTRUMENTALITY IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
NATIVE INS,TRUMENTALITY IN FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY REV. A. BUNKER, D.D., TOUNGOO, BURMA.
Modern missions have now largely passed their formative stage, and are calling for new or modified methods. As Paul was the model missionary, we do well to study his methods for our own guidance. In this study we find that there were two stages in his work-the formative stage and the orgamzmg stage. In his early missionary life he wrought alone or with some chosen companion, preaching from place to place when able to travel. When converts had been gathered he changed his method. and went about organizing and confirming the churches and appointing pastors. He called into the work native helpers who had been instructed by him, and ordained them in the churches. He also commissioned them, as in the case of Timothy, to do the same work he had done. He thus laid upon the converts he had gathered the work he had formerly carded.
In this example set us by Paul we find a guide in our missionary enterprise. With us the first stage has been passed in many missions. Countries, nations, and tribes have been explored; written languages learned; the unwritten, in many cases, learned and reduced to writing; the Bible translated into many tongues; other useful books prepared; mission plant gathered, and a vast amount of preliminary work completed.
The Gospel message has been proclaimed far and wide, and native converts gathered in many missious by the hundreds and thousands. The calls for men and money are pressing and incessant, and missionary societies are having increased difficulty to find how to meet these calls.
The development of a native instrumentality on the mission fields is one way of meeting these demands, and asks for our consideration.
It is manifest ·that on many mission fields work has reached that stage where it must be done by native agency or not at all. It then becomes all important to know how best to develop that instrumentality.
It will be readily seen that such a development will not decrease the necessity of sending missionaries from Christian to heathen lands. In fact, this demand has been, and is likely to be always in excess of the supply. The necessity of prayer for laborers in the harvest is not likely to pass away. When home churches have done what they can for foreign work, there will still remain a vast deal of work uncompleted, which must be done by native workers, if done at all.
In this stage of mission progress there is an increasing caIJ for peculiar gifts in missionaries. In preliminary and pioneer work among the heathen, men of the highest ability have been required. They were men knowing no fear save the fear of God-men of resources, indefatigable, invincible in Christ.
In the second stage of missionary progress men of no less distinguished ability, though perhaps of a different kind are demanded. The work needs men of large execntive and organizing ability, who can multiply themselves in the native workers whom they find gathered to their hand j men apt to teach, and full of zeal, faith, and the Holy Ghost, like the heroes of the past.
The saying that men of small talent are good enough for the heathen, while those of large endowments are too valuable to be sent abroad, the future is likely to reverse. The mighty works of the Lord are yet to be wrought largely among the Gentiles who know not God, and who are as the sand of the sea-shore for number j and if so, there is to be scope for the activity of the great men of God in the future.
One reason why great importance should be given to the formation of a native ministry, is that the character of foreign mission work is better fitted to native than foreign talent. It requires long experience and much humility for a missionary to learn all he can from the natives in order to enable him to get down to the every-day life and thought of the beathen, and it is only in that low place that he can do his best work and reach the common people. It is often said that few churches in Christian lands really reach the masses. The reason of this does not come within the scope of this paper, but the missionary knows well that he can reach the heathen only as he comes into close touch with them. He cannot deal with them at arm's length. Moreover, he finds himself hedged about, as with a wall, by his ignorance of the language, manners, and customs of the people, and especially of their modes of thought. Through this wall he must work his way, requiring time and much patient labor. His own habits of life, thought, and sometimes even dress must be changed to accomplish his object. The native workers, however, have inherited this knowledge from their birth, and are at once in that place where they can best reach their countrymen after they themselves have found the truth. Best of all, they are in full and intelligent sympathy with their needs. Again, these workers can be more easily lifted into higher thought and life, and equipped for missionary work, than the foreign missionary can learn to adapt himself to these new conditions in which he finds himself. He clln reach his native helper much more easily than he can the masses about him, and thus instead of one, if he has the talent and .grace, he becomes many, multiplying himself in the native converts under his instruction.
This will go a long way in solving the question of how to meet these calls for help from mission fields. This brings us directly to the question before us-namely, how best to train np a native instrumentality on mission fields.
Doubtless one of the most important means at our disposal for this purpose is the training school. This raises the question of mi.ssion schools, much discussed in our day. It is a wide question, and must be settled largely by individual missions on local grounds. In general, however, ,mh'siQn schools have their use as well as abuse. In countries where the government is willing to aid schools, passing prescribed standards in examination, and where mission funds are small and the people poor, there is great temptation to secularize the school in order to retain the pupils under mission influence on the one hand, and to secure the government aid on the other. This is a very insidious temptation, and without doubt has led astray some missionaries and societies even. This temptation should be resisted most strenuously. It should be the aim to leave to the secular powers as much as possible all secular instruction. The preaching of the Gospel is pre-eminently the work of the missionary; but he sometimes finds the necessity of schools laid upon him, and it must not be forgotten that there are many ways of proclaiming the Gospel message. Even Paul had a school in his own hired house for two years.
It may be necessary, in training a body of native helpers, to establish even high schools and colleges, as well as theological seminaries, but such calls should be most carefully studied before being acceded to. We say it may be necessary, but only so, as such schools can be used in training a native instrumentality for mission work. If it is not possible to bend all school work in this direction, be it in primary or higher schools, then the sooner one drops secular instruction and reverts to direct missionary work, the better it will be for the cause of Christ.
Schools, then, which can be controlled in the direction of raising up trained native workers, are a powerful means to the end in view. Here the pupils are constantly under the eye and influence of the missionary, and having been brought to believe in Christ with a saving faith, are in the very best conditions to be prepared for the work before them.
In such school work there is the largest scope for the missionary talent. It has been said that" the method is the man." It is emphatically true that native converts will take very readily the stamp of their much-loved teachers, too readily copying their faults. How often can they be picked out as belonging to this or that known missionary by their mannerisms even, which they have copied from their teachers; but all-important will be the missionary's ability to impart zeal and enthusiasm to his pupils. He needs not only great faith, but Divine enthusiasm for souls, like Jesus and His servant Paul.
A second important method of instruction is by example. If there is any place where an example of Christian living is required, it is in that of the missionary teacher. As an evangeli~t he indeed needs to live the Christ-life daily, or his teachings are lifeless; but as a teacher who must impress his own character and individuality on the' learner, he, above all others, needs to live the Christ-life. It has been said that the heathen need not so much men and money as the Christ.life lived before them as an example. " The heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes." Experienced missionaries know very well how sharp·eyed the native converts are, when they have learned to compare Christian living with God's Word. Not only in daily living will example be powerful, but in work also. The missionary must not only teach his pupils to work, but show them how by his own example. He must lead them in teaching from house to house, and from town to town, and in exploring and opening new fields. He must show them what patient endurance means. We have a beautiful type of this kind of teaching in our Lord's training of His disciples, as He travelled and taught and wrought His mighty works before them. Often the missionary is called in like manner to lead a band of native workers, which frequently involves the mission of healing as well, as with Christ. Here is an almost unlimited field for practical training.
A third means for the development of a native ministry, and not the least, is found, first, in impressing upon the converts the fact that the duty of evangelizing the heathen about them is theirs, and not the work of the missionary alone j and, secondly, in laying upon them the responsibility of that duty. The missionary will be often pained to find that the converts are inclined to put him in the place of Christ j that they are ~eek ing how they may please him rather than their Redeemer. They seem to regard the building up of the kingdom of Christ as belonging to their missionary, while they are at most only helpers. This is a great mistake in instruction, if allowed to continue. The missionary 8hould impress upon his people, at all times, that this work is theirs, and that he is their helper only. They must realize, if possible, that the Divine commission comes to them directly, and not through man. In order to this end, all possible responsibility must be thrown upon them as they are able to bear it. It has been said justly that a wise missionary will never do what a native can do. It will often be easier for him to perform the work himself than to teach tho native worker how to do it, yet for the sake of the end in view this rule is safe to follow. It is true that he may need to " keep his hands on the lines," but he can do so "out of sight." He may, if he has tact, lead and not seem to lead. These are the best leaders of men, and the missionary cannot cultivate this talent too highly.
There has been too little of this putting of responsibility on the native Christians, and too much interference with the churches among them in past time. One can easily see how this comes about. After much labor and anxiety some are led to Christ. How dear these first converts become to the weary worker, and how solicitous he is for their spiritual welfare! He is too apt to judge them from his own standard and try to raise them to it; but it is better to imitate Paul, and leave the native converts largely to work out their own salvation. To try is to learn. Fail? Yes, they will make mistakes, but leave them to the guidance of the Holy Spirit to learn by their failures, as the children of God have done in all ages, but always with wise care and help when needed.
Just here comes in the question of self-help. It has been the custom of most missionaries to pay a stipulated stipend to native preachers and others. This plan, unless carefully guarded, is likely to work weakness in, instead of being a help to the native worker. One may leach him never so diligently that he is responsible to Christ alone, but 80 long as he feels that he is dependent on the will of his teacher for his monthly wages, he will with difficnlty learn the lesson of dependence on Christ. He is a child, and, like a child, feels obligation to him from w.hom his support visibly comes. There are many ways of helping native workers and not leading them under obligation to the helper. The practice of standing in the place of helper, instead of principal has, in the hands of tlie writer, wrought wonders in developing a self-reliant native ministry.
What is said here of individuals is also true of churches. These singly or associated, however, form a wider field for instruction, as they have special duties assigned them by the Head of the Church. One of the first lessons to be taught them is the power of organized effort. Heathenism disorganizes. Christianity reorganizes. Hence the missionary will be obliged to teach the new body of converts everything in church work. He will meet prejudices which it may take years of patient effort to overthrow. He cannot lay his plans to be consummated in a day or year even. Faithful, persistent, patient teaching, while throwing all possible responsibility upon the native churches, to enable them 10 work out and digest his instruction, will accomplish wonders in time.
Finally, there remains the dignity of the calling of the worker with Christ, and the glorious mission of the Church, to be impressed upon the native mind. 'Without a due sense of these, no corps of workers is duly equipped for their calling. Here is a call for the highest talent God has bestowed on man. Only Divine wisdom can meet the case. Here the missionary may well pause and tremble, for he is entering the Holy of Holies in his mission as a messenger of God to earth. It is here as nowhere else that the native converts take the stamp of their teacher.
When the native worker has come to realize that the work of the ministry of Christ is the best, the most honorable, and the best paid service on earth, and that the Church is engaged in a warfare with evil and darkness, which will, beyond doubt, result in a most glorious victory; when he can, by faith, rejoice in the midst of trials, as those who have already won the crown, a fire has been kindled on heathen soil which, by the grace of God, all the powers of darkness cannot put out. 'That but Divine wisdom can lead the native churches to such faith! Who but the Holy Spirit can enthuse them with the glory of their mission on earth and reward in heaven, and thus incite them to holy endeavor! The missionary, however, is the ordained channel of this grace, and only as he has fellowship with Christ, can he do the work laid upon him. Only as the workers in the kingdom of Christ in any land realize their high calling can they do their best work. This is the work for the missionary of the future. Using all means for the development of a corps of native workers in mission fields, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, we shall see the Gospel proclaimed in all lands, and the kingdom prepared for the enthronement of our Lord.
IN OUR MISSIONARY MEETING!!
HOW SHALL THE INTEREST IN OUR MISSIONARY MEETINGS BE INCREASED 1 * BY MRS. ETHAN CURTIS, SYRACUSE, N. Y.
In our larger cities are literary clubs, meeting weekly or semi-monthly, for which papers are most carefully prepared; attendance at them is regular, and many now outside are waiting and wishing to become members. Y,et our missionary societies, in spite of the large number of women in our church-membership, have discouragingly few at their monthly meetings.
Why this difference 1 Is America, Italy, or England preferable to the kingdom of heaven? Is the inspiration of Browning superior to that of St. John, or Shakespeare loftier in thought than Moses, Job, Isaiah, or David 1 Great as are all these, God's direct word to man is greater. Dear is our own country, the land of freedom j precious is Italy, the mother of art; grand is old England, the realm of thought; but the kingdom of heaven, the home of the soul, is better than all other regions.
These literary clubs are fashionable. If we may not make our mis. sionary meetings fashionable, let us at least make them attractive, even if wc borrow from our literary friends some of their methods.
First, let us, like them, make our appointments months beforehand, so that work be carefully prepared. Is not the story of our heroic and selfsacrificing missionary ministry worthy of as much study as poetry, literature, and art?
Let the main feature of the meeting be a strong, vigorous, well-prepared paper, or still better, talk. The subject may be the life of some missionary-biography is always interesting and inspiring. The deeds of the heroes of history make us long to be heroic. There was Carey, educated at the shoemaker's bench, yet becoming the finest lingui8t of India; Judson, a careless, reckless boy, rising to noblest manhood in Christ j Hannington, always human, but always heroic j Paton, working and waiting on the Lord; John Coleridge Patterson, gifted by nature and by race, offering himself to the rudest and roughest people with a supreme joy, because such was the Christ-life ; that other martyr of the South Seas, John Williams, brave in death as in life, giving himself always to forsaken souls; the Moffats in South Africa living there a half century for the Lord. One cannot name or number the biographies that will interest an audience if properly prepared. Then there are romances of missions: our own Oregon story; the Jesuit heroism in North America j the Madagascar mission; the New Zealand transformations; such tales make our best magazine stories pale in comparison. Even the degradation of these human brothers of ours and the dire needs of our fellow-men help us to lose self in longings to help others.
Some such paper should be the central point of the meeting, and there *MN. Cnrtis ill the Vice-President of the N. Y. Woman's Home Missionary Union. is no reason why a missionary paper should not have as much gl"ace of language and vigor of thought as the papers in the literary clubs. Never lose unity or "central radiance," as the old artists called it. The old st.ory is told of Leonardo da Vinci, that while painting the Last Supper, he thought how much" the cup" meant to man, and so lavished his love of detail upon that. When the picture was exhibited many called out, " How beautiful is the cup /" Next day he painted it over, and replaced it by the plainest piece of pottery, saying, " If in a single beholder's mind the cup distracts attention from the face of the Christ, it should have no place in my picture." Such a principle of art we do well to make our creed in missionary meetings.
Singing brightens and belongs to mission work, but be sure that the songs relate to the subject. One sings with peculiar tenderness, "I am coming to the cross" or "Jesus, lover of my soul," after a paper on Hannington. " My country, 'tis of thee" comes with an accompaniment of heart throbs when the story is Whitman's ride.
Instead of always taking Scripture by chapters, it is well to select passages having special application to the subject. A few words at the opening, with responsive sentences, given to individuals to be recited at appropriate intervals, are often very effective. A few phrases learned are better than many chapters read; better to have each member bring home an especial meaning from these Bible words than to have them suggest many and diverting thoughts.
A sacred feature of the meeting is prayer, a knowledge of the needs of the hour expressed with truth and with tendernes~, a right attitude of soul helping to right words and thoughts toward God. "Who can make us comprehend the grandeur, the majesty, the might of prayer~" It is the highest worship earth can show ; it includes the entire relation between man and God; it contains in itself all the longings of humanity fo'r heaven; it changes aspiration to inspiration; it completes all truth, all sentiment, all knowledge. Let our souls be prayerful, our minds earnest our hearts ardent with good wishes, and prayer, like the mist of the morning, will mount heavenward, because that is its natural pathway. Let us think and feel and long earnestly for this meeting, and prayer will be tho simplest, the sweetest, the most sacred portion of the programme. " We do not say prayer; prayer forms within us." Let our souls be wholly absorbed in God's cause, then the prayers of the hour will be a blessing and a benediction.
A map is almost essential to every missionary meeting. A simple outline map may be obtained from the missionary rooms. One can mark with pencil' the route needful to be traced, and pin small pieces of red paper on for missionary stations. If some one says that it looks as if " geography had a sudden attack of the measles," we must not be afraid of such criticisms; we are sending forth messengers of healing, and there may be appropriateness in such appearance. Mention the bound!lories of the chosen country; it is well to know the neighbors of any selected portion of the earth. Let Bome one else give population, that we may know how many hungry, helpless human beings call for us in their awful despair, or are settling into despondency that is worse than despair. Another may give the present material resources of the country, that we may know their outlook for an earthly future, and be stimulated to hasten our slowmoving missionary labors. Shall we allow Japan to grow and gain in everything but the Gospel? or our own West to unearth gold and silver while the heavens overhead are lead and brass? Shall we allow the mountain highlander to grow rich in mines and mills while body and soul are starving? Our missionary countries are not necessarily pauper lands. Some are natural Edens, fragrant with fruit and flower, but morally poisoned by sin. Shall we not seize these riches for the Lord?
What is the intellectual calibre of heathen peoples? Look at the litt;rature of the Orient, where man was first made and where the sun first dawns; some of these are reverent rhapsodies, when man was groping for God with his benighted brain. A sentence may show what they have done and thought, what they are capable of doing. Ages ago were the Vedas written, but still there are sharp wits and sentimental souls in the Orient, and these demand our best and brightest minds to teach them. The Indians of America have spoken many stirring words, well worth recalling. In our Congressional reports is a plea for the Bible from the lips of an Indian as thrilling and as pathetic as Lincoln's funeral oration, and as deserving to be held in memory.
Decorate the meeting-room with the handiwork of these people. Japan has taught pottery to the world. India and Persia and Turkey have almost translated beauty into a beatitude. Religion has been wrought, even by these heathens, in color and harmony exquisite to behold, and rich in suggestions of thought. Can they not also see the beauty of the true faith? If we are studying Africa, a bit of ivory may mean very much when it is known that the first missionaries in Africa lived upon a pittance, built their church and school without aid from the home society, the tusks of ivory larglly paying their expenses; or when we remember that the dead elephants did more than the living men and women of England toward opening the Dark Continent to the Gospel. Dolls dressed after the fashion of these pagan peoples may help us to know more about them and may teach us something of grace and comfort. An artistic lady once said, " I wish the heathen would send us some missionaries and teach us how to dress."
If we are studying home lands, some of the products of the soil, specimens of the ores, grains, special workmanship of the people, picture. of the scenery, may help. Photography may aid much, as the telescope does with the planets in diminishing distances. The nearer we get to these people in space, the closer our hearts will come to theirs.
·Whatever the country, let us have its flag. It is easily made from the dictionary illustrations. Nothing shows the soul of nationality like that country's banner with its device. Many spiritual meanings may be gained from the national emblem. A Japanese flag was used in a missionary con- cert. It was just a red circle sewed on a white ground, and cost only a few cents, and was the work of only a few moments. At the close a Japanesll told us something of the feeling of his nation for that flag. It preceded all processions, was hung before them on all grand occasions, and signified the rising sun. When he expressed a wish that his country should love the Sun of Righteousness as she loved her flag, keep Christ ever before her, the entire audience was stirred to aid Japan in her noble struggle.
Suppose some one writes a letter, imagining herself in some field at work as a missionary. She can give her life, its longings, its joys, its discouragements, and its blessings. This will help her and her audience to be interested in real missionaries; perhaps to do something beyond imagination for those whom she is representing.
Suppose some one brings up the objections to missionary work; a dozen will rise up in answer to them, and they will set Borne one to studying the real value of missions. Hawthorne found a cabin boy on the wharves reading a commentary on the Bible. He asked why he studied t/tat book in that place. The boy looked up with a knowing wink as he replied, "Ther's consid'rable her'sy in our place, and I'm studying up fur 'em." Honest doubts have led to the highest knowledge. Was not Thomas the doubter first of all to cry out, "My Lord and my God"? Strauss published his Life of Christ in 1835, and it looked for a time as if the best of the Bible was to be turned into a myth; but men greater than he set to work to answer him, and an entire literature arose on the one sinless and sacred life that has been given to humanity. After Strauss, the ministry everywhere took up the subject in pulpit and in press. All these have helped to bring the highest humanity into closer and more vital relations with common humanity until the first and the nineteenth centuries have joined hands in fervor and in faith. Thus doubt has become the stepping-stone to surest belief. Thill task of expressing doubts upon missions is good work for the women who neither attend the meetings nor give to the cause. Let a discussion follow. Doubtless even the doubter will be convinced. A sluggish spirit on this great subject is most to be feared. The surging waters are pure; but the stagnant pool gathers poison.
It is good to use the conversational method, even if the questions and answers are all arranged beforehand; but spontaneity is preferable. The greatest power of the leader is not in imposing silence, but in arousing speech.
Appoint watchmen, heralds, messenger girls, telegraph lads, to bring in the latest news from the field. Delivered during the session and in the regular telegraph form, they will awaken special interest and enthusiasm. Children, coming home from school, will be delighted with some such errand, and will not soon forget the message they have brought.
JOHANN LUDWIG KRAPF, A PIONEER OF .A.FRICAN MISSIONS
Vary missionary meetings as much as possible. No garment is so strong as to stand constant wear. No good method is always and everywhere successful. The best thing is for each to expect something new every time. When Joshua Reynolds began portrait painting, he adopted the style of his teacher, and painted all his men with their hats in their hands. It was easier to dispose of hats than of hands. One day he found a subject who had ideas of his own. He wished to wear his hat on the top of his head. The portrait was finished, the original came to claim it, when he found himself possessed of two hats, one on his head, the other in his hand. This cured Sir Joshua forever of fixed and forced attitudes. Repetition may be ridiculous elsewhere than in hats. It is well to find something new each time not only in subject, but in method and manner and in means. Children always call for new things, and we "children of a larger growth" must keep fresh and fervent all the longings of our lives, all the ways of working for the Master, if we would pass the bread of life from soul to soul. Fixed and forced forms are forever fatal to life. Growth is everywhere the law of greatness and of goodness.
These are only hints and suggestions. The use of the inventive powers will add much that will be of vital interest. The attendance in these monthly gatherings might be brought up to the hundreds, instead of standing below the score; and with a greater interest in the missionary meetings the contributions to missionary work would greatly increase.
JOHANN LUDWIG KRAPF, A PIONEER OF AFRICAN MISSIONS.* BY REV. F. WILKINSON, LIVERPOOL, ENG.
Johann Ludwig Krapf was born in 1810, near Tubingen. He would have followed farming, the occupation of his father, had not circumstances induced his parents to give him a superior education. During his school course the future explorer revealed himself in a special inclination to geography ; and at fourteen yearf he expressed a decided wish to be a captain and visit foreign countries. His father was desirous to carry out the boy's wish, if pOSSIble, but the cost was found to be beyond the resources of the family, and the idea was relinquished. A novel incident turned young Krapf's thoughts to the work of the mISSIOnary. The principal of the school one day read before his scholars a pamphlet on missionary work and the spread of Christianity among the heathen, desiring them afterward to embody the substance of the pamphlet in an essay. Ludwig had never before heard anything of missions, but what he now heard was enough, and he asked himself the question, "Shall I be a missionary, and go to the heathen~" This thought never left him, and at the age of seventeen he travelled to Basle to offer himself as a mis- • The pre.ent article is based npon the life of Dr. Krapf by W. Claus (in German). sionary student. The principal of the institution advised him, on account of his youth, to return home for a time, to continue his studies, and to endeavor to grow in the knowledge of Scripture and of his own character, and wait for God's guidance.
The following year found him in the institution at Basle, but the intellectual and spiritual condition of the place did not entirely satisfy .his expectations, while the reading of the mystical writings of Madame Guion and Jacob Bohn so unsettlecl his mind, that he could not with a good conscience remain longer in the institution at the expense of tbe mission. He laid before the committee the grounds of his decision, and left the institution two years after he entered it. Returning home, he continued his studies, passed the university examination, and p.,ished in 1834 the theological course.
His heart had often turned to the mission house at Basle, especially when his cousin-a namesake-entered the institution, but he determined to enter the ministry at home, arguing that thus he could carry on ~ork similar to that which his cousin would prosecute in non-Christian lands. Be accordingly settled at vVolf~nhausen, where the neglected condition of his parish and the work he had to do became the means of bringing more vividly to his mind the needi of the heathen world.
He wrote: "The inducements to mission work appeared to me in a new light. In the needs of my congregation I recognized those of non-Christians in a measure that affected me very deeply; in their sorrow I recognized the wretchedness of the heathen; the cry for help from my own congregation seemed an echo from heathen lands. The grace which I myself enjoyed, and which I commended to my own people. was, I felt, for the heathen as well, but there might be no one to proclaim it to them. Here, everyone may without difficulty find the way of life; in those lands there lliay be no one to show the way. Bere, in almost every house the Holy Scriptures may be found; there, the Scriptures are only scantily distributed. This seems to me a powerful incentive to think seriously of missionary work."
An event soon occurred which left him free to follow his inclinations. Some incautious pulpit utterances gave offence to the ecclesiastical authorities, and he was deprived of the living at Wolfenhausen. A few months afterward he once more offered himself for missionary work, stronger in every respect and better equipped for the work. .Being willing to go wherever his services were needed, and the Abyssinian Mission requiIing another worker, he left for that country in February, 1837, arriving in Alexandria in April, and travelling up the Nile to Cairo, where he had his first glimpse of Africa's greatest curse-the slave trade. In the 1Ihive market he found the poor creatures lying on the bare earth, by day fainting in the burning rays of the sun, at night placed in a stable without any covering except, at the most, a few rags around their loins. There they lay -young and old of either sex-to be examined by buyers, like cattle. This first experience of slavery gave him a new impulse to do his utmost for the sprEad of the Gospel in Afriea, as the most effectual remedy for the miseries of its people. From Suez and Massowa he travelled, with difficulty and danger, to the highlands of Abyssinia, and joined Isenberg and Blumhardt at Adoa, in the hope that their united labora would bring such life into the Abyssinian Church as would make it a missionary church; but soon after priestly jealousy so worked upon the fears of the ruling prince as to induce him to issue a peremptory order to the missionaries to leave his territory and go to their own land. Repulsed in Northern Abyssinia, Krapf resolved to find his way to Shoa in the south. A sudden illness, however, compelled him to return to Cairo. After a time he made a second attempt to reach Shoa, arriving there in June, 1839, in company with Isenberg, who in a few months returned to Egypt, and left Krapf alone. Notwithstanding the geod-will of the king, the work in Shoa was slow and discouraging, and Krapf regarded the neighboring heathen tribe (the Gallas) as offering more hope of successful work than the nominal Christians of Abyssinia.
In 1842 he left Shoa for a short while, partly to meet his flture wife in Egypt, and partly to help on their way two new brethren-Mllhleisen and MUller-who, he was told, had arrived on the Abyssinian coast. Setting out on foot, after considerable difficulty and suffering from robbery, hunger, and the fatigues of travel, he arrived at his destination only to learn that the missionaries he expected to meet had returned to Egypt. It was thus necessary, apart from his private concerns, to visit Egypt to bring back the two brethren who had fled from the difficulties of their position.
While in Egypt he married Rosine Dietrich, that loving, faithful, and steady helpmeet in the difficulties and dangers of his career. With his wife, Isenberg, and Miihleisen Krapf set out to return to Shoa; but on arriving at Tajurrah he receiTed the astounding intelligence that the king forbade him to enter his dominions, an act which, like the expulsion from Adoa, was due to priestly interference.
Isenberg and Miihleisen travelled back to Massowa, in order to reach Gondar, while Krapf betook him8elf, with his wife, to Aden, desirous to gct into Gallaland by the south; but finding this impracticable, he determined to follow his two fellow-laborers, taking with him a number of Ethiopic and Amharic Scriptures, so that he might at least, by the circulation of the Scriptures, do what he could for the spiritual welfare of Abyssinia.
He landed at Massowa, and began the journey to the interior in company with a trading caravan. While passing through the Shoho desert, his wife, who in spite of her state of health had accompanied him, prematurely gave birth to a daughter, having no medical aid, or even the assistance of one of her own sex. The child lived but an hour, yet long enough to be baptized, receiving from its parents the name of Gneba (tears). In the evening they buried the little one at the foot of a tree, the father conducting a funeral service in Amharic. It was only by great e1Iort that Krapf succeeded in obtaining three days rest for the young mother, at the end of which she was obliged to set out again with the caravan.
On reaching the boundary of Tigre, Isenberg and Miihleisen met them with the distressing intelligence that the Prince of Tigre would not allow them to enter his territory. Thus every attempt to establish themselves in Abyssinia was frustrated. The door was closed at Adoa in the north, and at Ankober and Shoa in the south, and Gondar, in the centre of the country, they could not reach. Even then Krapf did not lose heart j his faith rose above present discouragement, as is evident from what he says when writing home: " Abyssinia will not soon again enjoy the time of grace she has so shamefully slighted. Meanwhile we will not cease to pray fof that unfortunate land, especially commending to the Lord the many copies of His precious Word, that He would bless them and make them witnesses of His truth. It is a consolation to us and to dear friends of the mission to know that over eight thousand copies of the Scriptures have found their way into Abyssinia. These will not all be lost or remain without a blessing.
Faith speaks thus: Though every mission should disappear in a single day and leave not a trace behind, I would still cleave to mission work with my prayers, my labors, my gifts, with my body and soul j for there is the command of the Lord .Tesus Christ, and where that is there is also His promise and His final victory."
Krapf determined to atte~pt to gain a footing on the East Coast of Africa, in order from there to reach the Gallas, whose language he already understood. With this object in view, he sailed, with his wife, in an Arab vessel from Aden in November, 1843. Strong headwinds and a heavy sea compelled them to return to Aden. In spite of their exertions, the water gained upon them in their leaky boat, and on reaching the entrance to the harbor of Aden the land wind drove back the vessel toward the open ocean. There was indeed a ship's boat, but it could not carry twenty-five persons in a rough sea. Just then a bumboat coming within hearing, Krapf asked its captain to take them on board. This he at first declined to do, and only by promises and threats Krapf at last succeeded in inducing him to take them off the sinking vessel, which in half an hour after they left it sank. Eight days later Krapf sailed again. and after four or five weeks' journey arrived at Takaungu, north of the island of Mombas. He then went on to Zanzibar, and after a favorable reception from the Sultan sailed northward again to fix upon a favorable position for a mission station. As the result of his inquiries and observation he decided upon Mombas.
Scarcely, however, had he begun work at Mombas when he was called to pass through another sorrow, in the loss of his wife. She was attacked with fever, which was the more serious a<; she was daily expecting to become a mother. A daughter was born, and a renewed attack of fever brought her very low. In prospect of death, she felt for a time disquieted regard- ing her spiritual state; but her husband's words about the grace of God and the completeness of Christ's work had such a consoling effect upon her that she said: "I have obtained grace and mercy from the Lord; He has looked upon me ; I feel His presence as I have never felt it before." She then prayed for relatives, for the mission, and for East Africa, and for the Sultan, that God would incline his heart to promote the eternal welfare of his subjects. The next day she appeared much better, but the day follow- ing much worse, while her husband himself was so weakened by fever as to be obliged to leave the care of her almost entirely to servants. The next day she breathed her last, and on the following morning-Sundaythey buried her, according to her wish, on the mainland in the territory of the Wanika. During the night the little daughter also passed away, and was laid by the mother's side. Krapf, even amid all these trials, writes, in a letter to the secretary of the missionary society : "Tell the committee that in East Africa there is the lonely grave of one member of the mission connected with your society. This is an indication that you have begun the conflict in this part of the world; and since the conquests of the Church are won over the graves of many of its members, you may be all the more assured that the time has come when you are called to work for the conversion of Africa. Think not of the victims who in this glorious warfare may suffer or fall ; only press forward until East and West Africa are united in Christ."
Recovering strength, he continued his work, occasionally making short journeys from Mombas to the mainland among the Wanika, anxious to establish a mission station among this people, especially to open the way into the interior of Africa-al ways a prominent idea with him.
In 1846 he had thc joy of welcoming as a fellow-laborer Rebmann, who was jn one respect the very opposite of Krapf. The latter, restless and energetic, entertained far-reaching plans, and even saw in imagination a chain of mission stations stretching from Mombas to the Niger, and thus connecting East and West Africa; Rebmann, on the contrary, had determined to settle in one place and work there. In spite of this dissimilarity, they were at once drawn to each other, and Krapf, after two years of loneliness, could well appreciate the presence and help of a fellow-laborer. They decided on Rabbai Mpia, a Wanika village not far from the seacoast, as the mission site. In October of the same year they finished a house so far as to aIIow of their living in it, and Krapf remarks, " Every true friend of Christ's kingdom must rejoice over this mission, for it is the first step in the way to the heart of Africa. We have secured a position whence the unexplored regions of the interior can be reached and the ancient bulwarks of Satan assailed by the messengers of Christ."
The people, though keenly alive to the material advantage of having Europeans among them, were perfectly indifferent to the truths they taught. They showed themselves inveterate beggars; the mission house looked like a shop with a crowd of customers, who, however, had no intention to pay. The missionaries naturally felt a difficulty in dealing with the requests of the people. To give them everything they asked for would increase their avarice, and seem like bribing them to become Christians, while to refuse every request would lead the heathen to conclude that, though the white teachers spoke much of love and self-denial, they did not practise these virtues. Krapf was inclined to be liberal in his gifts, arguing that though the missionary cannot heal the sick and raise the dead, he can at least perform the miracles of love, humility, patience, and self-sacrifice, leading the heathen to say among themselves, ""How is it that the missionary submits to so much on our account, and does us so much kindness ~"
Like many other missionaries, in the early period of his work he thought it incumbent upon him to spend much time in attacking the beliefs and practices of the people, in .:onsequence of which the simple presentation of Christian truth fell somewhat into the background. Upon this point he says: "I have a conviction that for some time past I have argued too much against the heathen customs and practices of the Wanika, for their abominations excited my indignation; but I ought to preach to them more of the love of Jesus to the lost erring slaves of Satan. I must pity them more, and speak to them more pitifully and sympathizingly." Still some encouraging signs did appear, for one convert was made, who gave evidence that Christian truth was a power in his life; this man, too, was the means of bringing to the missionaries another, who eventually became a true Christian worker among his countrymen.
Krapf was not tho man to rest long contented with work at one station. His fixed idea was a chain of stations stretching across Africa, and he attempted several times to penetrate farther into the interior, visiting Usambara, to the southwest, in 1848, and the land of the Wakamba in the following year. In both places he received a friendly welcome from chiefs and people, and" everything seemed favorable for the extension of the mission.
Twelve years of unremitting labor in Africa had now passed away, and Krapf thought the time was come to visit Europe for rest and change, and to arouse a greater interest in African missions. During his stay in Europe he secured the promise of three missionaries and three artisans to strengthen the African mission. With the former he hoped to place two stations farther in the interior, and by the aid of the latter to carry out a plan long in contemplation-the establishment of a Christian colony. On his departure from Europe the outlook for the East African Mission was at its brightest. With him were two missionaries, Pfefferle and Dihlmann, and three mechanics. On reaching Aden, Dihlmann, who had scruples about connecting himself with the English Church, remained at Aden. Further, on arriving at Rabbai, Rebmann and Erhardt, who previously had fully agreed to his plans, were found to be opposed to farther extension, without first laying a firm base of operations on the coast. In theory they were perhaps right, but Krapf thought that a disinclination to encounter hard- ships had not a little to do with their opposition to his forward movement.
There grew up also an unbrotherly estrangement between Rebmann and Erhardt, on the one side, and the three mechanics, on the other, resulting in much trouble to Krapf, who had a difficult task in dealing with both parties. Again, the three artisans and Pfefferle were stricken with fever, of which the latter died after a few weeks' illness; thus trouble after trouble seemed to fall upon Krapf. Yet he wrote to Dr. Barth in June, 1851, the following noble, even prophetic words: "And now let me look backward and forward. In the past what do I see ~ Scarcely IU6re than the ren:.nant of a defeated army. You know I had the task of strengthen- ing the East African Mission with three missionaries and three handicrafts- men ; but where are the missionaries ~ One remained in London, as he did not consider himself appointed to East Africa; the second remained at Aden, in doubt about the English Church; the third, Pfefferle, died on May lOth of nervous fever, into which the country fever had developed.
As to the three mechanics, they are ill of fever, lying between life and death, and instead of being a help to me and to Brothers Rebmann and Erhardt, look to us for help and attention; and yet I stand by my asser- tion that Africa must be conquered by missionaries; ther9 must be a chain of mission stations between the east and west, though thousands of the combatants fall upon the left hand and ten thousand on the right.
From the sanctuary of God a voice says to me, , Fear not; life comel!
through death, resurrection through decay, the establishment of Christ's kingdom through the discomfiture of human undertakings Instead of allowing yourself to be discouraged at the defeat of your force, go to work yourself. Do not rely on human help, but on the living God, to whom it is all the same to save by little or much. Do what you can in the strength of God, and leave the result in His hands. Believe, love, fight, be not weary for His name's sake, and you will see the glory of God.'
" Now when I heard this voice I could accompany my departed brother to the grave in the conviction that in spite of this the Lord's work in Africa must and will advance. It does not matter if I fail entirely; the Lord is King, and will carry out His purpose in His own time."
Soon after his coadjutor's death Krapf made a journey to Ukambani, about one hundred miles from Rabbai, to establish a station; but the journey ended disastrously. While travelling in company with a friendly chief, a superior force attacked the chief's party, the chief himself was slain, his followers scattered, and the missionary abandoned by friend and foe. There was nothing left but to retrace his steps, and after much suffer- ing from hunger and thirst, he at last reached one of the villages of the vVakamba completely exhausted. Suspicious that the villagers had designs upon his life, he stole away at night to travel to Yata, but the difficulties of the way-in which he advanced only six miles in three nights-determined him to return to the Wakamba village and surrender at discretion. •, Kill me if you will," he said, "but you must take the consequences." On the other hand, if they allowed bim to leave in peace, he promised them a portion of the property he had left behind at Yata. To this they agreed, and after reaching Yata and fulfilling his promise, he returned to the coast with some Wanika, arriving at Rabbai after nine days' travelling, to the joy of his fellow. laborers, who had heard reports of his death, The following year he. paid another visit to U sambara ; but war having broken out, he was compelled to return without accomplishing anything toward the settlement of a mission.
And now his health making another visit to Europe necessary, he left in 1853 for his native land, in the following year setting out again for East Africa, taking Abyssinia on his way, to endeavor, by an interview with the king, to revive the mission in that country. On leaving Abyssinia, instead of returning to Egypt via the Red Sea, he chose the route by the Nile Valley; but the journey so told upon his weak health that, on arrival in Egypt, he had to embark for Europe-a return to East Africa was not to be thought of, Passing over his life in Europe, we now come to his last visit to his old field of labor. Wishing to open up a mission in East Africa, the Methodist Free Churches requested Krapf to accompany their missionaries-W oolner and Wakefield-to Africa, and to assist them in commencing a mission. He consented, and after seeing Wakefield settled at Ribe, the new station (illness had already driven Woolner back to Europe). he returned home, his health not allowing a prolonged stay. Of the new station he remarked: "The station Ribe will in due time celebrate the triumph of the mission in the conversion of the Wanika, though I may be in the grave. The Lord does not allow His Word to return to Him void, although often our own desponding hearts and the unbelieving opponents of missions will say, You are laboring in vain."
With these hopeful words his life as an African missionary came to an end; he only entered the Dark Continent once more, and that was as interpreter to the British expedition to Abyssinia in 1867, though even then ill-health compelled him to leave the army before the expedition had reached its destination.
From tbis time onward he passed a quietly active life in taking his Oriental manuscripts through the press, and in unostentatious efforts for the spiritual good of others. Africa was still dear to him ; he had the joy of hearing from time to time of the progress of missions in that continent, and especially that the work he began in East Africa had not proved unfruitful.
The closing scene came on November 26th, 1881. In the afternoon of that day Krapf said to a friend: "I am so penetrated by the feeling of the nearness of 'the Lord's coming that I cannot describe it. He is indeed near; oh ! we ought to redeem the time, and hold ourselves in
PRAYER AND MISSIONARY WORK
readiness, that we may be able to say with a good conscience, • Yea, come, Lord Jesus.' It will be glorious when our Saviour appears as a conqueror and His enemies have become His footstool. Then shall we both be permitted to see that our work for the Lord has not been in vain." He spent the evening until 9 o'clock in correcting proofs, and then, after family prayer, visited his sick wife, leaving her with the words, "Good-night, dear mamma; the dear Saviour be thy pillow, thy canopy, and thy nightwatch." Then with a loving "good-night" to his daughter, he retired to his room and, as was his custom, locked the door. Not appearing at his usual hour in the morning, his daughter called him, but receiving no answer, the fears of the household were aroused, and on making their way into the room they found he had " gone home" while kneeling at the bedside.
PRAYER AND MISSIONARY WORK.
BY W. D. mIDLAND, TAl-CHOW, CHINA.
The China Inland Mission was begun and is carried on by prayer. Ea~h member, on being received, is told that he is to look to the Lord to' supply his need, and not to the mission. Mr. Hudson Taylor said to me, when accepted for China, " The mission might become bankrupt, but the Lord never could; difficulties might occur which would hinder funds being sent inland, but the Lord would be inland."
These remarks came with double force to me. I had been lIome months in London, and my stock of savings was exhausted. I was to pay a farewell visit to my mother, some two hundred miles distant, but I had not a penny to buy. a stamp for a letter saying I was coming, and of course I had no money for my railway fare. I had only to mention my need, and friends would have supplied it at once; but we were to look to the Lord in China, and if I could not look to Him now, at home with friends around me, what would I do perhaps alone in a heathen land! I went alone and pleaded with God as perhaps never before. Two days passed; I expected money by letter, but none came. It was Saturday, and I was at the usual prayer-meeting. After the meeting Mr. Taylor asked me to carry his bag to the station, as he was to spend Sunday in the West End. I gladly did so ; and just as the train was starting he said to me that, perhaps, I might need money for travelling expenses, and put a sovereign in my hand. This 80 took me by surprise that I nearly dropped it. How I inwardly praised the Lord for a direct answer to prayer just when I was not expecting it ! My letter was already written and shortly was in the post. The battle was fought, the victory won, and my faith strengthened for service in China.
The next day I was introduced to a gentleman, who on shaking hands lI.nd wishing me Godspeed left a half sovereign in it. Two days later another gave me two pounds, and so, time after time, the Lord supplied all my need until we left for China. Only the Lord knew my need, and it was years before I told anyone of it but my godly mother.
I remember, too, Mr. Taylor telling us that we must join him in prayer for the fundd needed for outfit and passages, if we were to leave in May, as proposed. We had daily united prayer for this object, and the results are told by Mr. Taylor himself in the" Occasional Paper," No.2. "On this day [March 12th] I again examined my mission cash book, and the comparison of the results of the two similar periods of one month and six days eachone before and one after special prayer for £1500 to £2000-was very striking: Receipts from December 30th to February 6th, £170 8s. 3d.
" "February 6th to March 12th, 1774 58. lld. Funds advised since received 200 0 0 Total receipts since February 6th, £1974 58. lld.
This was previous to the circulation of the' Occasional Paper,' and conse- quently could not be the result of it. It was the response of a faithful God to the united prayers of those whom He had called to serve Him in the Gospel of His dear Son. We can now compare with these two periods a third of the same extent. From March 12th to April 18th the receipts were £529, showing that when God had supplied the special need, the special supply had also ceased. Truly there is a LIVING GOD, and He is the hearer and answerer of prayer."
Such direct answers to prayer and supply of all need furnished great encouragement to young workers just beginning their life work to go forward, believing that He who had thus shown His faithfulness would supply all further need when in a heathen land. He had already shown us that we had only to ask and receive.
Twenty-six years have passed, and the Lord has continued to provide in many ways, showing that He is not limited to anyone line of action.
In one case our need was supplied by a heathen prefect. In China all foreigners are supposed to know something about medicine, especially missionaries j so I was sent for to visit the private secretary of the prefect of the city, who was very ill, aud whom the native doctors could not cure. This was rather a trying ordeal, as I was quite ignorant of medicine j but this they would not believe, so that I could hardly refuse to go. After prayer for guidance, I went, taking a native helper with me. We found the patient suffering from fever and ague, while his knee joints were both set fast. After leaving him, I sent a quinine mixture such as I had taken myself for ague and some camphorated oil to rub on his knee joints. Two days after I went again to see him, and found he could move one leg and that the fever was less. He soon got well, and came to thank me mr for kindness. Nearly two months after this, when our funds were so exhausted that we had only 3 cash in the house (less than a farthing), we had a little rice, and were making that go as far as we could. Just after a very frugal dinner there came a sharp rap at the door, two men came in with half a goat, a piece of beef, a large fish, and some sweetmeats. According to the usual custom, I was going to take a part and return the rest, but the men said that they were under strict orders not to take anything back; that the prefect was sorry he could not get a better present to send j but there was still a difficulty. It is the custom to give something to those who bring a present j but the Lord knew we had nothing to give, and had provided for that, too, for they themselves were told not to accept any- thing on any account. This is the first and last time I have had such a present, or 8Qnt without the bearer expecting to be well paid. It being cold weather, the food kept and lasted us till supplies came to hand.
Again our need was supplied for enlarging the house. The native house we were living in-the only one to be had at the time -was very small, and the matting ceiling so low that one could touch it with the hand. This with the thermometer from 96 0 to 1000 in the house in the summer was not conducive to health or calculated to fit one for work. Knowing that mission fnnds were low, we set apart a day for fasting and prayer, that the Lord would enable us to add one or two larger and more airy rooms before another summer. Other difficulties besides lack of money were to be overcome. The house was a rented one, and to add to it without some new agreement was to have our rent raised, nor could we remove the addition if leaving for a more suitable house. We also needed a small piece of ground joining the house, which belonged to anothAr man. We made a note of the date of our prayer, and waited for the Lord to work. Shortly after the landlord came to terms, the needed agreement was drawn up, and the piece of ground was bought. These difficulties being removed, we had not long to wait for funds, as a check came from a friend in England, outside the mission, who knew nothing about our need, which nearly covered the expense of the addition. After thanking God for it I looked at my note-book, and found that the check was drawn on the day we had spent in fasting and prayer-a fnlfilment of the promise, "Before. they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." A prisoner was released in answer to prayer. Our native Christians often go to God in their simple, childlike faith, and ask for things which at times to us seem strange. Some eighteen years ago an aged woman came to one of our chapels in a newly opened station, and asked if this was a Roman Catholic place of worship, but was told that our worship was very different from that. The Gospel was put plainly before her, and sounded very strange to her. She was a devout Buddhist, had visited all the noted shrines and temples year by year, in order to obtain merit. She had already gone to the Roman Catholics, and thought that their religion was a little better than. her own j but now shew as told that her merit was useless j that she niU8t come to Jesus as a poor, helpless, lost sinner j that she could have eternal life as a free gift by putting her trust in the Lord J e~ms Christ. She left, promising to come again erelong.
She came again, but this time bowed down with sorrow. Her husband was constable of the village, and consequently responsible for the conduct of the people. A murder had been committed in the village, and news of it had reached the ears of the magistrate. The murderer had escaped, the magistrate was very angry, and said he would punish the constable instead of the murderer, as is often done in some parts of China j but he was an old man, so the magistrate took his son instead, and everybody said that unless the murderer could be found he would lose his head. So she had come with her heart almost breaking to know if Ah-kying, the native helper, could assist her. lIe told her that to go and plead with the magistrate for her son would be useless j but he could pray to God for her j that God would hear and answer prayer, and help her if they prayed to Him. The mother said she would gladly pray to God if she knew how. So they knelt down together. Ah-kying told the Lord all her trouble, asked God to deliver her son, and also that both mother and son might be saved from eternal death.
She returned to her home, told her husband and neighbors how this Christian had prayed to God, and how confident he was of his prayer being speedily answered. Day after day passed, and still no news of the poor prisoner j but one afternoon, just as hope was beginning to die away, she saw coming toward the house her son, alive, set f~ee from prison. He could not understand it himself, for he had not the least _ expectation of being released. That morning the magistrate had sent for him, had him beaten, then set him at liberty. Great was the joy at his return.
The mother told him about Ah-kying's prayer, and for weeks they walked about eight miles to the chapel to worship the God who had answered prayer, and saved the son from death.
Some weeks after, she, her son, and a neighbor came to see me, and told me the whole .tory. They begged me to send some one to their village with them, as many of their neighbors wished to hear more of this prayerhearing God j but I had no one to send, and when I went that way again no trace of them could be found. I heard afterward that they left the place, and did not wish their whereabouts to be known, lest, after all, they should get into trouble.
We have now an outstation within a mile of this village, and a family of native Christians in the village itself. Had we been able to follow up that case at once a whole Christian village might have been the result.
OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO CHRIST FOR TEMPORAL BLESSINUS
OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO CHRIST FOR TEMPORAL BLESS. INGS.-Ill.
BY REV. T. LAURIE, PROVIDENCE, R. I.
We are SO accustomed to the large measure of our freedom that we seldom thiuk how few nations are so favored. Among them all England approaches tbe nearest to onr liberty, but even there the battles for the rights of the people are not all fought yet. It was at a great cost that our fathers purchased our privileges, not only on the battle-fields of the Revolution, but during that first winter at Plymouth; yea, in the dungeons and even on the scaffolds of England under Queen Elizabeth and her successors.
There is hardly a greater contrast to our institutions than that afforded by the theocratic, absolute monarchy of Turkey. Time and again Ratti sherifs (honored edicts) have been issued promising the speedy enactment of laws to secure life and property with a regular mode of collecting taxes, and time and again have things gone on precisely as before. In Turkey the only limit to oppression is the impossibility of carrying extortion further; and however far it is carried, few of the sufferers think of an infringement of their rights; they are only conscious of greater misery, and passively submit to the inevitable.
It may be said that it is not wise to expose oppression so long as our missionaries are in the empire; but the story of Turkish oppression has already gone forth ou the wings of the wind. It is too late to cover it up. Every traveller adds to the list of facts already published; and standard bo~ks of reference embody the results. From a broad induction of facts the Encyclopr:edia Britannica concludes (xxiii., 654, 9th ed.) : "All its officials unite in their own persons the judicial and executive functions, and are, as a rule, thoroughly corrupt, venal in the dispensation of justice, oppressors of the subject, and emblezzlers of the public re'enues, and wholly absorbed in amassing wealth during their generaIly brief and precarious term of office." A note on the same page gives a specimen of the facts as follows: " Mr. G. P. Devey, Consul at Erzrum, reports that in one place in that province the sheep-tax for 1885 was collected three times over. At first the number was underestimated, only 9000 piastres being paid. So the collector came again, and instead of the difference between that and the correct amount, made the villagers pay the entire 14,000 piastres. Then he came a third time, and because he knew they had no receipt-for he had given them none-he collected the 14,000 piastres again." Row many governments are there whose officials would have dared to do that !
Such extracts might be multiplied, but we hasten to add that the Turkish Government has no truer fflends than our missionaries, or any who do more to promote its prosperity. Though they suffer in the suffering of tbeir people, they suffer in silence. Or if they speak, they exhort to submit to the higher powers, "for there is no power but of God" (Rom. 13 : 1), and while they weep with them that weep, they bid them "humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt them in due time" (1 Pet. 5 : 6), " being in subjection with all fear not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Pet. 2 : 18).
They also inculcate that patient industry and thrift, also that truthful. ness in daily life which Turkey needs so much to make her truly prosperous. Turkish officials know that however the prison and the bastinado are prominent factors in the collection of the taxes of other communities, they are never needed to collect those of evangelical Christians. The only fear is lest the enormity of their oppressions prove too strong for the teaching of the missionaries, for we have it on good authority that "extortion maketh a wise man foolish" (Eccles. 7: 7), or, as the old version reads~ " oppression maketha wise man mad."
In 1882 the debt of the Turkish Empire was more than $532,000,000. The annual expense of the seraglio is from one to two millions more. The original cost of the steamers and ironclad vessels in the navy with the annual outlay for their maintenance is immense. The army is a still heavier burden, and is distributed over the whole empire. Though the pay of a private is only 90 cents a month, yet some provinces cannot do much more than support their own soldiery. The government then must have money. Whence does it come? Commerce is mostly in the hands of foreigners. Manufactures hardly exist, and what there are cannot compete with imports from abroad, which are much cheaper. Agriculture is carried on in most primitive methods, and the peasant is so ground down by taxation that every year he has Jess money to pay with than he had the year before. Tax-gathering seems to be the one business of the government. If it sought to develop the natural resources of the country, a much larger revenue might be collected with less trouble both to the people and the tax-gatherer, but so far from doing this it pounces on everyone who seeks to better his estate, and demands more additional taxes sometimes than the improvement produces. So while, on the one hand, it represses all enterprise, on the other, it extorts to the very uttermost all that it can lay hands on.
The Pashaliks of the empire are generally sold to the mghesG bidder, and the buyer must hasten to get back his investment before anothAr offers a larger sum and takes his place. Then, if while hurrying ~~ reimburse himself, he does not keep up large remittances to the capital, he is liable at any moment to lose his place. Money thus flows constantly from the circumference to the centre, leaving provinces continually more impoverished to supply the stream. In such a state of things who expects a pasha to seek the good of his people? I knew one who tried to lighten their burdens, and sought nothing for himself; but as his remittances were small, he was set aside for another who would be a better sponge.
It is a necessary part of this process, that so long as the purses move toward Constantinople there shall be no questions asked as to the manner in which they were filled. Every petty official may add to the sum he is expected to collect-whatever in his modesty he thinks will remunerate him for his trouble-so that by the time the demand reaches the tax-payer it has grown to several times its original amount. I was sitting one day in the salaam luk of the commander of a garrison in Kurdistan, shortly after the massacre of the mountain Nestorians, when one of them brought in the tribute of his small hamlet to pay to the Turk. He began to I:ndo the numerous fastenings of a bag that had heen patched so often. it was impossible to tell its original material. Snatching it from him, the Tnrk ripped it open with his dagger, tore out a gold coin that had been wrapped in many coverings and sewed into one corner of the bag, hastily tossed the remaining coins over, and pronounced the 300 Tcherkies only 277, and thus addressed the astonished tribute· bearer: "Either bring the lacking 23 in two days, adding another 50 to pay me for my trouble, or flee, if your people have a place to flee to, for I will come and take what I want at the mouth of my cannon." What could the man do ~ I presume there was hardly a coin left in the village, and many of those he brought had been pierced, as if the women had given up the ornaments of their head-dresses to pay the taxes-ornaments which they never part with save under the direst necessity.
This oppression is not visited on Christians only; Mohammedans also suffer. On our way to Tiyary, in 1843, Dr. Grant and the writer passed several villages in succession empty and desolate. The climate was delightful, the soil fertile, and water abundant, but the houses Were roofless and the fields generally untilled. One of them was Bastawa, the home of the chief of Mezury, whose wife was there with a few attendants securing the rice crop. Totally different from her coarse companions, her appearance at once awakened our interest. The tassels of a fine silk shawl depended gracefully from the lower border of her head-dress. A green silk saltah (jacket), lined with fur, but. evidently well worn, covered a dress of coarse blue cotton, suggestive at once of former wealth and present poverty. Her face, still beautiful, showed a spirit roused rather than crushed by misfortune. Dr. Grant asked if she could furnish us lodgings for the night. At the question the smouldering fire kindled up. Rising to her full height, while one hand threw back her braided hair, she pointed with the other to the roofless houses and the ruined castle. " Look around; you have stripped us of everything and driven us forth to beg, and now do you ask our hospitality 1 Go to those with whom you have still left something, and God be judge between us." She said more, but this was the substance of her address in Kurdish, as translated by our servant. She did not rave. Gesture, look, and tone were faultless. She seemed to scorn to yield to the violence of passion. There was a dignity of sorrow about her that moved us even more than her words, and made thelll understood eveII Pllfore they were translated. We stood ashamed of our Turkish dress, that led her so to mistake US, and though as !loon as she learned who we were she offered to share with us the food she had brought from her pre~ent home, we had to move on, a<I there was absolutely nothing for our horses, thinkiag as we went much more of her than of our own discomforts.
A Kurdish chief, whom Dr. Grant had visited at his home in Akra on his first entrance into Tiyary, claimed descent from the Abasside caliphs of Baghdad, and was lord of many villages along the valleys and on the hill-tops, but he could not satiate the cravings of the Pasha of Mosul, who, without even a trial, imprisoned him three months, and set another over his estates. He then was ordered to remove his family to Mosul. Long after he had done this he told his old friend, the doctor, "I have been here three years, my means are nearly exhausted, and what I am to do I cannot tell." From sources like these we learned how the Turkish taxgatherer, claiming that a field will yield ten times what it does, demands most of the actual product for the pasha, and enforces the demand without mercy. How, then, are the peasants induced to sow their fields 1 The publican of last year is imprisoned till he disgorges what he had retained for himself, and his successor swears by the prophet to deal justly, only to do the same things over again, till the people either rebel or fiee. It is a righteous retribution that sometimes when a pasha is known to have grown rich, he, too, is thrown into prison till he gives up his ill-gotten gains; but that gives no relief to the taxpayer, .for. his successor follows on in the same steps j but take it all in all, it is a fearful round of sorrow and suffering. When Sherif Pasha sent to collect the taxes of SQIlle villages in the plain of Mesopotamia the poor people, who had hoped that a change of rulers would bring relief, implored some alleviation of their burdens, but in vain ; then placing their household goods on the backs of their cattle they set fire to their fields white for the harvest, saying that that was easier than to reap and thresh it for the Turk, and fled to Kurdistan. The only remark at Mosul was that in the days of Mohammed Pasha they could only have fled singly and at night.
But how do pashas dare to go to such extremes? At that time, whatever may be true to-day, they were a law unto themselves. A firman (royal edict) was sent to the Mohammed Pasha just referred to, reserving to the Sultan the right of inflicting capital punishment. He assembled his subordinates to hear it read, and then remarking that if anyone thought Mosul could be governed without cutting off heads, he knew nothing about the matter, made a sign to an attendant, who threw down before the assembly the heads of those then in the prison, and so allowed them to retire, glad to find their own heads still on their shoulders. Before he came several of his predecessors had Leen assassinated soon after their arrival, and the city was a camp of warring factions j but he not only defied his assailants, he also kil!ed them one after another by his secret agents and confiscated their estates, for his rapacity was fully equal to his energy. The Pasha of Diarbekir had long struggled with a rebellion in Mardin, but he quelled it at once. The Kurds who, instead of robbing others, as had been their custom, were themselves being stripped of their plunder rebelled, and their leaders were soon seated each on a sharp stake just outside the gate by which their friends entered the city, while their shrieks, curses, and groans were heard day and night till death ended the torture. The plundering Arabs were put down no less effectually, likewise the Yezidees, who had been robbers for ages, but the poor people soon found the pasha's tax-gatherers worse than all the robbers.
The city suffered no less than the country. To make his powder he wrought a sulphur mine, and though no one wanted it, the SUI plus sulphur had to be bought by the citizens at an extra price. The same was true of taxes that had been paid in kind; whether men needed the article or not, they had to buy and pay more than current rates.
Then he sold the monopoly of such things as everybody wanted. A Moslem patient told Dr. Grant that he paid more for the right to sell coffee than the cash he received. "How, then, can you live 7" "Last year I made money in building rafts. The pasha heard of it, and this is what follows. "
If the reader counts these as exaggerations, let him study the figures which follow. In 1835 the imports of European cloths amounted to 966 bales. In 1841 they had dwindled to 95 bales. Why 1 The explanation may appear in the fact that the pasha collected in 1841, 3,195,500 piastres -i.e., so much was published as collected. I might add that that sum is equal to $138,935, but it gives a more truthful idea of the case to add that the wages of a groom arc 30 piastres a month ($1.20), and of upper servants, 100 piastres ($4). A Nestorian from the mountains once told me with great gusto that besides his food he got one tenth of a Tcherkie a day (2 cents !), and yet where wages were at that rate the taxes were $138,935. In summer, when the drought leaves the plain of Assyria bare and verdureless, it is refreshing to look across to the dark green of the olive groves of Baashaika. Streams of water are led in turn to every tree, so that the foliage is fresh all summer long, but its owners may not pluck one olive from the loaded hranches, and the villagers must cultivate the whole for the pasha.
Looking day after day on such a state of things, is it strange that I longed for the day when Christians at home should appreciate the debt they owe to Christ for temporal as well as spiritual blessings 1 Ever since my return I have been hoping that a suffering people had reached the lowest point of mlsery, and that their next step would be upward out of the depths, but year after year I have looked and longed in vain. Instead of that, the wanton cruelties and terrible extortions of Moussa Bey have called forth thc remonstrances of united Europe, till the Sultan, who had sided with the robber a!.ld murderer, was compelled, from
FORERUNNERS OF CABEY. 8S9
a regard for his own interest, to banish the offender. Even the dark deeds of Moussa Bey do not seem to be the extreme of trouble.
In the Independent for January 29th, 1891, a missionary says: "I regret to be obliged to report that the condition of the people is daily becoming more pitiable, and our hearts constantly bleed at the tales of rapine and plunder that reach us from every side." As I read that I am grateful that the Holy Spirit furnishes the following language of dl'votion: "My spirit made diligent search. Will the Lord cast off forever 1 and will He be favorable no more 1 Is His mercy clean gone forever 1 Hath God forgotten to be gracious 1" (Psalm 77 : 6-9.) Another missionary adds: "The ministerial office in the increasing stress of poverty reqUIres no ordinary self~denial. Salaries are inadequate and irregularly paid. Not only does the number able to contribute diminish, but there is a corresponding increase of those dependent on the charities of the churches. After the wany taxes are all paid, I always wonder where the money is to come from for even this meagre support of churches and schools, in addition to the support of their own families. ,.
I have heard another more familiar with the capital say that there workingmen cannot buy more than one suit of clothes for the year, and that the material of that grows coarser year by year. In food also they have to restrict themselves to one or two articles, and even of these they have to buy what is less nutritious.
So one land at least has not outgrown the comfort provided in the seventy-second Psalm, which says of the Christ that" He shall judge" (i.e., in behalf of) " the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor, for He shall deliver the needy when he crieth, and the poor that hath no helper. He shall redeem their soul from oppression and violence, and precious shall their blood be in His sight."
FORERUNNERS OF CAREY.
BY REV. A. J. GORDON, D.D.
As there were reformers before the Reformation-men who sounded out all the essential notes of the coming revival-so there were Careys before Carey-men who foreshadowed all the main principles of the coming age of missions.
What if the Church had not listened to Carey 1 We have often asked ourselves the question. What if the sarcasm of Sidney Smith against the " consecrated cobbler" had suppressed him and put out the candle of his enthusiasm 1 What if Dr. Ryland's peremptory, " Sit down, young man I" had silenced him so that he had ceased to plead with the Church to " expect great things from God and attempt great things for God"? We need not now conjecture " what if r' but rather rejoice that, bavini won a hearing, first by a few, and then by an ever-widening circle of British Christians, it has come to pass that the English-speaking races are now honored to be the missionary army of the world.
William Carey was the pioneer of modern missions indeed; but let us – honor for a moment some of the forerunners of this eminent pioneer.
A writer of high authority on the subject heads a chapter of his book thus: " William Carey, the first Englishman who was a foreign mis- sionary." But our thoughts instantly run from Paulerspury, in Northamp- tonshire, where the great man was born, to another English hamlet, Nasing, in Essex, where, more than a hundred and fifty years before the birth of Carey, John Eliot first saw the light. In missions, as in other enterprises, there is rarely an effect without a cause or a stream without a fountain. .As Pietism has repeatedly proved itself to be the mother of missions, so, in this instance, did Puritanism give birth to a new evangelistic revival. "Godly parents, by whom my first years were seasoned with the fear of God, the Word, and prayer," is Eliot's simple allusion to his Puritan father and mother. .And the eminent Rev. Thomas Hooker says: " When I came to this blessed family I saw, as never before, the power of gOdli- ness in its lively vigor and efficiency." Out of such a home came the first Protestant Englishman who went forth to the heathen as a herald of the cross; and thus a century and a half before Carey became a missionary to the Indians of .Asia did John Eliot become a missionary to the Indians of .America.
From Old England Eliot came to New England in 1631 ; he was settled as pastor in Roxbury, and almost immediately began to be moved with concern for the benighted red men of the neighboring country. With prodigious toil he leamed their language and reduced it to a grammar, closing this difficult work with an inscription which has already passed into a proverb: "Prayer and pains, through faith in Jesus Christ, will do anything. "
As Eliot was the first Englishman to go as a foreign missionary, so he was probably the first to translate the entire Bible into a heathen language. Considering the exceeding difficulty of mastering the Indian tongue and the lack of helps for accomplishing the task, the work is to be regarded as perhaps the greatest achievement, as it was the beginning of efforts in biblical translation. Edward Everett has said, without exaggeration: " The history of the Christian Church does not contain an example of resolute, untiring, and successful labor superior. "
As for Hliot's missionary labors, they were most devoted and unwearying. -By toil an-' hardship, by nunger and peril, by exposure and privation, he proved himself indeed an " apostle." as he is invariably called. He writes concerning his evangelizing tours: "I have not been dry day nor night, although I pull off my boots, wring my stockings, on with them again, and so continue." .And so he did continue until savage chiefs were transformed into childlike disciples, who, gathering their warriurA about their camp-fires at night, rehearsed to them the wondrous story that the white teacher had brought to them; communities of " praying Indians" were established, and Indian preachers were raised up to become missionaries in turn to their neighbors.
It will be interesting for us to take a brief glance at the remarkable life as it has been sketched for us by Cotton Mather. Why did he pour out such prodigious pains and toil npon these miserable Indians? Because he believed them lost, and without Christ destined to eternal perdition. Instead of speculating on their possible chance of salvation while ignorant of the Saviour, he set himself resolutely to make known to them this Saviour. •, It powerfully moved his holy bowels," says Mather, "to hear the thunder-claps of imprecation on the heads of. our naked Indians. 'Pour out Thy fury upon the heathen that know Thee not,' and he thought, ' What shall I do to rescue these heathen from that all-devouring fury 1 ' "
In his daily toil he so sanctified the meanest work, and so " made drudgery divine," that he constantly said, " Were I to go to heaven tomorrow I sh01.tld do what I do to-day. " Working for God and walking with God were wonderfully conjoined in his life; prayer and pains were never unyoked from each other. If the burdens were heavy, and discouragements pressed, then so much the more time did he devote to prayer, "being of the mind," says Mather, " that when he had any great thing to accomplish, the best policy was to work by an Engine which the world saw nothing of." And what a tribute this writer pays to his heavenly mindcdness! Who would not crave such an encomium: " We cannot say that we ever saw him walking any whither, but he was therein walking with God"? His closing days and peaceful end remind one of the departure of venerable Bede or of Colomba of Iona-he was so transfigured by his own work, so glorified by that in whieh he had striven with utmost strength to glorify his Master. Did ever a consecrated career have a more lovely close ~ His body was now bent with the weight of years, his hairs were white as driven snow, yet his zeal was unabated. To his friend and patron, Robert Boyle, he writes: " My understanding leaves me, my strength fails me, but thank God, my charity holds out."
Like most of his Puritan co-religionists in ~arly New England, Eliot was an ardent milIcnnarian, and the hope of the Saviour's glorious appearing seemed wonderfully to cheer and stimulate him in Ilis work; and Dot, as it is often slanderously reported concerning this expectation, to cut the neIVe of missionary zeal.
Cotton Mather says on this point: " While he was thus making his retreat out of this world, his discourses ran from time to time on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ; it was the theme unto which he still had recourse, and whatever other subject he was upon, we were sure to hear something of this. On this he talked; of this he prayed; for this he longed. . When any bad news arrived, his usual reflection thereon would be: Behold some of the clouds in which we must look for the coming of the Son of Man.' "
Thus he prayed and studied and wrought, declining, though' much urged to do so, to take his hands from the plough, or to look back with self-congratulation on the furrows already turned.
" His last breath," says Mather, " smelled strong of heaven, and was articled unto none but very gracious notes, one of the last whereof was , welcome Joy! ,,, Thus he passed away May 20th, 1690, aged 86.
Eliot preached to a decaying race, and translated the Scriptures into a dying language. His Indian Bible remains as an archreological curiositythere is none to read it now; and his communities of praying Indians have long since disappeared. Therefore we hear the constant lament among the historians of his mission that no permanent result of his work remains. But let us think a moment. Who were the co-laborers and successors of Eliot in this mission to the American Indians ~ There was the noble family of Mayhews-father, son, and grandsons. Governor Thomas Mayhew" devoted his own profits and his son's and grandsons' lives to the conversion of the red Indians." Experience Mayhew, the great-grandson of the governor, was hardly behind Eliot in the devotion and success of his work. Dr. Cotton Mather, in his" Magnalia, " says of him: "A hopeful and worthy young man, Mr. Experience Mayhew, must now have the justice done of him, of this character, that in the evangelical service among the Indians there is no man that exceeds this Mr. Mayhew, if there be any that equals him." Of the fruits of his labor, Mather mentions "more than thirty hundred Christian Indians" and " thirty Indian assemblies."
In this family there was a succession of missionaries to the Indians, extending over a century and a half, the last of the house dying in 1806, at the age of 81. A noble line, who at the appearing and kingdom of our Lord will present such a company of redeemed heathen as to prove that their labor was not in vain in the Lord.
In the same fellowship of New England missionaries to the Indians stands David Brainerd, whom we count one of the very greatest that any age has produced. Wonderful man 1 Who has read his journal without tears and humiliation of heart ~ Those prayers in the depth of the forest so intense that his garments were saturated with the sweat of his intercession ; that insatiable hunger for the souls of these poor savages; those scenes of Gospel triumph where the Indians fell before his preaching like grass before the mower's scythe! What wonder that Murray McCheyne, as he read this life, should have made this entry in his journal: "Most wonderful man: What conflicts, what depressions, desertions, struggles, advancements, victories within thy torn bosom! I cannot express what I think when I think of thee. To-night more set on missionary enterprise than ever." And last and greatest of all in seraphic piety and intellectual power stands..Tonathan Edwards, who joined to his attainments as theolo-
18'2.J FItOM CANNmALISM '1'0
gian, philosopher, lind preacher, the distinction which he counted not the least of laboring as a missionary among the Stockbridge Indians.
Now consider how great were these men as the forerunners and prophets of the coming missionary era! Brainerd was the true successor of Eliot j and Brainerd's" Memoirs," edited and sent forth by Edwards, powerfully influenced William Carey and Henry Martyn to give themselves to missionary service. Not only in the beginning, but continuously was Carey influenced by this wonderful life. In the spiritual covenant into which the Serampore missionaries entered, setting forth the things upon which they thought it right to "fix their serious and abiding attention," this clause occurs: " Let us often look at Brainerd in the woods of America, pouring out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen, without whose salvation nothing could make him happy." Thus did Carey seek to draw perpetual inspiration from this devoted life. Edwards was principally instrumental, as the world knows, in instituting concerted prayer for the outpouring of the Spirit in all lands. His writings and appeals on the subject fell into the hands of Carey, and so a second .fdctor in the making of Carey came from the Indian missionaries of New England.
Thus it is unquestionably true that one of the deepest and most abiding springs of nineteenth century missions is to be found in the Indian missions of America of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
FROM CANNIBALISM TO CHRIST.
Twelve years ago, the Rev. Oscar Michelson landed on the island of Tonga, in the New Hebrides, alone among cannibals. He was broken up with fever. At first he had many perilous adventures, and again and again fled into hiding to save his life. Once a savage, now one of his best teachers, levelled a rifle to kill him, but was stopped by a look. He persevered amid many threatenings and dangers. His house became known as " the Sunday House," and Christian hymns were often heard mingling with heathen !Songs. From heart to heart, home to home, village to village, the Gospel won its way, until now thirty Christian teachers are laboring in as many different villages. Mr. Michelson's field now includes, he writes, four whole islands. The people speak three languages. During the week of prayer he held meetings simultaneously in all the villages. At one meeting 300 rose for prayer. Ten years ago they proposed to eat him. Now he lives in perfect safety. The rifles are rarely used for the purpose for which they were made, but Mr. Michelson often sees them used in pairs over the fire to hold the saucepan. If a coin or some such object is lost on the road, the owner is almost sure to find it stuck up on a post, the next time he passes that way. Peace, love, honesty, prevail in the stead of savagery. Similar transformations were reported by Mr. Richards, of our Congo Mission, and by many another missionary. The Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation.
'844 EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REY. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
EAST INDIES.
– " The Christian Patriot (Madras), in a highly eulogistic article on Dr. Pentecost's work, says: 'The most enthusiastic interest continues to be evinced by the public of Madras, Christian and non-Christian, in Dr. Pentecost's tlervices. The very first question asked wheu one meets another is, "Have you heard Dr. Pentecost?" Never before has Madras been stirred to such a longing to hear the Gospel of Christ as during the past few weeks. The popularity of this servant of God who has come in our midst at considerable personal sacrifice is evinced by the crowds that flock to hear him evening after evening at the Esplanade. The audience is by no means confined to the religious set alone. It is thoroughly representative of all classes, and during the past few days in particular the meetings have been attended largely by those who do not care ordinarily to have anything to do with religion. "I must go and hear Dr" Pentecost," said a European gentleman who had never set foot in a church for the past five.or six years; "I hear he has something to say worth listening to." What is most encouraging to us is the appreciative audiences of educated Hindus that Dr. Pentecost has at his daily services. To those who know how difficult it is to attract Hindus to purely religious meetings, this is indeed a marvel. "'What is it that you were struck with in Dr. Pentecost's address f' we asked a most cultured Hindu gentleman the other day, and he replied: "It is hIS earnestness more than his eloquence. " There is something convincing in his utterances. As we said last week, he does not appeal to the emotions III the least. He is no doubt eloquent, but there is nothing studIed about his eloquence. 1t is spontaneous, and is the outcome of his earnestness and zeal in the Master's cause.' " – The Reaper.
-" The Hindus are a people wholly given to idolatry, which, with its endless round of rites and ceremonies, possesses a fascination over the human mind which those accustomed to Christian ideas cannot understand. • •. In the case of women, religion is interwoven with eyery minute particular of daily life. In a word, religion is her own peculiar sphere. After the household work is done she has plenty of time hanging heavy on her hands, which she spends in sleeping, gossiping, or in the performance of some one or other of her endless religious ceremonies. A Hindu lady has no visiting or shopping to do as understood by the Europeans; she has no fancy or plain sewing on hand; and anything like reading is out of the question. Almost every second or third day there is some fast, feast, or ceremony to observe; and on such days she must have some light dish or cake, for each feast has its own peculiar dish. She thus finds something to do to kill time, and has become subject to the' ordinances of touGhing, tasting, handling.' She also gives alms to the Brahmans and the poor in a manner somewhat ostentatious; she must have her adviser by her side to tell her which is the propitious hour of the day to buy, sell, etc. Being thus incrusted in her shell of fancied good works, she does not feel the need of a Saviour's cleansing blood. She is clean and made pure by her rites and deeds of charity; and a sense of sin being absent, the message of a Saviour has no meaning for her. . " Among the Hindus, whatever may be the case with most of the men, there is no denying the fact that most of the women are in dead earnest in their superstition ; and we must take advantage of their strong religious instincts and give them a right direction and turn them into a Dew channel, by giving them an education leavened with the Christian leaven. This will create in them a habit of reflection, help them to think rationally on religion, and to read the Bible with profit to their souls under wise and sympathetic guidance. " -The Helpmeet.
-" Stand with me for a moment in a Hindu village. We are in the centre, and have come to the Hindu temple. The priest comes out and says, 'Stay here, sir; don't go further. I will provide mats and seats for you.' We sit down, and there gather near us 150 or 200 Brahmans and educated natives. In the distance we see women in the verandas. Then a Bengali stands up. I shall never forget that scene. Behind is the Hindu temple. Above is a clear, tropical moon; and as the Bengali teacher tells in flowing, fervent Bengali the life of Christ, and as he comes to the part ",here they were driving nails into His hands, and Christ cried out, ' Father, forgive them; they know not what they do ! ' you can feel the thrill going through the audience. And as the preacher goes on to tell of the death and resurrection, you can see the tears running down the faces of the people. When this man closed, another Bengali started a soft, wild Bengali air, telling how man had wandered away from God, and God had sent His Son to bring him back. When he stopped there was dead silence. You see before you the picture of Bengali Christians convincing by their eloquence and zeal their fellow-countrymen. In another village some of our Bengalis ",ere alone, and by their preaching they converted a rich young man. He, won by them, came forth and confessed Christ in baptism, even though it meant to him giving up a fortune of £20,000 and never looking on his mother's face again. In another village, where one of our old students lived, he, by his learning, was able to convince an English-speaking schoolmaster of the divinity of Christ. By hiR love and zeal he won him so that he and hi;; wife and four children were baptized. You can be proud of your native workers. You may thank God for them, for I believe that, as a whole, they are a band of truly converted men. They are men who know Him in whom they beliel'e. They are men of wonderful eloquence; and I make bold to say that 90 per cent of the baptisms are won first by the natives themselves. They'are the feelers, the outposts of the army of European missionaries behind, by which they are guided and controlled, but they are the real workers among their own people."- Rev. W. II. BALL, in Church Missionary Intelligencer.
– " Come with me to Madras, where there is a great university. You will see four or five great colleges, where they are teaching thousands of students for the university examinations. And the best of all these institutions is a missionary college-the Christian College. Come with me to the Mofussil towns, to the provinces, to Masulipatam, Madura, and Tinnevelly, for example, and what do you see ¥ Large colleges and hi/rh schools, some of them conducted by natives, some of them by missionary agencies. You can go lower down still to the large villages, and you will see middle schools, and still lower and you will see sIIlall primary schools started. What is the meaning of all this intellectual activity? It is this: There is a perfect craze among the upper classes in India to have an English education. The first thing you have to seek, from a missionary point of view, is to use this craving for the spread of Christ's kingdom. You know India is I'ltratified by caste. At the bottom of the social scale you have the outcastes, then the Jaw castes, gradually rising to the high castes, and these are the leaders among the 270,000,000 of people among whom the Queen rules in India. They are not the feet, they are the head-the leaders in Indiathe men who are now crymg out aloud from the national Congress for representative government for themselves, and for many things for which they are not fit just yet, and thcrefore cannot have at present. But these men are, after all, the brain of India, and they come from the highest castes and are being educated in these schools and colleges of which I have told you. You remember that the Lord Jesus, when He was upon earth, made use of a great want that He round among the people. They wanted healIng, and thousands and thousands of them came to Him just for nothing else than to get their bodies healed. Do you think the Lord Jesus does not value the mind as much as He values the body ~ Do you think that these Brahmans-these leaders of the people, who become the judges, and the rulers, and the magistrates, and the barristers-do you think these men, who are saying, 'Give us English education; give it us with Jesus Christ if you like, but we must have it in any case! '-do you thmk Jesus Himself would not have pitied them 1 I believe He would have come to us educational missionaries and said, 'Go on, my brethren, go on lU this great work and win the brain of India for God. ' Yes, India is ripe for this work of Christian university education. "-Rev. C. W. A. CLARKE, in Church Missionary lntelligencer.
– " What wonder that we hear out of the mouth of missionaries in India the severest judgments respecting caste! 'It is our greatest enemy.' , This it is, which hinders the Christianization of India.' 'The might of caste is as unintelligible as unbounded, and its fruits are almost pure evil,' writes J. Murray Mitchell. In fact, India will never become Christian without an adequate solution of the caste question. 'I.'he religious declamations of the Hindus, which often, indeed, are not seriously intended, have not a tithe of the resisting power against Christianity w.b.ich inheres in the wordless tenacity of the sense of caste.
" What now if Christianity in India itself became a caste ~ Nothing would be more fatal to our missionary hopes. And yet there is among the Christians of India a tendency, perhaps not sufiiciently noted, to constitute themselves into a caste. Nothing would be more grateful to the heathen; for with this the claim of Christianity on the conversion of all would be broken. Caste is tolerant, because intrinsically exclusive. We should then share the fate of the Syrian Christians (Thomas Christians) in Travancore, who have attained to the rank of a high caste, not eating with the heathen, but, by the very fact of being a caste, having lost all efficacy toward the rectmstitution of the spiritual life of India. "-GEORGE SToseH, in Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift.
– " Under the guidance of a well-known social reformer of Madras, a society has been formed to enjoy and maintain a brotherhood of all persons professing the Hindu religion; to promote the study and knowledge of Vedic and Shastraic literature and religion; to inculcate and practise toleration toward all other religions; to worship God; to be loyal to the sovereign, and to love Bharata Varsha (India).
, " This movement is probably the next stage in India's religious history on the part of the orthodox Hindus, and may be regarded as the last despairing effort to save an ancient and honored institution. Its members are not necessarily opposed to Christianity. Some, no doubt, resent the intrusion of an alien religion, and patriotically defend the ancestral faith; 1>ut others are quite friendly toward Christianity, and admit that it has done much for the country. In many parts of South India there exists a strong feeling, however, that something ought to be done to restore the past. Letters are written to the papers, schemes are elaborated for preaching Hinduism. occasionally a lecture is delivered, but no one loves the past so well as to gIve himself heart and soul to its revival. Spasmodic attempts there doubtless will be here and there, but they are not likely to be either widespread or lasting. We believe there is not sufficient enthusiasm among the Hindus to maintain for any length of time such an organized revival and reeonstrnction of Hinduism. It may be clung to as an historic possession for some time to come, but the national faith cannot satisfy the deflpest spiritual longings of the human heart, and this movement will ultimately lead ou to the reception of Christianity as the fulfiller of all ancient faiths and the satisfier of all human aspuations. "-Rev. HENRY RICE, in Mission Record of the Church of Scotland.
– " Some thoughtful observers believe that the battle of the future will not be so much with Hinduism or with Islam aR with Western scepticism modified by Oriental metaphysics. That such a struggle will take place in the near future is not improbable, but the Hindu nature is far too deeply religious for atheism to take root in the land. The Hindus banished Buddhism because of its atheistic character, and they will never endure a negation of God and faith. When we bear in mind the deep religiousness of the Hindu nation j their instinctive passion for tranRcendental ideas j their spiritual searches after the Divine Essence; and, what is of greater significance, that all modern revivals of Hinduism have tended toward biblical monotheism, we may believe that the present opposition to Christianity proceeds rather from the pride of national inheritance than from any hostility to spiritual truth as such j and that India's best minds will yet surmount their superstitions and prejudices, and turn adoringly to the Light of Life."-Ibid.
– " There is the class of earnest, thoughtful men whom every missionary meets, who are already confessedly Christians at heart. They are far more familiar with the facts of ' Christianity' than they are with their own religion. They admire Christ's characttr and delight in His teaching. Within the visible pille both of Brahmoism and Hinduism there are those who recognize the claims of Christ and His right to their allegiance. There is many Ii Cornelian Hindu who would embrace Christianity at once if an open profession by baptism were not demanded with it_ But so long as the open acceptance of Christ's religion mealls the sharp severance of family ties, social disgrace, and isolation, so long must we 'De thankful for this growing number of secret disciples. The heroic in daring is absent from the Hindu. He dares not' be a Daniel.' Bring him to a crisis and his courage fails. He sees, but stands still. He knows, but will not do. He needs arousal. He stands shivering on the brink, waiting for the leadership of a more venturesome spirit. But may we not claim these timid, silent ones for Christ, and wait patiently ana hopefully for the day when the enormous difficulties created by caste and the power of unenlightened female influence shall have passed away ~ " What is wanted is that a man shall arise among the Hindus themselves, fired with the moral courage and splendid fervor of a Martin Luther, who shall possess the instinct to comprehend the blind outreaching!! of the native mind and the genius to give expression to its common longings. The success of such a leader will be greater than that of any Vishnavite rdormer, because he will appHal to a people waiting for a change, !md because the tolerance of British rule will secure him unrestrained freedom of preaching. The appearance of such a personality is but a question of time j and when he appears, who will deny that his success will be greater than that of Chaitanya, and might equal that of Gautama Buddha himself. " – I b i d .
-Dr. Grundemann decidedly objects to the closed churches of the European style iu India. He found them bad enough in the cooler time, and he does not know how they can be endured at all in the hotter months.
– " With the exception of the United States of America, there is no spot of earth beyond the boundaries of the British Empire where individual liberty and opportunity for personal advancement equals that enjoyed by the people of India. There may be, it is true, greater poverty and ignorance here, and the environment may be unfavorable, but these things are, in the main, beyond the control of governments, and do not vitiate the statement that the native of India has large opportunity for making the roost and the best of the life that is given him."-Indian Witness.
:..-" Dr. Grundemann concludes, in the April number of the Allgemeine Missions Zeit~chrift, his interesting and valuable observations on mission work as he saw it in India. He takes up the questions of architecture, sculpture, painting, and music in their relation to the spread of Christianity. In regard to church building, he regrets that in the large towns and at head stations European styles of architecture are employed. On the score of coolness, so desirable in a hot climate, he doubts the wisdom of putting up Gothic churches, while he thinks it would not be easy to make Hindus enter into the symbolic significance of spires pointing heavenward. As he says. it is exceedingly difficult to arrive at a knowledge of the real thought and feeling of natives with regard to such matters, they are so accustomed to give replies suited, as they hope, to the wishes of foreign questioners. But Dr. Grundemann quotes the words of a Tamil, who expressed that when any of his fellow-countrymen accepted Christianity, they ceased to be regarded as Tamils by the rest. And this may arise in no small degree from the foreign character of the church buildings and church arrangements with which they are henceforth connected. Dr. Grundemann thinks that the attempt should be made to follow, in regard to building and other matters, the Indian ideal of beauty, and so avoid that marked departure from national idiosyncrasies which tends to produce the conviction that native Christians become members of a foreign race. Indian notions of beauty may be distasteful to us, but our ideas are probably equally distasteful to them. On the far more difficult subject of music and singing, Dr. Grundemann throws out some notions worthy of consideration. There is, he says, a Christian Indian national music, and at Ahmednuggur he heard three men, one an aged pastor, sing and play, the subject being prayer-Christian as compared with heathen prayer. He says he could not share the pleasure evidently felt by the crowd in the music and singing j yet the whole scene made a deep impression on his mind. He expresses the wish that, in addition to Christian hymns, harmless and pretty songs could be written, especially for children. In an orphanage he found girls joining in a dance and singing a song on the sufferings of our Lord. Another remark he makes is, and with this we conclude: 'Above all, children should be taught to sing after the manner of their people, and not according to our melodies! "-The Chronicle (L. M. S.).
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Afrioa. in a. World's Oongress. formulated could scarcely be better out· lined in part than in Mr. Cust's lan- BY J. T. G. guage : •• (1) To develop the self-gov- erning aptitudes of African nationali- In former years Europeans used to ties either as kingdoms or republics. steal Africans from Africa; now they (~) The European powers should be just are trying to steal Africa from the Afri- and unselfish to the populations, which cans. " This, from Dr. Robert N. Cust. have by violence and by brute force been brought like a flock of helpless " How could we combine to become sheep under their influence. (3) The unprovoked aggressors, to imitate, in resources of the region should be de· Africa, the partition of Poland by the veloped by methods not calculated to conquest of Morocco for France, of Tunis destroy the indigenous popUlation. for Italy, of Egypt for England, and (4) The introduction of legitimate comhow could England and France, who merce, exclusive of spirituous liquors have guaranteed the integrity of the and lethal arms, and the gentler virtues Turkish Empire, turn round and wrest of education and social culture." Egypt from the Sultan?" This, from Lord Palmerston, writing to Napoleon Of courso it will be impossible to lay III. the foundation of a true policy without considering Africa past and present, It is impossible to arrest this political the African at home and abroad, Africa's and commercial drift. The only ques- influence on letters and language, comtion in practical politics is, Can this be merce and politics, and the influence regulated-dominated-bya benevolent of the outer world on Africa. What intent? Who shall attempt it, Ameri- Africans have done and can do as manuca who received the stolen goods, the facturers and tradespeople, as agricul- Africans, or Europe, who is stealing turists, in medicine, mechanics or the Africa? fine arts, we judge, are to find promi· nent place and able presentation in the The splendid diplomacy of holding a proposed African Congress at Chicago, great council on this newly revealed and there are some Africans who can Africa is to be tried in connection with forcibly treat these topics. Rev. James the World's Fair in July, 1893. Would Johnson, a member of the Legislature that it might create sentiment that of Lagos, and Bishop B. T. Tanner, of would thunder as a moral army and America, are well furnished to discuss navy, force crowned contestants to ac- the sociology of Africa and the Africans. cept it as a mighty umpire, or create a concordat, not of text, but of a one- African philology is of much wider inhearted master passion, which should terest than the limits of Africa. Dr. hold the nations in leash from greed of Robert N. Cust has already catalogued might and greed of gain, and oblige a upward of five hundred of these Afriregenerated Europe and America to ac- can languages, and if he should present cept the task and seize the opportunity, a paper on the subject in general, it to concentrate all the accumulated ex- will be the rich result of years of special perience, intelligence, and benevolence study of African philology. Then our of the Christian centuries in one gigan- own American, Lewis Grout, the autic effort, to make the noblest and lofti- thor of a Zulu grammar, a man who has est experiment of the race, the creation devoted strength and time to the whole of another ,. New World." The twenti- subject of the relative place and power e~h century should see this experiment of these several families of Afric::n far toward a successful issue.
Perhaps the policy that ought to be speech, Bantu, Swahali, and all the rest, The AdVisory Council of this, which can ably discourse on the relation of is technically termed " an African Eththese severally to the development of nological Congress," numbers a strong Africa. Others eminently qualified to host of able men in America, Europe, discuss allied themes will surely take and Africa. The administrator of part. Bechuanaland, the commissioner for Basutoland, and a large list of other The history .and geography of Africa, important fu'tlCtionaries in South, West, ancient history as well as modern, the North, and East Africa, at Zanzibar, influence of Madagascar on Southeast Natal, the Gold Coast, Algeria, Tunis, Africa, Egypt and the Soudan, the prog. Zambesia, and every other important ress of the modern unveiling of the con· point, are members. of this Advisory tinent, are fruitful parts of the general Board; De Brazza, Wissman, Schweinsubject, and men specially adapted and furth, Du Chaillu, Carl Peters, Sir Samwilling to treat them can be found. It uel Baker, and other eminent explorers is given out as probable that such offi- of the continent, members of the Royal cials as the Premier of Cape Colony, Geographical Society, Capella and Ivens, James Stevenson, of the African Lakes Ministers of Foreign Affairs Rome, Sul- Company, Dr. Ward of the Independent, tans and military men, with many foreand even H. M. Stanley, are to be in- most ministers of America and of Euvited or have already' consented to dis. rope, have all pledged their patronage to cuss important matters of African civili- this council and become members of it. zation, colonization, and commerce; It ought to arrest attention even amid and' that Hon. John A. Kasson, ex- the whirl of the Columbian Exposition. United States Minister to Germany at The anticipation is that t.he papers will the Berlin Conference, may write of the be published hereafter, in full text, function and power of the Congo Free even should the twenty-five minutes or State in the redemption of Africa. so allotted to their reading be too re- Other great sub.departments of the po- stricted for the entire essay. litical and social sphere will challenge the ablest thought of eminent special- Africa is a vast continent. Lay its ists. western edge on our Pacific Coast and it would cover land and sea to the coast The department of religion in Africa of Ireland. It has perhaps four times is quite extensive enough to have a the population of the United States; week to itself, for the African religions it is the coming continent! Great opare of great varieties and marked by portunities are offered the Christian strong characteristics. The ancient Church for its evangelization. Mis- Egyptian religion with its .. Book of sions, and, as it now seems, missions the Dead ;" the ancient Christianity of only can ameliorate the condition of Egypt, Abyssinia, and Nubia; the Mo- the barbarous races of three fourths of hammedanism of the north half of the this vast continent. The African probcontinent; the work of the modern lem is a perplexing one, but its resolumissions of the Roman Catholic and tion is hopeful and assured. Protestant churches in the Dark Continent, are of foremost ·interest. We are Lay Missionaries for the Foreign Field. given to understand that archbishops, biIlhops, and secretaries are among BY REV. C. A. NICHOLS, BASSEIN, BURMA. those likely to present papers on the great subject of the evangelization of Foreign missions are unmistakably Africa; while ex·governors and sena- passing out of the emotional into the tors, jurists and statesmen will present practical stage. Many of the most devarious phases of Afro-American cul- voted among our pastors and laymen ture, opportunity, responsibility, and are diligently studying the problem progress. how most rapidly and effectively the in the very highest state of efficiency Church may fulfil her mission to the while on the field. After arriving, he naVons. All are agreed that a greatly will have to acquire a language as di- increased force of laborers are needed verse from his vernacular as well can for this purpose, and by Bome it is be, and that, too, under very untoward argued that an adequate force can never circumstances. If he has not already be available until recruits are drawn gained fixed habits of study and con- from all worthy sources, lay as well as centration, in nine cases out of ten he clerical, from our Christian artisans, will fail in gaining such a thorough business men, and farmers, as well as mastery of the language as he must from those liberally educated and or- have in order to gain the respect of the dained to the special work of the min- people to whom he is sent. Moreover istry. if he does not have such habits of con, A little over thirteen years of experi- centration and sustained mental effort, ence and observation in the foreign he will be apt to yield to the temptation field, however, have convinced me that, to magnify trifles and chafe in the har- while Carey and quite a number of ness, to. a far greater extent than he others successful in foreign fields have would had he been subject to the severe been men who did not go out thus mental discipline that should be the trained for the special work of the min- result of any training that is contem- istry, still the same success may be pred- plated in what we commonly under- icated of many evangelists and pastors stand by a "liberal course of study."
in the history of the Church at home; Under the new and trying surrDund- and, notwithstanding that fact, the ings amid which his work must be done, great bulk of the most successful work he will in every respect find his re- in the ministry of the Word has been sources tried t'o the utmost, and thus done by men specially chosen of the will on every hand find a ,need for the Spirit, set apart by the Church for that very best discipline available, and with- special work. and educated for that out which so many have failed who work as liberally as possible. By some might have otherwise achieved success.
it is thought that the foreign work It, will be said that failures have not would not call for so thorough an edu- been wholly among the undisciplined; cation as the home, from the fact that but the same may be said with equal the people to whom the worker will be truth of pastors at home, notwithstand- sent are presumably less intelligent than ing which fact, very few people will be those to whom he would minister if at found to-day who would urge our going home; but there are other factors in back to an uneducated ministry for the the problem that are not always taken home churches.
into account_ There is, then, the need of still more One of the exceptional conditions to care in gaining the highest possible be taken into account is that most of efficiency in those whom the Church our foreign missionary operations are sends abroad, because there is involved necessarily carried on among peoples so great an outlay in sending out and who Jive in climates inimical to Euro- returning those who fail; while their pean races, with the result that not only failure will be sure to work so much must the work be prosecuted there with more disastrous results abroad than much less bodily vigor, but that it will here, where the worker is far less con- necessarily be subject to stilI further spicuous, lost as he is among so great hindrance by absences from the field an army of other workers.
on the part of the worker. in order to Some of the friends of missions are regain health and vigor. Hence it is es- almost overjoyed over the fact that some sential that the missionary should come of our farmers, artisans, and business to the work so disciplined that he will be men have begun to go to the foreilln field, many of whom have gone at their gain money. This would be merely to own charges, hoping to be able to live gain subsistence for himself and family, by the exercise of their secular calling without speaking of the time and and preach the Gospel meanwhile. We strength necessary for evangelistic work could only wish that the whole heathen among the people, or to gain a mastery world might be leavened by such ; and, of their language; a task requiring, of on the face of it, the plan would seem itself, several years even for one who to be the most reasonable and easy of has the maximum of his time and the many experiments yet tried in the strength at his command. In the opin- world's evangelization. Still, there are ion of some who have advocated an ex- many things to be fully considered be- tension of this principle upon which to fore any family determines to sell out conduct our foreign missions, the relaand undertake the actual experiment. tion of such lay workers to the ordained 'God will not interpose to save us from men in the field would be that of "asthe exercise of reasonable forethought sistants" or .. helpers," and so under any more than He did in the days of their direction, while reference is frethe crusades, even though the apirit quently made to the example of some and intention of the effort may be solely of the English and continental socithe furtherance of His glory. Those eties ; but it may be said that this sysof us who have b~en many years on the tem is the outgrowth of the social and field have seen some very disappointed class distinctions which enter so largely people, nor have the home boards been into the European habit of thinking, less disappointed, in many cases where and results do not show their organithey have been called on to pay the zation to be superior to ours. On the round trip expenses of some who have other hand, I have often heard the memstarted out with undoubtedly a sincere bers of their missions express their recimpulse, but nevertheless from an im- ognition of the greater fruitfulness of pulse without forethought. Happily our American missions, employing, as such cases are in the minority. but still most of our societies do, chiefly orthey have been frequent enough to dained ministers of the Gospel. serve as a warning. It may be understood, at the outset, that in most cases One of the chief objections that I a European, with his hereditary habits have to this plan of lay .. assistants" and constitution, will find it a hopeless or " helpers" is, that the most valuable task to provide for the support of him- helpers will always be found in the naself and family in an uncivilized or tive converts, who need the benefit of partially civilized tropical country, in the relation in training for their own competition with the natives of the future work. If foreigners do this work country, who can endure exposure and for them, they will never take the relabor there far better than himself, sponsibility upon themselves, and we and who can live on what to him shall only perpetuate a dependent body would mean the ruin of health or loss of converts. of life, ~his is true of any form of manual labor; while, if he engage in Lay workers of a certain kind, howtrade, the habits of mutual distrust and ever, afe called for on the field in greatunreliability, which obtain among all ly increased numbers. Well-qualified heathen people, stand in the way of medical missionaries and teachers are his success, unless he shall descend to still imperatively demanded, and even habits of trickery that are far too com- these will do far better if educated for mon among European traders in such the ministry and ordained to its work lands; nor will the people ever give him as well. their confidence as a religious teacher "'<.1.1 leader, if they think he is there to As to lay workers going out at their own charges, I may say that the above opinions are not brnught forward as speculations as to what might be the case, but from personal observation of substance, which sacrifice will, accord- cases where the experiment has been ing to the Divine law, certainly not tried, under as favorable conditions as only gain the direct end for which she would fall to the lot, on the average, of labors, but will also bring her in return anyone attempting this method. Some a rich fruitage of blessings at hOlDe.
such have been dependent for months together upon the families of those sen~ out and supported by mission boards, Affairs in Japan. and who all'eady had more demands upon their resources than they could BY REV. H. LOOMIS, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN.
supply; some suffered from actual want Few, if any, more auspicious changes and disappointment, to the limit of have occurred in politics than the re- mental derangement; and numbers cent reorganization of the Cabinet and have afterward gladly gone to work un· the return of well,known and honored der appointment from l'egular mission leaders to power.
boards, doing work in the regions to When Count Inouye and Count Ito which they have gone. resigned their positions and retired to There is always a certain fascination private life, the control of affairs fell about the idea of thus going out, inde. into the hands of new and untried pendent of all controlling boards and men, and it seemed inevitable that agencies, which is very apt to captivate, serious and irreparable loss must b"
not only those contemplating the work the result, and all the bright hopes of for themselves, but others, so that they the past were to be disappointed.
can be assured they will get a hearty But greatly to our surprise and relief, amen and Godspeed from pastors and there has been accomplished a happy churches, already burdened by ever-in- change in affairs, and the outlook for creasing avenues for expenditure on ob. Japan to-day is brighter than ever.
jects nearer home, even though the bulk What is evidently needed at this time of that expenditure may be for more is the presence of the best and ablest luxurious services and imposing edi- men at the head of the government.
fices of worship. Constitutional government is an experi- Hence, while we gladly welcome all ment thus far ; and it is inevitable that those devoted men who have" sold all tor years to come there must be a strong they hRd" and laid it at their Master's and wise administrative power to check feet, and have given not only it bu' what is wrong and enforce the right.
themselves to the work of reclaiming a So we have now most happily in the lost world, believing that their sacrifice new ministry the ablest and most popu- will meet its reward, yet it is to be de- lar statesmen that the country can fur- voutly hoped that those contemplating nish. At the head is Count Ito once going out will "count the cost" before more, and associated with him is Count they begin to build, lest they reap for Inouye as Minister of Home Affairs.
themselves disappointment and cha- To these two men more than to any "grin. Such advice will not injure the others does Japan owe her present posi- work any more than similar solemn in- tion and progress; and with years of junctions on the part of Christ Himself experience in the administration, they to those who would follow Him in His are without question the two men to bf missionary ministrations while He was at the head of the Cabinet and the chief yet in the body. advisers of the Emperor.
On the other hand, the Church at The Minister of Foreign Affairs is home must not expect that she will be Mr. Mutsll, who was for several years relieved of her part, as a whole, in car- the Japanese Minister at Washington, rying on the work ; and that at a sacri- and who has thus the experience that fice of her hest taleIJ.t as well aa of her especially fits him for such a position. It is not too much to expect that under sive revivals are reported from many his administration there will be some quarters, and a most hopeful state of better adjustment of the present ques· things has taken the place of the dead- . tion of extra territoriality and the re- ness and indifference of the past. The lations of foreign residents to the gov- greatness of the difficulties and the in- ernment. The recent attempt to force adequacy of human means are being concessions from the foreign powers, felt everywhere, and so there is a turn- by limiting the privileges of the foreign ing to the true source of success in all residents here, and making the situa- mission work, and that is the help of tion more uncomfortable, has not been God. helpful to Japan, and is making the question of coming under Japanese con- Some think that there are enough trol still more serious and questionable. missionaries in Japan to accomplish all' that is needed to make this a Christian The question that will especially in- nation. Others think differently. But terest the Ohristian people in the United one thing is certain, that it is not by States is the probable attitude of the an increase of numbers alone that these present and new ministry toward- mis- hard hearts are to be subdued and won sionaries aIrd their work. I think that to Christ. God chose only three hun. it is the general opinion that we owe to dred to overthrow the Midianite host; the men now in power the liberty that and with His help we shall have suc- we now enjoy; and more than that, cess, whether the helpers be multiplied they have shown a sincere and intelli- or not. gent sympathy with what has been done, No doubt there is still room for many As proof of this I need only mention more good men, and in some places the liberal donation of 1000 yen (about they seem to be sadly needed, but we .$800) toward the Doshisha at Kyoto by need even more_ than all, such a bap- Oount Inouye. Count Ito signified his tism of the Spirit as will make the truth approval of the work and promised his effective in the convincing men of sin aid. No institution in the country hall and their need of a Saviour. That God been more decidedly Ohristian in its is showing His power and willingness character, to save should call forth the gratitude of all hearts. The erection at Yamaguchi, by Oount Inouye, of a suitable building for the The Rev. 1. H. Corrl'll, of the Methuse of Rev. Dr. Beck in teaching his ~dist Episcopal Mission, reports that he Bible class, and his liberal construction has recently been through a large part of the restrictions contained in the pass- of Kiushiu, and the work is in a very ports, are direct and tangible proofs prosperous condition. The people are that missions will not suffer from any very attentive to preaching and the conaction on the part of those now at the gregations are quite large. He has rehead of the government. cently visited the Loochoo Islands, and brings back a glowing account of the The discussion of theological ques- reception given him. He preached sevtions is becoming less prominent, and eral times. At the first service he had the pastors and other Christian workers about one hundred present, two hunare settling down to more steady and dred at the second, and four hundred effective work for the-salvation of souls. at the third. Everywhere he went he It has become e,:ident to many that was most kindly received, and 1'as. there is no new and better method for urged to commence work on the islands. the conversion of sinful men than the The Baptists have a native worker there old theories of redemption through now. Christ, and the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying the The school for boys connected with heart. the Southern Methodist church at Kobe is soon to be cnlarged, It has shown a And the happy result is that extenconstant growth since its organization pressed with the direct interposition three years ago. In a recent letter of God in the present progress of mis- from the Rev. Mr. Wainwright, he says sions. From his vantage-ground he that" We have been havfng a very gra· discovers secret growth as well as prog.
cious work of the Holy Spirit in our ress that is more tangible. The mix- school. It has been a glorious season ture of evil with good (to be truthfully with us, and we believe there will be recognized) is no more than is going on much fruit unto the salvation of souls all over the world, and the wonder is as a consequence of this blessing." The that from the overwhelming mass of Southern Presbyterian Mission bas re- evil so much of good is forthcoming.
cently opened work in Takamatsu, on "A Divine purpose is being clearly the island of Shikoku, and are meeting evolved." These things are to him ab- with much success. solute fact.s of experience, and in his The conference of the missionaries of farewell address we found enlarged the American Missionary Union (Bap- consolation fitted to fire the heart with tist) has recently been in session at that confidence in God which is the Yokohama. The report says: "The result of a generation of proofs of His work of the year shows progress. About faithfulness. .
twice the number that were received It may not be sufficiently realized the previous year have been baptized that in this distant Eastern land there into the Church." Rev. J. H. Pettee is reason to look for exceptional devel- writes that the late annual meeting of opments of good. So far there have the representatives of the Congrega- been grinding toil, sapping and mining, tional churches at Osaka was the best seed·sowing. If a touch of life is all-round meeting ever held. Kbout granted from above, what is just now eighteen months ago a native pastor feared politically, of any spark setti~g was first stationed by the mission of this province in a blaze, may take place the Evangelical Association at Togane, in a happier sense.
near Tokyo. The work has steadily in- Multitudes of Chinese Christians are creased, so that the present church- praying for the conversion of the Em- membership is forty-five, and ten more peror. Whatever views may be held in are ready to be baptized. Quite are· the West as to the good or evil of rulers vival spirit has appeared in the schools being mixed up with the spi-ead of the of the Methodist church at Nagasaki. faith of Christ, here it seems to be gen- The two churches at Hachoji have re- erally felt among Chinese Christians cently united in holding special or re- that the will of God cannot be fully ac- vival meetings, which have been at- complished while the leaders of the tended with good results. New inter- country are unaffected by the truth.
est has been awakened, the attendance At present Christianity is not even re- at the churches has gradually been in- garded as a legal system of faith and creasing, and a number of applicants conduct, much less understood. It is for baptism are reported. time for the Lord to work to discounte- nance heathen and immoral proceed- ings, which are often tolerated all round Things Ohinese that are Promising. by the great of this world, if not even BY REV. J. SADLER, AMOY, CHINA. engaged in. Christ was weak as re- Dr. Cobb, whom you may soon see- gards the things of this world, but He back in the States, * is profoundly im- never lacked the p~wer of the Spirit.
It transpires that there may be more • Dr. Cobb, the Secretary of the Missionary of indirect success than is imagined_ Board of the Reformed Church in America, com- Tbe Chinese are now known to be keen pleted his tour around the world and resumed on our newspapers (in Chinese), and his dutie. at his desk early in September.- IlOt a little interested in seeing what ill J.T. G. thought of them. They cannot shut Church in Canada, for in that week themselves up any longer. One paper, three missionaries were ordained and called The Ten Thousand (Jouniries' News- designated for service. Our Trinidatl paper, is, we believe, read in high quar- Mission has now reached an important ters. We know of a Mandarin, not era in its history. Twenty-five years mean in degree, who considers it greatly have passed away since the pioneer to his interest to have honorable men- missionary, Dr. Morton, left Nova Sco- tion in this paper. What suggestions tia and commenced work among the grow out of such a fact as to good coolie population. The general work though silent influence. We need not of the mission has been very much en- expect that the turning of this people larged of late, adding very greatly to to God may come about in just our its cost. The Government of Trinidad methods of church life and discipline. passed a new school ordinance which If, as we know to be the case, con- had to be accepted by our staff of mis- sciences are aroused, a moral sense sionaries. The law, on the whole, is deepened and vivified, vigorous sym- favorable to the mission. A number of pathy. however hidden, be called out new buildings had to be erected, which for many kinds of reform, this all is cost the ChUl'ch $10,000. In conse- good. Individual conversions are ever quence of the government's action a taking place. Prayer is constantly debt of over $7000 now rests on the going up for such wot:k of the H01y Foreign Mission Fund, and steps are Spirit. There is nothing too hard for being taken to wipe it out. A Presby- God in regard to turning the tremen- terian college has also been opened on dous forces of heathenism to His ser- the island, with a staff of three profes- vice; and, in answer to prayer, ever sors and an assistant and forty -six stu- being offered, raising up such effective dents in attendance. Several of our native apostles as may, like Moses and Young People's Societies of Christian Paul, lead multitudes into the kingdom Endeavor have contributed nobly tow- of heaven. ard the support of these students, and I have made a suggestion to Dr. the institution will eventually prove a Cobb, as to whether he could have it feeder to the wide heathen field of arranged for important news from your India.
valuable REVIEW bearing on China, to be Forty-seven years ago mission work translated into the Chinese newspaper in heathen lands was first commenced above referred to, and vice versa. by one branch of the present United Presbyterian Church in Canada, The 'Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia' in Oanada Notes. 1846, Qomprising scarcely thirty con- gregations, sent forth their first mis- BY REV. W. B. DlCKIE, MILFORD, NOVA sionary. Now there are not less than SCOTIA. eight different fields occupied-viz., The Presbyterian Church in Canada New Hebrides, Trinidad, Honan, India, has sent out this year eleven new mis- Formosa, Jerusalem, Indians North- sionaries. Four young ladies, two of west, and Chinese British Columbia.
whom are M.D. 's, are now under ap- Three presbyteries have also been pointment anel have gone to India. formed – viz., Trinidad, India, and Two others have left for Honan and Honan.
Formosa, and Rev. C. Webster, this Upward of $8000 was on hand to Church's first missionary to Palestine, commence operations among the Jews is now on the way to Jerusalem. The in Palestine, and the young man who last week in July was then a most e~ent has gone forth as the first missionary is ful week in the history of the foreign eminently qualified for the work. Tha mission enterprise in the Presbyterian matter of establishing this mission has been under consideration for some its watch-cry: The evangelization of the years. and has lain very close to the hearts of not a few Canadian Presbyte- world in this generation. rian people. The mission has been inaugurated under most favorable aus- Regarding the observance of the day, pices, and it is probable that in a short time another missionary will follow. we further suggest : A Gall for Prayer. 1. That the volunteers be called to- To the Membe:rs of the Student Volunteer gether at t,he earliest possible date, to Movementfor Foreign Missions: hear the reading of this call, and to de- The Student Volunteer Movement has reached a time of crisis. Its mem- termine definite plans. bers include thousands. It has the confidence of the churches and mis· 2. That early in the day a meeting sionary societies, as never before. The missionaries are looking t'o it anxiously for special prayer be held, limited to and expectantly. Never in the history of missions have the calls for laborers volunteers and all oLhers deeply interbeen clearer, louder, or more imperative than those which ring in our ears to- ested in this object. day ; for it is the unanimous testimony of missionaries at the front, that during 3. That a publie meeting be held later the closing years of this century the issue of the conflict will be determined in the day, when there will be given for generations among a vast majority of the unevangelized inhabitants of the brief, carefully prepared addresses perworld. As far as responsibility rests upon the United States and Canada, if taining to the purpose and significance these calls are responded to at all, humanly speaking, they must be answered of the Student Volunteer Movement, largely by the student volunteers. The movement is now over six years old, the crisis in missions, and the individand a great many of the volunteers have completed their courses of study. It is ual responsibility of Christian students. time, therefore, to look for and con· fidently expect larger numbers to hasten 4. That a thank.offering to God be to the fields. To make this possible one thing is pre-eminently necessary. made at the public meeting, which shall It is that which Jesus Christ explicitly commanded: "Pray ye, therefore, the go toward the extension and develop- Lord of the harvest, that He send forth laborers into His harvest. " ment of the Student Volunteer Move- In view of the crisis on the one hand ment. and this command on the other, we, your Executive Committee, most ear- A vast Hindu conference has recently nestly recommend that the volunteers in each institution set apart Sunday, been held at Benares, India, to take October 30th, as a DAY OF PRAYER for the Stndent Volunteer Movement, and steps toward the saving of Hinduism for that greater object wrapped up in from the encroachments of Christian- ity. Among other things the confer- ence recommended that October 30th be set apart as the special day of prayer for the preservation of the Hindu re- ligion. Should not this mighty faet 'attach peculiar significance to our ob- .servance of this day? Let us recall the experience of Elijah with the proph- 'ets of Baal (1 Kings 18 : 19-39); and before a witnessing world, let the day demonstrate in some new measure that, " The Lord, He is God. "
JOHN R. MOTT, Inter-Collegiate Y. M_ C. A., MISS CORABEL TARR, Inter-Collegiate Y. W_ C.A., D. WILLARD LYON, luter-Seminary Miss_ Alliance, Executive Committee.
Book Mention.
-Serampore Letters, being the unpub- lished correspondence of William Carey and others with .Tohn Williams, 1800- 1816, edited by Leighton and Mornay on" and strong, and the rhetoric is Williams, has been issued by G. P. strong. It is an inspiring pamphlet. Putnam's Sons. There is incidental The Heart of the Gospel (Baker, Taylor & information here, which shows New Co., New York). This is twelve ser- York to have had a large share in the mons, delivered at the Metropolitan initiation of the Baptist Missionary Tabernacle in London, by Dr. Pierson. Union. A Baptist society in New York Many thousands of people will be curiantedated Judson's departure, and ear· ous to know what Dr. Pierson preached lier still they had sent Elkanah Holmes under the circumstances. 'rhes.e are to the Indians. plain, helpful, vigorous Gospel sermons; in many respects not unlike Mr. Spur- -Do not Say (F. H. Revell Co., New geon's own sermons in this great Taber- York) is a book of about 100 pages, nacle. They will be widely read, as containing brief answers to the Church's they ought to be. They treat of themes excuses for neglecting the heathen, by which are the" heart of the Gospel," a missionary of the Church of England for they are clear.cut expositions of ex· in mid·China. Price, 10 cents. The perimental Christianity. same publishers send forth Indian Gems for the Master's Crown, a true narrative, -Bishop Tucker, in writing from intended for native Christians in India, Uganda, uses the following language: but helpful to an insight into the way " How shall I find langnage to describe Christianity spreads in India. It is little the wonderful work of God's grace which wonder that it has been translated into has been going on in this land? Truly, many European languages. The diffi- the half was not told me. Exaggeration culties of the men of the East who de- about the eagerness of the people here sire to become Christians are here made to be taught there has been none. No real to the foreign Christian. words can describe the !lmotion which filled my heart as, on Sunday, Decem- -Our Life Among the Iroquois Indians ber 28th, I stood up to speak to fully (Congregational Publishing Society, 1000 men and women who crowded the Boston), by Mrs. Caswell, is a record of church of Uganda. It was a wonderful fifty years of service among that portion sight! There, close beside me, was the of the well-known Six Nations on the Katikiro-the second man in the king- Cattaraugus Reservation near Buffalo, dom. There. on every hand, were N. Y. It is illustrated. The student chiefs of various degrees, all Christian of the red races and those interested men, and all in their demeanor devout in mission work among them will de- and earnest to a degree. There was a light in this book. second service in the afternoon, at which there must have been fully 800 -A really great work is Bibliography present. The same earnest attention of the Algonquian Languages, by James was apparent, and the same spirit of Constantine Pilling, a Smithsonian In- devotion. I can never be sufficiently stitute volume of the Bureau of Ethnol- thankful to God for the glorious privogy. It is full of missionary intelligenc'e, ilege of being permitted to preach to and ought to be largely drawn on for these dear members of Christ's flock." material on the missionary advance of this country.
– The King's Business, speech by Dr. -In 1888 the great Japnnese version A. T. Pierson, at the annnal meeting of of the Holy Scriptures was completed. the China Inland Mission (Morgan & On this monumental work, forty-six: Scott, London), is in Dr. Pierson's best missionaries, under the leadership of style. The facts are strongly grouped, Dr. Hepburn, were engaged for sixteen the movement of thought is " straight years.
DEPARTMENT ·OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
III.-DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR.
CONDUCTED BY PROFESSOR AMOS B. WELLS.
The cable has announced Dr. Clark's published by The Golden Rule. The safe arrival in Australia. He made stops first follows Dr. Clark across this con- at Hawaii, the Samoan Islands, and at tinent, dealing with such topics as the Auckland, New Zealand. Misappre- Moody work in Chicago, the Utah prob- hension exists in some quarters regard- lem, the money-power of the nation as ing the purposes of Dr. Clark's around- a national peril (this in connection with the-world Christian Endeavor tour. It California), and suggesting books to be is not .intended to start new societies. read and essays to be written. This is Dr. Clark is glad to be able to say that only a sample of the ways in which this he has organized only two societies, and journey of Dr. Clark's will be utilized those in ch urches over which he was for the increase of missionary enthusi- pastor. He believes that societies asm throughout the great army of En- should be organized by no one but the deavorers.
pastors of their churches. He goes Mr. John Willis Baer, the General with two aims-one is to study the Secretary of the United Society, has re- foreign fi elds, and see their peculiar turned from his voyage to Scotland de- needs, that he may be able to judge cidedly improved in health, and able to· what modifications in Christian En- devote himself energetically to his office deavor methods, if any, would better work. He narrowly escaped a twenty- adapt them to changed conditions. He days' quarantine.
will become acquainted with zealous At a recent meeting of the United So- Christian Endeavor workers every- ciety, held in Boston, the By-laws were where. He will give them of his own so amended as to provide for the elec- abounding zeal, and will gain fresh tion of thirty-nine instead of thirty-one courage and good cheer from them. trustees, the present number. The While he will himself organize no new membership of the board of trustees is societies, nor set in motion agencies now quite evenly divided among the for their organization, undoubtedly evangelical denominations, but there many new societies will spring up in are two or three which have zealously all these foreign lands all the result of adopted the Christian Endeavor move- his visit. The second aim is to inspire ment, and yet have had no representa- the societies at home with fresh mis- tion on the board. This body has al- sionary zeal. These societies are watch- ways been a fairly representative one, ing his trip with especial care. By and it is always to remain such. In ac- means of it their interest in missions cordance with this action there have and knowledge of them will be increased been added to the board Rev. J. F.
many fold. Cowan, of the Methodist Protestants, One instance of how this will be done. 'and Rev. William Patterson, of the In many societies it is already proposed Canadian Presbyterians-two denom- to hold regular meetings, keeping pace inations in which Endeavor socie- with Dr. Clark's progress, for the sole ties are now multiplying with great purpose of studying Christian missions rapidity.
in the lands he visits. These are to be Few things done at the New York apart from the regular prayer-meetings. Christian Endeavor Convention have Mr. S. L. Mershon, one of the Christian been productive of more good than Mr.
Endeavorers most prominent and sug- Robert E. Speer's call for a vote show- gestive in tbisline of work, has outlined ing who had read ten representative- a very capital course of study for such books on missions. The eyes of the meetings. The programmes are being thousands of Endeavorers there were opened to their lack, and not in vain. as found in the — Church '-but it From all over the land comes news of a wasn't," Endeavorers are true to their more ardent reading of missionary lit- church, and to Christ wherever He ill erature than ever before. If Mr. Speer found. asks that question at Montreal next year he will get a far better showing. One fruitful work for which Endeavor To aid this increased study, Rev. S. W. societies are especially well fitted is the Pratt gives in the New York Evangelist establishment of Sunday-schools in several lists of the best twenty mission- neglected places. These Sunday-schools ary books, prepared for him by Dr. are sure, if well kept up, to grow into Pierson, Dr. Ellinwood, and Mr. Speer churches. It is pleasing to notice that himself. These authorities recommend here and there, all over the country. the lives of Carey. Burns, Paton, Mills, the young people banded together" For Judson, Williams, Neesima, Brainerd, Christ and the Church" are undel-takini Mackay, Moffat, Livingstone, Hanning_ this gracious task. ton, Duff, Patteson, Martyn, and Morrison. Among the other books they One society in California has pledged recommend are Pierson's "Crisis of itself to labor against the opium traffio Missions" and "Miracles of Missions," and against cigarette-smoking. Of a Strong's" Our Country," Funk & Wag- special train sent to a recent California naH's Encyclopredia of Missions, ., Co- county convention, crowded with Enrea, the Hermit Nation," and" The Mi- deavorers, it was said that it was the kado's Empire," by Griffis, "China and first train ever sent over that road withthe Chinese," by Nevins, and" Mora_ out a smoking-car. The same remark vian Missions," by Thompson. This was made of the train of ten cars that list will make an excellent guide for pulled out of Boston for the New York thousands of young readers. Convention, Probably not one of the thirty thousand Endeavorers at New In many ways Canada is showing a York used tobacco in any form. most vigorous interest in the Endeavor movement, and especially in the organi- A special effort-but only a slight one zation of large and vigorous county -was made among the Congregational unions. The fact that Montreal is to Endeavor societies of the western part have next year's' International Conven- of Connecticut last year, and forty-seven tion is one cause of this access of en- societies contributed to the Woman's thusiasm, and another is the capture of Board of Missions $1800. This sum the two banners' by Ontario and Mani- supported missionaries in India, China, toba-the banners that represent the Turkey, and other heathen lands. greatest aggregate and the greatest pro- Equally good results could doubtless be portionate increase in the number of gained by equally faithful work among societies. the young everywhere. And what rev- enues for missions that would mean! In a large Christian Endeavor Convention held recently in Chicago, Dr. The Methodist Protestants are wisely P. S. Henson said emphatically, .. I adopting a plan of conference unions would not be a Baptist if I could not of the Methodist Protestant Endeavor be a Christian Endeavorer, and I would societies, like the plan of presbyterial not be a Christian Endeavorer if I could unions adopted quite largely b~ the not be a Baptist." Presbyterians. Such unions bind the societies to their denominations, While At the successful convention lately the State and national gatherings give held by the Endeavorers of the maritime them broad outlooks and the blessprovinces of Canada, one speaker sig- ings of interdenominational fellownificantly said, "The motto of the so- ship. ciety, instead of • For Christ and the Church,' might have been, • FOl' Christ The Christian Endeavor pledge has been translated into the Mpongwe lan- guage, of the western coast of Africa. The name of the society literally reo committees obtain and distribute.liter- translated is, .. The Party of Christian ature, get up public meetings to en- Zeal. " force the duty of tithe·giving, and form leagues of those who are willing thus There are Christian Endeavor soci. to share their possessions with the Lord eties in Syria, and some of these carry who gave them. Such committees are on their services in Arabic. very effective.
Sunday.school committees of En· The same young people that gave deavor societies have planned some very Whitelaw Rei-l such a rousing reception shrewd ways of increasing the numbers at the New York Convention have sent and interest of their Sunday.schools. him a petition asking him to stop the Here is one of the best. The commit· publication of a Sunday newspaper. tee gets one class each week to act as a .. recruiting squad" to bring in new Twenty State, Territorial, and Proscholars. The Endeavorers in that class vincial Christian Endeavor Conventions will naturally act as leaders in the occur during the fall and early winter week's campaign. The superintendent months,-Maine, the mother·State of announces publicly the result of the Christian Endeavor, leading the list, as work, and after each class has had its is proper. For these conventions the turn the Endeavor Sunday.school com- greatest preparations are being made. mittee gives a pleasant party in honor Most eloquent and earnest men and of the class that has done the best. women will address them, and many projects for the advancement of the The young people of Lawrence, Kan., kingdom will be set in motion at these have enjoyed, during the summer, the meetings. The splendid fervor of the advantages of the Christian Endeavor New York Convention bids fair to aniinterdenominational fellowship in this mate them all. way. During one week a meeting would be held of the lookout commit- Compared with some denominations tees of all societies belonging to the the Reformed churches have few Chrisunion; during the next week, of the tian Endeavor societies, but here is prayer.meeting committees belonging their record: In 1890 twenty.three soto these diverse societills, and so on. cieties gave to their mission boards The interchange of ideas and the mu- $117; in 1891, twenty. nine societies tual inspiration were very helpful. gave $231; in 1892, eighty-five soci- eties gave $545. Recently a .Christian Endeavor so- ,ciety has been organized among the In Australia, where Dr. Clark is now Chinese in San Francisco by the Con· at work, the first Christian Endeavor gregational Chinese Mission there. society was formed about four years This is probably the first Chinese Chris- ago. In South Australia there are altian Endeavor st>ciety in the country, ready seventy-seven societies, in New if not in the world. South Wales thirty, in Victoria one hundred and thirty, and mauy more in In the Hawaiian Islands, Dr. Clark's other divisions of the continent. first foreign stopping·place in his around-the·world tour, a Christian En- Two significant bits of news come to deavor society was organized early in us from a Christian Endeavor society 1884. Three others have since been among the Sioux Indians. They are formed. All are engaged in aggressive actually running a Sunday.school for Christian work. the benefit of the poor white children who are brought upon the reservation Systematic giving is one of the most by Caucasian settlers, and the other day prominent subjects before the Endeavor they gave $50, as a society, to help plant world, and deservedly so. Committees Sunday.schools among the white chilo on systematic giving are appointed by dren of South Dakota. the societies in some places. These
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
IV.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The Improvement of the "Review." to omit altogether notice of current events, or else to abandon all such com- Now and then letters are received petition with the daily press. This REcriticising the editing of the REVIEW, or VIEW goes to the heart of Asia and Afrithe nature of the material here gath- ca as well as of Europe. It may be of ered, or both; though it is but candor consequence to make it a compendium to acknowledge that for one letter of of recent intelligence, even though complaint we have a score in com- months have elapsed; otherwise, to mendation. All such criticisms, and some who are out of commullication especially suggestions aiming at im- with the world, the tread of events will provement, will have an honest and not be known. But we aIe seeking by hearty hearing; for no reader can desire every available means to shorten the inthe increa~ed accuracy, value, and ser- terval between events and their report viceableness of these pages more than in these pages, by arranging for advance those who give so much labor to their sheets of great missionary magazines, preparation. We welcome our readers etc. to a share in the untiring endeavor to make the MrssIONABY _REVIEW OF THE We are annoyed at times by discover- WORLD a storehouse of both exact in. ing inaccuracy. We employ trustworthy formation and spiritual inspiration. parties to send us reports of various matters; but it is not always in our At times the same sort of items have power to verify their statements. appeared in the different departments; Whenever any error is found it is recand as it has seemed best to put these tified, and when we find a correspondsubordinate departments under care of ent careless we get the best man we different members of the editorial ~taff, can to take his place. on account of the extent of the world field and the vastness of the matter requiring The obvious improvement of the Au. to be passed upon, it has been found dif- gust "Monthly Bulletin" over that of ficult to avoid such seeming repetitions. July is to be accounted for by the new But arrangements are now making to arrangement, by which all matter emhave all the pages pass under the final braced in the intelligence department is revision of the managing editor, Mr. submitted to Dr. Leonard, and re-edited Delavan L. Pierson, before electrotyp- by him before appearing in type. ing. One criticism made on the material in One of our esteemed correspondents the REVIEW is that while" good, it is not complains that" the editing is not up timely nor the best." Our correspondent to date," and mstances the outbreaks thinks that most articleB would" suit in the Pirreus, which occurred in Feb- one month as well as another," and ruary, but were referred to as " recent" that only" missionaries on the ground on page 622. can furnish accurate statements of mis- This is an electrotyped periodical; and sions and mission work. " the time needful for preparing each In reply we would say that the REnumber, even with utmost speed, makes impracticable all competition with daily, VIEW is adjusted on a principle of divior even weekly, religious papers that are sion oj the world field. Each number is issued at short notice and with such fre- principally given to a certain country or quency. Even' in the weekly religious grouping of countries, as, for instance, journals the news is often stale, having February is mainly assigned to China, had the eyes of the reading public for a and December mainly to Syria. 'fhis ar_ week previous. But our choice is _either rangement makes certain articles pecul- iarly suitable to certain months. But when any paper reaches UB. which should from its nature have imme- so absolutely without a basis, tl act, that diate insertion, we put it in the next it casts a shadow over whatever else the available issue. writer may have to say in condemna- tion or even commendation. It betrays And as to missionaries furnishing a squmt, a defect of clear vision, or a the only trustworthy statements, it is total misunderstanding of the truth he remarkable that the great body of com- assails. plaints have come from those who have criticised the papers furnished by mis- He says: sionaries themselves. Often a man sees .' Dr. Pierson's views on mISSIons little beyond his own field, denomina. are utterly at variance with those of altion, or peculiar work. For example, most all missionaries. More than once the statements of missionaries in China, it has been said to me that there was etc., as to the China Inland Mission; danger lest he do the cause of missions the statements of parties in India as to !Dore harm than good. The reason for the work of Bishop Thoburn and the this is that he is a strong premillena- " S. P. G." ; the strictures of African rian, and believes that the sole duty of missionaries as to Bisbop Taylor and missionaries is to preach, without any his self supporting missions; the severe reference to conversion or the establishanimadversions upon the articles of Mr. ment of churches. He is opposed to Baldwin, of Tangiers, etc., have made missions having anything to do with the editors hesitate to admit some education, the development of literapapers from the missionaries them. ture, etc. This was brought out last selves; while articles furnisbed by week at Northfield, and every foreign such men as Drs. Ellinwood, Mitchell, missionary that spoke attacked his posi- George Sinith, Mabie, etc., have elicited tion most earnestly. In this opinion he almost universal approval. We have has the strong support of Dr. A. J. Gortherefore chosen to give every article a don, his co-editor. That particular view place upon its own merits as the only safe has, as a rule. been kept in the backrule. ground in the REVIEW. but it modifies its whole tone, and is, I suspect, the One correspondent thinks the REVIEW true explanation of the selection of should furnish " a field for the discus- some articles. Dr. Sherwood kept it sion of missionary problems," and that out entirely; but it is scarcely possible in this" it fails absolutely." This seems that it should not control more and to us a strange indictment. If anyone more. I hear it spoken of constantly will take up any bound volume and go with regret and disappointment." over its contents, he will find the relation of education to evangelism, the The editor can speak confidently, position .of native churches, native pas- both for himself and Dr. Gordon, in tors, etc.• and the demands for a ver- saying that no more complete travesty nacular literature discussed by no less of their views could well be put into distinguished men than Drs. Knox, of language. Japan, Gracey and his coadjutors in the " International Department," and Mur- ]. The view we entertain as to the reray Mitchell. If our readers will send lation of the Lord's coming to missions to us or procure for us first-class articles is stated by Mr. W. E. Blackstone to be on these and kindred topics, the editors in accord with those of the majority of the will welcome each on its own merits, most devoted missionaries, as ascerand gladly pay for such as are used the tained byactaal investigation. highest rates in our power. 2. The so-called " premillenarian One criticism which has reacbed the view" does not hold that it is th., .. sole editor is so absolutely unfounded it duty of missionaries to preach," without should have full space and a distinct reference to conversion or the establish. emphatic rejoinder. This criticism iii ment of churches. If any sensible man, who accepts the Scripture teaching that our Lord's coming is an imminent concentrate our forces there until the event, holds such a preposterous theory, nation is converted, is to disobey our we have not yet met that man. What Lord's command and abandon His ob- we do maintain is just what Dr. George vious plan, while it is to set up a false Smith so compactly writes in· his and illusive standard of success. Wher "Short History of Missions." Refer. ever, as Dr. Smith says-whom we have ring to Constantine's so·called "con· supposed to be one of the post-millenaversion," he says (p. 57) that" from a rian brethren-nationalism displaces inpurely missionary point of view, it be· dividualism in conversion, and concengan a system of compromise with error tration on limited fields displaces diffu. -of nationalism instead of individualism sion over the whole world field, we com· in conversion-which in the East made promise with error, and risk the real the Church an easy prey to Mohamme. success of missions. danism, and in the West produced J eauit missions." The editor-in. chief presided at North- field on the Mission Day, and if " every Dr. Gordon and myself firmly believe foreign missionary that spoke attacked that " preaching the Gospel as a witness his position most earnestly," he failed among all nations" means setting up to recognize the opposition. In fact, all churches, sohools, a sanctified press, that he said on Mission Day was to premedical missions, and, in fact, all the sent a fllw of the marvellous results of institutions which are the fruit of Chris- missions in the hundred years; and tianity and constitute part of its witness; whatever was said on the bearing of the but that our Lord's purpose and plan Lord's coming on missions was said the are that we should not wait in anyone day bifore, when only a few of the speakfield for the full results of our sowing ers had yet arrived! to appear in a thoroughly converted community before we press on to re- As to Dr. Sherwood's" keeping out gions beyond, where as yet the name of such matter entirely," he never inter- Christ has not been spoken; and that fered with the province of the editorour duty is to ROW everywhere and as in-chief. who from the first controlled shortly as possible .the simple message by explicit arrangement the character of the kingdom, that it may everywhere of the articles appearing. Dr. Sherwood's be followed up with every other agency department was the arrangement of dethat helps to transform a community. tails and the make-up of the REVIEW; Missions begin in evangelization, but and only in the absence of the other have everything to do with Christian editor did he control the literature of education, and the printing press, and the REVIEW. But from the first no arti· the organization of churches, and the cle has ever been e>ccluded because it pre. training of a native pastorate. Not at sented a view contrary to the private and Northfield, or anywhere else, "last personal views of any of the editorial week," or any other time, has the editor staff. The question has never been asked of this REVIEW affirmed anything else of any contributor, or even of any sub· than what he here boldly reaffirms, that editor, whether he held a premillennial our duty is to go into.all the world and or a postmillennial view of the Lord's within the limitS'of our own generation advent; nor does the editor know, save preach the Gospel to every creature; in the case of Dr. Gordon. Each writer that our first duty is contact. and that is alone responsible for the view he conversion is something we cannot com- takes; and all we ask is that no grea mand, but must leave to God. To give essential truth of the Christian system every man the Gospel, this furnishes a shall be questioned in these pages. basis for all other work which helps to make a true Christian community. But Now that we have given thus much to lay siege to a nation like Japan and space to the subject of the improvement of the REVIEW, it may be well to add that we desire the best available papers, from whatever authorized and compe- human, with a pathetic love note. There tent sources, upon all phases of mis- is so much new mat!'lrial, that, as Dr.
sionary work at home and abroad, and Smith says, his Life has yet to be written, upon all questions pertaining to the outside of his own precious journals; philosophy and economy and history of and -he proposes to put him and Carey missions. For such articles we shall, side by side, both men of the people; whether personally solicited by us or but one a self-educated shoemaker, and not, whenever we can make use of them, the other an academic scholar. This pay the writer whatever the pecuniary hint of the coming feast will serve to resources of the REVIEW make possible. whet the appetite of our readers for Weare specially desirous of accurate re- Dr. Smith's promised book.
ports of recent intelligence from every fieJd.
If any reader knows of a work, II mission, or a field of labor which has po ade- Nothing unfriendly to Dr. Pentecost quate representation in these pages, we was intended in publishing the stricask his help in furnishing or securing tures of Rev. C. M. Wherry, D.D., on such matter as remedies the lack. The his public addresses about India (May, editors desire to have every intelligent 1891, page 387). Dr. Wherry was for reader share in the editorial care of the twenty years a missionary in India, and REVIEW by thus making it a fuller and . one of the founders of the theological more trustworthy magazine of informa. seminary at Lodiana, and author of a tion. Various changes which experi- noted work on Mohammedanism. Such ence seems to dictate will be made with an authority deserved to be heard on the opening of a new- volume in 1893. questions pertaining to the Orient.
Meanwhile, we welcome any friendly suggestions which may help us in a field where we have had none to precede us A Hint to Oontributors of Artioles and pioneer the way. This is, so far a8 The editor finds it absolutely necessary we know, the only REVIEW that has un- to reject or return many articles because dertaken to cover the world-wide field of they are not in shape to be used in missions, and it is not strange if we these pages without toil in editing, to should have found no small obstacles in which the editor is not equal. A care- ollr path. We invoke Divine help in a less letter is sometimes written which most arduous toil.-A. T. P. cannot all be published, and is not in condition for the printer, and perhaps a report or newspaper article accom- A new contribution to mIssIOnary panies it, and the editor is told biography is forthcoming from the that he may make such extracts as he golden pen of George Smith, LL.D., of chooses. This is no way to insure in- Edinburgh, Foreign Secretary of the sertion of matter. If a paper is worth Free Church. It is to be a life of Henry anything for readers, it is worth being Martyn, and will be II valuable addition carefully written before it reaches this to the marvellous biographies of Duff, office, and should be ready to go into Carey, Wilson of Bombay, Summerville, the printer's hands with as little change etc., from the same gifted author. as possible. If writers will themselves Dr. Smith spares no pains to prepare kindly take pains to send us brief, these masterly volumes. He went last pithy, well-written and legible manu- year to Land's End to get up the" lo- scripts, they will seldom be disappoint- cal color" for Henry Martyn's life, amid ed by finding them returned as rejected the surroundings of Truro, in Cornwall, MSS.
where Martyn was born. That story of the Cornish boy who died at Tokat has Madame Hyacinthe Loyson is now in splendid possibilities in it, divine and this country on a mission for the National Society for the Evangelization of "We receive both boys and girls from France. She comes with the strong their earliest days, keep the boys until endorsement of a Committee, among they are between fourteen and fifteen whom we find such conspicuollS names years of age, when they are apprenas those of Pastors Mettetal, Monod, ticed, and the girls till they are about Lalot, Gout, Duchemin, Prunier, Sail- seventeen years old, when both boys lens, etc.; and such men as Reveillaud, and girls are provided with an outfit, Rougement, CourUa! and Passy. Dr. and with suitable situations also. Up McAll adds a warm personal letter of to the time that our orphans are sent sympathy and commendation. We be- away from the institution, they are speak for her and her caU3e a cordial boarded, lodged. clothed, and educated hearing. There is a wide and effectual entirely free of all expense to their reladoor open in France; but there are tives, and have a most comfortable and many adversaries. happy home_ Mrs. E. L. Ryland Jacques, grand- "When I began the orphan work daughter of the late Dr. Ryland, of fifty-seven years ago, there was accom- Northampton, afterward of Broadmead, modation in this country for 3600 or- Bristol, and President of the Baptist phans only; but since that time, through College, has some manuscript outlines of her famous grandsire's sermons. the blessing of God, which has rested They are written with crow·s quill on so abundantly upon my-labors, such an narrow slips of paper convenient for slipping over the leaf of his pocket Bi- impetus has been given to orphan work, ble, and he being very near-sighted that institutions have sprung up in vacould read them, though the writing is rious parts of Great Britain, by means so fine as to be legible only because so of which more than 100,000 orphans exquisitely neat. Mrs. Jacques offers these for sale at $2 each, the proceeds can now be provided for; and for this reason.it is that we have so many va- cancies at the present time, and find it so difficult to fill them up.
., I repeat, therefore, that I shall con- sider it an especial kindness if Christian friends will take the trouble to seek out destitute orphans, and advise the rela- tives of such to apply to me for their admission, as we have good and abun- dant accommodation for them, and a large number of efficient helpers."
to go to missions. There are only a few The editor regrets to add that in the left, and if any of our readers desire fifty-third annual report of these insti- such a curiosity, it would be well to tutions there appears a d~cit of £3663, write to her at once, at Merrickville, or about $18,000, nearly one half of Ontario, Canada.. which is salaries due to teachers, who voluntarily and nobly relinquish pay Mr. George Miiller's Orphanages at until relief comes. We cannot but Bristol. believe the exigency is only one more trial of faith and incentive to prayer. With no little surprise do we find a For nearly sixty years the work of public appeal from this distinguished George Miiller has stood before the advocate of faith work, stating that world as an example and proof of mighty there are now a great number of vacan- works still possible to believing souls. cies for girls in the Bristol orphan Surely some to whom God has given houses, erected to receive 2050 orphans means will be glad to share in such a both whose parents are dead. Mr. Millier work by relieving the present pressure. says: " 1 earnestly request Christian friends The Woman's Foreign Missionary Sokindly to assist me in filling up these ciety of the Presbyterian Church has vacancies, by seeking out suitable cases published in a revised form the" Hisfor admission into our institution, by torical Sketches of Presbyterian Misletting the relatives or friends of orphan sions," 1334 Chestnut Street, Philadelgirls know that they can be received at phia. We haTe often said that this the Ashley Down Orphan Houses, and by advising them to write to me for their admi6!!iQn. little compendium is one of the very has been known as one of the most reo best books on missions that has come under the editor's eyes; ahd will be markable organizers ever conducting found most helpful to all who study missions in the fields here treated- the work of home missions. A more viz., Africa, China, India, Japan, Korea, extended notice will, we hope, appear Mexico, Guatemala, North American soon. A. T. P. Indians, Chinese and Japanese in America, Persia, Siam and Laos, South By some accident the following letter America, and Syria. Each is treated by a specialist on the particular field. failed to appear earlier. We publish it While referring to recent books we now, with apology for delay.-A. T. P. call attention to four new issues of our TREMONT TEMPLE. BOSTON, MAss., enterprising friend, F. H. Revell, 30 June 15, 1892. East Union Square, New York: "Everyday Life in South India," $1; "Chil- Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D.: dren of India," $1.40; "Gospel Eth- DEAR SIR: On page 464 of June nology; or, the Gospel for the Race," number of the REVIEW, deaths in Africa $1 ; ., On the Congo," 50 cents. These are wrongly stated as being 60 per cen· tum. are a very useful addition to that cheap Careful statistics show the death-rate and comprehensive missionary library in the Congo missions up to April, 1890. which Mr. Revell seems determined to Since that date the death-rate has been furnish to all willing readers at a merely lower than the average, {or owing to our better houses, improved transport nominal cost. We are also glad to see service, our accumulated experience, that the African News is published in etc., some of the old causes of sickness volume form embracing the year just . have been removed. These figures in- clude all the societies then at work on passed. the Congo-six in number. Percentage of deaths in the Baptist Missionary So. I am told that at Springfield and J ack- ciety (English): Arrivals, 66; deaths, sonville, Ill., about thirty miles apart, 25-percentage, say, 38. Percentage are to be found colonies of Portuguese, in all the missions: Total arrivals, 204 ; driven out from Madeira in 1849, and total deaths, 54-percentage, 26-!- The taking refuge in these cities. The death-rate is higher in the English Bapstreets are wholly given up to these set- tist Society than the average rate, but tlers. They have at least four churches the English Society began work in 1878, of their own. In the Sandwich Islands when the country had not been explored, 12,000 are to be found, where amid a and the missionaries of the English total population of perhaps 80,000,20,- Baptist Society and ours of the American 000 are Chinese, and a few thousand Baptist Missionary Union had the hard more Japanese. To such an extent, task and exposure of exploring for themnot only in our own land, but through- selves the country now pierced by their out the world, the peoples are mixing. chain of mission stations, which now stretches fully a thousand miles into Two deaths, such as not often are the interior of Africa. chronicled, have recently occurredone that of Rev. John Van Nest Tal- Six years of this preliminary work mage, D.D., of Amoy, China, who died had been done, and the two missions August 19th, and the other that of named had already established them- Rev. Henry Kendall, D.D., who died selves far beyond Stanley Pool, ere any September 9th. Both were veterans. of the Qther societies entered. Then Dr. Talmage being seventy-three and came the first attempt made by Mr. Dr. Kendall seventy-seven, and both Simpson. of New York, in 1884. Two very remarkable men. We can in these years later Bishop William Taylor's pages, and at present writing, do no mission was started, and the same year more than record this great loss to the the Swedish Missionary Society (two Church, one in the foreign and the members of which had already done other in the home field, both leaders good service in the A. B. M. U. mis. lind generals. Dr. Kendall particularly sion) was organized (1886). Following those came the Congo Balolo Mission.
The old established missions had al- ready bought a good deal of experience, and some lives were laid down in the learning of the lessons; thosA that fol- lowed had an easier task, and a lower death-rate in consequence.
Yours, JOSEPH CLAllX.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
V:-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY THE EDITOR·IN·OHIEF.
South Amerioa.-Brazil. ties for inland navigation exceeding that of the combined Afrioan rivers; and the This being the four hundredth anni· 'Orinooo, though smaller than either of versary of the discovery of America by the others, has a length of 1800 miles, Christopher Columbus, and South and with its branohes supplies 8000 America having been the actual conti- miles of navigable waters. The oom· nent to whose shores he found his way, bined lengths of these three streams is there is a special reason for giving this 8200 miles; the total of their navigable portion of the globe a conspicuous plaoe waters nearly 80,000 miles, and the in our thought; and there is a provi. areas of' their basins cover 3,700,000 dentiallesson of great signifioanoe whioh square miles! is suggested by the history of its disoov. ery and settlement. It is, however, still more remarkable that these rivers are so iocated as to fur. South Amerioa is a vast triangular nish a natural highway everywhere to peninsula; Hs extreme length, 4550 the heart of the continent. A resident miles, and its greatest breadth, 3200 at the eastern foot of the Andes may miles; of its area of 6,500,000 square transport himself and his property in English miles, three fourths lie between less than seven weeks 2000 miles to the the tropios and the other fourth in the Atlantic by floating with the current; temperate zone. and the eastern breeze whioh blows perennially up stream will convey him This superfioial area may be conven· back almost without effort if he spreads iently divided into five physioal regions: sail; nor is the navigation interrupted the low country skirting the Paoifio; by one cataract or even rapid from the the Orinoco basin, espeoially linked Atlantio to Jaen. A glance at the map with Columbus; the Amazon basin; reveals that the great river system con· the great southern plain of the Plata stitutes a natural roadway, with two and other rivers; and the country of main trunks, making it unnecessary for Brazil. From the extreme south to the the poor people to build roads, and Isthmus of Panama runs the Andes affording facility for an extensive inland range, with an average height of 11,000 communioation and commerce, elsewhere to 12,000 feet, and a breadth of from 20 unrivalled on the globe, save in the com· to 400 miles. The vast plains or steppes panion continent of North America. Is of the Orinoco basin are called llanos, not this God's providential provision for intensely hot, and having little wood· the rapid oocupation of South America land; and the open steppes of the La with the Gospel and its institutions? Plata region are known as pampas, with a prodigious 'growth of grass and weeds, The population of South America furon which great herds feed. nishes a study for the ethnologist. As at the northern extremity of this new The Andes have three transverse world we meet the Esquimaux, four and chains or branches nearly at right angles a half feet high, so at the southern cape to the main range, and forming the natu· we find the six·foot Patagoniano The ral boundaries of the three great ri~er tribes ocoupying territory north of Pata· basins. The river system is among the gonia and east of the Andes, St. Vincent wonders of the world. The Amazon classifies as American, and the Neptuniu.n alone pours a flood into the sea that ex· on the west coast he identifies with the ceeds the united disoharge of the eight inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula and prinoipal rivers of Asia, the Indus, the Indian Archipelago. Humboldt Ganges, Yenesei, Oby, Lena, Amoor, thinks that from Cape Horn to Behring's Hoang ho, and Yang.tse. The Plata Straits and the St. Lawrence baain we probably ofIe~ij wit4 ite brllnches facili· have a people from a common stock, ring that nothing less than a continent notwithstanding diverse tongues. Of could furnish such a stream. Dying, the total population of the globe, South still in ignorance of the extent and im- America has about thirty. five parts out portance of his discovery, the name of one hundred and' fifty, or between " West Indies" crystallizes and fossilizes one fourth and one fifth, about as large the impression that the countries he a proportion as Europe, but of course had made known to Europeans were a much less dense. part of the outskirts of India.
From these physical features, etc., we Before leaving this wonderful history, turn to consider the providential history we must place side by side with it the of this great peninsula. Columbus, equally significant fact that John Cabot, with three small vessels and 120 men to whom, with his sons, Sabastian and sailed from Palos, August 3d, 1492. Santius, God gave the immediate suc. From the Canary Isles he entered upon cession in this career of discovery, was a realm of oceanic mystery, borne on by an Italian by birth. John Cabot was the trade winds toward what he believed not only the contemporary of Columto be the coast of Asia. What trifling bus, but a Venetian merchant, but reevents are the hinges of destiny and his- sided in England, and Sebastian was tory! Pinzon's counsel led the great born in Bristol. The discoveries of the Genoese to steer toward t11e southwest. Genoese navigator fired a like zeal in Had Columbus kept to his original young Sebastian; and as Henry VII.. route, he would have met the warm was ambitious to enter the field of mari- Gulf Stream and have touched at Flori- time discovery, when the Cabots proda, and thence, perhaps, gone up to posed to the king the project of shorten- Cape Hatteras and Virginia; and as he ing the route to India by a western represented a Roman Catholic power, course, the king fell in with their prothe result would have been that the con- posal, and on March 6th, 1496, the first tinent of North America would have patent was granted. From all we can fallen under the awful blight now rest- gather, it appears that before any other, ing on the twin continent of the south the Cabols saw the mainland of America, -a semi·pagan Romanism. A Roman the term Terra primum visa being used Catholic Spanish population would have to distinguish the continent. This was spread over this land of ours instead of seen June 24th, 1497, and was probably a Protestant English people! And as Nova Scotia. A second patent, issued Martin Alonzo Pinzon himself formed to John Cabot, February 3d, 1498, led his opinion as to the direction of the to another voyage, but not until after land by observing a flight oj parroquets the father's death. This issued in the toward the southwest, we m.ay say that discovery of 1800 miles of North Ameri- God used the trackless pathway of birds can seacoast; and so-does anything through the air to determine the equally merely happen 1-a Venetian navigator, trackless pathway of Columbus' ships employed by the British Government, through the sea, and to fix the distribu- appropriated for Protestantism the vast tion of this Western world between the territory of North America. Had the Latin and Germanic races! Cabots been in the employ of Ferdinand the whole of the Americas might have As it was, on October 12th, 1492, Co- been to-day under the rule of a civilizalumbus first touched at Guanahani, or tion little above barbarism, and a re- Watling Island; and after about three ligion little above paganism! months in Cuba, Hispaniola and other isles, he returned to Spain. He made Arnold Guyot" in his book on" The three other voyages; on the second, Earth and Man," treats the contour and coasting along the northwest shore of relief of the continents of the earth, the South America, and from the vast vol- shape of the dry land, etc., as a physiume of the Orinoco at its estuary, infer- cal prophecy of a divine providential !'
purpose in the working out of human a fairer land. . .. And now that Brazil history and destiny. has entered into the sisterhood of reo Rev. G. W. Chamberlain, D.D., of publics, now that education has received Br~zil, finely says that the physical a great stimulus, now that slavery has geography of that great land forecasts been abolished, and religious bigotry the acts in the great drama of its fu- has given place to religious liberty, we ture ; and shows that the land shall be are drawing nearer to the realization (1) one and indivisible; (2) a healthy of the possibilities portrayed by the habitation, and (3) a theatre for congre- great naturalist."
gating tbe families of the earth. Dr. We must content ourselves with this Chamberlain's words are so forceful mere outline, not daring to touch upon that we embody their substance. The the history of missions in South Ameri- topography, hydrography, prefiguration ca, which must be reserved for separate of Brazil leave no chance for a division. treatment. We are content to suggest You cannot divide the country-by the philosophy of history found in the eternal forecast it is to be one. A very strange and marvellous facts here slight depression of the earth's surface brought to notice.
would have left the river systems, whose broad arms embrace Brazil, to have made it a vast island. He whose hands formed the dry land raised Brazil high The story of the mission to the Pata- toward heaven, so that even in the inter- gonians and Fuegians, as connected tropical regions it is among the habit. with the name of Captain Allen F. Gar- able parts of the earth. And as the con, diner, has few rivals even among the tour and configuration of the old hemi- most pathetic tales of missionary hero· sphere forecast the separation and seg- ism. Darwin recorded his verdict that regation of the family of man, the new in this extreme part of South America, hemisphere hints concentration and man existed in a lower state of improve- congregation. In the southern half of ment than in any other part of the this new world, in the United States world. Yet just here Captain Gardi- of Brazil, a theatre for history is pre- ner went. Failure could not disap- pared similar to that. where the United point nor disaster dismay him. When States is working out its historic future. the natives drove him from the shore, Vast area, healthfulness, individuality he said, ., the mission establishment must all point to a vast concourse of human- be for the present afloat." Accordingly ity and a vast development in the near two large decked boats were fitted out, future. In pursuance of the Divine and in December, 1850, they bore the plan, this great fertile territory was mission party to Banner Cove. A year committed to the Portuguese in order from that time the letter of Samuel La.
that for a time it should lie j ealou81y fone brought the sad tidings of the guarded and hermetically sealed even to deat.h of these devoted men. Captain all foreign commerce. And now, as the Gardiner's journal was found at Span- northern civilization begins to overflow iard's Harbor. He appears to have died and demand new outlets and a wider September 6th, of starvation; but over area, Brazil, reserved for such a time as his remains was the rude inscription, this, throws open her doors and reaches " Wait, my soul, upon God; for all my out after the means for developing her expectation is from Him." What won- territorial resources. And as Dr. Cham- der that Mr. Despard published far and berlain adds, " should her moral and wide the resolve: WITH GOD'S HELP THE intellectual endowments grow into har. MISSION SHALL BE MAINTAINED! And it mony with her wonderful natural beauty was maintained, and even Darwin con- and wealth, the world will not have seen fessed its grand success.
GENERAL MII!SIONARY INTELI.IGENCE. 871'
VI.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work a.nd Statistios. Edited ,by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Oberlin, O.
-The usual carefully prepared tables "that now it is the most important of statistics, which many readers of the work for Jews in the whole world… MISSIONARY REVIEW have found so valu- able, may be expected, though at the -Though indifference and guilty beginning of next year, instead of at the withholding are so oommon in the end of this. churches, yet many also are the exam- ples of self-denying consecration. As -Of the 139 missionary societies Dr. A. J. Gordon suggests: "On the represented at th" General Conference staff of the China Inland Mission there of Protestant Foreign Missions in Lon- are 60 men and women who are work- don, in 1888, while only 18 represented ing in the foreign field just as they all other races. 121 represented the would work in their churches at home, Anglo-Saxon race. entirely supporting themselves. A Western farmer has recently sold his -Among the most significant signs house and lands, and with his wife and of increased zeal for missions is to be children-all consecrated to the workset the fact that almost all the leading has gone to Africa to constitute 8 self- religious papers. and not a few of the supporting missionary household. A great dailies, gi ve regularly large space lady of wealth, within the last month, to news from the field. In some cases sailed from New York, taking with her once a month whole pages are covered 8 other missionaries, she providing for with letters from missionaries, or col- the perpetual support of all the party. umns are filled with interesting bits of The widow of one of our honored misintelligence; in others something is sure sionaries is carrying on a work in Japan to appear every week, and in a few cases of the same kind, she providing fcr the the secretaries of the societies use the entire support of herself and her copress to reach the Christian public. laborers."
-Rev. A. F. SchaufHer, of the New The same spirit is found in Britain. York City Mission and Tract Society, For James E. Mathieson, Esq., the forhas recently published a special report mer secretary of the MiIdmay Mission, on the Jewish work, which for two years has renounced his banking business enhas been carried on in that city with tirely to engage in religious work. Lord such remarkable results by the convert- Radstock and his family spend their .od Polish Jew, Mr. Hermann Warsza- lives as evangelists in the slums. A wiak. He visits irom house to house wholesale butcher, one of the Taberamong his brethren, and holds frequent nacle congregation, went to his business services, which are attended by 600 to at half-past five in the morning, that 800. Some 16,000 copies of the New he might come to. the Tabernacle at Testament have been distributed, most- half-past nine to see that the visitors ly in Hebrew. It is estimated that to the pastor's conference were properly 50,000 of the 200,000 Jews in New York housed and taken care of. Another man, have attended the services held in the worth $500,000, adjusts all his busi- DeWitt Memorial Church, Rivington ness so as to act as usher at the Taber- Street. Mr. Schaufll.er says: ., The nacle door. Such consecration to largest male audiences that this city God's work is not very rare in Britain. affords are now to be seen listening to Also, when the Mongolian heart is touchhim." and affirms that, .. not for a thou- ed by the Spirit of God, the same divine sand years has God shown such favor to longing to minister begins to stir within. one preaching to Jews;" and further. For Mr. Lum Foon, a member of the Chinese Mission church, of San Francisco, 1890 there were 142,256, a.n increase of has lately given up a prosperous business 272 per cent. The total value of church and gone to China as a self-supporting property in 1850 wBlf $87,446,371, and missionary. He has bought land and in 1890, $631,221,303, an increase of 621 erected a fine chapel and school at his per cent. The five leading denomina- own expense. tions had communicants as follows, -There are 12 memorial kindergar- viz.: The Methodists, 4,255,377 ; Cathotens at work in San Francisco, and 6 of lics, 6,250,045 ; Presbyterian, 1,278,815 ; them were started by Mrs. Leland Stan- Lutheran, 1,199,514; Congregational, ford. To put them on a permauent 512,771. The increase in the value of basis, she has now set aside $100,000 as Catholic church property since 1850 an endowment fund. She had given has been 1178 per cent, and that of the $60,000 for these schools previously. Lutheran, 1098 per cent.
The one opened in 1884 by Mrs. Stan- -A recent census bulletin states that ford was the first memorial kindergar- of the 7,470,000 colored persons in the ten in the world, it is said. United States, 2,371,100 are church- -A Grand Army mission is conducted members. More than one half of them by Colonel H. H. Hadley, under the are Baptists -1,230,516. Different pension agency on Canal Street, New branches of the Methodists claim 722,- York City, where pensioners' checks are 964. There are 110,000 Roman Cathocashed and remittances made to friends lics, and the rest are divided among without cost. Free breakfasts, lunch several sects.
and coffee are furnished to the pension- -The International Missionary Alliers, 10,000 of whom come to the agency ance publishes the names of upward of every three months to receive their 90 men and women who have gone to checks. A Gospel meeting is held every the foreign field under its auspices, and evening. Major-GeneralO. O. Howard, are found laboring in Africa, Turkey, General Wager Swayne, and other men India, China, Japan, the West Indies, of note serve on the committee of man- Alaska, etc. agement. -The Reformed Presbyterian Church -The Cross Bearers' Missionary Read- (Covenanter) numbers only about 10,000, ing Circle is well worthy of notice by but sustains missions in Syria and Asia all who would inform themselves con- Minor, as well as among the freedmen, cerning the growth of the kingdom. Indians and Chinese in the United The idea of the organization is for each States. The contributions for foreign member to read a certain amount on missions from all sources in 1891, not missionary or kindred subjects each day including a bequest of $8500, were $19,- as designated, to pass a yearly exami- 614, or an average of $1.74 per member. nation, and to recei ve a certificate of graduation. Such books will be read -The Evangelical Association has a ae these: biographies of missionaries; mission in Japan which was established books describing the countries, customs, in 1875, and now contains 18 itinerant and peoples; works treating of God's and 5 local preachers, and a number of purpose a.nd the adaptability of the . Bible women and other native helpers.
heathen to that purpose ; and a periodi- The number of communicants is 488.
cal giving the latest missionary informa- There are 6 church edifices, 2 parson- tion. Further particulars may be had ages, and 6 mission homes. At Tokio by addressing Rev. Z. M. Williams, Sec- is a prosperous theological seminary.
retary, St. Joseph, Mo. -The experience is not uncommon -In 1850 there were 38,183 church with secretaries of the societies, but is edifices in the United States, while in it not strange that even in a church so substantial as the (Dutch) Reformed, so offered for service, as against 179 now. inspiring an announcement as the fol. Thirty.four were accepted then, 118 lowing should need to be introduced by now." a phrase so lugubrious: "If we can get money to send them, 5 missionaries -The Universities'Mission includes expect to sail per steamer Ohina from 21 English clergy, 3 African clergy, 27 San Francisco September 27th; the laymen, 23 women, and 84 native teach. Rev. and Mrs. Harris, Miss Brokaw, ar.d ers and readers. There are 1300 adult Miss Couch go to Japan, and Miss Mor· baptized catechumens, 1071 communi. rison to China" ? cants, and 3000 day scholars.
-The United Brethren have a mis· -The Church of Scotland is repre. sion in West Africa known as the Sher. sented in the foreign field by 77 Euro.
bro·Mendi, whose beginning dates from pean missionaries, women included, 1855. Upon it $225,000 have been ex· and 314 native helpers. In 1891 the pended, and $8725 last year. The mis· baptisms numbered 1129, more than sionaries visit some 350 villages and double those of the year before, and the towns, and upward of 7000 natives have total income-was £46,124 ($230,620), the been gathered into the churches. A largest sum ever reported.
theological training school is doing -This is the jubilee year of the Free good work. Church, and in an appeal for special EUROPE. thankofferings these statements are Great Britain.-The twenty.seventh made: "Our Church has never had anniversary of the Salvation Army was such a year of ingathering in our foreign held in Exeter Hall, London, July 25th. mission work. We have seen the fields General Booth stated that they had ri pening to the harvest for many a year, nearly 11,000 officers, 6000 abroad and but in this year we have been bringing 5000 at home; that since August last in the sheaves. In Central Africa, in there had been an increase of nearly South Africa, and in the New Hebrides 1000 societies; that they had 32 weekly our mission work has been blessed and papers and 6 monthly magazines with a owned of God as it never was before; circulation of over 17,000,000 ; the num· While in India we have been able to ber of languages in which there was count our converts by the hundreds, preaching done by the officers was 24. when formerly we rejoiced in the tens. This is surely a cause for devout thank.
-Only recently John Horniman, of fulness. Nor are we alone in this har.
Croydon, made the munificent gift of a vesting. God is blessing the mission convalescent home to Worthing, Sussex, work of the whole Christian Church in England, for the public benefit; and India as it never was blessed before.
now the same generous donor has put The past year has been one of almost $100,000 in the hands of trustees, who universal rejoicing in the mission field." .
are arranging for the building and open· The Continent.-Besides their 12 ing of a Friends' Missionary Training stations in the Moskito Indian Territory, Home, more particularly for the foreign Central America, the Moravians have missionary students and prospective 14 stations among the Esquimaux of workers abroad. Greenland, Labrador, and Alaska•. 6 -Sir J. H. Kennaway, M.P., Presi. among the North American Indians in dent of the Church Missionary Society, Canada and the States, 50 among the said at the annual meeting: •• Onr or· colored population of 9 West Indian dinary income this year is £23,100 in Islands. 26 among the negroes of Brit.
excess of the year 1887, when I first ish and Dutch Guiana, 24 Ilmong the took office. In that year 82 candidates Hottentots and Kaffirs of South Africa, 3 am ong the Aborigines of Australia, and lem is urgent and alarming, but in India 3 among the Tibetans of the Himalayas. the perplexing question relates rather to They have a hospital for lepers close to the agricultural districts, with their 90 Jerusalem, and their latest enterprise is or even 95 per cent of the population.
a mission to the north of Lake Nyassa. ' The masses are found not crowded into At these 139 stations they have 31,380 cities, and not scattered upon farms, communicants and a total membership but collected in almost countless vil- of 90,544. Their home churches in lages.
Germany, the United I:!tates, and Great -An idea of the vast numbers inhab- Britain number about 21,000 communi· iting the whole of this huge peninsula cants and 30,000 members, including may be gained by considering the fact children. that in Bengal alone the census staff ASIA. employed exceeded 309,000, and the population of this single province is Turkey.-No friend of missions can 9,000,000 in excess of those inhabiting read withont deep solicitude "f the fre· the United States at the last census, quent attempts made of late by Turkish for an area oHess than one twenty-third officials to cripple and fetter the work that of the United States! of the Gospel. And so it was pleasant to read that the Secretary of State, on -The widows of India number four the receipt of a telegram from the Unit· times as many as the entire popUlation ed States Charge d'Affaires at Constan· of London. tinople, stating that the house of Dr. Bartlett, an American missionary in -In the single province of Behar there Konich, Asia Minor, had been burned, are 30,000,000 of people untouched by and that the lives of the missionaries missionary effort, and if 40,000 missionawere in danger, cabled instructions to ries were to be sent to India there would still be only one to every 50,000.
the legation to demand of Turkey effec- -An American missionary, speaking tive protection, indemnity, punishment of the unsanitary conditions in which the of the guilty parties, and reprimand of people dwell, resulting from bad water, the authorities found remiss, and also foul air, filthy food, ignorant quacks, that the cruisers Newark and Benning- etc., does not wonder that" there are ton, now on the way to Genoa, would be 500,000 lepers, that cholera carries off ordered to the vicinity of the outrage to 417,000 in a single year, that in the same support this demand. time 125,453 die of small-pox and 3,486,- -A native Albanian, Rev. G. D. 448 of fever," but thinks the marvel is Kyrias, the first man who ever pro_ that all are not smitten by deadly pesticlaimed the Gospel in the Albanian lan- lence. The British Government is guage, is preaching to his people in doing its best to mend matters by 0. Kortcha, Turkey. vast system of hospitals, dispensaries (1641), medical schools (18), etc. There -The Syrian mission of the American are 25 lunatic asylums, and 23 for Presbyterian Church has a force of 16 lepers. Vaccination is compulsory, men and 24 women; and of natives, 4 much to the horror of all devotees of ordained pastors, 41 preachers or evan- caste, and last year 5,709,462 children gelists, 172 teachers, male and female, 5 were vaccinated.
other helpers-a total of 222. Regular -The need of female education in services are held in 88 localities. In In(lia is shown by the fact that while the 89 Sunday-schools are 5433 children, there are about 18,000,000 girls of a while 192 young women are in training school-going age, a recent return made for teachers. From the mission press by the Government shows that not more 65,300 volumes issued in 1891. than 294,457 are attending school.
India.-In this country the city prob- From this it will be seen that there ill only one in ~very 61 receiving education (of whom some 575 are ordained) 58 are of any kind. The rest are simply left Germans. who also have about 1000 of to grow up in ignorance, heathenism, the 17,000 in the schools, and 2500 of and superstition. the 40,000 communicants.
-In the Marathi mission of the -The Basle mission at the end of American Board, retrenchment in some the first decade had 1 station and 2 mis- form became necessary last year, and sionaries ; at the end of the second, 4 the native preachers and teachers gave stations and 5 missionaries ; ten years up two months' salary, leaving their later, 5 stations and 14 missionaries; vork through the week for that time and fifteen years later still, 13 stations and taking whatever employment they and 5 out-stations, 37 missionaries and could find to keep out of debt. Some 90 native helpers. In twenty years the of them went into the harvest fields as Christians have increased from 668 to laborers, in order to supply their neces- 3600.
sities. Japan.-Reports from Japan indicate -In the Sialkot district (punjab) be- that about 400 people are baptized in tween 1881-91 the number of Christians the Protestant churches every month.
rose from 412 to 9711, and mostly by -The Council of Missions of the baptisms. The Scottish and American Church of Christ in Japan, composed of Presbyterians occupy this field. missionaries representing 6 Presbyte- -A. L. O. E .. the well·known writer, rian and Reformed churches-the Re- is a missionary in India, doing Zenana . formed (Dutch), German Reformed, mission work. Although more than Presbyterian. Presbyterian South, Unit..
threescore'years and ten, she goes out ed Presbyterian, and Cumberland Pres- daily to teach India's degraded and pov- byterian, and the Woman's Union Mis- erty.stricken women. sionary Society-in its fifteenth 'annual -Two Brahmans, father and son, report gives statistius which show 54 were recently received into the Baptist missionaries, 49 wives, and 51 other Church at Rangoon by Rev. F. T. women, a total of 154, aud 10,961 Whitman, who writes that Rangoon is a church-members. There are 70 theomost favorable place for work among logical students in the 5 schools for the caste people of India. There are boys and young men, and of the 120 thousands of them there, and the power pupils in the Meiji Gakuin 87 are Chrisof their caste is greatly weakened. Four tians. There are also 26 schools for have been received into the English girls, young women, and children, with Church by Mr. Whitman. J774 pupils, of whom 315 are Christians.
-According to the statistics in the China.-'I'he Rev. H. C. Knox says annual report of the Japanese mission that Chinese converts are governed by (American Board), there are 109 Congre- the law of self-sacrifice. In illustration gational churches in Japan, with a total he refers to a native bookseller, who had membership of 10,760. The number of been taken up and beaten for reading additions by confession last year was Christian books, and who, when he 1096, an increase of 56 over the precedheard that the Rev. H. S. Phillips was ing year. There are 129 preachers and alone and iu danger, walked forty miles 22 Bible women. The contributions for in order to stand by him. He had church purposes were $25,706, a gain of heard this bookseiIer, after a weary nearly $5000 over the year before.
day's labor, pleading with souls for hours until near morning. -In Korea, the" Hermit Kingdom,"
which is one of the newest of fields, -Of the 1300 missionaries in China with its 80,000 square miles and 13,000,- 000 of population, 8 societies are at work a half was represented by five genera· -the Methodist Episcopal, the Presby. tions, and during that time forty.one terian North, and South, and of Aus. congregations had been established in tralia, S. P. G., and 2 Canadian societies England, of which twenty.one-includ. -in all with 59 missionaries, of whom 22 ing the chief town congregations and are ordained, 17 are wives, 11 unmarried the settlements-were begun before women, and 5 are physicians. 1770.
AFRICA. Association for Promoting Female Education in India. – This society, -In the mission churches established which is wholly sustained by ladies, along the Congo by English and Ameri- was started in 1866 in connection witb can missionaries there are already 1500 the Society for the Propagation of the communicants. Gospel, and seeks to provide teachers -Rev. Taylor Smith, of the Church for the instruction of native women and Missionary Society and canon mis. cbildren, as well as to assist female mis· sioner of the diocese of Sierra Leone, sion schools by providing suitable in describing the changes wrought clothing and a maintenance for board. within seventy.five years, says: "There ers. Funds are raised by establishing has risen a flourishing, self.~upporting branch associations throughout the church-a church, moreover, which country and by sales of ladies' work. maintains its own missionary society. The first teacher was sent out to Mada. We have full churches. It is no uncom· gascar in 1867, which is now the centre mon thing to see from 1000 to 1400 peo· of a large and important work. Zenana ple-English.speaking Africans-in the missions have also been opened all over cathedral at Sierra Leone, and in an· India, and schools in South Africa, Ja. other church at Freetown, in which pan, and China. Lack of funds has pre. place there are !l churches. In another vented speoial medical work being at· tempted, but the teacher who has been i have counted 1000 worshippers on a stationed in Madagascar for twenty.
week.day morning; and in holy week last year there were over 1000 worship. three years spent her last holiday of a pers (everyone African) at seven o'clock. year training in a hospital, with the reo in the morning." suIt that many of the natives for miles round the station come to her for ad.
British Foreign Missions. By Rev. James vice and remedies.
Johnston, Bolton, England. Society for the Propagation of the English Moravian Synod.-At the Gospel.-There are now on tbe society's annual synod in August last at Fairfield list 672 ordained missionaries, includ· the Rev. W. Taylor, bishop of the ing 6 bishops ; in Asia, 225 ; in Africa, church and president, stated that as the 153 ; in Australia and the Pacific, 16 ; London congregation, the oldest in the in North America, 211; in the West Eritish I~les, was about to celebrate the Indies, 36; and 31 in Europe. Of third jubilee of the settlement as a con- these 127 are natives laboring in Asia gregation, the present synod might be and 35 in Africa. The various missions considered to have a jubilee character. have about 2300 lay teachers, 2600 stu· They had reason to praise God for His dents in the society's colleges, and goodness to them, especially in view 38,000 children in the mission schools of the fact that they had enjoyed the in Asia and Africa. The funds in. blessing of spiritual life and union, trusted to its stewardship for the main. and that none of their congregations tenance of this vast work amounted in had severed their connection with the the year 1891 to £116,520.
Unitas liratrum-the church of their Niger Bishopric.-It is announced spiritual forefathers, The century and from reliable quarters that the Rev. Joseph Sidney Hill is the bishop desig- and evangelists, increase, 55 per cent; nate of the Niger to succeed the late 2057 local preachers, increase, 57 per Bishop Crowther. Mr. Hill was trained cent; 33,523 church-members, increase, at the Church Missionary College, 611 per cent; on trial, 12,231, increase, Islington, and served as a missionary 36* per cent; 337 day schools, increase, at Lagos from 1876 to 1878; was sta- 29 per cent; 20,845 day scholars, in- tioned at Wairoa, New Zealand, from crease, 42t per cent; 380 Sunday- 1878 to 1883 ; acted as prison chaplain schools, increase, 50 per cent; 24,959 at Auckland from 1883 to 1890, and for Sunday scholars, increase, 42 per cent.
the last two years has been engaged at The adherents number 135,000, and home on the staff of the Church Paro- the missionary income has grown from chial Mission. Mr. Hill had previously £1500 to between £5000 to £6000.
been enrolled by the society for work At the English Wesleyan Conference on the Niger, and will now at .the arch- last July it was resolved that one of bishop's request proceed immediately the secretaries should visit and spend to the Niger as his commissary to make several months in India during the en- inquiry, to the fullest extent, as to the suing autumn and winter, when the attitude of the native pastors, and on Decennial General Conference of Indian the basis of his report an arrangement missionaries of all Protestant Churches will be made which will satisfy, it is will be held, and also the triennial meet- hoped, the aspirations of the native ing of the society's missionaries. The church. To the difficulties which so financial statement showed that the long beset the Niger Mission the arch- total income was £125.129, and the ex- bishop has given great attention, and it cess of expenditure over income, £4068.
is believed that he will be able to effect To the foreign stations the principal a solution. payments for the past year ",ere: Sierra Leone.-According to custom, Europe, £26,848; Ceylon and Contithe bishop (Dr. Ingham) has arrived in nental India, £34,005; China, £6320; England for his six months' furlough, South Africa, £15,681 ; Western Africa, and is seeking opportunities to plead £6529 ; and West Indies, £7462.
for the pressing needs of the Diocesan Uganda.-The latest letters from Fund. The ordinary departments of Uganda, of date January 31st, come from church organization are actively at the Rev. G. K. Baskerville, an intrepid work, and lately a technical school has young missionary who went out to been established with a view of bene- Africa in 1890. He was in the capital fiting the natives of West Africa. The of Uganda all through the recent fighttask is admittedly a hard one, but a ing, and his communications give the good beginning has been made. Re- first detailed accounts of the unhappy cently the bishop's wife has founded a feuds. It seems that Mwanga has escottage hospital, and these two efforts caped from the Catholic party and atwill tax his resources for some time to tached himself to the Protestants. AIcome. If the bishop carries success in , though the fighting has ceased, private the former department of service he sources of information state that there will have done something toward solv- is much anxiety in official circles as to ing one of the trying problems of Afri- the events of the next four months.
can missionary work. Bishop Tucker, who had been in the South African Wesleyan Metho- neighborhood of Chagga, has now Bet dist Church.-Formally organized on out for Uganda in order that he may its separation from the British mis- advise the missionaries and share with sionary society ten years ago, it has to- them the difficulties of the situation.
day 493 churches, an increase of 60 per Very strongly does the bishop deny the cent on the ten years; 274 ministers charges of the German press, which aeouses British missionaries in Kilima necessary result there has been neither Njaro of selling rifles and ammunition uniformity in practice nor in prin.
to the Moshi. The bishop declares ciple.
that no arms have been sent either to London Missionary Society.-At the mission or to the Moshi from the the request of the directors the Rev. British sphere, whereas the sale of am- R. Wardlaw Thompson, foreign seoremunition in German territory, notwith- tary, will shortly sail for Capetown to standing the Government monopoly, is visit the South African churches and praotically unlimited. stations in the oapacity of special com· Nyassaland.-Commissioner John- missioner. Fresh offers of service for ston's di.spatches touching the suppres. foreign work oontinue to be made by sion of slave-raiding in that region re- English Congregational ministers.
late the oircumstanoes attending the Among the latest names are those of death of Captain Maguire, who wall in Horace H. Theobald, of Kirkham, Lan.
command of the Indian contingent of cashire, and W. Thomas, of Waterhead, the British Central African polioe force, Oldham. Both ministers have relin.
and was shot after leading a gallant at- quished successful pastorates. The tack on a number of slave dhows, and Rev. G. W. Watson, of Wollerton, of Dr. Boyoe and Mr. MacEwan, the Salop, who has completed a ten years'
engineer, while negotiating with the ministry, has been accepted by the enemy for the recovery of Captain Ma- directors, and will prooeed to his ap· guire's body. On April 8th Mr. John- pointment as a teacher in the High ston reported that things were very School at Madras.
satisfaotory on Lake Nyassa, and asks Bishop .Tohn Selwyn's See of Mela.
that the German and Portuguese Gov- nesia, which he has vaoated through ernments be requested to take such ill-health after fifteen years' servioe.
ilteps as to prevent the slave·hunters has been offered to the Rev. Alfred from obtaining supplies of ammunition Penny, vicar of Tunstall, Staffordshire.
from German or Portuguese souroes; -Bishop Smythies of the Universities and such steps have been promptly Mission is regaining strength by his taken. furlough to England, and has reoently occupied one of the cathedral pulpits. An African Council.-In British official quarters there are rumors of the establishment of an African Council on Monthly Bulletin.
lines somewhat similar to that of the -The Divinity School of Yale Uniexisting Indian Council. In recent versity has set on foot a scheme to esyears African affairs have assumed tablish a library of modern missions, to growing importance, requiring the Eng- embrace history, biography, annual relish Government to devote more atten. ports and periodicals, as well as books tion to questions respeoting the" Dark prepared by missionaries for the use of Continent." So enormously have ques. the natives. Professor Day has this tions of civilization and rule oome to important matter in hand. the front, it is felt that the time has arrived when the whole question of -The M'!'ssionary Herald oalls on the England's relations with the native children to supply another and much.
raoes and vast areas, especially those needed Morning Star for work in the under her own influence, demands reo Pacific Ocean, to be called the Hiram oonsideration. It is well known that Bingham, after the missionary who is hitherto British policy in Africa has said to be the first man to reduce to been dictated by the exigencies of the writing a language before unknown, moment and the supposed special reo and then to translate into iit the entire 9,uirements of each sphere j and as a Bible. The call is for $5000. -The punishment of iniquity at India.-It is Dr. Pentecost who de- home is helpful to the Gospel in heathen clares : "You can pick out the children lands. So it is fitting to note that the of the Christian native from those of last of the ballot box stuffers in Jersey the heathen while they are playing to- City have been sentenced. Originally gether in the flame village street. The there were sixty-seven persons indicted Christian children are better clothed, for this crime. All but seven have been better fed, brighter in face, and cheerier tried. Two of these are dead, one is in in manner than those of the heathen."
the insane asylum, one fled to foreign -Ah, the curse of caste! A missionparts, and three the district attorney did ary at Lodiana was preaching to a quiet not think should be tried. audience of Hindus, when a fakir came upon the scene, and became noisy and -Max Limon, until lately a rich abusive. Standing close to the misbanker of Kiev, Russia, recently exiled sionary and gesticulating, by an acciby the Czar's edict against Hebrews, is dent he happened to touch the missionworking in the stock-room of a Chicago ary, when he suddenly stopped, spat clothing house for a weekly salary of on the ground, and with a look of the $7. At one time his fortune amounted utmost disgust, as if he had touched to almost $500,000.
-Mr. Joseph Arbely, a native of some loathsome thing, stooped down Syria, and a graduate of tile Syrian and rubbed his finger in the dust. Then Protestant College at Beirut, has started turning to the crowd he said, " These in New York City a weekly paper in people eat pigs and cows, and they are the Arabic language for the thousands not fit to preach." Then he walked of Arabic·speaking people now in the away, most of the audience following, United States. The title of the paper with exclamations of horror at such de- is the Kankob America (or Slar of Ameri- pravity.
ca). -Whose heart is not touched by the story of the blind man who walked all -Mr. Mellin, a Portuguese lay mis- the way from Lhassa, at least 1000 sionary at Madeira, was arrested and miles, in the hope that Dr. Marx could tried for expounding the Scriptures and remove the cataract and give him sight! singing a hymn at a Protestant funeral When he arrived within a day or two in the Portuguese cemetery on All Souls' of Leh, he heard that the medical mis- Day, when it was crowded with Roman sionary was dead. Sorrowfully he Catholics. A clever lawyer succeeded turned and travelled home again, all in obtaining his acquittal on the ground those thousand miles, over mountain that the service was not an act of public passes and plateaux; averaging 15,000 worship, inasmuoh as Mr. Mellin was feet above the sea. not an ordained pastor. Twelve years' banishment from the islands would have -Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, lately electbeen the punishment. ed to a seat in Parliament, is a native Indian, and was born in Bombay, 'the Palestine.-The number of blind per- son of a Parsee priest, and was edu. sons in the East is large. There are cated at the Elphinstone Institution, mission schools for them at Beirut, later becoming It professor of mathe- Damascus and Tyre. Blind Scripture- matics and natural philosophy. He readers have the entree of Moslem homes, went to England in 1855, and since was a privilege which blindness confers.
-The Presbyterian reports that Jeru- for years prime minister in the native salem has 135 places where liquor is State of Baroda.
sold, and the license fees, which last -The Gaekwar of Baroda, now trav- year amounted to $2,292, are sent to elling in Europe, before leaving his own constantinople, dominions, gave orders to his dewan to open ten boarding-schools for the sons work extends nearly seventy miles of low-caste people in his territory. northward into the province of Chihli, -The Methodist Episcopal Church is and nearly as far west, and the patients reported as preaching and teaching the who are treated in the hospital have Gospel in India and other parts of Asia come from no less than 1031 villages. in thirteen different languages, and as During the past year 5116 persons have having 29,000 native pupils in India. It been treated, and during ten years no has also established missionary publish- less than 38,306.
ing houses, and from its own presses is -Dr. Hunter Corbett writes from sending out missionary pamphlets and Chufoo, China, that ten men of fine periodicals in nine different languages. education and much promise will soon -There are 330 Bible women taking have completed the course of study in the Scriptures into the Zenanas of the normal school. They will go out, India. t~o by two, to preach at markets and from village to village, on salaries of -At a public meeting in Edinburgh about $50 per year each. Thousands in connection with the Zenana Mission, hear the Gospel at the markets and inns it was stated by Miss Hogg, of Old Cala- and by the wayside. Sometimes 8S bar, that one of the difficulties in her many as five or six men preach at the mission was the love of dress on the same large market. part of the converts, and their insubordination to their Christian husbands. -The Rev. Dr. Mackay writes from The women wanted silks, satins, and vel- Formosa of a wholesale turning from vets, and instead of doing as they were idolatry. By unanimous vote the peobid, as they formerly had to do in the ple of Ka-le-oan handed over a heathen harems, they now had their say in temple for Christian service, and nearly everything. 500 cleared their houses of idols, and a great bonfire was made of the rejected Ohina.-At a banquet recently given gods.
by Li Hung Chang, at which many for- -Dr. Griffith John writes from Haneigners were present, the statesman's kow, China, to the Ohristian World, givson, speaking in English for his father, ing the welcome news that Chan Han, praised Western civilization, and espe- the leader of the recent anti-foreign and cially Western medical science, stating anti-Christian movement in Hunan, that a foreign physician had recently has been deposed from his government saved his life. position by an imperial edict, cashiered, -The Norwegian Evangelical Lu- sent to his home and placed under the theran China Missil:m Society was organ- surveillance of local officials.
ized June 11th, 1890, and already has Japan.-The chapel of the Doshisha twelve missionaries in China. It works College of the American Board's Kyoto in association with the China Inland Mission is filled every Sunday morning Mission. Its headquarters are at Han- by from 500 to 700 young men and kow, on the Yangtse River. women, students in the college and -Rev. David Hill, missionary in girls' schools. This college graduated China, though born to wealth, has this year 83 students, the laq;est num- cheerfully supported himself for twenty- ber on record_ eight years. His brother, a magistrate -Rev. C. S. Eby, a Canadian Methin York, has contributed nobly to the odist missionary, recently gave an exwork, and now his son has gone to labor hibition of stereopticon views at the in the same field. palace in Tokyo, and received in ac· -The report of the Williams Hospital, knowledgment therefor a choice silver at Pang-Chuang, for 1890, states that its cup from His Majesty the Emperor.
The Missionary Review of the World — July 1892
APOSTOLIC MISSIONS; OR, TIlE GOSPEL FOR EVERY CREATURE
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No. 'I.-Old &ries.–JULY.–VOL. V. No. 'I.-New Series.
APOSTOLIC MISSIONS j OR, THE GOSPEL FOR EVERY CREATURE. * BY RBV. JOSEPH ANGUS, D.D., REGENT PARK BAPTIST COLLEGE, LONDON, ENGLAND.
" And He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."-MARK xvi. 15.
It is a hundred years since the revival of the spirit of missions. At the close of the last century, amid the din and bloodshed of an earlier French revolution, Dr. Carey was publishing his first translation of the New Testament into one of the languages of Bengal. After seven years of apparently fruitless labor, he had begun to desecrate the water of the Ganges by the baptism of his first convert. In the same year Dr. Vanderkemp reached the Cape, and began missions in Africa. It is only a cen. tury since j and now the Bible has been translated for the first time into more than a hundred and fifty languages, spoken by more than half the ~Iobe. Three thousand missionary evangelists are now laboring among the heathen. More than twenty thousand native preachers and teachers have been raised up through their toils, and native church-members are counted by hundreds of thousands. There are still found men who ask tauntingly for evidence of our 8uccess, and yet I venture to affirm that as mighty a work has been done in these last hundred years as in any hundred since the beginning of the Gospel: while in Biblical Translation as much has been done in this century, to give the Bible to the world, as was done in the eighteen centuries that preceded it-Pentecost included!
Cheering as this success and these labors seem, they have not kept pace either with the march of Providence or with the needs of the world. Knowledge and commerce and material civilization, the bounties and the openings of Providence have all multiplied faster than our missions. When Carey began his work India was closed to the Gospel, as was nearly all Asia. Over Africa there brooded a darkness which made even its geography a mystery. Europe was everywhere under the power of the man o~ • See Ed. Notes for Editor'. Introduction. sin, or its churches frowned upon all evangelical labor. Within living memory, India and China, Turkey and Egypt, Burmah and Persia have all become open. Africa has been traversed from end to end; and as to Europe, there are two Baptist churches in Madrid, and dozens of Protestant churches in Italy, while the Gospel is now preached again" at Rome also." The march of Providence, I repeat, has outstripped the progress of the Church.
Or, if that march be measured by other standards than the number of open doors, it is no less striking. When Franklin, the American printer and statesman, proposed for his wife, her mother objected to the marriage, because there were already two presses in America, and she thought there was not room for a third. It is little more than a century since, and there are now ten thousand printing offices in that country alone. To reach that Continent required as many weeks as now it takes days. Only thirty years ago to crOSi from the Atlantic to the Pacific was a six months' journey, perilous and toilsome in the extreme; now it is pleasantly done between Monday morning and Saturday night! Any man who has to travel much will save ten weeks out of every twelve; and if he were to spend his life in travelling, the facilities of travel would practically multiply his years fivefold. Half a century of life spent in travel would now effect as much as two centuries and a half a hundred years ago! In 1871 I read, in San Francisco, what had been written that morning near Sedan, seven thouaand miles away j and most marvellous, perhaps, of all, I reached that city within a month of leaving home, by the gentlest touch of human hands controlling iron and steam-forces that are among the mightiest that men wield. Yet within eighty years the man who spoke of " steam wagons" was deemed insane, and was helped only because" his invention," it was said, "could do no harm, and might lead to something useful." So it is with everything. The human eye can now see through 'space millions of miles farther than it could even when we were born. The three thousand or four thousand fixed stars which the apostles saw are now known to be six or seven millions. The yearly income of England is six or eight times larger than at the beginning of the century, and has trebled within thirty years. The effect of all this is that, for openings of Providence, for facilities of usefulness, for material strength and resources, this year of grace 1892 is much further beyond the year 1800 than are the missionary labors of this year beyond the labors of our fathers. The march, the bounty of Providence, has outstripped us all.
What are the feelings in which we ought to indulge ~ Devout thankfulness and as devout discontent.
Our labors have been" more abundant," the results are highly encouraging, and yet comparatively very little has been done. In this spirit I shall discuss the subject of missions, under the twofold division: (1) The work itself j and (2) the cxtent to which we are to prosecute it. We are to preach the Gospel-that is our work, and we are to preach it to every creature, to all creation, as the word is also rendered-that is the limit of our work. May the Good Spirit Himself help us to understand and to observe both parts of this command.
1. Our Work.-We are to preach the Gospel. The Gospel. In an important sense, it is as old as creation. From the very first men knew of a Divine law, fixing distinctions between right and wrong. Their sinfulness and guilt, atonement through vicarious suffering, God's free and yet righteous mercy, the obligation and th(' efficacy of prayer, the necessity of holiness-all were revealed. But now these truths are set forth with new proofs, are enforced by new motives, amid stronger light, and for a wider audience. This Gospel we may describe in various ways. It is a threefold message-of repentance and remission of sins through our Lord; of personal holiness, and of the work of the Spirit whereby the new life is begun and perfected; of blessedness for all who love and !lerve God. Forgiveness, holiness, blessedness. What more can we need ~ Or it is a twofold message: Christ's work for us, in living, and dying, and pleading, and reigning; and Christ'!! work in ns beginning in grace and ending in glory 1 Or is it a single message: of Christ as crucified, the true Revealer of the Divine holiness and love, the Redeemer and Comforter, and Pattern and Sanctifier of us all ~ This Gospel-at once a threefold, and a twofold, and a single message-Christ came to found even more than to teach. Yet it is the Gospel He taught, as it is the Gospel His apostles taught. So mighty did it prove that the most successful preacher of the apostolic age resolved, as much, perhaps, from experience as from direct inspiration, to know nothing among men, save Jesus Christ as crucified-the power and the wisdom of God. And this Gospel we are to preach. The words that describe our duty in this respect are all of them suggestive. The first of them is the one used in the text at the head of this article. Weare to proclaim it as heralds-not making our message, but carrying it and announcing it with boldness and authority. Sixty times in the New Testament is this word found. Everywhere it describes the bearing of men who feel that they are speaking in God's name. A second word, translated in the same way, means" to talk." It is applied to the easy conversational method adopted by our Lord, and to the somewhat exaggerated sayings of the woman of Samaria. It describes a gift of priceless value-the power of readily introducing and speaking of religious themes. A third word means" to reason," "to discuss." It is the word used to describe Paul's discourses; and it was preaching of this kind that he continued at Troas till midnight, as it was under such preaching Felix trembled. The fourth, and one of the commonest words of all, translated "preach," means to announce " glad tidings." More than fifty times this word is used. It forms the glory of the new Dispensation-that" the poor have the Gospel preached to them." This is the thought that justifies the outburst of the prophet : " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace." "Blessed [happy] are the poor in spirit," is the first word of our Saviour's longest discourse, and it is the word that is found oftenest ther~. Weare then to be heralds, and talkers, and reasoners, and publishers of good things.
Constantly connected with these terms, which are all translated" preach," are other three. One means to " testify, or bear witness" -from Scripture, and especially from our own experience; another means" to teach ;" and a third " to exhort, or entreat." Thus, at Pentecost, Peter testified and exhorted, saying, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation." Thus Christ sent His disciples to teach all nations: thus the apostles ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ; the word suggesting that the truths which we announce we are also to explain and apply. Thus also, wherever Paul went, he exhorted and entreated; his own summary of his ministry is " As we go, we beseech men in Christ's stead. Be ye reconciled unto God."
Here, then, we have in brief the inspired description of our calling. Weare to proclaim the truth with the authority of ambassadors and in God's name j we are to announce it in quiet talk j we are to enforce it by argument, by explanations, by appeals to what we have ourselves felt, by earnest entreaty. There is a preaching that never speaks with authority, but questions and doubts on all things. There is a preaching that never reasons, but is always dogmatic or emotional. There is a preaching that never " talks," but is ever stilted and formal. There is a preaching that is cold discussion, or bare announcement, and never entreats. Apostolic preaching was a combination of all these processes, saturated with prayers and tears.
These statements of the work of Christian evangelists are, I hope, familiar to all our readers. It is part of their glory that they ('.ontain nothing new; and yet they rebuke theories and practices which are found on all sides. They tell us that it is the Gospel we are to preach-not science, or art, or ethical duties; not what we think on public questions, or even on subordinate pointli of theology, but what we know of essential truth. This Gospel we are to preach-not to discover, or to manufacture, or to excogitate from our own consciousness. We are to preach the Gospel-not become pastors of the churches which our preaching may form; not exhibit a gorgeous ritual, or repeat a solemn litany. Weare simply to preach it as men who feel its power, are conyinced of its truth, and know that they have a Divine authority for all they are saying. To this work we are to restrict ourselves when carrying out our Lord's commission. This is the command that is embalmed in the tenderest feelings of true disciples; the one Jegacy which, besides His peace and the promise of His presence, He bequeathed to His Church until He come again.
2. But the second part of my theme may create difficulty. The words of the text not only tell us what our work is, but what its limits are-to what extent we are to prosecute it: "To every creature," " to all creation" is this Gospel to be preached. "In Jerusalem and Judrea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth," is the inspired description of the duty as defined in the Acts j and in thirty years after the death of our'Lord, it had been preached, as the apostle expresses it in the Colossians, "to every creature, , in the whole creation,' under heaven. "
The words are addressed to the apostles-" the eleven j" but to the apostles as the representatives of the entire Church j for it is a duty in which all share. It was in the spirit of this command that Andrew found Peter, as Philip found Nathaniel, preached Christ to him, and brought him to Jesus. It was in the spirit of this command that the woman of Sychar went and told, in the fulness of hel' heart, of Him who seemed the Christ, and .through her talk great multitudes believed. It was in obedience to it that the members of the Church at Jerusalem, when scattered by persecution, all except the apostles went "everywhere preaching the Word." Hence apostles welcomed all fellow-helpers-men and women-in the patience and kingdom of Christ. Hence, the Thessalonian Church earned the high praise that they were " ensamples," a model Church to all that believed j for from them sounded out the Word of the Lord through all the region beyond them. A common duty!
The only other peculiarity that needs notice is that the form of the command, as given in Matthew, shows by the very expression that this work of preaching t.he Gospel to every creature belongs to each age. It is not done once for all. It has to be done again and again. The Church of each generation redeemed by the same blood, renewed and blessed by the same Spirit, has practically the same honor and responsibility-the honor of making known to the world of each generation" the manifold wisdom" and mercy of God.
Here, then, is our work, and here its limits. The Christians of each age are to give the Gospel to the people of that age. Every Christian is to tell the" good news" to everyone he can reach j and Christians collectively are to tell it, if they can, to all the world. Till this is done we are not free from obligation j and if any of the millions we can reach perish unwarned and unbidden, we divide with them the guilt of their ruin. " Many have not the knowledge of God. I speak it," says the apostle, " to your shame."
The Gospel for every creature! Can we give it 1 Is it possible for the age to tell to the age, for the Church to tell to the world the glad tidings of the kingdom ~ In ten or twenty years can repentance and remission of sins be preached through Christ to all nations 1 I believe that they can. The Christians of the nineteenth century are more able to preach the Gospel to the whole world than the Christians of the first century were to preach it to the world of their day. If so, the duty is binding, and the precept of the text is a literal command, a summons claiming obedience from all disciples. Carefully mark once more what the duty is, and how, in the light of the gospels and of the Acts, it is to be fulfilled. In 1he three years of our Lord's ministry He travelled three times over Galilee. Three times He travelled through Judrea and visited Jerusalem. He preached for weeks at Capernaum, His home, and a border town where many were coming and going. Six months He labored in Perrea ; twice at least He was in Samaria. Twice He sent out disciples-the twelve, the seventy; and in all these districts there were believers, hundreds of them, though no church was yet formed. Such was His three years' work-an itinerant home ministry-among, perhaps, three millions of people.
In five-and-twenty years Paul travelled three times over a great part of Asia Minor and Europe. Twice he was kept as prisoner for two years, at Cresarea and at Rome, preaching to all who came to him, and especially to successive soldIers to whom he was chained. At one place he wintered; at another he spent a year and a half; at a third two whole years, " So that all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus." The charm of each scene of labor was an open door and many adversaries. If churches were formed, he encouraged others from among the churches themselves to take the oversight of them, sending written instructions for their government. Those instructions are now the inspired handbooks, which we give in a printed form to our converts, and which are, under God, the means of the growth and permanence of our societies. This missionary rented buildings and used the houses of those who were disposed to receive him. He took nothing of the Gentiles-i.e., of the unconverted-but gratefully ackll0wledged the gifts of all fellow-Ohristians who ministered to his necessities, and yet was ready to work with his own hands, that he might preach a free Gospel, and maintain his character for disinterested independence. In this spirit he travelled from Jerusalem even unto I1Iyricum, fully preaching by his life and by his words the Gospel of Christ. Fellow-helpers he found or made wherever he went; so that within thirty years after the ascension, the sound of the voice of the first preachers-the music of their message, as the terms imply-had gone out into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. And I believe it demonstrable that with apostles, messengers of the churches-missionaries, as we call them, of a like spirit-we are able to do for our world, in the way of preaching, more than Paul and the apostles did for the world of their day.
To the extent of our ability we are to preach it, and we can preach it to all. Take the least favorable case. Suppose that this work is to be donp hy members of churches in Christendom only-i. e., in Europe and America.
We might need fifty thousand preachers, and their support might amount to fifty or seventy-five millions of dollars a year for ten years. In that time, and by snch an agency, the Gospel might be preached, and preached repeatedly, to e'ery man and woman and child on earth.
It seems a great company-fifty thousand preachers. And yet the number is less than ten per cent of the Baptist evangelical church-members in Great Britain and her colonies alone. Two out of every hundred mem- bers of Baptist churches alone, in Great Britain and America, would yield more than we need. While if Britain and America and Protestant Europe were to combine, our fifty thousand would mean one Christian worker out of every three hundred church-members only. England sent as many men to the Crimea to take a single fortress and to keep up for a few years a Mohammedan despotism. Ten times this number of men fell on each side in the great American war to set free three or four millions of slaves.
Five hundred years ago the Crusades had cost more lives, and they sought to win from men wellnigh as chivalrous as the invaders a material Jerusalem and an earthly" sovereignty." And cannot fifty thousand redeemed men be found to win back the world to Je~us Christ 1 Have our hymns no meaning 1 " Oh, send ten thou8and heralds forth, From East to West, from South to North, To blow the trump of Jubilee, And peace proclaim from sea to sea."
It seems a great sum-seven hundred and fifty millions of dollars in ten years. Y6t it is only five dollars a year from each member of the Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches of Europe and America. England alone spends nearly as much every year on intoxicating drinks; and the blessings of civil government, imperial and local, cost Britain every year more than two thirds of the amount. The Crimean War cost five hundred millions of dollars; the American War more than ten times as much. An annual tax of three and one-half ceuts on a dollar on the taxable income of Great Britain alone would yield the seventyfive millions of dollars we need. Nay, more; it would be easy to find ten thousand professing Christians who could give it all.
Looking only at men and money, is it not self-evident that it can be done 1 But, in fact, the process is less costly than I have supposed. In America and England, and generally on the continent of Europe, the Gospel might be preached, fully and tenderly, without much more cost than the loving personal labors of our church-members. In India there are, say, one hundred and fifty millions of heathen. Suppose that we could send out at once three thousand men, who should each spend a couple of years in learning one language or more, and go for eight years or ten of work. They might gather around them, or get from existing churches, three thousand more-plain men or women, competent to preach the Gospel with tenderness and power. And then in ten years the Gospel might be preached, and preached repeatedly, to all India. The entire cost of such an agency for ten years, and for six thousand agents, need not amount to fifteen millions of ponnds. Five thousaud men sent iu the same way to China might, in the same time, evangelize the whole country. It can be done. I have not forgotten the difficulties of all kinds that surround this enterprise-travel, health, unknown regions, barbarous tribes, the great wrath of one who perceives that" his time is short." I know, or can imagine, them all. But I venture to say that. whatever these difficulties, they would be overcome if national honor were at stake; if diamond beds or gold fields of sufficient value had been discovered i nay, if even a Nile were to be traced and mapped. Is there a part of the earth that Englishmen could not penetrate-jor a consideration? And shall Christ's command and the world's needs fail to move 1 I repeat it-It can be done!
The recommendations of some such plan, so simple and comprehensive -the preaching of the Gospel, and, nothing more, to every creature, and nothing less-are clear and decisive.
There is, first of all, the Divine command and the Divine example. Education is of value i so is the relief of distress; the alleviation of suffering ; so are canals, and railroads, and commerce the implements of a material civilization. We honor them all i but they are most honored when made subservient to the Gospel. When the blessed God stepped forth from his place, as philanthropist (Titus 3 : 4) He gave His law and prophets, and sent His Son. And now all the improvement He work!! begins in human hearts, and is to spread from within outwardly till all is renewed. There are, be assured, profound reasons, as there is a Divine command, to justify the announcement that the preaching of the Gospel is the first business of the Christian Church.
Some such comprehensive plan, moreover, will have the advantage of proving to the world that we believe what we profess-viz., that the Gospel is God's remedy for human misery and sinfulness, and that it is the Church's honor to make it known. Everyone sees that our present agencies, with their million pounds a year, for the evangelization of eight hundred millions of people, do not mean businels; and there is, in consequence, widespread infidelity in relation to the Gospel and in relation to the sincerity of the Christian Church herself. . •• What an answer it would bc to rationalism, and secularism, and sectarianism, and popery, and infidelity in all their forms i and what a healthy confirmation of our own faith if the evangelical churches of Christendom were to resolve, in God's strength, to preach the Gospel to every creature. It would be the fitting reply at once to papal infallibility and to rationalistic unbelief.
And how our work would simplify and extend if we confined it to this business of preaching the Gospel. Many men would be found, of every class and of various social positions, competent to do this work, but not competent to become pastors, and not caring to take upon them the business-labors of many modern missionaries-good men, full of faith, and of the Holy Ghost. Nay, might not our best men-our laymen and pastors -whether young or old, be prepared to give five years,or ten, or parts of every year, to this specific work, who are not prepared to become missionaries for life, in the common meaning of the term. "'hat enormous anxieties would be spared us in connection with mission.buildings, and churches, and schools-the dead weight of many existing agencies. All thege things would come in time, but they would come independently of those who make it their business to preach the Gospel. Churches would be formed by thousands; but they would be left to their New Testament, and to native pastors, being commended, not selfishly, but from enlightened conviction, "to God and to the word of His grace. " A freer Christian life might be the result of such an arrange· ment; but the life would be more true, more natural, and, I believe, more abiding.
And what a blessing would it be to the heathen to filld hundreds of men in their country all preaching substantially the same Gospel, and all pointing for details of spiritual and ecclesiastical life to the same book!
It can be done. It is our duty to do it, and there will be blessing even in the attempt. Yes, you say, in the attempt j but in anything besides' Can we, without miracles, hope that men will believe' Is a message of human sinfulness, of Divine mercy, and of holiness-in one word, of Christ, and of Christ as crucified for us-likely to win men who have grown old in sin Y Must we not rather keep to our schools and be content to elevate men by the gradual training of a few in each generation, till, centuries hence, the whole are trained? I think not. The contempt of the foolishness of preaching has not yet died out. Signs, miracles, are still deemed essential. Wisdom, education, is still sought for as the precursor of the Gospel or its substitute. Yet is the Gospel more than a sign. It is power itself, and the power of God; and more than wisdom-the wisdom of God. Miracles have their place in introducing a new revelation, but they are not needed to justify us in preaching the Gospel, nor were they the means of the repentance and faith of the first converts. The truths we have to preach-man's guilt, God's free and righteous mercy, the necessity of holiness-still appeal to men's consciences and hearts, as they did at Jerusalem and at Corinth j the preaching is still followed by "greater things" than Christ Himself wrought j and, in short, the meso sage of the Cross, delivered as it ought to be, with prayer and tears, is still the power of God j and our strength is in proclaiming it. Some will not believe, but multitudes will ; and we shall have discharged our con· science and have obeyed our Lord. There will be a blessing in the attempt, and in much belides.
Thill, then, is the conclusion to which I come. If the Christian Church will give itself to this business of preaching the Gospel, it has wealth enough and men enough to preach it, in the next fifteen or twenty years, to every creature. All we need is a " willing mind"-a Pentecostal spirit of prayer, and faith and zeal. Only expect what God promises to give, only attempt what God bids us to do, and the thing will be done.
The Divine method of ruitlsions has been briefly marked out. We are to work to this model j make the preaching of the Gospel to every creature our ambition, our passion, as it was Paul's. Begin with our children and our friends. Continue in our busineils that we may have the more to give. Take it up as work, not as play.
Let the resolution of our missionary boards be to have hundreds of missionary evangelists with simple work, requiring few, though noble qualifications-love, insight, faith. And let our resolution be to give, not single dollars, but fives, tens, hundreds, and thousands-sums we think we can ill spare; and let all give. And soon-the Lord hasten it !-" His way will be known on earth, and His saving health among all nations."
And yet it is not so much men we need, or money! Not 80 much demonstrations of the sufficiency of our wealth and numbers. What we most need in order to use the wealth we have and to send the men is a heart of warmer love-still greater tenderness and simplicity, more faith and more prayer; in short, the Holy Spirit in us and with us. All I have here written on the power of preaching takes as granted that it is not we who speak, but God who speaks by us. The consciousness, the temper. and the reality of a Divine presence-is not this the great need of us all?
Yet is it less accessible than the men or the money ¥ Nay, it is more accessible than either, and the only thing needed for the acquiring of both. If God give us the Spirit-and can we doubt His willingness-nothing else essential will be withheld.
STATISTICAL FACTS.
I. NUMBERS.
BAPTISTS. Ministers and Members or Communicants. Missionaries. 505,090 Briti.sh. Empire, Colonies, and 3,281,500 MlsslOns ………….•.• 2,853 America and Foreign States .. 25,005 Total (a) …. …. .. 27,858 3,786,590 CONGREGATIONALISTS. Ministers and Members or Communicants. Missionaries. 360,000 Great Britain (b) .. ……•.• 2,722 492,000 America (c) •• '" .•.•.•••.. 4,640 Total …•…•••••.. 7,362 852,000 EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH. Benefices. Sittings.
England (d) …•.••…•… 14,250 6,250,000 Ireland …………..• _.. America .••••..•…••….. 1,210 602,300 4,163 (Members) 1,650,000 Total ••••………. 19,623 7,502,300 (a) "Baptist Handbook," 1892. "The Congregational Handbook" (Boston) for 1891 gives American Baptists as a million more.
(b) "Whitaker's Almanac," 1892. A very inadequate view of the influence and working power 9f the body.
(0) .. The Congregationalist Handbook" (Boston) for 1891. (d) This seems the simplest way of giving an idea of the strength of the Established Chnrch. 'fhe ministers are much more numerous than the benefices, and the nominal melDbers than the Eit~ tings. See H Whitaker's Almanac," p. 236. PBlCSBYTERIAN . Ministers. Communicants.
United Kingdom, Colonies, 5,510 1,418,000 and Missions .•••…….. 5,527 469,000 11,918 European Continent …..•.. 1,561,000 America …•..•••……… —– Total (e) . ••••.••••.• 22,955 3,448,000 WESLEYAN AND OTHER Ministers. Communicants. METHODISTS. 7,285 1,362,000 Great Britain, Colonies, etc. 31,365 4,983,000 (7 bodies) ……•……. —— America (14 bodies)…….. 6,345,000 Total (I) …. ……. 38,650 23,000,000 —- Grand Total (about) …… 120,000 The number of commllnicants is equally divided between Europe and America.
It will be gathered from this list that in these five denominations there are upward of 15,000,000 of church. members who are pledged to the spread of the Gospel of Jesus thrist, with seyen or eight millions more who are equally pledged as members or Episcopal churches.
II. WEALTH.
[NOTE.-It is not deemad necessary to alter these figures to represent dollars. We have only to remember that a ponnd is abont five dollars.-ED.] Since modern missions began in 1792, the wealth of England has enormously increased. Ninepence in the pound from income-tax payers alone would now yield £15,000,000 a year. We spend each year on our army and navy £35,000,000. We spent last year on drink £140,000,000.
Our yearly contributions for foreign missions amount to £1,300,000. (g) In 1850 the communicants of evangelical churches in America were wurth £200,000,000 ; in 1880 they were worth £1,800,000,000. The AmerIcans spend on drink £200,000,000 a year; on tobacco, £120,000,000 a year; on jewelry, £110,000,000. Their yeady contributions for foreign missions amount to £1,400,000. (h) Looking at our numbers and wealth, am I wrong in affirming that the Chris~ian churches of Europe and America alone have men enough and money enough to do a11 I have described in a fraction of the time I have assigned for the accomplishment of this great and blessed work?
<el From" Reports of General Presbyterian Council," sent by Rev. Dr. :ltlathewi (f) From" The Wesl"yan Methodist Kalendar," sent by ~bjor Smith. (g) See Church Missionary Intelligencer, January, 1892, p. 64. (fi) See" Report of the Centenary Conference on Missions," ii. 502, 534.
DECENTRALIZATION IN MISSIONS
DECENTRALIZATION IN MISSIONS.
BY REV. A. J. GORDON, D.D., BOSTON, MASS.
In a very able article on missions in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, the writer makes this startling statement, that" the churches of Great Britain have never as yet made foreign mi.~sion8 a part of their work. ,.
What strikes us at first as being a strange assertion is, however, justified by a further statement, which is almost as true of our country as of Great Britain: "The great missionary societies in England are all outside the churehes, which, as churches, have nothing to do with their maintenance or management. It is true the money comes from members of the churches, and church-members are managers of the societies; but all that the churches do is to manifest a benevolent neutrality, or to bestow a benevolent patronage. Missions to the heathen world are not made the work of the churches; they are a parergon-we had almost said a by-play, or a May holiday-instead of being the Church of Christ's first work, as it was her Lord's final commission-a work demanding the highest talent and most devoted service."
It cannot be denied that this statement is strictly according to fact, and the fact is one of the most serious whith eonfronts us in our missionary operations. Responsibility is the mother of activity. Only as Christians are sensible of their obligation will they be moved to active consecration.
Therefore, how to distribute responsibility for the work of evangelizing the world is the great problem to be solved in the present "crisis of missions. "
Now we do not question for a moment the great value and indispensa- ble necessity of our missionary boards. The splendid work which they have done during the last hundred years has amply justified the wisdom of their founders j and it is to be earnestly hoped that the number and efficiency of such societies may be greatly increased in the years to come; but there are certain perils connected with these great organizations to which we should be keenly alive. .
In the first place, they tend to create a missionary trust, in which re- sponsibility is 'centred in a few hands, funds administered by a few men, and the world's evangelization syndicated in a few trustees. As great emporiums shut up small shops and drive the petty store-keepers out of business, so wholesale missions tend to concentrate the trade in Gospel pearls in a single firm, and thus to create a ~ind of evangelical monopoly.
President Wayland, whose views of missionary policy, expressed more than forty years ago, have been more and, more justified by events, had very strong convictions on this point. He predicted that the tendency would be steadily developed to carryon missions by representation instead of by participation-churches turning over their responsibility to boards, boards relegating it to executive committees, and executiye committees to secretaries. " Thus, in fact," he says, "the work of extending the cause of Christ, which belongs essentially to every disciple, is devolved on some fifteen or twenty men, who, overburdened with business, do. all they possibly can i but to what does this amount in comparison with the universal effort of six or eight hundred thousand communicants, each laboring in his own sphere, each building over against his own house, all animated with the same spirit, each determined to do with his whole heart the whole service which his Master has appointed to him individually 1"
In confirmation of this statement, let us ask how many pastors and churches practically discharge their responsibility for missions with an annual contribution, gathered on one Sunday and sent to the missionary society ~ Those who have an intimate acquaintance with the subject well know that many make this the sum total of their interest in this Divine enterprise. Thus the missionary Christ, with His great commission, is treated as a beggar to be discharged with an alms, and not as a yoke-fellow in the Gospel to be supported in daily co-operation. As a consequence, missionary contributions do not grow with the growth of the churches, and missionary interest does not increase WIth the increase of communicants.
On the other hand, whenever ~ndividual churches have taken up the work of giving the Gospel to the heathen, as their own first and inalienable obligation, the results have been surprising. God is constantly giving object-lessons on this subject: The single peasant church of Pastor Harms, in Germany, sending out and supporting more than three hundred and fifty missionaries within thirty years; Pastor Gossner commissioning and maintaining one hundred and forty-one missionaries i and in our day, Pastor Simpso~ sending out one Imndred missionaries in a single year"and receiving for their support within twelve months more than two hundred thousand dollars ! We may not altogether approve the policy and methods of these leaders; that is not the question. Here are "examples writ large" of what single pastors and local churches can do who make missions their principal business, and constitute themselves wiih the Holy Ghost sole agente, and not silent partners in that business.
A second tendency growing out of our present methods is to produce an undesirable uniformity of method in conducting the work of foreign missions. The method is the man himself. Churches which achieve unusual success in parish work generally do so by absorbing and reducing to action their minister's personality. The Metropolitan Tabernacle is a kind of organized Spurgeon iNorthfield is a sort of incarnated Moody. These types of men and method should be transplanted bodily to the missionary field, instead of being> minted and restamped with the uniform signature of a missionary board. There are churches which are hot, and there are churches which are cold. Pour their missionary spirit into a common receptacle, and lukewarm is the mean temperature. In some way the tn0St fervtfut, most evangelical, most spiritual churches ought to make their influ(mce felt directly on the foreign field through agents who shall properly represent them. Professor Christlieb in his book on missions attaches so much importance to a " variety of operations," in order to the highest results, that he even sees a beneficent Providence in denominationalism, in the partition of Christendom into a multitude of sects.
The versatility of method is really provided for in the wide dissimilarity in churches and in their administration.
Without proposing anything either revolutionary or radical, we do believe that the time has come for decentralization in missionary operations. The way to accomplish thi!l is obviQJls and the reason for it scriptural. Let every church become a foreign missionary society having its own field or station, and its own representatives for whom it is directly responsible. Confederation instead of delegation or of relegation might thus be secured. The local churches could co· operate in the work of missions without funding their responsibility in a common treasury.
The missionary boards would carryon the same work which they now conduct with considerable relief from responsibility. They would be the commission housel of the churches which they represent, doing their banking and book-keeping j transporting their missionaries to and from their fields j building their mission house8 and chapels-in fact, doing everything which they now do except supporting and directing the missionaries. We are profoundly persuaded that this responsibility should be retained by the local churches, and for this reason, that the Head of the Church has fixed it there, and that it cannot properly be transferred. The individual church is a missionary society, complete in itself. So it was ordained to be in the beginning, and so it must continue to be in order to do its largest work for the world.
And what would be gained by this method V 1. It would greatly promote the spirit of prayer for missions. Necessity is the spur to importunity. " Lord, make me sensible of real needs," was the petition constantly on the lips of an eminent saint. One who has his larder filled to repletion finds it exceedingly difficult to plead with intense unction, "Give us this day our daily bread." Christ's constant warnings of the perils of wealth and His strong dissuasions against laying up treasnres on earth are sufficiently explained in this fact. Neither wealth nor poverty are praiseworthy conditions in themselves j but the one begets independence of God, and the other dependence on God. Therefore it is not more wealth, but more need that is required in our churches to increase their missionary power. Let the burden of the support of missionaries and missionary stations rest directly on the local churches j let the trials and discouragements of the foreign field be made an immediate and sole concern of these churches, and what a new and wonderful stimulus to prayer it would furnish. Do we hear the plea that single churches are not able to undertake a foreign mission V Our answer is, let them undertake that which they are unable to perform, if ever their praying and working ability is to be brought out. It is the business of a good teacher to give his pupils problems to work out larger than their present capacity, in order to expand the mind j and Christ would have us undertake more than we can do, in order to throw us upon Himself with strong crying and intercession, and so teach us how His strength is made perfect in weakness. Missions rightly conducted are the greatest school of prayer: they nourish that by which they are nourished j they create a necessity which supplies a necessity. In a word, the most pressing demand of our day is more responsibility for missions in order to greater importunity for missions.
2. It would increase vastly the contributions of the churches j and for this reason, that it would make obligation more immediate and personal. A financial pressure resting on a board a thousand miles away is not sufficient to lift the benevolence of the local church to its proper level. Duty is what is due j hence the more personal a debt can be made to appear, the more obligatory will seem to be the claim. How churches will lift and strain their resources and tax their self-denial to build a house of worship or to purchase a new organ! What lover of missions has not longed for the same energy of self-sacrifice on behalf of this greatest of all works? The secret of the earnestness in the one instance is that the work is counted a personal obligation, and therefore since it cannot be relegated it is heroically done. Let a church have its own missionaries who will starve unless it supports them, and there will be a possibility that some at home will go hungry in order to feed a far-off workman j but there is little likelihood that such self-denial will be evoked where responsibility for a missionary'll support is subdivided among several thousand Christians. The wisdom of Sidney Smith's saying is even more apparent than its wit: " Benevolence is a universal instinct j A cannot see B in need without desiring C to help him." How much of the amiable well wishing and even fervent praying for missions is of this sort, an asking God to move others to do what we ought to do ourselves j a pleading for the cause of missions by those who are daily shirking the claims of missions. Never can the resources of the Christian Church be laid under contribution till in some way the missionary enterprise is understood to be the principal business of the Church, and a business which cannot by any possibility be entrusted to an ecclesiastical commission house.
3. It would vastly multiply the number and the variety of missionary agencies. It is quite common in these days to hear the phrase, the " scandal of a divided Christendom." This condition is doubtless to be lamented on many grounds. Nevertheless, it has unquestionably been overruled to the wider and more rapid propagation of the Gospel. An able article appeared in one of the numbers of this REVIEW, showing conclusively that when the unity of the Church bas been most compact and absolute missionary success has been the least.' All that we would emphasize here is, that centralization tellQs illIJl.9lit always to a waste of energy. A
THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION
hundred horse-power can be had by hitching a hundred horses into cne team, but a hundred church-power does not and cannot result from uniting a hundred churches into one society. Indeed, the paradox is constantly witnessed of gaining strength by diminishing the numbers, as in the reduction of Gideon's army. Churches which are strong ought doubtless to be yoked up with churches which are weak, and so to share their burdens j but we know of no law requiring churches that are zealous and thoroughly alive to their missionary obligations to dilute their consecration and to lower the temperature of their zeal, by union with those which utterly lack in these qualities. The responsibility of being devoted, and the obligation to be zealous and self-denying ought, in other words, to be thrown upon each Christian and upon each church with no opportunity to shift them upon others.
In the immense call which is now made upon the churches of Christ for multiplied giving and multiplied laborers, it is natural to ask what further methods can be suggested. "Churches to the Front" is the answer of one of the oldest missionaries in China, in a tract now before us. If separate churches will take up the work of missions, he believes that missionaries will be multiplied a hundred-fold within a fAw years. Another eminent laborer in China has for seyeral years been advocating the same view. What is the suggestion but a call for a " policy of missions which multiplies a thousand-fold the eyes that watch for their success, the hands that work for their prosperity, and the prayers that plead for their blessing i"
THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION.
BY REV. ROBERT STEBL, D.D" SYDNEY.
The first year of the second half century of the New Hebrides Mission witnessed the introduction of steam power to serve the interests of advancing Christianity as well as of progressive commerce in this group of islands. There are thirty islands, most of which have now resident or visiting missionaries, and all of them have native teachers. The first of the interisland vessels was the Columba, a boat of five tons. The second was the John Knox, a larger craft of twelve tons, in which was a little cabin six feet high, where ten persons could sit. and a hold which could accommodate between twenty and thirty persons. This two-masted schooner did good service for a few years, but soon proved too small. The next vessel was the result of an appeal after the martyrdom of the Rev. G. N. Gordon and his wife on Eromanga in 1861, and the perils on Tanna which caused the flight of the missionaries. The Rev. J. G. Paton, who has since become so famous, raised a sum of £3000 by his fervent appeals in Australasia for a new vessel and £lOOO for additional missionaries. A brigantine of 120 tons was built at New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and sent out to the New Hebrides under the command of Captain W. A. Fraser, in 1864, with a reinforcement of three missionaries, including the courageous brother of the martyred Gordon. In 1866 three more missionaries came from Scotland to occupy stations in the group. The vessel called the Dayspring was supported by the Presbyterian Sabbath scholars in Australia and New ?:caland, with the aid'of £250 annually from Nova Scotia and £250 from the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland. In 1873 this vessel was wrecked on a reef in the harbor of Aneityum during Ii hurricane, but no lives were lost. She was immred for £2000, which was recovered, and formed the commencement of a new fund. The Rev. Mellsrs. Copeland and Paton collected £2000 more, and with this a vessel built in Sydney, New South Wales, was purchased, and adapted to the missionary work. It was a three· masted schooner of 159 tons, and a remarkably quick sailer. For seventeen years this second Dayspring served the mission well, making two voyages snnually from Sydney with stores and mails and mission passengers, and waiting on the missionaries at their several stations. Much pioneer work was done by the aid afforded by this vessel and her master, officers, and sailors, as well as by the native crew always employed in the islands. She was insured for £2000, the premium for which was paid by means of an insurance fund inaugul'l1ted in New Zealand by the Rev. J. Copeland, and completed to a sum of £3000 by Mr. Paton. One of the services of this vessel was the conveyance of the missionaries, and often also their wives, to the place where the mission synod was held, and the entertainment of them during its several sel!lsions. Having had the pleasure of being prellent at one of these synods, I can testify to the happy and comfortable arrangement for the missionaries staying on board and meeting each other at meals. It secured proper attendance and much comfort. The wives of the missionaries were quartered at the mission house. The annual expense of the vessel was about. £1800, of which £1300 were raised by the Sabbath scholars of the Presbyterian churches in Australasia. Indeed, they frequently raised much more, and thus met the necessary repairs required from time to time. It was found, however, that this vessel was too small for the wants of the growing mission in the New Hebrides. The Rev. J. G. Paton, on a visit to Great Britain and Ireland in 1884-85, collected over £9000, of which £6000 were given for the purchase of a steamer for the use of the mission. Negotiations were entered into immediately after his return to Melbourne with a view to ascertain the probable cost of maintaining a steam vessel, and as that was found to involve an annual outlay of some £3000, considerable difficulty was felt in getting those supp-orting missionaries on the islands to undertake so heavy a responsibility. But in Divine Providence an unexpected solution of the difficulty was obtained when the mercantile marine stepped forward and offered to establish a regular line of steamers if encouragement was given. The Victorian and the New South Wales Governments each subsidized a monthly service to the illlands by way of New Caledonia and Fiji. This did not exactly meet the wants of the mission, as the steamers called only at one port on the group. The mission vessel therefore continued its voyages for another year, when the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company offered to place a steamer in the islands, with a view of promoting trade for the main line. The New South Wales Government gave a sub· sidy of £100 per month to this service, and the Maritime Board of the mission entered into a contract with the company to get all the work of the mission done among the islands. The steamer caUs at every station once a month, and conveys all passengers 'and stores. The steamer on this route meets that on the main line, and cruises entirely among the islands. In the early part of this year, and during the hurricane season, she was driven on a reef in the very harbor where the first Dayspring was wrecked. Fortunately no mission goods were lost, and no lives, but the vessel was rendered useless.
A larger and better steamer has now been put on the inter-island trade. The missionaries have greater comfort in travelling, and are altogether more satisfied. The expense has been increased some £500 a year, but no more than £300 of this faUs upon the New Hebrides Mission. The Dayspring has since been suld. In addition to all this, a small steamer is to be provided for the new mission' just started on the most northerly and largest island of the group-Espiritu Santo-hy the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. This is to be provided for by the fund raised by the Rev. J. G. Paton-now D.D., by the University of Edinburgh. The Rev. D. Macdonald, who has been for eighteen ycars at Havanna Harbor, in the island of Efate, is to superintend this new mission, and two other missionaries have been appointed to that work.. Soon all the group will be under missionary care. The evangelistic work is !!preading rapidly. There are cighteen missionaries of the Presbyterian churches now on the group. Bishop Selwyn and his missionaries operate on three of the islands to the north. There are about 180 native teachers employed. On some islands there are o·er 500 communicants; on others, 350, 200, 60, etc. On many there is a large attendance at public worship; on others it is still small. On all the work of the Lord is advancing, but the largest islands are only lately begun to be evangelized. There is still much to be done, requiring faith, prayer, labor, and perseverance. The mission contains agents of six Australasian Presbyterian churches and of the Free Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Thus eight churches work together in the cause of missions. It is no wonder that the late Rev. Dr. Duff, of Calcutta, commended this union to the first General Council which met at Edinburgh as an example of what might by done by Presbyterian churches. The same spirit is at work both in India, China, Japan, and Africa, and will doubtless prcvail. May this consummation, devoutly to be wished, soon be realized !
In April last the Rev. VV. Vatt and wife returned to their station after a visit to Europe, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and New South Wales. Mr. Watt took with him the complete New Testament in Tannese,
WILLIAM CAREY
which he had carried through the press in Scotland. Dr. Gunn, medical mis- sionary, also returned after a short furlough with his wife and family in New South Wales. The Rev. H. A. Robertson, of Eromanga, with his wife and family, came lately to the same colony for their health. Mr. Robert- son had suffered from exposure in aiding the wrecked steamer. The Rev; P. Milne, whose career has been so successful on Ngunna and other islands, is visiting New Zealand and addressing congregations. The Rev. Dr. Paton has been doing similar work in AUlltralia. Altogether this mission, in a very difficult field, is making much progress in evangelizing the dusky tribes of the New Hebrides. A perplexing difficulty has lately been felt. British vessels are not allowed to sell arms or intoxicating liquors to the natives. French vessels are allowed to do both j and the natil'es have been refusing to sell. land unless they receive muskets in exchange. This has aided the acquirement of land by French settlers, and it has hindered purchase of land and other trade to British settlers. American vessels have also, it is said, been trading in these articles among the New Hebrides islands. It is matter requiring some diplomatic settlement, so that all • nations may be on an equal footing, and that the people be protected from trade that tends to their injury and to the injury of thc missionary work. It is high timethat enlightened nations should all agree not to take intoxi- cating liquor to the aborigines of any continent or island. Humanity and religion alike require this course.
WILLIAM CAREY.
IlL-THE TRANSLATOR OF THE 'BIBLE AND THE BENEFACTOR OF ASIA.
BY GEORGE SMITH, LL.D., F.R.G.S., EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.
When, in his great work, the" Annals of the English Bible," Christopher Anderson, thc accomplished Baptist minister, of Edinburgh, reviewed the principal translations of Holy Scripture which Carey had made into the languages of the peoples of Iudia and Southern Asia, he declared that that generation lived too near the object to be able to descry the proportions or estimate the value of the work. " Fifty years hence the character of this extraordinary and humble man will be more correctly appreciated." Dr. A. F. Cox, the historian of the first half century of the Baptist Missionary Society, wrote about the same time that Carey might have been a Luther or a Newton had he lived in their age, "but his faculties, consecrated by religion to a still higher end, have gained for him the sublime distinction of having been the translator of the Scriptures and the benefactor of Asia." Catholic and evangelical Christendom, after another half century, gratefully adopts as its own the eulogy.
As a man and a missionary William Carey's forty:one years' apostolate in India formed an all-round career. His plodding-the only merit he would admit-his natural genius j his consecration to the highest good of the dark races; his faith in God and personal "ove t~ Jesus Christ; his splendid health and capacity for patient toil; his simple Melf-denial, free alike from consciousness and asceticism for its own sake ; his chivalrous affection to family and friends, and his courtesy to his friends' enemies- for he llad none of his own-all constitute a character nearer perfectness than any since the inspired John died at Ephesus. But if analysis leads us to study each great service that he was called by the Spirit of God to render to the Church and the world, we have no difficulty in selecting these two as the greatest-the founding of his society in 1792, and the translation of the Scriptures into thirty-six Asiatic languages. If Robert Ball could, amid the controversies of his lifetime, declare Carey to have been, even then, "the instrument of diffusing more religious knowledge than has fallen to the lot of any individual since the Reformation," and if the poet Southey could challenge his own Church of England, all combined, to show the like, what shall be the verdict of evangelical Christendom now?
Carey himself estimated his own position when he declared that he was only a pioneer. He meant it modestly, and he would have admitted every' word written down to our own day by English university scholars who desiderate academic tone, microscopic erudition, and college-bred culture. But it is precisely such university gifts, so desirable in themselves and out of reach of the Northamptonshire shoemaker, that unfit their possessor to be a leader of men, an originator of a great movement, a reformer of Church or State. The Spi~it of God prefers the child-weakness of the world, and makes it mightier than all that mechanical training can do to be the spiritual force, the moral regenerator of humanity. Carey was the pioneer translator of the Word of God into the languages of Southern Asia in this sense, that he was the first-cxcept into Tamil and Telugoo-and that, not know. ing how soon he might be called away, he must make haste to give every people the good news of God in their own tongue. He worked night and day for this end, while neglecting no other imperative duty except his personal correspondence. To one lady he excused his silence thus-that eve-ry letter he wrote meant the sacrifice of a chapter of the Bengali Bible !
The providence of God had, unconsciously, trained him for this work far more effectually than if he had gone to college like Claudius Buchanan and David Brown, like Henry Martyn and Thomason afterward. When a thoughtless boy in the church of which his father was clerk and schoolmaster, he knew the Scriptures. When at eighteen he sought food for his new spiritual life among the Nonconformists, he 80 studied the Bible for himself that he "formed his own system" of belief from its self-evidence of self-revealing" contents, and found in it what all the Reformers and universities of the past centuries had failed to seethe missionary call. As the youth learned each new language, he read his daily morning chapter in it, till the number became seven. He might preach with the voice and teach with the lips and the effect might pass away with his own life, which must be brief at the longest. But, his trans- lations of the Scriptures, the first into the Oriental vernaculars, would, if once made, be improved on by others, and would carry the message of God to man far and wide where no missionary could go, and down through the ages when the pioneer was forgotten. Carey loved to preach, but he thirsted to translate; he worked sixteen hours out of ever.y twenty-four, because he hasted to. send out from the press the portions and then the whole of the vernacular Bible, while neglecting no other department of the missionary's duty that fell to him. And God so accepted His servant's work that his holy ambition was realized beyond all his yearning, and in a rapture of thanksgiving he said to Marshman as he lay a-dying: " I have not a wish left uns~tisfied." God so blessed His servant's self-denial and toil that He enabled him to contribute personally £46,625 to the creation and extension of the Serampore Mission, so that he saw before his death "twenty-six Gospel churches planted in India within an area of about eight hundred miles, and above forty laboring brethren rail'ed up on the spot amid them," as his surviving colleague wrote.
Let it not be supposed, however, that Carey neglected either the erudi- tion of scholarship or the delicate variations of literary style and colloquial idiom in his Orientalism. Comparative philology was only coming to the birth as a science in his day, and hill is the merit of having done more to prepare the data for its generalizations, as well as to apply its laws to the mastering of other tongues, than any contemporary ~r predecessor. Sir William Jones, the Christian judge, who died all too early at thirty-four, alone was before him. Sir Charles Wilkins and the elder Halhed had made the first translations from the Sanskrit and the Persian, and the former had cut the first Bengali types. Henry Colebrooke, greater than all, and in- spirer of the German Orientalists, was Carey's immediate contemporary and sometimes fellow-worker. The slightly later scholar, Horace Hayman Wilson, who beca~e first Bodleian Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, and was no friend of missions, has more warmly eulogized Carey's Sanskrit • scholarship and fluent and correct speech than any other, remarking that " it was not in Dr. Carey's nature to volunteer a display of his erudition ;"
the marvel how even be could find time for his translations of the Sanskrit epics, the Sankhya Metaphysical treatises, and for the texts of the Hito- padesa, the Dasa, Kumara, Carita, and the Apophthegms of Bhartri-pari, still more for his many and magnificent dictionaries and grammars. But the motive accounts for it all when he confesses, in 1811, in reference to his" Universal Dictionary of the Oriental Languages Derived from the Sanskrit," which was burned in the great fire of the Serampore press soon – after, the desire" to assist biblical students to correct the translation of the Bible in the Oriental languages after we are dead."
His knowledge of the many dialects and e'en patois of the widespread Bengali and Hindi peoples was unexampled, and has probably never since been equalled. For he was a missionary who daily worked among them, and among the lowest as well as highest classes of them. He had facilities for learning their very slang and vocabulary of abuse which no one has ever since possessed in Bengal save the revenue settlement officials, who may happen to love languages, and the people in other provinces. That rare book, " Dialogues Intended to Facilitate the Acquiring of the Bengalee Language," with its curious preface, published by Carey in 1818, throws a flood of light on the life and beliefs of the eighty millions even at the present day too long neglected. In one hundred and thirteen parallel pages we have the talk of every class, learned and illiterate j the" grave style" and the" common talk of laboring people," the language of women " considerably differing from that of the men, especially in their quarrels j" the proverbial expressions and the very irregular talk of fishermen. Some of it is almost too coarse for repetition, even in EngliSh j but all, includ- ing dialogues which set forth" the domestic economy of the country," forms a priceless revelation of the inner life of the dumb millions of Ben- gal, and no less a testimony to the wonderfully human tenderness and minute knowledge of the first English missionary to India. William Carey used to exhaust three Pundits daily as his amanuenses and fellow-workers. He had the power, like some great generals, of falling asleep in a moment and for a fixed time. Each Pundit had instructions to rouse him for a new spell of work should he not be awake at the hour, and when the Oriental's reluctance to summon a sleeper back to life prevailed occailionally, t.he eager scholar never failed to reprove him. Only then was the perfect temper ruffled, for the translator had been allowed to steal time from his work for God and posterity.
If the science of comparative grammar had not been formulated in Carey's time, still less was that of biblical criticism in the modern sense dreamed of. Theology, though the queen of the sciences, was then as little studied as the active life of godliness was pursued in Christian churches and communities. The two have a far closer relation than the extreme advocate of each-right in what he asserts, bnt wrong in what he denies- ever admits. Carey accomplished his splendid work with no apparatus criticus worthy of the name in those days, and with the help of no com- mentary more critical than Doddridge's "Family Expositor," which had appeared in 1738. His Greek concordance was always at his side. An interesting parallel might be drawn between him and Henry Martyn, his yoting contemporary and neighbor for a time, at the translating work. As to Hebrew, like biblical criticism, a scholarly knowledge of that on any extensive scale is only now coming into existence j but Carey was at the – level of the best Hebraists of his day. The grammar was known then j but exegetical methods are of to-day. The problem which God gave to the Church in the evangelical revival a century ago, was that of evangelizing the dark races j and to-day there has been added that of consecrating all . recent knowledge and critical inquiry by evangelical fidelity to the true inspiration of the Scriptures. The more that Carey toiled at his translating the nearer he was drawn to the Spirit of God, and the more his faith was fed by the revelation and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
William Carey's two greatest translations of the Bible wele that into Bengali for the blind millions, and into Sanskrit for their blinder leaders. In four years after landing at Calcutta he had made his first experimental Beng~lee version of the New Testament from the original Greek. After four revisions of the MS., read to natives of all classes, he had received his first printing-press. The printer landed at Serampore in the person of William Ward, and there, in February, 1801, the first edition of two thousand copies appeared. Ward himself and Felix Carey set up the types in nine months; four Hindus worked the press. The whole, on rough, country· made paper, cost £620. The rare and precious volume is now a curiosity as it rests on the shelves of Serampore College Library. The first page in Matthew's gospel was struck off at press by Carey himself, and this one Gospel was published at once, that the Bengalees might not for a day want a complete and inspired life of the only Redeemer of men. This first ledition was presented to King George III., at the instance of Ead Spencer, owner of the great library at Althorp; and the king replied: "I am greatly pleased to find that any of my subjects are employed in this manner." The whole Bengali Bible appeared complete in 1809. Fivc editions of the Old, and eight editions of the New, Testament were revised by Carey hefore his death. As the first sheets had been offered to God on the altar or communion-table by prayer in the first Bengali chapel, so thc venerable scholar took the first copy of the last edition with him into the pulpit and addressed his converts from it, from the words (in the Bengali), " Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy sal1"ation," just two years before the Lord lovingly answered the prayer. But to the last he persisted in his ruling passion" now and then to read a proofsheet of the Scriptures."
The Sanskrit Bible completed by Carey, burned in the fire of 1812, retranslated, and therefore not all published when he died, was his answer to the Vedic and Puranic literature of the Brahmins, who" cordially received it." As milk in a vessel of dog's skin, utterly polluted, was truth to them in one of the tongues of the common people. But in its Sanskrit dress, as afterward improved by Werger, the Bible has bem at once welcomed by not a few to whom it has proved the power of God and the wisdom of God. Every Pundit' knows Sanskrit as, of old, every educated European knew Latin; so that "by translating the Scriptures into this language we in effect translate them into all the languages of India." Carey translated and wrote every word of the great book with his own hand. It was his thirty-sixth translation and his last, though he edited and revisea the work of others in other languages.
Space fails me to tell the details or even to generalize the romantic facts of William Carey's manifold services to humanity, Indian administration, science and manufactures, botany and forestry, agriculture and horticulture,
DISCERNING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES
literature and education, the mo'ral advancement of society and mlSSlon economics. These appeal to the men of science and of society, to the statesmen and atbninistrators, who rule two hundred and eighty-eight millions today, on lines which this friend of many a governor-general marked out, to all who love the progress of man in any upward direction, to unite with the whole Church in grateful commemoration of the founder and the f/lther of missions a hundred years ago. All may adopt the lines of a contemporary verse-writer, a man of the world, who knew him: .. Thou'rt in onr heart-with tresses thin and gray, And eye that knew the Book of Life so well, And brow serene, as thou were wont to stray Amidst thy flowers-like Adam ere he fell."
'But the believing Christian will specially take to his heart the last written message of the dying saint sent to Christopher Anderson on September 30th, 1833 : "As everything connected with the full accomplishment of the Divine promises depends on the almighty power of God, pray that I and all the ministers of the Word may take hold of His strength, and go about our work as fully expecting the accomplishment of them all, which, however difficult and improbable it may appear, is certain, as all the promises of God are in Him, yea, and in Him. Amen." Carey began the first modern missionary century with " Expect Great Things; Attempt Great Things;" he summons us to enter on the second not only fully expecting the accomplishment of all God's promises, but taking hold of God's strength as we go about the work of evangelizing the world.
[EJrrata.-In Part 1. of this series, page 321, for first date, A.D. 51–55, read B.O. 55-A.D. 51 ; also on page 322 under THE THBEE NEW BIRTH EpOOHS.] DISCERNING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
[NOTB.-Thls.paper gives the substance of au address delivered In City Temple, London, April 27, 1892, before young men in behalf of the Baptist Missionary Society, and as the opening of the centenary celebration.] Deus in historia (God is in history). The undevout historian, like the " undevout astronomer, is mad." If only the fool can say in his heart, as he beholds the universe, with its marvellous arrangements and adjustinents, " There is no God," only the fool can say, as he looks upon the unfoldings and infoldings of the historic mystery, " It is the work of chance."
Yes, events have an articulated pla~ : they are not disjecta membra. As the author of Psalm 139 said of yet unborn life, we may say of the historic ages to come: "Thine eyes did see their substance, being yet unperfect; and in Thy Book all coming events were written, which in continuous succession are fashioned when as yet there was none of them."
Christ said to the imperious demand for" a sign from heaven" that the signs were already in the very horizon, but were not diicerned by that evil and adulterous generation. The red sky of evening was understood by them to be a prophecy of a fair to-morrow; and the red and lowering sky of morning to be a forecast of foul weather. Yet with all their skill in reading the weather signs, they had no discernment for the " signs of the times. " The comparison implies a profound and most weighty analogy, nalIely, that God gives U8 in the Present a prophecy of the Future; and that it is our duty and privilege to watch the historic horizon, note politi- cal, moral, spiritual phenomena, and make abroad and safe induction as to the times to come; and especially developments nigh at hand even 8t the doors.
Another grand truth implied in all this is that, as God has a plan in history, so it is an infinitely wise and good plan.j and that therefore grand historic epochs wait for the fitnes8 and fulness of times. Accident determines nothing; there is no blunder or mistake, no anticipation or procrastination. When everything is ready, and not hefore or after, with the precision of the mO!lt perfect mechanism, everything moves according to His appoiutment. There may be a wheel within a wheel, but there is the spirit of a living creation in the wheels, and they all move in one direction, obedient to the guiding spirit, and the rim of the wheel is full of the eyes of Omniscience before and behind.
Now observe what follows: God having a definite historic plan, and the fitness and fulness of times being the determining law, we have only to study carefully and prayerfully the events of the present day to see the plan revealed and read the forecast of the future, and especially the near future." The current history of mankind constitutes the putting forth of the leaves of the fig-tree, which reveals the summer as just at hand. The prayerful consideration and comparison of events occurring before our eyes thus becomes to the disciple the spirit of prophecy.
How, then, are we to know that the fitness and fulness of times for the vigorous and successful prosecution of the work of I!lissions has at length arrived 1 What, in respect of missionary enterprise, are the signs of the times now appearing on the world's horizon? This question we seek, with God's help, to answer.
There is a grand fundamental principle which underlies all discernment of the signs of the times, namely, the comparison of prophetic scriptures with providential developments. The Word of God and the work of God must agree; and we must know the former to interpret the latter. At all great crises in history it will be found that prediction, inspired prediction, has long pointed as with uplifted finger toward that crisis j and then there has been at that crisis a singular convergence of events showing a presiding genius in history far above man.
For example, take the Incarnation, that new birth-hour of history. How plainly had prophetic prediction foretold God's manifestation in the flesh, and with astonishing minuteness of detail. The Messiah was to be "Compare Matthew 16 : 1-3 and 1M: 12-14,80-34. bmn in Bethlehem of Judea, of the Davidic line, and after the expiration of sixty-nine of the seventy heptades of years from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. * Devout men like Simeon and godly women like Anna were not taken by surprise when they beheld the Lord Christ, for, like Daniel, they had studied prophecy, and knew that the time must be near. Then there was the convergence of events: a world-wide expectation of the coming of some great deliverer, a sort of prophecy of the human heart; there was a world-wide preparation in the universal empire of Rome and the prevalence of universal peace; and a world-wide destitution in the acknowledged failure of even Greek philosophy to supply a knowledge of God. That wide famine of soul, that altar at Athens" to God, the Unknown," those Roman roads made ready for the messenger of peace-what a gatheri,ng of rays into one burning focal point! And so because prophetically and providentially the fitness and fulness of times had come-Christ came, and as the very hour struck in the belfry of the ages.
Who can deny what Dr. Croly said years ago in St. Paul's, London, that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was another birth hour of history 1 How plainly had prophetic Scriptures pointed to a period of dark ages, succeeded by another new dawn! The long-buried treasure was once more to be unearthed, and the pearl of great price recovered from its depths, and the greatest age of world-wide evangelism to follow. There had been a general decay of evangelical faith, and there must be a revival in that direction before there could be a revival of missions; for there can never bc evangelistic era until there is an evangelical spirit.
And what a strange convergence again of providential eventlil! What can be more signally wonderful! As God's fit and full time came, preparations on a colossal scale were made for the Reformation. In 1453 Constantinople fell, and the revival of learning followed, el'pecially significant because it scattered over the Continent Greek scholars and the Greek New Testament. In 1497 the new passage to India round the Cape of Good Hope prepared the way for closer contact and communication between the centres of Protestantism and the centres of Oriental heathenism, as in 1492 the discovery of America had opened the way to the planting of a grand Protestant republic, a new missionary nation beyond the Atlantic. Then let it be remembered that about this very time the fall of feudalism, after its thousand years of petty despotisms, prepared the way of the development of individual liberty.
Equally marvellous were the marks that God's fit time was come in the theology of inventions. About the beginning of the fourteenth century the mariner's compass, coming into general use, became a guide to thc marinAr over unknown seas; the printing press issued its first book-a Latin Bible-in 1450 ; and the steam engine wag an assured success in 1543. Just at this very time Luther awoke the Church by his hammer, * Daniel 9 : 25. and the Reformed Faith, joint product of the prayers and tears of Huss and Knox, Wyclif and Calvin, Jerome of Prague and Savonarola of Florence, found its full development under the monk of Erfarth. Surely another great birth-hour was reached when William Carey led the way at Kettering, in 1792, in organizing a society for exclusively foreign mission work, and the next year himself in a uobler sense led the way by going to India.
Here again prophecy linked hands with Providence. More than three thousand years before Carey God had called another man-Abraham- " alone, " * and promised that in his seed all the families of the earth ~hould be blessed. Chri3t had distinctly foretold that the Gospel must first be preached as a witness among all nations before the end should come. And now again events converged and pointed to the time as at last arrived for world· wide evangelism. How any candid and careful student of history can doubt that the nineteenth century was distinctly indicated by God as the new century of missions passes comprehension. The whole historic horizou was aflame with an aurora borealis of splendid signals, which even at this distance are still startling and dazzling. The decay of evangelical doctrine and holy living, which made the first half of the eighteenth century seem like a sepulchre of faith and piety, had given place to one of the mightiest revivals of religion the world ever knew under such men as Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, and a score of others like them. Those trumpet blasts had gone forth from the two Northamptons, summoning all disciples to united prayer for a ~peedy and world. wide effusion of the Holy Spirit, and the new openings for effort in the South Seas and Asia challenged the Church to fulfil her Lord's last command. Corruption in the Church had constrained the remnant who had not bowed to Baal to call mightily on God j and the new life in the Church demanded vent in missions. William Carey could not but be a missionary and an organizer of missions, for the new birth hour had come, and this was the Divine issue.
Has another great birth hour come to u~ ~ Who of us discern~, the signs .of the times 1 While we begin to celebrate this centenary of missions, there are Divine signals on the world's horizon more startling than any which fixed Carey's eye on the signs of the times. It may be doubted whether in all history there hal!! been such a convergence of testimony that the fulness of times has come for the prosecution of God's work.
During this century there has been world-wide exploration, so that now the map of the world is complete-there is no untraversed sea, no undiscovered land. We know what the" whole world" is which is to be evangelized and possessed. There is also world-wide communication. There are no nations, new afar off-the whole world is brought into one neighborhood by steam carriages and vessels, the telegraph, the postal union, etc. Man is in contact with man the world over. There is likewise world-wide fro,ternization. Nation is not ~rJ.'ayed against nation. There are friendly * Isaiah 51 : 2. and even fraternal relations existing j prejudices have been removed, treaties established j there is commercial interchange and mutual acquaintance by travel, diffusion of literature, etc. The year 1884 witnessed the august spectacle of fourteen nations assembled by representatives at Berlin to mature a constitution for the Congo Free State, and in that conference not only Protestant and Catholic peoples united, but even a MohaJJlmedan power was represented! Again, there is world-wide emancipation. Britain and America ~ave made all their slaves free, and RUBBia her serfs i and there is not one civilized and nomigaJly Christian nation to-day that upholds slavery! There is world.wide civilization-i.e., barbarism, savagery, cannibalism, snperstition, and cruelty are fast disappearing before the advance of a new civilization, with its greater intelligence and enterprise, liberality, and humanity. There is also world-wide organization. Every class of men, every calling, however humble, finds strength in association. The world is belted· by these monster zones of associated and organized capital and labor, brains and brawn.
Besides all this invention and discovery seem to have. reachecl their golden age, constraining the greatest statesman of Europe to declare that one decade of years in this century has seen more progress than five millennium~ before it. Who has opened world.wide doors before His Church i pnt in the hands of Christian nations and Protestant nations the sceptre8 of the world j given the printing pres8 and steam engine in wedlock, 80 that their countless offspring should pour into all lands; who has provided the Church with between 35,000,000 and 40,000,000 of evangelical members, and given them thousands of millions of pounds sterling, and organizations that reach round the world' And for what has God done all this if these .are not His signs of the times, which mean that just now the King's business requireth haste, and His swift coursers, even steam and lightning, are yoked to His car!
While the Church lingers and hesitates, behold the activity of the devil, who seems to work with mad haste, as though he knew he had but a short time. See him organizing anarchy to destroy the foundations of all government, pouring his missionaries into every land, to carry their doctrinal demons; see him setting up his printing presses and scattering infidel books41nd tracts, undermining the family, poisoning the fountains of public learning, pulling down the palladium of liberty, the Sabbath, destroyingthe very flower of our society by strong drink, locking up the very will in the chains of opium, and using Christian nations to forge the fetters; if we do not, he does discern the signs of the times !
At this centenary of William Carey j God's signals flash like lightning and boom like thunder around the whole sky. By every mightiest argument and most persuasive appeal j by every motive drawn from a world's need and our opportunity; by every open door and loud cry; by every Scripture prophecy and promise, and by every unfolding of Providence Christ is just now saying to His Church, "Go YB: INTO ALL THE WORLD,
TWENTmTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE McALL MISSION IN FRANCE
AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE!" He buttresses up the command and commission by the declaration, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth j" and by the promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." His omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, are on our side. And if this world-wide work were but taken up by the Church with the determination that no creature should be left without the Gospel, it would again be written, "And they went forth and preached everywhere j the Lord working with and confirming the Word with signs following. Amen!"
TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE McALL MISSION IN FRANCE.
REPORTED BY ANNA W. PIERSON.
Special meetings were held in Paris on January 16th and 18th last, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the McAIl Mission, and the seventieth anniversary of the birth of the beloved president.
The first meeting was held on the afternoon of January 16th, when friends and workers were invited to meet Dr. and Mrs. McAlI. The ladies had been busy decorating the hall with wreaths, 11ags, etc., and the place was completely transformed.
As the guests of the day arrived, they were met and escorted to the platform by Pastor Holland, the chairman of the meeting, while all rose and sang in French the hymn, •• Great God, we bless Thee; We celebrate Thy praises."
After reading of the Scriptures and prayer Pastor Holland made 8 brief address of welcome to Dr. and Mrs. McAIi. He explained the object of the gathering, and spoke of the longing they had felt for an opportunity to express the affection and gratitude which filled their hearts toward these two dear missionaries who had " Come over to Macedonia to help" them. He gave glory to the God who had prompted them to leave their native land, had broken down every barrier, and had caused these foreigners to become a bond of union between so many French Christians. He told of the rapid growth of the work and its wide extent in Paris and France.
In the name of the churches of France he thanked them for the good they had done in the community, and for the recruits received into their ranks from his attendants. He thanked them in the name of the missionary societies, both home and foreign, and also in the name of his beloTed country, to whose good they had so generously devoted themselves. He closed by saying: "There is something supremely beneficent-a symbol and prophecy of better times for which we long-in this spectacle of a foreigner who thinks of France only to bring her the most precious gift he possesses, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May our Lord give you, dear Mr. and Mrs. McAlI, good health, long life, courage and strength ever increas- ing! May He bless you and the Church which ~o generously gave you to us! May He bless you for all the blessings you have brought to us !
May He grant you here below to reap an abundant harvest from your faith- ful sowing, while we wait for that other, better, and still richer harvest which we together shall behold in the light which shall reveal all the fruits of faith and love, and, above all, of the infinite faitbfulnestl of God."
After the singing of a duet, M. Louis Sautter, one of the directors and an attached friend, spoKe in behalf of the co-workers and friends of the miSSIOn. He told how the news of salvation had been proclaimed to many who had never heard it, and spoke of the conversions which had changed the lives and households of so many. He spoke of the love, goodness, de- votion, gentleness, patience, and perseverance which they had never ceased to show to all. Then he said that the friends of the mission in Paris and France had contributed in order to offer them some tangible testimony of their affection as a souvenir of this happy anniversary j that they were much perplexed in choosing a suitable gift, and had finally decided to let him choose for himself. He then presented him with a pocket·book con- taining 4750 francs ($95()) entirely for his own use and personal comfort.
ITe also presented to Mrs. McAIl a beautiful vase and palm plant as a gift of gratitude from the lady workeff) at the mission.
Dr. McAIl then rose, greatly affected, and testified to his surprise and gratitUde, and how deeply he and his wife were touched by these testimo- nies of affection j he spoke of his personal unworthiness, and of the vahi- able co-operation with which he and his wife had been surrounded, and said that the friendship and affection exhibited had made them feel that they were no longer foreigners. He spoke touchingly of those of the workers whom the Lord had called home, and of the attachment and grati- tude he felt for their patience with him, and closl1d by calling upon pastors, Jaymen, and Christian workers to consecrate themselves anew in seeking to advance in this beloved country of France the kingdom of our glorious Saviour. .
After singing, Pastor Dhombres (Reformed Church), now quite blind, addressed a few words to the assembly. He spoke of Dr. McAll's coming to Paris after the Commune and ministering to their spiritual necessities in the time of famine, preaching the Gospel in its ~implicity and power. He referred to the conversion and transformation not only of people and homes, but of whole districts near the missions. In clolling, recalling the fact that twenty years ago Dr. and Mrs. McAB had come as strangers to Paris, he said: "Look around now on this assembly, so full of warmth, so responsive j this host of friends who lIurround you j and then say whether these two foreigners, these two voluntary exiles, have not found in our midst a new home, a new family, a new church, and a new country!"
Mr. J. F. W. Deacon, of London, then rose and presented to Dr.
McAlJ, through the president of the meeting, a resolution from the committee in London, conveying congratulations and assurance of their w/.lrm interest in the work.
Pastor Appia (Lutheran Church) then made one of his characteristic little speeches, so full of terse and brilliant thoughts. He told how, in an un- equalled degree, Dr. McAIl had been able to secure the co-operation of almost all the Christians in Paris. He spoke of the influence of the sacred songs used in the mission, and the solid biblical instruction imparted to both children and adults in the Bible classes and schools. He closed with the prayer that they should soon see a revival in all the churches in Paris.
Pastor HocaIt, on behalf of the Illesleyan Church, spoke of the great success of the mission, contrary to everyone's expectation. Of the future of the work he said: "I see in the present state of the mission a preparation for future work, perhaps very near at hand-a work much greater, much deeper, and much more extensive than we see to-day. A preparation for future blessing is, I believe, being brought about especially by the instruction of the young. Win the children to the faith of Christ and you insure a glorious future. You train up a generation, transf~rmed to grow in the ways of temperance, justice, and piety." He said: "I would also speak of the influence of the evangelization of the masses on the speakers themselves. The evangelists have learned to apeak a new language j they have found the level of their auditors, and have become truly lay preachers. They have made themselves 'all things to all men, that they might save some.' "
Pastor Decoppet (Reformed Church) then read an original French poem. The day's meeting was closed after the reading of a letter from Laura M. Fetterolf in behalf of the American McAll A~sociation, expressing congratulations and good wishes. On Monday evening the great church of the Oratoire was crowded to its utmost capacity. It was the people's meeting. They had gathered to show their affection and gratitude to the two friends who had loved and served them for the last twenty years. After opening with Scripture and prayer, PaRtor Recolin (Reformed Church) retraced the work to its beginnings. He told of how Dr. MeAll was called to the work when he and his wife were in Paris on a visit. He was accosted by a workman, who, strange to say, spoke in English-" Sir, are you not a pastor? Then why not come to speak to us of this religion of peace and love of which you are a minister 1 Ille have had enough of the attempt to impose religion on us j but if you will come to speak of a religion of liberty and earnestness, many of us will listen with joy." This was to Dr. and Mrs. MeAl! like the call to Macedonia, and some months later they left home and friends and took up their abode in Paris. Pastor Recolin stated that now, after twenty years, there are 136 halls connected with the mission in Paris and its environs. "Dr. McAll has succeeded in securing the co-operation of the pastors and Christian laymen in all the evangelical churches of Paris."
ANSWERED PRAYER
Pastor Monod then spoke, and after a few pithy opening remarks he said: "In the name of all the accustomed attendants of these 136 halls, I desire to offer you a lasting memorial of this twentieth anniversary. Don't be alarmed. No heavy burden has been laid upon anyone j the sum contributed by each would not pay for an outside place on the omnibus." He then uncovered an elegant bronze statue of Luther, twenty-seven inches in height, representing Luther as a boy singing in the streets to earn his bread. The pedestal contained a time-piece. Pastor Monod made a beautiful speech, comparing the reforms of Luther to the putting of the Bible into the hands of the people by Dr. McAll. Finally he said: "I arrive now at my third point-that is, at the third souvenir which I have to present to you. It is the humblest of the three, but, possibly, the one you will most appreciate. Do not search in this album for photographs or pictures. It contains only letters-letters in which the frequenters of your mission halls express their cougratulations and their desires for you. Their number is 11 '7, representing 136 halls. The signatures are 5300. They are very diversified in character-in some cases truly touching in their naivete." He then read one as a sample.
The meeting closed after a touching address of thanks by Dr. McAll, who closed with an invitation to the unconverted.
Many letters and telegrams of congratulation were received from friends in different parts of Europe. The occasion was one never to be forgotten. It illustrated beautifully the two sentences which were the only utterances which at the outset Dr. McAll could make in French, but which were the basis of his whole work: " God loves you," " I love you."
To Dr. and Mrs. McAB the whole Church of Christ owes a great debt. He has done immense service in welding the disciples of Christ, both in France and in the whole Christian world, into a " living, loving, lasting union," and although the days of his years are tl;iree score and ten, we hope and pray that they may reach at least four score years, and that then strength may not prove labor and sorrow, but a marvellous experience of the power of God to sustain p,nd the grace of God to reward and compensate work for him.
ANSWERED PRAYER.
BY A. B,UNKER, D.D., TOUNGOO, BURMA.
In the Toungoo district of the province of BurlDa are the Ga-Moung Mountains, the general trend of the ranges being north and south. Travelling east from the Sittang River, you climb range after range, each higher than the preceding, till you reach the watershed between that river and the Salwen. This mountainous country comprises the fields of the Bghai and Paku Kare~ Baptist missions, now numbering about 150 churches, having their village and normal schools-largely self-supporting-associations, pastors' quarterly conferences, newspapers, books, printing pre8s, and all necessary apparatus for growth in Christian civilization and for evangelistic work among their heathen neighbors. Formerly these hill tribes were worshippers of demons, believers in witchcraft, which they punished with death or exile, blood feuds keeping them constantly at war with one another.
In 1866 the churches of the Bghai Karen Mission numbered nine j now they have increased to 81 well-organized churches.
In tours up and down among these villages to the west of the watershed, the missionaries often looked away to that high range of mountains, and wondered what was beyond; In the Bghai Karen Mission ten or more tribes had already been brought under the influence of the G08pel, but information concerning the tribes beyond was small. There were reports of many tribes; and in subsequent years the missionary explored on the south, going round the more savage tribes as far east as the Salwen River, also the great Red Karen tribe on that river. Various accounts, however, located a wild and savage people between the watershed and the Red Karens, called the Brec Karens. So great was the fear of them that their country was seldom entered.
About the year 1866 Dr. Bixby, now of Proddence, R. I., made a brief visit to one of the northern chiefs among this people. He reports them as exceedingly savage and degr~ded, "fond of uncooked meat and blood." Much prayer was offered by this devoted missionary and his fol· lowers for them, but no permanent foothold was gained in their country. God, however, heard prayer, as after-events showed. Little more was learned eoncerning them for nearly ten years after this visit. As the boundaries of the Bghai Mission extended, the missionary reached the top of the watershed range, which is about 6000 feet above the sea level. The view from that lofty elevation over the land of the Brees was most grand. Here and there columns of smoke marked the locality of numerous villages as far as the eye could reach. Broken and craggy mountain peaks, dense fOlests and deep ravines showed the country to be a natural fortress. When would God give this wild people to His Son? From 1870-80 efforts were made from time to time by native evangelists to penetrate the country and plant the Gospel, but the inhabitants repelled all advances, and little progrcRs was made. The people were found to be the lowest morally and the poorest of all the Toungoo hill tribes. Living largely by plunder, their hand was against everv man, and every man's hand against them. The inaccessible fastnesses vf their country enabled them to carryon this predatory warfare with impunity. So fearful was their name, that it was a brave man who dared to go among them. Thus the missionaries were led to bestow their efforts on better and nobler tribes, going around this one as practically inaccessible or beyond Christian effort. How different God plans from man! The missionary in this case sought the nobler races, but God was preparing to display nis power and grace among the despised Brees. Previous to 1879, as has been said, little progress had been made in planting .the Gospel in the Brec country. A few churches only had been gathered on the borderland, while the heart of the country was almost unknown. In that year the Spirit of God rested upon a young man named Soo-Yah, who had recently graduated from the training school in Toungoo, and called him to work among the Brees. He set out on his journey alone, with only his hymn-book and Testament. Climbing the great range of mountains, he soon passed through the narroW' belt of the Brec country, already occupied for Christ, and took his way through the forests over an unknown road into the heart of the country. Losing his way, he finally reached Sau.pe-Ie-cho, a village famed far and wide as the haunt of a notorious band of robbers; but God was with him, and was leading him in answer to his prayers. On reaching the village, he was at once surrounded by a band of savage and angry men, who drew back their spears and lifted their long knives, crying, " KiIl him! kill him! He is a spy sent by our enemies! Cut him down!" Soo-Yah stood unmoved in their midst, and when he could make himsel£ heard, said: "Do men of war do spies go about unarmed and openly as I do ~ See!" and he opened 3 bag which he had hanging on his shoulder, showing bis hymn-book and Testament. "See! Are these the weapons of bad men 1" The people had Rot yet recovered from their amazement when he opentid his hymnbook and began to sing to them one of the sweet songs of Zion.
Never before had this poor people seen a book or heard anything in music but their own discordant battle cries or rude attempts at song; but here was a wonder before them almost as if an angel had descended from the sky and stood in their midst. They listened entranced j and having won their attention, Soo-Yah boldly declared to them thQ message God had given him.
The Gospel of Christ had come to these savages and taken hold of them. As they listened to Soo-Yah's singing, they said: "This cannot be a bad man j we never saw bad men do this way j" and they received him to the best they had, and listened to his message gladly.
Sau-pi-Ie-cho comprised four villages near each other in a natural fortress, numbering not far from 1000 souls.
In 1882, while attending the meetings of the Karen Association, on the western slope of the water-shed, the mission party were surprised one day by the approach from over that range of an armed band of wild men with drum!! and horns, as if approaching for battle. As they marched up the hill into the circle of the encampment they proved to be two chief!! from Sau-pe-Ie-cho, with their follower!!. They said they had heard the Gospel from Soo-Yah, and of this great meeting of the Christians, and had come for !L teacher, that they might learn how to worship the living God.
The spokesman was their principal chief, a man of gigantic stature named Ho-Wee, or" the blessed"-a strange name for a man who afterward told the missionaries tbat he had killed not less th~n ten men, and how many more he could not remember.
In response to their request, a mission party visited Sau-pe-Ie-cho, and after a week's instruction one of the four villages gave up their worship of demons, destroyed their altars, and received a Christian teacher. In 1889 a church of 40 members was formed. and the remaining three villages asked for teachers. About this time the heathen of this tribe began to be envious of the Christians j for since they had taken up the worship of God they had greatly prospered. Instead of eating roots and herbs, and such game as they could trap in the forests and streams, they had rice. Now no longer sacrificing to the demons or engaging in war, they had time for the cultivation of the soil, and food was abundlint. Not so with the heathen. Having destroyed all the weaker villages on their borders which they could reach, food became scarce, and the prosperity of the Christians excited their envy.
They began to discuss an attack upon them. Some, however, opposed, for, said they, " the Christian's God is not like the Burman's god. lie is a living God j and we have heaJ:p. that Be takes care of His people." Others disbelieved, and wished to make the experiment on one of the Christian villages j and " if the God of the Christians did not interfere, ,. they said, " we shall know that He is a dead God like the Burmans', and that He cannot take care of His people. Then we will eat up all the Christian villages. " These plans were reported to the missionary some time before they were put into execution j but it was hoped that they would not come to the trial.
This tribe being outside of English territory, the Christians had absolutely no protection save God alone.
During the rainy season of 1SS9 these heathen put t.heir plans to the trial, raided the village of Than-thee-per, and carried off two children. Messengers were immediately sent to the missionary, four days' journey distant, with a letter reporting this fact. The issue was now clearly drawn by the heathen. It was tIle God of the Christians or the powers of darkness-which would conquer ~ The missionary took the letter, went into his private room, opened and spread it out before the Lord, and pleaded. for help for His name's sake. If these children were not delivered from their captivity the eight churches would be scattered, and the faith of all the native Christians would be greatly shaken, for they had been taught. from the first that God would take care of them. The matter was discussed with the native pastors, and an arrangement made to have the pastors and deacons, with their missionaries, meet at Sau-pe-Ie-cho after the rains, to plead with God for help and deliverance. Sau-pe·le-cho was about a day's journey from the village holding the captive children. At the time appointed they met, strengthened each other with the promises, and with cases of the deliverance of God's people in Bible history; offered much prayer, and chose messengers to go and demand the liberation of the captives. They were told to demand their liberation in the name of Jehovah, the living God. The messengers went, were driven in shame from the face of the chief who held the children captive. Said he, " If you have brought three hundred rupees ransom for each of them, pay the money and take them away j if not, and you are men, come and take them." The mes- . sengers retnrned greatly discouraged, and so were most of the native pas- tors at their report.
The fall of Jericho and other Bible instances of trial of faith were quoted for their encouragement, and a second delegation was sent with express orders to demand the liberation of the captive children in the name of Jehovah, the living God, the God of the Christians. These were also followed by the united prayers of those who remained behind. Again they were roughly refused j but not a few things occurred to strengthen their faith that God would answer their prayers. The fear of the Lord was beginning to be manifest among them.
The next day, moving to the village from which the children were taken, another meeting was held, and in the evening, while yet at prayer, word came from the village holding the children that if the chief of the village where we were assembled and the parents of the children would come for them the children would be given up. To some this message brought joy, but to others-among whom was the chief of the village-it meant treachery, an ambuscade formed in order to seize the chief and parents of the children, to make their success more certain. Among the pastors and deacons, however, were some who believed that God was about to answer their prayers, and these volunteered to go for the capt~ves. They were led by one of the bravest of the pioneer pastors, and were joined by one of the palents of the children. They lighted their torches and set out on their night's jonrney through the forests for the third trial for the cap- tives. Allllight they went on through the woods till the next day, in the forenoon, they reaehed the village where the captives were. They had been threatened that they would be sh'ot if they came again without a ran- som, yet they marched boldly up into the open place in the centre of the village. The women and children, thinking a battle was about to be fought, fled into the jungle. The old chief came out with all his armed men, ready for battle. He took up his position on rising ground at some little distance, and there he stood. The leader of the Christian band then took out his hymn·book and said, "Let us sing," and the whole band united with a will. This brought back the people who had fled. It was to them a new kind of warfare j they were charmed with the sweet song of Zion, which they had never heard before. After singing, the pastor said, " Let us pray." Another surprise for tile heathen j but as he prayed, all his companions kneeling with him, the Spirit of God fell upon them, and the effeet was great. How earnestly he besought God to soften the hard heart of the chief, to open his eyes to see how the degradation and poverty in which his people lived WIIS due to the fact that they had forgotten the living God and joined themselves to the worship of demons. Rising from their knees, the pastor said, " Now I am going to give you a message from the living God. Listen all of you." Taking a hymn they had just sung for a text, he proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus to that crowd of warriors with most remarkable effect. The singing and the prayer had wrought upon the people greatly; but as the speaker described their ignorance, poverty, and slavery to sin, and the prosperity, joy, and happiness of the children of God, the people were melted. During the address the old chief had drawn near, and when the doxology had been sung, while yet seated on the ground, he looked up and said to the preacher, "Take the children; take them; but give me your trousers as a token of good wiII." This pastor seems to have been better off than many of his brethren, for he had on two pairs, which fact th~ chief had discovered; hence his request.
With what anxiety and with what earnest prayer had those who remained behind followed this band of native Christians on their perilous mission!
All the next day, till near nine 0' clock in the evening, they waited in supplication that God would now vindicate His honor among these heathen, and deliver these captives with power, that all, both Christians and heathen, might hear of His mighty works, and be led to fear Him.
About eight o'clock in'the evening two gunshots were heard on the mountain opposite. Directly torch lights came into view, and in about half an hour the band marched up into the assembly, two of the number bearing the captive children on their shoulders.
The scene following was indescribable. One gray-haired old pastor took one of the children and put him between his feet, and solemnly lifting his right hand to heaven, exclaimed: " We never saw it on this wise before. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has answered our prayers. He has easily done what our might or wisdom could never do. Hehas put His fear upon our enemies, and deli,·ered us from their snares. Praise be to His great name!" Then followed such a praise meeting as is seldom seen.
This, however, was but the beginning of a most gracious answer to prayer. Much had been asked for, but a gracious God gives heaping measure when He bestows answers to the prayers of His children. So it proved in this case. The heathen, as they heard of this deliverance, wrought by the manifest power of Jehovah, the God of the Christians, were greatly moved, and came by villages to the missionary, asking for teachers to show them how to worship this great God. "This is the God we want," said they. "He takes care of His people." Teachers were supplied as fast as they could be procured. Nor was the work confined to the heathen alone, but some of the old churches caught the missionary spirit, and assembled for prayer and contributions for this work. Young men came forward and offered themselves. So great was the fear of God
THE WORK IN THE DIAMOND MINES
among the heathen that in several cases captives were surrendered on demand of native pastors, and in other cases, when chiefs holding captives heard that the Jesus Christ teacher was coming for them, they were sent to meet them in the way. Already some score of captivEs have been surrendered.
In October last a missionary meeting was held at the Toungoo training school, at which about seventy pastora and evangelists were assembled. A good delegation from the Brec country were present. Their reports were thrilling. Said one pastor. "So many villages among the Brees are now asking for teachers that we no longer remember the number." Manyexpressed their belief" that if the churches were faithful, the whole tribe would turn to the Lord." The missionary spirit seemed to take full possession of the meeting, when th!Jleader arose and said, "Indeed, the Lord is doing marvellous things for us. Let us sing 'Jesus shall reign.' "
Said a missionary present, "It moved us deeply to see with what enthusiasm these native pastors, once savages, now joiu in praise to Jesus, who has redeemdd them, and has given such wonderful answers to their prayers.
THE WORK IN THE DIAMOND MINES.
BY MRS. H. B. ALLEN, MERIDEN, CONN.
On the occasion of the first visit of my sister, Miss Ferguson, to the Kimberly Diamond Mines, she was deeply impressed with the opportunities for Christian work among the multitudes gathering there-Europeans, Cape natives, and Kaffirs. In writing of it, she says: " I do not know when my heart has been so stirred. Among the Europeans there is much of sin, much of poverty and suffering. The Cape natives, away from the helps they have had in the Colony, have drifted; but that which has deeply moved me has been the tens of thousands of heathen gathering from all the tribes of South Africa from the Zambesi to the Transkei-heathen bronght in God's providence to our very doors, where they may learn of Christ and carry back the good tidings to their people. It is calculated that 30,000 pass through the Diamond Fields every year, remain for a few months, and then are gone, giving place to others. Mr. Teske, a Dutch missionary, is working among the Colonial natives, and some are much interested in building a church, and it is hoped he will become permanently their missionary."
Miss Ferguson became so much interested in the possibilities of work here, that after nine months' journeying through the mission fields of South Africa she again visited Kimberly before returning to Wellington. She says: "We had a little conference at Beaconsfield, to consider the great need and what was to be done-Rev. Mr. Kriel and Rev. Mr. KeRtell, pastors of Dutch churches here, with their wives, Mr. Teske, and myself. For three hours we consulted and waited before God. It seemed very important that Mr. Teske should be retained for work among the Colonial natives, that a missionary be found to give his entire time to the foreign natives, especially those in the compounds, and that Christian nativee be found to assist in the evangelization of the heathen. We resolved to bear the matter continually before the Lord, to do what we could to find the missionary and the money needed for this most important work-one of the most. jmportant I have seen in South Africa, and promising sl1ch large results.
" Dear friends, will you who believe in prayer and in a God, who hears and answers prayer, pray that the Diamond Fields may become a fountain from which pUl'e streams of living water may flow to all parts of our land ~ " Rev. Mr. Kriel has written to Mr. MabilIe, at Morijah, for six natives from the Bible school for the compounds j only two were found. They had gone into the mines as workmen, as it is the only way they could be admitted. This is a test of a man's love for souls certainly, and it is a question whether the native Christians in our mission churches are willing to make the sacrifice for Christ's sake.
"Mr. Kriel is very anxious several ladies should take up the great work waiting outside, having a mission home, and forming a centre for mission work."
Later Miss F. writes: "You will be glad to hear that Miss Mary Murray, Rev. Andrew Murray's eldest daughter, has offered herself for work at the Diamond Fields. She has visited Kimberly, and was so much moved by all she saw of the need!! for work outside the compounds that she said, on returning: I If there is no one else to take up this work, I must.' She speaks Kaffir well, ha"ing been a missionary at the Moculi station, and is admirably fitted for the work. Two others, also our Huguenot daughters, will go with her, and Mr. Walklett, who has corne from England with the Cape General Mission party, will superintend the work in the compounds."
When the ladies arrived in Kimberly, Mr. Kriel went with them to look for a house. They found one with dining-room, sitting-room, five bedrooms, and a large room which could be used for meetings for £5 a month. It seemed just the place for the work. They were soon settled, and commenced with house-to-house visiting. Then followed Bible-classes, Sunday-schools, mothers' meetings, evening schools, visiting the poor and sick-so much that could be done! One of the ladies writes: "It is wonderful f how the Lord leads us just to t.he places where we are most needed, when we g-ive ourselves to His keeping and guidance. "
Two months later Miss F. visited the little mission home. She says: " We came into the town in the rain and stepped out into a sea of mud. We passed the wretched huts of the Kaffirs, scarcely bigger than the anthills we had been seeing, and found a warm welcome at this little home. Many loving hands have made it bright, attractive, and homelike. This bit of carpet aT that ornament came from kind ladies in Boston; the texts on the wall and table-covers from other friends. It is a sweet resting- place for weary workers.
"'Ve were· greatly interested in visiting among the people with our workers. They are reachinga helping hand to as many as possible. It was a great joy to see the eagerness with which the boys come to the evening school-white boys who cannot read, the eldest seventeen years old! but they are eager to learn, and they will.
" It is such a wonder to the natives in the compounds to see a woman • who can speak to them in their own tongue. It was beautiful to see their faces light up when they heard their own language. The first time they heard it they seemed almost beside themselves. They called others to -come, and soon hundreds were pressing close around our workers, laughing' and shrieking, eager to catch every word that was said.
" The first evening of my visit we met in consultation with Mr. Kriel as to the purchase of a house, either this or some other, as the centre of our work:. It is very desirable that the workers should have a fixed habitation, and in many ways much better to own rather than rent. We are very anxious to have the money in hand before we purchase-no debt!
" Our pupils are taking up the work heartily, and are interesting others in taking shares. Weare searching for something more precious than diamonus. We ask "ur friends not to take shares in the mines, bnt shares in a home for the workers, where we hope many precious souls may be gathered. The shares are one shilling (25 cents), and certificates are given to all who take them; of course, one person may take a number of shares. Some friends have taken twenty each. "
A letter has just come from Miss F., saying: "Rev. Kriel wrote early in February to say that the owner of the mission house had died, and the house was to be sold at auction. How much were we willing to give for it 1 The money for the shares had been coming in, so that we had about £80 in hand. The rent was £60 a year, and it seemed much better economy to buy. , " On the day of the sale Mr. Kriel telegraphed: ' Property bought for £150.' This was certainly very little to pay. A year ago the owner valued it at £800, but property has depreciated in value.
II The £80 has just come of itself, and the Lord knows we still need the £70. He has cared for this precious work most wonderfully. Weare anxious the house should be wholly paid for outside the regular funds of the Woman's Missionary Union.
" We congratulate the shareh alders that they are part owners in this bit of the Lord's work, and will they ask that we may be helped to the money still needed for the purchase of the property, so that it may be quite free from debt 1 "Certificates are sent to all who send one or more shillings, to show tJ!at they are shareholders. In these days of bank failures one is afraid of shares, but this is simply to show that you have a share in the Lord's
A PROTEST AGAINST NEEDLEf'S EXPOSURE IN MISSION WORK
work, and you have no further responsibility excepting to bear the work on your hearts before the Lord, and no dividends excepting such as the Lord gi ves. "
[The editor would add to this statement of the noble work at the Diamond Mines, that he would be glad to have any of his readers take shares in the Lord's stock. A" Lover of Missions" has already sent five dollars, which has been forwarded. 'Viii not the readers of the REVIEW ~ake up the needed $350? Send to Mrs. H. B. Allen, Meriden, Conn.] A PROTEST AGAINST NEEDLESS EXPOSURE IN MISSION WORK.
BY W. R. LEE, M.D.
In the New York Observer of February 18th, 1892 (sixth column, page 54), the following appears: " News has been received of the death of Rev. W. D. Dalrymple, a Presbyterian missionary, at Rampur Beauleah, in Bengal, from leprosy, contracted about two years ago while attending upon the lepers. Rev. W. D. Dalrymple had devoted himself to the service of the wretched sufferers, and he had only been six months in their midst before signs of the disellse made themselves evident in his own frame. Surely this is a noble martyrdom. "
Ever since Father Damien made himself so famous, a few years ago, by exposing himself to leproRY and becoming thereby a leper, the popular mind has been running riot on this martyrdom, so called. It is high time a halt was called by some one, and this dangerous and foolish error looked squarely in the face. Looked at through professional eyes, the report bears some marks of not being well authenticated; but whether true or not, it has served the purpose of bringing to the surface the expression of a dangerous sentiment, and it is this sentiment I desire to attack.
While the best authorities on leprosy disagree on the subject of how close a contact is necessary to transmit leprosy from an infected person to a clean one, yet they are at one in saying that the contact must be close and long continued (such as eating, sleeping, and living in the same rooms), or by direct inoculation (as a fresh wound coming in contact with a leprous ulcer).
This is certainly borne out by the experience of everyone who has had an opportunity of studying the disease from a scientific standpoint.
Further, it is a noticeable fact that in hospitals sustained for the exclusive use of lepers, those who come in daily contact with the dillease yellr after year (I refer to physicians and nurses) do not become lepers.
Under peculiar circumstances, it may occasionally become necessary for a medical missionary to put himself into dangerously close relationship with a leper; yet even then, if he be worthy the name of a nineteenth century. physician, he possesses sufficient knowledge to protect himself from contagion. A PROTEST AGAINST NEEDLESS EXPOSURE IN MISSION WORK.
Under no circumstances that I can think of is it ever the duty of a (medical) layman missionary to come into such close contact with lepers as to make it possible for him to become infected.
While a missionary of the Presbyterian Board at Petchaburi, Siam, and later, as a medical officer of the Siamese Government, I saw and treated many lepers. I also saw, at the same places and time, missionaries (not physicians) preach the Gospel to these lepers; but I never saw the least occasion for dangerous exposure by either myself or them. The life of a missionary, particularly if he has heen on the field long enough to have learned the native language, is too valuable a thing to be exposed to needless dangers; and it is enthusiasm" badly run to seed" for such a person to expose himself on the threadbare plea that lepers are neglected.
With reasonable care for his health, a missionary may last years and preach the Gospel to thousands of heathen whose souls are of equal value with a leper's soul; while by needless exposure he will, probably, not last longer tha~ four or five, the later part of which will be useless to the cause of missions because of the worker's (physical) inability to do his work. vVherever it becomes necessary for a missionary, or any other person, to expose life for the safety of others, let us give bravery its just reward; but that state of things very ra1'ely occurs to a medical missionary in working among lepers, and never to a missionary who is not a physician.
Preach the Gospel to them, my brother, but keep your place, which is far enough away from them that you are in no danger of contagion. If you do not know how many feet that is, ask the medical missionaries of your station.
[Rev. George A. Huntley, of the China Inland Mission, at Chien-kuhsien, China, also writes very earnestly on the subject of proper precautions being taken by missionaries against small-pox. W8 publi.l!h copious extracts.-ED. ] All interested in missions in China must have been saddened by the great mortality among missionaries through that awful disease small-pox. Through it many of our youngest, strongest, and most promising missionaries have been removed from the ranks during the last two years; and what makes the matter more 8ad is the fact that the simple precaution of vaccination or revaccination before embarking had been neglected in the majority of instances.
I will give particulars of a few cases out of the many; and it will be noticed that in each case the sufferer had not been vaccinated successfully for several years before contracting the disease; while the nurses, who had either' been recently vaccinated or had already suffered from the same com· plaint, did not in one single instance contract the disease.
Case 1. Patient had not been vaccinated since childhood. Symptoms of confluent and hlack small-pox developed, and later, hemorrhage, proving fatal on the eighth day. A medical man and traiued nurse were in attendance. Among those who assisted in nursing, one had previously contracted the same disease, the remainder had been recently vaccinated. No one contracted the disease.
Case 2. Patient had not been vaccinated since childhood. The disease assumed a very serious type, !lnd has left the patient very badly marked. There was no medical attendant j and of the two ladies who undertook the nursing, one, a trained nurse, had been recently vaccinated, and the other had previously suffered from the same complaint j neither contracted the disease. The patient believed in "faith healing," and thought it would not be trusting the Lord to be vaccinated.
Case 3. Patient contracted disease while travelling, and reached his station with much difficulty. He had not been vaccinated since childhood. The brother who nmsed him had been recently vaccinated, and did not eontract the disease. Patient was delirious and blind for some days, and took no medicine. The sufferer's hair came completely off, and his face is pitted.
Case 4. Patient had not been vaccinated'for thirty-seven years-viz., in infancy. Duration of disease, fourteen days. A medical man attended. The patent's wife, who did the nursing, had not been vaccinated since childhood, but was revaccinated as soon as symptoms of small-pox were discovered, and did n~t contract the disease.
In addition to these melabcholy particulars I have received the following valuable testimony from medical gentlemen in China: The Rev: J. Hudson Taylor, M.R.C.S., Director of the China Inland Mission, writes: "I quite agree with you that it is most desirable that the home officers of the various missionary societies should not merely recommend, but insist on all candidates being vaccinated shortly before leaving for these shores. Our China Council is urging on our home councils the following rule: ' All candidates who have not been successfully vaccinated within a recent period must be vaccinated before leaving, and must procure a certificate as evidence that this is done.' If I were not so pressed, it would be very easy to collect a large number of cases in which missionaries have taken small-pox owing to this practice not having been carried out. I can only, however, just now refer to the fact that in our Ladies' Training Home at Yang-Tcheou, or the stations immediately connected with it, we have for three successive years lost a lady worker each year by death from small-pox, not to mention other cases in which there has been recovery. The question has been asked by one of our branches, ' In the event of a candidate having conscientious objection to vaccination, what would you advise? ' And my reply was to advise that the candidate work at home, where the danger is less, and where there is sufficient strength to nurse, or hospital accommodation procurable in the event of small-pox taking place. It may be very well for the patient to take the personal risks of the disease, bnt what about the attendants-are they to be exposed? As you know, the work of a station may be seriously interfered with by cases of this kind. " I would like to add that it should not be too lightly assumed that a person is protected because revaccination is not sllccessful. I eould men- tion eases where persons have been unsuccessfully revaeeinated, but who at once took the disease on exposure. A lady missionary reeently arrived' in China, having been three times unsuceessfully revaccinated before em- barking. I recommended her not leaving Shanghai withont being vacci- nated again. This time the vaccination proved very suceessful. '1'he pustules wcre large and fully formed, and showed that there would have been no protcction whatever had she been previously exposed to the disease. May the Lord prosper your undertaking, and precious lives be saved for Chri~t's service 1"
J. A. Lynch, Esq., M.D., Chin-Kiang, sends the following: "I am strongly of your opinion as to the need of vaccination for missionaries coming to China, and wish you every success in your efforts. Small-pox is so widely prevalent in China that no resident can hope to escape being repeatedly exposed to contagion; and my experience has taught me that a single vaccination in childhood is far from being a reliable safeguard. Within a single twelve months I have seen half a dozen cases of small-pox occurring in foreigners, all of whom had been vaccinated as children. Two of these cases were very serious, and one fatal. I know of no instance where a recently vaccinated person has taken tAe disease. It is clearly the duty of missionary societies to take such measures as may secure from needless risk the health of those whom they send abroad. The neglect of such a simple and obvious precaution as revaccination amounts to criminal carelessness. "
Dr. Howard Taylor, C. 1. M., says: "In reply to your question on revaccination, allow me to say that I regard it as of supreme importance that every civilized man and woman should be as completely safeguarded from small-pox as possible. There is no shadow of a doubt as to the efficacy of vaccination properly carried out and repeated twice in diminishing the severity. at least, and in most cases in absolutely preventing the diseases.
" Every candidate who has not thus been thrice successfully vaccinated (unless it prove impracticable, on repeated trial, to do so) ought, I am satisfied, to be refused on that ground alone, if they are unwilling, for their own sake and that of their fellow-workers, to be revaecinated before leaving for the mission field.
"A baby I suecessfully vaccinated a few weeks ago had been thrice before vaccinated without effllct. But in adults it would be enough for practical purposes to attempt inoculation with vaecine three times; if all these failed, the candidate might with reasonable certainty be pronounced immune from small-pox, and might safely come out."
Dr. Randle, C. I. M., Tungshin, Chefoo, sends the following: "Smallpox is one of the most prevalent diseases in China, and I think of the more dangerous diseases it is the most common. It is not specially deadly in its ravages among the Chinese; but Europeans are apt to suffer considerably, mortality among them running very high. We have lost a good many valuable workers in the C. 1. M. through small-pox.
" I don't know how necessary it would be ill England to insist upon each candidate for mission work in China first being vaccinated, for I should have thought that recommendation would be sufficient, seeing that the necessity for protection is indeed great.
" I would urge, too, that the vaccination should be done thoroughly, say in five places at least. It is more important, too, for intending missionaries to China to be vaccinated at home rather than after they get to Chim, for here vaccine is very uncertain, besides being expensive."
Dr. Parry, C. 1. M., Chien·tu, writes: "In reply to your note, I need only say that I am in hearty sympathy and agreement with you in regard to the matter of your appeal to the societies at home in vaccination or revaccination being insisted upon in the case of all their accepted candidates.
"I cannot support this by any experience personally of tQe disease among missionary families, the only case under my own care being that in our own family last year, when among our three children, who were equally exposed to infection, the only one to take the disease was the youngest, who had not been successfully vaccinated."
These facts and testimonies will speak for themselves. Weare ju~t now on the eve of a great influx of Christian missionaries into China, and my earnest desire and praye~ is that this important subject should be at once brought before the committees and boards of the various missionary societies, and intending missionaries throughout the world, and that the simple precaution of vaccination should be insisted upon in the case of every accepted candidate for mission work in the Celestial Empire.
There is, happily, good reason to believe that leprosy is rapidly decreasing in our Eastern Empire. Commissioners have been conducting a Government inquiry into the numbers and localities of lepers; and instead of half a million, as it was believed they would find, they have ascertained that the total number is only 100,000. It is also asserted that the evidence goes far to prove that there is not much risk of contagion, if reasonabJJ precautions are observed by those who come in contact with lepers, and also that the disease is not hereditary. But no such hopeful dil'lcoveries can or should abate our admiration of the saintly missionaries who have been carrying the Gospel, and with bright success, to the miserable victims of what still remains a loathsome and incurable disease.
" The two greatest demands of the hour are the liberal giver and the winner of souls. Given these in the individual church, there will be occasions for a spiritual rejoicing over pastors sustained, church improvements made, and sinners saved. Multiply the number of those who devise liberal things for God and labor for souls until every congregation feels their activity, and what fresh life will be infused into Zion at large, how the Gospel will be extended far and near, and what myriads will be won to Christ I"
EXTRACTS AND TRANSL.T10NS FIWM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
THE UNITED KINGDOM.
-During the last twenty-five years the voluntary contributions of the Church of England have amounted to £85,000,000, an annual contribution of a million is made toward Church extension, and three quarters of a million toward foreign missions. Three hnndred mission preachers halTe been appointed in 20 dioceses. In London there are 6000 appointed lay workers of the Church of England. Since 1877, 32 university and public school missions have been founded. When the time of general spoliation of the Church of England comes, under the united forces of political dissent and embittered atheism, the £85,000,000 will doubtless be swept away to secular uses, with no regard to the claims of the donors j but the miosions, home and foreign, being in private ownership, may escape.
-The President of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, at the Annual Meeting, held November 26th, 1891, said that" he thought the jubilee year of their society could not have fallen on a more auspicious time. He did not suppose that in Scottish history there had been a time when Christians were looking forward more prayerfully and hopefully to widespread blessing. They welcomed the visit once more of Messrs. Moody and Sankey to their shores. The requisitions received daily from all parts of the country, urgent and impressive, sent by minist~rs of e,rery denomination, and by Christian workers of every class, meant that all over the land there was a yearning for and expectation of a blessing."
– " We would strongly insist that nowhere within all the range of religious narrowness has such ignorance been illustrated as that which places the whole of man in the crucible of a physical analysis, or reckons the sum and crown of human knowledge to be incomplete without the rightful exposition of the families of the Monotreme. We mnst suppose that the Chair of History will be discredited by the authority of these later days, and the ethical factor in the conduct of human affairs will be eliminated from the treatment of the problem. Yet it will be affirmed, in spite of the confident contention of the physicist, that considerations of justice and equity, however rightly or wrongly understood, are the pivots and bearings on which the axles of socialistic and individualistic ideas revolve, and these ideas appear to be extending their sway over the whole horizon of political life. Nor have we, we believe, uselessly pointed out that neither locomotion nor commerce, with the extension of their several facilities, are any more than the improved instruments of true culture j and we have, we trust, established that it is missions, or, in other words, Christianity in motion, that, seizing upon the central and cardinal points of human nature, implants there the germ of that mysterious growth which, though the fulness of its perfect nature lies out of sight in the far distances of eternity, still lends on earth its lower fruit!'! of culture and the branching shades of its civilization to the sons of men. "-Rev. GEORGE ENSOR, in Ohurch Missionary Intelligencer.
MISCELLANEOUS.
– " Rev. J. B. Gribble, incumbent of St. Paul's, AdeIong, New South Wales, is contemplating a missionary journey to the Bellenden Ker Mountains, in Northern Queensland. He writes: 'The poor blacks in this region are sadly neglected and wronged. There is vast scope for real missionary enthusiasm in Australia, and it is passing strange that such a field should be so overlooked.' "-Bombay Guardian.
-Miss Leitch, the a11thor of" Seven Years in Ceylon," has, with her sister, raised more than $150,000 for foreign missions during her visit to this country and Great Britain.
-Mr. George Smith, of Aberdeen, returning from the East, says: "The secret of Palestine is outside itself. It is something that can be preached and believed on in any spot on earth j something that is not a mere message j something that was and is and evermore shall be a living presence with men. People would mistake the Crusaders if they imagined that their error, fatal as it proved, was anything more than an excrescence on a true life and faith. The soldiers of the cross sought Christ's land because they had first found Christ in their own land. And so with the living pilgrims of to-day."
-IGNORANCE OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE.-" The type of Anglo- Indian who has ne'er heard of Llissions in India, or who superciliously assures his credulous acquaintances at home ·that they are doing no good, is by this time sufficiently well known to be taken at his true value. But here is a story of ignorance which, if more incredible, is at least naif. In the end of 1890 Herr Buchner, a Moravian missionary director, went into Berlin to transact some 'business on account of the new missions which the Moravians were then establishing on German tel'ritory at the northern end of Lake Nyanza. He called at the office of the German East African Company to' inquire about transmission and exchange of money. The cashier, not being able to give him definite imformation, took the matter before the directors, who happened to be holding a meeting at the time. The directors invited Herr Buchner to their room, showed the liveliest interest in the project of a new mission to East Africa, and asked' whether the Moravian Church had ever attempted any mission enterprise before ~ , It was like asking whether Germany had any soldiers, or Britain any sailors. "-Missionary Record (U. P.).
-An old rabbi perfectly well saw the logical conclusion that Jesus must be the Messiah, but when I pressed the point as a personal matter, he said to me, , Ah, sir! God hath given us the spirit of slumber-eyes that we should not see, and ears that we should not hear.' "-Dr. PRINSKI SCOTT, Smyma, in QUa1·terly Paper of Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society.
-The Ohurch Mi8sionary Intelligencer says that ihe statement sometimes made that India is on the very verge of coming to Christ overlooks the fact that there are tens of millions in India who never heard of Christ at all.
-The Spectator, quoted in the Jewish Herald, says: "While the question [of the return of the Jews to Palestine] has not yet come within the range of practical politics, yet it has ceased to be what it would have been thought to be fifty years ago by aJIbut a few students of prophecyridiculous. "
It also quotes the New York Evening Post as follows: "This is no longer a dream of visionary Bible students, but an actual reality. . . . The question of the return of the Jews to Palestine now seems to be one that interests all nations."
And so it still is; the students of the words of God are" visionaries ;" but their visions come at the last to be practical realities, of which unbelievers have to take heed. The word which has come' out of God'8 mouth shan not return unto Him void.
-The Catholic Government of Nicaragua has given a cordial consent that the Moravian brethren should open a mission within its territory. 'rhey are, however, in hope of obtaining a general permission for the whole of Nicaragua-that is, for the pagan Indians subject to it.
-The oldest Protestant church in Africa, the Moravian church in Gnadenthal (Gracevale), South Africa, now ruinous, has seen its last service, and is to give way to a new one.
-The 48 pages of National Righteousness for May (special number) are filled with the exquisitely painful but very encouraging report of the National Christian Anti-Opium Convention. Sir Lepel Griffin, and his associates, of course, imagine that their ribald abuse is going to bring all this to naught. The haters of Christ have often measured their strength with Him before, but the result has not been encouraging for them.
-A very interesting article on " Religious Movements in the United States," by the Rev. John Smith, M.A., in the November number of the U. P. Record, cO'lcludes: "This is a very cursory view, but it may explain so far the conviction which has come with quickening power into my own life, that America is with us in the van of Christian activity, and tlHlt through h~r co-operation the day of victory is nearer and surer than wc had dreamed."
THE EAST INDIES.
-It 'appears that Bengal alone was lashed into a flenseless fury of opposition to the Age of Consent bilL "The rest of India," says Dr. K. Macdonald, " accepted the position with composure, if not with gratitude. "
– " Dr. Grundemann states that of all the missions he has seen in India, none is more hopeful, none less adequately provided for, none more attacked by enemies and rivers than Gossner's Evangelical Lutheran Mission among the Kols, in Chota-Nagpore. . . . Caste, so formidable an obstacle to the spread of Christianity elsewhere, forms no particularly great hindranco here, and hence it happens that the field of the Kols is ripe for the harvest; they embrace the Christian religion in families, in groups of families, in whole village communities."-Ha1·vest Field (Madras)., – " , A Brave Life,' by Annie H. Small. This sketch contains the personal reflections of a Mohammedan lady. It iii an autobiography in ontline of one who, though not a Christian, yet' had the habit of referring all to God; who cultivated a spirit of meek and sweet submission to His will as revealed to her.' Its mere literary charm is great. The story is told in an artless manner, which is all the more effective from its artlessness. "Vo seem to be in the shaded veranda of a Mohammedan house, and seated upon the razai with the old lady while she recounts the stirring scenes of the past, giving us glimpses of a life which is certainly ~hat of a Christian, though we may not call her by that name. "
-Sir Charles A. Elliott, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, says, as quoted in the Chinese Recorder: " The mere reduction of the missionary's income would only tend to lower his life to the pitiful level which we sometimes see in a poor white or Eurasian clerk, and would condemn him to a life of squalid poverty, which would undermine his constitution without in any way increasing his usefulness, or making him venerabl~ in the eyes of the people. On the contrary, I believe that the sight of a missionary bungalow such all I have often seen in the midst of a wild and rude population, with its modest comfort, its decent order, and its friendly accessibility to all visitors, is a civilizing agency of a high order."
– " A Bombay news writer, commenting upon the arrival of a large number of missionaries in India, remarks that if their coming has no other significance, it will at least affect the price of one-horse victorias. The missionary and his one-horse victoria are too much for a nnmber of the Europeans in India, though why so it is not clear. The missionary always pays for his victoria, and with his own money, too, and his one-horse victoria has as much right on the Breach KUlldy road as any four-horse drag or two-horse barouche. The missionary pays his debts, and, according to his income, pays his share toward all pnblic institutions and more than his share toward benevolent enterprises. He dres not come into competition with any class of professional men, or take the bread out of the mouths of , the merchant or artisan. The worst that can be said of him in this direction is that his wine bill is very small, and he never l:1ubscribes to a Derby sweep. He is not; a noisy neighbor, nor a quarrehome member of society, nor an officious personage, usurping the rights and honors of other people; but he does sometimes drive a one·horse victoria. We more than half suspect that it is the man in the victoria and not the vehicle itself that is such an eyesore tG our critic. "-Indian Witness.
-" The English language works wonders in India. It gives access to three millions of cultivated Hindus." -Calwer Missionsblatt.
– " The idea prevalent so widely among English Christians, that the world' is thirsting for the Gospel, ' is, alas! as far as possible removed from the truth. The world is not thirsting for the Gospel. Men are not disposed, in India or elsewhere, to accept the terms of God's salvation and to wear the yoke of Christ. Thfl evangelist to the heathen, if he speaks the unvarnished truth and avoids exaggerations, has to record a routine with unwilling souls. He sows the good seed of the kingdom on ground which has long been tramped by the feet of profane and degrading superstitions, and his feelings and experiences find oftentimes their truest expression in the cry, , Lord, who hath believed. our report ~' But, thank God, it is not always fruitless toil."-Rev. T. WALKER, in Church Missionary Intelligencer.
– " The feature that marks this year in the Methodist Episcopal Mission is the great increase in the number of baptisms. This increase is , more clearly seen by contrast. One jubilant over the baptisms of 1888 wrote: 'In our whole Indian work, about 2340 have been baptized;' but this year the baptisms will exceed 15,000, or an increase of about sevenfold since 1888, and thousands refused baptism because there is no provision for the care of the converts. This is a harvest from a part of the field which has been sown with Gospel seed for over a quarter of a century."~ Indian Evangelical Review, January, 1892.
-The Ais~ionary Herald reports the ful and warm acknowledgment lately given by Lord Harris, Governor of the Bombay Presidency, to the American Marathi Mission of the American Board, of the obligations under which it has laid the Presidency as respects vernacular, female, industrial, and normal education. Officially Lord Harris confines himself to the edu- cational aspect of missionary labors.
AFRICA.
-" FRENCH CONGO AND ITS PROSPECTS…..:…MM. Tessieres and Allegret, after spending a year in the French country to the north of the Congo cataract region, have returned and reported to the French Protestant Mis- sionary Society which sent them out on this immense new region, which seems to have such claims on them for the Gospel. They find the sphere a perfectly open and inviting one, not so unhealthy as Senegal, and the people not prejudiced against the French by a long series of wars and fight- ingR, as in AIgiers and Tunis. The tribal organization of the country averts all fear of dangerous combined opposition. Each tribe is anxious to be good friends with the white man, and most are very favorably disposed. The climate, too, is fairly good-better, at any rate, than that of Senegal, where yellow-fever is such a scourge. But, as in the rest of Central Africa, the total absence of roads is a hindrance to the occupation and civilization of French Congo. The Ogowe is very much broken by rapids, rendering any continuous navigation impossible. Commerce cannot at present assume any importance, but there is no reason why missionary work should not be vigorously prosecuted. Our French brethren are making a brave attempt to IItart work in that country, and MM. Tessieres and Alh3gret have volunteered to return as the first missionaries j but large funds are needed to start Central African missions. Protestant~ are not numerous in France, and even the few there are not all true Christians, much less consecrated givers and workers for the world's evangelization. The Societe des Missions Evangeliques will have a hard struggle to add a new and expensive mission to those it is already conducting, none of which can possibly be abandoned. May God Himself move the hearts of French Christians to rise to the level of their responsibilities and opportunities !"-Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
-Dr. R. N. Cust, quoted in Central Africa, says of the missionaries: " The schools, hospitals, and printing presses which have come into existence through their efforts are distinct milestones of progress j but the very presence of a missionary raises the moral standard of all who come into contact with or even gain a sight of his holy life. The spectacle of a holy, self-restrained, chaste, benevolent, and laborious manner of living is a phenomenon which astonishes, attracts, and gradually brings into subjection the wayward, though not necessarily evil, will of the unsophisticated races. Not to be plundered, not to be ill used, not to be robbed of wiffl and children, by one who certainly has the material power to do such things, creates a new sensation. The employment at free work in a mission station is a new surprise, for there is an absence of violence, forced labor, and the whip, and the presence of a day's wage, a kind word and a smile, a careful attention to bodily injuries or sickness. Add to this a continuous respect to old age, a delicacy toward the weaker sex, and a kindness to children-all this would go for nothing in a Christian land j but it opens out new fields of thought to barbarians, and is a living, walking, speaking Gospel, presented to their understandings and hearts. Let no one undcrvalue the civilizing effects of the presence of a self-restrained man of European culture in the midst of an African population. "
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
China in Paragraphs. The proclamations made this year, he says, are the only effective notification [EDITORIAL, J. T. G.] of the people as to the intent of the im- perial authorities ever given, and even' The Rev. G. T. Candlin, of China, these we know are very limited in the writing to the Manchester Guardian, in very quarters where most needed. In England, says the right of residence and consequence of this ignorance of the real the right to hold property have never rights of the native Chinese Christians been conceded to missionaries in the in- and the absence of any suitable mao terior of China. There is a clause in chinery for enforcing the conditions of the treaty between the French and the the treaty, a species of indefinite Mis- Chinese which declared this right, but sionary Protectorate has arisen, which that is held now to be invalid. Never· Mr. Candlin thinks is irritating to the theless, missionaries do reside and hold Chinese officials and others. He does property in the interior and away from not think well of the missionary becomthe treaty ports. How is this done? ing the guardian of the convert's rights Mr. Candlin explains that it is done in the courts. The foreigner, to begin under the passports granted to foreign- with, claims exemption for himself from ers. These protect the travelle:r, and, as the jurisdiction of the native courts and a matter of fact, are not inquired into, authorities altogether; and for such a and the custom has obtained of allow- person to interfere besides, with the naing them to extend practically without tural operation of the course of justice limit. Right to hold property he has in the indigenous courts having jurisnone other than this, which subjects diction over the native converts, he him theoretically to being told by any thinks intolerable to any government. local authorities to "move on." It is The remedy seems to lie in the fuller under this fiction that all foreigners, as and sufficient advertisement of the enwe understand it, hold property and re- tire population of the treaty rights conside indefinitely away from the treaty ceded by the Government; and the exports. If Mr. Candlin is correct in this, tension of these to the full recognition it is an easy thing for the Chinese Gov- of the rights of residence and property ernment to retaliate the disrespectful holding in the interior; and then let action of the United States Congress the missionary, Romanist or Protestant, without contravening any phase of treaty abandon all claims to protect his concompact with any Western Government. Vel·ts, leaving them entirely in the hands It can thus break up foreign missionary of their constituted rulers with the work in the interior, at leo.st so far as same remedy at law that they would the foreign missionary residence and have in any other case. holding of property go, which would be well nigh destructive of it in places, and Another subject which has found obstructive of it everywhere. some recognition in the preIs of both Europe and China, while it is novel, While we are dealing with this com- seems worthy of more 'than superficial municaHon of Mr. Candlin, we may add examination. It is nothing less tha-n that he thinks a great deal of trouble in the proposition to have a representative regard to foreigners arises from the fact of the missionaries, as Minister of Reof insufficient advertising to the people, ligion, at Peking, with whom the impe· of the concessions which the Govern, rial authorities of China and the acment has made by treaty with foreign credited envoys of the foreign countries countries, and of the protection which shall deal in the matters pertaining to has been promised to native Christians. the missions in all their branches. On should devote his attention to missionathe Chinese side it is thought such a ries, and keep the British Minister admeasure would not seem so unusual as vised on all such questions, that thus on our side, as the Chinese Government he might be prepared to bring up queshas a Minister of Religion as it has a tions before the Chinese Foreign Office. Minister of War, at Peking, with estab- This would form a link at least between lished offices in the provinoes for the the British missionaries and the Chinese express purpose of attending to mis- Government. The French Government, sionary questions. On their side the this correspondent says, has been tried idea would not be novel. It is urged as an intermediary, and has in some rein favor of the proposition to estab- spects failed. The Roman Catholics lish such a missionary representative have representation through their bishthat the leaders of Christian thought op, who has direct access to the Foreign ought to have some way of direct access Office. But the present proposition is to the Government leaders of Chinese quite other than that of the missionary thought in order to understand each secretary attached to a legation. It is, other aright. This is impossible to the if we understand it, to relieve the narepresentatives of the missions and tional ministers of the charge of mischurches severally, but might be got sionary affairs by setting np, as a sort through a single accredited central officer of imperium of their own, the missionacting for them all ; a personal'"1lnit with ary force in Ohina. It is certainly an whom the Government might deal. The interesting and may be a very imporsuggestion, we may say, is not a new one, tant suggestion, and we fancy there it having been broached as long since might be great gain in many respects if as 1883 ; but it has not been considered some Buch arrangement could be effectwithin the range of practical politics ed. hitherto, as it was complicated with representation of the often diverse in- Missions on the Gongo. terests of the Roman Catholics and Protestants, and with the difficulty of the BY JUDGE JAMES w. LAPSLEY, ANNISTON, Protestants agreeing on a representative agent. It is now, however, growing ALA. easier to overcome both these obstacles. In some of the larger cities in China tb e Their importance may be estimated missionaries are organized as evangelical when we observe that they extend over alliances, and it is held that they could a million-and-a-half square miles, an extend this organization over the coun- area thirty times that of New York, and try, and could form a sort of national or- containing fifty millions of souls, ganization and elect a president, and heathen, but now known to be capable perhaps a vice-president, who should be of high development j for from Cape recognized as thereby selected as the Town nearly up to the Soudan the domi- Minister of Religion at Peking, at least nant tribes and races in the interior befor the Protestants. One correspondent long to what has been called goes so far as to mention, by way of illustration, the fitness of Rev. W. A. P. THE BANTU FAMILY, Martin, D.D., now at the head of the Imperial University, as such minister. of whom a recant traveller sayB : Another correspondent, who thinks com- ., The Bantu is a fine, tall, upright bined aotion of the several nations impracticable, suggests the appointment man, with delicate, small hands, an(l of a Missionary Secretary of Legation to well-shaped feet; a :fine face, high, thin the British representation in China, nose, beard and mustache." who might perhaps be a consul who Mr. Lapsley, of the Presbyterian Mis- sion at Luebo, corroborates this descrip- tion, speaking of some of those around him as" magnificent men and handsome ,If women, variously colored, from a.bright a great slave trade carried on by raids yellow to black-brown being the pre· on his neighbors on all sides. Villages vailing shade." He speaks also of their are burned, men are killed, women and handiwork in iron and coppbr, mined children are enslaved. The stockade in and worked by them, as marvels of skill which Msidi lives has every post surand beauty; and 'of the product of their mounted by a skull. He thins out his looms as sometimes like" a compact, hundreds of wives by frequent decimastout, smooth, straw – cqlored linen," tions. Mr. Swan has often Been piles sometimes" soft as satin, of elaborate, of heads of men and women freshly cut. elegant pattern, woven of different col- Slaves are Bold for cloth, beads, and ored threads. You would think it came brass wire. What would cost a half dolfrom Europe." Stanley discards the lar in Europe will buy a boy. Two or name" Bantu," but speaks of .. finely three dollars' worth must be paid for a formed men, tall, warlike creatures, girl. with Caucasian heads and faces." He says they are descendants of Shem. While man is thus vile, every other prospect pleases. The country is 3000 Stanley tells, however, on the other to 5000 feet above the sea. The climate hand, of many tribes in that region who is salubrious and the soil ri<lh, producare at the lowest point of debasement. ing every tropical plant and fruit. It He describes a village of low conical is not very warm during the day; is fresh huts, from which the people thronged in the evening, and cold at night. The out to see him-" a promiscuous popu- country is full of buffalo, zebra, antelope lation of naked men, women, chil- and small game; and elephants are ,hen and infants, over a hundred beings numerous. Some of the Belgian offiof the most degraded, unpresentable cers speak of parts of the country as type it is possible to conceive of. I beautifully wooded and covered with could only comment to myself, ugly, uglier, ugliest." grass like" un v;ritable pare Anglais.' , * But all, high and low, are alike wicked, Their official reports fully corroborate cruel, and miserable, whose very crimes Mr. Swan's accounts. A recent Brusand miseries cry to heaven for the up- sels paper reports the people as "une lifting which the Gospel alone can work. race ires belle, tres forte, intelligent et vail- lanie, se distinguant non seullment par sa GARENGANGE. bravoure, mais egalement par son aptitude au travail." The Arnot Mission has Beginning at the head.waters of the been well established, the children es- Congo, in the southeast corner of the pecially being taught, and a new gen. Free State, 10° south of the equator, and eration is growing up with new ideas about a thousand miles from the Atlan- and principles. Mr. Swan brings with tic, and an equal distance from the Ind- him a grammar and dictionary of their ian Ocean, we find a Scotch Presbyte- language to be printed in England. rian mission, estlbliRhed some years ago by F. S. Arnot, in what he called" Ga- The Belgia~ [Free State] authorities rengange," but which the Belgians name have within a year past sent several the" Katanga" country. It is watered well-armed expeditions to take formal by the Lualaba and other large streams possession of the country, and in a lit· which flow northward and, united, make the Congo. * Le Marinel, chief of the Expedition to the Very recently Mr. Swan, of the Arnot Katanga, reports (February 1892): .. Le pays est Mission, has returned to Europe, afte- d'un bel aspect ..• maio c'cst -certalncment six years in Central Africa. His home dans la region des petits lacs du Samba qu'il est for four years has been at the capital of Ie plus bean. Le paysage n'y a rien d'africaiu ; Msidi, the king of that region-a bloody iI nous rappelle plutot nos sites de predilection despot, who has l<mg been the centre of des pays civili.e: de grands arbres au feuillege epais, nne herbe courte et fraiche, une belle piece d'ean . • . "-UBBile laurier rOBe et une pIllS graude varlete de fleurs que dans Jes autres contries. " tle while Msidi's cruelty may, we hope, THE AMERICAN BAPTISTS. be effectually curbed. Their farthest station is near where From Garengange down the Lualaba, the Congo crosses the equator. They through a chain of beautiful lakes and have also a station at Leopoldville, on past Stanley Falls, we would go for Stanley Pool, and a number of others considerably over a thousand ~iles be- on the caravan road from Leopoldville fore reaching any more Protestant mis- down to Matadi, the foot-path 230 miles sions ; the first being long, by which everything that goes or comes between the Upper Congo and THE CONGO ROLORO MISSION, the Atlantic must be carried on the heads or shoulders of bare-headed, bare- located on the Congo, and some of its footed Africans. They have about thirty tributaries near the equator. These are missionaries, and also own a steamer, English Baptists, Dr. and Mrs. Guinness, the lIenry Reed, and around some of of London, being ~he controlling spirits their churches whole communities have in organizing and directing the work. been brought nnder the influence of They have fi ve or six stations, and are Christianity. Banza Manteka and.Ln. doing good work. although only about kunga have been especially blessed. three years old. It has just lost two of Mr. Richards, their pastor, said of the its best men, John McKittrick and John first named: "The glorious fact is that Luff, both from hrematuric fever, so Banza Manteka is no longer a heathen fatal in that country. country, but more Christian than any I am acquainted with." Dr. Harry Guinness, in Regions Beyond for March, says of Mr. Luff's station at Mr. Lapsley, of the Presbyterian Mis- Lulanga: "After a steep climb of forty sion, was there on his way to the inor fifty feet of river bank we found our- terior, and his diary contains these selves in the capitally laid-out station notes: "Banza Manteka, 300 members, of Lulanga, only seven-months old, yet 28 villages, some of them 16 miles quite a convenient and beautiful spot. away; almost all professors now, though not all received yet. Their church And behind the garden beds with building was given by the Clarendon their sweet flowers there stands a com- Street Church, Boston [Dr. Gordon's], fortable brick house, with outhouses and was brought from Tundwa, 50 and dependencies, including carpenter's miles, on members' heads. Gray corshop and brick.yard. . .. After the rugated iron; Gothic arched windows. evening meal I walked through a string Store and vestry on either side. Ordiof villages two miles long, and must nary platform and desk, plain benches have passed a couple of thousand of for 600 people. People put their confolk in my little walk. . .. The popu- tributions in the big baskets in which lation in half an hour's walk of the women carry their great loads to marhouse Mr. Grenfell estimates at 6000. ket. Two of these go around and Kindly interested and warm-hearted, come back loaded with strings of blue they appealed to me strongly." beads, handkerchiefs, etc." There is no other currency. Again he says: "Tears of joy and sorrow mingled lately as we stood on Mr. Lapsley was also at Lukunga, and two successive days by the grave of Jobn his diary has this description of the McKittrick [at Bonginda], and at the preaching hy a native, and of the apbaptism of the first converts from Bolo- pearance of the congregl'.tion. boland. We rejoiced as we baptized five converts, and wept over 25 of them After describing Mr. Hoste's regular awaiting immel·sion." service, he writes: The C. B. M. have a steamer-the .. Luwawa rose, one foot on a bench, Pioneer-by which they communicate and his body twisting nervously around. with each other and bring up supplies He soon got his foot down, and his from Leopoldville. hands in use, and his tongue loose. first station at Luebo, on the Lulua, a Began slowly, but soon caught fire- tributary of the Kassai, the great south- spoke like his life depended on it. Not ern tributary of the Cbngo. It is about ranting style. Not very loud, but in a 5}0 south of the equator, and 600 miles hot stream of emphatic words; and his east of the Atlantic. It is the initial little eyes back under his forehead effort of the Southern Presbyterians in burned like coals. His gestures were not Africa, the pioneers being a white and extravagant, but natural and animated. a colored man, Messrs. Lapsley and The men had-some of them-a cloth Sheppard working together. Mr. and about the shoulders and another about Mrs. Adamson, Scotch Presbyterians, the loins. Some were stripped to the have also recently joined the mission, waist. Women had bare shoulders and and have reached the field. Luebo is one large cloth to the knees, or two some 1500 feet above the sea. They say aprons, one tied before the breast, and it is never very hot or hot long at a the other about the waist. Strange con· time, and never hot at night.
gregation met for communion ! Yet Belgian, French, and Portuguese trad- '
quiet and attentive, though some eyes ing posts are loclOted there, and it is a wandered, and some did like Eutychus busy centre of population and of trade in the warm room. The bread broken in ivory and rubber. * The location waR was the common bread of the cOl'.ntry made in April, 1891. Native houses -quanga." were bought and put up, and gradually THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS. some better shelters have been erected. Land has been cleared, and gardens and They have five or six stations. Mr. fruit ~rees planted; and all the time the Grenfell, missionary and far·famed ex· language has been diligently studied plorer, has a well·built station at Bolobo, and the materia. for a dictionary and on the river, 2° south of the equator. grammar carefully gathered and record-.
There Mr. Bentley, of Ngombe, on the ed. The following brief extracts from Lower River, has done greut service to Mr. Lapsley's letters give a view of the all African missions by his Kikongo die. country and the work.
tionary. This mission seems especially October 4th, 1891, he writes: .. Your engaged in the work of educating and summer in Alabama is past, but our civilizing the natives, and their stations spring is just on. We have had fonr are models of good and orderly arrange- months of dry, colcI weather, with bar- ment and thorough preparation in the ren-looking hilI.sicIes,rnsty, leafless trees way of building and appliances. They overhanging the dusty road, and almost also have a steamer, the Peace. hiding the more faithful ones that keep their green. 'Dry,' I saicI; yes, from THE SWEDISH MISSION. ten o'clock till sundown, and dead hot This mission has several Btations, all out in the open exposed places. But on the Lower Rher, and about twenty when the dew begins to fall it is a very missionaries, who are doing good work rain. By the last watch before day- both as preachers and translators of the the hour I used to wake often-I could Gospel. Mr. Lapsley says of them: hear the uncanny sound of the wlltcr " Their piety is most refreshing; they dropping, dropping, when there had seem as if they had only just heard the been no rain. And a dense mist fell story of Jesus, and had not got used to then or about sunrise, so you couldn't the new joy and wouder. Such charm- ing simplicity and earnestness !" * These arc the ouly products tradou in, be- cause they alone are valuable enough to staud THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIA.N CONGO MIS- lJle heavy expense of being carried down that SION. long foot-path to the coast. Ivory is worth say 23,000 francs per ton, and rubber about 7,000 This youngest of the missions ha~ its francs. – .. Then I made a little sketch of what see fifty yards, and it was cold enough for more than my two good blankets. I might say in the town today-largely But a few weeks ago the raiIis began a translation of Paul on Mars' Hill, with nicely – not too much, but a good the clause about the Saviour enlarged drencher every evening – until the till it balanced all the rest of the dis- ground was ready for the seed. Then course.
the women of the town, Bena Kasenga, " Then about 3 P.lIT. I found a quiet held their annual meeting, to assign to corner in town, with a group of women each group of friends their patch to around, whom I knew very well. The plant of the great fields north, east, houses made a screen from the nois9 of south and west of the town. Now the the street, and the subject came np roads are walled with a mass of first naturally. My patient, lounging op· green, like our woods at home in April." posite, repot"ted herself as nearly well.
October 24th, 1891, when he had been " • That's God's doiDg,' I said; and there six months, he writes: "To·mor- asked her what she knew of Niuliuli row I hope to speak to the people. I have (God).
now enough 'Bakata'-as tha natives, the " Bomba, nursing her poor little baby, Bakete, call their language-to attempt which I think will die, and another preaching to them. A Christian soldier woman opposite began to listen and from Zanzibar, who knew Bishop Han- repeat everything, to be sure that they nington and Mackay, has lent me his heard rightly. Milembo, a great friend Kiswahili testament, and owing to of ours, comes up between two of the the similarity of thesa Bantu languages, little houses, and I ask her again abou~ it may help me in the little translation he,· knowledge of God. She answers I intend to make for use to·morrow. right along, and explains fully when I " Weare on very good terms with the stop to breathe.
Bakete of Bena Kasenga. I began to " She said : 'The Bakete know God take a little medicine to the town, and made and preserves us and everything, now I have several cases every day, and, and gives us all things.'
they all have got well so far. My boy, .. , Yet,' I said, 'you don't clap your Shamba Mwana, says they have a song hands softly three timeS-SD-and say in my honor, the refrain of which runs "Wolah," as you do if I give you only like this: a Iittle salt.'
" 'Mutomba Njila, wlltuambika bWllnga " • The Bakete would sing to Him if Watumouekisa mayo.' they only knew how,' said she.
('" Pathfluder [that's me} gives us medicine, "Then I explained who Jesus was, Makes us see health.' ") and they listened earnestly, with some The next day-Sunday, October 25th doubt about His coming again in the -he writes: "The station boys and clouds. But their usual complaint was, women came in for prayers, and we had • We haven't heard this. You white a pleasant little service. . .• Little people know, but we do not. . . .' "
Tumba came in and sat down in front Under a later date Mr. Lapsley writes of an array of ' Children's Friends' with that it is probable that the State has pictures, and went to sleep on the mat. granted his application for the right to Early dinner was brought on and dis- occupy Bolek~ at the junction of the patched-not 'Very plentiful to-day. God Kassai and Kwango. This new station was pleased to answer my prayer. A will make a small ~teamer, such as the few petitions and promises written out other missions use, very desirable to with a pencil and lying before me on keep up communication and procure my little desk took definite hold of my supplies. When necessary, it will doubt- heart, I trust, as I Bat alone in the in- less be given. In the time of need, one tense solitude of tropical noon, when all generous man in far.off Australia was others were gone away. moved to gi ve the mission steamer Henry Reed. now owned by the American Bap. who allowed him to visit them, to state tists. and explain the great leading truths of OTHER MISSIONS. the Gospel. The fierceness of the feel.
There are some voluntary, self-sup- ing against Christianity has been in this way reduced at headquarters, although porting missions, of which Bishop Tay- even now the prejudice of rich Hindus in the city is still so strong that those lor, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Who have CUIne under the power of the Gospel have had to seek employment is the head, and some purely inde. elsewhere. Mr. Hewlett was the Prin· cipal of the Mission Oollege, and in pendent work is being projected. A addition to much educational success he made every possible effort to main. few weeks ago a devout family from the tain its missionary character. The Northwest sold their home and all they had, and are now on their way to the COlIgO. going all of them as missionaries and at their own expense. '
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS Scriptures were read and expounded, also have stations scattered from the and prayer offered daily in the presence Atlantic Coast to the far eastern border, of all the students. The strain of over. and are now about putting a little steam- work has for some time been telling er on the upper river. It is estimated upon Mr. Hewlett. While feeling that that soon they will have as many as 100 the Church can ill spare such wOo'kers priests an~ nuns at work on this great it is a mournful satisfaction to kno~ field now white for the harvest. that this loving and faithful missionary has pursued his course without slack. There is the utmost activity, commer- ness to Itil very end. cial, political. and religious. The dead sleep of centuries is over. The conti· nent is moved from the centre all Great Missionary Conferenoe Next Year around. Ethiopia is at last in very deed in Japan. stretching out her hands unto God. "THE BAKETE WOULD SING TO HIM IF At a meeting of the Central Japan THEY ONLY KNEW HOW" is the plaintive answer that Africa sends back to Chris· Missionary Association, held on the tendom on hearing the first time the Gospel in Bakete. 15th inst., in Osaka, it was decided that God grant that a host of earnest men II general missionary conference, to be and women, full of the love of Jesus composed of Protestant evangelical mis. and fired with a holy ambition to be lik~ sionaries in Japan, be held in 1893 to Him. ma,y hear this sad cry from afar, and be moved by it! discuss the religious interests, p;os.
pects, and other important subjects per.
taining to.the cause of Christianity in Japan. A few present at the meeting were not in favor of II bceoennfepreuntcet~ but after the question had the Death of Rev. John Hewlett, vote and it was fonnd that a large mil.. jority were in favor of holding a confer· The death of Rev. John Hewlett ence, these declared themselves ready M.A.• one of the foremost missiona: to do all they could to further the ob· ries of the London Missionary Society, ject desired by the majority. occurred February 21st last. Seventeen of the thirty years of his laborious life The Anti-Chinese Legislation at Wash· were spent in Benares, the stronghold ington. of Hinduism, and in many respects the most difficult post in India. He wns [J. T. G.] well qnalified for such work, being both The enactment of the two houses of talented and amiable. He knew many Congress relating to the Chinese in this emin,ent Hindu priests and teachers, country has givlln offence to roany mill. ions of our citizens. It is not a case of Foreign Affairs Committee, said this sentiment merely, but one for grave registration was similar to the slave aod dignified deliberation. It is rather regulations in force before the Civil painful to note the ease with which this War, and to the ticket of leave cf the whole subject has been transferred from Australian convict system.
the domain of statecraft to tha.t of poli- The Minister says that these features tics. This whole business ought to have of the bill are in direct violation of the been begun at the other end. It should treaty of 1880, which guarantees to the have been settled long ago by diplo- Chinese laborers in the United States macy; it iR a matter for treaty, not for the treatment of the subjects of the most " municipal legislation." It is with lit- favored nations. He further says that tle grace that the President should be the treaty of 1880 was agreed to by obliged to plead in defence of his 1!aste China at the express request of the Gov- in signing this Bill that there were but ernment of the United States, which a few hours before the expiration of Bent three of its most distinguished citi- existing legislation should be outlawed. zens to Peking to ask for it. He de- Great interests, like those involved in clined to state what course his Govern.
this issue, should not be dealt with ment would take on account of the pas- merely to throw" a sop to the steer. sage of the bill.
ages of the vessels that are being un- loaded at the Battery." It had no The World's W. a. T. U, business to be a political question, which undor the prejudices of a " presi- The World's Woman's Christian Tern.
dential year would almost of necessity perance Union have prepared a polyglot drive noble senators and an unimpeach- petition to the rulers of the world, be- able President to participation in in_ seeching them "to raise the standard iquitous business." of the law to that of Christian morals, The Chinese Minister at Washington to strip away the safeguards and sanc· protested against this Bill for three rea- tions of the State from the drink traffic sons: 1. It renews the Scott Law of and the opium trade, and to protect 1888. 2. It deprives the Chinese ot. the [our] homes by the total prohibition of right of bail in habeas corpus cases. 3. these curses of civilization throughout It requires a registration of Chinese all the territory over which [their] gov- laborers which it is practically impossi- ernments extend." Miss Frances E.
ble for them to comply with. They Willard, the president of this distinct must all prove by white witnesses that organization, informs us that this peti- the~ are lawfully entitled t~ be in the tion has already been translated and Umted StateM, and as the first Exclu- signed in forty languages, and is to be sion Law was passed in 1882, every presented to the different governments Chinaman must produce before the Col- of the world by a commission of wom- lector of Internal Revenue II white wit- en, headed by Lady Henry Somerset, ness who knew him ten years ago and who will go round the world within a can swear that he was in the United year or two for that purpose. The peti.
States at that time. tion is signed by women, but endorsed The law leaves the issuance of the by men, and co·operation is sought on certificate of registration entirely to the the ground that this petition seeks the discretion of the revenue officer, and suppression of opium as well as alco· provides no way of compelling him to holies. They anticipate that the signa- do justice to the Chinaman. He must tures to this petition will swell it to ten register and produce his evidence in the mile!; in length. and as it would not be district where he resides. His white right to go to the expense of carrying so witness may be 3000 miles away. great a bundle round the world, they Senator Sherman, Ohairman of the seek the endorsement of societies, signed by the presidents and secretaries But as so little is known of this part of thereof. For this purpose they have the world, as little as of most interior prepared blanks, which are to be had of parts of Africa of late years, it is of the Secretary, Mrs. Mary A. Wood- great interest to the scientist, and in bridge, Ravenna, O. many ways to the bulk of intelligent Another feature of the movement is people of our time. It is well known under the direction of the Department that few persons have ever been success- of Scientific Instruction in Schools and ful in effecting an entrance into Thibet.
Colleges, of which Mrs. Mary H. Hunt The author of this work, Gabriel Bon- is superintendent. Mrs. Hunt writes valot, is no novice in travel and ex- to us that for several years she has been ploration, he having, on a previons oc- in correspondence with Christian mis- casion, in company with two other sionaries, irrespective of denomination, Frenchmen, accomplished the difficult urging as a means of grace in nominally if not unprecedented feat of scaling the heathen lands the introduction of table-lands of the Pamir, " the roof of physiological temperance teaching in the world," as this region is called.
mission schools. Mrs. Joseph Cook, of The volume he wrote about that adven- B.)ston, recently invited to her parlors ture, "Aux lndes par Terre" (its Eng- the missionary leaders in the various lish title was" Through the Heart of evangelical denominations to listen to a Asia"), made him known as an intrepid proposition that had been privately and wise traveller. The present volume talked over, to the effect that the Chris- gives an account of his journey over tian missionary organizations of the Central Asia, parts of which had hith- world should unite in some systematic erto been u¥traversed by any European.
method that would secure such teaching Starting from the frontiers of Siberia, of the fundamental facts called scien- and coming out at the other end of Asia tific temperance in mission schools. A on the coast of the new French colony third feature of the world.wide move- of Tonquin, M. Bonvalot and his com- ment, we belis"!e, includes the sending panions, one of whom was Prince of missionaries representing their own Henry of Orleans, the eldest son of the body, SCtile of which, if we are correct- Duc de Chartres, traversed not only ly informed, are already in heathen that portion of Thibet which several lands. English travellers and the great Rnssian, Whoever has seen the hindrance of Prje'falsky, had explored, but going be- the mission work from the alcohol habit yond their routes OTer the table-lilnds, he of nominal Christians in heathen lands, accomplished a journey through a coun_ and knows anything of the terrible curse tryon which the eyes of no European of opium among heathen in Asiatic had before fallen. It is to the credit of cOllntrieq, will surely wish these noble their shrewdness and knowledge of women God-speed. If it is not direct, human nature that they sncceeded in it is certainly indirect missionary work doing this without much active hostil- in every land under the sun.-J. T. G. ity, though not without great petIt This volume is charmingly and instruc- New Publications. tively illustrated from photographs taken by Prince Henry, is elegantly [J. T. G.] bound, and is accompanied with a fine map in a pocket showing the route trav- The extraordinary int.erost that at- elled. The ethnographer and student taches to Thibet, as the only land not of religion will find here very interest- open to evangelization, would of itself ing contributions to their stock of spe- gi ve interest to a new book jnst issued cial information-information given in by the Casspll Puhlishing Company a clear and unpretentious manner, (New York) entitled" Across Thibet." which really enhances its value, as there is no evidence of any coloring or .. JodhpOl'e and the Empress Noor Jahan bias from any preconceived theories. (Elioi Stock, London, publisher).
T.he writer simply states what he saw The same publisher has just issued and what was said that throws light on the fifth edition of "The Christian problems of world.wide interest. It is Traveller's Continental Handbook," a not a volume about missions, for mis· small but very helpful book, telling of sions there are none in this part of the the places of Christian work and wor· world; but it shows the religious con· ship in all the principal cities of Eu· dition and the social customs of the peo. rope. Others besides travellers wiI' find pie, and affords a gleam of hope that it of value.
where this intrepid explorer has gone, others may yet be able to go with the -There will be a pathetic interest Gospel of the kingdom. attaching to th" article in this Depart- ment by Judge Lapsley, which was .. Woman's Influence in the East" compiled largely from letters received ny John J. Pool, is a compilation of from his Bon, Rev. Samuel N. Lapsley, stories fabulous and historical, showing engaged in planting the new mission the noble lives of some of the past of the Southern Presbyterians in the queens and princesses of India, which Congo Valley. As we go to press we might be greatly enlarged, and perhaps ha.ve the Bad news of the death of thi~ with advantage, to the impression which devoted and capable young mission. the author seeks to make, that the women ary. Our sincerest sympathy goes ouC of the East are not without influence to the honored father and Church thus even where they are esteemed by West· stricken. 0 Africa! thou art a. great ern people to be very much degraded. prize for the Master, but thou art being That women fail of influence over so- redeemed at great cost by those who cietyand even over public events in the adore the world's Saviour, and thine East, is a figment of the imagination as a part of the whole! only of the thonghtless. Women are J. T. G.
everywhere the conservators of religion, -Rev Dr. George W. Northrup, in good or bad; women mould the child- his address at the Seventy.seventh hood of all the races of the East, and anniversary of the American Baptist throughout the continent of Africa. Union, said: "1. That the Christian What ails them ill, that they have, as a churches of the world should be satisrule, low ideals, I!.nd are content with fied with nothing less than lIending out their place in the social scale. But the one ordained missionary for every illustrious instances which are well 50,000 of the accessible pl!.gan populaknown in Indian annals, of women in tion of the world. 2. That no church high rank having the highest qualities ought to call itself thoroughly aggrespossible to the type of civilization to sive and evangelical that does not ex·' which they belong, command our ad. pend, for the support of missions at miration and suggest the possibilities large, at least one dollar for every five of Indian womanhood when elevated by it expends for itself." Christianity. Quite apart from any moral pmpose, this book is entertain.
ing reading. The Ramayana is the -Among the congresses to be held in " Iliad of the East," and the first char· connection with the Columbian Exposi.
acter presented by Mr. Pool is the myth- tion, one of the most important will bA ical one of Sita, the peroine, the Helen the" Congress of Missions," which will of this, the most popular piece df lit· occnpy eight days-September 10th- erature in all Hindustan. Among the 17tb. Societies of every name, lan- historic characters are the Ranee of guage, and location will be represented.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
I1I.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Ba.ptist Missions on the Oongo. to an address lately given by Rev. R. D.
In justice to all parties concerned the Darby. from the Congo. .. The story following correspondence is published which he told of the privations and in full. It is a matter of sincere regret hardships which he and his companions that the extract from the Christian had endured was a sad and pitiful one. Leader should have appeared in our last His two companions died, and he himissue (p. 464) without editorial com_ self only narrowly escaped. In listenment, explaining- that it did in no de- ing to such a story, one cannot help gree receive our endorsement. We now feeling that there is great and inexcusareprint the extract with the remainder ble blundering somewhere. There is really no need why our missionaries ot" the correspondence, hoping thus to should be left in such straits for the lack of the common necessaries of life. do justice to everybody. We aim at ac- If the mission committee in London, curacy; but while we glean from all who are responsible. would only show a sources, we cannot of course secure in little more business ability in providing all cases" original sources." We should for the wants of their agents, no calamprint little intelligence if compelled to ity of the kind would be likely to over. do this.-A. T. P. take them. The sad thing is that the lack of proper provision for the wants Mr. Grenfell's first letter was dated of the agents sent out has less or more .. Baptist Missionary Society, London, October 10th, 1891."
DEAR Sm : I note that on page 800 of characterized the management of the your (October, 1891) issue you say : committee from the beginning. The .. Grave charges of mismanagement effects of this are shown in the "fact that have been made against the directors about sixty per cent. of the missionaries of the Baptist Congo Mission." If this sent out to the Congo district have died.
refers to the Congo Mission of the above Surely a radical change in the mode of society, it is quite unfounded, and should conducting the mission is called for."
be contradicted. You ought not to ac- Thereupon the whole correspondence cept such statements upon any other was sent to Mr. Grenfell, and from him than the best authority, and should be the following has just been received. all the more careful, seeing that your We think best to print in full : reports are so widely read and accep•. ed. I should be very glad if you would UNDERHILL, CONGO STATE, give me the name of your informant, April 5, 1892. and beg to remain My DEAR DOCTOR : It was very good of Yours faithfully, you to take so much trouble about the GEOBGE GRE"IFELL. paragraph to which I referred in my Dote of October 10th last. The fault is Upon receipt of this letter diligent evidently with the "lfonthly Messenger of endeavor was made to trace the item the Storie Street Church, which has in. to its source, and at last we found it terpreted some remarks as to the hargcame from Rev. James Johnston, of Bol- ships endured by Mr. Darby and his col. ton, England, who sent the following, leagues as an impeachment of the Misasking justification: sion Committee. That hardships were (From The Christian Leader, June 25, 1891.) endured, and more than need have been BAPTIST BLUNDERING ON THE CONGO. endured, had every one been gifted with the faculty of seeing into the future, In the Monthly Messenger of the Storie cannot be denied-such things occur in Street Baptist Church, Paisley, of which every African enterprise-but that the Dr. O. Flett is pastor, reference is made loss of life suffered by our society on the Congo can be attributed to the lack .ward it seemed best to issue it imme.
of "proper provision for its agents," diately in pamphlet form, and by per- or to the want of business •• ability" on mission of author and publishers (James the part of its committee I most dis· Nisbet & Co.) it appears with some tinctly deny, as would also Mr. Darby. slight verbal changes in the present were he here. issue of our magazine.
The statement that sixty per cent of A good word has permanent value.
the missionaries sent to the Congo died "A word fitly spoken" -literally" on as the effects of this lack of business his wheels"-" is like apples of gold ability and neglect will quite account set in framework of silver."
for Mr. Johnston's paragraph; but it is 'l'he discourse is a message on wheels, most distinctly untrue. The total losses and ought to mn round the world.
of the mission, while they are very, very Though first delivered in 1871, twenty heavy, and the cause of great sadness years ago, it is no less adapted to the of heart, are less than forty per cent; wants of the present day than it was for and I assert that no single death in the the time when it was originally con- ranks of our society can be attributed to structed. In fact, it will perhaps stir the causes mentioned. and arouse the Church of God more 'l'hanking you for your courtesy in effectively, as this new century of mod- this matter, I remain, my dear doctor, ern missions is opening, than it could Yours very sincerely, when the interest felt in a world's evan- GEORGE GRENFELL. gelization was less extensive and less P.S.–" Two educated negro women intense, and when the openings for at Vasten have begun to issue the first mission work were far less numerous newspaper in the Congo Free State. It and clamorous. aims to • enlighten the souls of the black-likinned.' " At Ollr earnest solicitation, Dr. Angus now permits us, in this REVIEW, to reo I presume the paragraph above, quot. print this vigorous address, he having brought down th e facts to this centenary ed from, your REVIEW, refers to the Se year of modern missions, 1892. It im- presses us as one of the boldest, wisest, Kukianga, published at the Baptist strongest appeals for immediate and world-wide evangelization we have ever Mission Station, Wathen; but how you read. Years ago it sounded its clarion. call, and the echo of its trumpet-peal is can have got hold of the news of two now heard wherever missions to the heathen are planned and undertaken. educated negro women having anything So far as we know, it was this address from which was drawn the motto of this to do with it is a marvel. I simply call new crusade: .. THE WORLD Fon CHRIST IN OUR GENERATION!" May the Great attention to it, and ask you to be care.
ful of Congo news derived from the same source A paper of the standing of your REVIEW can't afford to make it- self the medium of news so grotesquely metamorphosed. G. G.
II Apostolio Missions j or, The Gospel Head of the missionary host use the new and louder repetition of tbis trum- for Every Orea.ture," * pet.blast to set the whole army of the Lord moving in a mighty assault on The editor obtained a copy of this every fortress of the devil. May the grand article, with which we open this venerable and distinguished author of number of the REVIEW, as it was orig- this pamphlet yet live to see the Church inally delivered, April 26th, 1871, be- preaching to every creature the Gospel fore the Baptist Missionary Society, in he loves. London, and personally besought Dr. Angus to remodel it for republication in the REVIEW. He consented. After. A letter, inclosing five shillings ster- * See lcadin~ article of this nnmber, page 481. ling, and accompanied only by a pseudonym, has come to me, which is too let it go to the heathen." There is a suggestive to be withheld from the pub- wide gulf of dillerence between the five lic eye. shillings amI this, which is equal to £70. But in each case a luxury is surrendered e< GLASGow. April 4, 1892. for the sake of giving the Bread. of "Two or three years ago you ad- Life to lost souls. What immense sums dressed a crowded meeting in the Synod of money would our self denial bring to' Hall, Edinburgh, upon missions, in the treasuries of God were even such which many must have been very deep- self-sacrifice which does not touch our ly stirred. You spoke of giving up lux. actual necessities universal with dis- uries for missions, and suggested that ciples! ladies could give up a pair of kid gloves a year to aid such a work as McAIl's at The Fiji Islands hllve been the great Paris, etc. model field of mission operations in hea- " I thought, 'That does not apply to then lands. At the beginning of the presme; I can't do anything in that way. ent century the people were barbarians. I give one fifth of all my income and In 1835 the Christianization of them was what I earn to God's work, and never commenced, when, in October of that spend anything but what is needful on year, the Rev. W. Cross and Dr. Cargill, dress. I must have decent gloves even Wesleyan missionaries from England, if I have to buy many pairs, and I cannot proceeded from one of the Friendly Islkeep my dress account below £15 [$75] ands to Lactremba, one of the Fiji Islthis year.' ands. The population of the latter num- " However, conscience prevailed, and bered a thousand souls, some of whom next day more than I usually spend on had heard of Christianity in the Friendly a pair of 'four-button kids' went into Islands, and a few understood its charthe collection plate. I had never had acter ; and the chief gave the missiunamany presents of gloves, but at Christ- ries a friendly reception. In a short mas a friend sent me a beautiful lined time a number were baptized and began pair, and shortly after some very good the Christian life. 'rhe missionaries gloves were sold for very little, and so I then introduced the Gospel into other got a supply and lost nothing by the islands, and in 1845 there was a powerprice of a good pair sent to the MeAll ful revival throughout the entire region. Mission. Next year I sent the price of Among the many converts, the Napoleon a better pair, ~ndagain never J.I1issed of an entire island was numbered-a them, for two pairs were given to me. man who had been the most bloodthirsty You see your words were not lost, and of all the people. In 1854 the head their latest fruit is five shillings, which king, with his tribe, embraced Chris- I enclose, and which you will kindly tianity ; and so Divine truth made reforward at your convenience to Dr. markable headway in all directions McAll from one whose interest in mis- among all the people and tribes. Since tiions you have helped to stimulate." that phenomenal period a number of This letter is probably from Bome white peoples have settled in the islands, poor seamstress or woman clerk of slen- and the entire population are now far der means; and it is sent to the REVIEW advanced in civilization; and Christiancolumns simply as a very pertinent illus- ity controls the overwhelming mass of tration of the possible fruits of a little the inhabitants. Out of a popUlation of self-denial. Since that address in Edin- 120,000, 105,000 belong to the Wesleyan burgh many other fruits appeared, and Methodist denomination, Ilond are reguamong others a very brilliant marquise lar attendants in their churches and ring set with Beven diamonds, and halls. The other 15,000 have identified worth probably $350, has been sent to themselves with the various bodies me with the remark: "I can do without that, and never will wear it again; which have entered the field. It was in Summer School of Ohrlstian Philosophy. 1879 that other denominations began their work among these people, Ilnd The school of the American Institute they are helping in raising them to of Christian Philosophy begins July Christian life and civilization. This 12th at Prohibition Park, Staten Island, mission of the Wesleyan body has test· with a lecture by Joseph Cook, on ed the wonderful power of Methodism "Fast and Loose Theories of Evoluwhen permeated by the Divine Spirit in tion." The remainder of the week's converting heathen souls to a practical programme is aa follows : knowledge of Christ and the Gospel. The marvellous success here met with Wednesday, 13th.-G. R. W. Scott, should be generally known among Chris. D.D., Andover, Mass., "Man's Retians and prayerfully considered in con- sponsibility for his Belief." Nightnection with all foreign mission work R. F. Cutting, New York, " Tenementand home mission effort. House Evil."
REV. ANDREW LEES. Thursday, 14th.-George Alexander, D.D., New York, "A Believing Spirit Essential to the Learner." Night- It is proposed to hold a general con· paper prepared by Richard Abbey, D.D., ference of missionaries in Japan. Mississippi, " Where Was Man Before He Was?" Circulars are addressed as follows : Friday, 15th.-William Leroy Broun, To ..••………•…. •• The Progress of Education of the Col- At a regular meeting of the Mission- ored Race in the South." Night-·-Anni- versary. Addresses by Rev. Dr. Deems ary Association of Central Japan, held and others.
in Osaka, December 15th, 1891, the fol- Saturday, 16th.-Professor E. Herlowing minute was adopted, to wit: shey Sheath, Yale University, "Stoicism •, That the Chairman be requested to and Christianity." Night -" Prison Life," by W. M. F. Round, Esq. nominate a Committee consisting of one member from each mission in this dis- Sunday; 17th.-Annual Sermon by trict, to continue inquiries concerning Carlos Martyn, D.D., Newark, N. J. a General Missionary Conference and to Night-" The Brotherhood of Chrisreport to the next meeting of the Asso- tian Unity," Professor Theodore F. Seward. ciation.' ' In accordance with this action, the Monday, 18th. -Hon. Walter B. Hill, Georgia, "Anarchy, Socialism, and the Committee appointed desire to pro· LaborMovement." Night-" Our Shop pound to the missionaries of the various Girls," by Professor Hyslop, of Columsocieties laboring in Japan the follow- bia College. ing inquiries: 1. Is it desirable to hold a. General Conference in the near fu- Tuesday, 19th.-Ethelbert D. Warture? 2. If so, in what year? 3. Shall field, LL.D, President of Lafayette the Conference be composed of evan- College, "The Philosophy of Educagelical missionaries exclusively, or shall tion. " others be admitted? 4, If others a.re to be included, would you be unwilling Persons wishing circulars of the Sumto take part? 5. If they are to be ex- mer School and Prohibition Park, or included? 6. Shall our Japanese breth- formation concerning hotel accommoren be invited to participate? 7. If so, dations, etc., should address Mr. C. L. to what extent? Haskell, Superintendent, West New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y. For in- The Committee earnestly request all· forma~ion about the Institute, address missionaries to give this matter their Mr. C. M. Davis, Secretary, 4 Winthrop careful consideration and to send in Place, New York. t~eir replies as promptly as possible to eIther of the undersigned.
The Ven. Archdeacon WARREN, Ohairman, No.3 Concession. Rev. T. T. ALEXANDER, Secretary, No. 14 Concession. OSAKA, December 22, 1891.
1892.J THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Ohinese Miss:ons in British Columbia. ample facilities for preaching services, prayer.meetings, class.meetings, Sun. BY BEV. E. ROBSON. day and week evening schools, all of wh,ich are now much more successful. The Chinese population of British The missionary is aided by a Chinese Columbia is a very uncertain quantity, assistant, two lady teachers for the evenvariously estimated at from 6000 to ing school, an efficient corps of Sunday- 9000. 'Though some .thousands arrive school volunteer workers and !I care. in the course of a year, yet there is not taker, who is a useful Christian worker a rapid increase in the aggregate num· -a native Chinese. Mr. Gardner him. ber, as many leave the province, some self speaks the Chinese, reads and for China and some, by means best writes it with elegance and fluency. known to themselves, make their way into the United States in spite of the The Woman's Missionary Society of exclusion enactment. The Chinese are this saIDe Church has had, for some mostly located in the towns, but during years past, a Refuge Home for Chinese the fishing season are to be found in Girls in Victoria, by means of which considerable numbers at the salmon can· quite a number of these poor creatures, neries scattered throughout the coast some of very tender years, have been districts; while others are engaged in rescued from cruel slavery and present mining, farming, market gardening, and or prospective social degradation and serving as oooks and laundrymen in shame. The inmates of the home are town and country. There are a few under the care of two most excellent merchants and manufacturers of mod. ladies in the employ of the Methodist erate pretensions among them, but the Missionary Society, and are instructed bulk belong to the laboring class. in everything that is calculated to do them good and render their future lives About fourteen years ago efforts were useful and happy. Most of them have put forth by the agents of the Method· given cause to hope that they have been ist Church of Canada, to bring these converted to God. Some have been reo people to the knowledge of the truth; turned to their parents in China, but but the work did not at that time make the larger number have been married to much headway for want of agents con· Chinamen resident in the province. versant with the language. These generally are doing well.
The present work of the Methodist The spiritual results of the Victoria Church of Canada among the Chinese Mission as a whole have been encourag. commenced seven years ago, in Victoria, ing. Numerous conversions have taken the capital of the province, where there place, and a very marked improvement is a resident Chinese popUlation of, say, has been brought about in the com· 3000 during the winter season, and 2000 munity known as the Chinese quarter. during summer. 'fhe Rev. J. Endicott There are 105 communicants in connec· Gardner, who had the honor, assisted tion with the church, and a good at· by others, of inaugurating the work, is tendance upon the various services still the recognized leader of it as agent especially the preaching of the Word. of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church. For years the work of In Vancouver mission work was begun the mission was carried on in rented in 1887 by the formation of an evening halls, at considerable disadvantage. class for the study of English and relig- There is, however, now a handsome ious instruction. Under the kind and and commodious church, with school earnest labors of Christian ladies (the and class – rooms attached, affording leader being a daughter of the present writer), not one of whom could speak to, been blessed with gratifying success. or read a word of Chinese, there were, Upon invitation of the chaplain Mr. in a few months, eleven Chinese brought Ch'an preaches to the Chinese in the to a saving knowledge of Christ, all of provincial penitentiary, ten of whom whom were publicly baptized after due have given evidence of a change of examination and trial. The mission was heart and life, and have received Chris. reinforced by the arrival, from China, tian baptism at the chaplain's hands. of Mr. Ch'an Sing Kai, who was selected and sent to our aid by the Rev. Dr. The expenditure for land and build. Wenyon, of the Wesleyan Mission at ings at these three stations has been, Fat Shan.' Mr. Ch'an brought his wife including the Rescue Home, nearly and children with him-probably the $24,000, and the amount paid by the first Christian Chinese family in the society for current expenses was, last. Dominion of Canada. The work in Van. year, $4200, exclusive of the Home. couver is now carried on by Liu Yik Are the results satisfactory? Reason. Pang, who had spent three years in the ably so. The Gospel-preached, sung, study of medicine, hospital practice, and personally explained-is put within and evangelistic work in Canton, and is the reach and pressed upon the atten. a man well fitted for and useful in his tion of the Chinese population in the present position. Dr. Liu is assisted three leading towns of the provinCE> by two ladies, who teach the English every Sunday and during every week. classes and give efficient help in all the Many outlying neighborhoods have been services, which are not by any means visited, and the message of salvation confined to the mission premises, but made known. Scores of Chinese men are also regularly conducted on the and several women have been converted street, in the centre of the Chinese quar. to God. Some of these have been the ter and upon the great steamships of means of winning others of their fel. the Canadian Pacific Railway Company low.countrymen to Christ in other parts plying between Vancouver, China, and of the province, and at least several Japan, the crews of which are princi. have gone back to visit their native land pally Chinese. The society has a suit- fully resolved to do all they can, by able building, comprising chapel, school, God's help, for the salvation of their and reading.room and residence for the friends and neighbors there. The inmiSSionary, and, in addition, a number fluence of these missions has done much of pleasant lodging rooms for the Chris. for the Chinese here, and will undoubttian young men who have no homes of edly be felt in the distant Orient. their own, thus obviating the necessity for their spending their evenings and Though the Methodist Church has nights among the demoralizing associa· had the honor of leading in this inter· tions, sights, and sounds of heathen. esting work, other churches are now ism. taking hold tlnd planning for more ex· tended efforts in the future. May God New Westminster also is favored with give an abundant harvest of souls! a Chinese mission, the history of which is very similar to that just described. NEW WESTMINSTER, B. C., March 30th, Mr. Ch'an, now an ordained mission- 1892. ary, is in charge, assisted by lady teachers and volunteer helpers. On the 6th Ohinese Mission in San Francisco. inst. new mission premises were taken possession of, consisting of chapel, BY REV. F. J. MASTERS, D.D. school, and reading-room and residence for missionary-all very complete and Our first convert was baptized in comfortable and well situated. This 1871 ; since then 394 adults have been mission has, like those already referred admitted to church membership. At least 90 per cent of these converts reo main faithful. It must be borne in mind that the effect of the" exclusion" rather, most of them-come from one bill, passed in open violation of treaty, county of the Canton province). Over and the unfriendly local legislation of $1000 have been raised toward this ob. the State Legislature and municipal ject. councils, as well as the daily instances of brutal ill·treatment at the hands of One of our members, Mr. Lum Foon, white ·people, tend to alienate the Chi. lately gave up a splendid business in nese, and to make them sullen and bit· San Francisco, and has gone to China ter. Then we are working among a com· at his own expense as a self.supporting munity of young men, of whom only mIsslOnary. He has bought land and one per cent are married or have their erected a fine chapel and school, with wiveR with them. prophets' chamber .for the missionary, all at his own expense. There he We have branches of our mission in preaches the Gospel and teaches a day Oakland, San Jose, and Sacramento, school. He has already been greatly where young men are gathered in for blessed in his labors. Scores have been religious and secular instruction. As converted, and he is known throughout most of the Chinese are anxious to learn the district as "the Jesus man," and the English language, numbers have his premises as " the Jesus house… come to our school to learn to read and write, and have there been brought Liberality.-During the six years I have under religious influences that have left been here our Chinese members and an impress that will never be effaced. scholars who, according to San Fran. Of the 5000 scholars who have passed cisco newspapers, are so base, sordid, through our schools, hundreds who have and unsalvable, have contributed $2650 not had the courage to confeRs Christ to the funds of the missionary society. before men have, in theory at least, ac· Besides this they have come up to their cepted the great doctrines of the Bible, apportionment in benevolences, and and have forever broken with idola· have sent $500 to aid in missionary tr.v. work in China. Every year we average $5 per member for missions. The open.air services, in which other missions take a part, are full of interest Steadfastness.-We have received 78 and encouragement. It was an impres. new members during the last three sive scene last Sabbath afternoon to see years, and only three have fallen away. 400 Chinese gathered around our preach. A Chinaman who becomes a Christian is er, the Rev. Chan Hon Fan, to hear the ostracized by his fellow.clansmen even Gospel on the open street. On the very in San Francisco, and cursed as he goes pavement that arew days before had been along the street. reddened with the blood of murder, and under the rooms of a highbinder society, Open-air services in Chinatown are the crowd stood for an hour while this held every Sunday afternoon. About brave young preacher preached on " Re. 30 or 40 Christian Chinamen sing Gos· sist not evil, but whosoe'fer shall smite pel hymns, and the crowd gathers. We thee on the right cheek, turn to him the have kept up these services with unother also," and openly denounced the abated interest for over five years, and murderous societies that had disgraced last Sabbath I preached in Chinese to a their nation and terrorized over China· congregation on the street numbering town. upward of 500. It is astonishing to see the interest and the respect that is Zeal qf Our Members.-We have a shown us, notwithstanding the brutal church of 123 members, and they have treatment theyl'eceive from street hood· just formed a Native Missionary Society lums. What I have said applies to the to employ native itinerant preachers and Chinese missions of other denomina· physicians in their native country. (All tions. The Congregational Chinese the Chinese in San Francisco – or, Church here supports two or three mis· sionaries and doctors in Kwantung. The Japanese in San Franoisoo, and circulated over 3000 tracts each month. These have been prepared REV. M. C. HABBIS, D.D. here, with special reference to the The Japanese community in this city needs. of their people.
and surrounding towns numbers about Many workers now in Japan were con- 2500. This small colony receives addi· verted here, and many more are being tions by every steamer from Japan. raised up to glorify God in Japan, They began to come about fifteen years Weare without a church home. They ago in very small numbers, but latterly live and work in rented buildings, and at the rate of 100 a month. They are have done so for six years. Now they all young men, except a score or two of are trying to buy a lot and build a women, and mostly students, seeking church.
for something from the West to enrich and beautify the far East, their home The Island World. land. Still there are some merchants and laborers among them. Those who Religion in New Zealand.-Census repush out from home into a new and dis- turns recently issued show that there tant country are usually self·reliant, am- are in New Zealand 1197 churches and bitious, and energetic, much above the chapels, being an increase of 134 in five average. years. Two hundred and forty-one school.houses are used for Sabbath ser- For some time this renewing and vices, and 161 dwellings and public strengthening power was confined chief- buildings. These val'ious edifices have ly to church-members, though many sin_ accommodation for 278,114 persons {or ners were being converted all the time. less. than half the popUlation of the About one year ago, however, the breth- colony), and are actually attended by ren, filled with the new wine of the 197,055, or about a third of the popu- Spirit, went forth to testify among the lation. Presbyterians report 40,785 unsaved. They met with startling suc- church-goers; Episcopalians, 37,252; cess, and rejoiced with unspeakable joy. Roman Catholics, 30,525; Wesleyans, Within the past six months more than 27,106; Salvationists, 14,442. There 400 have been hopefully converted. Of are 450 Jews, 200 Free-Thinkers, and this number 188 have been baptized and 3803 of no denomination at all.-Free received into the Church. But few of Church Monthly. these have been converted in the regu- lar preaching services. In private rooms, in class meetings, in the field at work, Rev. Hiram Bingham is at Spring- in the quiet places, the great transac- field, Mass. He went out to the Gilbert tion was done. It is a personal work. Islands as a missionary on the first Two things, the two great facts of the Morning Star in 1856. He brings home Bible. sin and salvation, have been pre- in manuscript a translation in the na- sented and held up to the Japanese, and tive language of the entire Bible, which pressed upon the conscience and the he intends to carry back in book form.
heart. Conviction of sin, and in most Mr. Bingham's father was also a mis- cases intense suffering, followed by sionary, going out to the Sandwich faith in Christ and rapturous delight, Islands in the brig Thaddeus in 1819_ are the usual characteristics of the ra- The son was born at Honolulu in 1831, Tival. and was graduated from Yale in 1853.
The believers carry forward the work Soon afterward he married Clara M.
with great energy, both in the city and, Brewster, of Northampton, daughter of country. They meet and welcome the the late Jonathan Brewster, whom he comers by every vessel. All the clubs persuaded to accompany him to the Gil- nnd lodging houses are regularly visit- bert Islands.
ed. For months past they have printed Soon after their arrival on the island of Apalang their first child was born monthly mail steamers plying between Il.nd died, for there was no physician Sydney and Fiji. This is a great im- nearer than 1000 miles. While Mrs. provement on the old arrangement. Bingham was ill, one of the most thrill- The Dayspring often took several days ing experiences of his life came. The to do what is now done in a few hours. king rushed into his house one day, and It several times took three days to do seizing his spy-glass, looked over toward forty miles, and what is now accom- Tarawa, the nearest island, whose palm- plished in a night was often formerly tree tops were just visible. He soon accomplished with difficulty in a week. dropped the glass and ran. In a short This change enables the missionaries to time hundreds of warriors rallied about be present at the annual meeting of the house, and about 100 war canoes Synod without being more than a month :filled with hostile Tarawas approached absent from tbeir stations, instead of for battle. The boats seemed to single three or even four, as formerly. It also out the conspicuous cottage, and made enables the missionaries more easily to straight for it, so that Mr. Bingham help one another in times of sickness, fully expected to be in the centre of the or to take a change to another island battle. He barricaded his house and when required. It enables the native prepared for the worst, being especially teachers to move about from island to distressed concerning his sick wife. island, and promises to make the whole But just before they reached land the group of islands much more accessible war oanoes tacked and headed up the to mission work. The little steamer is coast. The army of savages followed a great favorite, and is known among with a yell, and the battle was fought the islanders, like the Dayspring before about five miles away. The Tarawas it, as the missionary or Christian ship. were routed and the Apaiangs victorious, It is also called the sacred ship, as set although the Apaiang king was killed apart for God's work, and sometimes and the prince terribly wounded. The the good ship, as those on board do young man was nursed in the cottage, nothing but good to the natives. and became a firm friend to the missionaries.
Recently a Chinese convert, of San Within fifteen years from the entrance Fra~cisco, who refused to reveal his of the missionaries on Aneityum, New name to Rev. Dr. Masters, handed him a Hebrides, the entire population em- little package, directing him to expend braced Christianity. A similar change the amount in securing a native China· has taken place on several other islands. man to preach the Gospel in China. It The missionary ship has been an im- embraced nearly all of his earthly posportant factor in this work. In 1862 the sessions. The package contained $100 first Dayspring was built, and did good in gold coin. service for about ten years. It was wrecked in Aneityum harbor by a fear- Sm NEWS FROM THE NEW HEBRIDES.- ful hurricane, which visited the islands Mrs. Lawrie, of Aneityum, had a sunin 1872. A second Dayspring having stroke, and her mind has become serio been procured and the money raised, it ously affected. She is quite helpless, continued to serve the mission till 1890, and requires the constant watchfulness when it was found necessary to intro- of her husband. Mr. Lawrie has taken duce steam power. The sailing schooner her to Sydney, where, by medical ad. Dayspring could only visit the islands vice, she has been placed in the con. twice a year, but now a little steamer, valescent ward of the asylum. Truganini, sails every month between The wife of the Rev. T. W. Leggatt, the islands. Its headquarters are of the Victoria Mission, died while tem- Aneityum, and there it meets the porarily insane. A young Englishman, Mr. Sawer, who instance for a writ of habeas corpus by had been only two days married to a a Chinese person seeking to Jive in the lady who went out to become his wife, United States, to whom tbat privilege was killed by cannibals. They shot has been dellied, no bail shall be al. lowed, and such application shall be him through the heart, and murdered heard and determined promptly, with.
and feasted on the bodies of two natives out unnecessary delay, SECTION 6. And it shall be the duty of who were with him. His body was reo all Chinese laborers within the limits of covered and brought to Tungoa by the the United States at the time of the Rev. Mr. Annand. The sympathy and passage of this Act, and who are entitled prayers of friends of the New Hebrides to remain in the United States, to apply Mission will not be lacking to the be. to the Collector of Internal RevE-nue for their respective districts, within one reaved survivors.-Free Church of &01- year after the passage of this Act, for a land Monthly. certificate of residence; and any Chi.
nese laborer within the limits of the United States who'shall neglect, fail, or GOVERNMENT MONEY AND :MISSIONS.- refuse to comply with the provisions of The .1!lcaminer says: "A resolution was this Act, or who, after one year from unanimously passed by the Methodist the passage thereof, shall be found within the jurisdiction of the United Episcopal General Conference that the States without such certificate of resi- Church should hereafter' decline either , dence, shall be deemed and adjudged to make a petition to or to receive from to be unlawfully within the United the national Government any moneys States, and may be arrested by any United States customs officer, Collector for educational work among the Ind. of Internal Revenue or his deputies, ians.' In the arguments for this action, United States Marshal or his deputies, telling appeal was made to the example and taken before a United States Judge, of the Baptists, 'the only evangelical whose duty it shall be to order that he be deported from the United States as denomination in this country,' said Dr. hereinbefore provided, unless he shall J. M. King, ' who have never consented establish clearly to the satisfaction of to take one dollar from the Government said Judge that by reason of accident, for education.' We should, perhaps, sickness, or other unavoidable cause, he better deserve praise for our consistency had been unable to procure his certifiin this respect if we had done as much cate, and to the satisfaction of the Court and by at least one credible white wit.
in the cause of Indian education as our ness, that he was a resident of the Unit.
friends of other communions, but we ed States at the time of the passage of this Act, and if upon the hearing it shall rejoice that the powerful Methodist in- appear that he is so entitled to a certifi.
fluence is henceforth to be thrown in cate, it shall be granted upon his pay· the right scale." ing the cost. Should it appear that said Chinaman had procured a certifi.
The" Chinese Exclusion Bill. cate, which has been lost or destroyed, he shall be detained and judgment sus· The sections of the Chinese Exclusion pended a reasonable time to allow him to procure a duplicate from the officer Bill against which Senator Sherman and granting it, and in such cases the ,cost others most rigorously protested-pro. of said arrest and trial shall be in the tested, we may say, in representation of discretion of the Court. And any Chi.
the judgment of many millions of the nese person other than a Chinese lllbor. er having a right to be and remain in people of our country-we herewith reo the United States desiring such ce;tifi. produce, in the faint hope that after cate as evidence of such right, may ap.
November next the United States Con. ply for and receive the same without gress may be in a better judicial mind charge.
to weigh the arguments and recognize A Chinese clergyman was asked.how the indignation against them. They many clergy he thought there were in are: England, "Perhaps 1500," he said. When he heard that there were 24,000, SECTION 5. That after the passage of "Can you not," he asked, "spare 100,0 this Act, on an application to any Judge for China?" or Court of the United States in the first
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by .Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O.
THE WORLD AT LARGE. workers, and expend annually not less -11'1:. Ravenstein has published in the than $7,500,000." Prooeedings of the London Geographical It is certainly within bounds to say Society his calculations about the time that the Protestant churches of Ameri.
that it will take to fill the world with ca, Great Britain and Europe are repreall the people it will hold. The pres· sented in their work for other lands by ent population of the globe is supposed 9000 missionaries and more than 50,000 to be about 1,467,000,000 ; and he esti. native workers, and have expended durmates that the maximum of the inhabi. ing the past year about $12,500,000. tal,lts that can be sustained on the en· But this is not all. During the past tire land surface of the earth is 5,994,- half century a considerable proportion 000,000, and that this figure will be of the annual expenditure of these soreached A.D. 2072, or in about 180 years, cieties has been in the form of investat the present ratio of increase, which' ments in churches, schools and colleges, dwelling-houses, printing-presses, bindis eight per cent per decade. eries, manufactur!>d volumes of Scrip- How Muoh and How Little.-Says the In- tures, educational and religious books dependent: "There are to-day in the Unit- -pretty nearly all the machinery and ed States, including Bible, tract, and apparatus of modern aggressive Chrismedical societies, 51 Protestant general tianity. The total of this investment societies or boards, engaged either ex- has never been even estimated, but clusively or partially in the work of for- could it be done it would open our eyes eign missions. There are also 30 wom- as never before to the tremendous force an's boards, which work through the that the churches have put and are putgeneral boards of the denominations ting into the work of foreign missions. they represent; and an uncertain num- ber, not less than 10, probably not more -The cost of the McAl! Mission in than 20, of individual enterprises, in- France last year was $89,563, of which cluding the various faith missions, so- $33,910 came from the United States, called-the Plymouth Brethren, the $37,671 from EnglanJ and Scotland, and Pentecost Bands of the Free Methodist $13,340 from France and other coun. Churches, and the Pioneer Soudan Mis- tries.
sion. These all employ in the field not THE UNITED STATES. far from 3000 missionaries (male and female) and about 11,000 native agents ; -Mr. Moody's Bible Training Insti.
and at home a force of officials, includ- tute is represented on the foreign field ing secretaries and clerks, of which by 24 workers, among the North Ameri.
tl<ere i8 DO published record, but which can Indians by 4. while 19 are engaged cannot fall short of 1000; and they ex- in work in Chicago itself. The foreign pend annually in the whole work an workers are in Africa, India, China, amount not less than $5,000,000. In Japan, Turkey, Persia and South and Great Britain, Germany, France, Scan- Central America. The officers of the dinavia, etc., there are about 130 regu- Institute can locate 37 men and 9 wom- larly organized independent societies, en who are engaged in evangelistic 30 woman's boards, and perhaps 30 in- work; 31 men are engaged in pastoral dividual enterprises. These are repre- work, including many ministers who sented on the field by nearly if not quite came for further study, and 29 men are 6000 missionaries and 40,000 native now in other schools and colleges. City mission work emJ!!loys 9 men and sides other institutions, educational, 10 women; 5 men are engaged in Sun- theological, and industrial. In the day.school missions, 2 men in home Indian work aa:e 76 schools, against 51 missions, 7 women in church visitation, schools three years ago, and 87 churches.
7 men in Young Men's Christian Asso- -The" American Baptist Year-Book," ciation work, 2 women in Young Wom- which is just out, shows II total memen's Christian Association work; 18 bership of 3,269,806, an increase over men and 2 women are teachers, 5 wOmen the last year of 105,579. The number have positions in charitable institu. reported as baptized has risen from tions, and 8 are now wives of minis· 140,058 in 1890 to 160,247 in 1891 ; the ters ; 5 men and 1 woman are singing total contributions were $11,886,558, evangelists. only a slight increase on those for the Fbr the Freedmen.-Beginning in the previous year, which were $11,215,579.
dark days that followed the war, with The endowment of the seven theological 15 pupils, sheltered in the rude bar- seminaries has risen from $2,000,088 to racks bequeathed by the" Freedman's $2,259,346, and the total value of the Bureau," Hampton now houses and property from $2,992,728 to $3,269,723 ; teaches 960 students in a settlement of the college endowments, not including fitting and permanent dormitories, the University of Chicago, have risen school.rooms, and workshops. It has from $6,097,270 to $9,784,526, and the sent out 723 graduates. almost all" of total value of property from $11,074,327 Whom are teaching their own people. to $16,037,133.
At Hampton and III the various off. -The American Baptist Missionary shoots of Hampton 120,000 pupils have Union closed its financial year March been taught. not only the contents of 31st. The total receipts for current books, not only industrial knowledge, work for the year were $569,172.93 as but the elements of manhood and wom- against $472,174.21 for the preceding anhood. And from these 120,000 pu- year. The Society commenced the year pils has been drawn a body of 2000 with II debt of $61,593.94, and has 'made teachers. Its plant has cost $550,000, during the year appropriations which, free from debt, the gift of friends. The with the debt, amount to $635,927.24. school requires an income of $100,000 Thus, notwithstanding the advance of a year. Of this sum $40,000 is annually nearly $100,000 in receipts, the new year assured from regular sourcef'. The re- commences with a debt of $66,754.31. maining $60,000 General Armstrong has raised year after year, from churches, -The Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, District Sunday-schools, and private individ- Secretary of the American Board at uals. From $25,000 to $30,000 of this Chicago, has proposed a plan by which sum is contributed in annual $70 schol- the young people shall take care of the arships, each of which pays the ex- young missionaries. An annual fund penses of one pupil for one year, in the of $25,000 is to be raised in the Chrisacademic department. But more of tian Endeavor Societies and Sunday. these scholarships are needed. The schools in the form of 1000 shares of permanent endowment fund, which is stock at $25 each. The missionaries slowly growing, should be at least supported by it are to be young mis- $500,000, and will have reached the sionaries of three years' service or less, sum of $300.000 at the end of this year. and not otherwise supported.
-The American Missionary Associa- -The Roman Catholic Mission among tion (Congregational) in July of 1890 es- the colored people and the Iudians re- tablished a mission in Alaska. It is ports $361,000 r.eceived during the last situated on Cape Prince of Wales, the five years. There are now 115 colored extreme western point of the North schools. against 98 two years ago, be- American Continent, only 46 miles from East Cape Siberia, about 1000 miles $16,870,000 to unsectarian societies. north of Sitka, some 3000 miles north The amount contributed through soci- of San Francisco, and just south of the eties of the Established Church of Eng. Arctic Circle. The importance of this land was about $46,100,000; through station is seen in the fact that it is the societies of the Establishecl Church of largest Eskimo settlement in Alaska, and Scotland, $3,018,000 ; through Protestant the third largest native settlement of any Non-conformist societies in England and kind. And the school is already much Wales, $32,600,000, and through Presby- the largest in Alaska. For the first terian Nonconformist societies in Scot. school year the total enrolment was land and Ireland, about $13,000,000. 301 ; the average daily attendance for He claims th us that the societies of the the whole nine months, 109; for the two Established Churches of England last five months, 156. and Scotland contributed at least $3,160,000 more than the societies of -The Missionary Society of the all the other Protestant denominations Methodist Episcopal Church has in its of the British Isles put together. From foreign missions the following members his twenty years' study of the subject, and probationers: In heathen lands, he states his belief that of the ~16,870,- 45.745 ; in Protestant lands (in Europe), 000 contributed to joint societies of 41,413 ; in Roman Catholic lands, 5967 ; Churchmen and Nonconformists during in Greek Church lands (Bulgaria), 171 ; the past twenty years, at least $10,000,- a total of 93,296. In 1891 there were 000 was contributed by members of the expended from the regular appropria. Established Church of England. tions for these missions: In heathen lands, $315,627.50; in Protestant lands, – The Church Missionary Society's $93,380.19 ; in Roman Catholic lands, income has exceeded that of the pre- $147,655.83; in Greek Church lands, vious year, but the expenditure is great. $17,539.28 ; a total of $574,202.80. er, so that there will be a deficit of something like $20,000. The total reo -At the annual meeting of the Gen. ceipts have been about $1.157,645, of eral Executive Committee of the Wom· which $807,880 wer", received from aSb,)- an's Foreign Missionary Society of the ciations, $98,165 from special gifts, Methodist Episcopal Church, held in $146,495 from legacies, and $105,105 Kansas City, Mo., receipts were re- from other sources. The expenditure ported of $263,660.69, being an advance or the coming year is estimated at over those of last yeer of $43,330.73. $1,177,700. The estimates for the coming year were announced as $368,000. -The London Missionary Society calls for 4, men more than are at present -'rhe Southern Presbyterian Church available to fill vacancies in the staff in has decid~d to open a mission in Korea, India and China, and for 15 new mis. and two members of the senior class in sionaries, some of them ladies, to com- Union Seminary, Va., have been com- plete the first year's contingent of the missioned to commence it. They will additional 100. The Evangelical' Union sail probably in August. of the Scotland Foreign Misiion Com· mittee calls upon the churches repre. EUROPE. sented by it to ilupply 10 of the required 100 missionaries, aud notes with grati. Great Britain.-Canon Scott Robin. tude that 2 from their number have al· son has estimated that during the last ready been accepted by the Society. twenty years the sum contributed by the British Isles for foreign mission -The Unitad Presbyterians of Scotwork has amounted to $112,790,915. land raised last year, for foreign mis· Of this total about $840,000 was contrib. sions, £41,602, and for home missions, uted to Roman Catholic societies and £17,725. Their foreign work is being carried on in Jamaica, Old Calabar taught. The English Protestants have (West Africa), Rajputana (Central India), 5 schools-1 for boys, 2 for girls, and 2 and Manchuria (Northeast China). It for small children. Then there is II was their mission that suffered most in school for girls, conducted by the Dames the recent riots in Manchuria. Next to de Nazareth, who are Roman Catholic the Moravians, they are said to be the nuns; and, lastly, a school for small most missionary church in the world. children, conducted by the Loonor de St. Joseph. In most of these manual -The British missionary societies training is also a fixed part of the currichave 139 physicians engaged in mission ulum. There are a number of charitaworks, of whom 13 are ladies. ble institutions, such as the Syrian Protestant Orphanage for girls, con- Sweden.-The Swedish Missionary trolled by the Presbyterians; the Aus- Society is actively at work among the trian Hospital, and the Hospital of the Laplanders. They have an orphanage Scotch Mission. at Ange, and 6 mission schools in other parts of Lapland, in which 173 children India.-Says Professor J. R. Seeley: have received instruction. The king " As time passes, it appears that we are granted them 2000 crowns; but during in the hands of a Providence which is the past year their expenses were 1500 greater than all statesmanship; that crowns in excess of their receipts. this fabric so blindly piled up has a chance of becoming a part of the perma- ASIA. nent edifice of civilization, and that the Indian achievement of England, as it is Palestine.-Selah Merrill, United the strangest, may after all turn out to States Oonsul in Jerusalem, says that be the greatest of all her achievements." the effort to colonize the country with Jews has been a signal failure in spite -Some idea of England's grave reof the generous encouragement given by sponsibility in India may be gathered such capitalist:> as the Rothschilds. The from the latest reports of the popula- Jewish immigration is only sufficient to tion of that country and its rapid inmake the number of Jews at Jaffa 2700 ; crease. In 1881 the popUlation was Ramleh, 166; Jerusalem. 25,322 ; 257,000,000 ; in 1891 it was 288,000,000, Hebron, 1200; Nablous, 99; Taba- showing an increase in a single decade reeyeh, 2900; Safed, 6126; Acre, 200 ; almost equal to that of the whole popu- Haifa, 1640, or a total of 40,353. The lation of England and Wales. Of these, agricultural families added to this will 207,000,000 are Hindus, 57,000,000 are make a total of about 42,000-less than Mohammedans, 7,000,000 are Budhalf the number of Jews that live in dhists, while as yet only 2,284,196 can New York City. be spoken of as in any sense Christians. The increase of population in ten years -Nazareth has a population of 7419. is equal to thirteen times the number The Latin Christians have 4 churches of those who" can be spoken of as in or chapels; the Maronites, 1; the Or- any sense Christians." thodox Greeks, 4; the synagogue in which Christ is claimed to have taught The Host oj Hindus.-It is said that so is now in the hands of the United many are the millions, that if all should Greeks; the Protestants have 1 church; take hold of hands the line would reach the Moslems, 5 mosques. Then there three times around the equator; that are 7 cloisters. The Moslems have 1 there are women enough to form a collarge school, recently erected; the Or- umn, sixteen abreast, reaching across thodox Greeks have 3 schools, all taught this continent from New York to San by Russians, and only 1 for girls; the Francisco; such a host, that if each Latins have 2 large schools, in 1 of one should pick up a pinch of dirt and which several European languages are cast it upon the 100,000 Englishmen who rule them, they would be buried the people is fetichism of the lowest under two feet of Indian soil! The grade. The whole of the Congo Valley land contains 25,000,000 widows, with is now freely open to missionary operaall the woe unepeakable that word rep- tions. In this vast region the American resents. Baptists have established 10 stations.
-In the Telugu Baptist Mission, in On Lake Nyassa.-Dr. Lowe reports India, during 1891 there were about the baptism, on September 13th, of 10 8000 baptisms. There are now 60,057 men and boys and 2 women, and on Baptist members in the Telugu Mission September 20th of 17 men and boys.
in 75 churches. On this last Sabbath, 64 communicants, China.-The needs.-Says a mission. including 6 Europeans, sat together at ary : "Turn to your arithmetic and see the Lord's table. From the north end bow long it will take the 1270 missiona- of the lake we learn that Dr. Cross and ries in China to reach the 400,000,000 Mr. Aitken have selected a new station, heathen, if they use the personal meth- which they think will, in the course of od. And really, nearly all the converts years, be one of the finest places in all in China are made in this way. Sup- Africa. It is in the Uwandala country, pose you seek the aid of every Chinese at an altitude of about 6000 feet, well Christian, and then you would not have watered, free from marshes, with plenty a force of 50,000. Let.these 50,000 visit of good clay and rock lime. The letter each one person a day and talk to him speaks of a valley in which there are two hours, and let them labor in this five miles of gardens.
way for 365 days in the year, and only -The Government census of Basuto- 18,250,000 persons would be reached in land shows that the people have in- one year. At this rate, it will require creased one third during the last sixteen more than twenty years for every person years, thus illustrating the great vitality in China to hear the Gospel once. But of the African races. Tlie nnmber of is one hearing sufficient? Go and adult Christians connected with the preach the Gospel to the Chinese, and French stations of the Paris Evangelical you will find that it requires days and Society in that section is 9662, or about weeks of teaching before they really one eleventh of the whole adult popula- know what the nature of the Gospel is. tion. The mission has 13 stations and And the native Christians of China can- 116 places of worship.
not yet be relied upon for this work."
-There are 109 medical missionaries AUSTRALIA.
in China, of whom 38 are women; and of -Societies of Christian Endeavor are these last, 36 are Americans. In all but only at their beginning, but already four of the provinces medical missions number 223, and are rapidly increasbave been established. ing. 'l'hey are divided among the va- -Miss Madden bas travelled 2000 rious sections as follows: about 53 miles on horseback on her mission for societies in South Australia, 6 in Tas- the lepers of Siberia. She has secured mania, 5 in New Zealand, 20 in New $5000 for a hospital. South Wales, 13 in Queensland, 1 in AFRICA. Western Australia, and in Victoria 125, ~ith an aggregate membership of over –The Congo Valley contains 1,300,000 4000 members.
square miles, or one tenth of Africa, -The Roman Catholic mission among and an estimated population of 39,000,- the Dyaks of North Borneo has now 8 000. From above the Livingstone Falls stations with 600 Christians. There are it is easily accessible to commerce and 14 priests, 2 brothers and 9 Franciscan civilization. The religious condition of sisters. The sisters have 2 convents where they instruct the girls and small From the annual review of the progboys. One of the missionaries-the ress of education in India the figures Rev. Thomas Jackson-is if this coun- are highly encouraging as a whole. The try seeking to arouse interest in the public and private institutions for in. mission. struction increased from 134,710 to 138,054, but the increase was wholly in Bntlsh Foreign Missions. By Rev. James public institutions, those under private Johnston, Bolton, England. management having decreased from 40,547 to 38,279. The number of pupils The Niger Mission.-At a meeting has risen from 3,626,390 to 3,682,707, of the Correspondence Committee of the and the scholars who study English are Church Missionary Society on April 5th returned at 353,515. Young India's rethe question of a successor to the late ligions and races are thus represented Bishop Crowther was introduced. Arch- scholastically: Of Hindus, 2,512,916, or deacon Hamilton and the Rev. W. Allan, 68.24 per cent; of Mohammedans, 836,. who went out to Africa last year as a 389, or 22.71 per cent; of Europeans deputation from the Society (to whom and Eurasians, 25,568, or 0.69 per cent; l'eference was made in the March issue of native Christians, 86,314, or 2.34 per of the REVIEW), presented their report. cent ; and of "miscellaneous races and After a long discussion the matter was religions," 221,520, or 6.02 per cent. referred to the General Committee. The Government of India, in speaking Whether an Englishman or a native of the results as "generally satisfac. should be recommended for appoint. tory," regrets that municipal bodies do ment is causing much division of opin- not contribute more liberally to educa.· ion. Some of the members are strong- tional institutions. Possibly when Inly in favor of a black man, and, were dia's "dumb millions" are permitted this desire to prevail, one of the most to have a greater share in moulding the likely of the native clergy to be selected national policy on which their interests would be the Rev. Isaac OIuwole, a essentially depend, a more generous regraduate of Durham University. The sponse will be made in this direction. general feeling appears to favor an English bishop with a native assistant at a Wesleyan Foreign Missions Relater date. port.-With a comparatively small sum annually contributed, the Society was Education in India.-The endeavor sustaining a vast missionary system of the National Indian Association to represented by 338 missionaries, and promote female education in British 2163 paid agents besides-interpreters, India is bearing remarkable fruit. In catechists, day school officers-as well aid to girls' schools, scholarships for as a staff of 4234 unpaid a.gents. The promising students. facilities for the missionary stations number 363, with training of native teachers, and similar 1572 places of worship. The mission advantages, the special movement of church membership was 34,722, with two years ago is commending itself both 5250 on trial, and the number of schol. to native and officiai support. English ars in mission schools, 65,803. In France women graduates are being earnestlyre- and Germany the work, both among the quested to go out to India. Special people of those countries and the Engcongratulations are offered regarding the lish, had been fruitful and cheering. success attending the effort to train Ind- By the action of the governing powers ian widows as teachers in native schools. in Vienna operations there had been The marriage of Indian girls at an early seriously hindered. From Italy good age stops any supply of young unmar- reports came, and in Spain the staff had ried teachers, but the system which cre- been re-enforced. To the Wesleyan solates the difficulty provides the remedy diers stationed at Cairo constant spirin t,he very large body of young widows. itnal ministrations were given. If the crease had reached the remarkable rate Society were to take its place as one of of 250 per cent;" and then he adds, the leading missionary societies of South " The growth of Christianity in India Central Africa, this vast field, reaching has been a solid fact, and sufficiently to the Mashonaland border must reo rapid to give all needful encouragement ceive a far larger share of help than was to the supporters of missions."
at present granted t-: it. The mission- Dr. Harry Guinness.-After a year's ary staff in India needed immediate absence in Africa, in perilous journey. reinforcement. In the Madras district ings to the heart of Congoland, where alone 300 new converts had been re- he was smitt{)n by serious fevers, this ceived during the year; and in the heroic servant of God has safely reached Hyderabad district the number on trial English shores. He reports that in the had risen from 448 to 795 in addition to Upper Congo regions, where he was 482 baptisms. In China there was great often in imminent danger of death at hope )f opening up the province of the hands of the N'Gombe savages, the Hunan, with its 22,000,000 heathen. spiritual work at the Balolo stations, London Missionary Society.-From both in the cataract region and in the all sources the income of this society is depth of the continent throughout Ba.
£11,000 more this year than it was lololand, is making steady and most twelve months ago. The recent self-de- surprising progress. At the Missionary nial contributions amounted to £5375. Training Institute, London, for whose At a meeting of the directors the follow- support and management Dr. Guinness ing were accepted for service in the for- is responsible, there are nearly 150 mis.
eign mission field: Rev. R. J. Ward, St. sionary students, men and women, Helen's; Mr. W. J. Edmonds, Hackney under his care. For the maintenance College; Mr. T. W. Ingram, Cheshunt and equipment of these future missiona- College; Mr. R. C. Porter, Nottingham ries a sum of £300 is needed every week Institute, and Miss Mary Harris. The decision of the first-named gentleman FALLEN STANDARD.BEARERS.
-Mr. Ward-to go abroad has caused Rev. James Calvert.-By the demuch surprise and admiration among cease of this eminent man at Hastings, English Congregationalists. He is one on Mar~h 9th, at the age of seventy. of the most honored and successful of nine, British Wesleyanism has 10Rt a Lancashire ministers, whose career at conspicuous missionary figure. Trained home has always been marked by a spirit at Hoxton College, he was sent out, in of self·sacrificing devotion. A prayerful company with the late John Hunt, to study of the call of the millions in dark- labor in Fiji; and, nobly aided by his ness has constrained him to take up the heroic wife, he toiled for eighteen years cross very literally in order that he may among cannibals. He succeeded in share the joy of reaping on India's winning over King Thakomban to the white fields. Christian faith, whose influence after- Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Ind- ward was a powerful factor in the Chris· ian Mission.-An eloquent testimony tianization of the people. Returning to to the success of this work has just been England for five years, Mr. Calvert borne by Sir Charles Elliott, Lieutenant· superintended the translation of the Governor of Bengal. While the general Scriptures into the Fijian language, and popUlation of India increased from afterward sailed again for Fiji. In 1866 1872-81 by 8 per cent, and Christians he again arrived in England, and in 1872 by 30 per cent, yet he says, .. In the was sent to South Africa, where for Khasia Hills, where a devoted band of eight years he rendered invaluable ser- Welsh missionaries-with whom I am vice throughout the diamond fields and well acquainted-is at work, the in- other parts of the colony. In 1882 he lost his honored partner, who with him· Brooke at rest March 5th-black water had spent nearly thirty years in active fever." His demise adds another to'
mission service abroad. . When in 1885 that swiftly lengthening list of English- the jubilee of missions was celebrated men who have died in attempting to in Fiji, he went out by general request, evangelize Africa. Born twenty-seven visiting Australasia and the South Sea years ago, he was the son of Lieutenant- Islands, and was everywhere received Colonel Brooke, of Redhill. For some with great joy and affection. Since his years he had been passionately interest- final return to England he had been ed in the salvation of the Dark Conti- diligently employed in translation nent, and had tried to enter the Soudan work, in revising the Fijian Bible, and from the Co~go and Morocco before he in various ways aiding the Bible Society joined the staff of the Church Mission- and the cause of foreign missions. ary Society as an honorary member in Rev. Percy E. Comber.-The death 1890. Mr. Brooke had clearly defined of this young and intrepid missionary ideas about missionary methods, and from the terrible African fever termi- the courage to put them into execution. nates a pathetic episode in the story of It was his conviction that by adopting the Congo mission. Surviving his native habits of life and dress he could youthful wife only some twelve months, remove the antipathy of natives to Euro· he himself forms the last of a noble, self- peans, which had done so much to hin- sacrificing family, three brothers, one der the work on the upper waters of the sister, and two wives-six in all-who Niger. He tried his experiment, and 'have found graves, sacred indeed, be- with admitted success. It is said that neath the palms. Such an example of of late French movements had stirred a family's consecration to the claims of Mohammedan feeling to a dangerous missions has probably no parallel in the pitch, and consequently it was feared annals of the history of the Church of that Lokoja, Mr. Brooke's station, might Christ. .Finis coronat opus-the end become untenable for Europeans. Send· crowns the work. ing away the ladies of the party, he himself stayed at his post, and shortly Rev. Joseph J ohnston.-Intelligence afterward died. has been received of the death at Fremantle, Western Australia, of this Mr. J. H. Redman.-News has been worthy in his seventy.eighth year. Mr. received at the Church Missionary Johnston was appointed to Tahiti as a House, London, of the death of this normal schoolmaster, and was one of missionary, another victim to the clithe band of missionaries who sailed in mate of East Africa. Toward the close 1838 for the South Seas with Rev. John of last year he sailed with Bishop Tuck- Williams. In Tahiti Mr. Johnson con· er, and it is presumed that he ~as actinued to labor, with the exception of a companying the bishop up country, as few months, until the close of 1849, and it is stated that he died at SaadanL on resigning his connection with the Monthly Bulletin, society, accepted the pastorate of the church at Fremantle. -The first subscription for mission Mr. Graham Wilmot Brooke.- purposes in modem days was made by Great sorrow will be felt throughout Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589, when he the missionary world that the beloved gave £100 to the merchants to whom he and devoted leader of the mission on resigned the Virginia patent, ., in spethe Upper Niger has been taken" home" cial regard and zeal of planting the by the Lord of all service. The tele- Christian religion in those barbarous gram received from Brass, West Africa, places."
on March 19th, by the Church Mission- -Some one wrote Chaplain McCabe, ary Society, briefly read: "Wilmot asking him to take stock in a silver mine which was to be worked in the interest of duced seven languages to writing, and missions and church extension. His re- have done a large evangelistic work.
ply was as follows: "We have two mines The Dutch Reformed Church mission- already:, which we are working with great aries now work with this mission.
success. One of them is ' self·denial, ' Thirty.six chiefs have each offered to situated in the valley of Humiliation; provide a home and food for as many the other is • consecration,' which is en- European missionaries if they will come tered on the heavenly side of the book and reside with them.
Peniel. These are glorious mines! -Missionaries of the Norwegian Mis- Their riches are inexhaustible. There sionary Society have established a leper is enough in them to bring the world to settlement at Autsirabe, in Madagascar, Christ." containing besides 30 cottages, a chapel -The following, from the pen of Mrs. and a hospital. Ninety-eight lepers are Mary Clement Leavitt, who has trav- now at this asylum. A number of them elled much in mission lands, will be have been baptized, and there is a painful reading to not a few-the last church for lepers only.
sentence in particular: "Not more than India.-Among the recent accessions half the British misRionaries are total to the force of evangelists is Mr. James abstainers. It is a cheering sign, how- Monro, C.B., late Chief Commissioner ever, that nearly all young missionaries of Police in London. Mr. Monro for- from the British Isles have adopted this merly held a high position in the civil principle and practice. There is more service of India, and has always been than one British mission station in especially interested in mission work India, where all gray-haired missiona- there, being a member of the Corre- ries, male and female, are regular, daily sponding Committee of the Church drinkers, and every young one is an Missionary Society at Calcutta for many ardent abstainer. In all my journey I years.
have met with but one total abstaining Moslem ConverI8.-The Church Mismissionary from the continent of Eu- sionary Intelliqencer contains a report of rope, and I have heard of only two the conversion of the number of Moothers. Most, if not all, of the conti- hammedans who some months since nental boards send out wine and beer to were baptized at Poona. Among them their missionaries as openly and as free- was a Maulvi, who was said not to have ly as they do other supplies. " his equal in Poona. He has lived in Africa.-Among the centenary con- Arabia eighteen years, made 16 pil- tributions received by the English Bap- grimages 1;0 Mecca, and was for a time tist Missionary Society was one from the interpreter for the English Consul at native Congo church at San Salvador, Jedda. He has been a great student of amounting to £33 148. 3d. (about $165), the Koran, knows Arabic well, and is an forwarded by the deacons of the church, eloquent speaker. All this gives him with a letter thanking the Society for the great influence ove~ his people. He has Gospel, which has done them so much come to abhor Islam, and rejoices in the good. The subscription list contains the light of the Gospel. He has about him names of 45 native men and women, in Poona, as Maulvi, 200 or 300 disci- whose offerings were all in goods, the ples whom he is seeking to bring to largest being" one pig and one piece of Christ.
cloth." -Four methods of giving are prac- -The Livingstonia Mission, founded tised by the Christians of Ceylon, it is by the Free Church of Scotland in 1875, said : first, the tithes of their earnings ; at Dr. Livingston's request has opened second, the setting apart by each of a up for Christian work a field as large as tree, the produce of which is for benevo- Scotland. The missionaries have re- lent purposes; third, an offering of labor; fourth, a handful of rict! from . -An extraordinary turning from every day's meal. idols on the part of the people of Kale· van is reported by Dr. Mackay, from -Steps were taken last fall for open- Formosa. Nearly 500 idolaters cleared ing a new Burman mission station at their houses of idols in his presence, Miubu on the Irrawaddy. It is the and they also gave the missionary, as a residence of a commissioner and the place of worship, a temple built for centre of political influence for the idols. southern sections of Burma, and is also well stationed for access to a large Bur- Japan.-An orphan asylum is being man population. At a school at Bassein established in Tokio, Japan, by a Chrisa " do without" band has been organ- tian teacher, who devotes to it all his ized, with a membership of 100, who own property. It is designed for girls pledge themselves to do without some- under six years of age, that they may be thing every month. In one month 36 trained for Christian service. rupees were realized and given to religious work. "':"'A missionary writes: "There are many very poor people in Tottori, and -About forty years ago Dr. Bradley, there is very little money among the one of the earlier medical missionaries, Christian people here. In Okayama the went to labor in Siam. •• Have you girls pay 60 sen (a sen is 8 mills) per come here with your little chisel of month for tuition, while here they can Christianity to try and uproot our great only afford 30 sen. The teachers here Buddha?" was sneeringly asked of him receive only 8 yen, while in Okayama soon after his arrival by a priest. they receive 12 yen a month. (One yen is 75 cents.) The officers of the girls' Uhina.-An English Church mission- school came in the other day to see if ary in Ningpo says: .. Never have I we could do anything to help them pay heard a missionary address a heathen off a debt of 67 yen. They had been Chinese audience without the opium falling behind recently, and are much question being brought up. Often and troubled about it. One .of the teachoften have I been interrupted by the ers whose pay was 5 yen per month has sneer, • Who brings the opium?' 'Do taken no pay for the past three months, not mention that name again!' in- though he is poor and needs the money, dignantly cried an old Chinese woman but says the school must live for the -an eager listener in the crowd-to the sake of the Christian work here." preacher from whose lips had just fallen the blessed name of Christ. 'Do not New Guinea.-At a meeting of the namention that name again. I hate tive Christians held at Port Moresby re- Jesus; I will not hear another word. centiy, the collection (which was for You foreigners bring opium in one missions) consisted of $37 in money, hand and Jesus in the other! ' " 320 spears, 65 shell armlets, 92 bows, 170 arrows, besides drums, shell neck- -An important statement carrying laces, feathers, and other orpaments, all an equally important confession is made of which have, of course, a marketable by Commander F. M. Barber, of the value as curios. This, as Canon Scott U. S. Steamer Monocacy, the gunboat Holland said, at the meeting of the Uni. maintained on the Yangtse – Kiang. versities' Mission, in a similar case, .. Fourteen years ago," he says, •• I may well remind us of those three kings thought that China was a country where who knelt to offer gold and frankincense even the continued dripping of the and myrrh; for we believe and know water of Christianity would never wear that these offerings of New Guinea are away the stone of heathenism, but now as valuable in the eyes of God as those it is apparent to my unprejudiced mind rich gifts of the kings. that the stone will ultimately be forced bodily from its bed."
The Missionary Review of the World — February 1892
THE IMPORTANCE OF WINNING cmNA FOR CHRIST
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No. 2.-0ld Serics.–FEBRUARY.–VoL. V. No.2.-New Serie&.
THE IMPORTANCE OF WINNING CHINA FOB. CHRIST.
BY REV. JOHN R. HYKES, KIUKIANG, CHINA.
1. China is to-day the great mission field of the world• .Whether we consider the extent and resources of her territory, the number of her population, her antiquity, or the character and possibilities of her people, she is unquestionably the greatest and most important field for misl!ionary operations on the planet.
1. Size.-In the Chinese Empire we have one of the largest domains ever swayed by a single power in any age or any part of the world. Ac- cording to the most careful estimate it comprises a continuous area of more than five and a quarter million square miles. It is one half larger than the United States with Alaska thrown in. It forms one third of the entire Continent of Asia-one tenth of the habitable globe. In extent it is equal to a Europe and a half. Next to Russia it is the largest empire that has ever existed.
2. Resources.-In this vast territory the greatest mineral and metallic wealth of the world is stored, and it is practically untouched.' Gold and silver are abundant; the diamond, ruby, sapphire, topaz, garnet, agate, and other precious stones are known and used ; tin, zinc, lead, nickel, and all the common metals exist in vast stores. Coal and copper are found in every province, and it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that there is enough coal in China to supply the world for the next twenty centuries. In the Central Provinces men dig a shaft a hundred feet deep, carry the coal up the incline in baskets strapped to their backs-fifty and sixty pounds at a time-and call the proces!! mining ! Water is baled out by buckets handed from one. level to another, or it is pumped to the surface by a series of rude bamboo pumps, and when these primitive methods fail . to keep the mine from becoming flooded, it is abandoned and a new shaft sunk. Yet so abundant is the supply that immense quantities of coal are mined in this rude and laborious way.
The agricultural wealth of China is proverbial. In many parts of Far Cathay it is only necessary to " tickle the soil with a hoe and it willlaug-h ~ 11l~rve(j~." The great plaill~ 1l/l <jqltivated like gardl:qs (indeed1 th; Chinese are rather gardeners than farmers), hills are terraced to their summits, and in the Central and Southern Provinces the soil will produce three crops a year. In many parts of the Empire one acre of land is sufficient to support a family, and the happy possessor of five acres is in affluent circumstances. Judged by her resources, China is pre-eminently a great country.
3. Population.-The population of China is, beyond all question, enormous, " constituting by far the greatest assemblage of human beings, using one speech, ever congregated under one monarch." According to the lowest estimate the population of China is one fourth of the human race, six times as many people as there are in the entire United States- 350,000,000 souls, men with moral accountability, intellectual activity, and immortal destiny. It is a number inconceivable in its vastness, so great that it staggers the imagination. Think of it Christian men and women!
4. Antiquity.-China is unique in her antiquity. Her authentic history dates back more than 4000 years-303 years subsequent to the deluge, 47 years before the death of Noah. If you were to undertake to write the history of China you would have to take the tenth chapter of Genesis for thc first chapter of your history of the wonderful sons of Ham. It is a nation hoary with antiquity and marvellous in its preservation. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, all the great nations of antiquity, arose, flourished, entered the charnel-house of departed empires and there mouldered into almost utter forgetfulness, and China alone remains of them all; and from present indications she is destined to go on down through the centuries. Why this marvellous preservation?
II. The greatest problem before the Church of Christ to-day is the conversion of China. . It is an extremely difficult task. No one who has lived and worked among the Chinese would minimize it; and yet there are some people who would have us believe that the evangelization of the Chinese is an unnecessary and presumptuous task. They say: " The Chinese are good enough ;" "They are vastly superior in civilization and morality to many other heathen nations;" "Let them alone. Keep your meddlesome and fanatical missionaries at home and give them work among the slums of New York;" "They are perhaps better off in their beliefs than we are in ours. ' , Let us see.
1. Moral conditiQn.-What is the moral condition of the Chinese people q It is most accurately described by St. Paul in that wonderful first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. That terrible description of human depravity is no libel upon human nature. The black picture is not overdrawn. It is true to the life. Heathen character is no better to-day than it was in the time of St. Paul. It is worse, for there is no such things as stand-still in vice. In the mission with which I am connected, it was necessary a few years ago to tear down one of the mission houses, and it was erected on a different site at an additional expense, because the occupants could look down upon the Chinese courtyards below, and seo enacted before their very eyes some of the vilest crimes enumerated in tho first chapter of Romans. Dr. S. Wells Williams says: "They are vile and polluted in a shocking degree; their conversation is full of filthy expressions, and their lives of impure acts. By pictures, songs, and aphrodisiacs they excite their sensuality, and, as the apostle says, e receive in themselves that recompense of their error which is meet.'
Female infanticide, in some parts openly confessed, and divested of all disgrace and penalties everywhere; the dreadful prevalence of all the vices charged by the Apostle Paul upon the a:ncient heathen world; the alarming extent of the use of opium ; the universal practice of lying and dishonest dealings; the unblushing lewdness of old and young; harsh cruelty toward prisoners by officers, and tyranny over slaves by masters-all form a full, unchecked torrent of human depravity, and prove the existence of a kind and degree of moral degradation, of which an excessive statement can scarcely be made, or an adequate conception hardly be formed."
And yet. there are people who say the Chinese do not need Christianity!
2. What have existing religions done for them ?-There are in China throe sects or systems of belief which have moulded the religious faith of the Empire. They are Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.
(1) CONFUCIANIsM.-Confucianism, or the Church of the Learned, is the State religion of China. It takes its name from the great eage, but it dates away back to the early dawn of Chinese history. Confucius was, as he himself says, merely a reviver of the usages of the ancient kings, a transmitter of the doctrines of the ancient sages. He was a 1·eviver and transmitter-an editor rather than an author. Confucianism cannot prop- erly be termed a religion (indeed, there is no generic word fol' religion in . the Chinese language), ·but it is rather a system of ethics and political economy. An eminent authority says: "The State religion can no more be called the religion of the Chinese than the teachings of Socrates could be termed the faith of the Greeks." It is silent on the great questions of human origin and human destiny, and it teaches nothing of the relation of man to a higher Power. "I know not life, how can I know death! " was the unsatisfactory answer the sage gave to the disciple who ventured to ask about death; and when asked in his last illness to whom he would 8acrifice, he said he had already worshipped.
Ancestral worship is the keystone of the Confucian arch. This is a most ancient cult, dating back at least to the time of Shun (B.C. 2250), and the sages are responsible for perpetuating it. One writer say!!!, they " have bound upon the millions of China a most degrading slavery-the slavery of the living to the dead." The worship of ancestors is the stronghold of Confucianism. This is the real religion of the Chinese j and the hardest thing for a convert to Christianity to give up is his ancestral tablet. These little boards, containing the legend of the two ancestors, of which there are perhaps seventy millions in the Empire, are" more potent for evil than all the idols in the land."
Confucianism contains many beautiful sentiments, as: "O,'erflow with love to all;" "Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you j" "I love life and I love righteousnet!s, but I love righteousness more than life j" it is a splendid system of ethics, but it contains no hope, for ordinary mortals either in life or in death. It has been a conserving intellectual force, it has inculcated and enforced filial piety, it has kept alive a belief in the futllte life, it has exerted an immense influence for good, yet after forty centuries of trial it has failed to elevate thtl nation morally and spiritually.
(2) BUDDHISM.-Buddhism was introduced from India about the year A.D. 67. According to the Chinese historians the Emperor Ming Ti, in consequence of a dream in which he beheld " an image of gigantic proportions, resplendent as gold, " sent an embassy to the West which returned with teachers of the Indian faith. The remarkable saying of Confucius, "The people of the West have sages (or a sage)," doubtless influenced the emperor's vision j and it would be interesting to know just how far it wat! excited by tidings of the advent and death of Jesus Christ.
No religion could have been propagated in any country under more favorable circumstances than the new faith in China. Introduced under imperial patronage, supplying a felt want upon the part of the people in its tenets respecting a future state and the nature of the gods, it gradually worked its way into popular favor. Emperors became the patrons of the new faith, and more than one occupant of the Dragon Throne entered the monastic order. One emperor gave nearly 4000 ounces of gold to have the sacred hooks transcribed in characters of that precious metal; another contributed 300 tons of copper to be cast into images, and only 200 years ago the renowned Kang-hsi gave the yellow porcelain tiles which cover the temples on the sacred island of Pootoo. And yet after more than 1800 years of trial, under circumstances most favorable, Buddhism has failed to elevate the Chinese to a higher life aud nobler purpose.
(3) TAOIsM.-Taoism, or the sect of the Rationalists, is a native faith dating back to the sixth century before the Christian era. It is not a religion. The philosopher Laotsz had no intention of founding a religion. It is a school of philosophy, an abstruse system of metaphysics, but it has few, if any, of the essential elements of a religious faith. The ancient Taoists were alchemists. They" sought to transmute the baser metals into gold," and professed to have diRcoyered the philosopher's stone. They discourse wisely upon the" Pill of Immortality"-a " golden elixir" which confers immortality and insures a place among the genii. The priests of to-day pander to and traffic in the superstitions of the people. They live upon the credulity of their fellow-men. A large part of their businQsll it:l tQ lU!'tlufa«tul'e and. lIell «barms to w(lrq ott all 50rts of m!1!die5 and evil influences. Some years ago there was in Southern China w:hat is known as the "Queue-Cutting Mania." Men in the fields, boys on the streets had their queues cut off, but how or by whom none could tell. Cattle pasturing in the fields lost their tails, fowls had their tail and wing- feathers mysteriously clipped. There was intense excitement throughout the Empire. In the city of Kiukiang, where I was living, two men were beheaded on a charge of cutting off queues by magic !
The priests of Tao rose to the occasion and devised a charm, which, braided in the queue, would protect that ornamental appendage from the "magic scissors" which were flying through the air. It was a great harvest for them. The head of the Taoist religion-the Pope of Tao- the" Heavenly Teacher" Chang, whom I once saw in his palace at the Dragon and Tiger Mountain, is the great wizard of China, and his charms are eagerly sought by the people. Taoism is a failure as a religion. There i~ nothing in it to comfort or elevate mankind, and the Chinese are no better for its twenty centuries' influence upon them. What China needs above everything else is the religion of Jesus Christ. It is her only hope.
There are persons who would have us believe that the conversion of China is an impossible task-that missions are a failure and should be abandoned. They argue very wisely that Christianity is not adapted to the Chinese mind, that there is something peculiar in the Mongolian ca~t of mind (the result, possibly, of his environment for the past forty centuries) which makes it utterly impossible for the religion of Jesus Christ to reach him. "The Chinaman," they affirm, " cannot be converted." If this is true the Church should know it j common honesty would demand that the missionaries admit it. If we are engaged in a hopeless warfare in the Chinese Empire the' sooner the Church recalls its forces from the field the better.
Let us look at the sources of information. These are, first, "Globetrotters;" second, naval men on the Asiatic Station.
We see two classes of travellers in the East. One, and, unhappily, much the larger class, go around the world to " see the sights" and have a good time generally. They do not stop long enough in any country to form an intelligent opinion of the people or their customs. They get their information from boon companions on the steamers and at the ports, who do not Rpeak the language of the people, have little sympathy with anything that is good, and who consequently are always ready to decry missionary work. They see nothing of missionary work for themselves. They get their information at second-hand from persons who evolve it from their own inner consciousness, and then they set themselves up a8 authorities in everything pertaining to the Chinese and pose as critics of missions! I mt't a specimen of this class when I was returning to China eleven years ago. In the same car in which we were crossing the continent we had as tra~'elling companion an elderly and intelligent man, Judge – – , several young ladies, evidently in his charge, and a youth who entertained the company with marvellous accounts of a recent trip to China. He told them all that he had seen in the far East, and, for their entertainment, a great many more things which he had not seen. After a while the judge asked him about Christian missions. Bc went glibly over the stock criticisms of missionaries, and pronounced them first-class frauds and their work an utter and hopeless failure. The judge said very emphatically: "I have been an ardent admirer of foreign missions. I have always given liberally to their support, but I have given the last cent I shall ever contribute to this cause." The next morning the judge, the youth, and myself met in the smoking-room. I told him how happy I was to meet a man who had been in China, and asked him in what part of China he had been. " Hong- Kong," he replied. "How long?" "Six weeks." "Did you visit Canton ~" " No." "Did you call at Shanghai?" " No." "Are you acquainted with any of the missionaries in Hong-Kong?" " No." " Did you see anything of the work of the Basel Mission in that place ?" " No." "Heard nothing of their schools and orphanages?" " No." " Ever been to a chapel~" "No." "Ever seen the outside of a missionary's house~" "No." "Well, you are a fine fellow to set yourself up as a critic of missions. You have never been to China at all, only to the Briti!lh colony of Hong-Kong, have never seen a missionary, a missionary's home or chapel, and yet you pose as an authority on Chinese mISSIons. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." And to his credit, I think he was j for the young ladies could not get him to say a single word about China from that time until we reached San Francisco. These are the men who know all about missions.
The other class of travellers is interested in everything that is good. They take nothing at second-hand which they can possibly get direct. They visit the missionaries in their homes, attend services in their ch3pels, and visit their schools and hospitals. A part of their business is to study this great problem of missions. It is a suggestive fact that these persons who know about missions from personal observation and. study are their most enthusiastic supporters. I met a man at Northfield last summer, who some years ago visited most of the mission fields of the world. He spent several days at Kiukiang, where I was then laboring. He was all on fire with enthusiasm for missions. He told me that since their return from abroad he had made missionary addresses in 1100 churches and his wife in 1500. Whose testimony is to be received?
It is a very unpleasant and delicate task to refer to the other critics of missions-viz., the naval men. I would be sorry indeed to think that they are all Lieutenant Woods or Captain Marthons. No man is more highly respected by the missionary body in China than Commander Barker of thll United States steamship Marion. He studied missions in every port he visited and wrote to the home papers commending the work. It is, however, an exception for an officer from a man-of-war to visit a mission chapel. Not long since the~e was a letter published from Captain Marthon, of the United States steamship Palos, in which he says that he has yet to see the first Chinese Christian. This letter was written from the city where I labored for eighteen years, and immediately after the Palos returned to Kiukiang with the victims of the Wusueh massacre. The writer must have known that the three children of the Wesleyan Mission at that place were rescued from the burning mission house, in the face of an infuriated mob, by native Christians, at the risk of their lives; that one of them when pressing through the mob with the four-months'-old infant of my friend Mr. Boden, and finding that he could not possibly save its life, tossed it over the heads of the rioters to a native Christian woman, who two hours later restored it to its mother. No Christians in China! There were Christian heroes all around, but he was too blind or too prejudiced to see. The Chinese can be converted, and a man must be incapable of finding anything if he cannot find Christians in China.
It is a common, flippant remark that more die in China every year than are converted in a century. This is not true; although it is not always easy to answer the sneers of the godless, who too often" salt their wit in the brine of our tearA." The work goes on; and it will go on, until" the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ. "
III. The conversion of China is unquestionably the most important work of the Church in this age.
This iA not so much on account of the greatness of the country and the vastness of the population as on account of the future of the Mongoliall. race. The" Chinese Question" is destined to become one of the difficult problems for this or the next generation to solve. He has emigrated to all contiguous countri~s, Japau, Siam, the Straits; he has crossed over to Canada, Mexico, the West Indies; he has settled in the Sandwich Islands, Australia, and the United States, and from present indications he is destined to overrun the world.
He is creating a general feeling of uneasiness wherever he has gone j and that not so much on account of his bad qualities as his good. Many of the objections urged again~t the Chinaman in this Christian, libertyloving country and the last decade of this marvellous nineteenth century, are trifling and childish in the extreme. The truth of the matter is, the Mongolian has by his patient industry, temperate habits, and careful economy become a successful competitor of the intemperate, extravagant, and too often vicious laborers from other lands.
John Chinaman has become the agony of colonial and American statesmen. The Australians are more anxious to get rid of him than of their pestifer~us rabhits. The United States feel that the safety and perpetuity of this Great Republip. and its magnificent institutions depend upon the exclusion of the Mongolian ! We can assimilate anything else-the Italians, Hungarians, Catholic Irish-but somehow we can't quite digest the Chinaman; and so we pass iniquitous Exclusion acts which wili put our children and grandchildren to the blush. They are a disgrace to the 'honor of our country, blots upon our national escutcheon, relics of barbarism only fit to be classed in the same category with burning witches in New England. The quicker they are repealed the better.
John is irrepressible; he is like Banquo's ghost, he won't down. Why 1 1. God has some great destiny for the Chinese race. 'I'hey have not been preserved so marvellously as a nation 4000 years for nothing. God does not work in that way. There is no waste of force or material in God's economy j and so the preservation of the Chinese down through the ages has been a conservation of a mighty force to be used by God in the consummation of His plans for the race. Neither is it for nothing that beneath the broad domain of China the mineral wealth of the world is stored.
2. The Chinese are capable of great things. They are slow, solid, aggressive, a people that will abide. They are patient, economical, filial, aDd they are pre-eminently a determined people. Some years ago China was devastated by a terrible rebellion. The southern half of the Empire was wrested from the Imperial sway and in the hands of the Taipings. The Mohammedans in the Northwest took advantage of this state of affairs and rebelled. "Aided by the reckless and seditious of all clans they drove out the governmental minions" and China lost Turkestan. At the same time Russia seized Kuldja. In a moment of weakness the Czar promised China that he would restore Kuldja as soon as China should reassert her authority in those regions and reconquer Turkestan. The attempt to restore prestige in a territory where every hand was turned against her seemed indeed hopeless. Her resources were exhausted, treasury aepleted, foreigners were within her gates, the distance to be traversed was immense, and no one dreamed she conld succeed. The Emperor sent for Tso Tsung Tang, one of his ablest generals, and asked him if he could reconquer Turkestan. Tso replied that he could. " But," said the Emperor, "have you considered that your operations will be so far removed from your base that the mules will eat up all the provision!! before they reach your army ~ Have you thought of that~" "I have," answered the redoubtable warrior, " and I have my remedy. We will push forward as far as we can as soldiers, and when our supplies are becoming exhausted we will squat as farmers and till the ground as many years as are necessary to raise supplies. We will repeat the operation as many times as are necessary, and Turkestan will be restored to your Majesty's sway." And they did it! I have intense admiration for such dogged, persistent determination -a determination to succeed in a well-nigh impossible undertaking if it took five years or fifty years for its accomplishment. Dr. S. Wells Williams says: "The history of the advance of this' agricultural army' would, if thoroughly known, constitute one of the most remarkable military achievements in the annals of any modern country." 3. They are a "brainy" race. There is no question that the Chinese are the most intellectual of all the Asiatics. They are the bankers and the wholesale merchants of the East. Some twelve years ago when General Grant returned from his tour of the world, he said that in his travels he had met three great men, three men who towered head and shoulders above all others, "with whom there were none to compare." One of the pre- eminently great men was Gladstone, England's great statesman; another was Germany's great warrior, Bismarck; and the third of these incompar- ably great men was Li Hung Chang, Viceroy of Chili and Prime Minister of China. A Ohinaman! There is to-day no man better versed in state- craft, there is no more shr~wd diplomat than Li Hung Chang.
4. The Chinese are a nation of students. In what other country in the world will you find 25,000 students competing in one examination-hall for literary honors ~ Last month iu the city of Nanking there were between 29,000 and 30,000 students attendiug the triennial examinations. Men will attend the examinations year after year until they are bowed and decrepit with age in the hope of obtaining the coveted prize. It is not an unusual thing for men of seventy-five and eighty years to be found at the;r place in the hall. So anxious are they to obtain an education, that a man who is too poor to buy oil will steal his neighbor's light through a knot- hole in order that he may study.
Is there no destiny for such a people ~ 5. China is arousing herself. Some people have an idea that China is dead. She is not dead, or if she is, I;he is a very lively corpse. She is not asleep, she is shaking off the lethargy of the centuries and arousing herself as a mighty giant for a coming struggle. She has a magnificent fleet of merchant steamers, large dockyards, arsenals, and a complete net- . work of telegraphs over the entire Empire. She has, it is true, but a few hundred miles of railroads, but railroads are coming and they will be built with native material and Chinese labor. 6. China is destined to become one of the great factors in the .future development of the world. I do not agree with Lord W olseley that she . is to become the great military power of the future, conquering Russia and India, and crossing swords with England and the United States. This seems to me extravagant; but if Genghis Khan in the beginning of the thirteenth century swept with his Mongol horde from the mouth of the Amoor to the sources of the Danube, what might not an awakened, civil- ized China do with a possible forty millions of soldiers ~ For the above reasons I repeat: The evangelization of China is the most important work of the Church of Christ in this age. Christianizing China is the only solution of the" Chinese Question." Exclusion Acts will not do it. This great problem is thrusting itself upon us. What are we going to do about it ~ We cannot ignore it-we dare not if we could. We cannot keep them out. We close the front door, but the back door is wide open, and it would take a much larger army than we have to efficiently guard it. Besides, the" Son of Heaven's" claim to universlll empire is a factor which has not been sufficiently con- sidered. The time will come when the Chinese will try to make it good.
Self-preservation demands the evangelization of the Chinese. China is destined to become either a conservator or a menace to Christendom. Which it shall be depends largely upon the missionary effort of this century. When the time comes, as it inevitably will, when an outlet must be found for the swarming millions of this land, and when they may try to make good their claim to universal empire, it will be well for us if she is a Christian land.
IV. Reasons for hopefulness. I see strong reasons for belieVing in the speedy evangelization of the land of Sinim. 1. The opening of the country. Only a little more than 300 years ago Francis Xavier, the noted Catholic missionary, stood bp.fore the walls of the Middle Kingdom vainly seeking admittance. It seemed to the devoted Jesuit that it was surrounded by a wall of exclusion as high as heaven and as hard as adamant, and he called out in the agony of his soul, " 0 rock, rock 1 when wilt thou open to my Master I" Humanly speaking, there was little prospect of ever penetrating this wall of exclusion, yet three centuries has seen it broken down, removed, entirely swept away. The mi!l8ionary to-day has access to the entire eighteen provinces of the Empire. 2. There is better feeling upon the part of the people. I make this statement with a full knowledge of the recent disturbances in China. Were there not better feeling there would have been fifty Tientsin massacres since last May. The!e troubles in China have been greatly misunderstood in this country. They are not "Anti-Missionary" riots, but an insurrectionary movement upon the part of :it treasonable secret society. The Emperor's edict is an inspiration to all who believe in the providential ordering of events. It is a distinct recognition of Christianity, and assures protection to missionaries and native converts. 3. Increased wiIlingness to hear the Gospel. There has been a notable change in this respect in recent years. There is no trouble to get large, . attentive audiences to listen to the preaching of the Gospel. 4. Success.-Twenty-five years ago there were less than 500 converts in the whole Empire. Thirteen years ago there were 13,000 communicants; now there are 40,000. In 1878, 13,000 native Christians contributed $9000 to the support of the Gospel. Last year the 40,000 converts gave $40,000 ; and the beginning of modern missions dates from the opening of the country in 1860. Besides, it must be remembered that success in missions cannot be computed by arithmetic. You cannot count heads and say this represents the results of missionary enterprise. There is an unknown quantity to be taken into consideration. You cannot measure in a table of statistics the breaking down of prejudice, the removing of
A MEMORABLE MORAVIAN ANNtV'ERSARY
opposition, the dissemination of Christian truth. In 18'15 another missionary and myself were mobbed in a certain district, barely escaping with our lives. There was no more turbulent district in all China. In 1889 I travelled through the same country with my wife and children, and did not hear a single disrespectful word in a ten-days' journey. Can such a change be measured by statistics ~ 5. A remarkable door has been opened to the dominant class. A few years ago the Emperor introduced Western science into the competitive examinations. The result is an increasing demand for this knowledge which can only be got in mission schools. It has been sneeringly said, "Mi8sionaries only get the scum." They generally get just about what they fish for; and if in future they only get the scum in China it will be their own fault.
6. Increasing momentum of truth. Truth, eternal, irresistible, unconquerable truth, is moving forward with increasing momentum in these laLter days of the nineteenth century. The Lord may seem slow in the accomplishment of His purposes, but He is not slow as some men count slackness. He will make short work in these last days.
I see no reason why China may not be CODverted in the next fifty years, if the Church awakens to a full sense of her duty and responsibility. We are on the verge of a mighty outpouring of God's Spirit upon the Land of Sinim. Why does it not come ~ Because we have not prayed for China as we ought. The great need of China is not more men, or llJore money, but united, earnest, agonizing praytlr for a copious outpouring of God's Spirit. Oh that Christian men and women would agonize in prayer for the salvation of this the greatest of all heathen nations!
A MEMORABLE MORAVIAN ANNIVERSARY.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
The Unitas Fratrum, the Moravian Brotherhood, may well provoke to emulation all other bodies of Christian disciples, for their consecrated zeal in the work of missions.
The whole Church is a missionary body. No board, society, or committee shoulders the responsibility and monopolizes the privilege of procuring laborers and providing for them. The entire Brotherhood is engaged in the work, and there is no thought of doing it by proxy. The Mastership of Christ is a practical article of their creed, and the last command and commission of the Master is not forgotten by the disciple. Rev. Archibald J. Brown, of London, tells how his daughter was led to give her life to Inland China. She said: "I have long known Jesus as my Redeemer and Friend, but when I fell down before Him and acknowledged Him as my Jfaster, Ho said to me, 'Am I then your, Master ~ Then go thou to China.''' Thll Moravians regard as impertinent &nd irrelevant such questions as these: Do foreign missions pay 1 Are they expedient 1 Will they be successful ~ for the Master has left His marching orders, and that settles all controversy. .
Obedience to this Master is the principle of the whole body of the United Brethren, prompt and implicit compliance with His will as expressed in the voice of His Word and the vote of His Church. Count Zinzendorf said to a Moravian believer, "Will you go to Greenland~" "Yes." " When 1" "To-morrow I" What readiness to obey, what immediate obedience to the heavenly vision! And think of a whole Church trained from infancy to this sense of individual duty and promptnpss of obedience!
The "regions beyond" represent the preferred sphere of Moravian mISSIOns. Not where Christ has been named, not building on another man's foundation; but they would help fulfil that prophecy, .. To whom He was not spoken of, they shall see: And they that have not heard shall understand."
Mary Lyon used to say to her pupil-daughters, " If you would heroically serve Christ and humanity, seek not easy fields of labor, but go where no one else will go I" And just that the United Brethren do. No field so far off, so difficult, so inaccessible, so walled in with adamant, so shut in with gates of steel; no people so repulsive and so hostile or oruel, that to that field and people their missionaries will not go. It may be the stupid, stolid Esquimaux, the slaves of the West Indies, the blear-eyed cretins of the Alps, the disgusting lepers of Africa, the cannibals of the South Seas -but anywhere and everywhere they rejoice to go and plant the cross. And the fact of greater distance, degradation, destitution, depravity, constitutes with them only a mightier appeal and argument for going where the neglect iR apt to be the greater because of such repellent features. They have learned that it is not charity, but selfishness, that" begins at home," and stays there; and, like Redslob and Marx who, during the past year, passed from Leh, the mountain outpost of Little Thibet, up to their glorious reward, the most self-sacrificing post of duty is the sentinelbox for this vanguard of the Church's army!
This noble Unitas Fratrum cultivate heroism. We have often feared that in these days the heroic spirit is fast being eliminated from modern mISSIonS. One argument often urged upon young people for devoting themselves to the foreign field is, that they will find little self-denial in such a course, since in most countries the highest civilization has found its way, and thej will find the comforts and conveniences and even luxuries of their homes still available. To our mind this is the worst sort of appeal -it is addressed to se1fishness, and leaves out the very heroi!.lm of sacrifice. A people that, in their very Litany, insert the petition, " From the unhappy desire of becoming great, good Lord deliver us I" is not very likely to court worldly comforts, honors, dignities and indulgences. And where the law and even love of self-abnegation for Christ are at the bottom of all missionary endeavor, we may well feel no surprise to find that b,y far the largest proportion of laborers in proportion to their numbers, and by far the largest average of gifts in proportion to their means, this little Moravian Church offers to the Lord's work. It is from Benjamin that the leader comes who stands above all the rest from his shoulders upward.
The Moravian Church is not only least among the tribes, but poorest. Yet out of their poverty have abounded the riches of their liberality. They put to shame the richer bodies of disciples and tempt us to t>elieve that riches bring the Laodicean spirit with them. and are a curse instead of a blessing, judged by their fruits in church life. Certainly the United Brethren are a standing testimony that small numbers and little money cannot prevent consuming zeal for missions and burning passion for souls, when in all the work the chosen formula and motto is "IN THE NAME OF JESUS. AMEN."
This paper was begun, however, with a purpose of glVlng som'.l brief account of the Third Jubilee of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospe'! among the Heathen, which anniversary was lleld in the Moravian chapel, Fetter Lane, London, on Thursday, November 19th, 1891, at 6.30 P.M.
At this One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary it was the privilege of the editor-in-chief of this REVIEW to be present and deliver an address. The place was interesting, an oid-fashioned oblong building, hidden behind other structures, and approached through a long hallway-a building perhaps forty by sixty feet, with heavy, stately galleries, and plain board pews, and a high semicircular pulpit of evident antiquity, where Wesley and Baxter and Bradford have more than once preached the old Gospel.
The programme was interesting, announcing that "The Brethren's Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel was founded in 1741, with a view to entertain and assist Moravian missionaries passing through London to their various mission fields. It was reorganized in 1768 in order to establish the mission in Labrador. By God's goodness in protecting the ships used in this service, and in blessing the trade carried on with the natives to help iu supporting this mission, it has almost entirely been maintained by S. F. G. to the present day. The Society also endeavors to spread missionary information by publishing the quarterly' Periodical Accounts,' and in other ways contributes to the extension of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." Hymns composed by James Montgomery, himself a member of the S. F. G., for the centenary in 1841, and by Harvey, Spangenberg Doddridge, James Hutton, firEt President of the S. F. G., as well as by Ellis and others for the present occasion, were embraced in the programme and sung. After an appropriate Scripture reading from Romans 1 and 10 by Pastor Hasse, who presided, and ~he openiD~ pra~er was ofiered, Rev. B. Latrobe, Secretary, presented warm salutations by letter from the Unity Elders' Conference at Berthels- dorf, an apostolic greeting signed by James Connor; then from Bethlehem, Pa., U. S. A., the headquarters 0: the American province, salutation!! on the sesquicentennial; from Labrador'R largest congregation, at Okak, and the Missionary Conference at Hebron, Hopedale, etc., and from Bishops A. C. Ha!.'se and Joseph Latrobe and Brother J. England, etc.
Pastor Hasse, who gracefully presided, made the usual "chairman's address." He dwelt on the modern aspect of the Society's work, as confined chiefly to Labrador. This field is its special feature, but though primarily restricted to this land of eternal snows, equally sympathizes with all missions. Mr. Hasse touched briefly but effectively on the moral and economic features of the Labrador field, vindicating missions to a people who were a century and a half ago without light or help, and are still a classic and standing example and representative of the charter right of the Gospel: "The poor shall hAve the Gospel preached to them." A situa- tion radically worse, and a type of humanity more degraded, could not elsewhere be found when missions were begun in Lahrador and Greenland. And these facts emphasized the duty of bearing to these remote shores the tidings of salvation.
As to the economic side, Mr. Hasse explained the office of the S. F. G. as a training society. The Esquimaux must primarily be fed, clothed, and sheltered if they are to live. It is desirable not to make them paupers, however; and hence they must be taught to give an equivalent in the produce of the country. The summer trade is a revel; the winter is a time of starvation ; and as the starving time covers eight or nine months, extinction would result unless trade were carried on, and it is important that such trade be in hands that will conduct it on Christian principles and so elevate and improve as well as preserve the Esquimaux race. Mr. Hasse canvassed the common objections to such mission work and appealed to the future for its vindication, remarking that the' full recognition of its value might come, perhaps, only after another hundred years had swept away. By that time, it is believed, a new people, a mixed race, may have grown up, a Christian people, stronger, more intelligent, more capable, an . Esquimo-Enropean race, to take their full place among the family of nations.
Mr. Hasse explained the nature of the Society, as first a training society, and secondly as furthering on their journey brethren who pass throngh London en route to mis!lion fields. It is a committee deputed by the whole Church, a delegation; "in our estimate," said he, " the whole body is a missionary society, and the S. F. G. is made up of officers whose position specially qualifies them as leaders; but the army is the Church itself. "
Bishop Taylor followed with some historical statements, calling attention to the pictures hung on the walls and pillars-pictures. of Bishop Stevens, the Waldensian, the first converts in Greenland, George Schmidt teaching the HottentDts, Schmidt and Nitschmann in prisDn, etc. He also. traced the SDciety's name tD3 JDhn 6: 7, 8 (Greek), and explained its dDuble purpDse, first to. suppDrt the GDspel in LabradDr, and secDndly to. further the GDspel by helping Dn their jDurney after a gDdly sort, brethren who. fDr Christ's namesake went fDrth, taking nDthing frDm the Gentile un- believers.
Then Mr. LatrDbe rehearsed the sto.ry Df the Harmony and its recent visit to. the coast statiDns Df the nDrth. Ten vessels have been emplDyed in cDnveying LabradDr missiDnaries, and the present ship is the fDurth bearing this sacred name. She has retul'ned frDm her thirty-first vDyage, but this is the Dne hundred and twenty-secDnd made to. these shDres by the MDravian vessels. He mentiDned the singular PrDvidence that has watched Dver these vessels, and said: "As the SDciety meets fDr its annual thanksgiving service, cDmbined this year with its third Jubilee, precisely the same language as was used at the Centenary will review an added fifty years o.f these special mercies: 'During this IDng periDd no. fatal accident has been permitted to. befall this favDred bark, Dr thDse whDm she was cDnveying acrDSS the bDisterDus and Dften ice-bDund deep, and alDng a CDast bristling with rDcks and abDunding with peculiar perils; nDr has the cDmmunicatiDn between the missio.naries and their brethren in EurDpe been in a single instance interrupted.' Partial failures have been experienced. In 1816, the Jemima landed the needed sto.res at Okak and Nain, but was cDmpelled to. leave HDpedale unvisited. The mDst seriDus failure was in 1853, when DUt o.f four statiDns the third Harmony was o.nly able to. reach HDpedale, the mDst sDuthern. In bDth instances persistent gales drDve the ship DUt to. sea. The extraDrdinary perils Df ice and war and Df the numerDUS rDcks alDng that still unsurveyed CDast have never been suffered to. cut o.ff the communicatio.n with the missio.n statiDns.
" The develDpment Df the missio.n and o.f the trade, which partly sup- Po.rts it, made it necessary in 1870 fDr the So.ciety to. purchase a secDnd vessel. The Oordelia was run do.wn by a steamer Dff the NDre in 1881. No. lives were lo.st in this, the mDst seriDus disaster in the one hundred and twenty years during which S. F. G. has been a shipowning firm."
Mr. Latrobe repDrted the deaths of valued native helpers, like the faithful Abraham Df Nain, and Hulda eightY-Dne years DId, and the aged Martha; at HDpedale, BDaz and his sister Bertha, wife Df JDshua, nDW tDD crippled to. be Df use. The epidemic influenza at HDpedale has taken nDt a few valued church-members away. The evangelistic tDurs by sledge were referred to., cDntinued for three weeks, with no. sleeping places at times but snDw.hnts ; the grammar Df the Esquimaux language, a wDrk Df twenty years by Dr. BDurquin, and which has been received with great thanks, was cordially mentiDned; and the Esquimaux tDngue was cDmpared to. a pDlar bear gnashing its teeth within the bars Df its cage, against the man who. wDuld seek to. bring and confine it within the rules of grammatical o.rder and regularity. Various remarks followed as to the trials of the native Christians, the long winter, the failure of autumn fisheries and sealing, and consequent lack of stores, the absence of reindeer Ilear the stations, and the good help of God at all the mission centres waR gratefully recorded.
About forty missionaries ar~ on the list, and the people may be regarded as almost altogether Christian. I n fifteen years they have contributed to outside and mission purposes out of their poverty, about £210 sterling, or upward of $1000.
Rev. W. Fuller Gooch gave a brief address, in which he referred to the eminently biblical lines on which the whole mission work of the Moravians is carried forward, as shown even in the fondness for scriptural names- Nain, Hebron, Ramah, etc.; and remarked that the mastership of Jesus was recognized even by the captain of the Harmony, who regarded himself as under orders from the Higher Captain.
After a few remarks by Rev. A. Kleinschmidt, who represented the Holland Society, the" Zeist," W. V. Drury, M.D., spoke for the London Association in aid of Moravian Missions, which for seventy years has contributed in all a quarter of a mmion of pounds sterling. It shows the confidence felt in the work of the United Brethren, that this Association, composed of all denominations, has for so long given such assistance to this small and comparatively poor body of disciples in carrying on their self-denying work. This Lovefeast, at Fetter Lane, fittingly came to a close in the Doxology, which as a unique specimen of the simple Moravian liturgy we append to this paper. Such a doxology is itself a constant reminder of the privileges and obligations of Christ's redeemed people to spread the good tidings of the Gospel; and is a noble conclusion to the brief and beautiful form of public prayer which is full of petitions for a lost world and for the Church in its missionary capacity.
DOXOLOGY.
[Italics represent the response of the congregation.] Unto the Lamb that was slain, (Rev. 5: 12.) And hath redeemed us out of all nations of the earth j (Rev. 5; 9.) Unto the Lord who purchased our souls f6r Himself ; (Acts 20 : 28.) Unto that Friend who loved us-and washed us from our sins in His own blood; (Rev. 1 : 5.) Who died f6r us once, (Rom. 6: 10, 11, 12; 2 Cor. 5: 15.) That we might die unto sin j (1 Peter 2 : 24.) Who r6se for us, That we also might rise j (1 Cor. 15.) Who ascended for us into heaven, To prepare a place for us j (John 14: 2, 3.) CHOIR. And to whom are subjected the angels, and powers, and dominions (1 Peter ;3 ; 22.) To Him be ~lory at all times,
HOW THE GOSPEL SPREADS IN CillNA
In the chu1'clt that waiteth for Him-and in that which is around Him, CHOIR. From everlasting to everlasting :- Amen. MINISTER. Little children, abide in Him; that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. (1 John 2: 28.) In none but Him alone I trust for ever, In Him, my Saviour.
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee ; The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee j The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace: IN THE NAME OF JESUS: AMEN. LONDON, November 20th, 1891.
HOW THE GOSPEL SPREADS IN CHINA.
BY REV. JOHN ROSS, MOUKDEN, NORTH CHINA.
Six years ago a young Bannerman of Chinese ancestry joined our then small church in Moukden. His father was a native doctor, who from a sense of sinfulness was deeply interested in the more earnest Buddhist sects. He had been a listener during th,e angry discussions raging against Christian doctrines when they were first introduced here. As a result he cut himself off from every form of idolatry. He had never spoken to either the foreign missionary or the native evangelist, but on his death- bed he recommended his two sons, and especially this younger one, to carefully examine Christianity for themselves, and not allow themselves to be carried away with the all but universal execration to which Christianity was then held up_ Young Jang was also a man with a sensitive conscience, and he, too, was anxious to rid his soul of sin. This, combined with his father's dying advice, led him to the chapel, where he became an inquirer as eager as he was intelligent. Being a fair scholar he soon became acquainted with the leading truths of Christianity and was baptized.
His new faith not only removed the former trouble of his soul, but filled him with a joy which nothing worldly could bestow. The fire so burned within that he gave up the situation he held, and went to the city immediately north of Moukden to impart his newly-fonnd treasure to his elder brother, a doctor in this city of Tieling.
The first news we had of the journey was when, on his return, with a face shining with joy, he informed us that his brother was a believer, and that he, his whole family, and a few intimate friends who had heard and become believers, were all applicants for baptism. My young colleague, Mr. Webater, had by this time come to Moukden, and it was deemed advisable that he should go north to investigate the facts of the story. R·, 800n returned and joyfully confirmed the statement of young Jang. On account of our strict rule for probation of intending members, no one was then haptized; but on a subsequent visit Mr. Webster baptized nine individuals, and took steps to open a station there. Two senior members, one, a convert of the late Mr. Burns, from Peking, and the other a Moukden man, were sent to initiate work in this apparently hopeful station.
Mr. Webster having accompanied me on the journey to the Corean valleys, already referred to in the REVIEW, suggested on our return jOlll'Iley, that instead of going back directly to Moukden, we should make a detour and see how it fared with the young station in Tieling. When we arrived at an inn on the outskirts of the city we were informed that the chapel had been attacked by a mob and wrecked. Desiring to know what amount of truth there was in the statement, we rode in to the chapel, but found no one there. We discovered that one of the two men in charge had fled, and the other was living in a neighboring house ae the chapel was uninhabitable. This man had already stood painfully severe persecutions. We found that the chapel door had been broken open, the windows smashed to pieces, and every perishable article of furniture completely destroyed. The streets were placarded with prominent "postE'fS" containing the wildest accusations and vituperations against the foreigners who had dared to intrude into the city. It transpired that the principal authors of this excitement and the chief leaders in the riot, were men from the magistrnte's office, which was bound, when necessary, to take steps to keep the peace. Therefore we inferred that the rcal cause of the outbreak was our old acquaintance, which for years had been our chief foe in Moukden-viz., the belief that we were there as political agents to crpaie a party which would be traitorous to China and friendly to foreign powers.
To do something to remove this evil prejudice we had the boards block. ing up the broken wiudow taken down, and we stood on the ledge exposed to the street. In a few seconds the street, which ordinarily is a busy one, was so crowded that there was no passage for man or beast. A dense mass of well-dressed men, mostly young, stood fronting us as closely packed as they could stand, filling the breadth of the wide street and stretching away to right and left. From the window-ledge, which was about three feet high, we could see and be seen by all the crowd. There we preached to the people for about an hour, always keeping in view, but never even inferentially' referring to the cause of the general excitemel)t. We preached the doctrine of Jesus, the Saviour from all sin and for all men. without distinction of nationality or condition. As both caution and explanation were essential to our position, and especially to our cause, we had to enter into minute details regarding the vital doctrines of Christianity, on account of which WP, had come to their "honorable" country. We were impressed with the death-like lltillness of the crowd. As far as indications of life were concerned they might as well have been cut out of stone. Every eye was unfalteringly bent on the two foreigners; not a head, not even a lip, as far as we could see, moved in that crowd while we remained face to face.
At length we descended from our pedestal, and gently wriggling our way through the crowd, we reached the two men who were holding our ponies. But as soon as we mounted and got just clear of the crowd, the unusual silence was broken by loud laughter, bitter mockery and reviling language, and by what was still more disagreeable, a shower of eithcr small pieces of brick, or of earth which, by the keen frost, were like so many stones. Our ponies soon trotted us beyond the reach of the missiles; but we had to go through a mile of street lined on both sides with shops which seemed crowded with human beings, who greeted us as we passed with mocking laughter, shouts of angry defiance, or revilings of the grossest kind. We were not much affected by this kind of thing which " breaks no bones," and soon we found ourselves in our inn, somewhat fatigued with the nervous excitement rather than by the labors of the day.
The young doctor had been boycotted and left some time before for his native viIlage.
Exactly two and a half years after that visit of ours, during which we were so unceremoniously treated, Mr. Webster stayed in the same inn, and walked that mile of street between it and the chapel. As usual, at most of the shop-doors stood some of the men in charge of the shop. Many of these men bowed to him as he passed, with a smile of recognition, inquired after his own welfare and that of his family left behind in Moukden. He entered the compound of the small chapel, where he was met and joyfully welcomed by a considerable band of men who had meantime become members.
Next day he dispensed the communion to a congregation of fifty baptized men and women. The" bread" was handed round in a plate, which he used for his food on the road, and the wine was drunk out of his breakfast-cup, as the most respectable vessel available. "But," as he stated in a letter written at the time, " the Holy Spirit of God was there." The emotion was profound. Men and women as they thus for the first time touched and tasted the tangible tokens of their Redeemer's dying love, did so with bursting sobs and with tears flowing down their cheeks. Those only who know the stolid nature of the Chinese, and their remarkable powers of self-control, can alone fully appreciate the significance of such uncontrollable emotion.
Two years later I was there dispensing the communion to a company of about double the number, and one which would have been much larger could all the members in the outlying villages connected with Tieling have been present. The members have had to take a second and larger chapel, but this was Sl) full that a number of men had to stand during the entire service, though these were then mostly applicants for baptism. On a subsequent visit a couple of months later there were twenty-seven persons baptized. press of time prevented ~e then from going to the villages where a number of women believers, unable from household cares, to go to the city, are awaiting baptism. Every year sees a larger number than the preceding enter the Church, and every year sees an enlarged number of villages taken possession of by one or more of the disciples of Jesus. One vil!age, about seven miles from Tieling in a beautiful valley, is wholly Christian, its inhabitants being all either baptized or applicants for baptism.
Instead of the former vituperation, the foreigner is now saluted by the more respectable citizens with kindliness, the magistrate is well disposed, all the lower officials are glad to be on friendly terms with the evangelist and the deacons of the church; and there is not only no avowed hostility of any kind against those who have become members, or obstacles placed in the way of those desiring to become Christians, but the " whole city speaks we]) of Christianity."
No Christian man will be at a loss to set down all those changed condi· tions to the power of Him who works through the preaching of the Word; but He who is the Almighty, and who does what Be wills, has willed to do thIS kmd of work only in conneetion with human agency. He gives the increase, He demands that Paul plant the seed. Whose eloquence wa.'! employed, whose lives were influential as the immediate came in producing this wonderful change-amouuting to a contrast–between our fir8t visit and my last· 1 The change has not been effected thr01}gh the preaching of the foreigner, nor solely by his life. As the work was begun by that youth scarcely SIX years ago, so has it been carried on all but exclusively by his countrymen who were or have become believers, and latterly by himself, who is now-and appropriately-the trained evangelist in charge of the station.
" He who runs can read" the lessons of stimulus, lessons of faith. lessons of caution, lessons of fear and of joy, which the above very brief narrative, which could be repeated of other places not a few, presents to all sections of the Christian Church doing work for the Master among the Chinese. And in connection with this story may I be allowed humbly to rebuke the unbelief of many in our home churches, and among many of our leading clergy 1 They tell us our duty is to preach, but not to expect conversions. I would never have myself come to China did I not believe it my duty to expect hearers of the Gospel to be born again. I have expected, always, undoubtingly expected, conversions. At this moment I expect more than ever before, and I know I shall not be disappointed, for " faithful is He that hath promised." Christians in Christian lands expect conversions! There is something, whatever it be, radically wrong jf there be no conversions under the proclamation of the message of God to man. Expect conversions. Pray for them earnestly, but pray in faith, believing that ye shall have what ye ask; if not, your prayers are in vain. Act for them solemnly, and act with wisdom to take away those things which hinder the conversion of hearers. "Open thy mouth," open it wide, :;u~q see if God, the ~aithfl,ll and the trte~ will not,fill it.
FORmIGN INFLUENCE IN CHINA
FOREIGN INFLUENCE IN CHINA.
BY REV. A. P. PARKER, SHANGHAI, CHINA.
Very few people in Western countries have any adequate idea of this great Chinese Empire, of its size, the character of its people, the strength and extent of its civilization. To many, as Professor Max Muller says, the Chinaman is a joke. To others he is uncivilized or only half civilized, and but little removed from the Hottentot or the American Indian. A dozen years ago, the Supreme Court of California, in its zeal to bring a law to bear against the Chinese, held that" the term Indian included the Chinese or Mongolian race." "It thus upheld a wrong," says Dr.
S. Wells Williams, " while it enunciated a misconception. It placed the subjects of the oldest government now existing, upon a parity with a race that has never risen above tribal relations. It included under one term a people whose literature dates its beginning before the Psalms or Exodus, and containing authors whose words have influenced more human beings than any other writings, with men whose highest attainments in writing have been a few jlictures and tokens drawn on a buffalo robe. It equalized all the qualities of industry, prudence. skill, learning, invention, and whatever gives security to life and property among men, with the instincts al!d habits of a hunter and a nomad. It stigmatized a people which has taught us how to make porcelain, silk, and gunpowder, given us the compass, and shown us the use of tea, by classing them with a race which has despised labor, has had no arts, schools, or trade, and in the midst of the Californians themselves is content to dig roots for a living." So long as these wholly unjust and inadequate conceptions prevail, so long will the people and country be treated with contempt on the one hand, while, on the other hand, the Church will fail to compre- hend the vastness of the work of evangelization to be done here and the immense outlay of men and money and prayer that are necessary to accomplish it.
China is a great country, great in size, great in history, great in civiliza- tion. Extending over 71 degrees of longitude and 34 parallels of latitude, it covered, in 1840, an area of 5,300,000 square miles, a territory a third larger than the Continent of Europe, and nearly half as large again as the United States, which covers nearly 3,700,000 square miles, including Alaska. This vast area has been reduced, during the last fifty years, by about a half a million square miles, ceded to Russia and England. Reach- ing from the frozen snows of Siberia on the north, to the tropical regions of the eighteenth parallel of north latitude on the south, China affords as great a variety of climate and production as any other country in the world. Vast mountain chains, wide and fertile plains and valleys, numer- ous lakes and great river systems, are some of its physical features. It contains a population, according to Dr. S. Wells Williams, the best authority on Chinese subjects, of 380,000,000, in the eighteen provinces, and 23,000,000 in Manchuria and the colonial possessions, or a total of 403,000,000. It yields every kind of mineral, vegetable, and animal production necessary for the sustenance of its teeming population and for the development of the arts of civilized lifc-a country complete in itself.
It is the oldest country in exi~tence that has a history, covering a period of more than 4600 years without a break in its continuity. Contemporaneous with Egypt, and Nineveh, and Babylon, it has outlived them all. While these mighty empires have sunken in oblivion and heaps of rubbish mark the forgotten scenes of their power and grandeur, China has continued on her way, and is to-day one of the great,nations of the earth, whose powerful influence on the destiny of the human race it is impossible to forecast. One of the oldest books in the world, outside of the Hebrew Scriptures, is the Shu King, one of the Chinese classics, which contains a record of events that occurred in this country B.C. 2300. The dim dawn of Chinese history reaches back to 2800 B.C., or, according to Dr. Hales's chronology, 350 years after the flood, and more than 1600 years after the creation of man. The period of authentic history may, according to the most reliable evidence, be placed at about B.C. 2300, in the reigns of Yao and Shun. Everything in this country is old. Centuries are but as years and years are but as days in the history of China, as compared with the mushroom growths of America and modern Europe.
Possessed of a knowledge of letters, architecture, agriculture, and civil government, two thousand years before our era, Chinese civilization was old when Greece and Rome were young, and ten centuries ago China was the most civilized nation in the world. At that time, and subsequently, reports of the wealth and power and Oriental splendor of the Chinese Empire created as much wonderment in Europe as the Chinese of the present day experience when they hear of the power and grandeur of Western nations. Without discussing in this connection the elements of Chinese civilization, we may note the fact that it has wrought out one stupendous result that may well challenge our admiration and invite our studious attention. It has kept nnder one government, under one homogeneous set of civil institutions, the greatest mass of human beings that has ever existed under one government in any age of the world. In view of this fact we might well inquire what are the elements of its strength that have served to accomplish such a result. Geographical isolation, filial piety, industry, innate strength of character, all these have been offered in explanation of this wonderful phenomenon. Perhaps they have all combined, under the over-ruling providence of God, to produce a result that is the marvel of the foreign student of the. history and institutions of this country.
But while this is a highly civilized nation, perhaps as highly civilized as any heathen nation has ever been in the history of the world, yet it is 1I nation of idolaters, sunken in gross and degrading superstitions. Reaching its highest point of development a thousand years ago, it has been on the down grade ever since in all the elements of mental and moral progress, with only occasional periods of temporary recovery. A discussion of the moral and spiritual condition of the Chinese, which I may take up in a future paper, would show that with the multiplication of idols there has come a decrease of moral force, and the .gathering gloom of superstition has so darkened the minds of the people as to practically arrest their progress in material, mental, and moral improvement. The facts that lie on the very surface of their past history and present condition indicate that they have, somewhere in the past, reached a stage of arrested development, and idolatry and superstition are largely the cause of it.
We cannot doubt that it is in the purpose of God that this nation is now being brought into close and vital contact with the great Christian civilization of the West, in order to arouse her from her mental slumber and moral deadness and start her again on the path of progress. It becomes us, therefore, to inquire what are the influences that are being brought to bear upon this great mass of civilized heathenism, how far the people are yielding to those influences, and what is the outlook for the future.
China's relations with foreign countries have been more or less desultory until within the last fifty years. Geographically isolated from the rest of the world, so that she was very difficult of access before the age of steam, she has been left alone, largely, to work out her own destiny, almost wholly uninfluenced by any other than inferior peoples. " But to-day she stands face to face," in the language of one of her most eminent statesmen, "with a condition of things unprecedented in the history of the country. It is the decree of Heaven and we cannot close our doors and refuse to receive foreigners or fold our hands and have nothing to do with them. "
There is reliable evidence that the Chinese had trade relations with the Roman Empire' as early as A.D. 150, but the long and perilous journey to China uver the mountains and high table-lands of Central Asia made the trade uncertain and fragmentary. In the latter half of the ninth century the Arabs carried on trade with the Chinese by means of junks, crossing the Indian Ocean, passing through the Straits of Malacca, and on up the eastern coast of China as far as Hangchow. The visit of Marco Polo to China in the thirteenth century, his long residence here, and the accounts he gave of his observations and experiences, on his return, brought the great Mongol Empire vividly to the attention of Western Europe. One result of this was the sending of Roman Catholic missionaries to China to convert the heathen to the Christian faith. Great success, apparently, attended the labors of these missionaries, but their work was destroyed with the overthrow of the Mongol Dynasty.
In the early part of the sixteenth century Portugal and Holland sought to open up trade relations with the country by sea, and succeeded to some extent in accomplishing their object. It is noteworthy that up to the advent of the Dutch and Portuguese and Spanish traders the country was practically open to foreign trade j but the conquest of Malacca by the Dutch, and of the Philippines by the Spanish, and the taking forcible possession of the region now known as Mac.ao by the Portuguese, together with the buccaneering exploits of the traders from these countries along the coast of China, excited the suspicions of the Chinese, and the country was subsequently closed to foreign trade, except at the port of Canton. British trade with China commencing in the middle of the seventeenth century, and resulting in the Opium War of 1842 and the opening of China to foreign residents, though beginning later than that -of any other nation, has exerted a greater influence on the country than all the other nations of the West combined. Without, however, going into the details of the earlier attempts of the nations of Europe to open up diplomatic and commercial relatious with the Chinese, suffice it to say that it is only within the past fifty years, or, more strictly speaking, within the past thirty years, that the country has been really open to foreign intercourse. The Opium War of 1842, at the conclusion of which Christian England forced heathen China to pay $11,000,000 for the opium which British merchants had smuggled into the country, and which the Chinese Government had seized and destroyed, and also $10,000,000 for war expenses, while it was an act of the grossest injustice, yet in the wonderful providence of God it resulted in a great blessing, not only to China but to the civilized world, in that it opened China to foreign intercourse and to the introduction of Christian missions into the country.
By the Treaty of Nanking, entered into at the close of that war, five ports were opened along the coast of China where foreigners were to be allowed to reside on Chinese soil. Before the opening of these five ports -Canton, Foochow, Ningpo, Shanghai, and Tientsin-and since the closing of the country against the Dutch and Portuguese traders and the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries, no foreigner had been allowed to reside on Chinese soil, except within the narrow limits of the little compound known as the .. Factories" on the bank of the river at Canton. But now by the terms of this treaty, foreigners, whether missionaries, merchlnts, or government officials, were allowed the right of residence within the borders of the Celestial Kingdom, subject, indeed, still to their own laws, but guaranteed protection to life and property by the Chinese Government. This is not the place to discuss the subject, but a review of foreign intercourse with China shows that at no time, particularly within the last three hundred years, since foreigners have sought to open up trade relations with the Chinese, would it have been safe to have allowed unrestricted intercourse with the peoples of the West. The flagitious conduct of many of the traders that have come to these shores, and the intriguing schemes of the Jesuits for political power and interference with the civil authority, have been entirely sufficient grounds for the fear and suspicion of foreigners entertained by the Chinese, and show only too clearly that had the foreigners been allowed free access to the country, in all probability the government would have crumbled to pieces and the country would have been divided up between the three or four most powerful nations of Europe, especially as it was the general belief in Catholic countries that all pagan lands belonged to the Pope and he could give them to whomsoever he pleased.
At the conclusion of the war between China and the Allies, England and France, an additional number of pClrts were opened to foreigners for residence, and again, in 1876, at the conclusion of the negotiations consequent on the murder of Margary, an English commissioner, by the Chinese in Southwest China, still another number was added to the list of treaty ports, so that now there are twenty-one places on the coast of China and up the Yangtse River where foreigners are allowed to reside, own property, and carryon trade with the Chinese. Originally missionaries were restricted to these treaty ports, but they have long ago overleaped these bounds, and are now to be found in every part of this vast Empire carrying on their work.
In the resistle!!s march of events of this wonderful nineteenth century, the mighty momentum of Christian civilization has struck this country, startling the Chinese out of their mental and moral lethargy, and while they have striven, blindly and foolishly at times, to rcsist the invasion of foreigners and foreign innovations, they have latterly begun to accept the situation and try to adapt themselves to a condition of things that they have found it impossible to avoid, and are, in a word, yielding to the pressure of foreign influence that has been brought to bear upon them with ever-increasing force.
The pressure of foreign influence has been delivered upon the Chinese along three general lines-viz., political, commercial, and missionary. The governments of the West have been urging upon the Chinese the necessity of receiving ministers, consuls, and government agents at Peking and the treaty ports, and of sending similar government agents abroad to the treaty powers, thus entering into the comity of nations, adopting the great principles of international law, and reaping the immense advantages growing out of intercourse with various countries of the world.
Merchants have brought innumerable cargoes of the products of field and factory, of mine and machine, to this country, urging upon the Chinese the advantages of purchasing these goods and of selling to the foreigners their productions, such as silk, tea, porcelain, etc. The merchants have brought here specimens or models or descriptions of nearly all of the principal inventions of the great West, the steam-engine, the steamship, the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the dynamo, the printing press, mining machinery, etc., :lnd have urged upon the Chinese the necessity of employing these wonderful machines to develop the resources of the country and become great and powerful among the nations of the world. Missionaries have been pressing into the country proclaiming hope for lost men through the Gospel of the Son of God; showing the folly and sin of idolatry; urging the p,eople to forsake their idols and tum to the living God; establishing churches, schools, and hospitals; translating into the Chinese language, religious, educational, and general literature, sC8ttering miIlions of pages annually of Bibles and Christian books over the land, and bringing to the knowledge of the people the wonderful discoveries in religion, science, and general knowledge that to-day constitute the precious heritage of Christian nations. It has required steady pressure and persistent effort to do this work. The Chinese are full of suspicion as to our purpose in coming here. They are ready to attribute to us every motive but the right one. It has been exceedingly difficult, in many towns in the interior, to rent houses, or purchase land on which to erect mission buildings. A fear is entertained by some of the Chinese that when a piece of land is bought by a missionary it thereby becomes a bit of foreign territory. The missionaries are accused of the vilest crimes in the calendar; of kidnapping women and children j of gouging out the eyes of children with which to make medicine to Bend to foreign countries; of being spies in the employ of foreign governments seeking to gain a foothold in the country in order to its ultimate conquest; of trying by the dissemination of strange and pernicious doctrines, to break down all the sanctions of morality and destroy the foundations of social and civil order, etc.
But notwithstanding the difficulties in the way, notwithstanding the fear, the suspicion, the self· conceit and the inertia, the pressure of foreign influence has been l!teady, continuous, and increasing, and we see the result to-day in the movement that is manifest on every hand. The Chinese are yielding to the pressure, slowly, it is true, but nevertheles~ surely. Many whose information is more or less superficial, think: that the Chinese are so proud and self-conceited, so bound to their ancient traditions and averse to anything new as to be altogether impervious to any influence coming from other countries; or else that they are so stolid and sordid, flO gross and material, so sunken in superstition and intellectual stagnation, as to be utterly incapable of being raised to the high plain of thought and spiritual conception contemplated in our Christian civilization. But a nearer view of the history of the Chinese, a closer acquaintance with their national life and character, would serve to dissipate many of these false notions, and give a clearer idea of the nature of those influences that are needed to hring about that improvement which every well-wisher of the race so ardently desires to see.
When we consider the, to the Chinese, long and glorious history of China in the past; the volume and range of her literature, which represents the gathered treasures of forty centuries j the long roll of illustrious sages, statesmen, military heroes, scholars, poets, and philosophers, that adorns the pages of her history; her long-established institutions and the practical outcome of these in good government and social order; we cannot wonder that she is somewhat slow to yield to those influences which come to her from outside nations, whose boasted superiority is bat a growth of yesterday, and the conduct of wh~se people in this country has, in hundreds of instances, flagrantly violated those high moral teachings claimed to be contained in the holy books of the Christians.
But a few facts, out of many here briefly stated, will suffice to show that the Chinese are yielding to the pressure that is being brought to bear upon them, and are moving as fast, perhaps, as it is safe for them to move. Much more rapid movement would bring with it the danger of social and civil upheaval and disintegration. The people must be gradually prepared for the changes before these can with safety be brought about.
In the first place they are yielding along the line of political pressure. Minister, consuls, and other government agents have been received at Peking and the treaty ports from the various treaty powers j Chinese ministers and consuls have been sent abroad to the various governments of Europe and America; in the early part of the present year the Emperor granted an audience to the foreign ministers resident at Peking, and hereafter a similar audience is to be granted to all the ministers of the treaty powers. And to-day these various treaty powers, instead of being looked upon as tributary countries, stand recognized by the Chinese as independent sovereign powers and are treated with on terms of equality and respect. Wheaton's and Brul).tscheIIi's treatises on International Law have been translated into Chinese by Dr. Martin and others, and the leading Chinese government officials have read them and can quote tbe principles of international law as readily as anyone; as, for instance, in the case of the discrimination against the Chinese as compared to other nations, shown by the action of the United States Congress in arbitrarily restricting Chinese immigration, either with or without negotiation with the Chinese Government.
Again, tbe Cbinese are yielding along the line of commercial influence. An immense trade bas grown up with foreign countries. Millions of dollars' worth of goods are brougbt here annually from all tbe countries of the world, principally, of conrse, from Europe and America. The Chinese know a good thing when tbey see it. They know the value of a dollar as well as any people in the world, and when they Bee the abundance, the excellence, tbe cheapness, of the goods tbat are brought to them from foreign countries, they buy them readily and in great quantities. National prejudice, self-conceit, suspicion, and distrust, all' go down in one common ruin before the mighty force of the desire for material gain. The products of the looms of Manchester and Massachusetts are displacing the coarser and more costly native hand-made fabrics; kerosene is superseding the vegetable tallow dips and rushligbts ; Yankee clocks and watches are taking the place of the native sun-dial and the incense time-stick; while California flour and foreign groceries and hardware in great variety are coming in to supply the wants that the native products fail to meet. A fleet of some twenty steamers, owned by the Chine8e Government, and commandp-d by European officers, does a large part of the carrying trade along her fifteen hundred miles of coast line j a short hne of railroad, eighty miles in length, was built in 1888, in North China, from Tientsin to the Kaiping coal mines, and recently steps have been taken to extend this road to the northeastern boundary of the Empire at Shanhaikwan ; two years ago the Emperor issued a decree in which he said that railroads were necessary in order to develop the strength and resources of a country, and ordered the construction of a line of railroad from Peking right down through the centre of the country -to Hankow on the Yangtse River. This road has not been built, owing to the bitter opposition of the members of what may be called the Conservative party among the Emperor's advisers, who have succeeded in staving off the work of construction for the time being. But it is the general belief, both of Chinese and foreigners, that this road will be built before very long. The tele~ graph was introduced in 1881, consequent on the fear of a war with Russia, and it has been gradually extended to every part of the Empire, and has been an important means of strengthening the power of the central government over the provincial governors and viceroys. Mining machinery has been introduced for mining coal, iron, gold, silver, copper, etc.; last year a mint was established in Canton, the machinery of which was purchased in Europe, and already silver dollars and small coin, the product of the mint, are being put into circulation j and as the result of the wars between China and foreign nations, several large arsenals and navy-yards have been established where arms, ammunition, and gunboats are being manufactured after the most approyed European models.
The yielding of the Chinese along the line of missionary pressure is very marked and very encouraging. About fourteen hundred Protestant missionaries, to say nothing of the numerous Roman Catholic missionaries, are established in various parts of the Empire, not only at the open ports, but also away in the interior, in Northern, Western, and Southwestern China, gathering churches, carrying on school and hospital work, and going everywhere preaching the Word by the living voice and the printed page. The various Protestant churches number some forty thousand Christians, which with the baptized children, the candidates for church-membership, and the nominal believers, make up a Christian community of not far short of one hundred and fifty thousand. Three thousand native assistants, preachers, exhorters, licentiates, colporteurs, and Bible-wo~en are helping in the great work of making known the Gospel to their fellow-countrymen; more than fi;e hundred churches have been organized, about one ,fifth of which are self-supporting; there are about seventeen thousand pupils in the various mission schools; three hundred and fifty thousand patients were treated in 1889 in more than one hundred hospitals and dispensaries; and six hundred and sixty-six thousand Scripture portions-that is, whole Bibles, Testaments, Gospels, etc., were sown broadcast over the land. But besides these figures there are numerous indications that the power of the Gospel is being felt in this country, which cannot be tabulated. The pure life, the fervent devotion, the patience under persecution, the triumphant death, of the native Christians prove the genuineness of the work of grace in their hearts. A great change has taken place in many of the older mission centres in the sentiments of the masses of the people toward the missionaries. Instead of being called" foreign devil," we are more frequently greeted with" Mr. Foreigner;" the pcople listen longer and more attentively to the preaching in thc chapels; they are bolder to come to our hospitals for medical treatment and surgical operations; parents are more ready to send thcir children to our pchools, and the people buy and read our books more readily. All these and many other facts, which there is not space to detail here, show that the Chinese are yielding to the pressure. The Gospel is the power of God to the salvation of this people. One other fact ought to be stated in this connection, a great improvement is going on in the educational system of the country, as the combined result of foreign influence. In 1887 Western science and mathematics were, by Imperial decree, introduced into the government examinations ; government schools have been established, with foreign professors, for teaching these subjects and the principal languages of Europe; the government has established a translation department in which foreigners acquainted with the Chinese language are employed to translate works on history, science, mathematics, military tactics, naval architecture, etc., from English and other languages into Chinese; and these translations are being published and disseminated far and wide throughout the country.
The future is full of hope. The tremor of new movements is in the air. We who are here and have a finger upon the pulse of the country, can feel the throb of the new life that is being poured into its arteries. Those are most hopeful who have been longest here and know most of the people, of the difficulties in the way, as well as of the forces that are needed to overcome them. Revolutions never go backward. Progress will be onward and upward. The recent anti-foreign riots along the valley of the Yangtse River will give a temporary check to missionary work, but this check will only be temporary. Foreign influence will be strengthened, ultimately, as the result of these riots, and especially will Christian missions receive a great forward impetus by them. We are already reaping some advantage from these riots. The decree of the Emperor, issued on account of the disturbances, places us in a stronger position than we have ever occupied in the history of mission work in China.
Thus every difficulty will be but the stepping-stone to higher achievement. The work of awakening and improvement is bound to go on Machinery will be introduced and produced in ever-increasing quantities j the material resources of the country will be developed; mines will be opened for coal, iron, copper, silver, gold; improved methods of agricult~re will benefit the farmer; railroads aud steamers will afford raJ;lid cOIll-
THE GREAT MISSIONARY UPRISING
munication and vastly increase trade and production ; the great changes that are even now taking place in the educational system of the country will improve the character while they extend the benefits of education; the newspaper" the telegraph, the telephone, will, as they are already doing, spread general intelligence among the people; while above all, and better than all, the Gospel of the Son of God will go on with ever-increasing power from the vantage ground already gained, until this shall become a Christian nation and the last stronghold of Satan will be captured.
But the Church must rally to the work with her men, her money, and her prayers. We mUl!t haye enough men to do the work. Four hundred millions of people cannot be evangelized by fourteen hundred missionaries. One missionary to fifty thousand people would require eight thousand missionaries for China.
[NOTE.-A copy of the above paper was sent to the Southern Methodist Quarterly Review also; but was intended for insertion in both Reviews. -ED.] THE GREAT MISSIONARY UPRISING.
BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, BELLEVUE, O.
In Great Britain as the centre, and intimately connected with the organization of the London Missionary Society in 1795, but powerfully affecting also all the Protestant churches of the Continent, and of the United States as well, for years William Carey had stood almost alone in English-speaking Christendom. a voice crying in the wilderness. His heart was well-nigh the only one all aflame for the conversion of the world. Even when the Baptist Society had been formed and Carey had sailed for India, the interest was confined to the Baptist churches of Britain, neither numerous, nor strong, nor held in much repute, and only to a very limited extent even in their membership. Hence, after the long and dreary night, it was but the rising of the day-star that appeared, at most but the day-dawn, or the first blossom of the spring. The glorious sun, the lovely season of buds and flowers, had not yet made its advent.
But under the guidance and inspiration of the Divine Spirit, various cooperating causes had long been preparing the way for a majestic and widespread onward movement in behalf of missions. For fifty years the Wes- 1eyan revival had been turning the religious world upside down and had been kindling on every hand boundless love and zeal, desire and devotion. As far back as 1744 had been originated in Scotland a plan, which was soon adopted by many churches, both in the Old World and the New, for the frequent and regular observance of a day of "extraordinary prayer" for the descent of the Spirit and the spread of the kingdom throughout the whole world; and of late such gatllerings had become much more com- won. In addition, the unexampled missionary activity of the entire Mora,- vian Church ever since 1732, and the self-denying apostolic labors of such as Ziegenbalg and Schwartz in Tranquebar, beginning in 1705, as well as of Brainerd and Edwards (1741-58) among the American Indians, had sup- plied noble examples. Then finally, helping in the same direction, came Carey's great sermon, the sublime act of faith performed at Kettering, and his setting forth for the ends of the earth.
" The first two English missionaries to India seemed, to those who sent them forth, to have disappeared forever. For fourteen months no tidings of their welfare reached the poor praying people of the midlands, who had been emboldened to begin the enterprise." But at last, July 29th, 1794, letters arrived for Ryland, of Bristol, who read them and sent at once for Dr. Bogue, of Gosport, a Presbyterian clergyman, and Mr. Stephen to rejOice with him. First, they all gave thanks, and prayed for a blessing upon the Baptist Society, and then the two latter called upon Mr. Hey, a leading minister, and it was determined to begin at once to agitate for the organization of a simila: society. though with a much broader ecclesiastical basis. Suiting the action to the word, Dr. Bogue prepared an article which appeared in September, in the Evangelical Magazine, addressed to "Evangelical dissenters who practice infant baptism," urging all such to bestir themselves; arguing that the time to begin was fully come; ex- pressing the conviction that many would be found willing and eager to assist if only a few would step forth t6 lead, and that funds sufficient could be gathered to support at le!lst twenty or thirty missionaries. Such in God's hands was" the little fire" which kindled" how great a matter !"
The effect of this clarion call was immediate and profound. The next month it was further stated in the same periodical that, if a society should be formed upon a large scale and upon a basis so broad as to unite Chris- tians " without respect to different denominations, or repulsive distinctions arising from points in dispute between Calvinists and Arminians," one man stood pledged for £100 and another for £500 to equip the first six volun- teers for a mission to the South Seas. Some weeks later appeared the suggestion o,·er the signatures of eighteen Independent, seven Presbyterian, three Wesleyan, and three Episcopal ministers, for a meeting for consulta- tion, urging that in the mean time local and district gatherings be held to stir interest, collect funds, and choose delegates. In July, 1795, another article reached the public from the glowing pen of "T. R." (Raweis, a Church of England clergyman, whose influence through all the years next ensuing was unequalled in raising enthusiasm to the sticking point), " showing the very probable success of a proper mission to the South Seas," giving a long and glowing and inten~ely rose-colored setting forth of the situation in those remote parts, proving conclusively the islands to be a very terrestrial paradise, and the people the loving and lovable inno- cent children of nature. ~ Thus, at length, all things being read)", September, 21st, the mo- mentous meetings began in London. At the very outset subscriptions were made by the country ministers amounting to £750. Many encouraging letters from all parts of the island were read j it was announced that several men were ready to offer themselves, and the vote was unanimous to organ- ize at once. This" fundamental principle" was adopted: "The design is not to send Presbyterianism, Independency, Episcopacy, or any other form of church order and government (about which there may be differ- ence of opinion among serious persons), but the glorious Gospel of the blessed God to the heathen j and it shall be left (as it ought to be left) to the minds of the persons whom God may call into the fellowship of His Son from among them to assume for themsel ves such form-of church gov- ernment as to them shall appear most agreeable to the Word of God." For three full days the gatherings continued, with two sermons each day upon pertinent themes from eminent divines, and to audiences" immensely great." It seemed like a new Pentecost" with Christians of all denomi- nations for the first time in the same place, using the same hymns and prayers, and feeling themselves to be one." Two hundred ministers sat together in the galleries j and Dr. Bogue said : " We are called together for the funeral of bigotry j and I hope it will be buried so deep as never to rise again." Vhereat" the whole vast body could scarce refrain from one general shout of joy. . . Such a scene was never, perhaps, before beheld in our world j and it was a foretaste of heaven. • . . We shall account it through eternity a distinguished favor, the highest honor, that we appeared here and gave in our names among the founders of the society. This will be ever remembered by us as the era of Christian benevolence. "
The flame thus kindled in the metropolis quickly spread throughout all Britain j and, of course, it followed at once that money in abundance began to flow in from all quarters. One church in Southampton subscribed £270, and from Market Harborough came £83 Is. 7d. with this word: " No event in life has given me more pleasure than this glorious attempt to send forth the Gospel." The children in a boarding-school, unasked, gave £1 98. 6d. Scotland too was aroused. Missionary societies were formed in Edinburgh and Glasgow, ani before many months had passed nearly £12,000 had been forwarded to the London treasury. Earnest souls upon the Continent dispatched their contributions, amounting erelong to upward of £1500 j so that by the end of October, the directors had £3000 in hand, which, three months later, had more than doubled, and in June, 1796, they could report the receipts at £10,000. Missionaries, too, had offered themselves in encouraging numbers. By midsummer it was decided to purchase a ship and found missions in Otaheite, the Friendly and Pelew Islands, and the Marquesas, with projects looking toward Madagascar, the West Indies, and the north shore of the Caspian, so great was their faith, and so enlarged were their ideas and longings. And thus early the prophetic hope was expressed that this uprising for the world's redemption" will spread to every Christian bosom, to the Dutch, German, American, and all Protestant churches, till the whole professing world shall burn with fervent love, and lab'or to sprelld in every heathen land the sweet savor of the Redeemer's name."
Accordingly, the Duff was purchased at a cost of £4875, and furnished for her long voyage at an additional expense of more than £7000, several years' supplies for the missionaries included. A profit of £5000 was expected from freight to be brought upon the homeward trip. A call was made, and nobly responded to, for books, tools, cooking utensils, instruments, seeds and other supplies; and one poor man expended £2 28. upon six spades, nine' hammers, and four thousand 6d and 10d nails. July 2Rth, 1796, the twenty-nine chosen were solemnly set apart-six of them married, with two childIen, only four of them ordained, one a physician, and the others artisans. Thousands joined in the novel and most impressh'e service, and no less than ten clergymen-Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Independent, Seceder, and Methodist-sharing in the exercises, "showing that affection is increasing between ministers of different denominations, who, previous to this institution, had neither fellowship nor intercourse." In reference to the religious situation it was written soon after: "In no instance in the limits of our recollection has such a ~pirit of prayer and supplication been poured out upon the churches, or such general approbation been discovered. The greatest kindness has been displayed in all departments of the Government. Neither the Council Board nor the Custom House would accept fees." Wednesday, August 10th, at five A.M., the Duff' dropped down from B1ackall to Gravesend, a vast multitude beholding, and came to anchor at t!pithead the Tuesday following. The East India convoy having already sailed, she was compelled (since the French wars were raging) to wait six weeks, at Portsmouth, for the Adamant, a fifty-two gun ship. September 22d found her at St. Helen's. The following day her anchors were finally hoisted and her sails spread for the Antipodes. Thus the great undertaking, followed in Carey's path, three years and a half later than he, and yet-in some respects at least-even outdoing that immortal founder and pioneer. It was now that one moralized with altogether pardonable exaltation of feeling: ., It is highly probable that since the Lord and the apostles, the bosom of the deep has never been graced with such a vessel," or one" in which so many thou~ands of Christians embarked their hopes and followed with their prayers."
What remarkable and rapid growth may be discerned during the period under view! How different all this, for magnitude of operations and for eclat, from the deed of those twelve obscure NorthaUJptonshire Baptist ministers, and their subscription of £13 28. 6d., over whose utter inadequacy and insignificance Rev. Sydney Smith half a generation later could make exceeding merry! For nearly two years, until May, 1798, not a word was heard from Captain 'Wilson and the tremendous ventures made by faith. Leaving the Duff t.o battle for weeks with fearful storms off Cape Horn, and then, baffled, to beat her way past the Cape of Good Hope through 262 0 of longitude, let us glance at certain step8 .:,f progress meantime taken at home. Measures were immediately "et on foot to start a mission in the Foulah country, some 250 miles from Sierra Leone, for which GlaRgow and Edinburgh offered two men each, and the London So- ciety was to add the same number. Plans were also soon laid for a mission to the Cape. In January, 1797, it could be affirmed: "Christians in every corner of the land are meeting in a regnlar manner, and pouring out their souls for God's blessing on the world." And again: "The efforts most successfully made to introduce the Gospel to the South Seas have had a most powerful tendency to unite the devoted servants of Christ of every denomination in the bonds of brotherly love, and to awaken zeal to help the perishin!! multitudes in our own country, and 'also the Jews." ~onth by month came tidings of both local and district movements to raise missionary funds, and to multiply toilerfl at many points in the foreign field, and in every destitute region at home. For this purpose scores of organizations were formE'd in every denomination. In America similar interest prevailed; in Ma8~achusetts and Connecticut, at New York, Philadelphia, and othE'r parts of the country. .Nor waR the enterprise Jess upon the Continent; in Germany, Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland associations were also formed. With all these societies, as well as with various individuals, the directors of the London Society opened correspondence for mutual instruction and encouragement. Von Schirnding, a German nobleman, was delighted to hear of the evangelizing projects Oll foot j for years he had been cheriRhing similar schemes. and aided liberally with money and men. Vanderkemp, in Holland, a famed scholar and soldier, and aforetime a pronounced sceptic, offered himself as a messenger of glad tidings to the heathen, and proceeded at once to organize the Netherlands Missionary Society. Inspiring letters came from BasIc, which since 1771 had been the seat of a widespread movement" to maintain evangelical doctrine and piety." Certain devout German brethren sent their congratulations in this fashion: "It is like the dawn promising a beautiful day after the dark night. It is the beginning of a ne,w epoch for the kingdom of God on earth. Your undertaking and its success fills our hearts with joy and our eyes with tears. The history of Great Britain is sanctified by this unparalleled mission. What harmony among different perRu!lsions! You call on the wise and good of every nation to take interest in the work and bear a part. Such a call was never heard of before. It was reserved for the close of the eighteenth century to be distinguished by it." So it was that the tide of zeal rose and spread.
It was not until May, 1798, that, in a letter from Captain Wilson; written at Canton six months before, the first tidings came from the great missionary venture in the South Seas; and in July following the Puff lay at anchor in the Downs. And now came the climax of exultation and buoyant hope. "Never, perhaps, was an undertaking more completely accomplished. Fifty-one thousand miles have been traversed without the least material loss vr damage. The winds eonE'pired to waft them safely and swiftly to their desired haven. Everywhere they were reeeived by the natives with reverence and delight. All are settled in the islands they preferred, and apparentl.y in the greatest safety. At Otaheite, a most fertile district was bestowed upon them, and a commodious building." Dr. Haweis did not fail to surpass the most fervid and fanciful in his setting forth of the past, present, and future of the mission, in a public address to Captain Wilson.
But the directors well understood that something besides pooans of gladness were in order, and therefore, immediately after a day of thanksgiving had been devoutly obsHved, they met to plan both how to maintain communieations with the brethren already sent forth, and also to found other mISSIOns. Their faith hesitated not to survey a field as broad as this: " Hindustan, the Sandwich Islands, and other groups in the Pacific; the Creek Indians, Canada, the Bermudas, and any West India islands, and any coasts of America or Asia." And presently they notify the churches: "We must have an enlarged supply of money and men. We expect a body of German missionaries, anu we plan to engage a great company and teach them both theological knowledge and also occupations adapted to the islands. " But just now all their energies were bent upon preparing for a Recond voyage of the Duff, with Captain Robson in command. On N 0vembcr 13th, forty-six were in readiness (nineteen single men and ten married, with seven children), and were set apart to their sacred task. On the 20th, the Duff dropped down the Thames and ten days later weighed anchor. December 8th found her with seventy ships at Spithead, where she layover two Sundays on account of fogs; on the 21st a southwest wind was so fierce that the fleet put into Portland Roads, and a day or two later was off under convoy of the frigate Amphion. In the same company sailed the Hillsborough, bearing some hundreds of convicts bound for Botany Bay I and also Dr. Vanderkemp and three companions-Kircherer, Edmonds, and Edwards-en route to found a mission in Cape Colony.
Hitherto, for five years, the tide of good feeling and expectation of large results had heen steadily rising and swelling with scarce a refluent wave. Not a threatening storm-cloud had croRsed the 5ky. But, of course, such conditions could not always continue. This is not God's way with His kingdom. As might have been expected, and as was every way best, a series of trials and tests now ensued in the shape of serious reverses and failures apparently disastrous, coming from yarious quarters, of divers kinds, and in quick succession. The current emotion contained much unhealthy excitement; zeal was ardent, but was not all according to knowledge, and many of the expectations fondly cherished were unreasonable because without groulld. The millennium had not yet dawned, and the victory was not to be won without a fight long and most arduous. It had already been noticed, and with deep anxiety, that scar0ely a minister, and none of note and influence, had of fered himself to go wherever the Lord, through the Society, should send him. 'L'hey who came forward were laymen from the common walks of life, of humble gifts and attainments. Even these had not been sifted with sufficient care, and quite a number proved incompetent, and some even morally unworthy. First, trouble broke out in the company which had been sent to the Foulah country. They separated, some died, and war breaking out among the savages, others left, and so the mission came to grief. Next, early in August, 1799, the directors were stunned by the intelligence that the Duff had been captured by a French privateer in Feb- ruary, when off Rio Janeiro, and had been taken to Montevideo and sold as a prize. The missionaries would be sent home, but the mere money loss was £10,000. On the heels of these evil tidings came the further calamitous news from Otaheite that most of the missionaries left there, their lives in deadly peril, had fled the island, and, by a chance vessel, had transferred themselves to Port Jackson, in New South Wales. Likewise at Tongabatoo calamity had befallen, for some had died, some had fallen into lewdness with the natives and been cut off from fellowship, and civil ~ar had broken out, in which the brethren had been robbed and then expelled. Only from Vanderkemp came words of cheer. He could write that he had made a beginning, and that a " singular interest" had appeared. The" Spirit had begun a good work in some of the most abo ject and uncultured of the race." But there was no flinching or turning back in consequence; without a moment's hesitation, either on the part of the directors or the Christian public, the task was resolutely taken up, both of repairing the damage and of sending reinforcements to the Sout h Seas and to South Africa. By May, 1800, a contingent of sixteen men had been dispatched.
For lack of space I can follow no further the thrilling story of the London Society, wh08e beginnings were so glorious, as well as of such moment both to Christendom and to the whole heathen world. It was not long after the hopes of so many of the earnest-hearted had been so rudely hurled from the zenith to the nadir, that theY'began again slowly and steadily to rise.. One by one the various denominations which had been in hearty co-operation began to withdraw, and, as perhaps was wisest, to set up societies for themselves-the Episcopalians in 1799 leading the way, and finally the Independents were left practically alone. The South Sea~ proved to be no 8inless, stormless Eden, and their inhabitants to be of a piece with savages elsewhere. Many reverses were yet in store, and long waiting for the first-fruits was required. But island after island, continent after continent was occupied for the Magter, and by such heroes of faith as Ellis, Livingstone. Moffat, Milne, Morrison, Medhurst, Vanderkemp, and John Williams the martyr of Erromanga. Early in the century, India, China, and the West Indies were entered-Madagascar (a shining marvel
AN EVANGELISTIC 'l'otrn !N .tAPAN
among missions) in 1818, and others subsequently. As late as 1810 the income was but $5298 ; in 1856 it had risen only to $8233.; but in 1890 was upward of $600,000, with one sixth of the amount derived from the mission stations. The four ordained and one medical missionary of 1795 have increased to 159, with 1202 ordained native pastors. Thongh various missions have become self· sustaining, or have been turned over to other societies, almost 70,000 members are found in the churches and 110,000 pupils in the schools. No m.ortal can say how many organizations, both in the Old World and the New, owe their origin directly or indirectly to that great missionary uprising in the last decade of the eighteenth century, of which the London Society was both the effect and the cause.
.AN EVANGELISTIO TOUR IN JAPAN.
BY REV. FREDERICK s. CURTIS, HIROSHIMA, JAP.A.N.
Early in June, 1891, in company with a Japanese brother, I left Hiroshima for a two weeks' trip among the villages in the vicinity. The first village, two hours' ride by jinricksha from Hiroshima, is Kabe, where we opened the work a few weeks ago. After weeks of effort we were at length able to secure a small house here, which will serve as a preaching place for a time. Immediately after our first meeting, Buddhist lecturers were summoned, who were expected by their harangue to nip Christianity in the bud. But though much opposition has been raised, the handful of Christians remain steadfast, and a few inquirers regularly attend the meetings. We stopped at Kabe for an hour and talked with the leading Christian there, who was formerly an elder in one of the Tokyo churches. As we were about to leave, he desired that we should have a brief prayer together, and prayed for the blessing of God upon this evangelistic tour. It was with overflowing heart that I followed him in prayer. I am rejoiced that the Japanese brethren are so ready for prayer at all times. I am rejoiced, too, that through the example of a brother missionary I came to see the importance of learning to prllY, even before learning to preach or to converse, in Japanese. There are few rarer pleasures than this, to unite one's heart in supplication to our common Lord with those who have been rescued from the darkness of heathenism.
A few miles beyond Kabe we overtook two others travelling toward the same destination. One of these proved to be a man who had come to my house a few weeks before to inquire about'Christianity. As we journeyed together we talked further of the way of salvation. The other travellera member of one of the Osaka churches-with his friend, came to our hotel in the Qvening, when we talked and prayed together before going to the theatre meeting. In the theatre a few small lamps suspended here and there, and a candle placed on the speaker's table, with now and then the glare of a match used in lighting the pipe of a hearer, supplied all the illumination. Since the building was about as large, and resembled in other respects a faif-sized barn, one may weJl imagine that it was far from being well lighted. Here some 250 people assembled, and, seated on the hard floors covered with coarse matting, listened with the utmost quiet and attention. We returned to our hotel rejoicing in the blessing of God, for we had heard that Yoshida was a hard place, and had gone to the theatre prepared for a noisy time-opposition from the Buddhists. However, next day pushing on to Miyoshi, a place of about 20,000 people, and in the evening holding another meeting with about the same attendance as at YoshIda, we found here the opposition we had expected at the former place. In these large meetings the Japanese usually speak first; otherwise some of the people go away after they have seen and heard the foreigner, who is still an object of curiosity in the country.
OUf speeches were frequently iuterrupted by cries in English of " No, no!" or in Japanese, " The Jesus religion won't do," or " Cast this foreign religion out of our country!" Also by various quotations from the sages, with other remarks mnde to cause a laugh.
The next day at our hotel we talked with quite a number of inquirers, and held a meeting with some of these and the two or three Christians we had found. I spoke especially of the Scripture proof of the immortality of the soul and of the divinity of Christ. Later, when the question of the use of "sake" (Japanese wine) and tobacco, came up for discussion, I explained the principle upon which we must judge; that since our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, in God's sight all is sin that injures the body. I felt much blessed in thus speaking, also in prayer. Before the theatre meeting of the second evening in Miyoshi, we took the precaution to provide a larger number of lamps, that the Buddhist priests and young men who were inclined to make a disturbance might not do so unobserved. While waiting for the people to assemble (a thing often done in Japan) I sat near the front of the platform and chatted with the boys about America, in which they seemed greatly interested.
I followed the Japanese speaker with a short sermon, and we were about to dismiss the meeting, which had been a noisy one, but when I saw that the majority of the 500 seemed disinclined to go, I determined to make a venture, so I told them that the whole meeting thus far having been much shorter than nsual, if they so desired I would speak again. To my surprise the entire audience sat down and called for the speech. After I had been speaking for a few minutes, or, rather, reading (for thus far I have been obliged to read the greater part of my sermons), it came over me with great power that I mnst speak, so I cast myself on the Lord and spoke as the Spirit directed. In one of these extemporaneous parts, desiring to illustrate the heinousness' of the sin of rejecting Christ I told the andience that the sin of the Japanese policeman who near Kyoto recently attempted to kill the Prince Imperial of Russia, was not nearly so great as that of rejecting the Prince of Life. As I thus spoke there was the great- est attentiun, and I trust also some impression was made. Though I had been working at the language for three years, and recently had spohn quite often, I had not felt at all sure that the masses understood me ; but now becoming fully convinced of this, and being so filled with joy that the audience had asked me to speak the second time, I could scarcely slee"p. At the close of the service the Christjans and a number of inquirer!! accompanied us to our rooms, and as usual remained till midnight talking of the things of the Kingdom. Among these inquirers the most interesting case was that of a young Buddhist priest named Chiba, who at the age of eleven took up his calling at the instance of his father and elder brother; but some time since in Kyoto, having come into posse~sion of a Bible, and learning something about Chris!ianity, he had come to us to learn more. In reply to my question as to the object of his search, he said that since he heard of Christ he could not be satisfied with Buddhism.
This young man is now twenty years of age, and next year is entitled to take charge of a temple. That he will not do this we fully believe.
The following morning we retraced our steps, and stopping to preach at Kabe, chiefly to the handful of Christians there, I returned to Hiroshima that night.
The following day, with the same Japanese brother, after teaching the teachers' meeting, we took the steamer for I wakuni. That evening at Shimminato, the seaport of Iwakuni, we hired the lower floor of a hotel .. and advertised a lecture on Christianity. In this rough place some 150 people crowded into the room and listened attentively. Going on to Iwakuni I preached to the Christians about finding Jesus in the Scriptures, and in the afternoon had a long converl3ation with some of the brethren in regard to persecution. Even in Japan persecution is no small matter. In the experience of many of the Japanese Christians a man's foes are they of his own household. In the early evening I called to see one of the officials who, with his wife, is searching the Scriptures. They seemed delighted to see me, and it was a matter of great regret that I had so few minutes with them. I urged them to make a practical test of every new truth they found, prayed with them, and went on to Imadzu "illage to hold a preaching service. In the meeting-place some 200 people gathered. Heretofore I had always read at least the greater part of my sermon; but here, for the first time, with the Japanese New Testament and a brief outline, I spoke extemporaneously; and, though conscious of some grammatical errors, I felt much blessed in thns speaking. The following day returning overland, and remaining over the next night at y'okkaichi, I had the privilege of speakiug at the first Christiau meeting ever held there. About 500 crowded into the single room and overflowed. In the midst of my sermon some one cried out, "God made the body but not the soul." I replied that we were not there to argue that point; but to tell them what Christianity taught. The Japanese speaker who followed
ONE OF THE FAITHFUL IN THE LAND
me told the audience that he would answer any questions III regard to Christianity.
There was a little hesitation; but finally some one said, " Is Buddha the savioar of Mida~" (Amida). He meant to say," Is Buddha the sa.·iour of men ?" At this the audience laughed heartily.
. The speaker replied, "I suppose you meant to say men instead of Mida ;" and went on to give a brief history of Buddha, showing him to be but a man, and therefore unable to save the soul.
Going on to Takewara, we held a large meeting. My subject was "Sin"-something very difficult for the Japanese mind to comprehend. In fact, as has so often been said, there is no word in the Japanese lan- guage to adequately express the Bible term sin. Before I preached, thrce boys delivered addresses on Christianity. The precocity of Young Japan may be fairly illustrated by the fact that these boys, aged eleven and twelve years, had chosen their themes' and prepared their addresses with but little help from others. These addresses, though short-·about three to five minutes each-werp. really very good, and delivered with absolute composure. Is it any wonder that the Japanese nation thinks it can do anything?
The subjects treated were: "The one true God," " All the blessings of mankind come from God," and" Pride makes men blind."
The following day, with the Japanese preacher located at Takewara, I .. went to a place called Mitsu, which being off the main road, it is probable that no foreign face had el'er been seen there before. Accordingly the people flocked to see me, gathering in front of the hotel and at the theatre. In this place we had two direct answers to prayer-in regard to the renting of the theatre and the attention of the people. The next day (Sunday) I spent in Takewara, and admitted to the communion two in addition to seven received early in the year.
On Monday I returned to Hiroshima, during the two weeks having held 15 meetings, with an aggregate attendance of 2500 people. In all prob- ability the majority of these had never heard of Christ before. I thank God for this privilege of preaching the Gospel where Christ had not been named.
July 10, 1891.
ONE OF THE FAITHFUL IN THE LAND.
BY C. J. vas KAMP, CANTON, CHINA.
On September 29th, 1891, our beloved pastor, Wong Kong Fuk died. He was one of the few faithful in the land; a man full of energy aM talent, who truly loved his Saviour, and labored in the service of the Mas- ter with his whole heart. He accomflished great things in his missionary station at Fayen, forty miles north of Canton, and many heathen were . converted through him. In the first years of my sojourn here I was permitted to make a few tours with him into the villages of the district of Fayen so as to preach the Gospel to the heathen. I see him yet, sitting in the tents of the Chinese, the gracious smile on his lips, surrounded by his eager listeners, to whom he is showing the nothingness of idolatry and the riches of the Saviour's love. How eloquent were his words! How well he knew how to captivate his hearers by new illustrations and skilful reasoning! How the Christians loved and honored him! With what a great respect the heathen regarded him! He brought Christ's name into his missionary station. One seldom heard a reviling word in the places where he preached. Thus the soil was prepared for the Gospel; ahd we may hope that many more in that field will find their eternal and full salvation.
A few days ago, as I was travelling toward Fayen with four students of our theological seminary, to conduct the funeral service of Wong Kong Fuk, I stopped at the large village of Thaiwuschak. Here, forty-three years ago, Wong Kong Fuk was born, and here he died. Here he also heard from the mouth of the Rev. Hauspach the words of l!fe which have been dear to him since his conversion as a stronghold in life and in death.
The narrow streets of the village, with the huts of limestone, were almost deserted. Only a few half-naked children play at the pond by the bamboo grove. I enter the open square with my companion, the student Khyamfuk.
Two high, red-painted poles point out to me the ancestral hall. A few Christians who are standing there hurry toward me, and, bowed and silent, extend to me their hand, and lead me into a hut where they offer me a cup of tea. Meanwhile the brethren, who have gathered from the most distant villages to the burial, come to greet me. A deep sorrow rests upon the men because of the death of their beloved spiritual leader.
" We are assembled to the funeral service," says Tschin. I put on my gown, tak~ the Bible and the Chinese hymn-book and stepped out into the open square in front of the ancestry hall. It was yet early in the day ; the sun had not yet sent down her beams in full force. There stood the coffin, covered with a blue bier-cloth, on which were embroidered Chinese char- acters. Dear disciples of the Saviour had sent it to their brethren in China as a greeting of the Risen One who also shall resurrect His own. There are also the large banners with the promises of comfort out of the Word of God concerning victory over death and immortal life in Christ. Com- pared with the heathen" Firlefanz," with which the heathen are buried, how delightful to eye and heart stand these banners with their beautiful Chinese characters. '
Several months before, when we buried a Christian in Canton, several scholars carried this banner through the city. They attracted the attention of the people, and many stood staring. "They appear as though they would like to march out to war," said a farmer, who had earnestly studied the text, and to whom the words, "I live, and ye shall live also," " The wages of sin is death," " Christ is the life, death is gain," and other words,
'rilE CALL TO pnAYElt
were a riddle to him. "They appear to be actors," said a second. A reader of books declared, "They are Christians," "adherents to the Jesus-religion." "So they are Jesus-people!" said the others, gazed once more upon the wonderful banner, and went their way.
Eight musicians were present, and with their funeral melodies accom- , panied the dead to his grave. These were engaged by the heathen elders of the village to render final honors to their dead.
We began by singing a song of life and resurrection. A large crowd surround the coffin. The immediate relatives of Wong Kong Fuk wear straw garments. a wreath of straw in their hair, and in their hands they carry a short bamboo rod, bowed and crooked; according to custom they thus escort their dead. A blue ribbon-the emblem of mourning-is braided in the queue just as we wear a band of crape about the arm or hat. The Christians wear white garments and caps, and they are a large number who have confessed the name of Christ in Fayen. Many of the heathen stand in the rear j for all knew and loved the Shepherd Wong. I made a short address based on Rev. 14 : 13 : "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." There was much weeping among the people, and tears fell from the eyes of many of the heathen. The Chinese know so well how to control their emotions j but here was refiected in their tears the love they felt for the dead. Tschin spoke after me, and mentioned his dying words: " Willingly I depart, for God will care for mine. Do you faith- full y carryon the work." The assistant, H yn, then offered prayer, after which I advanced to the coffin and pronounced a bJessing Over the remains.
The service made a deep impression on the heathen. How different this sorrow blessed of God from the cry and tumult of a hpathen burial, which only reveals fear and confusion before the King of Terror! The coffin was lifted, and the long procession started. The shrill tones of the bamboo fiutel' mingled with the clanging of the gongs. The Chinese music seemed to me a distressing discord, but I was obliged to endure it in silence. .
On the hill opposite the village is the grave in which we laid the body, and beyond lies the land where the light wrestles with the black darkness of heathenism. God grant His Word power and a triumphant ·ictory !
[Tran8lated from the German by M. M. Minnassian, A.B.] THE CALL TO PRAYER.
[EDITORIAL, A. T. P.] The editor feels the profoundest respect and reverence for that foremost of all missionary organizations, the Church Missionary Society, and a1though it is somewhat Jate to refer to this, its day of intercession for foreign missions in 1890 furnishes an example for all of us to follow.
The m'e of St. Andrew's Day, November 29th, and the week which it introduced, were made a period of special prayer for missions, and the prayer of Asa was adopted as a fit motto. We venture at this late day to make quotations from the re~arkable circular issued by this grand society in connection with this movement : " Lord, it is nothing with Thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power. Help us, 0 Lord our God j for we rest on Thee, and in Thy name we go against this multitude. 0 Lord, Thou art our God j let not man prevail against Thee. "
"This prayer of Asa, when going forth agamst overwhelming odds, may well stand out prominently in the minds of all who are taking an intelligent and prayerful interest in the carrying out of the Master's great missionary commission, as they thankf.lily approach the observance of the Day of Intercession, and realize that a great coneert of prayer will be ascending at that time, not simply from the world -wide Anglican communion, but also from almost all Protestant Christian communities, who find in the active work of proclaiming Christ's salvation a common interest, and at the throne of grace a common platform where all can unite, and thus co-operate in one common object."
" Asa's prayer is very apposite to the present position and opportunities. Fresh fields for conquest opening on all sides; 'many adversaries' more. busy and persistent than ever; only too successful attacks of the great enemy on infant Christian communities; his devices manifest in complications and difficulties even among brethren, overwheliiting demands which the very success of the work and growth of interest in it impose, requiring prayerful patience and earnest deliberation j these are some of the marked features of the time, calling for a large exhibition of the spirit breathed in Asa's prayer as he faced the great emergency with " The Cry of Faith, ' Help us, 0 Lord our God. ' " The Repose of Faith, , 'Ve rest on Thee.' " The Energy of Faith, ' In Thy name we go.' " " The remarkable appeal, signed by several prominent friends of the society, who met last July in private conference at Keswick, calling on the committee to organize' an advance on a large scale, under the directing hand of God,' is based on a review of the' needs of the heathen, and of the marvellous openings which God is providing at this time.' There are indeed marvellous openings. Africa is becoming accessible in all directions. Let special prayer be made for the Nyanza party uuder Bishop Tucker; for the Upper Niger and Soudan Mission, where an attempt is being made, fraught with promise, and with early tokens of the good hand of the Lord upon the workers, to penetrate the Central Soudan. The Imperial British East Africa Company is opening the direct route from Mombasa to the Nyanza, known as Bishop Hannington'tl route, and are cordially inviting the society to avail itself of the opelJings. China is an open field to all who will venture in. Calls reach the committee to man vigorously the frontier stations of the Punjab and Sindh Mission, so as to be in readiness as Central Asia opens its doors for the evangelist. In countries already occupied, the opportunities for evangelization demand large reinforcements; and prayer should earnestly be made that the native Christian communities in these countries may themselves be privileged to supply in large measure . the missionarieR needed in order that their own countrymen may be evan- gelized. The very magnitude of the work opening up might well appall, but for all which is implied in t.he liberty to cry, ' Help us, 0 Lord our God.' "
" A favorable symptom, as evidencing the reality of the work and the impression that is being produced by it, may be found in the increasing hostility manifested to the spread of the Gospel. In many of the older misaions of the society tho missionary may truly say, ' A great door and effectual is opened, and there are many adversaries.' This is especially noticeable in many parts of India, particularly at present among the Mo- hammedans in the Punjab, who have taken vigorous steps to stop the work carried on among their women by the Zenana missionary ladies. But the saIne spirit is apparent elsewhere, and is developing markedly in Japan and in Bagdad after the baptism of a Mohammedan convert; while political opposition is hindering the work in Palestine. Prayer is especially needed for the guidance of the missionaries by the holy Spirit, that they may act with judgment as well as with zeal j and for all inquirers after truth, and for those who are convinced of the truth, that they may be enabled to withstand the fiery ordeal of persecution, and to come out boldly to confess the faith of Christ crucified, even though it be unto death."
" The marked growth of interest in the cause among Christians at home, while full of encouragement, and a:/l.,ding ground for devout thanksgiving, brings with it special dangers and difficulties, and may well demand a large share in the prayers of God's people. The number of home workers, or professing workers, is largely increasing. This is evidenced by the increase, both in the number ,of unions of various kinds, and by the increase of their members. The Gleaners' Union, every member of which is pledged to do something for the cause, now numbers 28,000 enrolled members. If all are doing each what he or she can in the name of the Lord, and relying on the Holy Spirit's enabling grace, what may not be effected? Prayer with reference to all these tokens of growing interest is suggested in a twofold direction : " (a) That there may be no disposition to trust in mere numbers, remembering Asa's prayer: 'It is nothing with Thee to help, whethp.r with many or with them that have no power. '
" (b) That God the Holy Spirit may sift the workers, and bring to the front those whom He is calling aud equipping for the work. Of Gideon's army of 32,000 there were left but 300, the faithful few by whom the Lord would save Israel and deliver the enemy into their hands."
" Quality, rather than quantity, is needed. Let earnest supplication be made that a vast number of volunteers both from England and from every congregation in the mission field may be raised up duly qualified, and may abide the Lord's test. "
"The present position, difficulties, and opportunities of the society may well cause all who realize what is the present demand. in the Church of Christ to cry, ' Who is sufficient for these things?' 'Our sufficiency is of God. ' Let this period of intercession send His people to their knees with the cry of faith, 'Help us, 0 Lord our God j , and bring to each one the Repose of Faith which a realized dependence on Him must bring, • We rest on Thee j' and send us forth with the Energy of Faith, th<1t rests not, to stop and weigh the difficulties of the situation, but boldly takes as its watchword' In Thy name we go.' What encouragements may be drawn from the experience of the past j what incentives from the bright outlook of the future I"
" And in adopting Asa's prllyer, what reason there is to add his son Jehoshaphat's method, who, in similar straits to those of his father, followed his example of prayer. 'Oh, our God, we have no might, neither know we what to do j but our eyes are upon Thee; , and then, going in the name of the Lord, and when he had taken counsel with the people, , appointed them that should sing unto the Lord and praise the beauty of holiness' as they went before the army, and sang, 'Give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endureth forever.' "
"Compassed with the Song of Praise the Lord's army shall go forth , steadfast, unmovable,' always abounding in the work of the Lord."
" Let earnest prayer be made that. all who engage in any department of this great work may indeed, filled with the Energy of Faith by the Divine Spirit, go in the name of the Lord-in that all-victorious name to which every knee shall bow, and through which God giveth the victory. The work is not man's but God's j the object is not of human will, but of Divine purpose, for His glory in the conversion of souls and the building up of His Church. The issue must be sure, for the appeal. be. the ad versary who he may, is conclusive, , Let not man prevail against Thee.' "
A little lad who had become interested in gathering money to send the Gospel to the heathen, hit upon this happy device. He rummaged in the garret and found an old-fashioned powder-horn. which he decided to make into a missionary box. His older brother Raid he might have the horn, but wondered what he was going to do with it. The large end of the horn had a wooden bottom, and Eddie scraped it smooth, and asked his brother if he would cut some letters on it. " Yes," said his brother, and Eddie gave him these words: " Once I was the horn of an ox, Now I am a missionary box.·'
Eddie inked the letters, and then as he showed his box to his friends they were all so pleased with his ingenuity that they all put something into it, and he became a large contributor.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CO. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
CHINA.
-The Rev. Timothy Richard, in the May Missionary Herald of the English BaptiRts, says, writing from Tientsin: "From a political point of view, China has had a sad year. The population of China increases at the rate of/our million8 a year-forty millions (as much as all the Germans) every ten years. Without new means of support, this increase of population means the increased poverty of the existing inhabitants. As these arc already as poor as they can be and live, every increase means death. This is literally true. Under various names-droughts, floods, etc.-about twenty millions must have perished from starvation during the last dozen years. This year, in the province where Peking and Tientsin are situated, we have great floods such as they have not experienced here since the memory of the oldest living, and a few millions are expected to die before next year's wheat harvest. The saddest thing about all this poverty and starvation is that not one in a thousand of the Mandarins either knows the cause or the remedy. Such as did know, like the Marquis Tseng, who had been Minister to England, and his uncle the Viceroy of Nankin, and especially the Emperor's father (the Seventh Prince) have suddenly been cut off by denth. Now, alas! few of the remaining Manllarins know how to save their country."
-There having been a renewal of disgraceful calumnies again~t the Christian missions, especially the Roman Catholic, the Shanghai Conference has appointed seven to publish a refutation of them.
-Dr. Russell Watson, English Baptist medical missionary at Tsing Chu Fu, reports their having trp.ated over 12,000 cases during the year.
-China'8.JIillion8 for May announces the arrival, and gives portraits of 35 Scandinavian missionaries (17 male, 18 female) who arrived at Shanghai in February from America, and the names of 8 gentlemen and 7 ladies who arrived in March. "Part of the coming thousand." Sixteen of the Scandinavian brethren from America (C. 1. M.) had left Shanghai for Shan-se, under Messrs. D. Lawson and Peat. where Mr. Russell would snperintend their studies, locating them in little parties in small places within easy reach of Hiao-'i.
-The Rev. W. S. Swanson, formerly missionary at Amoy, said, at the anniversary of the London Missionary Society: "In 1800 of east longitude it does not seem to matter whether you are an Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Congregationalist. You are face to face with the great work of Christ, and your confession of faith may be summed up in this: that all men are sinners, and Jesus Christ, God's only Son, is able to save to the uttermost. That is a working creed. "
Mr. Swanson added that" there were five hundred millions of Chinese in the world. The Chinaman was an individual with some backbone in him; but the Chinese woman had several backbones in her. If they could get the women of China to become Christians they had solved the question. "
-The Roman Catho;ic mission in South Shartung, under BiRhop Anzer, has exchanged the French protectorate for the German. The Catholics in China seem to have a great many diplomatic difficulties which, as the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift suggests, can hardly be very advantageous to Christianity. "The less inclined missionari~s are to invoke diplomatic intervention, the mme rarely the strong arm of a Western power interposes in their affairs, the better. The broken reeds of Egypt have always shown themselves to be an ominous support." The same hishop (we think it was) probably accomplished more for the Gospel when he sold his house and offered his jewelled mitre for sale to find bread for the famishing.
-We know that " Christianity has materially modified the languages of the West, and that it is modifying, and will still further modify, the language of China. We know that Chinel:le is not so inflexible as the scholars of China believe it to be. If it were so, the Chinese could never possess anything but a stunted and attenuated Christianity, for at the present moment it has no fit terminology in which to express properly many of the grandest and most important thoughts that God has given to us through the Gospel of His Son. But all modifications of language must be within certain limits, and, moreover, they must be a gradual growth. "-Chinese Recorder.
– The Chinese Churchman (cited in the Spirit of Missions) remarks that for the first time, in Government proclamations, Christianity has been raised above the category of " Little Teaehings;" and for the first time our Lord Jesus Christ has been given a higher place t:18n Mohammed.
-The New York Recorder (iikewise quoted in the Spirit of Mi88ions) says, with reference to recent troubles: "The American Govemment should not be precipitate in dealing with China in taking' joint action' with other Powers, in any policy that looks like what the London Times advises as ' severe measures.' Joint action, and especially under the lead of France, as is proposed, would be a surrender of whatever little influence we possess in that empire. It would be the furtherance of European Bmbitions in China, which would do no good either to our commerce or national prestige."
-The London MiRsionary Society has reconstituted its Board of Directors on a more thoroughly representative basis, tal_ng precautions against giving London too large a proportion, and making arrangements for a more frequent attendance of the directors from the provinces. In view, also, of the danger that the society may become merely Congregationalist, they have invited each of the three Preshyterian churches of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church of Ireland to nomi.nate a director.
-George Miiller, in his address on Faith, at Basel, reported in the Neukirchene1' Heidenbote, takes pains to correct an opinion which many may have derived from his course. He says: "To make known the pecuniary wants of benevol(nt enterprises to their friends is something which I do not regard as unscriptural. Still less do I regard it as a sin. But I have refrained from it for this reason-naulely, because through my pastoral activity and my wide correspondence, I had learned, that of nothing is the Church of God so in need as of a greater faith. Many things were needed, but nothing, nothing, nothing so sorely as an iMrease of faith. And therefore it appeared to me, if I could carryon the work of the Lord without appealing to anyone except God for help, that would be a proof that even in the nineteenth century the living God is still here, that even, although the prophets have fallen asleep, yet the God of the prophets lives, and that the Lord and Master of the apostles yet Jives."
-" Certain languages are mighty conquerors. They almost divide the world between them, while others are fast dying out. The whole Bible has been provided in all the great conquering tongues. "-Ohurch Missionary lntelligencer.
-Northern Africa ~ays: "In those churches where there is good teaching as well as good working, we generally find good candidates and the most liberal givers. Of the twelve it is said that He ordained them that they should be with Him. They were then prepared not only by his teaching, but by watching how He Himself worked. We feel the need of just these two things in candidates-they need good teaching and they alRO need to be shown how to work by Rome one able to work efficiently. In our evangelistic missions there may have been great blessing by preaching some truths that had been much neglected, but tllere has also been a danger of neglecting and even despising dry theology, which is now producing a shallow type of Christian. Might not a good deal that is now left to colleges" (i.e., seminaries) " be done in the churches l May God help us to maintain the balance of truth, and in cvery way so to teach and labor that a generation of sturdy and consecrated men, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, may be prepared for the foreign and home fields. "
N01·thern Africa, speaking of its work among the Arabs, says: "The Church seems, like Hagar of old, to have left Ishmael to die, but the God of Abraham has not forgotten the prayer offered more than three thousand years ago by him whom He deigned to call his friend, 'Oh that Ishmacl might live before Thee,' a prayer that is to be answered not only in respect to the lad, but also his descendants."
– " Modern missions have been long favored to carryon their work in all quietness. Their voice has not been heard in the street. For decadeR the world scarcely took note of them, unless, indeed, to mock at them. This place under the cross has been both a defence and a blessing. Yet even this beautiful time of youth had its drawbacks. Doubtless it involved a certain narrowness-flight of the world, as they say now. Yet of this they have no great occasion to be ashamed j it is a reproach which they share with the apostolic age. But with all their imperfections they laid hold of the mission work in its innermost essence, extended the Kingdom after the manner of the Kingdom, saved souls, laid the One Foundation Jesus Christ, wrought from below up, and went from small things to larger.
"This time of stillness and neglect on the part of the world is now gone by for missions. Doubtless there is here anadvance ; the child has become a ma,n, who takes a place in the world's history. The world, therefore, naturally finds now occasion to define its position as to missions. Missions must be carried on ; that is now agreed. But the world is not at all pleased with the way they are carried on. It seeks to influence them, to give them a totally new direction, to alter them fundamentally, and 80 to trouble them in their very end."-Dr. VYARNECK.
-Men would have missions, remarks Dr. Warneck, leave the apostolic for the mediooval method. That explains why, especially in Germany, Rome and her methods are coming to be so vehemently admired, and the patient humbleness of evangelical missions misliked, as by the world" thc folly of the cross" has ever been. But the end of missions, as given by Christ, is as fixed as the methods of missions are left by Him flexible. Jesus is not only the origin, He is the prototype of the work. As Luke says, He began to do and teach, and after Pentecost He proceeded to do and teach through His messengers. The work which is a continuance of His is the work of Christian missions; no other is. Forgiveness of sins and eternalli{e are what He came to bring; that must be, fundamentaily, what they go to offer. " The foreign mission work differs from the pastoral work in this, and this alone; it is a new "message. This involves many differences in form, but none in substance. The salvation of souls is the central work at home and abroad. The degeneration of the work of" Christ's menssengers begins when, either here or there, this is thrust out of the centre.
-The Indian Watchman, of Bombay, and the Kaukab i Hind plead for a larger incorporation of Eurasian Christians in mission work. Their mixed blood makes them natural mediators between Europe and Asia.
-The LeipRic Missionary Society is entering on thc second half-centuryof the renewed Lutheran Tamil Mission in the Madras Presidency. This mission is hot one of the most showy ones, but its work seems to be marked by a decided measure of what the Germans call Gediegenheit-i.e., well-compacted solidity and scripturalness.
-Awake, the little magazine for children published by the Church Missionary Society, in a very animated description of India, quotes thc remark of a great French writer: "Hinduism is, perhaps, the only system of belief that is worse than having no religion at all. "
-Dr. Hooper, in the Ohurch Missionary Intelligencer for March, 1891, remarks that while Christianity has shown an extraordinary power in leavening other religions whose basis remained irreconcilable with it, Islam, equally theistic, has had no leavening power at all. Sikhism has been greatly modified externally by it, but internally remains as intensely pantheistic as any other form of Hinduism.
Arya Samaj. which is rather waxing, while Brahmo Samaj is rather waning, is, unlike the latter, cold in its theism, unfriendly to British rule, and hostile to Christianity, to which the Brahmo Samaj, as a body, has always been cordial. But the extrav!lgant misinterpretation of the Rig Veda on which Arya Bamaj rests contains, remarks Dr. Hooper, the certainty of its ultimate break-up. Meanwhile .Arya Samaj does not hesitate to revile Christianity, and our Lord Himself, in the most scurrilous way, and is meeting with a good deal of present success, especially by its appeal to national feeling.
-The Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt says, what in our smiling, we might say smirking age, we seem desperately determined to forget. "We know from the Lord's parables of the fourfold field, of the tares among the wheat, of the broad and narrow way, that He has never expected the conversion of all men. Where He and His messengers sow the good seed, there the enemy follows on the traces, sowing the evil seed. Alongside of the mission of Christ there goes through all peoples and ages a mission of the devil, which is quite as successful, nay, outwardly seems often iar more successful than the mission of Christ." It if! not every place of which Christ says: " I have much people in this city.o, It surely should be enough for the messenger of salvation, as the Missions- " blatt says, to know that God's ,Vord will infallibly accomplish "that whereto He sent it."
-Alfred S. Dyer, in National Righteousness, writing of "The Great Plague of Asia," says: "He is no friend of God or humanity who attempts to underrate the gravity of the opium scourge, which is not now confined to China alone. India, Burmah, Ceylon, arid other parts of Asia are involved. In and from every British port, from Bombay to Shanghai, the plague is spreading." The curse. therefore, which India, under British compulsion, has sent out to China, appears to be returning to plague herself.
-The Monthly says: "A grave discouragement to Christian workers in Palestine is, that it has attracted and is attracting to itself many spiritual eccentrics who surround earnest Christianity with disastrous, and sometimes with ridiculous associations. The Holy Land has a strange mystic charm for many sorts of romantic souls, from Lady Hester Stanhope to Israel Pick and the American Adventists."
-IIenri Draussin, in L'Eglise Libre, referring to the pompous and almost impiously sycophantic reception given to the Protestant queen of Madagascar, at the opening of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Antananarivo, says: "At the risk of being stigmatized as hopelessly English, we avow that this sort of politico-religious manamvring, this shrewd medley of mass and flattery, this accommodation of the anathemas of Catholic dogmas against heresy to the interested designs of a propaganda which is bent at all costs on winning over a crowned head, seem to us of ill augury. " Especially does M. Draussin censure the complaisance of the national agents toward designs so unfriendly to freedom and to a free Gos'pel.
-Le National, in its frantic hatred of the Protestant friends, French and English, of Hova rights against French aggressions, is not ashamed to renew the charge againilt the Rev. Mr. Shaw of having poisoned the wine of the French soldiers in Madagascar! The slander is too idiotic to deserve any worse epithet. It blames their admiral for not· having shot him on the spot. We owe the sight of both the above quotations to the kindness of the Maison de.~ Missions in Paris.
-The Calwer Monatsblatter for March, 1891, consists of an article on our Indians, which for thoroughness, compactness, lucidity, and fairnes~ equals anythin£!: we have seen on the subject. It would be worth circulating in English among ourselves.
-Considering the curious attempts making now to bring about· a nondescript amalgam of Christianity and Buddhism, the following brief antithesis, quoted from the Literary World by the Christian, is worth considering. However widely concrete Christianity may have diverged from this type, even for long ages, the Son of man has always been at hand to bring it back. "It does not seek to trample under foot the natural emotions and desires of man j it does not seek to withdraw him from the world in which he has been placed. It does not disparage either the dignity or the beauty of life."
Those high-bred circles which have at length discovered that culture alone does not bring blessedness, may have Buddha and Schopenhauer, or they may have Christ. But assuredly they cannot have both. It is not strange, therefore, that the" sympathy of religions," which has been lately set forth ill Japan, is said to be inclined to leave Christ altogether out of mention.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Japan Earthquake, lihood, the interruption of business, the general alarm of an earth-wave which [EDITOBIAL.-J. T. G.] produced a variety of phenomena over twenty thousand square miles or more The calamity that has befallen Japan of territory, all make an extraordinary is more than a national misfortune. In phase o( the world's history. these days when all the world is thrown into such near neighborhood, one mem- Japan has done nobly for the instant ber does not suffer, but all suffer. A relief of the sufferers. The Emperor and half million of houseless, homeless, Empress gave at once $20,000 to the redazed, bereft people, stripped of their lief corps. Nobles, lords, foreign resiproperty, with business interrupted and dents, and natives generally came to temporarily at least, destroyed, appeal the aid of the bewildered people, but to the universal heart of the civilized the whole is not equal to the necessities world. The Johnstown flood disaster of the case. Nor will the demand for met with sympathetic expression from aid be met for many a day to come. It large parts of the world. The Chris- is not too late, even after these lines tians of Japan took up a collection and shall be read, for contributions to be of forwarded it, through the Japanese value. We make no appeal for moneys Methodist missionary at San Francisco, to be added to any specific fund. Any for the Johnstown sufferers. But of the treasurers of the great missionary neither the Johnstown flood nor the societies will, we are sure, gladly be the Chicago fire are to bj! compared with custodians of money for the relief fund the reach of the wretchedness of this in general, for native Christians in parseismic disturbance of nearly all the ticular, or for reparation of losl! to prop- Island Empire. The hundreds of shocks erty. They will faithfully carry out left the people too much 'llarmed to re- any instructions of the donors so far as enter the houses which were left stand- lies within their power. We say this ing, and drove them to sleeping in the without having a word of consultation open air in the cold nights. The with them, and without knowing what American Charge d'Affaires at Tokyo, measures, if any, they will take officially anu Admiral Belknap, of the United in the case. But if any persons prefer to States Navy, in charge of the Asiatic send their contributions through secular Station at Yokohama, unite in an appeal channels, they can do 80 directly to Adto th'l. people of the United States to miral Belknap, at Tokyo, for the send relief. Ninety thousand houses ., Earthquake Relief Fund." It will destroyed, perhaps thirty thousand be well that whatever is done be done more badly damaged, eight or ten thou- at once. sand persons killed, carrying grief into the hearts of tens of thousand more, So far as we are able to recall at presand ten thousand badly-injured people ent, the missions at Nagoya and vicinto be cared for, make such conditions ity-the centre of the devastated disas should send a thrill through Christen- trict-are those of the Methodist Episdom, and at once meet with a hearty copal Church, the Presbyterian Church response in practical sympathy. No South, the Methodist Protestant Church, battle-field could furnish such heart- and a lady missionary of the Cumberrending sce.nes as have been witnessed land Presbyterian Church. The Southin connection with this disaster. The ern Presbyterians are also at Kochi. subsidence of the land, the destruction The only one of the foreign missionaries who sustained injuries, so far as we have of factories, removing .the means of live- ~earned! was the Rev. Mr. Van Dyke. of the Methodist Protestant Mission. Rev. eased, the clean and the unclean, the Mr. Miyama, of the }Iethodist Episco- patients who refrain from crossing jt pal Mission, and his wife were also in- and the ministering Christians who freejured. He has been a very active ly cross over to the lepers for their conworker among the Chinese in California stant labors of love to souls and bodies. and the Sandwich Islands. A Japanese At the left of this wooden railinK are pastor of the Presbyterian Chu.rch South the quarters of the nursing staff, also was instantly killed. There are many the workroom, kitchens, bakery, etc. Christians among the sufferers. To the right of it are the quarters of the lepers. The women live all together in The Leper Hospital of the Moravian a suite of large rooms; and two or three Ohuroh at Jerusalem, men generally occupy one ohamber. These apartments need to be light and REV. J. TAYLOR HAMILTON, SECRE1'ARY airy, owing to the nature of the disease, MORAVIAN BOARD, BETHLEHEM, PA. which becomes more and more offensive to sight and smell. They might seem A traveller in Palestine, when jour- bare to a European, but are fairly furneying to· day from Bethlehem to Jeru- nished for Orientals, especially of the salem, will very probably notice a large, class from which the patients are mainsubstantially·b~ilt modern edifice as he ly drawn." nears the Holy City. It is a stately structure for Palestine-in part two, To the story of this hospital I invite and in part three stories high as it rises your attention for a brief while. A above the Vale of Rephaim_ Over the peculiar interest attaches to it from its main entrance he will perceive, carved being the only institution of the kind in in large Roman letters, the words, aU the land in which our Lord, when Gn ., Jesus Hilfe," .. The Help of Jesus." earth, cl<lBnsed lepers among thobe Stimulated by curiosity, he may pass whom His word of power savingly through the open gate of the garden and healed of their diseases. ascend the steps to the front door. There is, indeed, another shelter for He will meet with a cordial welcome these poor outcasts; but the very confrom a German missionary, who will trast it offers to the home in which gladly make him acquainted with the Christian sympathy seeks to relieve misinstitution over which he presides-that ery and anticipate the wants of the is, on the supposition that the stranger's body, ,and at the same time breathe oourage is equal to the ordeal; for this hope into the despondent !!Ioul, argues is the Moravian Leper Hospital, just forcibly for the need of just such an inoutside Jerusalem. stitution Sf! the" Jesus Hilfe."
He will find that it is a quadrangular Eight years after our home had begun building "surrounding a large oourt- its work of mercy, a oertain Pasha gave yard, in the middle of which is a huge orders for the erection of a building for cistern. This cistern may well be large, the reception of lepers at the oost of the for in this land there is no rain for half State. It is not far from the village of the year, and wat~r is a main neoessity Siloam, and is" a low building of only for such an institution. Everything in one story, lit up by five windows which and around the house and in the yard serve for as many rooms. Eight lepers is scrupulously clean." He will notice are supposed to occupy each of thes(', especially the wooden railings that run and thoy are small for the purpose. right across the middle, dividing the The roof of each room is vaulted; in court as well as the passages. "True, the walls are niches; the floor is formetl the gates stand open, and, indeed, are of a stone pavement. On this floor low never closed; yet there it is, the bar- pillars ar" erected which are bollow in· lier between the health! and tJ~e (lis. side, and serve the double purpose of store-~laces for the fruits ~athered b! the lepers, and also to mark out the " On the other hand, a peculiar char. space appropriated to each patient. acteristic of the disease, as it now oc· Nothing buL an old thin straw mat is curs, is the insensibility of the skin, exspread on the hard, cold stones. Here tending inward so far that the knots the poor creatures lie in a room dimly which form under the surface could be lighted by only one window, and in an cut out without the patient feeling any atmosphere rendered pestilential by the pain. Of this feature there is no men· breath of many diseased persons. As tion in Leviticus. Lastly, the leprosy soon as the sun is up, life begins to stir of the present day seems absolutely in these five apartments, and whoever incurable by any medical art, while the of the inmates has still the power of law of the old covenant makes proyi. movement leaves the house. Those sions for cases of healing. who are unable to walk are obliged to remain indoors, and are left without " We cannot but conclude, therefore, any help or care, for no one has either that leprosy has changed its character time or inclination to tend the suffering in the course of centuries. It has be. or comfort the dying. Thl! most that come more ineradicable and more de· can be expected to be done by those structive. Observation of individual who leave the house in search of what cases bears this out. Careful treatment may be obtained by begging, is that and constant cleansing of the sores at they divide a piece of bread with some the very beginning of the disease will more unfortunate companion, and place check its course for years, while neglect, a jug of water by his side." Thus one especially if united to insufficient diet, after another gradually succumbs to the will quickly aggravate its destruative awful disease, and with severe strug- character. The above-mentioned knots gles and great pain closes hopelessly a under the skin begin to suppurate and life from which hope had long since fled. turn into deep and spreading sores, de. stroying the flesh until the bones are Leprosy still remains one of the most laid bare." loathsome and awful visitations that can well befall a human being. Of the form Whether or not leprosy, as it exists of the malady to be met with in the to-day, is infectious, is, I believe, some_ Orient, Dr. Einszler, the honorary phy- what of an open question. Certain it sician of our hospital at Jerusalem, is, that of the Moravians who at dif. writes as follows: ferent times to the number of about 25 have ministered to the wants of lepe,ril, "Neither the description of leprosy in connection with leper homes, not given in Leviticus 13, nor the signs there one has contracted the malady. Never. given to the priest for the discernment theless, it needs a most devoted spirit of the disease at all agree WIth the symp. to care for lepers in every stage of toms of leprosy as now existing. The the loathsome disease. Think what it , plague in the skin of the flesh' is not means to spend day after day in contact now 'in sight deeper' than the skin with such woe; to witness the intense surrounding it, nor does the hair on the sufferings and hear the moans of those diseased part turn white. On the con· victims for whom the diseas'l is reach· trary, it remains unchanged in color at ing a vital part ; to breathe the air made first, but after a time it becomes brittle offensive by the eftluvium of leprosy, and falls off, as the skin loses vitality and wash and bandage the sores repeat. and the roots of the hair die. In the edly; to know that the most which can Old Testament the expression repeated- be done is to mitigate the awful suffer· ly occurs, 'a leper white as snow,' ings and for awhile postpone the end, That evidently implied that the skin of happy even in the being able, by Gurjun the person so atRicted appeared remark. and Chaulmoggra oils, to afford some ably white, which, however, is not the temporary relief. And with it all, the stupefying dulness of intellect induce:::' case in leprosy of the present day. by the physical conditions not seldom reached America 10 sisters in Germany' proves a hindrance tothe reception of the and 2 in England '6xpressed their willhigher consolation. So atvarious points ingness to go. the ministering Christian is baffied. As the work of the hospital widened, Though the Moravian 'Church was its noble foundress began to perceive active among lepers in Cape Colony that its steady maintenance would from 1822 to 1867, the present under- greatly tax her ability, and that it was taking dates only from the last of those desirable to provide for its permanent years. Two years prior to this-viz., in continuance. Hence, on January 1st, 1865, the compassion of a German Baron 1881, she made it over altogether to the and Baroness was excited by the miser Mission Board of the Moravian Church. able plight of the lepers whom they ob- The local committee, with Mr. Frutiger, served when on a visit to Jerusalem. a German banker in Jerusalem as treas- On their return home they determined urer, still continued to "have the immeto do what lay in their power toward diate oversight. The prElsent building, the founding of a home for the outcasts. erected on a new site at a cost of about The Baroness von Keffenbrinck-Asche- $20,000, was opened on April 24th, 1887. raden especially interested herself, and The missionary now in charge is the Rev. devoted her energies to the carrying out Carl Schubert, who was installed only of their design, so that she rather than last Easter, having shortly before graduher husband has been regarded as the ated from the Moravian Training School founder of the noble charity. A com- for Missionaries in Germany. Bis exmittee for the more immediate supel·in- cellent predecessor, the Rev. Fritz tendence was formed in Jerusalem, con- Mueller, had served seven years; but sisting of Bishop Gobat, the German the health of his wife had become very consul, the pastor of the Evangelical precarious. German congregation in Jerusalem, and two others. A suitable plot of ground Varying slightly from time to time, was bought outside the Jaffa Gate, and the number of inmates at the close of the Moravian Church furnished the mis- last year was 18-10 males and 8 females, sionaries, the Rev. F. Tappe and wife, 9 Moslems and 9 Christians. Their ages who had previously served for thirteen varied from 19 to 71. One had been a years ill Labrador. The Home was con- patient for 17 years, but most of them secrated on Ascension Day, May 30th, for less than 3 years. 1867. So deep, however, did the Mohammedans' distrust and hate of Chris- It may be asked what are the results tians prove, added to the dislike of any- of all this Christian effort, aside from the thing that resembled restraint and the alleviation of physical suffering and deprivation of the old privilege of beg- want? ging, that not one leper would at first avail himself of its advantages. But Besides making use of opportunities gradually prejudices were overcome, so that present themselves in private conthat by the end of the first year there versation, the missionary conducts rewere 12 patients. In due time two ligious services daily in the chapel of nurses from Germany came to the as- the hospital, and twice a week an Ara· sistance of the manager and his wife, bic catechist, Daughan by name, renders who have besides the help of a man-ser- valuable assistance. And their efforts vant. But there have very naturally have not been in vain. been times of great perplexity. In 1887, for instance, the staff of nurses com- The Rev. Dr. Rondthaler, of Salem, pletely broke down. A call for volun- North Carolina, who visited the hospital teers was issued by the Mission Board several times during a stay in Jerusalem of the Moravian Church, and before it two years ago, said that two thinglil im- pressed him greatly : 1. That the patients of the house are very grateful and as cheerful as possible under the circumstances. 2. That many of them have a hope shown us hitherto. We have found & home in your benevolent hospital, in and an expectation beyond this life, so which we are well cared for.
saddened and darkened for them. Of a You already know what v.e have to go through. God the Highest has visited farewell service which he conducted he us with t.his painful disease. The bur- den which He has thus laid upon us is writes: "How they listened as I read great and heavy, and at times scarcely to be borne. Sometimes we toss about 1 John 1, and went on to tell in simplest on onr beds with inexpressible aches and pains such as human understanding language of the love and sympathy of can scarcely comprehend. But we are comforted, and bear our misery with the Saviour, and how it is expressed in patience, for our kind reception into your hospital has shown us that we are the kindness of His people to them. not forsaken by God the Highest. Here you not only care for us, but have sent Some are still Mohammedans; but.these us such dear house-parents, who do in- deed thoroughly take a parent's place children of Ishmael shared in the audio toward us, and day by day point us to Him who said: "Come unto Me, all ye ble 'Yes, Yes,' which often showed that that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That affords us they understood." comfort and confidence in the hope that the dear Saviour will once grant us rest The Rev. S. J. Blum, of Philadelphia after this pitiful life, for we also shall have a place in His kingdom. Our who visited the hospital last year, was hearts, honored friends, are full of joy and delight that God still loves us very much struck with the absence of though the world hates and despises us. Yes, we are glad that when our all cries for " bakshish" on the part of Saviour was on earth He always pitied and healed the sick. Those who thought the inmates of the home whom he met they had no need of a physician kept away from Him_ We know, indeed, in the garden of the institution and in that we are sinners, and, therefore, we need a Saviour who will make us free their rooms. He regarded it as a very from sin, and that Saviour is Jesus.
marked evidence of the change in char- And now we beg you to intercede for us that God will grant us grace and paacter ths.t hs.d come over them, for else- tience in our sufferings as long as we continue in this world, and above alJ. where lepers were most importnnate. that He will give us everlasting life. Do help us. Pray fervently that we Had I time I might adduce a number may not perish in our great sufferings.
of happy death-beds that have cheered With heartfelt greetings ft·om all, SALIER. the missionaries during their years of labor. Last year, for example, a young man of twenty, named Beschara, was released from his life of sufferings, re- peating the twenty-third Psalm as the farewell confession of his faith. And others like him have died in confident expectation of that life where leprosy will be unknown.
True, here as elsewhere, there have been some keen disappointments for the Christian workers in oharge. Yet on the whole they have felt themselves re- paid for their self-sacrifice. .
The following letter of thanks, com- posed by Salieh, one of the patients at the tim e of the consecration of the pres- ent building, and signed by all his com- panions, is s.n evidence that some of the poor unfortunates deeply appreciate what is done for them in the name of Christ: DEAR FRIENDS: We who have to bear Then follow the names of all the pain our bodies the wounds, and pains, tients. and whatsoever troubles this leprosy brings ~i/;h it, send you our heartfelt Thus charity that never faileth, by thanks for all the kindness. you have the grace of God implants in the hearts of these benighted outcasts a deep calm and a mo~t Christian resignation, pre. lepers, if the judgment of the medical paring them for the day of heavenly officer of the principal one of these in- health. firmaries is to be relied on. It is fair to emphasize that both these are esti· mates. No census has been taken, nor Leprosy in a. South Amerioan State, probably could be taken owing to the There is ever a melancholy interest in secrecy observed by the victims of the the subject which Dr. Taylor treats in disease and their friends, though there his article on the ., Leper Hospital at seems to be much less dread of the dis- Jerusalem ;" but the time has come for ease here among the popUlation in gen· something more that a morbid sympathy eral than in any other land of which we with lepers. The impression that lep know. The most notable thing about rosy is an exceptional and limited form the consul's report is that regarding the of human misery has perhaps caused the climatic effect on the disease of a local- modern scientist and humanitarian to ity some 1400 feet above the sea with a neglect such investigation into it as they temperature of about 82t0 in the district are accustomed to make into the more of Tocaima, about three days' journey widespread forms of human ill. But from Bogota, where there ~8 a leper asy·, the time has come for special inquiry lum at a place called Agua de Dios. It into unusual, and, as is supposed, infre. was discovered a hundred years ago that quent maladies. Pasteur, for instance, this climate arrested the progress of the is doing this for the malady arising from disease, so that lepers who remained rabies. We learn that there is a com- here rarely if ever died of leprosy, but of mission of specialists appointed for some other cause. There are sulphur England and India to inquire scientifi· springs in the locality, but the lepers cally into leprosy. But that is not broad do not use them. Other people resort enough. It looks as if such a commis- there, and quite a population has grown sion ought to be international. Certain- up about the lazaretto, and the people ly facts which may be said to have been mingle freely and without let with the recently brought to public notice, if lepers. The lepers do not now consti- indeed that is not a rhetorical state- tute more than one third of the resident ment of the extent to which they are population. The healthy people of the yet made known, about the United States locality intermarry with the lepers. The of Colombia, in relation to the preva- marriage does not result unfavorably to lence of leprosy, would suggest that a the healthy party to it; but the children great deal of important knowledge might born in this wedlock generally develop be gathered in that quarter. the disease in a few years, even little The British Consul at Bogota is author. children of four and five years being ity for most startling statements as to victims of it. On the other hand, the the extent and spread of leprosy in that case is given of a leper who bad been State. It appears to have been slowly nearly forty years in this locality who spreading for about two hundred and had passed through several stages of fHty years in that region, though in the the disease, but for the last eighteen last twenty years it cannot be said to years had had no pain or inconvenience have extended slowly, but very rapidly. from it. The mortality of the lepers, A medical review is published in Bogota, however, is far above the average of the the editor of which is recognized as a other people living there. They usually well·known physician, and he makes die of dysentery, fevers, and pulmonary the statement that of the one million complaints, The astounding thing ahout population of Santander and Boyaca, all this is the lack of restraint on the one tenth-which would be a hundred population with a view to limiting it.
thousand-are lepers. The lazarettos of If, >as the Consul says, the people believe ~l;lese districts contain thirty thousand it is both contagious and hereditary, and if from the introduction of a single case scared, haunted, held fast, the African's into Antioquia thirty years ago there can life begins and ends in fear. The chill be now counted eight hundred, what- of fear strikes it at birth and leaves it ever are the authoritiE's about that they only at death. Want, pale daughter of do not set up some kind of hygienic murder, aids to enlarge the depopulated regulations of it? If they are not finan· areas ; the knife of the cannibal threatcially able to isolate the lepers, they can ens them all-unhappy knife, the last have help from the outside world on the weapon of African atrocities! . . • simple ground of ordinary humanity, Sisters of America, shall your souls and and that not of the picture pocket-hand- ours keep silent? In the presence of kerchief sort either. It is not a case so this despair shall we look on with inmuch of sympathy as of decent humani- difference? Have our hearts nothing to tarianism of the common-sense order. ask, our energies nothing to do at a mo- We are near enough neighbors to Co- ment when great work should begin? .. lombia to take a lesson or two from her All Europe is stirred. . .. The past notebook on the subject of national of America gives assurance that it will carelessness on this matter of disease not be distanced by Europe in this great importations and inoculation, and near humanitarian movement. • .' Amerienough, too, to respond to a missionary ca, who sends her missionaries to equacall for aid in carrying the load of a torial lands, will not be indifferent to smitten population in districts where the efforts of the Old WorId, the lands one in ten of the people are suffering of their ancestors, whose conscience is the worst of human maladies. now aroused and whose valor is united for the suppression of the slave trade in J. T. G. Africa.
"An Appeal to the Women of "Sisters of America, your sisters in America." Europe rely on your i.lelp. Christian women of America, the hope of the dis- THE COUNTESS OF GASPARIN. tressed in Africa is in you."
'Ne have received the" appeal" sent The Men Who Ma~e Islam, out by the Countess of Gasparin to the women of America, on the subject of Whoever stops with the life of Muham- African slavery, in connection with the mad and the Quran will not come into a Brussels Treaty; but our space forbids knowledge of Islam, for the Quran alone using it all. We make from it the fol is to no Moslem the sole rule of life; lowing selections, translated perhaps, a and though the Sunni sect may spit little freely : upon the grave of the Khalifs Abu Bekr and Omar, yet without these men Islam "American sisters! Slavery is not would not have survived the death of dead. Nor have its abominations oeased Muhammad. To know Islam one must to dishonor the earth, nor its murders know the immediate successors of Muto stain it with blood. Extinct, is it? No! a thousand times No ! . .. Daugh- hammad-each at once king and pope ters of the continent of light, give it your pity." (Here follow descriptions – who carved out of the broken pieces of the horrors of the slave caravan.) of empire which Muhammad left strewn over Arabia, a strong State, and out of "Slaves of the Arab brigands, the his most casual utterance a canon for African people, small and great, are the the consciences of millions yet unborn. slaves of fear; the slaves of ferocious More splendid illustrations of bold, hatred, man against man, tribe against prompt decision in court or camp, one tribe. Slaves of bestiality, of falsehood, will look far afield to find than are reand of wicked spirit.s led about by storms corded of the four great khalifs, .the and hid in the forests. Slaves of the only" successors" of Muhammad. The devil, the monarch of the dark continent, very peril '-_ the first hour after Mu- that Muhammad could not die. When hammad's death only afforded such men the rumor spread that the great man opportunity to snatch triumph from was no more, the wildest excitement wild and hopeless disorder and over- swept the town, and the crowd that hanging ruin. gathered at the mosque was dazed as with delirium. c. Among them Omar The biographies of Muhammad are arose, and in a wild and excited strain past count. There are as rich resources declaimed that the prophet was not for the reproduction of every detail of dead, but in a trance, from which he his life as of any man that ever inhabit- would soon arise and root out the hypoed the earth. But for what followed crites from the land." Abu Bekr, who Muhammad ?-for knowledge of the men had been for an hour away from the who carved Islam out of the material prophet on a visit to his sick mother, which Muhammad left to them we have came hurrying back to the mosque; to resort to much painful picking in crossing the court he had stopped to dust-bins and out-of-the- way annals. kiss the prophet's face: "Sweet wert Few men are furnished for excursio"ns thou in life," he said, .c and sweet thou of this sort_ The learning, the literary art in death." Finding Omar still qualities, as well as the moral qualities haranguing the people when he reached for original researches of this kind are the mosque, he put him aside with the rare. It is with a sense of obligation memorable words: .. Whoso worshippeth which the literary and religious world Mahomet, let him know that Mahomet is should acknowledge, that we turned dead; but whoso worshippeth God, let him into and have come out of, Sir William know that God liveth and dieth not. " Omar Muir's latest studies into the fragments was speechless .. My limbs trembled, of scattered Arabian lore, which he andIknewoia certaintythatMuhammad prosecuted to furnish to the world a was dead," he would Ray in after years. portraiture of the great khalifs (Sir William persists in the old Romanizing The citizens of Medina had instantly .. caliph") of Islam; or, rather, to be assembled to select a successor to Mumore exact, to give us a noble volume of hammad, and the report of their gather. some six hundred pages, entitled ., The ing was made known at the mosque. It was a critical moment. The mantle of Caliphate :1ts Rise, Decline, and Fall. "* the prophet must fall on one and one only. The sovereigntyoflslam demand- One will search far for more graphic, ed an undivided khalifate. The die bold, and comprehensive historical must be cast and must be cast at once. grouping than is instanced in the first The men of Medina demanded that he few paragraphs describing the death of should be of themselves, for their good Muhammad, and the selection on the swords had saved Islam. spot of his immediate successor. •• Every word wnich ye men of Medina Muhammad died a little after midday have uttered in your own praise is true," in the midsummer of 632 A.D. It is said Abu Bekr, .c and more than true; doubtful if the devoted followers of the but in noble birth and influence th!l prophet had allowed themselves to con- Coraish are paramount, and to none but template the event of his death; and, them will Alabia yield obedience." like Napoleon, he seems never to have " Then," said the men of Medina, .. let thought of what would become of his there be one chief among you, and one faith or his kingdom when it should from among us." .. Away with you," fall into o~her hands. Some of his more said Omar; "two cannot stand todevoted adherents seem to have dreamed gether." The heat of the altercation was great when Abu Bekr arose. .. Ye * .. The Caliphate: its Rise, Decline, and FaIl.,. see these two," said he, pointing to Omar and Abu Obeida, .. choose ye now From Original Sources, by Sir William Muir, K.C.S.I., LL.D., D:C.L. The Religious Tract Society, London. Fleming H. ReveIJ Co., New York and Chicago, sole agents. which of them ye will, and flalute him this book of Mr. Muir's wholesome if as your chief." .. Nay," answered not palatable reading. -J. T. G. these men both at once, ,. t/Wu hast already, at thl! prophet's bidding, led the The Situation in China. prayers, and art our chief. Stretch forth thine hand." He did so, and they We wrote in the November, 1891, REstruck their hands on his, as is the Arab VIEW of "Some of the Causes of the Discustom, in token of allegiance. The turbanoe in China." We have little need men of Medina did likewise, and the to modify the statements there made. supreme power passed without let or But new factors have come into the hindranoe into the hands of Abu Bekr. problem. The" Eastern Question" has become" The Far Eastern Question." It was to no bed of roses that Abu Europe is "fencing" on the Northern Bekr had been elevated. It took a year border of China from Manchuria to the of hard fighting to reolaim the penin- corner-post of India Eussia and China, sula alone. at Pamir. The European nations are not so busy settling treaty matters with There was nothing effeminate about China as they are in playing a larger ~ha men that made Islam. Sir William game for supremacy in Asia. Hence ':links Khalid. the dashing general who the gunboat masquerade in Chinese '''ands in the foreground of these early waters is all that we seem likely to have :r 11 de days of Islam, an extraordinary just at present, while the several Eurown.rrior. "His conduot on the battle- pean powers are coquetting with China fidds whioh deoided the fate of the Per- instead of bullying her. Great Britain, sian Empire, and of the Byzantine rule who was just now trying to determine in Syria, ranks him a; one of the great- with what sauce to begin to serve Prince est generals of the world." But those Chung, has gone to hold a love-feast were rough men made for war, heedless with him in the Imperial Yemen. The of spilled blood; and Khalid, "the London Daily Telegraph found out that Sword of the Lord," as they surnamed it was manifestly the policy of England him, could wed the widow of one enemy .. to be on the friendliest terms with on the field still sodden with his own China, the 'vast realm of the oentre,' soldiers' blood, and later marry another which by the foroe of dominating cirwidow of Ibn Noweira, whose blood was cumstanoes has beoome our [England's] yet fresh upon the spot where by his natural ally in Asia, the interests of both own order he had been slain. But all empires being menaced by the same this study is not mere ourious delving potential foes;" The Speaker gave vent into antiquarian bone beds. It is by re- to the sentiment that it "is of muoh search such as this that we learn what more importanoe to make use of her blam is, what inherently and essentially limits it as a civilization. The [China1against Russia than to trouble dead hand of the prophet stretched out to be taken by the caliphs of four dynas- ourselves about missionaries . . . who ties, reached still further by the par- have no business to go where they are alyzing hands of the four Imams, and likely to be killed." The Western Daily sterility must reign wherever the soep- Press came to see that bullets and bayotre of the Moslem reaches. There is nets were of doubtful utility, because here no germ of popular institutions. " China may be a valuable ally for Eng- Erery year the politioal ascendenoy of land if Russia should ever overstep the Islam gives increasing evidenoe of being bounds of prudence in furtherance of doomed. There has been no progress, her designs in India." The Globe, the there can be no change. Islam stands- Saturday Review, and other leading still. Innovation is worse than a mis- papers write in the same strain. China take. Canon Taylor and his brood of is as muoh afraid of Russia as she is of second·hand critics of Islam will find anything else, and muoh more so when a.ny internal troubles of her own create she will gain the utmost possible for her an occasion for intermeddling with her own and other missionaries; for, with- affairs. Besides, if she can set these out being over· scrupulous about the European powers watching each other spiritual side of their work, she has long they will be the less troublesome to her ago reckoned the missionary as one of for the immediate present. the great factors in her colonial policy But that is not all the change that as well as in every non-Christian land.
has developed. It seems as if there Gltimately all that Great Britain gains were a division of policy among the by courting in North China will be made Chinese rioters themselves. Hunan has to inure to the advantage of the mis- had but one policy. As late as Sep- sionary. But if she and others should tember a conclave of Hunan leaders was utterly fail to protect the missionaries, held at Woochang. They passed a reso· it is not to be forgotten that the Roman lution to drive out all foreigners from Catholics stayed there two hundred the three provinces, Hunan, Hupeh, and years without any treaty; and Protestant Kiangsi. That may be called the Hunan missionaries may find greater defence programme. But if the information is from the fine diplomacy of Divine Provi- reliable, there is a Chinkiang section dence than from all earthly potentates.
which have a different view. These pro- Jesus Ohrist is not dead, and He will overturn and overturn "till His kingpose to lower the tea duties and favor dom comes."-J. T. G.
foreign trade, to employ foreigners ex.
tensively in the army and navy and cus- -Sad news comes from the Rev. Mr. toms. They would build railroads and Annand, in the New Hebrides. The apportion the land tax justly. Some of death of a child of Rev. Mr. and Mrs. them would employ foreign help in in- Lawrie, of the Scotch Free Mission, so augurating successful rebellion. These seriously affected the mind of Mrs. Laware not anti.Christian, nor anti.foreign, rie as to result in insanity. The wife nor anti-progressive, but are against the of Rev. Mr. Leggatt, of the Victoria present Government. church, hung herself in a fit of tem- porary insanity. A young Englishman We have traversed this mainly to show -Mr. Sawer-who had just married a that a good deal of the case has passed lady who went out to become his wife, beyond the provinco of a missionary re- was killed by bushmen, who sent a bulview. For those,who prize military and let through his heart, and killed and naval defence for missions, the imme. feasted on the bodies of two natives diate results of the political jugglery is who were with him. Mr. Sawer's renot altogether satisfactory. The Wuhu mains were brought to Tangoa by Mr. riots occurred last May, but six months Annand. He had been married but two days, and great sympathy is expressed for his young widow.
went by and nothing was done ; Wusueh -The Ohurch M"Ulsionary lntelligencer saw two wretches punished who proba. bestows high praise on the" Cycloptedia bly were not near the place at the time; of Missions," published by Funk & but no dignitary was degraded. The VIagnalls. It says: " This is far and Ichang riots occurred right under the away the most important work on misnose of the imperial representatives of sions yet published. . .. The amount the port, and the rioters were them- of information packed into the closely selves government troops. The brigadier·general stood by and saw the Oatho- printed 2700 pages is enormous ; and lie nuns driven to a horrible death, 'and one is staggered to think of the labor did not turn a hand to pre.ent the out- that must have been involved in its rage. Dr. Greig was tert'ibly maltreated production. It is worthy of AmeriIJa. in Shantung by officials and soldiers. In England we have nothing at all like We have no great grief over the diplo- it." It remarks on what is not in it, matic situation. If Great Britain be- but adds: .. We are afraid these criticomes an ally of China, sooner or later cisms will detract somewhat from our praise of the work; but W(l do praise it, nevertheless, most warmly." Men will feel, it says. that they can no more dis- pense with it than they can with Smith' 8 ,. Dictionary of the Bible."
1892.J EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
IlI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
What is the Next Step? cree, we know, t,ook less than ten months to run from the palace at There has been during the past ten Shushan to the limits of the Persian years a widespread echoing of the cru- Empire. Here is a world about twentysade cry: "Let us in our generation five thousand miles in circumference, carry the Gospel around the world!" inhabited by about one thousand mill- It has been discussed in pulpit and ions of people, yet unreached with the press, at home and on the foreign field. Gospel. Christianity holds the strategic Animated and inspired by this motto, centres. Even Africa is girdled and the missionaries in far-off lands have penetrated by missionary bands ; Asia met to consider what ean be done; is occupied, from Turkey to Japan; have held great conventions like that South America is imperfectly supplied at Shanghai last year; have issued their with Christian missionaries, but two of loud calls for" a thousand more work- the greatest of Christian nations occupy ers" at once to enter the field, etc. The the territory north of the Gulf of Mexi- China Inland Mission, Church Mission- co; we have a band of six thousand ary Society, London Missionary Society, missionaries, of six: times as many na- English Baptist Society, etc., have all tive evangelists and teachers scattered appealed for more men and women and over the pagan and heathen world. In money, with a view to the immediate the Protestant churches of Christenoccupation of the fields as yet unsup- dom, exclusive of the Greek and Latin plied, and the vastly increased occu- communions, and Oriental churches, we pancyof fields in which at present there have over forty millions of professed is an insufficiency of laborers. What is disciples who have thousands of millions the next step? of dollars at their command. All the appliances of the nineteenth century are I think we need first of all to realize in their hands, for they represent the that the evangelization of the world in this intelligence, enterprise, and enlightened generation is not a mere wild dream, but force of the world. Who can tell how may be made a fact if the Church of rapidly the Gospel message might be God will have it so, and use the means diffused over the habitable globe if all God has given her. Great things may this available material could be utilized? be done in a very short time if there be a determination to do them. and a After twenty-~ve years of constant proper energy, promptness, and co- study of this subject, and conference operation in action. When the English and correspondence with hundreds of Government wished to take the census students of missions and missionary of India, February 26th, 1891, it was all workers, I am more and more satisfied done in six hours when the appointed that if the Church would but imitate the time came. Arrangements were so com- laudable .. push" and .. dash" of the plete that at the set hour, from aU quar- men of this generation, the children of ters, the agents of the Government light would flood the world with the moved forward within their limited ter- Gospel in as little time as Ahasuerus ritory, and the proper inquiries were disperscd his royal decree from the made and answered and the records BosphoruR to the Indus. Will anyone made. tell us why not?
We have often called attention to the .. Where the word of a King is, thelre energy and celerity with which, in the is power." .. And the King's busines!! days of Ahasuerus, three times the en- requireth haste." These two texts tire empire, that reached from the ought to be our motto and our warrant Golden Horn to the Ganges, was reached for doing this work now and for the with a royal decree; alld the third de- whole world. Back of the Kiug's word lies the authority and the assurance of among people of all classes and denomi- Divine co-operation; the very fact of its being the King's business is the all-suill- nations: cient warrant for haste. Nineteen centuries have sped by, and the King's DEAR BRETHREN : "Elect according to business remains undone; the power the foreknowledge of God the Father, back of the King's word has never yet through sanctification of the Spirit, been fairly tested and proven. Oh, that unto obedience and sprinkling of the the children of God in our generation blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you would at least honestly undertake to see and peace be multiplied." that the Gospel is borne to " every creature" in "all nations" before the gen- Not being" ashamed of the Gospel of eration passes to the great account that Christ," when brought into comparison fix.es eternal destiny! with all the heathen religions of the world, and believing that Gospel to be To my mind, one step that can be the "power of God unto salvation to taken at once toward this world-wide everyone that believeth," we desire to evangelization is to gather for prayerfUl call your attention again to the last conference, at an early date, the leaders commandment of our risen and ascendof modern missions. Perhaps the first ed Lord; " All power is given unto Me conference might be comparatively a in heaven and in earth. Go ye, thereprivate one, in the parlor of some de- fore, and teach all nations, baptizing voted servant of Christ. Why not call them in the name of the Father, and of together such men as Dr. A. J. Gordon, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teach- Dr. C. C. McCabe, Dr. Arthur Mitchell, ing them to observe all things whatso- Dr. Judson Smith, D. L. Moody, Bishop ever I have commanded you; and, 10, I Ninde, Bishop W. R. Nicholson, the am with you always, even unto the end Bishop of Huron, Ontario,J. Hudson of the world. Amen." Taylor, F. B. Meyer, Robert E. Speer, etc., and prayerfully consult as to the In order, therefore, to aid all our wider measures necessary to be insti- churches and Missionary Boards in tuted in order to secure larger results? carrying out this Great Commission, an There are men on both sides of the sea, enterprise has been inaugurated called and women too, who, after a godly sort, the" Cross-bearers' Missionary Reading have been studying this question, upon Circle, .. a course of systematic reading whose minds it has been a burden for and study on the subject of Missions, years, and who have been praying over embracing a period of three years. This it. Some of them we have mentioned movement has been before the churches because we know they are alive with in- about a year, and has received the en telligent zeal for a world's evangeliza- dorsement of many leading men in tion. We yearn to see some such meet- many lands. ing called, where at least united prayer may be offered for the speedy inaugura- The Board of Directors, therefore, tion of that new effort-shall we not say make the following appeal to faithful new era ?-of world·wide missions. Christians in all lands : The Crossbearers' Missionary Read- liirst. For one hundred thousand read- 109 Circle is a growing institution, and ers and students in the" Crossbearers' has undoubtedly a future of usefulness. Missionary Reading Circle," before the end of the nineteenth century. The following is an appeal recently sent out by them "To Faithful Chris- Second. For contributions from those tians in all Lands," with a view to who love the cause of Missions, for the ,"wakening greater interest in Ilissions purpose of establishing this Missionary Reading Circle upon a firm financial basis.
Third. For the hearty co operation of the Christian Ministry in this work throughout the world.
Fourth. To the American and English religious press for the publication of this appeal.
Fifth. That all who desire information concerning the" Crossbearers' MiHsion- ary Reading Circle" should address Pro- fessor Charles R. Foster, A.M., Fayette, Mo., U. S. A.
NOTlll.-The course()£ reading for this year is as follows : 1. "Life of William Carey," seventy-five cents; 2. ,. The Comin~ Kingdom," Jtev. W, W, Wld<lworth, $1 ; 3. .. Life of James Hanning. in London for preparation; meeting in ton, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Af. their rooms for apportionments; cor· rica," Re". E. C. Dawson, M.A., $1; 4. respondenc,e with a few eminent socie- ,. The Great Value and Success of For· ties abroad for work among the actual eign Missions," Rev. John Liggins, heathen.
seventy.five cents; 5. The MISSIONARY The work of divisJon should be ac- complished with urgent prayer and dis- REVIEW, Funk & Wagnalls, per year, patch. I deem it the first and best $1.50 ; 6. Initiation fee, per year, fifty thing to do and be done in Christ's cents. Kingdom. We append a portion of a letter This matter requires no ponderous recently received from the originator of organization, but plain and lucid statethe readulg.circle idea as applied to mis. ments, loving, intelligent minds and sionary literature: hearts. BAREILLY THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, BAREILLY, N. W. P., INDIA, Provision were easily made to wel- Aug. 24, 1891. come all workers in the unoccupied dis- DEAR BROTHER: I have received your C. M. R. C. handbook, and am rejoiced tricts of great areas; thus there would beyond measure that your project has taken such good shape. Something be ample room for all existing and aris· like this has been a dream of my heart for years. You have fully taken it up, ing workers, and the very fact of the and it remains for you to fully demon· strate its practicability. I pray that division and nominal assignment being God may help you; for I think there is great power in the idea. It will in· made, and being known widely in all augurate a new erafor missions.. the evangelical Christian communities, You will require tact and push to make a first-class success of it. Nov- would probably increase and arouse to elty may wear off. Pastors may be in. different. Even missionary secretaries effective endeavor for realization. may not see much in it; but you must push right on till the ball is rolling Our Duty in Danger. welL God will help you. Interetlt will grow. Leading men will see and be- The following is a letter sent out by come convinced. J. Hudson Taylor, to the missionaries I hope your movement may send a deputation to the next annual session of the China Inland Mission, in regard of the International Missionary Union, and urge this matter on them. That is to the recent troubles in China: a place in which to .. strike the centre." You will most of you have heard of May I ask the prayers of your Circle the time of excitement through which for the great work going on in this mis· many stations in the Yang.tse valley sion in North India. We are baptizing have passed. -old and young-more than a thousand souls a month. It is hoped that the danger is now passing away, though some fear that Yours, In His Name, one of the secret societies may yet cause T. J. ScoTT. further trouble. The present time seems, therefore, opportune for consid. An Organized Effort. ering the course that we as missionaries should adopt in times of excitement and The subject of" evangelizing the world danger, and several have said that they thought it would be helpful if I gave in this generation" is more and more be- you my thoughts on the subject.
ginning to occupy the minds of men. First, then, let me remind you of the importance in this day of the command This is shown by the following sugges· not to speak evil of dignities, but, on the contrary, to pray for those in autions from Mr. Robert Arthington, of thority. The rulers of this land have often a difficult path : it is not easy for Leeds: them to take our part against their own To partition the world for evangelistic people, and we do well to ~ray that they purposes would seem quite easy and may have courage and WIsdom to act withQut m~terial expense: by interviews firmly and justly; such prayers should be public as well as private. Much may depend on their finding that Christianity promotes loyalty to tl;u~ powers that be, and the giving of honor that," Sufficient is His arm alone and to those to whom it is due. our defence is sure."
Then we do well to recognize that we What a loss it would be if any of them are not here as representatives of West- should t.hink that we relied more upon ern Powers, and that our duties do not a gunboat or a band of soldiers than correspond with theirs. We are here upon the living God! Years of teach- as witnesses and representatives of the ing would not impress them as our con- Lord Jesus Christ. •• As my Father hath duct at such times may do. Moreover, sent Me, even so send I you." Once their sympathy will be drawn out for us disciples mistakenly would have called when they see us willing to suffer for down fire from heaven to avenge the the Gospel, as they so often have to do_ Master Himself; but He rebuked them A time of danger is a grand opportunity and said: " Ye know Dot what manner of being an object-lesson to the native of spirit ye are of, for the Son of man is Ohristians.
not come to destroy men's lives, but to III. The moral effect of our action save them." And again, when the sol_ upon the heathen will, to a considerable diers would arrest our Lord, one of His extent, be the same as upon the con- disciples drew his sword in His defence, verts. A calm and confident demeanor but our Saviour said: ., Put up again will go far to disarm suspicion. The thy sword into his place; for all they people will not be slow to observe t.hat that take the sword shall perish with we are not afraid, and to conclude that the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot we have no reason to be. But if we flee, now pray to my Father, and He shall they are sure to conclude that we are presently give me more than twelve guilty of some of the charges brought legions of angels?" We may safely against us, and will be emboldened to conclude that our use of any weapon of attack and loot or destroy our premises.
defence, whereby another might be in- Even a dog will run after you if you run jured, would misrepresent our Master, away from him!
whose own distinct command to His _ Some of the older members of our disciples was: "Resist not evil, but mission have passed through more seri- whosoever shall smite thee on thy right ous times of excitement than the pres- cheek, turn to him the other also." ent. We have never at snch times re- If, then, it would not be consistent tired from a station; and though hold- for us to use weapons for our own de· ing the fort, has not always secured ns fence, it may be asked, Should we not against a riot, it has often done so, and leave our stations for such places as are, has proved abundantly fruitful in or can be, defended by the officers of strengthening the faith of our native our respective governments? It seems converts.
to me that there are several important An objection may arise in some minds reasons against taking this course, un- that we are directed, if persecuted in less absolutely compelled to do so. one city, to flee to another; to which I. We are in our stations at God's we would reply that we are not told to command, and as His ambassadors, and flee through fear of possible persecution.
therefore have both promise of, and If the Lord suffers us to be driven away, claim to, His protection. We have as St. Paul so frequently was, the re- many of us gone to places far removed sponsibility will then rest with Him; from foreign protection on this very and He will surely work out His own ground. Our risen Saviour has told us purposes through the trial. But let us that all power has been committed unto not retire ourselves from fear of loss or Him; and that, because this is so, we danger; and so doing perhaps leave our are to go everywhere, reckoning His un- Master's sheep just when they most need failing presence better defence than that the shepherd's presence and care.
which the arm of flesh can provide. We conclude, then, that the right We have a rIIre opportunity in times of course, and the best policy alike, is to danger of proving His promises for our- remain at our posts, whenever this is selves, and before our converts. possible. We may well rejoice that it is II. We are continually encouraging so, and that duty does not require the our converts to brave persecution and suspension of our work, for life is short, to snfferloss for Christ's sake, and they and daily the people are dying without are very apt to think that it is easy for God.
us to speak in this way, seeing that, as To us all is given the dignity of be- far as they can tell, we are well-to.do ing ambassadors for the King of kings; and exposed to no danger or loss. When and all His power is at all times behind then we are in danger they will mark us. We may therefore boldly say, very closely our conduct, and judge for "The Lord is on my side; I will not thexnselvEls how far we really beliElve fear. What can man do unto me I"
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Ohina, Eto. is destroyed, and hundreds of them are fugitives from mob violence. It is too CHARACTER OF THE CHINESE CONVERTS. often forgotten that persecution is the normal condition of the Chinese con- One of the most marked signs of the verts to Christianity. We hear of these times is the altered tone of the secular persecutions only whl'n they touch the press toward missions. A noteworthy foreign missionaries; of the daily and illustration is the championship of the sporadic outbreaks against the native modern mission by the London Times. Christians we hear nothing, for it only The great "Thunderer," eminently concerns the Chinese themselves. To since the death of Bishop HRnnington, support the hatred and social ostracism, has lost no prominent opportunity to with which, as the writer admits, the say a strong word for missions and their converts are regarded, there must be results in Africa and Asia. Its leader genuine, energetic conviction. The'tens some while since. on the" unique and of thousands of converts scattered all extraordinary interest" of the recent over China, with their numbers daily India census, showing the strength and increasing, could not, indeed, be mainculture of the native Christian com- tained for a week from the missionary munity in India. is a masterly presenta. funds sent from abroad, even if these tion of some of the salient points of wer€! devoted to no other purpose. The that new factor in Christian statistical fact appears to be that these converts economy, stout enough in its pleading contribute liberally, and in some cases to have been delivered at an Exeter Hall wholly mo.inta,in their own native pas· missionary anniversary. It is with tors and places of worship." great pleasure that we turn to its editorial rejoinder to a correspondent in THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT IN NORTH CHINA. its columns, who signs himself ,. A Chinese," who raises the question whether One cannot but ask whether the the great Christian governments will churches in Christendom are awake to find it worth their while to defend the the fact that "this Chinese Empire may missionaries in China, when they come see a great uprising one day, and that to know that their converts are from the in the near future. for which these lower orders of society only, and arc led churches are in nowise prepared. We to em brace the Christian relIgion from have seen the mighty movements in the low motive of pecuniary compensa- Indio., the great turning to the Lord in tion for their allegiance. The Times Ongole, and the equally sweeping reanswers with the following knock-down vival in the lYlethodist missions of sort of logic: "If the Christian converts North India, and we have stood bewilare the needy and the viciolls, and iftheir dered before' them. The truth is, as motives are wholly those of gain, why Bishop Thoburn says, the people must should it be necessary to persecute them learn to familiarize themselves with the so cruelly, in order to drive them from idea that God intends to save the world; a faith which means nothing but a lit- and if there is a shred of truth in that tle money to them. The descriptions statement, we must prepare our minds lately published in the East of the per- for the contemplation of victories on a secutions of the little Christian com- scale far transcending the little work of munities in Szechuan and Yunnan, dur- to day. "If this world," he says, "is ing the past two years, are heart-rend- to be saved, there must come a time ing. Men, women, and children are when the heathen shall be gathered in murdered by Bcores, their little property by the hundred thousand-by the million." We have somehow at last got a about five hundred inquirers in his field.
glint that this sort of thing may occur which did not cover IDore than about in India; bnt as to China, we have sup one fourth their mission territory. This posed we must wait for generations yet is a fact that Dr. Nevius, with his great before this mighty mass of deliberative cautiousness, says he has not made pub- people can be expected to move, save in lic lest he might seem to be inflating the slow and tedious way with which the prospects. Dr. Nevius is confident we have already grown familiar. that the number of applicants for bap- It seems as if God were about rebuk- tism is understated at fifteen hundred.
ing that sort of timid faith, or, perhaps, But our eye is not merely on that fif- shaming it into bolder belief. Bishop teen hundred. They will not be bap- Goodsell, of the Methodist Episcopal tized without another fifteen hundred Church, just having returned from an standing behind them, waiting their official visit to the missions in China, turn. Any such facts as these mean says boldly that the MethodiGt brethren a movement and mean a movement there have baptized hundreds, and might in which God is. Dr. Nevius speaks have baptized thousands, as the breth- cautiously; and so we may pause to ren have done in India, only that they ask if the present disturbed state of thought it wiser to keep them longer the country, and especially of the North under instruction before baptism, of China, where we read of sanguinary Whether they are pursuing the batter battles just now, in which opposition to course may be questioned; each mis- all foreigners and their religion is one sion must be the judge of its own duty, of the points of contention, will serious- The fact remains that here'is the indica- ly arrest this movement and blot half tion of what may come any day in this of these inquirers off the evangelist's great empire. The English Baptists of "little book." PersonalIy we do not North China are meeting with like en- expect any such results. The Chinese couragement. Applicants al'e standing have known all along that there was at their doors begging for baptillm. The nothing in the foreign treaties of worth Presbyterians in Shantung face a similar to them. They have not been unfaruil- problem. They are going cautiously, iar with persecution, They can furnish and yet the pressure is on t~em. Last a martyr roli,. challenging comparison year's raport showed that they had with other parts of the mission field.
yielded so far as to admit some five hun- We know those who have illustrated dred converts to baptism. But that did this already; and the Chinese Chris- not show the wonderful work of the tians are not given to" backsliding."
Lord, for that was the report for the They have not had easy conditions on current year; and just after that, most which to make their trial trip. It has of the missionaries started out on mis- nowhere put them on a bed of roses to sionary tours, during which large num- accept the Christian faith.
bers were baptized, so the whole num- But it is not that we are concerned ber baptized in twelve months WdS over about just now. Here is the intimation one thousand. Besides these, there -more than that, the prophecy-of were not less than fifteen hundred more what God may do in pouring out His on the rolls of the missionaries as in- Spirit on China. There is already a quirers, or candidates for baptism, many mighty turning to the Lord; and it has of whom would have been baptized had occurred without a great leader, But not the brethren extended their term of let some Chinese Luther appear; let probation quite recently. This is not some Mongolian Wesley send out a all; the eminent missionary, Dr. Nevius, trumpet call; let some mighty leader tells us that he reoently reoeived from a arise like those with which the history native evangelist a "little book" con- of God's great doings has familiarized taining the names and residences of us elsewhere, and tbill revivAl in the North may sweep like the Tartar hordes in a Christian home; with the issues down on the rest of China. The Chi. of the press in every province, ex.
nese characteristics cannot be pleaded cepting not even Hunan, and every.
as against this, for this people is the where more or less knowledge of the mightiest homogeneous mass of human. Christian faith-in the fllce of all this, ity on t.ho globe, and they are not unac· it is not only the triumph of faith, customed at times to being swayed en but the dictate of reason, that in China bloc by great impulses. we should "attempt great things for It may be a chimera of the imagina· God, and expect great things of God. "
tion that a European writer suggests that a Chinese general may arise, who, THE MISSIONARY IN CHINA.
flushed with successful revolt against The London Times, in the article we the Manchu dynasty, shall sweep the have already alluded to, in reply to the French into the sea at Tonquin, break criticisms of .. A Chinese" in its col.
Russia in Asia in two, or lead a half· umns, says the writer is evidently in disciplined horde into Burma and In. ignorance of what the missionaries have dill. ; but we are, in China, dealing with done for China, and advises him to con~ a people whose history records great re· suit a catalogne of their pUblications in ligious movements. The people that Shanghai and elsewhere, which, the edi~ could furnish a leader competent to tor says, will show him that, ,. whatever overthrow Confucianism after it had knowledge of any of the sciences, arts, been established in the land for six cen· or history of the West his countrymen turies, burn its sacred books, put to possess, they owe wholly to missiona.
death all who were supposed to have ries." Then occurs the most emphatic any special knowledge of it, and tram. statement, which we choose to italicize, pie it under foot for two whole centu· that" the only real interpreter oj the thaught ries ; the people that could import a and progress of the West to the millions of foreign religion like Buddhism, and in China is the mi.~sionary; and when we one year take to its bosom three thou. remember that European knowledge of sand of its priests to teach the " doc· China is derived almost wholly from the trine;" the peopl<l who could raise a works of missionaries, we may fairly Peter the Hermit like 'rai Ping Hung, say that these men stand as interpreters to rally a crude, motley mass of half.in. between the East and the West." Refer.
formed people, who, baptizing each ring to the charitable work of missiona- other in the name of the Trinity, should ries, the editor says China "had no rush forward in a " Christian" insurrec· efficient hospitals or medical attendance tion with a religious.enthusiasm that in. until the missionaries established them; creased their bravery in battle, and and, in truth, she has no c:'ther now; trained them to self.denying discipline and when her great men, such as Li till they gave the Tartar dynasty the Hung Chang and Prince Chung, are in rudest shock it has as yet experienced- serious danger, they have to go to the such a people must not be counted as despised missionary doctor for that effi.
unsusceptible of great religious impres. cient aid which no Chinaman can give sions and wide.reaching display of re· them."
ligious energy. The Chinese nation may That is not the testimony of a mis· yet take up the religion of the Bible, and sionary magazine, it is the utterance of sweep half of Asia with it. In the face a seclllar journal whose judgments are of the seed that has been sown by mis. supposed to be impartial and weighty.
sionaries and native teachers, and iso· We could fill pages with similar testi.
lated Christians, who are scattered along mony from missionary sources. Rev.
the entire coast, till, journeying its Timothy Richard, in the Chinese Re· length, a traveller may sleep every night corder, for November, makes many sim. ilar assertions. His illustrations are THE GREAT IMPORTANCE OF CHINA. much of the same sort, such as that the scientific, industrial, political, and It seems as if we would never have historical books, as well as those on mathematics now in use in China, are done vying with each other in our attranslations made by the missionaries ; and the reverse is true; most of the tempts to show how important a factor translations of Chinese literature into Western languages has been done by China is in the work of this world's mISSIonaries. The mines, steamboats, and railways of China were projected evangelization. We strain after imagery by men trained in the mission schools. The !lducational mission to America and comparisons that shall enable us to was led by a Chinese Christian. The medical schools and high schools in the make real to ourselves what this great interior, in which modern education is had, are illmost wholly those established empire is. From a great collection of by missionaries, and these missionaries are the advocates of reform which will, pamphlets before us, kindly furnished Mr. Richards says, bring an annual in- Come of $1,000,000,000 to China. U8 by the principal societies for this We are very strongly tempted, while study, we select two illustrations. Here writing of this theme, to quote wholesale from a little tract, " The Missionary In- is the last Annual Report of the Amerivasion of China," of the Congregational Honse, by Dr. Henry D. Porter, can Baptist Union, "hich puts the case of North China, other illustrations in point. He says the missionary be- thus: comes the necessary creator of a new secular literature. The first missio!lary "In the past. other Asiatic nations from America gave the Chinese a history have attracted the attention of the civilof the United States and a version of ized world in a greater degree than the Bible. Weber's" Universal His- China, owing to special and temporary tory" was translated by a missionary. causes; but as the whole of the East is Mr. J. Freyer has prepared fifty or sixty becoming better known, and the real standard text·books on various subjects character of its various peoples more of Western science. Dr. Martin's work correctly understood, it is acknowledged on physics is the .special source of in- that China dominates the East, and the formation relied on by Chinese officials, conversion of China means the triumph as well as his three great treatises on of Ohristianity in Asia. The reason for international law. Kerr, Osgood, Dud- this lies not onlv in the immense size of ~eon, and others have published valu- the country and the almost inconceivable works on Western medical science. able multitude of the people. in the The natives have some appreciation of strength of their intellectual and moral this sort of thing, for one hundred and character, and in their indefatigable intwenty literary graduates appended their dustry, but also in the fact that they are names to the request that Dr. Happer making a peaceful invasion of all the would establish his college at Canton, other countries of Asia, and by their rather than at some other point of in- superior ability and industry capturing fiuence. The son of a viceroy, who the commercial and industrial activities learned to read through the New Testa- of those countries from the nerveless ment, thumbs a dictionary made by a hands of the natives. The business of millsionary. Siam is almost wholly in the hands of the Chinese. The sllmt! is largely true of the Straits Settlements and adjacent islands, and they are becoming increas- ingly influential every year in Burma, India, and even in Japan. It is saying very little to observe that the evan- gelization of the Chinese is more im- portant than that of any other race. "
Rev. Dr. Judson Smith, in a stirring pamphlet entitled" Our Missionary Op- portunity in China," has the following: ., The Chinese are at once the oldest, the most numerous, the most exclusive,. the least understood people on the face of the earth. The interval between the thoughts, the traditions, the tastes, the aspirations of this people and those which make up our inner life is nearly as great as can well be conceived. Here in the centre of the Oriental world, fac- ing the sea along a coaa~ of above three thousand miles, in a territory, the natu- churches, as to their rites, teaching, ral Beat of empire, which exceeds the and books. Let the Emperor then send whole continent of Europe in extent and forth his royal decree explaining the constitutes one tenth of the habitable teachings and meaning of the missionaglobe, amid natural conditions of cli- ries through all the eighteen provinces, mate and soil which have made inter- and cause this imperial decree to be encourse with the rest of the world need- graved on stones and placed throughout less, and which have sustained a teem- the provinces in every yamen, college, ing population for a pel'iod far outrun- private school, public hall, in every vilning the entire history of the longest lage, market town, and city, and in lived states of ancient or modern times every great ancestral hall. .. Weare -here this nation has dwelt since quite sure we would like to Bee the Abraham went out from Ur of the Chal- throne thus doing a good missionary turn; but the force of the preacher's dees, and here it abides to·day with un- logic is rather irresistible to the Chinese failing numbers and unbroken strength. It il:l the only spectacle of tho kind which history presents or the world has ever seen."
-There is plenty of uneasiness in taxpayer when he says it would be China; but Dr. Legge says that fifty much more economical for thc Govern- years ago one of the common sayings he ment than to continue to pay so much learned in China was this : "However out of the public treasury for destroyed the empire be disordered and convulsed, missionary buildings and other indem- the Changs and the K'ungs have no oc- nity, for which really the people have to casion to be troubled." He says that he pay in the form of taxes. He assumes then understood that the K'ungs were tllat the foreigners cannot be driven the descendants of Confucius entitled away, for" when stopped one step, they " Dukes," and were endowed with ex- have always gone beyond and taken .tensive estates; but it was a consid- two," so they might as well provide for erable time before he came to understand their remaini~g in some more economi- that the Changs were the Popes of Tao- cal way to the country.
ism. The headship of 1'aoism has been -We are, from various sources in in the Chang family since the ~rst cen- China, hearing of the excellence of a tury of our era, with the exception of book published at Shanghai, of which one interruption. The spirit of the first our bright and brainy friend, Rev. Ar- Pope is supposed to have transmigrated thur H. Smith, of P'ang Chuang, Shanfrom one chief to another down to the tung, is the author, entitled, .. Characpresent time. For now, close on to teristics of the Chinese." We had the nine centuries, these popes have had pleasure of reading some advance sheets large landed estates about the Lunghu of the book, and appl'eciate the high Mountains as an endowment. Weare praise it is receiving. Some American all the while thinking of Confucianism publisher should by all means bring out as the religion of the State in China; an edition of it. It is not a passing but we forget that the temples of all the book, but will be among the standard State gods are in the hands of Taoist literature of the world on China and the ministers. Chinese. Whoever knows the author -A native Chinese preacher has made will be ready to believe in advance that a proposal which the Chinese Recorder there cannot be a dull line in the volume.
translates. It is that •• all the ministers -The Presbyterian Mission at Canof the Western nations at Peking unite ton has resolved, if the way shall open in requesting the Emperor of China to for it, to erect a memorial chapel to send one of the most intimate, greatest, Rev. Wellington J. White,. at Sanui, and most faithful officers in person to the and to develop work around It as a cen- Western portions of China, to examine tre ; they will accept gifts from friends fully the Roman Catholic and Protestant toward the memorial, that thUH, Brother White being dead, may yet I!peak, -The Chinese clearly distinguish Bl. All along the coast the missions have read, between the spirituality and been scarcely at all disturbed. All this worth of the Romanist and Protestant may seem a Chinese puzzle, but the Chi. forms of Christianity. Dr. Stuart says nese are always a puzzle to foreigners. no Protestant chapel was disturbed at Iehang, nor in other cities where the The Chinese Recorder says: ,. Some Protestants had been long enough for things are clear to the understanding of the people to become familiar with every intelligent and candid observer: them. Rev. Mr. Cockburn, of the (1) Preparation 'for the destruction of Scotch Mission at rchang, writes to foreign property had been going on for Dr. McMurtrie: " The American Episco- years under the observation of officials, pal Mission in a native house within the without any serious attempt on their city, the Roman Catholic Mission within part to stop it ; (2) the movement is not the city, also in II native house, and the distinctively anti-missionary; (3) , Chi- Church of Scotland Mission Station out- na exclusively for the Chinese' is the side the North Gate, are all of them safe. idea-official or otherwise, or both ; (4) No protection was given, but everything the Imperial Missionary Decree seemed was as quiet as on ordinary occasions. If to indicate a change of policy at Pekin; Christianity be offensi ve to the Chinese, but the fact appears' that the edict aDd and mission work felt to be a grievance, its publication in the Gazette were ob. it is passing strange that the very centres tained with great difficulty,' and to all of proselytizing should not have a single appearance it has failed to command stone cast at them. What happened at the influence we had a right to expect Ichang should convince all parties that from a document of the kind, bearing it is not this or that individual class of the seal of higbest authority. It is Europeans that is aimed at, but all J!Ju.ro· more than probable that tho issue of the peans, without dis/inction of nationality or hour for us who are in China will be in. occupation." The Roman Catholics are definitely postponed through a combinamore obnoxious because of their large tion of 'circumstances fortunate for the ownership of tracts of land and exten- Government, and as the due reward of sive trade, combined· with their often a finesse that has often proved more incautious. if not questionable, ways of than a match for Western diplomacy." securing childr~n for their schools and orphanages, and the secrecy with which The Recorder also gives the transla. they conduct both trade and schools, tion of a Hunan manifesto: '" With one and also in the very objectionable way heart we offer up our lives … ' they say. in which they meddle with Government The principal points of agreement are in their own interests, than because of the ostracism of individuals and famitheir religion itself. Riots or no riots, lies 'bewitched by the spies' of the the fact is, the work even in the dis- Christian religion ; the expulsion of susturbed centres was only interrupted for picious travellers within the borders of two or three weeks in the latter part of Hunan; the offer of money, war mate- May and early June. Schools, chapels, rial, and troops to carry out any comand even street chapels, and hospitals mand the Emperor might make for the have been opened, and surgical opera. chastisement and extermination of fortions performed as usual. Only in one eign powers showing practical animosity feature does the work vary from ante- against Hunan; also the non-burning riot days-that of the extension into of churches and chapels, because of dan. new stations in the Yangtse valley. The ger to adjoining native houses; all such Roman Catholic missions in North China buildings should rather be handed over are reported to have suffered locally, to the authorities to be sold for the but the work of the American Board in benefit of the revenues." North China has not been interrupted.
….. ~
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. i51
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by .Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O.
-Scarcely a lie can be named, among America in zeal and liberal giving in all the hundreds afloat concerning mis. behalf of world·wide missions, though sions, more utterly without foundation, to them belongs the honor of being but,. nevertheless, frequently repeated pioneers in the work, and from first to and widely believed, than this; that last they have supplied perhaps tbeir every dollar sent to the heathen costs full proportion of men at once gifted, the sender another dollar. Among consecrated, and successful in reach. others, Chaplain McCabe, on several ing the hearts of the heathen. Ger. occasions, has undertaken to capture man societies number 16, of which 9 and slay this rascally offender, but he (Basle, Berlin, BrecklulD, Gossner's, still lives. The real facts in the case as Hermannsburg, Leipsic, the Moravian, to the economy of administration on the North German, and Rhenish) may be part of our missionary societieEl appear called the prinoipal ones, and 7 le811er in these statements, which, though re- and newer ones, and who8e accessible lating to but four, will stand for all. In statistics are but fragmentary. Tbe ago the Methodist Church (North), of every gregate of ordained missionaries is about dollar received, upward of .95 go direct 525, with 108 ordained natives, and a to the missions, and but .0066 are total working force of 5213. The com. ., sunk" in office expenses, such as sala· municants number not far from 100,000, ries of secretaries, clerks, etc. The the schools 950, and the pupils 50,000. Amet'ican Board sends to the heathen The annual income from all sources is .9225 out of every dollar paid into the nearly $950,000, of which sum about treasury, the Missionary Society of the $200,000 are derived from the mission Reformed (Dutcb) Church .948 of every fields. dollar contributed, and the Presbyterian Board (North) .955 of every dollar. Thus, -The Basle Society had its remotest tell it all abroad tbat it costs fi ve cents beginnings as far back as 1780, founded on an aVbrage to sl'nd a dollar to the a school for the training of missionaries ends of the earth. in 1816, and sent out its first men in 1821. It is undenominational, and reo -For several months the New York ceives support from Protestant churches Independent has been supplying its read· of almost every name in Central Eu. ers, in most liberal monthly instal· rope. Missions are sustained in China, ments, with the freshest intelligence India, and West Africa (Oameroons and from all lands. And among these ap. the Gold Coast). In 1890 the income peared a quasi-supplement of 13 pages, was $230,047; the missionaries num· wbich set forth the home missionary bered 133, with 92 women and 738 na· doings of the various denominations of tive helpers in addition; the communi. the United States. At least 23 of these cants were 11,584, and the school cbil· were reported; or, counting all subdi· dren 10,500. The home training-scbool visions of such as the Methodists, Bap. has an attendance of 80 to 100. Varitists, Presbyterians, etc., tbe number ous industrial and commercial institu· was about 50. A statistical summary tions are sustained in the mission fields, was appended, from which it appears whose aggregate income amount;; to that $5,818,000 was the not insignificant nearly $50,000, and from which a hand· sum expended in 1890-91. some profit is each year derived.
-The Protestant Christians of Ger. -The Berlin Society (for the Promo. many can scarcely claim equality with tion of Evangelical Missions among the their brethren in Great Britain and Heathen) was organized in 1824, and at first undertook only to raise funds and native helpers. The income in 1890 supply men for other societies, in 1829 was $19,400. opened a seminary, and sent out its first representatives in 1834. The course of -The Rhenish Society is located at study extends over five years, and the Barmen, was formed in 1828, though funds are gathered by means of auxiliary the influences from which it sprung societies, of which there are upward of began to operate more than 30 years be- 300 scattered throughout Germany. fore. Its efforts are bestowed upon The income was $79,637 in 1890. In South Africa, the Dutch East Indies its Chinese and South African missions (Borneo, Sumatra, etc.), and China. (Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal, Orange With an income amounting in 1890 to Free State, etc.) are 54 ordained and 8 $111,414 ($17,698 from the field), it BUS, l1nordained miss~onaries and 11 artisans, tains 83 ordained and 4 unordained mis. with 430 native helpers. The number sionaries, 13 ordain~d natives, and 558 of. baptized persons is 22,349, of com- other helpers. In the 170 churches are municants 10,892, and in the schools 11,556 communicants, and in the 350 3966. schools are about 6000 pupils.
-The Leipsic Society dates from -Hermannsburg Society was organ- 1836, was founded at Dresden, but after ized by Pastor Harms in 1849, was sus· -about ten years-was removed to the tained by the gifts of the poor, and its city to which it owes its name. In missionaries received none of the culspirit and methods it is Lutheran, and ture of the schools. South Africa and was designed to comprise and express South India are the fields upon which the missionary zeal of that church in the bulk of self-denial and humble zeal Germany, Scandinavia, etc. Its prin- have been bestowed. The churches cipal field is South India, in the Tran. gathered number 53, with 26,940 com· quebar region, the old-time seut of the municants ; and the schools 60, with Danish Halle Mission of Ziegenbalg and 4000 pupils. The 58 ordained and 4 Schwartz. The income in 1890 was unordained missionaries are assisted by $81,090, and $2600 from the mission 240 natives. In 1890 the income reached field. With this sum 25 ordained and 2 $51,792, and the native contributions unordained ·missionaries are sustained, $15,179. as well as 17 ornained natives, and 453 other helpers. In the 148 churches are -On June 11th, 1890, the Norwegian 6911 communicants, and in the 183 Evangelical Lutheran China Mission schools 4753 pupils. Society of America was organizt'd, and soon dispatched its first representatives -The North German Society is Ioeat. -3 men-to China, sending after them ed in Bremen, was organized in 1836 also in 1891 a reinforcement sufficient from various smaller bodies (" unions") to raise the number to 12, including 4 which for years had been in existence; children. Hankow is the seat of the the next year an institute was started at mission. Hamburg, aml the first men were sent forth in 1842. The only field occupied -Over 16,000 Indians are now citi· at present is in West Africa, upon the zens of the United States. During Gold Coast, where, from the first almost the year patents to land have been until now, untold sufferings and dis· issued to 2104 persons; 2830 patents couragements, especially from sickness are ordered, 1520 are approved, and and wars, have been heroically endured. other allotments are in progress. The At the 3 stations are found 442 com· amount of acreage in the 138 reserva· municants, 14 schools with 353 scholars, tions in 1890 was 104,314,349 acres. 9 ordained and 4 unordained missiona· That has been reduced some twenty ries, 1 ordlloiued native, and 26 other million acres. The appropriations for educational work the past year were $2,216,650, or an increase of 20 per 51,410. This is, for both membership cent; for contract schools. $601,000. and families, an increase of about 17 The total enrolment is 17,926-1549 per cent. But the statistics of foreign more than last year; and 100 indi- missions show that in every single par- viduals are in public schools paying $10 ticular this rate of progress has been far per quarter. -yes, many times, outstripped. This table tells the story : -The Foreign Christian (Disciple) Missionary Society lllet for its annual 1881 1891 Iner'se Perc't. meeting at Alleghany City, Pa., Octo ber 20th. The report presented by the Stations…………. 9 15 6 66 Secretary, the Rev. A. McLean, D.D., Out Stations.. ……. 109 166 57 52 was heard with much iuterest as indi- Missionaries . … , . . . . 15 27 12 80 cating good pr0gress in every part of the field. In China the number of Lady" …….. 18 38 20 111 members has increased from 16 to 41, Natlvepastors…… 14 33 19 135 in Japan from 179 to 245, in India from Other helpers, male.. 118 218 100 84 40 to 50, in Turkey from 664 to 691, in U female. 12 63 51 425 Denmark from 131 to 141. The Sabbath- U school scholars number in China 226, in Japan 136, in India 567, in Turkey Chnrches …. …… 35 53 18 51 600. At the two dispensaries in Nan- Communicants…… 2357 5214 2857 121 king, China, 2936 new cases and 6276 Academies. ….. .. 4 14 10 250 old cases have been treated. The expenditures for the year were $71,004. Pupils in Academies. 129 604 475 868 The total receipts from churches, Sun- Day Schools……… 49 119 70 143 day·schools, Endeavor Societies and in- Day Scholars .. …. 1866 4074 2208 118 dividuals were $59,365. The bequests Theological Students. 13 43 30 231 showed a marked falling off, only $1000 Contribntions of Na· having been received as against $12,000 last year. The donations, however, tive Chnrches ..•.. $2372 $7648 $4916 179 showed an increase of $7259. -The gross income of the Missionary -The general statistics of the Evan- Society of the Methodist Church in gelical Association for 1891 show 26 con- Canada for the last year was $143,000. ferences, 2062 churches, and 150,234 members. There are 1227 itinerant -The growth of the work of the Brit· preachers and 619 local preachers; 2535 ish and Foreign Bible Society in 40 Sunday-schools, with 177,639 scholars. years has been remarkable and in every. The collections for the missionary so- direction. In 1851 the year's issues ciety were $134,443. These statistics were 1,137,617 copies; in 1891 the year's show an increase over last year of 19 total is 3,926,535 copies. 'rhe receipts churches, nearly 2000 church members, for 1851 amount to £128,023 2s. 8d.; and over 1000 Sabbath-school scholars. in 1891 they were £285,437 48. 10d. The Of the conferences three artl in foreign expenditure bears much the same prolands, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan. portion: for 1851 it was £103,543 lOs. 10d. ; for 1891. £231,583 16s. 9d. The number of versions was then 148 ; now there are 292. There were in 1851 7 foreign agents, and 2 subsidized for oc- casional servIce; in 1891 there were 27 agents in various foreign countries. There were but 5 district secretaries, with 3 local agents ; there are now 13, with 4 recognized assistants. The local societies in affiliation were than 3809 ; now they are nearly double that num· ber, being 7178.
-Thesn figures relating to the growth -There are about 3,200,000 Presbyof a decade in the Reformeil (Dutch) terians in Scotland. There are 1650 Church cannot but be full of cheer to all places of worship in connection with who examine them. The increase in the Church of Scotland, and 1575 in membership has been but 13, 732-from connection with the Free and United 80,591 in 1881 to 94323, according to Presbyterian Church-in all 3225, or the latest figures-while its families more than 1 church for each 1000 of the have increased but 7452-from 43,958 to population. -The Primitive Methodists of Eng. 11,019 ; and Protestants, 124,,623. The land report 192,652 church members, Dutch Missionary Society occupies this 104,3 ministers, 16,256 local preachers. field.
The missionary society has an income -In 25 years the Leipsic (Lutheran) of £11,099, and an expenditure of £10,. Mission in South India has increased 4,77, Aside from this there was tho from 12 to 27 stations, from 262 to 613 special income of tbe African fund, village~, from 18 to 28 missionaries, amounting to £3313. with an expendi. from G to 17 native pastors, from 75 to turo of £2263, The work of tho society 183 schools, from 94, to 311 teachers, and is carried on entirely in Africa in tho from 1687 to 4753 scholars. Kaifraria mission at Aliwal, North. An increase of 150 members was reported. – The census of the important Basle The Zambesi mission had entailod con· West African Mission, made up to Janu.
siderable cost and some reverses have ary 1st, 1891, gives the following reo had to be encountered; but tho party suits: On the Gold Coast the number sent out by the Board have crossed tho of baptized amounted to 964,7, the in.
rivor and aro now engaged in real mis. crease for the year being 738 ; in the new sionary work. field of Kamerun the baptized number -In 1890 tho Ohurch Missionary So. 256, an incr6ase of 97.
ciety accepted 80 candidates. 31 being clergymen, of whom 24, were graduates; 30 were women, and 19 were laymen. British Foreign Missions. By Rev, Jail. Within 5 years the society has sent out Johnston, Bolton, England.
130 university men, 66 of them gradu. The Niger Mission.-·Though the ates of Cambridge. Church Missionary Society is sending out a deputation to West Africa to ar. -In 1890-91 the· China Inland Mis· range matters on a more satisfactory sion could report 407 baptisms, and the basis, information has just been rec6ived addition of 66 new workers and 19 as· in England from Lagos, through a pri. vate channel, that the native churches sociates, n coming from England, 15 have resolved to secede and to work on independent lines. Unless Bishop from America, 12 from Australia, 9 from Crowther is willing to postpone this Sweden,4 from Norway, 3 from Ger· many, and 1 originally from Holland. The number of communicants is 3000.
-Of the 285,000,000 in India it is course in order to discuss tbe situa. reckoned that only about 11,000,000 can tion with the English deputation, the read. The census of schools registered new arrangement will be in force on by Government (only about half of all, January 1st next. Who the delegates but the most effective half) is, for 1888- from England will be has not yet been 89, in the three presidencies: Madras, published. Much patience and guid. schools, 18,931 ; scholars, 552.152 ; but ance are required in the development a year later. 20,512 and 600,551 respec· of this important field, which is des. tiveJy; Bengal, schools, 64,,628 and tined to become a centre of missionary scholars. 1,4,82.150; but 66,285 and influence.
1,4,91,923 in 1890-91 ; Bombay, in tbe The London Missionary Society's former year: scbools, 17,732 and schol. Report.-There comes to hand the reo ars, 582,853; and in the latter year, port of tbis Rociety, showing that the schools: 11,716 (1) and scholars, 591,627. total income last year was £121,4,55; of -In the Minahassa, the Christianized this £76,313 was subscribed at home, district of Celebes, and upon the north. exclusive of special funds, dividends, ern end of the island, the statistics of and legacies. The native congregations population for 1889 were: Catholics, raised £22,500. On its foreign church 3896; Mohammedans, 5784; heathen, roll the society has 68,000 members, and another 250,000 adherents, with some been called a "black grant" of £2500 1200 native missionaries. There are has been made; and for a period of five about 200 English missionarieB, includ- years the society has ~'mewed its grant ing 37 ladies; and as the centenary of of £500 per annum to the Archbishop'S the society two years hence is approach- Mission to the Assyrian Christians. It ing, a call for" 100 more" missionaries will be sincerely hoped that the grounds is being made, with every promise, from for the recent complaints of the Amerithe appearance of the first-fruits, of a can Presbyterian missionaries respectgoodly harvest of laborers, accompanied ing the attitude of the representatives by B generous liberality. The Chronicle, of this mission may be wholly removed which the Rev. George Cousins edits at an early date. The society has also with sterling ability, will next year be promoted medical mission work by its considerably enlarged, have more illus- grants on behalf of the medical and surtrations, and contain a series of articles gical training of women. covering a wider area of topics than has latterly been possible. Progress in Nyassaland.-Veryen- couraging accounts are told of the phys' Contributions to Church of Eng- ical and civilizing development of the land Missions by the Society for Pro- region about Lake Nyassa. The white moting Christian Knowledge.-At one influence is united, native tribes are at time and lI.nother the society has helped peace, and have confidence in the white in the endowment of 44 colonial and man. Vice·consuls are being appointed, missionary bishoprics, and, this last while" customs," police, and postal matyear its grants for church operations ters are in process of establishment. abroad have been made on a liberal For the fertile land there is quite a rush scale. It has promised a grant of £5000 among the traders and others, and agri. toward providing Tinnevelly with its cultural prospects are cheering. It is own bishop, reviTed a lapsed grant of now proved, after fifteen years of ex- £500 toward the endowment of the perience, that Europeans caD. live in bishopric of St. John's, Kaffraria, and comparati ve health on the uplands in has voted £750 toward the additional Central Africa. Dr. Kerr Cross, who endowment of the see of Mauritius. In returned this year with his bride-a aid of the initial expenses of the New daughter of the late Dr. Turner, the Guinea Mission H has made a grant of famous South' Sea missionary, whose £500, and placed £1000 at the disposal death occurred this last summer-says of the Bishop of Mashonaland toward that one can sail from England up the the expenses of his new diocese. For Zambesi and Shire to the foot of the the dioceses of Colombo, Athabasca, Murchison Cataracts. He believes that and Mackenzie River the eum of £1500 Africa can only be developed by Afrihas bE-en voted to meet sums otherwise cans, and hence it is the duty of the raised, and, in assisting the building of planter to persuade the natives to labor, churches, chapels, and mission rooms build, and live on his or their own and stations in foreign lands as much as plantations. In this direction the civ- £10,615 has been voted to upward of ilizatory part of the missionaries' task 130 cases. These buildings range in at Blantyre and Bandawe has been most size from log churches to cathedrals, successful, to which Mr. Joseph Thomand the grants cover all parts of the son, who has just returned from Lake world as widely apart as the back settle- Bangweolo, pays a glowing compliment. ments of Northwest Canada, the islands Missionary friends in Scotland are eagerof the Pacific, the palm.set plains of lyanticipating the arrival of Dr, Laws Southern India, and the wide stretching this year. veldt of South Africa. To help in the training of a native ininistry, what has Welsh Calvinistic Methodist For- eign Missions.-Two missions are supported by this branch of the Church- member which they contribllte to the one on the Khasia Hills, in India, and bep.eficent work of the Church. the other in Britanny, the former being established 50 years ago. The native -The Northern Presbyterian Church churches number 80, with a membership has 4 presbyteries in the synod of the of 6190, including communicants, pro· Indian Territory–in the Choctaw, bationers, and children, while the total Chickasaw and Creek nations-includnumber of those who frequented the ing 62 churches and 1823 members. services and had renounced heathenism None of the churches have ministers, was 8900. The total income of the mis- but they are served by home missionasionary society amounted last year to ries and stated supplies. The Southern £7952 from collections, donations, and Presbyterian Church has 1 presbytery other sources. For the mission jubilee in' the Territory, with 13 churches and fund a sum of £25,000 had already come 637 members. The Spencer Academy, in to hand, and not improbably before the connection with this preshytery, is an Bubscription list was closed, the figure important element of its work. of £35,000 would be contributed. -The American Board has put up Miscellaneous. – There is slight $1,000,000 as its goal in annual receipts doubt that the Baptist Centenary for foreign missions. It hopes to reach Fund will reach £100,000, toward which this mark by constant advances, and as a large proportion is announced. Some the missionary impulse grows stronger handsome gifts have been recently made in the Congregational churches. The by the leading Baptists of Lancashire. Methodists have fixed their high.water The autumnal Baptist gatherings in Manchester in October were fully availed mmiasrskioants$, 1~2n5d0't0h0e0yfowrilhlomreeacahnditf.oreTighne of by the missionary wing, and a pro. nounced impetus given to the claims Presbyterian Ohurch has proposed of foreign missions. The Society of $1,000,000 for foreign missions as its Friends, it is reported, is beginning to aim. It is creeping up slowly to that plant itself in the East, particularly in point, having contributed over $900,000 Philippopolis and Constantinople, the last year. ground for a new meeting-house having just been purchased in the first.named -The schools sustained by the vari· place. ous American missionary societies con- tain almost 175,000 pupils, and the Monthly Bulletin. 12,000 Protestant mission schools are training to Christian intelligence an ag- United States.-The Methodists are gregate of not much less than 600,000 jubilant over the fact that their mis- children and youth. sionary society is free from debt for the first time in twenty·five years. Greal, Britain.-By way of inaugurat- ing the effort which has been resolved -The Methodists in San Francisco upon to raise $500,000 as a special fund have had, for five years, a Japanese Mis- to celebrate the centenary of the Eng. sion, an outgrowth of their Chinese lish Baptist Missionary Society, the Mission in the same city. There were treasurer of the society, Mr. W. R. 175 Japanese members a year ago, and Rickett, of London, has just intimated their church is known among themselves his intention to give $25,000. as the Take-a-seat church. -At the recent meeting of the Con. -The Dakota (Indian) Presbytery far gregational Union of England and Wales, exceeds the others of the Synod of Professor Armitage spoke on The For- South Dakota in the average per church ward Movement in Foreign Missions. He called upon his hearers to face cer· tain facts with contrition and sorrow. In 1841 English Congregationalists had 192 missionaries in the field, and in -Two educated negro women at 18lH only 197. He said: "For 50 years Vasten have begun to issue the first we have locked up our hearts in aliena- newspaper in the Congo Free State. It tion of sympathy-not entire alienation, aims to .. enlighten the souls of the but surely a very deep and real aliena· black-skinned. " tion. But a change has come. The Lord has opened the windows of heaven, -The Central Soudan has at last been and now we are discussing the enthusi- penetrated by two English missionaries. astic proposal to send 100 men and Messrs. Harris and White have gone to women into the field." found a mission at Lake Tchad. On their journey, which they made on foot, -Former students of Mansfield Col- they were hospitably entertained by the ege, Oxford, now on the mission field Arabs, being greatly assisted by Mr_ are never allowed to feel that they are White's violin, to the accompaniment forgotten by their alma mater. Each of which he sang the Gospel tunes. term the college appoints a correspond- The valley in which lies Lake Tchad is ing secretary whose duty it is to write east of the Niger valley, and has never to each of the brethren abroad, tell him before been visited by a missionary. of the latest college news, inform him as to the new men who have come, as -The Muhlenberg Mission of the to the old ones who have gone, and en- Lutheran General Synod in Africa pays deavor to make him feel, though far a large proportion of its expenses by away, that he is still a member of the the sale of coffee, which it raises on its college fold, that those with whom he own plantation in Liberia. once studied are men that live in living affection with him and love to hear of Pacific Islands.-Miss Charlotte M. his weal. The absent one in turn Yonge, the writer, recently subscribed writes to the college and keeps it fully $10,000 for building a missionary colinformed of his trials, success, needs, lege at Auckland, New Zealand. and thus feeds the flame of missionary enthusiasm within scholastic walls. -The Presbyterians of Australia and Tasmania are planning to establish a -Two hundred and twelve thousand mission among the aborigines of North copies of the New Testament in Hebrew Queensland. have been distributed among Jews in all parts of the world by the Mildmay -The miSSIOns Qf the American Mission to the Jews. Board in the Pacific Islands are thus described: .. The institute in the -The Irish Presbyterian Church has Hawaiian Islands for the training of always given effective support to :its a native educated ministry is commend- Foreign Missions· Committee. It is now ed for larger support. At Ponape the trying a new experiment with regard to work has been interfered with by Span- – its agents Up to the present its male ish persecution. The summary of the missionaries in India have all been or- work of the Board is as follows: Five dained university men, and their allow. hundred and thirty-eight missionaries, ance has been about £350 per annum. 2648 native preachers and teachers, 410 An influential section of the general as- churches, 38,226 communicants, andl sembly has lately organized the , ••Tun- schools of various grades with 46,403 gle Tribes Missions," the agents of pupils, are the salient and expressive which are to he earnest, well-educated figures. " laymen, with allowances not exceeding one-third those of the present ordained -The Free Church of Scotland. with mISSIOnaries. They propose to begin 335,000 members, raised last year, from their work among the Bhils, and the all Bouwes, a total missionary revenue first laY' a!1ent p.as aJready sailed. for the evangelization of the world out- !!ide the United Kingdom of £113,431. 16s. 3d. ($567,155). Its native com· ing the more popular language of the municants in aU foreign fields aggregate two. The spirit of missions, at home 6620. It supports 51 ordainedmissiona- and abroad, manifestly perva.ded the ries, 8 medical missionaries, and 23 pro. body. Two students came back who fessors and teachers. had been at work on distant fields, one -Next to the Moravians the United in AbYRsinia and the other in America. Presbyterians of Scotland are the mis- Their ordination diffused a glow of missionary church, Their 570 churches, sionary enthusiasm among the pastors with 185,000 members, contributed and elders, and reports from forty-four $400,000 last year, and the gain of mission stations in Italy quickened the converts was 600 during the year. evangelistic fervor. A Scotchman who was present at the Synod has written -In an interesting paper in a recent home that" almost every family among number of The Church of Scotland Home the Waldensians has furnished minis- and Foreign Mission Record, Rev. Dr. ters, missionaries, and evangelists, and Mackinnon, of Heidelberg, calls atten- the supply is only restrained by finantion to the thoroughness with which cial difficulties. Were the gifts for the German missionaries are trained for evangelization of Italy doubled or their work. Their systematic method trebJed, there could be no difficulty is said to be remarkable indeed in com- in finding a corresponding supply of.
parison with the lax preparatory train- able and godly Vaudois to do the work.' , ing in some other countries largely en- The progress of the Church of the Vaugaged in missionary effort. After satis- dois, in Italy, is slow, but it is steady, factory proof of their fitness for the life, and the Church is in no mood to retreat the candidates in Germany are admitted from the old contest with Rome.
to attend the Mission House one even- South America.-Rev. J. MIlton ing in the week for a year. They are Greene, of Mexico, is translating into then entered upon the books of the pre- Spanish, to publish in his paper, El paratory school for two years for in- Faro. Dr. J. H. Barrows's book, "The struction in Latin, etc. After this they Gospels are True Histories." have a. course of instruction of a theo- logical nature, including the study of -The Methodist missions in South the Bible in the original tongue, and a America propose to prepare for the Co· few sessions of medical training in the lumbian Exposition an exhibit showing hospital. The years thus spent are use· the progress and results of their work ful in developing in the future mission- on that continent.
ary many qualities which are of the ut- -Dr. J. M. Allis, of the Chilian Mis· most value in the mission field. The sian, says that " if Balmaceda had been result is that men are sent out who are trained under biblical influence, and if in every way worthy of their work, and his proud nature had been disciplined who undertake it thoroughly equipped by Gospel instruction and Christian for the Master's senice. teaching, there is not the slightest ques- tion that his history and the history of ltaly.-The Waldensian Synod was Chili would have been decidedly differ. held last month. Professor Geymonat ent." was Moderator. He presides so well that he is re elected from year to year.
The Waldensians have a fine" Synod- -The Salvation Army has secured a house," erected a few years ago as a strong foothold in Buenos Ayres. Dur- memorial of the "glorious return" of ing the financial troubles it was able to the Vaudois. It was noticed that in the help thousands of men thrown out of Synod the speakers are apt to glide away work to food and shelter. It has a from the use of the French into the thriving farm colony, and is training Italian tongue, which is rapidly becom- Spanish.speaking cadets. -The Synod of Brazil recently hand- reach up to and beyond the average of ed over to Episcopal missionaries in Rio Christian giving of Chinese Christians.
Grande a church with forty members, a The most recent figures for Swatow, day school, and a fund for erecting an supplied by Mr. Maclagan, of our mis- edifice; and did it gladly, willingly, sion there, are 1543 members, who duro and in the spirit of comityand·economy ing the year have contributed $1925.
which Secretary Clark, at Pittsfield, said 'I'he Formosan churches do quite as was so necessary. well; and in Amoy the annual contribu- -Mission work in Brazil by the Pres· tion of the church members is at the byterian Church (North) has been car· rate of more than $2 per head. Chinese ried on principally in the southern por- liberality will always seem to those who tion of. t.he country. But there is a know the Chinese money-making and great field in the north. The southern money-saving propensities, one of the Presbyterians have long been active most convincing proofs of the reality of there. The vast field lying between the Chinese Christianity."
San Francisco River and the Amazon is -Dr. Griffith John, the veteran miscomparatively little known to the Chris- sionary to China, is full of jubilation at tian world. Pernambuco is the chief the recent imperial edict opening the centre of this region, a city of 120,000 province ot Hunan to Christian teachinhabitants; in commercial importance ing. He says that its people are brave, one of the first in the republic. It' is manly, and straightforward, occupying the centre of the great sugar tr~de of the very highest positions as civil and Brazil. and the port of three States- military officers. They are proud, ex· Rio Grande do Norte, Parahyba, and elusive, and anti-foreign to a degree Alagoas. Three railroads in operation extraordinary even in China. But now unite there, connecting the city with that the door is opened they will be acthe northern, central, and southern cessible, and when once converts are parts of the State. Mission work is won and a footing gained there the adbeing prosecuted here with vigor and vance will be rapid.
success. -There is an apparentlywell-ground- ed expectation that the cultivated classes -The natural result of the growth of of Japan are only waiting for the con- Protestantism in Brazil is an urgent, an sent of the Mikado to embrace Protestant irrepressible demand for more ed ncation Christianity in a body. The Deshisha, -higher education. Under ordinary founded by a Japanese boy, converted circumstances the absence of such a de- by rpading a single leaf of the New Tesmand would argue the failure of the tament and educated in Phillips' Acadwork. By God's providence a new emy, Amherst, and Andover Seminary, order of things has been set up in Bra- has more students than all three of the zil, for which the ProtAst.ant ferment is institutions named. in some measure responsible. This in- tensifies the urgency of the demand. India.-A Moravian missionary named Letzen, with his wife, certainly ought China.-The Presbyterian missiona- to be written with those who love their ries in Manchuria have encouraged the fellow· men. }'or thirty years he has native Christians to form a native pres- been preaching and working at a stabytery.
-The Presbyteriom, Messenger, organ tion in the Thibetan mountains, with- of the English Presbyterian Church, out the sight of a European face, and says: ,. Without entering on any jeal- with the post-office fourteen days' dis- ous comparisons, it is permissible to re- tant, separated from them by the high joice in the fact that the members of passes of the Himalayas and dangerous our own churches in China and Formosa streams. -A native Christian, to the saliMfac- work upon it. The brickmakers and tion of the bar, the bench, and the pub- bricklayers, the painters and carpenters lic, has just been appointed Adminis- wele natives trained in the mission; trator-General of Madras, India ; and a and the hewers of wood and drawers of native Ch.ristian girl··-a graduate of one of the Christian colleges-has been ap- water were the very men who a few pointed to the charge of the post.office years before had sought to destroy the at Mandapasali. work. On May 10th the work was com- -The Gospel of Matthew, now being pleted and the church dedicated. It printed at Bangkok by the American will seat in the nltv!) and transept 200 Presbyterian Mission press, is the first move toward giving the Bible to the people with eltse, and 400 could be oro- Laos in their own language. This is vided for without passing the chancel. printed i)1 Siamese letters, but it is The wi.J.dowB are mostly memorial winhoped in the near future to give the same in the Laos letters also. dows of stained glass, and most of the fittings have been presented, including -A •• prayer-meeting" attended by handsome lamps, draperies, a bell and Hindu students of the several colleges chairs, communion table and readingin Lahore, India, is held in Mission College boarding-house every Sabbath after- desk. noon. This is in no sense a Christian prayer-meeting, and with it the college -An English Baptist m1ss10naryauthorities have nothing whatever to lir. Stapleton-writing of the ferocity do. The Mohammedan community, of the Bimgala tr1bes on the Upper too, is similarly affected.. A recent organizatiou, caJled the" Young Men's Congo, among whom he and his associ- Mohammedan Association," the secre- ates are attempting missionary work, tary of which is a graduate of a COllege, reports a .:£!gut between two villages, in announces as its object the spiritual and which thi/women took part, after which mor!>l welfare of the young men of the community. "Divine service" is regu- the victors danced in high glee, and larly conducted in four or five different brought in the bodies of those they had halls of that city; and the newspapers tell us of the" impressive sermons" and slain, presenting a sight so sickening the" earnest prayers" offered on such that it was difficult for the missionaries occasions. to eat or to sleep. The conquerors 4frica.-A very practical demonstra- cooked the bodies of their victims; and tion of the progress of missions is gi ven in the view published in various Eng- two days aft€r a lad walked into the mislish journals of the Scotch Presbyterian sion statio'l carrying on a plant.ain leaf Church, recently completed at Blantyre some of the flesh that had been roasted. in East Central Africa. The mission established seventeen years ago has passed Mr. Stapleton says: through every stage of discouragement and prosperity. At one time the fierco ., One of the men killed at Mampoko tribal antagonism threatened to extin. was a slave of the chief. He had worked guish it; but though the whole surround- for us some three months, and but the ing country was raided, the mission and I>vening before was engaged on the sta· the mission people were respected. In tion. In the morning he is killed, and 1888 the foundations of the new church in an hour or two tossed into a grave wefe laid, and !lince the!). !Ill have been at , unwept, unhonored, and unsung.' The people wanted to eat him, and would have none so, but his master refused to cut off his head, a necessary preliminary to the feast. Another man comes to the fight in full vigor; in twelve hours h1s bodv is cooked and eaten; while to burn alive a poor, sick, deserted woman is regarded as a huge joke. Yet usually these Bangalas are merry, manly fel- lows, very friendly in conversation, and quite demonstrative in their affection; but when the 1118t of blood is upon them deeds which fill us with horror are the merest incidents of the fight to them. "
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1892
NARAYAN
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No.l.-0ld Series.–JANUARY..–VOL.V. No.1.-New 8erie3.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSlONS.-NO. XXI.
[EDITORIAL, A. T. P.] THE BEGINNING OF MODERN WONDERS.
The Society Islands were so called by Cook in honor of the" Royal Society j" and the largest, having a circuit of one hundred and forty miles and containing about six hundred square miles, is known as Tahiti. It consists of two rounded peninsulas joined by a narrow isthmus, and is crowned with a majestic peak called The Diadem. The name was a prophecy, for this island furnished the first conspicuous diadem of modern missionary labors.
It was first seen by an English Captain-Wallis-in 1767. The inhabitants were tall, stout, brown skinned, with dark eyes, and seemed unusually good.natured and playful j but they were thieves, liars, and murderers.
When the knowledge of the Tahitians reached England, the directors of the London Missionary Sooiety determined to send the Gospel to this island, and at last found thirty men who were willing to go, four of whom were ministers, the rest tradesmen ; and six of them were married. A ship called the Duff was bought, and pious Captain Wilson took charge of it.
This memorable missionary band left the Thame.s on August 10th, 1796. A purple flag waved in the wind, with three' doves bearing olivQ branches as its device; and as they set sail they sang the hymn, " Jesus, at Thy command we launch into the deep."
A seven months' voyage brought them to the shores of Tahiti. and they were welcomed by about seventy-five canoes, whose natives clambered over the ship's side, and in various ways expressed their joy, hoping for knives and axes and other useful implements. They had brought with them hogs and fruit for the purpose of barter; but as it was the Sabbath day the missionaries tried to make them understlOlnd that they neither sold nor bought upon the Day of Rest. Most of the natives returned in their canoes, but about forty stayed on deck, and the missionaries had a service. While they prayed and sang the natives looked on in silence.
Two white men were already at Tahiti, one of whom had been shipwrecked, and the other left on shore a few years previous. Their names were Peter and Andrew, and they were. clad like savages. Being able to speak some Tahitian, they served at first as interpreters between the mis-
MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
sionaries and the natives, but they turned out to be very wicked men, though born in a Christian land.
An old man, Mane-mane, was high-priest to the idol gods, and was held to be some great one. A chief showed the missionaries an empty house about one hundred feet long, but unfurnished, which he said should be given to them. 'Upon thsir arrival on the beach they were met at once by strange customs. They found the king, Otu, and his queen both riding on men's shoulders. Wben those that carried them changed the burden to other shoulders, the royal feet were not permitted to touch the ground, because whatever land they touched would become their own, so they jumped over the head of one man upon the shoulders of another. For the same reason, when the king and queen visitcd the ship, they refused to go on deck, because if they touched the ship it would be theirs, and none but their own servants might dwell there or eat there henceforward. Afterward, when Mr. Lewis unfolded his umbrella, they warned him not to hold it over their heads, as it would thenceforth become sacred to their exclusive ust'.
Thc missionaries found dancers on these i~lands called Areois, who were a most wicked set of people. Their bodies were blackened with charcoal and their faces dyed red. They committed murders, killing their little children as soon as they were born. They had no occupation but dancing, boxing, wrestling, and sporting.
The first night, in presence of the natives, the missionaries sang and prayed and thanked God for inclining these strangers to receive them so kindly; and the first Sabbath they turned their dwelling into a chapel and Mr. Jefferson preached, being interpreted by Andrew, the Swede; and so through the vehicle of an ungodly man the first impressions of the Gospel were made upon these natives.
The father of Otu was called Pomare. He was a very wise man; had formerly been not only a chief, but the supreme king of the chiefs of the island. He had, however, many fauIts. He was a liar, a glutton, covetous, and pre-eminently selfish. On the second Sabbath, however, he attended the service of worship, when Mr. Cover preached from that text which has been probably the subject of more sermons than any other in the Bible-John 3 : 16-and after the service Pomare pronounced what he had understood very good.
The favorite g')d, Oro, was simply a log of wood about the size of a man, kept in a shed among trees surrounded by a stone wall. . In this place were altars on which lay pigs that had been dead for months, and it was called a Marro, and was a habitation of cruelty. Men were sacrificed and their flesh hung in large baskets on the trees around till it decayed. No woman was counted worthy of the honor either of approaching the Marre or being sacrificed in it. The priests used to roll themselves up in a great bundle of cloth, and in a squeaking voice pretend to represent the gods; and though tlw people knew that it was the priest that was speaking, they dared not disobey. They kept in their houses some of their gods, and fancied them to be in disposition like unto themselves. Hiro was the pro- tector of thieves, and when they went out to steal, they promised Hiro a part of the booty if he would not expose them ; and the missionaries found that the natives were very much like the god th'ey worshipped. Nothing was safe within their reach. Murder was quite as common as stealing; and one Sunday Mr. Lewis preached upon the commandment, " Thou shalt not kill." Mane-mane advised the people to leave off their wicked ways, yet he had not left off his own; and when he wanted to kill a man, drank wine to keep up his courage for his horrible work. His own wife killed her offspring, and when remonstrated with, said she would keep the customs of the country and defy the missionaries' displeasure.
Some of the idols were made of stone, but most of them of wood, or of a kind of string made from the outside of the cocoanut. Sharks and birds were worshipped, and there were more than one hundred gods. When 9 sacrifice was demanded for Oro, it might be the guest who was eatir.g beneath the roof of a chief. If one man of a family were offered, the people of the same household were usually chosen until the whole was destroyed. When the beating of the sacred drum gave the signal that II human sacrifice was required, the natives would flee to the mountain dens and caves for refuge. The Tahitians believed that at death their spirits went to cruel gods, who first devoured them three times over, after which they passed into the body of a beast, bird, or man, and lived again on earth.
If thus cruel to their friends, their cruelty to enemies may be inferred; their bodies were left unburied to be devoured by beasts and birds. Sometimes a hole was made through an enemy's body, and he was worn as a Tiputa by the man who slew him. The conquerors destroyed all the women and children of their foes, and taught their own little children to kill those of whom they would naturally have made playmates; and sometimes these little children of conquered foes were strung on a spear like beads.
Among such a people these missionaries began their apparently hopeless labors. Three weeks had not passed before they were robbed, and, because they did not punish the offenders when detected, they were regarded as cowards; but they sought to win by kindness, and determined they would not seek to defend themselves, but confide themselves entirely to the keeping of Jehovah. They placed near their house a hospital, and offered to nurse all who would come. Though many natives were suffering from terrible diseases, they would not accept the proposition. Satisfied with food and raiment, the missionaries gave up their blacksmith shop and store room to Pomare, and even offered to surrender to him all their own private property, but he would not accept it. During the first year there was a quarrel between Pomare and Otu, and, as Mane-mane had stirred up the rebellion, Pomare order~d him to be killed. Thus perished the wicked old priest, the great man of the Tahitians. The more the missionaries saw of Otu the more wicked he was found to be ; and the continued unbelief of the peo~le was a source of much heavi- ness to these servants of God. Nothing offended the natives more than to rebuke their wicked customs. rdia, the queen, bad destroyed three chil- dren of her own within three years after the missionaries had arrived.
On March 5th, 1800, three years to a day from that when the mis- sionaries first saw the island, the first wooden posts or pillars of a Christian chapel were reared; and they besought God that these, like the pillar that Jacob set up at Bethel, might be a memor.ial of the presence of God.
The next June, in the Royal .Admiral, eight new missionaries arrived, and were welcomed by Pomare. It was agreed by the brethren that Mr. Nott should go around Tahiti to preach to all the inhabitants. He was accompanied by Mr. Elder. Sometimes Mr. Nott preached three or four times a day. They lodged in the houses of the natives, and took with them on the journey some of the Tahitians themselves, who thus had the advantage of hearing him preach during a five weeks' tour, and UpOll his return he found that they were able to give a clear account of the Gospel truths they had heard. Constant prayer went up to God that He would pour down His Rpirit from on high. The missionaries endured great suffering for the natives' sake, especially in consequence of desolating wars. When the natives were entreated to believe in Jesus Christ, like ancient unbelievers, they asked, " Has Pornare or any of the chiefs believed 1" They were, in fact, the greatest enemies of Christ, and discouraged the natives from attending to the Gospel. The tenacity of idolatry seemed to make preaching a hopeless task.
The natives had great confidence in the power of red feathers, attributing large success in fishing to their presence on the canoes, but had little conception of the soul or of duty, and while faithless toward God they were credulous toward the most absurd imposture, placing their trust in fortune. tellers, dreams, and signs of good or ill luck.
While Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Scott were travelling in Tahiti and lay down to rest, a chief invited a guest to go with him to the beach, killed him with stones, put his body in a basket of cocoanut leaves, and sent him to Pomare as calm and unconcerned as if he had only killed a hog.
In 1803 Pomare himself suddenly died, and the wicked Otu had more power than during his father's lifetime. He styled himself Pomare II. It was he who was destined to be the first convert of the Gospel work at Tahiti. He had taken pains to learn to read and write. He was greatly feared, and it was believed that he could kill a man by his prayers and imprecations. In the spring his queen had a child, and he himself was privy to its death. The queen died in 1806.
In May of this year a day of fasting and prayer was appointed by the missionaries, and particular pains were now taken to teach the children. They learned to repeat a short catechism by heart, and in November Mr. Davies opened a school in the new houee, and invited the boys who lived near by to attend it on three afternoons in the week. A month afterward they asked to be taught oftener, and were instructed daily. They learned to read and write, being first taught to make letters on the sand. Spelling- books !lnd Bible histories were made for them and sent to England to be printed. A!I the missionaries began to be 'familiar with the language, they discovered that it was unfitted for the expression of Christian ideas. There was, for instance, no word for "thanks," and no proper expression for " God."
A vessel arrived from the directors of the London Missionary Society, bearing a letter in English for Pomare. He was pleased with it, answered it courteously, and consented to the request of the directors, and promised to banish Oro from the island. He acknowledged that his land was a bad land, a foolish land, and one that knew not the true God ; asked for a large number of men, women, and children from England, and said he would adopt English customs. This letter appears to have been insincere, for shortly afterward he desired thai a man might be killed at Atehuru as a sacrifice, and taken in a canoe to another place ; and he sought to conceal it from the missionaries. He seems to have made his fair promises only as a "loak for his covetousness.
In 1807 another war broke out at Tahiti, which lasted about three years. The missionaries were obliged to leave the island, Mr. Nott and Mr. Hayward going to Huahine near by, and all the rest to Port Jackson in New South Wales.
The king, who had. gone to Eimeo, invited the missionaries to come to that island. There were now seven missionaries in Eimeo-Nott, Hayward, Bicknell, Scott, Wilson, Davies, Henry. They had settled at Papetoai, and built a small chapel and opened a school. Events occurred which inclined them to stay in Eimeo, and they observed that the king appeared £0 regard idols less than he had done in times past. For instance, in 1812, when a sacred turtle was caught, instead of Rending it to the idol's temple, he had it dressed in an oven in his own kitchen, and served for his dinner, which was an ast.ounding blow at idol customs; and as no harm befell him, he was confirmed in his contempt of idols, and the power of the popular superstitions was greatly weakened. Pahi, the brother of the King of Raiatea. made a still bolder experiment-destroying in an oven a sacred log which had been worshipped, and then ate bread fruit that had been baked in its ashes.
Pomare declared that he would now have henceforth but one wife. He married Teara, daughter of the Raiatean king, and on the birth of her little daughter the customs of the ages were disregarded, which permitted no fires to be lighted for many days, nobody to leave the shore, and no persons to approach the child except sacred persons in sacred garments.
On July 18th, 1812, Pomare asked to be baptized, and declared his fixed purpose to cleave to Jehovah and His people. He said, " I wish you to pray for me," and proposed to build a larger chapel. He declared that he had tried to persuade the kings of other islands to do as he intended to do, and when they answered that they would cleave to Oro, he told them that was cleaving to Satan. The missionaries, full of joy, waited anxiously to see whether Pomare was really a converted man. Subsequently his grief for his sins, his observance of the Sabbath, and his efforts to persuade his friends to turn to God, convinced them that he had been changed by the .grace of God.
When the missionaries found the people in Eimeo ready to attend their instructions they heard that the people in Tahiti were likewise inquiring after Jehovah, and Mr. Scott and Mr. Hayward were sent to see whether the joyful report was true.
Missionary labor at Tahiti was apparently in vain for from fourteen to sixteen years, and, notwithstanding untiring, earnest, and faithful effort, but one solitary instance of conversion had taken place. The wars of desolation continued, and abominable idolatries and iniquities reigned. " The heavens seemed as brass and the earth as iron i" and when God's time to favor the work in Polynesia came, the beginning was such as to turn all attention to Himself. For at the time the war had driven the missionaries from the island and cut off all communication. Two native servants, formerly employed in the missionaries' families, had, unknown to them, received favorable impressions, and had united together for prayer. They had been joined by others, and at the return of the missionaries to Tahiti, at the termination of the war, they found a number of praying people, and had little to do but to aid in a work which God had thus singularly begun.
These years of fruitless and apparently hopeless toil had almost determined the directors of the London Missionary Society to abandon altogether the work at Tahiti. Dr. Haweis, chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, one of the founders of the society, and the father and liberal supporter of the South Sea Mission, earnestly opposed such abandonment of the field, and backed his arguments by a further donation of a thousand dollars. The Rev. Matthew Wilb, the pastor of Mr. Williams, declared with great emphasis that he would sell the clothes from his back rather than give up the mission, and proposed, instead of abandonment, that a season of special prayer should be observed for the divine blessing. Such a season was observed i letters of encouragement were written to the missionaries, andmark it I-while the vessel w~s on her way to carry these letters to Tahiti, another ship passed her in mid-ocean, which conveyed to Great Britain, October, 1813, the news that idolatry was entirely overthrown in the island, and bore back to London the rejected idols of the people; and so was fulfilled literally the Divine promise, " Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear."
We have already mentioned the fact that, while the missionaries were driven away from Tahiti, two natives had begun to call upon the Lord Jesus in prayer. One of these lads was named Tuahine. Another native, impressed by some remarks from Pomare, had gone to make some inquiries of Tuahine, who had lived for some time in the missionaries' families. Finding his mind was in a similar state they resolved to retire to some secret place to talk and pray, and after a little while several young persons united with them ; and this little band, without the guidance of any missionary, determined to abandon idols and the wicked practices of their countrymen, keep the Sabbath, and worship Jehovah alone. As Christianity spread, Tuahine helped the missionaries by directing inquirers, teaching in the schools, and translating the Scriptures. Sometimes he spent from eight to ten hours a day in this last work, and rendered invaluable counsel and aid to the missionaries. He proved himself to be a Barnabas and an Apollos both in one, and had a surprising gift in prayer. He discharged the office of a deacon with great faithfulness, and died about forty-five years old, a model of a converted native.
The chapel that Pomare had desired to be built at Eimeo was opened for worship July 25th, 1813, and the next evening thirty-one natives cast away idols, and their names were written among the disciples of Jehovah. Shortly after, the number had risen to above three hundred. embracing, among others, a priest called Patii, who led the way in the burning of idols. He brought out the gods one at a time, tore off the sacred garments and ornaments, threw them one by one into the flames, pronouncing their names, repeating their foolish histories, and challenging the people to observe what helpless logs they were. The joy of the missionaries may be imagined. The queen's sister about the same time publicly showed her contempt for the idol gods; and Pomare himself, though gnilty of many things inconsistent with the character of a Christian, made a tour of Eimeo, seeking to persuade the heathen to turn from idols.
Meanwhile at Tahiti persecution arose against the native Christians. They took refuge in the woods and lonely vaUeys at midnight for prayer. One young man suffered martyrdom, and another bore a lifelong sear received at their hands. The year 1815 was the most remarkable that had ever been known at Tahiti. A plan was laid to destroy the Christian natives entirely, and the night of July 7th was fixed upon, when the Christians were to be assembled for prayer. Having been adTised, however, of this conspiracy, they sailed for Eimeo, and their departure was the cause of a quarrel among their enemies themselves, in which they largely destroyed each other.
The missionaries at Eimeo received the Tahitians with great affection, but feared that the heathen might rise up in both islands and destroy all the worshippers of Jehovah. July 14th was set apart as a day of fasting and prayer. Soon afterward two chiefs from Tahiti came to Eimeo, inviting the Christian chiefs who had fled to return. The invitation was, however, a mere cover for a plan to destroy the king and his friends. A battle ensued in November, 1815, in which Pomare and his little army were victors. Instead of killing his enemies the king determined to destroy their idols. The multitude stood astonished, both at the helplessness of their gods and the audacity of their destroyers j and when the great god Oro was carried to Pomare's feet, he set it up as a post in his kitchen, fixing pegs upon it on which to hang baskets for food, and subsequently burned it as fuel. Such was the end of the great war god.
Mr. Nott and Mr. Hayward soon went to Tahiti, and made a tour of the island. They found the people busy in destroying Marres and build- ing little chapels. Pomare himself had written a prayer, which he often read in these places of worship-a prayer worthy of any Christian author.
The missionaries found the people very anxious to learn to read, and the king had not only destroyed his public idols, but now wished to part with the family gods, always kept in his house. He sent about twelve of these frightful little images to the missionaries in Eimeo, with a letter ask- ing that they might be sent to the Missionary Society in England, that they might know the likeness of the gods that had been worshipped in the island. The idols were accordingly nailed up in a wooden case and sent to the directors of the London Missionary Society. Family prayer became common, and the people retired to the bushes for private supplication.
The missionaries could scarcely get any rest, so continually were they besieged with inquiry. In every place they found chapels-sixty-six in all -in which the people assembled four times a week.
About this time a printing-press was brought to Eimeo, and from a neighboring Marre, polished stones-pieces of pavement upon which worshippers had knelt before the altars-were dug up and placed where God's Word was to be printed. Satan was robbed that God might be honored. The first book printed was the Baba, or spelling-book, and Pomare was permitted to aid in setting up the first page, and to strike off the first impression. The Tahitians were very anxious to have these printed.
books, and sent to the missionaries plantain leaves rolled up, with the request for spelling-books written on the leaves. This was the beginning of the spreading of the knowledge of God from isle to isle by the power of a sanctified literature. Catechisms followed, and little books containing col- lections of texts j schools were multiplied, converts increased, and there was a general spirit of inquiry. .
For years Mr. Nott had been translating the Gospel of Luke into Tahitian, assisted by Pomare, and while the book was in press the natives often constrained Mr. Ellis to stop printing to explain to them what they read. The missionaries wished to bind the books before they were dis- tributed, but the impatience of the people compelled them to give up wait- ing for proper binding materials. The natives, however, did not suffer these precious books to remain without proper protection j dogs and cats and goats were killed that their skins might be prepared for covers, and the greatest anxiety was manifested to obtain these new copies of the Gospel. Five men from Tahiti landed at Afareaita, and did not go into any house to lodge lest some one might anticipate them in the morning and buy up all the books, so that they should be compelled to return without any. Mr. Ellis gladly gave them copies of the precious Gospel, which they wrapped in bark, put in their bosoms, and set sail for Tahiti without having taken food or drink during their stay at Eimeo.
And now the brethren determined to form a missionary society in Eimeo, and on May 13th a great meeting was held, and numbers of natives came from Tahiti. The prayers began at sunrise, and long before the chapel service at three 0' clock they were obliged to leave the chapel for the grove outside to accommodate the crowds. The king was seated with the queen, her ladies, and many chiefs, and Mr. Nott preached from the words, "Understandest thou what thou readest~" (Acts 8 : 30,31.) 'An address from Pornare hims.elf followed, advocating the formation of the. Missionary Society, and hundreds of 4ark arms were lifted toward heaven in assent.
The" Royal Mission Chapel" at Tahiti, so called, was finished in the spring of 1819. It contained 133 windows, 29 doors, and was 712 feet long and 54 feet wide-212 feet longer than St. Paul's in London. As no preacher could speak loud enough to be heard to the end of the chapel during a whole sermon, three pulpits were placed in it, with a minister in each. Six thousand people joined in singing God's praise in this new place of worship, and three sermons were preached simultaneously.
The next day after the dedication service in May, 1819, laws were publicly given to the people, condemning murder, rebellion, theft, Sabbath breaking, these prohibitions being followed with becoming sanctions. After the law was read the king asked the chiefs, " Do you agree to this law~" and Tati, a ringleader among the rebels, held up both hands, and called upon the people to do the same. At the close of the Sabbath service, Pomare solemnly pronounced his faith in a crucified Redeemer. Let any reader consider how different were these assemblies from the feasts at which Pomare and his father had distributed the bleeding limbs of human victims as offerings to the gods.
The rest of the year was full of rejoicing; new customs obtained, and the preaching of the Word was greatly blessed. Pornare was shut up whole days with Mr. Nott, helping him to correct the translations of the Gospel of John and the Acts.
We can give no further space to this wonderful story. The king himself was a leader in all good works, and on December 7th, 1821, died in the faith of Christ at the age of forty-seven years. Though naturally proud, covetous, deceitful, intemperate, and treacherous, he not only believed the Word of God himself, but persuaded many others, while he forced none to turn from their idols, and we cannot but believe that, not- ,withstanding his many faults, he sincerely belonged to Christ.
A fitting conclusion to this narrative may be found in the coronation of the young king, four years old, on April 21st, 1824. He was dressed in his coronatiou robes in Mr. Nott's house, and borne to the church on the highest platform. A hymn was sung, a prayer was offered. and Mr. Nott
lIONQR OF' A MISSIONARY
made an effective address. The laws of the country were placed upon the table, and the young king was asked whether he would promise to govern the people in justice, and mercy, and obedience to these laws and to the Word of God; and he replied, "I do, God being my helper." Oil was then poured upon his head, and a blessing pronounced upon him by Mr. Davies. The crown was placed upon his brow while Mr. Nott spoke words of benediction, and the Bible was presented to him as the most priceless treasure in the world. From the platform of coronation, the procession went to the " Royal Mission Chapel," and the young king sat in the royal pew.
Contrast this scene with the coronation of Pomare II., who had been declared king according to the heathen fashion, robed in a girdle covered with red feathers, the ceremony attended by the slaughter of men and followed by the worship of the god Oro. Now a little prince began his reign with the sweet sacrifice of prayer and praise to the living God.
In the end of the summer of 1835 many people in various parts of the island were converted, especially by the preaching of Mr. Nott, at Papao, and in July, 1836, the queen found that only two openly ungodly persons were to be found in the whole district of Pare; and Mr. Davies was almost as much blessed at Papare as Mr. Nott was at Papao. The translation of the whole Bible into Tahitian was completed in 1836, the greatest part of the work having been done by Mr. Nott; and in February of this year Mr. Nott set sail for England. He presented the translation to the directors of the London Missionary Society, and remained in England for two years. He appeared at Exeter Hall at the great anniversary in 1838, and after showing the Ailsembly a copy of the Tahitian Bible, bade them a last though not an everlasting farewell, and returned to Tahiti, rejoicing in the privilege of spending the remainder of his days in the service of Christ in the South Seas.
HONOR OF A MISSIONARY.
I should not like you, if meant by the gifts of God for a great missionary, to die a millionnaire. I should not like it, were you fitted to be a miRsionary, that you should drivel down into a king. What are all your kings, all your nobles, all your stars, all your diadems and your tiaras, when you put them altogether, compared with the dignity of winning souls for Christ, with the special honor of building for Christ, not on another man's foundation, but preaching Christ's gospel in regions far beyond ~ I reckon him to be a man honored of men who can do a foreign work for Christ; but he who shall go farthest in self-annihilation and in the furtherance of the glory of Christ shall be a king among men, though he wear a crown no carnal eyes can see.-Spurgeon.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND THE HIGHEST USE OF WEALTH
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND THE HIGHEST USE OF WEALTH.
B. C. AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE A. F. M. AT PITTSFIKLD, MASS., OCTOBER 14TH, 1891.
BY PRESIDENT MERRILL EDWARDS GATES, LL.D., OF AMHERST.
The incarnation of the living God as the Redeemer of man has made it forever necessary that the man who would know God must see something of God in his fellow-men. In all ages the men whose hearts God has touched, whose eyes God has opened that they may see Him and make others see Him, have been men mightily moved in soul and heart toward their fellow-men. The nearer we come to God's view of human life, the purer and deeper and mightier will be our love of human souls and our pity for wasted. sinful. and benighted human lives.
LOVE OF GOD AND WORK FOR MEN.
There is a Divine revelation of the very heart of God Himself in the description Christ gives us of the scenes of division at the judgment. Our Master takes as His own not those who selfishly cry, "Lord, Lord!" and boast familiarity with God's power and achievements of their own in cast- ing out devils; but the men who have shown" the mind which was in Christ Jesus, " and under the constraining power of Christ's love have served Him by serving" in His name" their fellow-men for whom He died. It is by the faith that is in Christ Jesus that we stand; but the absolutely vital, the indissoluble connection of faith with love and with works of love and help- fulness and mercy, is made startlingly clear in this revelation by Christ of the things whi.ch shall be made manifest at that day. It is only by living out a vital principle of life to its issues that we can come to know it thoroughly. True Christians are men and women who are bent upon reducing right theories of life to right living. Life-power and moral truth are the mightiest forces in the universe. In Christian character these two forces are combined. God is life and truth ; godlikeness worked out in life is character; into sound character has entered the " omnipotence of a • principle," and the almightiness of God Himself is pledged to make char- acter, which is vitalized truth, the mightiest power within the control of man. And since God is Jove, and God in Christ is the supreme revelation of that holy and infinitely attractive love which spared not His own Son that He might be just and yet might Jove us out of our sins into lives of holiness, Christians can never Jearn large lessons of God's love in Christ without sharing in Christ's love for their fellow-men THE TEST-OUR FEELING TOWARD MULTITUDES OF UNSHEPHERDED MEN.
Always, then, for the individual Christian, and for any body of Christians who are acting together, there is a supreme test in the question, How deep a concern do you feel for the welfare of the great body of your fellowmen ~ What are your feelings, what are your purposes, what is your attitude of soul t.oward the benighted ones, 'our brothers and sisters, who are ignorant, debased, sin-burdened, and hopeless in the world ~ Sharp and clear is the contrast between the spirit of the Pharisees and the spirit of Christ in this matter of caring for crowds of the commou people. When their returning officers said, " Never man spake as this man speaks," and when "the common people heard Him gladly," the Pharisees waved aside the divine meaning of the message with that contemptuous phrase, the essence of selfish vanity and arrogant pride, " This people that knoweth not the law is accursed." But" the mind that was in Christ Jesus," the mind that dwells in every true child of God in richer fulness as the Holy Spirit shows him the things of Christ, is revealed in the words, " But when He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion upon them, because they fainted aud were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. " In those words speaks from the heart of God the loving voice of the Good Shepherd j and "His sheep know His voice and follow Him."
This mind that was in Christ, this deep yearning love for lost men, has always marked the true Church. It began its growth among men with the growth of the early Church at Jerusalem, and it had to break its way through that intense spirit of exclusiveness which, with the Jewish Church, had been a cult for centuries. For generations God had walled in His chosen people, had separated them from the rest of the world, that their knowledge of Him and their realization of His presence might be intensified by exclusion. In the fulness of time, when the Word was made flesh, when the love of God was poured into the life of men through the life and the words of Christ, this spirit of love for all mankind burst the cerements of the old dispensation, and the Christian Church began its wondrous growth on earth. It came into life, it grew and prospered under the teaching and guidance of the Third Person of the Trinity, the ever-living Holy Spirit, whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and show them to His followers, who is with us here to-day guiding His Church. Peter first felt the power of this mission-spirit of love for all mankind. Then the heavenly vision came to Paul, and flaming with the spirit of Christ's love he went through all the provinces, fiery-hearted with the spirit of missions. With the growth of the Church this spirit has increasingly prevailed; the walls of separation between nationil have been broken down by it. It is to the growing spirit of Christ, not to the evolution of a perception of a subtly selfish interest for the individual to be attained by the promotion of the we)£are of the whole-it is to the spirit of Christ and not to "enlightened self-interest," that we owe the deepening sense of the solidarity of the race which binds men together the world around.
In the history of the Church it is the men whose hearts have'received this spirit in the largest measure whose names illumine the annals of the Church and the pages of universal history. In their hearts was condensed so much of the thrilling force of Christ's love that heat passed into fiery rays of light, and they became beacons to men for all time. From Paul, longing to visit Spain, yearning over the Romans, melted with love for the Galatians, holding all Greece and all Asia in his heart, down through the glorious roll of saints and martyrs and missionary heroes till we reach the names of the missionaries whom we have seen in the flesh, and whom we love, hearts and lives on fire with the love of lost and benighted men have been the evidence of the spirit of life in the Church of Christ.
IN A LIVING CHURCH, ALWAYS A LOVE OF MISSIONS.
There can be no living Church without a glowing love for mlSSlOns. Christ has made this very clesr to us. In the glimpse He gives us of the judgment. in His parting words as He ascended, "Go ye and make disciples of all nations," and, ,. Lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world," we find the very essence of His teaching, the flowering of His spirit of service. To seek and to save that which was lost, was the mission that brought our Divine Redeemer from heaven to earth j and to seek and to save the lost is the Divine commission, from the glorified Christ in heaven to each believer who looks up to a Divine Redeemer for direction in a life of grateful service.
What has this to do with the question of money and its use ~ Let us ask ourselves this question thoughtfully.
MEN AND MEANS.
As members of the Church of Christ set to do Christ's work in the world, assembled here in the interest of one of the most important agencies in that work of evangelizing the world, which is pre-eminently the one work given by Christ to His people to do in His name, we are brought face to face with the question of the means to carry out this important work. Here, as in every other important undertaking which is to influence many lives, men and means are the essential requirements. Men never were offered to a praying Church in such numbers as stand confronting us today, saying, ' • We are ready, send us." Under the influence of the spirit of God, the immeasurable importance of bearing the glad tidings to the dark places of the earth has dawned upon young men and women in our· land with a vividness and a power never before seen or known in the history of the Church. Do you who are past middle age remember the " missionary concerts" of your youth, when prayers were regularly offered that God would" break down the walls" that shut Christians out of China and Japtm V That prayer has been answered. This year the Emperor of China issues a royal edict calling upon the governors of his provinces to protect the missionaries against misrepresentation and violence, and declaring that the object of Christian teaching is to make men better. We have been witnesses of this marvellous change. We have seen Japan rise suddenly to highest standards in civilization 'and ih government-a nation born in a day. Japanese Christians are setting the Christian world an exam- ple of unity and loving fellowship in work. The testimony of all observers is that never was a great nation in a more receptive mood for Christian truth than is Japan to-day. In India there is a special call for laborers.
Another generati0n of educated men, broken loose from the old faith, will soon be anarchic in morals unless Christianity shall supply the basis of morality in life. Ve need not raise any questions of a future hell; there will be hell let loose upon the earth unless Christian truth gets hold upon India, unless the love of Christ cherished in the heart shall more than make good the loss of restraints of the old order. In unharvested fields the grain, ripe and ready, falls to the earth in rich, decaying masses, un- garnered. Unless these years that are now upon us be used, the oppor- tunity is forever lost. It i~ now or never, for India! .
"TIME-VALUE" AND" PLACE-VALUE."
Political economists talk of a " time-value," which belongs to a commodity that is ready precisely when it is wanted, like seed corn in spring, and of a " place-value," which is the result of the presence of an instrument or a commodity at the precise place where it is needed, and at precisely the time when it is needed. The time-utility of missionary effort just now is immense. Who can estimate the place-utility of Christian effort DOW in Japan and in India ~ Of Africa I hardly dare to speak. Africa, no longer the totally" Dark Continent," first pierced through by the rays of love and light where Livingstone carried his well-read Bible that rayed out life for him and made his path a trail of love and light until that night when he knelt alone beside his cot under the great tree in the wilderness and, kneeling, met his God; Mrica, now slowly rising to a place in the world's history, but still as booty to be struggled for in a contest of diplomacy, if not of arms-to save and uplift Africa, what need of Christian giving, what a call for help from Christian America, who owes the heaviest debt to that continent which is mother of the race, long fettered and beaten with many stripes, whose unrequited toil made" cotton king" !
We see these open doors. We hear these calls from perishing men. We see the" time-value" and the " place-value" of efforts now put forth for Christ. Loyal subjects of Christ our King, we see clearly the importance of these strategic points to be seized now for the advancement of His kingdom among men. The old walls about the isolated nations, which our fathers and mothers prayed to have thrown down, lie flat before us. The opportunity 'is ample. The need is pressing. The demand from the field is imperative. The loss of life, the loss of souls, is deadly. WHAT HINDERS THE WORK ~ In those monthly concerts, when the walls about China and.Tapan had fallen, the petitions began to take on this stereotyped form : "Lord, raise up men and women who shall be uJilling to go into these opening fields.," The sacrifice involved in foreign mission work has always been immense, but the fruit of it has been abundant and rich. Partings with kindred and friends, departures into strange lands-these have always been essential to the propagation of the. truth since the time when God said to Abraham, the father of the faithful, " Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I will show you." By such self-sacrificing obedience to God's commands have new nations learned of that brotherhood of man which has no meaning, no power, save as all nations learn that they have a commGn 'Father, even God. Much of what is called the " spirit of the nineteenth century," this awakening of the world to the conviction that all men are of one blood, and that property in man is impossible, is the manifest result of mission work done by strangers who, for Christ's sake and at God's call, have sojourned in strange lands among despised peoples preaching peace and brotherhood through Christ. But the cost of leaving home and friends and native land, the sacrifice involved in expatriating one's self and one's children, has always been so serious 8 matter to contemplate that those who love their own ease have always wondered when the call of God has been potent enough to carry His consecrated servants as missionaries to foreign fields. The supply of men and women willing to go has never been equal to the need of the field, seldom to tbe means at the disposal of the missionary boards. It has been taken for granted by the Church for the last two generations, first, that the walls that shut in mighty nations could not be broken down short of centuries to come; and then, that laborers willing to go could not be found in sufficient numbers.
FACE TO FACE WITH ANSWERED PRAYERS.
But what is time to our God, when He wills to send His kingdom forward by a mighty unfolding into the growing season, into the flowering time! A thousand years are as a day with Him. He laid the walls level. He opened the way. His will and wisdom' brought in the age of steam. Railroads and steamship lines girdle His globe to make ready a highway for his messengers, " speaking peace to the nations." He sets a Stepherason and a Fulton, a Morse and a Bell and an Edison at His tasks when they know it not. Corporations of selfish men do His work, as heedless of the plan of God as are the stones which are framed into the mighty arch of the cathedral, or the liquid elements that are seized upon by the growing plant and drawn up into a place in the beauty of its unfolded blossom by a power utterly beyond their ken! Mission fields are open. The world is the field. AU fences are down. A Christian Church, the Church of America, stands to-day face to face with its answered prayers. It is as if a throng of men and women had been standing in the ante-room of the King's chamber, half drearily telling eachother in monotonous voices what they wished to ask for if the King would only give them audience. Suddenly the King steps in among them and declares, " I know your wishes j you have them now!" And with stammering voices and uncertain gestures the would-be petitioners stand abashed in the presence of a royal Giver, whose readiness to give exceeds their readiness to receive!
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEERS FOR MISSIONS.
For a generation the Church has been praying for men and women who were ready to go. The Holy Spirit hae tried the hearts and searched the spirits of young men and women at our higher institutions of learning. No one who bas been among them, as I have been, and has seen this searching work of the Lord, can fail to recognize it as God's doing, and as altogether wonderful and like His mighty power and the gracious constraining force of His own love, that to-day over six thousand young Christians of America are volunteers for Christian mission-work.
The years when young students look out upon life from the· mountain heights of youth are favorable to a clear vision of comparative values. While the wish is eager to make one's life count for the utmost possible in the service of God by serving one's feHow-men, those whose eyes God touches that they may truly see discern the truth that no other work compares in potent possibility for good with this light-bearing in dark places. Our" young men see visions;" and this is the fulfilment of God's glorious promise of rich blessing fO,r any nation. They see that the Holy Spirit describes the highest object of a liberal education, when He speaks of one who" has tbe tongue of the'learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary." And the spirit of God has so moved upon the young people in the Church of God in this land, that as a class of Christians they say today to the Church of God, " Weare ready to go. Weare eager to try within this next generation to fulfil the glorious command of Christ and , make disciples of all nations.' "
THE ALMIGHTY BANKER CALLS IN HIS LOANS.
Since the work is Christ's work intrusted to us, since the would.be workers are ready and call upon our mission boards to send them, since the great, the rapidly growing wealth of this Christian nation is in the hands of Christian men and women of mature years, my brothers, what answer can we give for ourselves before the jndgment throne of God, if this glorious work of preaching the Gospel of light to dying men is checked and dwarfed, and fails of its glorious pORsibility, because we who are God's stewards hold fast to God's money for our own selfish uses 1 There is a time when the Almighty Banker of the Universe calls in His lo~n81 There is a time when the Master, about to return from far countries, Himself makes rigid yet loving inquiry of every steward concerning the talents, be they one or ten, intrusted to his use. Are we so using the money God has given us as to give to Him" His own with interest" 1 But, some one will say, this is an unnatural view which you present. Christians are to use their money as do other men, subject to the laws of. political economy and in accordance with the general spirit of the time in which they dwell and with the standards that prevail in the grades of society where their lot is cast. Let us look at the question for a moment.
HIS PROPERTY IS.A MAN'S" OBJECTIFIED WILL."
A man's property has been said to be his" objectified will." Mere things, which apart from man are impersonal and utterly outside of moral and jural considerations, enter into the domain of rights, of justice, of morality, through their relation to the will of their owner. The object into which you have introduced your will, which you have willed and worked to make your own. has become in a sense a part of you. There is a true sense in which the man who touches your property toltches you. Property that is truly owned and used becomes in a sense a part of the owner and user. His intelligence permeates it, his will directs its use. Since wealth is often labor stored up in portable form, it has in it a man's life. It partakes of his personality. A man's wealth, through his acting in it. becomes a personal force in social life which may be used for the noblest ends or prostituted to the bagest uses.
No man can escape the fullest responsibility for the use he makes of his wealth, which is potential power of service. Every man holds all his powers in trust j for the use he makes or fails to make of each power, he must auswer at the judgment-seat of God. Our divine Teacher has warned us that in wealth there is a subtle and dangerous tendency which leads it to seek to escape this law of service. Wealth, whkh should be a useful servant, seeks to become a tyrannical master. Christ in His warnings to His followers personifies but one power in the universe as likely to become a dangerous rival for that throne in man's heart and life which belongs to God Himself. The subtle power against which He thus warns us is Mammon, the love of money. Between the mad pursuit of gain and the service of the living God, He warns us that every man must choose. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. " The property that you have must be as fully and entirely subject to the Jaw of the service of God in serving your fellow-men, as must your powers of heart and will and hand and head.
THE CONVERTED HEART INVOLVES THE CONVERTED POCKET-BoOK.
Talk of men as converted, as Christian men, who con~ciously and deliberately allow their property to be used for debasing and ruining their fellow-men! Imagine that a man'M heart and will can be converted to the service of God, and his property remain in the service 0" the devIl! 'Tis an utter imposRibility !
The cOllversion that does not reach a mall's use of his property is no true conversion. There is no truly Christian man who keeps an unconverted pocket-book or bank account. God'~ universal law of unselfish service is as supreme in the domain of material possessions-in the realm of that wealth which extends a man's power" to bring things to pass"-as it is in any other department of man's possible efforts. The unvarying law of God, which uttachcs an obligation to every opportunity and places a duty over against every right, makes no exception of wealth with its vast powers of service. God has so ordered the tiocial life of our race that no man can make the most of his powers of mind and heart and will until he employs those powers in the service of his fellow-men. This is an accepted law in the realm of mind and spirit. It is no less binding upon the power which material wealth places at a man's disposal. No man has the slightest light to say of his wealth, " It is mine; I may nse it selfi&hly if I will." No man has arrived at a true conception of the responsibility that attaches to the possession of property, until his relations through it to his fellowmen fill a larger place in his views of life than does his ability by his wealth to serve his own selfish ends. No man is free to make an option as to whether he or his property shall come under God's law of service. He and his property are under that law, of necessity, as he is of necessity a member of society and of the State, without his leave having been asked. In the use of his property, as of all his other powers, he olVes steady allegiance to that law of 5ervice, by virtue of the solidarity of God's universe of law; and though in managing his property he may disregard this obligation, he can never escape it.
Now, wealth must be used for service according to its own laws. Wealth is productive only as it is used. as capital-that is, as wealth employed in the production of new wealth, of new values. Since wealth is " the usufruct of skill, intelligence, and morality," it places its owner under obligation steadily so to use it as to reproduce morality, intelligence, and skill.
RESTRIOTED SERVICE, TO GAIN WEALTH.
My brothers, Christian men who have put much of your life into money-winning, as you remember how much of time and effort have been withheld by you from more definite Christian work that you might concentrate yourself upon money-winning, is there not an especial call upon you that you redeem (" buy back") the time that was withheld from God's work by you while you were making money ~ Take the case of a man who has won his wealth by years of concentrated effort. Often it is true that he has gained it by a constant withdrawal of his time and his strength from other occupations in which a generous, public-spirited man wuuld like to engage. "Follow this line of study with me," said a friend, in his early mallhood. " No; business demands all my time," was the answer. "Take hold and help us in thi.; effort at political reform in our city," said his public-spirIted neighbor. " I haven't the time, business claims me." "Will you undertake part of the work of special visitiqg to be done by our church people this winter ~" " Really, you must find some one else, my dear pastor, I am so pressed by business." It was by such restrictions of effort, by such exclusions of everything that did not tend directly to the winning of money, that he made his way to wealth.
But clearly, God meant that man to cultivate his mind, to be a useful citizen and a Christian worker. In some way, then, the time and strength withdrawn from other duties and from public service should be given back to serving the public, to the enriching of the life of others.
LET THE LIFE INVOLVED IN WEALTH-WINNING BE EVOLVED IN THE RIGHT USE OF WEALTH.
The time owed to distinctively Christian effort, to work for the good of his fellow-men, may be in part made good, if the wealth into which his efforts and time were coined is used nobly and wisely. And while no giving for Christian work can take the place of personal interest in Christian activity, yet many men could do infinitely more by free and consecrated gifts of large sums of money than they now do by formal expressions of their sense of unworthiness and lack of effort in the past, unaccompanied even now by any large use of their wealth for Christ's cause.
"Redeem the time" that was withheld from God's service by you while you were making money. Redeem it, buy it back, by using your money conscientiously and generously for God's work.
If you have inherited wealth, let the time and labor that were involved ill the rolling up and the transmission of a fortune, be evolved again in days and years of active philanthropic and Christian work, done by the Christian workers whom your money supports in mission fields.
" PECUNIA ALTER SANGUIS."
For everyone of us, a part of his life-effort is stored up in money-in his possessions. It is the clear perception of this fact that gives significance to the old phrase, " pecunia alter sanguis. " In the money your life acquires is stored up the life-blood of your effort; not because gold is as precious as one's life, but because the power acquired by past effort, stored up in money, enables you to set the efforts of others in motion to carry out your purpose and your will. How shall this life-blood of your past effort be kept pure and noble? How will you use it?
Wealth is concentrated power of service. Whether our wealth be great or small, it is still concentrated power of service. Is the wealth that is in the hunds of Christians also 0/ co.ns~cmted power service? Upon thi.~ blood of your past life, which has in it a life-giving power if used for noble ends, has there fallen the touch of consecration ~ Is it not an awful danger of our times, the greatest peril that threatens professedly Christian people, that though we are Christians, we 80 persistently ignore all true ends in the use of our money 1 Is it not too much our habit of thought to regard only those as people of wealth who have much more money than have we ~ When we read upon page after page of the New Testament the most searching warnings as to the use of wealth, is it not our habit to pass them on to the very wealthy, whose fortunes far exceed the means at our disposal ~ MAMMON MAY BE WORSHIPPED BY THE POOR AS TRULY AS BY THE RICH.
Yet the essential nature of wealth does not lie in its quantity, in the amount of money at a man's disposal. The god Mammon may be worshipped with a man's whole heart, though his business transactions be petty and his savings small. Some rich men give to good causes small contributions, with a hypocritical allusion to "the widow's mite i" but our Lord bestowed His regal blessing upon the widow's mite not because it was small, but because she gave her whole living to the Lord. And in the countless warnings addressed by Him who is the Truth to Hill followers, cautioning them as to the deceitfulness of riches, as to tho difficulties that those who trust in riches will find in entering the Kingdom of Heaven, the word used is one that does not lay stress upon great wealthis one that may be used of very small possessions. The essential meaning of the word is usable values embodied in material things. The warning is against trusting in material things for our happiness, our security, our power. Rather are we to trust in the living God, to use for the glory of God all the powers we have of body, soul and mind, every means by which we may bring things to pass in our life here. The warning is against the comfortable sense of safety that comes from" having means behind you." large or small. Whatever possession is capable of standing between a man's soul, and a vital living dependence upon God day by day, is to be suspected, dreaded, and used with fear and trembling as in the sight of a jealous God, who has personified this love of possessions as His great rival in the hearts of men.
" DECEITFULNESS."
The peculiarity of riches, great or small, ·lies in their deceitfulness. They that trust in possessions cannot enter into the kingdom, even in their conception of what that kingdom is, and of what are its powers. And the awful danger in dealing with riches is, that the material advantages they secure are so obvious. so universally recognized, that most men never get beyond these advantages in thought, desire, or fear. How lightly and apologetically we Christians are accustomed to deal with the awfu! emphasis which our Master has laid upon the perpetual, essential danger that lies in the use of wealth! Our Lord has spoken of this danger again and again, in words that stand out luminous with such lurid light as burns in His warnings against the unpardonable sin. Yet too often we hear these warnings tossed aside with a half smile, even by preachers of the Gospel who are accustomed to preach to the rich, as though they would say, " Of course, Christ said this j but what He meant was so essentially different from this that it need not for a momeut make you gentlemen with large bank accounts uncomfortable, especially if you respond kindly to the special appeal I make this morning, and drop into the box a contribution a little larger than usual." Let us, who believe in the living Word of the living God, take time to read together a few of the many utterances in God's Word which bear directly upon this point. Who c~n doubt that the iteration and reiteration of these warnings is, for us and for all Christians, profoundly significant ~ THE TESTIMONY OF THE WORD OF GOD.
" The rich man is wise in his own conceit" (Prov. 28 : 11). " Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12 : 20). "The deceitfulness of riches chokes the word" (Matt. 13 : 22). "But they that will to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition" (1 Tim. 6: 9), "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after, have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim. 6: 10). " Let not the rich man glory in his riches." " Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly" (the Greek is [duskolos] dVC1,,6A.wS, meaning literally that his diet and his digestion are such as to put his life entirely out of harmony with the heavenly life j it " goes against his stomach j" before he can enter in, he must be fed upon other food !)-" shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19 : 23). " How hardly shall they that have riches" (the Greek is [chremata] xpf]/LaTrJ." not necessarily great riches, but possessions enough to trust in) "enter into the kingdom of God" (Luke 18 : 24). "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God j that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate-that they may lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. 6: 17, 18). "Go to, now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted; your gold and your silver are rusted, and their rust shall be for a testimony against you" (James 5 : 1-3). It is the rust, not the gold, that is the witness against them. Their means are not used for Christ, and the selfish rust on them" shall eat your flesh as it were fire." "There is a grievous evil which I ha,"e seen under the sun-namely, riches kept by the owner there9f to his hurt j and those riches perish by evil adventure" (Eccl. 5 : 13).
Can there be any question that these clear declarations of God cut sharply across the tacit assumptions of many of the Christian congregations of our times 1 CHRIST TEACHES CHRISTIANS TO USE ~~EALTJI, BUT NOT TO "TRUST" IT.
Yet this awfully dangerous power of wealth is entrusted to Christians. The parables and teachings of our Lord, time after time. hold up the property relation as the basis of a lesson in Christian living. The great majority of His parables deal with this relation in one form or another. Nothing can be clearer than that He holds every Christian responsible for the right use of all his possessions, however small, however large, they may be. For the right use of the ten talents and tho two talents, there is tht' same commendation, the same relative reward j while 1he awful stress of contrast is laid upon him who had but one talent heeause ho declined to use that one for his master. There is no one of us here present, then, who can feel that the warnings and the responsibilities that attend the possession of wealth for a Christian do not concern himself. For the right use of all his powers of service, God holds each one of us responsible; and certainly the income that each one of us receives, the property that each one of us possesses, has in it latent power of service for the promotion of the Master's kingdom.
Now the divine law of political economy applies to this whole matter. Dangerous as is the use of wealth, God calls upon Christians to URe all they have of it, be it little or much, in His service and for His glory. We sing in moments of devotion, " All that I havo I 0'11'0 to Thee, I hold it for the Giver."
The proportion which each man of us is free to spend upon his own personal gratification, upon the personal pleasures of his family, upon the embellishments of his home, we cannot determine for each other j but everyone of us is bound conscientiously to determine it before God, and under the searching vision of the Spirit of all Truth, whom no detail and no selfish motive can escape. The Holy Spirit in the heart of Christians can and does make " sumptuary laws" for us.
To HELP MEN TO HELP THEMSELVES.
When we become convinced that there is in our hands as stewards money to be used for our absent Lord-for om Lord in bodily presence withdrawn, in spirit dwelling in us-then how gloriously does the scope of this mission work open out before us ns wo look at the money in our hands! Wealth must be used for unselfish ends, or it cannot be used as the Lord wills. To help others, we must help them to help themselvcs. The greatest work which Christian wealth can do in the world is to bring men one by one under the sway of that one Supreme Personality, the Lord .Tesus Christ !
HELP THEM TO CHRIST.
The only hope for men is in a close personal relation with a personal Saviour. Not in masses will men be Iiftf~d out of vice and sin. Society will be purified, institutions will be made better and kept better, only as men are drawn one by one to IIim "Who has been lifted up." The grellt social discontent of our time, whose hoarse warning voice comes to our ear from every continent on the globe, finds its canse in thp. Jack of a true centre for each man's life in Christ. The pitiable, blind yearnings of socialism must touch the hearts of true Christians, because they are the gropings of men after that true brotherhood which men find only when they see the Fatherhood of God. Christ is the" Desire of the Nations," though they know Him not. The truest, wisest use of wealth is in promoting efforts to bring the Gospel of Christ home to the hearts of the people, and to bring the people home to Christ. "They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ranEOm for him." But the power of the Holy Spirit can transmute these money gift!;, wllich we here and now before God pledge ourselves to make for the promotion of His kingdom, into Christian influences which will win souls for Christ. Oh, what a glorious thought, that dead and wasted years, which have been coined into money, if that money be laid at the feet of Christ, may be made to live over again, His Spirit touching the dead past and quickening it into living service, as this money shall send to the dark places of the earth souls fired with the wish to preach Christ!
" Defer not charities till death," says Bacon, " for certainly if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth 80 is rather liberal of another man's than of his own." Be your wealth great or small, use it for Christ while you can yourself direct its use, while you ~an yourself see and enjoy the mighty moral and spiritnal values which are produced from the right use of wealth. Where is the man or the woman of large wealth who will set tlle world a Christian example of that free, cheerful, joyous giving which God loves (" God loveth a cheerfnl giver") by taking a whole mission station to snpport from his abundant means, as a rich man keeps a yacht" for his own pleasure" 1 vVho will thus prayerfully "rcde~m" large sections of his great wealth, of his coined time, by prayerfully using it for these noble ends 1 Vie look for the speedy appearing of such great benefactions, as the re-
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT
sponsibility of wealth comes to be more clearly felt. Meanwhile, let us see to it that by loving and free giving until we feel it in the sweet deprivations that we are willing to meet for Christ's sake, we each one of us show to the world something of that spirit that brings a blessing from the Lord, Who still" sits over against the treasury. "
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT. (With .Map.) BY REV. ROBERT W. :/d,ALL, D.D., PARIS, FRANCE.
[NOTE.-At the Editor's request Dr. McAll has sent to the REVIEW an account of the new enterprise for French waters, and a plate of the proposed boat.- EDITOR.] Not long since there WaS issued the following appeal for a McAll mission boat for river and canal-work throughout France.
Each summer, for many years past. the boats lent to the mission by Mr. Henry Cook (Seamen's Friend), of Portsmouth and Gosport, have visited various French seaports, and a remarkable blessing has resulted.
Last summer immense interest was awakened during the sojourn of the boat in Paris, moored for two months in the Seine, beside the celebrated Pont de la Concorde.
Henco has arisen our intense desire to have our own boat adapted to the system of rivers and canals which is spread like a network all over France, and which consequently could be used at all seasons of the year. By this means hundreds of hitherto umisited places can be reached with the Gospel message. The estimated cost of such a vessel, containing a saloon for meetings and seating 120 to 140 persons, with lodging for those in' charge, is estimated at £1000. Captain and Mrs. Pim, of Valence, members of the Society of Friends, generously offer to give their services during seven months of each year to carry out this enterprise. The annual outlay for dues, watermen, lighting, warming, etc., and the expense of an evangelist sent to aid in the services, will amount to about £200.
We plead earnestly for special donations toward building the boat, and annual subscriptions toward working it. Without these, this most desirable undertaking cannot be accomplished, the ordinary income being already taxed to the utmost.
While we were using Mr. Cook's boat, Le Bon .Messager, one writer, in a popular French daily newspaper, professing to be very friendly, asked, " What is to be done when, in a few days, this little ship.has to quit the Seine and put to sea again ~ A happy thought occurs to us, which we submit to the promoters of this effort. "Ve recommend them to engage a
I,S,SIonRB.Y
anal~ tn 'l1RllCeI J • f–'—I IIan -:i- + -+– 'ecHon + PARIS – FEBRY 1891 H. R~&. It€'Y.
H(!c;~itecf D. by I~( ;;tale
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT
balloon and hold meetings in the air, high above the Tour Eiffel. The audience being thus already part way to heaven, it will be easier to guide them upward for the remainder of the journey."
This and similar pleasantries clearly attracted thousands to the boat, and numbers who came expecting to be amused remained as earnest listeners. It would be difficult to compute in how far we are indebted even for the new, permanen.t boat to the popular interest thus awakened, evidencing how especially this novel mode of evangelization is adapted to reach the French people.
When the ship was about to leave Paris, a pleasing little incident occurred. Mr. Henry Cook, of the Portsmouth Seamen's Society (who lent us the vessel), and our missionary, the Rev. S. R. Brown, had to go from one marine office to another to carry out some formalities. The distances were considerable, so they hired a small carriage, and were directed from bureau to bureau, a wearisome round. When it was finished Mr. Brown asked the driver what extra sum (beyond the small legal fare for a single drive) was due, on account of the many calls and long waiting. " Gentlemen," he said, his countenance brightening, " I will not receive one sou extra. It has been a pleasure and privilege to conduct you. I and my son have attended the boat meetings whenever we could, and have found great benefit there. I am only too happy to offer this small mark of my gratitude."
The new boat is now in process of building; the special donations have warranted ordering it, but there will be the annual cost of working it, river and canal dues, mariners' support and cost of sending evangeliststhough the good captain and his wife will receive nothing, not even their own support. We tried to believe the annual cost would not surpass £200, but to work well we must rather reckon on £300. It certainly promises to be the means of sending far and wide the Gospel message in France to numbers of places in which it is as yet never heard. We hope to launch it about the end of October.
From the Nineteenth Annual Report of the McAIl Mission we append a few statements which will interest all who are watching the new developments of this work. The missionary boat on the Seine has found the door open wider than ever in France. This was a new experiment in the heart of the vast city. Moored at the well-known Pont de la Concorde, it was wonde~ful to descend into the cabin on a summer afternoon, and find everything orderly as in a regular place of worship, and hear the hearty singing, and mark the reverent attention pervading the crowded assembly, composed chiefly of men; then, so soon as one meeting was ended, to see a new audience eagerly rushing in and filling the cabin a second, third, and even fourth time. What a resistless evidence of a widespread desire to listen to the Gospel message! The gross attendance, during the seven weeks, was 23,500, comprising all classes of society, and many, evidently, hearing the Gospel for the first time in their lives. By a vessel permanently connected with our work the G08pel could be conveyed not only to the cities and towns, but to ~ multitude of remote places where, as yet, its glad sound is never heard.
Every ycar brings new proofs that, so long aR the workers, whether for young or old, keep strictly to the faithful declaration of the Gospel, and the direct effort to win souls to Christ, the people will ncver grow weary of listening to them. Our special work during the" Exposition Universelle" evidenced this anew j each of our two temporary halls at the gate!! has ceased to be temporary. In each a little permanent cl)ngregation of residents in Par'is remained after the Exposition had closed. Were-entered the large salle of Avenue Rapp with the New Year, the influx of these new-comers having rendered the neighboring one of Avenue Bosquet too small, while the little room at the Trocadero has bcen retained. In both "We have the joy of recognizing a certain number of true converts.
Another striking indication that the present i~ a peculiarly favorable time for Gospel work here is found in the fact that in two of our central llalls in Paris-those of Rue Royale and Boulevard Bonue Nouvelle-the gross attendance during 1890 (omitting all extra mcetings) exceeded that of 1889 by 24,300, and this without any novelty of procedure or 8pecial attempt at publicity.
Mr. M. L. Dodds has written: "Never before did this 'Salvation Navy,' as the new~papers call it, attempt to take Paris hy storm, nor dare to cast anchor and hoist flag just below the Pont de la Concorde. Soon, however, the curious crowd gathered, and were welcomed to the nicely fitted-up saloon. The hours of meeting were at first from three to four and from eis-ht to nine. They were gradually extended, till three meetings occupied the afternoon, the saloon emptying and refilling each hourhardly emptying, for often there were a dozen or more people who did not stir, and whom the longest discourse did not frighten away; people who seemed rooted to the spot-both sexes. The greater number are men -men of all classes. One quite young fellow sat in his place from halfpast two till six, and again from eight to nine, magnetized, as it were, by what he was hearing. He was a Catholic, from the North) and had never been to meetings of this sort before. Many took the thing less seriously; they like to whet their intellects on the discourse. 'These are good things,' said a young man to his companion, as they went out, ' but one takes and leaves.'
" Anything like steadiness of attention did not, of course, come all lit once. At the first there was a grcat dcal of coming and going, ~ometimes II little staring and laughing; some were amused at the faint sickly swing of the boat IU! other vessels passed it. Some found the steep companionladder ridiculous-' fit for English people,' they said-these Parisians do not see these ladders as often as they do in England. Some tried to join in the hymns, and sang out of tune, amusing the others. Some came only frOID curiosity, which being satisfied, they retired, never to return. h short, the meetings on the boat began exactly as those first meetings in 1872 began. If anyone wanted to stand again, in imagination, at the cradle of the miRsion, he could have seen the same curiosity, the same criticism, the same bewildered qnestions, the same falling off of wayside hearers, the same process of selection by whieh others stayed, and returned, and listened, and wondered, and often received life for their souls. .
" The French daily papers, describing the work, gave us lengthy advertisements for nothing! Think of it! Advertisements are expensive in France. 'With what gold should we have bought a column and a half of the Figaro .2 " All the French papers were talking about our Bon Messa,qer. Under some such title as 'Le bon Dieu .~ur l' eau ' – ' La religion Ii voiles'- , Une cJwpeUe flottante,' they gave a piece of clever and not ill-natured banter, and llometimes of not too inaccurate description, which helped to send hundrcd~ on board. Le Monde Illustre had some capital comic ,;l:etehes. The crowd pressing down 'en queue '-the saloon filled with peopll1-the lady open-mouthed at the harmonium-the orator keeping time with his llymn-book-were all represented. Even the texts eould be deciphered in full in the pictures. Le Monde made a mistake, however, in giving us too many old ladies in the front seats j but that may be passed over.
" The Rappel said : •• • A yacht is moored below the Pont de la Concorde. To its masts is attached a large ensign, white, on a blue gronnd, " Evangelical meetings every day, free entry." A fixed gangway gives access to the yacht j by a steep staircase we reach the cabin, transformed into a meeting hall. " , A dignified English lady, a little leather bag hangin"g on her arm, gives you a red book. The title is" Popular Hymns." You are warned, by a notice on the cover, that the book is not for you. Comfort yourself -you will get other presents! There are tracts for all tastes.' Butenough. The speakers and players are in turn described or caricatured. Thc singing and reading is carefully described, then the address by M. Mabboux. Then it is naIvely remarked, 'The meeting is closed with a prayer, which must be said with the eyes shut j , for to elose the eyes during prayer strikes these people as a new and peculiar action. "The Figaro also describes the steep ladder, and the hall, 'which might contain about two hundred persons. It is a meeting hall, with a reading. desk at one end j wooden benches arranged in order, and all round the walls are little sentences setting forth the adyantages of having to do with God (commerce avec Dieu), such as "God is your refuge." Jesus Christ said, " Venez d moi vous tous qui etes travailtes et charges, et je vous s01dagerai. " " The Lord is my Shepherd," etc. These' go all along the cabin, in French and English.' "One tract was given down-stairs, and one Gospel on deck. The tract was usually offered by a lady to each one going out, and within its cover was placed a complete list of the mission halls in town, so that any one could choose the hall nearest to his place of residence if he wished to attend. On deck a young man offered a copy of a gospel. Some!imes curious but too rapid conversations took place with those going out.
" A lady, being offered the Gospel of John, said she wi&hed that of Matthew too. ' It is not here to-day, madam, but would you not like to buy a New Testament g, '" A New Testament g What is it g, " , It contains all the four Gospels, and other matter. ' " Ah ! then I should like that j is it expensive ~ , " , Four sous.' " And it was bought. "Miss B– gave a tract to a lady, who stopped, and said abruptly; " , Then, what must one do to get to heaven g, " , Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. His death saves you.' " , Yes-but what must I do g, " , Just what I have told you-believe.' " , And then ~ , " , Then you must read His Word and do His will.' " , Do you believe in hell and in purgatory? ' " , In hell I do, not purgatory.' " , According to that, we are all condemned.' " , We are. Only Christ saves us.' " , Are you saved g , "But a rush of people through the narrow doorway, up the ladder, separated the two. Others had to be attended to. Will she come back again and inq~ire further ~ Who knows !
" They get good speaking on the bateau, and they get plain speaking, too. These Frenchmen make a noble use of a noble language. Some came from the country to help, as Messrs. Mabboux, Vernier, and Sainton. When possible, four or five took turns in the course of the afternoon. And they rose to the occasion. The best gave their best here. I suppose the sight of those wistful faces appealed to them, and they , stirred up their gift.' What the people got was the simple Gospel, suited to their needs. Christ was exalted as Saviour and as King of kings."
M. J. Sainton, who labored very earnestly in the meetings, adds: "The audiences were very mixed, from the consequential lady and gentleman to the street urchin j but, with few exceptions, after the first moments of surprise, our listeners were respectful, attentive, and even sympathetic. By these meetings on the boat we have reached a new contingent of sinners in the midst of our Parisian society, till then strangers to the Gospel. lIad this been the only result, thc work carried on had been a real success, for we should have been carrying out the commandment of our Master, , Preach the Gospel to every creature.'
" But, besides this, we can say that from this time the work of God has begun in very many hearts, a work which the Holy Spirit will deepen unto salvation, "One day a young man, with a fine open face and well dressed, said to me, 'For several days I have been without work, my savings permitting me to wait and look out for a good place. Meanwhile, I am profiting by your good conferences, where I am glad to hear, in regard to religion, things quite new to me, and which I desire to know more about.' Since then I have seen this young man several times at our evening meetings. He has become one of onr regular attendants.
" Another young man, whom I had noticed at different times, and who always appeared most serious, said to me in reply to a question, • Yes, sir, I begin to understand that what you say is the truth.' Later on, I spoke to him again, and he said, 'Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. I want to live according to the Gospel, and not only that,' added he, with as much seriousness as naIve simplicity, " but I should wish to become a preacher like you. '
" Another day a young man came, accompanied by some companions, and with a mocking smile on his lips. By degrees his expression changed. After two or three meetings his companions dropped off, but he returned alone. He always sat in the same place, and sang and listened quite earnestly. I asked him one day about his spiritual state. He could not answer, bllt I felt that a good work was going on in his heart. He told me that since coming to our meetings he has ventured into II Protestant church, and that the simplicity and beauty of our religion had greatly impressed him. I gave him the address of the hall near which he lived, and he said to me that he would certainly attend the meetings there.
" Another time a gentleman, a merchant from the Provinces, waited for me at the door. That day we had to some extent touched on controversy on the subject of 'confession of sins.' • It is the first time,' said this gentleman, ' that I have been present at your meetings, and I wish to tell you with how much interest I have listened to you and your colleagues; but,' added he, • I should have liked to see our Catholic priests defend their points, and to know what you would have replied to them. ' , If the priests,' said I to him, • do not accept the Word of God as the common ground of discussion, we would not argue with them, for God has not given any other foundation for our faith in the doctrines of the truth. If, on the contrary, they accept it, all discussion is quickly settled, for not only can they not base the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the Word 'of God, but they have against them numerous and striking texts.' Then followed a most interesting conversation, which ended in the gentleman declaring: 'I also have had religious convictions from my childhood. In youth I rejected certain ordinances of my Church without abandoning the faith, and I see to-day that I am much more Protestant at heart than Catholic.'
SOME HINDRANCES '1'0 THE WORK 01' FOREIGN MISSIONS
"Unfortunately I did not think of taking his address, and he has probably returned to the provinces, for I have not seen him again."
Pastor Aubanel, of PariiO, says of the missionary ship at Fecamp : " The meetings held at Fecamp during August, 1890, on board The Herald of Mercy, were specially noteworthy because of the number of hearers, and the earne:;t attention with which they listened to the fundamental truth of the Gospel. For some days they were led by Pastor Cresseil, of Paris, but he had to leave, to conduct the evangelistic work at Trouville during the bathing season. The committee sent me to replace him. Every day, aided by the captain and Mlle. M–, I held a meeting and proclaimed a free salvation through repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to a number of sailors and their families.
•, Perfect order reigned on board during the whole time. The missionroom was constantly full of attentive and interested hearers-often too slIlall to hold all who wished to come, so that the deck also was crowded with persons eager to hear the glad tidings-which they could do, as the skylights were open; many also stood on the edge of the quay. On those days it is estimated that as many as 250 were present. The average was 180.
" A plentiful distribution of tracts and Scripture portions was made at the end of each meeting. New Te:;taments were on sale at the low price of one penny for the small edition. The people were so eager to buy that the stock on board was soon exhaustcd.
" When I took leave of the audience after the last meeting, very many of them, with a warm shake of the hand, said how sorry they were that the meet.ing" were over, and how much they hoped that they would be begun agaiu in a ncar future. "
SOME IIINDRANCES TO THE WORK OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY REV. GEORGE W. NORTHRUP, D.D., LL.D.
[We venture to reprint from the Baptist Missionary Magazine the masterly address of President Northrup before the Se;"entv-seventh Anniversary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, held in Cincinnati, May 25th, 1891, hoping thus to bring it to the attention of some who may not have !lad an opportunity of reading it. -ED.] I purpose to speak of some of the hindrances at home to the work of foreign missions, or some of the causes of the comparative failure of the Church to evangelize the pagan nations. Before expres5ing my thoughts on this subject, I beg leave to uttcr a word of a personal nature. It is possible that my remarks may not Eecure the approval of all ; may, in fact, give offence to some who hear me. If such shall be the case, let me assure you that I am not mored by a pcssimi6tic spirit, nor by a disposition to disparage the missionary history of our people. I am not willing to admit that I am inferior to any of my brethren in loyalty to the denomination with which I have Leen identified for fifty years, and which I have served, in a public way, for more than a third of a century. The feeling which I am most distinctly conscious of, as I stand before you to· day, is that of heartache in view of the apathy of Christian people, and especially the apathy of our denomination, in regard to the temporal and eternal salvation of the vast population of the pagan nations. I have put the question to myself once and again, within a few weeks past: " What can be done to change this state of things-to awaken the feelinl! of love and compassion which ought to exist for the hundreds of millions of our felloW'.men involved in the darkness, degradation and misery of heathenism g I speak in behalf of a billion human beings, for everyone of whom Christ died, every ODO of whom has a place in the heart of God, everyone of whom is of as much worth in His sight as any citizen of the great republic. It is certain that God has done all that He could wisely do in bestowing grace UpOll His people. It is also certain that, if they would use the grace bestowed with greater fidelity, He would give more and still more-, " opening the windows of heaven and pouring out a blessing, that there would not be 100m enough to receive it." The speedy eVaI;gelization of the pagan world, and shall we not also Bay, their salvation, is, in a real and profound sense, in the hands of the Church.
1. Among the causes referred to, we notice, first, the departure from the method of Christ, in laying chief stress, not on salvation here and now, the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, but upon salvation in a narrower seuse of the term, as escape from the retrihutions of hell. To use the words of another: "It has been too much the habit of Christian people, in looking abroad upon the heathen world, to regard it, Dot as a kingdom to be congucred for Jesus Christ, but rather as a seething sea of drowning men, a few of whom might bo saved from the general wreck by those whom the Church sent out on her gallant life-boat service." But certainly this is not the conception which Christ empllasizes when He sets before men the object of their immediate aud supreme devotion. He hegan His ministry by preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye, and bclieve tho Gospel." He frequently called the kingdom which He came to establish the" kingdom of heaven." not because it is in heaven, but because of its heavenly origin and nature. The prayer given by our Lord indicates plainly the location ned nature of tho kingdom for tho establishment of which He enjoined His disciples to labor ~and pray: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done"-where g in heaven? " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The objects presented in these two clauses are identical; the petition, "Thy kingdom come," means" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The end here presented-universal obedience among men to the will of God-is the burden of the Gospel which Christ preached, and which He commanded His disciples to preach to " all nations," "to every creature;" an end which includes the whole duty of man, and in the accomplishment of which the earth will reflect, in II degree beyond buman conception, the love, purity and blessedness of the heavenly world. True, in a few instances, Christ spoke of the infinitely diverse destinies of men in the future world; "but for once that He spoke about tho ';;iVing of the soul, lIe spoke fifty times about the kingdom." Since Christ's method is the wisest and best, in the measure that the Church has departed from this method, it must have lost in reli~ious power, llow much power, in the way of missionary appeal,' has the doctrine of the eternal perdition of the great majority of the pagan world 1 I received, a few months ago, a letter from a missionary in India, accompanied by a printed appeal to all evangelical churches, in which he states that, while last year (1890) fifty thousand heathen had been rescued, twenty millions had died, few of whom had heard of the love of God in Christ. And he exclaims- " Twenty millions of immortal souls swept into hell in a single year I"
It is probably an approximately correct estimate that, during the missionary year just closed, twenty millions of pagans, who had reached the age of moral accountability, have passed away, the great majority of whom never heard of the Gospel of the grace of God. Is there not, in this fact, considered in the light of the commonly received view of the Bible relation to the final doom of the heathen world, a power of appeal to the people of God sufficient to impel them to all possible labors and sufferings necessary to make known the way of eternal life to every pagan on the face of the globe 1 Rave they been greatly moved by this fact of overwhelming importance 1 Row much have the Baptists of the Northern States, numbering eight hnndred thousand, contributed to aid in sending the Gospel to the vast multitude who have passed to the awards of the eternal world since the Union met in Chicago, one year ago 1 If we allow to these twenty millions their due share of our contributions according to their number, it will appear that the members of our churches have given, on an average, not to exceed two cents for rescuing from hell a number of our race equal to one third of the population of the United States. Is not this an amazing fact 1 Does it not ~eem incredible 1 Does it not furnish a moral demonstration that the idea of the exposure to everlasting puni8hment of the pagan world has but an almost inappreciable influence upon the great body of Christian people 1 Brethren, I would submit the matter to you j I would ask you, each one, to state, clearly and fully, to his own mind, the considerations which render it credible that the Baptists, represented by the Union, believe what they profess to believe in regard to the final doom of the heathen world, and yet give, on an average, not to exceed one cent a week, to send the knowledge of the way of eternal life to a billion heathen, and not to exceed two cents to rescue from perdition the twenty millions whose day of probation has closed since the last anniversary of the Union. Would it not seem difficult to find eight hundred thousand non-Christian men, of average natural benevolence, who would not give as much, if necessary, to prevent the everlasting misery of an equal number of irrational creatures ~ 18 it a matter of wonder that the world does not believe in hell, or that it does not believe that the orthodox churches believe that the heathen" shall go away into eternal punishment'" Do you say that for the world to deny that Christians believe what they profess to believe on this point is to charge them with the most culpable insincerity-a charge which involveR, logically, universal historical scepticism, rendering it irrational to believe in the existence of faith and goodness among men 1 True, but we would inquire if the charge involved in the other alternative is less damaging-the charge, well grounded, of continued practical indifference, on the part of the great majority of the members of all evangelical churches, to the eternal welfare of a thousand million of their fellow-men, whom they profess to love, and whom they are bound, by the most saered obligations, to love as they do themselves.
We would not have you misunderstand us at this point-to regard us as doubting the reality or under-valuing the importance of salvation as escape from the retributions of the future world. We believe that everlasting punishment will last forever; and we believe this awful truth because it iii taught in the Bible; and we believe it is taught in the Bible because it is a fact in the universe; and we believe it is a fact in the universe because the infinite God, in the plenitude of His resources, conld not prevent its existence, acting, as it behooves Him to act, in accordance with the immutable principle of His holy nature; and we believe that this truth ought to have the same place of relative importance in the instruc- tions of the pulpit which it has in the Bible. And yet we affirm that Christ did not dwell chiefly upon salvation as pertaining to the future world, but as a good to be realized here, through the reign of love in the souls of men, constraining them to grateful and self-sacrificing labors that the will of God might be done everywhere on earth as in heaven. Salva- tion is deliverance from sin, and sin is of all evils the essence and the sum. "It brings present disgrace and ruin to body and soul, to home and country ; it breeds distrust; it enervates manhood and womanhood; it incitp.s to murderous revenge; it arrays class against class; it kindles the fires of volcanic social hate; it is a menace to peace, to social order, and to international amity; and from all this there is salvation only by that personal integrity and "ocial righteousness which are the gifts of God to man through Jesus Christ." Salvation in this world involves salvation in the world to come ; the kingdom of God on earth is the foundation of the everlasting kingdom of God in the heavens; and in the measure that salvation is wrought out here, and the kingdom of God extends among men, will the end be accomplished which Christ set before His disciples as the object of constant and paramount devotion. The whole ministry of Christ was a ministry of love to all the sinful, sorrowful, lost sons of men. He was moved with compassion for the multitude because He saw them "in distress," "scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd," living mean, ignoble, wicked lives, ignorant of God and of the place which they occupy in His infinite heart, with latent spiritnal powers capable of development, with solemn re!!>ponsibilities of moral agents, with features of the divine image not yet wholly effaced and that might he restored. How strongly did He nrge, by word and deed, in life and death, the duty of self-sacrificing love for men, not merely for the souls of men, but for men, women and children, in all the relations of life; and how impressively did He emphasize, in the sublime programme of the judgment day, the decisive importance of deeds of love and mercy. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, y0 did' it unto Me." " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto Me." "Come, ye blessed of My Father." "Depart, ye cursed." Who are the brethren of Christ in this judgment programme? His disciples ~ Yes, but not these alone. For the event which He describes is that of the general judgment, when all nations, all the generations which shall have thronged the globe, will stand before His judgment seat, among whom there will be countless millions who never saw one of His disciples. The brethren of the Son of Man are "the poor, suffering, sorrow-laden sons of men, and the principle on which the judgment proceeds is that as men treat those, they would have treated the Judge had they had the opportunity. "
Are not the heathen among those who are in greatest need of the offices of love? Are they not hungry, famishing for lack of the Bread of Life q Are they not sick, consumed by the fever and leprosy of sin! Are they not poor, bankrupt in estate and character? Are they not in prison, compassed about by walls which they can neither scale, nor dig beneath, nor break through? If this great passage does not teach that men are saved by works of love, it certainly does teach that a faith, which does not produce these works, is vain and dead, and that those and those only who possess the spirit aud do the works described by Christ, are justified in regarding themselves, or in believing that He regards them, as His true disciples. The question for us to answer, as Mr. Spurgeon is reported to have suggested, is not, May the heathen be saved without the Gospel, but, Will we be saved if we do not carry the Gospel to the heathen ~ And it may be confidently affirmed that those who cannot be moved with compassion, in view of the wrath of God which has come upon the heathen, will not be moved with compassion in view of that which is to come upon them; that those who will not make sacrifices to rescue the heathen from the hells in which they are in this world, will not make sacrifices to rescue them from the hell of the future world, which seems far off, vague, unreal.
What, 'then, is the greatest need of the Church to-day ~ We answer, A divine enthusiasm; a mighty passion for the kingdom of God on earth, embracing all the populations of the globe":"'all China, all India, all Africa, all Enrope, all America, and all the islands of all the oceans; a kingdom as wide-reaching as the manifold life of man, involving obedience to the will of God in all positions and relations-in the sphere of the family, of social life, of business life, of political life; a kingdom whose progress shall be marked by the growing consecration of the people of God, the preaching of the Gospel to the poor, the overthrow of oppression, the extermination of drunkenness and the passions of lust and the greed of gain, the destruc,tion. of superstition, idolatry and all forms of infidelity, the sway of truth, and love, and righteousness over all the earth, a divine enthusiasm-a mighty passion of love and loyalty, impelling the soldiers of Jesus Christ to conquer for Him all the kingdoms of the globe on which His cross of shame and agony was set up, and from which He uttered the cry of expiring and redeeming love.
II. We mention, as a second cause, the failure of the evangelical churches to apply at home the principle of comity which they recognize in their foreign mission work. .
It is estimated that there is, on an average, one ordained minister to every three hundred thousand of the pagan population of the world.
There is good authority for the statement that in China, and t.he popula- tion accessible to the American Board, there is only one missionary for every six hundred thousand people. Moreover, there are whole nations, numbering scores of millions, in which no disciples have been made. We are confident that all who have any adequate conception of the interests involved will admit that the two following statements are thoroughly reasonable : 1. "That the Christian churches of the world should be satisfied with nothing less than sending out one ordained missionary for every fifty thonsand of the accessible pagan population of the world."
2. "That no church ought to call itself thoroughly aggressive and evangelical that does not expend, for the support of missions at large, at least one dollar for every five it expends for itself. "
What would compliance with these propositions require of the evan- gelical churches of the world ~ Twenty thousand ordained missionaries instead of four thousand, as at present; an immediate reinforcement of sixteen thousand, of which the quota of our denomination at the North should be not less than twtlve lmndred, making our foreign force of ordained ministers at least fifteen hundred. This would require our churches to give annually five times as much as the committee planned for expending during the current year, as authorized at the last annual meeting of the Union, or $2,500,000, a sum which, large as it may seem, is $400,000 less thau would come, annually, into the treasury of the Union if. the members of our churches should give, on an average, one cent a day for the cause of foreign missions.
We ask you to consider most seriously the vast relative waste, in men and money, involved in the condition of things existing in all the Northern States-the part of the country represented by the Union.
To illustrate the matter which we have in mind, let us take an example of numberless cases, with many of which everyone is familiar. Here are five fields, each having a population of fifteen hundred, and five evangelical ministers-one Baptist, one Presbyterian, one Congregationalist, one Episcopalian, and one Methodist-twenty-five ordained ministers preaching the Gospel to seven thousand five hundred people. while on the other side of the globe there are twenty-five fields, each having a population of three hundred thousand, and but one ordained minister; twenty-five men preaching the Word to seven million five hundred thousand people-one thousand times as many as are under the care of the same number of religious teachers at home. We ask now, in all earnestness, Would it not be infinitely more reasonable and Christian, if these several denominations would apply at home the principle of comity which they recognize abroad, keeping five of these ministers here and sending twenty to aid their brethren, each of whom is confronted by nearly a third of a million pagans? If it would be wrong in the sight of God to put five ministers of different evangelical denominations in a village of fifteen hundred people in China, or Africa, or Burmah, restricting their labors to that locality, is it not wrong and equally wrong, yea, wrong in a greater degree, to do the same thing here, while hundreds of millions o£ our fellow-men are living and dying in the darkness and misery of heathenism ~ The field is the world. The whole world is missionary ground. Every city, every village, every neighborhood, in which there is one man, or woman, or child who is not a citizen of the kingdom of God, is a missionary field. We challenge any man to adduce reasons which will approach to a justification of the course of the Christian churches in distributing their forcet! over this common missionary ground-the whole world-in such an extraordinarily uneven way, putting one minister in charge of three hundred people, many of whom are Christians, and another, of no greater ability, in charge of three hundred thousand, of whom all, or nearly all, are pagans. If the great evangelical denominations would act on the principle of comity here suggested, it would be an easy matter for them to send an immediate reinforcement of sixteen thousand men, so that there might be one minister to every fifty thousand pagans; and it would be an undertaking of no difficulty for us to send our quota of twelve hundred, and to furnish them with adequate support.
Is it a violation of truth or charity to say that the existing state of things is a great religious scandal, an offence against God, and a crime against our brethren of the heathen world, sit.ting in the region and shadow of death, perishing for the lack of the Light of Life?
What are the lessons taught by these facts? What are the duties which they should impress upon us? One duty, and that of paramount importance, as clear to our mind as if it were written on the heavens in words of fire, is this: That the evangelical churches ought to emphasize strongly all points of doctrinal agreement and all methods of Christian work in which they can unite, coming as closely together as possible, and presenting a united front to the enemies of God. Consider, we beseech you, the most obvious facts of our condition. Here are the evangelical churches, in all but a few millions, confronted at home by three hundred million members of two powerful and thoroughly corrupt organizationsthe Roman and Greek hierarchies-and by vast masses of men connected with no churches, dominated by sensuality, greed of gain, lust of powcr, and social distrust and hate, tremendous principles of evil which have brought to untimely destruction cities and nations, many and great, all down the ages; and abroad, confronted by a billion heathen, all involved in deepest moral ignorance and most debasing superstition, and half of them held in the thraldom of false philosophical systems of extraordinary power; and joined with these forces, both at home and abroad, the spiritual hosts of wickedness, nnder the leadership of the god of this world. In such a war as this, fighting the organized evil forces of earth and hell, the combined powers of "the world, the flesh, and the devil, ,. united in the strongest compacts, shall we not, all soldiers of Jesus Christ, stand together in the closest relations possible, help each other heartily on the march and in the deadly assanlt, cheer each other amid the fire and storm of battle, knowing that the Leader is one, the army one, the foe one, the final triumph one, the eternal glory one-the glory due unto Him who is " worthy to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and blessing" ~ But we hear objections, many and plausible, urged against what some may be pleased to call an impracticable and fanatical appeal.
1. It is said that we, as a denomination, hold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; that it is of supreme importance that we secure the widest possible acceptance of onr views at home; that we dare not compromise with error by consenting to give up any community, however smail, to the care of Predobaptist churches, etc.
The question, then, for us to consider is reduced to this: Shall we give over more of the population of our country to the Predobaptists, or more of the heathen world to the devil ~ Are we to regard the errors of all Christian churches, other than our own, as more destructive than the errors of heathenism ~ And, then, if we have the truth, in its purity and fulness, are we not, of all Christian bodies in the world, under the greatest obligation to go to the regions beyond ~ Surely, the very fact of the purity of our creed immensely engances the claims of duty resting upon us to secure its worldwide acceptance. What an inspiring and uplifting event it would be to the whole Christian world, if we should send out, at once, the number of missionaries suggested-twelve hundred-moved by the spirit of apostolic self-sacrifice and heroism, whose labors might be the means, under the blessing of God, of winning to our pure faith tens and hundreds of thousands in heathen lands, creating at many points, as among the Telugus, Baptist communities numbering fifty thousand! Furthermore, is it not evident that the fundamental principle of our people ought to constrain them to go, in large and increasing numbers, to the nations of the pagan world ~ For the fundamental principle of our churches, that of which. we boast and in which we glory, is loyalty to Jesus Christ, implicit obedience to His commands. We discard and repudiate all assumed authority of a human source, whether of popes, or councils, or traditions, or creeds. But loyalty to Christ, in order to be such in truth and not in name only, must include obedience to all His commands, especially to those which are of supreme importance, among which stands the Great Commission. Does our action, as a denomination, justify or contradict our profession of loyalty ~ What is the command of Jesus Christ, as distinct and imperative as if we heard His words ringing out from the height of heaven ~ Is it not, "Go ye, Baptists, preach the Gospel to every creature, make disciples of all nations~" Is it not the belief of our churches, that the Great Commission was given originally, not to Presbyterians, or Congre- gationalists, or Episcopalians, or Methodists, but exclusively to Baptists- the very people of whom we claim to be the only living representatives ~ The first body of Baptists were right loyal to their Lord; they went every- where preaching the Word; they carried the good news to aU quarters of the known worM. How is it with the people known as Baptists in the last quarter of the nineteenth century ~ Is their obedience such as to justify their claim to be the true successors of those early disciples of Christ ~ Have they discharged, are they now discharging, in any true and worthy sense, the high and imperative duty imposed by the risen and glorified Redeemer, loyalty to whom they claim as their distinction and horlor ~ Is it obedience to the command, "Go, make disciples of all nations," for a people, numbering eight hundred thousand, to contribute $400,000 a year-on an average, one cent a week-to give to a billion pagans a knowledge of the incarnate Son of God, who loved them and gave Himself for them, and through whom alone they can attain eternal life ~ Brethren, mere profession will not justify our claim of special loyalty to Christ, nor ~ill obedience to His requirements in the matters of baptism, communion and church government justify it while the great majority of the members of our churches are in a state of mutiny against the Great Commission, saying, if not in words, yet practically, We will not ourselves preach the Gospel to the pagan nations, nor will we make sacrifices to aid others in the work of preaching to them. .
How is it that the belief has come to prevail so widely, among all Christian people, that there is au enormous difference, in culpability and danger, between disobedience to Christ in rejecting what He requires them to believe, and disobedience to Christ in disregarding what He commands them to do ~ Why is it that the heresy of unbelief is regarded with such apprehension or alarm, while the heresy of inaction is viewed with comparative indiffer- ence ~ Is faith without works any better than works without faith ~ Are they not alike dead and displeasing to God-equally vain and perilous 1 To the heresy of inaction, far more than to the heresy of unbelief, is due the deplorable fact that the midnight darkness of heathenism still envelops nearly two thirds of the population of the globe. What, then, shall we do 1 The alternatives are: Either cease to claim to be the true successors of the earliest Baptist churches, or obey, with the devotion which char- acterized them, the Lord's command, "Go, preach the Gospel to the whole creation."
2. But we hear another objection urged with great frequency and confidence. It is said that the United States is destined to be the leading I nation of the future, that it occupies a position of immeasurable importance in the world's history; so that whatever we do, or fail to do, in relation to the evangelization of the pagan nations, we must seck, by all means in our power, to make our nation thoroughly Christian. What shall we say of this utterance, heard everywhere, especially on anniversary occasions, in the pulpit and on the platform ~ Is it not largely an utterance of national conceit, inspired by national pride and selfishness, and utterly opposed to thll example and teaching of Christ and His apostles 1 1. The ruling motive force of Christianity is love j and it is the nature, the irrepressible instinct, of Christian love to help the most helpless, the deformed in body, the feeble-minded, the moral refuse of. society for whom none care.
2. Jesus gathered around Him the weakest, the lowest, the" publicans and harlots," the social outcasts-the nobodies of ilis time, according to the prevailing standards of the world.
3. Does the Great Commission read, Go ye, therefore, make disciples of the leading nations, preach the Gospel to those who hold positions of great stategic importance? . This would seem to be the form of the Lord's final command as given in the English version most widely current in our churches. But the oldest manuscripts, beyond question substan- tially identical with the "Original Autographs" of Matthew and Mark, read very differently, as follows: "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations;" "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. "
4. The history of the Church justifies the method of Christ. Chris- tianity has won its most notable victories among peopla of little account in the judgment of the civilized nations, as among the Karens, the Telugus, the Sandwich Islanders, the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, who, though they were regarded by the Romans as too stupid and brutish to serve as slaves, have built up the most magnificent empire known to his- tory-an empire upon which the sun never sets, which has endured for a thousand years, and is influencing now, as never before, the thought, and life, and movements of the world. .
5. The only principle of missionary strategy recognized by Paul, the foremost missionary of all the ages-as appears from the inspired record of his life-was to preach the Gospel where men were thickest. And for the adoption of this principle he had divine warraut j for when he was at Corinth, the Lord said unto him in the night by a vision: . " Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace j for I alll with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee; for" -what did the Lord say? Corinth is a city of culture, the eye of Greece, occupying a position of great strategic importance? No, no ; but, " no man shall set on thee to harm thee, for I have much people in this city."
o brethren, can we not hear our Lord calling us one uy one, by name, and saying, " I have much people in China, much people in Africa, much people on all the continents and islands of the globe?" Let us take deeply into our minds and hearts Christ's idea of the people! the people! the people! He accounted man transcendently great, not because of the external distinctions which gain for him recognition and honor in the world, but because of what he is as man, the divine image in him, his inherent powers of intellect, heart and will, which have revealed but an insignificant fraction of their latent energy, even in the case of those who stand forth in history as the greatest of the sons of men, and to whose expansion and growth there is no goal this side of the infinitude of God.
In Christ's esteem, all men, of whatever race, or rank, or condition, ar~ of equal worth in virtue of their divine endowments and immortal destination.
The people have been of but little account in the past. It has been the great ones of the earth-emperors, kings and nobles, the rich and the powerful j for these it has seemed that all things were made; for these the people have labored, and suffered, and died like the beasts of the field; but thanks be unto God for the signs, multiplying on every side, betokening the growing power of Christ's idea of the greatness of man as man, the worth and dignity of the people. It cannot be doubted that one of the chief causes of the agitations and revolutions which are taking place in all Christian nations, working the di&integration and overthrow of institutions of social and political wrong which have survived the destruction of dynasties not a few, is the growing conscionsness, on the part of the people, of their divine rights and powers of manhood; their dignity as moral agents-deep calling unto deep-the strivings and aspirations of the human soul, like the ceaseless ground-swell of the ocean, in response to the presence and quickening touch of the Spirit of God. And as the Christian idea, which is Christ's idea of the people, shall grow in power and splendor, it will mould more and more profoundly all social and political institutions, and will constrain all the true disciples of Christ to labor with equal love, devotion and joy for the temporal and eternal wellbeing of all men, irrespective of race, or nationality, or color, or sex, or social condition.
But who knows that the United States is destined to be the leading nation of the future, that the Anglo-Saxon race will rule the coming ages ~ To whom has the assurance been given that God will not build up in China a kingdom far surpassing, in intellectual and moral power, the British Empire or the great republic 'I Where is the prophet who can foretell the destiny of the " Dark Continent," having at the present time a population of two hundred and fifty millions-four times that of the United States ~ Who can forecast the turnings and overturnings which shall precede the coming of Him whose right it is to reign, and who shall reign over all the nations of the earth ~ Is it nrged that certain of the pagan nations and races have no future, that they are worn out, their powers of expansion and growth exhausted? We reply that the judgment of those who thus speak is certainly shallow, and probably false, because they fail to estimate adequately the restorative and re-creative power of Christianity. The error is like that involved in the conception of "a mechanical world and an outside God." The idea has widely prevailed that the material universe is a " closed system"-a system of finite forces, acting and reacting upon each other, excluding all divine causality-its goal quiescence and death. The conception is fundamentally false, because it does not include, as it should include, God as the universal and abiding ground of all being and all life, as immanent and active in all chemical forces, in all vital forces, in all souls-to His almighty will energizing throughout creation from the atom to the archangel." This view compels us to reject, as irrational and incredible, the notion that the goal of the material universe is quiescence and death, and to affirm that, through the immanent and energizing power of God, it will abide, and pass on from lower to higher stages, " from the nebulous matter to the glory of the new heavens and the new earth."
But God is in history in a sense infinitely more real and profound than He is in the realm of physical nature; and hence we believe that there are no effete and worn-out peoples, no races whose powers of expansion and growth are permanently exhausted. For though the words of the apostle that" all live and move, and have their being in God" declare a universal fact of history, yet, in these last times, God has entered, in Jesns Christ, into new and more vital relations with mankind, and is creating them anew by His spirit. awakening and invigorating their dormant and paralyzed powers, thus enabling nations and races, as well as individuals, to enter upon a new career, far higher and grander than would have been possible to them before the Advent.
In concluding these remarks, we desire to say, that we have spoken as truly and earnestly in beha!f of the work of missions at home as of the work of missions abroad. The cause of home missions and the cause of
MISSIONS AND THEm RESULTS
foreign missions are one in principle and one in interest. And, therefore, along with the motto, " America for Christ," but high above it, we should place the motto, "The World for Christ:" And the speediest and the only infallible way to gain America for Christ is to give to the world's evangelization the place of supremacy, in labors and gifts, which it holds of right. This our churches, this the churches of other denominations, have lamentably failed to do. The most general and conspicuous act of disobedience to Christ, on the part of the Christian people of the United States, is their deliherate and persistent refusal to discharge the high and imperative duty to evangelize the pagan nations-a work for the accomplishment of which, within the period of the past twenty-five years, their resources, in men and money, have been ample. It is, in our judgment, no exaggeration to say, that the Baptist churches of the Northern States could have done and ought to have done, during the past year, as much for the cause of foreign missions as has been done by all the evangelical churches embraced in the same portion of our country.
Brethren, I would that one half of the Baptist ministers at the North would give themselves to the work of evangelizing the heathen. Disastrous to our denomination at home, do you say ~ Impossible. It would bring to our churches an unparalleled degree of prosperity; the places left vacant would be filled by men called of God from the ranks of the laity; ministers of other denominations would be won to us, convinced that we were holding the truth in its purity, and living it with apostolic fidelity ; Christians of other names, moved by the power of our example, would obey in a worthy manner the Lord's final command; and this powerful missionary "movement" .would confound infidelity at home, would convince the world that Christianity is, indeed, what it claims to be, and would mightily advance the Kingdom of God in all parts of our country.
May the Divine Spirit enable us to penetrate to the heart of these great paradoxes in the kingdom of Grace-that we saVtl our life, not by seeking, but by losing it; that we become rich, not by keeping, but by giving; that we become great in moral power among men, not by self-assertion, but by self-abnegation, by self. sacrifice from love to others; that it is through our poverty that we are to enrich the world, according to the way of Him who, " though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich."
APOSTOLIC MISSIONS AND THEIR RESULTS.
BY REV. JOHN RUTHERFORD, ROTHE SAY, SCOTLAND.
" Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." Such was the word of the Holy Ghost which came to the church in Antioch as they ministered to the Lord and fasted.
This was the actual beginning of Chris.tian missions; those two men were the pioneers of all in every age who have gone forth to carry the Word of Christ " far hence unto the Gentiles."
It was a vast work that lay before them. As Paul afterward wrote, " Who is sufficient for these things~" so would he feel now. Alone and single handed they were to attack the ignorance and superstition and vice of the world. Their difficulties could hardly be overestimated. What amount of credence were they likely to meet with from hostile Jews, from subtle Greeks, or from tl1e military Romans ? Was it probable that the minds of the heathen could be easily turned from the saturnalia and idol festivals to which for generations they had been addicted? Systems of priestcraft, of degrading mythologies, of widespread epicureanis~, of an utterly debased home life, of slavery and of revolting games and pleasures kept the world crushed beneath corruption and sensuality. And who, then, were Barnabas and Paul, to attempt to overthrow institutions venerable with the traditions of centuries? who were they to try to change the religions and social face of the world? "Two Jews of obscure name, of no position, without rank, without wealth, without influence, without either literary, political, or military genius, without any culture but such as a Roman noble would have despised as useless and grotesque." Yes, and even after years of working at this their chosen work, they did not find it either popular or remunerative, for it fell to their lot to approve themselves the ministers of God in affiictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in prisons, in deaths, being beaten, being stoned, being shipwrecked, Iiving in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.
Were they sufficient for these things? sufficient to cope with false philosophy, with heathenism, with abounding moral pollution, with a world which knew not God? They realized that their sufficiency was of God j they had been called by the Holy Ghost.
And so Barnabas and Saul went forth from Antioch, taking with them as an attendant and companion John Mark. Barnabas was one of the noblest, most manly, gentlest, and most effective of all the apostolic band. A Christian of the highest type, he had already been of the greatest service to Paul on more than one memorable occasion, a man of large heart, of wide sympathy, of great generosity and liberality j devoted and earnest and Joving, a " son of consolation," a good man, who rejoiced iu all good by whomsoever wrought, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.
And Paul, still known by his early name of Saul, was a man whose character towers far above that of ordinary men j a gentleman in the true sense of the word j a Christian, devoted, body, soul, and spirit, to Christ; courteous and orave, tender-hearted and true, full of enthusiasm and of sobriety of mind j a man of the deepest power of thought, eloquent, persuasive, able to organize and to manage, able to bear with weaknesses and prejudices, a man whose life was yielded without reserve to the glory of Jesus Christ and the welfare of men.
These, then, were the first Christian missionaries. After a farewell meeting with the church in Antioch they made their way to the port of Seleucia, where there stretched at their feet the waters of the great welltern sea. Here they found a splendidly built harbor in which the ships were lying protected from the swell of the waves outside. The ruins of this harbor remain in great perfection to our own day, only silted up with mud. From just such a harbor and such piers as we are acquainted with in any of our great shipping centres, the first New Testament missionaries set sail. It was the noblest use to which the masonry of the port of Seleucia had been ever put, when it sheltered the ship into which Paul and Barnabas stepped as they went at the divine bidding to evangelize the nations. Their vessel sailed out into the west-westward was the call of God to the Christian Church for many a century, until Europe and America should have received the Gospel-and soon arrived at Cyprus. Arrived at length in this, the first country to which God had led them, what would the results be? What would be the results of discussions with unbelieving Jews and with opposing philosophers? of weary journeys on foot-journeys continued for weeks together, while the preachers endured hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and had no certain dwelling-place? what would be the result of their residence in foreign cities among neVI' faces, all of whom were alike ignorant of" this Jesus whom Paul preached"? 'Would the results be commensurate with the time and labor expended V Modern critics would say, No ; for upon their principles Paul would have done better if he had not interfered with other people's religion, if he had let the world alone, for the religion of Greeks and Romans, of Celts and Britons was no doubt good enough for them, and they would somehow or another all turn out right enough in the next world. It was not after this fashion that Paul reasoned or acted. No ; he had a gospel to make known'-" woe is me if I preach not the Gospel." To make all men know the mystery of Christ he was willing to be buffeted and reviled, willing to undergo abuse and bodily injury, willing to be scourged, to be stoned and left for dead, as he was at Lystra. What, it is asked, are men to undergo treatment like ihis for the sake of propagating the Christian religion? Here is his reply : "I count not my life dear unto me, that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I received of the Lord Jesus."
But what were the results? A handful of converts in each of half a dozen or a dozen towns, and those converts by no means the mature, well-informed, experienced Christians who are to be seen in modern congregations. It is difficult to realize how inexperienced those converts were, how crude their ideas, how imperfect their morality ; they required mIlch patient teaching and exhortation; and even the best of them, who were appoicted deacons and deaconesses and elders, knew very little, for they had but recently turned from idols to serve the living and true God. All their previous life had the dead weight of heathen custom, heathen ideas, heathen morality, heathen vice; and it took long years of patient labor on the part of the apostles to raise their converts to anything like a proper appreciation of the behavior that is beeoming a Christian. Were ,OJ these results, then, worth the labor ~ WaR it worth while to have gained these new churches in heathen countries, when the gain had been achieved at the expense of such bodily injury to an apostle as had made him prematurely old and taken many years from his lif,e 1 Similar objections are constantly made against modern mission work-Is the conversion of a handful of Jews or of a few thousands of negroes or Hindoos or South Sea Islanders worth the life and the moncy that are spent in the process ~ and the verdict of many is in the negative.
But surely the actions of a divinely inspired apostle are a safer guide than any negative or hostile theories. Look again at Paul as he is returning from the second of his great missionary journeys. He has been away, from Antioch and his friends there for perhaps three years, and years and,hard work are telling upon him; he is not the same strong man he once was; no, he bears in his body the branding marks of the Lord Jesus. Since he and Silas set out-for Silas is now his companion-they have undergone the" shameful handling" which fell to their lot at Philippi; and violence of that kind no man can ever fully recover from. But Paul has a brave heart j none was ever braver than he. The devotion of his whole being to the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him, this personal affection to the Lord Jesus ever urges him on to spend and be spent for the glory of Christ and the salvation of man. He feels himself debtor to all–to slave and freeman, to Jew and Greek; and therefore as Jesus Christ's minister he is abundant in labors; life is too short and too precious to waste; eternity will give him rest. Therefore. does his heart bound onward to the work, although even in this second journey he has been in stripes above measure, in prison, in deaths oft, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness.
Yes, this was the kind of life Paul chose for Christ's sake. There was then no other educated man of his position who was acting in this fashion. They looked on him as a fool, and regarded those journeyings of his as fanaticism. He knew that this was the estimate formed of him by his former associates, " Weare fools for Christ's sake j" but he had counted the cost, and Christendom of to-day thanks God for the sufferings, the journeyings, the fearless enterprise, the manly Christian resolution of St. Paul-a resolution to live not for applause either in the Church or outside of it; but to live for Jesus Christ alone and for mankind of every nation, for slaves and outcasts, for little children and for women, for those whom the world despised. One thing this Paul ever does, one thing engages his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, that Christ be glorified in his body whether by life or by death.
Was it worth while ~ Would Paul and Barnabas and Silas not have done better to have stayed at home and taught the home church ~ Suppose they had, where, then, would our European and American churches have been to-day ~ Simply nowhere. Had there been no apostolic missions, Anglo-Saxon Christianity would have been non-existent.
Are missions worth the money ~ Do they pay? Alas! that such a question should even be asked by a worldly church. Ask Christ, and listen to His answer, " Make disciples of all nations." Ask Paul, " I am debtor to all men." Ask the martyrs, they counted not their lives dear to them for the name of Jesus. Go with me to Central Africa, to Lake Victoria Nyassa, and see what divine grace can do for the most benighted races. One of the missionaries, Rev. Mr. Ashe, writes as follows: "Picture the tyrant playing the first act in the tragedy. One of the elder storekeepers, a Christian page, is brought into the royal presence. 'Can YOIl read 1 ' asks his majesty. 'Yes,' boldly answers the page. 'I'll teach you to read!' cries the king, catching up a spear and laying it about the lad's shoulders till it broke in two ; then, taking up the blade, he gashed the head of his faithful servant and kicked him, till in a state of exhaustion he handed the weapon to one of his chiefs nearly as cruel as himself, to continue the lesson. He then sent and had fifty of his pages arrested and cast into prison. After being imprisoned for a week thirty-two of them were burned in one huge funeral pile. "
The spirit which animated these martyrs was the same which inspired the early Christians, who endured a similar death, as Tacitus narrates, in the time of Nero. Wrapped up in sacking which had been previously smeared with pitch, they were hung upon trees in the royal gardens and then set fire to, there to burn to death, blazing as lamps in the darkness of evening; or again, encased in the skins of wild beasts, they were thrown to dogs and worried till they died. The early martyrs and the martyrs of the nineteenth century in Madagascar and China and Africa were faithful to Christ, faithful unto death. Most assuredly work which God blesses with results such as these is worth the while.
The work is Christ's. The command to carry the Gospel to every creature is Christ's command. It is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Jesus, who still breathes into His people something of the compassion of Christ for those who are even to-day sitting in the shadow of death; and the results of Christian ,missions are Christ's. The handful of converts in Cyprus, in Pisidia, in Derbe, and Lystra, and Iconium, a]ld Athens, and Corinth, and Rome, and Spain, and Egypt, and Gaul, and Britain continues to increase throughout the centuries, until in this year of grace, 1891, we have Christian churches everywhere, the prelude to the timc when the earth itself shall be full of the knowledge of God, when sin shall be made to cease out of God's world, when in the fulness of the joy of the wholo human race ccnsciously redeemed, the shout shall. rend the skies, " The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever."
NARAYAN BHESHADRI, D.D
NARAYAN SHESHADRI, D.D., THE BRAHMAN APOSTLE OF THE OUT-CASTE MANGS.
BY GEORGE SMITH, LL.D., EDINBURGH, SNTLAND.
[We venture to reproduce from the Free Church of Scotland Monthly a superb paper which many readers have not seen.-ED.] The same Scottish newspaper announced the death of two remarkable Asiatic converts of Dr.. John Wilson of Bombay-the Parsi, Rev. Hor- mazdji Pestonji, and the Brahman, Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, Doctor of Divinity of the University of Montreal. There still survives the oldest of all, the Rev. Dhanjibhai Naoroji, at the head of the native Christian community of Western India.
Vilhen, in 1839, Dhanjibhai and Hormazdji left the fire-worship of Zoroaster for the only Name given under heaven whereby men may be saved, Parsi and Hindu society was moved to its centre. In vain was the civil court appealed to. But the Institution was almost emptied. .tmong the few sons of caste and superstition who clung to it through ill.report were two Brahman brothers-Narayan and Shripat. What Dr. John 'Wilson and Mr. Nesbit began, Dr. Murray Mitchell continued, and the good work resulted in their determination to put on Christ by baptism. Narayan, who was confessedly of age and could not be hindered, became the first convert of the Church of Scotland, Free, in the year 1843, when Dr. Wilson and Dhanjibhai were in Scotland founding the home organization of the missions anew. Shripat was not sixteen years of age, and Sir Erskine Perry handed him over to the Brahman priests, with a sneer at the plea of the age of discretion. He was torn from Mr. Nesbit's arms, as he sobbed forth the question, "Am I to be compelled to worship idols ~"
While the younger brother was thus driven back by a Christian judge into Brahmanism, and submitted to the humiliation of swallowing the five products of the cow, that he might be restored to caste, the elder began that apostolic career which, for this life, ended in the committing of his body to the Atlantic on the 21st July last, in the hope of a glorious resurrection in Christ Jesus, at the very hour when the Foreign Missions Committee in Edinburgh, all unknowing of the fact, were discussing the arrangements by which Dr. Mowat was to share his toils next October.
After spending some years as a missionary teacher in the Institution and preacher to his countrymen, Narayan Sheshadri was ordained by the Presbytery of Bombay, and the highly educated Brahman became for the rest of his life the apostle of the Mangs, the out-caste poor of the Deccan centre of India. Leaving ordinary British territory, he resolved to annex the great native state of Haidarabad to the kingdom of Christ.
The year was 1863. As his base, he worked from Jalna, a military cantonment, in which mission buildings were easily acquired. Three miles south he gradually obtained three hundred acres of land, which forms the centre of the mission to the Mangs. As the Spirit of God blessed his incessant evangelizing, he made that spot the centre of what grew to be his extensive mission to the out-caste. He formed a Christian church and a Christian community, calling both" the House of God," but using the Hebrew" Bethel" rather than one of his own beautiful Marathi words. After ten years of blessed toil he visited Scotland and America, to tell the churches of his work and to raise funds for the necessary buildings. His winning face and irresistible personality, his native eloquence alike in English and the vernaculars, and his contagious earnestness, captivated not only Christians in all the lands he visited, but the Parsi official of the district, and even the proud Arab prime-minister of the Nawab, Sir Salar Jung. For the mission he received three hundred acres of gautan, or chnrch land, free of tax, and never to be cultivated save as a grass common; for the Christian peasants he was installed as patel, or headman, over six hundred acres, in which office his son Yeshwant-rao, lately agricultural professor in Nagpore College, has succeeded him.
Year by year the work went on increasing, when he paid a second visit to America and Scotland. The writer was with him a deputy to the Presbyterian Alliance at Philadelphia in 1880, and went up and down Scotland with him, pleading alternately for the Livingstonia and for the Bethel Mission. After his first visit some of our generous Glasgow elders, led by Mr. William Mitchell, formed a committee to' help his village mission. Congregations specially charged themselves with the support of his catechists. The children of the Free Church, above all, built him his church, and year by year supported some of his schools. By 1886-87 the work had so far extended that we published this appeal for him : " Before we pass away from these earthly scenes, we should like to see the thirty villages, wherein our Christians reside, supplied with pastors duly qualified, called, ordained, and settled over their respective congregations.. How is this to be accomplished 1 However, we have most encouraging promises in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. , I shall take out of them (namely, Gentile nations) for priests and Levites, saith the Lord.' Has He not given a full realization of this promise in the experience of once heathen European nations; and what He has done with respect to European and American nations, lIe is able and willing to do with reference to the Gentile nations of India, China, Burma, Japan, and all Eastern nations. We mean to submit to the Free Presbytery of Bombay a scheme of studies to train up village pastors in connection with our Bethel Mission. Last year we had the pleasure to dedicate a new church at Rewagao, two miles to the south of Bethel, to the worship of the only living and true God."
In 1888-89 our deputies visited the Deccan Village Mission, and Rev. Dr. Lindsay made this report to the children of the church: " First, there was a most interesting series of baptisms, with an address to the baptized; then the nsual service, when I preached and Dr. Sheshadri interpreted; and lastly, the communion service, at which I had the privilege of presiding. No pews exist in the Bethel churcb. The congregation sit on the floor in row after row, devout and attentive; and th,e babies, most of them without a stitch of clothing on, crawl about everywhere. An bour or so after service the catechists and Bible-women met in the church, and we had an interesting interview with them. A great number were present besides Bible-women and catechists, and I could only get at which was which by act.ually taking hold of each and finding out by question whether the person I had hold of was a catechist or a Bible-woman, and separating them from the rest.
" One or two of the Bible-women made a very great impression on us. Their story of work was simple, clear, and interesting. 'Have you made many converts ~' one of our number asked. 'There is one,' she replied, pointing to one of the men among the catechists. Mrs. Mackichan and Mrs. Daly examined these Bible-women, and their questions drew out very interesting answers. Mrs. Daly gave them some very sound practical advice, which produced more immediate results than longer sermons usually do. All the small children came to the Monday village family worship clothed, although most of them spent the hour of service in getting rid of their inconvenient garment. One small urchin, having divested himself, to his own evident satisfa~tion, of every vestige of garment, toddled to the church door, carefully put on the largest pair of shoes he could find, and then tumbled down the steps in them. When he reached the bottom he picked himself up, got into the shoes again, and shuffied off out of sight-a happy child 1 "Dr. Sheshadri sends his men out in small bands to preach in the villages round about Bethel, and in this way has formed small Christian communities in most of them. One sees at Bethel genuine native Christians, who preserve all their primitive habits, and who are not Anglicized by their Christianity. The evangelists all collect at Bethel on the first Monday of every month, and are regularly instructed by Dr. Sheshadri, who is a born teacher (to hear him give a Bible lesson to school children, and to see the small eyes twinkle with eagerness, is a sight not to be soon forgotten), in the interpretation of Scripture, and in the best ways of meeting the various objections commonly brought by Hindus and Moslems against Christianity.
" In the afternoon we started for the neighboring village of Rewagao. It possesses the first of those village churches which Dr. Sheshadri proposes to build in the principal hamlets in his district. A congregation of about ninety people gathered, and three baptisms took place at the close of the service.
"Dr. Mackichan and Mr. Daly returned in the evening from their visit, and reported a cheerful little Christian community in the far-off village they had gone to see. These Christians lived in a distinct quarter of the village,- and though greatly outnumbered by the heathen, were full of hope and courage.
" I hope that Dr. Sheshadri's plan of building ten or twelve village churches will .be carried out, and that each church will have attached a prophet's chamber, in which the missionary may reside when on his rounds. The great defects of our mission in the Bethel district appeared to be the want of adequate provision for the training of the children, and the wide extent of country which Dr. Sheshadri has to superintend."
Of converts still living in 1890, Dr. Sheshadri reported 1062 as the number, besides 649 adherents. Mr. A. G•.Mowat, M. B., C.M., was sent ont from Glasgow last year to work the northern division of the mission from Jalna, after learning Marathi with Mr. Small at Poona. He has just been instructed to repor~ on the whole mission, after a year's survey.
Accompanied by his son, Dr. Sheshadri left Bombay for Japan last February on sick leave, proceeded thence to America, preached almost daily, and addressed the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. He sailed for Glasgow in the (Jircassia very well,* even at his age; but as the result of a storm on leaving. New York, he succumbed to bowel disease, and was buried in mid-Atlantic.
It is a strange story from man's point of view. The Brahman lad, fruit of our educational Institution, who confessed Christ before thc Supreme Court of Bombay, was enabled by the Spirit of God to bring, from first to last, some two thousand of his countrymen to Christ, notwithstanding defects of a purely secular kind, which he was ready to acknowledge and bewail. He has left a goodly heritage to the Church of India.
Do we ask what is missionary work g Rather ask what is not missionary work g for wherever there are Bouls to be saved, ignorance to be enlightened, human wrong to be righted, vice to be uprooted, and woes to heal; wherever the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, is obscured by reason of darkness, there is missionary work; and wherever in the homes of Christendom there are hearts unrenewed, lives wasted in folly and trifling, God-given powers dying for want of holy exercise, money, time, influence and example diverted to unworthy objects, there is missionary work.
* This was his last letter to Dr. Graham, of Edinburgh, now ninety years of age : – " WALNUT STREET, PHILADE~pmA, July 14, '91.
"My DEAR FATHER GRAHAM: I see that in all probability you'll have me once more in my temporary home, Ashfield Villa, Greenhill Gardens, 1 Chamberlain Road.
"You and your dear minister, Dr. Wilson, and all inquiring friends in your beautiful city, will be gratified to hear that I have been restored to health and strength. I have been travelling from San Francisco to New York, and thence to Chicago, Washington, and Bostoll, very often preaching twice on the Lord's-day, and once or twice on week-days.
"We leave New York on the 18th instant by the Circassia, on or about the 29th in Glasgow. I shall let you know when we-that is, my son Yeshwant-rao and myself-will be at Edinburgh.
Morningside. With warmest love to you, Miss Graham, and Miss Martha, and all Inquiring friends, ever afi'ectionately yours, NARAYAN SHESH~DRI."
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The census just taken shows India to have a population of 285,- 000,000.
-The Report of the Free Church of Scotland remarks: "A work on which Dr. Duff laid great stress in connection with all educational operations in the country, from the lowest indigenous vernacular primary school up to the highest college class, was the compiling or selecting of good, pure text-books, thus superseding the impure, immoral rubbish which at one time prevailed to so large an extent in all schools in India. Of course a good deal of this work has been accomplished, but a good deal remains to be done. The Government of India has put itself in communication with all the local governments on this subject of pure text-books, passed resolutions and laid down principles for the guidance of the various educational departments throughout the country. One of these principles is to the effect that at least one half of every school-book used as a reader in English or in vernacular teaching should consist of lessons having a direct bearing on conduct, either by way of precept or of example. The fact is becoming more patent to missionaries every year that the progress of Christianity rests on a sensitiveness of conscience as to conduct. Wherever there is an indifference as to conduct, there can be no conviction of sin. Wherever I God or the Supreme Authority is regarded as indifferent as to whether actions are good or bad, and also wherever men are regarded as under the compulsion of fate, so that they can do nothing of themselves and are therefore blameless as to bad conduct, there can be no conviction of sin. Now these are two of the fuudamental principles of Hinduism, and taught in most of their school.books. Hindus are trained from their infancy on these Ii nes.' '
-Mr. F. N. Farquhar, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, has lately gone out to take up work in the London Missionary Society College at Bhowanipur, Bengal. He writes: "Nothing impresses me so deeply as the extreme difficulty of the work of leading the class of men we have to deal with-educated Bengalis-to become Christians. They are not only proud of their own hoary cult, and filled full of arguments drawn from the purer and nobler parts of its teaching, but their want of physical vigor and moral greatness makes them far more difficult to rouse than stndents at home; and the fear which is now felt by Hindus concerning the advance of Christianity has led them to form almost a sacred dread of allowing any shred of Christian teaching to find a place in their heart.
"Yet though this seems to be true of a very large number of these young Babus, there are many whose hearts have been touched, and who are anxious to learn more about Christ.
" My little experience and few scraps of observation since I came here confirm my belief that the educational work done here is of extreme value and importance. That these young Christians should be taught by earnest Christians rather than by careless Christians or by Hindus is of immense importance, o,'en if we do not consider the actual Scripture work and direct Gospel teaching. And the magnificent set of educated native Christians dependent upon our mission here is a proof of the power of Christian educational work. The native pastors and other educated natives have impressed me deeply; they are kings among the ordinary Bengalis here, and their Christian character seems far advanced, and is most beautiful, most helpful, and most encouraging."
-The English Baptists, in their Annnal Report, announce as their policy" Aggressive Concentration." "Ooncentration and consolidation of missionary effort, rather than unwise diffusion, are the methods most ownea and blessed by God in Indian mission enterprise." The report of their deputation says: "vVe have in India to-day just one thin long line of stations, in most instances with extensive distances between. We have located our brethren in great cities far distant from each other, and by so doing removed from them the strength and inspiration that come from working in touch and contact in mutual sympathy and brotherly counsel. We ha'e set one or two brethren down in a vast and densely peopled city, and written' Occupied' over the entire district stretching far away, until we have treated a similar centre hundreds of miles distant in precisely the same manner. • . , 'Spread the Light!' 'Spread the Light !' is a cry in which we would all thankfully join j but it is surely well to remember that the light of missionary zeal and usefulness resembles that of live coals, which if kept together may long continue to burn brightly and diffuse a genial warmth, but which if unwisely scattered will soon become dim and cold."
Says the deputation: "Even putting all distinctive missionary effort out of the question, the mere contact of Western thought, culture, and education is inevitably breaking up the older forms of Hindu thought. But it lies with us to say whether that contact shall be charged with infinite blessing, leading them on to a higher, deeper, truer faith, and a new national life j or whether, cutting them adrift from their old moorings, we leave them without Christ, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, to be ravaged by intoxicating drinks and made imbecile by opium."
-The Rev. L. P. Weinberg, of Jaffa, quoted in the Jewish Intelligencer for February, writes: "The general topic of conversation among Jews at the present time is Palest.ine, and almost every Jewish newspaper speaks of this country as ' the only place of refuge' for them." , Arias, missionary of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews, reports a significant remark of some Italian Jews: "Till the Chris- tians treat the Jews well, we shall never beliE)ve that Jesus is our Messiah."
Most of the Italian Jews that he has met with seem to be in the dregs of Judaism, with few signs of longing for anything better.
-Professor A. R. Simpson, President of the Edinburgh Mediclll Missionary Society, says, most aptly, that in the Old Testament the" place of God's feet" is the Temple, but that the feet of the God-man are found most often "where the sick lay and the bereaved were weeping." ,. These were the places of His feet, who Himself bore our sicknesses and carried our infirmities; and these are· what He would seek our wealth to make glorious." Brave encouragement, Professor Simpson well says, to the medical missionary, to show him that he is in the track of the Saviour of the world.
-The West Himalaya Mission of the Unitas Fratrum was begun in 1853. Not until 1890 has a meeting of all the missionaries of the three stations been found practicable. Compared with the giant heights among which theY' live, saY's the Missions-Blatf, the Alps seem mere ranges of hills. And hardly had they broken up from their first meeting, when a veritable deluge converted the whole valley of Leh into a sea, swept away every bridge over the Upper Indus except one, and swept many persons out of the world. The Brethren do not seem to remit their ancient passion, " To plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose On icy rocks, and 'mid eternal snows."
– " See," said a sick child in India, "the goddess Kali's bloody tongue, wicked face, cruel hands. necklace of skulls; our gods are terrible; I cannot help screaming when I see them."-Canadian Church Magazine.
-Whether the late English reviewer, who is greatly displeased that Christians should endeavor to disturb the sweet calm of Buddhism, would be equally displeased that they endeavor to discredit the worship of the venerable goddess Kali, is not certain. Perhaps he would grudgingly allow this one exception.
-The Missions-Berichte gives a stinging remark of a South African Caffre, that among the whites they became acquainted with two thingsthe Bible, to save their souls, and brandy, to destroy their bodies. Butt he added, he was content with the former.
-In China, it appears, at least in some hospitals, wherever a patient. on returning home, expresses interest in spiritual things, an evangelist is sent after him, and thus, says Dr. ~iain, of Hangchow, much fruit has been gathered unto life eternal. E,'ery year there pass through that one medical mission 10,000 patients.
-The China Central Mission of the Presbyterian Church makes a very strong appeal for reinforcement. The field immediately accessible to them includes the whole great valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the" Son of Ocean." The four provinces of Kiangsu, Kiangsi, Nganhui, and Chehkiang have 121,000,000 inhabitants within an area of 204,287 square miles.
There are signs of a sudden breaking-up of the fallow ground of general indifference. They want to be ready to answer spontaneous calls from all parts. The accession of a new emperor, and an uneasy expectancy of political change, join with an extraordinary frequency of natural calamities, of flood or drought, famine or pestilence, at once to unsettle and humble men's minds.
The province of Szechuen, on the Upper Yangtse, with some 45,000,000 of people. ought to be occupied in force. Untouched by the 'l'ai-ping insurrection, it retains all the glory and prosperity of ante-rebellion times.
The people are a hardy, straightforward, enterprising race, as is shown by their various and productive industries. For centuries they have been boring salt and gas wells from three to five thousand feet deep, and using natural gas for evaporating the brine pumped from the bowels of the earth.
Their bronze, silk, and white wax industries are noted over the empire.
Their language is Mandarin, in which a Christian literature is already prepared.
The Central China Mission statistics for last year show an increase of a little over eight per cent. Five of their fifteen churches pay their own pastors. Everything is encouraging. "Come .over and help us," they say. The great Church to which they speak wlll /.Issuredly not be heed- !es~! .
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Week of Prayer. begun; all the Protestant churches can scarcely muster 7000 men and women as [EDITORIAL.-J. T. G.] ,. witnesses to the uttermost parts of the It was at the request of a smr.ll band earth;" the members of the Church of of missionaries in the Panjab that the England in its richer portion alone have Evangelical Alliance originally appoint- an income of $1,750,000,000 annually, ed a Week of Prayer for supplication for but last year, 'gave only $1,450,000 to for.
the conversion of the world. Since eign mlSSlOns. What is true of them is then there have been many other weeks relatively true of the rest of the churches.
and special days set apart for the same The circular appeals for a fuller recog- purpose. The Church of England Mis- nition of the principle of the missionary sionary Society, for instance, has a entel'prise: ,. Missionary work is not a Day of Special Prayer, or, as they phrase voluntary, supererogatory work of a few it, of "Intercession for Foreign Mis- more devoted souls. It is a charge sions," and many other churches have which is given to all as Christians."
adopted more or less regularly, the cus- It also mentions as a matter of special om of a set time for united prayer for thanksgiving the altered tone of the pub- the same object. We note with pleas- lic press toward missions. It reads: ure several statements in the introduc- ., Since the death of Bishop Hanning- tion to the week's programme of the ton, slowly but surely much of the Eng- Evangelical Alliance this year, such lish press has changed its tone with re- as these: ,. The privilege of prayer rises spect to the missionary enterprise. How to the topmost height attainable on often now have we thankfully to ac- earth, when, in common with believers knowledge that current literature brings of every name the wide world over, the missionary subject before house- we agree to hold a concert of prayer, holds who otherwise would remain ab- so that the globe may be girdled with solutely ignorant of the work! How assemblies of believers of one heart often of late has the public press done and of one mind, interceding with signal service in defence of missionary God for each other, for the Church agency – notably regarding work in of Christ, and for the spread of the China, India, and Uganda! In this, Gospel. • .• Looking abroad on the with profound gratitude, let us distinct- world in the light of the Word, we see ly acknowledge God's gracious hand."
the predictions in the Holy Book being All this can be readily transferred to fulfilled all around us. Be it ours to the Universal Week of Prayer, and a wait on God and to v.ait for Him in holy study should be made of the topics concord of faith and prayer, 'looking named in the programme of the Evangel- for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus ical Alliance, and'illustrations searched Christ.' . •. Wherefore,' holy breth- for of the special topics mentioned in it.
ren, partakers of the heavenly calling,' To these suggestions we venture to as in the opening year we gird ourselves add that the Church of God on earth has anew for fresh service and faithful testi- good realmn to render praise for the mony, let us invite each ot'her again to workmen God has raised up. We ought gather unitedly before the Eternal to pause to shed a tear at the grave of the Throne in praise and prayer." missionary dead of 1891. The list is but The Church of England circular names an appendix to the eleventh chapter of groundlifor humiliation, as found in the Hebrews. Bishop French ascended from fact that nearly nineteen hundred years Arabia; Bishop Boone, ha.,-ing only for have rolled by since the Head of the a short time been enrobed in the mantle Church gave the great missionary com- of his father, the renowned missionary, mis!lion, and yet the work ill !lcarcely died in China; Newton, "the beloved,"
of the Panjab-" a man sent from God, Harmony and Proportion in Missions.* whose name was John"-was followed to beUer than India's palaces by Winter, REV. CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D., LEXINGTON, of the Delhi Mission, who loved his special work more than he did a bishopric. MASS. Amid the lamentations of thousands, that" good servant of the Lord," Bishop The foreign missions of the Church Caldwell, was laid to rest after fifty-four of Christ are becoming numerous and years of labor in India for India; Dr. complicated. Many missionary socie- Luther H. Gulick. the founder of a large ties are in the field, separated from each missionary family, went up to the other by differences of nationality, lan- "bosom" of the" Father of the faith- guage, and church organization. ful ;" and dear and great John Inglis dropped his finished transhtion of the When these different organizations ocvisions of him of Patmos to open cupy the same field there is, there must his eyes on the beatific vision of the be, more or less of denominational fric- Ancient of days; Red slob, the Mora- tion, sometimes of antagonism even, vian sentinel of the outer patrol limit of and generally there will be a want of Chri~tendom on the edge of Thibet, that co-operation that always constitutes awoke to know the richer meaning of strength and progress. In that wonder- Nam Thang Song, and to find it "all ful prayer in ?hich the Son of God bright again" forever; Mrs. Bennett, poured out His soul as His hour drew more than sixty years in Burmah, went near, He prayed most earnestly that the to join again the Judsons and the Father would keep His disciples" that Boardmans; Sheshadri, the first Asi- they may be one, as we are." .. Neither atic whom America ever honored with pray I for these alone, but for them also a doctorate of divinity, found a fit- which shall believe on Me through their ting sepulchre in the sea for his body, word, that they all may be one, as Thou, while his soul went to the .. sea of Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that glass;" and Goloknath of Jalander was they may be one, that the world may becarried to his burial by .. devout men," lieve that Thou hast sent Me." and honored by the presence at his funeral of European officials and a thou- The missionary work has given birth sand Hindus and Mohammedans. Time to a great measure of the true spi~it of would fail us to tell of others who have unity for which the Saviour prayed-a I gone from remotest mountains and val- unity which exists between true discileys, from the habitations of cruelty and ples, notwithstanding all this diversit;,r. spiritual solitude, to the .. general as- The existence of this International Missembly" and the" Church of the First- sionary"Cnio-n is an answer to the Reborn" on high. But surely in the crowd deemer"s prayer, and must be an object of our on-rushing thoughts at a season of His approving regard. like this, we can pause long enough to thank God for such examples of the In order to remove so far as pOBsible highest missionary spirit and loftiest the occasions of conflicting views and spiritual achievement, and to ask that measures which perplex and scandalize their tribe may increase, and the Church the heathen, it has been generally agreed universal catch the radiance of their that one society shall not interfere with lives and be inspired to emulate their another society's legitimate sphere of devotion and their deeds. labor, marked out by actual occupation. And as surely, turning from this missionary nave in the great Westminster Where the different societies are alof the Church, we cannot fail of interest ready intermingled on the same terriin prayer for the great host of stillliv- tory, there is danger of injury to the spiring missionaries, both men and women. itual element. One will say, ., I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos." It requires of the missionaries thus divided, great wisdom, prudence, and brotherly love. There is evidently a growing *ltead before the International Missionary Union at Clifton Springs, N. Y., Jnne, 1891.
ht-rERN.A.-rtONAL DEPARTMlllNT
spirit of unity on mission fields, and fields that some of them are a law unto those who intrude upon fields already themselves. 'rheyhavenotroubleabout occupied are guilty of a great sin. They proportion in their work. We have: become the authors of a great wrong and 1. The sslf-supporting missionary, injury to the Master's cause. The grow- who has property that makes him inde- ing spirit of harmony will make such in- pendent of missionary bodies and Bocie- trusions more and more difficult. De- ties. He may be a very happy, useful nominational friction will be avoided, man. If his means enable him to call and denominational comity as to enter- to his aid native helpers, he is equal to ing each other's field is becoming, or a whole station. In prosecuting his rather, I would say. has become a recog- work he is sole judge of the depart- nized international and interdenomina- ments of his work, and in what relation tionallaw of missionary strategy. to each other he will develop them. It Japan is now a field of special tempta- is impossible to work only in one.
tion, so many societies are earnestly 2. There are self-supporting missiona· engaged in the work. The Holy Spirit, ries, who depend upon their own indus- the Guide unto all truth, the Paraclete, try or upon some secular employment He alone can deliver the work from this for support. Their object is to exhibit danger of divided counsels and of weak- the example of an honest, industrious ened efficiency. Christian life, and lead the heathen both The law of proportion in the mission- by precept and example into the same ary work must be regarded as well as life. They would show them and help the law of harmony. them also to experience that disciple- There are many departments of this ship to Christ has the promise both of work, as preaching, education, the press, the present life and of that which is to the formation of churches, the erection come. Thls scheme of missionary work of buildings, the care for the poor and can be fruitful of much good only by suffering, anyone of which may be put combination. The Inland Mission in forward out of proportion and to the in- China is partly of this nature, but it re- jury of the rest. It requires great wis- quires the oversight and management of dom and judgment to develop all the in- gifted men, like Hudson Taylor and his terests of a mission so that no one shall compeers, to gu~e its affairs, direct its be neglected and no one shall overtop labors, and provide for expenses that the others. The missionaty needs to every progressive work will demand.
have" an unction from the Holy One, Bishop Taylor's mission in Africa is and to know all things." He must neg- of this partially self-supporting kind.
lect nothing, he must push nothing be- He gathers from Christian friends at yond its value. I think to a very re- ·home what is needed for the complete- markable degree this wisdom has been ness and efficiency of the work beyond given. the productive results of the laborers.
Where there is Episcbpal government I would bid God-speed to all such efforts, a great responsibility falls upon the and yet they must be exposed to certain 'bishop. He can more readily remedy infelicities. Untrained men and women mistakes and harmonize the depart- will be found in them who, when they ments, or, if he should lack wisdom, he encounter the grave difficulties of a for- may get them into a muddle. eign language and find the native proud But many missions are more demo- and contemptuous, will Boon be dis· cratic in their organization. They are couraged, and retire in black despair.
largely self-governed, although the home Such cases have too frequently occurred.
societies fix upon the general principles In future they may be avoided.
upon which they must proceed. 3. By far the greater number of mis· Let us not forget, however, that there sionaries on the field are supported by are so many kinds of agents in different _.. mi s -s-i-o–n-'a. ry s o c i e t ie s , The operatiDZ and ~ ";"' :' largely apportioliating power is in those established, and for a time, it may-be, societies. But the officers, being far chiefly officered by the best-educated from the fields of labor, must depend missionaries. But from the very begin- upon the missionaries for the facts, and ning the object to be aimed at is the upon their judgment as to the meaning raising of native laborers for every de- of the facts. WhilE! here is an oppor- partment of the work_ tunity for difference of opinion between ]'or a time the native agency, in press- the officers and the missionaries, which ing forward into new fields, must be perhaps sometimes occurs, yet there has supported in whole or in part by the been remarkable harmony on the whole. mission, otherwise it cannot exist at all.
When earnest discussion has arisen it A mission is prosperous only so far as it has been conducted in a Christian raises up an efficient, well-trained na- spirit, and has resulted in the advance- tive agency. One missionary with four ment of the work and in the settlement well-qualified native preachers will reach of important principles. Sometimes the people more widely and efficiently education has been too much pushed, by far, than five missionaries with no and sometimes preaching. In Buresal, nath's assistant, and the expense will India, preaching was almost the only not be half so great. The work will be- work attempted. Education was left come in this way self-developing and entirely to the native Christians. In self- perpetuating.
consequence the children were growing It follows then by necessity that when up in such deplorable ignorance that a the funds of a mission do not keep prog- general meeting of missionaries took up ress with the missionary work, the for- the subject and demanded that Chris- eign missionary should be withdrawn, tian education should accompany the that the native work m~y go on. If dur- Christian native Church. ing the past year the societies that have But the subject which is most exposed been compelled to cut down their ap- to disproportion has regard to the work propriations had, instead of doing so, of the native Church, with its pastors, refused to send out a single missionary, teachers, and helpers. Generally in all they would have saved their work from departments of the missionary work in a calamitous set-back. Some missiona- the ministry, in education, in editing ries have seriously contemplated resign_ and translating, the native factors must ing and leaviDg the field in order to be our chief reliance for ultimate suc- avoid this great evil.
cess. Fifty years ago the prevailing An early movement in the missionary idea was that the world is to be convert- work of sending ou~ laymen to teach the ed by the preaching of missionaries. various arts of ci vilized life proved a That idea is no longer held by anybody. failure; but the time has now come The nati ve Ohurch is to be the true mis- when there is a call for such co-opera- sionary Ohurch. Native preachers and bon. The converts from heathendom helpers are to go everywhere preaching must live by their own labor. The the Word. They are to do the chief sooner they are emancipated from many work of evangelization. The great work of the filthy modes in which all heathen. – of the missionaries is to bring forward, dam, including even the Chinese, live to educate, to train the native laborers the better for a pure and honest Chris- and native churches unto this work, and tian life. The glorious example and life give the whole over to them as soon as of Mackay of Uganda have taught us possible. This is the only way in which what a lay missionary-a mechanic, a the great work of the world's redemp- civiI-engineer-can achieve for Christ tion from sin and darkness can be ac- under the darkest prospects. The Lord complished. It is the most effective will have many Mackays ready when the and the most economical way. Ohurch shall really call for them. Mis- Schools, colleges, seminaries must be sionary societies must learn that CODverts must have daily bread not by hundred dollars a year for the support charit.y, but by their own labor. And of each one, three millions of dollars 8 all missionaries, men and women, year will be needed for their bare sup· should have that practical knowledge port, and certainly not less than nine of the common arts and activities of life millions more for the prOilecution of the which will enable them to gnide the work through native agency. Then the porsecuted and boycotted into inde. six thousand would soon be one hun. pendent self-support. dred thousand, and that number a mill- ion of native preachers.. By that time, There is great danger at the present moreover, the million would be mainly time of looking more to the number supported by native churches, and the than the quality of the laborers. Men promise of the Almighty Father to the of mere sentiment are sure to fail. Son, "Ask of Me and I will give Thee They find themselves confronted with the heathen for thine inheritance, and the difficulties. of an unknown, strange, the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy barbarous language, and by a proud, in. posse~sions," would approach its glori. solent, contemptuous people. After a ous fulfilment. year or two of heartless effort they reo treat in black despair or sink into a list. Ohinese "Blue-Books." [J. T. G.] less :Mfe. None but men who are strong in the Lord and in the power of His Whoever has carefully studied the might are needed in this work. splendid volume containing the Records of the Missionary Conference which met It follows, from all we have read, that at Shanghai in 1890 will have noticed in this great and marvellous movement the essay of Rev. Timothy Richards on among the youth of our colleges is " The Relation of Christian Missions to in danger of involving the Christian the Chinese Government," his reference Church in an unexpected embarrass- (pp. 407-10) to what he .is pleased to ment. To send out all who are willing style" Blue Books." It is a collection to go and are fitted for great usefulness of public documents on all State queswould necessitate the entire abandon. tions published in 1826, in one hundred ment of the element of native co-opera. and twenty books. It was republished tive help, of pastors, teachers, trans. by the Shaghai publishers in 1889; a lators, common schools, and, to some supplement to the same, also in one extent, of colleges and seminaries. A hundred and twenty books, bringing the greater catastrophe could not befall the subject down to date, was published in work. 1888. These books, he says, are in the catalogue of the books for sale in the What, then, is the meaning of this Government book.shop at Tientsin, and wonderful movement? probably in all the provinces. Two books of the supplement are devoted to It brings before the Church the tre. Christian missions. mendous reality of the missionary work. It cries aloud to all Christians, Aban. Mr. Richards proceeds to give some don your luxurious living, your piling idea of their "scandalous" contents. up of millions. Pour your millions into First, a history of the way in which the missionary work, und see if the Lord Christianity has gradually corrupted will not pour you out a blessing that China. This is followed by an attempt there shall not be room to receive it. to stamp out Christianity in the provo inces of Hlman, the source of the pres. But these six thousand crusaders must ent Ohinese riots, and Kiang Suo Sun. not be encouraged to go forth while the dry other documents follow. Mr. Rich. Church stands back and refuses to de- ards proceeds to recite that the books velop the work already in progress, having the evident blessing of God and the co-operating work of the Holy Spirit. Their going forth must be to aid, not retard the work. At an average of five affirm that six hundred years after Bud- able books translated; of the tens of dha all India followed the Christian thousands of youllg and old taught; ot'
religion. Among the statements are the hundreds of thousands saved from found assertions that the founder of death during famines, and of'the tomb- Christianity was a criminal, and Joseph stones of those who have given their was not his father. lives for the good of China, this collec- The great rebellions in the Ming tion of obscenities and lies is their dynasty and of the various secret lOects version of what we have done for in the present dynasty, with all their them."
, horrors, are attributed to these Western The relation of the State to these so- religions. It is an insult, the author called" Blue-Books," and of their rela- says, to suggest that all these vile here- tion to the present disturbed state of the tics could have 'had the same origin as country, as it originates in hatred of the Chinese. The writer says that four foreigners, has become the subject of taels were given to each convert, and considerable discussion in China. It is that the books of the Roman Catholics well known that the riots have been in- were full of obscenity, and that the Gov- cited by the literati and gentry of ernor Man of Chi Kiang memorialized China ; and it is this class that read the throne regarding their evil deeds, such statements as are contained in requesting to have their churches turned these books, Which, be it borne in into charity schools for a hundred years, mind, are for sale at the Government to cleanse away their moral filth. book-stores. It would seem, therefore, "After this," says Mr. Richards, of little avail that the imperial authority "follow scandalous quotations from Wei at the Peking Yemen should by royal Yuen, who says that men and women edict declare that Christianity was a re- sleep promiscuously together in the ligion of good moral influence, so long churches; that one hundred and thirty as it permits these documents to be taels of silver are given in three instal- placed on sale under its auspices. To be ments to the converts to help them to sure. it might be claimed that the edict do business; that the Christians' eyes counteracts their influence, and even are scooped out by the priest after that it was so intended. It is much death; that when these eyes are melted more probable that the Government up with lead, eight per cent of the lead chooses to blow hot and cold at the same is turned to silver; that a pill is given, time, for whatever else the West mlly which makes the convert pledge him- teach China, it is not likely to set it any self for life, and so bewitched is he that lesson in the duplicity of diplomacy.
the first thing he does is to destroy the In the North China Herald the vener.
ancestral tablets; that several other able and highly esteemed missionary, things are practised by Christians which Rev. Griffith John, calls upon the for- I consider too vile to print… Mr. Rich- eign powers to demand the suppression ards closes his remarks on the" Blue- of these books. He says that it is to be Books" with the following grave reflec- hoped that some one will take these tion: Ie Thus end the 'Blue·Books' books in hand and bring their vileness without the slightest acknowledgment of and falsehood to the light. He has any benefit derived from modern mis- afresh examined them, and declares that sionaries. They wish to convince their " anything more false, disgraceful, and people that Christian missionaries only inflammatory it would be difficult to come here for mischief, and that the find, even among the vile placards of converts are the scum of society! In Hunan." He deems it of the utmost im· face of about a million taels spent an- portance that their publication, as they nually for the good of China; in face of now stand, should be suppressed. He tens of thousands of patients gratuitous- concludes by saying that the Hunan ly healed annually; of the many valu- placards are intended for the multitude;
JartUBl'j'
these books are intellded for the officials out-patients belong to the Syongtn, or and literary classes. 'rhey are to be low-class people, many of whose wom- round in every yamen, and in thousands en, except the newly married or those of private libraries. The foreign powers of marriageable age, go out upon the have decided that the Hunan publica- street in the daytime. I would like to tions shall cease, because they poison open an evening olinic for those Korean the minds of the people. For a still women who must not be seen upon the stronger reason they ought to decide street in the daytime, and I want to that these" blue books" shall cease in open a dispensary in another part of their present form, because they poison the city, and perhaps one outside.
the minds of the officials and scholars. Quite often at my morning clinic I have Just how far the foreign powers had women from the higher class who should go in aUempting an " Index" of have come in closed chairs. They al- literature that must be expurgated in ways inform me that it is a great ell.cep- China, or whether they should attempt tion for them to go out, but their dis- at all to coerce the Government to cause ease was difficult, and they had heard certain parts of current literature to be that I was a very wise doctor, and there- suppressed, may be grave questions. fore came.
But that they might demand that their .. My out-calls have, many of them, sale should be prohibited in Govern- been to people of quite high rank-from ment book stalls would not appear alto- the daughter of a ' Chusa' to the moth- gether unreasonable as a political meas- er of the late Prime-Minister-but others ure or as a war measure, if you please. have been to those most miserably low We have not called attention to the mat· and poor. I, have visited a niece of the ter with a view to second the call to the late queen-dowager, living in a large foreign powers to demand their suppres- stone house built within two or three sion, but rather to show some of the court-yards, with foreign lamp-posts sources by which the prejudices of the here and there ; nice-sized rooms, easily literati and gentry are stirred against made larger by pushing back the Korean Christian missionaries. Perhaps we shove-doors and throwing two rooms may even come into greater charity into one ; large Korean screens here and toward some of those whose minds have there ; a fine mirror and Korean dress- been thus poisoned ; and perhaps we ing-case ; the patient and her attendants may come to better apprehension of clothed in spotless white, in mourning why the literati and gentry, rather than for tho Queen; the under-garments of the common people and the coolies, dis- the patient made of soft white Korean like foreigners and missionaries. At silk. She was covered with light downy any rate, if we are to proceed with judg- comfortables of colored silk, and lay ment, it is manifest we must become upon a soft mattress with a beautifully more closely acquainted with the in- embroidered Korean pillow on the warm· digenous influences affecting the people est part of a highly polished 'Rang'
of Ohina. floor.
" In the same afternoon I have visit- ed a poor sick woman of the Coolie class Medical Work for Women in Korea, in her little tive-by-eight room, with ceiling so low I could not stand up- We know so little of the" Land of right, one small window covered with the Morning Calm" that it is with inter- oiled paper, the patient lying on a small est we quote from a long oommunication mat and covered with a coarse cotton from Miss Rosetta Sherwood, M.D., of comfortable. The history of many of the MethodistEpiscopal MissilJll in that the wretched cases one meets with in a country, the following paragraphs: practice like this are appalling and "The majority of the hospital and heart.sickening. "
" Why is the Ohina Inland Mission Suo- mission in China, suggests that a longer period of time is required before we cessful?" can predicate success or failure of the mission in its evangelical enterprise. The editor of the lIarvest Field, the Wesleyan magazine published in India, " That it has heen a wonderful suc. some while since addressed the above cess at home everybody must admit. question to the Rev. David Hill, the The rapid pouring into one field of so Britisb President of the Shanghai Con. large a number of missionaries is un. ference of Missionaries laboring in exampled in modern times as far liS I India. We have so long heard and know, and demands close study. Two read conflicting statements of the effi. or three reasons for this success have ciencyand value of Mr. Hudson Tay. occurred to me : lor's methods, and those of his associ. ates, that it was with rather more than "1. The mission is steeped in prayer, usual interest we read Mr. Hill's reply, and its founders and followers have Ilnd we are so confident of a wide inter. boldly made the grand experiment of est in the subject that we quote the testing and trusting the promi~es of article bodily. Mr. Hill says: God.
"You inquire as to the reasons of the " 2. Appeals for men have been made success of the China Inland Mission. at meetings for entire consecration to The assumption implied in such in. God. This consecration has been quiry some would question, if it refer urged home first of all-then the de. to the work of the mission in China, mand to show cause why this consecra. and the number of members gathered tion should not flow in China cbannels into the Church. This is not large as has been made. Full surrender has compared with that of several other opened the ear to China's claims. missions having a much smaller staff of missionaries, and does not demon. "3. Speedy entrance on the work. strate Ilny very marked success. No protracted waiting for examination after examination, or for a long college "On the other hand, 2000 and odd course. This attracts men. Christians gathered into the Church in twenty-five years does tell of success, "4. Then the offer of a life of sacri. and that Mr. Hudson Taylor should fice rather than one of ease has a great have been used of God to this end is deal to do with winning the right sort matter for profound thankfulness. of men. Faith, too, fascinates. That it is not large may be accounted for by the perpetual pioneering of "5. Besides Mr. Taylor's magnetio many missionaries. In opening the influence, Mr. Broomhall's untiring way to regions beyond they have been energy and the broadcast sowing of llbundantly successful, hut this per. China's millions have marvellously aided petual" motion has not favored large the progress of the mission. harvests of converts. Where steady, persevering work has been the order of "These have appeared to me the the day, conversions have been most chief causes of success, and I as II numerous. Methodist feel I may learn a good deal from them." " Then the genius of the mission is so largely that of witnessing rather -Mrs. Maria T. True, of Tokyo, tem· than winning, of sowing rather than of porarily in tbis country, in writing to reaping, that that doubtless has had us says: "Some Japanese ladies have something to do with the comparatively purchased an acre of ground and built small ingathering. And the very large a small house for an industrial school proportion of new men occupying new for young women. About forty pupils places, as compared with any other are enrolled, and during tbe little more than one year since the school was opened they have by their own labor
liTElRNATlONAL :l)Et'Alt'I'MEN'l'
earned their board, and in some cases ful, as it is certainly entertaining, other expenses. The main industry is called" In Brightest Asia," which Mr. silk embroidery, but they also have in- Corthell, of Tremont Temple, publishes. troduced various other kinds of work, Its 127 illustrations are a panorama of and have still more comprehensive the trip and much besides. plans, to be carried out when the fund for another building have been secured. -Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., Corre· This is a Ohristian school, and is blessing sponding Secretary of the Board of those who have established it and are Foreign Missions of the Reformed carrying it on as well as those who are Church in America, has started to make taught in it. a visit to their missions in India, China, and Japan. Rev. J. N. Conklin, "One of the native pastorR has also of the Arcot Mission, temporarily in been the means of opening an indus- this country, has assumed Dr. Cobb's trial home for young men. I know both official duties in his absence. We of these enterprises well, Bnd am sure learn from him that the native Christhey are worthy of our warm sympathy tians of this Arcot Mission are suffering terribly from food scarcity, and cholera " A letter just received from a Japan. is likely to follow. The report about esc minister contains the following: the cholera at Amoy, Mr. Conklin says, • This is my strong conviction: we can· has been greatly exaggerated. not evangelize Japan with a method like child's play; if we evangelize such a -Our Baptist friends are getting heathen country as Japan we must take ready for the observance of the great a gigantic method. The Bible and the Carey Centennial this year. A good Holy Spirit are the only weapons needed deal of literature will doubtless be forth. in our battle.field.' coming, which will be helpful to them, and to all of us. The American Baptist , • Then he goes on to outline a meth- Publication Society, Philadephia, has od by which he thinks work could be just issued ., A Century of Baptist For. carried on in every town and village in eign Missions," by Mrs. Titterington. Japan. He asks advice concerning It is an outline of annals, briefly stated, leaving one of the best churches in and with a list of questions at the close Tokyo in order to give his time to this of each chapter, suggestive of its being country work. used as a text·book. It is confined to American Baptist missions in Asia, .. It is ~ard to realize how heavily Africa, Europe, and South America. burdened the few earnest workers in Japan are, unless one has seen the con- -The Congregational missions in ditions there." South Africa have been the subject of many an inquiry with other than mis. -The Rev. Dr. Mabie, Home Corre- sionary intent. Ethn ologists, :philol. sponding Secretary of the American ogists, and others have found the mis. Baptist Missionary Union, presently sionary's arcana of knowledge the after getting well seated in his position, most valuable and resourceful that started on a trip round the world, chiefly could be investigated. There have to visit the Baptist missions in Asia. been heroes and statesmen among the About two hundred Baptist mission· missionaries of that country. Rev. aries were visited. They must have Josiah Tyler furnishes a fresh fund of enjoyed his calls, for there was nothing knowledge for mllny classes in " Forty of the bugbear of a .. deputation" in Years Among the ZulUB" in autobjothem. He did not go to make official examinations into their larders or their learning, nor with any authority to upset their plans. Dr. Mabie tells his side of the cheery journey in a sketchy way in a book that must be very help. graphical form of narrative. (Congrega- ent at the celebration of the sacrament tional House, Boston.) in a church other than their own; to have inter-mission discipline, by which -In April, 1890. Rev. Mr. Large, of an agent of one mission should not be the Canada Methodist Mission, in Japan, engaged by another until after mutual was murdered. The murderer has been, consultation, and strangers coming from as is supposed. found out, and on Au- another station should be provided with gust 25th was arrested. He is described letters, of commendation from the as a youth about twenty years of age. church which they had left; to foster At first it was supposed he was insane, social advancement by means of obtainbut fuller investigation does not sup- ing grants of land from the Government, port the theory. He is a native of the the endeavor to have Christian regiprovince of Kazuza. ments formed, the adoption of technieal pursuits, the encouragement of capital- -Rev. Dr. T. J. Scott, President of ists among Christians, the institution of panchayats among them, and the pur- chase of land in the villages as sites for schools and churches which should be the property of the missions."
the Methodist Theological Seminary at Bareilly, India, writes us: "God is -We have received the following com- wonderfully blessing the work in this munication from a representative of the part of India. Just think of a thousand Protestant native congregation at Bag- baptisms a month! At least ten thou- dad: sand will be added to the Christian •• I beg to inform you that there are community during the' year. What a work in supplying pastors and evange- about twenty houses of Evangelical Protlists! In places of course the devil estants here in Bagdad, reaching from rages. In AImorah, while a young man sixty to seventy persons, male and was being baptized in the London Mis- female. You will be very glad, of course, sionary Society's church, a mob smashed to know that there is such a light and salt the windows and doorl!. Dr. Butcher in such a. big city of Turkish-Arabia, had his "coat tOfn off, and would have where thousands of people are living in been brained by the mob had not Dr. darkness and the shadow of death. How Parker seized the ringleader and got Dr. many difficulties are on the way of the Butcher into the church. The colonel Lord's laborers in such places! But commanding the station got word, and faith, patience, and perseverance over- • doubled quicked' the Sepoys down; come everything that hinders the extenthe magistrate arrived, and the mob sion of the kingdom of our Heavenly quailed. The young man stands firm. Father. We hope we shall never fail in We may expect more mobs and more fulfilling our sacred duties toward our victory. Pray for us." God, ourseIve~, and our neighbors. For the establishment of this, our Protestant -Apropos of Dr. Hamlin's admirable native congregation in Bagdad, we need article, which we present this month, on to have soon registration, cemetery, "Mission Comity," we take the follow- school and church, without which we ing from the Report of the Church of cannot enjoy success and progress in Scotland Mission, setting forth an agree- such lands. To get what is mentioned ment to which the missionaries of the we must apply to the Sublime Porte in various societies in the Panjab came Constantinople and the Turkish auin a Conference of their members, held thorities here to get the necessary orders, last April : that we may possess all our national " At this Conference it was resolved rights. I am very glad to say that we to adopt a common course of instruction have already got orders for registration for inquirers before baptism; to admit and cemetery, so there is firm hope that and welcome to the communion mem- we shall get an order for school and bers of the various churches when pres- church too. Our registration was partly made by the local Government here; but I am sorry to say that burial-ground has not yet been given to us for ceme- tery, as we have not enough money to buy a piece of ground, to pay official fees, and all expenses concerning such serious matters, for our Protestants here are unable to provide the necessary SUUlS."
·EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
I1I.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The Editor's Salutation. himself one of the tery foremost mis- sionary biographers of the age, the au- METBOPOLITAW TABEBWACLE, thor of the 'standard classic on Carey's life, will contribute a series of papers NEWINGTON, S. E., on the great cobbler of Hackleton, and LONDON, ENGLAND.
The editor salutes all readers of the other writers of scarcely inferior merit REVIEW and friends of missions with will take a part in this symphony of the most cordial good wishes for the testimony to the work of a world's new year! May it be indeed a Happy evangelization, and the duty and priv- New Year to us all individually and to ilege of the Church to push her COD- the whole Church of God! flicts and conquests to the extremities The year 1892 ought to be a year of of the globe.
grand advance all along the line. It is Once more we emphatically call our the centennial year of modern missions, readers and all who are linked with the • for it marks the hundredth anniversary work of missions to a new consecration of William Carey's great movement, the to prayer. Here lies the hope of the organization of the first distinctively Church and the world, in a new spirit foreign missionary society of Britain, of gracious supplication. God will be at Kettering, May 31st, 1792, and will be inquired of when He is to do great observed all over Britain, if not all over things. Our hope must be in no com the wider realm of Christendom, as the pleteness of organization, no abundance ~ completion of the grand century of of gifts, no sufficiency of laborers, no modem missions. multitude of agencies, but first of all But it ought also to mark the begin- in God, in the Providence that opens ning of a new century of far more in- doors and keeps them open, that pro tense Christian zeal and far more self- tects workers, that rrues even rulers and denying missionary effort. The open controls all things; and in the grace doors now before the Church, the sin- that works even mightier marvels in gularly complete equipment providen- anointing the messengers of Christ and tially given for world-wide work, the inclining lost sinners to hear and heed amazing successes of the century past. the message. Let us remember those the strange withholding of laborers and two wonderful words of promise: Matt.
gifts from the service of the Lord-how 17 : 20 and 18: 19, 20. One of them ought such considerations as these to reminds us that in faith there is the stimulate the whole Church of God to seed of God, the secret of divine life undertake new enterprises for Him, to and power to upheave even mountain lengthen her cords and strengthen her obstacles; the other teaches us the 8takes until the canopy of her mission- power of a symphony of prayer, when ary effort shall stretch over the Whole believers who live in the secret of God area of the unevangelized world.! are like keys of a musical instrument The pages of this REvrnw will be that the hand of God touches, and largely given up during the year to the which give forth a sweet chord in har- rehearsal of William Carey's life and mony with His will. To abide in God, work, and to the exhibition of its mag- and so have power in united prayer, is nificent results; While it will be our the first and last secret of missionary aim to suggest and inspire far larger success. This is one of the essential hopes, stronger faith, and wider en- truths to be impressed by perpetual deavor, in behalf of the coming of the repetition.
kingdom of our God! May the prayers Here in the great Tabernacle we have of every devout reader be with us! had an exhibition and illustration of ~eor~e Smith, LL.D., of Edinbur?h, the power of importunate and believing prayer. In May last pastor Charles H. 8th, to propose another union of prayer Spurgeon was attacked with a violent in tbat place. for the greatest outpour. and virulent influenza. After partial ing of the Holy Spirit ever yet known, recovery, in June he was the victim of upon all flesh. If this spectacle has a relapse that brought him to the very been sublime to angels and men, who jaws of death. His recovery was pro. can describe the sublimity of a holy nounced impossible by human means, agreement of all disciples in supplica. and this great congregation of six thou. tion for a worldwide effusion of the sand souls united in daily prayer to Spirit of all grace! God for him. For twenty.one weeks This Metropolitan Tabernacle is a daily meetings for prayer assembled in house of prayer most emphatically. the Tabernacle, early in the morning, Here are numerous rooms, under and at 7 o'clock, and again at the same hour around the great audience.room, where, in the evening. They were thronged, for almost forty years, this one servant and not only by Mr. Spurgeon's own of God has held forth the Word of Life; people, but by Christians of every name. and in these rooms prayer is almost No sublimer spectacle has appeared to ceaselessly gomg up. When one meeting human eyes since apostolic days than is not in progress another is. This is a this union of discipIes, in believing hive of bees, where there are campara. prayer. As for Peter when in prison tively few drones. There are prayer· awaiting Herod's axe prayer was made meetings before preaching and others without ceasing of the Church unto God after preaching; evangelistic associa· for him. Baptists of every "grade;" tions, zenana societies-all sorts of work Methodists, Primitive, Wesleyan, and for God find here a centre and all can· Episcopal; Congregationalists and Inde. secrated by prayer. Before I go upon pendents ; Presbyterians and Plymouth the platform to address these thousands, Brethren; even the members and clergy the officers of this great church meet of the Anglican communion were pres· me and each other for prayer as to the ent and participated. Meanwhile Mr. service; and one feels upborns on these Spurgeon was overwhelmed with per· strong arms of prayer while preaching. sonal and official attentions from all No marvel that Mr. Spurgeon's ministry classes and conditions of men. Up to has been so blessed. He himself at· the time of his departure for Mentone, tributes it mainly to the prevailing on October 26th, he told me that over prayers of his people. Why may not seven thousand messages of condolence the whole Church of God learn some· and sympathy, resolutions of various thing from the Metropolitan Tabernacle religious bodies, etc., and other docu. of London as to the power of simple ments, from the lowest and highest in Gospel preaching backed by believing society, had reached him. Fifty tele. supplication! grams of inquiry a day came to Beulah Referring to this great church, one Hill, until clerks were unequal to the cannot forget also its divine mission as reading of and the replying to these a standing protest against the secular. messages and inquiries. Even bishops izing of the house of God by the attrac· and archbish~ps called to offer not only tions of worldly art and restheticism. sympathy, but service, if such were Here is nothing to divert the mind from possible; and Jewish rabbis called to the simplicity of worship and the Gas· assure the sick man that all Israel was pel. No attempt at elaborate architec. praying to Jehovah for his restorl't· ture, furniture, garniture. A precentor tion! What wonder he was raised as leads con"gregational song without even from the dead-taken out of the jaws the help of a cornet; prayer and praise of the lion! In view of all this, I ven· and the reading of the Word of God, tured, in presence of a great congrega· with plain putting of Gospel trnthtion i:Q. t4e Tabernacle, on November these 4nve been Mr. StJur~eon's lifelon~ " means of grace" and weapons of war. a year of praise also, a new year of mis- And yet this remains to.day the largest sions, introducing a new century of mis- congregation in the world, even when a sion triumph and glory to God!
stranger attempts to fill the place left vacant by the pastor's withdrawal to a -The editors of American newspapers place of rest and recuperation. are, as a rule, a sagaeious folk. They This lesson has, in my opinion, a beating on all work for Christ, at home cannot be hoaxed. But not all of those and abroad. Our reliance is too much on the charms of this world, in drawing who have the l'equisite " nose for news" souls to the Gospel and to the Saviour. The Holy Spirit will not tolerate our are favored with the reciprocity of the idols. If we will have artistic and secular type of music, substituting unsancti- senses by which they" know news when :lied art for simple praise; if we will have elaborate ritual in place of simple, they see it." An instance is at han~. believing prayer; if we will have eloquent lectures in place of simple, ear- In, the summary of Dr. Pierson's open. nest Gospel preaching, we must not wonder if no shekinah fires burn in our ing sermon at the Tabernacle, made by sanctuaries. If Ahaz is allowed to dis· place God's plain altar by the carved, the Christian, we :find the following: idolatrous altar fro!ll Damascus, we need not be surprised if God withdraws " The Holy Ghost never tolerates idols His power. Perhaps the reason why the work of God abroad shows more in his courts. The success of this great signs of His presence and power than our sanctuary services at home is in Tabernacle is owing to nothing more part this, that our foreign mission work has never been embarrassed as yet by than to this-that the paster has preachthose elaborate attempts at resthetic attraction which turn many of our home ed the Gospel, and has never preached churches into concert halls and lecture saloons and costly club-houses. May anything else, for well.nigh forty years, God grant us to learn once for all, that nothing in our mission work can make He prayed God that some calamity might up for Holy Spirit power, and that Holy Spirit power itself makes up for the happen to the building itself before it lack of all else. If the angel troubles the pool, there is healing in the waters ; was ever prostituted by unsanctified and but if God's angel comes not down 'all the doctors in Jerusalem, with all'the secularizing methods of attracting the drugs in creation, cannot impart healing virtue. people. We want to keep out of our v.orship everything that turns away at- tention from God, or hinders the power of the Holy Ghost."
An irate reporter, by whom the" in_ terim" pastor declined to be interviewed rushed off and cabled to this countr; that Dr. Pierson had most wantonly and uncharitably attacked Mr. Spurgeon in his absence, and had ~harged his con- gregation with doing the very things which he had commended them for not doing. We extend our sympathy to so much of the secular press as became tho victim of this hoax and falsehood. Yet on its face they should have been able to recognize its improbability_ Even a caricature must be a likeness. But to present one who is '
LET us PRU! Oh, for a new spirit of " the president Of nobleness and chevalree" prayer to God! Oh, for a whole Church on its face before the throne, with in snch a roll was too much out of align- mighty pleading for a blessing as wide- ment to afford amusement or to do spread as the race of man, and as deep- harm. The editor.in· chief of this RE- reaching as man's depravity and degra- VIEW answers too closely to the en- dation, guilt and need! Let the year comium on Sir Philip Sydney, in hav- now opening be-whatever else it may ing ., mildness which is associated with not be-a year of prayer; so shall it be courage, erudition modified by refinement, and courtliness dignified by There is one preacher to eight hun. truth "to render it necessary to correct dred inhabitants in the home land; so m:mifestly gross a canard. It may one preacher to four hundred thousand be that he will not so much as thank us in non-Christian countries. for an allusion to it. [J. T. G.]. Estimated wealth of Evangelical Christians in United States•… $13,000,000,000 Increase of wealth last :year (sur- plus after paying all expenses Facts and Figures. of living and contributions for benevofent purposes)….••…. 450,000,000 REV. c. R. BELL, D.D. Contributions for Foreign Mis- sions during the year……… . Population of the world ……….. 1,500,000,000 Total foreign missionary contri- 5,000,000 Living in Asia •••.••.. 800,000,000 Living in Africa •.. •. 210,000,000 butions during the century …. 90,000,000 Living in Europe……. 350,000,000 Annual expenditure for home Living in America, churches….. .. •.. .. … …. .. .. 80,000,000 North and South ….. 110,000,000 Average per member. . •. . . . . • .• •• $6.00 Living in Island World 30,000,000 Annual expenditure for Foreign M.issions, per member (average) .37 – – – 1,500,000,090 Evangelical Christian Commnni- The annual increase of wealth was' ninety times more than the foreign cants………… …………… 35,000,000 missionary offerings during the year. Adherents.. … .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. . .. . 105,000,000 The estimated increase of wealth of Total Communicants and Adher- 140,000,000 the evangelical Christian population of ents………………………. . 90.000.000 the United States last year was more 205,000,000 than four times greater than all the Greek Church……………. . .. .. 8,000,000 foreign contributions by all American Romanists…………………… . 175,000,000 Christians d~ring the entire century. Jews……………………… .. 882,000,000 Startling statements I M.ohammedans ……………….. . Pagan and Heathen………….. ..
Converts to Christianity in heathen 1,500,000,000 lands one hundred years ago did not exceed…… …. … …. .. .. .. 300 Communicants now………….. . 800,000 Adherents ………………….. .. 2,200,000 Total Communicants and Adhe- Signs of the Times. rents…….. ………… …….. 3,000,000 There are signs of a general upheaval Then there were very few Christian all through the pagan, papal, and Mosworkers abroad. and they were chiefly lem world. Japan has suffered from a peasants and artisans who accompanied recent earthquake, in which thousands enterprising merchants. Then the are said to have perished. China was Church for the first time began the visited by most destructive floods, and great enterprise of organized foreign now is the scene of widespread riot and missionary work. not a little bloodshed. South America -Brazil, Chili, and the Argentine Re. Now there are 170 missionary boards public-has been and is undergoing and societies directed by men, and 110 civil and political disturbances, which by women-all actively in service as in some cases amount to a convulsion. agents for their respective Christian Russia is expelling the Jews and preconstituencies. Now at work in non· paring for war, and all Europe is either Christian lands 7700 missionaries, male in a state of ferment or of uncertainty and female, consisting of and apprehension. No one on the con. tinent feels sure of the peace of Europe Ordained…………………… .. 3,482 for thirty days ahead, and a European La,Ylllen …………………….. . 829 war means a world's upheaval. Africa WlVes of missionaries…………. . has been the scene of almost continual Umnarried women…………… .. 2.005 conflict since the Zulu and Soudan 1,384 wars. Turkey is on the verge of per. petual disturbance. The isles of the Native workers ………………. . 7,700 sea are the scenes of repeated and some· Of whom 4,250 are ordained 36,000 times widespread antagonisms, either preachers within their own coasts or with foreign 43,700 foes. No one can predict how long Total force …………………. .. 13,500,000 UNITED STATES ALONE. 80,000 Evangelical church-members..•… Ordained preachers …………… .
Ordained preachers abroad……. . 1,000 Unordained missionaries, male and 1,750 female, abroad…………….. ..
2,750 Mexico and Central America, Burmah Pierson has met with the warm welcome /lJld India, Thibet and Korea will keep and hearty support of the officiary and their uncertain quiet. There are some congregation of Mr. Spurgeon's Taber- sagacious students of affairs who boldly nacle. Our English exchanges make say that never within this century has kindly mention of his entrance upon his there been such a general murmur of new responsibilities. The Ohristian says approaching conflict; and that only the of the opening service: "The great destructiveness of modern engines of building was thronged with worshippers war prevents its outbreak. In the re- in every part. At the opening of the cent naval exhibition, we saw a fac- service the crush was not BO great as we simile of a trial target upon which one have generally seen it, when Mr. Spur- of the largest of modern English ord- geon was the preacher; but before the nance, a HO-ton Armstrong gun, had commencement of the sermon there expended its explosive force, aud the were very few vacant seats." After giv.
ball-a conical one-had been driven ing a column to a synopsis of the in- through six feet of steel and iron, tell terim pastor's sermon from the admir- feet of oak timbers, five feet of solid ably chosen text Acts 10 : 29: .' There- granite, fifteen£eetof concrete, and six of fore came I unto you without gainsay- brick masonry, in all penetrating forty- ing as soon as I was sent for; I ask, two feet before its progress was arrested! therefore, for what intent ye have sent Meanwhile, let it be recorded with for me?" the editor says: "His brief thanksgiving that never has such a ministry at the Tabernacle has open.
spirit of benevolence been exhibited as ed auspiciously." He further quotes now among God's true children. For from a Tabernacle correspondent, who example, Mr. Thomas M. Russell, a writes: Scotchman, has just willed £60,000 ster- " • With the hour the man' is a prov- ling to Rev. John Wilkinson for his erb which hail received a very happy work among the Jews ; £8000 were con· illustration in the presence and minis- tributed by a. single donor in Australia try of Dr. Pierson as Mr. Spurgeon's to modern missions, and we hear almost locum tenens at the Metrollolitan Taber- every week of large gifts to home and nacle. The arrangement is according to foreign evangelizatIOn. A prominent Mr. Spurgeon's mind and heart; and, lady, a well-known countess, has sold judging from the welcome which has all her jewelry and ornaments except been accorded to our American brother, heir-looms, that she may send her valu- the indorsement of the church and con- ables to minister to God's kingdom ; gregation has been assured. Possessed and amid all modern apostasies in doc- of the rare qualifications necessary, there trine and inconsistencies in practice, is every reason to believe that Dr. Pier- there is a practioal protest of conse. son will fully justify Mr. Spurgeon's crated souls in the more complete self. choice, and his own acceptance of the surrender that includes property. Oh, appointment, and that the happiest re- for the new spirit of war for the Lord! sults may be expected from his three When will the world be convulsed not months' ministry. An enthusiast for by the preparations for gigantic de- missions, the aggressive work at the structive conflicts of arms, but by the Tabernacle is not likely to flag; an ear· universal uprising of the Church of nest and an able exponent of the Gospel, God in behalf of the world's conquest the living ministry which has been car· for Christ! ried on so long by Mr. Spurgeon is sure to be maintained."
On Sunday evening, November 1st, The Editor-in-Ohief Abroad. the audience numbered some 6000 per- Our readers will not bE' surprised, bu!; sons, 2500 of whom remained to the the,}' will be gratified to know that Dr. after-meeting. [J. T. G.)
18112.] THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY J. R. MILLER, D.D.
The World-Field-Hints for Prayer and Our very life must be in it, in the tem. Work. per of the divine self-sacrifice. But what a privilege and joy thus to work -An artist was asked, "What is your in it, with God Himself and all the best .picture?" He replied, "My saintliest spirits of the earth, now and next. " That was a good answer for an aforetime! Is it not the grandest testi. artist to make. When a man looks mony to the magnificence of human na. back for his life's best work in any ture that God made us co-workers, not line, his feeling should be that of the in the primary work of creation, but in other artist, who wept when he saw his the far grander work of redeeming the completed masterpiece, because his sat- world? In this work we can make isfaction with it marked the climax of our lives luminous in this world, and his lifework. It should be the same bright forever with a celestial glory in with 1>ur years; we should always look the next." to the next as our best. This is a good thought, too, for every Christian and -For a good while the burden of the every church with regard to the work prayers at monthly concerts was for the of missions-our next year should be opening of doors, the breaking down of our best. We should surpass our best barriers. Now from all the fields comes past in praying, doing, and giving. We the cry that the dOOTS are open everyshould make our monthly concerts for where, and that the want is for men to 1892 the best we have ever had. We go in and occupy them. Later the should become more familiar with the prayers were for men and women who needs of the mission·fields, and with would go to the opening fields. These the nature and extent of the work that prayers have been answered, too, in the Church is doing. We should seek most wonderful manner, and to.day to kindle missionary interest among there are 6000 young Christians in our our friends as in no former year. We country alone who have volunteered should pray as never before for the for mission work, and are ready to go cause of missions. We should give wherever they are sent; and now the more than in any former year. cry from all societies is for money. Thus the responsibility for the work is -One of the address!ls of President thrown back upon Christian people Storrs at the recent meeting of the themselves. God has done His part in American Board closed with these opening doors and inclining men and strong words: "It is a vastly critical women to be willing to go as mission.
time in the progress of Christ's king- aries; He has answered our prayers.
dom, with all the world uprising before Are we going to fail him now? Said us, with wealth enough and men President Gates, in an address at the enough to meet the need, with only last meeting of the American Board: the spirit to use them wanting. Let us .. Oh, my brothers, what answer can settle it in our minds that the world is we give for ourselves before the judg.
not to be converted to God by good ment-throne of God, if this glorious people sitting in pews and listening to work of preaching the Gospel of light sermons, even the best, or sitting in to dying men is checked and dwarfed, rocking-chairs and reading good books. and fails of its glorious possibility, be.
The work is vast, difficult, possible-a cause we who are God's stewards hold work that calls for the labor of enthu- fast to God's money for our own selfish siasm, for prayer and tears, for sweat· uses? There is a time when the AI.
drops, and, perhaps, for blood-drops. mighty Banker of the universe calls in Contributions of money are not enough. His loans. " 68 THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. [January -There are indications that the time mooring from all its past, and is emis at hand for a great blessing in India. barking upon a movement that must This " slow old land" is beginning to lead on to the greatest of revolutions in arouse from her sleep of centuries and its internal life and external relations." respond to the tender touch of a faith He adds: "The time is most opporthat regenerates. Dr. Phillips writes tune for the pressing of missionary almost enthusiastically of the outlook. work at every point, in every. form, There are open doors on every side. with all our power. The present dis- Prayers are being answered and long, turbances, while not without elements patient labor is having its reward. All of anxiety, are rather symptoms of the India is ready for a forward movement. general ferment that is spreading than In Life and Light we are told of a wide- of a reaction, and will doubtless in the spread restlessness and a spirit of in- end lead to a far more open door for all quiry in India. In a Madras paper eTangelistic work. " these lines are given as the cry of a multitude to-day: -The condition of things in Japan is such as calls for much earnest prayer "We are weary of empty creeds, at the opening of a new year. The Of guides who show no man the way, country is undergoing a wonderful Of worship linked with lust and shame; transformation. Great progress is Life is an iiI, the sea of births is wide, being made in all departments of na- And we are weary-who shall be our guide 1" tional life. The influences of Chris- tianity and of civilization have swept Thank God for those consciously weary through the country in the last few and heavy laden, to whom the mission- years with marvellous rapidity, The aries may carry the pitying, "Come new empire with its constitutional govunto Me, and ye shall find rest for your ernment takes its place almost alongsouls." side the most enlightened European governments in its freedom and liber- -It is to be hoped that the troubles ality. In the Parliament of 300 memin China are not altogether discourag- bers, 13 are professedly Christian men. ing. May there not be an indication The work of Christian missions in that in them of the beginning of a change land has been prospered beyo'nd the in that wonderful country which shall most sanguine hopes of the Church. leave it a new China? Western thought is breaking in among the peo- But in the midRt of all this progress ple. Modern science is forcing itself and success there are dangers besetting through the old walls, and the country the interests of Christianity and of the is feeling its power. Telegraph wires empire, through which only the hand are stretching everywhere. Western in- of God can guide the country. Says ventions are revolutionizing everything. Dr. Ellinwood: "At the present time China is about breaking its old bonds. the forces which array themselves This is the fruit of Christian missions. against the missionary work in Japan The Bible is doing it. There is unrest are entering into a strong alliance, with for the time; there are persecutions a determination to resist the aggressive of missionaries; but while these things influence of Christianity. Very natuare disheartening in a sense, yet there rally the advocates of the old systems is in them an element of victorious- of Japan, as well as the converts to ness. The leaven of Christianity is various types of western infidelity, are working. Says one of the mission sec- alarmed at the influence which Chris· retaries: "Internal changes of striking tianity is gaining in Japan. . • . Books character assure us that this nation of also have recently been published by venerable antiquity and proverbial con- native authors, which earnestly advo· servatism, almost without its knowledge oate a union of all Buddhist sects and and against its will, is in reality unan alliance with the philosophies (in- worship and schools in their own fidel) of the West, in resistance to the dwellings, this order, whioh has not yet missionary efforts of the Christian been executed, but which at any time Church. Evidently Japan is now the might be, is one which may cause serio theatre of one of the most active con- ous trouble. These outcroppings of a flicts of religious and philosophical persecuting and intolerant spirit show thought that the world has known, and a disposition at least to trouble and in. the Christian Church needs to regard terfere with the work of missions in it the more seriously, from the fact that that old country_ Christian truth has no such advantage there as in countries where the momen- -Africa is wide open now to the tum of many generations of Christian Gospel. The explorations of the last influence constitutes an immense con- thirty years have revealed a heretofore servative force. All questions in Japan, terra incognita, and where the old maps to a generation which has had only the had" Great Afrioan Desert," the newer' antecedents of error, are open ques- maps have rivers, lakes, and mountains tions ; and Christianity must take its and great peoples. Rnilroads are being even chances with every other form of built to supplement the splendid water belief or unbelief, save as the omnip- highways whioh nature has provided. otent Spirit of God shall prompt and The doorl;! of language are also being direct the work in answer to the pray- opened ahd mainly by missionaries ers and efforts of His people. " themselves. Four hundred and thirty. eight languages and 143 dialects have There should. therefore, be earnest been oatalogued. Thus a new world is and importunate prayer for Japan, that open to the Gospel. In the Congo Val. wisdom may be given to the men called ley alone is a population equal to that to direct in missionary work; that the of the United States. Stanley travelled Christian Churoh there may be kept in 999 days 7000 miles and never saw from yielding to worldly influences or the face of a Christian, nor of a man counsels, and from all divisions and who had had the opportunity to become dissensions; that the cause of Christ one. Yet he moved among a populamay be advanced until the empire shall tion of fifty millions. What will the be indeed Christian. Church do to send the Gospel through these wide open doors into Afrioa in -There is trouble also in Turkey, 1892? appealing to the prayers of Christian people everywhere. The government -It used to be said that in India the seems desirous to check moral and intel- birds never sing, the flowers have. no lectual progress, and therefore is assum- fragrance, and the women never smile. ing an unfriendly attitude toward mis- No wonder the women of heathen lands sions. Several acts have been com- never smile. Their lot is sad beyond mitted whioh show this hostility. Mis. description, but a better day has come sionaries have been arrested without for them. The Christian women of cause and kept in close confinement, Christian lands are hastening to give as it they were guilty of some grave their sad sisters the blessed story of offenoe. The government also con· the Gospel. There are in the United fisoated a large number of hymn-books States 34 women's foreign missionary and Bible diotionaries belonging to the societies, 10 in Canada, 24 in Great Amerioan mission. In October last the Britain, 1 on the continent of Europe, Sublime Porte issued an order prohibit. and 1 in South Africa. The work that ing the holding of public worship or has been done by these societies, espe. conduoting of sohools in dwellinghouses. As many missionaries conduot cially for the women of heathen lands, only a desire to please white people in is one whose value and influence can- the awkward appointments of their not be estimated. It would be easy to home, they would be of little account; gather up and present here a table of but in many cases it is the outward sign atatistics (see page 954, December num- of a prooess of change which will eventber of REVIEW), but large as ,the figures ualIy rectify even their distorted family would be, they would give no adequate relationships-a heritage from their view of the resulta of the work which heathen ancestry. The desire for a woman, with her loving hear' and her better home life has somehow been imgentle touch, is doing for her sister planted in the young wife's heart during woman in darkened countries. One her school.life. looked at an opal as it lay on a jeweller's case, and it seemed cold and lustre- -Faraday showed that a drop of dew less. Then the jeweller held the stone oontains electrioity enough to rend a in his hand for a few moments, and rook. The Gospel of Christ has in it now it shone with all the colors of the all the power of God and can work marrainbow. It needed the touch of a hu- vels, as it has already wrought marvels man hand to bring out the iridescence. in saving men. Like that stone in its case are the millions of women in heathendom. Their -If we can do nothing else, or whatlives are dull and sad and without ever else we may do, we oan all pray beauty, but they require only the for the blessing of God upon the work warmth of the hands of Christian women of Christian missions, and prayer has to draw out all the beauty that.slumbers mighty power. The worship of Durga, in their nature. "Godly women have the blood.goddess of the Hindus, is atproved themselves the link, so long tended by the most terrible excesses of missing, to bring their sisters in East- sin. Some native converts have agreed ern lands to the feet of Jesus." that every evening this worship goes on they also will meet to pray to God to -The establishment of Christian put an end to the wicked practices. homes is one of the finest results of " Let us go on praying night after night missionary work in heathen lands, and year after year," they say, .. tm we hence the beauty of a picture which a have prayed down the Dllrga Puja. missionary draws of what is being done Let us pray it down. ' , Christians for Zulu girls in the Inanda Seminary: everywhere should join in all such The humble little home shows that the prayers. wife and mother has tried with the little means at her disposal to give a home- -Some idea of the difficulties of city like look to the place. There will be a evangelization may be gotten from a curtain at the window, a cushion on the statement, by the President of the wooden settee, and a bit of frilled cre- Methodist Church .Extension Society, tonne about the shelf which holds her that within one square mile of New lamp and a few books. If it be objected York City there are 20,000 people, nineby the wise in such matters that the teen twentieths of whom are foreign Turkey red and white of the window born and speak 30 different languages. decorations are not artistic, nor the Yet no work is more important just now friII of cheap cretonne, nor the patch- than that which needs to be done in work quilt whioh covers the bed, we our great cities if they are to be saved say, perhaps not, but the mark of the for Chrh!t. The real heathenism that woman's hand and care to our 'mind is found in many of them is appalling. make the dark little room much less One of the most hopeful of recent cheerless. If these things indicate movements is that which looks toward poses purely religious. Within the cen.
the regeneration of the slums. In Lon. tury now drawing to a close 150,000,000 don and now in New York there has copies of the Bible have been printed been an arousing of the people which in 226 different languages. Fifty years promises much. The work should go ago there were 502 mission stations in forward till all the cities have been foreign parts; there are now 5765.
cleansed. One of the saddest things Fifty years ago there were 653 ordained about the slums is that they are fed missionaries; to.day there are 6696 from the churches and Sunday-schools such servants of the Lord. Then there and from Christian homes. The peo. were but 1266 other laborers and help.
pIe there have fallen out and have ers abroad; now there are 50,552.
drifted downward to where they now are. Many of them have memories of -There is a view of the benefits of better days, even of holy things. In foreign missions which should appeal our prayers at the Monthly Concert, the even to worldly men. General Arm· efforts to evangelize our cities should strong says: "America, through the have a place. American Board, expended in fifty years a million and a quarter dollars to -As nearly as can be computed from evangelize Hawaii, and during that the reports of various societies, the fol. time has received about $4,000,000 a lowing summary of Protestant foreign year in trade. England's missions are missions is correct. From churches in said to bring back £10 in trade for United States, Canada, Great Britain, every pound given to convert the and Continental Europe there are in heathen. Christianity means a demand foreign lands 8048 stations and out- for clothing and utensils. The first stations, with 5594 missionaries, 35,343 sign of grace in a penitent savage is a native helpers, and 681,503 communi· request for a .shirt.- cants. The amount of money given last year was $11,429,588. Of COUlse -A writer in the Children's World this summary is incomplete, as there says: "Of every six infants in the are unreported missions and mission. world, one is born in India; of every aries. six orphan girls, one is wandering in India; of every six widows, one is -The reports of the Americsn Board mourning in India; of every six men give the following facts: The Board that die, one is passing into eternity in has under its care 21 central missions India. Think of it, and give India a with 97 stations, 1136 out·stations and part of your prayers•• , 1287 preaching places. A total of 538 missionaries are employed, with 2648 -After two missionary sermons in native laborers. There are 410 churches Melbourne recently a hard.working man with 38,226 church.members. During sent in thetitle·deeds of 93t acres offarmthe year the additions were 3554. In land, worth about $2500, to be divided schools of all kinds 46,403 pupils are between India and New Guinea. Being reported. Medical relief was given duro asked afterward about his gift, he said: ing the year to 100,000 patients. ." This is how I look at it. Supposing I were a boy and my father gave me $5, -The following figures are full of but afterward wanted part of the money interest. Seventy.five million dollars back again to help him in some work are contributed yearly in the United he was doing, and he came to me to States to the sustenance of the Church, help him, and I gave him a five·cent $31,000,000 more being given for pur. piece, what sort of a Bon should I be ?"
'12 GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Orga.nized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O. .
-Hermann Wagner and Alexander upon them as touching the redemption Supan have recently published a vol· of the world. All the more since they ume of statistics relating to the popula- are such inveterate and indomitable tion of the globe. Of course the figures travellers, traders, colonizers, and buildthey give for countries not a few are ers of States. Most of all is the call of but estimates, and sometimes are but Providence to British Christians to beguesses; but taken all in all are no stir themselves for the Master, since the doubt the best to be had. They fix the sway of their government is so supreme number of the human family at 1,480,- over so large a fraction of the human 000,000, Of these there are in Europe, race. 326,000,000; in Asia, 826,000,000; in Africa, 164,000,000; in America, 122,_ -India is ten times larger than Ja- 000,000 ; in Australia, 3,000,000; and pan, China nearly three times as large in the Oceanio Islands, 7,500,000. as India, and Africa twice as large as China has 350,000,000 and India 324,- India and China combined. The 000,000, of whom 286,000,000 belong to "Dark" Continent is of vast propor- British India_ Russia has 93,000,000 ; tions as well, and contains a vast multithe German Empire, 49,000,000; Aus- tude which is well-nigh altogether either tria-Hungary, 41,000,000 ; Franoe, and pagan or else Mohammedan. Call the Great Britain and Ireland, 38,000,000 population 164,000,000, acoording to eaoh; Italy, 30,000,000, and Spain, 17,- the latest estimate, that of Wagner and 000,000. But another authority, Pro- Supan, and what impression has been fessor Von Juraschek, gives 1,544,000,- made upon it by the Gospel? Accord- 000 as the population of the world, of ing to a Danish authority, the Rev. whioh Europe has 358,000,000 and the Dean Vahl, in 1890 there were laboring Americas 124,000,000. in Africa, and representing all Christen- dom, 1004 missionaries and 206 women, -" When Shakespeare lived and and 878 native missionaries with 8389 sang, 300 years ago, on the whole globe other native helpers, or a total force of there were less than a million more 10,477, and the fruit of their toil is English-speaking people than now in- found in 214,561 oonverts or communihabit London alone. There were be- cants; but the" Encyclopredia of Mistween 5,000,000 and 6,000,000. So re- sions" gives a list of 43 missionary socently as a century ago, even after this cieties at work between the Mediterrarepublic was founded, there were only nean and the Cape, with 611 ordained 15,000,000 English-speaking persons on men, 170 unordained, 387 women, 209 the globe. At the same date 30,000,000 ordained natives, 4891 native helpers, spoke French and 40,000,000 German. or a total of 6268 persons engaged in Now we find that While the French and bearing the glad tidings to the perish- German tongues are spoken by a rea- ing. Into 565 churches 101,212 souls sonably increased number of individ- have been gathered, 9439 were admitted uals in the world to-day, in Australasia, last year, and 53,235 pupils are receivthe British isles, and in America 115,- ing instruction in 861 schools. These 000,000 olaim English as their mother figures stand for what Protestant Christongue. This is 40 pel' oent of the in- tians are doing-that is, they have sent habitants of the oivilized world." If 1168 men and women to Africa, or such is the fact, it follows that Anglo- about one to every 150,000. Saxon, English-speaking Christians have a tremendous responsibility laid -Next see-one item from many- what the devil and his angels are doing to maintain his widespread and fear- single Christian of every denomination, fully well-established sovereignty over at least 2 Buddhist priests (not head- Africa. The following tabulated state- priests). So there is a population of ment, printed in the {!hristian Union and over 39,000,000 of Japanese without a obtained from the Boston Custom single Christian among them. Once House, shows the exportation of rum to more, if all the Christians in Japan were Africa from the Port of Boston during congregated· in the city of Osaka (500,- the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1891 : 000), there would be in that one city 4 times as many heathen as Christians, …. …. and not a single Christian in any other ;:~ :~ :: :: :: :. part of the country. No, Japan is not r … :: ::: yet a Christian country; and there is room and need for hundreds if not I thousands of missionaries and native evangelists, if this people is to be saved il ere the Lord come." Then ponder this concerning India: "Since 1881 the For two or three years this traffic, which population has increased by 29,000,000 partakes so largely of the inhuman and -that is to say, almost as many souls the hellish, was reported as steadily have been added to the people of India falling off, but now it has again reached in ten years as are comprised in the high-water mark. whole population of England and Wales. The total is now 286,000,000. India -More than one fourth of the earth's contains more people than all Africa inhabitants are crowded into China and and South America combined; more Japan, and more than one fifth into than all Europe, excluding Russia; India; but after all the phenomenal nearly ten times the popUlation of Engsuccess which the Gospel has had in land. Or take the provinces, Bengal Japan, but a trifling beginning has been alone has more souls than the United made. An English missionary states States and Canada combined; the Punthe following facts: "To-day there are jab more than Spain and Portugal ; the 40,000,000 in Japan, and not 40,000, Madras Presidency, equal to Italy and Protestant Christians-that is, one in Belgium together. Each missionary, 1000. For every 2 Christians there are on an average, has 250,000 Bouls to 5 Buddhist temples, not to mention reach." And then, as for China, "not Shinto temples. There are 10,000 more one in 10,000 has as yet ever even heard head-priests of Buddhism than there are of Jesus Christ." Among China's 350,- Protestant Christians, and for every 000,000, 30 ProtAstant societies sustain in all less than 1300 men and women (at the rate of one to 270,000 heathen), something more than 40,000 have been gathered into churches, and about 15,- 000 are receiving instruction in Chris- tian schools. Evidently the call for 1000 more missionaries to labor in China alone is a most modest and reasonable one.
-Or, glance at South America with 7,500,000 square miles and a popula- tion of about 35,500,000. Over almost the entire continent the papacy bears undisputed sway, and heathenism holds the rest. Including the American Bible committed to our trust-as contrasted Society, 8 societies are endeavoring to with the superabounding opportunities diffuse a pure Gospel-the Methodist of this Christian land, where one per- Episcopal Church, North and South, son in every 600 of its 63,000,000 is an the Presbyterian, North and South, the evangelical minister, and one in every Southern Baptist, -the Moravian, and 5 is a professed disciple of the Lord the South American Missionary Society Jesus Christ? Is $6 out of $100, $94 of England. The number of men and being retained for work at home, is $20 women at work is but about 325, and out of $100, $80 being retained for be- the number of communicants is less nevolent work at home, a fair propor- than 15,000. There remaineth yet very tion ?"
much land to be possessed. -0£ the 15,730,000 people of Hun- gary, 3,200,000 are Protestants. Of -Of course there should be some fair these again 2,030,000 are Reformed -that is, some truly Christian-propor- and 1,120,000 Lutherans. The latter tion established and maintained in our have 1195 pastors and 1433 congrega- churches between home expenses, home tions; the former 4241 congregations missions, and foreign missions; and served by 2283 pastors. The Unitarians hence these words of Secretary Alden, number about 1i0,000, organized into of the American Board, are well worthy 187 congregations with 107 pastors. of careful consideration. His figures The Protestants are very active in edu- relate to the Congregationalists. He cational and literary work. The num- says : " There are 4817 chnrches with ber of their schools is 3826, besides 14 a membership of 506,832, a Sunday- preparatory schools for teachers, 52 school membership of 613,810. The high schools, and 13 theological schools. reported contributions for 1890 for , home expenditures' in round numbers -Says Bishop Walden: "Italy has were $6,100,000, and for the several de- above 30,000,000 of people, of whom bepartments of home benevolence $1,900,- tween 25,000 and 30,000 are connected 000, a total of $8,000,000. The reported with some Protestant organization-not contributions for foreign missions were more than one in every thousand of the $350,000. Suppose we add the gener- population. In 1890, 6 Protestant bodies ous sum of $150,000, t6 represent possi- reported 23,452 members, but besides ble unreported contributions, and thus these there is the mission of the Plycall the contibutions to foreign missions mouth Brethren, a few small indepen- $500,000; we have then a total from dent missions, and the several Anglican benevolent contributions, excluding and other foreign churches. The entire legacies, of $2,400,000-that is, $80 out Protestant force, however, must fall beof every $100 is for work at home, $20 low 30,000. The Methodist contingent for work abroad. Bringing in, how- is about 2500, a little more than 1500 ever, the entire home expenditures, are found in the Wesleyan, and a little which is a proper thing to do, we have less than 1000 in the Methodist Episcoan aggregate of $8,500,000. On this pal Mission. The Waldensian Church basis, $94 out of every $100 is devoted began the work of evangelization in to the support of Christian institutions 1848, and reports 18,000; the Free and Christian bene,olence at home, and Church of Italy, united in one body in $6 for the corresponding work abroad. 1865, reports 1800; the Baptist less We ask, Is this a fair proportion? We than 900, and the 'Italian Catholic repeat the question, Is this a fair pro- Church' about 100. Such is the nuportion, particularly when we remem- merical strength of Protestantism in ber the perishing need of the unevan· Italy."
gelized nations-not less than 120,000,- -Belgium received its Roman Catho- 000 of their popUlation being specially lic impress under the iron rule of Philip of Spain, and is to-day, along with Agency, South Dakota, says: "We Spain, the country most devoted to the have just closed the convocation of our papacy, and is in the eyes of the Ro- Indian deanery, which, despite the late man Catholic Church, a true, ideal disturbances, was the largest in num- state. Among its 6,000,000 inhabitants bers and offerings we have ever had. not more than 20,000 are Protestant. Over 1500 people camped around an In 1837 a number of Protestants, among open circle. The women, representing • whom was the well-known Merle d' Au- 36 local branches of the Woman's Aux_ bigne and the church elder Mertens, of iliary, presented in cash $800, and the Breslau, founded the" Evangelical So· young men $170 for all sorts of chari- ciety of Belgium." In 1848 a church, ties, among them being work in Japan consisting of 49 converted Catholics, and China, missions in South Dakota, was organized upon a Presbyterian ba- the Episcopate fund, the native clergy sis, under the name of the" Christian fund, and other objects." Mission Church of Belgium." Accord ing to the statistics of 1889 it consisted -The secretaries of the Missionary of 2; churches, 22 ministers, 81 elders, Society of the Methodist Episcopal 104 deacons, 4 evangelists, 8 Bible Church have issued a circular letter readers, 5 colporteurs, and 4 students showing how the collections for mis- of theology, all under the direction of sions have been steadily advancing, bnt 3 local synods and one general Synod. calling attention to the fact that the In 1888 the number of communicants demand is advancing at a greater rate was 4396 ; Sabbath-schools, 59; schol- than the supply. The table appended ars, 2631. Besides this free church, gives a snmmary of the collections for there is also the Belgian National (Prot- the past seven years for the general estant) Church, whose ministers are work of the Society, both at home and paid by the State. abroad: -What a spectacle was beheld at the 3 … ""~~~o;~~&? :.''","e; Yankton Agency, S. D., a few weeks since, when 1000 Sioux, representing 0 8i~~~f8~~ 0~0 16 tribes-the Omahas, Santees, Yanktons, Yanktonnais, Brules, Ogalalas, E-< :l:g-o"o&'<5~ g,..f…,.t…§….,.,…g……,.,l……i…<is Minnecaujus, Two-kettles, Blackfeet, Hauhapapi, Sissetons, Wahpetons, As- … .,; &3~~8~~~ ~ siniboins, Rees, Mandans, and Gros … ~~E~~~~ <Xi Ventres-came together to hold an an- ~ ~'" nual meeting to tell and to hear the '" ~~~~"t:!~fi 0> story of the victories of the cross. And 0 Ui>""''''''''''' ,…. it was only a year before that the" Mes- c0>r siah crRZe" and the war were on. These were all Christian brethren and Presby- ~ terians and Congregationalists. Among the subjects in which the Indians took -"'" g;:ll~c;;188;g1~ an active and eloquent part were these: " How to Prevent the People from Being … .,S,-. ~_~_~_~_~_~.~_c:!~: Led Away by False Religions," " Should "'"::: 0 Mourners Refrain from Attending Pub- … ~ ":'g~<"o'&~5g"s'"'''','..'..'~'..S.'..;~lIo~ ~> lic Worship 1" "How to Make Prepara- 0 tion for the Sabbath," "The Proper 0 Uses which the Dakotas Should Make of Money Annuities." And further, Ii Bishop Hare, writing from the Rosebud ~ ~ E-< illi§JOCi§OJl&:51-2-O&O5~0g0 I ,…. ""'''''''''''''''''''"'''i?""t -The Presbyterian Church, North, is doing earnest work with excellent results in Western Persia, Rev. J, H. Shedd states: "Four of the churches, with professing Christians of the country.
an aggregate of 879 members, support The system of church polity, which has themselves, and 2 of them contribute slowly developed itself, is rather a com- largely for helping others; 5 other bination of Independency, Presbyteri- churches, with less than 100 members anism, and Episcopacy. An Anglican each, pay half or more of their ex- mission works chiefly on the East Coast, penses, and 28 others pay a less sum to with a bishop and cathedral at Antan- self-support. The tacit understanding anarivo. A Roman Catholic bishop is is that a church of 100 members ought also stationed at the capital. There to be self-supporting. There are some are about 28 missionaries of the London 20 other mission stations-for the nomi- Missionary Society in Madagascar, 10 nal Christians-home missions. One of the Friends' Mission, 10 of the Angli- fourth of this advance work is from the can Mission, 26 of the Norwegian Lu- native missionary fund, and three therans, and about 40 priests and fourths from our mission. The whole brothers of the Roman Catholic Mission.
of this agency cost the New York Board as well as sevflral Sisters of Mercy.
last year $3741, an average of $62 a The London Missionary Society has congregation, to help the development about 950 native pastors and about 100 of the native church and home mis- evangelists or native missionaries sta- sions. Last winter nearly 100 schools tioned in various parts of the country, and over 2000 pupils were cared for at many of them in quite heathen dis- an expense to the Board of $1582.50, an tricts. There are about 350,000 Protes- average of $16 to a school, about 75 tants and about 35,000 Roman Catho- cents to a pupil. To this should be lics. Five sixths of the Malagasy are added the sums given in self-support. still pagans. Schools have been estab- A few schools are entirely self-support- lished, and education is compulsory ing, and all pay some part of the ex- wherever the influence of the central pense, except in a few very peculiar government is effective. All the mis.
cases. In a few places Moslem pupils sionary societies at work in Madagascar attend. The higher education of the col- have colleges and high schools, the lat- lege or female seminary costs the Board ter both for boys and girls, in all of a larger sum. The number of pupils which education is given ~reely, with in the united schools, male and female, but nominal charges for books, etc. Al- was 337 the year past. Of these 202 most every congregation, except the were boarding pupils. The income smallest and the weakest, has its school.
from these is almost enough to pay for The London Missionary Society has their board. The charge to the Board also an industrial school for teaching aside from missionary salaries was handicrafts. Hospitals and medical $2200, which covers expenses of teach- schools are also connected with this So- ers, buildings, rooms, and some inci- ciety, as well as with the Friends, Lu.
dentals. It is about $11 a pupil for the theran and Anglican Missions, and boarding departments." there are now a number of trained doc- tors and surgeons. It is estimated there -A large portion of the Hova and of are about 1800 schools and about 170,- the other tribes in the central districts 000 children under instruction, but it is of Madagascar have been christianized, difficult to get the statistics of the Ro- and Christianity is acknowledged and man Catholic Mission.
protected by the government. There is no state church, although the queen -The Moravian (Bethlehem, Pa.) very and principal officers of the government properly, and in excellent spirit, calls are Qonnected with the churches formed attention to certain misstatements con- by the London Missionary Society, tained in the" October" number of THE which comprises the vast majority of MIsSIONARY REVIEW, "usually so accurate," relating both to the total expen- misstatement referred to is found not diture for missions made by that body in October, but in November instead.
of Christians aD.d the amount contrib- uted by friends from outside. Now, he who would knowingly offend in that way, and thus" belittle the liberality" Monthly Bulletin. of a church which just there comes nearest to the Gospel ideal, would by -News of the death of Miss Jennie the act prove himself the chief of sin- B. Small, a missionary of the Presbyteners. The mistake is deeply regretted, rian Board of Foreign Missions, at and originated wholly from partial and Petchaburee, Siam, on June 2, has been so defective information. However, received. Miss Small taught school for Borrow is not altogether unmingled several years in Mansfield, Allegheny with joy, since the opportunity is thus County, Pa.
afforded to present the facts, which for -The Zambesi Chief Lewanika has substance, The Moravian being author- sent his eldest son Litia to Morija, in ity, are as follows; "The total cost of Basutoland, to receive Christian inour missions in 1890 was $350,475. struction. The chief has many excel- The largest proportion of this-more lent parts, and for some time has been than two thirds-was raised in the mis- on terms of friendship with M. Coilsion fields themselves, through the con- lard, of the Paris Society of Missions, tributions of the converts and also from and Litia himself is a promising young the proceeds of trades carried on in man of Christian character. certain mission-provinces for the benefit of the missions. The sum of $24,060 -The London Christian says; "The is to be credited, as THE MISSIONARY Chinese Government is now taking very REVIEW puts it, to the ' Brethren's con- vigorous steps to suppress and to pregregations,' but this is not all. The vent attacks on missionaries. We may Labrador and the Alaska accounts do therefore reasonably trust that those not pass through our General Board. who are carrying the Word of God into Labrador entailed an outlay of $9800, that distant land will be in less danger Alaska of $8400. The gifts from friends than has recently been the case. This in Britain, including therefore those of is something to thank God for not only the London Association referred to were for the sake of the missionaries, but of $26,686 ; on the Continent of Europe, the future weal of China itself."
$22,656 ; in America, $285. [Total gifts -The work among the blind in Syria from friends, $49,627.] Mite societies is full of interest. The number of blind in the various Moravian congregations seen in the East is very distressing. contributed $3430. Legacies were receiv- There are blind schools at Beirut, Daed to the amount of $23,670, and the in- mascus and Tyre. Blind Scripture come from funded legacies was $37,264. readers have the entree of Moslem homes, How much of the last two items should a privilege which blindness confers. be credited to members, and how much One of the earliest pupils in the Beirut to friends of the Moravian Church, we Blind School, after completing his are not able to say. It may be added studies in Edinburgh University, has that the entire cost of administration been ordained pastor of the Presbytewas but $16,570, and that the total of rian church of Knox, in Brussels, Onadherents is now 90,020, while the tario. home churches number less than 35,- 000." It will be noticed that a portion -The first section of the little rail- of the $350,475 is derived from the road which is to connect Jaffa with Jern- " proceeds of trades." salem has been completed, and tourists Surely, humanum est errare, and the are now able to travel by rail from Jaffa to Ramleh, about one third the dis- Glasgow, said, at the annual meeting of tance. It will not be long before pil- the London Missionary Society, that grims to the Holy Land will be whisked missionaries did not sufficiently raise in an hour from the sea to Jerusalem, the veil and tell what Hinduism is.
to the ~reat disgust of camel owners One could not speak about it and and stage proprietors_ scarcely write about it. Almost every -Some of the Indian women on the temple in India had from 30 to 200 Yakama and Puyallup reservations have priestesses engaged in vice. That was asked that women evangelists be sent how Hinduism dealt with woman. to them, and in response Mrs. E. C. Miller has been sent to Yakama, and -The Bev. Allen Hazen, formerly a Mrs. Bell to Puyallup. The doing of missionary in India, and more recently Gospel work among Indian women will a pastor in New Zealand, has returned, result in great good. If they can be at the age of sixty-eight, accompanied taught the blessedness of peace, and be by his daughter, born in India, to re_ made to know the Prince of Peace, sume, at his own charges, his old work in the Marathi Mission.
Indian wars will soon come to an end. –In an interesting paper in a recent -At the "Keswick Convention," in number of The Church of Scotland Home England, there was a missionary meet- and Foreign XtSsian Record, Rev. Dr. ing, at which many addresses were Mackinnon, of Heidelberg, calls attenmade by missionaries from many lands tion to the thoroughness with which -among others, by Mrs. Grattan Guin- German missionaries are trained for ness, representing, as she said, mission- their work. Their systematic method aries on the Congo River, Mrica, and is said to be remarkable indeed in comby Mr. Robert Wilder, who described parison with the lax preparatory trainthe great volunteer missionary move- ing in some other countries largely enment in the United States_ A very gaged in missionary effort. After satispractical issue of the Convention was factory proof of their fitness for the the fact that a multitude of gifts, vary- life, the candidates in Germany are ading in amount from a few shillings to mitted to attend the Mission House one hundreds of pounds, and reaching the evening in the week for a year. They grand total of £1814, were sent in to be are then entered upon the books of the devoted to the cause of God at home preparatory school for two years for inand abroad. struction in Latin, etc. After this they have a course of instruction of a theo- -A Japanese converted to Christ logical nature, including the study of seems at once to betake himself to the the Bible in the original tongue, and a labor of teaching the truth to his friends few sessions of medical training in the at home and at a distance, and thus is hospital. The years thus spent are use- the way prepared for the minister of ful in developing in the future mission- Christ. No wonder that, with such ary many qualities which are of the ut- preparatory service, the truth is run- most value in the mission field. The ning in that land, and being glorified. rllsult is that men are sent out who are -Mrs. L. J. Newton, in a recent ad- in every way worthy of their work, and dress to the Missionary Conference held who undertake it thoroughly equipped at Chautauqua, speaking of progress in for the master's service. the Punjab, India, said: "We have $7000 invested in our church and hos- -The American Baptist Missionary pital at Ferozepore, every cent of which Union is supporting eighteen preachers was given by native converts." in Russia. One has been exiled to Si- beria for preaching the Gospel, and an- other sent out of the country with only -The Rev. Professor Lindsay, ..··of three hours' notice. -A Misil Agnew, of New York, it is cheerfully, 'and he lived there in the said, when only eight years old gave most frugal and primitive fashion. He her heart to· mission work. She went had no notion of being too valuable in to Ceylon, and spent forty-three un- Europe to be hidden away in the almost broken years. A thousand girls passed inaccessible uplands of Asia. He was through her school. She taught the a true Moravian.
children and the grandchildren of the first generation. The natives called -King Mwanga of Uganda has proher the mother of a thousand daughters. hibited slavery in his dominions.
IShe led six hundred girls to Christ. -The Queen of Madagascar, with They became the wives of the chief 200,000 of· her subjects, is ranged on men, and were shining lights. There the side of Christianity.
are also forty Bible women in India -At Oyamada, Japan, the church of who were trained in her school. 100 members has built a church costing -A few weeks ago a leading Brahman $1300, of which they paid $900 them· in Bombay, an official in the education selves.
department, married the widowed -England proudly boasts that the daughter of another Brahman prominent sun never sets on her dominions. The in the literary world. The ceremony United States may say as much, for was attended by many Hindoos of note. when the sun sets in Alaska it is an The other Sunday a Bombay pleader hour high in Maine. convened a meeting to get sentence of expulsion pronounced upon all the -A medical missionary in China reo Shenvi Brahmans who were present at cently treated fourteen men in one day the marriage. The temple was crowded, who represented eleven of the eighteen but it is a remarkable evidence of prog- provinces of the Empire.
ress that only nine persons voted with -The four gospels have been transthe convener of the gathering. The lated into Uzbek, the language of 2,250" Shenvi is one of the most powerful 000 people in Central Asia, and pub- Brahman castes in Western India. lished by the British and Foreign Bible -The Moravians are alive to their in- Society.
dividual responsibility concerning the -Tunis is under the protection of unevangelized nations of the world, and France. It has a population of 2,000,.
they hold themse~ves in readiness to go 000, mostly Mohammedans, among out as missionaries when called upon whom drunkenness is prevalent.
to do so. This is true of the most -The work of telegraph building in scholarly and distinguished among them South Africa is pushed far ahead of rail· as well as of others. Henry Augustus road enterprise. Savage Africa will Jaeschke, late Moravian missionary in thus be joined with civilization by elec. Northern India and Thibet, besides Ger- tric wire. man was master of Polish, Danish and Swedish, and was acquainted with Eng- -The first section of the Congo raillish, Hungarian, Bohemian, Latin and way has been completed, from Matadi Greek, and, after going to the East, al. to Leopold Ravine, and construction ready knowing Sanskrit, Persian and trains are running.
Arabic, and, no doubt, Hebrew, he -The Chinese Government has fully learned Hindustani and Urdu, and compensated the missionaries in Honan lastly Thibetan. He was likewise for the injury to their property by a versed in mathematics and natural sci. mob only three months ago. ence, especially botany. He obeyed the call of his Church to go to the -The Comber family will be noted Himalayan regions unquestioningly and ,. in the martyr list of Congo Missions, having given five lives already to that -The Rev. Mr. LeWis, of England, work: Dr. Sidney Comber, Thomas J. died recently. In 1842 he went to Comber, Mrs.' Hay, Mrs. Thomas J. India, and having reduced the language Comber, and Mrs. Percy Comber. of the Khassees to writing, he devoted himself to translations, and was able Ohina.-The 32,000 native Chinese without any help but that given by his Moravian Christians gave year before wife, to translate the whole of the New last $38,000 for missionary work. Testament into Khassei. From the work which he started have developed -It is reported that, as a result of 60 churches with a membership of 7000. the great assistance given to the faminestricken people of Shantung, in 1889, -The Rev. W. F. Bainbridge tells the when over $200,000 were distributed following touching story of a Brahmin and over 100,000 lives saved, a great convert hemet in India: .. Ashe talked many have been drawn to pay special of his work and urged me to labor hard attention to Christianity as the religion in the interests of heathen evangelizawhich influences people for such deeds tion, I felt that it was not he, but Christ of kindness and mercy; and during speaking through him. Last mgnth a 1890 it is said that over a thousand per- Conconada brother wrote me of his sons were baptized whose attention was death. He had just officiated at a weddrawn' to the religion of Christ by the ding. A sudden sickness came on befact that the missionaries were so promi- fore he had signed the marriage certifinent in securing this aid and distribut- cate. 'Just your name, brother,' they ing it. Not by any means were all these said, as they put the paper unner his recipients of aid, but they saw what was hand, and the pen between his fingers_ being done for their fellow.men, and , Name? • said the dying Brahmin, compared the fruits of Christianity with , name? There is none other name the fmits ,of heathenism. given under heaven among men where- by we must be saved.' • Yes; but we -It is stated by Dr. Joseph Simms, want your own name. Quick I Write it.' who has lately returned from China, , My name? I have none other name that at least 200,000 girl babies are than the lamb's name written in my brutally killed in various ways every forehead.' And the pen moved and the year in that empire, to get them out of hand dropped, and the spirit was gone; the way. In every large city there are and they looked, and he had written asylums for tl:ie care of orphans, sup- 'Jesus.' .. ported and conducted by foreigners, who save yearly from slaughter tens of thousands of female infants.
India_-Sir Charles A. Elliott, the new -The Methodist Episcopal Church Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, speak- has three conferences in India, North ing at Simla, has added his testimony India, South India, alild Bengal. The to the value of missions as judged from statistics have recently been published the standpoint of high Indian officials. of the three combined, together with cor- .. I make bold to say," were his words, responding figures for 1870, and the " that if missions did not exist it would growth of 20 years thus shown is most be our duty to invent them." This is cheering. The figures for two decades what was said by the famous men who ago are put in parenthesis: Missionbuilt up the administration of the Pun- aries, 72 (19) ; wives, 62 (17); Hindustani jab, and who, when it was !1nnexed in missionaries, 54 (5); Zenana mission- 1849, among their first requirements, aries, 33 (2); baptisms in 1890, 7661 along with courts, and codes, and roads, (471); native communicants, 11,991 and police, wrote home to the Church (600) ; day schools, 853 (117) ; scholars, Missionary Society for a supply of mis- 25,540 (4309) ; money collected in India sionaries. in 1890,217,287 rupees (24,478).
The Missionary Review of the World — August 1891
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIV. No. S.-Old Series.–AUGUST.–voL. IV. No. S.-New Series.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-NO. XX.
[EDITORIAL, A. T. P.] THE DAY-DAWN AT THE HAWAIIAN GROUP.-II.
IN 1808, thirty years after the diticovery of the Hawaiian Islands by Captain Cook, a lad was brought to the United States by a shipmaster of New Haven.
His name was Obookiah, and he had been trained by his uncle, a pagan priest, to the practice of idolatry. On the eastern shore of Kealakekua Bay, opposite where Cook was slain, may yet be seen, rising above the ruins of a small heathen temple, a cocoanut tree planted by that boy when as yet he had never heard of J esns.
Obookiah was intelligent, and not long after his arrival at the City of Elms, Mr. Edwin W. Dwight, passing the college buildings, saw him seated on the doorsteps weeping because the treasures of learning, so freely opened to others, were 10ckAd to him. Sympathy led Mr. Dwight to become his instructor, and he was the instrument in his conversion. The next year Samuel J. Mills, the father of modern American missions, wrote to Gordon Hall, from New Haven, suggesting a mission to the Sandwich Islands. Eight years latAr a foreign missionary school was established at Cornwall, Conn., of which Mr. Dwight was the first teacher; and fiye 'It the ten earliest pupils were Hawaiians. Obookiah, while being taught here, died in 1818, aged 26, and that which seemed a sad blow to the prospective missionary work among his countrymen God nsed as the means of awakening greater interest by the published account of his life and death. Hiram Bingham, a student at Andover, offered to go as a missionary to the Hawaiian Islands, and found in Asa Thurston, a classmate, a worthy colleagne. These two men were ordained as evangelists, and on October 15th, 1819, in the Park Street Church, Boston, a mission to the IIawaiian Islands was organized with the following members: Messrs. Bingham and Thurston, ministers, with their wives; Messrs. Whitney and Ruggles, teachers j Thomas Holman, physician; Elisha Loomis, printer; Daniel Chamberlain, farmer, with their wives, and three Hawaiian young men from the Cornwall Missionary School. These seventeen went forth, having among themselves the essential elements for creating a Christian civilization upon pagan shores, for they represented the Gospel, the common school, the printingpress, the medicine chest, and the implements of agriculture.
They set sail from Boston Octobel' 23d, 1819, and reached the Hawaiian coast March 31st, 1820, after somewhat more than five months. They had expected a long, hard struggle with paganism, with its human sacrifices, bloody rites, and deep-rooted prejudices.
But God had prepared their way. Only ten months before, Kamehameha I. had died, and, strange to say, forbidden human sacrifices during his illness or in connection with his obsequies; and so the people offered three hundred dogs instead. This first blow at the idolatrous customs of the people had been dealt by a professed idolatcr! Liholiho, his son, succeedcd, Kaahumanu, the king's widow, sharing the government during life. The king's mother, Keopuolani, saw foreigners violating the sacred r'lles of the tabu system with impunity, and even the natives, when intoxicated, trampling heedlessly upon them, and yet no divine wrath pursued the violators; and satisfied that her fears were groundless, she herself dared to break over the sacred limits and eat with her son. Such an example would naturally find followers; other chiefs, and finally the king, yielded, and then began a ruthless disregard of these tyrannical caste restraints. They saw that the gods did not punish their profaning of sacred laws, and naturally concluded that their gods were but the creatures of their superstitions j and thus the chiefs actually led in a revolt against the national religion, ordering the tabu system to be disregarded and the idols burned and temples razed. Stranger still, the high-priest resigned his office, and " first applied the torch to this Hawaiian structure of an idolatrous faith !" He was Joined by many of the lower pries~hood, so that, before the arrival of the missionaries, idolatry was abolished by law, and heathen temples were laid in ashes. Perhaps for the first time in human history idolatry threw down its own altars, and a nation was without a religion. Moreover, in the civil war that had followed this abolition of the national religion, God had given victory to the king, and thus established the new order. The newly arrived missionaries found the old religion abolished, but no desire for a new faith. The king objected to giving up his polygamy, and feared the effect of an American mission on his political relations. The old high-priest, however, favored the missionaries, and the king's mother counselled toleration j and, after twelve days, royal consent being given for them to reside on the islands for a year, they disembarked, April 12th, 1820. Part of them were ordered to Kailau and part to Honolulu. Mr. and Mrs. Thurston and Dr. and Mrs. Holman for a time abode in one small thatched hut assigned by the king, which was less than four feet high at the foot of the rafters, and had neither floor nor ceiling, windows nor furniture, in the centre of a noisy, filthy village! Those at Honolulu likewise found themselves destitute of common comforts j but, as God's providence dispersed them among the people, they went without fear, and were kept from all evil. The king, his brother, his wives, and other prominent persons became their pupils. After two years the printing-press was called into use in re- ducing the language to a printed form. The Hawaiian tongue having but twelve letters-seven consonants and five vowels, every letter having bu~ one sound, and every syllable ending with a vowel-it was easy for the na- tives to learn' to read and write, and a large portion of them made rapid progress. Thus a foundation was laid for introducing the Bible in the na- tive tongue. Unfriendly foreigners represented the missionaries as politi- cal spies, and that their presence would be offensive to the English king, who bore to the Hawaiians the relation of protector, and declared that the missionaries at the Society Islands had robbed and enslaved the people j but these falsehoods were exposed at the very crisis, when the king threat- ened to banish the missionaries. An English vessel, touching at the Hawaiian port in 1822, had on boardfrom the Society Islands two chiefs on their way to the Marquesas group as missionaries, and had also on board a deputation of English gentlemen, who had been "isiting the islands on a missionary tour; and so the exact means were suddenly supplied to expose the false statements made by the enemies of the missionaries. Who could so well tell the true influence of missions in the Society Islands as the two converted chiefs! and who represent the feeling of the English Gov~ ernment so well as these men from British shores! God thus directly interposed at this juncture! Meanwhile, the wife of the late king made a tour of the i:>lands, searching out and destroying idols. Hymns were written in the native tongue; in 1823, twenty-four chiefs, male and female, were learning to read and write, and the missionary band was reinforced. The same year Keopuolani died, the first convert, baptized. In this daughter of a kingly race, wife of a king lJ,nd mother of two other kings, the Sandwich Island church began visibly to exist. She forbade the customary heathen abominations to be practised at her death, and from that day dates their permanent decline. Liholiho, in this same memorable year, visited America and England with his wife and two chiefs. The whole party were attacked with the measles in England, and the king and queen died. Liholiho had already, before leaving home, declared his belief in Christianity, attended public worship, and urged it on his people. At his death the favorite wife of his father became regent, and gave emphatic support to the Gospel and schools. Kapiolani, a female chief, made a journey to the great crater of Kilauea, where the great goddess Pele was said to dwell, and there purposely set at naught the power and wrath of the supposed deity to show the people their superstitious folly.
At the time of the visit of Lord Byron, in the British frigate which brought the royal remains, the government had begun to assume a Christian character, and the council formally acknowledged the authority of the Christian religion. Efforts were made, with royal sanction, to prevent murder, theft, infanticide, Sabbath desecration, licentiousness,. and drunkenness; and Kauikeaouli, the heir to the throne, now nine years old, was put under the instruction of the missionaries, that he might shun the errors of his deceased brother! A little more than five years after the first missionaries came, Kaahumanu, the regent, and nine chiefs were received into the church, and afterward died in the faith-a rare instance of a pagan govern- ment embracing the Gospel in advance of the people! Yet there was never a formal nnion of Church and State, but only concurrent action.
At Kawaihae 10,000 natives assembled, in 1826, to hear the Gospel. Governor Adams, the same year, built at Kailua a rude house of worship holding 5000 people, and at its dedication the rulers of the nation pledged it to Christianity. Schools were already in every district of the islands, with 400 teachers and 25,000 pupils, mostly adults. Such marvels had God wrought in six years!
At the regent's request, a second reinforcement was sent out in 1828, and another house of worship built at Honolulu. Another prominent chief, Kalanimokll, died in 1827 a triumphant Christian death, and during the three succeeding years, Governor Adams and other persons of great influence joined the church.
In 1832 Kaahumanu died, universally lamented, and the young prince of eeventeen, on assnming the sceptre, replied to the godless chiefs who sought to turn him against Christianity, " The Kingdom of God is strong!"
It bas sometimes been said, " Civilization first, Christianity afterward. " But on these islands Christianity far outran civilization. In 1836 the young king and chiefs applied to America for a carpenter, tailor, mason, shoemaker, wheelwright, paper-maker, type-founaer, agriculturists skilled in raising sugar-cane, cotton, silk, etc., cloth manufacturers and machinemakers; but already for ten years the Christian religion had been espoused by the government.
Rev. Mr. Richards was released from the service of the Board to act as Minister of Instruction, and Rev. Dr. Armstrong became Overseer of Schools. Dr. Judd, a physician, also retired from the missionary service to aid in administering the goverument finances, and it was he who, during the strange usurpation of the government by Lord Paulet in 1843, withdrew the national records to the royal tomb; and there, with the dust of dead sovereigns around him, using the sarcophagus of Kaahumanu as a table, for weeks he passed his nights in labors for the Hawaiian Government and people! To such aid and counsel of pious men, in secular affairs, the Hawaiians owe their progress and civilization.
As early as 1825 the spirit of God had begun to work conspicuously upon the Hawaiian people. In not less than fifty families in Lahaina morning and evening prayer ascended to God, and the number daily increased. Mr. Richards was interrupted every hour by calls from earnest inquirers. He woke in the morning to fi~d people waiting at the door; during the day the house was never empty, and even up to midnight there were those who came to ask the great questions of the soul! Six months before, he says that he wOl~ld have been satisfied if assured of such results aftflr the lapse of a whole generation! In 1835, when as yet the missions had been established barely fifteen years, the American Board felt their work to be fast drawing toward its elOISe. They looked forward to the Christianization of these islands as a glorious example and proof of the Gospel's power and as the greatest incen- tive to missionary zeal, but they dared not look for this result in less than a half century.
In hope to hasten this consummation, it was determined to concentrate efforts for a time upon this field, and in 1836 thirty-two additional laborers were sent out, and had scarce been distributed over the islands and begun to use the strange dialect, when a wave of spiritual influence, like the billows of the sea, swept over the islands, bore before it all traces of idols and idol temples, and left the Hawaiian people virtually cleansed of their pagan superstitions.
The first sound of its approach was heard in the general meetings of the missionaries in 1836-37, in resolute, importunate pleading for the conversion not of these islands only, but of the whole world j and a printed appeal to the churches of the United States was sent forth from the mission press.
Among the natives this great work of reformation began in 1838 at Waimea and at nearly all the stations on Hawaii, as also on Maui, Oahu, and Kaui. The power of the work left no doubt whose work it was! Dull and stupid, imbecile and ignorant pagans began to think and feel; grovelling, vile, and wretchod slaves of lust and passion began to aspire after holiness and rise out of their dust and degradation j hard and insensate consciences began to suffer pangs of sorrow for sin, and manifest the quickening of a sense of duty, and proved a' force at work, higher in source, deeper in reach, than any that man can wield! The islands became vocal with the cries of penitence and prayer! Crowds flocked to hear the Word. Intoxication became rare, Sabbath observance well-nigh universal, and family worship common, even among those who had not as yet publicly professed faith in Jesus !
In 1839, May lOth, the whole Bible was given to the people in their own tongue, and the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures greatly promoted the work of evangelization. Three years afterward the number of professing Christians had reached 19,210, nearly sixteen times greater than five years before. In one year more there were 23 churches, with an average membership of over one thousand! and during this season of extraordinary interest, the congregations at Ewa, Honolulu, Wailuku, and Hilo numbered from 2500 to 6000. From 1838 to 1841, 8000 were added to the church, from the districts of Hilo and Puna whose whole population was but 14,000. Mr. Coan admitted 5000 in one year and 1700 in one day; and only after eareful inquiry into each individual case.
When before did a half century produce such changes! They were idolaters of the grosser sort j human sacrifices were common; they worshipped the great volcano, had their Poison God and War God, and Tiari, with inferior deities and licentious revels. They lived under a tyrannical tabu system, were sunk in ignorance, without a literature or even a grammar in their own tongue, or a knowledge of the simplest principles of arithmetic. They were savages of the lowest sort, living in grass huts, almost naked, without the arts or sciences j superstition was their religion, absurd fancies had all the power of facts, and they lived in fear of their own thoughts. Government was the strong oppressing the weak, and subjection was slavery.
Shameless nakedness has disappeared j the people are decently clad j respect is paid to the natural, social and domestic relations, and wholesome statutes with appropriate sanctions sway the people.
Forty years ago it had become rare to see a drunken native! and the average morality and practical religion was as high as in any other nation. The arts of civilized life were practised j the laws protected and encouraged virtue.
Thirty years ago R. H. Dana, Esq., wrote to the New York Tribune: " The missionaries of the A. B. C. F. M. have, in less than forty years, taught this whole people to read, write, cipher, and sew j given them an alphabet, grammar, and dictionary j preserved their language from extinction, given it a literature, and translated into it the Bible and works of devotion, science, and entertainment, etc. j have established schools, reared up native teachers, so that the proportion of the inhabitants who can read and write is greater than in New England. Whereas they found these people halfnaked savages, living in the surf and on the sand, eating raw fish, fighting among themselves, tyrannized over by feudal chiefs, and abandoned to sensuality, we see them decently eIothed, recognizing the law of marriage, knowing something of accounts, going to school and public worship with more regularity than people do at home, and the more elevated part of them aiding to conduct the affairs of the constitutional monarchy under which they live, holding seats on the judicial bench and in the legislative chambers, and filling posts in the local magistracies!
"In every district are free schools for natives, where they are taught by native teachers reading, writing, singing by note, arithmetic, grammar, and geography. At Lahainaluna is the normal school for natives, in which the best scholars from the district schools are carried to an advanced stage of education, or fitted for teachers. At Punahou is the college, now having 70 students, and the examinations in Greek, Latin, and mathematics, which I attendcd, were particularly satisfactory. In no place that I havc visited are the rules which control vice and regulate amusements so strict, so reasonable, and so fairly enforced. A man may travel in the interior alone, unarmed, eYen through wildest spots. I found no hut without its Bible and hymn-book in the native tongue, and the practice of family prayer and grace before meat."
When Rev. Dr. Anderson visited the missions, in 1863, he bore witness that the government rests upon an avowedly Christian basis, and the Magna Charta of the kingdom is worthy of any government on earth, re6ognizing, since 1840, three grand divisions of a civilized monarchy: king, legislature, judges j and going beyond our own in declaring that no law &hall be enacted at variance with the letter or general spirit of the Word of God. In 1846 the religion of Christ was established as the national religion, and freedom of conscience in faith and worship, Sabbath observance, etc., were guarded from invasion.
These people have from the first profited by a literature in their native language, learning to read and write, and evincing capacity for literary culture not only by eagerness to read, but by original contributions to the press, and by grappling successfully with the problems of arithmetic, algebra, surveying, geography, etc.
From the beginning the Bible has been a text-book in morals and religion.
How can such results be regarded with indifference ~ An organized Christian government, with a constitution and laws accordant with the Word of God j nearly onethird of the whole population numbered among the members of Protestant churches j native education provided for by the government j houses' for worship everywhere built, and regular service maintained-in a word, all the requisite machinery for healthful, intel~ lectual, social, and spiritual development, and all this as the fruit of less than forty years of toil !
Well has it been said that, as to the progress of this nation in Christian civilization, the history of the Christian church and of nations affords nothing equal to it.
A CALL TO NEW PRAYER AND EFFORT.
A MEMORIAL from the Presbytery of Los Angeles, California, was sent to the late Presbyterian General Assembly at Detroit, asking for the issue of a Pastoral Letter, addressed to the churches, and calling upon pastors and people to make the coming ecclesiastical year-the year 1891-92-a year of specific, continuous, prayerful, and hearty endeavor for the salvation of souls. Though this is always the chief business of the Church of Christ, the General Assembly is entreated to give special emphasis to the enforcement of this duty now. Facts and figures are given to show how vast is the work before the Church, and how inadequate are the efforts to overtake this work. The memorial urges the need of a great, powerful, all-pervading Revival of Religion, which is to be looked for only through the "ministry of personal, systematic, untmimf!us work for souls."
When such a story as this of the Hawaiian Islands is before us, and similar marvels of grace in modern missions, one is disposed to ask, What is to pre'ent such mighty works in our day, and in every part of the habitable globe ~ Surely God's arm is not shortened, nor is His power straitened. We are straitened in ourselves. Let unbelief, prayerlessness, and selfishness be put away, and mighty prayer go up to God.-EDITOR.
PRAYER ANSWERED IN MISSIONARY WORK
PRAYER ANSWERED IN CONNECTION WITH MISSIONARY WORK.
BY MISS HELEN L. BURNET, NEW YORK CITY.
THE explicit declaration of Scripture that God i3 the Hearer and the Answerer of prayer. coupled with the experience of " those who humbly try to do His will," brings rest to the trusting heart, although this subject is hedged about with philosophical doubts and difficulties whioh reason cannot fathom nor wisdom solve.
In addition to instances already published in these pages, the following cases of great emergency in which the faithfulness of our prayer-hearing God has been put to the test by His people will tend to confirm the faith of every devout Christian reader : 1. Dr. Chamberlain, a veteran of the Areot Mission in India, relates that while on an extended missionary tour, he found himself overtaken by the rainy season on the outskirts of the jungle, where the ground was covered with water, and where lurked fever and man-eating tigers, from fear of which his guard of coolies soon ran away. With difficulty he procured mother escort for sixty mi:es, where he expected to find a boat which would float him down the river. "Above the cataract not a boat could be found, and the river had overflowed its banks. All day they waded in the jungle under alternations of heavy showers and a boiling, sickening sun. Toward evening nothing but water, and endless stretehe!1, of it, appeared, and not even a hillock on which they could spread their tents for the night!
" Must he and his band perish ~ In this extremity, the doctor, on the back of his horse, prayed to his covenant God for help as His ser"ant, and in obedience to whose call he had come to India to preach the Gospel. Immediately an answer came, distinctly pronounced in the ear of his soul, , Turn to your left, go to the river, aud you will find that which you need I ' "
Twice he consulted his guides, who assured him that rescue from that quarter was impossible. But a second and a third time the voice came with the same explicit direction. " Then, as master in command of the company, he gave the order to turn to the left, and, coming to the river-what did he see ~ The very thing he needed most-a large flat boat, and in it two boatmen, who, mistaking him for an English officer, began to apologize for the boat's appearance in such a strange spot. They said the flood in the river had loosened the boat from its moorings, and that the' devil himself seemed to be in the boat,' for, despite their efforts to the contrary, it persisted in floating to the spot where it was found."
Dr. Chamberlain, armed with authority from the English Government, took possession of the boat, which he found just broad enough to allow the spreading of his tent, under which they safely rested that night undisturbed by the hungry tigers, who were heard howling in the jungle. The next morning they began floating down the river, and continued fioating till they came to the next cataract, where they found another boat, and with it relief from all anxiety.
2. Aniwa, in the New Hebrides, is a coral island on which there are no streams, lakes or springs, rain water being the sole dependence of the people. One morning their missionary, Rev. John G. Paton, said to one of the chiefs, '" I am going to sink a well deep down into the earth to see if our God will send us fresh water up from below.' They looked at him in astonishment, and said, in a tone of sympathy approaching to pity, , 0 Missi! wait till the rain comes down, and we will save all we possibly can for you. Rain comes only from above. How could you expect our island to send up showers of rain from below ~' But, " he writes, " I started on my hazardou!! job, selecting a spot where my prospective well might be useful to all. I began to dig with pick, and spade, and bucket, an American axe for a hammer and crowbar, and a ladder for service by and by. The good old chief now told off his men in relays to watch me, lest I should attempt to take my own life, saying, 'Poor Missi ! That's the way with all who go mad! ' "
Becoming exhausted under that tropical sun, he for a time secured the aid of the natives, by the promisc of English fish-hooks, in taking out buckets of earth, although, he continues, "the shaft seemed to lower very slowly, and my fish-hooks were disappearing very quickly. I was thankful one evening to find that we had cleared more than twelve feet deep, when, 10 ! next morning one side had rushed in, and our work was all undone. The old chief and his best men remonstrated with me very gravely, assuring me for the fiftieth time that rain would never be seen coming up through the earth on Aniwa! 'You are making your own grave, Missi, and you will make ours, too, for when the man-of-war ship comes, and we tell the captain that you are buried in the well, he will think that it was our work and will kill us.''' Mr. Paton quieted these fears, and constructed a sort of derrick, so that, with pulley and block, the bucket could be lifted from the bottom of the well. But not a native would enter that hole. Day after day, digging with his own hands till he was fairly exhausted, he reached the depth of about thirty feet. He says that the phrase, " Living water, living water," kept chiming through his soul like music from God as he dug and hammered away. At this depth the earth began to be very damp, aud he believed that he was nearing water, but he had coustant fear that it would be salt water. One evening he said to the old chief, "I think that Jehovah God will give us water to-morrow from that hole." The chief said, "No, Missi j you will never see rain coming up from the earth on this islanrl. 'Ve expect daily, if you reach water, ta see you drop through into the sea, and the sharks will eat you. That will be the end of it j death to you, and danger to us all. " "I still answered, 'Come to-morrow. I hope and believe that Jehovah God will send you the rain-water up through the earth.' At the moment I knew that I was risking much, and probably incurring sorrowful consequences had no water been given; but I had faith that the Lord was leading me on, and I knew that I sought His glory, not my own. Next morning I went down again at daybreak and sunk a narrow hole in the centre. about two feet deep. The perspiration broke over me with uncontrollable excitement, and I trembled through every limb when the water rushed up and began to fill the hole. Muddy though it was, I eagerly tasted it, and the 'tinny' dropped from my hand with sheer joy, and I almost fell upon my knees in that muddy bottom to praise the Lord. 11; was water! It was fresh water! It was living water from Jehovah's well. True, it was a little brackish, but nothing to speak of; and no spring in the desert cooling the parched lips of a fevered pilgrim ever appeared more worthy of being called a well of God than did that water to me. The chiefs had assembled with their men near by. They waited on in eager expectancy. It was a rehearsal, in a small way, of the Israelites coming round, while Moses struck the rock and called for water. By-and-by, when I had praised the Lord and my excitement was a little calmed, I filled a jug which I had taken down empty in the sight of them ali, and ascending to the top, called for them to come and sec the rain which Jehovah God had given us through the well. They closed around me in haste, and gazed on it in superstitious fear. The old chief shook it to see if it would spill, and then touche4 it. At last he tasted it, rolling it in his mouth with joy for a momp.nt; he swallowed it and shouted, 'Rain! Rain! But how did you get it ? ' I repeated, 'Jehovah, my God, gave it out of his own earth in answer to our labors and prayers. Go and see it springing up for yourselves.'
" And then they went and saw, and marvelled and gave praise to God, and company after company returned to the spot loaded with their gods of wood and stone and piled them in heaps amid the tears and sobs of some and the shouts of others, in which was heard the oft-repeated word, , Jehovah, Jehovah.'
"The old chief said, ' Missi, I think I could help you next Sabbath. Will you let me preach a sermon on the well ?' 'Yes,' I at once replied, , if you will try to bring all the people to hear you.'
" , Missi, I will try,' he eagerly promised. And preach he did a rousing sermon, closing with these words, 'The Jehovah God has sent us rain from tbe earth. Why should He not also send His Son from heaven? Namakei stands up for Jehovah!' In those intensely exciting days we sat still and saw the salvation of the Lord. "-From Autobiography of Rev. John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides.
3. "One evening, after commending ourselves, our friends, and the mission to God, I went outside my house, and right under my window was a tiger about twelve feet off. My first thought was to turn and fiee, but fearing that he would jump on my back and shake me by the neck, as the cat does the rat, till I was dead, and seeing that I was too near to fiee, I resolved to walk straight np to him, and begged Jesus to go with me and preserve me. What a blessed thing that my soul was in my Saviour's keeping! On the veranda was lying my Scotch dog, who rushed at him and barked furiously. The tiger had never seen impudence like this. He had taken his prey from his youth, and had always seen dogs taking to their heels much faster than he cared for. He snarled at us and went a few steps on one side, and I made a shave between the wall and the tiger, praying all the time. I expected every moment that he would paw me, but after walking twenty yards I realized that I was safe and thanked God, and ml dog, saved also, was barking at the far-off tiger. "-Rev. .A.
Haegert, in the Missionary. 4. In 1885 the work of the Church Missionary Society, London, Eng- land, having greatly increased, a special day was appointed to pray for workers. The evening previous more than one hundred graduates of the University Church assembled who desired" to dedicate themselves to foreign missionary work, ready to go at the command of the Master when their studies were completed. Thus the meeting which had been called for prayer became a meeting for thanksgiving." "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isa. 65 : 24).
5. In 1872 a missionary in the city of Cadereita, Mexico, made it a special subject of prayer that the Lord would open the way for the return of himself, his wife and child to the States for a little season, the circumstances seeming to indicate this as a duty. The needed means were provided, but the country was in a state of revolution, and his friends tried to dissuade him from going, as General Cortinas would probably cross their path, who was a murrlerous man and regarded as having a special hatred for Americans. He determined to go forward, however, trusting to Divine protection, and they started for Matemoras, some three hundred miles distant, two hired men and their wives accompanying them, the brethren " promising to pray daily for their safety." "The third morning, after commending ourselves as usual into the care of our covenant-keeping God," he relates, " we started on our journey, and soon espied the troops of General Cortinas two miles distant marching toward us. We again all looked to God for protection, then went on until we met the advanced guard, who commanded us to halt and wait until the general came up.
" Riding up to our company with the usual salutation, he asked whence we came and whither we were going; he then asked the news from Nueva Leon. After replying to his question, the missionary inquired if the road was safe between his party and Matamoras. He replied, ' Perfectly; you can go on without any fear, and as safely as you would in your own country;' then, bidding us good-morning, he rode on, not even inquiring about or examining any of our baggage. " Upon reaching Brownville, Texas, friends pronounced the conduct of General Cortinas as truly a miracle, for they " could not have believed him capable of such kindness to Americans so in his power."
6. A missionary of the Amcrican Board among the Maharattas in India once wrote thus: "The first Monday in January, 1833, I shall ever remember. At our morning prayers, in the native language, three strangers were present who said they had come to inquire'about the' new way.' At ten 0'clock Babajee returned from his morning visit to the poorhouse in an ecstasy of joy, saying, 'The poor people all come about me inquiring, " What shall we do g" , I appointed a meeting of inquiry at three o'clock to-day, and to my joy and surpl:ise there were sixteen present. A heavenly influence, I am persuaded, was with us. Our Christian friends in America must be praying for us." Although unknown to the missionary, that very day" had been set apart by the General Assembly in the United States and by other bodies of Christians as a day of fasting and of prayer for the heathen world."
7. A friend of the Rev. Benjamin Slight, of the Methodist Church, while journeying as a missionary in Africa" came to a fork in the road, one branch going round a hill, the other np the hiII." Hesitating which to take, he besought the Lord to give him direction. He was decidedly inclined after prayer to take the up-hill road.
Reaching the summit, he saw clearly on the rejected path several large lions. Making a memorandum of this remarkable escape from certain death, he had occasion on his return to England to refer to it, and learned that on this very day his friend was so impressed with the thought that danger threatened his missionary brother that he had" made him a subject of earnest intercession. "
8. Many years ago, in a New England village, the widowed mother of a large family in narrow circumstances was called upon for a contribution for missIOnary purposes. She went about sad-hearted all day because she had so little to give in aid of a cause so near her heart. Calling her children together for family worship, she brought her burden to the Lord, and prayed that He would accept one of her children for such glorious work. A daughter was much impressed by this prayer of consecration. This daughter afterward became Mrs. Wilder, a missionary to India, wife of the late editor of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW, and in her old age and widowhood she returned to India with her young daughter to labor on till life shall end among the people of her love, soon to be followed by her son, who has also given himself wholly to the work.
9. It is related that Dr. Adoniram Judson, while laboring as a mission- ·ary to the heathen, felt a strong desire to do something for the salvation of the children of Abraham according to the flesh. But it seemed that his desire was not to be gratified. During a long course of years, even to the closing fortnight of his life, in his last sickness, Dr. Judson lamented that all his efforts in behalf of the Jews had been a failure. He was departing from the world saddened with that thought. Then, at last came a gleam of light which thrilled his heart with grateful joy. Mrs. Judson was sitting by his side while he was in a state of great languor, with a copy of the Watchman and Reflector in her hand. She read to her husband one of Dr. Hague's letters from Constantinople. The letter contained some items of information which filled him with wonder.
Ata meeting of missionaries at Constantinople, Mr. SchaufHer stated that a little book had been published in Germany, giving an account of Dr. Judson's life and labors; that it had fallen into the hands of some Jews, and had been the means of their conversion; that a Jew had translated it for a community of Jews on the borders of the Euxine, and that a message had arrived in Constantinople, asking that a teacher might be sent to show them the way of life.
When Dr. Judson heard this, his eyes were filled with tears, a look of almost unearthly solemnity came over him, and clinging fast to his wife's hand, as if to assure himself of being really in the world, he said: " Love, this frightens me. I do not know what to make of it." " To make of what 1" said Mrs. Judson. " Why, what you have just been reading. I never was so deeply interested in any object; I never prayed so sincerely and earnestly for anything but it came-at some time-no matter how distant the day-somehow, in Borne shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came !" What a testimony was that! It lingered on the lips of the dying Judson; it was embalmed with grateful tears, and is worthy to be translated as a legacy to the coming generation. The desire of the righteous shall be granted. Pray and wait. The answer to all true prayer will come. In Judson's case, the news of the answer came before he died, but it was answered long before. So we may know the results of prayers and toils even while we sojourn here; but if not, what sweet surprises shall await us in the great beyond !-JVorthwestern Christian Advocate. Queen Mary trembled at the vrayers of John Knox. What a quaking in the kingdom of darkness would come if our great sisterhood of churches would band together to fathom the meaning of that glorious promise, " All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive !"
The conviction grows upon us that upon a revival of the praying spirit everything else depend!! in the further prosecution of missions. Hence we give space to the testimonies of a prayer-hearing God. vYe hope to publish still other papers, from time to time, which put on permanent record the remarkable interpositions of God in the critical and pivotal periods of missionary work. These proofs are countless, but they are scattered through various biographies and narratives, and hence lose their cumulative force. In these pages we hope to gather them, and thus give them fuller opportunity to impress the hearts of our readers with their joint testimony. To know and feel that God is a present living and faithful God, that Christ is with us on the battle-field as He is with the Father on the throne-who shall say what new energy and power would come into all work for God if this conviction could once more become the ruling thought of the Church in her work for souls !-[EDITOR.]
"A FEW PAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE HUGUENOTS."
"A FEW PAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE HUGUE- NOTS,"* BY EUGENE BERSlER.
BY ALICE BERTRAND.
THERE is hardly a more melancholy definition of death than thls expression of the Psalmist, The land of forgetfulness. Few of us aspire to a posthumous glory but whose heart does not yearn for a kindly remembrance ~ We are then happy to think that the memory of Eugene Bersier seems as yet far from sinking into oblivion. A full year has elapsed since his death, and never, perhaps, has he been more present in the hearts and thoughts of all.
On the mournful anniversary of November 19th a crowd filled the Etoile Church and, moved to tears, assisted at the inauguration of a black marble slab which had been placed under the pulpit" in memory of thE) first pastor and founder of this church."
Almost at the same time a little black and gray volume appeared in the windows of all Protestant booksellers-and very soon disappeared, too. The friends of the regretted preacher had gathered together a few lectures delivered by M. Bersier on different occasions and entitled them, " A Few Pages from the History of the Huguenots."
The Huguenots! Eugene Bersier, in relating their sufferings, was not only accomplishing a useful task, he was almost performing a filial duty. This descendant of French refugees, though born in a land of exile, was proud to feel the blood of martyrs still running in his veins. But, recalling the tortures of his ancestors, there was no bitterness in his heart. He loved his country too dearly to bear her any resentment. And if a word were needed to give the substance of this book-and perhaps of the whole life of M. Bersier-no better could be chosen ~han this motto : Faith and patriotism.
M. Bersier's favorite hero was Admiral Coligny, undoubtedly because he thought with the historians, Michelet and Henri Martin, "that Coligny was the best Huguenot and the best Fren~hman of his time." He commenced a history of Coligny of which, unfortunately, we have only the first volume. But this was not enough. M. Bersier, thinking of the statues of poets and orators which crowd the squares of Paris, resolved that Protestantism should be represented in this army of the illustrious dead. , And Coligny was destined to stand up once more for his religion before the people of Paris.
It was precisely to defray a part of the expenses occasioned by the erection of this statue that M. Bersier delivered a remarkable lecture on Coligny in many towns of France and of foreign couutries.
An analysis, somewhat complete, of this conference would either be too long or too dry. But a few facts will suffice to throw some light on the noble figure of the admiral.
• Paris, Fischbacher, 0telques pages deB l'histrnre' de Huguenots, par Eug. Bersier, with a remarkable preface by Professor Sabatier. Gaspard de Coligny was born (1519} at Chatillon, in the green valleys of western France. He was brought up in that solitary castle by his pious widow mother, who had quitted the brilliant court of the Valois to devote herself to the education of her three sons.
Gaspard was, from his youth, eminently qualified to be a soldier. He had nothing, truly, of the knightly valor of a Due de Guise, but his strength of character, his indomitable perseverance and, above all, his unselfish patriotism, were unparalleled. But alas! fortmie had few smiles for him.
" Gentlemen," said M. Bersier, in opening his lecture, " I am about to relate the history of a vanquished soldier."
His two great deeds were two failures. IIis plan-wonderful for the age -of establishing a Huguenot colony in Florida wretchedly failed. The Huguenots were murdered by a band of Spaniards, who hung them on the neighboring trees, with this inscription, " Not because they are French- men, but because they are heretics. ,.
The defence of St. Quentin was more glorious. The north of France was threatened by an invasion of Spaniards, directed by the" iron-headed general," Philibert-Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy. Coligny, though sure of being defeated, went to the little town of St. Quentin to oblige the Spanish general to besiege it. On the duration of the siege depended the salvation of France. Coligny knew it, and resisted heroically. The town was taken by the Spaniards, and Coligny sent to jail; but the French king had had the time to assemble the troops and to protect Paris. Yes," we feel that some defeats are more glorious than victories, and that true heroism is sacrifice. "
But the bitter cup had to be drained to the dregs. Coligny heard, in his dreary captivity, that the Duke of Guise, haviug possessed himself of the admiral's own plans, had taken the town by surprise, to the enthusiastic admiration of France. " God, in chastising Coligny, had, as Calvin said, called him aside, that he should better listen to the heavenly Voice." The admiral's brother, a prisoner like himself, had sent him a copy of the Holy Scriptures, which Coligny studied with the greatest care. He then began to correspond with Calvin, and soon after his release he openly entered the: ranks of the Huguenots. .
M. Bersier, who had shown the patriotism and courage of the Frencn soldier, dwelt here on the simple faith and the austere piety of the Christian. It would have been interesting to have followed him in that beautiful castle of Chatillon, ornamented with the sculptures of Goujon and the paintings of Primatice, and which is now, alas! little more than a heap of ruins. It was there that, under the superintendence of a learned and pious tutor, the young Colignys received a sound classical education, for their father, says M. Bonnet, the Protestant historian, hated ignorance almost as .
bitterly as he did ungodliness. Every morning and evening the children and servants gathered in the great hall to hear the family prayers said by the chaplain, or, in his absence, by the admiral himself. But whereas, peace and happiness were reigning there, on the other side of France, in the village of Vassy, a hundred Huguenots had been murdered while they were singing their psalms in a barn.
This news caused an immense sensation. What could the Huguenots do 7 Clamor for justice 1 Alas! the government was openly with the murderers. The Protestants had no choice left, except death or fighting. " Ought not religious liberty to be defended as other liberty is 7"
However, such a decision could not be lightly taken, and we fully understand the hesitation that tortured the admiral's noble mind.
One night Coligny, who was awake, heard the sobs of his wife, the Lady Charlotte de Laval. "I regret," said she, " to disturb your rest. But think, my lord, that while we are reposing here in luxury, the bodies of our brethren, our own flesh and blood, are lying in prisons, or in the fields, at the mercy of dogs and ravens. I tremble to think that your prudence may be worldly. Oh! my lord, the blood of our dead weighs heavily on my soul !"
Coligny explained to her the difficulties of civil war, and added, "Put your hand on your heart, and think if you would have the courage to endure flight, exile, shame, and hunger not only for yourself, but, what is worse, for your children; if you will suffer death by,the hand of the public executioner, after having seen your husband exposed to the mockery of the rabble, and your children servants to your bitterest enemies. I give you three weeks to decide, and if your heart is strong enough to bear all this, then will I go and die with you and with your friends. "
Charlotte de Laval answered with these sublime words: "My lord, these three weeks are over !"
Death was merciful to the heroic woman ; it spared her most of the calamities of the civil war, and the direst of them all, the murder of her beloved lord.
The Protestant nobility had been invited to meet in Paris, on the occasion of the wedding of Margaret, Charles IX.' s own sister, with their prince, young Henri de Navarre, who became afterward King Henry IV. Coligny had joined them. But it is not only in poetry that a dagger is hidden in the jewel casket of a bride. This maniage was but a snare to entrap the Huguenots.
A few days after the religiotls ceremony, the bell of the Church St. Germain l'Auxerrois rang for the massacre of the Huguenots. It was about two o'clock in the morning. Coligny, hearing a great noise and cries in the house, understood at once that his last hour had come. "Monsieur Merlin," said he calmly to his chaplain, "will you pray with me~" Then -he begged his friends to leave him and save their own lives, for he was too ill and weak to escape. The murderers soon rushed into his room. "Art thou the admiral ~" cried one of them, called Besme. ., Young man," answered Coligny, "how-dare you attack an old and wounded man 7 However," added he, with resignation, "you will not much shorten my life." BesUle, swearing fearfully, pierced him through with a spear. The body of the admiral was then thr.own out of the window. Henri de Guise turned it over disdainfully with his foot.
]?ut, thanks to M. Bersier, France has now, in a certain measure, atoned for this oqious crime. A beautiful statue of the admiral, which M. Bersier had the happiness of inaugurating some months before his death, now adorns the Oratoire Church, on the side toward the Rue de Rivoli. Coligny stands in a proud attitude, one hand placed on his heart, the other grasping his sword.
M. Bersier read, on that occasion, a speech which might, ioo, be r.om- pared to an antique statue for the perfection of its form, with something, if I may say so, of the coldness of thc marble. Tuese were the concluding words of his speech: "It is worthy of a great nation to honor those who have served her, as Coligny has, with this noble aim : The glory of God and the public welfare !"
The following lecture is a description of the intellectual candition of the French Reformed Church in the seventeenth century. With patriotic pride, M. Bersier enumerates our glorious Protestant academies of Nimes, Sedan, Caen, and Saumur, where Dubose was professor, that same Dubose of whom Louis XIV. once said, "I have heard to-day the best orator of my kingdom." And the illustrious pastors of Charenton, Daille, and Claude, the worthy rival of Bossuet in theological controversy. . . . But why are they so little known 1 It is not because of their lack of learning. Professor Samuel Petit, listening accidentally to a rabbi's attacks on Christianity, retorted on the spot by an extemporary Hebrew speech. It is more probably on account of their heavy and somewhat provincial style, bnt, above all, it is because they were too conHcientious to be very fashionable.
The Protestant erudition proved to be favorable to Catholic theology. Thanks to frequent controversies, the Scriptures were attentively studied, stupid legends became discredited, and a great reform of the doctrines and of the morals of the Gallican Church was at hand.
But the Revocation, like a deadly wind, soon blasted these fair promises of a rich harvest.
The 18th of October, 1685, Louis XIV., incited by the clergy, as,M. Bersier has proved once more, revoked the famous Edict of Nantes, which granted to Huguenots the free profession of their faith. This revocation had been prepared by petty cavillings whic~ deprived Protestants of many legal rights, and now this last safe-warrant was taken from them.
H the Roman Church did not lay claim to infallibility, she would feel a pang at the thought of the persecutions of the seventeenth century, for she then not only tortured the body of the heretic, but attempted to disunite his family and to destroy his conscience.
We know what the Protestant homes were, for historians have told us of the austere piety of the wife and of the mother, of the authority of the father, a priest in his own house. • •• Now, a troop of drunken soldiers invaded this holy of holies, insulted the women, and tortured children be- fore the eyes of their mothers.
Poor mothers! a decree was issued at that time, which authorized the legal kidnapping of children, that they might be brought up in the Cath- olic belief. .
But some persons think that, at least, the inmost recesses of the con- science were respected during these persecutions. The facts prove too clearly, alas! the worthlessness of this opinion.
" What can we say," writes M. Bersier, " of these peasants of Saintonge, forced by the swords of dragoons into Catholic churches, to receive there what was told them to be, the holy body of the Lord? Horror-stricken, they spat it out of their mouths, as soon as they were unobserved. . • .
Do not be mistaken, this is the greatest of all crimes, the attempted mur- der of the soul !"
But no one-the victims excepted-dared to protest publicly against those iniquities. Nothing bnt praises were to be heard. The greatest orators, Bossuet (who calls Louis another Constantine), Massillon, thc mystic Fenelon himself, La Bruyere, the moralist; La Fontaine, the poet- all congratulate the king of having accomplished such a great deed. The women are not more tender-hearted. Witty Mme. de Sevigne gayly writes, "The dragoons have been such very good missionaries j" and Mme. de Maintenon, the granddaughter of the noble Huguenot d' Aubigne, is not ashamed to affirm "that it will soon be quite ridiculous to profess that religion. "
" This universal approbation is certainly one of the scandals of history. ,.
But is there not a compensation for us in the praises given to our Hugue- not refugees by foreigners 1 " Oh!" writes M. Bersier, in a page which is one of the most eloquent of our Protestant literature, " they must allow us to exclaim in the bitterness of our hearts, It is no consolation for us !
We know that France has received a deep wonnd, out of which a large stream of blood has flowed. . . . Aud we needed these lost riches! these severe virtues! Tenacity in trial, respect of liberty, austerity iu conduct- all those traits are now missing in our national character.- " We have often lamented it in many a terrible crisis, in many a battle that our people fought to conquer their rights and their liberties. In these dark hours we look for our absent ones, we call to our dead, and, as Augustus to Varus, we cry to him who exiled our fathers, ' 0 king, give us back our legions!' "
These legions were not, according to an opinion generally accredited, an army of noblemen. M. Bersier, in a most interesting essay on " The French Refugees and Their Trades," has victoriously proved that, as Coligny used to say, "The little ones are before us in the kingdom of heaven."
Thanks to their rare holidays, to the practice of lending money on in- terest, and, above all, to their intelligence and industry, they soon became the first manufacturers of France. Their cloths, made at Sedan or Elbenf, their Lyons silks, their Angouleme paper, etc., were universally appreciated. And the Caudebcc hats were quite a celebrity. The cardinals themselves, in spite of their dislike for heretics, would wear no others.
The Revocation was the death-blow of all this prosperity. But Huguenots were not men to be easily disheartened. Facing the greatest dangers, they fled from their ungrateful mother-country. Whole families sailed on the ocean in a small boat; men and women hid in empty wine-casks; little children-Bonnet, the future founder of New Rochelle, was one of themcrept into vegetable baskets, at the risk of being wounded by the dragoons' long lances. Most of them reached the hospitable lands of Switzerland, England, and Holland. These strangers, moved by a noble pity, did their best to assuage the sufferings of their martyr brethren. And a great reward was in store for them.
Thanks to the Huguenots, Geneva was endowed with its now worldfamed watch-making. But the "Ark" of the refugees was Holland. They were in such a wretched state when they arrived there that most of them had no other food than the snails which they picked up in the woods. However, before many years had eJapsed, they had founded the famous mannfactories of paper and of that yellow velvet known as Utrecht velvet. And England! I am sorry for Albion's pride, but the list of her debts to the refngees is far from being a short one j it is sufficient to mention Sheffield cutlery. Irish lace, mutual help societies, etc. We might note also that a great many members of the House of Lords and the qneen, Victoria herself, are of Huguenot origin. Of Huguenot origin, too, alas! the famous ox-tail soup. They were such very good housewives, these poor Huguenot ladies, they knew how to make use of everything, and when the butchers threw away the tails of oxen, they bought them and made this soup, which all loyal Britons believe to be a national dish.
These discoveries may be a little hurtful to national pride, but, seriously speaking, are they not, as M. Bersier observes, far more painful for our own patriotism? And when we remember that we have wantonly despised these treasures, it is sometimes rather hard to find comfort in saying, " Our Huguenots have well deserved the gratitude of mankind."
But all the Huguenots could not flee. The rich only-rich in money, heroism, or health-could face such perils. What became of the others ~ Ah! this is the dreary story of the Church of the Desert, of nightly assemblies -held in the woods, of pastors sent to the rack, of women shut up for life in the Tower of Constance. Persecutions slackened little by little, but in the middle of the eighteenth century Protestant marriages were as yet illegal; the austere Hnguenot lady was considered no better than a mistress, and her children were bastards, incapable of inheriting their father's fortune.
M. Bersier enumerates the efforts made to obtain, at least, the legal marriage of Huguenots. Rousseau, alleging his bad health, civilly refused to lend a helping hand to his brethren. But Voltaire roused Europe to
LETTER FROM MRS. HELEN W. GIBSON
indignation about the unjust sentence of the Protestant Cal as. It was not, however, without many difficulties that the Toleration Edict of 1787 was issued. It granted to Protestants legal birth, marriage, and burial, and the right of trading in the kingdom. Two years later, under the Revolution, they enjoyed at last the benefits of a full liberty.
The best conclusion of this volume is in the words of M. Bersier on the Revolution, but which might apply still better to the history of the Huguenots, " We must pity them who have not learned in those tragic scenes the respect of the human soul and the hatred of all religious oppression."
MRS. HELEN W. GIBSON, of Pari.s, writes as to " a call from over the sea :" "all true followers of Christ are missionaries, and devote their lives (in one form or another) to carrying the glad tidings of salvation, the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, to those that are ' without.' These outsiders are found crowding the boulevards of Paris, as well as turning off prayers by machinery in China; they are found wallowing in the slums of our civilized cities, as well as vegetating in the wilds of Africa. Wherever exists a soul ' without hope and without God in the world,' there is a mission field for the Christian worker. The' all the world' of Christ includes the places nearest home, as well as the far distant 'regions beyond. I How many in civilized France are bowing down to stocks and stones! After having during several years burnt, broken, and thrown away the relics of their 'former ignorance' given to us by our converts, we are just now beginning to form them into a little museum. The people cling to such' heips' only until they get the real thing in their hearts; they then feel them to be 'hindrances,' and hasten to put them away.
" God has greatly blessed our mission work lately, especially in Paris and its suburbs. The old Methodist mode of after-meetings and direct personal dealing with the people is employed, and with marked success. We have no parti pris as regards these meetings, otherwise they might become formal and defeat their own end. We sometimes close up with the first service, but always try to lay hold of the people as they leave, and get one here and there into a corner (in a double sense)! Then, if we find, as we often do, that the Spirit of God has been beforehand with us ih preparing the way, we are soon down on our knees together.
" When the people give evidence of sound conversion to God, or even when they seem to be sincerely seeking, we invite them to the classmeeting held in connection with each hall, where they are further instructed in the Bible and helped by the i~terchange of experience, and last, not least, taught to give systematically. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is administered to the members every month in the various halls, and is always a time of blessing. These dear French converts live well; many of them have the old Huguenot spirit of endurance. They stand not only open persecution, but the annoying pin-pricks of domestic taunts /lnd mockings; and they die well; one of our members has just gone home proclaiming her joyful faith in Christ as the only Mediator, though the priest stood by her bedside cursing her, and telling her she was damnee and' going to hell!' Two young men, also, saved at the eleventh hour through the visits of another of our converts (himself a bigoted Romanist up to last November), have just died exulting in Christ, but followed to the last by the threats of the priests. The work is precious in France. I wonder when I look at the recent successes of our little mission, which has been hitherto almost unknown outside of English Methodism. We are a mere handful of workers, and most of our helpers are ignorant and milearned men and women; but they are full of faith and the Holy Ghost, such agents as God can best use, and He opens doors before them everywhere. The fact is that every human heart is craving for God in Christ, but His professed disciples show Him up so poorly that the weary seekers turn disappointedly to the world. If we Christians would best see our duty and then tarry on our knees till we receive the power from on high to do it, there would soon be a universal revival.
"There is no room for details in a short article. Let our American friends come and see and hear for themselves! Let them listen to the glowing testimonies and the fervent prayers of men and women who a fe". months or. weeks ago were, some of them, on the brink of suicide, and all of them either defying God altogether, or mumbling over their beads to the Virgin! I earnestly beg that visitors to Paris from all churchesfor surely we may make common cause against the errors of Romewill call at our headquarters, 4 Rue Roquepine, and ask to see my husband, Rev. William Gibson, conductor of the mission, who has his bureau there. We need sympathy, and we need practical help beyond what our own. people can give. The conversion of Romanists appeals equally to all churches and to all Protestant countries. May God awaken an effectual response !"
Rev. Dr. Gibson supplies to us the following further facts as to Methodist Evangelization in France among Roman Catholics : " The. Methodist Evangelistic Mission in France, under the direction of the British Conference, consists of Ii stations: 8 in and around Paris. 2 at Rouen, 2 at Havre, 1 at EIbeuf, and 1 at St. Servan.
"During the last three or four years the work has made great progress, and some of the stations have been marvellously blessed. The methods employed are: Lively popular Gospel meetings, followed by aftermeetings, in which the people are spoken with personally on the subject of their salvation; women's and children's meetings; and the Methodist , class,' in which the converts are trained and led on higher. All these meetings are aided and followed up by assiduous visiting and tract distribntion. Our journal, La Bonne Nouvelle, of which we distribute about 10,000 monthly, is of great help to us.
"The mission costs yearly $11,000, of which $5000 is ' granted' by
NEWS FROM CONGO AND ANGOLA
the Wesleyan Missionary Committee of London, and the remaining $6000 is provided (mainly collected in England) by myself. The substantial premises in Rouen, which have cost £4000 for the building and £2000 for the ground, are composed of a large shop on the ground ftoor, the rental of which will, with the collections, make the station self-supporting j a handsome hall for public services, good reading-rooms for French and English sailors, and ministers' and evangelists' houses.
" About £1000 had already been collected in January, 1871, and the debt on the ground can be paid off by yearly instalments; but for the remaining £3000 I am personally responsible, and it is in a great measure the pressure of this burden which brought me to America. The work is, as far as possible, to be made self-supporting. A missionary restaurant has been opened in connection with our principal hall in Paris, and promises to be a help financially as well as spiritually to the station. I believe that France is on the eve of a revival. Already we have felt the first drops of the showe,r in the numerous and satisfactory conversions from Romanism to Christ that we have seen with our own eyes. Methodism suits the French temperament. Our converts are prompt and fearless in their testimonies, delight in prayer and praise meetings, and soon become active workers according to their light and opportunity. Two of our evangelists were brought to God in the mission.
, , We are in urgent need now of generous help for Rouen, as well as fOf many other objects less costly but equally important. We also earnestly request yearly subscriptions toward the support and extension of the work. Doors are opening all around us j France is craving for the Gospel as perhaps never before since the days of the persecutions; her fields are white unto the harvest j disgust of snperstition is hurrying her along toward atheism; nothing can save her but the pure Gospel of the grace of God, preached and applied to the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost."
NEWS FROM CONGO AND ANGOLA.
From Banana, mouth of Congo, April 14th, Bishop William Taylor writes: " Last night I slept aboard our steamer, the' Anne Taylor.' No snch cabins on any other river steamer on the Congo. This steamer will be the best and cheapest sanitarium for Congo workers this side of Europe or America. She has made one trip to Boma and return. We go on to Angola in the Gaboon. I will visit our mission stations in that province, and hope to return in five or six weeks to open new fields in the North Congo region.
" We anchored at St. Paul de Loanda, Angola, April 16th. Rev. A. E. Withey, our presiding elder for Angola district, came aboard and remained all night. He is looking well, and reports general good health among our people and prosperity in their work, including abundant selfsupport in all our Angola stations.
"Thursday, P.M., April 17th, arrived at the Missio 'Americana. Brother Burling and family all well."
THE GOSPEL IN BPAIN
THE GOSPEL IN SPAIN.
* BY J. E. BADGETT MEAKIN.
I.-INTRODUCTORY.
SPAIN! What an array of historic associations is brought before the mind in dwelling upon the connection of this stronghold of popery with the light of the Gospel, and how black they look! Instinctively one thin;s je, of the fiendish Inquisition, of the brutalities of the autos de and of the more recent but no less determined efforts of the priestcraft to stifle the voice of protest which has earned for us our distinctive title of Protestants. In the study of the blood-stained pages of her past history one is apt to think that in this day of progress and religious freedom, Spain has marched forward with her compeers, and that now her spiritual condition must be more or less that of other countries equally advanced in civilization. But this is not. the case, and the only vital difference between religious Spain to-day and the religious Spain of three centuries ago is the lack of sufficient temporal power to carry out all it could wish.
For some time past the country has been split up into two pretty sharply divided parties, the priest-ridden monarchists and the atheistical republicans. It is the history of France and of Italy repeating itself. The one party, ever on the decrease, includes most of the wealth and political influence of the kingdom, and the other comprises a large proportion of the poorer classes, and those who may be fitly described as " Adullam- ites. "t The vast majority of these, disgusted with the inherent rotten- ness of the phase of Christianity presented to them by the Church of Rome, have rejected religion entirely. Even among the ranks of the first party are numbered thousands whose only ties are those of position and politics, and whose religious opinions only remain unchanged on account of their indistinctness. If they think at all, the result is almost inevitable. They either turn to the truth in the measure in which it has been ~evealed to them-by human agency or not-or they lapse into the condition of infidelity so prevalent around them.
Between these two, which are no less than manifestations of the crumbling to pieces of the State religion, there is an open door for the Gospel. It is true that the task of entering it is one of difficulties and discouragements, but " if God be for us, who can be against us ~" Would to God that there were this day more laborers in this vineyard, for the harvest truly is plenteous, and ripe withal. Here and there, scattered up and down the Peninsula, are bright and shining lights to guide the wanderer home, but oh, how few and far between in comparison with the need for them!
Having just concluded a five-weeks' tour through Spain, from Cadiz to * For some years editor of The Times qf Morocco.
t .. Every one that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented" (1 Sam. 22 : 1, 2). France via Barcelona, during which I have visited all the mission stations I could bring within my course, I"will endeavor to give some idea of what is being done, and what opportunities this country offers for Christian effort. After what I have said, there is no further need to dwell upon the need, and our marching orders are to "all the world." I may mention that a knowledge of the lang.uage of the country, and a previous residence of some years among Spaniards, have placed me on a better footing than the majority of travellers to judge of the state of the country and the value of what is being done, while it also enabled me to gain some personal experience from attempts to make known the Good News on my way.
n.-THE AGENCIES AT WORK.
At present there are no less than tweh-e foreign societies more or less engaged in work in Spain and the Balearic Islands, mustering among them some eighty preaching places, while there are about forty more managed independently of any society. Owing to the number of agencies at work, exact statistics are very difficult to obtain, especially in connection with the independent workers, who, it will be seen, occupy about a third of the field.
The eighty stations were thus distributed when the last general survey * of the work was made two years ago, and since then very little change has taken ~lace, insufficient to warrant the labor of going over that task again.
" ~ ~wl . OIl~ '§w w ~~ ~~ zj C2'5 :a~ QJ ~s"~ ~g s'5 " i " " ~]I "" ~ """"~A:;bll ~:l ~~ 0 A'5 E-< oj p.. oj 00 "".El 0 "'" ~ w'" ""E-< > p.. f"1 ::;J P'Ih :§ 00'" 0 — — — — — – — – – – –1– – AmerlcanCongregationalists 14 8 3 1250 413 14 4 11 262 215 13 20 466 American Baptists …….•.. 5 2 3 155 34 2 2 6 6 158 58 English Wesleyans ……•.. 20 6 9 1540 269 17 12 13 306 299 11 30 387 Church of England..•.•••.. 15 6 3 1884 1194 13 6 8 236 292 1 1 30 Scotch Presbyterians ..•••.• 4 4 1 290 284 8 4 4 256 118 6 25 276 Irish Presbbterians ……… 4 4 1 108 22 4 3 2 111 52 3 7 60 Dntch Pres yterians….••.. 3 3 127 67 5 3 2 75 68 2 7 165 Swiss Presbyterians …….. 6 .. 2 3 223 1922 9 5 6 120 104 11 23 310 German …. …………. 2 60 80 6 6 3 184 56 2 11 168 ~~~~~~-~~~~~l i~rl's~~~: 3 8 1425 154 7 3 4 118 92 3 5 91 2 1 27 15 E~IiSh Congregationalists. 1 2 4 '57 70 30 321 60 ll~ 2 – In ependent ……………. 35t 12 11 20351688 23 11 24 759 784 -2-0 -4-4 100.1 – – – — Totals ………. 114 54 35 9194 3442 111 61 78 2545 2095 80 183 3231 The general position may be briefly summarized thus: preaching places, 114 j t pastors, 54 j evangelists, 35 j attendants at divine worship, 9194 j eommunicants, 3442 j day-schools, III j day-school teachers, male, 61 ; day-school teachers, female, 78 j boys on the lists, 2545 j girls on the lists, 2095 j Sunday-schools, 80; Sunday.school teachers, 183; Sundayschool children, 323l.
The above figures are those which each pastor or evangelist supplied, and therefore rest on their authority. With reference to the number of * By the Rev. J. W. Brown, of Barcelona, to whom I am indebted for these figures.
t There are a few more of whicb no statistics were obtainable. commuuicants of the Church of England Mission, which is known in Spain as the Reformed Church, it should be mentioned that little care is taken in granting admittance to this church, as evidence of the New Birth is not consiaered necessary. 'l'hen again, though the numbers of school children in all cases are those on the lists, the average attendance is from three fourths to four fifths of this number. The average number of attendants at the services, too, is to a large extent conjectural.
In addition to these agencies, the British and Foreign Bible Society has a representative at Madrid, in charge of a central depot, with a body of colporteurs in various parts of the country, as also has the American Board.
The Religious Tract Society of London, too, has a branch in Madrid, with a committee of the leading workers of each mission, and a depot from which are issued periodically a vast number of most excellent tracts, booklets, and periodicals suited to meet the objections of Romanists and infidels. In addition to these there are published, in one place or another, one weekly, two fortnightly, and two monthly periodicals, devoted to Christian enterprise and the spread of Gospel truth, in Spanish.
I1I.""':"THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORK.
If my readers will open the map of Spain, they will have no difficulty in following me in an imaginary trip through the country, calling at all the principal mission stations, for I will commence with the northwest corner and take them in order as they come.
The province of GALICIA is almost entirely occupied by workers belonging to the Brethren community. At Ooruiia Mrs. ChAsterman, at Vigo Mr. and Mrs. Hoyle, at Marin Mr. Blamire, are all carrying on an earnest warfare for the truth, with out-stations at six minor towns, in all of which blessing has been received. There are schools for children of both sexes at Marin and Coruna. The only other station in this province is that of the Scotch National Bible Society, at Ferrol.
In ASTURIAS the only evangelical chapel and schools are at Besullo, under the direction of M. Fliedner, of Madrid, while there is work carried on at three smaller centres.
LEON, as a larger province, has more to show. The Reformed Church is here to the fore, with chapels at Salamanca and Villaescusa, in the charge respectively of Senors Antonio Garcia and Regaliza, who engage also in work of more or less importance in eleven neighboring villages. At Villaescusa the result of the work has been greatly exaggerated in some reports, but it is fairly prosperous, and a small church is being erected. In this province are also two out-stations maintained by Mr. Hoyle.
Several bodies are at work in the next province, OLD CASTILE. At Santander, on the sea-coast, is a station of the American Board, under a Spanish pastor, Don Enrique de Tienda, with chapel and schools. Owing to the efforts of the Romanists, during the sixteen years that this church has been in existence it has had to move seven times in search of a meeting-place, and was once nearly two years houseless. This is an in- stance of what goes on in most parts where the work is prospering, and the churches own no property of their own, showing how important it is that this need should be provided for. This mission has other stations at Logroiio, Pradejon, and Roa. At the first-named place Don Angel Dijon is pastl>r; a worthy old saint who founded the church at Saragossa was long in charge here, but has at length retired to the south to end his days with his family. At Pradejon, for the past year or two, opposition has been more than usually intense, owing to the arrival of a stern and bigot- ed parish priest. Nevertheless, progress is steadily made. Owing to lack of workers, this is in the same charge as the one previously men- tioned. Roa is able to boast of a purchased place of worship for the Protestants, but as yet it has no fixed pastor, and remains in the care of the evangelist from Pamplona, through whose means its church was founded. Mission work is also carried on at Oaniego.
The Reformed Church has a chapel at Valladolid, ministered to by Sr. Martinez, with mission work in six or seven villages round, and an out- station at Palencia. For many years a most valuable work was done here by Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, independent workers, who have now removed to Murcia to open a new station, leaving Mr. Macarthy here in charge of their chapel and schools.
In the little province of BISCAY is the head station of the American Board, at San Sebastian, nnder the direction of the Rev. W. H. Gulick, with a chapel and schools, one of the latter for the preparation of female teachers, superintended by Mrs. Gulick, being a most important work. In all there are about a hundred and twenty day. scholars and thirty boarders. There is another chapel at Sestao, and a mission at the mines of Triano.
The important town of Bilbao would seem wholly given up to Roman- ism, for though it is full of priests and nuns, and a vast amount of money is ever ready to add to its numerous Mary-temples, Jesuitical convents, etc., the Protestants have for two years been unable to secure premises for public worship. Is it not a disgrace and a shame to our wealthy Christians . that they are not forthwith supplied with funds to purchase a site and build 1 The work here is sustained by the Evangelical Continental So- ciety of London, but under the superintendence of Mr. Gulick. There is also here a mission for sailors of all nations.
The only miilsion station in NAVARRE is that at Pamplona, where a lit- tle group of faithful ones has existed for several years, often without the presence of a pastor, who is now maintained by the American Board.
In ARRAGON the same mission has a pastor, the Rev. Carlos Aranjo, with chapel and schools, at the idolatrous town of Saragossa, and an in- teresting out-station at Tauste. Mr. Armstrong had formerly a chapel here, but this has recently been given up.
The next province, CATALONIA, has a most flourishing work at Barcelana, one of the earliest attempted in Spain. Here several bodies are engaged. The Brethren are represented by Mr. Henry Payne, who, with Mrs. Payne, has labored here for nearly twenty years. Under their care are three chapels, each having its schools for girls and boys, which are supported through Mr. Muller, of Bristol. They have gathered around them quite a large number of souls plucked from the fire of Rome, and their schools are well attended. The Wesleyan Methodists have long been represented here by Mr. Simpson, who has, however, been for a year or two laid by in England, and his post ably filled by the Rev. W. J. Brown. Here, too, are good congregations and excellent schools, five of the former and three of the latter, with four out-stations. The Swiss Presbyterians have also their representative here, M. Empaytaz, who has grown gray in the work. Under his direction are chapel and schools in the town, four other chapels and schools in other localities, and three out-stations, two with schools. The Swedish Baptists support Mr. Lund, who has here a chapel and schools, and one out-station. Another important institution in Barcelona is a Protestant hospital, managed by a committee formed of the gentlemen named. This meets a deeply felt want, and is a work which should have the fullest sympathy. There is also a B1ble and tract depot here. Apart from the Spanish work there is an English chapel, and work among the Swedish and Norwegian sailors.
From various causes the work at this, the second city of Spain, has been proportionally more successful, perhaps, than anywhere else in the country. I was delighted to see the well.managed schools and earnest services, and the good attendance at lectures which I was asked to give in Spanish at two of the chapels. As I had visited nearly all the chapels and schools, I was able to form some idea as to their actual condition better than by the comparison of reports.
Near the famous shrine at Montserrat, the Reformed Church has a station at Monistrol and another at St. Vincente de Castellet, with chapels and schools at both places, and four out-stations.
At Figueras, farther north, is an independent mission carried on by the Rev. and Mrs. Lopez y Rodriguez, the latter being English. They are assisted by several English ladies and two brothers of Sr. Lopez, carrying . on work in quite a number of villages round. The American Board has also an evangelist and school at Figueras, and another at La Escala. An independent work at Villafranca concludes the list in this province.
In Y ALENCIA and MURCIA there are chapels and schools at the town of Valencia and at Carthagena, the one under the Swedish Baptists and the other under the Swiss Presbyterians. As already mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong are just now occupied in commencing work at the port of Aguilas. The only other work is at Sagunto, an out-station.
In the province of NEW CASTILE there is but one mission ceatre, except in Madrid, though here several agencies are busy. In the capital, again, the Brethren are to the fore with a chapel and three schools supported through Mr. Miiller, all excellently managed, and giving evidence of real spiritual blessing. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Fenn have charge of it, and have labored at Barcelona and here some twenty-one years. They are assisted by several English ladies. At· YunC08 they have an out-station, with schools, but work in the villages round the capital has all along proved very hard and unencouraging. The Reformed Church in Madrid is represented by the Rev. J. B. Cabrera, the bishop-elect, who has a chapel and a mission room with three schools. A church is about to be built for this congregation with funds from England, by which also the pastors and 8chool1l are supported. The Scotch Presbyterians had formerly a good deal of work here, but latterly they have been abandoning it piecemeal. The only remnant here is a good congregation, with schools, eloquently addressed at their services by the Rev. Sr. Tornos, and under the superintendence of the Rev. John Jameson, once supported by this Society, but now British and Foreign Bible Society agent. They have also an outstation at },{ocejon, with a bOYI:!' school. The Wesleyans have a chapel and a boys' school in Madrid under the superintendence, just now, of the Rev. J. W. Lord, but the work having suffered recently from various causes, has not come into Mr. Lord's hands in a flourishing condition. The remaining mission here is a German one, that of the Rev. F. Fliedner, assisted by a preacher, Sr. Vargas. He has a chapel and schools, with a small orphanage, accommodation for a few boarders, and a "sick bay" over them, as also a cottage near the Escorial as a country branch. Mr. Fliedner likewise directs the Protestant book-shop and tract-depository, and is honorary chaplain to the German Embassy. There is, too, an embryo Young Men's Christian Association here, which is at present in but a crnde state, though it should develop. For English-speaking people, there are formal services in connection with the British Embassy. The only other station in this province is at· Criptana, where Mr. George Lawrence is at work, with his three daughters, in chapel and schools j they are independent workers.
Sad to say, the adjoining province of ESTREMADURA is totally without evangelistic work, and only that of ANIULUCIA remains to be noticed. The Edinburgh "Spanish Evangelization Society" has several stations here, under the superintendence of the Rev. ·William Moore, M. A., at Puerto Santa Maria, close to Cadiz, where they have a school for the training of young Spanish converts for evangelists and pastors. This again is a most important branch of the work, as no one can reach people like their own countrymen when properly prepared. At Cadiz itself this society has a chapel and schools under the care of Don Rafael Bianco, with an outstation at Pto. Real. At Huelva the English residents set an excellent example by supporting a boys' school, which is under the same superintendence, the Rev. Antonio Jimenez being pastor. They have here also girls' and infants' schools. At Seville the Rev. Sr. Barroso has a small chapel alild schools under the same auspices, while the remaining station is at the village of Escornaz, near Granada, where there is a chapel and school. One or two out-stations are under the same society, which allo supporto the Rev. John Murray at Granada. The Irish Presbyterians have here taken over the work of their Scotch brethren, who had grown disheartened, and now maintain a mission in Jerez, where they have a wellbuilt chapel and schools, under the Rev. Jose Viliasid, and a chapel and schools at San Fernando, on the other side of Cadiz. Friends in Amsterdam support the Rev. Camilo Calamita at Utrera (chapel and schools) j the Rev. C. Carrefio at Oordova (ditto), and Sr. J. Alhama at Gmnada (chapel only). At Malaga Sr. Manuel Carrasco has a chapel and schools where good work is being done, and there is another independent worker. The Reformed Church supports the Rev. Jose Vila in this town, with chapel and schools, and in Seville the Revs. V. Baquero and Palomares, with built churches formerly belonging to monasteries, and schools, with an outstation at Triana. Farther north, at Sinares, Mr. Wigstone, of the Brethren, works both in Spanish and English, and at Algeciras, opposite Gibraltar, a new work was begun nearly a year ago, under the direction of an independent worker, Mr. Simpson, aided by several ladies. There are two more out-stations in this province.
IV.-CONCLUDING REMARKS.
This brings to an end the list of mission cent~es in the whole kingdom, and the reader will not have failed to note how far they are from supplying its great need for the Gospel. As forming part of the same domains, the Balearic Isles should not go unmentioned, for here a good work is going steadily forward under the Rev. F. G. Smith, Wesleyan minister at Mahon, who has nine chapels and five schools in his charge. At Gibraltar, too, there is work doing among the Spaniards, though on a small scale, by various laborers too much engaged in English work to spare much time for it. Just over the straits, on the Morocco coast, is a work among the Spanish colony at Tangier, which promises well. Mr. H. N. Patrick and two or three ladies, all under the North Africa Mission, are laboring there, and have a Gospel coffee hall, with services and night schools.
It will be understood, in the above brief sketch, that except when a " built church" is specified, the chapel and schools usually consist of one or more rooms in a private house, or of a store, the same apartment in many cases serving for both purposes. This is a very great dra.wback, as it is not allowed in Spain to put np any sign outside to denote an evangelical place of worship, and only special edifices will attract outsiders, unless they hear the singing as they pass. Then again, a large proportion of the people consider the present places" hardly respectable," who would be quite willing to enter a " regular church. "
Space will not permit of my discussing fully the various methods of work employed in Spain, or of the causes which concur to retard the spread of Gospel truth which it might lie in the power of those engaged to mini-.
PLANTING CHRISTIANITY IN GERMANY
mize or, in some cases, to remove. Though the vi8ible resnlts of the twenty years of toil which have been spent upon the country since its doors were opened to the Gospel are still small, this must not be made an excnse for staying our hand. We have sent but one company of soldiers to stay the on-rush of a mighty host. How can we wonder that they can do little else than keep their ground ~ Where one of the enemy falls there are ten to to rush in. If we want !lee results, let us send our thousand devoted men and woman to Spain not unprepared, but equipped with some knowledge of the language if possible. Let us not leave them struggling for lack of funds, but empty our full coffers and lay them at Jesus' feet. Let us break our pots of ointment and devote our strength to using in His service what is of greatest earthly value. How many who read this will accept the call and say, " Lord, here am I, send ME" !
PROTESTANTISM IN BELGIUM.
BY MARGUERITE DE LAVELEYE, SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER AT LIEGE.
Two Belgian monks, Henri VillS and Jean Esch, were burned alive in Brussels in 1523. These were the first Protestant martyrs in the Netherlands. The Spanish Inquisition continued its bloody persecutions till the Reformation was completely suppressed. During more than two centuries Belgium was thoroughly dominated by the Romish Church. In 1848 a society named Eglise Missionnaire BeIge was constituted at Brussels for the spreading of the Gospel.
This society comprises now 27 churches and missions in full activity in 170 communes composed o£ 7000 members, 420 only of Protestant origin. Thirty-eight clergymen and Bible-teachers preach the Gospel in private houses, churchyards, and in public, presiding as well over Sunday services and Bible classes.
The Belgian missionary church might rapidly extend its blessed work if it was not constantly prevented by the insufficiency of its means. It requires about 140,000 francs yearly, and as nearly all its members are poor workmen, the receipts are always much below the expenses, not to mention the requirements of the new missionary stations. In January, 1890, the deficit reached 45,000 francs, and the missionary society will have to diminish its activity without fresh help.
We therefore appeal to all those who take an interest in the promotion of evangelization on the Continent that they may" come over to help us. " The treasurer of the Belgian Missionary Church is M. Kennedy Anet, 123 Chaussee d'Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium.
PLANTING CHRISTIANITY IN GERMANY.
BY REV. HENRY GRACEY, GANANOQUE, CANADA.
IN contemplating the spread of Christianity in the seventh and eighth centuries among the barbarous peoples dwelling in the north and northeastern districts of Europe, one cannot but admire the energy, zeal, and courage shown by many of the missionaries. Their methods cannot always be commended, nor can all their doctriues be approved; still we must admire their fervor and glowing devotion. And our modern missionaries might find not a few things worthy of imitation in the conduct and character of those early heralds of Christianity. The tribes or peoples which inhabited at that time that part of Europe now known as Germany were fierce, warlike, and barbarous; and the first missionaries who went among them did so at no little inconvenience, and some of them at imminent risk of thcir lives.
We read of several attempts made by zealous missionaries to get a foothold among the tribes on the eastern borders of the kingdom of the Franks; but they met with comparatively little success. About the middle of the seventh century one Amandus, a bishop alDong the Franks, extended his labors to the Frieslanders, a fierce and powerful tribe occllpying part of what is now called the Netherlands, and also certain districts in Germany. Unable to subdue the barbarism and idolatry of the people, he procured an order from the Frankish king, Dagobert, by which all might be compelled to submit to baptism; but in trying to carry out this violent measure he raised such a storm of indignation against himself that he was in danger of losing his life. He was, however, a man of resources. By acts of benevolence, by redeeming captives, and by pretended miracles, he managed to recover his lost ground, and to persuade some of the people to destroy their idols and embrace Christianity. Another Frankish bishop who did something for the spread of the Gospel among the German tribes was one Eligius. He had been a goldsmith by trade, and was rich, benevolent, and very devout. "'hen engaged in his trade he spent large sums of money in the interests of Christianity. A favorite plan with him was to redeem captives, which he did in large numbers-sometimes as many as one hundred in one transaction-and after giving them some knowledge of the Gospel he would send them back to their homes, from which, hy the fortunes of war, they had been carried off. In 641 this pious and worthy man was appointed bishop of Tournay and Noyon, and during 18 years he continued to carryon missionary work in the neighboring territory. He was noted as much for his liberal and evangelical views as for his piety and generosity.
But the most extensive mission work among the German tribes in this seventh century was done by missionaries from Ireland. At this time the zeal, learning, and devotion of the Irish Church had attracted considerable attention. The religious schools there were noted for their many excellencies and their numerous students. The monasteries were said to be crowded in the fifth and sixth centuries with pious monks willing to engage in enterprises of Christian activity.
The first of these of whom we have information as undertaking mis- sionary work WaS one Columban, near the end of the sixth century. His method was very practical. Born in the province of Leinster, he was ed~ ucated in the famous monastery of Bangor. At the age of 30 he felt im- pelled to enter a larger field of usefulness than seemed open to him in Ireland, and taking twelve young men with him, he crossed over to the Frankish kingdom. Christianity had been established there. Still, find- ing a great deal to be done, and being entreated to remain within the king- dom of the Franks, he did so. His aim was to make his colony of monks support themselves by their own labor, and while doing so they could set an example of industry to the natives around them, teach them some of the arts of husbandry, and also the truths of the Gospel. Accordingly a suitable spot was selected at a place called Anegrey; a humble lodging was built as a monastery, and the forest was cleared by the labors of his monks. At first they had great hardships, and were reduced to the greatest straits for the very necessaries of life. But Columban was a man of great determination and courage, and his influence over his followers was lIuch that even in the greatest difficulties he was able to cheer them, and induce them to persevere. After a time the method and discipline of Columban became very popular, and families of every rank committed their sons to him for education; and so numerous did his monks become that he established several monasteries. Hard work was a prominent feature in his discipline.
But he had other difficultIes to contend with than the poverty and privation met with in planting his mission. His severity of discipline and the strictness of his morals were unpopular with the worldly and dissolute, and he became an object of dislike to many in high places. Then there was another cause of trouble. The usages of the Irish Church did not harmonize with those established in the Frankish kingdom. The most prominent di"ergence was in respect to the Easter observance. The feeling at that time was running strongly in favor of entire u",iformity in the Church. The popes Gregory the Great and Boniface IV. both pressed this matter very resolutely, and Columban was urged to yield and give up his practices imported from Ireland. This he could by no means be per~ suaded to do. And to the Pope Boniface IV., as also to the Frankish bishops, he wrote very earnestly, counselling unity in essentials, while divergence was permitted in such matters as were complained of. He disclaimed any intention of trying to change the customs of the Frankish Church. He only wanted liberty to follow his own methods in his own monasteries in the wilderness; and he intimated pretty plainly to the Frankish bishops that there were other matters of reform of more importance to which they might with profit to themselves and their flocks tum their attention. His appeal did not meet with their approval. A synod was called in 602 to deliherate on the matter. What the immediate result of the synod's deliberations. were does not appear; but shortly afterward a feeling of hostility to Columban sprang up in the Burgundian Court, within whose territory three of his monasteries lay, which became S'J strong that he was forced to yield to it and retire. An order was issued that he should be seut back to Ireland. This, however, was not carried OUL; but, on the invitation of the Frankish king, he removed to a place within the territory of Zurich, intending to carryon a mission to the Alemanui and Suevi, who dwelt in this district. But his zeal deprived him of the opportunity; for, unable to restrain his indignation against gross idolatry, he indisereetly set fire to and destroyed a heathen temple. This rash act raised such a strong feeling against him among the savage natives that he was forced to seek refuge in flight. The result was he forsook this region altogether, retired to Italy, and founded, near Pavia, the monastery of Bobbio. One Gallus, a disciple of his, resolved, however, to remain and continue the work. Following the method pursued by Columban, he selected a suitable spot in the forest, and gathering to him some monks, he set about clearing the forest and cultivating the soil, aiming in this at two things: First, he wished to secure a living for his missionaries, and second, to set un example of cultivating the soil that might be followed by the people. While engaged in these works of husbandry, however, he preached the Gospel. He described to the people God's plan for saving men, and told them that he and his associates were messengers sent to tell them about this great matter. He carefully pointed out to them the sins they were to avoid, reminding them of the judgment of God in time and eternity. By those means Gallus became very influential in the neighborhood, and established a great reputation for sanctity.
But other missionaries, resolved to engage in the same work, also came over from Ircland. In the seventh century it was a common thing for young men to go over from England for the purpose of leading a spiritual life among the monks of Ireland, or to gather learning in their schools. Such visitors were readily welcomed by the Irish Church.
Among these was a young man named Egbert, who, in a time of very severe illness, made a YOW that if spared he would devote his life to work among the heathen. Having recovered, he made arrangements to carry out his vow, and several others of kindred spirit resolved to join him in the work. For reasons that do not appear, Egbert, who originated the mission, did not go with it j but the others carried it out. One Wigbert became the leader j and the northern part of Germany, adjacent to the German ocean, was the field selected. But, on account of the determined and Ditter hostility of Radbod, a powerful native king, little was accomplished, and eventually the mission was given up. This failure, however, did not discourage, and shortly after the same enterprise was undertaken by another man from the same school. A young Englishman, named Willibrord, when about the age of twenty visited Ireland and spent twelve years in study there. After that, moved by the missionary spirit, he set out to prosecute a mission among the Germans where his countrymen had failed. By this time Pepin had subdued part of Friesland, and was able to give some protection to the missionary. Willibrord took twelve compan-
CHILDREN OF FOREIGN MISSIO!iAIUEIl
ions with him, and for more than thirty years he continued his labors amid distressing privations, and in the face of many great dangers and difficulties. King Radbod continued his implacable enemy j but although he threw many difficulties in the way of the missionary, he failed to dislodge him as he had dislodged his predecessors. A characteristic story is told of this king which illustrates his haughty spirit and the strong doctrinal convictions of the missionary. It is said that on one occasion the king presented himself to Willibrord for baptism j but before submitting to the ordinance he wanted to know whether the kings, his ancestors, were in heaven, and whether he might hope to meet them there if he were baptized and went to heaven himself. This question presented no difficulty to the missionary, who at once told him his ancestors were certainly all in hell, as they had died unbaptized. "What business have I, then," said Radbod, "with a few poor people in heaven 1 I prefer to abide in the religion of my fathers." And so he did; he could never again be induced to entertain the doctrines of the missionary.
Throughout the seventh century missionary work in Germany was carried on in a desultory fashion. There were a number of independent laborers, characterized by great zeal and self. denying devotion, yet having no bond of union and no common centre, nor, indeed, any means of sympathizing with and helping each other. There being no central authority, there was no organization, and the different missionaries labored under great disadvantages. And not only did these earnest men lack the stimulus of mutual encouragement, they lacked the help of material support and backing. They often found themselves without supplies in the midst of savage enemies. It can hardly be wondered at that in such circumstances, while many devoted men had engaged in the work there were no results that made a deep impression in respect to the conquests of Christianity. Yet the labors and instructions of these piom! men from Ireland, continued with varying snccess through the seventh century, prepared the way for the work of Boniface in the beginning of the eighth century, who has been called the Apostle of Germany; and to them belongs the credit of in~ augurating that great missionary enterprise and sowing the seed, while the harvest and the glory fell to Boniface.
CHILDREN OF FOREIGN MISSIONARIES.
BY A MISSIONARY.
One of the difficult questions foreign missionaries have to decide has reference to their own children. Climate, want of proper schools, and other canses compel them to pursue one of the following courses: they must either send or take their children home a.nd leave them to the care of others, or abandon their work at a time when best fitted for it, and when it may be most needed. This necessity is one of the severest trials mis- ~j.ollaries have to meet, and calls for strong faith and earnest prayer, It is difficult to see how the work can go on with efficiency if, as a general rule, missionary parents must permanently leave it when it becomes necessary for their children to leave the country where it is done. But is this necessary ~ May not these parents, having cons~crated their children to Christ, leave them, for His sake, to the care of others ~ Evidence of special care bestowed by the Master upon such children has not been wanting, as may be found, it is believed, in the following communication.
The writer has the names of all missionaries sent by the American Board to its different missions in India and Ceylon previous to 1874. And though he has not the names of all their children, he has known many of them, and had the means of learning much respccting the history of others.
While he was himself connected with one of these missions for nearly forty years, it was the practice in each for its members to observe a season of special prayer for their children at a particular time each week. How far the facts here given are the result of this concert of prayer cannot be told. But they are interesting and encouraging.
The following statement, though not claiming to be complete, is the result of careful notice, and is certainly within the truth. Of the sons of missionaries sent by the Board to India and Ceylon before 1874, twentyeight became foreign missionaries, seventeen clergymen in this coun'ry, and seven physicians. Fourteen, after graduating at college, became teachers, or engaged in other useful employment, and eleven are known to have become useful men without a collegiate education. One lost his life in the Union Army during the Civil War. Two died in college, and one soon after graduating. One was pursuing his studies in college a year ago, and three in theological seminaries.
Of the danghters of missionaries mentioned above, twenty-seven, as is known, became missionaries or the wives of missionaries, arid eleven others married clergymen or educated men in other professions. Ten, after completing their education, engaged in teaching or other useful employment, and three, not graduating at public school!'!, became uscful as Christian wives and mothers. One had just entered the institution at South Hadley a year ago, one was in her last year of study preparatory to Wellesley College, one was in an academy iu Massachusetts, and one in a normal school in New Yqrk City.
The following account is confined to the children of a single company of missionaries who went out in the same ship. The company consisted of four men, with their wives, and an unmarried lady. About two years later the young lady was married to a missionary. Fifteen sons and eleven daughters born to this company lived to adult age: All but two or three were sent or carried home by their parents and left in the care of others. These would have been thus left had not their parents been prevented by other causes from" returning to their work in accordance with their earnest wishes. All early became members of the church. Ten of the sons graduated at college. . Six of these became ministers, of whom three went abroaJ. as foreign missionaries, and another would have gone but for the failure of his health. Two engaged in journalism. One studied medicine, and settled as a physician in New York City. One, ha,'wg taught for five years in a college in India, ill now studying in a theological seminary in the United States. Of the other five, one died while a senior in college. One. having graduated at a medical college, is a practising physician in Massachnsetts. One, an eldcr in a Presbyterian church, is a journalist in one of the principal cities of the Northwest. The two others, in useful callings, are active workers in the Sunday-school. Of the eleven daughters, two, after several years' work in a foreign mission, became the wives of missionaries. One graduated at Mount Holyoke Seminary, and went to Ceylon as a missionary. One, after graduating at the same school, engaged in teaching in New York City. One died not long after her marriage to an educated Christian man. One, graduated at a normal school in Massachusetts, taught five ycars, and married the pastor of an important church. One, having received an education in other schools of high standing, graduated at the vYornan's Medichl College, in Philadelphia. One graduated at W cHesley College. taught six or seven years, and is now giving assistance in missionary work in Spain. The other three are all useful as intelligent Christian wives and mothers. These accounts are given with the hope of affording encouragement .to missionaries called for the sake of Christ to put their children from them, and to those who give them sympathy and help. Does not the Lord care for such children?
DECEMBER, 1890.
THE ANATOMY OF NATIONAL LIFE.-In a recent lecture on " Oriental Thought," Professor E. P. Thwing, M.D., of Brooklyn, Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, drew attention to the initial elements, the physical fa!tors revealed in the geographical position of a continent, its climate, scenery, and soil. He quoted the remark of Dr. Coan, of the Sandwich Islands, that the Gulf Stream gave Europe its ,present civilization, and the occlusion of the Pacific at Behring Strait made Polynesia what it is. Volcanoes and seismic disturbances and typhoons, are related, he said, to the abnormal development of the imagination, and the thanatophidia of the East to demonology. Thermal extremes produce indu8trial and so moral instability. The study of physical geography and ancillary themes is fundamental. Only by a patient analysis is a true synthesis and so a rational science gained of human ciyilization. Buckle drew notice to this method thirty years ago, but modern research hal> illuminated the subject and emphasized its importance to every student of ethnology.
ISIDOlt LOEWENTHAl•
ISIDOR' LOEWENTHAL.
BY ROBERT MORRISON, FULTON, MO.
In the Youth's Companion of April 23d ult. there is a quotation from a book entitled" Stories from th,e Battle Smoke," as follows: " A missio~ary to India was shot, as he sat in his veranda in the dusk (If the evening, by bis own chowkeydar, or watchman, whether intent iollally or hy accident will never be known. Near a public road stands hi~ solitary grave. On the stone at the head is the inscription: SACRED TO THE MEMORY of the REV. – – SONNENTIIAL.
J[e tran8lated the Script7£res in the Afghan tongue, and wa.~ I1hot by his own chowkeydar.
, Well done, thou good and faithful servant.' "
The above epitaph recalls a flood of memories of the years gone by. The real name of the missionary refeITed to above is Isidor Loewenthal.
God's dealings with him were so strange that a sketch of his history . ,,,n hardly fail to interest God's people of the present day.
lIe was born in Posen, Prussian Poland, A.D. 1826. His parents were .rews. His father knew but little and cared less about religion. His mother was a devoted follower of the traditions of the rabbis. She, however, endeavored to instruct her children in the principles of morality. These parents were in moderate worldly circumstances, and with eight children to rear and educate, of whom Isidor was the eldest, they were unable to give them a liberal or university education. They however did what they could, and did that fairly well.
Our young schoiar was sent to a Jewish school to learn some of the first principles of science, and to repeat prayers of whose meaning he knew nothing. There was no attempt to explain their significance or interest him about such matters more than would have been done to a pet parrot.
By and by he was sent to " a Christian school" -so, at least, in name. There religion, as the teachers understood it, was taught as an accomplishment to fit one for general society or for office in the government, and, of course, was taught in a very lifeless sort of way. There were 01]. this subject two recitations a week, and attendance thereon was optional. The Greek language was in the course, but no hint was ever given that the New Testament was written in that tongue. Hebrew was taught, and Isaiah was read and pronounced by the professor to be nearly equal in beauty and snblimity to Homer. Snch Jews as Philo, Spinoza, and Mendelssohn were commended in contrast to such Christians as Voltaire, Rousseau, Rume, and Bolingbroke. Milton and Locke were called fanatics, and while the learning and genius of Newton were admired, he was pitied because unable to free himself" from the common superstition of the greater part of mankind."
Being unable further to pursue his studies, young Loewenthal became clerk for a merchant; but selling goods was not to his taste. To be among books was his delight. He was a born student. Having no other work, however, open before him, he kept on with his clerkship, and becoming acquainted with some young men about his own age who were radicals in politics, met with them secretly for the discussion of political questions. At such times essays and poetry of their own composition were often read. One of these pieces Mr. Loewenthal was indiscreet enough to publish. Because it criticised the government, he indirectly learned that his arrest had been determined on. He knew the horrors of such a risk as that. This was but two years before the great upheaval on the Oontinent, of 1848. With haste he fled to Hamburg, and with a good deal of trouble secured a passport to New York, whither, in a short time, he arrived, a stranger in a strange land, with but a poor knowled,e of English. He had but little money left, and he hnnted for work very earnestly in New York and Philadelphia, but failed entirely. He then struck out to get work in the country, but failed there too. In despair, he invested -all he had in a small basketful of notions, and began the life of a peddler.
In Novemher, 1846, when but a little over twenty years old, he ealled one forenoon at the house of Rev. S. M. Gayley, near Wilmington, Del., drenched with rain and suffering with cold; he was invited to the fire and to stop for dinner. After dinner, when he had disposed of some of his wares to Mrs. Gayley, he rose to depart, but the kind preacher, noticing how thinly clad the young stranger was, invited him to halt for the night, which he readily did.
Upon inquiry he found, to his surprise, that the young peddler had studied some philosophy and seience, and was master Qf the Hebrew and several modern languages. The preacher became very much interested in his guest, and persuaded him to stay with him until he eould see if some more suitable employment eould be found for him. This he soon seeured in having a elass formed for him in modern languages in Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa., and which he took charge of January lst, 1847. The few weeks, however, that he spent at the house of his benefactor were eventful times to him. Writing to Mr. Gayley some time afterward, lle says: "It was at your house, by your earnest prayers (at family worship), to which I first went half from curiosity, half from politeness, by your humble supplications, that I was first awakened to apprehend my danger, to consider that I had an immortal soul. I began to open the Bible. I was astonished. I waited with eagerness morning and evening for the summons to family worship to hear you pray. I was more and more convinced I was on the wrong path." During the young professor's absence at col-
tsmon
lege, Mr. Gayley followed him with kindly religious counRel, which, though a bow at a venture, proved under God to be the right things said at the right time, and in the autumn following Mr. Gayley baptized him as a member of the Presbyterian Church.
In the fall term of 1847 Mr. Loewenthal entered the senior class in Lafay- ette, and graduated in the June following. Shortly after graduating the Rev. Samuel Miller offered him the position of a teacher in the collegiate school at Mount Holly, N. J. This he accepted and retained for three years, when he entered the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he took a full course and graduated with great credit in 1854. He was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. While in the seminary he taught classes in the modern languages in the college of New Jersey. He was an early riser and a tireless worker. As a linguist he had few equals and, per- haps, no superior, considering his age. He was a thorough student, at the same time, in mathematic1l and philosophy. There were plenty of open- ings gladly awaiting such qualifications as he had, hut he cheerfully offered himself to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church to go to the Gentiles of India, and was accepted and sailed for his field in August, 1855.
The Society of Inquiry of the seminary selected him as essayist for 1854, and his subject was India as a Missionary Field. The prouuction was one of great merit, and was soon after published in the Princeton Review.
He was below middle size in stature, but lithe and wiry. He had a large hooked nose, a fine black eye, and raven black hair. He was a quiet, modest man, and a man of thorougll consecration. All his powers were cheerfully laid at the foot of the cross.
At Peshawer, the advanced station of missionary enterprise in Afghanis,…, tan at that time, he landed in 1855. He was the pioneer there and alone, but he addressed himself in earnest to the acquisition of that difficult language, the Pushtoo.
Nine years of patient, hard labor passed, and he was able to preach in Pushtoo, Persian, Cashmere, Hindustanee, Arabic, and, in fact, in all the languages and dialects of that polyglot region which he had chosen as his field of labor. Besides this he had just completed a translation of the New Testament in Pushtoo, and was about to begin work on the Old Testament when his earthly work suddenly came to an end.
When in the seminary he was subject to terrible headaches, which caused him to rush out very early in the morning to take an airing, and Rome of the theologues who rose betimes in the mornings used to see him coming back from a walk of two or three miles just as they first looked out. One morning in July. 1864, about daylight he was shot by his own watchman, who said he thought it was a thie;: 'Vhether what he said was true, or whether he was paid to kill one who was hated and feared, as did some men of Asia who were not ahle to resist the wisdom of the Spirit by which Stephen spoke to thEm, will not likely be known on this side of eternity.
ISIDOR LOEWENTIIAL
Tt is hardly probable that that was the first time in all those years that Mr. Loewenthal had come home at that hour and in that way!
To human view it seems mysterious that one so gifted, so eminently fitted for such a field and on the ground and anxious to work, should be cut down. So, however, was it with another grand servant of Christ and misEionary to India, Henry Jl,Iartyn. Both were men of wonderful intellect and rare scholarship, especially in the line of language; and eaeh gave a final work of a New Testament of his own translation-the one to Persia, the other to Afghanistan. Each died young and alone in differents parts of the field, but Tocat and Peshawer are drawing nearer to each other, and hosts of pious dead will soon surround the graves of these young, brave, lonely pioneers.
From Chefoo, China, Mr. G. P. Bostick writes, April lOth, 1891 : " Rev. B. C. Henry says, , The Chinese dress too often means a Chinese house pure and simple, and native furniture, native utensils and native food.' This statement is unjust to a large number of missionaries who wear the dress,· which no more means, in itself, the other things specified than wearing a Prince Albert coat in New York City necessarily means a brown-stone front with all attending luxuries, or a plain dress, squalid poverty. Many who wear the dress live in good foreign style otherwise, and some of them under the same board with Mr. Henry. The C. 1. M. policy is economy, whether you wear the dress or not. I know some of them in foreign dress who live harder than some others who wear the Chinese dress. I know not how to account for Brother Henry's statement, unless he has not mingled with those who wear the dress. " I also read recently something like this, 'If you are shaking in yonr faith and tend to looseness of views, throw yourself into the mission on a foreign field and it will eure you.' Some haye tried this, resulting in their finally giving up the Bible, religion, and God. Work at home might have the desired effect. But for heathen lands we need men well grounded in the faith at all points; others, if not entirely thrown off, will get looser, and teach loose views to others. Faith of all workers on foreign fields will be thoroughly tried, and needs an immovable foundation. " I read also recently an appeal for sending out mechanics as missionaries, to establish all kinds of shops for the natives. In this part of China there is danger of burying the Gospel beneath the accompanying civilizing agencie~, so that God's power unto salvation will not be seen. My vote is, first and last and all the time, for men and women to preach the Gospel, pure and simple, and depend on God for results; already too much time and money are expended in heathen lands on thc side issues. " Amid the many societies undertaking to do the work of the churches, would it not be well to consider how much stress is to be put upon the individual Church-Christ's organization g"
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN l'EitIODICALB
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FORELGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The Annual Report of the National Bible Society of Scotland has a very "aluable letter respecting the state of France from Mr. Charles Faulk- ner, " whose long residence in that country, and careful study of events in it, entitle him to be heard on such a question" : " Pius IX. himself never made a greater mistake, and that is saying a great deal, than when he dro"e Jules Simon, one of the fairest, most moderate, and most religiously disposed men in France, from power; and he who would form a just estimate of the acts of the French Govern- ment in relation to the Church, is bound to take the 16th of May, 1877, into account. Passion is an evil counsellor, and the systematic persecution that followed was a great mistake; but the Church only reaped what she had sown. She had tried to strangle the Republic."
Mr. Faulkner then describes all the familiar outbursts of passionate hostility to clericalism, aud, in the train of that, to religion itself, and adds, "In all these respects there is a great change. The government is no longer professedly hostile to the Church, and makes an effort even to be fair, and this is true notwithstanding many seeming exceptions. The programme of an anarchical socialist meeting no longer of necessity in- cludes blasphemy. The administration has ceased, at least openly, to persecute. Priests are no longer eaten every day by the extreme Radical journals. Civil funerals are a diminishing quantity." Notwithstanding various measures bearing hard upon the re"enues and exemptions of tho clergy, Mr. Faulkner says that "there is reason to think that the re- ligious influence of the Church is greater now than it was when the Pope drove Jules Simon from power. In the matter of education she has estab- lished free schools, both primary and secondary, which, her opponents being judges, are a great success. In other departments of work there is the same energy, and it seems possible that the latest attempts to cripple her may have the opposite effect." The Jesuits having been greatly disabled, it should seem as if this revival was measurably independent of them, and guided rather by the deeper religion and stricter ethics of the Dominicans. This, however, is an uncertain guess of my own.
"The same is true of the Reformed Church of France. • .. Ten years ago, a few leading men determined to seek the reorganization of the Church by means of non-official synods, both provincial and general. The attempt was regarded by many with fear and trembling, but it has suc- ceeded beyond expectation, and three fourths of the churches are now formally connected with this revived organization, and the Church, as a whole, is throbbing with organic life as she has not done since the dark days of Louis XIV:'
Mr. Faulkner says, moreover, as fully attested by men of all schools, that" the educated French mind is in a marked degree turning its atten- tion to religious subjects, and that in no hostile spirit; indeed, one of the extreme Radical papers complained the other day that among periodicals such as the Revue des Deux ]tfondes there was not one that treated scepticism with due respect."
Is French Catholicism competent to detach itself from its accretions of superstition ~ It should seem not impossible, since, as Pere Hyacinthe attests, the doctrine of Transubstantiation has been there spiritualized to a degree which seeIllS to leave it hardly distinguishable from Calvin's own teaching, except that the presence of Christ is assumed as existing ante usum. The coarse medireval conceptions of t.he Roman Catechism in this Pl!rticular have never found much acceptance in France.
-The Societe des Missions EvangUiques mourns the loss of M. Eugene Casalis, the eminent founder, with M. Arbousset, of the admirable Lessuto .(or, as we sl,ould say, Basuto) Mission, in South Africa. He died March 9th, at the age of 79 years. M. Eugene Casalis, after his return from Africa, was director aud then honorary director of the mission house. The remembrances of the reawakening of French Protestantism, and of its first development of zeal for the extension of the Kingdom of God in the world at large, were peculiarly embodied in him. His missionary character, profoundly Christian, is described as being peculiarly French, marked by that pervasive sympathy and ready flexibility which distinguished St. Paul, and is a special French characteristic. He was distinguished also for his unmoved adherence to the central missionary idea, the salvation of men and the advancement of the kingdom of God, resolutely putting and keeping all the distracting invitations of science, civilization, national interests in their thoroughly subordinate place, " sacrificing, at need, everything which, in our hands, might become an obstacle instead of remaining a lIimple means."
Various children and grandchildren of M. CaRalis have been or are now his successors in Basutoland.
-The April number of the Presbyterian :Jfessenger, of the Presbyterian Church of England, has a letter from a Chinese graduate addressed to W. Faber, which is interesting, though certainly amusing, as showing the enormous over-valuation of mere literature which is characteristic of China, as, in a less degree, it has until lately prevailed in Europe. Says the worthy gentleman, "The excellent men who undertalw to propagate Christianity and are zealous for the salvation of the world have themselves, of course, good methods as well as beautiful intentions; and assuredly they are not waiting for any prosing of mine on the subject. Still, since Jesus, in revealing the truth of God, has eyen sacrificed Himself to save all mankind of all generations, with a tender commiseration which might move to gratitude even the creatures we eat, why is it that to this day so few in China follow Him ~ ". . . Good medicine is that which cures disease, but good medicine is, for the most part, not palatable, and people are apt to loathe it. If you can by any means make medicine smell fragrant and taste sweet, your use of it in the curing of the disease will be marvellously facilitated and quickened. The doctrine of Jesus is indeed beautiful and is indeed good; but much of the translations of it are inelegant and crabbed, and scholars despise it. If you could by any means impart to the translations a just amount of grammar there would be a rush of believers, and no holding of them back. I would, therefore, advise that the Old Testament be translated on the model of the earliest literature of China (that of the Three Dynasties), that the New Testament be translated on the model of the Han Wei and Tsin writings, that hymns be translated in imitation of our elegant praise songs and ceremonial chants, and that Christian literature generally be rendered in the style of the best masters of Pang (A,D.600-900)."
That translations and hymns should be thoroughly Chinese in form and genius is an altogether reasonable requirement. 'But assuredly the Greek New Testament is not written with any care to make it Attic. To some who complained that Salva tor was not classical, Augustine nobly replied, "Christ made it classical when He came into the world." But the letter, as a whole, which is long, is exceedingly good. The graduate points out how the charge brought against Christianity of neglecting an- cestral honor might be met by tracts showing the thousand ways in which, in Christendom, wealth is diverted from ceremonial wastefulness before the dead to a thousand forms of beneficence, public and private, toward the Jiving." Again, all that can be found in Chinese books which is in harmony with the doctrines of Jesus should be collected into a volume for distribution and for use in preaching." The author says, after speaking of the former prevalence of Buddhism, utterly foreign to Confucianism, " That the religion of Jesus should not mightily prevail in China is a thing totally unprecedented. For myself, I barely know the English alphabet, and have no acquaintance with European literature. Hitherto mathematical and mechanical studies have absorbed my attention and dragged me down, so that I dare not hope to achieve anything in the way of illustrating loftier themes. But I cannot help wiping my eyes in tlager expectation of a glorious moral advance and uplifting."
-The Messenger, speaking of the opium traffic, says, "With the great problems staring us in the face of the future of the Chinese race and of the Russian Empire, in both of which we are deeply concerned, surely it is time for us to set our house in order and get rid of the accursed thing. If we do this in the fear of God it will be the surest safeguard should the day of evil come."
– The Ohinese Recorder for March says, " There is an idea prevalent among foreigners that China can make no advance because she is unwilling to become westernized. If these Asiatics would only array themselves in broadcloth or tweed, and throw aside their strauge tongue and ancient literature for our classic English; or if they could be induced to ape our customs, buy our general merchandise to the exclusion of their own, and submit at once and utterly to the demands of the Westorn diplomat-then we might look for progress. But the fact should be emphasized that China's conservatism has an importance at least in potentia; and what- ever of value in our civilization and whatever of truth in our religion comes at length into her possession will be held with invincible tenacity."
-North Africa mentions t.hat a Shereef not far from Cape Juby, West Africa, has sent for" books and information about the religion of Je~us, the Son of Mary." Mr. W. Summers was expecting to visit him.
-North Africa gives an account of the baptism of EI Hansalee, a Moslem" saint" of Morocco, which reminds one of Simon Magus. He had long vainly striven to reconcile two hostile villages. At laRt the reconciliation was achieved by 1 simple Christian believer. EI Hansal!'!', finding that his power came from his faith in the Messiah, was baptized, but scarcely disguises the fact that it is in the hope of gaining, like Simon Magus, a new degree of " power."
-A Moslem .woman in Morocco,becoming a Christian, besought her husband with an honest but exaggerated zeal to divorce her, which he did, , though very unwillingly. She since supports herself by sewing. A Chris- tian desired to marry her, but desisted from his suit on learning that Christ forbids marriage with a divorced woman. Her husband still wishes her to return, and it is a wonder that her instructors do not refer her to St. Paul's teachings. It seems, strange as it is, that in Mohammedan Morocco Moslems are free to change their religion.
-It seems that there are various sects in North Africa which are almost or quite purely Unitarian, paying little or no attention to any historical claims of Mohammed, hardly as much as our Unitarians of the left pay to the claims of Christ. They will probably be found the least hopeful objects of Christian missions.
-The Calwer Missionsblatt for April, 1891, mentions that all the churches nnder the sway of the King Kscholokol, brother and successor of Sekukuni, have seceded from the Berlin Missionary Society, to set up an independent Basuto Church. The movement is headed by Herr Winter, a nnivcrsity man and a son-in-law of the director of the Society.
-The Mission Record of the Church of Scotland asks, "Is it possible to find healthy sites in Central Africa? On the low belt of country near the c9ast, along the banks of the great water-ways, or on the shores of the inland lakes, such places are rare, if they can be found at all. But on the great central plateaux above the level pf two thousand feet there are large districts where Europeans can enjoy health as good as it is possible to secure within the tropics. Such districts are de!jtined to be the great saving centres of Africa. As examples of such regions one thinks of the Shire Hills, the Lomwe Hills, the Angoni country west of Nyassa, and the lofty table-land lying between lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. From these centres, when once missionary societies see the reasonableness of such a method, the Gospel of Christ will be carried all round until mission meets mission, with a network of workers allover the continent. The low-lying malarious districts, where no European can live or work, must be won by the native African Church, born and nurtured on these hill regions of Africa, and sent out in its manhood to win the rest of the Dark Continent for Christ. "
-It is known, bllt seldom fnlly apprehended, that the great bulk of the· people of Africa so"uth of the equator, belonging as they do to the Bantu race, are not negroes, though they may not inappropriately be called negroids. A traveller, quoted in the Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, says: "The Bantu is a fine, tall, upright man, with delicately small hands and well-shaped feet, high, thin nose, beard and mustache. They are not black, but generally of a warm chocolate. Some of the men are perfect Greek statues as regards the splendid development and poise of figure. They have pleasing faces because of the perfect good humor that'enlivens their features." One tribe, to the south of Stanley Pool, are described as having not a stupid face among them. The noble heads of the.men make thenl appear as if they were all "members of Parliament." Like the negroes, they are born orators, but apparently on a higher range. ,. A sermon that I heard from one of them," says a missionary, " was as fine as ever I heard in Europe or America, nut only in point of delivery, but in its clearness of reasoning, and in its profound perception of spiritual truth."
-The Moravian Missionsblatt, speaking of the Cafl're tribe of the l'embus, remarks discriminatingly: " The heathen is, on the one hand, not the devilish abomination into which sometimes he is disfigurEd in all good faith, out of pure ignorance, by those who in Christendom, so to speak, beg from door to door for pity on him. No; he has also redeeming traits, clearly discernible traces, though sadly marred and discontinuous, of the original imprint of God's similitude. But, on the other hand, assuredly he is far from being that uncorrupted, harmless child of nature that dimly dreaming worshippers of man would make him out to be. No j his true portrait does not merely include individual shadows and unclean disfiguring spots, Lut the whole foundation of his moral being is awry, untrne, impure, and unholy, plainly attesting his indispensable need of the redemption in Christ, that only through the energy of grace and the inner transformation wrought thereby can he be restored to his true temporal and eternal destiny. "
-The Rev. E. C. Gordon, in the April Intelligencer, gives a dismal picture of the devastations wrought in Uganda by the wars of succession. " When I read in the papers, of Buganda being a garden, and its population 2,000,000, I see what Buganda once was, not what it is now. It is very difficult to judge of numbers j still I do not fancy more than 10,000 fighting men could be found in the whole land."
-Bishop Smythies, before returning to Africa, was presented to the Emperor William. The latter remarked significantly, "The Mohammedan religion is a very simple one, and takes great hold on those who profess it. Surely in the face of it there is great necessity for Christian missionaries to act unitedly."
-The French missionaries of Lessuto are devoting special attention, by large ~ssemblies and otherwise, to the spiritual unification of their work, being convinced "that to have in a heathen country a church strong, compact, zealous, and pure is the best means of presenting to unbelievers the Gospel, with its most attractive and most convincing fruits."
M. Vollet, of the Zambesi Mission, has attended these reunions, and takes back with him Pauluse, a native Basuto evangelist, and his wife, to labor among the Barotsis.
-M. Boegner, Director of the Paris Maison des .Missions, well sums· up the difficulties of Northwestern Africa, "These African churches give you the impression of vaHt caldrons in ebullition j everything there is in fermentation, in conflict j good, evil, the influences of race, of environ- ment, and, above all, of Christianity. We have to belicve, to hope that this last will carry the day and bring forth noble fruits in the moral life, as it already does in the domain of religious feeling. The former are not lacking, but are behindhand. This is the characteristic trait of these churcl~cs: a retardation of character compared with sentiment and the manifestations of this sentiment. " – -Blantyre has had stroke upon stroke in the deaths of Dr. Bowie, Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, and the pioneer, the Rev. Robert Cleland. "But though the workman dies, the work goes on." A pastor and a physician in Scotland have already offered. The Free Church, which has already eleven missionaries on the banks of Lake Nyassa, sends out five mOle this spring. Adding the Moravian Mission and the Berlin Mission, about to be established here, Lake Nyassa will become an eminent centre of Christian effort in Africa, hesides the close connection of friendship hetween Blantyre and the Universities' Mission. As says the Journal des Missions, their numerousness is an added element of success. "Into these mUIder- OUB climatcs men should go in numbers, or remain away." _co As was to be foreseen," remarks M. Kruger, in the April J01J,rnal, " the great partition of AfriM in 1890 has given a new impulse to the zeal of the Christ.ian Church for the advancement of the kingdom of God in the Dark Continent. This fact attests anew that Christian missions do not hover in the ether of a faith detached and isolated from everything which agitates and interests mankind at large; they cling, by their natural fibres, to all the preoccupations of their time, to the character of the race, of the people, of the church which maintains them. But a supernatural principle, the Spirit of God, governs Christian missions, predominates over every other motive, and keeps in view, without suffering itself to be divested from it, the propagation of the Church of Jesus Christ."
-After thirty-six years of labor, the London missionaries have baptized a man and a woman, the first two converts of the terrible Matebeles, between the Zambesi and the Limpopo. Hitherto, whenever promising dispositions appeared in any way under the long tyranny of Mselekazi, the man disappeared. A second tyrant has sncceeded, but apparently somewhat less implacable.
-C. Busse, in the April Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrijt, says of Mackay, " Although he was not an ordained clergyman, his deeply rooted piety, his burning missionary zeal, his many-sided cultivation, his splendid adaptability, his inexhaustible energy, his blessed activity, and his childlike humility have given posterity the right to number him among the greatest missionaries-to set him by the side of his great. countryman, Livingstone."
-The Zeitschrijt just.ly designates the French mission on the Zambesi as " one of the most heroic of our day." It is, though now entirely diiltinct, an offshoot of the Lessuto (BaRuto) Mission. having been founded seven years ag-o "by the valiant COILLARD and his courageous wife." "The difficulties of this remote mission are enormous: a savage people, despotic princes, crnel manners, unbroken power of abject heathen superstition, frequent wars, a dangerous climate, a fearfully oppressive isolation -verily here is the patience and faith of the saints." Their firstling, Nguana Ngombe. gives them infinite comfort. The king's son, Litia, seems likely to be the second. Lewanika himself is thoroughly friendly, upholds the Sabbath and temperance, begins to be ashamed of plundering forays and of the cruelties of his old time, though he shows no signs of a renovated heart. Few missions, for their intrinsic interest, deserve more attention or sympathy of prayer."
-King Kharna, who has transferred his capital to the 20,000 strong town of Phalapye, at once proceeded to build a church for 3000 hearers, to which his subjects contributed about $13,000. This well-ordered Christian government, it is to be hoped, may survive the impact of white seekell! of land and gold. Khama is a convert of the London Missionary Society.
-The Basel Mission in Cameroon (West Africa) in 1890 lost four laborers by death, while the superintendent was obliged to return for awhile to Europe. Nevertheless, says the Zeitschrijt, a series of joyful expcrieneps hal:' in a measure given compensation, and awakens excellent hope for the future. The mission has grown both in influence and extent. A number of out-stations have been added to the four main stations, while " from almost all the towns of tue country men resort to us to learn about , God's matters.'" In many places there are formed societies of "men of God"-i.e., seekers for the truth. More than twenty native hclpers, a number being of marked capacity, assist the missionaries.
-The sad experiences which the Church Missionary Society has had with its mission on the Niger have led it to decide on supplying hereafter the principal stations with Englishmen, to whose oversight the colored clergy lire to be submittcd. The aged Bishop Crowthcr, remarks the Zeitschrift, seems thereby to become rather ornamental than effective. No charge lies against him, however, except too easy a discipline, and the 8US- pension of his 80n, Archdeacon Crowther, has been annulled by the Society. The Zeitschrift well says, "Go forward in the use of native helpers, but make haste slowly."
-The Allgemeine Missions·Zeitschrijt for April says, "In reatling the books of modern African travellers and contrasting them with Livingstone's journals, we cannot avoid a feeling of sadness on a double account: first, that they have not kept their hands frce from the shedding of hnman blood, and then, that in their reckoning, modesty does not appear to count for a virtue. "
-Tho colonial politicians of Germany seem to have concluded an alliance offensive and defensive with Roman Catholic missions, which lend themselves very easily to political schemings. Of this the hard-hearted and almost wantonly mnrderous Dr. Peters is a notorious example. lIe boasts of having persuaded Mwanga to ordain" that Mohammedanism should be absolutely forbidden, and made subject to the punishment of death 1"
-Stanley is said to be sufficiently open to blame for recklessness of human life; but Peters actually taunts him with cowardice, because he not unfrequently, in order to spare bloodshed, preferred circuits, and sometimes paid toll, etc. 1 Any way seems to be the object of contempt to Dr. Peters which is not cloven right through human bodies. Have the Germans reverted to the heathenism of thAir ancestors? But against all this cruelty the leading missionary magazine of Germany, with the missionary magazines generally, raises an unfailing protest.
The Ohurch Missionary lntelligencer for April remarks, " Although the name of the United States does not appear among the Powers whose , spheres of influence' and protectorates arc being so carefully marked out upon the map of Africa, the American' sphere of mis.~ionary influence' is neither small nor unimportant. On the north, in Egypt, the United Presbyterian Church has a vigorous mission, with over thirty·five missionaries from America, and over 3000 communicants in their churches. Their educational work is far advanced, and in the regions about Cairo and As~iout Christian enterprises are successfully prosecuted. Down the west coast, at Mendi, there is an American mission, while in the Republic of Liberia (whatever its shortcomings may be), the Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal, and American Presbyterian churches are all hard at work. At Muhlenberg, on the St. Paul River, the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod has a prosperous work, while the Presbyterian Board is located at the Gaboon and Corisco. On the Congo the American Baptigts find a congenial field of labor, while on the Lower River and in Angola, Bishop Taylor is established. To the south of Angola lies the West Central Africa Mission of the American Board, which after only ten years of labor gives promise of great efficiency. The work of the same Board in Natal, where it has been established for fifty.five years, is well known. I~ has now sixteen churches wIth nearly 1200 members. To the north of Natal again the Board has its East Central African Mission, near. Inhambane, whence it is purposed to push forward into the interior. There are in all nine American missionary boards laboring' for the redemption of the Dark Continent, with 204 missionaries, 359 stations, and an annual expenditure exceeding $237,000."
-Th~ Burma Bible and Tract Society, in its Annual Report for 1890, says, "How every true heart is pained at the thought that the two great English speaking nations that are doing so much to bless heathen lands, are at the same time doing so much to curse them! Oh, that they would cease to do evil, and learn to do well! Then would they bless only, and not curRe ; and in blessing they wonU be blessed. But in cursing, they shall certainly be cursed. The God of the terrible Civil War in the United States, and of the Indian Mutiny, is unchangeable and cternal." ~Te notice that Sir Charles II. T. Crosthwaite, Chief Commissioner for Burma, is President of the Society.
-The Indian Witness statell that the Viceroy, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and Lady Lansdowne, have taken particular pains to manifest, by personal attendance and otherwise, their interest in Dr. Pentecost's labors.
-Bishop Thoburn, quoted by the Bombay Gum'dian, avows that there is one Hindu notion to which he is a good deal of a convert-namely, that there is religious merit in planting a tree. "In India it certainly ought to be everyone's aim to plant as many trees as possible, in every place where they can have a chance of taking root and growing, either to yield fruit or shade to generations yet unborn. Every missionary should see that his compound is well planted with trees; and there are hundreds upon hundreds of small plots of ground under the control of missionaries in villages and country places where valuable trees might easily be planted and cared for. "
-Here is a pleasing piece of information from Kaukab i Hind (Star of India), "During the past year the profit on opium for the Government of India fell much below the estimate, and for several years the cultivation of opium in Cawnpore District has been a losing business, and consequently the offices have been closed and the buildings will soon be sold."
-The Harvest Field, published by the Methodist Episcopal brethren of Madras, opens, in its March number, with a paper by the Rev. G. Pittendrigh, on the New Testament place of preaChing in the New Testament as a means of propagation of the Gospel. The author, before taking this up, lays strong and, as it appears to us, just emphasis on the entire flexibility of methods allowed by the New Testament, so that the object is the same, and of course that possible aberrations are continually checked by a Christian instinct kept fresh from the New Testament. He signifies that to worship the mere Jetter of "apostolic methods" is something that is thoroughly unapostolic. The Lord God of the prophets and apostles is still with His people. And lie who gave wisdom to Paul to work in the Jewish and Roman world will not withhold it from Paul's successors, who are called to work in the Indian world. New Testament method, are often inapplicable in new conditions; New Testament principles are always supreme.
Mr. Pittendrigh believes that educational and medical agencies in India are largely leavening the Indian mind, and preparing a class a good deal like the imperfec.:,t proselytes of the Empire, among whom, in the fulness of time, as among them the word of preaching will run like fire among dry grass.
-The Harvest Field says of this REVIEW, "The tone of the magazine is healthy. the articles readable, the information generally fresh, and it is unquestionably the best missionary magazine."
-Mr. Whitton, writing in the Helpmeet, the women's organ in connection with the Free Church of Scotland, says, "You will have heard of the bill at present before ·the Viceroy's Council to raise the age of consent ftom ten to twelve. I am sorry to see that the Calcutta native press are almost universally against this change. Calcutta is gaining an unenviable notoriety by its resistance to all reforms. I hope the government will stand firm, and that the bill will soon become law. The law will do good in many ways. Among others~ it WIll tend to keep girls longer at school, and so help on the great cause of female education."
-The Rev. William Stevenson, of the Free Church, says, "Every Hindu girl of respectable family must be married, not merely as soon as she reaches maturity, but long before it, while she is still a mere infant.
The higher the caste, the earlier does tyrannous custom demand the cele- bration of the ceremony. The origin of this extraordinary system is attributed to the old times of disorder and insecurity, when there was no safety even for little girls, save under the legal protection of a husband.
However the custom may bave first originated, it was established at a very early period in the history of Hinduism, on a more sacred foundation.
It was declared to be a divine ordinance and incorporated with the most hallowed rites of their religion. The dogma that underlies this iustitution, as well as the other outstanding institutions regarding women in India- their seclusion within the zenana and perpetual widowhood- is the thorough and irredeemable depravity of woman's nature. Hinduism first publishes the grossest libel on woman, and then treats her as if it were true. It de- clares her utterly incapable of freedom, and then enslaves her. Notbing is too bad to expect of women, and accordingly the only guarantee for the purity and respectability of the family is the maintenance of a system which marries them as infants, secludes them 'as wives, and practically entombs them as widows. And this system is guarded in every part of it by the most sacred sanctions of religion.
"Strange as it may appear, the women who suffer are themselves the main upholders of the corrupt idolatrous system that enslaves them. They hug their own chains, and bind even the men in the same bondage. But it is because they do not know any better. Their life is entirely centred in the home, and all the reverent instincts of their heart cling to the sacred traditions of their caste. To them, hid in their prison houses, Christianity is invested with all the terrors of the unknown. But let its pure and gra- cious light shine in upon them, let them see their own dark customs in the brightness of its beams, and their hearts will respond, their consciences will spring into activity, and the woman's influence, which is ever the subtlest, most penetrating, and, therefore, most powerful force for'the elevation of society, will erelong dissolve the ancient system of corruption and cruelty.
For this let us labor and pray." , -The Marchioness of Dufferin, whose husband has been Viceroy of India, says, as quoted in the Church of Scotland Mission Record, "In Oriental countries generally emancipation from the strict rules of the purdah, and the education of women, are apt to mean dissipation and French novels; but in India tbey seem really to lead to a bigher life. The educated Indian ladies I bave met retain all the remarkably feminine character of their race; they lose none of tbe modesty of their demeanor, and I have never seen a sign nor have I ever heard the faintest whisper of any levity of their conduct."
-The Mission Field says that a native Christian, who had been very unwilling to make the customary annual offerings, but had done »0, paid the next year three or four times as much as was looked for as bis tithe on plantain cultivation. "I have realized," said he, " the blessing of making God my partner."
-The late Bishop Sargent's venerable coadjutor in the fruitful field of Tinnevelly, the eminent Bishop Caldwell, wbo bas so long worked for Christ there, in connection with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, as Bishop Sargent in connection with the Churcb Missionary Society, has at last felt constrained by the burden of age to lay down his episcopal cbarge. Both these bishops have been, in form, coadjutors to the Bishop of Madras, but each has in fact had a distinct episcopate over the converts of his own society.
-The Ohurch Missionary Intelligencerfor April, 1891, has a profoundly interesting article by the Rev. G. Ensor, explaining more thoroughly than anything we had seen before the slow but irresistible advance of Brahmanism, and the gradual way in which, in a large part of India (especially in the Ganges valley), it has so interwoven itself with" the kindred points of heaven and home," tbat the influence of the medireval priesthood of the west, though supplying to Mr. Ensor various illustrations of startling force, appears in the comparison a light and shallow thing. Anyone that will read this article on the Sanctions of Sapinda will rather wonder that Chris- tianity has made so many converts in India than that it has made no more. That the fortress has not been found altogether impregnable seems to have been largely owing to the fact that the Dravidian South has never yielded to the full force of Brahmanic pretensions. And the Aryan current, in sweeping over the Punjab, had not yet developed its sacerdotal strength. But between the Five Rivers, the Eastern Sea, and the Vinethya Mountains . there was seen in full force that junction of the king and the priest, out· giving in fact the proud theories of Boniface VII!., and of which Sir Henry Sumner Maine says (as quoted by Mr. Ensor), "A more awful tyranny never existed than this which proceeded from the union of physical, intel- lectual, and spiritual ascendency." And though the teeth of the lion have been drawn by the island conquerors, yet the terror of a hundred genera- tions of subjection still weighs the people down.
It should appear that, by a canonical though neglected doctrines of Hin- duism, referred to in a government decision quoted in the Bombay Guardian, native Christians ought to be accounted equal to Brahmans. The Shastras, it seems, declare that the caste of the monarch, be it what it may, is always equal to the highest!
-The fluctuations and gradual advance of an Indian mission are in- terestingly illustrated in the table of average annual increase of communi- +, +, +, cants in the Ahmednagar Mission of A. B. C. F. M. during twelve quinquen- nial periods, beginning with 1831. It is as follows: 3 3 1'1 +, +, +, H t, 1'1 74 51 42 +, 92, l46, 149, 171 -r. .
1891]. INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
BDITED A!{D CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Internationa.l Missionary Union-Eighth Annual Meeting, [J. T. G.] It was a great meeting-that of the ble of covering with its spacious verano International Missionary Union at Clif- das a thousand persons. There must ton Springs, N. Y., from .June 10th to have been that number seated in the 17th. Many things which have inter- audience the evening it was dedicated by ested the cider members of the Union the President of the Missionary Union, took on more satisfactory and definite when the beautiful service which had'" form. The Union has from its begin- been arranged was presided over by ning been" on wheels." These were that widely known and everywhere loved taken off, probably never to be used servant of all who come near him, Rev. again. The Union has determined to L. Bodwell, chaplain of the Sanitarium. meet always at Clifton Springs, and al- We will not try to describe the taberwayson the second Wednesday of June. nacle itself. It is not like the taber- One object of this is, that persons may nacle of old, but no architect gave the know without notification, in making pattern, and yet it is perfectly adapted their alTangements for returning from for all the purposes for which it was de· their foreign fields, where and when they signed. A double ·roof secures ventilaare to meet with this grand body of their tion when the glass doors are closed on fellow-laborers from all quarters of the account of chilly weather, and the tranglobe, for a week's consultation, devo- soms further this object. All can be tion, and fellowship. It is well to say thrown open, and the freest circulation now to all missionaries abroad that they of air secured as needed. Members of need not wait for invitations to the the Union in every land will rejoice, and meeting. Service in foreign fields con- all missionaries will recognize with gladstitutes any person a member of the ness that there is here a great centre Union on signing the Constitution. where the entire mi,ssionary force is They should come without ceremony. afresh made to feel that they have a but not without notification to the Presi- home. dent or Secretary, unless that is really unavoidable. The number of missionaries in at- tendance this year was slightly in ad· There were advantages attached to the vance of any former year. Ninety·two .. movable feast," but there are greater missionaries who had rendered an aggrein the settled life of the Union, as things gate of perhaps twelve hundred years are possible that were not under the old of service in connection with the sevplan. But how has all become possi. eral societies were present. They came ble? Just this way. Dr. Henry Foster from fields stretching from Hudson's has loved the Union and built them a Bay to Buenos Ayres, and from the tabernacle and asked them to be his great wall of China to the Sandwich guests always. That seemed wonder- Islands; from the Bosphorus to Ispafully in the order of God's Providence. han, and from Africa on the Zambesi, and the union accepted the proposal the Gaboon, and the Kongo, and the with more gratitude than often gets form Cape of Good Hope. It was a polyglot in words. The tabernacle itself was crowd. speaking, singing, and writing formally tendered on the evening of its more languages than could perhaps be dedication, Jnne 9th, and the action of spoken by any philological society in the Union formally announced to the the)and. if not more dialects than any public with grateful phrase to Dr. Fos_ learned society ever used in assembly. ter at the closing session of the meeting. It represented very widely all depart- And what a beautiful edifice it is! capa· ments and branches of the General Church of the United States and Cana- others we have no room to write. da, and even took its members from Neither can we do more than mention the English Presbyterian, and the Free the excellent symposiums of the ladies' Church of Sootiand, in its noble repre- meetings, in which vast stores of insentative, Rev. Dr. Narain Sheshadri, formation were disclosed, and much of Bombay. 'l'hey only tarry. Three heroic work reported. We may furnish fourths of the number are expecting just one illustration of the work which to return to service in the foreign field, these and other missionary ladies have and to do yet more to hasten the con- done beyond their usual lines: version of the benighted peoples of the 1Imh. There were two new missionaries ,Mrs. Mix, of the Baptist mission in who had just been appointed by their Burma, took the manuscript of the Sh~n boards to enter upon foreign service. Bible, beginning with the New Testa- ment, and gave it a careful reading after The papers which were read were of it had been compared with Dr. Cusha high order. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin pre- ing's own copy, and was supposed to be sented two, one on "Proportion and perfect, and before it was sent to the Harmony in Missionary Work," and printer. She found many mistakes to one in connection with the able sym- correct, and frequently found places that. posium presented one day by Dr. Kel- she wished to change in expression. logg, of Toronto, Dr. Hamlin, and Mr. Dr. Cushing accepted and incorporated William E. Blaokstone, of Chicago, on many of her suggestions. the Jews. That was in every way a remarkable discussion. Sometimes she took charge of the printing for a short time and gave Dr. Among the papers was one by Dr. Cushing a chance to take a much-needed George W. Wood, giving some special change. When she had finished the features of the History of the American reading of the, New Testament and be. Board; one by Rev. J. Taylor Hamil- gan on the Old Testament, Dr. Cushing ton, Secretary of the Moravian Millsion- said he had no time to look at the arySociety, on the Leper Hospital at "copy" and she must compare it with Jerusalem; one from Professor Gil- his and make it ready for the printer. more, of Rangoon: on the New Tide of This she did with about half of the Old I=igration into Burma, and its Bear- Testament before leaving for Amerioa. ing on the Future of Missions in South- During her stay here she has underwestern Asia; one on the Present taken the reading of the stereotyped Movement among the Pariahs of South- proof.sheets of the Shan Bible in order ern India, in Relation to the Christiani. to make it as perfect as possible, and zation of the Country, by Rev. Dr. has read all of the New Testament and John McLaurin, for many years a mis- more than half of the Old Testament, sionary in India, now Secretary of the the reading of which she expects to Baptist Missionary Society of Ontario finish. and Quebec. This paper contained most fundamental theories of mission- The discussions on how to increase ary development, and awakened great the intelligent interest in missions in interest and discussion, receiving most the home church was opened by Dr. hearty endorsement. The Rev. J. M. Nevius, in reporting the Students'Vol- Allis, D.D., of Chili, furnished a good unteer Meeting at Cleveland, and speakpaper on Missions to tbe Iberian Peo. ing on the Movement in general. The pIes. Rev. Dr. Happer, of Canton, and consideration of this subject was broad- Rev. Dr. Shedd, of Persia, also sent ex- ened into a general conversation on cellent papers. ways of stirring up the churches, the young people as represented in Young Of the many able addresses by such Men's Christian Associations, Christian men as Drs. Nevius, Jessup, Chamber- Endeavor Societies, and similar organi. lain, Kellogg, Hamlin, Sheshadri, and zations. The platform meetings were of a high order, not one dull nor tame Kelsey, M.D., Japan; 1883, Rev. W. C. Longden, China; 1883, Mrs. W. C. Longspeech being made in all the week. den, China; 1847-54, Mrs. D. D. Lore, Argentina; 1879, Mrs. A. W. Marling, The following officers were elected for W. Africa; – – , Rev. J. McGuire, India; 1870, Rev. J. T. McMahon, the coming year: President, J. T. India; 1851-76, Mrs. L. W. Mellen, Natal; 1879, Mrs. B. ,T. Mix, Burma; Gracey, D.D., Rochester, N. Y.; Vice- 1873-83,Rev. James Mudge, D. D., India ; 1868, Miss Isabella A. Nassau, W. Africa; Presidents, Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., S. L. 1881, Rev. F. L. Neeld, India; 1881, Mrs. F. L. Neeld, India; 1853, J. L. Bald.win, D.D., M. H. Bixbee, D.D.; Nevius, D.D., N. China; 1853, Mrs. J. L. Nevins, N. China; 1876, Rev. A. A. Secretary, Rev. William H. Belden, Newhall, India; 1879, Miss Ella J. New- ton, China; 1882, Miss Mary W. Niles, Bristol, Conn.; Associate Secretary, Mrs. M.D., China; 1872-89, Rev. Albert Nor- Dr. C. C. Thayer; Treasurer, Rev. James ton, India; 1883-88, Miss A. E. Ottaway, Mudge, D.D., Clinton, Mass.; Librarian, Guatemala; 1880, Miss F. E. Palmer, C. C. Thayer, M.D., Clifton Springs, Burma; 1866-86, Rev. H. T. Perry, Tur- N. Y.; .Executive Committee, Rev. E. P. key; 1884, Miss Fidelia Phelps, S. Africa; Dunlap, Rev. J. A. Davis, D.D., Re,.. 1878, Miss Harriet P. Phillips, India; M. H. Houston, D.D., John McLaurin, 1882, F. D. Phinney, Burma; 1879, Rev. D.D., C. W. Cushing, D.D., Mrs. O. L. N. J. Plumb, China; 1878-80, Miss Mary George, Rev. Henry T. Perry. Priest, Japan; 1880, Rev. E. H. Rich- ards, Zambesi, Africa, and Upper Kon. A farewell meeting was had the last go ; 1878, Rev. W. H. Roberts, Burma; evening to bid God-speed to the large 1878, Mrs. W. H. Roberts, Burma; number of the misRionaries present who 1885, Miss Eva L. Rolman, Japan; expect to return to their fields before the 1884, R9v. W. B. 8cranton, M.D., next annual meeting. The Secretary, Korea ; 1884. Mrs. Mary F. Scranton, Rev. Mr. Belden, having been detained Korea; 1883, Susan A. Searles, Japan; by illness, the Rev. James Mudge, D.D., 1869, Rev. D. Z. Sheffield, N. China; served in his stead during the week with –, Rev. Narain Sheshadri, D.D., marked efficiency. India; 1886, Miss L. B. Smith, Japan; 1870, Miss Fannie J. Sparkes, India; The following missionaries were present: 1874-78, Mrs. S. C. Adams, Ja· • David Stevensoii., M.D., China; pan; 1874, Thomas Barclay, Formosa; 1874, Mids Mary E. Tulmage, China; 1886-87, Mrs. G. A. Bond, Singapore; 1874, Miss K. M. Talmage, China; 1864, Mrs. T. W. Burkholder, India; 1868-73, Rev. C. C. Thayer, Turkey; 1853-83, Mrs. Albert Bushnell, West 1868-73, Mrs. Mary F. Thayer, Turkey; Africa; 1862, Rev. G. W. Chamberlain, 1883, Mrs. M. T_ True, Japan; 1871, Rev. Brazil; 1862, Mrs. G. W. Chamberlain, L. M Vernon, D.D., Italy; 1867, Miss Brazil; 1879, Miss L. B. Chamberlain, Isabella Wat8on, Bllrma; 1872-90, Mrs. Turkey; 1884, Rev. Charles T. Cocking, Rev. J. E. Walker, China; 1882, Rev. Japan; 1884, Mrs. Oharles T. Cocking, G. L. Wharton, India; 1880, Rev. W. Japan; 1879, Miss A. M. Oolby, Japan; J. White, China; 1880, Mrs. W. J. 1878, Miss Edna S. Cole, Siam; 1882-86, White, China; 1849-89, Mrs. A. T. Mrs. S. Cross, Siam; 1878-79, C. W. Cush- Wilder, Natal; 1880-90, Rev. O. W. ing, D.D., Italy; 1881, F. W. Damon, Willits, China; 1838-86, Rev. G. W. Hawaiian Islands; 1884, Mrs. F. W. Wood. D.D.. Turkey, and Mrs. G. W. Damon, Hawaiian Islands; 1875, Rev. Wood; 1881-89, Miss M. P. Wright, E. P. Dunlap, Siam; 1882, Miss Anna Turkey; 1862-68, Rev. Egerton R. S. Geisinger, India; 1874, Mrs. O. L. Young, Hudson Bay, and Mrs. Egerton George, Burma; 1861-68, Rev. J. T. R. Young. Gracey, D.D., India; 1861-68, Mrs. J. T. Gracey, India; 1881, Rev. G. H. SUMMARY Oll' MISSIONAllIES PRESENT. Gutterson, India; 1874, Rev. J. G. Hall, Mexico; 1837-77, Rev. Cyrus By Fields: India, 16; China, 15; Hamlin, D.D., Turkey; 1883, Miss M. L. Hammond, Guatemala; 1866, Japan, 12; Turkey, 7; Persia, 1; :Rev. V. C. Hart, China; 1864, Rev. A. Africa, 7; Burma, 7 ; Siam, 5 ; Korea, Hartmann, Australia, and Delaware Ind- 3 ; South America, 3 ; Central America, ians ; 1864, Mrs. Mary Hartmann, Aus- 2; N. W. America, 2; Australia, 2; tralia and Delaware Indians; 1879-89, Miss Mary E. Hartwell, Siam; 1879, Miss Italy, 2 ; MeXiCO, 2 ; Syria, 2 ; Hawaiian Ada Haven, N. China; 1881, Rev. J. W. Islands, 2 ; Syria, 2 ; Mr.laysia, 1. To- Hawkes, Persia; 1846-76, Rev. S. R. tal missionaries, 91 ; newly appointed House, M.D., Siam; 1881, l'[iss oJ. H. Honston, Mexico; 1887-89, Miss Meta missionaries, 2 ; grand total, 98. Howard, M.D., Korea; 1862, Rev. Samuel Jessup, D.D.,Syria; 1862, Mrs. AnnieE. Jessup, Syria; 1864-76, Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D,D•• N. India; 1878, Miss Adaline Action had by the L M. U. on Public in that country, so vast in possessions Affairs. and so rich in promise.
TEE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT'S PAT- American Relations with Ohina.
RONAGE OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIO Viewing the Chinese as a civilized though heathen people inhabiting a ABROAD. country in climate, soil, and many geo. graphical peculiarities like our own, The International Missionary Union with a population six times greater than would express its regret and amazement ours, with a power for muscular effort at the act of our Government through and endurance inferior to no nation on the Secretary of State, by which the earth -our neighbors on our Pacific Government has been committed to the shore-we lament the unjust and cruel policy of undertaking to increase the and, to us, disgraceful treatment which sale of the products of our breweries they have received at our hands. by officially introducing and commanding them to the favorable notice of the We view it as being unwise as well people of Mexico and other adjacent as unjust to provoke hostility and recountries. taliation from the greatest empire of the East, now rapidly adding the ele- It can scarcely be conceivable that ments of power in Western civilization the intelligent officers of the Govern- to-her own mighty system. It will be ment are ignorant of the fact that such to the great injury of oUr commerce, and action puts a serious obstacle in the other nations will reap the advantages way of the work of missionaries who that naturally belong to us. are laboring in those countries, since there is no greater hindrance to the Our very greatly extended and rapprogress of Christian work than the idly increasing Missionary interests defree use of intoxicating drink. serve the attention of our Government as well as our commerce, and our Gov- We therefore, as a convention of ernment has no right to break them up, missionaries, most earnestly beg that to the grief of many millions of Chrisour Government will adopt such meas- tians of all denominations in the United ures as will fully counteract the influ- States. ence of this most unfortunate transaction. We therefore, the missionaries of the International (and Interdenominational) The Brussels Treaty. Missionary Union, in Annual Meeting assembled at Clifton Springs, N. Y., do This Union is not undmindful that earnestly req]1est all our Missionary Secgreat interest has been awakened by the retaries in the United States of America fact that the United States Senate did to petition the Government at Washingnot see fit to declare in favor of uniting ton to redress the wrongs inflicted upon with other powers in Europe in what the Chinese, and to establish and seek to is known as the Brussels Treaty, the foster the most friendly relations with ostensible aim of which is to secure our great neighbor. the abolition of slavery, the suppression of the rum traffic, and the indis- Appeal to the Ohnrches. criminate sale of fire-arms in Africa. The International Missionary Union, to While we do not assume to be in possession of all the facts which would en- the Ohurches which they representable us to judge accurately of all the political bearings of this subject, we sin- GREETING: cerely hope that some adjustment may be made which will secure the full moral We, members of the International effect of the Government's participation Missionary Union. on behalf of the sevin the suppression of these evils, which eral missionary fields from which we are such deadl'y foes to all real progress have come, and in the name of our sociations and Christian Endeavor Sobrethren now laboring in those fields, cietie8, and similar organizations, and and of our former associates who have we would urge all Christians to unite fallen at their posts j and, above ali, in with us in the prayer that these organithe name of our blessed Lord, who has zations may be still more abundantly commissioned the Church to disciple blessed and used of God for the adall nations, make this appeal to the vancement of His cause in the future. churches which we represent. Finally, with a full conviction and We have fallen upon a time of great realization of the utter uselessnesfl of all privileges and responsibilities. The human efforts and pecuniary gifts, prayer of the Church that God would without God's presence and aid, we open the world t'1 Christian effort im- would call upon God's people to unite plied a pledge and promise on the part in earnest prayer, that the Holy Spirit of the Church to perform her duties as may be poured out on all nations; the way might be opened. that the Lord of the harvest may choose and send forth from Christian lands, At the present time world-wide op- and from converts in unevangelized portunities, and the possession by the lands, many laborers into His harvest, Church of men and means adequate to and that Bis kingdom may come alld world·wide efforts, give to our Lord's His " will be done on ea.rth a.s it is in command to evangelize the nations an heaven." emphasis and urgency hitherto unparalleled. Ordinary consistency and sin- The Outlook. cerity as well as loyalty to Christ, gratitude for our distinguishing mercies, Rev. J. L. Phillips, M.D.. recently compassion for the many millions of appointed Secretary of the Sunday- God's lost children, a sense of personal School Union of India, said: .. Reachindebtedness to them, and the fear of ing Bombay November 30th, 1890, I increasing God's displeasure and the began a Sunday-school tour of India, withdrawal of His spirit from our home and during these five months have churches by neglect or delay in the dis- travelled more than 9000 miles. India charge of present duty, conspire to never presented so many open doors as awaken us to immediate action, and now, and we could find places for thousuch action as shall b'e in some good sands of Sunday-school teachers within degree commensurate with our obliga- a week if we had them. Missionaries tions. of all sects and nationalities are giving our Sunday-School Mission a very We therefore request and beseech hearty welcome. Auxiliary Sundayall pastors and teachers to seek by the school unions have now been organized prayerful study of God's Word, and a in Bengal, Bombay, Madras, Punjab, and familiar acquaintance with the condi- Burma, and before long we hope the tion and needs of heathen nations, to Northwest Provinces, Rajputana, Cenknow more of God's will, and our duty tral India, and Ceylon will be similarly with reference to the world's evangeli- organized. At an annual meeting of zation, and to teach those under their the India Sunday-School Union, held influence the relations to the whole here in Calcutta last December, we world which are necessarily implied in started a Sunday-school journal in Eng- Christian discipleship, and the privi- lish for all India, which is being very leges and duties growing out of those kindly received and will' prove a stron~ relations. bond of union between workers in dis- tant parts. We recognize with devout gratitude to God the work for foreign missions " On returning to my own dear India which has been accomplished by Wom- I find II. very hopeful feeling among IUl'S Missionary Societies, the Students' Movement, Young Men's Christian Asmissionaries generally. The Lord is slave trade of East Africa, though dreadworking wonderfully in this land, and ful, does no~ kill souls, and the nations we look for larger ingatherings. The will soon stop it (not by Cardinal Lavinext Decennial Missionary Conference gerie's society-I distrus~ him; I do not will be held at Bombay at the end of favor his method). In my speaking 1892, and plans are already being made thus (comparatively) lightly of slavery, for it." no one who is acquainted with my poli- tics will misjudge me. But the rum -Rev. Dr. H. N. Barnum wrote from trade kills soul and body and all the Harpoot, Turkey: "I have not the time nations are guilty, America among the to speak of the work here, except to rest, Germany about the worst. HollIay in a general way that it is encour- land, the last to lately assent to a high aging; that prejudices are overcome, custom duty on liquors in the Kongo, and doors are opening much faster than does not, I think, deserve much praise. we can enter them. The greatest source Now the Kongo nation have learned to of discouragement now is the failure of like rum, they will have it at any cost. the home churches to appreciate the The only safety for the nation of Africa emergencies of the foreign field. The is prohibition. I am not radical on the rallying cry of the Student Volunteers, temperance question. I am unable to • The evangelization of the world dur- stand with the per se brethren. Pracing the present generation,' is the true tically I am a total abstainer, under one. Were the whole Church of Christ Paul's • weak brother' decision. It is aroused with this as her motto, she one of the regrets to me in the pending would be irresistible. It seems to me transfer of our African stations situated that the first, the most pressing need on French soil (Gaboon and Ogove) to now, is that the home Church be awa- the Paris Evangelical Society, that our kened to such a sense of personal re- natives will see the lower standard our sponsibility as shall lead ChrisUans to French brethren hold on temperance enter heart and soul into the work of and Sabbath observance. I beg to say giving the Gospel to the unevangelized we are not deserting our native churches nations at the earliest possible moment. simply because we are wearied with ab- We have prayed for open doors; the surd French colonial regulations, but prayer has been answered. 'Ve have because French pIIStors, as Frenchmen, prayed for re.enforcements, and they will be better able to save our native are coming six thousand strong. But Christians from often cruel injustice; how can they preach, except they be our appeals have little effect. The losent? How can they be sent, if their cal governors are vexed with our Engcoming involves the dismissal of native lish language, and think that we love laborers? This will be the result with- England more than we do France." out an increase of funds. Tbe silver and the gold which are the Lord's is Pressing Needs. kept back by His servants; it does not find its way into His treasury." REV. J. H. SHEDD, D.D., OBOOMIAH, PERIlIA.
-Rev. R. H. Nassau, M.D., of West [Among the excellent communica- Africa, sending salutations, wrote: tions to the International Missionary ., Were I with you I could tel you what Union, at its meeting at Clifton Springs, I would talk about ad fatigandum, THE was the following from Dr. Shedd :] AFRICAN LIQUOR TRADE. African domestic slavery is a very mild thing; it " It seems to me, if permitted to SAY corresponds in its deprivation of liberty a word to the Union, my first plea would to unrequited service to our criminals be in behalf of the missionaries in the in prison labor; and even the export work and the supply. I cannot say as to other fields, but in Persia the percentage of mIssIonaries, especially of the need the patient continuance in well- unmarried ladies, who are compelled doing that can even wait for results in to give up the work in a short time such a field as ours! God has sent very after they come out, is very large. The eminent missionaries into Persia, and young,man or woman in America joins noble men and women are coming still, the ranks of missionary volunteers, and but it is a subject that the International it seems that the great question is set- Union DIay well consider again and tled. But facts show that the real cru- again, and emphasize the qualities needed cial period is the first three years on in missionaries, and how our Boards are the field. Many break down in health to get the right men and women, and how or yield to discouragement before they see that each one is in the right place. I have acquired the language or know the am sure you will .pray earnestly for all joys and rewards of the work. in the field. You can realize, as those who have not tried it do not, the strain e. We are very isolated here in Persia and trial, the temptation to despond- -one thousand miles inland from Oon- ency and irritability and dissatisfacstantinople-three or four weeks' travel tion, and the danger of losing faith and to the nearest railroad or seaport_ The courage, and of failure of health and climate is not tropical, but it iii malari- hope-how helpless unless sustainell ous and most of the year very dry, and by the great affection for Christ and by the altitude on the plateau of Persia the power of God through His blessed is four thousand or five thousand feet. Spirit. These hard fields of Islam Our mission station is just now in must have patient, it may be long lagreat need of two single ladies to work bor. They are strongholds, and cannot in our girls' school. Our college in- be captured by a crusade of ill-prepared dustrial departmant seeks in vain, from though zealous missionaries, but by the thousands of volunteers, for the only the fullest offering of ability and right man to act as superintendent. devotion united. Consecrated artisans like Mackay, of Uganda, seem to be scarce in America. " Another phase of the subject is the The words of our Lord are often our relation of young men educated in prayer, 'That the Lord of the harvest America, but natives of the East, to the will send forth laborers into His har- Boards and Missions. Our station has vest.' The need is great of God-sent a large constituency of young men who laborers, who are called as Paul and Bar- have gone or are anxious to go to nabas were, and who shall be called by America. Some twenty of them are the Church, after full trial, beloved now in America, and hoping to come men who have hazarded their lives for back in some capacity to their native the name of our Lord .Tesus Ohrist- land. I send a paper prepared· by our I hazarded,' have given up, placed their station on the subject, which if you lives in a sense out of their own power, have time is well worth considering in fully surrendered all to Christ. Equally its bearing on all fields. important are other New Testament qualities of the true ambassador to the "My second plea to the brethren of unevangelized, such as Jives compleled the Union would be, I think, in behalf in Christ (Col. ii. 10), lives' fully dis- of the native church in our field. This ciplined, or self-control, self.mastery, was presented fully two years agothe temperance of the New Testament, what has been done for the Nestorian and oontentment or self·contained power people and the reformation going forto meet varied difficulties and emer- ward among them. The young misgencies and not become helpless as the sionary is sent out by the home dangers and trials increase, but such as churches. He considers himself as ca.n win their own way and help others their ambassador, and goes back after a to do the same. How much, too, we time to rehearse all that God has done with him, and how he has opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. But as held last Sunday, and it was a memoratime goes on and he becomes an old ble day-the communion Sabbath in missionary the relations are changed. more than twenty of our churches, and He is identified with the peopJe and nearly one hundred and fifty new mem-. church of his field, and is one in his bers received to full fellowship. I can interests with his brethren and sisters well recall the time when all the conand sons and daughters in the faith. verts came together in a single com- Thus in my own case. My church reo pany, but now the bands of believers lations are all here. The Iittle com· are two hundred miles to the west of U8 pany of communicants of thirty.two and still farther east. The outlook for years ago, when I entered on this work, the future is hopeful of rapid growth, have increased tenfold. Our evangeli· if we fail not in well.doing. cal Knooshya or synod (which uses the Aramaic or Syriac language, spoken by " The question of steady supplies to Christ and the apostles) now numbers meet the expansion of this work in co- 42 presbyters, 26 preaching deacons, 19 operation with the native church is allicentiates on trial, 90 elders in the ways with us. For example, in church churches, 91 deaconesses in the building there are twenty places in churches, and about 2000 other memo need, and for this year our two thirds bers, a total of over 2250 in full com· of the funds should be at least $1000 ; munion. This is a little company, but but the board can only say, • Alas! this it is big in its relations to the broad work must wait.' We have at our station field of millions of souls about us that the college and female seminary, with need a Saviour. Last fall I was chosen a united attendance of over 300 in the the moderator or president of the graded departments; 9 are in theology, Knooshya for three years. This means 6 i:a medicine, 50 in the college course, more than simply to preside at the 50 more in the seminary course, etc., meetings. It is an executive office to down to the lowest preparatory. Gardensee that the ecclesiastical affairs move ing, carpentering, sewing, housekeepon smoothly, and that the work of the ing, etc., are going on beside the medi- Church in its boards and missions and cal work. The press, with its monthly pastorates is carried out. At first it paper, school books, and Christian literseemed too great a responsibility to ature needs about $1000 a year to help add to my already full duties, but the it do its work; our church and evangegreat need and possibility of helping listic work some $4000 ; our educational our Church in flO many ways led me to work, $2000 for college ani seminary, accept. Now the words of the apostle, and $1200 for over a hundred other • The Ilare of all the churches,' have an schools; as much more for the hospital, emphatic ~eaning, and lead me to ask that has an aggregate of several thouyour special supplications for our native sand out-door patients and several hunministry and for the whole household dred indoor patients in the year. The of faith. Our Church has many ob- missionaries to keep all this work and stacles in its way, some within Rnd the woman's work over the field besides Bome without, in these lands of intoler- in motion, are now but four families and Illce and anti·Christian influence. The four single ladies. Outside of mission winter and spring just passed have salaries the native church supplies brought some signal blessings. System- about one quarter of the expense, and atic labors, in which missionaries and our mission three.quarters. When the native brethren worked side by side, word of retrenchment comes, • Cut have gone forward in many congrega- down 20 per cent or even 10 per cent,' tions, and always with more or less of we have a serious time, ani! pray more the power of the Holy Spirit. The earnestly that God would put it into Feast of the Resurrection (0. S.) was the hearts of His people to give us just enough steady supply to help on our work in co·operation with the native A NeN Churoh Edifioe at Constantinople. church, without these annual embarrassments and discouragements to us and Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, now mOle than to them as well. But the work goes on fourscore years of age, does not " die notwithstanding, and I ask again your at the top." He is one of the most prayers for our beloved native church vigorous thinkers of the age. But we and people. supposed his well-earned retirement was not to be disturbed; but he is earnestly " r meant to add a third plea for our at work trying to raise funds for a new church at Perea, Constantinople. He needy field of Persia. and Kurdistan. says: In its Christian population in many places it is ripe for the harvest. In " The building is designed for a place the tenfold larger field of Moslem and of worship, and for a church home for anti·Christian sects our native brethren the first Armenian or native Protestant say the spots of harvest are appearing. Church ever formed in the Turkish Em- In places the way is open. In places pire (1846), and for other uses which the way is strongly barred against Chris- will be mentioned. tian influence. One most interesting feature in our work the past year is the .. The history of the many efforts and spirit of a number of young men who failures for a church building cannot be are volunteer workers. Without asking here given, but the set time seems now any help they go from place to place to have come, after forty'. five years' wanpreaching Christ, both to Christians and dering in the wilderness, to cross over Moslems. They find the hearing ear, into the promised land. and are full of faith in the power of the truth and the working of the Spirit. I "This church building will be a hope, if spared till next year, to report monumental church in history. It will more fully of this part of our tield and commemorate the signal and singular work." triumph of God's providence over the well-planned measures of the Czar of -Rev. G. S. Wilder, of South Africa, Russia, to efface the Pl"otestant movewrote to the missionaries at Clifton ment from the empire, and at the close Springs: "I hope some member of the of 1845, the Emperor Nicholas, having Conference will think to submit, and obtained the most exact information of the Conference judge wise to pass, a the progress of the work and of the fail. resolution urging upon our next Con- ure of previous persecutions, advised gress the advisability of its reconsidering the Catholicos ofEtchmiadzin, the titular its late hasty action, whereby it refused head of the Armenian Church, to put to unite with the other powers in the forth his entire ecclesiastical power to convention to suppress the slave trade, efface this disturbing element forever to regulate the sale of fire-arms, and from the empire. the supply of liquor in Africa. Before the last Congress adjourned an honor- " Acting through the Armenian patriable member giwe motion to reconsider. arch and primates at Constantinople, However, it is not at all certain that sustained by the secret influence of the Congress will be ready to reconsider its Russian embassy, the ' Great Anathe. action. It seems to me that all mis- ma' was thundered forth, which de. sionary and religious conventions should prived every evangelical of not only his pass resolutions in strong terms on this spiritual but civil rights. They were subject, and if possible bring our Can. thrust out like Turkish dogs into the gressmen into the light before they streets. Sir Stratford Canning (after.. meet in December next." ward Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) im. mediately took up their case with that firmness, wisdom, prophetic insight, and unconquerable will which haVE) made his name immortal. Ho com· pelled the Sultan, despite all the dip. lomacy of .Russia, Austria, and France, pUblications, but that for the last twenty to organize Protestantism as one of the years her sight had not permitted her legalized religions of the empire. The to do this kind of work."-J. T. G. story is magnificent, but cannot here be narrated. The great emperor was foiled, -Mrs. Gracey. who prepared the artiand most singularly defeated. cle on the Women's Missionary SOCieties, has received the following from Mrs. " Under the new and surprising char- L. R. Keister, editor of the Woman'8 ter of freedom the first native Evan- Evangel, the organ of the Woman's Misgelical Church was formed July 1st, sionary Association of the United 1846. Instead of annihilation there was Brethren: life, there was joy, freedom, wonder, thanksgiving, triumph. What had God " In the May number of THE MISwrought! SIONARY REVIEW you have us reported as collecting during the year $4567. The " From this beginning more than 150 correct figures, as given in the June churches have been formed in the em· Evangel, are $14,567, a difference of pire-1I5 under the American Board- $10,000, probably caused by the accibut in this work the American and Pres- dental dropping of one figure by the byterian Boards were one; and yet this compositor. " first, this mother of all the churches, has no home of her own to this day, and This is the true explanation; but the no visible proof of her existence and his- result is a very great depreciation of the tory. That it has held together for forty- noble work of these good women. Let five years in a nomadic state shows a all persons who make up tables, or otherlife of inextinguishable vitality. wise study the figures, take note of this correction. It seems as if the Church .. It will cheer the whole Protestant on earth was like the Church in heaven, body throughout. It will prove to all in one respect at least, it is a company the world at that central point that the that no man can number, at least not Protestant Church has a permanent and exactIy.-J. T. G. solid existence, which to this day many affect to doubt because its first organ- -It really seems amusing to mark ized body has no sacred temple. the sensitiveness of the English over the wounding of the sensibilities of Moham. " It will be a place of worship for as medans in India by the introduction of many languages as can find a suitable Mahomet into a play in Great Britain.- time on the Sabbath-the Armenian, J. T. G. Greek, Bulgarian, Turkish, English. It is a polyglot capital, and religion takes in all the languages.
.. The native church in its poverty has done nobly in pledging $11,000. "- J. T. G.
-Bishop Thoburn, who has recently -On the 17th of February last the been in Rangoon, Burma, says: largest missionary party ever landed in China arrived at Shanghai from San ,. I enjoyed the delightful privilege a Francisco. It was composed of thirtyfew days ago of calling upou Mrs. Ben- five men and women, who were to be nett, of the Baptist Mission, now in her followed the next week by ten or fifteen eighty-third year and in the Hixty-first more, the whole being a party of misyear of her residence in India. She sionaries sent from the United States seemed to be in excellent health, cheer- by the Scandinavian churches of this ful and hopeful. She remarked that for country to labor in Hudson Taylor's twenty years she had worked every day China Inland Mission. correcting proof of Karel! or Burmese
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
1II.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The success of the MISSIONAlIY REVIEW on the mission field, or preparing for it, seems now to be assured. For the past who are unable to pay for the REVIEW.
three years the cost of production has We take pleasure in a public and for- been scarcely covered by the subscrip- mal acknowledgment of our indebted- tion list, notwithstanding the fact that ness to many subscribers who ha'l"e, of at least one of the editors, and he the their own accord, undertaken to induce one who furnished or provided nearly others to subscribe, and some of whom all of the literary matter for its pages, have sent us as' many as a score of did his work almost gratuitously, for the names. Acknowledgments are likewise sake of securing the permanent estab- due to others who have encouraged our lishment of a much-needed review of efforts by helpful, stimulating, and sug- missions that should be independent in gestive words, sometimes of approbation utterance, undenominational in char- and sometimes of advice and kindly acter, world-wide in scope, and cosmo- criticism. We have scarcely ever re- politan in sympathy. ceived a letter of causeless complaint or After more than three years Bnd a half unjust and harsh censure; and when since the REVIEW took its present form, one such has come to our table it has the income of this REVIEW begins to as- been buried under a pile offraternal and sure the publishers that the large amount appreciative commendations.
of money embarked in this enterprise is Just now we have been particularly likely to be returned through the increas- gladdened by receiving the sum of ing number of patrons who give these $207.80 in ope gift, to be applied to fur- pages a welcome to their homes and nishing the student volunteers and sim- hearts. To establish a first-class month- ilar intending missionaries with copies ly magazine of misRions ; to secure con- of the REVIEW. This is the largest sin- tributors to its pages of the highest gle contribution ever received by us for ability, accuracy, and authority from all this purpose. It has been our prayer quarters of the globe; to get an eqitorial that we might be able to put a copy into staff representing the great leading de- the hands of every student preparing for nominations, and a large corps of edi- the mission field at home and abroad.
torial correspondents scattered through We have from the first offered to send a all lands ; to command the support and copy for one year to some such person approval of the most intelligent and now preparing for the work, for every consecrated friends of missions; and dollar sent to us, paying from our own withal to undertake to compensate, even pockets the lacking sum to cover cost on an economical basis, those who write of production. But the aggregate 8um articles for its columns, was no small received to be applied to this object has venture, as we can attest, and it is with been comparatively small and inade- no little gratitude to God and the friends quate. The" friend" above referred to of missions that we now find the scale desired to go to the foreign field, but be- turning favorably toward self-support. ing providentially constrained to "abide Our readers have always outnumbered, by the stuff" instead of going into the four to one, our list of subscribers. Often battle, he sends this generous donation.
times one copy has found interested He will thus be the mesns of supplying perusal on the part of an entire family, the REVIEW to 208 persons not now re- or even larger circle of students in col- ceiving it. This fund we should like to leges or seminaries. With no little joy see increased to at least $1000 a year, as the editor-in-chief found one of the most we could well invest it in furnishing free busy and wealthy men of Chicago read- copies to students whose limited means ing aloud from its pages to his whole hinder them from paying even their cost.
household on a Sabbath afternoon; and H may not be amiss to add that ar- he informed me that he found no better rangements have now been made to have reading for such times, and that his a regular resume in these pages of the whole family regarded it as a privilege work of the foreign missionary societies to hear him read the REVIEW aloud. One of Great Britain. We hope soon to se- man in Montrose, Scotland, in his zeal cure equally satisfactory reports of the for the wide perusal of these pages, doings of all continental societies.
sends his copy every month to fifteen There is no design to be partial to any other persons, who otherwise would not missionary organization, field, or work, see them. Beside this fact of the com- or to treat otherwise than fairly every paratively limited Jist of subscribers, we brallch of the Christian Church. But have been at a disadvantage, pecuniarily, to present each month within the thirty in furnishing copies free of charge. or less pages assigned to the Department ot than cost, to the volunteers and others Missionary Intelligence a proper account of the work of some three huudred mis. ously blenderl, which the Alliance forms !lioniry organizations, though only in as a sign of peace, the brilliant French outline, requires unusualfacilitiesfor ac· colors should not be lacking. The cess to theirreports, and uncommon abil. presence of a goodly number of breth· ity for classification and condensation. ren from France and Switzerland was desired, and your attendance is a good Much of the missionary" news" in. omen for our meeting. evitably gets stale before it comes before the readers' eves. The weekly religious " Honored and dear Brethren of Hoi. press, not to say the daily newspaper, land, which was also, and in fact pre. easily anticipates us, as we appear but eminently, a refuge of the Reformation, once a month, and it requires at least with whom could we group you? In ten days after the matter is in the print. everything you are yourselves, only er's hands to set up, correct, electrotype, yourselves. Therefore we, specially do tbe press work and binding and salute you. The absolute tenacity of mailing. But with God's help and our the ancient faith is still seen in your readers' indulgent sympathy, we shall Protestantism, while at the same time aim to make this REVIEW more and more we behold the extreme daring of modern the indispensable inspiration to all in. thought. You bring to the Alliance the telligent and aggressive missionary work benefit of two extremes, namely conat home and abroad. stancy of faith and freedom of thought, both so dear to us all, and so needful This number being especially devoted for the times. to papal Europe, we pu· here for per. manent record the admirable address of "Honored and dear Breth.ren of th.e the President of the Florentine Com. mittee on the reception of the Evan. German tongue, one of the richest of langelical Alliance at the Ninth Universal guages, in which the Gospel resounds Conf(;renoe in Florence in April last: with such force, and yet with such sweet· ness, in consequence of the Reformation ., Honored and dear Brethren: It is an of your Luther, who by the power of his event, a benediction, a festa for the speech was a true king without a crown, Evangelical of Italy, tbis solemn reunion you form a vast group comprehending of distinguished co-religionists from in language and doctrine brethren of every land, froIil Greece, Turkey, Egypt, various countries to the South, to the India, Australia, Austria, Germany, Rus. North and to the West of Germany. sia, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Spain, Britain, North America and "Your thought is as rich and com· Canada. plex as your language, and your immense periods. In your books and your Uni. .. 01 611'0 T~~ ITaAia~ a<J1rlii;ovTal VflU.~ : versities we all drink at the fountain of Those of Italy Salute you, and heartily bid your profound knowledge. you all welcome. "Religic.n among you blossoms and "Languages distinguish us, but they abounds not less in erudite theology do not divide us ; rather they unite us, than in poetry and music, which pro. forming special groups. Permit us to ceed from the heart and rise sublime. place together the delegates of countries where the same language is spoken, and " Your good part, which shall not be to address to each group a few words: taken from you, consists in heart, in sentiment, im GemiUhe, and it is this "Honored and dear Brethren of the that brings a blessing and is your most French tongue, in you we salute, 011 the precious gift to our Alliance. one hand. the descendants of the heroes of the Reformation, who with unheard. •• Honored and dear Brethren of the Enrl· of constancy have fought and suffered lish language, you COIlle from all parts for the cause of "the Gospel; and, on of the world; your group comprises the the other hand, the sons of generous Globe, now made small by your active Switzerland, refuge of the persecuted enterprise. You cover the earth with and bulwark of liberty, who received Bibles, translated and printed in all with equal affection the emigrants of languages, and sow the seed of the King. France and of Italy. dom of God among all nations.
"The Reformation did not become " You have mllltiplied denominations. national in France, but its effect has pushed individualism to extremes, and been universaL It founded the rights of man with respect to his fellow·man and shown a divided Protestantism; yet, on to the State on the Sovereignty of God. the othel' hand, you seek after anrl mani· fest unity through the Evangelical Alli. .. That principle, still worthily repre. ance, of which you al'e the strenuous sented by you, is essential to Protestant. and constant promoters. Unity through ism, and necessary to the Alliance. In liberty, this is God's way, and it is also the rainbow of variollii tints harmoni. the way of the Alliance, of which you are the advance-guard.
" And those of us who are but small minorities in the midst of catholics, both strive to attain. But these principles Roman and Greek. and likewise in the of Evangelical Protestantism, and these midst of Turks and Heathen, brethren only are universal, truly catholic, comof Italy and Spain, of Belgium, of mon to Christianity, which holds the Greece, of Turkey, and of other coun- Lord Jesus Christ as the only MaBter. tries, we are all born in the arms of the Mediator and Saviour; and these ends Alliance; we too are welcomed here, so are all included in the universal applimuch so that on this occasion we the cation of that supreme precept of the last have become the first. Law and the Prophets, which suffices to establish and maintain the best rela· " Honored and dear Brethren, we have tions between man and man, between not yet in Florence a temple large family and family, between chureh and enough to enable us to receive you in a church, between nation and nation: consecrated place. Not unfrequently a , Whatsoever ye would that men should temple is transformed into a theatre; do unto you, do you even so unto them. for a few days let us prove that a thea- for this is the Law and the Prophets.' tre may become a temple. We begin by reading from God's Word, Matt. xvii. 1-5. "' Protestantism, founded upon tho Holy Scriptures, rule of faith and life, " Our earnest desire and prayer, be- has various forms, among which each loved brethren, is that by the presence one may find freedom and a suitable of the Lord, by the Spirit of grace by sphere of action, and it has no need to the joy of fraternal communion, you be transformed or reformed; it needs may feel that it is indeed good to be only to be transfigured, so that the glory here, that you wonld even pitch yonr of Christ may shine through all these tents and abide with us, that no one various forms in justice, truth and holiwill regret having come. ness. Thus unity is manifested in diver- sity. Thus the ideal is realized, and "' Is there less of blessing here than the Kingdom of Heal'iln is advanced. upon the Mount, whence the disciples were loath to descend? Nay, there is " May these reunions strengthen our cven more and better. Lifted up on ties, leave among r's blessed traces, and high infinitely above all, behold the Mas- give fresh power to the Gospel everyter, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His pres- where, among all the churches, and in ent glory, His eternal glory, of which that which shone forth on the Monnt all lands. was but a symbol, a momentary sign. "Is it really in Itily, in Florence, only "On the right, and on the left, be- a few steps from Savonarola's wool1-pile hold Moses and Elijah, the Law and the and the Bargello, that we are assembled Prophets, which testify of Him, and re- for this work of liberty and faith? Is it mind us of the Golden Rule, to do unto really in Florence, where the Madiai for others as we would that they should do the sake of the Gospel, in August of the unto us. Below, the disciples looking year 1851. were arrested, and in June of up humble, attentive, ecstatic, repre- 1852 condemned for years to the galleys; sent the attitude that becomes us in the where an honored deputation of the presence of our Lord Ilnd His HolyWord. Evangelical Alliance came to implore from the Grand Duke their liberation, " The souls of the three disciples ex- and could not obtain an official henring ; ulted at the sight of the glorious specta- is it on this very spot that we open this cle. Here we are, hundreds of disci- free Conference of Evangelicals of all ples, representatives of thousands Ilnd nations? Scarcely can we believe our millions, who, from all parts of the eyes. Never did Italy in the times of World, look up with us to Jesus Christ. her republics, never did this classic Joyful day! Glorious spectacle! Should land, never did Florence, tbe most libnot our souls rejoice? eral and the most cultured city of Italy, ever enjoy religious liberty, the highest "In the Transfiguration beheld by and the holiest form of liberty, until tho the first disciples, we see the ideal, into entire nation rallied around the house which the sad reality ought to be trans- of Savoy, which with firm hand held formed, into which it has already in part been transformed; the ideal which is the sceptre of i ustice. gradually being realized by the fulfilment of the V'w and the Prophets, by " Hence we could not inaugurate the the Gospel of Christ, who with righteous- present Congress, which to the eyes of ness 8S white as the light clothes every all is a great event in the cause of libsoul that calls upon Him. erty, and to our e:res greater still for the " The Evangelical Alliance in its sol- Gospel, without heartily exclaiming: emn assemblies represents that ideal, , B:GESSINGS FOREVER REST UPON and by its labors seeks its realization. THE HOUSE OF SAVOY AS IT NOW " The Alliance has principles which it Jll~st maintain, and !)Jlds whieh it mllst REIGNS AT ROME !' "l'AOLQ GE}Cr.roN4T, P.D."
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
Italy, France, Spain-Papal Eurape.
[EDITOBllL.-A. T. P.] -Papal Europe embraces about 150,- independence, declaring to all offers of 000,000 of Roman Catholics, who con- outside help, "L' ltalia fard da se," in stitute, in all Germany. over 52 per cent plain worda, "Italy is able to take care of the population; in Bavaria, 71 per of herself."
cent; in Austria, 76; in Ireland, 82; The year 1848 was a year of earth- in France, 96; in Belgium, over 99; quake in Europe, but it broke the bonds and in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, twenty of Italy. Liberty awoke, and Sardinia years ago, almost the entire body of became the asylum of such heroes as people. While geographically Protes- Gioberti, Tommaseo, Manin, and even tantism is dominant in the north and the Vaudois martyr saints were preach- northwest, and the Greek Church in the ing at Turin. The Act of Emancipation east and southeast, Romanism holds came in 1848. Ten years later and sway in the south and southwest. It is more thrones fell, and 6,000,000 more also to be noted that the principal re- Italians found the joy of freedom; cen- ligious faiths thus correspond not only tral Italy began to rise into the at- with certain geographical limits, but mosphere of liberty. In the town of with certain race features. While the Aoste, at the descent from Great St. Ber- German races are mostly Protestant nard, a memorial of persecution be- and the Sla~ic mostly Greek, the Latin came a monument of emancipation.
are mostly Roman Catholic. When Calvin crossed the Alps to bear Our space forbids that we should do the cross into the land of the crucifix, more than throw out a few outline facts he set up his standard in the Cite and hints, especially as to the condition D'Aoste, and for a time lived there.
of Italy and France. But afterward he fled for his life, and 'Ihe history of Italy and France for his flight was kept in remembrance by the past seventy-five years has been full the enemies of the archheretic, who set of interest. Victor Emanuel I., by the up a column opposite his hired house.
treaty oj Vien-1a in 1815, was restored When the Waldensians gathered the to his kingdom of Sardinia, and six converts into a house of prayer, they years later was succeeded by that stupid observed-what they had not before per- monarch, Charles Felix. Then the very ceived-that directly opposite to the word" liberty" was proscribed in Italy, memorial column that told of the and Alfieri's tragedies could not appear Romish persecutions of three hundred on the stage, lest that Italian Shake- years before, they had set up the cross speare should kindle a new fire of love of Christ, and were preaching the apos- for freedom. It was a double despot- tolic gospel! From that year (1858) ism of kingcraft and priestcraft. A Italy's progress has been upward. Vic- book was a rarity; a Bible or testament tor Emanuel recognizeq the rights of was seized even from a traveller's conscience, and defended them against satchel, and the Inde:c Expurgatoriu8 it- interference by magistrates or ecclesias- self was forbidden, lest people should tics. Baron Ricasoli supported religious desire books because forbidden. equality. Count Cavour, whose public Charles Albert succeeded to the life reached from his eighteenth year to throne, and in 1847 left to his country his death at fifty-one, as soldier, jour- the statute or constitution, to which his nalist, deputy, minister of agriculture son, Victor Emanuel II., faithfully ad- and commerce, of marine, of finance, hered. In the revolution of 1848 Charles as premier, directed as well as originat- Albert became the champion of Italian ed the Sardinian policy, improvedfinan· cial conditions, introduced free trade, being enlightened. The day has dawned consolidated constitutionalism, weak- on fair Italy.
ened clericalism, and achieved eminence The Waldensian Synod multiply their in Italian history as .. the pure-hearted, missions, evangelists, and colporteurs, broad-minded, sagacious leader in the and could they have the money they field of diplomacy and statesmanship need, might plant one hundred centres for the reviving and reunited Italy." of gospel work where they now have As Dr. Richard Burgess finely said,* five. The Israel of the Alps desire to .. The polluted streams of an idolatrous take possession of all Italy, from tho religion had, like burning lava, pro- Alps to the sea.
duced moral devastation in Italy among The changes taking place before OUl"
twenty generations." eyes we do not appreciate, The travel- Some hope for Italy came with the ler in Italy in 1850 passed through the revolutions of 1848-58. Liberty of con- dominions of nine enthroned rulers be_ science, worship, speech, was pro- tween the mountains and the southern claimed from the Alps to the Straits of cape. Now the Pope whines because Messina when Italy became united and he is " imprisoned in the Vatican," and free. But the spirit of Romanism and Humbert rules Italy. Temporal domin- Jesuitism is not dead. Pope Gregory ion is gone and gone forever, notwith- XVI. and Pius IX. after him pro- standing frantic efforts to recover it; nounced liberty of conscience a dream, and if th9 common school and an open a delirium, and liberty of speech and Bible continue, the Pope will lose hi!!
press the mother of all heresies. Never- spiritual sceptre too, or radical reforma.
theless, the triumphs of freedom move tions must take place in the papal on. At Perugia, at Turin, at Naples, at church.
Florence, at Rome itself, have been Meanwhile we call attention onCQ printed attacks upon the Church of more to the fact that since Luther Rome, her priests, her saint worship, nailed up his theses, the balance at masses for the dead, papal bulls, etc., power has been transferred from papal as bold as the utterances of Gioberti or to Protestant Europe by sheer infertility- Tommaseo. To-day, where forty years of papal communities in offspring.
ago no Protestant worship would be The revelations as to France's decline.
allowed, there are thirty pht.ces within in population, which threatens soon to sight of St. Peter's dome, where Prot- take the appalling form of there being; estants worship and preach unhindered; more deaths than births, are made still.
and Siguor Arrighi predicts that before more startling when a comparison is; long the Evangelical Alliance, that met made of France's relative position in in May last at Florence, may yet short- the past. A century ago France had a lyassemble in St. Peter's, and Bend its population of 26,000,000; Russia had delegatus to lodge in the Vatican. only 25,000.000; Austria, 17,000,000; A few years ago the Bible was hunted Prussia, 15,000,000 ; and England 12,.
by spies from the Alps to the GuU of 000,000. To-day Russia possesses 90,- Tarentum; now it is freely bought and 000,000 inhabitants; Germany, 46,000,.
read, and was printed by sections in a 000; Austria. 38,000,000; and France.
daily paper. Signor Capellini's Sol- 36,000,000. The birth-rate is 6.7 pel'
diers' Church sends out hundreds of 1000 in Italy, 10 in Germany, 12.9 m converted cadets every year into the Russia, and 13.7 in England, and it does homes of Italy after the military service not exceed 1.19 in France.
is fulfilled. An ignorunt people is being Austria has been shorn of much of educated – a superstitious people is her strength, and she no longer COD- trois or leads the great German Empire.
Poland haR disappeared from the roll of .. Exeter Hall Lectures, 1865. nations. England, then so feeble, has spread over 1Il1 lands. Prussia has be- ligions orders-an army of at least come a giant, and Russia, then un· 123,131." This vast host moved obediknown, is in numbers almost equal to ent to the supreme pontiff sooner than the whole of papal Europe. Rome, the h the word of the king, or even the seat of ecclesiastical power, is now the written Word of God. capital of an united and free Italy, over which the Pope has no political control. The traveller in Italy and France and These wonderful changes have in no way Spain observes that papacy has now lit· strengthened the papacy or enlarged its tie hold on the more intelligent part of influence among the nations of the the people, especially in France. A earth. It has been weakened by each. man may go to his first communion, but The very efforts put forth to augment he seldom enters a church or the con· its sway have in the divine orderings fessional, or sees the priest until per. enfeebled it. haps he gets extreme unction on his death·bed. France is no longer Roman Protestantism has not only grown Catholic-France is without a faith! politically, but numerically in Europe. Spain is scarcely Roman Catholic- Compare Spain and Great Britain. At Spain is dead of spiritual torpor and the Reformation the one was greatly sloth. There is not energy enough to 'superior to the other in numbers and breed another Torquemada. In that political influence. Now Spain has just Land of the Inquisition, where in 36 about one half the popUlation of Great years, from 1480 to 1517,13,Q.00 persons Britain, while in this period the latter were burned alive, 8700 burned in effigy, has peopled Australia, New Zealand, and 169,423 variously pnnished. you United States, and other countries. may now buy a Bible on the street cor· During the last fifty years, England has ner! increased her population 119 ; Prussia, 72; Austria, 27; and France, 12 per Dr. John Cumming used to say that cent. This difference led a French it is essentially popish to sacrifice truth Roman Catholic to write, a few years to uniformity, to make men tell lies, and ago, as he called attention to it : "On then hide reality in order to keep np comparing the respective progress made the appearance of unbroken nnity with since 1814 by non·Catholic Christian a central regulating power -like atnation3 with the advancement of power tempting to make clocks strike everyattained by Cath~lic nations, one is where the noon honr when the great struck with astonishment at the dispro- pontiff at Greenwich signals the merid· portion. • . . Unquestionably since ian, although the earth does take 1789 the balance of power between twenty.fol'lr hours to move ronnd, and Catholic civilization and non·Catholic any spot fi$teen degrees away from civilization has been reversed." Greenwich must be an honr away in time. The relative growth of Protestantism is much greater than that of Romanism. Every year in the church hf Ara In 1825 the Protestant population stood Cee/i, at Rome, takes place a, sort of to the Roman Catholic as 3 to 13 ; now child's religious filte. A chapel is ar· it is as 1 to 2. ranged as a stall, in which are wax fig- ures of the Holy Family and the beaRhl Dr. Burgess called attention a qnarter about them, etc. Decoration and wax of a century ago to the vast hierarchy of tapers abonnd, and hundreds of chilwhich the Pope was the head. "A dren are brought there to adore the string pulled at Rome moved the follow· B,lmbino, or wax image of the Holy ing puppets: 6 cardinals, 15 arch. Child. All day long, too, little folks bishops, 69 bishops. 158 vicarR.general, are set up on a pulpit, one ata time, to 660 canons, 3396 higher clergy, 39,630 speak their little speeches in honor of priests, 3000 seminarists preparing for the sacred doll. prie"thood, and 50,000 members of re- This wax baby is a " miracle work. er;" and when anyone is ill who can otherwise of Lord Archibald's asser· afford so costly a. doctor, this figure is tion. Bent for, and by the monks brought with all solemn formality, followed by Here are two extracts from .. The a bill for the visit the next day. Since Glories of Mary," a work heartily com· a woman attempted to pass off a new mended by Cardinal Manning, and wax doll for the old one, the Bambino stamped by papal infallibility: is suffered to go out only in his own carriage with guards. "0 Lady in Heaven, we have but one advocate, and that is thyself." I think it was about thirty-two or thirty-three years ago, when the tax put "Thou, 0 Mother of God, art om· upon bread, in the Eternal City, excited nipotent to save sinners." the indignation of the Bambino, and on the principle that even the" stones cry Rev. Frank H. White well says, "In out," he lifted up his voice, and in an view not only of the blasphemies poured awfully solemn way enjoined on the forth by the Church of Rome on this government to remove the bread tax. subject, but also of the incl'easing ten· One wonld think he had got hold of a dency in the Church of England to an copy of Adam Smith's ,( Wealth of Na- idolatrous exaltation of the Virgin, it tions." His utterances caused, of would be well if this tract were more course, a serious stir; and a day or two widely circulated." after, in order to emphasize the warning, the wax doll again spoke. The Dr. George W. Chamberlain, of San government proposed to be supreme, Paulo, Bra:<il, likewise testifies that in and to hold even the Bambino in sub. Brazil St. Joseph is held as of practically jection ; and so the police informed the higher rank than the Virgin Mary or monks who take care of the Bambino Jesus, inasmuch as " she,like an obedithat no such miracle must henceforth be ent wife, submits to her husband; and allowed-it might create a revolution. Jesus, like an obedient Son, submits to Once again the baby spoke, and this her ;" and such was the public teachtime· the message was peremptory and ing of the archbishop in Rio Janeiro final. The head of police sent at once when he returned from the festival of to infonn the monks that if the doll the" Immaculate Conception." opened its head once more, they would be turned out of their situation as Those who think Roman Catholic nurses; and remarkable as' it mayap. lands need no missionaries should read pear, the Bambino's mirq,eulous utterances the letter which appeared in the New ceased from that very day I York Trib'tme,* written from Siena, where dwelt the famous "Saint" Cath. As to Rome and Mariolatry, Lord arine. If the Roman religion was the Archibald Douglas, in his pamphlet en- same then as now, it passes comprehentitled « A Voice of One Crying in the sion how its practice could make her Desert," declares that .( the Roman " holy." Catholic Church upholds the Bible in its entirety," and" hates" priestcraft "I stepped into a church where mass and Mariolatry. was being celebrated. There were fif- teen priests in the chancel and three If our readers will look at the four. persons in the congregation. 'fhe acopage leaflet "most respectfully ad. lyte who rang the bell appeared to neg. dressed to all sincere Roman Catho- lect his duty, for the celebrant turned lics," entitled .. Which is Right-the and shook his fist at him. The boy re- Ch1IrCh of Rome or the Word of God?" taliated, after the priest went to the published by the Irish Church Mis. altar, by running his tongue out at him, Flion, 12 D'Olier Street, Dublin, all can which seemed to give convulsions of then judge for themselves the truth or quiet laughter to the priests near the altar who sang the responses. A French lady came 'Up to me and expressed her indignation. and said that there was no religion in this country. I assured her • September 7, 1890. that our Irish and American Catholics As to the l'[cAlJ missions in France, 'Would not tolerate any such irreverence in church. She answered that nllither they are remarkable for their number 'Would the French, and that here many and influence. They are spreading all of the educated people were infidels be. over France. and are the most powerful cause of the irreverence of the priests. Protestant influence of modern times in Yet the Italians pay an immense price for their religion. that RepUblic. Some trace this movement to that " In France, where there are 35,000,000 inhabitants, there are 60,000 priests, bold enthusiast, Napoleon Roussel, who, paid wholly, or in part, by the govern- in about 1830, scattered the fire of a ment. In Italy, with 29,000,000 inhabitants, there are 250,000 priests. In true religious zeal. Roussel came of e. France there is a priest for every 58;j of noble stock of Protestant martyrs. At the population, and in Italy one for twenty-five he was spiritually aroused every 116. More than one of our Roman by the great revival then spreading over Catholic churches in New York have 10,000 parishioners of all ages. Such all Switzerland and France under the parishes, according to the Italian ratio, leadership of Robert Haldane and would be obliged to maintain 86 priests. others. Roussel had been a close stu- Siena has 62 churches for 23,000 inhab- dent from his youth, and was quite itants. familiar with the whole religious status of Europe, and especially of France. " I went to the cathedral t""qee the festivities of the Assumption, said to ex- oeed in pomp those of any other festi- When, therefore, set on fire by the Holy val. The cardinal was seated on his Spirit, he was soon zeady by his scholar- – throne, lind they were robing him for ly education and theological training to the oelebration. A little ohild was seat- stand forth as a target for the Roman ed on the floor playing with a doll and singing to himself. There is oeaseless Church. He feared nothing, shrank movement of people, and everybody is from nothing. and went through France talking, so that you hear nothing from as a firebrand. His preliminary work the chancel. There are many priests was done in PariR, as editor of a in the congregation and some monks.
On the right of the chancel is a high religio-political paper. But PariR and platform for the orchestra, and the cele- the editorial chair could not long hold brated tenor and soprano of the city are him. Where there was the greatest to sing. The orchestra begins. It sounds persecution and the greatest call for like a military march, and gives a crescen- do to the conversation about me. The hard work there was Rouosel, till finally tenor is fine. When will this ceaseless clatter of talk and movement end? Is in 1847, returning to Paris, he estabnobody going to pray or pay any atten. lished a school for the instruction of tion to the celebration? Occasionally Protestants for the ministry and for some one bows for a moment toward mlssIOnaries. Out of this grew many St. Catharine's chancel and then rises small churches in and out of Paris. and salutes some friend with lond talk. But the revolution of 1848 seriously em- This continues throughout. 1t did not b:llT8SSed his efforts, and finally Napostop when the Host was elevated! At the moment a lady in front of me was pre- leon III. arbitrarily prohihited his senting a gentleman to a friend with great clatter. A few were kneeling on noble work. Seed, however, had been my left. I heard laughter on my right, sown which sprang up later as the McAll and turned to aee what occasioned it at Missions. There are now more than such a solemn time. A priest and a 130 of these in France, each the nucleus young man were playfully contending for a chair that a lady had just left. of saving power for the multitude. n The music was finely rendered. The is now eibhteen years since this Inove· orchestra and the two soloists did most ment became a vital power. For the last of it. The chorus parts were weak. few years it seems to be setting all There was no preaching. But after the cardinal had been unrobed and gone France in a blaze. Each mission is a out, I did not feel that I had been in a radiating point of such extensive work place of worship, but that I had seen a and numerous bands that make the spectacle unsurpassed in scenic splen. number of meeting-places and street dor in a place that the artists had abandoned for 600 years." services almost innumerable.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O.
-The population of Europe may be -From the organization, in 1848, of set down in round numbers as 350,- ' a society called ,. Eglise Missionnaire 000,000, and is divided religiously about Beige" at Brussels, there have sprung as follows: Roman Catholics, 165,000,- up 27 active churches and missions 000; Protestants, 90,000,000 ; members with 7000 members, the greater part of of Oriental' churches, 85,000,000, and whom are converts from the Romish about 5,000,000 each of Jews and Mo- Church. There are 38 preachers who hammedans. Italy with 31,000,000 as are spreading the Gospel throughout well as Spain and Portugal with 25,- the country. The yearly expense of 000,000 are almost wholly Catholic. this work-about $27,000-exceeds the Belgium with 6,000,000 is papal about receipts, which come mainly from per- twelve to one. In France out of 39,- sons of limited means, and outside help 000.000 less than a million are Protes- is being solicited.
tants. Austria contains some 37,000,000 -The Free Church of Italy recently inhabitants, of whom 12,000,000 are held its annual convention, 37 delegates non-Catholic. In Switzerland nearly representing 40 congregations and 7 two thirds of the 3,000,000 accept the stations being present. There were Reformed faith. The German Empire reports of progress from nearly all holds 30,250,000 Protestants in a total places. The convention decided upon of 48,000,000. Denmark, Sweden, Nor- the name of .. Evangelical Church of way and the Netherlands, with a com- Italy" as their official title in the future_ bined population of 13,;;00,000, are al- Among tho representatives of other most solid against the papacy, the latter Protestant bodies present were two being overwhelmingly Presbyterian, from the Waldensian churches, who and the others Lutheran. Great Britain declared that their communion still and Ireland are Protestant by 29,620,- cherished the hope of being able to 000 against 5,640,000. Of the Catho- unite with the Free Church. lics 1,370,000 are found in England and Wales, and but 330,000 in Scotland. -In 1850 the Oatholic Church in In Ireland are found 1,155,000 Protes- Denmark had 3 missionaries, 2 stations, tants and about 4,000,000 Catholics. and 300 members. Now it is repre- Russia and Greece have a population sented by one apostolic prefect, 37 of 100,000,000, of which two thirds be_ missionaries, 14 stations, 3700 mem- long to the Greek Church. Moham- bers, and more than 150 members of medans comprise about one half of religious orders. In 1856 there were Turkey's 5,000,000. no Oatholic churches in the kingdom; -The Catholic missions in Bengal now there are 10 churches, 6 publio under the conduct of the Belgian Jesu- and 6 private 'chapels, a Jesuit college, its have been very successful. Com- and a high school for boys. Nowhere mencing in 1881, the first year for in the world are the spiritual interests which we have exact figures, we find of Catholics so well provided for, there the converts amounted to 16,149. In being a clerical representative for every 1886 their numbers had increased to 18 members and a church for each 168.
20,000, and in 1888 these had advanced -·According to the latest synodical to 53,281. In 1881 baptisms num- reports the Waldensians have, outside bered 378, in 1886 they had increased of the hiBtorio valleys, 44 congregations to 3274, while in 1888 .they reached the and 36 pastors. In addition to these total of 35,000. there are 46 preaching places. The regular pastors are Ilided by 20 evan· 000. Mr. MUller planned to go out as gelists, 68 teachers, and 14 colporteurs. a missionary to India, but insuperable The total number of communicants is obstacles prevented. But, remaining 4266, an increase of 192 in the last at home, he has been able to raiSe anlI tweh'e months. 'l'he reports complain distribute for missions $1,116,800. that Catholic parents send their children to the elementary classes of the -The Denmark societies in 1888 con- Waldensians, but withdraw them as tributed to foreign missions $33,422.64. soon as they are old enough to partici- The Danish Government has a mission pate in the religious instruction of the in Greenland with 6 stations and 6 orschools. dained toilers, and the Danish Mission. ary Society has 7 ordained men in -The Methodist Episcopal Church India. has 6 missionaries in Italy and 24 native preachers, and a church member- -In 1889 the Netherlands Reformed ship of 743 with 198 probationeril in Society had in Java 60 churches with addition. The Southern Baptists oc- 5937 members distributed throngh 397 (lUPY 12 stations with 15 ordained mis- villages, and last year the number had sionaries, and have gathered 272 into increased to 70 churches, 6794 memo churches. The American Board sent bers, in 411 villages. The contribu. its first representatives to Austria in tions of 18 Netherlands societies to for· 1872, and now sustains 2 with 17 native eign missions amounted to 315,134 helpers. The 3 churches have a total gulden ($137,319). of 364 members, and the schools have 104 pupils. -The Protestants of Germany and Germau Switzerland are said to con· -No less than 15 Protestant societies tribute for foreign missions at the rate are at work in Spain, occupying 115 of but 12 centimes each, and those of houses or rooms as chapels and school France but 45 centimes. Now the buildings. The American Board has 3 centime is only the one hundredth part missionaries and 33 native helpers, 18 of a franc, or the fifth of a cent! churches with 349 members, and 604 pupils in schools. The American Bap- -The Society for the Propa~ation of tists in Spain and France together have the Gospel held its 190th annual meet- 18 missionaries and 13 churches, with a ing May 7th. The receipts reported for membership of 900. the year were £164,382, an increase of £26,000 over the previous year. As a -In nineteen years the Protestant consequence, the Society had enlarged churches of the United Kingdom con- its work, especially in New Guinea and tributed to foreign missions £21,166,- Korea. The number of ordained mis- 164. During the last half of the period sionaries, including eight bishops, on the gifts were greater than during the the Society's lists was 660-in Asia, first half by £665,315. The increase 220 ; in Africa, 142; in Australia and was 64 per cent on the part of the the Pacific, 17 ; in North America, 215 ; Church of England, and on the part of in the West Indies, 34; and 32 in Eu. the Dissenting churches was 24 per rope. Of these 127 were natives laborcent. ing in Asia and 29 in Africa. There were also in the various missions about -George MUller has under his care 2300 lay teachers, 2600 students in the 75 schools, of which 13 are in Spain, Society'S colleges, and 38,000 children 2 in Italy, 2 in the East Indies, and 7 in the mission schools in Asia and in the English colonies. In May of Africa. The Bishop of Calcutta in an last year these schools contained 6250 address called attention to the very im· pupils, and the total number since the portant position of India as resulting first one was opened in 1834 was 112,. from the fact that her popUlation were ~37, The expenses have been $489,- spreading so widely over the globe. In -The Wesleyans of Great Britain the West Indies there were 280,000; in have a membership of 424,303. The Mauritius, 2<15,000 out of 500,000 in. total receipts of their missionary sohabitants were from India, and South ciety for 1890 were £122,072, and the Africa was swti.rming with them. expenditures were greater by £10,813. Missions are sustained in EU1'ope, India, -The Anglican missions (Church China, West Africa. the Transvaal, eto. Missionary Society and Society for the The principal stations number 363 with Propagation of the Gospel) in the Tin. 1572 chapels and other preaching Develly district, South India, in 1888-89 places, 338 missionaries and assistant covered 1636 villages, with 113 Dative missionaries, ann 2163 other paid clergy; tho schools contained 23,52<1 agents, 34,722 church members, and pupils; the churches, 20,024 communi. 5250 probationers, and 65,803 in Sabcants, with 18,396 catechumens, 77,171 bath and day schools. baptized persons, and 95,567 adherents.
-The latest report concerning the reo -The. Society of Friends in England lci~"vieoruss condition o f the Fiji group and America, though numbering but the year 1889. The total area is 1u0p0~0a0r0d oontribute to foreign missions about the sa.me as that of the State of of $90,000 annually. A begin_ Massachusetts. There is a European ning was not made until 1866, and since population of about 2000, whilo tho na· then representatives have been sent to tives, including other Polynesians ancl Syria, India. China, Madagascar, Mexi.
Indian emigrants, number 123,000. Of co, and the American Indians. Their this native population, 103,775 worship Woman's Foreign Missionary Union in the churches of the Wesleyan mis- raised $23,164 last year. Though effi- sion, while 10,302 attend Roman Catho- cient work is done in other fields, yet lic churches. The Wesleyan mission Madaoascar has been the scene of their has 10 European missionaries and 72 great:st successes. Entering the island native ministers, 49 catechists, 1838 in 1868, they now have 18 missionaries, local preachers, and 1095 teachers; 40 native pRstors, and 37(1 other native these laboring in connectbn with 909 assistants. 130 churches with 4000 mem- churches and 414 other preaching bers and 40,000 adherents, lind 132 places. In the schools of the WeslAyan schools with 14,600 scholars. Special mission are .ro,667 children. The Ro· emphasis is laid upon educational work, man Catholic mission has 18 European and they are gen~rous contributors to ministers, with 148 Dative teachers, and the funds of the missions of other 76 native churches and chapels. Aside churches.
from the 18 Roman CatholIc priests -This table gives a partial statement of the work of 18 German missionary there are 3 lay Europeans and 14 female societies as it stood at the close of 1888.
Europeans.
SOCIETIES. MiE'sion- Co~~~.ni. Adherents. Receipts. aries.
—-·———–·i–·– —- —- —– Moravian Chnreh ………….. …….. .•.. 1IM03 3101..509812 2827,,216832 $18607.412280 Basel Society…………….. ………… 75 10.735 35.7"01 79,120 Rhenish Society … : . . . •. .• …….. …… 0 0 0 ' 5 068 38 461 HermannBburg SOcIety…. ..•. ……….• 71 (1)7. .. . 61'""" 2616 170,.0358;4) 2113..191422 ~2,8.71"!)'8"1 Berlin Society……………….. …. … 12 000 c 36 000 Leipsic Society- . . . . . •. . . .. ……………. ou NG~~~~eG':rSmoacnIestoyci~iy:':: :::.-:::::::.:::: 1118 c., . '71707 1213',,010046 SchleBwig·HoIBt~in. Society…. ……….. ~~ 408 Nine smaller sOcIetIes…. …….. .. …… 200 660 30,993 ________ – I 89,452 – – 5 6 1 Totals ………………………… 232,714 $599,677 =firlrlng 1890 there were built in the contributions are $53,351,103. He United States 8500 churches; ministers also concludes that the other evangeli. to the number of 4~00 were ordained, cal denominations just about double anI a membership, in all denomina. these figures, and hence these and tions, of 1,090,000 added. those together number 13,000,000, and have.invested for the maintenance and -It is computed that the English spread of the Gospel $800,839,154. If tongue is now spoken by nearly twice the same rule be applied to the annual as many people as any other European contributions they would aggregate language. The estimated ligures are: $106,702,206. English, 125,000,000 ; Russian and Ger· man, 70,000,000 each; French, 50,000,. – World· Wide Missions sends out a 000; Spanish, 40,000,000; Italian, ringing caIl to the Metbodist Episcopal 30,000.000; Portuguese, 13,000,000• Chnrch for a grand, general uprising . At the beginning of the century Eng. under the head of Financial Possibili. lish stood only fifth, being exceeded by ties, and with One Penny a Day as the French, Russian, German and Spanish. watchword. bespeaks the speedy ap- pearance of a second Wesley to inaugu. ~Well might Dr. R. S. Storrs say, in rate the revolution, to trans{orDl the a recent number of the Sunday.School scheme into solid fact, and presents nmes, .. It is something that Ameri. some astounding figures which would can missions alone now occupy more result, such as $3,UOO,000 for mis. than 4000 stations in unevangelized sions, $1,000,000 for evangelistic work lands, with 2350 missionaries Rtmt from in cities, $750,000 for Freedmen's Aid, this country and more than 10,000 nil.· $400,000 for the Women's Foreign Mis. tive helpers; that there are at these sionary Society, etc. The total, $10,- stations more than 2700 churches, with 000,000, though so great, is yet a smaIl nearly 237,000 communicants, of whom one for the vast Methodist host, num· 26,000 were added last year; and that bering 2,783,967. $4,000,000 are contributed annually in our country to carryon the work. It -At the 75th anniversary of the is something, certainly. that all Protes- American Bible Society the last year's tant missionary societies have now 46,- receipts were reported as $512,388.18, 000 missionaries and helpers in the and the issnes of Bibles, Testaments, field, ministering to nearly 700,000 and portions as 1,497,637, of whiah oommunicants and to more than 3,000" 524,096 were for circulation in foreign 000 of adherents to Christianity, and ex· lanrls. Sinae 1816 over $20,000,000 pending every year at least $12,000,000 have been received, and with these in the distant and costly work." 54,000,000 copies of the Sariptures have been printed and distributed. The -Mr. Charles A. J. Marsh, of Minne. legacies of the first quarter century apolis, has gathered with great oare reached $109,504.57, and grew to $3,204" Bome interesting statistics relating to 460.68 in the third quarter, and the the money investments made in behalf churoh coIlections inoreased from of the Lord's kingdom by four of the e28,938.04 to $353,307.29. leading denominations of this country, the Methodist!! (North), Baptists, Pres· -The reoeipts of the Southern Bap. byterians (North), and Congregational. tist Convention for last year were $113,- ists. He finds that they have 67,274 522.37. Its missions are found in Afri. churches with a membership (,January cB, China, Japan, Haly, Bral'lil, and 1st, 1891) of 6,500,000 ; that they hold Mexico. The principal stations are property worth $359,828,994, with en· 38. The miRsionary foroe numbers 86, dowments (,f colleges, eto., amounting with 23 ordained and 53 unordained na. to $40,590,000, or a total of $400,419,. tive assistants. Into the 67 churohes 577 thus invested, and that their a.nnual 2377 have been gathered, 'and 361 were received in 1890. The church-mem- reassuring. The cruel King Mwanga, bers in China are 790, and 98 were now restor~d to his throne, is evidently added last year. forgetful of all his pledges to be a bet- -The American Presbyterian Church ter sovereign. He is also being mahas in its Clanton mission 35 mission- nipUlated by the French priests_ The aries from the United States, and 3 or- little band of Protestant missionaries dained and 94 unordained native assist- which are striving to carry on the work ants; 10 churches with 690 members, of the noble and lamented Mackay have of whom 95 were added last year; 3 a friend in the Prime-Minister, but the boarding schools with 231 pupils, and outlook is grave with such a selfish and 3a day with 864 pupils. The medical revengeful man on the throne as· work of the mission is set forth by 63,- Mwanga. Meanwbile this fair province 785 visits to out-patients and 3489 sur- in the heart of Africa suffers in every gical operations. part because of the bloodshed and deso- lating warfare of recent years. -The Marathi mission, India, of the American Board, covers 17,000 square From Uganda, Africa, letters are miles, embraces Bombay, Ahmadnagar, printed in England showing that there and 8 other cities, besides 3600 villages, is a genuine progress in all Christian and a population of 3,286,889, of whom enterprises. The peril from persecu- 285,000 are Mohammedan. This field tion has entirely ceased, but peril of an is held by 33 missionaries, 18 native exactly opposite character has arisen on pastors, and 19 native preachers. The account of the outward advancement 35 ohurohes have 2306 members, of of the Christians, who are becoming whom two thirds have been received rich and powerful. during the last ten years, and 215 last year. The schools number 200 and the American Indians.-Many methods pupils 3382. In the hospitals 12,289 have been devised for raising money have been trealed. The native oontri- for benevolent purposes, but some IndbU'tions were $1617 in 1890, ian boys in the Northwest have hit upon the newest plan. They were very poor, but wished to pllt some money in the collection. They saw a premium offered Monthly Bulletin for killing gophers. The gopher is a mischievous little animal, devouring a A£riclI..-Since the partition of Africa large amount of wheat, com, and other the governments of England, Germany, grain every year. The farmers pay two Italy, and Portugal have made an agree- cents for each dead gopher_ The proof ment for the reciprocal protection of that the gopher has been killed is his their missionaries in the Dark Conti- tail. Now these little Indian boys had nent. Armed with a passport from the been so interested in the story told of government to which they belong, the the work being done by the Snnday_ missionaries will enjoy the proteotion school Society that they spent their of each of these powers, Saturday afternoon holiday lnaring gophers_ They brought the tails in the One of the methods which Bishop envelopes of the Society as their oon- Taylor is said to be employing to some tribution. elltent in carrying on bis work in Africa is unique in the elltreme, Young negro girls are purchased, the market price Brazil. – The Methodist Episcopal being $30 a girL When introduced into Mission in Rio Grande do SuI, Brazil, the mission schools their families and is finding speoial opportunities for friends have no further claim on them, work among the immigrants that come and Chri!ltian influences can be brought pouring in in hundreds. While the to bear on them much more effectively. work at the capital is conducted in Latest tidings from Uganda are not Portuguese, that in the colonies is in Italian, and is under the care of a na- Peking; Methodist Church, North, at tive of Italy. In two of these colonies Nanking; Methodist Church, North, at there are organized churches which have Fuhchan ; Presbyterian ()hurch, North, secured ground. (Jut timber, and securcd at Shantung; Presbyterian Church, material for chapels. North, at Canton.
It is said that the Catholics of Brazil Dr. Judson Smith SBYS: " The Chi. have been very much opposed to the nese are manifestly the governing race provision of the Constitution of the of Eastern and Central Asia, They evi- Republic, which deprives pdesta und dently hold the key to the future of al. employes of the Church of the right to most one half the unevangelized people vote, and also debars priests from be- of the globe; so long as they remain coming members of Congreas. It is without the Gospel. the great bulk of understood that the reason this pro- Asia will be pagan; when they are evan. vision was inserted was that the officers gelized, the continent will be Christian of the Church really held their allegi. and the world will be won." unce to their spiritual superiors us stronger than their allegiance to the There is need for yet more mission- State, and therefore are not such true aries. Kweischow and Kan-suh each citizens of the Republic as would entitle has only three missionaries for 3,000,000 them to a voice in its governments. people. ShenBi has ten lllissionarie';l This provision, however, has been Bome- for 10.000,000, Yun-nan has four miswhat modified. sionBries for 6,000,000.
Brazil, with its fourteen millions, is Dr. Happer writes from Canton, far behind the age in education. With China : "I am preparing to take my ninety-nine per cent of its population fourth and last departure from China. rated as Roman Catholics, it reports It is a terrible work to tear up the eighty-four per cent as illiterates. The roots that have been growing deeper priests have not taught the people mo- and deeper for forty-seven years. But rality, and they in their blindness and as the Lord has laid thc necessity upon ignorance have followed their leaders. me, I can only say, in humble gratitude But a reaction has come, and they are for the privilege of laboring so long in seeking light and life. The Presbyte. this populous land, Thy will be done. rians lire making an earnest effort to When the gracious Lord called me to put upon a good foundation a thor- return to Amel'ica, in former yeBrs, Hd oughly equipped Christian university. each time gave me the privilego of working there, I trust and pray He Canada.-Two Chinamen were re- may give me the privilege of working cently received into the membership of still in some quiet way, as my strength the Church of Christ in Knox Chnrch, may enabl" me to do. I am sending Winnipeg. They had both been under my books home, and hope to resume Christian instruction for several years my studies and use my pan, or do what and had given good evidence both of my hand may find to do." their acquaintance with the great truths of the Gospel and of their desire to Egypt.-M:r. L. D. Wishard, who is lead a Christian life. travelling in the East in the interests of the Young Men's Christian As- China.-The condition of Christian sociation, was recently in Cairo, Egypt., education in China is encouraging. Be- and the United Presbyterian missionsides the Imperial University at Peking, aries there tried the experiment of of which Dr. W. A. p, Martin is presi- advertising a lecture on the relations dent, there are no less than seven other of Christianity to American civilization, colleges-viz., St. John's Episcopal, at The result was an audience of above Shanghai; Southern Methodist, Bt three hundred young men, who listened ShBnghai; Methodist Church, North, Bt attentively. although the lecture was in- terpreted. This is most gratifying in a city like Cairo. Many of the young helpmate, that a woman's condition, men were Moslems. whether as wife or widow, can become more honorable and more worthy of reo The Rev. William Harvey, for many spect." Lady Dufferin gives the opinyears a faithful missionary of the ion that the velY best way in which we United Presbyterian Church in Egypt, can help our Indian sisters is by sup. is at present in this country for a brief plying them with medical relief: 1. visit. He is continually engaged, how- Because it aims at diminishing suffering ever, in making missionary ad(hesses, and at saving life. 2. Because education and will return to Egypt during the and general enlightenment must follow present year. He is at Monmouth, lll. in its train. 3. Because it encourages and inculcates respect and considera- Formosa.-The Rev. Mr. Mackay tion for women. 4. Because it brings has recently written from the island of cultivation and learning in contact with Formosa, to the Canadian Presbyte- the Zenana; and 5. Because in medi. rian Mission with which he is connect. cine and nursing Indian women will ed, concerning an extraordinary turning find professions in the exercise of from idols on the part of the people of which widows, deprived 8S they are of Ka-le-oan, a village, or rather a con- home and family ties, may fill their geries of villages, recently visited by lives with all the interest, occupation, him. A native assistant had com- and honor so sadly wanting in their mtlnced work in that district, but Mr. present state, Mackay had been hindered from going there, though he had had the matter in The census of India, recently com· mind for a dozen years. On his recent pleted, shows that the tolal popUlation visit he found many of the people hav- is now 285,000,000, an increase of 30,- ing a clear idea of Gospel truth, while 090,000 in the last decade. Of this inall of them were wearied of idol wor- crease 3,000,000 is due to accessions of ship. The three main facts in the case territory by conquest. It is calculated Mr. Mackay states thus: 1. Nearly five that the population of India is about a hundred idolaters cleaned their houses fifth of the whole human race. of idols in our presence. 2. ~'hey declared themselves anxious to worship The comments of the Calcutta press the Lord, the Redeemer. 3. They gave on Dr. Pentecost's evangelistic work in a temple built for idols as a house of India are full of appreciation. The worship for the living and true God. editor of the Statesman of that city, and also the missionaries of different de- The Rev. Mr. Jamieson, of the Canada nominations, unite in saying that few Presbyterian Mission in Formosa, died preachers if any have produced such recently at Tamsui, He was a native a profound impression for good upon of Scotland, and went to Formosa in all classes of people, including the 1883. lIe was a devoted missionary, European residents, as Dr. Pentecost. and his death is a sore loss to the work. A society has been formed in Eng- India.-Lady Dufferin, writing in Jand called "The India Widows' the Nineteenth Century on "The Women Union. .. It is an organization of Chrisof India," expresses the fear that their tian women for the purpose of improvsocial condition cannot be modified to ing the condition of Hindu and Mohamany great degree by legislation or by medan widows in India. The membErS outward reforms. She says: "It is are widows only, but any Christian only by the education and elevation of woman may becom!' an associate memwomen that any change can come OVEr ber. They pledge themselves to pray the feeling of the people with regard to that God will break the yoke and set marriage, and it is only when public the captive free. They raise money to opinion ceases to regard her as a chat. be expended in training widows to usetel, and begins to recognize her as a ful industries, and they gather and diffuse information with regard to the people. Nearly ten dollars was saved condition of the widows. in this way.
Dr. George F. Pentecost. who went North Sea."'-The Sailors' Magazine to India last fllli on an evangelistic mis- sllys : "One hundred thonsand dollars sion, took Mr. and ~s. George C. Steb- were contributed in England last year bins with him to lead the singing. to sustain missionary operations on the After laboring a few weeks in Calcutta North Sea among English deep-sea among the Europeans, it was decided fishermen. Ten fully equipped evanto turn to the ed ucated nati ves, and the gelizing vessels, three of which are hossingers left Dr. Pentecost and accom· pital ships, are employed in the work. panied Bishop Thoburn in a visit One of the fishermen" greatly moved by through the country, travelling several the earnestness of a woman missionary, thousand miles and singing in all the expressed his B1lfprise and gratitude principal cities of the Empire. On that she' had come out to do us North their way home they will stop in Egypt, Sea dogs good.•• , P4lestine. Italy, Germany, and England, reaching homo by midsummer. Palestine.-A Scotch missionary at Tiberias says that whereas almost every The New York Evangelist, in a brief Jew in Sated and Tiberias understands paragraph on ,. Hinduism and the Signs Arabic, not more than twenty or thirty. of the Times," says: "An encourage- out of five or six thousand understand ment to missionary effort is found in Judeo·Spanish, and a preacher in that tb.e increasing number of Somaies and language would in truth be "a voice Congresses for securing healthy reforms crying in the wilderness." Two of the in the social life of the Hindus, and in missionaries there are prepared to the preceding changes which made pos- "quote Hebrew" and to conduct sersible the establishment of those asso- vices in it whenever that is seen to be ciations. The time has now come when necessary. To hold Hebrew services Hinduism finds fulfilled in its history would, he insists, be absurd, as the the prophecy of the Christ, 'A man's Jews do not use the language, and very foes shall be they of his own house- many do not understand it. The mishold.' Its most decided and efficient sionaries have thought it wise to conantagonists are the converts from its verse with the Jew'! in the ordinary ranks to Christianity. Under the in- language of every·day life-i.e., with creasing number of these, and of others the Sephardim in Arabic and with the who, while abjuring Hinduism as the Ashkenazim in Jargon, but to preach result of Christian labors and influAnces, only in the language that all could unare not yet fully prepared to embrace derstand. Christianity. Hindu society is comiug to understand its needed reformations; The many recent movements among the Hindu conscience is awaking from the Jews cannot but attract attention. its long slumber; child marriages and Among others it is announced that an the rigid enforcement of caste rules association for the colonization of Palwill be things of the past within the estine has been successfully established lifetime of mllny now living, and the by the Hebrew Workingmen's Club. of end of Hinduism will not be long de- London, which is situated in Whitelayed." chapel, one of the most densely popu- lated districts of the metropolis, where Japan.-It is reported that when the thousands of Hebrews carry on their people in Kobe, Japan, were suffering occupations. The association is sendgreat want, several starving to death, ing shiploads of poor Hebrews from the students of the Kobe Girls' Scho<>l London to Palestine, and will provide for three weeks ate nothing for break- them with funds with which to purfast but rice and pickles, that they chase land and start a home. might save something to give to poor Patagonia.-There has been little into th~ mission field in a place where mission work accomplished in Pata· they can live a community life and work gonia, but the Roman Catholics have a together. They take no vows or permission centre at Viedma, in the south- manent pledges, and receive merely ern part of the country. ~hey have what is necessary for their support. twelve colleges with 5000 students, and The offer has been accepted, and four an industrial school with thirty appren· men are ready to go. The field of thtlir tices of carpenters, blacksmiths, boot- missionary work will be Chota Nagpore, makers, tinkers, and tailors. They a district in India, lying twenty-five have also a dispensary and the only miles west of Calcutta, about as large hospital in the territory. as all England, and containing peoples speaking twenty different languages. Russia.-The persecution that the poor Christians in Southern and Cen- " Missionary teas" have become poptral Russia are suffering should excite ular, and are found a means of drawing wide sympathy. The name " Stundist" larger numbers of people together to was given to them originally on account gain intelligence of missions. and thus of their meeting for an hour for reading increase the interest. The English the Word of God. The first who did have long availed themselves of this so were emigrants from South Germany, means of making meetings of all kinds who called their meeting from the Ger- more popular. The trouble of preparman word sluMe, for hour. Although ing the very slight refreshments is a the persecution has hardly had a par- mere nothing compared with the results allel in Europe since the Reformation, in awakened interest by the good feelthe adherents of this movement are in- ing engendered by the simple breaking creasing rapidly, now numbering many of bread together. thousands. The" Brotherhood of the Sea" is the Spain.-There is news of a triumph name of a new society of two hundred for the cause of mission work from a Norwegian sea captains, who have town in Spain-Rosas-where the peo- pledged themselves to have regular reple elected the Protestant pastor mayor; ligious services on board their ships, and when, on account of the pressure and to conduct everything there and on of his own work, he was obliged to re- shore in the fear of God. fuse the office, his brother; an evangelist, was accorded the honor. The American Board has given out a summary of the results of Protestant Turkey.-The ravages of the cholera missions in recent years: In Japan the in Central Turkey, though extensive twenty-seven Protestant missions have among the Moslems, have not greatly a total adult native membership of affected the Protestants. In noting 28,977. About 5000 members were this fallt a Moslem official exclaims: added to the church rolls during the " How is this, 0 Christians! has God past year. Of the 300 members of the spread a tent over you, out of all the new Japanese Parliament which was people of this city, to preserve you elected last July, twelve are professedly from death ?" Christians. There are about 527 Prot- estant missions in Japan, the first ar- General.-A new missionary move- riving in that country less than twentyment has been inaugurated within the two years ago. In China there are 1295 walls of the University of Dublin, in Protestant missionaries, while the num_ connection with the Society for the ber of adult native communicants is Propagation of the Gospel. A number 37,287. In India and Ceylon the re- sults are the most satisfactory of all, the at young men have approached the Uni- nativA Christians in the schools alone numbering 74,386, though the number versity Auxiliary Committee of the So- of missionaries is less than 300. A ciety, intimating their desire to go forth summary of the number of missionaries to Christian intelligence an aggregate in foreign countries supported by Prot- of not much less than 600,000 children estant societies in the United States, and youth. together with the number of churches, native communioants and contributions The receipts of the Presbyterian for the year 1890, shows the following Woman's Board of the Northwest for totals: 2350 missionaries, 2721 churches, the year recently closed reached the 236,187 native communicants, of whom handsome total of $91,069.70, which 25,963 were added in 1890; $524,217 was made up as follows: Cash from contributed by natives, and $3,977.701 auxiliaries, bands, and Sabbath-schools, contributed in the United States. $77,018,69; legacies, $12,581.96; in- come from real estate, $954.89; mis- According to the American Baptist cellaneous, $199.86 ; with balance from Year Book for 1891, the Regular Bap- previous year, $314.30. tists have in the United States 1382 associations, 34,780 churches, with a mem- Some very humble CJ;1ristians make bership of 3,164,227, an increase for the noble confessions of Christ and become year of upward of 94,000 members. most efJ'ective missionaries. He was only a cabman who died the other day The annual meeting of the Woman's in Edinburgh, but he did not consider Board of Foreign Missions of the Pres- his vocation bcompatible with the serbyterian Chnrch was held recently at vice of his Master. His cab bore the inscription, " What think ye of Christ ?" Auhurn, N. Y., with an attendance of and in the hayloft of his stable he used to hold meeHngs for prayer and testimore t1:an two hundred missionaries, mony. His mates called him" Holy delegates, and visitors. The reports Peter." It was the kind of holiness showed sixty-four missionaries and which attracts and does not repel. He twenty-six Bible readers in the employ " reached th/l masses" withont making of the Board in Africa, South America, any fuss about it. Mexico, China, Japan, India, Korea, Siam, Persia, Syria, and among the Christian Endeavor.-The plan of North American Indians. The receipts attempting to raise a half million dolwere $67,000, an advance on the pre- lars yearly for missionary work through vious year of $10,000. The employ- Christian Endeavor SocietieR, each ment of female physicians was specially member giving two cents a week, is mentioned, and regret expressed at the meeting with greRt success. One hunnecessity, through lack of funds, of dred and fifty societies report 5000 closing a hospital in Persia. names-that means $5000 ; which sum will support seventy first-class native Some one states St. Paul's missionary preachers in India and China. creed thus: 1. I believe that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord A son of a Modoc chief is the presishall be saved. 2. I believe that no dent of the Christian Endeavor Society heathen will call on Him in whom he in Yainax Indian School, Bly, Ore. has not believed. 3. I believe that in order for the heathen to believe the Henry M. Stanley tells that oncey Gospel they must hear the Gospel. 4. in the heart of Dark Africa, a native I believe that the heathen will n(Ver was dragged before him by some of his hear the Gospel till a preacher preaches followers for stealing a gun. Stanley it to them. 5. I believe that a preacher, looked at the gun; it clearly belonged in order to preach to the heathen, must to his expedition. The poor man who be sent to them. This creed is found had it was frightened at the mention of in Rom. 10 : 13-15. Stanley's name, and could hardly 'find his voice or say a word, only, " I am a The sohools Bustained by the various son of God, I would not steal!" This American missionary societies contain almost 175,000 pupils, and the 12,000 Protestant missbn schools are training he repeated again and again. It was have given cause for offence quite apart all he could say. from their being Christians. It is so hard ever to get at the truth underlying Stanley was interested, and it dawned apparent facts. Anyhow we often talk on him that this man was probably one as if there were no more martyrs. Are of the converts of some of the mission. not these poor people hungering on the aries laboring in that region, and he mountains, almost within sight of their accordingly gave him the gen, and 0.1. old homes, martyrs in the truest sense? lowed him to go, while they pursued There are very many Roman Catholics their way. here, and fuey seem to be a power in the land, which in itself must be an At the next station where they stopped offence. But other Christian bodies they found the gun waiting for them. seem making good helldway."-China It appeared that the gun had probably Mail, April, 7th, 1891, Hong Kong Pape1·. been lost. This man had found it, and when he was set free he at once went The Christia~ at Work will pay a with it to the missionary for instruc· liberal sum for information giving the tions, and by his directions it was sent names of the United States senators where Stanley would get it. who voted against the ratification of the Brussels Treaty formed for the sup. But what a light must have touched pression of the African slave trade, the that darkened son of Africa, who, abolition of the rum traffic, anu for. though brought up in all vileness and bidding the selling of fire-arms to the theft and sin, had come to realize the natives. glorious dignity of a divine paternity, and say, " I AM A SON OF GOD; I WOULD A missionary from China says" that NOT STEAL !" if there is anything which lays hold on the poor people there, it is the simple A Chungking correspondent of the story of the crucifixion of our Lord North Carolina Daily News writes: Jesus Christ. It is not the morality, or " When not schwa-ing, the people here the miracles of the Gospel, or even the seem by preference to go in for a little wonderful saying and speeches of our bit of persecution. Last July only Lord Jesus Christ, but the old story of sixty miles from Chungking, Pere Pons, the cross, of the blood, of the sacrific!", one of the Roman Catholic Fathel's of the satisfaction of Christ in dying here, was suddenly warned to fly, He for sinners on the tree-that is the could not believe it, But, happily for power for good in touching the heart him, he did fly when he heard the guns and awakening the conscience." firing. The mob had risen, and eight Chinese were killed, and their bodies The Scotch missionaries in the burned in the fire of their burning Punjab of Indio. rejoice over a rich har. houses, The others fled, and some vest of souls. At the station of Sialkot 2000 native Christians are still starving they baptized thirty converts four years upon the mountains but for the help ago; but last year the number was 0.1. sent to them from time to time, What ready eight hundred, and the blessed makes it specially hard upon the poor work is going on increasingly. people is they had just got in their crops. The Chinese authorities have The Baptist Missionary Union sent to punish the offenders, and it sends out this year the largest number seems one or two poor people have been of missionaries ever sent in a ~ingle pnnished, but not the ringleaders, so year. Forty-four of the sixty are newly the poor refugees dare not return. appointed. It is wort.h noticing that The Chinese authorities say they dare the largest band-eighteen-go to Bur. not do more, because the whole district mah, that field where Baptist effort has is incensed against the Christians. been so greatly blessed from the begin. This may be only an excuse. On the other hand, the Roman Catholics may' ning. Ten go to the Teloogoos of India, .. It is with missionary work a8 with eight to Assam, and the remainder are everything else. ThQse who know lit- scattered in China, Japan, and Africa. tle, care little and give little. Those who know most are most interested, and Missions and Commerce.-At one give liberally." time it was thought that the money given to the cause of missions was At a recent missionary meeting of wasted. No intelligent man thinks so the Reformed Church at Saugerties, Mr. now. England gives more for missions Scoville said: " We hear the complaint than all the rest of the world combined, of draining a country or community of but English commerce has gained ten needed funds. Listen to the telephone pounds for every pound England has of the ages, ' Why was not this ointinvested in missions. Christianity and ment sold for three hundred pence and commerce go hand in hand. The Gos- given to the poor?' Would it have pel is God's power to save from sin, and been? The blessing of missions is from all the imbruting and degrading that it is the work of the Church. consequences of sin. The Gospel un- Why was it not completed before this derlies our commerce and our civiliza- age? Because this age needs to do it. tion as a root underlies a plant. – A. Missions now are a test of Christian McLean, D.D. character. The Church needs a touch of heroism in it. Is the cross an orna- There are, so it is said, five hundred ment ot the declaration of a princimillionaires in New York, lIome of them ple ?" worth from one hundred to three hundred millions of dollars. We suppose A Japanese converted to Christ these men are-Buddhists! seems at once to betake himself to the labor of teaching the truth to his During the last four years seventy- friends at home and at a distance, and nine English university men have be- thus is the way prepared for the mincome missionaries. ister of Christ. No wonder that with such preparatory service the truth is •• You wish to teach our women to running in that land, and being gloriread, do you?" scornfully said an offi- fied. cial of the Hindus to a missionary from America, and added, .. Next you will There are those who wish to be seek permission to teach our cows!" Christians in secret, and those even in But what good has come to the Hindu lands where it is deemed no reproach by his supreme selfishness toward to follow Christ. But we hear of a mother and sister, daughter and wife? Japanese workman, who was necessarily He has not progressed one inch in thou- away from his shop most of the day, sands of years except as men who look who put the following notice on the upon women as their equals have placed door: .. I am a Christian; and if any in his un~killed hands the inventions of one likes to go in and read my Good Occidental civilization and taught him Book while I am out, he may. Buddhour ideas of literature and law, of art ist priests need not come here. I do and commerce. He has not risen one not want them any more." hair in the scale of being except as our missionaries have brought to him that There is but one lake on the surface Gospel which says, .. There shall be no of the globe from which there is no more curse, for the former things are outlet, and that is the Dead Sea, which passed away," and which restores the receives much, but gives nothing. joint headship set forth in the Divine Such a lake is a perfect illustrfltion of a words: " Let us make man in our im_ church all whose efforts termi nato upon age after our likeness, and let them have itself. Around it there will be desodominion," lation, and in it there will be no life.- William M. Taylor, D.D.
The Missionary Review of the World — June 1891
HUGUENOT FEMALE SEMINARY. WELLINGTON, CAPE COLONY, SOUTH
MISSIONARY REVIEW. OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIV. No. 6.-0Zd Serie.~.–JUNE.–VOL. IV. No. 6.-New Series.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-XO. XVIII.
J [EDITORIAL, A. T. P.
THE LIGHT AT THE CAPE OF GOOD ·HOPE.
" IF you want most to serve your race," said Mary Lyon, " go where no one else will go, and do what no one else will do."
We propose to draw· in profile the outline of one of the most wonderful and fascinating stories of modern missions-the narrative of the founding of the Huguenot Seminary at Wellington, Cape Colony.
Wellington, about forty miles from Cape Town, is a gem set in a ring ~f mountains-the Drakenstein and Paarl ranges. It is now more' than two centuries since some three hundred Huguenots, who had fled from France to Holland after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, accepted the invitation of the Dutch East India Company, and settled at the Cape. What the Puritans were to America, these devoted refugees became to the Dark Continent.
·By law Dutch was the language of the colony; and so, in a few generations, the French ceased to be their language, and almost the nationality of these refugees was lost. Early in this century the colony passed into the hands of Great Britain, and the Dutch Reformed churches. already established, became largely supplied with Scotch Presbyterian pastors. .
One of these was Rev. Andrew Murray, who was settled over the congregation at GraafI Reinet. He married a Germano-Huguenot lady, and five of their sons now preach in the colony, while four of their daughters are wives of ministers. The second son, also called Andrew, is the pastor of the church at Wellington, and the now famous author of the most pr«>ciolls devotional books which perhaps during the past half century have been issued from the English press.
This man of God, Andrew Murray, nearly twenty years ago, buried two young children at his African home; and, as Mrs. Murray expressed it, " their hands seemed emptied and ready for some work with which the Lord was waiting to fill them." The bereaved husband and wife went in December, 1872, to the seaside to rest, and there they read together the
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
marvellous life of Mary Lyon. So thrilled were they by that story of heroism, that they sought to obtain everything that could further info}m them of the subsequent history of the Holyoke Seminary and its pupils, and eagerly devoured the story of Fidelia Fiske, the Mary J~yon of Persia.
Just at this time the descendants of those Huguenot refugees living at Wellington were proposing to build some monument or memorial.to their ancestors; and Mr. Murray was strangely and strongly impressed that the best memorial they could rear was just such a school for their daughters. The schools scattered through South Africa were neither such as the mind nor morals of the girls needed; few of them were fitted to train immortal souls for service here or glory hereafter. Every indication of human need and Divine Providence seemed to point to this as the time and place for a new Holyoke. And, after much thought, consultation, and prayer, letters were written to the Massachusetts Holyoke, asking for a graduate to found a similar school at the Cape of Good Hope.
These letters awakened unusual interest at the parent seminary, and were put into the hands of Miss Abbie P. Ferguson, a graduate of the class of 1856, who was at that time conducting a very successful work in New Haven, Conn. Her mind was 80 deeply impressed that God was calling her to Africa, that she could not rest until she had laid herself at the Lord's feet, to go wherever He might lead. She breathed a prayer that, if He was indeed calling her to Wellington, another might be found to share the work; and just then Miss Anna E. Bliss, of the class of 1862, offered herself as a companion in labor. Just at this time, across the Atlantic, special prayer was arising that Jehovah Jireh would provide a teacher, and so once more prayer and its answer joined, in a blessed harmony, man's performance and God's purpose. Before the letter~ reached Wellington, telling of the decision of these teachers, Mr. Murray, with characteristic faith, had sent passage-money to America; and when the news of the decision of Miss Ferguson and Miss Bliss reached the colonists, the open letters were bedewed with the tears of thanksgiving. They had asked one teacher, and God had given two.
Mr. Murray rehearsed the whole story of this marked leading of God, commended the proposed work to the Lord in prayer, and pledges were given on the spot to insure the support of the new school. Though not a rich people, in a few weeks $6,000 had been given by the Wellingtonians alone, one widow giving one sixteenth of the whole amount-all her little patrimony.
Miss Ferguson and her companion sailed for Africa in September, 1873, and arriven at Cape Town in about eight weeks. They found that a large building with grounds had been bought for the school, the life of Mary Lyon had been translated into Dutch, and many young people were ready to enter as pupils into the new Huguenot Seminary, or as teachers, to seek higher fitness for their calling. The seminary was formally opened, January 19th, 1874, anq the large assemblage which that day prayerfully committed the work to the – Lord will never be forgotten. During the first term there were forty Rtudents from fifteen to forty years of age; and the Bible and prayer were from the first the characteristic features of the school life, the first hour of each day being given to instruction in the Holy Word, and a half hour in the day beibg reserved for the quiet of personal communion with God.
The devout and earnest purpose of these teachers was to educate Christian character. God honors those who honor Him. One morning the Scrip~ ture lesson was on the new birth, and before that day had gone thirteen had taken their place on the Lord's side. Even those whom candor compelled to confess that they were unsaved, could not rest content without salvation, and when another meeting was called for those who felt that they were Christ's, everyone in the school came. And after all these years have put the confession to the test, nearly everyone has remained faithful, and not a few have been filling positions of singular usefulness.
Our space will not permit more than an outline of a history now covering nearly a score of yearil. But, as might be expected, the saved became saviours. Children were gathered from the street, and 8 Sunday-school was formed ; through the children access was obtained to their parents; cottage meetings-as many as fourteen, in or near the village-were conducted by the young ladies j the navvies and their families were reached by the same consecrated workers, and Wellington Seminary became a fountain of living waters.
The seminary building became too strait for the growth of the institution, and a new building became a necessity j its corner-stone was laid November 19th, 1874, the two buildings together costing $40,000. Two more teachers were sent for, and Miss Wells and Miss Bailey came from America, Noyember, 1874, and soon after, Miss Spijker, from Holland, to teach Dutch and French.
In July, 1875, the new building was ready for use j the pupils increased from forty to ninety, and the school was divided into two departmentsone preparatory. In December, 1875, Miss Landfear came from New Haven to share the growing burden of work, and still later Miss Brewer, of Stockbridge, Mass. j in 1877, Miss Cummings and Miss Knapp were added to the corps of instructors, and the standard of the school kept rising higher and higher both intellectually and spiritually.
During 1878, stimulated by the reports of the Ten Y-ears' Work of the Woman's Board of Missions in America, the Huguenot Missionary Society was organized, and became speedily the parent of many mission circles. Missionary offerings had been the habit at the weekly devotional meetings, and had been sent to Mrs. Schauffier, in Austria, to Dr. Bernardo and Miss Annie Macpherson in London, and to the Basuto, Natal, and East Indian missions. But now the work took organized form, and before the year closed a member of the school offered herself as a missionary, and subsequently went as their representative to the heathen in the Trans~ vaal. That same year-1878-the first graduating class left the Huguenot Seminary. To trace the after-careers of these four graduates may give some hint of the streams which flow from this fountain. One of the four (Miss Malherbe) was next year a teacher in her Alma Mater, and then took the principlllship of Prospect Seminary at Prretoria in the Transvaal ; Mi~s De Leeuw and Miss Mader started a boardiug-school at Bethlehem, in the Orange Free .State,similar to the Wellington Seminary; and during the first year had five more pupils than Wellington at the corresponding period of its history ; Miss Wilson went to teach in the Rockland Seminary at Cradock. In December, 1879, seven more young ladies received diplomas, and all became teachers. Meanwhile God continued to bestow His grace. and again in 1879 nearly all the inmates of the school became disciples of Christ. These nearly twenty years have been marked by a constant growth. In 1882 there was opened a model school, and a normal department was organized. Rooks, and chemical and philosophical apparatus, a Williston observatory and telescope, etc., were furnished by generous friends; and far and wide the" daughters" of Miss Ferguson and her fellow teachers scattered to diffuse new blessings.
In April, 1880, Miss Ferguson left for rest and change, and visited her native land, returning the next year. And in 1882 another building was erected, to accommodate .about forty more pupils-boarders; and during the same year, as already intimated, another building was opened for a model school for the training of the younger children of the village j and the pupils of the normal class have practice in the art of teaching, and can learn the most approved methods-kindergarten, etc.
The pressure of pupils and too little room made it necessary again to enlarge, and a cottage adjoining the school grounds was purchased. In i885 Miss Cummings, of Strafford, Vermont, one of the teachers, came home for a year's visit, and secured from Mr. Goodnow, of Worcester, a building costing some £3,000. The upper story, to be used as a chapel, will seat five hundred, and the lower floor is devoted to art-room and scientific class-rooms.
Last year the applications were so many it was again necessary to provide more room, and while hesitating whether to build or rent rooms near the seminary, the principal of a girls' school at the PaarL a village some eight miles distant, applied to the trustees to purchase' his building, failing health making it necessary that he and his wife should give up the work. Some of the village people were very anxious the school should come under the influence of the Huguenot Seminary, and after much thought and prayer the purchase was made. This school takes the younger pupils, 'making it a preparatory department, and one of the American teachers superintends it. This gives more room at Wellington for advanced pupils. The schools are called Huguenot Seminary, Paarl, and Huguenot Seminary, Wellington. There are now in the two schools over four hundred pupils. They have the same board of trustees, and are under the same principlll, The expense of buildings and grounds has outrun their income, and they have felt keenly the pressure of debt. But the friends of Christian education in the colony have responded nobly to the call for aid, and at different times Parliament has granted them appropriations amounting to £2,000, so that during the last year they had much rejoicing in Wellington over the accom- plishment of the long-desired freedom from debt. There is some indebted· ness on the Paarl school yet; but Dr: Dale, or Sir Langham Dale, the Superintendent of Education for the colony, gives them encouragement to hope that Government will give them help by and by.
In 1888 Mrs. H. B. Allen, of Meriden, Conn., a sister of Miss Ferguson, sent a circular letter to her sister's classmates asking for help to reduce their indebtedness, it being her sister's" jubilee year," and the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the Huguenots in South Africa. They were making a special effort ~o " go free" that year. Mrs. Allen secured about $200 in money, but interest and prayer which were, perhaps, worth more. And then faith was rewarded, for early in 1889 the grant from Government came.
The writer does not know just the number of missionaries who have gone out from the school, but there have been hundreds of .teachers.
Miss Ferguson made a famous journey in 1887-8. In October, 1887, she left the seminary for her year's vacation. The first three months of it she spent in visiting the missionary stations in the Midland and Eastern provinces of the colony, where some of the pupils are located as missionaries and teachers. She returned to Wellington in December, and met two of her pupils from Basutoland, who had just graduated, and returned with them to their home. They are the danghters of French missionaries who are in charge of the Protestant mission of Basutoland. They went by train from Wellington to Kimberley (where the diamond mines are), spent several days with school daughters there. A bullock wagon, drawn by fourteen oxen belonging to the missionaries, was sent from Moujah to meet them. Leaving Kimberley on the 28th of December, they reached Morijah on the lOth of January, outspanning in the heat of the day, and travelling often by moonlight. Two Christian natives, who had long been in the mission family, had charge of the party-Eleazer and Nkloroso.
I have before me the plan of. the journey as Miss Ferguson sent it from Morijah. Here are extracts from her journal: " February 5th at Hermon (Basutoland) ;. February 12th at Mofukas for the baptism of a sister of the old chief Mosesh, over eighty years old, and others. February 19th, Leribe, Mr. Colliard's old station. February 27th, Bethlehem, Orange Free State, with Mrs. Theron, one of our Huguenot teachers. March 3d, Heilbron, Orange Free State, where four of my Huguenot daughters liye. March 8th, Freeport. Orange Free State, the minister and wife from Wellington. March 12th, Potchefstroom, Transvaal, where I have several daughters. Here Mrs. Gonin, wife of the missionary at Saul's Poort, meets me with her bullock wagon, and we go on to Rustenberg, where one of my daughters is in the school. Her father is the principal. March 19th to April 20th, Saul's Poort, Mabie's Kraal, ~nd l1ochuli ; in all these places we have girls who ~re missionaries. The last of April I go to Prretoria (Transvaal), where we have girls teaching j then on to Wakkustroom and Utrecht with Mr. Murray's sister. The last of May to Rorke's Drift, where my friend, the Baroness Posse has a little mission work of her own. June and July I expect to spend in Natal with the American missionaries."
Miss Ferguson was detained by rains and full rivers, so that she did not leave Mochuli (which is half-way between the parallel 24° S. and the tropic of Capricorn, and half-way between meridian 26° and 27° E. just north of the Natwane River, almost in the torrid zone. It is not on the map) until May. Pietermaritzberg, the capital of the Transvaal, was the only place where she spent a night at a hotel. She arrived Saturday night, and her letter to friends had not been received; but she was found on the Sabbath and carried away to the home of Christian friends.
Early in August she sailed from Durban to Port Elizabeth, went to King William's Town, and on up to Graat! Reinet; then to Kimberley again in the interest of the mission work so near her heart, which has resulted in the Mission House, cared for by three of the Huguenot daughters; and back to Wellington the last of September.
Every letter speaks of the marvellous kindness everywhere received, and the wonderful openings for work. We have not spoken of the " Chautauqua circles" that have been formed all through South Africa. Miss Landfear, one of the Huguenot teachers, is the secretary for South Africa, and is introducing a class of reading that it! educating and elevating those who have left school. A circle has been formed among the native boys at Morijah.
If any of our readers will, on the map, follow this remarkable journey of Miss Ferguson through Southern Africa, they will see how many hundreds of miles she went; and let it be remembered tbat only one night in all tbat journey was spent at a hotel; in every other case she was the guest of "her daugbters"-the young ladies wbo had graduated from Wellington and gone into all that dark land to become teachers, missionaries, wives of godly men and ministers of the Gospel, an~ who are thus turning many a " Valley of Desolation" and barren waste of paganism into the Lord's garden! Are we not right in calling Wellington's Huguenot Seminary" the Light at the CapeY" To-day Miss Ferguson has under her care four hundred pupils.
We must add a word as to the progress of education in other parts of the land, which is largely due to the influence of Wellington.
In 1874, the year when the Huguenot Seminary began its work, Rev. J.
Neethling, of Stellenbosch, asked for a teacher from America, on behalf of the school committee, and Miss Gilsou came in response to the call in November of tbe same year. Beforethe year 1875 closed a boarding department was opened ; and the large and flourishing seminary now does for the Lord most excellent and efficient work both in training intellects and educating Christian hearts for the service of the Kingdom.
During 1875 a request for two teachers was sent from Worcester by Rev. William Murray, the minister there, to America. And, as at Wellington, the spirit of faith and prayer anticipated the arrival of the teachers in preparing for the school and sending forward the passage-money. The Misses Smith (two sisters), of Sunderland, Mass., responded. In April, 1876, the the seminary building at Worcester was completed. At the opening, Rev. Andrew Murray spoke on the great need of multiplying such Christian schools in Africa, and it was determined to ask for six more teachers from over the seas.
At the same time. Miss Helen Murray began work at Graaff Reinet, taking charge of the Midland Seminary, with twenty-five boarders and as many day scholars, until Miss Thayer and Miss Ayres arrived six months Jater. A reVival during the first term put the significant seal of God's approval on the work at its very inception, and nearly all the pupils rejoiced in Jesus. In 1876 Miss Lester left Woodstock, Conn., for the Bloemhof Seminary at Stellenbosch, and in April, four years after, was transferred to a similar work in Standerton, in the Transvaal.
During 1877 Messrs. Andrew and Charles Murray visited America, and in answer to their appeal for teachers, thirteen more went to Africa that year, one of whom went eventually to Swellendam. And when, in September, 1877, the Messrs. Murray returned, Rev. George R. Ferguson, brother to the founder of the Huguenot Seminary at Wellington, came with them, to take in charge a new school or institute for training of young men as evangelists and missionaries ; and has since been engaged in that work at Wellington.
When this noble band of workers arrived in 1877 to reinforce the educational mission work in Africa, a feast of rejoicing and thanksgiving filled an " eight days" like the feasts of ancient Israel. The windows were illumined, the flowers hung in festoons or bloomed in bouquets as on an Easter morning, and the Lord was magnified in the praises of His own. One day twenty-seven Americans dined together in the building where, four years before, two teachers began their pioneer work. The teachers at Graaf Reinet, too far away to participate in person, flashed greetings over the electric wires.
After a few days the new teachers began to disperse to Worcester, Graaf Reinet, Stellenbosch, Beaufort West, Swellendam, etc. Miss Clary chose Prretoria, because the work there was most difficult and discouraging; and Miss Ruggles undertook with her the journey to this field fifteen hundred miles beyond Cape Town.
We can follow no further this fascinating story. In 1880 eleven schools had already been established in South Africa under the care of these American teachers; eight in Cape Colony, two in the Transvaal, and one in the Orange Free State. Thirty-eight ladies had, previous to 1881, gone out from America to take charge of this work of education ; and the devoted man of God, Rev Andrew Murray, has generally had the privilege of applying for teachers, while Mrs. H. B. Allen, of Meriden, Conn. (sister of Miss Ferguson), has co-operated in the selection of those who should go.
No words can expr/ilss the blessing which has come through this period of almost twenty years to the whole of Africa through these grand Christian schools. They are building light houses, not at the Cape only, but all through the southern half of the Dark Continent. We doubt whether any work ever done for God has had, from the inception, more signal tokens of His approbation and blessing.
. Those who have visited Graaf Reinet have remarked that it stands close by the" Valley of Desolation," so called from its absolute barrenness and the absence of life. In fact, Graaf Reinet is itself simply a section of that barren waste reclaimed by culture and irrigation. How completely the whole aspect of this. part of the valley has been transfigured may be inferred from the fact that in the garden of Rev. Charles Murray eighty different species or varieties of roses may be ·found in bloom. May thiR not be a precious symbol and type of what the Huguenot Seminary and its companion schools are doing for the wild wastes of the Dark Continent, flashing out rays to illumine the midnight, and sending forth streams to irrigate the barrenness, until where darkness and dearth abounded there shall be a radiance as of a morning without clouds, and a fertility as of an earthly Eden !
" The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom like the garden of the Lord."
[Apropos of the foregoing, we gladly publish a letter from Rev. George S. Malan, of Montagu, Cape Colony, giving additional information about the work in South Africa.-EDIToR.] The Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape Colony counts upward of 100 congregations, with an aggregate membership of about 90,000 ; the number of souls being about 200,00'0. Our ministers are trained at the Theological College * of our church at Stellenbosch. Some four years ago one of the settled ministers of our church (Rev. Helm) was led by the Lord to give up his congregation in the colony and devote himself to mission work. Our church had already at the time five mission stations outside the borders of the colony. These were each under the superintendence of a resident white missionary, assisted by several lady workers as teachers, and by evangelists (native) for the work among the outlying kraals. To one of these stations, situated in the north of the Transvaal, our brother minister went as assistant to our veteran missionary there, who after nearly twenty * It was fouuded in 1859, and has since then supplied the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa with upward of 120 ministers. years of ,unceasing toil in the mission field, had grown weak and aged in the Master's service.
Our people were never adverse to mission work; and as a whole our church contributed well for the cause.
This was, however, a new departure. A minister giving up his congre- gation to go to the heathen was something unknown before. A new im- pulse seemed to be given in that way to the good cause. More liberal con- tributions followed, and greater interest. This was the result also of a visit to the colony, and of addresses given everywhere by our veteran mis- sionary (Mr. Hofmeyer), who was enabled to leave his work for a short time through the assistance afforded him by Brother Helm.
At the same time, or thereabout, a society was started among the theo!
logical students of the theological college, known as the Students' Mis- sionary Society, with the object of getting contributions for the cause, but most of all to create a love for mission work among the future m~isters of the church. '
Not long after the ministers of the church formed among themselves a Ministers' Missionary Society.' This society has since sent out a~d is now supporting two missionaries in Nyassaland, in the vicinity of the sta- tions of the Scotch church. One of these missionaries is a son of one of the ministers of our ,Church, a young Ulan of ability and promise, who passed through his full theological course here, and after that had a few years' training in medicine, etc., at the Edinburgh University. Last year -especiaI1y through the influence of some American teachers from Mt.
Holyoke, engaged as such at the lIuguenot Seminary, Wellington, a large and flourishing educational institute for young ladies-a Woman's Mis- sionary Society was formed, with several branches throughout the colony, for the purpose specially of sending out and supporting lady helpers to the missionaries at our various mi~sion stations.
Toward the end of last year the session of our Synod took place.
Brother Helm from the Transvaal mission field (Zoutpausberg) was present.
lie earnestly advocated the claims of the Banyai. This tribe of Kaffirs in- habit a very healthy and fertile country north ot' the Transvaal and east of Matabeleland. The king of the latter country, a savage despot, con- siders the Banyai as his slaves, and has hitherto, for obvious reasons, re- fused evangelists the right of settling and laboring there. Attempts made by our church in previous years to send evangelists there proved vain, and even fatal to the life of one of them. But what hath the Lord wrought!
The British Soutb African Chartered Company obtains from the imperial Government a ~harter to settle in and develop those 'regions, especially Mashonaland, which lies more or less in between Matabeleland and Banyai- land. This company goes there with an armed police force, several hun- dreds strong, for the protection of its chartered rights, builds forts, etc., in short, colonizes the country, and in this way forms an effectual barrier for the Banyai against the oppressions and despotism of the Matabele. All at once the Lord has opened Banyailand. Brother Helm had just returned from a visit to that country when he appeared in the Synod. And now the Synod has decided, on his urgent appeals, to send, as soon as possible, three or four more ordained missionaries, men fully trained at the theological college, to occupy the open field-some in Banyailand, and others to stay at Zoutpausberg, and so enable the church to establish there a Training Institute for native evangelists, who by the side of the white mis. sionaries can do the great work waiting for us to be done there. Surely the Lord reigneth among the heathen! His blessed Kingdom must and will come also in those dark regions of South Africa. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly !
MONTAGU, CAPE COLONY, SOUTH AFRICA, January 26, 1891.
Dr. Arthur Mitchell, of New York, says of the rise and progress of woman's work for woman: "Great was the surprise of the entire Presbyterian Church when the first year the women sent to the Board *27,000, their greater snrprise when the next year it was $67,000, the third year, $87,000, the fourth year, $96,000, increasing the amount each year of the fifteen, except in one instance, until it has reached $250,000." Dr. Mitchell told of a good old doctor of divinity who, being on a committee on missions in the General Assembly, told in the report of what the women had done, gracefully Ilnd kindly giving them all due credit, but adding in humorous fashion, " You know the women are good collectors." "Can it be possible," thought Dr. Mitchell, who sat there listening, "that the good doctor does not know more of the sources from whence these women have their strength. I' They have three never-failing fountains from which to draw. The first, Organization. The work has been done systematically, until nearly all our churches have Woman's Foreign Missionary Societies, and even the children have their mission bands. Second, Information. They are far in advance of the men's Board in the number and character of their publications. They have, among other things, given to the world one of the best books on missions ever written, the " Historical Sketches of Missions." Influenced by Woman's Work, the Board improved the Foreign Missionary, until it seemed to have taken on a new life. Third, is the Sympathy existing between the women at home, who are interested in missions, and the missionaries in the field.
Dr. Smith, of Baltimore, says that he has, closely observed, from its be. ginning, this work of woman for woman, and at the close of fifteen years of trial and triumph, rejoiced to say that woman had found her tl'lle sphere in work for the Master, which leads her to the foot of the cross. The cross has always had a strange attraction for woman. Yes, even that plain wooden cross on Calvary drew all the Marys about it. This society has proved its right to a new name, Esther, the morning star, which shines brightly just hefore the dawning, and ushers in the glorious Sun of Rillhteousness.
TIlEl D1VINE AND SUPERNATUltAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS
THE DIVINE AND SUPERNATURAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
IF anywhere we might expect to see Divine and providential manifesta- tions rising toward the supernatural, it is in the spbere of foreign missions, because they, in a pre-eminent degree, seek to honor God, express the mind and purposes of Christ, have their spheres of operation amid perils and dangers. encountered only that error and evil may be overthrown and God have the glory, which is His supreme righ~.
The missionary enterprise bears two features distinctly expressive of the Divine presence and blessing. First, these only can explain the origin, his- tory, and progress of the enterprise. Then there occur in its affairs a series of incidents which more than point at personal and supernatural intervention.
1. God must have put it into the hearts of His servants to form these societies. They are not after the manner of men, since they involve out- lay, trouble, responsibility, yet forbid any of the usual incentives of a return in money, honor, or personal aggrandizement.
2. These enterprises were all begun after much prayer. They not only were born and cradled in an atmosphere of prayer, but have lived in such an atmosphere.
3. There are manifold evidences of Divine interposition and guidance in the manner in which obstacles have been removed, openings made for their efforts, and snitable agencies for the most varied spheres provided.
4. In many instances the agents to begin the work and to nurture it into strength, both at home and abroad, have evidently been called of God and prepared for the spheres they have filled. So was it with Count Zinzendorf, the father and founder of the Christian Knowledge Society j the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel j the Baptist and London Societies j the American Board j the first Danish mission, and Mr. Hudson Taylor's. So was it with the pioneers: Hans Engedi, in Greenland j Zeigenbalg, Plutschan, Schultze, and Schwartz, in South India; Carey, ifarchman, Ward, and Duff, in Bengal ; Mor~ison, in China; Judson, in .Burmah j Moffat, in South Africa, and many others.
5. The manner in which, now for some three generations, this work has been sustained, and with steadily growing liberality, has nothing in the history of human effort to compare with it for disinterestedness, persistence, and widespread self-denial. It has come to pass that after years of detraction, some millions of people, unusually thoughtful and considerate of their expenditllre-most.ly belonging to the lower middle class of society -contribute spontaneously for th~ love of Christ, almost all in small sums. an aggregate amount of two and one half millions a year. (2 Chron. 5: 11-14.) 6. A Divine gnidance and control is surely seen in the direction Of tlJese ·societies. Considering that they h:l'1." had to originate policies; to enter on spheres but little known; to discover the best methods of opera- tion; to meet all manner of difficulties; to conduct their operations in countries most diverse, ·among all classes and conditions of non-Christian 'people, and to disburse annually an aggregate sum which has grown from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, one may marvel at the few great mistakes that have been made, the general good sense and practica- bility of their policies, and the honor and integrity with which their affairs have been conducted. No class of commercial, financial, or national under- takings can show a record as free from stain.
7. Equally noteworthy is the integrity of missionaries. Thousands of them have lived for years away from the rJstraints of civilized society, where the inducements to live loosely, to become mercenary, and to misuse power are strong. But how few have made shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience! Contrast the lives and conduct of missionaries in every quarter of the globe with those of adventurers, travellers, traders, where the two classes come into contact with barbarous or semi-barbarous races!
8. The success of missions. Their results prove them to be of Divine origin and to have the Divine blessing. Here it can only be pointed out, (1) that no doubt it always has been a most arduous task to make anyone a true Christian, or to overthrow the superstitions of any race in favor of Christianity. (2) That considering all the conditions of the stupendous problr-m, the marvel is that missions have been as successful as they are proved to be by the Divine change that has passed over the natures and the lives of hundreds of thousands of heathen people; by the change from heathenism to Christianity on the part of at least four million persons, and by many changes tending toward Christianity in the opinions, sentiments, customs, and condition of many races.
The only adequate explanation of all these facts and phenomena is, that connected with Christianity there is a personal God who interposes in human affairs, a Divine King who rules all things, and is guiding the affairs of the Christian Church (Matt. 28: 18-20; Eph. 1 :.15-23; Col. 1 : 9-20), and a Holy Spirit who potentially affects the thoughts, feelings, opinions, lives, and even moral·and spiritual natures of men (John 16 : 7-15 ; Gal. 5: 13-26; 2 Cor. 2 : 14-17.) Second, these great truths, assumed everywhere in Scripture, embodied in their history and the lives of saintly persons they record, find a plMe in the experience of the sen'ants of God now, and especially of those who have strong and simple faith, and choose their fields of action in heathen lands. (Ps. 35; 91; Mark 16 : 15-20; 2 Tim. 3: 10-13; 2 Cor. 11 : 16-33; 12 : 1-13.) 1. They are singularly preserved from the perils of the sea. The Moravian missionary ship, for instance, has sailed to and from Labrador for 120 years without any serious accident, though the voyage is an unusually precarious one. The case is so exceptional that the experienced Lord Gambier declared that he considered the continued preservation of this ship the most remarkable occurrence in maritime history that had corne to hi8 knowledge. * And this is but a small part of the MOr1lvian testimony. During 158 years, 2300 of their missionaries have sailed to foreign lands, hut only eleven times has shipwreck resulted in the loss of life. Of all the children of missionaries sent home to Europe in charge of friends, not one has per- ished at sea. And so it is with missions generally. A careful investiga- tion of the nautical affairs of any society will show how few missionary vessels have been lost, and how few missionaries or missionary families have perished by shipwreck.
2. Missionaries in some parts of Africa, India, and the Indian Archipelago have to live and travel where deadly reptiles and beasts of prey are numerous, but i.~ there an instance of one of them thus dying?
3. Their protection from violent men is very marked. The escape of five Malagasy refugees to England was a series of providential interventions. Three of them were chiefly sustained for six months in a forest by food brought by a friend a distance of fifty miles. One of them would have been apprehended by soldiers in a house where she was hiding had not the noise made by cr()w~ given warning of their approach. On another occasion she only escaped by lying in a bog with her head concealed in rushes. She was recognized by a slave, who told her master, but he would not believe her. A house in which she was hidden was searched, but she was not found. On their flight to the coast they had to travel by night, often lost their way, had to avoid villages, soldiers, and spies, to be ferried across a river swarming with alligators, where the boatmen were on the watch for fugitives. H~w they escaped was a marvel to their enemies, to themselves, and to their friends. t On one occasion Livingstone had to pass through a dense· forest along a narrow path. In one pIneo the path was obstructed, and men stationed to kill him. A large spear hurlcc1. past almost grazed his back. "As," he writes, "they IJ,re expert with the spear, I don't know how it missed, except that he was too sure of his aim, and the good hand of God was upon me." All his party were allowed to pass a certain place when another spear was thrown at him by an unseen assailant, and it missed him by about a foot in front.
Further on he saw a gigantic tree on fire, but felt no alarm until he saw it .come straight toward him and fall a yard behind him. Had the branches not previously been rotted off, he could scarcely have escaped. "Thus, three times in one day," he says, " was I delivered from impending death.
The first missionaries to the Fegeans were exposed to great perils, for not only were they threatened with death, but stood again and again before mfuriated men, who avowed their purpose to kill them, as repeatedly, and.
* "Brief Account of the Moravian Missionary Ships Employed for Labrador."
t "Madagascar: its Missions aud its Martyrs." without compunction they killed and ate their own people. "On one occa- sion they were told that they too would soon be killed. The king's Bon in a fury came for this purpose, and only with great difficulty was restrained. The peoplo seemed bent on mischief and murder. One night they assem- bled near the house of the missionaries, giving unmistakable signs of their intent. The missionaries and their wives resolved to die praying. But &S they prayed a ringing shout outside announced that the murderous purpose of the multitude was abandoned. * The autobiography of J. G. Paton abounds with providential occur- rences. These are some of them: Some of his converts resolved to visit an inland village much opposed to Christianity. They were told, "If you come you will be killed." They went, nevertheless, unarmed. Many spears were thrown at them. Some they evaded, others they caught or turned aside in an incredible ·manner. The heathen, amazed at these men coming unarmed, and instead of throwing back the spears, still pressing on in a calm and cheerful manner, desisted, perfectly overawed. The chief and all his tribe came into the school of Christ, and, Mr. Paton adds: " There is, perhaps, not an island in these Southern seas, among all those won for Christ, where similar acts of heroism on the part of converts can· not be recited by every missionary to the honor of our poor natives and to the glory of Christ."
For months, almost years, he lived through repeated outbreaks of sav- age hostility. Of one of these occasions he writes: "The inhabitants for miles around united in seeking our destruction, but God put it into strange hearts to save us." " My enemies seldom slackened their hateful designs. against my life, however calmed or baffled for the moment. When natives in large numbers were at my house, a man furiously rushed on me with his axe; but a chief snatched a spade, with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus. I knew not for one brief hour when or how attack might be made; and yet with my ~rembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, calmness and peace and resigna- tion reigned in my soul" (Col. 1 : 19).
"A wild chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded mus- ket, and though often direCted against me, God restrained his hand.
" One evening I awoke three times to hear a chief and his men trying to force the door of my houso. God restrained them again; and next – m"orning the report went all round the harbor that those who tried to shoot me were smitten weak with fear, and that' shooting would not do. ' A plan was therefore set on foot to fire the premises and club us if we attempted to escape."
"One day, while toiling away at my house, a war chief, his brother, and a large party of armed men surrounded the plot where I was working.
* "Fege and the Fegeans." By Thomas Williams. They watched. me for some time in silence, and then every man levelled a musket straight at my head."
After a strange, terrible journey in the night through an unknown region, dangerous to strangers, and abounding with enemies, the natives who heard of his escape, exclaimed: "Surely any of us would have been killed. Your Jehovah God alone thus protects you and brings you home. "
On his final flight with a few friends, they lIaw, as far as the eye could reach, the shore covered with armed men, and, overwhelmed with fear, his native friends hopelessly exclaimed: "Missa, it's of no use, we shall all be killed and eaten to-day I" Nowar, a friendly chief, said to Paton: " Misse, sit down and pray to our Jehovah God, for if He does not send deliverance now we are all dead men. " Presently he said: " Missa, Jehovah is hearing. They are all standing still." So it was, though there was nothing whatever to oppose their advance; and presently the host turned and marched back in great silence.
Instances like the following have been by no means rare : Kapaio, a native of one of the New Hebrides, confessed, after he became a Christian, that for many months he was on the watch to take Mr. Geddie's life. He was a strong and powerful man, familiar with violence and bloodshed, and one blow from his club would have caused death. One night, as he was on the watch, Mr. Geddie went out of his house alone and passed close by the bush which concealed Kapaio. Now was the opportunity for which he had long waited. He grasped his club, but he was powerless to strike; a strange sensation came over him, and he could not hurt the man who was entirely in his power, whom he hated and came to kill.
4. The manner in which the temporal wants of missionaries are supplied is remarkable. No class of civilized men going among the uncivili2ed are really so dependent, or have as few material resources as missionaries, and yet in a manner which is extraordinary, their daily wants are met. Is there an instance on record of a missionary or his family dying of want excepting through folly or imprudence 1 And in many cases of exigency supplies have come evidently from God.
Dr. Fisher writes from the Garenganze Mission, South-East Africa, December 8th, 1889 : "Yesterday two circumstances occurred which we cannot doubt, were ordered by our blessed Lord. In the morning our meal bag which supplied us for three weeks was empty. We had told the nati,.es for five days that we wanted meal, but none came. In the afternoon meal was brought by five different women, which was all freshly pounded, the whole just filling our bag. Then six carriers came yesterday wanting their pay. I had no cloth with me, and wanted three different varieties in order to pay them. As it happened, three of the six loads which they brought were bales, and to my surprise each a different kind of cloth, so I was able to pay the men off. I took both these circumstances as the manifest and loving care of the Lord for us. "
S~me of the Moravian missions in the North of Europe and America supply a continuous series of such instances, since they are placed where almost all their supplies must be drawn from other countries, and the sup- plies, though often interrupted, hardly ever fail.
So it is with large numbers of missionaries who cast themselves directly on the providence of God. He honors their trust.
5. God answer8 prayer. Here is an instance: Two years ago the lo()al secretary of a branch of the Gleaner's Union obtained some African curi- osities from the C. M. House t,o exhibit at a Mother's Meeting. She was instructed to forward them next day to a clergyman in a distant town. She sent them off j and the same night, being sleepless, it occurred to her to pray that the clergyman, of whom she only knew the name, might use them effeotively, and that his influence might be instrumental in sending forth some young missionary from his parish. This she did, by the space of two hours j and from that day, every month for two year8, she looked in The Gleaner to see if anyone had been accepted from that town. In a recent number she found, to her intense joy, that the clergyman him8elf was going out! The world would call this a striking coincidence j what do we call it ?
So, when some of the friends of the China Inland Mission, moved by the wants of that great empire, united in definite prayer that the Lord would enable them to lIelid 100 more missionaries, the prayer was heard, and the 100 were sent.
The "Lone Star" Mission among the Telugus was saved from extinction and nurtured into extraordinary success by prayer. When it was very low, a missionary; his wife, and three native helpers on the first day of the year ascended a hill overlooking Ongole. They saw the large town and some fifty villages wholly given to idolatry, and, moved by the sight, each one in turn prayed that God would send a missionary to Ongole. The prayer was heard, though it was not answered for twelve years; but in little more than twelve other years the little church of eight souls had become 12,000 tried converts with a yet greater number of general adherents.
When the church numbered 143 members, they made it a special request, during the week of prayer early in 1869, that God would convert and add to the church during the year 500 souls. The number baptized into the Ongole church was 573, as well as 53 into the neighb,oring church at Nellore. And that was but the beginning of blessing.
At a special missioMry service, Dr. Ryland, And!:,ew Fuller, and others, solemnly agreed to pray for the immediate conversion of J abez, the son of Dr. Carey, then in India. Some time after a letter was received from Dr. Carey, giving details of the time and manner of his son's conversion, from which it appeared that he was converted at the precise time they had united in prayer.
The Rev. James Calvert, * acting on the idea that prayer and effort for 1he conversion of selected individuals would be honored by God, thus • The Life of James Calvert. prayed for the conversion of Thakumbau King of Fege. His prayers were heard, ~nd this greatly tended to bring about the man-ellous spiritual revo- lution witnessed in these il!lands.
6. The evidence is ample of Divine interposition and guidance. For instance, the chief of Fallungia, West Africa, prayed for twenty years for a missionary, and one was found in an unexpected manner. * So Barnabas Shaw was thus directed to his important sphere. He was not all~wed to settle near Cape Town, so he relilolved to seek a sphere in the interior. For a month he travelled on, not knowing whither he went; but as be halted, the chief of Little Namagualand, with four attendants, halted beside him. They were on their way to Cape Town in search of a missionary, now greatly desired by their tribe. They and he thought they saw in this unexpected meeting the finger of God; and Shaw's great success in subsequent years proved that they were not mistaken.
Hundreds of missionaries, looking back on their past careers, have been conscious that they were guided to their scenes of labor by God, and have noted numerous events in their history which neither chance, nor coincidence, nor human aid adequately explain.
So, too, of events. Our belief in a personal God and an overruling Providence justifies us in believing that He sent Carey to India to give so many versions of the Scriptures to the people. That He sent that copy of the Pushtoo Bible to the Afghan, who kept it " from fire and from water" for thirty years, so that when it was resolved to reprint this Serampore version, this copy was the only one that could be found in India; who guided that copy of the Japanese New Testament, floating in one of the harbors of that empire, into lands where it was greatly blessed by God; who sent through shipwreck and heavy loss the ruined merchant to Mr. Ross, of Manchuria, when he was at a loss to find anyone competent to assist him to translate the New Testament into Corean. Surely the God of Israel still guides His people, going before them in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.
And He avenges and punishes as well as guides. Listen! In January, 1878, the Day-Spring, the mission ship of the New Hebrides, was wrecked on a coral reef. She was bought at an auction sale by a French slaving company, who managed to get her off the reef, and intended to use her in the Kanaka traffic-a euphemism for South Sea slavery. This filled the missionaries and native converts with horror and alarm, for they knew that, deceived by the name, many simple natives would be allowed on board only to find, instead of a mission vessel, that they were entrapped for the most brutal, unjust, and cruel of purposes, and that revenge would perhaps be taken for the wrong done on the missionaries, as in the case of Bishop Patterson. What could be done 1 Nothing but cry to God, which all the friends of the mission did night and day, not without tears. Listen! The French slavers, anchoring their prize in the * "Remarklble Pl'ovidences, " p. 205. By the Rev. J. R. Phillips. bay, and greatly rejoicing, went on shore to celebrate the event. They drank and feasted and revelled. But that night a mighty storm arose. The old Day-Spring dragged her anchor, and at daybreak she was seen again on the reef, this time with her back broken in two, and forever unfit for service either fair or foul !
Speaking of the Europeans who trade in unrighteousness, Mr. Paton says: " Thousands upon thousands of pounds were made in the sandalwood trade, but it was a trade steeped in blood and indescribable vice. Nor could God's blessing rest on them or their ill-gotten gains. I have scarcelyknown one of the traders who did not come to ruin and poverty.
" The money that came in to the ship-owners was a conspicuous curse. Fools made a mock at sin, thinking that no one cared for these poor savages; but their sin did find them out."
So of the enemies and friends of the worship, as it was called on Tanna, Mr. Paton says: "This Miaki and his followers were a scourge and terror to the whole island of Tanna. They intensely hated Nowar because he would not join in their cruelties. Yet he and Manumauaud, Sirawia, and Taimungo continued to live long after war and death had swept all the others away. The first three lived to be very old men, and to the last they made a profession of being Christians." (Ps. 7 : 8-17 j Ps. 58 j Eccles. 8: 11-13 j Rom. 11 : 2-16 j Rev. 18: 4-8.) THE MISSIONARY CALL.
TUNE: "Still There's More to Follow."
Hark, the bugle call of God ! Down the ages sounding, " Go ye, and proclaim abroad News of grace abounding !"
CHORus.-Tell the news! Tell the news! Let the farthest nation Hear the sound, the world around, Tidings of salvation!
Let the sacred heralds go, Through the vales and mountains j Steady streams of trensure flow From the golden fountains! [CHORUS.
Go to woman, now enslaved [CHORUS. In her household prison, Tell her, you whom Jesus saved, He was dead-is risen J Hosts of God, march round the wall !
While the trumpet's pealing j Satan's mighty towers will fall, God's own power revealing! CHORUS.
A.T. P.
THE PENTECOST ON THE CONGO
THE PENTECOST ON THE CONGO.
BY J. R. MILLER, D.D., PHILADELPHIA.
THE Acts of the Apostles closes like an unfinished book. The truth is, it is an unfinished book, and new chapters are continually being added to it. The wonderful stories of modern missions belong really to the samevolume.
Few narratives of missionary experience in all this century surpass in thrilling interest the account of the work of the past twelve years at Banza Manteke, in Africa. In 1879 the Rev. Henry Richards went from Eng. land to Africa as a missionary of the Livingstone Inland Mission. He established a station at Banza Manteke, one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the Congo, and ten miles south of that great river. In its earlier years the mission was transferred to the American Baptist Missionary Union, and now there is a large Baptist church there, in the midst of a great heathen population, upon which it is pouring the light of the Gospel.
Mr. Richards came to this country last year to tell the wonderful story of the Lord's work on the Congo. This story is so full of interest that it is here condensed from the missionary's own accounts into a simple narrative.
Stanley travelled from Zanzibar around the lakes and down the Congo for a thousand days, and though many thousands of people passed before him each day, he did not find one that knew the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1879 two missionaries were sent out to penetrate this trackless region. They succeeded in getting some distance into the country to a place called Palabala. Mr. Richards, with some others, was sent to try to get, if possible, to Stanley Pool. But the difficulties were very great–insurmountable for men of any but intrepid courage and indomitable persistence. At length the missionaries reached Banza Manteke, and being unable to go any farther, they decided to stay there and establish a station. There were many villages near by, and the people were inclined to be friendly.
They had only one tent, and they built a hut of the long grass that grew all about them. There, in . September, 1879, Mr. Richards fonnd himself alone among people who were entirely unknown to him. He knew nothing either of their customs or of their language. He at once began to study the people, tut, not knowing a word of their language, found it very difficult. Some things, however, he soon learned. For one, they all seemed to be thieves. They would take everything on which they could lay their hands. He would look into their faces and accuse them of stealing his things, but they would deny it without the slightest hesitation.
Mr. Richards gives a most interesting description of his experience in learning their language. They had no dictionaries, no grammars, no books, no literature of any kind. No white man had ever learned the language. He took a note-book and determined to write down pbonetically everything he could hear, with the meaning that he supposed belonged to the word. In this way he soon had a number of words, phrases, and sentences, and at once began to use them. Although the people would laugh at his pronunciations and at the way he put his words together, he did not mind it, but persisted in his effort.
Some words he found it very hard to get. He noticed that the affection between the mothers and their children was very strong, and he wished to get the word for mother. At last he thought he had succeeded, but afterward he learned that the word which he supposed meant mother really stood for a full-grown man. He was three months in finding out the word for yesterday.
At length he began to try to get hold of the grammar of the language. He began with the nouns, and sought for the way of forming plurals. He expected to discover some modification at the end of the words, but could not detect any such change. After much experimenting he learned that there were sixteen classes of nouns, with as many modes of forming the plural. In like manner he discovered that there were seventeen different classes of verbs, with very many tenses besides the ordinary present, past, and future, each having its specific form. The shades of meaning in these variations are often very delicate and beautiful.
The language is not, as one would suppose, a mere jargon, but is really very beautiful, euphonious and flowing, with numerous inflections. When one has acquired it it is very easy to preach in it and to translate the Scriptures into it. Says Mr. Richards: "I think if some of our best linguists were to try to form a perfect language, they could not do better than to follow the Congo. It seems to be altogether superior to the people; and there must have been a time when they were in a high state of civilization, from which in some way they have degenerated."
After learning in this patient way enough of the language to use it a little, he" began to try to find out the customs, superstitions, and religiou of the people. He found that they believed in a great Creator, who made all things. He asked them why they did not worship this Nzambi, and they said they did not think He was a good God and they did not thank Him. He did not concern Himself about them j He was too far away. They had little images cut out of wood-some like themselves, with birds' heads, beaks, and claws; others like animals. These are their gods. They trust in them for protection from harm, sickness, death, or misfortune, hut never expect to receive any blessings from them. They arc believers in witchcraft, to which they attribute all evils and misfortunes. They have charms to counteract witchcraft. They have witch-doctors, for whom they send if anyone is sick. 'The doctor comes, and with a great many incantations tries to drive the demon out. Sometimes the doctor points out some person as the witch, and this person then has to take the test by poison. If he ejects it, they say he is innocent i but if it kiJll~ him they say he was ~uilty. The missionary at length began to show them that sickness and death, and all misfortunes, were due not to witchcraft, but to sin. He gave them the Bible account of the creation and the fall. Then he began to try to show them th/!-t God is not only a great Creator, all-powerful, but that He is also kind and loving. They would ask many questions, some of which Mr. Richards found it hard to answer to their satisfaction. He continued, however, for four years, teaching them about the creation, the fall, the flood, and the history of the Israelites, thinking it necessary to give them some idea of the Old Testament before beginning with the New. But the people were just as much heathen at the end of this time as when he first went among them. There was no evidence of any change. They did not feel themselves to be sinners.
About this time Mr. Richards was at home for a season of rest, and while there he spoke to one who had had much experience in mission work, saying he did not see how he could preach a Saviour until the people felt themselves to be sinners. He was advised to go back and preach the law -for it is the law that convinces of sin. So, on reaching Banza Manteke again, the first thing he did was to translate the Ten Commandments, and then he began to read and expound them to the people. They said the com- mandments were very good, and claimed that they had kept them. The most plain and personal applications of the law made no impression on them. So two years more passed with no result; the people were no better than when he first went to them. He began to grow hopeless of any good from preaching among them. He had gained their respect, and they were kind to him, but that was all.
At last, in his discouragement, Mr. Richards began to study the Scrip- tures anew for himself, feeling that there was some mistake in his preacb~ ing. In the early days souls were converted; why not now ~ Had the Gospel lost any of its power ~ If heathen then turned from their idols to serve the living God, why should not these people in Banza Manteke do the same? He studied the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, and began to see his mistake. The commission is not, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Law," but" Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel." .
It was the turning-point in the work of this lonely missionary. He determined to preach the Gospel. Five times in four chapters Peter ac.- cuses the people of the crucifixion of Jesus. Another thing that struck him was that the disciples were bidden to wait until they were clothed with power from on high. He felt that he had not this power. He went again to his work, determined to preach the Gospel, and cry to God for the promised power.
Then he had to decide precisely what the Gospel was. If he preached Jesus and Him crucified, the people would want to know who Jesus was.
He decided to take Luke's gospel, as this seemed the most complete and the most suitable for Gentiles. He began tran~lating ten or twelve verses a day, and then read and expounded them, asking God to bless His qwn Word. At once the people were more interested in the Gospel than they had been when he preached the law. As he went on he was greatly encouraged.
When he came to the sixth chapter of Luke, thirtieth verse, a difficulty arose. The people were notorious beggars. They would ask for anything they saw that pleased their eye-his blanket, his knife, his plate ~and whIm he would say he could not give the things to them, they would reply," You can get more." Here now were the words of the Gospel: "Give to every man that asketh of thee." The missionary was greatly perplexed as to what to do with that verse. He let his helper in translation go away, and went to his room to pray over the matter. The time for the daily serviM was drawing near. What should he do 1 Why not pass over that verse? But his conscience told him that would not be honest dealing with the Scripture. Time for service came j but, instead of advancing he went back to the beginning of the Gospel, reviewing the earlier part. Thus he would gain time for fuller consideration of the text. Still he could not find that it meant anything but just what it said. He consulted a commentary, and it said Jesus was giving general principles, and that we must use com::non sense in interpreting His words. But this did not satisfy the missionary. If we are allowed to interpret oue Scripture in this way, why not others? Leaving the meaning to be decided by " common sense" seemed a very unsafe course.
After a fortnight of prayer and consideration he concluded that our Lord meant just what He said j and he went and read it to the people. He told them that this was a very high standard, and it would probably take him a lifetime to live up to it j but he meant to live what he preached to them. After the address the natives began to ask him for things, and he gave them what they wanted. He wondered whereunto this thing would grow i but he told the Lord he could not see any other meaning in His words. However, the people were evidently deeply impressed by his course. One day he overheard one say: " I got this from the white man." Then another said: "I am going to ask him for such a thing. " But a third said: " No i buy it if you want it." The leaven of grace was working in their hearts. After that they rarely ever asked him for anything.
Mr. Richards then went on translating and expounding Luke's gospel, and the interest continually increased. The climax was reached when he came to the account of the crucifixion of Christ. There was a large congregation the day he read this passage. He reminded the people of the kindness and goodness of Jesus and of His works of mercy, and then pointed to Him nailed upon the cross between two thieves, and said: " Jesus never would have died if we had not been sinners j H was because of your sins and mine that He died." The impression was very deep. It seemed that indeed the Holy Ghost had fallcn~upon the people. He continued preaching. One day, as they were returning from a ser- vice, Lutale, the man who had helped him in translating, began to sing one of the Congo hymns. His face shone with joy, and he said: "I do be- lieve those words; I do believe Jesus has taken away my sin~; I do believe He has saved me." After seven years of toil and weary waiting and suffering here was the first convert at Banza Manteke. At once Lutale began testifying what the Lord had done for him. But the people became his enemies and tried to poison him. He had' to leave his town and live with Mr. Richards for safety. For a time there were no more converts. However, the people were stirred. By and by the king's son became a Christian. Shortly after this another man came wit,h his idols, and placing them on a table, said, savagely, that he wanted to become a Christian. He soon began to preach. So the work went on until ten were converted. These all had to leave their own homes, however, as they were threatened with death. The missionary now shut up his house, and taking these men with him, went from town to town preaching the Gospel. The people were greatly moved, and one after another came over to Christ's side. Two daily meetings were held, and inquirers were numerous. The work continued and was blessed, until all the people immediately around Banza Manteke had abandoned their heathenism. More than one thousand names were enrolled in a book of those who gave ~vidence of real conversion.
Four years have now passed, and Mr. Richards has carefully noted the results of the work. Most of the converts are holding on their way. About three hundred have been baptized. The Church is earnest and spiritual. There has been much persecution, but the Christians have not been intimidated by this. Many examples of earnestness are reported. Materials for a chapel (provided through the liberality of Dr.· Gordon's church in Boston) were brought to a point fifty or sixty miles distant, and the people carried them all the way to Banza Manteke, over rough roads. Some of them went four or five times, each trip requiring a week. In all there were about seven hundred loads, of sixty pounds each, and the whole thapel was thus carried, and without charge.
The people, thieves before, became honest. Liars before, they now became truthful. They have also become industrious and cleanly. The women want to dress better. The men are more energetic and industrious. Witchcraft, poison-giving, and all such heathen practices were put away by those who confessed Christ. Many brought their idols, and at the first baptism they had a bonfire of images, destroying thus every vestige of Idolatry.
This sketch of the work at Banza Manteke, given almost in, the words of Mr. Richards, though greatly condensed, is' sufficiently full to indicate the method pursued and the different stages of progress. The story is of intense interest, and is also full of instruction not only for missionaries in heathen lands, but for Christian workers in any field.
AN AFRICAN DEVIL'S BUSINESS AliD ITS ARAB AGENTS
AN AFRICAN DEVIL'S BUSINESS AND ITS ARAB AGENTS; OR, THE SLAVE TRADE OF THE PRESENT DAY: WHO CARRIES IT ON, WHERE ARE THE SLAVES USED, AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP THE BUSINESS?
BY FREDERIC PERRY NUBLE, NEWBERRY LIBRARY, CHICAGO, ILL.
I.-THE FIELD AND THE HUNTERS.
Draw a line from Cape Verde to Cape Guardafui. Coast southward along Somauliland until you strike the equator. Run inland to Lake Vic- toria. Prolong an eastern boundary from its south-eastern corner to Lake Nyassa, and down the Shire River. Follow up the Zambesi to its source in Lake Dilolo ; then draw a line to Stanley Pool on the Congo, and fol- low the curve of the Gulf of Guinea, but at an average distance from the sea of about one hundred miles, until we come back to our starting.point in Senegambia. Thus, generaJly speaking, the Sahara, the Indian Ocean, the great lakes, the Zambesi, and the coast lands of the Atlantic constitute the boundaries within which the devil's-business of man-hcnting is pur- sued. With the exception of the Guinea coast and the west half of the Congo State, there is scarcely a recess into which the Arab has not pene- • trated. His hunting-grounds comprise, (1) the independent Soudan, (2) the for-mer Egyptian Soudan, (3) the heart of Central Africa, i.e., between the Congo and the lakes, and the Zambesi countries.
1. First and foremost among slave-stealers stand people from the east coast. These consist of shore tribes called Swahili, of half-caste Arabs, of resident Hindus called Banians, and of Portuguese in Mozambique, or up the Zambesi. Their boundaries of action lie between the Aruwimi, Lakes Albert-Edward and Victoria, Lake Nyassa and Shire River, the Zambesi as far as Victoria Falls, thence to Lake Bangweolo, where only yesterday , the Arabs instigated the Awamba negroes to pursue a most destructive sys- tem of slaving among the inhabitants of its northern and western shores; down the Lualaba-Congo to Nyangwe, whence they swing 100 miles west to Lumami River. Not more than 400 Arabs operate here; but they employ armed negroes in such numbers-Tippu Tib alone being reportfld to have 2000 men in his pay-that perhaps] 0,000 bandits wage war upon the blacks in this section. Until now the Free State post at Stanley Falls, even under Tippu Tib's governorship, kept the Arabs east of that point. But now that Tippu Tib is at Zanzibar, impotent with paralysis, his hotblooded kinsfolk are swarming over the barrier, and are fulfilling the prediction that they must yet be battled with. In March, 1891, seeing that the Free State's forces stop their passage across the Aruwimi, the slaveraiders turned north, reached the Welle, and threatened the Free State's port on that stream. The situation is alarming in the extreme, for the Congo State has no adequate revenue for military purposes, and America has robbed it of the means to secure itself. Its principal stations have
R .A
T SLAVE TRADE MAP OF ocEA EQUATORIAL, REPRINTE 0 FROM "T'HE ARABS IN CENTRAL ArRICA AND ATLAlo<E NYASSA IJ BY J,STEVENSON,F:R.S.E ..
F=Sc~a~1~e~1.~.2~3~,O=O=O:;,O~O~O='~ o ]QQ 200 0300 4boArU98.
-Tracl<s ofSlaveCaravan.r and S love-Hunter.r.
["//lPJ~rjP~~e~~;::~ ~r;:;;:z~ -1~~~~~~~~~~·~~~~7~At~-~::~–~-·J~~ti.;(~~~~~~~~~~~<r~~~~ tit", Coast or Districts near it.
AN AFRICAN DEVn!S BUSINESS AND ITS ARAB AGENTS
been Zanzibar, Bagamoyo, Kilwa, and Quilimane (all on the coast), U-nyanyembe, U-jiji, and Kazembe's toward the lakes, with Nyangwe and Stanley Falls on the Congo. The main lines of travel were three: (1) Erom Manyuema via Tanganika Lake, U-jiji, and U-nyanyembe to Bagamoyo, Kilwa, and Zanzibar; (2) from Lakes Bangweolo and Moero, with a branch across Lake Nyassa to Mozambique; (3) from Lake Victoria to coast towns.
2. Next in power for evil come the slavers of the Egyptian Soudan, with Khartum as their centre. This territory comprises the Nile basin of 2,000,000 square miles, reaching from the Blue Nile to Lake Victoria 1500 miles south,and to the Welle River in the northeast quarter of the Congo State. There the Mabdist and the Zanzibaris lock hands. When Baker was appointed governor in 1869, he fuund 15,000 Egyptians, or Turks, engaged in slaving; and the number cannot now be less. Emin's former province of Equatoria and West Abyssinia are their .latest victims- Khartum, Fashoda, Sennaar, Gondokoro, and (formerly) Massowah the depots. The export route is the Nile, or overland through Darfur and Kordofan. In 1873 these fellows annually smuggled 50,000 slaves into Egypt, Tripoli, Arabia, Turkey, Persia, and eyen Turkestan. There are reasons for fearing the number to be as large to-day. The power and organization of the Khartum slavers may be inferred from the fact that during the Brussels Anti-slavery Conference, 200 delegates assembled at Khartum to devise measures for suppressiug Europe and America's rum traffic with Africa. They resolved to girdle Africa with dhows, confiscate every vessel containing liquor, and sell the crews into slavery. May the worst men lose !
3. The third principal source of supply is the native Soudan. This is about 2500 miles long by 500 wide, and forms one vast hunting ground, with Arabs from Morocco, Tripoli, or Kabylia as Nimrods. From Wadai these marauders penetrate to a point among the cannibal Nyams and dwarfs as far south as the Congo. Captives are transported to the market of Kuka, on Lake Tc,had, where about 10,000 are annually bought by Barbary dealers, and marched across the Sahara to the Fezzan, an oasis south of Tripoli. There they are sold to the south and east coasts of the Mediterranean. The sufferings en route have been so dreadful that very many succumb; and travellers unacquainted with the road need only follow the bones lying right and left. From the West Soudan, via Sok6to and Timbuktu, slaves are also sent to Morocco, where almost every town has its market. Throughout Africa nearly all Mohammedan towns arc receiving and distributing centres for the" black beasts." Morocco owns 50,000 slaves, and annually imports about 4000.
4. There are also minor sources; these, however, being less only by contrast. (1) In Congo State a domestic slave trade is fiercely pursued by large, powerful tribes between Stanley Pool and Stanley Falls. In this western half, as in general through the central belt extending from Senegambia to Uganda, the possession of many slaves is indispensable to tho dignity and power of head men, both in this life and after death. Their. decease is the signal for human sacrifices on a huge scale. Near the mouth of the Mobangi-Welle the inhabitants sell their war captives to the cannibals of its upper reaches expressly for food, and the latter even wage wars for the one object of capturing" long pig." (2) In Lunda, between Angola and the southwest of Congo State, Portuguese subjects enslave its people than dose around the sources of Zambesi River. Cameron was, in 18'75, informed that slaves (at least a few) were still exported from the Portuguese west coast. On the east coast the Portuguese (African and European) ship" black ivory" from Mozambique and Sofalaland. In 1880 the British Consul at Mozambique City rated the annual export at 3000 louIs; but an increased demand for ivory afterward gave the business fresh impulse, the two trades being hand and glove. In 1888 a Portuguese officer, reporting from his post in the interior, said of its commerce ,: " The lole trade of this district at present consists in slaves." Thus Portuguese authorities demonstrate that under their flag the slave trade has so increased and strengthened that to-day there is a yearly export of 10,000 slaves to Madagascar and the Comoros. (3) At the Gulf of Aden slaving is very active in Somauliland, where the slaves are bought or stolen from the Gallas inland, from Guragwe, and the Shillooks or Denkas. Abyssinia has many markets; and former Mahdists have swept thousands of its native Christians into slavery in Arabia. (4) Across the continent the natives of French Loanga, the German Cameroons, and Ashantee and Dahomey hunt their fellow-men relentlessly. (5) Uganda seems to link the Soudan and Zanzibar trades, since M'wanga formerly stole and sold 80,000 people each year, while one competent authority rated that export at 180,000 slaves. Central Africa contains 41 slave routes, varying from 100 to 1'000 miles in length; 16 slave-producing areas of less or larger extent, and 6 regions (several larger than Ireland) which have been all but depopulated, if not utterly unpeopled.
H.-THE METHODS.
The methods of slaving involve the commission of every crime. Before 18'70 slaving was generally commerce j to-day it is murder and robbery. Invasion of peaceful communities, not seldom prosperous or semi-civilized, firing villages at midnight, massacring terror-stricken men as they start from sleep to fall amid burning huts into sleep that knows no waking; kidnapping women and children, or holding them as hostages for a ransom of ivory from yet surviving fathers and husbands j and gratifying every instinct of lust and cruelty-all constitute its ways and means.
We wish, however, to scan the inner workings of the system, and must, therefore, concentrate attention upon Zanzibar as being fairly enough typical.
Among its commercial classes, none before 1890 exercised so much influence on the trade of East Africa as did the Banian, who number thousands. The Arabs are nearly all in their debt j and if a trader planned to journey to Uganda or Nyangwe or Nyassa for slaves or ivory, gum-copal or orchilla, he would borrow $5000 at fifty, sixty, or even seventy per cent interest, and purchase goods. At his journey's end they would have more than trebled in purchasing power. Leaving Bagamoyo or Kilwa with a caravan numbering 100, 300, or 500 pcople, our half-caste, who is mer- chant or murderer, as circumstances permit, takes several months to reach U -nyanyembe. In the maritime district kidnapping is seldom attempted, for the natives stand ready to avenge the slightest affront with bloody hands, and to use firearms whenever opportunity presents itself. From U-nyanyembe (Tabora) routes diverge to U-jiji and Uganda. Passing to U -jiji, he might either purchase slaves at its market or push into Manyema, 150 miles beyond Tanganika Lake (so Stanley pronounces and writes). At U-jji 5 dotti of cloth worth $7.50 would purchase a slave worth $30 at Zanzibar, while $6 would purchase ordinary males, whose value at U-nyanyembe would equal $25. Leaving $3500 as capital, this secured 464 slaves who, if surviving the march to Bagamoyo, realized $13,920 there-a net profit of $10,420. Nor is there reason to !luppose that their value in 1890 was less at marine marts, whence they could still be exported; and often the traders did better still, almost always returning with an enormous margin of gain.
Manyema, in 1865 an unknown country to these Arabs, has for twenty years been an El Dorado of ivory. When the first slaver returned in 1867 with a wealth of tusks and with tales of fabulous quantities of the precious article, the beaten tracks of Uganda and of Tanganika's coasts to east and south became comparatively deserted. Nevertheless, in the long band of country extending from Lake Victoria to Zambesi's wave the slaver has since ravaged and ruined so ruthlessly, that many populous, fertile districts have been reduced to deserts, and in every village around the great lakes no woman or child wandering ten minutes away has any likelihood of ever seeing home again. In Manyema firearms made even small parties of Arabs invincible. This helplessness and the ridiculously low price of ivory led to the new era in slaving, to the methods of the present day, and the rise of the Tagamoyos Tippu Tibs, and Ugarrowall.
Ivory cost, in copper wire or in beads, from one half to one and one quarter cents a pound in 1870-its value in Zanzibar being from $50 to $60 the 35 pounds. To-day that amount is worth $105, and is bought with bullets and blood. The new-comers, urged on by greed and ferocity, began the practice of wholesale massacre. They would accumulate tusk upon tusk for years, till great piles were buried beneath their huts. Suddenly they would "one day pick a quarrel, seize herds and goods, and shoot the men, sparing only enough to carry ivory. They fired the village, and the march worse than death had begun. Multitudes perish merely as beasts of burden; but ·for every slave-porter escaping or succumbing, a man is stolen or bought from the nearest tribe. This supplies its losses by seizure from Beighbors, and thus the caravan, even on the road, Cfl'ates a constant circu- lation of human cl1rrency in every local centre traversed. The Arab wreaks a ruin even greater than the annihilation of tribes outright. He keeps the region in a perpetual ferment, pits chief against chief to prevent com- bination, and either makes tools of tribes likely to become dominant, or shatters them by instigating rebellion among their dependants.
It is in the Congo forest that the frightful atrocities of the Arab slavers reach the depths of hellishness. Within an area equal to France and the Iberian peninsula, Tagamoyo, Tippu Tib, and Kilonga.Longa have suc- ce8sively harried, kidnapped, and murdered, till exaggeration by the nar- rator is. sheer impossibility. The sailor was right who said, on seeing slavers, " If the devil don't catch those fellows, we might as well have no devil at all."
November 27th, 1883, when founding establishments in the :Congo State, Stanley met with the Arabs of Nyangwe. He discovered that this horde of banditti-for in reality and without disguise they were nothing else-had started in July, 1882, from a village half way from Nyangwe to Stanley Falls. The ban 1 numbered 300 fighting men armed with flint- locks, double-barrelled percussion guns, and a few breech-loaders; their domestic slaves and the women doubled the numbers. For 11 months they had raided the left bank of the Congo for 100 miles, and as far north as Aruwimi-mouth ; then they had spent 5 'months on Congo's east shore in the same cruel work. This territory comprises 34,570 square miles- exactly 2000 more than Ireland-and had possessed nearly 1,000,000 peo- ple. One hundred and eighteen villages, comprising 43 districts, had , been devastated to gain the scant profit of 2300 women and children, and about 2000 tusks. Stanley calculated that if those 118 towns had only 1000 inhabitants each, the Arabs had a profit of merely two per cent, and that after these captives had undergone the voyage to Nyangwe, camp life, and the pests which miseries breed, there would remain only a scant one per cent on the bloody venture.
Horrible as are these facts from slavery's charnel-house of horrors, they do not begin to be the worst. Five expeditions, each as great as the pres- ent one, had already come and gone with their booty, and had completely weeded the region. If each expedition was as successful as Stanley's acquaintances, the slavers got 5000 people safely to Nyangwe j but 5000 out of 1,000,000 is one half of one per cent, or 5 slaves out of 1000 per- sons-the poorest possible profit. The 2300 slaves had cost 2500 souls shot, and 1300 dying by the way j and at this rate the 5000 slaves surviv- ing at Nyangwe (of the 10,000 originally obtained) had cost 33,000 lives. Each of the very smallest infants Stanley graphically estimates to have cost the life of a father, and perhaps his 3 stout brothers and 3 grown-up daughters': "An entire family of 6 souls has Leen done to death to obtain that small, feeblc, helpless, useless child !"
" What," he asks, " was the cause of all this vast sacrifice of human life, this unspeakable misery? Nothing but the indulgence of an DId Arab's wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous instinct&. He wished to obtain slaves to barter profitably with other Arabs. Having weapons—guns and powder-enough, he placed them in the hands of 300 slaves, and de- spatched them to commit murder wholesale, as an English nobleman would put guns in the hands of his guests and permit them to slaughter the game on his estate. If we calculate three quarts of blood to each person who fell during the campaign of murder, this one Arab caused to be shed 2850 gallons of blood-sufficient to fill a tank of 460 cubic feet-quite large enough to drown him and all his kin."
Stanley's pen-picture of this camp is as vivid as if taken by instantaneous photography. "It was surrounded with a fence made 'of the hut-walls of the native town, which lay in ruins outside, square plots of raised tamped earth, with a few uprights alone indicating where it had stood. The banana groves had been levelled, and their stalks employed to form the fence. Within the enclosure was a series of low sheds, many lines deep, extending 100 yards inland from the immediate edge of the bank In length the camp was about 300 yards. At the landing-place were 54 canoes, varying in capacity from 10 to 100 people. The camp is much too densely peopled for comfort. There are rows upon rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of the captors. There are lines or groups of naked forms upright, moving listlessly, or standing; naked bodies are stretched under the sheds in all positions; naked legs innumerable are seen in the perspective of prostrate sleepers; there are countless naked children, many mere infants, forms of boyhood and girlhood, and occasionally a drove of absolutely naked old women bending under a basket of fuel or cassava tubers or bananas, who are driven through the moving groups by two or three musketeers. Mostly all are fettered; youths with iron rings round their necks, through which is riven a chain like our boat anchor-chains, securing the captives by twenties. The children over ten are secured by three copper rings, each ringed leg brought together by the central ring. The mothers are secured by shorter chains; around are grouped their respective progeny of infants hiding the cruel iron links that fall in loops or festoons over their mothers' breasts. There is not one adult man captive. Beside the shaded ground so thickly strewn with prostrate and upright bodies lie scattered or heaped in profusion everywhere the relics of the many raids. There is scarcely a square foot of ground not littered with something. All these littering the ground, or in stacks and heaps, with piles of banana and cassava peelings, flour of cassava, and sliced tubers drying, make untidy pictures and details, through which prominently gleam .the eyes of the captives in supreme and utter wretchedness. Every second during which I regard them, the clank of fetters and chains strikes my ear. My eyes catch sight of that continual lifting of the hand to ease the neck in the collar, or as it displays, exposed, a manacle through fl mllscle bein~ irritated b, its wei¥,ht or want of fitnilss. 130lllld or riveted by twenties, they wallow in filth. . Only the old women are t"ken to forage; they dig the cassava and search for the banana, while the guard, with ready musket, watches keenly for the coming of the vengeful native. Not much food can be obtained. What is procured is flung in a heap be- fore each gang, to cause at once an unseemly scramble. Many of the poor things have been fettered for months already, and their bones stand out in bold relief on the attenuated skin which hangs down in wrinkles and puckers. Who can withstand the feeling of pity so powerfully pleaded for by those large eyes and sunken cheeks ~"
As we listen to this eye-witness, it appears unthinkable that wicked- ness can go lower. Yet it is Stanley himself, who from Darkest Africa brought tidingS and tales of deeds of darkness befitting depths beneath the lowest depths of hell. He says: "In 1887 a half-caste Arab slaver and his Manyema banditti launched out on one of the most sanguinary and de- structive careerl, to which even Tippu Tib's and Tagamoyo's offer poor comparison. Toward the Lenda and Ihuru rivers they had levelled every settlement into black ashes, had even vented their rage for destruction on the plantain groves, had split every canoe into pi~ces, had searched every , island, and had penetrated into the darkest recesses whither a slight track ( could be traced, with only one dominating passion, which was to kill as many men and capture as many children and women as craft and cruelty would enable them. However far north or east these people had gone .they had done precisely as we had seen, and had reduced the forest to a howling wilderness. Through all the immense area they had left scarcely a hut standing. Assuming that their ravages had extended east, north, and south 105 miles from Ipoto, we have something like 44,000 square miles. Once we know where the slaving centres are, we may, with a pair of compasses, draw great circles round each, and park off areas of 40,000 square miles into which a half dozen resolute men, aided by their hundreds 'of (negro) bandits have divided three-quarters of the Congo forest for the sole purpose of murder, and of becoming heirs to a few hundred tusks of ivory. • •• There were Manyema headmen responsible to the chiefs for followers and operations entrusted to their charge. At alternate periods each sets out for his own special sub-district. The fighters con- sist of Congoans trained by the Manyema as raiders, as in 1876 Arabs and East Coast natives had trained Manyema. This extraordinary increase in the number of raiders on the Upper Congo is the fruit of the policy of kill~ ing the adults, but preserving the children. The girls are distributed among the Arab, Swahili, and Manyema harems, the boys are trained to carry arms, and are drilled. Grown tall and strong; they are rewarded .with wives from the female servants of the harem, and are admitted as partnera in the bloody ventures. So many shares of the profits are due the great proprietor; a less number becomes the due of the headman, and the remainder is the property of the bandits. . . . At other times all ivory over 35 pounds goes to the chief i that between 35 and 20 pounds belongs to the headman, while young ivory, or scraps or pieces, fall to the lucky finders. This intlpires every man to do his best. The caravan is well manned and armed by the great proprietor, who stays in his harem on the Lualaba. The headmen, inspired by greed, grow ferocious. The bandits fling themselves upon a settlement mercilessly to obtain the largest share of loot.- children, flocks, poultry, and ivory. • •• All this would be clearly beyond' their power if they possessed no powder. Not a mile beyond home would the Arab and his followers dare venture. It is more than probable that if gunpowder were prohibited entry into Africa, there would be a general and quick migration of all Arabs from inner Africa to the sea, as the native chiefs would be immeasurably stro~ger than any combination of Arabs armed with spears. Of ivory there is not a single piece nowadays which has been gained lawfully. Every tusk, piece, and scrap in the possession of an Arab has been steeped and dyed in blood. Every pound has cost a life. For every five pounds a hut has been burned ; for every two tusks' a whole village destroyed; every twenty tusks have been obtained at the price of a district with all its people, villages, and plantations. It is simply incredible that because ivory is required for ornaments or billiards, the rich heart of Africa should be laid waste at this late hour of the nineteenth century, signalized as it has been by so many achievements; incredible that populations, tribes, and nations should be utterly destroyed. Whom, after all, does this bloody seizure of ivory enrich' Only a few dozens of half-castes, who, if due justice were dealt them, would sweat out the remainder of their piratical1ives in the severest penal servitude."
IlL-THE RESULTS.
How many slaves are captured; how many lives lost annually! In Nyassaland and Zambesi, according to Cameron's latest (1889) statements, 525,600 each year become slaves. In the equatorial tableland, from the data furnished by Papal missioners, the figures mount even higher. Thill brings the total of Africans who annually lose freedom at the hand of tho Arab hell hounds between the Soudan and the Zambesi up to 1,050,000. Including the Soudan, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, Ashanti, Dah6- mey, Loanga, the Cameroons, Lunda, the native slaving on the Congo, Somauliland, and Uganda, it appears certain that the grand total equals at least 2,000,000. It is as if a Georgiaj or Iowa, or Michigan were annually enslaved. The worst of it is, that Christendom has a real though ,indirect responsibility for those astounding figures, because the relaxation of the English blockade, the troubles in the Soudan and on the East coast, the connivance of Portugal, and French bulldozing in Madagascar enabled the slave trade since 1885 to increase fourfold.
Yet this host, moving every twelve months into the house of bondage, does not represent one half of man's inhumanity in the land of death shades. The mortality of the caravans varies from one-half to three- quarters, and even nine~tenths. We wonder that one slave in ten ever reaches his destination, when we hear the accounts of Cameron, Baker, Livingstone, Lavigerie, and Stanley. Lavigerie says: "When all that are captured are hurried off, a series of unspeakable miseries commences. The men who appear strongest, and whose escape is to be feared, have hands and feet so tied that moving becomes torture, and on their necks are placed yokes attaching several together. All day they march ; at night a few handfuls of raw sorgho are distributed ; this is all their food. Next morning they must start again; but fatigue, suffering, and privations have weakened very many. The women and the aged are the first to halt; then, to strike terror into the miserable mass, their conductors, armed with a wooden bar-to economile powder-approach those most exhausted, and deal a terrific blow on the nape of the neck. The victims utter a cry, and fall in convulsions of death. The terrified troop immediately resumes its march. Terror has imbued even the weakest with fresh strength. Each time one breaks down the scene is repeated. At night, on arriving at their halting-place, after the first days of such life, a not less frightful scene awaits them. The traffickers in human flesh know how much their victims can endure. A glance shows who will soon sink from weariness j so, to economize food, they pass behind these wretched beings and fell them with a single blow. The corpses, when not suspended on neighboring trees, remain where they fall, and close to them must their companions eat and sleep as well as they can. In this manner the weary march is continued, sometimes for months. Daily the number diminishes. If, goaded by their cruel sufferings, some attempt to escape or rebel, thl! masters cut them down, and leave them as they lie, attached by yokes. "
Baker shall be our next witness, describing a slave-dhow and its cargo. He ordered one searched, and the captain was astonished that search was considered necessary. Besides crew and soldiers, the skipper averred, there was not a soul on board, while the vessel had only com in the hold, and ivory beneath. "But," says Baker, " she appeared suspiciously full of corn"for a boat homeward bound. There was an awkward smell about the closely-boarded forecaStle that resembled that of unwashed negroes. . . . Abd-el-Kader drew a ramrod from a soldier's rifle and sharply probed that corn. A smothered cry from beneath, and a wriggling among the corn were succeeded by a woolly head, as Abd-el-Kader, having thrust in his long arm, dragged a negress forth. At once the planks boarding forecastle and stern were broken, the corn was removed, and there was a mass of humanity exposed-boys, girls, and women close packed like herrings in a barrel, who, under threats, had remained silent. The mainsail appeared full and heavy in its lower part. Upon unpacking, it yielded a young woman thus sewn up. We discovered about 150 slaves stowed away in a most inconceivably small area. The stench was horrible when they began to move. Many were lD Irons. I ordered the agent and the captain to be put in irons."
Yet the captives and human exports are far and away the slightest sectiOl~ of thf;J sufferers. Every slave, on the average, represents 100 victims. T.he populations blighted by the simoom of slaving number 150,000,000as many as the German and Rm!sian Empires together.
IV.-THE REMEDIES.
1. As the Zanzibar slave trade has so long been sustained by the capital of British Hindoos, England has moral respousibility for that traffic. Now she is mistress of Zanzibar and Pemba, and her East Africa Company controls the coast north, and has brought Uganda under English lordship. 'With Zanzibar as the maritime key of the situation, and with Cairo a future . centre of Saxon government over an area greater than India, England can lock this export traffic into the interior. Moreover, Germany is conquering lands between Zanzibar and the lakes, the Reichstag has forbidden marine export.ation of slaves, and domestic sl~very will be abolished from its African possessions as speedily as circumstances permit.
2. Again, it began to look, last February, as if the Great Powers would fulfil their solemn pledges for the welfare of Africa, which they have shamefully failed t<? live up to. In 1884 they declared the Congo State should not be used for the slave trade, and each. bound itself to employ all means at its disposal to end the traffic and punish the slavers. Had they enforced their prohibitions, the slave trade could not have attained its present proportions. They <leclared that " these regions shall not be used as markets or as routes of transit for the slave trade, no matter of what race j each of these powers binds itself to use all the means at its disposal to put an end to this trade, and to punish all engaged in it." In 1889 they met in Anti-Slavery Conference (It Bru!:lsels, and agreed that the following measures are directly and generally practicable: (1) Tribes concerned in raiding shall be held responsible. (2) Any tribe through whose territory slave caravans pass shall be held to account, and such chiefs or organizers of caravans as have been once convicted of slavetrade offences shall render security on starting from the seaboard. (3) Chiefs ou whose coast slave shipments occur shall be dealt with. (4) The police of the sea is to be maintained by joint European effort, maritime transportation being the point where force and united action can be made most effective. Vessels of 500 tons and under, unless slavers of larger tonnage be hereafter discovered, shall, on the high seas, be subject to supervision and detention. (5) Disarmament of the slaver is nigh. From 20° North to 22° South, and from 100 miles out in each ocean" the sale of firearms to Arabs or natives is prohibited. Arms must be deposited in Government warehouses, taken· out only on permission, and not in sale include the most improved weapons. Stanley has said: "for wholesale massacres of African aborigines there is only one remedy -the solemn combination, of England, Germany, France, Portugal, South Africa, East Africa, and the Congo State against the introduction of powder into any part of the continent, except for the use of their agents j and seizing every tusk of ivory." Now Christian sentiment must compel civilization to redeem itself by grappling immediately with the slaver of the Congo, for the Free State offers the most advantageous means of attacking these Manyuemans and Soudanese in the rear, while Stanley Falls is the West Point of the Upper Congo. The United States itself took part in this Conference, and the refusal of our Federal Senate to ratify the decree of humanity is a damning diegrace to America. How the country that shattered the shackles of 4,000,000 bondmen could shirk its duty and fasten fetters on the black man in Africa, passes comprehension. EYen Holland played the man and shames us.
3. Cardinal Lavigerie has awakened even papal peoples to their duty in suppressing slavery, and proposes to stop man-hunting at its source by the sword. The campaign to realize this object may take place, since several thousand young meu have foluTJteered and are preparing. In the Sahara these youth~ and the Peres Blancs are already proving themselves true knights of labor, as diggers of wells and planters of trees.· It is objected that these crusaders would merely destroy a few slavers and divert the trade to other routes. But Lavigerie's real idea is that every European Power should maintain sufficient military forces wherever in its possessions the black is hunted j but, if finances forbade, he would revive the medireval soldiers of the Church, its Knights of Alcantara, Lazarus, or Malta, adapt them to modern methods and needs, put them under the Pope, and at the call of any government remove them from place to place requiring their services. Small, inexpensive squadrons can achieve great results.
Whether or not we agree with Lavigerie on the means of employing force, it is absolutely certain that force is now an indispensable necessity in suppressing slave-stealing. The case admits no alternative to-day, for Africa is bleeding out her life-blood at every pore: the population is far too scanty, and va~t areas are relapsing into uninhabited wilds, impenetrable to missionary or merchant. The Arabs are bitterly hostile to European influences, mean to practice slaving as their right, wage wanton war against missions, and demonstrate that in Central Africa European and Arab cannot live together. Turkey intends to send Mohammedan missionaries into her African possessions.
What, then, are the warlike measures inevitable against the Arab? Simply this: protection of Arric's dusky, helpless children. This comprises the introduction of armed bodies into the interior as shepherds of the people, continental blockades against caravans, and as police patrol. At their head will be Europeans, in the ranks natives, as militia, or Sepoys, picked men and masters of gun-drill. As on the Congo, so on the East Coast, the Zambesi, the Niger, the Nile and the lakes, lines of military posts or commercial depots three days' journey apart, are opening. These will absolutely forbid slaving, abolish local markets, prevent the transporting of slaves, except domestics duly registered, and sweep away customs or duties levied on slave sales. Swift armed launches are to be put on all navigable waters, with a garrison or tWQ on the high, healthr platealls of ~a<?h llik~ and on the main traffic lines. Such a chain of fortified posts we may soon see from Suakim along the Nile and the lakes to Quilimane. This will cut the roots of the cancer, and constitute bulwarks behind which missions may advance-missions, which alone can work lasting good.
4. When the export over-sea, indispensable to the continuance of Mos- lem slavery, is destroyed, serfage cannot long continue. Closure of ship- ping ports must therefore be effected, though a tremendous 3000 miles task. The status of slavery must be denied further recognition by inter- national law, the traffic be banned as piracy, and the maritime routes be made so utterly unsafe that no Arab will dm'e risk his life.
5. Mohammedan slavery keeps Africo.Arab slaving alive. So the Brussels Conference brought public opinion to bear on Persia and Turkey, the sole independent slave powers there, and deprecated the influence of their domestic bondage. They should persuade the heads of all Mohammedan States to discourage the purchase of negro slaves, and hold Moslem rulers accountable for future slaving infamies. Zanzibar's new sultan has prohibited slave selling, and instituted measures that will steadily wipe out the whole institution. The British Anti.Slavery Society has pledged itself to suppress Mohammedan slavery, and very many facts prove that the prospect for slavery dying out from the Moslem East is better than that possibility of mediooval Christendom.
6. Colonization, commerce, and railroads afford Christianity the underhold in this death grapple. The prejudices of the natives against colonization, never very strong, will yield to fair and judicious treatment.' But tropical Africa cannot be colonized. by " Caucasians," and it may well be in the Divine statesmanship that the American freedman and none other is to save the brother in black and teach him to save himself. Liberia and its noteworthy success, despite every disadvantage, prove negro colonization to be no Utopian scheme, and with regard to the Congo State, Stanley assures us that if " American negroes form the majority of its citizenship, it would, with proper encouragement, make remarkable development, and in time become a great nation. If these civilized blacks are developed morally, their contact with the savages would be happy." Signs are not wanting that among the negroes of our New Soutb not a few consider. African evangelization their race duty; and that the wonder-working Providence of American history anoints them as apostles to Ethiopia. The task would require comparatively few of the 7,000,000 black Americans, for if less than ten per cent return, 500,000 chosen people would, within one century, accomplish the regeneration of tbeir mother country. Such colonies will swiftly develop legitimate commerce and native industries among the fairly active and workable populations.
Commerce strangles slaving by making its profits less tban those of lawful trade, though it needs to be protected by physical force before it can produce its effects. On the Congo commerce checks the slave trade, since Boma and Matadi are drawing the ivory trade of Stanley Falls away from Zanzibar. Grenfell avers that if once the railway, now rapidly building between tidewater and Stanley Pool, is completed, the Arab will find his occupation gone. On the East Coast the African Lakes Company was organized as a lay auxiliary of Nyassa Missions, and accomplished this by buying ivory at higher prices than slavers can pay. It also built Murchison Road round the Shire Cataracts, and Stevenson Road between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganika. These mend the breaks in the water route from Quilimane to Ruanda, and are for humanitarian purposes the most im- portant thoroughfares to Central Africa, as this line cuts the principfll routes to the coast, and several garrisons on it could throttle the slavers in transit. As to Uganda and Masailand, Mackay and Emin have affirmed that a safe road to the coast must unquestionably be opened. The British East Afric:m Company is building a railroad from Mombasa to Lake Vic- toria. The English, at Stanley's request, devote their Stanley fund to placing a steamer on that lake, and Germany is doing the same thing. Emin has established a fortified post on its south shore, after whipping Arab slavers in many encounters. U-nyanyemhe is his central station, but he will found four large commercial stations and several smaller ones on the Tanganika and elsewhere. An ivory tribute will, within three years, repay the expenses-$400,000. That does not appear unreasonable when we remember that since 1885 Tippu Tib has exported $500,000 worth of ivory, and that this includes the cnormous stock just brought to market by his 7000 porters. A Swedish expedition intends to plant stations from Lake Victoria to Tanganika for co-opcration in suppressing ~laving. The Germans will, of course, push roads to the latter lake. The British Company bas effected the emancipation of 5000 slaves since 1888, made compacts against slaving with tribes inhabiting 50,000 square miles, compels Arabs themselves to recognize that no native is to be held in servitude, releases slaves in caravans, and enables domestics to buy their freedom. On the Juba 30,000 runaway slaves recently asked to be taken under its protection. In Uganda, Mwanga pledges himself to assist, in the abolition of slaving. Thus the outlook for the speedy suppression of East African sla1Jing, and the march of Christianity even to the Great Forest, is full of promise.
The greatest efficiency of the iron horse in destroying the slave trade will occur on transcontinental lines bisecting the slave-belt~. A railroad from Congo mouth to Zanzibar, Stanley says, can be eatiily constructed, and would pay from the start. Another, 1000 miles long, runs from Cape Town to Kimberley, and the South African Company, which is to govern all lands between the Orange River and the Tanganika will prolong it to the Zambesi. (A railroad from the South already reaches Yryburgh in Bechuanaland.) The Niger Company controls the Low.er Niger, where it bas suppressed human sacrifines and checked slaving j before 1900 it wm control the independent Soudan as far as the Egyptian Soudan. There .it will be met hy English -agents, either by Anglo-Egyptian officials, who will have recovered. the Khartum country, or by the East African Company from Equatoria itself. Since tltat is their ultimate goal, then we shall see the proposed railway from Monrovia to the Red Sea, a French line from Algeria to Lake Tchad, aud the Nile made, by skilful engineering at its modest cataracts, a broad waterway from the Midland Sea to the inland seas. Such roads will accomplish far more than armies; and if Europe will Europe can within a decade shatter the Arab slave trade to atoms. God grant that the negro who talked with Jephson about railways prove a prophet of good, and" that when the railroad is made, Jesus Christ may go up with it."
James H. Richardson, M.D., of Toronto, writes a letter to the editor, expressing emphatic dissent from the article in the January issue on " Livingstone and Stanley." We perhaps owe it to fairness to quote portions of this letter. Dr. Richardson questions the propriety of coupling these two men as we have done, and thinks the aims, characters, and methods of the two are dissimilar and antagonistic. Dr. Richardson thinks Mr. Stanley has given sanction to practices which humanity and Christianity must deplore, and cites the Emin relief expedition as an instance. We give his words: " Think of the very first step-the investing, of that fiend, Tippu Tib, with the authority and pay of an officer of the Congo Free State in the very heart of the country where he had been pursuing his most nefarious deeds of rapine, plunder, and slavery j and in the appointment recognizing his authority for carrying them on above the Stanley Falls. Think of the contract with this miscreant to furnish 600 slave carriers. Mr. Stanley denied, in his lecture at Montreal, that slave labor was employed; hut his book (' In Darkest Africa,' vol. i1., p. 3) records, ' The utter unruliness of this mob of slaves which had maddened tne officers of the rear column.' In vol. i., p. 26], he describes the la~hings on these poor slaves, and says 'awful oaths of vengeance were uttered for all the indignities they suffered j' on pages 212 and 213 we have the record of the hanging of a , slave of Fayilla,' and the condemnation to death of two other slaves-one the slave of a man in Zanzibar, thc other a slave of an artisan in U-nyanyembe, both of whom must have been brought with the expedition all the way from Zanzibar.
" Think of the 357 rifles and the Maxim gun which poured out a deadly stream of 300 bullets a minute! Think of the invariable practice' of driving the poor natives out of their villages and taking occupation. The very first landing at Yambuya was of this character. Read the account (vol. i., pp. 113, 114) after parleying uusucce~s£ully for an hour, ' for leave to reside in their village,' the signal was given, the whistles wl:lre blown" the, boats were moored to the shore, and the horde of about 700, armed to the teeth, rushed up the bank, ' and when the summit was gained not a villager was in sight.' For ten or eleven months these poor villagers were kept out of their homes; no wonder that two days afterward, when Stanley
43i .A. CRITICISM OF STANLEY
started with his advance force, the poor natives drew themselves up at the entrance to their village to prevent it from being taken possession of, and no wonder they never tried the defence again, as they were mowed down by the bullets from the 357 rifles and the deadly Maxim gun. They seem to have vacated village after village in terror, as if the demon of destruction was let loose on them. See also vol. i., p. 152. On July 10th the expedition occupied one of seven large villages at Gwengwere, out of which' all the population had fled ;' on tho 11 tIl, he writes, ' as we were disappearing from view of Gwengwere, the population was seen scurrying back to their homes, which they had temp'orarily vacated for our convenience. It saved trouble of speech, exerted, possibly, in. useless efforts for peace, i.e., if they had not left peaceably they would have been driven out!
" Think of every village being raided for food, and provisions for ten days carried off without remuneration, and this not once. but every day. It may be said that these robberies, this occupation of their homes, this employment of slave labor, this authority conferred on Tippu Tib, were necessary to the success of the expediti.on ; if so, then the expedition was an unholy one. To do evil that good may come is as wrong in this case as in any other. " Dr. Richardson adds that, in his opinion, the sad story of the rear colJlmn " would not have been written if Stanley had done his duty. In 1'0. t, pp. 337, 338, 362, and 364, it is recorded that after a council on Lake Albert, not having found Emin, they concluded to retrace their steps and to ' hurry' on to find Barttelot and the rear column before it was a , wreck' as 'the only sensible course which was left to them,' and how he abandoned this' only sensible course' and left Barttelot to his fate because the headmen and officers wanted to go back to find Emin, and so lost four months and a half before going to Barttelot's relief. As to the abuse heaped on Barttelot because he did not advance without getting the carriers promised by Tippu Tib, one short sentence (vol. ii., p. 13) settles the question: ' Without Tippu Tib, or one of his nephews, such a column' (as the rear column) 'could not be taken through the broad extents of wilderness ahead.' "
The Australian Ballot System is a striking illustration of the benefits which Christian lands may receive from their efforts in carrying civilization and Christianity to heathen countries. Australia was formerly wholly heathen, but has become a Christian land by colonization and missionary effort. The conditions of life there rendered possible the trial of a system of balloting which it would have been very difficult to experiment with in any country of more established institutions. But after having proved successful in Australia it is now adopted in nearly all the United States to the great satisfaction of every intelligent voter. It pays for Christian countries. to send missionaries and colonists to lift heathen lands out of their ignorance and degradation. Every nation so raised to an enlightened religious condition will have some peculiar contribution to the welfare of the whole world which could come from no other people.-Baptist Missionary Magazine.
MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP AND LAWS OF THE BANTU LANGUAGES
THE MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP AND LAWS OF THE BANTU LANGUAGES, AS SEEN IN THE KIMBUNDU AND ISI- ZULU.
BY REV. l"EWIS·GROUT, WEST BRATTLEBORO, VT.
The elementary grammar of the Mbundu language, by Mr. Heli Cha~ lain, is a very valuable and timely contribution to a better knowledge of that great family of Bantu languages, which is now known to extend all through South Africa, or, in general terms, East and West from ocean to ocean, aud from the Orange River to some five degrees North of the equator. The grammar is pnmarily designed for the missionaries, the natives, and the colonists of Angola and neighboring dist.ricts; and, for this reason, is written in Portuguese, which prevails to a large extent in that field. Otherwise it would seem to have been better had it been written in a language more widely known. The author of the grammar was well qualified for the work he has done, and has done it well. A native of Switzerland, having acquired a knowledge of six or eight languages aside from the French and German which were his mother tongues, he went out some seven or eight years ago to Loanda, in the Portuguese colony on the West Coast of Africa, as linguist of Bishop Taylor's self-supporting mission. Studying the Portuguese Oil his voyage out, he was well fitted for his work among tribes that spoke dialects of which comparatively little was known as yet in other lands, though they are spoken of by Dr. Cust as constituting the lingua franca of all Western Africa. Indeed, Livingstone speaks of a resemblance between this language and that spoken at Tete, on the Zambezi in Eastern Africa; and the inhabitants of Angola have always found the Mbundu language of great service to them in their travels far to the East.
Mr. Chatelain, giving himself to the study and development of the Bantu languages, has prepared a primer and a translation of John's gospel for his mission, a short vocabulary of the Mbamba, and another of the Umbangala. He is now completing a work on the legends and fables of Angola, and several new vocabularies of neighboring dialects. A more extended work is that of a dictiona~y of the Mbundu language, now in preparation, to be enriched by a comparative study of the Swahili of East Africa, of the Kongo on the West Coast, and by the fruits of the labors of the American missionaries in the Benguela district, together with the fruits of German missionary labors in the Herero of Damara-land. Dr. Cust, the learned and able author of "Modern Languages of Africa," a work published in 1883, speaks of the Mbundu as one of the most important in all West Africa; and, having given a sketch of what the Portuguese have done during the last two and one half centuries to master and make this language known, concludes by saying: "It must be admitted that a new grammar of it is still required." But now, a year since, writing an " Introduction" to Mr. Chatelain's" Kimbundu Grammar," he expresses himself as much pleased .that the matter had fallen into the hands of a scholar 80 well qualified to undertake it, and commends the work to the favorable consideration of African scholars. It will help to give some idea of both the Zulu and Mbundu languages, their general character, forms, laws; also Fome idea of the relationship, or points of similarity that prevail throughout the ('ntire family of South African or Bantn language~, of which Dr. Cust finds 168, aside from 55 dialects, if we institute a brief comparison between the Kimbundll of Angola, in the northwest of the field, and the Isizulu of Natal and Zululand, in the southeast-a geographical distance which puts the two languages nearly two thousand miles apart.
One of the minuter points of resemblance is, that both languages make open syllables; that is, each word and syllable ends in a vowel; and, at< a general rule, the accent falls on the penult. Each abounds in certain consonantal combinations, such as mb, mv, ml, mp, nd, ng and nz; but clicks and gutturals are found only in the Zulu. The vowel signs used in writing have in each the Italian value, and the abundance of these makes the flow of pronunciation in each easy and musical. In their radical element many of the words are the same, or nearly the same, and quite the same in respect to the principle and use of the incipient elements or prefixes of words, though in the forms of their several prefixes they generally differ. Thus, nouns: ENGLISH. ZUI,U. MBUNDU.
Person. s. umuntu. S. mutu. Mother. P. atu. Snake. P. abantu. S. mama. Death. P. jimama. s. umame. S. nioka. P. jinioka. P.omame. S. kufua. P. makufua. s. inyoka.
P. izinyoka.
s. ukufa.
P. ukufa.
So in verbs: ZULU. MBUNDU.
ENGLISH. uku tunga. ku tunga. uku luma. ku lumata. to sew. uku shinga. ku shinga. uku beta. ku beta. to bite. uku lima. ku rima. to insult. uku sala. ku sha:la. to beat. to till. to remain.
For" three" we find tutu in both languages; for" five" we find Manu in the Zulu and tunu in Mbundu. In the former uleu lamba means" to hunger," in the latter leu lamba means" to cook."
In each language the nouns are divided into classes according to their prefix or preformative, and according to the way in which the plural is generally made from the singular by some change in the prefix. Zulu nouns are divided, in this way, into eight classes, the last two of which are without distinction as to number; and, in the same way, Mbundu nouns are divided into ten classes. In the former, the prefix u, um, or umu, of the first class, is changed to 0 or aba to form the plural; as um/ana, " boy," abafana, "boys." So, again, ili or i is changed to ama; im or in to izim, izin, orama; isi to izi, izim, or izin; and um or umu (impersonal) to imi ; though nouns of the seventh and eighth classes have the same pre- fix, ubu or uku, in both numbers: thus, ubuso may mean either" face" or " faces." Nouns in uku are of a verbal character, being the same as the verb in the infinitive mode. In the Mbundu the prefix mu, of the first class, is changed to a, to form the plural; as, mutu, " person," aiu, "persong;" m'}', of the second class, is changed to mi, as mulundu, " mQlmtain," milundu, ,-' mountains. " So, again, ki is changed to i; ri to ma; u to mau; lu to malu,. tu to matu,. ku to maku,. ka to iu; and other forms to ji.
IIi both languages alike f'ach class of nouns has a fragmentary or genitive pronoun of a preformative character, which corresponds to the noun's ptefix ; one for the singular, and one for the plural, which, with the genitive particle a, denotes possession, or the relation of a subject to an attribute; thus, in Zulu, ilizwi lom/ana (loa-um/ana), " word of the boy," or " boy's word;" ~baniu benkosi (b-a-inkosi) "people of the king," or "king's people. " So in the Mbundu, muiue ua mutu, " head of man," or " man's head;" mitue ia atu, " heads of men."
In both languageR alike the adjective takes a prefix corresponding to the prefix of the noun with which it agrees; thus, in Zulu, um/ana umkulu, "the boy (is) great;" um/ana omkulu (a-umkulu) , "the boy (which is) great," i.e., "great boy;" abantu bakulu, "people (are) great ;" abantu abakulu, "great people." So in Mbundu; thus, muiu uonene, "great person;" kim~ kionene, "great thing;" ima- ionene, "great things ;" r'ital'i l'ionene, "great stone;" mata;'i monene, "great stones. " So, too, in respect to numerals. In the Zulu we have umuntu omunye, "one person;" abantu ababili, " two persons ;" izinkomo ezintatu, "three cows." In the Mbundu we ha-e mutu umoshi, " one person ;" kima kimoshi, " one thing;" ima itatu, "three things ;" matubia matanu, "five fires."
The grammar of the verb is essentially the same in the Mbundu language as in the Zulu. In the latter the infinitive has the sign uku, " to ;" as uku landa, "to love;" uku bona, "to see;" in the former, ku; as ku zola, "to love ;" ku longa, "to teach;" ku banga, "to make, do." In both languages alike the pronominal subject of the verb in the third person corresponds to the prefix of the noun for which the pronoun stands. Thus, in Zulu (um/ana, "boy") u bona, "he see~;" (aba/ana, "boys"), ba bona, "they see;" (inkomo, "cow"), i bona, " it sees;" (izinkomo, " cows"), zi bona, "they see." In the Mbundu we have (mutu, "person"), u banga, "h~ (or she) makes;" (atu, "persons"), a bar.ga, " they make ;" (kima," thing"), ki banga, " it makes ;" ' (ima, "things"), i banga, "they make." 'For the first, second, and third persons, preient tense, we have: IN ENGLISH. IN liIZULU. IN KIMBUNDU.
S. I love. S. Ngi tanda. S. Ngi zola. thou Iovest. u tanda. u zola. he (or she, etc.) lovt's. u (i, or Ii, etc.), tanda. u (or a, etc.), zola.
P. we love. P. si tanda. P. tu zola. ye love. ni tanda. nu zola. they love. ba. (or zi, etc.), tanda. a (or i, etc.), zola.
In the few following forms we have a comparative view of some of the modes in the two lan~ua~es : IN ENGLISH. IN ISIZULU. IN KIMBUNDU. '
Love, or love thou. tanda, or ma u tande. zola. Love yeo I love, or I do love. tandani. zolenu. I may love. I should love. ngi tanda, or ngi y a tanda. ngi zola.
ngi nga tanda. ngi zole.
nga ngi tanda. ngojo zola.
In the following we have a comparative view of a few tenses.
IN ENGLISH. IN ISIZULU. IN KIMBUNDU.
I love. ngi tanda. ngi zola. I loved. nga tanda. nga zolo. I have loved. ngi tandile. nga zolele. I had loved. ngi be ngi tandile. nga. zolele kia. I shall love. ngi y8 ku tanda. ngondo zola, or nganda ku zola.
IB respect to species of verbs, we find much of likeness between the Zulu and the Mbundu, as also between these and the Hebrew, in what is there called " conjugations." In the former from tanda, ,. love," we get the causative, tandisa, .. cause to love j" the relative, tandela, " love for j" the reciprocal, tandana, "love one another j" the reflective, zitanda, " love self j" the subjective, tandeka, " be lovely or lovable j" also other species. In the Mbundu we have from zola, ,. love," zolesa, " cause to love j" zolela, "love for j" rizola, " love self." We sometimes find two or more species combined j as, in Zulu, the causative and relative, tandisela, "cause to love for j" in Mbundu, zolesela, " cause to love for."
The mutual relationship and laws, or kinds of resemblance and difference that prevail in the great family of Bantu languages are seen, to some extent, in the goodly number of words that are found to be substantially the same in many of its members, though such words are often found in greatly differing forms. "Ve take two words, or, rather, one word in its two numbers, umunt!l, " person," abantu, " persons or people," as a good example of the unity in variety in some of the corresponding words in the cognate lauguages of which we speak. This word consIsts of two elements, one radical, the other preformative, which is also called "prefix." In Zulu the ,root is ntu; the prefix, singular, umu, plural, aba. And, of all the numerous forms which this word may take, whether in root or prefix, doubtlelOs the Zulu, as above, i.e., um'l1ntu, abantu, are alike most original and complete., For these Zulu words we find the corresponding words, in the cognate languages, to be, on the South, in the Kafir, umntu, abant'l ; on the West, in the Sesutu, motu, batu,. in the Sethlapi and Sechuana, mothu, bathu. Going northward and eastward, and coming into the Delagoa region, we find, in the Southern Tekeza, munu, banu or vanu,. in Northern Tekeza, amuno, vano,. coming to the Tete and Sena on the Zambe~ii, we find munttu, vanttu,. in the Quilimane, muntu, antu,. in the Maravi, muntu, wanthu. In the Makua, latitude 15° South, we find muttu, attu. In the Yao, on the eastern bank of Lake Nyassa, we have mundu, vandu or wandu; in Kiswahili, latitude from 5° to 6° South, mtu, watu,. then, in the Kinika, mutu, atu,. in the Kikamba, mundu, andu,. and in the Kisambala and Kipokomo, on the Pokomo, Dana or Tana River, near the equator, we have muntu, wantu.
Passing now to the southwest of the Bantu field, and moving northward along the West Coast of the c'ontinent, we find, in the Otyiherero or Damara language, omundu, ovandu j in the Sindonga, the language of the Ovambo, umtu, oantu,. in the Nano of Benguela, omuno, amana j in the Kimbundu or Angola, mutu, atu,. in the Kongo, omuntu, oantu j in the Benga, as spoken on the Corisco Islands, North of the equator, moto, bato,. and in the Dualla and Isubu or Cameroons language, motu, batu.
From what is already known of the many other Bantu languages, we have every reason to believe that the points of agreement and difference which we have. now passed in review are a good specimen of what prevail among the scores that still remain to he reduced to order in the great inland region that stretches through the interior, from four or five degrees North of the equator to the Orange River on the South.
Of how great advantage this relationship must be to the hosts of missioll9.ries, whose great work it shall yet be to reduce the still unwritten multitude of these Bantu languages each to its own grammatically exact order, and translate the Scriptures into them, it is hardly pOl)sible to give any adequate idea. If the writer, while preparing to go abroad, could have, had the means of getting even such a knowledge of these languages as may be gathered from this article, it would have been of more aid and saving of time to him than he can now tell.
We reprint from the African News a brief article on " The Spelling of African Names," by Heli Chatelain, which is appropriate to follow Mr.
Grout's paper: " Every reader of African publications and student of African maps must have been struck with the orthographic chaos which prevails throughout African nomenclature. The same town, country, people, mountain, or river is designated in different maps and b?oks, sometimes in the same periodical, with a variety of names which, to the uninitiated, present but few or no traces of similarity, much less of identity.
" This lamentable fact is due mainly to two causes: (1) to the hetero-
THE SPELLING OF AFRICAN NAMES
geneous spelling of European languages, from which the information is culled; (2) to the prefixes and suffixes of African languages, whose secret is understood by few African linguists, and even then imperfectly.
" ]. The nature of the first difficulty will be understood at a glance, on comparing the following table, giving the principal European ways of rendering the same sounds : English. Frencli. German. Portuguese. Spani87i. u 00 ou u u e e a e,(! tl x, eh nh Ii 8h eh seh eh nj dj ny gn tach, tj ao au dsch, dj ai, ae ai, ay elt teh all j dj ei ow (as in how) aou i a"i Thus the Magadoxo of the Portuguese becomes Magado~ho in English, and MagadoKcho in German, unless the Arabic form Mukhdishu, with its own national transliterations, be preferred by a traveller or map-maker.
" The British Government and the Royal Geographical Society have recently taken an important step toward bringing some order into the hitherto arbitrary nomenclature, by agreeing on a systcm of geographical speIling and transliteration which shall be followed in all official documents, and is sme to be adopted by the public at large. The value of the letters according to the new system is given on page 466 (October, 1890), of the African News j but one important article was omitted.
" In the names of places belonging to the German, French, or Portuguese spheres of influence, and, in the case of a few old names, the German, French, or Portuguese spellings are to be left unchanged. So, the readers will still be supposed to know all those langllage~, if they want to pronounce correctly. It follows, therefore, that the new spelling will be principally applied to the tranBliteration of native names in eOllntries controlled by England. It may be interesting for many to learn that the system recently made official is simply the one used by Krapf and his colaborers in Ea~t Africa, for the transliteration of Ki-swahili and other East Afril)an languages.
" The United States have just been favored with a Board on Geographic Names, whose duty it is to give the standard, to which all official publications will have to, and the unofficial will choose to, conform. It is much to be desired that our Board will, as far as possible, concur with the decisions of their colleagues across the water.
"2. The second cause of pnzzling spellings, the peculiar construction of African tongues, cannot be as snmmarily dealt with as the first. Only as our knowledge of the hundreds of dialects advance~, can the correct names be settled on, and the only rightful judge on the question is the acknowledged master-linguist of each separate language. Many of the names now generally accepted will have to yield to new ones, because they are not the names used by the natives of the 'place, but those given to travellers or missionarie~ by their native guides or carriers belonging to other tribeft, who adapt all the names they hear to their own national taste. Though quite insufficient for the scientist, a few points will be very useful to the general reader.
" Thus, in most Bantu languages, whose area covers the immense triangle between the Cameroons (now Kamerun), the Kilimanjaro and the Cape of Good Hope, the different prefixes, which puzzle so much the stranger, can easily be learned: Mu- mo- m- * mean man, e.g., Mu-ganda signifies a G"nda-man. Ba- wa- a- ma- t mean mtn. e..q., Ba-gar,da signifies Ganda-men. u- Ki- tlki- si- mean language. e.g., Ki-swaltili signifies Swahili language. Bu- mean country, e.g., Bu-ganda, U-gogo signifies Ganda Oountry, Gogo Oountry.
" When, therefore, an African name occurs, the prefix will tell you whether the name indicates a single man, a people, a country, or a lan- guage, and our table will tell you approximately, in case of doubt, which prefix you have to use. Never use Wa- or Ba- for the country, nor Bu- or U- for the people. Tbough less gross, mistakes are even then unavoid- able, alii a comparison of the prefixes used (1) by the Ba-ganda, and (2) the Ba-sutu will show: .
Man. Men. Country. Languap:e.
(1) Mu-ganda Ba-ganda Bu-ganda Lu-ganda (2) Mu-autu Ba-8utut Le-8utu Se-&utu " In Angola two neighboring nations are distinguished solely by prefixes, which were modified to avoid the confusion. Thus, in the language of Angola proper, ki-mbundu means the language of the a-mbundu (people), while ki-mbundu, applied to a person, signifies a native of Bailundo or Bihe j as to the language of the latter it is called u-mbundu, which is also used to express the negro color and natnre.
" Dr. R. N. Cust. in his excellent' Modern Languages of Africa,' cut the Gordian knot of prefixes and suffixes in Alexandrine fashion by ignoring them completely aud using the bare radical to indicate language. Ignoring them, however, docs not remove the difficulties for a long time j the specialists keep on clinging to their distinctive prefixes. The splendid language map, which accompanies Dr. Cust's book, has passed into the hands of many students of Africa, and has led them to use the radicals, which there designate the languages, for either countries or people.
"A treatise on the subject by a speciaJiRt in each of the few great. families of African languages would be timely and helpful to geograp}:lers and the reading public." ——————– The religion of the people of Syria is usually called by the Government Moslem and non-Moslem. The first includes Orthodox and Persian Moham- medans (Moslems and Metawalies), Druzes, Nusaireeyehs and Ismaileyehs and all Bedawee Arabs. Non-Moslems are Jews, nominal Christians (Or- thodox Greek, Papal Greek, Maronite [Papall, Jacobite, Syrian, Armenian and Latin Papists) and Evangelical Christians. The principal accessions to the church have been from the non-Moslem sects. Work among these is important. It aims to give them a pure Gospel and to remove all ground for the well-merited contempt in which nominal Christians are held by Mos- lems. This has been so far successful that, first, the religion of Evangeli- cal Christiant! is looked upon as a new religion and is respected by the non- Christian sects j second, the old sects are beginning decided reforms in their churches j and, third, the leaven of the Gospel is working in a most interesting and marked manner among the Moslems, giving the confident hope that the day is not far distant when a large number of them may be brought to Christ. Earnest prayer is asked that freedom of conscie'lce may be fully granted to all. – Ohurch at Home and Abroad.
• In nicknamee eometime. KOr and t TIl·.
t The French spell BOrBOuto, the English, ~Or8'ttu, the Germano, BOrBOto. The correct woulq be Ba-eOtO. the accented vowels sounded like u inj'ult, but long. THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA lIY W. A. I'lTANTON, EI'lQ., HAMILTON, :N. Y.
Now that 110 much interest centres in the Dark C0I1tinent; we seek for some comprehensive view of the great people wbo inha;bitjt. We hear· much of individual tribes, but very little of general races. 'Ve :rnow something of the Negro and the Congoese, but very little of the African man, in his diverse life and multitudinous types, from the M:editerranean to Cape Colony. Our view is 1>artial and one-sidlld, rather than complete 'and comprehensive. It will be the purpose of this paper to gather up the results of recent investigation, and present, as far ·as possible; a broad general view of the people of Africa. We will accomplish this be·stby considering, first, the ethnology, and second, the gener:;tl condition of the people j or, in other words, by seeking to discover who -the people are, and what they are.
I. Who are the people of Africa! 'Ve must remember at the outset t~at the population· of Africa is composed of two elements; the native and the foreign.. Thl'! foreign element consists of Europeans, Arabs, Moors, Turks, a~d Jews. With these we will not deal, as they are well known both as to race chamcteristics and general manner of living. We must not, however, classify 'the Arabs and Moors in exactly the same rank with the Europeans or. even the Turks. For the Arabs have been in Africa ever since 300 B. c., and· have thus become almost indigenous, in many cases amalgamating with the native races. But it is not this foreign element, however long it may have cxisted in the land, of which we wish to speak, but of the great undefined and unclassified native population. Any true classification of the people is almost an impossibility. The ethnology of Africa is in the utmost confusion. Every new explorer brings to light great and hitherto unknown races, as well as· establishing new facts in regard to old ones. As the case now stands, in the light of Stanley's most recent discoveries, the native population of Africa consists of six great races-B·erber, Coptic, Nilotic, Negro, Bantu, and Goriepine.. Mr. Stanley, in his most recent work, criticises the term " Bautu" as unscientific, on the ground that it simply means "men j" but, as all the best authorities employ it, and as it has become asseciated by constant use with the race to which it is usually applied, we think it best to retain it. All these six races are allied to a greater or less degree. They all spring from the great Indo-African or Indo-Ethiopic family. They are thus a mixture of the pure African type with the Asiatic. and differ in race characteristics according as the one type or the other predominates. Though thus allied, they present strong race distinctions, and hence deserve a separate classification. 1. The Berber. The Berbers are a race of great antiquity. They are descendants of the primitiv~ ~to{:k of the land. They vary in color from a black to a dark bronze or copper. They have hig~ cheek-bone!!, the nose sometimes flat, like that of the Nf>gro, and sometimes aquiline; lips formed like those of Europeans; eye!! expressive, and hair curled, but not woolly. They are without the slightest trace of what is generally recognized as the negro physiognomy. They are an athletic, strong-featured people, accustomed to hardship and fatigue. Though the various tribes differ much, they are all fine men, tall, straight, and handsome. The home of the Berbers is in North Africa. They extend from Morocco to Egypt, and from tho Mediterranean to the Soudan. The Shuluh of the Atlas district, the Kobyles of Tunis, the Tuaneks of Western and Central Sahara, and the Tibbus of Eastern Sahara all belong to the Berber genus, and speak the Berber language.
2. The Coptic. The Copts are descendants of the an~ient Egyptian… They are a mixed race, their ancestors h!1ving intermarried with Greeks, Nubians, and AbYRsinians. Their complexion is similar to that of the Arab-a brownish yellow; foreheads flat, hair soft and woolly, noses flattened like the Negro's, lips thin and straight, cheek-bones high, beards thin, eyes large, and bent upward like the Chinaman's. They represent all that is left of the proud blood of the Pharaohs. Their home is in Northern Egypt.
3. The Nilotic. There are three main divisions of this race-the Nubians, Abyssinians, and Gollos.
The Nubians are of a reddish brown complexion; their color in some cases approximating a black, but not like the ebony hue of the Negro. They are described as a handsome people, with beautiful features, fine expressive eyes, and of slender and elegant forms. They inhabit Nubia.
The Abys~inians are a IItrong and vigorolls race, of a copper hue, more or less dark, with straight noses, eyes clear yet languishing, hair black and crisp, but not woolly. They are a mixed race, and inhabit Abyssinia.
The Gollos are the strongest tribe of the Nilotic race. They are a large, vigorous, almost bulky people. Their color varies between black and brownish, some of the women being remarkably fair. As to type, they stand between the Negro of Guinea and the Arab or Berber. Their countenances are rounder than those of the Arab, their eyes small, deeply set, but lively. They occupy a large district in East Africa directly South of Abyssinia.
4. The Negro. The general physical characteristics of the Negro are too well known to need description. It is a mistake to suppose all Africans are Negroes. The Negroes form but one of the six great races. Their home is in the Soudan, stretching from Senegambia on the West, to the highlands of Abyssinia on the East. The Mandiogoes are one of the most powerful of Negro races. They inhabit Senegambia, are very numerous, and partially civilized.
The W olofs occupy the region between the Senegal and the Gambia. They are the blackest and handsomest of all Negroes, and are a mild and social pe>ple. Central Soudan is occupied by the FOlllahs. They are one of the most remarkable races in Africa, distinguished for their intelligence and friendliness, are fairly industrious and civilized, and speak a rich and harmonious language. Our knowledge of Negro races is confined, in the main, to those of the coast, who are of the lowest type. Of the vast inland tribes of the Soudan ah:~ost nothing is known. The heart of this great country has scarcely been penetrated, and is now the least known of any part of Mrica.
5. The Bantu. The Bantu race is the most marked and characteristic race in Africa. The Bantu is of a far nobler type than the Negro. Though there are many tribes and nations, they all have the same general characteristics, and belong to one great family.' They are thus described by a recent traveller: "The Bantu is a fine, tall, upright man, with delicately small hands and well-shaped feet, a fine face, high, thin nose, beard and mustache.
" The further you go into the interior the finer the type becomes, and two points about them contrast yery favorably with most of the coast racesnamely, their lighter color, generally a warm chocolate, and their freedom from that offensive smell which is supposed wrongly to characterize most of the Africans. Some of them are perfect Greek statues as regards the splendid development and poise of figure. " They occupy a greater extent of cOllntry than any other one race in Africa, stretching from the SO North of the equator to the Tropic of Capricorn; or by countIies, from the 'Soudan nearly to Cape Colony. Thus nearly the whole Southern half of Africa is the home of the Bantu race.
6. The Goriepine. The Goriepine race is composed of Hottentots, Korannas, and Bushmen. A description of the Hottentot will suffice for all. Where they originated is a mystery. The only people to whom they are thought to bear a resemblance are the Chinese or Malays. Like these they have the broad forehead, the high cheek-bones, the oblique eye. the thin beard, and the dull yellow tint of complexion; but there is a difference in regard to their hair, which grows in small tufts, harsh, and lather wiry, and in the formation of the bones of the pelvis. They are a race of dwarfs, rarely exceeding four feet six inches in height. They are lively, cheerful, good-hnmored, and by no means wanting in intellect.
These six races form the native population of Africa. The entire population, both native and foreign, is variously estimated from 200,000,000 to 350,000,0.00. Mr. Guinness estimates it at 350,000,000. Stanley places it at 250,000,000. A conservative estimate would place it between 250,000,000 and 300,000,000.
II. We ask, in the second place, what is the social and moral condition of this great people 1 As to civilization and social status, Africa may be divided into two .great sections. The division is marked by passing a line froni the mouth of the Senegal Rh-er on the West to Cape Guardafui on the East. The Northern half includes aU the States of the Mediterranean, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, and the Sahara. The Southern half embraces the Soudan, and Central and Southern Africa; or, as to races in the North, the Berber, Coptic, and Nilotic, in the South the Negro, Bantu, and Goriepine.
The Northern half has the characteristics of the Arabic civilization. The people are largely pastoral and nomadic. They have all the genius of the Arab, both for war and for trade. The Tuoricks and Tibbus of the Sahara are purely nomadic, living by means of predatory incursions and by tribute exacted from passing caravans. The Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis are the most industrious of Berber tribes. They till the land and work the mines in the mountains. The Copts of Egypt are an extremely bigoted people, of a sullen temper, very avaricious,. great dissemblers, ignorant, and faithless. They form the middle class, working chiefly as tradesmen and mechanics. The Abyssinians are, on the whole, barbarous and addicted to the grossest sensual pleasures. Their priests, among whom marriage is common, are but little better than the mass of the people. They are fierce and warlike, and have little regard for human life. In general, we may say of the Norj:.h African people, they are restless and nomadic for the most part, fierce and warlike, yet in some cases peaceable and industrious, proud; haughty, arrogant, energetic, and aggressive; in trade keen and versatile, with a strong native instinct for acquisition; in morals grossly sensual as the Abyssinians, or markedly abstemious as the Tuoricks of the desert or the Nubians of the Nile. In fine, they are characterized by both the virtues and the vices of the Arabic civilization and the Moslem faith. The stamp of the Arab and of Islamism is impressed on every race from the Mediterranean to the Soudan.
The Southern half of Africa is utterly destitute of any civilization worthy of the name. 'fhe people are for the most part in Ii primitive condition, not strictly savages, yet not civilized. As to social status, the people live mostly in independent groups under the command of a chief or king, whose domain may comprise only a few villages, or it may be a large extent of territory. In the Congo valley every village is independent, while in the South is the great Gorongange kingdom of Msidi, who is a most absolute despot, and rules by means of 2000 fusileers. In general the king or chief is tyrant and the people his slaves.
As to intelligence, there is a vast difference in different tribes. The best representatives, perhaps, of intelligence are the Bololo people, in the bend of the Congo. They clear away the tangled growth of t.he forest in their settlements, and sow the fertile soil with maize and mandroca. They are expert in the working and smelting of brass. They understand division of labor, and have divided themselves into farmers, gardeners, smiths, weavers, cabinet-makers, warriors, and speakers. They are intelligent, industrious, and friendly. The streets of their villages are straight and regular, running at right angles. Their houses are large and commodious. Far in the interior, however, we find a different state of things. Professor Drummond gives this description of the people in the Nyassa district: THE PEOPLE OF AFRICA.
" Hidden away in the endless forests, like birds' nests in a wood, in terror of one another, and of their common foe, the slaver, are small native vil- lages ; and here in his virgin simplicity dwells primeval man, without clothes, without civilization, without learning, without religion, the genuine child of nature-thoughtless, careless, and contented. This man is ap- parently quite happy ; he has practically no wants. One stick pointed makes him a spear j two sticks rubbed together make him a fire; fifty sticks tied together make him a house. The bark he peels from them, makes his clothes; the fruits which hang on them make his food."
There is one common characteristic of the Central African people. They are bom traders, and therein lies the hope of a future civilization for Africa. The commercial instinct is all-powerful.· They have actually created among themselves a true currency, though not a money one. " In the management of a bargain," says Stanley, " I should back the Congoese native against Jew or Christian, Parsee or Bonyan, in all the round world. Unsophisticated is the very last term I should ever apply to an African child or man in connection with the knowledge of how to trade. I have seen a child of eight do more tricks of trade in an hour than the cleverest European trader on the Congo could do in a month. Therefore, when I write of a Congo native, whether he is of the Bakongo, Bayanzi, or Bakete tribes, remember to associate with him an almost unconceivable amount of natural shrewdness and power of indomitable and untiring chaffer." As to morals, the picture is not so fair. The degradation is extreme and well- IJigh universal. Polygamy is everywhere practised. In the empire of Kasongo, 'Vest of Lake Tanganyika, the ruler is regarded as the husband of all his female subjects, except his mother. The idea of chastity seems to have been entirely lost. The value of a human life, especially of a slave, is unknown. Mutilation and death are the only punishments in vogue, even for the slightest offences. The slaughter of men, women, and children that accompanies the death of a chief is so revolting as to be almost incredible, had it not been attested by eye-witnesses. Human sac- rifices are common. The walls which surround. the palace of the King of Dahomy, on the West African Coast, are decorated with the heads of war- captives stuck on stakes. Cannibalism is not universal, but is prevalent among the tribes of the Upper Congo and about the Mobangi River, where the paths are marked by rows of human skulls, and the people wear neck- laces of human teeth. We shudder at the very mention of atrocities which ~ are of every-day occurrence among this people. From the dwarfs of the Great Forest of Upper Congo to the half-human inhabitants of the Kolohori Desert, and from the besotted Negro of Old Calabar to the degenerate Hot- tentot of Momagna land, the same blackness of moral degradation prevails with ever-deepening shades. All are not as atrocious or as degraded, but the few faint and s~attered gleams of light only serve to deepen and in- tensify the dense darkness that covers like a pall this truly benighted land. Africa has been likened, from her geographical form, to a woman with a
CONFUCIUS AND CHRIST COMPARED
huge burden on her back. Need I ask what that burden is! It is the crushing weight of a bondage more cruel and relentless than that of the Arab slaver, more deadly and destructive than that of the white man's rum -the bondage of a thousand years of ever-deepening sin.
CONFUCIUS AND CHRIST COMPARED.
In a recent issue of the American Missionary we find the vast difference between the power of the moral teachings of Confucius to affect the conduct, and that of the teachings of Christ, very clearly put by a converted Chinaman, as the following item will show: Hing Sing is a helper in the Chinese mission at Petaluma, Cal. He • reports in a letter to Dr. Pond, the superintendent, an interview with a pagan friend. Though his English is in dialect form, he makes it express very clearly his idea of the universality of the religion of Jesus, and its superiority to that of Confucius.
In the course of the interview his friend had acknowledged that it. was a wrong way to do to smoke and to gamble, and that it wasted money. " But," he said, to quote Hing Sing's own words, " you should not believe Jesus, for we have our own Confucius doctrine, which also taught us to be good. You should not believe Jesus, and should not imitate foreign doctrine.' , I answer him: " Gold have no limit, no matter from what country or nation, but pure and true, so that we call precious, for everybody can use it. Also the Jesus doctrine have no limit, from whateTer nation, but is the true, for we to imitate and believe.
" We loand Jesus was the Son of God, came down to saTe our soul, if we real trust in His name. I found our Confucius, he was virtue and good man. lIe can teach us to be good and honor, but he cannot save our soul. But we found J csus was the Son of God, for lie can give His Spirit to melt our wicked hearts into righteous and faithful and good man; our Confucius only can tell us between good and bad, but not able to melt our evil heart. How many our Chinese people understand our Confucius doctrine! Why should they not imitate and obedience his teaching? Smoke opium, gamble, swear, and other evil things, they know very well that was unrighteous, for why should they not imitate our Confucius what he has done, the good work, and obey his teaching 1 Ah, for he can only indicate to you the way of good, but he cannot inspire your spirit, but Jesus only can! Nothing impossible. When I was not a Christian I was gamble and I was swear, but since I became a Christian, never smoke opium, never gamble or swearing, and many of my friends was the same.
So it was illustrated, Jesus was the Son of God, can give ot His Spirit to inspire our spirit, to turn away from bad to the good."
A. WONDERFUL LIFE·BOAT
A WONDERFUL LIFE·BOAT.
BY CAPTAIN E. C. HORE, F.R.G.B.
If you turn to the map of Africa you will see, toward its centre, several large pieces of water known as the Central African lakes, and, in a central position among them, a long. shaped one called Tanganyika j its surface is 2700 feet above sea-level, and it is hemmed in nearly all round by high land crowned witb forests. Around the shores of that lake twelve different tribes of Africans have their homes j there may be seen market places where hundreds of natives bring their produce, such as mats, baskets, skins, bark cloth, woven cotton cloth, pottery, iron, both as hoes and axes, weapons and wire j copper, botb in pigs and manufactured into bracelets and otber ornaments, sugar-cane, ground nuts, palm oil, salt, honey, and butter, besides goats, fowls, fisb, and corn and vegetables of 'many kinds. , These are spread out for sale in the early morning in the market-places, which become busy scenes of barter and exchange.
For such busy and industrious people the lake forms a ready means of getting about; and much of the produce to be seen in those markets is brought there in canoes. These are wbat are known to us as dugouts– hewn out of solid trunks of trees from the great forests on the lake shores; they are clumsy-looking craft, following rather the model of the hippo- potamus than that of the swan, but strong and safe for all that j and tbe natives are very clever in managing them. These canoes are also largely used for fishing. I have seen more than 200 little canoes at one time out at nigbt catching whitebait. In each canoe a long faggot of dried reeds, witb one end alight and pushed over the bow of the canoe, served to attract the little fish in immense shoals. The fisherman, standing erect in his tiny-craft, and using a large hand-net, literally shovels them in. Tbe fish are then taken on shore, baked quite dry in the hot sun, and made up into little bolster-shaped loads wrapped round with leaves, and thus form,ing portable packages of preserved provisions, which are sent far and wide over the country. Other large canoes, some of them over forty feet long, are engaged in all kinds of trading enterprises between the different countries round the lake, and, especially, in the slave trade between tribe and tribe. For, although these fine people are so enterprising and industrious, there is everything with them that we think of as heathen and savage, the horrible curse of the slave trade having always kept them down, and no light of Christianity brightened their life into liberty and civilization.
But, a few years ago, there appeared on those waters a boat of most strange appearance and character for that remote region.. The Morning Star was her name, coming, let us hope, as the harbinger of the light and glory of a true daylight. She is a boat built of the best modern materials, and of handsome appearance, like a large sea-going life-boat, with three sails and eight oars, and flying at her masthead the peaceful device of the dove and olive branch-the flag of the London Missionary Society, to whom she belongs, and whose missionaries she conveys from place to place with a message of Jove and light to those natives.
And this is how the Morning Star got to 'l'anganyika : I went home from England to Central Africa in 1881 with a survey of Lake Tanganyika, and a report of the kind of vessel necessary for missionary work on that inland s~a. In due time the Good News, auxiliary steam yacht, was placed in hand for that purpose ; but, as it would be some time before she was ready for service, and a large reinforcement of missionaries were starting for Tanganyika, another smaller vessel was required, both for immediate use, 'and, afterward, to complete the efficiency of the boat service on the lake as tender for the Good News, or independently.
For this purpose I designed the Morning Star, 32 feet long and 8 feet beam. She was built from my design, by Forrestt & Sons, of London, in six complete sections, and ele'en smaller pieces, to be jointed together with bolts and nuts, each section and piece separately galvanized, and t:) form, when put together, a strong, sea-going life-boat. Each end section formed a complete air-tight tank, and two intermediate little cabins formed each of two sections, also being water-tight compartments.
To convey these sections overland six small carts or barrows, consisting of light wooden frames exactly to fit the sections, and wrought iron wheels and fittings, were made, also conveniently taken to pieces. All these sections and pieces and their carts, were conveyed in the ordinary way as cargo in a steamer from London to Zanzibar, where the strange enterprise commenced of conveying them overland to the centre of Africa.
From the East Coast of Africa, opposite Zanzibar to Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, following the windings and zig-zags of the only possible paths, is a distance of 836 miles, without railways, vehicles of any kind, or even beasts of burden. On the heads and shoulders of Africans, or on carts drawn and pushed by them, the Morning Star was conveyed to the lake. Carried over first in small Arab dhows from Zanzibar to the coast (a distance of 25 miles), the sections, and carts, and loads were landed at Saadani, a native settlement or town under the rule of the Sultan of Zanzibar. There the carts were fitted together ,and the sections secured npon them, and, after a great deal of work and preparation (for the boat and its fittings formed part of a large caravan, consisting altogether of over 900 Africans, ten of our missionaries, and all their stores, besides African moneys in the shape of many bale~ of calico and other cloth and barter goods) started on their long journey.
For three and one half months the faithful African porters cut their way through broad belts of jungle, dragged the carts ankle deep through miry swamps, threaded patiently the winding forest tracks, slowly clambered over mountain barriers-often hungry, thirsty, and excessively tired, but never giving in or yielding to others the" honor," as they considered it, of .managing the cart, or carrying the piece of boat which formed their part of the work. In camp. gossiping over the fire at night, they would argue with one another as to how the boat would be put together, and to strangers along the road they would boast that they were ,,'partners" in the enterprise of conveying it to Tanganyika; and this, often, while they were hungry and thirsty by reason of the hard work it had cau~ed them.
At last Ujiji was reached, the carts causing a great sensation there, and great wonderment was expressed at the boat sections. I soon got settled in myoid quarters, and the boat-building was commenced. Day after day she grew in size and beauty as the various parts were joined together, until, all being finished, she was one day launched into the lake, a thing of beauty and strength, and a joy to us for years of work, during which she proved to us safety and comfort and speed.
As the Morning Star was being built, some of myoid boat'll crew (natives of Ujiji), who were. eager to go again with me voyaging on Lake Tanganyika, came, day by day, to look at the new craft; day by day, too, some cloud or doubt seemed to damp their ardor about the coming voyage, until at last, one day, they came along to have a special talk with me, and the difficulty was explained. They had beguu to wonder, and then to doubt as they saw the metal sides of the boat, and had finally determined to tell me that, although they would" go anywhere" and" do anything" for me, they really could not go " to sea in a saucepan." I told them to wait; and while I was preparing to depart from Ujiji and give up our house to its owner, the boat lay quietly afloat at anchor. Several times I took So~lC of these Wajiji sailors off with me to the boat to have a look, and in this way seeing her buoyancy and perfect tightness, they at last became convinced of her seaworthiness.
Our beautiful boat was complete, and her loyal crew ready for work; the new Morning Star shone forth upon the lake, and now, for more than five years (having become well known as the harbinger of peace and goodwill) has been afloat there, welcomed wherever she goes, conveying backward and forward, between our stations, our missionaries and their stores, proving herself to be a stanch and good vessel, and in her life and history fully entitled to the name of " a wonderful life-boat."
There she still remains (together with her larger companion, the steamer Good News, afterward built there) on Lake Tanganyika, 2700 feet above the sea, and 800 miles from the sea-coast, a remarkable evidence of the very practical nature of missionary work in that country, and a means by which our young people may, by contributing to her support, help in giving to Dark Africa the Light of the Gospel.
Any of our readers who wish to study African missions will find, we are sure, great help in Tlte African News, published by T. B. Welch & Son. While this admirable periodical especially reports Bishop William Taylor's work, we have found it full of information, and have taken the liberty to copy a short article in these pages.-EDITOR.
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVl'i:R, MASS.
-The Calwer Monatsbliitie1·, referring to David's ordinance, that" as his part is that goeth down to the battle, RO shall his part be that remaineth by the stuff, ,., remarks: "This is the word of a king, and is in force even to this dar. The cause is the Lord's. His are the laborers. His is the result. And He apportions the reward as He will. His truth finds application in a thousand ways. The simple Christian, who imagineR himself so far behind the missionary, and the missionary, who is tempted to imagine himself of special dignity in the kingdom of God, will one day find the Judge using another standard than that of either. Those .who look upon home .missions as an inferior work, and they whose sense of their country's need" makefl them jealous of everyone that is penetrated with the thought that ' the field is the world,' will both find at last that the question is not: ' Where have ye wrought l' but, 'How have ye wrought where ye were called to work~' 'If it is only good, then it is good. ' " Or, as the youthful Malcolm says: ., This, and what needful else That :Jalls upon us by the Grace of grace We will perform in measure, time, and place. "
" Inner missions," says the Monatsbliitter, referring to George Miiller's definition of himself, "are a Handlanger of foreign missions." A hand- Zanger is one who hands the materials which the craftsman uses. In Germany the mutual inosculation of the two interests is even more distinctly evident than here. It is no wonder,. then, that George Miiller has brought with him to England in the most eminent degree the instinct that refuses to separate them either in thought or act.
-The different departments of evangelistic work are corning so rapidly into intercommunication that we are as likely as not to find the fullest account of what is going on near us in some publication at the ends of the earth. This is illustrated by the following paragraph from the Bombay Guardian of November 22d, 1890. Even when it states facts already known, they seem to have a new meaning when they reverberate from hoary India: " We have frequently noted with thankfulness the progress of the McAH Mission in Paris. Now we learn that a large missionary boat, in connection with the mission, is to be anchored in the Seine. Daily services will be conducted in the cabin, which will contain nearly two hundred persons. The authorities have given every facility and protection. The Parisian prefect of police testifies to the good work which the mission is doing. He says: ' Every new McAll station means a reduction of po1ic~ force. Sixty persons now give their whole time to the missions, and froIl). 600 to 700 co-operate. There was an aggregate attendance last year of 1,200,000 persons in the 130 salles in all parts of France. In connection with this we may mention that in a paragraph in our last issue, on page 11, entitled' A Noble Giver,' alluding to this Rubject, the name of the writer-Dr. Pierson–was omitted. There is a holy emulation between the McAll Mission, the Salvation Army, aud the Belleville Mission of Mademoiselle de Broen as to which shall have the largest share in the leavening of the slums of Paris with Christian truth. They form an heroic trio. Things arc greatly altered for the better in Paris since the terrible record of 1871, with its petroleuses and communistic horrors." At least an elect remnant is being saved. The insurgents of 1871, as Mr. Hamerton remarks, should be called communards, not communists. The privileges which they claimed for the Commune, or Municipality of Paris, had no connection with any theories of communism.
-The Heidenbode informs us that the province-or as it is called there -the Presidency of Kedol, the newest field of evangelization in Java, now numbers 1000 professed believers, lately Mohammedans. This has been almost wholly the work of Javanese Christians, who show a remarkable zeal and successfulness in diffusing the Gospel which they have received. Everywhere, however, in the Dutch East Indies, Islam is advancing by natural increase, and by a steady reduction of the heathen populations under its sway. The Netherlands Government, which long directly encouraged the spread of Mohammedanism, is now beginning to be afraid of it, and is looking to its meani of suppressi.ng a very possible Moslem outburst of rebellion.
-The first re-marriage of a widow has taken place in the Pokarna callte of Brahmins.
-The (Jhronicle for November, 1890, speaking of the work ofthe London Missionary Society in Hankow, China, refers to the Hanyang Hill a8 being" so situated as to ghoe anyone who ascends it a bird's-eye view of the whole neighborhood. When our former foreign secretary, Dr. Mullens, came here many years ago, Dr. John took him to this spot as to one of the principal sights of the neighborhood, and he declared that in all his travels in India and elsewhere he had not seen any sight that impressed him more. Not that the view here presented to the eye is one remarkable for the beauty or grandeur of its physical ,scenery. A few low hills, a few lakes in the distance, the' great yellow Yang· tsze-here a mile wide-stretching away as far as the eye can reach in a north-easterly and a south-westerly direction, while from the northwest the tributary Han winds in and out till at last it empties itself here at Hankow (i.e., Hanmouth) into the larger river j these are the chief natural objects to be seen here. But it shows us one of the largest centres of human life and activity in the whole of Asia. To men and women who in any part of the world are carrying on the work of Christ, excellence of outward surroundings must always be estimated with reference to the presence or absence of their fellow-men. The first paradise of which we read was indeed a garden, the garden of the Lord, full of exquisite scenery, and of everything in nature that could delight the eye, but almost entirely devoid of living, sentient, thinking human beings. The last paradise is to be a city-the city of God. The difference is most significant. The Son of God rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and His delights were with the sons of men j and when once His call has been heard by any of His followers to devote their lives and strength to the one work of saving men, then every large hive of human beings, every city-even if only full of fallen, sinful, heathen human,ity, and not, as the New Jerusalem, full of saints redeemed from the earth-must always have a strong attraction and fascination sl1ch as no solitary region, however grand or picturesque its scenery, can ever have." The population of Hankow, on ship and shore, the Rev. Arnold Foster, who writes this, estimates at a million and a quarter, besides the throngs passing and repassing from other provinces.
-The Missions-Blatt of the Moravian Church, for JailUary, gives a New Year's benediction, which, coming from that centre, extends over all that are concerned for the work of the Lord throughout the world: "Th9 Saviour's rich blessing for the New Year. May Himself, the King of HiA Kingdom, greet thee, beloved Church of missions, with the greeting of His peace! May His grace and His truth 'permeate thy ranks anew, and deeply illumine thy innermost heart. Into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hast thou also been translated through the love of the Father j and thou dost daily experience that He who, born of the line of David after the flesh, has been manifested in power as the Son of God after the Spirit, hallows more and more them that come believil1gly to Him as a people of possession, being now risen from the dead. Be He then in the New Year also, as well the heart of our preaching, as also He for whom we adventure and surrender all that we have-life and limb, goods and blood. For who but He is it that hath redeemed and won us over from all our sins and from the dominion of death, and from whom alone we have received grace and apostleship to establish among all the Gentiles the obedience of faith in His name."
-The Brethren's Church hall decided to take up a new mission in North Queensland, among the aborigines, and another on Lake Nyassa, within the German " sphere of influence. " .
-The Moravian Mission in Greenland consists of 6 stations, in 2 gro~ps, and of 9 missionaries. Under their charge are 1608 persons. The rest of the Greenlanders are cared for by Lutheran brethren of the Church of Denmark.
-The death, by a fall from his horse, of the hereditary High Chief of the Mosquito State-a young man of twenty-live-suggests to the Moravian. brethren that, in the event of the extinction of the reigning family (happily not imminent), this little Protelltant State would be, by treaty with England, absorbed by the Catholic State of Nicaraugua. This, however, is showing itself ftiendly to the brethren, and now allows them to instruct their converts on both sider; of the line.
-The Missionary Record for December, 1880, gives statistics (thoroughly corrected) of the advance of the missionary work of the United Presbyterian Church in Scotland in thirty years. The term" missionary" includes ordained native pastors, Zenana misI'ionaries, and European teachers, but excludes all native evangelists and teachers: Missionaries. Home Contribntions for Foreign Work.
1859…………………….. 30 1840…………………… £3,300 1869….. , ………………. 63 1849…………………….. 12,800 1879…………………… 81 1859…………………….. 16,900 1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 1869…………………….. 29,100 1879 ……………………. 32,300 1889……………………… .40,500 No. Native Congregations. Members in Full Communion.
1859 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 1859……………………. 4,552 1869 •……………… ~. " …48 1869 ……………………. 5,740 1.879……….. " ., ……….. 63 1879……………………. 9,187 1889…………………….. 96 1889 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,899 Native Pastors. Native ContributiollS.
1859……… 1 (Rev. Tiyo Boga.) 1859…………………… £2,090 1869……… 7 1869……………………. 3,020 1879 . . . . . . . . . 12 1879……………………. 6,500 1889. . . . . . . . . 23 1889 …………………….10,470 "The missionary sympathy of the Church has been widening and deepening j the liberality of the Church has been expanding j the lands in which our operations are carried on are being more completely taken possession of in the name of the Master; while a native church in each of those lands is rapidly gathering around itself the love and devotion of the native population, and promises to become, in course of time, so vigorous that it will be able to manage its own affairs, and allow our missionaries to enter into new regions where they may still further extend the blessed work."
What is said here about the Jamaican Church, connected with the United Presbyterian Church, ought to be laid to heart universally: "Our Church in Jamaica is looking forward to such independence, and endeavoring to prepare for it. But this independence ought not to be sought in the near future. It is a distinct advantage, to the cause of Christ in Jamaica that our Church there continues to be in dependent union with a church life ~f wider horizon and riper experience. Its own church life gains through this union, possibly a firmer fibre, but certainly a richer tone and a greater influence upon public opinion. To force our Jamaican Church into a position of independence by any mechanical arrangement would be a mischievous policy. It would mean the undoing of results that have been gained, and might require a reconstruction of the agency at work after an inferior pattern."
The present writer, two of whose former charges have been happily incorporated into the Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, can wish nothing better for them than that the United Presbyterian brethren in Scotland may keep an eye on them for a number of years to come.
-The following paragraph from Central Africa, the organ of the Universities' Mission, gives, in a few lines, the whole African heathenismperhaps the darkest form of heathenism, the most utterly dismal and comfortless in the world: "Only gradually does the deadly atmosphere of heathenism dawn upon one. Lust, as strong, perhaps in some ways stronger than with ourselves, has nothing to check it. There broods oppression on a petty scale, with tragic burnings and poisonings, fear of lions, or sudden night attacks, and murders of a mother or ,near relative who has been half the little world of life-things that leave the child an old man in heart, cut off from our comfortable security."
-The Indian Witness of December 6th, 1890, says ~ ., The death of Sir Rivers Thompson, late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, calls for a notice from the Christian press of the country. Respected even more than he was loved by all who came within the reach of his personal influence, he has left behind him a reputltion which any Indian civilian may envy. What he was in the dawn of his wider influence he was consistently in its meridian and at its close. An open worshipper of the living God, a friend of all agencies that sought to make Him known to dying men-a Christian in his conscienee, an Englishman to the backbone."
-The Mission Field, the organ of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, says: "Both by countenancing heathenism and by ignoring the missions, Christians in India retard the work. They do it doubtless unintentionally. Then they in some cases eomplete the mischief by depreciating the missions when they come home. It is an unfortunate fact that there is injury to the cause of missions, and to the zeal of the Church at home by those who, by having been in India, claim to be able to speak with authority, while as far as any actual knowledge is concerned, they are as ignorant about missions in India as they were before they left England. They take upon themselves the responsibility of repeating indiscriminate slander on the work of God, although they may be living close to strong evidences of God's grace and power." -The late Daniel Adolf Cracau, of Breslau, left, in 1887, a bequest of about £4,0,000 to the Moravian Church. The custodians of the trust are the German Emperor and the King of Saxony. Half the income is to be used for the conversion of the heathen, half for the ransom of slaves.
-The Moravian brethren, in their Periodical Accounts, cordially echo the wish expressed by the Rev. S. D. Fulton, in this REVIEW, that Protestant missions may soon be established in Nicaraugua, which, they truly say, bids fair to be just such a mission centre as the Apostle Paul • would h,.ve delighted in.
– The following reminds one of the suggestions of Gregory the Great to the Abbot Augustine, when sending him on his mission to con- vert our English forefathers. As Gregory was a man of deep practical in ight, his suggestions are always worth heeding. Speaking of the Melas, or religious fairs of India, the Mission Field says: "It is beginning to be generally felt that it would be well to have Christian Melas. The Mela is, in fact, valued by the great mass of the Hindus and Mohammedans merely as a holiday. It is the only holiday there is for the mass of the people.
Where the Hindu cannot attend one of his own he betakes himself to the Mohammedan, and vice versa. So will it be for the ordinary native Chris- tian. If he have none of his own he will be strongly tempted to attend those of his Hindu or Mohammedan neighbors. Accordingly there is a strong feeling that Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide should be treated as times for Christian Melas, and that the largest and nearest Christian station should be the centre to which the surrounding Christians should resort." The writer remarks that such gatherings may easily be kept free from all leaven of heathenism.
-The charges of " unscriptural optimism" and" unscriptural pessim- ism" are freely bandied back and forth in the Church between Christians.
The Bombay Guardian seems to hit the nail on the head in the following: " Every well.established Christian should be intenRely pessimistic and intensely optimistic. He should be intensely pessimistic of what he or any other man can do of himself, and intensely optimistic of what God can do through any child of His who fully surrenders to Him." .
-Henry Augustus J aeschke, late Moravian missionary iq the Himalayr.s, a lineal descendant of the first Moravian emigrants to Herrnhut, besides German was master of Polish, Danish, Swedish, and was acquainted with English, Hungarian, Bohemian, Latin, Greek, and after going to the East, already knowing Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic (and doubtless Hebrew), he learned Hindustani, and Urdu, and lastly Thibetan. He was likewise an enthusiastic student of mathematics and natural science, especially of botany. But he obeyed. the call of his Church, to go to the dreary Thibetan regions, as unquestioningly as if he had been an unlearned artisan. "While at Ladak he lived at Stok, near Leh, in the most frugal and primitive fashion. His food consisted of oatmeal and porridge, and the woman of the house faithfully kept for him the egg which her one hen laid every day. From his curiously.shaped bedroom he had to climb to his study by a stair composed of five unequal blocks of stone, and his furniture consisted of a tottering table and a still more defective stool." He had no notion of being too valuable in Europe to be hidden away in the inaccessible uplands of Asia. In other words, he was a true Moravian.
-The Periodical Accounts for September says: "THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD holds on its way with growing interest and power. Dr. Pierson continues his graphic and informing missionary letters from abroad, and we join with many in gratefully acknowledging his manifold labors on behalf of' missions by pen and word of mouth." The editors also express a kind senljle of the value of the extracts from foreign magazines.
-The .Macedonier brings the same accusation against the Dutch Govern- ment that English Christians bring against the British, with the further aggravation, that whereas England is ready to ruin a foreign race with opium for the sake of gain, Holland is destroying her own subjects.. In a notice of a Dutch book on the opium question, it says: "It supplies con- , vincing proof that the Netherlands are every day heaping new guilt upon themselves and murdering, body and soul, the Javanese who are under their jurisdiction. Yet it gathers nothing but facts, and for every statement is careful to give its authority."
-Missionary Lazarus, in the ])ansk .Missions-Blad, gives a pleasant instance of how the seeds of truth blow about in India: "Yesterday afternoon we preached before a Telugu village called Karapet, which we had already visited two or three times. Just as we arrived, the people, who are all lapidaries, came out to bid us welcome. They then begged us to sit down, and began to sing a Christian hymn, ' Come quickly, flinner, come to the Saviour.' The hymn was in Telugu, and many of them sang it well. I asked thelll where they had learned it,. and found that they had picked it out of a tract I had left there, and had set it to one of their own melodies. I then addressed them, and taking advantage of their calling, depicted to them Jesus as the Great Lapidary, who deals with our nature as they deal with rough rubiefl, to cause it to gleam forth in the glory of a pure gladness. Thus we find that the leaves of healing are not spread abroad to no purpose."
-We find in the Bombay Guardian of November 8th, 1890, the most particular account we have seen yet of the happy development of missionary activity among the English Friend@. It says: "Any Church which tries to exist without a missionary spirit will inevitably perish. Aggression is the soul of life. About twenty years ago the Society of Friends awoke to this fact, and in England turned its attention to the lapsed masses at its doors. Now nearly all its meeting-houses have a mission attached, seeking to help the poor in soul and body. Mothers' meetings, clothing clubs, adult and juvenile schools, and other similar agencies, are vigorously prosecuted. A marvellous increase of spiritual life in the Church itself has resulted. Its foreign mission work has likewise developed almost entirely during the past twent.y years. Up to 1875 only 1 missionary was in the field in India, now there are 14. Madagascar has 22 j China, 4 j Syria, 10 j Armenian Turkey, 9 j Zululand, 3. American Friends are also carrying on mission work among. the North American Indians, and in Mexico, Jamaica, Japan, China, Alaska,. and Ramallah in Palestine. Thursday of this week was to be observed at the headquarters of the society in London, as a day of united prayer for missions, including a Bible study on the spirit of missions, and then a survey of the needs of both the foreign and home work." Thousands of the children of this venerable society, now found in other denominations, will rejoice at this sudden outburst of life after long apparent decay. May she renew her youth, and while coming to this greater distinctness of evangelical apprehension and activity. long abide as a witness to essential, over against all the overvaluations of ceremonial, righteousness.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEY. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Black Fellows of Australia. colonist said to them: .. The few blacks will ultimately accept the Gospel of a FrnST PAPEB-MOBA.VIAN MISSIONS. crucified Saviour and be blessed there- • by, but the whites will hinder your BY~EV. A. HARTMANN, MOBAVIANTOWN, ONT. work, as they did the mission work of other societies." The first hindrance (Continued from page 217.) arose from the discovery of the gold nelds at Mount Alexander; the gold dig- I. FIRST ATTEMPT AT MISSIO:ti WORK. gers, coming from Adelaide, passing the mission station, damaging them in many Being repeatedly pressed to com- ways., This might have been borne mence mission work among the blacks with, but.the vulgar and disgusting in- of Australia, the Brethren's Church trigues of unprincipled whites greatly (Moravian) sent out two missionaries, hindered the missionaries in their efforts Tl1ger and Spieseke, educated laymen, to attract the natives to the place and to commence the work. In 1850 they to gain their confidence. Then, after arrived at Melbourne. They were very the exhaustion of the gold, many of the kindly received by the Governor, Joseph European immigrants took up land in La Trobe ; and the Bishop of the Angli- the colony, and also about Lake Bogs. can Church, as well as many ministers The missionaries were given to under. of other denominations, met them with stand that if they did not voluntarily true Christian love, and encouraged leave the land (on which they had set- them to do the Lord's work. tled by permission of the Government) steps would be taken to drive them After a long search in the northern away. districts of Victoria for a suitable place, they came at last to Boga Lake, which Meanwhile the missionaries went on had been recommended to them as the in their work, being strengthened by very best place, because it was a favor- another brother (Hansen) sent out in ite resort of the blacks. This Boga January, 1854. They also succeeded in Lake is about 200 miles northwest of gaining the confidence of a number of Melbourne, close to the boundary of the natives: Spieseke wrote: .. We have Victoria and New South Wales, and not not yet enjoyed the happiness of ob- far from the mouth of the Loddon serving the work of grace and of the river, emptying itself into the Murray. Holy Spirit in the hearts of the blaoks. Brethren, have patience with us, and The missionaries went back to Mel- believe with us, for we have reason to bourne, buying all that was necessary to be thankful for what the Lord has done carryon the work, and were permitted for us. When we oonsider how the ene- and authorized by the Government to mies of the Gospel have exerted them- make use of a certain portion of land selves to keep the blacks away from us, facing the lake, to build up a settle- we must confess that it is a wonder we ment. They little thought at the time have so many gathered about us, and that attempts would be made by some notice how they begin to trust us." whites to claim the land they had set- tled on. Much less did they think that We put it down as a fact that the mis- by their attempt to hring the natives sionaries would have succeeded if the under the blessed influence of the Gos. Prince of this world had not been per- pel, they would stir up the hatred and mitted to frighten them away. ill-will of white neighbors. ., There is no space allotted us in your columns to go into detail, and so we Heavy rains, followed by large 1I.00ds, made it impossible for them to arrive at Boga Lake before October 21st, 1851. They commenced their work in fear • and hope, and they experienced what a '< must sum up the diRastrous retreat of the missionaries now bitterly regret the Moravian missionaries very briefly. that they acted upon the impulse of the moment, and thus cut short a work In 1855 a neighboring settler, Imp- which was sure to bear fruit to God's ported by the District Court, claimed to glory, as the sequel will show. have a right to the land granted to the miRsionaries by the Government. Mr. II. Tager, the leader, being in ill health, had no inclination to enter on a legal RENEWAL OF THE MISSION WORK. process, as. he was advised to do. When, therefore, he found that he was For want of space we shall have to not righted after he had lodged his com- make just a mere sketch of the very plaint with the Government, he grew blessed and very successful issue of this impatient, and declared that on July second attempt. The two brethren ap- 1st, 1856, he would dissolve the mis- pointed (Hagenauer and Spieseke) have sion, as the authorities had failed to in every respect justified the confidence support him, and he had no mind to go placed in them by the Church. (Brother to law. A private individual has a right Spieseke was not to blame for leaving to actin this manner, but not a re- .Lake Boga ; he was subordinate, and spor:sible agent of a Mission Cburch did not agree with the move.) On May like the Moravian, for it was a breach 7th, 1858, they landed in Melbourne, of confidence. and were well received by the Gover- nor, Sir Henry Barklay, and numerous We quote the words of the Mission Christian friends. They were directed Board of the Moravian Church as laid to the Wimmera district, as most suitbefore the Christian public: •• It is true able for work aDlong the natives, and, that our mission work in Australia has after much travelling, a site for the for the time come to an end, an occur- establishment of a mission was found rence well calculated to humble us.. on the river Wimmera, not far from the How often, and not without reason, has sheep station Antwerp, belonging to the perseverance of our missionaries Mr. Ellerman, by whom they were reo been lauded when they were laboring ceived with open arms and helped. under various trials and difficulties, Here they obtained a grant of land of and under apparently hopeless pros- three square miles. The place was pects of success. How they kept to called Ebenezer. On January 10th, 1859, their post in a simple faith! Think of after humbly imploring the Lord's blessthe work in Greenland; think of the ing on the undertaking, the two mis- West Indies, where many brethren and sionaries started for the chosen spot, sisters went willingly into the jaws of and commenced clearing. Two natives death, and then think of the work here at first, and more afterward, assisted in in Australia, commenced with much the work, and by this means became aclabor and outlay, and carried on £or a quainted with the brethren. Soon the number of years; think of the giving natives gave the missionaries to underup of this mission, the necessity of stand that a carroboree–a kind of rewhich we are not able to prove. Think ligious dance-would be given in their that the missionaries left their post be- honor, which the missionaries could not fore every hope. was vanished to main- prevent. Mr. Ellerman provided the tain their position ; and then that they workers with food and lodging at his returned home without, and contrary home in Antwerp, twenty.two miles to, the permission of the Board. This distant, till they had built a home for is a painful confession, but we do make themselves. After eight :lays, Hageit before our dear Christian friends, and nauer commenced a school for the bow at the same time before the Lord, young men, and several made pleasing that He may again be gracious unto us progress. The women and girls were and exalt us in due time. We add that not forgotten. Clothing material had benches ; they made bedsteads, and a been provided by friends in Germany, box, etc. The youth Corney joined and Brother Hagenauer, though quite them. When the missionaries gave inexperienced, cut out and directed the them some kitchen utensils they were sewing of the dresses and pants. Later as proud and happy as kings. The rest. some ready-made clothing arrived from of the blacks looked on with astonish- Melbourne, which was a real boon to ment and pleasure, and after a time the missionaries. At the Sunday service sought to follow their example. For a the audience presented a remarkable as- whole year the missionaries had to fight pect. All had washed, and, so to say, against the difficulties which Brose from dressedthemselvegtoo-thatis, one had the heathen rites and dances, and the on a shirt, another a pair of pants, a superstition and degraded habits of the third a coat, and so on. .They had people, with no appearance of life from divided their clothes among themselves, God among them. But at last, in Januso that they might all appear at church. ary, 1860, the light sprung up and chased Amid all the work and anxiety of estab- away th.e darkness in the heart of Peplishing a home in the wilderness, the per (before mentioned), and he became missionaries never lost sight of their a new creature in Christ Jesus, though proper errand. But at first tbe only not without much conflict and many answer to the heavenly message was; slips and falls. One day Brother "Give me something to eat; give me Spieseke showed some Scripture prints; clothes; or, as when old Charley, after among others, one of the flood, and ana long, earnest talk and prayer, which other of our Saviour on His knees in Hagenauer had with him, pointed to agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. A heaven and asked if there were many day or two later Pepper came to him sheep and oxen there. Another time in the evening, saying, .. I want to came Diggy, and asked Spieseke for speak with you about my state. I don't flour. ,. What for?" said Spieseke, .. you know what is the matter with me. I have have done no work." "No," said Diggy, wept over my sins; last night I cried .. but I will go to prayers to-morrow." aloud. Just now I went to the river for The blacks showed a willingness to do water, and I thought, and thought, and all that was required of them. Their thought how our Saviour went that behavior at the meetings surprised night into the garden, and prayed till Spieseke, who knew their restless He sweat drops of blood, and that for habits, and looked upon it as a hopeful me." These words he spoke with much sign for the future. At times the wan- feeling. From that time a great change dering spirit came upon the natives, and was observed in Pepper, and be.came they vanished almQBt to a man. But two evident also to his brethren, for out of of their number (young Bony and Pep- the fulness of his heart he spoke to per) began to understand some of the them of the way of salvation, and of benefits of the coming of the mission- the Saviour whom he had found. His aries, and stayed with them, in spite of joy in God's Word, and his loving and the entreaties of their wandering com- tractable behavior showed that the panions. After the mission house was Spirit of God was at work in his heart. finished and the missionaries took up One Sunday evening, as the missionaries their abode in Ebenezer, these two young were returning from a neighboring stamen expressed a desire to give up their tion, where they had preached, they wandering life and build a house of found Pepper, surrounded by fifty of their own, which they did, with the his people, preaching to them the glad help of the missionaries-building it of tidings of the Gospel. Great was the bark, and finishing it off with I/, brick joy of the missionaries, who begged chimney, as the missionaries had done him to proceed, and afterward thanked their own. Inside were table, stool, or and praised the Lord for His grace thul! bestowed. After a time the request of mony. Even old people and little chil- Pepper to be especially instructed, with dren gave pleasing proofs of their be- a view to baptism, was acceded to, as it lief in and love of the Saviour, and became more and more clear that the many of them are now, we fully believe, work in him was of God. The 12th of rejoicing before the throne of God, .. hav- August, 1860, was the day of his bap. ing washed their robes and made them tism, and also that of the consecration white in the blood of the Lamb." Al- of the small church which had been ready in 1868 the number of converts in erected, and for which a new bell had Ebenezer had reached twenty. But be- been sent from Germany. Rev. Chase fore this time other laborers had arrived took the long journey from Melbourne; -two brides for the .brethren Spieseke from Horsham came friends, and the and Hagenauer, in May, 1861, who found neighboring sheep farmers came to· plenty of work among the women and gether to celebrate the event. That day the sick, besides caring for their own will not soon be forgotten by those who households. In November of the same were present. Pepper received, at his year, Brother Francis came from Engown request, the name Nathaniel. land,and when he left, after two years, Hagenauer says: " We felt that the Brother Hartmann and his wife entered blessing of the Lord was with us on that day." Of Nathaniel's further on the ~or1r, in which they continueCl course we will here say that though a true s!3rvant of Christ, he was Ii very for eight years. weak one; and though at times his light burned brightly, to the joy of his RAMAH-YUCK. teachers, at others he triell their pa· tience and grieved them by inconsisten- In the mean time a new work had been cies, which indeed was scarcely to be commenced in Gippsland by Brother wondered at in one so recently a hea. Ha.genauer at the request of the Presthen. He was the first of a great num- byterian Church of Victoria, who promber of converts who received the Gos- ised to provide the means if the Morapel with joy, and turned with repent- vian Church would send the men. It ance and faith to the Saviour, proving was proposed to name it .. Ramah," to by their lives, and often by their preach- which the natives added" yuck," " our ip.g; theirlove to Christ and the breth- home," thus showing their joy and apren: '~ 'these many names could be preciation. In Ramah-yuck the faithgiven.. Young Bony (baptized Daniel) ful efforts of Brother Hagenauer and was, at his earnest request, accepted as his wife met with success 8.Il in Ebeneassistant to the brethren who went to zer. In 1866 the first convert was bapcommence a mission at Cooper's Creek, tized, and received the name of " James in the interior (of which a hrief men- Matthew," and five months later Tomtion will be made later), but died on the my and Jack. In 1868 the number had ;way thither. Philip and Rebecca were increased to seventeen, and by the end placed in charge of the orphanage at of 1869 had risen to twenty-six. Ebenezer, and were most useful and consistent Christians. Philip also as- But these missions are not remarksisted in preaching, and often accom_ able for numbers, nor for the shining p~nied the missionaries on their evan_ lights among their converts, though, as geliziug tours among the still wander- was said before, some of these put to ing tribes. Dick-a-Dick 'was baptized shame many white Christians by their on what proved his death-bed. His consistency. Moreover, as sad diseases childlike and strong faith rejoiced the -particularly consumption-carried off hearts of the missionaries, and aston- many of their number, and others left ished all who heard his dying testi- the mission station to obtain employ- ment, it is easy to see that the work done was in many cases lost to slght, and, indeed, we shall only know when we see them in glory, how many of thll8e poor lost ones were rescued and saved. mankind, and that some will certainly The schools at both stations reached a be among the multitude surrounding high standard, that in Ramah.yuck the throne of God and the Lamb. having gained the highest marks for fOllr successive years, the only school in All the glory be to His name. Amen. Victoria which could show such results. So much for the general opinion that -The African Times says that a stam. the blacks could not learn. An attempt pede is reported among the" traders on was made to found a mission in the in. the Congo from the right to the left terior, at Cooper's Creek, which was bank of the river, except one Dutch given up on account of cost, and be- house, to escape the impediments and cause Lutheran missionaries had en· taxations of the Free State. The traders tered the same field, probably not know- say that this heavy taxation not only ing that our brethren were already there. applies to liquor, but to land tax, and Spieseke, after faithfully serving in even to canoes and surf-boats, and to the mission at Ebenezer for twenty white and black employes. years, died happily in the midst of his people, and was honored by them in his -Rev. Dr. E. W. BIyden, at a public burial. His place was supplied by dinner tendered him down at Lagos, Brother Kramer and wife, and Brother said, recently, that the Mohammedan Bogish. population of ,Lagos has increased with astounding rapidity during the last The natives are dying out fast, and thirty years. In 1863, Captain Burton the half breeds are not allowed to stay estimated the Moslem population at from on tj:le stations, so there is a fear that 700 to 800. In 1889 Sir Alfred Moloney our work in Victoria will soon be over. put them down at 15,000, and he de- scribes them as " the most orderly, in· But other fields are opening in tellectual, and respectable class of citi. Queensland; the latest news being that zens, composed of all the tribes of three brethren have been appointed by Yoruba. 'l'his is tb e official testimony our Mission Board. The country has borne of this people in all the settlebeen explored by Hagenauer with a view ments. They have spread over the to a speedy commencement of a mission whole of our fatherland north of the to the degraded cannibals of Queens. Equator from the Atlantic to the Red land. If we understand rightly, the Sea, from Lagos to Morocco, and from Presbyterians will supply the funds, Sierra Leone to Egypt." and the Moravian Church the men. Two other missions-one at Lake Con. Release of Mr, Penzot.ti dah, supported by the Church of England. and one at York Peninsula, sup- We have at last the satisfaction of reported by Friends-are carried on by cording the fact, which has already be· Moravian missionaries with much pros- come widely known through the daily perity and success. Lack of time and and weekly newspapers, that the long space forbids our entering into details and wearisome imprisonment of Mr. in regard to the blessed results of this Penzotti in Callao has been terminated mission among the aborigines of Aus- by decree of the Supreme Court of Peru. tralia; but enough has been said to The terms of the decision are not yet show that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus reported; but a telegram, dated Lima, Christ is "the power of God unto sal· April 3d, and addressed to a gentleman vation to everyone that believeth;" to in New York who has taken great inter. show that there is no respect of persons est in the case, announces in a single before Him, but that the Holy Spirit is word that he has been liberated. 1m. " given to all that obey Him;" to show prisoned for more than eight months, that the blacks of Australia are also in- on an accusation presented and urged cluded in the plan of God's salvation of , by a Roman Catholio priest, the Rev. of the terms offered the natives by the Jose M. Castro; charged with the offence Spanish Governor. He says the specifi- of violating the law in holding unauthor- cations of the Governor's trumped-up ized religious services; kept in a dun- charges against him were of three sorts : geon after he had once and again been (1) that I had been harboring the re- adjudged guiltless by the tribunals be- bellious Metalamin chiefs, feasting them fore which his adversary had summoned and buildingthem a house at Kiti. Also, him; denied the privilege of bail; (2) that I had been having meetings shrinking with inexpressible loathing with them and the Kiti king to influ- from the filth and impurity of the cell ence them against the Spanish rule. He in which he spent two hundred and also said, (3) that he had positive proof fifty nights with thirty or forty crim- that I was one of the principal leaders inals ; refusing to listen to the whis- in planning the breastworks at Oua.
pered suggestion that proceedings might And (4) as the mission was responsible be discontinued if he would agree to for the present outbreak of the Metala- leave Peru; constrained to send his min tribe, he did not think that we daughters out of the country, lest with- would be permitted to carryon our out a father's protection they might be_ work much longer.
comlt"victims of a foul consph:acy ; and ever hopeful that his sufferings would -Bishop A. W. Wilson, of the Meth- eventually lead to the promulgation of odist Episcopal Church, South, says religious liberty in Peru-he is now " that the agitation in Japan of the revi- vindicated and set free. Eight months sion treaty has affected foreigners in of imprisonment and the exp~nse of general, and missiona.ries to some ex- defending himself in three courts is tent along with the rest." Missionaries, what the administration of justice in he says, " have to be very careful about Peru awards to an innocent man! One their political positions.
cannot but ask What penalty would "This treaty agitation has raised up an have been in:tlicted upon him if the anti-foreign party, who want the Chris- outer door of the warehouse in which ti:l.n missions conducted only by native he talked to a small company of men Christians. 'I'hey want the natives to about the Gospel of Christ had not been formulate Christian creeds for them- locked, and if admission had been grant- selves. They do not want Christian ed to people without a ticket.-Bible creeds formulated for them by the West- &ciety Record. ern nations. They are fully able "to -Sir Edwin Arnold says, in the Daily understand Christianity and to formu- Telegraph: .. A new Japan is definitely late from the Bible creeds to suit themborn-constitutional, progressive, ener- selves. The idea of a representative getic, resourceful, sure to become great, government, as we have it, is not comand, perhaps, almost again as happy as prehended ; it is not in the mind of the she was of yore. Let the nations of the Japanese people. West receive and welcome as she de· serves this immeasurably ancient em- .. For 2500 years they have taken all pire which thus renews her youth in law from the Mikado, and I doubt not if the fountain cf constitutional liberties the Mikado would to-morrow withdraw and institutions." the Constitution, which gives repre- sentation to the people, the great mass of the people would quietly accept it as -The Daily Pacific Commercial Ad- coming from the source of all law-the vertiser of Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, Mikado. There would probably be a of March 14th, contains along letter from few murders among the student class, Rev. F. E. Rand, written at Ponape, to who would resist it, and there it would friends at Honolulu, giving an account end."
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
III.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
Among other Alliances for Prayers for "Even so, come, Lord Jesus (Rev. Missions, we call attention to the xxii: 20). Prayer Alliance, of whi6h Miss Mabel B. Atwater, 334 Lexington Avenue, New " And this Gospel of the kingdom shall York City, is Secretary. It reads as be preached in all the world for a witfollows: ness unto all nations; and then shall the end come (Matt. xxiv: 14). Walch " In the Year of our Lord 1891. Shall and pray." the generation now upon the face of the earth hear the Gospel? Likewise we call attention to the Prayer Union for Arabia and the Ara- "First. It is our Lord's last command bian Mission. Gen. xvii : 18. (Mark 16 : 15). 'Every creature' cannot possibly mean only those on one Aden, Arabia, January 1, 1890. third of the globe. It is our Saviour's will (1 Tim. 2 : 4, 6). The Arabian Mission, begun in an- "Second. This generation will be lost swer to prayer and sustained by conunless they hear the Gospel (Rom. 1 : 20, 21, 28, and Ps. 9 : 17). stant appeals to the Throne of Grace, " Third. If this generation hear the comes to its friends with a New Year's Gospel, IDe must carry it to them, for to us the work has been committed (2 Cor. request. 5 : 19 ; 1 Tim. 1 : 11). On the threshold of Arabia, face to " Fourth. We cannot serve the next generation. Are we with David serving face with the greatness and difficulties our own generation (Acts xiii: 36)? of the work, and deeply conscious of " In the heathen world there are about 1,000,000,000 souls; 30,000,000 a year our own weakness, we ask you, who go into eternity without God. Our Lord said: ' Go ye into all the world have already shown your sympathy for and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Out of 35,000,000 Protes- the cause of Christ in Arabia, to join tant church-members only about 6000 have obeyed this command, one in us in stated, fervent prayer: every 5800. Evangelized, 116,000,000 ; unevangelized, 1,000,000,000. The field 1. That God's promise in regard to is the world. 'Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.' the children of Ishmael may speedily " And whatsoever ye shall ask in My be fulfilled, and that His blessing may name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John xiv :13). rest upon every effort put forth to give " Pray ye therefore the Lord of the them the Gospel. I harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest (Matt. ix : 38). 2. That many may be led to choose PRAYER ALLIANCE. for their field of labor this neglected .. , Depending upon the Holy Ghost to portion of the Lord's vineyard. bring it to my remembrance, I pledge myself to pray daily, IN FAITH, for the 3. For a special blessing upon the evangelization of the whole world during the present century; and the speedy missionaries of the Arabian. Mission: coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.' that they may live very close to the Master; that t.heir lives and words may ever point men to Christ; that God may be pleased to use their efforts in bring- ing many of the children of Ishmael unto Himself.
Will you join us in making these ob- jects a special burden of prayer at your Sabbath morning devotions throughout the year?
"The wilderness and the solitary plllce shall be glad for them, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose."
" He is faithful who hath promised."
.TAMES CANTINE, S. M. ZWEMER. " Speed on, ye heralds, bringing The latest phase of the Uganda revolu- Life to the desert slain ; tion-the flight of Mwanga, his appeal Till in its mighty winging, to the Church he persecuted, the vic- God's Spirit comes to reign. tory of the Christians. the J:eturn of From death to new·begetting, Mwanga, and his re·establishment in God shall the power give; the kingdom surrounded by chiefs and Shall choose them for crown.setting councillors professing the Christian And Ishmael shall live. faith-is a chapter in praise of meekness and mercy. In Uganda to.day the .. So speaks the promise, bringing , meek inherit the earth' and Iorgive. The age of Jubilee ness is proved to be the noblest re- To every home and tenting, venge." From Tadmor to the sea. The dead to life are risen; Goodness is sometimes better than The glory spreads abroad ; greatness. A missionary in India was The desert answers heaven, so feeble mentally that he could not Hosannas to the Lord !" learn the language. After some years -J.G.L. he asked to be recalled, frankly saying that he had not sufficient intellect for The St, Paul of Uganda. the work. A dozen missionaries, how- ever, petitioned his Board not to grant When Stanley urged Christendom to his request, saying that his goodness send missionaries to Mtesa's kingdom,' gave him a wider influence among the Mackay joined a party of eight to found heathen than any other missionary at an industrial mission to the Victoria the station. A convert when asked, Nyanza. In three years he alone sur- " What is it to be a Christian ?" replied, vived. For fourteen years, in jeopardy "It is to be like Mr. –" naming the every hour, he was yet the soul, the good missionary. He was kept in In- hand, the head of this great and model dia. He never preached a sermon; movement. The London Times called but when he died hundreds of heathen him ".The St. Paul of Uganda" : as well as many Christians mourned him and testified to his holy life and char· " He built, cut type, translated, print- acter. ed, engineered, navigated, diploma- tized; he de~ounced crime, preached It causes sorrow to many to learn that .the Gospel, acted as schoolmaster and Mrs. Phraner, wife of Rev. Stanley K. doctor; he befriended Emin Pasha, Phraner, died at Chang Mi Laos, in Junker and Stanley, and strove, alas Northern Siam, one month after their in vain! to save Hannington from the arrival. Mr. Phraner graduated last results of unconscious but heroic folly; spring at Princeton Theological Semi. he controlled the court so far as it could nary, was ordained by the Presbytery of be controlled; protected the brave Westchester, was married, and imme- Christian boys, and, in a word, through diately set out as a missionary to Siam. baptisms of blood and fire, won a He is a son of Rev. Wilson Phraner, church in the wilderness for the dear D.D., for many years pastor at Sing Lord and Master whom he served with Sing, N. Y. an absolutely single eye. No such story of Christian heroism has ever teen told Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn, the President in our day. The boys of Uganda who of the American Board, referring to died in horrible tortures rather than whiskey in Africa, is said to have used deny their faith will rank with the this terse but telling sentence recently: noblest martyrs of Christian history. ., Every dollar gained in the Congo rum Every line in our Lord's Sermon on the trade ought to burn in the palm of a Mount finds its illustration and con- firmation in this extraordinary history. man who gains it, as if it were a part Proposed Colony on the Bellamy Plan. of the blazing asphalt that makes the pavement of the infernal regions." A ,despatch from Hutchinson, Kan., says: "John Caplieg, of Buffalo, N. Y., Baptist Missionary Centenary in passed through this city, March 26th, on 1892.-Next year the Baptists will cele- his way home from Beaver City, in No. brate the centenary of the formation of MlLn's-LlLnd, where it is proposed to lotheir Missionary Society. It is the old- cate IL co-operative colony to be organest organization of the kind in existence, ized on the Bellamy plan. He said that excluding, of course, the Society for the he expected the colony would be formed Propagation of the Gospel, founded this spring in time to put in crops, if nearly a century previously. William possible. The colony, he thinks, will Carey, of Leicester, Baptist minister, comprise about 500 people to start with, schoolmaster, and shoemaker, first raised and it is to be strictly co-operative." the question of modern missions in 1786. but not until 1792 was the Society Attempts similar to this have been launched. Historic dates and places made from time to time, but the bottom linked with the So.ciety·s inauguration has dropped out of them all Booner or will determine the time and centres of later. The only perfect state is that the forthcoming services. Carey built on Christianity. kindled the flame by a missionary sermon preached on May 31st at Notting- The revival among the Telugus in ham; on October 2d the Society was the last few months has been the notable formed at Kettering; and, on March event of the year. Four thousand con- 20th following, he was ordained for mis- verts in that mission have put on Christ sionary work at Leicester. At the open- in baptism. Upon one Lord's day 1671 ing meeting of the Society £13 28. 6d. was were baptized in a little over six hours, subscribed, which .seems trifling com- two men only at a time administering pared with the current average annual the ordinance. It must have been a income, between seventy and eighty grand sight to witness on the forenoon thousand pounds. The Society has a of that dllY the thousands of thirsty inbright record of labor in the East and quirers, many of whom had travelled West Indies, and latterly, since 1878, miles, sitting upon the ground in the on the Congo, where it employs over broad commons drinking in with rapt twenty mISSIOnaries. A centenary attention every word that fell from Dr. thanksgiving of £100,000 has been Clough's lips, as he expounded from proposed, and the increase of the Soci- the text, ., Come unto Me, all ye that ety's yearly income to £100,000. The labor and are heavy laden, and I will young folks connected with the Baptist give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, chapels and Sunday-schools are invited and learn of Me ; for I am meek and to raise one fourth of the form€r sum. lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest To the 120 missionaries and 306 evan- unto your souls." The words given of gelists at present in the field it is con- the Spirit to the speaker were indeed templated by the Society to send forth .words of eternal life to the hearers, and a hundred additional men and women. brought rest to many souls whose bodies The Baptist Union of New Zealand has were wearied by the long journey to this resolved to hold simultaneous centenary " Bethel" of their souIs. Thirty of Dr. gatherings. Once more I notice that Clough's co-workers assisted him in the "A Frii'md" has sent £1000 to the examination of the candidates for baptreasurer of the Baptist Missionary So- tism, and none were baptized of whose ciety. a similar amount having been conversion they did not find good evisent by the same person at the begin- dences. ning of several recent years. In this Ongole station the revival has been continuous now since 1877, and it may be doubted whether in all mission- sticks, and objects used in their idola- ary history another such case is to be try, and made a great bonfire of them. found. Mr. Mackay says that over 500 houses were cleansed of idolatry in his pres. The Right Heir, e:nce."
When the excellent Christian Schwartz Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins, it may be re- was about to end his long and devoted membered, were to join Mr. Pentecost missionary life in India, he said, in view and assist him in his evangelistic work of all the Lord's goodness to him, "I in India with their singing. In are. make Christ my heir"- and then by his cent letter to the Hartford ReligiCYU8 will made provision as far as his world- Herald a member of the family writes as ly means would go, for carrying on the follows: work of Christ among the heathen after he would be gone. We can think of but " On the 17th of November we reached one addition to this plan: to make Calcutta. Here we stayed until the 1st Christ first of all the partner of our daily of January, 18111, helping Dr. Pentecost toils and profits. in his meetings, and doing a great deal of singing for the missionaries. We We are so crowded with matter of were entertained by Bishop Thoburn, great importance that we omit this the Methodist Bishop of India, and by month any distinct Department of the pastor of the M. E.church there. Monthly Concert. Our readers will not The Methodists are by far the strongest miss this, inasmuch as the whole num- in India of any of the denominations, ber is maiuly given to Africa, and is and they are ce~tainly doing a great and unusually rich in material from various grand work. About Christmas time Dr. valuable sources upon different phases Pentecost decided to turn his attention of the languages, customs, oppressions, to the educated natives, and as they and needs of the Dark Continent. were not appreciative of Christian song, he·advised us to make a tour of the cities Says the Ewminer: "The Rev. Mr. of India, helping the missionaries as Mackay has been in the Island of For- we go. So we left Calcutta, January mosa for a great many years. About ,a 1st, and next day arrived at Benares, dozen years ago he planned to visit a the seat of Hinduism. We sawall their district containing a number of villages vile worship, and the great ruins of bearing the name of Ka-le-oan. Not Buddha's first preaching places.••• being able to go he sent II native preach- We visited Cawnpore, the scene of the er. Mr. Mackay was enabled a few worst atrocities of the mutiny of 1857. weeks ago to visit the region. He Then up to Noradabad, where was being found the people having a wonderfully held the North India Conference. We clear conception of the Gospel and had some fine meetings, and got a peep wearied with their idol worship. They at the executive missionary body. told him that the Mandarin would not let them throw up idolatry, declaring "We have held a song service and that they would be rebels against Chi- sometimes two or three in every city we nese authority if they did so. Mr. have been in except Delhi, where we Mackay saw that official and gained his were not entertained. We ha"e helped consent to let the people do as they in the conferences and in every place liked. 'fhe people held a council, and have sung to large audiences of Euroat once determined to forsake idolatry. peans." Mr. and Mrs. Stebbins planned A temple recently built was turned over to sail for home on February 28th, and to the missionary, and became a Chris- stop in Egypt, Palestine, Italy, Gertian meeting:house. Parties went about many, and England, reaching home by the villages gathering up idols, incense midsummer.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
BY MRS. 1. T. GRACEY.
Woman's Foreign Missionary 22,156 subscribers, a children's paper, Union of Friends in America. Cor- the King's Messenger, is also published, responding Secretary, Eliza C. Arm- with 20,315 subscribers, Boston, Mass. strong, Centre Valley, Ind. A large amount of miscellaneous litera- ture is issued by the society. The consolidation of the various branches of the woman's societies un- Woman's Baptist Foreign Misder one board has been accomplished, sionary Society of the West.-Orwith a department of missionary litera- ganized 1871. Corresponding Secretary, ture, one of junior and juvenile work, Mrs. A. M. Bacon, 3032 South Park another of systematic Christian giving, Avenue, Chicago, TIl. and another of interest and organization. Home report of this society: Number Number of auxiliary societies 224, of circles 1243, number of guilds and with 3376 members, and 2140 members young people's societies 233, mission of children's bands (number of bands not bands 309. The fields occupied are the given). Amount of money received dur- same as those occupied by the society of ing year, $23,164. the East. The same periodicals also are circulated. The board supports 18 missionaries, 8 native evangelists and Bible readers, Foreign work: Twenty-eight mission- 51 children in homes or boarding- aries are supported, 3 of whom are medschools, 7 day schools with 304 pupils. ical; 79 schools, in whole or in part, with an aggregate of 1759 pupils; and 31 Work is carried on or aided in Mexi- native teachers and 49 Bible women co, Japan, India, Syria, China, Indian have also been supported. Territory, and in Alaska. During the year the Carpenter Memo- Friend's Missionary .Advocate is the rial Hospital, at Bassein, has been official organ. This paper has been opened. Receipts for the year, $34,674. owned by Mrs. Esther Tuttle Pritchard since its establishment, in 1886, until Woman's Baptist Foreign Misthe past year, when a centralorganiza- sionary Society of California.-Corretion was effected, she presented the sponding Secretary, Mrs. L. P. Huntspaper to the union. man, 1264 Eleventh Avenue, East Oak- land, Cal. BAPTIST WOMAN'S BOARDS. This society has been organized 16 Woman's Baptist Foreign Mission- years. Previous to 1889 only one misary Society.-Organi~ed 1871. Cor- sionary was supported, who was staresponding Secretary, Mrs. O. W. Gates, tioned on the Congo. Now they sup- Newton Centre, Mass. port 4 missionaries, 2 to Hakkas, of China, 1 at Seudai, Japan, and 1 at The home work of this society is rep- Swatow, China. resented by 1440 circles, or contributing churches, 702 mission bands, and 15,578 Receipts for past year, $2214. No re" members. Amount of money raised for port of home work.
year ending March, 1890, $99,007. Woman's Baptist Missionary So- The society has work among the Bur- ciety of Oregon. -Corresponding Sec- retary, Mrs. Clinton Latourette, Oregon mese, Karens, Shans, Chins, Kachins, City. Eurasians, Telugus ; missions in China, Assam, Japan; Congo Mission, Africa, This society reports 31 circles, with a and Europe. membership of about 500, 7 children's bands, with 220 members, and 11 young Fifty-one missionaries are supported; people's societies, with 345 members. 9 sent past year; 171 schools with 6119 Amount of money raised from October, pupils, and 67 Bible women. 1889 to October, 1890, $1730.
Official organ, the Helping Rand, with One missionary is supported in Now- its Church Board. It helps to support gong, Assam. and contributions made work in Shanghai, China. Has 2 misto support Bible readers in Burma and sionaries-I a physician-and 3 assist. in, China. ant teachers. Has 1 boarding.school with 12 pupils. Work is also carried on Woman's Missionary Union Aux- in Holland in addition to home work. iliary to Southern Baptist Conven- Receipts for year, $3216. tion.-Organized 1888. Corresponding Secretary, Miss Annie W. Armstrong, 10 Christian Woman's Board of Mis- East Fayette Street, Baltimore, Md. sions.-Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Lois A. White, No. 160 North Delaware Prior to 1888 the Baptist women of Street, Indianapolis, Ind. the South had been working for missions, but without a general organiza- Twenty·nine States report 882 auxtion. Auxiliary societies 1469. iliary societies connected with this bo.ard-156 organized the past year. The society contributes to the work Present number of members 15,086, of the board in Brazil, Japan, China, young people's circles 49, children's Cuba, Italy, Mexico, Africa, besides bands 380. work at home among the Indians and colored people of the South. Official organ,' Missionary Tidings, with 4459 subscribers. A children's The society has a general depot for paper, Little Builders at Work, has a submissionary literature in the city of Bal- scription of. 2000. Amount of money timore, where can possibly be found the raised for the year, $45,166. largest variety of missionary le!,fiets in the country. Literature has been sent The society has work in India, out to 14 States, and over 100,000 Jamaica West Indies, and in Montana leaflets and pamphlets have been dis- in the home field. An orphanage is tributed during the year. supported at Bilaspur, India, with 19 orphans, and a school with 27 pupils, Amount of money raised, $21,398 for and a hospital has been established in foreign missions, and $10,161 for home India. Number of missionaries or formlSSlons. Official organ, the Baptist eign workers not given in report. Basket, Louisville, Ky. Woman's Auxiliary to the Board Free Baptist Woman's Missionary of Missions of the Protestant Epis- Society. – Corresponding Secretary, copal Church.-Corresponding Secre- Mrs. J. A. Lowell, Danville, New Hamp- tary, Miss Julia. C. Emery, 21 Bible shire. House, New York.
The home work of this society is rep- During the past year a junior auxiliary, resented by about 250 auxiliary societies modelled upon the woman's auxiliary, and 57 children's bands. Amount of has been formed, and a paper called the money raised during year, $7694. Peri- Young Ohristian Soldier started. The odical, the Missionary Helper, with 1250 woman's auxiliary has its workers in 51 subscribers. dioceses and nine missionary jurisdic- tions. Besides their domestic missions, The main work of the society is in the auxiliary aids the work in China, India. The principal stations are Mid- Japan, Africa, Mexico, and Alaska. napore and Balasore, where zenana, Six missionaries have been sent to the school, and medical work are success- :field the past year. fully carried on. Twenty teachers, 5 Bible women, 13 male teachers, in all 49 The aggregates are all given for parish persons, have been supported. An Of- ladies' aid work and other mission work phanage at Balasore has 35 children, and combined. It appears that of an aggre 7 day schools with 270 pupils. gate collection of $542,197, about $36, 838 is spent in foreign work. But the Woman's Board of the Seventh- North American Indian work is includ- Day Baptists.-Corresponding Secre- tary, Miss Mary F. Bailey, Milton. Wis.
This society works in connection with ed in domestio missions. It is impos- eties, 437 auxiliaries, 176 mission bands; sible to follow here the classification members in auxiliaries 10,443, members which is made where the home and in bands 4869; total membership 15,- foreign work are in separated societies. 312. Amount of money raised from April, 1889 to April, 1890, $32,117. 'Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety of the Reformed Episcopal This board has work among the Ind- Church.-Organized May, 1889. Corre- ians of the Northwest, missions in sponding Secretary, Mrs. William H. China, Formosa, Central India, Island Allen, Philadelphia, Pa. of Trinidad, the New Hebrides, and British Guiana. Foreign statistics not This society, so recently organized, given in report. Periodical, Monthly raised during the year $4077. One mis- Letter Leaflet, with a circulation of 5500. sionary is supported in Cawnpore, India, and another went to Calcutta under the Woman's Foreign Missionary So- auspices of the Woman's Union Mission- ciety of the Presbyterian Church in ary Society. Money has been sent to Canada (Eastern Section}.-Organized Sierra Leone, Africa, to open a training- 1876. Secretary, Mrs. J. T. Thompson, school, and some aid given to Japan. 111 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, N. S.
Oa.nadia.n Societies. This society is represented by 6 Pres- byterian societies, 112 auxiliaries, 5 Woman's Missionary Society of young people's branches, 46 mission the Methodist Church (Canada).- bands. Work is supported in the same Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. E. S. fields as those of Western Division. Strachan, 163 Hughson Street, North Receipts for year $5340. Hamilton, Canada. Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- This society, territorially, is divided sionary Society of Ontario.-Corre. into 5 branches, viz., Eastern, Western, sponding Secretary, Miss Buchan, 165 Central, Nova Scotia, and New Bruns- Bloor Street, East Toronto, Canada. wick, and Prince Edward Island branches. Number of contributing circles 173, number of bands 81. Money received Home force: Auxiliaries 358, memo for the year $7471. bers 8020, mission bands 153, members 4462. Amount of money received for ,Work is carried on in India at Akidu, year $25,560-an advance of over $3254 Cocanada, Tuni, and Samulcotta. At over preceding year. Cocanada a flourishing boarding·school is supported, with 26 pupils. The society has a prosperous work in Japan, a boarding.school at Tokyo, and Woman's Baptist Foreign Misseveral day schools. Also a large work sionary Society of Eastern Ontario among the French in Canada, and dur- and Quebec.-Corresponding Secretary, ing the year a French institute has been Miss Greene, 478 St. Urbain Street, established in Montreal with 43 pupils. Montreal, Canada.
Theyhave a work also among the Ind- This society has work the same as the ians and Chinese on the Pacific Coast; society in Western Ontario. It has support 18 missionaries, 12 in Japan about 50 circles. Money raised during and 6 at home. Periodical, Missionary year $1530. Other statistics not given Outlook, Toronto. in report.
Woman's Foreign Missionary So- Woman's Auxiliary to Diocesan, ciety of the Presbyterian Church in Domestic, and Foreign Missions of Canada (Western Division). – Or- the Church of England, Diocese of ganized 1876. Foreign Secretary, Mrs. Toronto.-Secretary, Mrs. W. Cum- L. J. Harvie, 80 Bedford Road, Toronto, mings, 321 Markham Street, Toronto, Canada. Canada.
This society has 25 Presbyterian soci- Number of adult branches 51, number of junior branches 17, members 1407. Periodical department in The Canadian Ohnrch Magazine and M'i,Ssion News. The human family living to-day con- Total amount of money raised for sists of about 1,500,0'00.000 individuals. 1890, including value boxes of clothing In Asia there are now approximately to needy missions, $12,236. about 800,000,000, densely crowded; on an average 120 to the square mile. In General Statistics, Europe there are 350,000,000, averaging 100 to the square mile-not so crowd- BY BEV. D. L. LEONARD. ed, but everywhere dense, and at all points over- populated. In Africa there Missionary Ammunition. – Every are 210,000,000. In America, North and pastor ought to see that every pew is South, there are 110,000,000 relatively supplied with the diagram first pub- thinly scattered. In the islands, large lished by the Church Missionary Society and small, probably 10,000,000. The of London, which pictures to the eye at extremes of the white and black are as a glance, and most effectively, the 5 to 3 ; the remaining 700,000,000 interspiritual condition of humankind by mediate brown and tawny. Of the race, means of a rectangle 4 by 6 inches, 500,000,000 are well clothed, that is, printed in various colors, to distinguish wear garments of some kind to cover the principal religions and divisions of their nakedness; 700,000,000 are semithe Christian Church, and divided into clothed, covering inferior parts of the some 1500 squares, each one represent- body; 250,000,000 are practically naked. ing a million souls. Thus the Jews oc- Of the race, 500,000,000 live in houses cupy but 8 squares, the Greek Church partly furnished with the appointments 84 squares, Protestants 125, Roman of civilization; 800,000,000 in huts or Catholics 190, Mohammedans 170, but caves with no furnishing; 260,000,000 the heathen 856, the latter and most have nothing that can be called a home, palpable fact being properly emphasized are barbarous and savage. The range by so many squares in jet black. And is from the topmost round-the Anglothen, to show what slight impression Saxon civilization, which is the highest has been made, what a tremendous task known-down to naked savagery. The remains to be performed after 19 centu- portion of the race lying below the line ries of Christian history, after 100 years of human condition is at the very least of Protestant modern (playing at) mis- three-fifths of the whole-900,000,000. sions, those awful 856 inky squares contain 2-only 2-near the centre that are -The various Protestant churches of snow white-standing, of course, for the Canada sustain 6 missionary societies, handful of converts made from heathen- and contribute to the foreign work an ism. What Christian heart can gaze aggregate of $165,000 annually (of unmoved upon such a lamentable de- which $100,106 is expended through the lineation? Presbyterian Board), have Ill3 missiona- ries in the fiela: and 380 native laborers, Then add to this another set of fig- and have gathered 8172 members into ures, which portray the physical, intel- their churches. lectual, and social status of mankind, and we have a working basis for an –The indications are unmistakable overwhelming appeal for a general and that the Huguenots in France, after sublime outburst of evangelizing faith centuries of extreme depression, and and zeal. And without doubt never after even lad apostasy from faith and were the facts relating to the condition fervor, are at length awakening to new of the race upon the material side set spiritual life. This fact appears espeforth so adequately in such brief space cially in the aggressive work undertaken as in the statement which follows. It to spread a pure gospel both at home has been before the public for some and abroad. They number some 600,000, years, and may therefore be quite famil- and are gathered into about 650 iar to many; and yet it cannot be reviewed and pondered too often: churches, though 30,000 or more are the seat of the IIiission. The work acsCdttered, and destitute of pastors and complished is made palpable in part oy places of worship. They sustain 3 Bible 125 chapels and prayer· houses, 341 consocieties, 3 book and tract societies, gregations, 6367 communicants, 223 many Young Men's Christian Associa- Sunday-schools, with 8151 scholars, and tions, 2 theological seminaries, 2 schools 194 day-schools, with 236 teachers and for evangelists, 4 societies for carrying 4423 scholars. Of these schools 171 are on evangelistic work, and a host of col- primary, 15 are high caste Hindu girls' porteurs. The annual contributions schools, 3 are Mohammedan, 3 boardfor home missions amount to $100,000, ing, and 1 industrial. In addition a and for foreign missions, $80,000. But college was opened in 1885, which now so limited are their resources and so has a teaching force of 19 and 361 stuheavy their burdens, they have sent one dents, and having as its chief object the of their number-Professor L. J. Ber- training of teachers and gospel workers rand-to America to raise here, if pos- of every kind. Money has also been sible, $20,000. raised ($15,000) for a hospital in Guntur.
Methodist Protestant Church.- -The Moravian Church, the pioneer Secretary, Rev. F. T. Tagg, Easton, missionary body in modern times, I!nte. Md. dating Carey and the Baptist Missionary Society by 60 years, with its" home .. Report for eight months ending De- membership of but 21,360, has in its cember 31st, 1890 : missions 30,591 communicants, and 87,263 in its congregations. Ten coun. RECEIPTS. tries are occupied, with 135 stations; 36 men and women were sent out last yelll, Foreign Fund..•..••.••…………• $3,452.12 making 355 Europeans and native as. Children'S Day…………..•……. 5,718.74 sistants in the field, with 1663 other Album F'und . . . . . . . . .• . . . . . . . . .. .. . 142.71 native helpers. In 113 Sunday-schools SpeciaL ……….•………………• 1,319.06 15,362 scholars are taught, and in 235 day-schools 20,629. The receipts for Balance, May 1 …… _. . ••• .. ….•. . 1,250.03 1889 were $100,115, of which upward of $40,000 came from non – Moravian Total. ……•…••…•••.•…….. $11,882.66 sources. Expenditnre•..•..•••…•..••.•.••… 11,371.15 The lal'gest mission is found in the Balance, Dec. 31…….. ..•. ………. $511.51 British and Danish West Indies, with 49 stations and 39,420 in the congrega. This society has 2 stations in Japan; 2 tions. Next come Surinam and Deme- churches, with 205 members; 15 mission· rara, South America, with 27,534 adaries and teacher/!; 3 Sunday.schools, herents, and South Africa, with 13,084. with 350 scholars; a college with 50 stu· Gnadenthal, the oldest station in South dents; an Anglo.Japanese school, with Africa, is to celebrate its centennial an attendance of 152, and a school for next year by the erection of a new women with 90 pupils, in all 292 under church, to cost £2000, of which the peo. instruction. A kindergarten will soon pIe on the spot hope to raise £1500. be opened, and the first native Japanese preacher has been chosen and will -The Syria mission of the Presbysoon be ordained. terian Board, North-especially with its large and thoroughly furnished printing General SynGd of the Lutheran establishment, and its Bible house at Church.-Secretary, Rev. George Scholl, Beirut-is one of the most important in D.D., Baltimore, Md. the entire foreign field. Besides Beirut, stations are maintained at Sidon, Trip- This society has 1 mission in Africa and 1 in India, and sustains in all 13 representatives from America, and 171 native assistants. The India field is in the Madras Presidency, upon the Bay of Bengal, and among the Telugus, covers about 5000 square miles, and contains 1,000,000 of inhabitants. Guntur is ali, Abeih, and Zahleh. This tahle progress has been for nearly fifteen will show how steady and general the years: STATISTICS OF THE SYRIA MISSION.
1876. 1885. 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889.
– – – – — – – – – – – American Missionaries .. _. .. _… . .. . …….. . 28 38 37 34 35 42 Native Laborers . ….. ' ………………….. . 120 Stations and Out-Stations ……………….. . 65 189 179 171 201 201 95 91 96 94 94 Church-Members ……………………….. . 573 1,301 1,440 1,493 1,534 1,615 Added on Profession…. .. . ……………… . 75 130 153 104 63 98 Average Congregations ………………….. . 2,642 3,891 4,293 4,289 4,522 4,640 Sabbath-Schools ••.•.. . ………•••……… 40 S. S. Scholars …………•……………….. 1,540 73 68 66 81 88 Total Schools. . ………… .. . ………… . 80 3,804 3.746 3,732 4,620 4,966 136 121 125 141 142 Total Pupils …………………………… . 3,509 5,665 5,344 5,391 6,299 6,172 This table of statistics, and the one summary covering eighteen others, which follows, though in a condensed while from four, the Free Methodform, are taken from the very valuable ists, the African Methodists, the Bap- American Board Almanac of Missions. tist Convention of the United States, Facts are set forth in detail concerning and the Friends, no report was reten of the principal societies, with a ceived : 'FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED STATES, 1889-90.
~ .; AMERICAN ~ ~ ci ]"o'" ~. .~'c"~.; LABORERS. '<""3 0 '~" 00 :og.~a SOCIETIES. rn.; ".8 "03 w "~ .:i 0""3,8" .;J .S ""..~- .co $ "03 S ."c 0 ""… ~" ~ 'c:3~ ….:I 'C E,,"~ rn ;:;I I'""< ~ 0 'C … ~" .":: "'C ,,~ 8~ ~ .c p~…. z" -;; 'C 0 Z 0 -<j —— — — —— — —— Meth. Epis.,North 52 :1 159 135 3,018 559 42,632! 5,563 30,049 $282,997 $885,197 Presb. Bd., North. 99 240 336 1,302 320 26,794' 2,753 23,935 Am. Board(Cong ) 96 200 333 2,417 387 36.256 4,554 47,319 lii,494 794,066 762,947 Bapt.. Miss. Union 64 1,382 131 200 1,343 712 81,072 7,099 20,615 54,844 440,788 Meth.Epis., South 4,014 244,176 Ref. Ch. (Dutch).. 18 . i4i 34 "35 97 "in 5,336 552 '4',i56 . fi,D03 117,000 15 26 364 Protestant Epis .. 52 168 74 39 210 38 2,631 264 3,876 5,527 189,183 ~aPt. South. Conv 37 124 33 45 86 62 2.213 409 675 4,681 109,174 resb.Bd.. South. 18 98 37 41 50 31 1,207 360 1,207 4,317 107,627 Unit. Presb Bds. 16 198 26 44 459 391 9,568 1,722 10,687 7,167 100,539 E ili~te:sn ~.t~~~ ~~: 113 151 ~ ~ –.: -.-: ~.495 3,351 –.:,871 ~,187 _278,914 1 Totals . . . . . . . . 580 3,474 1,054 1,296 10,020 2,721 236,187 25,963 174.891 $524,21J $3,977,701 PRINCIPAL FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF GREAT BRITAIN.
MISSIONARIES. zi ~ "" '" 'C.; " °8 ~.2 – – – – – – Ol SOCIETIES. w~ "03 ~=">= S" ~ "ol~o~~ oJ S Z S 0 03 – "rno );l "I'"< 0 =">-< 0 —– – —— Church Missionary Society. . . . . . . . . .. . …. 315 338 59 4,121 49,016 $1,145,240 Wesleyan Missionary Society. ….. . …. 363 343 6,284 34,086 703,115 Society for Propagation of Gospel ………. 499 2,447 66,593 625,190 London Missionary Society…..••………. 1)33 155 154 5,419 68.805 505,765 Free Church of Scotland…… .. ……… 209 80 35 660 6,620 480,535 Ba{,tist Missionary Society……………… 515 126 986 48.646 , 398,045 Chma Iuland Mission ……. .. ……….. 158 180 180 232 2,839 257,420 United Presbyterian, Scotch …………… 251 491 14,899 202,455 69 25 Established Church, Scotland. .. … … .. 30 17'9 825 156,805 Church of England Zenana MIss. Society .• Gl 113 639 135,000 – – – – Twelve other societies. .. ……………… 348 347 232 3,059 55;752 540,803 — Totals ………….. ……….. …. 3,353 2,167 – – – – —- 798 24,517 '348,081 $5,150,373 The second table of figures on the pre- so heroically founded by the late Mr. ceding page gives certain details con- Mackay before the waves of successive cerning 22 British societies, of which 12 revolutions swept over Uganda. In May are presented only in a summary. But next another mission party depart for the total of receipts is not to be taken as Uganda, under the tried leadership of showing the entire gifts of British Prot- the Rev. R. P. Ashe. 'lile Rev. G. H. estant Christians to foreign missions, for, V. Greaves, and also Dr. G. Wright, have according to Canon Robertson, their con- been appointed to it. "Six or eight more tributions in1889 amounted to $6,056,530. are at least required," says the Church Missionary Society, "in view of the -The Methodist Episcopal Church, wonderful openings for Christian work South, publishes a very complete table of all kinds in Uganda, in Usoga, at the of statistics of its Chinese Mission Con- south of the Victoria Nyanza, not to ference for the year ending September speak of the nearer territories of the 30th, 1890, and showing the results of British East Africa Company." five years' work. Two dist~icts are occupied, and 10 circuits, with 30 mis- Except the Scottish m~ionary camsionaries, male and female, and 6 nati ve paign of the Free Church of Scotland to helpers. Into the churches 345 mem- raise a sum of £20,000 for the fourth bers have been gathered; 22 Sunday- period of five years in the history of the Bchools are sustained, with 742 scholars; glorious Livingstonia Mission, no sim.iand 47 schools of all grades (including lar undertaking can be compared with an Anglo-Chinese college, with 146 stu- the remarkable endeavor of the Church dents), with a total attendance of 100l. Missionary Society to send forth 1000 In the 2 hospitals 2494 patients were missionaries during 1891 into the mis. treated last year. sion field. Partaking of the nature of a missionary revival, it is being achieved Foreign Mission Notes, with almost incomparable enthusi8Rm. Men and means are flowing into the BY REV. JAlIlES JOHNSTON, BOLTON, ENG- treasury of God. LAND. Mr. A. M. Mackay's Father. -The Africa – Bishop Tucker. – Clouds readers of the :MISSIONARY REVIEW in all continue to hang over Uganda. Bishop lands will welcome a glimpse of the Tucker had a rough journey inland, not- father of the late distinguished mission. withstanding the kindness of German ary, which the writer, favored with an officials en route. On reaching the con- intimate friendship, can supply. At fines of his new diocese he was seized the foot of Boniface Downs, east of with fever. By the attacks of this Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, overlook. dreaded foe two of his ardent fellow ing the wide-stretching blue waters of missionaries were fatally struck down the English Channel, lies the charming at Usambiro. Their loss to the cause is home of this dear old man. It has been greatly regretted. Through the jealousy opened to receive many weary African of the French Roman Catholic mission- traveilers, who have left behind them aries, and the ever-threatening attitude souvenirs of the Dark Continent, or of the Mohammedans on Mwanga's ter· gifts from the gallant Mackay himself. ritory, the bishop finds the situation in From this spot were sent for yearll Uganda exceedingly perplexing. It is newspapers, books, etc., to Alexander not improbable that as soon as an inter- Mackay, who in turn despatched porview has been granted by Mwanga he tions bf them to his friend Emin Pasha, may make a hurried journey to England, in Equatorial Africa, when caravans to take council with the committee as to were.permitted to pass through the inthe future policy. Should the journey tervening hostile countries. The father be made, he will leave a small band of of Mr. Mackay is a native of Thurso, in men in Uganda to re-establish the work Caithness, originally, in all probability, as well as the export of slaves in his of Scandinavian stock, and his mother, territories, to the best of his power. of Banffshire. In his quiet Ventnor The following is the translation of the home, which he occupied on retiring from the Presbyterian ministry in Scot- copy Oll" TREATY: land, he has watched with practical solicitude the course of the missionary " I, Mwanga, King of Buganda, here- enterprise. Though bearing the silvery by declare, in the presence of Dr. Carl locks of age, it is a veritable inspiration Peters and Pere Simeon Lourdel (since to listen to his eloquent utterances on dead), that I prohibit the slave-trade in the redemption of the heathen world Buganda and the territories belonging from the yoke of idolatry. thereto, and that I will do my utmost to prevent the exportation of slaves from As Mr. Stanley promised Dr. Mackay, all countries under my jurisdiction. prior to departing for Africa, in 1887, to bring his son home "safe and "MwANGA, KA13AKA sound," it is not easy to imagine his disappointment when he learned that of Buganda. his long-absent "Alick," declined to leave his post. Greater and irreparable " SIMEON LOURDEL was the blow on the arrival, last year, of the tidings of Mr. Mackay's death. of the AlgerilJn Missions. Of this calamity the doctor has written, under date of February 7th, 1891, to the " CARL PETERS. writer: "The news of my dear son's death at Usambiro gave me a stunning " MENGO, May 16, 1890." blow. It came so unexpectedly that, for a time, I could hardly realize it, es- The arrival of this information, topecially as I half.expected him home gether wUh the adherence of all the some time during the summer. I have, European powers (now that Holland has however, learned to say, 'the will of the consented) to the General Act of the re- Lord be done,' and I have no doubt this cent Brussels Conference, will gi"e a event, like all others, has been wisely strong impetus in every quarter of the ordained by the Divine Disposer." He globe to the anti·slave·trade movement. alludes to the success of his son's memoir written by his sister, of which 8000 More African Missionaries.-Dr. copies have been sold. "Its perusal," George Smith says that he knows noth. he says, ., has led to the self-consecra- ing at all in history which equals the tion of some young men to the Lord, rapidity with which the civilizing, Chrisand to the evangelization of poor be- tianizing organizations had spread over nighted Africa." Mr. Mackay's trans- Africa during these fifty years. Although lation of the Scriptures is being dili- he has spent the greater part of his life in gently completed by three of his most India, where there has been great misintelligent converts and pupils in sionary enterPrise, "still, before Africa, Uganda. India paled. " I understand that the Mo- ravian Mission and the Lutheran Society King Mwanga and Siavery.- in Berlin were in communication with Though one is naturally sceptical of the doctor last January, asking his adany real change in the heathen passion vice and assistance respecting the des· of this African monarch, it is gratifying patch of missionaries to the German to report that Prince Hohenlohe Lan- African territory. It is remarkable to genberg, President of the Deutschen learn that instead of entering their own Kolonial-gesellschaft, writes of Mwan- " sphere of influence" from Bagamoyo, ga's resolve to forbid slave-dealing, they preferred the Scottish route via the Zambesi, the Shire, and Nyassa. Very shortly the Livingstonia Mission pur· pose sending a party of six men, two of whom are medical missionaries, to the north end of Lake Nyassa. The Mora- vians propose to send in their compnny four missionaries for work in Ge.rman territory, and the Lutheran Society will send three, or probably five, by the same that they have a right to cook or sell in missionary expedition. them, and turn them into shambles, or set up open.air theatres on the sideways. A Congo Missionary Heroine.- They cannot endure the institutiou of a Friends of the Congo Missions will re- pound. Dogs, donkeys, and troops of gret to hear that Mrs. Percy Comber, goats from time immemorial wandered who only went out in May last year, and where they pleased. Who was the worse was married to Mr. Comber in the for their liberty? The dogs never went August following, has fallen a victim to mad; they were the auxiliaries of the the malarious climate. Great sympathy hymns in devouring corpses scarcely cov- is expressed for her suddenly bereaved ered with earth. Why trouble about the husband. The name of Comber will be registration of births, deaths, and mar_ always honorably associated with Afri- riages ? Tunis, nevertheless, is making can missions and African exploration. steady headway in the path of progress. Their martyr roll on African soil in- cludes the names of Dr. Sidney Com- In this unevangelized region seven ber, Thomas Comber; Mrs. Hay, her missionaries of the North Africa M'tssion sister, Mrs. Thomas J. Comber, and are laboring. The darkness of the land now, Mrs. Percy Comber. By these, is appalling. Tunis is spiritually dead. truly heroic breath has been offered for Alcohol is the chief foe of the mission Africa's perishing millions on the Con- workers. Mohammedan insobriety is go watershed. notorious. A missionary writes of the Regency: " The longer I live in Tunis, The Niger Troubles.-A long doc- the more I see and hear of its awful ument has been issued by the Commit· wickedness, and the burden of souls is tee of the Church Missionary Society, very real to us. " It is pleasant to learn appointed to inquire into the charges that the Roman Catholic Italians in made by the English secretary on the Tunis are moved with the simplicity of west coast of Africa against the native the Gospel. mIssIOnaries. Briefly summarized, the report practically acquits of guiltiness Uzbek Turki Gospel Translations. the principal native clergy whom the -Thanks to the enterprise of the Brit· Rev. F. N. Eden took upon himself to ish and Foreign Bible Society, a part suspend, yet in two instances his de. of one of the most important biblical cision is confirmed. An English Church translations undertaken of late years, dignitary will possibly embark for the consisting of the four Gospels, is now Niger on a mission of reconciliation. passing through the press. It is esti- To the credit of the society, it should mated that Uzbek is the' language of be known that, promptly and exhaus· nearly 2,250,000 people scattered over tively, it invariably deals with the diffi· Russia ;r;. Asia, Bokhara, Afghanistan, culties whieh arise on its fields of labor. Khokhano, and Khiva, and is spoken by almost all the agricultural population of Tunis.-Of this J!'rench Protectorate these territories. The language is hard in North Africa, with a population of to acquire, as it is spoken in an exceed- 2,000,000 souls, the great majority of ingly rapid, shrill utterance. The transwhom are Mohammedans, a book of lation, reported to be quite worthy of considerable interest has just been pub- the society's repute for scholarly acculished, entitled" La Politique FranQaise racy, was commenced in 1884, by M. en Tunisie," whose author hides his Ostroumoff, a learned Russian gentle. identity under the signature of P. H. X. man who had lived many years in Cen- He speaks of the administrative diffi. tral Asia. His rendering has been most culties of the French resident as being caretully revised and, where advisable, very trying. The Tunisians like their amended by Dr. Radloff, Professor Sale. picturesque, old·world ways, and aro man~, Dr. Sauerwein, and M. Amischanot to be meddled with. Their idea is sisantz. that the streets belong to everyone, and Jewish Colonization in Palestine.- Government circles cause serious mis· "Yeax by year," remaxks Lieutenant· givings regarding the nation's welfare. Colonel Goldsmid, "the state of the Thus fax French influence has not raised Jews all over the world is becoming less the moral standard. The habits of life satisfactory instead of better. As the and non·Christian principles of Frenchresult of the persecutions in Russia and men are unmistakably introducing a Roumania Jewish colonies are being false civilization. In developing the refounded everywhere. They are even in sources of Madagascar, or promoting an initiatory stage in South America, commercial enterprise and colonization, and may likely be commenced in Cen- the French are utterly unfitted. The tral Africa. These schemes, Mr. Gold- export and import trade is nearly all smid thinks, are only deferring the evil done by English and American traders. day. He holds firmly that the Jewish Religiously, the work continues to prosquestion will never be settled until there per. In face of the disappointments is a Jewish state in the Holy Land. with respect to the action of the Govern- " In some countries," he says, " we are ment, the missionaries maintain a pow. persecuted. In others we are barely erful hold on the native communities. tolerated. I am not at all surprised at The London Missionary Society and the this. What other race with 80 glorious Society of Friends sta,nd on almosj; sima history as ours would tamely sit down ilar platforms, and attempt much in comand see the land of their ancestors in mon. It is regretted that the advanced the hands of a foreigner? Italy has re- sacerdotal teachings of the agents of the gained Rome, why should we not regain Society for the Propagation of the Gos. Palestine, instead of being contented to pel prevent co-operation with this body. remain tolerated by the peoples among Despite the energy of Roman Catholic whom we live ?" missionaries and their numbers, they are singularly weak and unable to gather Madagascar.-Political affairs are congregations. taking an erratic course on the island. The determined attitude of the more India-" Age of Consent" Bill.-Naenlightened and patriotic Malagassies tive papers are full of letters and distoward the French Protectorate, to cussions relating to the proposed measwhich I referred in the January issue of ure for raising" marriage consent" from the MISSIONARY REVIEW, is being neu- the age of ten to twelve. The bill is in tralized by the Malagasy Court. Either committee, and should reappear before by adroit negutiations, or intrigue, the the Legislat.ive Council next March, French are already on growingly cordial meanwhile, local goveTnments are colterms with the Government. The Eng- lecting native opinion in all parts of the lish adviser, the Protestant missiona. country. By the Mohammedans exries, and other tried counsellors, are to- pressing themselves favorable and, to day set aside for the French, while the a laxge extent, the Brahmo-Somaj, there queen, the prime minister, and the . is great anticipation of eventual sucladies·in-waiting affect French customs, cess. Orthodox Hindus in Upper· and and eagerly show their regard for the Western India are apparently unconofficials of the French Republic. As a cerned. The National Congress is neucorrespondent says: "The French rep- tral, according to its resolution not to resentative has but to go ahead cau- agitate on social questions. From Bengal tiouslyand circumspectly to obtain for comes the most pronounced opposition, his country all she can possibly wish though it is generally believed the meas· for." What the future will bring re- ure will be carried when it is universally mains to be seen. At present the coun- known that the bill does not interfere try, administratively, is in a lamentable with religious customs, or form a pre-. condition. .The increasing selfishness, Iude to corresponding acts of legislation. despotism, and lax morality noticed in